hit counter
CHAPTER I
Ciudad del Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula. City of the People of Our Lady Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula. The Spanish had given the name Porciuncula to the river the motley group from Mission San Gabriel had settled next to. Porciuncula was the name of the place in Italy where Saint Francis’s favorite chapel was. By the 1850s the river was called the Los Angeles. The Yanquis had also shortened the town’s name to Los Angeles. The Angels.
Northwest, through the Cahuenga Pass, on the other side of the Santa Monica mountains from The Angels, was The Plains. Covered with grass brown throughout the summer, but green all winter long, interrupted only by an occasional live oak or a bush of some nameless type, it was already hot and dry as a desert this time of year.
Fulton wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief and put the handkerchief back in his inside coat pocket. This was his first trip to the Plains. He could feel that the sun was already burning his face, but then he and Clement had been riding for more than two hours. He was glad when they were able to make out the small, low ranch house sitting in front of them in the morning sunlight. He still wasn’t used to the distances that separated places in the West. The long ride through the heat and the landscape, monotonous to an untrained eye, had frustrated him.
They couldn’t see anyone about as they came closer to the little house. All that was moving was the wind flapping a curtain up and down at one of the front windows that was open. It reminded Fulton of a woman shooing chickens with her apron.
“Is that the place up ahead?”
“I reckon so,” Clement answered.
“You’re sure Old Harry gave you good directions?”
“Yes sir, and I got them straight, Mr. Fulton.”
“I’m sure you did, Martin.” He was sorry he had asked the question the way he had. He knew Martin always tried to please. Fulton looked at the clothesline that had been strung from the far side of the house to a tree. “There’s a wash out. It looks like only women’s things.”
“She lives all by herself. Her man was killed last winter. Indians or something did it as best I remember.”
They reined up at the low porch that stretched along the front of the house.
“Mrs. Carson!” Fulton Called. “Hello! Hello, Mrs. Carson!” Fulton looked at Clement and shrugged when they didn’t hear any answer.
They dismounted and tied their horses to the railing that ran part of the way along the porch. Fulton stepped up onto the porch. The floor creaked under his weight. He hesitated a moment and pushed a couple of times with the sole of his boot. The floor creaked again, but it felt sturdy. He walked to two large tubs balanced on a long wooden bench. The nearer one held clothes that had sunk to the bottom of what had once been soapy water. The other one was filled with rinse water.
Clement started to walk around the house. “I’ll look out yonder,” he said. “Maybe she’s back by the stable somewheres.”
Fulton nodded and walked to the doorway. The door was open. Even though he didn’t think anyone was at home, he knocked on the jamb. His upbringing kept him from walking straight in. He waited for a moment. When no one answered, he stepped in.Dishes had been set out to dry on a wooden cupboard. He touched one. There was a drop of water on it. The combination kitchen and sitting room looked neat. He could see into the bedroom. Some folded clothes lay on the bed, but they didn’t disturb the orderliness of the room.He had never met Mrs. Carson, but he began to feel he already knew her. She kept a neat house, even though she lived alone. She laid her clothes out on the bed when she took them off the clothesline, probably so she could put them away at the same time, after they all had dried. She wasn’t far. The drop of water on the dish told him that. At any moment he might look up and she’d be there, wondering what he was doing in her house.He went back outside. Something was simmering in a stew pot on the back of the stove. She couldn’t have moved the stove outside herself, when the weather turned warm. Some men must have come to help her. He peeked inside the pot. It looked like soup.Clement ambled around the corner of the house.
“Did you find her?” Fulton asked.
“No sir. Just two horses and some chickens is all.”
“Maybe she went somewhere,” Fulton said, smiling and shaking his head.
“May be. But if she did, I reckon she must have gone off with somebody.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It looks like she only keeps two horses, and they’re both there.”
“Did you look out behind the stable?”
“Yep. Nothing there neither.”
Fulton looked around. The little knoll the house sat on gave them a view for a couple of miles in all directions. No one was in sight.”I don’t see any reason for waiting,” Fulton said.
“Me neither.”
Fulton was annoyed. He had the feeling she was nearby. After all, she had asked him to come, if he wanted to talk to her. Martin had asked around town last night before they left. She wasn’t there and no one expected her. If she had gone to town this morning, they’d have met her on the way. Maybe she hid when she saw them coming. She might have changed her mind or she might just be afraid of strangers. A lot of people who live alone, especially women, got funny that way. He decided that before he came back he’d send her a note telling her when he planned to come. He’d give her enough time to send him word whether he would be welcome.
“Let’s water the horses and get back to town.” Fulton walked towards the trough next to the well. Clement untied the horses and followed him. Fulton lifted the open wooden pipe that lay in the trough and pushed it through the hole in the side of the well, until it was directly underneath the faucet of the pump. He began pumping the handle. By the third try he had water flowing through the pipe and into the trough. It hadn’t been too long since someone had pumped water, or he would have needed to pump longer to get it flowing.
Without breaking the rhythm of his pumping, he took a long-handled metal dipper hanging from a nail in the side of the frame, filled it from the pipe, and took a drink. He didn’t like well water. He guessed he had become too citified. It didn’t have a good taste. He preferred the water in a town, even after it had run from a still reservoir through aging pipes, or through an open zanja, like the one that brought water to Los Angeles. He filled the dipper again and gave it to Clement to drink.
When they felt the horses had drunk enough, Fulton and Clement mounted up and pointed them towards town. Fulton dreaded the two-hour ride in the hot spring sun. His face would be burned before they reached Los Angeles. Having to worry about his light complexion always made him feel foolish. It wasn’t a manly thing to concern himself with. It hadn’t been a problem back East. But in California the sun seemed to shine all the time. Sometimes, when he awoke in the morning, he found himself hoping for a dreary, overcast day, like many days had been in Pennsylvania. He was sure such a change of weather would cheer him. Forget about it, he told himself, and look at the countryside. He needed to learn more about this land. If he was going to get sunburned, there was nothing he could do about it.
Behind them another breeze had come up, blowing the clothes on the line and the curtain at the open window. The hoof beats of their retreating horses echoed inside the well, and the breeze, bouncing down inside its walls, rippled the water, blurring any view Mrs. Carson might have had through her dead eyes.
2
“Mr. Fulton!” Mary called. Mary McGill had started working for the Los Angeles Star a few months before,, shortly after Fulton had bought it.
Fulton walked through the low swinging gates in the counter and over to where she stood. Clement followed him through the gates, but walked on to a work table next to the printing press.
“Mr. Fulton will be able to help you,” Mary said to the man at the counter. “He’s the editor.”
Fulton nodded to Mary and the man.
“This is Mr. Fulton, sir.-I’m sorry. I don’t know your name.”
“Koontz, Fulton. Herman Koontz,” the man said, holding out his hand. “Glad to make your acquaintance. I’s just talking to your assistant here. About selling you some of my stuff.”
“Your stuff?”
“Yup. Sure thing. I noticed how you use a lot of those there filler things. In your paper. Ain’t that right? You know, those there wise sayings and humorous antidotes.”
“Anecdotes?”
“That’s it. Antidotes.”
Fulton glanced at Mary. His dark eyes twinkled with enjoyment. She was afraid to look directly at him for fear that she would laugh at the wrong time.
“Well, sir, I write them things,” Koontz continued. “Down to earth ones. You know, we’re all down to earth folks here in Los Angeles. Even the greasers.”
Mary winced.
“I bet you’re hardpressed to find ya good ones lots of times, ain’t ya?” Without waiting for Fulton to answer, he went on. “So’s I figure I could help ya out and make me a little money on the side.”
Clement put a straightedge in the paper that he was counting to mark his place and stopped to listen.
“Usually, Mr. Koontz, we have them pretty well lined up,” Fulton said. “There are books we get them from. Also, we don’t make a custom of paying….”
“Yeah, but they just don’t have the appeal to folks, when you get them out of books.
You know that, don’t ya? You just listen to mine.”
“But, Mr. Koontz…” Fulton couldn’t remember when he last felt so helpless.
He began reading from the top piece of several scraps of paper he held in his hand. “Here’s a poem I worked up:
I had a little duck.
Her name was Helen.
She ate lots of bugs,
But she wasn’t good smellin’.
Now that’s down to earth. And, it’s got humor.”
Mary noticed that Fulton’s face was red. She assumed it was because he was trying to keep from laughing too hard.
“Yes, it does Mr. Koontz,” Fulton said. “That’s true.”
Koontz looked back down at his papers. He licked his thumb and used it to move the top piece to the back of his small pile. “Here’s a story. Sort of a joke type thing. Man One says, ‘Had a good time last night. Tongue-kissed me a rhinocerfuss. Man Two says, ‘How was that – kissing a rhinocerfuss?’ Man One says, ‘Pretty good, but Harry had to hold my feet, so’s I didn’t fall in.”‘
.Mary and Clement laughed out loud.
“Got that?” Koontz asked. “His friend had to hold his feet.”
Fulton smiled broadly. Koontz liked his face. He smiled back.
“Yes, that’s good, Mr. Koontz.” He thought for a moment. “Tell you what I think would be a good idea, if you’ll trust me.”
“Why sure, I’ll trust ya. Unless I’m powerful mistook, a feller with a face like yours wouldn’t cheat another feller.”
“Thank you. I’m glad you feel that way. Now, why don’t you leave some of your things here, with your name and where you stay. If we’re able to fit some of them in, we’ll get together with you and agree on a royalty for them.”
“A royalty? That sounds real fine. A royalty.” Koontz laid his stack of papers on the counter. He reached into one of the side pockets of his bib overalls and brought out another little stack, which he laid beside the others. Reaching into the inside of the suit coat he wore over his overalls, he took out another little stack and laid it on the counter. His face opened into a happy smile. He held out his hand to Fulton.
“Thank ya, Fulton. Thank ya. You’re gonna find ones in there you like, or I’ll be plumb amazed.”
“You watch the paper for them”
“I will. I will.”
Koontz went to the door and opened it. “Thank you again.”
“You’re welcome.”
He closed the door and was gone.
“I’m sorry,” Mary said. “I just couldn’t get rid of him.”
That’s all right.”
“Did you get sunburned?”
Fulton patted his hot cheeks. “I think so.” Fulton shook his head. “Set up a file for them.”
Mary’s face started to flush. “I wasn’t sure….”
Fulton noticed. “I understand, but I can’t throw them away, when they’re so important to him.”
“What did Mrs. Carson have to say?” Mary asked.
“She wasn’t there.”
“Not there?”
“No. It was strange. It looked like she had left in a hurry.” Fulton looked at Clement. “Martin, you know her brother, don’t you?”
Clement nodded. “Look him up later and tell him about our trip out there. Something could have happened to his sister. or, better, maybe he knows where she is.”
3
About a week later, Fulton sat in his private office, leaning into the tent of light spread by his desk lamp, as he worked on the Star’s accounts. Because he gave credit to many of the merchants who placed announcements in the paper, only looking at the cash didn’t tell him how the paper was doing. When he owned the Register back in Pennsylvania, he had taught himself to keep books. He didn’t like to do it, but he did it carefully, because he liked tracking down an out-of-balance even less.
The door to the street opened and closed. He recognized the sound of Mary’s footsteps as she walked across the plank floor towards his office. He laid down his pencil. He always used one to make his first entries, in case he made a mistake – and stared into the gloom beyond his desk to adjust his eyes to the dark. Mary knew he was working late. Maybe she wanted to talk. He smiled to himself. She might find that disturbing him when he was working on the books could lead to more than talk.
She saw him, when she reached the doorway. “Bill, they found Mrs. Carson. She’s dead.”
He didn’t take his eyes off her as he stood up and came around the desk. He pulled down the ceiling lamp, struck a match and lit it, then nudged it back into place.
“Where did you hear?”
“I just saw her brother, Bo, in front of Newmarks’s.”
She sank into a wooden armchair by the desk and turned to watch over her shoulder as he lit the wall lamp next to the door.
“He said he went out to look for her the day after you and Martin were there.”
“I know he did, but he didn’t find her,,” Fulton said. Her story didn’t make sense. She must have misunderstood. He sat back down at his desk.
“That’s what he said. You didn’t let me finish. When he didn’t hear from her after a couple of more days, he and Old Harry went back today.” She paused and thought about the story. She wondered why they were snapping at each other. Maybe the way she began confused him. He always wanted to get the facts straight. But, she didn’t want him to think he could intimidate her.
“Go on.”
“At first, they still couldn’t find her. But when they got a drink from the-well, they noticed the water tasted funny. So…” She paused a moment, then blurted out, “That’s where she was. In the well.”
Fulton pushed his teeth together and made a cheerless grin as he remembered drinking from it. “She was probably in it, when we were there.”
She nodded.
“Did he have any idea what she died from?”
“He said it looked like she’d been strangled.”
They heard the street door close again. This time, Fulton recognized the sound of Clement’s footsteps. They waited for him. When he entered, Fulton nodded to him and waved him to a chair.
“They found Mrs. Carson,” Fulton said. “In her well.” He waited for Clement to react, but he didn’t show any emotion.
“I know. Bo’s over at the Bella Union telling everybody.”
“Did they bring back her body for the doctor to have a look?”
“No,” Clement answered. “Bo said they buried her. Next to her vegetable garden.”
“That’s dumb. He’s no expert on causes of death.” Fulton thought for a moment. “I can’t imagine why anyone would kill her. She was a widow. Living alone. Barely making a living, by the looks of the place.”
“Maybe it was what she told you in her letter,” Mary said. “Someone could have found out.”
“That letter didn’t tell me anything. Get it out, please. We’ll look at it again.”
Mary walked over to the cabinet where the files were kept.
“Bo says the same thing,” Clement said. “He can’t figure why anyone would kill her. She wasn’t a looker that men would want to…” He looked at Mary. “…You know.”
“W “We understand,” Mary said She turned around with a sheet of paper in her hand. “Here it is.”
“It wasn’t Indians,” Fulton said. “They wouldn’t have left the horses.” He looked at Mary. “Read it to us.” As she sat down, he leaned back and began to finger his watch chain.
“Dear Mr. Editor,”‘ Mary began. “‘You must be a good man, but you haven’t been in these parts long. If you had, you couldn’t be saying in your paper that Los Angeles has a glorious future. Even with the beautiful climate you write about, Los Angeles has no future for the common person, when it will soon be back under a single control. I expect you don’t know about the goings-on here like I do. If you really care about the future of this place, come out and talk to me. I’m ready to tell what I know.”‘
“What did she know?” Fulton asked.
No one answered. Mary got up to return the letter to the file.
“What does she mean Los Angeles will soon be back under a single control?” Fulton continued.
Mary closed the cabinet and walked back to her chair, but didn’t sit down. “Do you want some coffee?” she asked.
Fulton shook his head. She sat down.
“The only time there was ever what you’d call single control,” Clement said, “was when the Padres controlled all the land around here. Back in the Spanish days. But the Mexican government took most of the land away from them long ago.
“Has anyone been buying up land lately?” Fulton asked.
“I don’t know,” Clement answered. “I haven’t heard anything.”
“Most of the old rancheros are having money troubles, aren’t they?” Mary asked. “What with the drought and the drop in cattle prices. I don’t know, either, who would have the money to buy land these days.”
Fulton tapped his fist, first on the desk, then against his cheek, while he thought. He looked at Clement. “Martin, you go to the County Recorder’s office the first thing tomorrow. See what you can find out about recent land transfers. Maybe there’s some kind of pattern. Mrs. Carson must have known something.”
4
Martin Clement was planning his day, as he walked to the Star office the next morning. There weren’t many people about yet. Most of the way from his room he had only the sound of his own boots on the boardwalk to provide a cadence for his thoughts. Since the County Recorder’s office wasn’t open yet, he would go first to the Star to set some type. The commentary Fulton had written yesterday afternoon was ready to be set up. Also, some of the announcements had to be redone. They tried to let the ones they didn’t print every week set up, but this past week, they had to break some of them down, so they could use the type.
He couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do than work on the Star.
He certainly didn’t want to go back to ranching with his father and brothers. He was glad his mother had taught him reading, writing, and figuring. He had come to the Star five years ago. Old Mr. Jensen had taught him everything, from running the press and setting type to repairing the press and selling announcements. He would probably never run a paper himself. His learning wasn’t good enough. But, who knows? It might get better.
Since Mr. Fulton bought out Mr. Jensen a couple of months ago, he had started learning how to word up short articles from the dispatches. He couldn’t write them as he set them up, like Mr. Fulton could. He had to write them out on paper first, then let Mr. Fulton or Mary go over them. Things come with time, though. No need to rush nothing. He was getting better at grammar, and his spelling was almost perfect, at least of words he was used to.
He saw the man walking down Bread Street towards him, but, at first, the man’s face didn’t register in his mind. When he recognized him, he stopped to wait for him. “Good morning, Mr. Fulton.”
“Good morning, Martin.”
“I wasn’t expecting to see you coming from that direction.”
“I was looking for Sheriff Barton. The deputy said he thought he came down High Street. You haven’t seen him, have you?
“Not this morning.”
“I’ll look for him later.”
They walked along together without saying any more. Because the streets were still quiet, they heard the commotion as soon as it started, even though it was a block away.
“It looks like trouble at the Bella Union again,” Clement said.
Fulton nodded.
“I reckon we should go look-see. It might be news,” Clement added.
“No trouble at the Bella Union would be news.”
They quickened their steps.
At the Bella Union, Frank, one of the bouncers, pushed a tramp through the door ahead of him. Several men followed them outside.
There were always men drinking at the Bella Union in the early morning. The night bartenders closed to clean sometime between three and four, and, if a man wanted to drink after that, he had to go around the corner and up the street to one of the bars or Monte parlors in Nigger Alley. But the Bella Union reopened at six-thirty.
A few minutes later, men were standing at the bar and sitting at tables, looking as though they had never left. Some of them had been drinking all night and had stopped in for one more before they went off to sleep. A few of them were merchants with a brother, or a nephew, or a clerk, or a wife to watch the store, while they fortified themselves against the thoughts they feared.
The tramp held a walking stick against his shoulder. Tied to the top of it was a homemade knapsack. His clothes, walk, and face all showed that he was a farmer by trade. He was tired. He hadn’t shaved for more than three days. His age was difficult to tell. Maybe he was forty; maybe only thirty.
Frank shoved him off the boardwalk. He fell.
“Get going!” Frank ordered. “We don’t want you here.”
“Yeah,” one of the regulars added, “get going!”
“I just wanted a beer,” the man said. He got up and picked up his stick. “I could pay.”
“You could, huh?” Frank didn’t understand why they always had to give him lip. That was like trying to show him up. If he let them get away with it, then other guys would try it.
He looked at the man’s knapsack. “What you got in there? Let’s see.”
The man began to back away. “I’m going.”
Most of the men from the morning crowd were outside now. Passersby, mainly men and boys, joined them.
“No, you’re not going now.” Frank liked having an audience. He pulled out his pistol and fired a shot near the man’s feet. “I said let’s see.” He pointed with his pistol to the street between them. “Lay the stuff out there.”
The man looked first at Frank, then at the men standing behind him. None of them were going to help him. He laid down his stick and started to fumble with the thongs that held the knapsack to it. Frank fidgeted with his pistol, while he watched him, but he waited. The man untied the thongs and opened the sack. He set a pair of work gloves on the dirt street, then a white shirt and collar, trousers, and a big apron. Each was tied with one or two pieces of twine, done in a bow. He took out a bag of coffee, hesitated to glance at Frank, then brought out a Daguerreotype of a woman in a simple wooden frame with no glass.
“Get a load of that, Frank,” someone yelled. “They’re too clean for a dirty bum like him to have, ain’t they?” “Yeah,” Frank said. “Hey, fella. Stomp them things. Go on. Stomp on ’em. Get ’em dirty. They don’t look like they belong to you, the way they look now.”
The man shook his head.
“I said stomp them!” Frank yelled. He fired the gun into the dirt next to him.
The man lifted one foot and lowered in onto his gloves. He lifted the other and lowered it, then lifted the first foot again.
“Come on. Faster!” Frank ordered. He fired again.
The man quickened his pace. He pranced back and forth, dirtying everything, except the Daguerreotype.
“The picture, too.” Frank clenched his teeth. This bum was trying to defy him, but he wasn’t going to get away with it.
Fulton and Clement reached the group of spectators.
“They’re teasing a bum,” Clement said.
“I said the picture,” Frank insisted.
The man stared at his feet. “I won’t,” he said.
This time Frank fired closer to his feet. “Stomp it!”
Fulton pushed through the spectators.
“Mr. Fulton!” Clement called.
Fulton didn’t turn. Instead, looking straight into Frank’s eyes, he stepped between him and the man. He said, “Good morning.”
“Good…” Frank began. He shook his head. “Get out of the, way, Mister.”
Fulton turned his back on him and said to the man, “You didn’t tie your knapsack very well.” He stooped down and picked up the Daguerreotype. “I’ll give you a hand.”
Frank took a step forward and reached out his hand to grab Fulton by the shoulder, but he changed his mind. “Mister,” he began. He stopped. He didn’t know what he should say.
Fulton turned and looked up at him. “Yes?”
“Aw nothing. Nothing.” He jammed his pistol into his holster, turned, and walked towards the front door of the Bella Union. He stopped and turned back. “You! You! Bum! Don’t ever let me see you here again. You hear me?”
“Yes sir.”
Frank stalked through the doorway. The crowd’s tension was broken. It’s members became individuals again, able to talk and to go back to what they had been doing before.
Clement walked over to Fulton and bent down to help. “Mr. Fulton,” he said quietly, “if you’re gonna do things like this, I wish you’d wear a gun.”
Fulton shook his head. “Guns are for lawmen.” he said. He looked at the man and smiled. “And, for the lawless.”
5
“It looks like Mary did the sweeping for you this morning,” Fulton said.
Clement looked down at the boardwalk in front of the Star. It had been swept clean — for as long as it would last. Every horse and wagon that passed on the unpaved street raised a cloud of dust that settled as dirt on the boardwalk. He swept it at least three times a day, but half an hour later you couldn’t tell whether it had been swept all day.
As Fulton opened the door, Sheriff Barton came around the corner at Commercial Street. “Mr. Fulton,” Barton called.
Fulton stepped out of the way to let Clement enter. “Good morning, Sheriff. I wanted to talk to you.”
“I heard.”
Barton wondered why Fulton was looking for him so early in the day. It probably meant trouble. Newspaper editors didn’t get robbed-like ordinary folks; they just poked around, stirring up trouble. Whatever it was, he figured coming down here would show Fulton he wasn’t worried about it.
The people respected Barton. He seemed an honest man. He had only been elected a few months before Fulton had come to town. No one lasted long in the job. They were shot, or had an accident, or left town suddenly for some flimsy reason.
“You know about Mrs. Carson, don’t you?” Fulton asked.
“Yeah. That sure was passing peculiar.”
“You’re going to have Dr. Johnson look at her body, aren’t you?”
“Well,” Barton hesitated. “That won’t be easy to do. You see, Bo already buried her.”
Fulton fingered his watch chain as he studied him for a moment. “You have jurisdiction out there, don’t you?”
“Sure I do, but I don’t get out that way much. There’s hardly anybody living out there, you know. Mostly Mr. Leonis’s men look after things.”
“Mr. Leonis?”
“Señor Leonis. He’s got a big rancho out there.”
“The body ought to be looked at, Sheriff. Bo said she was strangled, but it could have been an accident.”
“I know what Bo said. Look, Mr. Fulton, even if she was strangled, there’s not much I can do about it. Unless there was a witness, which I doubt.”
“Sheriff, I’ll get a court order, if I have to.”
Barton realized Fulton didn’t know how things worked around Los Angeles. “That may not be as easy as you think.”
“You won’t do it?”
“Hold on.” Barton didn’t want Fulton to think he wouldn’t cooperate. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I want to go with you. How soon can we leave?”
Barton scratched his head. “Well, lemme see.”
A bell began ringing the morning Angelus from the Plaza Church of Our Lady Queen of the Angels, three short blocks away. Fulton pulled out his watch and pressed the stem to pop the cover.
“That’s a fine looking watch you got there.”
“It was my father’s.”
For a moment Barton thought
he saw fear in Fulton’s eyes. Fulton closed the watch and put it back in his vest.
“Well, now, first of all,” Barton said, “there are some things I have to take care of. Then I’ve got to fetch the Doc and find Bo, ’cause he knows where he buried her.” He realized he didn’t know where Bo stayed, but he was always around, in one bar or another.
“How long will that take?”
“At least, till sometime this after’. If we leave then, it’ll be dark, or pushing dark, by the time we get out there. Course, that may be for the best. It’ll be cooler. That may cut the smell some.”
“I’ll be here all day. Come by and get me, when you’re ready.”
“All right, Mr. Fulton. Good day.”
Barton started along the boardwalk past the Star. He decided he’d walk up to Nigger Alley first to see whether Bo was around. He pulled off his hat and scratched his head. He needed to do some thinking about Fulton. He wasn’t the Eastern namby-pamby he thought he was.
6
Bo pulled a bottle from a pocket of his baggy pants. It was still about a third full. He looked at it for a moment in the lantern light, then uncorked it and drained part of it. “God, Sheriff, I can’t stand this,” he said.
“Why don’t you hold this lantern for a while,” Barton said. “Then, maybe you won’t be so fidgety.”
Bo shook his head. “Not right now. I’d be afeard of dropping it, the way my nerves are.” He shook the bottle back and forth a few times to test how much was left.
Barton shifted the lantern he held in front of him to his left hand to give his right arm a rest. Fulton stood beside him. He glanced at him to see whether he looked tired, but he couldn’t see his face clearly.
“Let me hold that for a while, Sheriff,” Fulton said.
Barton shook his head.
“Can I spell you for a while, Doctor?”
“Not yet, Mr. Fulton. Thanks all the same.”
Crickets serenaded from the darkness that surrounded them, while they watched the two deputies and their shadows doing a flickery dance, as they shoveled dirt from the hole they were digging.
Deputy Williams rested his shovel on the ground and looked over at Barton. “This is getting powerful tiresome, Sheriff,” he said.
“How deep did you bury her?” Barton asked Bo.
“I told you. About four feet.” Bo took a swig from the bottle. “We didn’t want the coyotes getting after her.” He corked the bottle and shoved it back into his pocket.
“This’s gotta be four feet already,” Williams said.
“Just keep going,” Barton said.
“What did you bury her in?” Doctor Johnston asked. He shifted his weight and moved the lantern to his other hand.
Bo shivered. The drink and his nerves were beginning to affect him. “A sh… sh … a sheet. We wrapped her in a sheet.”
“Better be careful, boys,” Barton said.
The deputies scooped out a few more shovelfuls of dirt. Williams was getting disgusted. This wasn’t the kind of work he expected to be doing, when he became a deputy last year. If Barton wanted the damn hole dug, he should be digging, too. “Be careful,” Barton said. “Keep going,” Barton said. He wanted to be the boss, but he sure didn’t want to dirty his hands to help. Williams pushed the shovel into the dirt, but something didn’t feel right. He pulled back his arm. Under the dirt he glimpsed something white. “Sheriff,” he said.
“I see it.”
“Go easy now,” Doctor Johnson said.
“There’s something funny, Sheriff,” Williams said.
“What’s that?”
“There’s no smell. There oughta be a smell by now.”
“Goddammit!” Bo yelled.
“What the hell’s the matter, Bo?” Barton asked.
“Goddammit! You don’t have no consideration for me. None of you.”
“Take it easy,” Fulton said. “No one means any harm.”
“Take it easy? How? How am I s’posed to take it easy? That’s my sister in there. my only sister. The only family I had left.”
Williams and the other deputy nudged the sheet with their shovels, as they pushed the dirt to the side. They threw what got in their way out of the hole. Williams uncovered a woman’s high-lace shoe. Then another. He pushed the dirt away. His shovel brushed against a shoe, moving it a couple of inches from the sheet.
“What in God’s name?” Doctor Johnston exclaimed.
Everyone peered at the partly uncovered sheet. It looked as though it covered a body that was in pieces. Bo looked along its length. His breathing, always heavy, changed to panting. “Oh God! Oh God! Somebody cut her up! Look! Look!”
Fulton jumped into the hole and grabbed up a shoe. Bo couldn’t bear to look anymore. He turned his head and vomited down the side of his clothes. Some of it spattered William’s pants.
“Christ, Bo!”
“No!” Bo screamed. “No! No!” He jerked away and ran into the darkness, still screaming.
Fulton turned the shoe upside down and shook it. A cucumber fell out.
Williams gasped. “A cucumber? A goddam cucumber?”
“What the hell’s going on?” Barton asked.
Fulton pulled back the sheet. Underneath it, they saw a cantaloupe, where the head should have been, and several large gourds. “Gourds? A cantaloupe?” Barton realized he must sound silly. He stopped.
Fulton climbed out of the hole. “Some clown beat us to the body.”
“Well, now we’ll never know how she died,” Barton said.
“Actually, Sheriff,” Fulton said, “I think now we can assume she was strangled. Why else would someone go to the trouble of stealing the body?” He brushed the dirt off his hands.
“I reckon you’re right, for all the good it’s gonna do us,” Barton said.
Fulton began to frame an argument in his mind, but he decided it wouldn’t do any good. Not then. He looked off into the darkness. “We’d better try to find Bo.”
Continue Reading »
