The Hangings Read online

  Chapter 7

  HE WASN'T AT HOME. HIS WIFE'S SISTER, MAUDE SEELEY, who had moved in to care for Lucy when she took sick, told me she thought Morton had gone down to the livery. But he was not there either. Jacob Pike—without looking me in the eye, polite as can be—said that Sam McCullough had stopped by a few minutes earlier and Morton had gone with him over to the saddlery. That was Pike for you: snotty and troublesome until he sensed he had pushed you too far, then quiet and toadyish, as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. No backbone. And a good thing, too, or he would probably have got into serious trouble sooner or later.

  I went to the saddlery. Morton was there, giving Sam advice on some tooling he wanted done on the gullet and fork of an old California saddle he had bought from the estate of a Chileno Valley cowman. Sam was restoring the saddle for him.

  I asked Morton to step outside with me, led him over into the shade of a pepper tree. From there you could see the black oak out back where Jeremy Bodeen had been hanged. I did not like looking at it and I put my backside to it as we talked.

  "Gus Peppermill's back in town," I said.

  "Is he? How come?"

  I told him how come. "Gus says he passed you not long after Jeremy Bodeen, coming from out Stage Gulch way. Says you were riding fast and Bodeen was just ambling."

  "Last Tuesday?"

  "Same day Bodeen was hanged."

  Morton dragged out his pipe and tobacco pouch and began loading up. There was a set look to his face, as if he were working his memory. "Oh, sure," he said at length. "That was the day I went to see Ben Cohoon about a couple of horses he had for sale. Buckskin and a strawberry roan. But his price was too high—"

  "Never mind that, Morton. It's Jeremy Bodeen I'm interested in. You must have seen him; why didn't you tell me about it."

  "I don't recall seeing him, Linc. I don't."

  "Man heading the same way you were, a stranger, and you likely passed him and didn't even notice?"

  "I . . . had things on my mind."

  "Mind saying what they were?"

  "Personal things. You know Lucy's condition."

  "Yes," I said. "How is she?"

  "Poorly." There was something in his face now that I could not quite read. He struck a lucifer, waved away the sulphur, and then fired his tobacco. "Wish I could help you, Linc. But I just don't recall seeing Bodeen."

  At the livery again I told Jacob Pike to saddle my horse, a chalk-eye pinto I had bought off Charley Casebeer out at Two Rock last year. I called him Rowdy—the horse, not Charley Casebeer—because he was warm-blooded, liked to run, and kept fretting at the snaffle whenever I held him back. He had thrown me twice, once into a patch of nettles, but you had to expect that kind of behavior with a dauncy horse. I liked his spirit.

  I rode out of town to the east, toward the Sonoma Mountains. Once we were into open countryside, I gave Rowdy his head and let him frisk along for a while. I had not ridden in days and it was good to be in the saddle again.

  It was three miles to Willow Creek Road, and another two along there to the Parsons' tenant farm. There were a few cattle and sheep ranches out this way, but most of the land this side of Stage Gulch was agricultural—alfalfa and barley and other crops—broken up by half a dozen creeks and stands of native trees and rows of those Australian imports, eucalpytus, that lose their bark once a year in great peeling strips; some farmers and ranchers had taken to them because they grew fast and made good windbreaks. The day was warm but the air had that rich fall smell that tells you the season is about to change again and winter is nigh: a mixture of things dead and dying, and new growths getting ready to sprout in their places once the rains came.

  A rutted trail hooked up to the Parsons farm from Willow Creek Road. The acreage was modest—just a few fields of corn and alfalfa, with a cluster of buildings set near where Willow Creek cut through the northwest corner. There was a one-room farmhouse, a cookshack, a chicken pen, a barn, a couple of lean-tos, and a pole corral. That was all except for a small windmill—a Fairbanks, Morse Eclipse—that the Siler brothers, who lived over near Sonoma, had put up because the creek was dry more than half the year.

  When I came in sight of the buildings I could see that Jubal Parsons had done work on the place. The previous tenants had let it run down some; now the farmhouse had a fresh coat of whitewash, as did the chicken coop, and the fences had been mended and the barn had a new roof.

  There was nobody in the farmyard, just a couple of for-aging roosters, when I rode in. Quiet here; the rattle and squeak of the windmill blades and an occasional squawk from the leghorns in their pens were the only sounds.

  Smoke was pouring out through the cookhouse chimney, so I got down in front of the main house and tied Rowdy to the porch rail and then walked around to the cookhouse. The door was open and Greta Parsons was sitting on a bench inside, peeling thin strips from a block of wax and letting them drop into a clay bowl in her lap. Alongside her was a brass candle mold, and on an old soot-black stove at the far end, a pair of kettles were heating.

  She heard me and looked up, squinting. She knew her husband's step and the angle of the sun must have been wrong for her to see me clearly, for she called out, "Who's that?"

  "It's Lincoln Evans, Mrs. Parsons." I came ahead into the doorway, taking off my hat. "Didn't startle you, did I?"

  "No. We don't have many visitors."

  "Well, I hope you don't mind my dropping in on the Sabbath this way...."

  "The Sabbath is just another workday for us."

  It was warm in the sun but even warmer inside the cookhouse, with the fire going in the stove. The air was thick with the smells of hot wax and a familiar spiciness.

  "Bayberry," I said, sniffing. "Always was partial to bayberry candles." I did not add that Ivy wasn't partial to them and so they were never burned in our house.

  "I like them too. They are better made with sheep tallow but I didn't have enough."

  "Wax is about as good," I said. "My ma used to make her bayberry candles that way. Shavings so the wax melts quick in hot water without burning. Scoop the grease off when it comes to the top, then strain it through cheesecloth and pour it into the molds. That right?"

  "Yes. I made several yesterday—would you like one?"

  "Well, as a matter of fact, I would." I was thinking that I could burn it in my office. "I'll be glad to pay for it. . . ."

  "That isn't necessary. We have plenty. What brings you way out here, Mr. Evans?"

  "Just a few questions I'd like to ask you and your husband."

  "Questions?"

  "Is he within hailing distance? I didn't see him anywhere when I rode in."

  "I believe he's mending fence." She set the bowl and knife and block of wax next to the mold and got to her feet. "I'll show you where."

  I backed up and she came out into the sunlight. She cut a fine figure even in a plain muslin dress. That butter-yellow hair of hers was pinned up in braids but little strands had worked their way loose and poked out here and there, like bright feathers. She fussed with one of them that had strayed down onto the bridge of her nose. In the sunbright, the hardness that marred her features and her eyes made her seem less attractive than she had in the gloom of the cookhouse. No less desirable, though.

  We went along to the front of the main house, and she pointed toward a low hill to the west. "You'll find Jubal somewhere over that hill yonder," she said. "At least, that was where he said he was going after our noon meal."

  "Will you answer a few questions yourself?"

  "If I can. What is it you want to know?"

  "Well, it's about the man who was murdered in town last week. Jeremy Bodeen. You heard about that when you were in the other day?"

  A frown wrinkled the sun-dark skin of her forehead. "Yes, we heard. But we know nothing about it. Why would you think we do?"

  "I don't think it," I said. "I'm here because Gus Peppermill, the fixit man, passed Bodeen on Willow Creek Road around four last Tuesday afternoon,
the same day he was killed."

  "Yes?"

  "Gus said there was a farm wagon on the road behind him at the time, and that Bodeen passed it as it was about to turn in at your gate. He said the driver was a woman. You, Mrs. Parsons?"

  "Yes. I recall seeing the fixit wagon on the road ahead of me when I drove out at the creek fork. I go there sometimes to pick watercress. Best place around for it."

  "You remember seeing Bodeen too?"

  "A man on horseback, yes. But I had no idea that is who he was."

  "He say anything to you?"

  "He did not."

  "Just rode on by without stopping?"

  "I don't know if he stopped. I didn't look back; I had no reason to."

  "Did you see him again, by any chance?"

  "No. Only that once, at a glance. I couldn't even tell you what he looked like."

  "Could your husband have seen him?"

  "I don't see how he could have," she said. "He was here, working in the chicken pen, when I arrived."

  "Well, I'll ask him anyhow."

  "I'm sorry I can't be of more help, Mr. Evans. If you'll wait just a minute, I'll get that bayberry candle for you."

  She went into the house. Directly she reappeared with a fat white candle twice the size of the ones she had been molding in the cookshack earlier. "It's one of my Christmas candles," she said, handing it to me. "You might want to keep it until the holidays."

  "I'll do that. Thank you kindly."

  "Not at all."

  I swung up onto Rowdy's back, put the candle into the saddle pouch. Mrs. Parsons gave me a brief smile and then turned back toward the cookhouse. She walked straight as a stick, with her head up high—proud, the way Hannah walked.

  I reined away from the house and rode up to the crest of the low hill. On the far side, near a clutch of live oaks, a man in his undershirt was working on a section of line fence. To one side of him was the Parsons's farm wagon, a ploddy-looking gray in the trace and some tools and sharpened fence posts in the bed. To the other side was a spool of new barbed wire, one strand of it trailing along the ground like a spiky silver thread.

  He heard me coming when I was halfway downslope, straightened around and stood stiff-backed and unmoving as I neared him. He was a tall, spare man, dark, with bushy hair cut high above the ears and neck. No more than thirty- five, I judged, but there was something austere about him that made him seem much older.

  "Afternoon, Mr. Parsons."

  "Constable Evans."

  "Talk to you a while?"

  "I've more fence to mend before dark."

  "I won't take up much of your time."

  He watched me as I dismounted. His face was as dark and webbed as sun-cured leather, and it made his deep-set eyes look even darker than they were—as black and shiny as brine-soaked olives. He had a pair of wire-cutters in one gloved hand, and he kept snicking the blades together; the squeezing movement caused the corded sinews along his arm to writhe and ripple, like snakes under a blanket.

  He said, "How did you know where to find me?"

  "I just spoke to your wife."

  "I see."

  "Fine woman,'' I said. "She gave me one of her bayberry Christmas candles."

  "For what reason?"

  "No reason. Neighborly gesture, that's all."

  He made a grunting sound, as if he did not approve of neighborly gestures. "What is it you want of me, Mr. Evans?"

  "Some questions about Jeremy Bodeen."

  "I know no one named Jeremy Bodeen."

  "The man who was found hanged in Tule Bend last week," I said. "Name Bodeen isn't familiar to you?"

  "No."

  "His brother's in town. Emmett Bodeen."

  "That is no business of mine."

  Disagreeable cuss, I thought. I told him about Gus Peppermill seeing Jeremy Bodeen on Willow Creek Road, and about Mrs. Parsons being there at the same time. For all the expression on his face, I might have been telling him a dull story he had heard a dozen times before.

  When I was done talking, he said, "My wife said nothing about it to me."

  "Wasn't worth mentioning, I guess. She didn't connect the rider she saw with Bodeen. Didn't speak to him, she said."

  "My wife is not in the habit of speaking to passing strangers."

  "I didn't suppose she was. You didn't happen to see the man yourself, did you?"

  "I did not."

  "Nor at any other time last Tuesday?"

  "I was here all of last Tuesday.''

  "Didn't leave the farm all day?"

  "I did not," Parsons said.

  "Well, then."

  "Is that the last of your questions, Mr. Evans?"

  "It is. I'll leave you to your work."

  He dipped his chin at me, then turned and bent in one motion and snipped off the trailing length of barbed wire from the spool. As far as he was concerned, I was already gone.

  I put Rowdy under me again and rode up to the brow of the hill. When I looked back from there, Parsons was hammering a staple into one of the new fence posts to secure the length of wire. Putting muscle into the job, too; the whacks of his hammer were like pistol shots in the still air.

  Strange man, as well as a disagreeable one. I found myself wondering, as I rode on past the farm buildings, why a woman like Greta Parsons had married him; what she had seen in him that had attracted her. Whatever it was, it was beyond my powers of reckoning. And none of my concern, either. For all they seemed oddly mated, they might be happy and content together. You can't tell about a married couple. You would have to be one of a particular pair to understand the way things were between them, and even then you might not be too certain on some counts.

  Still and all, I could not help thinking that she didn't look happy and content. And that maybe she deserved better than this tenant farm and better than Jubal Parsons.

  Chapter 8

  SEEING GRETA PARSONS THAT AFTERNOON MADE ME WANT to see Hannah that night, I suppose partly because of the similarities between them. I thought about Hannah all the way back to town, and off and on during the afternoon, and while I endured Ivy's pry-and-prattle over supper. Soon after we finished eating I got my coat and went out and walked around on the east side of town for a while, letting enough time pass so that I would not interrupt Hannah's supper and any evening chores she might have. It was near nine when I finally walked back across the bridge and through town and climbed the rise to the Dalton house.

  Hannah was on the porch, as usual, and again I had the notion she was pleased to see me. I also thought I detected a measure of concern in her voice when she asked, "How are you feeling, Lincoln?" right after she let me in.

  "Feeling?"

  "Your head. The prowler last night."

  "You know about that?" I asked, surprised.

  "Oh yes. All about it."

  "How? I didn't see you in town today. . . ."

  "I wasn't in town today."

  "But I thought that—"

  "That I didn't have callers? I don't, usually." She smiled. It was difficult to tell in the lamplight, but there did not seem to be any humor in it. "The good citizens of Tule Bend tell me things on occasion," she said. "Things they want me to know."

  "I don't understand."

  "Does it really matter, Lincoln?"

  "It does to me. Why would somebody want you to know I was hurt last night?"

  "You're sitting here with me now, aren't you?"

  "You mean because I come here to see you?"

  "At night. You come at night."

  "Hannah, I . . ."

  "The whole town knows about it," she said. "Did you think it was a secret?"

  "No. And I don't care what the town knows."

  "The town cares," she said.

  "To hell with the town."

  "You don't mean that."

  "I do mean it. By God, I do. It's nobody's business but yours and mine."

  "You're naive if you believe that. The town constable keeping company with the
town whore—that is everyone's business, like it or not."

  Heat had come into my face. I leaned toward her. "What kind of talk is that? You're not a . . . you're not that kind of woman.''

  "The town thinks I am."

  "Damn the town!"

  "Don't shout, Lincoln. Please."

  I had shouted, the first time I had ever raised my voice to her. It shamed me; she was the victim, not the villain, and I had no right to be railing at her in any case. I sat back in my chair, put a tight rein on my feelings before I asked, soft, "Who was it told you about my trouble with the prowler?"

  "I'd rather not say."

  "I'd rather you did. I want to know."

  "Why? So you can confront the person?"

  ''I just want to know.''

  "It isn't important," Hannah said. "If I give you one name, I might as well give you half a dozen. People are the way they are—you must know that. You can't change them; no one can change them except themselves, and most have no desire to change."

  "That doesn't mean I have to accept it."

  "But you do. You do accept it."

  "I don't."

  "You live here, you're part of the town. We both are. As long as we choose to remain, you and I must accept what people say and think about us, what they believe we are."

  To have something to do with my hands, I got out my pipe and tamped tobacco into the bowl. I did not say anything.

  "Lincoln? You know I'm right."

  "Maybe so. But I don't have to like it."

  When she spoke again there was an edge of strain to the words. "I've coffee made. Or would you rather go?" Leaving it up to me.

  I didn't hesitate. "I'd like to stay, if you'll allow it."

  "Of course."

  She touched my arm, let her hand linger for a second— the first time she had ever touched me with any intimacy. Then she stood and entered the house.

  I sat quiet, fancying that I could still feel the heat of her fingers. There was a dull ache down low in my belly—an ache I knew too well, that in the past had led me down to one of the parlor houses in San Francisco when it became too much to tolerate. But at the same time I felt uneasy and confused and not a little angry. People coming up here on some pretext or other, telling Hannah things about me, making their snide comments to her and to each other—and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. People are the way they are . . . you can't change them . . . as long as we remain here, you and I must accept what people say and think about us. . . .