Mother Lode (3 page)

Those who frequented these
watering holes had three passions—booze, bawds and brawls—in that
order. And here you could learn what had happened
up top
that day. Long
after other establishments had buttoned up for the night, gas
street lamps lured the working men into their open arms. Not that
they needed any encouragement.

The Bear Claw
was such an establishment. Miners swarmed in,
stamping the snow off their boots, and blowing on their hands. The
smells of tobacco mingled with the hard-won sweat from the fiery
pits below. The patrons didn’t mind. Years of working in the foul
smelling depths, where, like moles, they were accustomed to
darkness—the overlay of fog in the saloon, made yellow by the gas
lamps and smoke, did nothing to dampen their spirits.

The news on that evening
caused the din in
The Bear Claw
to rise to an even greater pitch than usual, and
everybody in there had something to say.

Stout, the saloon keeper,
had made sure to get all the information he could while the miners
were still below grass. His
congregation
, as he called them,
would expect as much.

“What happened to her, Stout?” Red Topper
asked.

"Her son took her out to the woods on a joy
ride.”

Hardy cut in. “He’s either plum loony, or he
was puttin’ his ma away. Ain’t that right, Stout?”

“You talk to the sheriff?” Gums asked.

"Nope. Heard all about it from Kurt.” Stout
spoke with authority as he transferred the dirty glasses from the
tub of soapy water to the rinse basin. “He took the kid and a posse
out there to find the body this morning.”

Stout could afford to be generous with his
information and his drafts. The Bear Claw would make a lot of money
tonight.

“They find her?”

“Nope.”

A hush fell as the door opened and the wind
ushered in the sheriff. Heads turned.

Earl mounted a stool. A babble of questions
greeted him as Stout placed a whiskey before him.

“Mrs. Radcliff, she’s dead?”

“Don’t see how she could be alive.”

“Her son took her out there with a storm
comin’ in?”

Gums O’Mallory moistened his lips. “And just
left her there to freeze to death?”

“What’s that look like to you, Sheriff?”

Earl decided coming here was a mistake. He
waved off the questions, and took his drink to a table in the
back.

The men showed enough respect to leave him
alone.

In a way it was odd, Earl thought, that there
was such a to-do about Catherine Radcliff’s death. Plenty of
barroom fights, some leading to death, broke out among men who only
saw the light of day at night, and the night all day long.

Mine accidents, from explosions and collapses
to men falling down mile-deep shafts, had all taken their toll in
this community. A woman didn’t know when she sent her husband off
with his lunch pail if she’d ever see him again. Murder was not
that unusual either in this brawling mining town, where a pint of
forty-rod at his favorite saloon was more important than a man's
religion. But the thought of a man taking the life of the one who’d
given him life was beyond their understanding.

Earl was finishing his drink and about to
leave when a young man approached him, pulled up a chair and sat
down.

“I’m Walter Radcliff.”

Earl appraised the man. “Catherine Radcliff’s
step-son?”

“Ball in the pocket.”

Earl looked for a resemblance between the
young man and his father, but couldn’t detect any. Must look like
his mother. His facial features were unattractive, though he
possessed a fine physique. Most miners did, he mused, until the
work broke them.

“What can I do for you?”

“I knew there was trouble between Jorie and
his ma, so what happened out there in the blizzard—” he tipped his
chair back— “Well, there’s no great surprise there, is there?”

“You got your mind all made up?”

Walter laughed. “You think it was an
‘accident’, do you, Sheriff?”

“I’m gathering information about the
family,” Earl said. “Would you mind stopping by my office tomorrow
evening?”

Walter shook his head. “I’m heading back to
Red Jacket in the morning.” He surveyed the surroundings. “Strikes
me this is as good an office as any.”

Radcliff signaled Stout to bring another
round to the table and leaned forward. “Watcha wanna know,
Sheriff?”

Earl didn’t like the man’s attitude and he
didn’t like the venue for this interview, but he remembered
something about a bird in hand.

“How old were you when your pa married Miss
MacGaurin?”

“’Bout six, I reckon.”

“How did you and your step-ma get on?”

“There was no love between us. I won’t
pretend there was.”

“Why is that?”

Earl heard the young man’s feet shuffle on
the other side of the table.

“She was crazy about her own kid. Didn’t
want to be bothered with somebody else’s brat.”

“You must have stored up some resentment
about that.”

Walter shot his wad of chewing tobacco
several feet into the spittoon, looked up with a smile as if
expecting praise. “Yeah, but I wasn’t out in the woods playing
‘Hide or Die’, was I?”

He took the drink from Stout’s hand before
it was on the table, and poured it down his throat. “My half
brother deliberately left his ma out there in the storm. Some would
call that murder, sheriff.”

Earl didn’t like his cockiness. “What leads
you to that conclusion?”

“I saw ‘em go—the two of ‘em heading into
that storm. Only him came back.”

“And what grandstand seat did you have to
watch these comings and goings?”

“I was over to Peabody’s. Could see it all
from his front window.”

“Anything else?”

“Ain’t that enough?”

“What are you doing in Hancock, Walter?
Thought you worked up in Red Jacket.”

“Came down to get the horses. Somebody’s
gotta take care of them. Jorie ‘pears to have taken off.”

“Are you or your brothers married?”

“Why do you want to know that?”

“We’ll be looking for a home for Eliza.”

“Who?”

The deceased’s little daughter.”

“Oh.”

“Her custody is uncertain at this point. The
aunt would prefer not—”

“That girl is no kin to me or my
brothers.”

“Pardon me, but I believe she is your
half-sister.”

“I don’t even know her. And my older
brothers barely knew who the deceased was. They was all grown by
the time I got stuck with a new ma.” He chewed on this awhile. “Why
can’t Jorie take her? Oh, yeah, he’s prob’ly going to hang.”

Earl shook his head. “Michigan was the first
state in the union to do away with capital punishment.”

“Yeah? ’More’s the pity.” Walter rose.
“Well, you think on what I said, Sheriff.” He tipped his cap and
took his leave.

Earl watched the young man swagger out.
Walter’s ‘proof’ wasn’t worth a fart in the wind.

He would check on Walter’s story, but the
only thing it would prove is whether he was the consummate liar
Earl conjectured he was.

As he tossed in bed that night, Earl
wondered about the man who Jorie said had helped him. He would put
something in the paper asking this man to come forth. Seemed a damn
shame that Jorie knew neither the name of the man with the lantern
nor his whereabouts. And how handy that the falling snow showed no
footprints to prove or disprove Jorie’s story.

The next day on their way out of town, Earl
had the search party stop at Orville Peabody’s place on the main
road north. Orville lived by himself. Confined to a wheelchair
after an accident in the mine, he managed to keep house by himself
except for a half-breed who came in once a week to help.

Earl rapped on the door, knocked the snow
off his boots and let himself in. Orville was at the table eating
porridge. He smiled at Earl. “How you doin’, ole man?”

“Watchit, I’m younger than you,
Sheriff.”

“True enough. Orville, have you seen
anything of Walter Radcliff lately? Has he been by?”

“Yup.”

“When was that?”

“He brought over some newspapers, all about
his stepmother’s death. He seemed quite pleased about it.”

“Did you see him the day of the storm?”

“Naw, not ‘til the next afternoon. I saw
Jorie Radcliff that day, though. Riding north with his ma.”

“What was the weather like then?”

“Still sunny. Didn’t see him come back,
though. In the blizzard I couldn’t see that bush by the
window.”

Volunteers came every day to help with the
search, even the coroner, Lester Meisel.

After the fourth day, Earl
said to Jorie, “Are you sure it was in
Michigan
you left her?”

But on the fifth, the coroner, with a team
of dogs, found the body of Catherine Radcliff lying on her face,
frozen under a foot of snow. Wrapping her carefully in a blanket,
he whistled to the others that the search was over.

Lester Meisel looked up from the document
he’d just signed. “Mrs. Radcliff had a broken ankle, sustained in
her fall, I suspect. Apparently, she went willingly with him.”

“What do you make of her lying on her
face?”

“Reckon she crawled some from where he left
her, trying to save herself.” He looked up. “Sad thing, indeed. She
died like a wolf cub in the storm, with her back to the wind.”

Lester had a way with words, Earl thought.
Some said he should have been a poet.

The coroner capped the ink bottle and
blotted the paper. “Here’s the certificate.”

Earl read it. “Cause of death: Exposure to
cold.”

“Did you find any bruises or signs of
force?”

“Hard to tell.” He paused. “It won’t be
possible to have a viewing of the body, Earl. Animals—”

“That’s enough.” He didn’t want to pursue
that line. He said only, “Will you be wanting an inquest,
Lester?”

“I think we can dispense with that,
Sheriff.”

Earl Foster dreaded going to the service. He
knew he’d be barraged by questions before and after.

He deliberately arrived late. When he
entered the Radcliff home he could hear those assembled singing a
hymn in the parlor. He winced when he saw that the manner in which
it was set up provided no way to slip in inconspicuously. The
doorway to the back parlor was at the front of the room where the
minister stood.

Earl bowed slightly to the reverend and
stood to the side, feeling all eyes upon him. Several more people
arrived after he did, and the quartet had to pick up their music
stands and move to the next room.

No coffin. A photo of Catherine taken on her
wedding day graced a small table with flowers.

Standing at the side of the room gave him a
certain advantage. He could see who was there, and recognized most
of them. There were his poker buddies—George McKinney, the judge;
and Buck Boyce, the prosecuting attorney; who had met in this house
for so many years to play cards. He spotted Toby Wilson, the
Radcliffs’ lawyer. The few he didn’t know he supposed were
relatives from out of town, or busybodies.

Where was Jorie? Stretching his neck he
could see him nowhere.

The minister, whose job it was to comfort
the living and bury the dead, droned on about the rewards in
heaven, and then turned his attention to the virtues of the
deceased.

“I can only describe the deceased in
laudatory terms. There are many here who can testify to the
goodness of Mrs. Radcliff. A more upright and charitable soul would
be hard to find.”

Earl remembered hearing those exact words
spoken at other services—all vague generalities. He didn’t believe
Catherine had attended the Congregational Church in years, doubted
this young minister even knew her.

The back parlor, though dusted and aired for
special occasions, appeared eternally funereal to Earl. He looked
around at the mourners. Any tears? He heard the stifled sobs of a
woman in the second row—the housekeeper, he thought. But where was
Jorie?

When the service ended, he spotted the smoke
haloes coming from the judge’s cigar in the next room. George
McKinney was one of those people whom nature had endowed with a
perennial red face, always appearing to have just spent a day in
the sun. Spared from the labors that aged younger men in the mines,
at sixty-eight he still possessed a commanding presence and a fine
physique. McKinney was well aware of the effect he had on others,
and thoroughly enjoyed his standing in the community.

As Earl approached he heard the prosecuting
attorney ask the judge, “Going to run for another term,
George?”

The judge appeared to be studying his cigar.
“Well, you’ll be glad to know, I’ve been thinking of retiring,
Buck.”

“You can’t do that, George — you’re an
institution!”

“And one that’s due for a rest. I guess that
opens the gate for you.” McKinney turned to wink at Earl.

Buck Boyce pursed his lips and raised an
eyebrow as though he hadn’t thought of this before.

“Possibly. Possibly, George.”

Possibly, indeed! Buck Boyce had been
gnawing on that gate for years.

Earl spoke to George. “Have you seen
Jorie?”

The judge could see over everyone’s head.
His eyes swept the room. “No, no, I haven’t.”

Earl wished George would dump his ashes
before they dropped to the floor. McKinney was always doing that.
There was a crack about how you could always tell where the judge
had been— he left a trail of cigar crumbs behind.

As he walked away, George reminded him,
“Poker tomorrow night.”

Earl scanned the remaining first floor
rooms, then ran to the top of the stairs and called. When he got no
response he came back, waved off questions and went out on the
veranda to look for Jorie.