“I’m not hungry, Dad.”
“But you must eat.”
Lynn hugged him, kissed his cheek and smiled at him lovingly.
“Don’t worry about me, Dad. I’m tough! I can roll with the punches. Remember you taught me that a long time ago?” She smiled at him.
“Oh, yes, you’re tough — you’re about as tough as a three-week-old kitten,” her father said tenderly. And after the door had closed behind him Lynn stood for a long moment, drawn to her full height.
For a day or two Lynn roamed the house like a restless spirit. Ruth watched her anxiously and was very gentle and loving. The Judge seemed to grow thinner and more frail beneath the burden of his grief for her, and Steve was cold-eyed, speaking to her only when he had to.
The news from the hospital was better. It was now admitted that Larry’s chances were improving. The doctors said cautiously the boy had a good chance of making a complete recovery, and so some of the hatred and condemnation of the people of Oakville and Rivertown was dissipated. But Jim Holland was as active as ever, and there were still rumblings of fury against a man who would shoot down a boy and leave him dying in the woods. And it was no thanks to McCullers, said public opinion, that the boy had managed the superhuman effort of getting out of the woods and being rescued from death.
Lynn slipped out of the house one afternoon when Ruth was engaged with some friends. She walked down across the back lot and into the woods, and felt more dispirited than she had ever felt. Her father and Steve agreed that things would be eased for Wayde, now that Larry was going to recover. But he would be sentenced, and would serve anywhere from five to ten years, they felt, for aggravated assault and attempted murder.
Hearing them, Lynn’s mind had felt dazed and stupid. They couldn’t possibly be talking about Wayde! It seemed so completely fantastic to her that anybody could possibly believe Wayde capable of so vicious a crime.
She was scarcely conscious of where she was, and she did not see Bert Estes until he stepped from the bushes that had concealed him and spoke her name.
‘Oh, Bert.” She turned and smiled at him. “I didn’t hear you.”
“No’m, I know you didn’t.” Bert smiled his childlike smile at her, his eyes eager. “I was afeared you’d gone away again, Miss Lynn. I been here in the woods ever’ day lookin’ for you. I got to ask you something.”
“Have you, Bert? What is it?” Lynn was desperately tired, her mind completely occupied with Wayde, but this gentle, childlike creature had aroused her sympathy and she could do no less than listen to him.
“Well, let’s set here on this log, Miss Lynn,” suggested Bert eagerly. “And you won’t tell nobody on me, will you, Miss Lynn?”
“Of course I won’t, Bert. We’re friends, remember?” Lynn smiled.
“Well, Miss Lynn, two-three, maybe four days ago, I was here feedin’ some of my little folks,” Bert began, “and I seen somebody comin’ with a gun. It scairt me, ‘cause I thought sure they’d shoot my little folks. So I just crep’ along behind the bushes, watching so’s I could maybe see what he was goin’ to do. He come down from where Mr. McCullers lives.”
Lynn’s hands gripped each other so tightly that the pain helped her not to cry out. Oh, no, she told herself frantically; Bert wasn’t going to tell her he’d seen Wayde shoot Larry.
“I dunno where Larry ever got him a gun like that,” Bert went on, oblivious to her sudden tension. But when Lynn’s hand shot out and gripped his arm, Bert recoiled from her, fear riding high in his childlike face.
“Larry had a gun?” she gasped. “Larry Holland?”
“Well, yessum, Miss Lynn. That’s what I’m tellin’ you.” Bert was bewildered by her sudden excitement. “A right fine gun ‘twas, too. He come right toward where I was standin’, and I could see it, all shiny-new and fine. Where’d Larry ever get such a gun, Miss Lynn?”
“Was he alone, Bert?” Lynn asked, and the words came from her throat with difficulty.
“Sure, Miss Lynn, like always,” Bert told her. “Only other times I’ve seen him here he didn’t have only a slingshot. He was mean with that, though. He could kill birds or squirrels with it. Only that day I seen him he had this fine — pretty gun. Reckon where he got it, Miss Lynn?”
“I don’t know, Bert.” Lynn steadied her voice with an effort, knowing that if she let Bert see how breathless with excitement she was, he might forget what he was trying to tell her. “But what did he do with the gun?”
“Oh, he threw it away,” said Bert, “soon as he shot hisself.”
Lynn cried out sharply, “What?”
Alarmed, Bert tried to draw away from her.
“Well, yessum, Miss Lynn,” he stammered. “I seen him. He shot at a ground squirrel, but it run and then he run, too, and he caught his toe on a root and fell and the gun went off. And he just laid there. And there was blood all over him.”
Bert shuddered at the memory.
Lynn sat very still, dazed momentarily by the wave of relief that swept over her. Here, out of the mouth of this innocent, bewildered creature with his hulking body of a man and his mind of a child, she had been told what had really happened here in these woods. She had never believed that Wayde was guilty. And now she knew! She could have screamed aloud at the exquisite knowledge of the truth.
“You ain’t mad at me, are you, Miss Lynn?” whimpered Bert uneasily. “Honest, I didn’t do nothing to him.”
“And the gun, Bert? What did he do with the gun?” Lynn fought to keep her voice low-pitched, steady, so that she would not startle him further.
“Oh, it’s over there where he throwed it, Miss Lynn.”
“Show me, Bert!” she urged.
“Well, yessum, but you ain’t goin’ to let ‘em do nothing’ to me, are you, Miss Lynn?”
“Of course not, Bert — of course not!” she soothed him. Trustingly Bert rose and guided her deeper into the woods and pointed to something half covered by leaves.
Lynn bent, her hand out to touch the gun, then swiftly drew back. If the gun was here, where Larry had tossed it, then mightn’t it have his fingerprints?
“You haven’t touched the gun, Bert?” she asked when she could manage her voice.
“Oh, no, Miss Lynn.” Bert was very definite about that. “I’m scairt o’ guns and I hate ‘em.”
Lynn knelt and studied the gun, and then she stood up.
“Bert, you saw Larry shoot himself, didn’t you?” she asked tensely.
“Well, yessum, Miss Lynn, sure I did. He didn’t go to do it. He was runnin’, and he stumbled, and the gun shot.”
Lynn’s mind was racing. Here was the proof she’d been praying for; the eyewitness who could testify to what had really happened! And for further proof there was the gun, exactly where it had fallen! Her heart was racing like mad, and she felt like dancing!
“Bert, you stay right here and don’t let anybody or anything touch that gun, promise?”
“Well, sure, Miss Lynn.” Bert was bewildered.
“Bert, Larry told people that Mr. McCullers shot him, in cold blood, and then went off and left him to get out of the woods the best way he could,” Lynn said swiftly.
Bert’s eyes were enormous in his big round moon-face.
“Why, that ain’t so, Miss Lynn. Mr. McCullers weren’t nowhere around. Larry shot hisself. Why’d he want to He like that?” he protested.
“I don’t know, Bert; we’ll have to wait and ask him,” Lynn answered. “You stay right here, Bert, and watch that gun. I’m going to call the police.”
“No, no, Miss Lynn, they’ll lock me up,” Bert wailed, terrified.
“They’ll do nothing of the sort, Bert! Don’t you trust me?”
“Well, yessum, only — well, that was why I didn’t try to help Larry when I seen he’d hurt hisself. I knowed folks would try to say I done it, and I didn’t.”
“Of course you didn’t, Bert. And nobody’s ever going to threaten you again. You just stay here and see nobody touches that gun until I get back. Will you do that?” Lynn pleaded.
Bert cast a wary eye at the gun as though it had been a coiled snake, nodded reluctantly, and Lynn patted his shoulder and turned toward the house.
She came in the back door and through the hall to the telephone. She was deaf to the ladylike voices, the genteel rattle of teaspoons against her mother’s best china, as she lifted the telephone and dialed the police.
She had some difficulty getting Chief Hudgins to the phone, but when she did, she said swiftly, “Mr. Hudgins, this is Lynn Carter. Can you come out here right away? I know now how Larry Holland was shot.”
“So do we, Miss Carter,” said Chief Hudgins grimly.
“You think you do, Mr. Hudgins, but it wasn’t like that at all. I have an eyewitness to the shooting, and
I also have the gun.
”
She heard Chief Hudgins mutter something that sounded like an oath of exasperation.
“Please hurry, Mr. Hudgins. Will you call Sheriff Tait, or shall I?” Lynn demanded.
“Don’t see any reason for calling Tait. This is my bailiwick.” Chief Hudgins was irritated. “I’m just using his jail for McCullers because folks here are so riled up, and we don’t want a lynching.”
“Will you come right out, Mr. Hudgins? I’ll meet you here in the drive. But hurry!” insisted Lynn, fearful that Bert’s terror might prove stronger than his promise to her.
“On my way, Miss Carter,” said Chief Hudgins curtly.
Lynn put down the telephone and turned to find Ruth standing in the doorway of the living room, wide-eyed and anxious. Grouped behind her were three of her church-circle friends.
“What was that all about, honey?” asked Ruth.
Lynn hugged her, gave the three women a bland smile and said sweetly, “Oh, I’ve just found proof that Wayde didn’t shoot the Holland boy.”
There was a small gasp from the three women, and Lynn added, “Of course, I never for a moment believed that he did, but there are some people who are pretty hard to convince.”
“Well, I’m sure if we’ve misjudged the man—” one of the women protested haughtily.
“You’re just about to find out just how much you’ve misjudged him,” Lynn told her crisply. “I can’t tell you about it now. I have to go wait for Chief Hudgins.”
She ran out of the house just as Chief Hudgins and one of his uniformed policemen skidded into the drive and drew up to a halt that sent gravel spattering.
Chief Hudgins was a big man in his late fifties, powerfully built. His big face was weather-ruddy, and his thinning hair was speckled with gray. He looked distinctly impressive as he moved toward Lynn, and she told herself that she could easily have been afraid of him if she had been on the wrong side of the law.
“All right, now, Miss Lynn,” Chief Hudgins acknowledged by the use of her name that he had known her since she was little more than an infant. “What’s all this about the shooting?”
“You’re all sure Wayde McCullers did it, aren’t you?”
“We’ve got the boy’s word for that.”
“And Larry’s always been famous for telling the truth at all times, hasn’t he?”
Chief Hudgins’ grim mouth thinned a little, and he rubbed a thumb over his closely shaven chin.
“Well, now, I don’t know as I’d go as far as to say that, Miss Lynn,” he admitted frankly. “Matter of fact, he’s as big a liar as you’d ever want to see, and a little punk that’s given us all a heap of trouble. But that don’t excuse a man like McCullers for shooting him down in cold blood and then going off, leaving him to bleed to death.”
“That wasn’t what happened at all, Mr. Hudgins,” Lynn insisted. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll take you to someone who was an eyewitness and show you where Larry threw the gun. It’s still there.”
She turned and ran toward the woods, and the chief and his companion plunged after her. As they reached the place where she had left Bert, Chief Hudgins slowed and eyed Bert, frowning.
“Now, Miss Lynn, you’re not going to ask me to take Bert’s word for this? He’s not the eyewitness you were talking about?” he demanded sharply.
“If the eyewitness hadn’t been someone so harassed and hounded by the ‘good people’ of Oakville, he would have come forward a long time ago.” Lynn flung the words at the chief, who reddened and looked a bit ashamed. “Because Bert was afraid of the police, he kept it to himself. He didn’t know about Mr. McCullers being arrested or the ugly things people were saying.”
“Then he’s the only one in three counties who didn’t,” snapped the Chief, and eyed Bert with a distinctly hostile eye. “It’s been in all the newspapers, clear to New York.”
“So?” Lynn’s eyes were on Bert, watching the fear that was clouding his eyes, terrified that he would panic and be unable to tell what he had seen as clearly as he had told her. “How many newspapers do you suppose the Estes family read? And if Bert’s parents knew about the shooting it would be the last thing in the world they’d want Bert to know. These woods — why, Bert lives in them. All the birds and animals are his friends.”
Chief Hudgins nodded.
“Well, what did you see, Bert? Come on, boy, out with it,” he barked.
“That’s not the way to talk to him, Mr. Hudgins,” Lynn warned him softly. She turned to Bert and put her hand on his arm, her voice gentle and soft. “Now, Bert, tell Mr. Hudgins and his friend what you just told me about how Larry got shot.”
Bert looked fearfully from one man to the other, and then down at Lynn. Her warm, friendly smile, her gentle touch on his arm dissipated his fears. He told the story again, as simply, as concisely as he had told it to her. And when he had finished he led them to where the gun lay, half buried in leaves.
Chief Hudgins knelt beside it, carefully not touching it with his hands, using a stick to brush back the leaves, bending low to examine the gun.
“The right calibre, all right,” said the companion.
Chief Hudgins drew an ancient, battered notebook from his hip-pocket, studied it, studied the gun, and stood up.
“Either McCullers’ gun or one exactly like it,” he grunted it. “Chances are it’s his.”
He turned and peered at Bert, who was trembling a little at being this close to the dreaded officers of the law, of whom he had such a deep fear.
“You don’t doubt Bert’s story, Mr. Hudgins?” asked Lynn at last, almost as tense and nervous as Bert, though for far different reasons.
“Oh, good grief, no!” Chief Hudgins answered. “Bert’s not got
mind
enough to make up a story like that. If he says he saw it, then he saw it just like that.”