The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told (17 page)

Abner came away from the door then. He took off his great coat. He put a log on the fire, and he sat down across the hearth from Dix. The new hickory sprang crackling into flames. For a good while there was silence; the two men sat at either end of the hearth without a word. Abner seemed to have fallen into a study of the man before him. Finally he spoke:

“Dix,” he said, “do you believe in the providence of God?”

Dix flung up his head.

“Abner,” he cried, “if you are going to talk nonsense I promise you upon my oath that I will not stay to listen.”

Abner did not at once reply. He seemed to begin now at another point.

“Dix,” he said, “you’ve had a good deal of bad luck . . . . Perhaps you wish it put that way.”

“Now, Abner,” he cried, “you speak the truth; I have had hell’s luck.”

“Hell’s luck you have had,” replied Abner. “It is a good word. I accept it. Your partner disappeared with all the money of the grazers on the other side of the river; you lost the land in your lawsuit; and you are tonight without a dollar. That was a big tract of land to lose. Where did you get so great a sum of money?”

“I have told you a hundred times,” replied Dix. “I got it from my people over the mountains. You know where I got it.”

“Yes,” said Abner. “I know where you got it, Dix. And I know another thing. But first I want to show you this,” and he took a little penknife out of his pocket. “And I want to tell you that I believe in the providence of God, Dix.”

“I don’t care a fiddler’s damn what you believe in,” said Dix.

“But you do care what I know,” replied Abner.

“What do you know?” said Dix.

“I know where your partner is,” replied Abner.

I was uncertain about what Dix was going to do, but finally he answered with a sneer.

“Then you know something that nobody else knows.”

“Yes,” replied Abner, “there is another man who knows.”

“Who?” said Dix.

“You,” said Abner.

Dix leaned over in his chair and looked at Abner closely.

“Abner,” he cried, “you are talking nonsense. Nobody knows where Alkire is. If I knew I’d go after him.”

“Dix,” Abner answered, and it was again in that deep, level voice, “if I had got here five minutes later you would have gone after him. I can promise you that, Dix.

“Now, listen! I was in the upcountry when I got your word about the partnership; and I was on my way back when at Big Run I broke a stirrup-leather. I had no knife and I went into the store and bought this one; then the storekeeper told me that Alkire had gone to see you. I didn’t want to interfere with him and I turned back . . . . So I did not become your partner. And so I did not disappear . . . . What was it that prevented? The broken stirrup-leather? The knife? In old times, Dix, men were so blind that God had to open their eyes before they could see His angel in the way before them . . . . They are still blind, but they ought not to be that blind . . . . Well, on the night that Alkire disappeared I met him on his way to your house. It was out there at the bridge. He had broken a stirrup-leather and he was trying to fasten it with a nail. He asked me if I had a knife, and I gave him this one. It was beginning to rain and I went on, leaving him there in the road with the knife in his hand.”

Abner paused; the muscles of his great iron jaw contracted.

“God forgive me,” he said; “it was His angel again! I never saw Alkire after that.”

“Nobody ever saw him after that,” said Dix. “He got out of the hills that night.”

“No,” replied Abner; “it was not in the night when Alkire started on his journey; it was in the day.”

“Abner,” said Dix, “you talk like a fool. If Alkire had traveled the road in the day somebody would have seen him.”

“Nobody could see him on the road he traveled,” replied Abner.

“What road?” said Dix.

“Dix,” replied Abner, “you will learn that soon enough.”

Abner looked hard at the man.

“You saw Alkire when he started on his journey,” he continued; “but did you see who it was that went with him?”

“Nobody went with him,” replied Dix; “Alkire rode alone.”

“Not alone,” said Abner; “there was another.”

“I didn’t see him,” said Dix.

“And yet,” continued Abner, “you made Alkire go with him.”

I saw cunning enter Dix’s face. He was puzzled, but he thought Abner off the scent.

“And I made Alkire go with somebody, did I? Well, who was it? Did you see him?”

“Nobody ever saw him.”

“He must be a stranger.”

“No,” replied Abner, “he rode the hills before we came into them.”

“Indeed!” said Dix. “And what kind of a horse did he ride?”

“White!” said Abner.

Dix got some inkling of what Abner meant now, and his face grew livid.

“What are you driving at?” he cried. “You sit here beating around the bush. If you know anything, say it out; let’s hear it. What is it?”

Abner put out his big sinewy hand as though to thrust Dix back into his chair.

“Listen!” he said. “Two days after that I wanted to get out into the Ten Mile country and I went through your lands; I rode a path through the narrow valley west of your house. At a point on the path where there is an apple tree something caught my eye and I stopped. Five minutes later I knew exactly what had happened under that apple tree . . . . Someone had ridden there; he had stopped under that tree; then something happened and the horse had run away—I knew that by the tracks of a horse on this path. I knew that the horse had a rider and that it had stopped under this tree, because there was a limb cut from the tree at a certain height. I knew the horse had remained there, because the small twigs of the apple limb had been pared off, and they lay in a heap on the path. I knew that something had frightened the horse and that it had run away, because the sod was torn up where it had jumped . . . . Ten minutes later I knew that the rider had not been in the saddle when the horse jumped; I knew what it was that had frightened the horse; and I knew that the thing had occurred the day before. Now, how did I know that?

“Listen! I put my horse into the tracks of that other horse under the tree and studied the ground. Immediately I saw where the weeds beside the path had been crushed, as though some animal had been lying down there, and in the very center of that bed I saw a little heap of fresh earth. That was strange, Dix, that fresh earth where the animal had been lying down! It had come there after the animal had got up, or else it would have been pressed flat. But where had it come from?

“I got off and walked around the apple tree, moving out from it in an ever-widening circle. Finally I found an ant heap, the top of which had been scraped away as though one had taken up the loose earth in his hands. Then I went back and plucked up some of the earth. The under clods of it were colored as with red paint . . . . No, it wasn’t paint.

“There was a brush fence some fifty yards away. I went over to it and followed it down.

“Opposite the apple tree the weeds were again crushed as though some animal had lain there. I sat down in that place and drew a line with my eye across a log of the fence to a limb of the apple tree. Then I got on my horse and again put him in the tracks of that other horse under the tree; the imaginary line passed through the pit of my stomach! . . . I am four inches taller than Alkire.”

It was then that Dix began to curse. I had seen his face work while Abner was speaking and that spray of sweat had reappeared. But he kept the courage he had got.

“Lord Almighty, man!” he cried. “How prettily you sum it up! We shall presently have Lawyer Abner with his brief. Because my renters have killed a calf; because one of their horses frightened at the blood has bolted, and because they cover the blood with earth so the other horses traveling the path may not do the like; straightway I have shot Alkire out of his saddle . . . . Man! What a mare’s nest! And now, Lawyer Abner, with your neat little conclusions, what did I do with Alkire after I had killed him? Did I cause him to vanish into the air with a smell of sulphur, or did I cause the earth to yawn and Alkire to descend into its bowels?”

“Dix,” replied Abner, “your words move somewhat near the truth.”

“Upon my soul,” cried Dix, “you compliment me. If I had that trick of magic, believe me, you would be already some distance down.”

Abner remained a moment silent.

“Dix,” he said, “what does it mean when one finds a plot of earth resodded?”

“Is that a riddle?” cried Dix. “Well, confound me, if I don’t answer it! You charge me with murder and then you fling in this neat conundrum. Now, what could be the answer to that riddle, Abner? If one had done a murder this sod would overlie a grave and Alkire would be in it in his bloody shirt. Do I give the answer?”

“You do not,” replied Abner.

“No!” cried Dix. “Your sodded plot no grave, and Alkire not within it waiting for the trump of Gabriel! Why, man, where are your little damned conclusions?”

“Dix,” said Abner, “you do not deceive me in the least; Alkire is not sleeping in a grave.”

“Then in the air,” sneered Dix, “with the smell of sulphur?”

“Nor in the air,” said Abner.

“Then consumed with fire, like the priests of Baal?”

“Nor with fire,” said Abner.

Dix had got back the quiet of his face; this banter had put him where he was when Abner entered. “This is all fools’ talk,” he said; “if I had killed Alkire, what could I have done with the body? And the horse! What could I have done with the horse? Remember, no man has ever seen Alkire’s horse any more than he has seen Alkire—and for the reason that Alkire rode him out of the hills that night. Now, look here, Abner, you have asked me a good many questions. I will ask you one. Among your little conclusions do you find that I did this thing alone or with the aid of others?”

“Dix,” replied Abner, “I will answer that upon my own belief you had no accomplice.”

“Then,” said Dix, “how could I have carried off the horse? Alkire I might carry; but his horse weighed thirteen hundred pounds!”

“Dix,” said Abner, “no man helped you do this thing; but there were men who helped you to conceal it.”

“And now,” cried Dix, “the man is going mad! Who could I trust with such work, I ask you? Have I a renter that would not tell it when he moved on to another’s land, or when he got a quart of cider in him? Where are the men who helped me?”

“Dix,” said Abner, “they have been dead these fifty years.”

I heard Dix laugh then, and his evil face lighted as though a candle were behind it. And in truth, I thought he had got Abner silenced.

“In the name of Heaven!” he cried. “With such proofs it is a wonder that you did not have me hanged.”

“And hanged you should have been,” said Abner.

“Well,” cried Dix, “go and tell the sheriff, and mind you lay before him those little, neat conclusions: How from a horse track and the place where a calf was butchered you have reasoned on Alkire’s murder, and to conceal the body and the horse you have reasoned on the aid of men who were rotting in their graves when I was born; and see how he will receive you!”

Abner gave no attention to the man’s flippant speech. He got his great silver watch out of his pocket, pressed the stem and looked. Then he spoke in his deep, even voice.

“Dix,” he said, “it is nearly midnight; in an hour you must be on your journey, and I have something more to say. Listen! I knew this thing had been done the previous day because it had rained on the night that I met Alkire, and the earth of this ant heap had been disturbed after that. Moreover, this earth had been frozen, and that showed a night had passed since it had been placed there. And I knew the rider of that horse was Alkire because, beside the path near the severed twigs lay my knife, where it had fallen from his hand. This much I learned in some fifteen minutes; the rest took somewhat longer.

“I followed the track of the horse until it stopped in the little valley below. It was easy to follow while the horse ran, because the sod was torn; but when it ceased to run there was no track that I could follow. There was a little stream threading the valley, and I began at the wood and came slowly up to see if I could find where the horse had crossed. Finally I found a horse track and there was also a man’s track, which meant that you had caught the horse and were leading it away. But where?

“On the rising ground above there was an old orchard where there had once been a house. The work about that house had been done a hundred years. It was rotted down now. You had opened this orchard into the pasture. I rode all over the face of this hill and finally I entered this orchard. There was a great, flat, mosscovered stone lying a few steps from where the house had stood. As I looked I noticed that the moss growing from it into the earth had been broken along the edges of the stone, and then I noticed that for a few feet about the stone the ground had been resodded. I got down and lifted up some of this new sod. Under it the earth had been soaked with that . . . red paint.

“It was clever of you Dix, to resod the ground; that took only a little time and it effectually concealed the place where you had killed the horse; but it was foolish of you to forget that the broken moss around the edges of the great flat stone could not be mended.”