“I’m drivin’ the car.”
“I see you are. How are you, Joy?”
“I’m nice. I don’t ask Mr. Johnson for ice cream.”
“That is being a nice girl. But you’re always nice.” Eudora glanced at Jethro and smiled. “Good-bye.” He tipped his hat when she walked away with her brother.
“Jethro, wait,” Wilbur Humphrey called out to him as he was getting in the car. “I want to thank you for taking Birdie and Elsie in. I feel ashamed for pushing her off on you, but my family was falling apart.”
“She’s gone now. Her husband came and took her home.”
“I heard that he did. The news is all over town. He hired Al Manson to take him out to your place. No one likes gossip like Al. He’s had the time of his life spreading the story.”
“Her husband has far more patience with her than I would have had.”
“She’s always been strange,” Wilbur said. “When she was a little girl, she made up things so she could get her way. I got many a whippin’ over something she told. I hadn’t heard from her for many, many years when she came here. Because she’s blood kin, I had to take her in when she said her husband had died and she had nowhere to go. She lied about that. I know that now. I know that she lied about a lot other things, too.” Wilbur shook his head. “Ruth was ready to pack up and leave me.”
“Poor devil of a husband of hers has his work cut out for him.” Jethro glanced at Julie and Evan standing apart talking earnestly to each other, then at Miss Meadows, who had stopped to speak to Joe. The two of them were teasing Jack.
Whatever had possessed him to think that Birdie Stuart would fit into his family? Thank God for her husband.
“I’ve got to be gettin’ on, Jethro. I just wanted to be sure that there was no hard feelin’s.”
“Not on my side, Wilbur. Comin’ to the ball game Saturday?”
“We plan on being there Saturday evenin’ and Sunday afternoon. With Jack playin’, we wouldn’t miss it.”
Jill got her lunch box and Jack’s out of the car. “Jack and I are goin’ on to school, Papa.”
“Can I go?” Joy yelled.
“No. You’re too little.”
“I don’t wanna be too little.”
“Well, you are and that’s that.”
Evan walked Julie over to the car. When she was seated, he spoke to Jethro.
“I plan to stay on the farm, Jethro. I’m going to need plenty of advice, as I’m not much of a farmer.”
“We’ll be glad to help in any way we can.”
“I’ll appreciate it.” He reached for Julie’s hand. “I’ve asked your daughter to marry me. We don’t plan on marrying right away, but someday you’re going to have to get along without her.”
“I knew that I couldn’t keep her forever. She’s entitled to have a home of her own.”
“I wanted you to know that I love her and will take care of her.”
“ ’Preciate you tellin’ me. We’d better be gettin’ along home.”
“Thanks for coming, Jethro. I’ll see you tonight, Julie.”
* * *
A pair of sharp, bright eyes followed Jill and Jack as they walked down the street toward the school.
There she is again.
Something about her called out to him as none of the others had done. She was pretty and feisty and …young. She’d never been broken into. He would be the first, just the way he liked it.
For days now the pressure had been building. When that happened, he slept restlessly, if at all. Afterward he would sleep deeply and dreamlessly. He was sure that of the five Fertile girls he’d had this year, only two of them had
caught.
The other three were still in town, but it was too soon to tell about the last two. He had no way of knowing about the other five from the surrounding towns.
Seldom did he get to see his children, and that saddened him. Usually the girls were hustled out of town as soon as it became known that they were pregnant. Only once or twice had he been lucky enough to see one of them with her belly swelled with his child. It irritated him that some of the girls didn’t keep the children who had been created from the fruit of his loins.
He chuckled as Jethro Jones turned out of the cemetery and headed up the rocky road toward home. Joy was on the seat between him and Julie. She wouldn’t be leaving town. He’d be able to watch her grow up, go to school. Someday she’d know who he was.
God, how I wish I could claim her.
* * *
“Marshal, I could find someone to go along with you— Sparky, Poole from the hardware or the older Jones boy.” Corbin Appleby stood beside Marshal Sanford’s big touring car.
“It isn’t necessary. This fellow isn’t going to give me any trouble.” After checking the cuffs on his prisoner and the padlocked chain that went around his waist holding him to the seat, the marshal and Corbin stepped away from the car.
Otto Bloom had stood before Judge Murphy at nine o’clock that morning and been charged with the murder of Walter Johnson. The marshal was taking him to St. Joseph to await trial because the facilities at the courthouse were inadequate for holding a prisoner any longer than a day or two. He would be returned for the trial. By then Corbin hoped to have his jail built.
“You’re doing a good job here, Appleby. I wish now I’d taken you on as a deputy.”
“Thank you, Marshal, but Fertile is big enough for me.”
“Will Mrs. Bloom be all right?”
“I think so. The house is paid for. Surely she can find enough work to feed herself and the boy. It’ll take a while for her to get her confidence and self-respect back after ten years of taking abuse from this shit-head. I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“Keep your eye on Wood. This may curtail his bootlegging activities for a while. Once Bloom realizes he’s not going to get any help from him, he may spill his guts about goings-on at the bank.” They walked back to the car. “I’d better get going and get my prisoner over to St. Joe.”
Corbin walked up to the car. “Otto, I want you to know, before you go, that in my book you are one lousy, heartless, shit-eatin’ son-of-a-bitch.” Corbin tried to look the man in the eye, but Otto refused to look at him. “When you’re in prison fighting to keep your pants up, think of the nice little woman here in Fertile who cooked your meals, washed your clothes and kept your house neat as a pin. While you’re getting slapped around, think of the times you hit her with your fist and kicked her.”
Like a little cornered snake, Otto spat, but not on Corbin. He was too smart for that. His small eyes blazed hatred.
“Mr. Wood will get you. He’s not through with you.”
“No? But he’s through with you, isn’t he?”
Corbin stood in front of the courthouse for a few moments after the marshal drove away, then started across the street. The druggist, Frank Adler, stood in the doorway of his establishment. At times the man gave Corbin the creeps. He seemed always to be watching. When Corbin saw Evan Johnson’s car coming toward him, he stopped and waited for him to pull up beside him.
“Burial over?” he asked.
“It’s over. I was coming to see if you have any news.”
“Plenty.” Corbin opened the door and got into the car. “Otto Bloom killed Walter. Pull up over here facing the courthouse and I’ll tell you about it.”
“Otto Bloom, that skinny little wart that works at the bank?” Evan asked after he had turned off the motor.
“That’s him. Last night we heard that he had been with Walter around ten o’clock. We went down to his house and picked him up. He was half drunk and cocky. He told his wife to get Amos Wood to come get him out like he’d done once before. A couple of hours went by and Wood hadn’t come. He began to get scared and started throwing hints that Wood probably killed Walter.
“About midnight, the marshal told him that we had a witness who saw him throwing Walter’s body out of a car. He broke down and confessed that they’d had a fight over a bottle of whiskey and he’d stabbed him …protecting himself, he said. He said Amos Wood lent him the car to take the body and dump it in the river. When Gus Keegan yelled at him, he got scared and drove off. We checked Wood’s car. The back looks the same as yours and there were bloodstains on the floor in the back.
“It was pure luck that he confessed. We didn’t have a thing on him until then. So far he hasn’t said why Wood would go out on a limb for him. The marshal thinks it’s something to do with the bookkeeping at the bank. It’ll be looked into, so if you have money there, I’d take it out—quiet-like.”
“Thanks, I will. I was sure someone Walter knew got in the first strike or he’d have put up a hell of a fight.”
“Doc Forbes said it looked to him as if he was stabbed in the back and wouldn’t have lasted more than a minute or two. When he fell, Otto, not knowing that, or too angry to care, stabbed him with a vengeance, then cut his throat.”
“The deputy will be disappointed. He sure wanted me to be the one who killed Walter.”
“Do you mind if I ask why you call your father by his first name?”
“No, I don’t mind. I left here at age twelve to live with my grandparents in St. Joseph. I’d not been around him for many years until I came back last spring. I never thought of him as my father.
“Walter was in many ways a reprobate, a foulmouthed drunk who enjoyed causing trouble for those who he thought considered themselves better than he was, but never did he mistreat my mother. All the while I was away, she would write and tell me not to worry, that Walter was looking after her, seeing that she had plenty of firewood, food and whatever she needed. My grandparents would send someone from time to time to make sure she was all right.”
“Do you plan to stay here?”
“I’ve decided to stay and marry Julie Jones.” His stern face softened and he smiled. “I have a house in St. Joseph, a big old Victorian thing, but Julie would rather be here near her family, and I want to try my hand at farming.”
“Congratulations. I thought the wind was blowing that way even before Weaver took you over to the Joneses’.”
“Yeah. Lord, I’m lucky that she even looked at me twice. Being the son of Walter Johnson was a lot to overcome.”
Corbin opened the door. “I’ve got to get over to the mayor’s office and give him a rundown.”
“Say, Appleby. I heard that a collection was being taken up to buy shirts for Fertile’s baseball team.” Evan fished in his pocket and brought out some bills. “Add this to the collection, anonymously.”
Corbin took the bills. “You sure?”
“Sure as rain. And if you run short, let me know.”
“See you around, Johnson, and don’t forget to invite me to the wedding.”
“Your name will be first on my list. Thanks for not letting Weaver railroad me.”
“I kind of wish I’d left the two of you alone in that locked room. I figure you would’ve taught Weaver a thing or two.”
“One of us might not have come out alive.”
Corbin saluted and stepped away from the car.
Evan stopped at the furniture store and paid Herman Maddock, the undertaker, for his services, then went by the doctor’s office to find out if he owed anything there. Next he went to the bank. When he told the clerk he was closing out his account, Amos Wood got up from his desk and came to the teller window.
“Leaving town?” he asked with a smelly cigar clenched between his teeth.
“No. I’m staying. How about you?”
“Why in hell should I go anywhere?”
“You tell me, Mr. Wood.” Evan then spoke to the teller: “I’d like the money in cash, please.”
“That’s a lot of money to be carrying around,” the banker said.
“I won’t be carrying it far.” Evan counted out the silver dollars the teller placed on the counter and put them in stacks. “I’d like the rest in paper, or do you plan on my not being able to get out of the bank with all this silver?”
“Give it to him and be quick about it,” Amos said and went back to his desk.
“Disagreeable fellow, isn’t he?” Evan spoke loud enough for Amos to hear. “How do you stand working here?”