Authors: Bill Pronzini
"Day he died, if he died last Tuesday."
"He did. Where was it you saw him?"
"Out on Willow Creek Road. Past the place where the creek forks, near that tenant farm on the Siler brothers' land."
"Jubal Parsons' place."
"Yes, that one."
"You're sure it was Jeremy Bodeen you saw?"
"Luke Kearney described him and his horse. No mistake."
"What was he doing? Bodeen, I mean."
"Ambling along toward Tule Bend. I was headed opposite, on my way to the Valley of the Moon. Mought be he came from over that direction."
"What time was that?"
"Around four."
"Was he alone?"
"He was."
"You happen to talk to him?"
"Said hello in passing. Both of us."
"Ever seen him before? Anywhere at all?"
"Never. Stranger to me."
"Was anybody else around?"
Gus nodded. "On the road behind me. Farm wagon pulled out of the trees at the creek fork just after I drove by."
"Whose wagon, do you know?"
"Well, it turned in at the tenant farm's gate."
"Jubal Parsons? You know him by sight?"
"I know him," Gus said. "Wasn't a man driving, though."
"Mrs. Parsons, then?"
"Woman with yellow hair."
"That's Mrs. Parsons. Did she and Jeremy Bodeen have anything to say to each other?"
"Not so I noticed. Only noticed the wagon turning in at the gate. When I came to the place where the road hooks sharp left I glanced back."
"Was Bodeen still headed toward town?"
"He was."
"And that's the last time you saw him?"
"It is."
"Anything else you can tell me, Gus?"
"Well, I passed Morton Brandeis not more than five minutes after I saw the stranger. He was riding some quicker, Morton was. Mought be he came up on the man before they reached town."
"If he did," I said, "he didn't mention it to me. I'll ask him."
Gus nodded. "So," he said, "have I done my duty?"
"You have, and I thank you."
"Don't thank me." He tapped my shoulder with one of his sausage-sized fingers. "Do me a favor. Tell folks what a good citizen Gus Peppermill is, how Gus Peppermill came all the way back from Glen Ellen in his fixit wagon to give you important information."
I smiled a little. "Free advertising, eh?"
"And why not? I do good work—people know that. Can't hurt if they also knew the fixit man is a good citizen."
"All right, Gus. I'll spread the word."
He nodded cheerfully and climbed back into his wagon. And I went looking for Morton Brandeis.
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.