Standing at the Scratch Line (61 page)

“Isn’t Marshal Bass coming?” Clara asked as she got up to give Ma Wrangel some assistance in setting the table.

“Oh, I forgot,” Cordel said with a worried look. “The marshal went with Octavius Boothe and Lightning Smith to help the McGirts get their wagon out’n the creek that feeds Buffalo Canyon.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t have set out the food so soon,” Clara suggested as Reverend Cornelius returned and stood behind a chair.

“Pshaw,” countered Ma Wrangel, carrying in a large pitcher of water and a covered basket of biscuits. “I knew them boys was gon’ be late ’cause Raymond done called me on the telephone.” Ma Wrangel was justifiably proud that she had one of the five telephones in Bodie Wells and rarely missed an opportunity to mention it. “Come on, Reverend, bless the food and don’t be long-winded. I don’t want no grease gettin’ cold on my steak.”

They gathered hands and Reverend Cornelius said a brief grace. Then they sat down to partake of the redolent food. Ma Wrangel was considered one of the best cooks in the region and her food confirmed that conclusion every time she served it. They ate with only minimal interchanges between them for nearly fifteen minutes, until the meal was interrupted by the entrance of Marshal Bass, Octavius Boothe, and Lightning Smith.

After hanging their coats and wiping their boots in the front hall, the men entered the dining room. Both Bass and Smith went directly to the stove to warm themselves. Octavius went back to wash his hands. There were still remnants of snow on Marshal Bass’s handlebar mustache, and Lightning Smith was shivering from the effects of the cold.

“Is everything alright?” Mace asked, curious about the men’s silence.

Lightning looked at Bass meaningfully. “It be colder’n hell out there.” He was standing so close to the stove that his damp clothes began to steam.

“That’s to be expected, Mr. Smith,” the reverend chided. “The hellfires burn with the heat of damnation, but I caution you to remember that there are women present.”

“I’s sorry. I wasn’t thinkin’ right.” Lightning nodded his head to both of the women.

“Don’t mind Lightnin’, Reverend,” Ma Wrangel said as she hauled herself erect. “We done heard much worse from the drovers that comes through here.” She picked up the platter of steak and potatoes and went back to the kitchen.

Octavius returned and sat down at the table next to Mace. “Did they tell you?” he asked Mace.

“Tell us what?” Mace rejoined.

Octavius reached and pulled a biscuit from the covered basket. “We found the Thomas brothers,” he said before taking a big bite of his biscuit.

“Where? Are they alive?” Clara asked.

“They’s frozen solid down at the bottom of Buffalo Canyon,” Lightning answered, sitting down at the table. “Their wagon was all splintered up around ’em.”

Mace looked around the table with a smile. “No disrespect to the reverend here, but I think most of us want to get up and cheer at the news that these two have passed on to their reward.”

“What if I told you,” Marshal Bass mused, “we couldn’t find all of Leon’s body and it wasn’t bitten off by animals?”

“What?” exclaimed Clara. “What do you mean, ‘You couldn’t find all of his body’?”

Octavius stabbed a steak with his fork. “It look like somebody tried to bury pieces of ’em, but the ground was too hard.”

Ma Wrangel came out of the kitchen with a basket of biscuits. “Say what?” she demanded. “You sure it just weren’t badgers and coyotes?”

“Weren’t no varmints!” said Lightning. “Leon’s hand and one leg was cut clean off, like with an axe. Ain’t no varmint got a bite like that.”

“Why don’t you start from the beginning,” suggested Mace. “I know plenty people who would’ve liked to chop those boys up, but I can’t think anyone who would desecrate a dead body.”

“I’m pretty sure it was done before they died,” Bass said.

Mace turned to Octavius, who was digging into his steak. “How’d you find them?”

Octavius finished chewing a big piece of steak and answered. “The horses. The cold drove them to the McGirts. The McGirts, bein’ the good folk they are, went out lookin’ and found the bodies.”

“They is good people,” Ma Wrangel affirmed. “ ’Cause once I seed the brand, I wouldn’t have gone out in this weather.”

“I don’t understand,” Clara said, adjusting her wire-rimmed glasses. “Did someone murder them or was it an accident?”

“Somebody had a hand in it,” Marshal Bass said. “Somebody cut the horses loose and pushed the wagon over the bluff above Buffalo Canyon.”

“Elmo is gon’ know it weren’t no accident,” Octavius agreed. “He gon’ come to town with guns at the ready.”

“Do you think that Tremain fella did it?” Ma Wrangel asked. “His wife barely stopped him from killin’ them right here in this room.”

“Naw, I don’t figure it to be him,” Bass said, helping himself to the steak and potatoes. “If he’d a’done it, don’t think we’d ever find the bodies. He’s a cold one, that one is. And now he done bought the Morgans’ holdings, he gon’ be careful. He ain’t one to leave evidence lyin’ ’round.”

Clara nearly choked. “They bought the Morgans’ business?”

“Paid full askin’ price too,” Ma Wrangel answered, shaking her head. “I just don’t figure that.”

“These the new people who started attending services at Second Baptist?” Reverend Cornelius asked. “They paid full price too, huh?”

Octavius was also surprised. “I didn’t know that. They could have squeezed the Morgans good, ’cause they sho’ was in a tight place.”

“But they didn’t,” Mace mused. “Where does anybody that young get that kind of money?”

“And they don’t come from rich people,” Clara added. “The wife, Serena, has asked me to help her with her diction and grammar. She’s even willing to pay me for my time.”

“You should do it,” Bass asserted. “Not only for the extra money, but we need to know somethin’ ’bout these people. I tell you, I think this Tremain is one of the most dangerous men we’ve seen around here. I believe that whoever crosses him will end up dead or disappeared.”

“You’re just sayin’ that ’cause Ozzy Simpson done run off without tellin’ you,” Octavius said, reaching for another biscuit. “He probably over in Kernerville right now visitin’ his girlfriend.”

Marshal Bass threw Simpson’s turquoise amulet on the table. “Without that?” Everyone recognized the amulet and all present knew the value that Ozzy had placed on the good-luck piece. There was silence.

Mace pushed back from the table and stood up. “You don’t know for certain that Tremain had anything to do with Ozzy’s disappearance, do you?”

“If I did, I would have arrested him, or at least tried to.”

“You think he would have resisted?” Clara asked.

“Ain’t a doubt in my mind someone would get killed,” Bass said, and took another bite of his steak.

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Big Daddy Bolton threw his napkin down on top of his unfinished food and pointed a thick, stubby finger at his son Frank. “I told you last time that I was through with helping you out of your problems! You’re going to have to marry this one!” Big Daddy’s granite block of a jaw jutted out defiantly and his thick bushy eyebrows seemed to bristle independently. The overhead light of the dining room gleamed on the pink, bald dome of his head. “I won’t buy them off this time! I won’t let you squander what has taken a lifetime to build!”

“But Big Daddy,” Sarah interceded. “Surely, you want to protect our son’s reputation from being the talk of Clairborne. We after all are a family of stature in this community. This girl is white trash! We don’t want her in our family! He has other marriage options—”

Big Daddy interrupted with a wave of his beefy hand. “Don’t defend him to me! Admit it, he’s useless! He’s a drunkard and a womanizer! On top of that he’s a sucker and a fool when it comes to both business and gambling. All the men his age laugh at him. No decent young girl in this town would marry him! Unless it was for money!”

“That isn’t true, Daddy. Sandra Maddox would marry me and she’s from a good family!”

Big Daddy shook head as he stared at the big dark eyes of his son’s face. The boy had his mother’s big doe-eyes and he too looked like prey. “It shows what a fool you are if you don’t recognize that it’s not she who wants to marry you. It’s her father who wants her to marry you.” Big Daddy pointed his finger again at his son. “You’re nearly thirty years old and you have no business skills! The only reason Maddox wants his daughter to marry you is because he thinks I would help his business.”

Frank quailed and a trace of a whine entered his tone. “What am I gon’ do, Daddy? Her brothers have threatened me.”

The question and the tone infuriated Big Daddy more than the foolish promiscuity and gambling debts, for they presaged a thick vein of weakness running right through the center of his son. It was not a new realization, but like a rasp it always grated and, as always, it struck Big Daddy to his core. Through gritted teeth he said, “You should have thought of that first before you took your pleasure!”

“But Daddy, I’m in line for Grand Titan. It’s a position of respect. I’m some—”

“A position of respect?” Big Daddy barked derisively. It really seemed that all that he had accomplished and amassed during his lifetime would be left in the hands of a total idiot. “That really shows what a fool you are! Let me explain it to you, boy! If you’re white trash, you join the Klan. If you have money, you join the Elks! If you have money, class, and power, you join the Masons! I’m a third-generation Mason and I’ve got a son who joins the Klan?”

“We got Masons in the Klan! Colonel Blanc, he—”

“That just proves assholes are everywhere,” Big Daddy interrupted. “Only you and your friends call him Colonel. Everyone else calls him T-Bo. Masons use the Klan to do their rough stuff. We don’t dirty our hands. Only trash does that kind of work.”

Frank looked to his mother and back to his father. “You never sponsored me for the Masons!”

“You never did a damn thing to deserve it!”

Sarah coughed behind her napkin. “I’m sure, Big Daddy, that we do not have to bring vulgarity into the sanctity of our home.”

“Be quiet, woman! I believe I’ve worked long and hard enough to curse at my own table if I choose! Plus, what’s worse, vulgarity or the endless stupidity of your son?” Big Daddy pushed away from the table and hauled his barrel-shaped body out of his chair. “Sarah, I’ve got a meeting with your brother Skip and Booker Little.”

“I can help you with dealing with the niggers, Big Daddy,” Frank volunteered.

“What are you going to do, scare them? One night you’ll ride with the Klan and you’ll run across a nigger too tired to run and he’ll get out his rifle and kill five or six of you.”

“Niggers don’t scare us,” Frank asserted. “We know how to control them. We’re dedicated to preserving the ways of Little Dixie.”

“Great,” Big Daddy said sarcastically and walked out of the dining room before Frank could say anything more. He passed through a hallway and entered his office. His frustration with the unfortunate ironies of life washed over him like a cold tide of unpleasant memories. Even if Frank was half the man of Big Daddy’s nigger sons, it would be some consolation. He was gathering his thoughts when old Uncle Ben knocked at his door.

“Dey some people here,” Uncle Ben rattled out in his faint, scratchy voice. “Dey say you ’spectin’ ’em.” Uncle Ben waited patiently at the door for direction.

Big Daddy smiled; the old Negro was getting more gruff and terse with each passing year. “Send them in, Ben,” he said. Sarah had been pressuring him to help Uncle Ben return to Mississippi where he had been born. Big Daddy hadn’t said no, but he couldn’t imagine his household without Uncle Ben’s presence. The man had worked as a manservant for him for more than forty years.

The door opened and in walked Undersheriff Skip Dalton and behind him followed Booker Little. “How do, Skip?” Big Daddy asked, reaching across the desk to shake the undersheriff’s hand. Skip Dalton was a dark-haired pale man with a lean and sinewy look. He was instrumental in assisting Big Daddy in some of his more dangerous and sensitive pursuits. He looked nothing like his sister, Sarah, to whom Big Daddy was married.