The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [186]
“I reckon we better go see if it’s still there,” declared the old doctor/j.p./coroner.
We left those woods. As far as I know, the two doctors Swain never did go any farther back up into the glen where the waterfall was. They never did learn of the hiding-place and trysting-place that was still waiting for Viridis and Nail to use, if he ever showed up. They questioned Viridis about what she had been doing, where she was going when Sull was following her, and they checked to make sure that her Smith & Wesson was a .38, not a .22, and for that matter hadn’t been fired anytime recently. But she never said anything about her destination at the waterfall, which was beyond sight and earshot of the place where Sull Jerram fell dead.
And that old squirrel was still in that old pot, where I had left it. I figured it sure had been lucky that Rouser had gone with me; if I’d left him at home, he’d have worried the lid off that pot and got that squirrel. But it was in the pot. The younger Doc Swain took his pocketknife and dug out the bullet and matched it up with that spent cartridge in my rifle, and he looked his father in the eye and nodded. The old doctor said, “Wal, Latha, it looks like you aint a suspect no more. I don’t reckon we even need to tell the sherf that you ever was a suspect. We’ll jist say you was the one who discovered the body, and the sherf might want to ask you some questions too, but you jist tell the truth, ’cept you don’t have to say nothing about no rifle you was carryin. No need to do that.”
I wasn’t invited to ride any farther with them. Viridis did; she rode Rosabone onward with them and the body of Sull slung across the saddle of his horse into the village, and said she’d see me later. My folks were dying of impatience for me to tell them everything, which I did. Nearly everything.
We had that squirrel stewed with dumplings for supper, with a mess of greens, and some fresh biscuits, and even though one fat squirrel won’t feed five people, it was the best eating I could ever recall.
Before nightfall everybody in Stay More knew that Sull Jerram was dead, dead, dead, so it was decided to have some kind of celebration and party. The Stay Morons threw a big square dance up to the schoolhouse, and it was a Wednesday besides. Nobody could recall when they’d ever had a square dance that wasn’t on Saturday, or leastways Friday. A Wednesday night square dance was really a special event, and although nobody came right out and said it was being held in celebration of the demise of Sull Jerram, everybody knew that was the reason for it, and Luther Chism showed up with a whole keg of private-stock Chism’s Dew, and even some of the ladies sampled it. I had a taste myself. Old Isaac Ingledew, the champion fiddler of the country, got his instrument out and dusted it off and gave one of the last performances that anybody could ever after recall hearing him play.
Among the revelers and dancers were Rindy Whitter and her new beau, the young driver Virge Tuttle, who still hadn’t gone back to Pettigrew but appeared to have moved in with the Whitters. Rindy was so busy seeing him, which she did all the time, near about, that I had never got the chance to renew my friendship with her. But I had been too preoccupied myself to care.
Waymon Chism still hadn’t returned from Harrison with the medicine, but while the square dance was in progress, pretty far along in the night, he came riding up; he’d brought the medicine and Doc Swain the younger was up at the home place right now administering it to Seth, who was already pretty cheered up with the news of Sull’s passing. Now Waymon was ready to join the celebration himself.
But those two sheriff’s deputies, who’d been participating in the square dance along with everybody else, and had their own share of Chism’s Dew, told Waymon that he was under arrest. Despite his alibi of having gone to Harrison, despite the evidence of the medicine he’d obtained there, he was still the number-one suspect in the murder,