The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [61]
I have received permission from my employer, Thomas Fletcher (who is another of the rare breed of gentle and kind men), to investigate the case completely. As I told you, I’m not one of the Gazette’s regular reporters, only a member of the layout and design department, where I am usually found trying to enliven the margins of inner pages with my little sketches. But I have written for the Gazette in the past—the longest thing I ever wrote, before this letter, was an article, “An Arkansawyer in Calcutta,” a place where I saw some of this world’s most unkind and uncompassionate men. Mr. Fletcher has promised to free me from my usual duties long enough to permit me to finish my investigation.
Only these severe winter storms we’ve been having have prevented me from attempting to find and to visit Staymore. But when we get a thaw in January, I’m going to locate it…even if I can only reach it on horseback! (I should have said I have two talents: the other one is that I am a “cowgirl.”)
I have three requests, if you will be so kind:
1. Where is Staymore? I have a map showing Newton County but cannot locate your town. Is it north of Jasper? What kind of roads lead to it?
2. What people should I talk to? Can you give me the names of any witnesses who can account for your whereabouts at the time of the crime? Also, any character witnesses. Who was your best friend?
3. Before I go, is there anything I can do for you? Is there anything you need? Will they allow me to send you a basket of fruit and some cookies? May I smuggle you a book or two? Do you enjoy reading? Any favorite authors? Are you well clothed? Do you need any personal articles? Please do not hesitate to respond to these requests, and do not think of the expense. Meanwhile please accept the enclosed trifle as a token, a talisman, a keepsake, a substitute for a real Yuletide. Merry Christmas, and many more.
Sincerely,
Viridis Monday
Nail Chism read this a second time before he opened his present. In due course he would come to know it by heart. He would unfold it and read it when no one else was looking (and no one else ever was), again and again, until its creases broke and it began to turn dirty and frayed. But for now he read it only twice, and then he picked open the tiny wad of tissue paper.
Inside was a gent’s charm, the kind of chain ornament you hook on one end of your watch chain, if you have a watch, but Nail didn’t. It was made of gold and must have cost her several dollars. But she must have had it special-made by some jeweler, because it didn’t look like a store-boughten gent’s charm. It was in the shape of a tree. Not a Christmas pine or a cedar, nor a hardwood you’d be able to recognize, but just a tree tree, no mistake. Nail turned it over. She’d had the trunk on the backside of the tree engraved in tiny letters: To N.C. from V.M. XMAS 14.
Even if he’d had a watch, and a watchpocket to put it in, he wouldn’t have worn this on a chain for all the world to see. Instead, he attached it to the string around his neck that held his dagger, and wore them both hidden inside his shirt and jacket. It was the nicest Christmas present he’d ever gotten. He could hear that little tree singing to him.
And on Christmas afternoon the Salvation Army was permitted to come into the building and serve a soup that actually had some chicken in it, and with real biscuit besides. The men were required to sit through a long sermon before they were allowed to drink the soup, which was cold by then, but Nail was able to make it to the mess hall on his own legs, for the first time in weeks, and to drink his soup.
Afterward, as the men were waiting to leave the mess hall, required to keep lockstepping in place until the line could move again, Nail discovered that he was lifting and setting his feet right beside the standing figure of Mr. Harris Burdell,