Chapter 17
Rufus took the breath he had been saving and asked the next question, and the next question was not the one any man at his rail was expecting.
"Boone. Where were you going to meet her?"
Boone, behind his shoulder, drew his own slow breath. The half-circle at the rail did not move. Cordelia stood beside Rufus with one hand on the wood. Shea Wardell at the far end of the rail still had his eyes down on his own knuckles, and the tremble at his jaw hadn't gone away.
"By the willow at the bend in the creek, sir.
We were going to walk along the creek bank.
I asked her two days before, at the general store.
Her father was at the counter with Mr. Wardell.
She and I were at the back, by the bluing.
I had walked in for a packet for Mrs. Letts.
We spoke a few minutes. I asked her. She said yes.
She said two nights from then, after her father was asleep.
That is what I was doing in town the night of the shots. "
"You were not anywhere near Sippy Wardell's store.”
“No. I was.”
A look of hope passed across Shea’s features, but it didn’t stay.
“Please explain that.”
"I was passing it, sir. I had to. The willow is past it on the south side.
I walked on the boardwalk under the store window.
The window was dark. There was no one in the front of the store.
There was no one on the boardwalk. The shots sounded and I ran.
I ran the wrong way. Mrs. Lacey saw me. Mr. Inglis saw me.
The man in stockinged feet on his step saw me.
The smoke from the pistol had come down the street by then and I ran through it.
I did not steal anything. I did not have a bag. "
Boone stopped for breath. Nobody at the rail filled the space for him.
"I told the sheriff I had been in my bed all night, when he asked me that first morning. It was the only lie I told in this matter, and I am sorry for it, but I did it to protect the name of a young woman who was more innocent in all of this than anybody.”
"You did not have a bag."
"No, sir."
The rail did not move. Foster Fairchild's hands were still on the wood. Drew had taken his hat off and was turning it. Sippy hadn't come on the ride. Cordelia, beside him, hadn't turned her head.
Rufus turned his.
He looked at Shea Wardell. Shea tensed, but didn’t look up.
"You said you saw the boy with a bag across his shoulder."
"Yes, sir," Shea said.
The yes had come out small. Rufus kept his voice at porch-pitch, easy, the voice he used on a horse he didn't want to spook.
"Shea. Tell me, please, why a man fires a pistol twice in the air in front of a store at midnight?”
Shea did not answer.
"Anybody," Rufus said. "Anybody at this rail. Tell me. Why does a man fire a pistol twice in the air in front of a store he is about to rob, before he robs it? Why does a man announce his robbery?"
Nobody at the rail had an answer ready.
"He doesn’t," Rufus said. "Unless he wants witnesses.
Unless he wants every shutter on Main Street open at one o'clock in the morning.
When a boy he has seen two days before arranging a walk by a willow, happening to pass under his window, and the witnesses to see the boy and not the man who fired. "
A sound went through the half-circle. Foster Fairchild lifted his head.
One man near the corner post said, "That's a theory, Barclay." He had not moved from the rail. "The boy ran. That's what we saw."
"He ran," Rufus said. "When a pistol goes off in the dark, most sensible men do." He looked at Shea. “A few of the dumber ones would still have the wit to do the same. But I got another question, Has anyone in this town seen Shea talking to strangers lately?"
Shea did not say anything. He was pale, and he was avoiding everybody’s gaze.
Anthony Vale, at the end of the rail, took half a step forward.
"Mr. Barclay," he said. "I did."
Rufus waited.
“Do you think they were drummers? Was he talking business?”
“I don’t think so. It stuck in my mind enough to think of it now when you ask. If it’d seemed like business I reckon the memory would’ve already faded.”
“Well then, please tell us how it did seem.”
"I saw Shea Wardell at the station, two weeks back, talking with two men I didn’t know. He was at the back corner of the station house, by the freight door. He was leaning forward to them. I wasn’t close enough to hear."
Shea's head came up. He looked at Vale. “I talk to people at the station all the time. My father has a store.” His voice came out thin. "He doesn't know who he saw."
Rufus let the breath go, the one he had held since Cordelia's question, and his shoulders dropped an inch. He had been right. That was all it was.
Foster Fairchild had not moved.
"Shea," Foster said.
Shea broke.
He did not say a word. He turned on his heel from the rail, took two long steps backward away from the porch, and ran. He went for the lane.
Anthony Vale was already moving. He caught Shea by the back of the coat at six paces.
Foster Fairchild had set his rifle down in the grass and was off in five long strides; he reached Shea just as Vale brought him up short, and took the boy by the other arm.
Between them they brought the boy back to the foot of the porch.
They did not put him on his knees. They held him on his feet, one man on each arm, with his head down.
"Mr. Wardell." Rufus came down off the porch. He stopped at the bottom step. "You will ride into town. You will go to Sheriff Tench, and you will tell him what you did not say to him before.”
Shea looked at him with all the defiance he could muster, which was less than a full plate.
“What didn’t I say?”
“You didn’t mention these men at the station.”
“I told you, I talk to men at the station all the time. Mr. Vale doesn’t even know who those men were.”
“No, but you do. I can see it in your eye, and I think you’ve got a secret that’d change how every man here sees this robbery. Am I right?”
Shea's head went lower. He said nothing.
"Will you go to the sheriff, Shea Wardell?"
Shea did not answer.
"Will you do it on your own legs, son, or am I going to put you on a horse beside Mr. Vale?"
"On my own legs, sir."
"Good."
Rufus turned. He looked at the half-circle of men at his rail. He looked at Foster Fairchild, whose face had gone, in the last two minutes, the color of a wall that has been struck and not fallen.
"Foster. I am sorry. About your daughter's name. I believe Boone had only noble intentions toward her, but he went about the matter improperly. I would ask you, on her behalf, not to take a punishment to the house when you get home."
Foster did not answer.
Rufus looked at his bride.
Cordelia had come down the porch steps to stand beside him.
He hadn't heard her come down. She was close enough that he could smell the starch of her collar.
She hadn't put her hand on his arm and she wasn't going to.
She was looking down the lane at the line of dust the men's horses had raised that afternoon, and her face was set.