To the measured beat of the drum, Sam Starr’s body was carried from the barn on the shoulders of four of his kinsmen. The drummer led the way. His drum was small, less than a foot in diameter, and he carried it at eye level, bringing a surprisingly resonant note from it with his fingertips.
The corpse lay on a single wide plank. The board was not quite wide enough to accommodate the dead man’s shoulders, which protruded over its edges on both sides. Behind the bearers came the remaining men. All except Robert West wore hats. West had on a wide headband. As the tiny procession passed the house, the women trooped out and took up their places behind the men. Belle walked at their head, with a much older woman.
Longarm, Floyd, Steed, and Bobby followed some distance behind the women. Halfway to the grove, Longarm heard the scraping of feet behind them and looked back. Yazoo had appeared from somewhere and was following them.
Not until the men carrying the body reached the graveside and lowered their burden to the ground did Longarm see that Sam’s face had been covered with a featureless mask, made of some sort of tanned animal pelts. The drumbeats stopped when the body touched the ground. Robert West leaned over the corpse and lifted the mask off. In the short interval that elapsed before West pulled around the dead man’s face a fold of the blanket on which the corpse lay, Longarm saw that the face had been painted. A single band of black ran from ear to ear, covering both eyes and nose, and a pattern of thin red lines and small circles had been drawn over the mouth and chin.
After he had covered Sam’s face, Robert West knelt. The other men followed suit. West said a few short phrases in a low voice, almost a whisper. He stood up, lifted his face and spread his arms, and raised his voice in a brief chant in Cherokee. He nodded, and four of the men lowered the body into the earth. All of the men then filed past the open grave, each of them dropping into it a small square of cornbread. West motioned toward the waiting shovels. The men took turns working with the shovels until the grave was filled and mounded. During the brief ritual, the women stood at one side, watching with impassive faces. Belle stood a little apart from the others. When the mound had been formed, West led the group back to the house.
“You reckon we’re supposed to go in and eat with them?” Steed asked as he and the others fell in at the end of the straggling line. They carefully kept a bit of space between themselves and the relatives.
Yazoo answered him. “Yep. Belle told me to tell you to come on in and fill up after the burying. Them kinfolks of Sam’s has brought enough vittles to feed a whole damn army.”
“What-what kind of food, Yazoo?” Bobby asked hesitantly.
“Hell, I don’t know.” Yazoo was just drunk enough to be cheerful. “There’s roasting ears and venison steaks and whole pots of stews and garden truck. I just got a look at it while they was unloading the wagons.”
“Did any of it look like dog-meat?” Bobby asked the old man.
“Dog? I couldn’t say about that, Bobby. You put meat in a stew, it all looks pretty Much alike.” Bobby said, “I guess I’ll pass up the stews, then. But that roasted venison sounds pretty good to me.”
There was hardly room to move in the house. Belle was nowhere in sight, and the door to the bedroom was closed, so Longarm imagined that she’d gone in there. The food was plentiful, and he helped himself to venison roast, two ears of corn, and the only other meat he recognized, some pieces of fried squirrel. He took his plate outside and looked for a place to eat. Floyd, Steed, Bobby, and Yazoo had disappeared, probably to the cabins, Longarm thought. He wondered if they’d had the same feeling that had dogged him all the time he was in the house; Sam Starr’s relatives seemed to be avoiding looking at him or getting close to him.
Wandering outside, Longarm walked over to the well and sat down on its curb. The thigh-high coping of planks made it a comfortable height for a seat, and the wide horizontal top board gave him a place to rest his plate. Longarm ate slowly, his eyes busy.
From the well, he could look into the barn. The men were gathered in there, and he saw the glint of the whiskey jugs being passed from hand to hand and tilted. He contemplated going to his cabin for a sip of rye, but the exertion of grave-digging had diminished his ambition to do much besides sit still. He finished eating and lighted a cheroot. A woman carrying a bucket came out of the house and walked toward the well. Longarm started to rise and leave when he recognized her as the unusually pretty one he’d noticed earlier. He changed his mind about leaving in favor of getting a closer look at her. As she drew near, he saw that she was a bit older than he’d thought. Her amazingly perfect cast of features masked her age effectively.
Longarm stood up when she reached the well. She said, “You don’t have to move. I can draw from the other side.”
“I’ve finished eating, ma’am. It won’t bother me a bit to give you room. Here.” Longarm dropped the wooden bucket that stood on the coping into the well and waited for it to fill. He drew it up, the pulley creaking from lack of oil.
She said, “I never did really thank you for taking your drunk friend away while I was unloading the wagon.”
“I didn’t expect thanks. All I was doing was trying to keep any trouble from starting.”
“Yes. If the men had looked out and seen your friend, they’d have jumped to the wrong conclusion and probably would have rushed him.”
Longarm studied the woman covertly while he drew up the heavy water bucket. Her face was a perfect oval, and her large brown eyes, fringed with long lashes, added to its symmetry. The line of her nose gave her face a squareness that kept it from looking too plump. Her lips were perhaps a bit overblown, her mouth a trifle wide, but this did not detract from the regularity of her features. She wore her hair long, in loose, thick braids that dropped down her back.
He swung the bucket over to the coping and lifted it to fill hers. She asked, “Are you one of Sam’s friends? Or one of Belle’s?”
“Neither one, I’d say. I never saw Sam or Belle until I pulled in here about a week ago.”
“Then, are you-” She stopped short. “No, I mustn’t ask you any questions. Cousin Robert said that was something we should be careful not to do.”
“You can ask.” Longarm smiled. “There ain’t any law says I got to answer you.”
“Of course. But it’s better if I do what Robert says.”
