“That’s what I’m counting on. That, and sneaking into see Boatwright without being seen.”
“What you wanna see him for?” Moser asked, his suspicions pricked.
“He’s sheriff, ain’t he?” Hook waited a moment. “He’ll know about who come through here in the last few months—any bunch looking suspicious and up to no good.”
But when they found Boatwright, he was no longer sheriff.
They had slipped into the small town, hugging the treeline until they got to the man’s house, tried the back door, and found it unlocked. Figuring to let themselves in and wait until Boatwright came home, they instead walked into the kitchen and found the old peace officer sitting in a chair, pointing a double-barrel scattergun at the intruders.
“Sounds like there’s two of you bastards,” Boatwright said, his milky eyes blinking in the gloom of midmorning. “That’s why lil’ Ethel here has two barrels: blow the balls off both of you.”
“Eldon? That’s you, ain’t it?” Moser asked.
The man’s face twitched a little, as if placing the voice there in the dark of the hallway separating the two rooms of the small house. “I know you?”
“Artus Moser.”
“Who’s with you?”
“Jonah Hook.”
“Jonah?”
“It’s me, Eldon.”
“C’mere and give this old man a hug.”
“You ain’t gonna shoot us?”
“I hear better’n I ever have these days,” Boatwright said. “Don’t see so good no more.”
“Jesus God!” Moser exclaimed as he moved closer to the old man in the chair. “What happened—”
“Let’s say I got burned.”
“Your eyes, Eldon,” Hook whispered.
“Sit. You boys come and sit,” he said, easing the scattergun off his lap and motioning for them to go into the far room. “No thankee,” he replied to the nudge of help from Hook at his arm. “I know where everything is.”
“Then—you’re blind,” Moser whispered.
“As a cave bat.”
“Fire, you said?” Hook asked.
“Freebooters.”
Both of them rocked forward from the bench where they had plopped.
“Freebooters? How long ago?”
“Not long. A few months. End of summer as I can remember. Hot as hell.”
“Why’d the bastards do this to you?”
Boatwright chuckled. “You don’t see no star on my shirt no more, do you, boys?”
“What’s that got to do—”
“They took it.” Boatwright sank back into his chair. “Don’t matter none. I don’t really need it now after all. Just me in this house, waiting for someone to come bring me something to eat, help me out. Jesus Lord! But you boys both been gone a long time—”
“Tell us about the freebooters and what they done to your eyes,” Hook said impatiently.
Boatwright turned toward the sound of the voice. After some thought he began, his scarred, whitish eyes seeping the moisture that no longer stung his fire-battered flesh.
“They had me tied down, not far north of your place, Artus. I had been down to call on your daddy and was heading out of the valley by way of Jonah’s place. That’s when I spotted a bunch of horsemen on the Hook farm. Sat there awhile, watching them gut your place for what you had, Jonah—and then I figured I’d better get back to town and get me some help. But I never made it into the saddle again. That bunch must’ve had guards on their backtrail, ’cause they came out of the woods on me.”
“How many of them was there altogether?”
“More’n thirty I’d say—by what I could see moving around on your place. I don’t figure I ever saw ’em all.”
“Why’d they tie you down?” Moser asked.
“Hold me down is more like it—’cause when their leader come up from behind where I was staked out, all I heard was his voice. Never saw his face. But he told the others I’d have to die ’cause I could identify ’em. I told him I wouldn’t dare—just let ’em get on out of the territory.”
“And what then?”
“He laughed some at me. Said that if I didn’t want to die—he’d make it so I would beg him to kill me soon enough. But … I didn’t ever beg, boys.”
“He burned your eyes?”
“With a hot poker.”
Something inside Artus curled up in a tight ball and would not loosen.
“We need clothes, Sheriff,” Hook asked.
“Told you, I ain’t sheriff no more.”
“You always will be to us. You stake us a couple sets of clothes?”
“Ain’t got much, but what there is—you’re welcome to it. You going after them?”
“They got my family, Boatwright.”
“Too many of ’em, Jonah.”
“How many guns you got in the house, Sheriff?”
It was as if by some unseen power, Boatwright’s smoky eyes behind the scarred lids and cheeks were staring right into Moser’s tall, skinny cousin for the longest time.
“Back there, behind that sideboard. You’ll find what you boys need. Just leave me the pistol and this here old bird gun. I do fine by them.”
“I’ll pay you back,” Jonah said, pulling the old sideboard away from the wall. “Don’t know how or when—but I’ll pay you back for everything you done to help me get my family back.”
16
JONAH HOOK KNOCKED the damp earth from his hands, then finished brushing them off on the worn clothing Boatwright had given the two former Confederate soldiers as a homecoming gift. They had both hurried back to the valley south out of Cassville.
The work in the dark Missouri loam had been more than Jonah had thought it would be when first he decided to dig in that spot back of the cabin. After finding a small bit of lamp oil left in the cabin, Jonah and Artus burned their old clothing out at the edge of the fields now gone to weed. Jonah didn’t stand there long, watching the oily smoke rise into the cold winter afternoon air.
“We got work to do, Artus,” he had directed.
And work they had.
Four holes, a good six feet long and some two feet wide. Another six feet deep. All lined in a row behind the cabin he had built for Gritta and Hattie, and the two boys yet to come when first they settled in this narrow valley. Now something had made him return to the homestead for this final ceremony. His digging of the four graves was some dark journey into the deepest recesses of his rage, and the despair he suffered at ever finding them again.
The cousins had spelled one another at that single spade, cursing the hard ground wrought of winter, thankful for the recent cold rains that had soaked some softness into the unforgiving flintlike, and frozen soil. Now they rested, gasping over the fourth and final hole.
“You understand, don’t you, Artus?”
Moser swiped a streak of dirt across his cheek, smearing sweat off with his dirty hand. “No. I don’t.”
