Charley Pettibone knew his life was about to become immensely more complicated the minute he saw Charlotte Turner and Ambrose Gardner walking up the road to Daybreak, with what appeared to be a human body slung over the saddle of a horse walking between them. He stepped into the road to meet them, his coffee cup still in his hand.
“Good morning,” Charley said. He turned to his children, who were tumbling outside to get a look. “Go back inside. Your mama will tell you when you can come out.”
He bent low to look at the man’s face without having to disturb him and recognized Yancey immediately. A lot of company workmen would be celebrating tonight.
“Well,” he said, collecting his thoughts. “Where’d you find him?”
“Didn’t exactly find him,” Gardner said. “He came to find us. Or more rightly, me. I don’t think he was aware that Mrs. Turner was visiting. But anyway, he found me and then I found him.”
“I see,” Charley said. He glanced sideways at Charlotte, who jutted her chin as if daring him to ask her something. “And where did you find each other?”
“At my house.”
“Your house? On the Black River? Good Lord, man, that’s in Reynolds County. And you brought him all the way over here?”
“Mr. Pettibone, there’s only one lawman I trust in three counties, and that’s you. I came here to turn myself in to you, to make sure I don’t get shot by accident, or shot trying to escape, or some such nonsense.”
“That’s just storybook talk,” Charley said. “I know Sheriff Carter over in Reynolds. He’s a good man.”
“When they have to, good men do bad deeds or look the other way. In any event, here I am, surrendering in peace and unarmed.”
“Don’t you even want to hear what I have to say?” Charlotte said.
“No, I don’t,” said Charley. “I don’t have any jurisdiction in this. The best I can do is escort the both of you up to Centerville, and you can tell your stories up there. I’ll fetch a wagon.”
As he walked to the barn to hitch up a team, he saw Jenny come out of the house with a platter of bacon and eggs for the new arrivals. Probably his bacon and eggs, he thought ruefully, but so be it. “Tell Johnny to come out and help me when I get back,” he called to her. “This fella’s going to be heavy.”
With his oldest son’s help, they loaded Yancey into the wagon, and Charley noted the crisp-edged hole in the center of the man’s chest. One clean shot. He would have expected nothing else. They covered Yancey’s face with a saddle blanket.
“I don’t want you to talk to me about this while we ride,” he said. “‘Cause if you do, that sheriff’s going to want me to tell him what you said, and if it’s any different from what you tell him later, it’ll just make trouble for you. So let’s talk about the weather or something.”
They spoke little as they rode, except when they passed through Annapolis and Lesterville, where dozens of idlers flocked to see them as they came through. “You’d think we were the circus wagon,” Gardner said from his perch in back.
Someone from Lesterville must have ridden ahead, for when they reached Centerville the sheriff was waiting for them in front of the courthouse with three deputies.
“Benjamin,” Charley said, tipping his hat.
“Charley, good to see you,” said Carter. “What you got here?” He pulled back the blanket and examined Yancey. “I know this man.”
“I’m going to let these folks tell the story. I’ve only heard the bare outline.” Carter, a tall, spare man with a gray beard that reached the third button of his shirt, looked at them dubiously. “I guess you’d better come inside, then.”
The sheriff’s office was a single room in the back of the courthouse with a desk, a few chairs, a coatrack, and a large gun cabinet. Charley and the deputies stood while Charlotte and Gardner sat at the desk to tell their story.
“So this man Yancey’s been out to your place before?” he asked after they had finished.
“Yes,” Gardner said. “Twice. The company sent him out, wanting to buy my land for the timber.”
“So that’s probably what he was out there for.”
“In the middle of the night?” Charlotte burst out. “With a knife? What kind of buying trip is that?”
“Take it easy, ma’am,” Carter said. “I’m just trying to get the full picture. Now, how far away were you when you shot him?”
“Fifteen feet, give or take.”
“And you saw his knife?”
“Hm. Good question. It was full dark under the eaves. Not sure I saw his knife, but I did see that he was holding one arm down at his side, like he was carrying something. Turns out it was the knife. Could have been anything.”
“And you called out to him.”
“I didn’t say his name, just said ‘hey.’ If that counts as calling out.”
“You got his attention anyway.”
“That I did.”
The sheriff wiped his forehead. “I’m going to have to hold you here until the prosecuting attorney decides whether to charge you with anything,” he said. “It’s a troublesome case. Sounds like self-defense, but he wasn’t exactly attacking you. And you say it happened at your house, but you hauled him all the way to Madison County and back. Could have ambushed him along the road somewhere for all I know.”
“That’s troublesome, all right,” Gardner said. “Especially with an election next month.”
“That ain’t got nothing to do with it, and I resent that!” said the sheriff. “Facts are facts, election or none.”
“All right, I apologize. Didn’t mean to impugn your character. You have a job to do.”
“Well and good,” said Carter. He stood up from his desk. “We’ll keep you in the jail until next Tuesday, when the judge comes around. And ma’am—”
Charley saw the look the sheriff gave Charlotte. It was not the look one gives to a community founder, but the look given to a woman who has been caught spending the night at the home of a man not her husband. The sight shook him. He was so accustomed to thinking of Charlotte with deep deference that Carter’s scornful expression felt like an insult, not just to her, but to him and all of Daybreak.
Carter continued his sentence. “—I’ll need to you be here on Tuesday too, to say your piece.” Charlotte nodded.
“Stop by and get George,” Gardner added. “He’ll need the company. I don’t want him running off while I’m away.”
Charlotte stood up and glared at the sheriff. “There’s blood on the step, you know. It’s easy enough to verify where the man died. You can send one of your deputies to check.”
“Thank you ma’am. We’ll do that. Assuming he didn’t kill a chicken or something.”
“On his own front step? What kind of nincompoop kills a chicken in front of his own door! I lose my patience. Good day, sir.” She stalked out of the office and stood in the yard in front of the courthouse, fuming, as the deputies led Gardner out the back to the jailhouse, a small log square that stood in a corner of the lot.
“That gal sure enough fires with both barrels,” Carter said to Charley. “You know her well?”
“Thirty years,” Charley said. “Most respected woman in our community.”
“If you say so,” said the sheriff. “Yet here she is chasing around in the night with this man Gardner, who has ‘trouble’ written after his name in two-inch block letters.”
Charley didn’t want to get into a discussion of comparative morality. “So you think the prosecutor’ll try him?”
“Hell, yes. He won’t make that kind of decision on his own this close to the election. He’ll let a jury decide. I may not let an election change my way of doing things, but some people do.” Charley nodded. He’d seen his share of election games. “This Yancey have any kinfolk? You expect more trouble?”
“I don’t think so,” Charley said. “He kept his own company, far as I know.”
“Bright side to everything. At least you won’t have to worry about people with revenge on their mind.”
Charley picked up his hat and headed for the door. “Guess I better take the lady home. Sorry to have showed up bearing trouble.”
“No worries. If I was frightened of trouble, I never would have run for public office.”
In the wagon, Charlotte’s anger had turned to worry. “They’re going to put him on trial, aren’t they?” she asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
Her lips pressed into the firm line of determination he had seen many times before. They rode in silence for a mile.
“Don’t worry,” Charley said. “I’m sure they’ll do the right thing.”
She gave him a glance that he knew would have been more withering had they not been longtime friends. “I’m not worried. Worry is a waste of time. I’m thinking.” She sighed, a long, slow letting-out of breath as if she had been holding it in for hours. “And surely I don’t need to tell you that people will not necessarily do the right thing unless they are led to it, brought face to face with it, and given no other option.” She smiled at him. “So that’s what I plan to do.”