Micah’s stomach did a quick flop as he cut into his fried eggs. He was eating a late breakfast this morning. Last night’s victory celebration at Chester’s—the one Micah had been certain they would never enjoy—had continued until . . . well, Micah wasn’t certain how late it lasted. All he knew for sure was it had gone on until the numerals on the grandfather’s clock in Chester’s parlor had begun to blur.
Today was to be the last day of the trial, but since the judge brought that to an abrupt end, Micah had the day free. He had taken advantage of that fact by sleeping a couple of hours later than usual and coming to Lottie’s for breakfast. As he left, he tacked a note on his office door saying where he was in case a client should wander by. He doubted that would happen since clients had been pretty scarce, but he left the note anyway.
Having a big breakfast was unusual for Micah. He seldom ate breakfast. His regular morning fare consisted of no more than two or three pots of coffee, swilled nonstop in his office from first light till noon. This morning, though, despite a headache, Micah felt good, and he decided to begin this fine day with a healthy breakfast of fried eggs and a rasher of bacon.
“Sit down, Fay,” he whispered when she brought his food. “Let’s eat breakfast together just this once. Who cares what people think?” This was not the sort of thing Micah ever joked about. Neither he nor Fay thought of it as a joking matter. But he felt frisky today. He knew she’d never do it. He expected he’d faint dead-away if she did. It was clear the town knew he and the Charbunneaus were friends. After all, he had stayed at Lottie’s home before and during the trial. But it was all right to be friends with the colored as long as it went no further than that.
Fay shot him one of her looks. “Don’t start with me, Micah,” she said under her breath. She did, though, give him a smile, and with a furtive move, she traced her index finger along his wrist as she set his plate on the table.
Micah’s victory in court had made him the hot topic of Probity conversation. He knew he’d always been well liked in the community—or at least his father had—but since Judge Walker made his ruling, people had looked at Micah in a different way. Before it didn’t matter that he was now an attorney, everyone still thought of him as the rowdy youth he once had been. But since yesterday he sensed they viewed him with a kind of respect. It was what he wanted, but now that he was getting it, it made him uneasy. What might they expect of him next?
Micah wasn’t kidding himself. He knew his victory in the courtroom the day before was in large part due to luck—the luck of trying the case before a judge who was as sensitive to the rules of justice as he was to the rules of law. Micah had pointed that out to Thomas Blythe and Earl Anderson after the trial yesterday afternoon, but Blythe had only smiled without comment, and Anderson didn’t smile at all.
Micah watched the yellow of the eggs ooze out across the white plate, shuddered, and gave the plate a shove. Perhaps his stomach wasn’t ready for this after all. He picked up his coffee and sat back in the chair. As he did, he saw Emmett Pratt enter the café. Pratt spoke to all the patrons he knew, which was everyone, and made his way toward Micah’s table.
“Mr. McConners,” Pratt said, “I’m Emmett Pratt.” Micah stood and they shook hands. “Would you mind if I join you?”
“No, sir, not at all.” They sat down, and Micah started to motion to Fay to bring Pratt some coffee, but she was already on her way with the pot and another cup. Pratt accepted the coffee and told her he would not be ordering breakfast.
“Congratulations on your victory, young man,” he said. “I was pleased with your success. I hear you were brilliant.”
“Brilliant?” said Micah, embarrassed. “I think that’s overstating it. Dr. Hedstrom didn’t deserve what he was facing. I think the judge agreed.”
Pratt spooned sugar into his coffee. “Well,” he said, “I sure agree.”
There was an awkward silence. Finally, Micah asked, “Was there something I could do for you, Mr. Pratt?”
“No, son,” the man said, “not really. I was hoping I could do something for you.” He dropped the spoon to the tablecloth and a brown stain began to spread. “Word is you’ll be making an investigation on my boy.”
“Yes, Judge Walker asked me to look into the allegations Polly made in the courtroom yesterday, and some others too.”
Pratt stared down at the spot growing on the tablecloth and said in a low voice, “I fear it’s true what she and her mother are saying.”
Micah sat up straighter. “Do you know something about it?” he asked.
Pratt shook his head. “No, not for sure. Fact is, I still can’t believe it. I do know, though, it was Sonny who fired that shot into the house you were staying at a couple of nights ago.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was in the barn when he and Hank Jones rode in that morning. I heard them talking and laughing about it. They didn’t know I was there, and I didn’t let ’em know. But I listened.”
Micah sat back in his chair. This was interesting. It didn’t rise to the level of being proof of Polly’s rape or Lester’s murder, but it was evidence of guilt. Why else would Sonny fire the shot into the house except to frighten the witness who was about to testify against him? Plus, as the judge had mentioned by firing into a house like that, Sonny Pratt could at least be charged with six counts of aggravated assault—a count for every person inside. And perhaps six counts of attempted murder.
“I came into town that morning. I planned on telling Blythe or even Anderson what Sonny had done, but I found out no one had been hurt, so I—” He stopped without finishing.
“Would you be willing to testify in front of a jury about this, Mr. Pratt?” Micah asked.
There was a pause. This one was long enough Micah was convinced the man wasn’t going to answer the question at all. “Yes, sir,” Pratt finally said, “I would.” He looked across the table and found Micah’s eyes. “I’ll do better than that,” he added. “There’ll be trouble if you and the sheriff come out to our place to arrest him. I’ll bring the boy in myself.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Pratt seemed to have recognized at least some of the truth about his son, but Micah wondered if the man understood how dangerous Sonny was.
“I reckon I’ve been ignoring my duty long enough. It’s time I did something about it.”
Micah thought for a moment. Having a father who was willing to testify to his son’s committing a crime changed things. They had enough with that alone to make an arrest on the aggravated assault charges. “I worry about you doing that, Mr. Pratt. That’s the sheriff’s job.”
“That sheriff’s a sniveling coward, and you know it. I expect the fact he’s left Sonny alone to do his bad deeds all this time is partly because he’s my boy. The other part is because Brad Collins didn’t have the guts to arrest him.”
Micah couldn’t disagree. “Do you think you can do this, Mr. Pratt?” he asked.
A dampness brimmed the older man’s eyes. “I believe there’s a redeemable spot left somewhere in the boy. I’ll persuade him to come in.”
Micah was reluctant but said, “All right. You go on out to your place. The sheriff and I will go out to get Hank. You bring Sonny over to the Jones place. We’ll meet you there at—” He checked his watch. “—noon. Then the three of us’ll bring them both back to town.”
Pratt nodded.
“Are you sure you’re all right with this?” Micah asked. Emmett Pratt might believe there was still something redeemable in Sonny, but Micah wasn’t convinced.
“Don’t worry, son,” he said, “I’ll bring my boy to you. Everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see.” The man forced a smile, but Micah could see a sadness chiseled into the lines of Emmett Pratt’s face. It was a sadness cut deep enough that Micah expected it would never disappear.
“You want what?” Chester asked.
“To borrow a gun.”
“Good, Christ, Micah, I can’t imagine anything scarier than you with a loaded gun.”
“I also need to borrow a horse.”
“All right, so there is something scarier: you with a loaded gun sitting astride a horse.”
“I’m serious, Chester.”
They were standing in Chester’s parlor. The place was still a mess from the party the night before, and snoring came from beneath a quilt spread across the sofa. Micah lifted the quilt’s corner and saw Jackson Clark sound asleep.
“Jackson decided to stay for one more after you left,” Chester said.
It was obvious Micah’s pounding on the front door had awakened Chester, if not Jackson. Chester wore a dressing gown, and his hair spiked in a dozen different directions.
“I need to borrow a pistol and a horse,” Micah repeated.
Chester rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, yawned, and asked, “Why?”
Micah hadn’t spoken much about Judge Walker’s naming him to oversee the investigation. He hadn’t wanted his friends to worry. Now he was to meet Brad Collins in less than half an hour for the ride out to the Jones place. He knew he needed a horse, and he was afraid he might—God forbid—need a gun. He had no choice but to tell Chester everything that was happening.
“You’re out of your mind,” Chester said once Micah explained the assignment the judge had given him. “You’re no policeman.”
“All I’m doing, Chester, is riding along with Collins to ensure he does a thorough investigation. Walker doesn’t want to allow too much independence on the part of local law enforcement in this matter.”
“Well, that makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is dumping it on you. Really, Micah, you have nothing to gain by getting mixed up in this thing. Hell, you could even get yourself killed. Sonny Pratt and Hank Jones are no one to fool with.”
“It’s too late for that. I’m already in it. Besides, I do have something to gain. I want to see Sonny and Hank brought to justice. I’d like nothing better.”
Chester lifted a half-smoked cigar from an ashtray that brimmed with cigarette butts and even smaller cigar stubs than the one he’d plucked from the mess. “Well, all right, but it’s crazy,” he said, striking a match and holding it to the end of the cigar. “Wait here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Chester blew a stream of foul-smelling smoke into the air and started for the stairway. He stopped halfway there and turned to Micah. “And for God’s sake, Micah,” he said, “be quiet. I don’t want Jackson to wake up. He’d probably insist we have another round of drinks.”
Chester climbed the steps and disappeared into his upstairs bedroom.
While he waited, Micah wandered from the parlor into the library. Electric lamps were positioned around the room, but the generator wasn’t running so there was no electricity. Micah opened the bank of draperies at the front of the room. The morning light streamed in low, stretching shadows across the flowered carpeting.
The library was its usual chaos. Micah walked to the large table that held Chester’s various projects and was as amazed as always. “Projects” was the word Chester used. “Dismantlings” was what Micah called it. Or disasters. Chester spent a huge amount of money buying all the latest gadgets, but he seldom used them for their intended purpose. Instead, he’d take them apart to see how they worked.
Since his conversation with Lottie a couple of nights before, Micah had spent a lot of time thinking about the nature of the passionate life and the practical life. It was true he was sometimes an impetuous person who reacted before thinking a thing through. And it was also true that Fay was the practical one. But, he allowed, there was also a vein of the practical in him as well, and about certain things Fay could be as passionate as anyone.
Passionate or practical, no one was altogether one way or the other, but, Micah guessed, everyone was primarily one way or the other. That was as much a part of people as the color of their eyes.
His gaze moved about the room. What, he wondered, was Chester? Was Chester primarily passionate or primarily practical? Judging by the technology that fired his interest, he might be practical. Micah lifted the largest piece of a new Kodak “Snapshot” camera. There were a half-dozen smaller pieces scattered about the table. He smiled. Chester—an engineer, a physician, a man of science—was certainly practical, but he was a man passionate about his practicality.
“Careful, now, don’t you be disturbing my projects.” Chester said this as he sauntered into the library. His spirits seemed high right now. It was clear he’d expected to spend the next fourteen years of his life smashing rocks with a sledgehammer. Since that fear was now gone, he had been doing a great deal of sauntering.
Micah replaced the camera piece among the rest of the debris and turned toward his friend. “What are you dressed up for?” he asked.
Chester was shaved and his hair slicked down. He wore denims and a heavy wool shirt. The cigar, a bit smaller now, was still clenched between his teeth. Around his hip was strapped a six-gun. “I’m not going to let you go out there alone.” He tossed another holster and revolver to Micah. “Here,” he said, “try not to shoot yourself—or even worse, me.”
Micah caught the gunbelt and buckled it on. Two pieces of rawhide hung from the bottom of the holster, but Micah didn’t bother to tie them around his thigh. “Collins is coming with me,” he said. “I’m not going out there alone.”
Chester laughed and turned to leave the library. “Micah,” he said over his shoulder as he headed toward the kitchen and the door at the rear of the house, “going with Brad Collins is the same as going alone.”
The late-morning sky was the color of lead, and a steady northwest wind took the feel of the fifty-degree temperature down a notch or two. Micah turned up the collar of his jacket and was glad he’d worn gloves.
Collins hadn’t said much on the ride out from town. When Micah arrived at the sheriff’s office with Chester, Collins gave a grunt of displeasure and said, “I’ll swear you in as a deputy, McConners, because Earl Anderson tells me that’s what Judge Walker wants, but I ain’t swearing in this doctor.” Chester assured him he didn’t wish to be deputized under any circumstances, and he promised to stay out of the way at all times. Collins gave another grunt and didn’t look happy.
After he administered the oath to Micah, the three of them went outside and Collins looked even unhappier when he realized Chester intended on riding his moto-cycle. “You’re not planning to ride that damned thing, are you?” he asked.
“Sure am,” said Chester with a broad smile.
Collins shook his head. “Well, when it breaks down, you ain’t riding double with me.”
It had been more than ten years since Micah had been to this part of the county. When he was a kid, he and his father would often spend summer afternoons searching the ancient, dried-up watering holes in the area for arrowheads. They always made it a point to avoid the Jones place, though. Delbert Jones, Lester and Hank’s father, had not been an affable sort, and if anyone rode up unannounced, old Del was as likely to shoot him out of his saddle as offer him shade and a cup of water.
Micah’s memory of his father’s caution regarding the Joneses was not lost on him now. He was glad to be wearing the Colt Chester had provided. There was a time in his late teens when Micah was pretty fair with a handgun—at least when it came to putting holes in tin cans. It had been a while since he’d used a gun, but he expected if it came right down to it, he could still handle one well enough if he had to.
At least well enough to avoid shooting himself in the foot. He hoped so, anyway.
They came over a rise, and below was the Joneses’ ranch house. Things seemed quiet enough, but they waited and watched a bit before Micah said to Chester, “Collins and I will ride on down. I don’t want that loud machine of yours to let him know we’re coming any sooner than we have to.”
Micah and Collins rode toward the house at a trot, but Micah was prepared to turn away and gig his horse into a gallop at the first sign of anything strange. There was nothing, though. They rode into the yard, right up to the front porch, without seeing a soul or hearing a sound from either the house or any of the outbuildings.
Collins looked to Micah, and Micah gave him a nod.
“Hank Jones,” Collins called out, “are you in your house?”
There was no response.
Micah looked back toward the hill and waved Chester in.
“Hank, this is Sheriff Collins. If you’re in there, come on out. We want to ask you some questions.”
When there was still no response, Micah swung his right leg over the horse’s rump and allowed his left foot to slip from the stirrup. He flipped his reins over the rail and stepped onto the porch. He knocked twice on the door. “Is anyone home?” he shouted.
Nothing.
Chester had pulled up in the yard as Micah called out. “Do you suppose he heard we were coming,” Chester asked, “and ran off?”
“Anything’s possible,” said Micah. “I expect he knew someone’d be coming sooner or later. It’s no secret what Polly had to say on the witness stand yesterday.”
Micah tried the door and it was unlocked, but he didn’t want to barge in before he had a better idea what he was barging into. He walked to a window and peered inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark of the room, but when they did, he felt them widen. He then heard someone shout, “Jesus Christ!” It was a second or two before he realized he was the one who’d done the shouting. He lurched back from the window.
“What is it, Micah?” Chester asked. “What did you see?”
Micah faced them, swallowed hard, but didn’t say a word. He then spun back toward the door and ran as fast as he could into the house. He heard Collins and Chester run in behind him.
Hank lay on his belly in the doorway between the main room of the house and a small bedroom. Micah had run in at full tilt but skidded to a stop eight or ten feet short of the body. The others came up beside him.
A huge pool of dark, viscous blood covered the floor almost up to where the three men stood. Two sets of saddlebags lay beside Hank. One had popped open, and canned goods had come out and rolled about the floor, leaving aimless, swirling tracks in the gore.
There was a small hole in the back of Hank’s head, but in front his face was almost gone. Teeth, bone fragments, and pieces of flesh were scattered around the floor like some grisly archipelago in a murky sea of blood.
Micah lifted his hand to his stomach and felt the tide of coffee he’d drunk earlier that morning rise. He stepped back to the open front door and inhaled a couple of chilly late-December breaths. After a bit he turned back to the other two who still stared down at Hank. “We don’t have time to tend to the body right now,” he said. “We’ll have to come back for it later.”
“Why’s that?” asked Chester.
“Because,” Micah said, “we have to get over to the Pratt place as fast as we can. Emmett Pratt planned on confronting Sonny and bringing him over here to meet us so we could take Sonny and Hank back to town. Emmett thought he could bring Sonny in peacefully.” He glanced at Hank’s body. “But it doesn’t look like Sonny plans on doing any of it peacefully.”
All the color leached from Collins’s gaunt face, and he backed away from the body. “I’m finished with this business,” he said as he pushed his way past Micah and out onto the porch. “This whole damn thing has gotten way out of hand.” He climbed on his horse. “I’m done.”
“You’re what?” Micah asked.
“I don’t plan on getting killed by some crazy kid, not for a measly hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, I don’t.” He reached inside his jacket, unpinned his star, and tossed it onto the porch. It bounced across the planking and landed at Micah’s feet. “Here,” he said, “you can give this to the county commissioners for me.” With that, he wheeled his horse and loped away.
“Christ,” Micah mumbled under his breath as he picked up the badge. He shoved it into his pocket.
“Well,” said Chester, leaning against the doorsill, his arms folded across his chest, “I told you if you’d gone out here only with Collins, it would have been a lot like going alone.”