“His body done broke,” Doc said, pulling the coarse muslin over Frazier’s gray face. He folded the stethoscope back into his medical satchel and glanced at me and Pa seated at the table and said, “That mule is dangerous.”
Doc peeled the sheet back off Frazier and grimaced, studying him once more before draping the fabric back over the dead preacher’s face.
I know’d Junia had spent her rage on Vester Frazier and busted his ribs and other innards, but the herb jar half-full of dead man’s bells sitting by the kettle was new and something I’d noticed as soon as I arrived back home with the doc. An empty mug rested on a stool beside the bed. An uneasiness took hold as I wondered just how much of the foxglove Pa had given the preacher.
Pa told Doc, “The pastor had been hunting my daughter and meant to do harm.”
Doc looked at Pa, then me, and back to Pa and nodded with the full knowing of that harm. Doc spied the jar and then picked up the empty cup.
“He came to and”—Pa’s voice folded into a cough—“and I gave him some foxglove for the hemorrhaging until you got here. No more than I’ve given myself for a headache.”
I wrung my hands in my lap, then tucked them under my bottom and felt the blue heat itching them.
“The beast busted him up good,” Pa continued.
“You best shoot that striking mule before the town does it for you, Elijah,” Doc said, slamming the mug back down onto the stool. “Shoot it right now!” He snapped his bag shut.
I flew up from my chair. “No! Junia was trying to protect me, and she stopped him.”
Doc raised a hand and said, “Don’t matter a spit. Now, Elijah, you know two Fraziers found dead—and both with Blue Carters—ain’t gonna sit well, no matter what the excuse.” Doc worried a hand over his whiskered cheek, rubbed his tired eyes, and slipped a hard glance at me. “Charlie, and now Vester.”
I dropped my gaze downward, the ugly memory of Charlie Frazier’s broke ticker loud in the cramped cabin.
Pa said, “He attacked us on my land.”
“He’s dead, Elijah. A dead white man in a colored’s home. They’ll burn your house for it. Hang you for sure,” Doc said.
“Blue,” Pa corrected.
“It’s still a color to them, and one they’re afraid of,” Doc said.
“Pa.” I latched onto his arm. “We’ll tell Sheriff how he came for me on my book route. The lawman pledged his protection to us librarians.”
“He’s Frazier kin.” Pa worried a rough hand down his face. “Hell, half the town’s related to a Frazier one way or another,” he said, defeat wearing him down.
Doc mused, “Frazier clan runs thick, one of the biggest ’round these parts. Some of them are rotten, and some are decent-enough folk. The sheriff’s a good lawman, of good cloth, and he takes his responsibility seriously enough”—Doc grimaced as if he was reminded of something unpleasant—“if not too serious sometimes. But this is two dead Fraziers.” He shook his head.
“The preacher attacked me,” I barely whispered. “I’ll tell Sheriff how he tried to violate—”
Pa wrapped his hand over mine, pressed a hush into it. He squeezed once more, and harder again, a warning in his cold touch.
I swallowed my accusation and tucked down my chin. A woman violated would be damned—persecuted—and dismissed from her job like Postmistress Gracie Banks had been after she was raped last year and told. And there’d been more than a few other Gracie Banks who’d blabbered. Rarely was justice served and then only if the woman’s kin took it upon themselves to mete out punishment in a quiet, lawless way. Disgraced, soiled like that, even womenfolk would silence, shun, and cast blame on the tainted female—make good ’n’ sure she’d carry the sin of the man’s stain for the rest of her days. Over the years, I’d seen that burden in a few women’s hooded eyes around town. I remember Mama telling Pa when she thought I weren’t listening that the female’s silence let those vile godless men walk free among their prey, boldly pass their sufferers on the streets of Troublesome with a sly tip to the hat, a smug pat to the crotch.
“But he was hunting me,” I said to Doc, my words weakening.
“On my land.” Pa dropped my hand, stabbed a finger to the window. “Carter land.”
Doc drew a long, bothersome breath. “Folks’ll surely think the worst. And fear of peculiarity, things that have no name, nor grasp”—his gaze fell on us—“will drive even a saintly man to do evil under this dark sky in this old, dark land.”
Fear seized hold, and I looked at Pa’s flushed cheeks.
Doc took a seat at the table, piano’d his long fingers across the scarred wood, and snatched more peeks at me. “We have us a problem, Elijah,” Doc said, concern shrouding his voice. “A problem that needs fixing.” Doc knocked the worry into the wood, softly cleared his throat. “Yessir, we do.”
“Fetch us a drink, Daughter,” Pa said, studying him. “The doc must be thirsty.”
“Yes, Pa.” Trembling, I pulled out an old whiskey bottle from the back of the cupboard, poured the men drinks, and placed the tin cups in front of them, meaning to take a seat too.
Pa grabbed my arm. “Check on the beast and make sure it’s good and tucked in.” He gently shoved me off. “Go on, Daughter,” he said, a bit gruffer this time. “Get.”
I opened the door and glanced back over my shoulder.
The men had pushed aside their cups and tilted their heads together, ready for talk.
I stole one last glimpse of Frazier’s sheeted body before going out. A problem…that needs fixing, Doc said, and I know’d somehow he’d meant fixing it with me.