All the Old Lions (A Thea Barlow Mystery, Book One) Page 11

  “Do you think he’d believe me? I don’t want anything to do with him.” She snorted, but without her usual conviction.

  “He’d believe the three of us. Besides, I was the one who got attacked.”

  She sighed. “I know, I know. I’ll tell him in due time. Let’s just get busy. First off, I want to fix the pages in my scrapbook. There are unpacked boxes upstairs in the far room on the left. Would you go up and see if you can find some of those gummed reinforcers for ring notebooks? Should be in a box of writing supplies. I’ll start cleaning the office.”

  I don’t know how long it took, half an hour, maybe more. There was a ton of stuff up there and I never did find any office supplies. When I went back downstairs Minnie was sitting at her desk with a smug look on her face. On her lap was a typing paper box filled with loose pages.

  She waggled the box at me and chortled. “I told you not to worry about my book. I take very good care of it.”

  Relief at seeing the manuscript safely in hand overcame any annoyance I felt about being sent on a wild goose chase.

  “You had it hidden. In here?”

  “Never you mind, dear.”

  “Do you have a copy?”

  “No, it always seemed too much of a bother.”

  “It’s imperative that we have a copy, Minnie. Particularly if you think someone might be out to destroy it. Could you tell if anything is missing?” She had cleaned up most of the contents that had been dumped from her desk drawers.

  “I don’t think so, but you know more about the things Helby brought over.” She handed me the cigar box and I began the process of sorting all over again.

  “Look at this one, Minnie.” I handed her the snapshot of the masked men and the hanging body. “We’ll use that one for sure.”

  She sucked in her breath when she saw it, and said, “You bet we will.”

  I hadn’t paid enough attention to the pictures last night to remember them all, but it seemed as if my pile of possibles was smaller than before and the big picture of Minnie and Lil wasn’t here. I got down on my knees and looked under the sofa. “Ah, here’s some more of them.” I ran my hand as best I could under the broken springs that reached nearly to the floor, and retrieved three snapshots.

  “He had a copy of that nice studio portrait of you and your sister, too. It still had the cardboard frame around it, but it’s not here.” I tried to peer through the darkness under the springs. “Have you got a flashlight?”

  “Never mind,” she said, sounding impatient. “We’ll look for it later. And from now on I’ll hide the pictures we want to use along with the manuscript.”

  “Good idea. Let me see what else I can find in your scrapbook.” I sat at the table and straightened and smoothed out the manila pages as I leafed through them. I was looking mainly for early interior shots of Halfway Halt, and pulled some I thought would reproduce well, but all the pictures were fascinating, and I was easily distracted. Lil had done a thorough job of labeling and identifying most of the pictures, and, I couldn’t help but note, sanitizing. There were no orgies, nothing at all suggestive of the true nature of the house. The contents had been carefully edited to protect the reputation of the owner, or to withstand close attention by a growing girl. Fascinating.

  I turned to a page crammed with three rows of photos. One in particular caught my eye. A colorful group of cowboys complete with bandannas, a crazy assortment of hats and ill-fitting clothing.

  There were a profusion of arrows and names written in the margins. I bent more closely to read them. I should have guessed that the fresh-faced young man in the showy chaps was the still-flamboyant Helby Enright. Looming behind him was a much older man with formidable gray handle-bar mustache labeled “Enright”. Helby’s father, most likely. I looked through the other names and found Potts and his father, and a large man named Beesom. One of the sheriff’s many relatives? Then I stared at a figure in a long hide coat. My eyes flittered over another detail I hadn’t noticed before—a touring car parked under the shade of a big old tree.

  “Minnie,” I said, excitement building like a crescendo. “Hand me the picture I gave you, the masked men.”

  I compared the two pictures. The arrangement was different—not everyone was in the same position—but it was the same car, the same tree and the same men. Even with their faces hidden, the cowhide coat and ostentatious chaps were obvious identifiers, as were the hats with their brims and crowns creased and folded to individual tastes. A cowboy Rosetta stone with all ten names conveniently written in. Helby, Potts, their fathers, and six other men.

  “Minnie, come look at this!”

  She was as excited by the two pictures as I was. “By golly, Thea, I’ve got them. I can identify them all.”

  My mind was running more to headlines. Author unmasks vigilante action. Or maybe we could turn the whole incident into a book of its own, include interviews with Potts and Enright. Helby. My eyes were drawn to the hanging image, a bit blurred, as if still swinging, and the cocky youth who leaned against the car as if what they had done were nothing more than a prank. I couldn’t imagine him involved in such a sordid affair.

  “How old were they, Minnie? Helby and Potts?”

  “I don’t know. It was Nineteen Thirty. Thirteen, fourteen? Potts is younger, I think.”

  “And with their fathers? I can’t imagine a father wanting his son to accompany him to witness, or participate in a…a lynching.”

  “I suppose they thought it an act of justice.”

  “But you said there was no evidence against the man they hung.”

  “That’s right.” She sounded as awe stricken as I about the implications of an incident that had suddenly become real for us. “That’s what the paper said: there was nothing to connect the man to the incident at all. He was just a sheepherder passing through. That was enough to incriminate him.”

  Potts was as tall as Helby, but looked quite a bit younger and much more vulnerable with naked wrists dangling from too-short sleeves. “Why would a father want to bring a son along on such a venture?” But then why would a father send a young daughter to work in a whorehouse? I felt sick to my stomach.

  “People grew up young in those days,” Minnie said, as if reading my mind. “That’s what my sister always said.” We sat in silence, each contemplating our own thoughts.

  “Could they still be prosecuted?” I wondered.

  “I shouldn’t think so. Isn’t there a statue of limitation?”

  “Not for murder.”

  The word vibrated between us, taking on an unexpected life of its own.

  “Do you suppose this is what the townspeople were afraid you’d find out?” I asked. “Are any of the rest of these men still alive?”

  “I can find out.”

  My mind was racing. For an uneasy moment I remembered how the sheriff had inspected this room and the others as well, and the interest he’d taken in the scrapbook. He’d even checked out the back door. I wondered how close a relative the man in the picture was.

  I said, “Do you suppose whoever broke in wanted to find out what you knew?”

  “Or if I was going to put anything about the hanging in my book? But they couldn’t find the manuscript.”

  “Helby had to know the picture of the hanging was in the cigar box. Why would he give it to you if he was worried about you finding out the truth? Did he know you had this other picture?”

  “He looked at my scrapbook, but I don’t remember that he took any special note of this other picture.”

  “Maybe he didn’t make a connection at the time, but remembered later and broke into the house to get the picture back. But then,” I added with a sigh, “the fact remains that neither picture was taken. They’re both still here.”

  “Unless he was so surprised when you came downstairs that he forgot to take them, or dropped them?”

  We both had a hard time imagining Helby in such nefarious activities. “Maybe he had Jim do it for him,” I suggested, doubtfull
y, but somehow that didn’t seem to fit either of their personalities.

  “That leaves Potts,” I said. Minnie didn’t want to think him involved any more than I wanted Helby to be the bad guy, but then, she hadn’t witnessed Potts kicking the dog either. I for one thought the shoe fit him perfectly.

  Minnie heaved a big sigh. “Or it could have been like the note, someone trying to scare me into running.”

  Or the fences and wells, with which she suspected Max might have had a hand. I too, began to rub my temples, and reminded myself that none of this was my concern.

  “It’s a problem for the sheriff, Minnie,” I said, automatically. I hesitated, but of course, Minnie had had the same thought.

  “Ha! His name’s on there, too.”

  “But it could be some distant, far-removed cousin for all we know. Besides, he’s the person in authority, and the sooner you tell him about it the better. Our concern is with the manuscript and I’ll trust you to keep it and the pictures safe until we can get some copies made.” And I can get out of this crazy place, I added to myself.

  We worked straight through. Minnie at the typewriter, and me stretched out on the lumpy sofa reading. The manuscript was all I had hoped for, and Jersey Roo a most delicious low-life.

  By mid-afternoon I was ready for a walk, or some kind of exercise, and went outside. The dog soon joined me and we ran down the hill to the gravel road. I remembered seeing some bright orange wildflowers on the way to town yesterday, and wondered if I might find some closer to the house. It was a beautiful day, the sky squinting bright, and the air smelled of baking soil and wild, sweet clover.

  We wandered through the sparse growth in the borrow pit beside the road, but I couldn’t keep my mind off Minnie’s book for long. Roger was going to love it. It might even turn out to be the first book he ever read all the way through. I was particularly pleased with the sly undercurrent of humor that Minnie used to keep any incipient sordidness at bay. My trust had been well placed. I wasn’t sure how the later chapters concerning Lil would fit in, but figured the vigilante expose would at least keep them from being anticlimactic. If not, I’d use Jersey’s portion and talk Minnie into doing Lil’s story as a separate book. We had plenty of publicity tie-ins for both.

  I saw the dust cloud of the approaching vehicle long before the car itself came in sight. The car barreled past, Cora Mae Croderman at the wheel. I waved. She either ignored me, or didn’t see me. Her hands gripped the wheel and her eyes were fixed determinedly on the road ahead. I wondered where she was going. If she was headed for Minnie’s, she was traveling much too fast to make the turnoff. I stared after her, but not even that woman’s strange peccadilloes could distract me for long.

  I whistled for the dog and began a slow walk back, thinking again what an excellent send off Minnie’s book would be for my project. I could be proud of my first venture. And with some national publicity, it might do much better than expected for that type of book. Whether Minnie was finished with the last chapters or not, I would leave tomorrow with the finished portion in my hot little hands. I could hardly wait to show it to Uncle Charlie. I knew he’d love it.

  I was glad I had a date that evening, because I couldn’t have slept. And a country dance seemed a fitting finale to my western adventure. I planned to take the camera with me.

  The Smoky Creek Community Hall was about nine miles outside of Hijax on another dusty county road. The board building, serviceable rather than beautiful, sat in the middle of a large bare pasture ringed by a sagging barbed-wire fence. If the signs outside were to be believed, it also served as meeting place for the American Legion, VFW, and the Four Square church.

  The entire population of the Hijax community appeared to be crammed into the moderately-sized building.

  Folding chairs rimmed the walls right up to the raised dais where Bobby Ray’s Country Rhythm Boys thumped their hearts out. Babies propped in plastic seats set on the floor watched solemn-eyed as older youngsters surged in and out among the dancers, their shrieks drowned by the insistent beat of over-amplified country guitars and a heavy-handed drummer without much sense of rhythm.

  Two long tables loaded with plastic wrapped plates and bowls stood at the far end of the hall, hemming in a bay area where the old-timers gathered, looking like a pride of restless, white-maned lions.

  Jim paid our fee to a woman sitting at a card table at the top of the stairs by the door who in turn stamped the back of our hands with a bilious green mark from a rubber stamp pad.

  Jim led me into the melee. “Care to two-step?” he shouted, with a big grin on his face.

  I’d dated an urban cowboy for awhile, so wasn’t at a complete loss. That is, not as long as I concentrated on what my feet were supposed to be doing, which was nearly impossible with so many people to watch.

  “Oops,” I said, as I stumbled out of sync for the second time.

  “Forgive me.”

  Jim smiled and held me closer, but I couldn’t resist watching some of the wildly improbable couplings that danced by. Then I saw Max. He was dancing with Kim Kavenaugh, the gorgeous waitress from the Stirrup Cafe. His head was bent, intent on listening to what she was saying. Her shockingly beautiful face was alive with animation.

  Lights shimmered through the golden strands of Kim’s hair that brushed across Max’s cheek. His eyes were nearly invisible under their heavy lids, and I recognized the small twitch at the corner of his mouth seconds before it broke into the flashing smile that, somehow, I felt belonged to me.

  I lurched onto Jim’s feet again, surprised by the surge of jealousy. Jealousy? How had that sneaked up on me?

  “Whoops,” I said, rather too brightly. “I’m afraid I’m giving you sore feet. You’re a good dancer, but I don’t seem to be in tune tonight.” I was shaken by the unexpected burst of emotion, and didn’t want to analyze it. Thankfully, the number ended and Jim’s quick squeeze stopped my ridiculous chatter.

  We stopped close to the old-timers staked out territory. I could see Parson Potts perched on a chair too small for him. Helby Enright stood in front of the smoke-grimed windows holding forth with a straight-faced tale that had the others wildly amused.

  Jim led me around the lunch tables. Into the lion’s den, I thought grimly, as the talk and laughter stopped abruptly.

  “Hi, dad,” Jim said. “I think you’ve met Thea Barlow.”

  The old man nodded with the same crispness I had noted before. His face was calm, but the frosty eyes were alert and observant. The epitome of the strong, silent western man.

  Potts lurched clumsily to his feet.

  “Whoa, there,” Helby said, and steadied the heavier man with a hand to the elbow. In that quick movement I thought I saw a flash of the self-confident youth who had leaned so carelessly against a car hood.

  “How-do, Miss Barlow,” Potts muttered. His hands seemed lost without something to clutch.

  “We’ve met also,” I said, dryly. My hand—consciously or unconsciously—rose to the sore spot on top of my head. Potts flushed, shuffled his feet nervously, and refused to meet my eyes. Harmless, my foot. He positively oozed guilt. Suspicions confirmed, I felt certain I knew who had raided Minnie’s office.

  Potts sidled away, mumbling something about getting a beer.

  I looked back at the crowded dance floor, and wondered if I could find Max again. I wanted to tell him about Potts’ reaction, but the band had struck up a country waltz and he was lost somewhere in the crowd.

  “May I?” Helby asked, drawing my attention back. And before I really knew what was happening, the old man tossed a curt nod at Jim and took my hand in a surprisingly firm grasp. “Come along now,” he said, and swung me onto the dance floor. “This is more my style.”

  He was barely taller than I, and loaded with old-world charm evident in the tilt of his head, the quirk of an uneven smile and the sparkle of appreciation that glimmered in the pale, icy eyes. In his day he’d surely been a lady-killer. An unfortunate expression. It brough
t an unwanted picture to mind of a body dangling from a tree, its features blurred as it swung out of focus.

  I pushed the image away, willed it to disappear within the lovely swirling movements we took, swooping in large, lazy circles across the floor. Besides, I told myself, he’d been too young then to be anything but an observer, surely, dragged into an unsavory affair by an unfeeling father. I closed my mind to any further implications, caught up in the heady rhythmic steps that went on and on, and brought us breathlessly back to the place of beginning as the music ended. He was more short of breath than I, but just as delighted.

  “Nothing like a pretty girl to make an old codger want to dance,” he said. “My one dance of the evening, all I can manage now.”

  Jim took my elbow and shook his head ruefully at his father.

  “You should take it easy, Dad.”

  “Go to hell, boy,” he said with a cold dismissive glance, then addressed me. “Tell Minnie to bring you over sometime, and tell her I’ll be by.”

  Jim’s mouth was tight with anger and his fingers bit painfully into my arm.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “That old man is stubborn as a jackass. The more the doc tells him to slow down, the worse he gets. Not that I mind him dancing with you, but he’s got no more business whirling around out there like a kid than he does riding that outlaw horse of his.” He stopped, gave me a sheepish grin and said, “Well, enough of that. I think you’ve made a conquest, though. Dad isn’t like most Westerners. He doesn’t issue invitations unless he really wants to see you.”

  “It can’t be easy for someone like him to slow down. I like him, Jim. I’m just sorry I won’t have a chance to know him better. I hear he was quite a…a heller when he was young.” Actually, that was what I’d heard about Potts, not Helby, but didn’t figure it mattered.

  “To hear them tell it, they all were. A point of pride. Those were the good old days.”

  My just deserts, I suppose. Those who fish for information come up empty handed. I tried a more direct method.

  “Then why are they so against Minnie and her book?”