Man-Killer

Talmage Powell

• Publisher: Prologue Books
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781440536915
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Littérature policière et sur le mystère

Her real name was Vicky Hustin, but to the people of Big Hominy she would always be ''that uppity mountain gal, that piece of hill trash who thinks she's so high and mighty.'' And when her ex-husband was found brutally murdered, they had still another name for her: Man-killer!They also had a name for someone like Wade Calhoun, who dared to believe in Vicky's innocence. Crazy, that's what he was. Shell-shocked from the war, probably. Just ignore him till the trial's over and that no-good gal's had her comeuppance on the gallows!But Wade Calhoun wasn't giving up that easily. He'd turn up the one bit of evidence the town couldn't ignore. Because even if it meant pitting his life against that of a killer, he was determined once and for all to balance the scales of Big Hominy's justice!

1.

AT LAST a spider came to the silent brush screening me and began trying to spin a web. She hung from a gossamer thread, trying to swing to a twig and anchor the skein. Each time she was uncessful. Then I added a gust of my breath to the thin mountain breeze. It gave the spider the necessary impetus, but it was the wrong thing to do. It was an artificial factor forced into the natural order of things. My movement was something out of the Unknown; and now the spider hung clumped into a tight ball at the end of her thread. She would never spin a web in this place.

I turned my attention from the spider. The Winchester was heavy across my knees. The late shadows were picking up a chill. Above me the damp, cool, wooded mountain strained toward the sky. A hundred yards below ran the narrow ledge of road. Beyond that, the mountain dropped dizzily toward a valley half hidden by the blue mists of twilight.

Far down in the valley a feeble finger of smoke wavered toward the sky as a hill woman started corn pone and collards for supper. A faint gray cloud formed across the yawning distance, moving across the face of the mountain beyond the valley. The dust smudge, I knew, was stirred up by a moving car. This time it had to be Clarence Oldham’s car and not a muddy pickup truck or rattling Ford. I didn’t think I could stand the waiting much longer.

As the keening sound of the car’s motor insinuated itself into the mountain stillness, I brought the Winchester from its resting place on my knees. Through rifts in the brush I commanded a good view of the road, but looking into the brush from the road a person would have a hard time seeing enough of me for recognition.

I knew Vicky would be sitting beside Oldham as he drove, and I wondered if at this very moment she was laughing at something he was saying.

The car came around a curve with a speed and deftness sufficient to make me admire Oldham’s driving in this terrain, lowlander that he was.

The car was a black sedan, and I squeezed the trigger of the Winchester and laid a bright furrow across the left front fender of the car. Oldham jammed on the brakes when the gun crashed, and the car slithered to a stop in a cloud of dust.

I had clean creek gravel in my pocket. I popped it in my mouth and yelled, “Get out, both of you!”

Oldham hesitated, saying something to Vicky. Then he got out of the car alone. “What is this, a mountain stick-up?”

There was just enough of a sneer in his voice to have got him killed if it had been a hooger pulling a heist. I had to admire his nerve, although I wasn’t too surprised by it. From the time he’d first showed up in Big Hominy, I’d pegged him for a cool, arrogant fish.

I didn’t want to talk much, and I wished Oldham weren’t so cool. The mouthful of pebbles was only a partial disguise for my voice.

“I told both of you to get out,” I yelled.

Vicky slipped out of the car.

“That’s better,” I shouted. “Now you come up here, Mrs. Hustin.”

“Listen,” Oldham said, “if it’s money you want—” “It isn’t. So save your breath. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I want to give Mrs. Hustin a message from her husband.”

She and Oldham traded a glance; then she moved away from the car, slipping once as she started up the steep embankment from the road. The sun was at her back and she seemed to be etched in red fire, with the mountain breeze skipping through the burnished copper of her hair. She was taller and more slender than most hill women, and for my money more beautiful than any woman anywhere.

She walked to the thicket and said, “Wade!”

“Not so loud.”

A flash of anger touched her eyes. “Are you drunk, Wade?” “No.”

“Then what kind of prank—”

“It’s no prank. Something has happened to Rock Hustin and I don’t want you going back to town right now.”

She looked at me a moment, and when her voice came it was very quiet. “Are you trying to tell me that Rock is sick or hurt, Wade? I’m through with him. I’ve been through with him for a long time. What could I do to help him?”

“Not him. Yourself.”

“You needn’t be afraid for me. There’s nothing he can do to hurt me.”

“I wish that were true. How I wish it!”

From the road, Oldham yelled, “What is it, Vicky? I’m coming up there.”

“You take one step,” I called, “and I’ll break your knees with rifle slugs.”

Vicky gave me a look that meant she was sore at me. “Wade, I’m going back to the car. Mr. Oldham isn’t used to this kind of thing.”

“You won’t ever believe me or trust me, will you, Vicky? Okay, here it is. Rock was murdered last night at Deaf Joyner’s fish camp. His body was found late this morning.”

It took a second for her mind to absorb it. Then she went pale and a shiver coursed over her body. She closed her eyes. “Rock is dead,” she said in a shaky voice, “and I don’t feel any tears, Wade. Isn’t that rotten of me?”

“But you’re crying.”

“Only for myself. Only because I’ve grown so callous I don’t feel sad over a man’s death. Wade, I don’t want to be a mean or cruel person. I want to feel tender and gentle and clean inside, where it matters.”

I knew what she was trying to express. She was begging life not to beat her down any more, not to warp or twist her. Looking at the blind plea in her face, I felt as if I wanted to strike and break something. A man, a law, anything.

She rubbed her palm across her cheek. “Thanks for telling me, Wade. I’ll go now.”

I looked away from her, staring at Oldham down there in the road. “You can’t go,” I said. “They’re looking for you. They think you killed Rock.”

I heard the intake of her breath. I knew she was looking at me with the knowledge in her heart that I wasn’t kidding about this, that I had made sure before I came here.

“Wade, what’ll I do?”

“Go back down there and send Oldham on alone. Tell him I’m a cousin. Tell him you’ve got to meet Rock. Tell him the truth, anything, but get rid of him so I can take you to a place where you’ll be safe until I have a chance to do something.”

“No, I think I’d better go back, Wade, and face it. I can straighten it out. I didn’t kill Rock.”

“They think you did. Sheriff Hyder has a case against you. You’ve been tried and convicted over every backyard fence in Big Hominy. What do you want to do, provide them with a Roman holiday? Now get down there and get rid of Oldham.”

I heard her take one slow step; another. I glanced at her, and she was moving toward the road like a mechanical doll with no feeling in it.

She reached the cutbank. Oldham helped her down, taking both her hands in his, and throwing a mean-mad glance in my direction. He pulled her close to him and they talked for a minute.

There was little doubt in my mind as to Clarence Oldham’s serious and honorable intentions toward Vicky. He had money and class. He was in the mountains for a vacation. He was not the kind of man you’d associate with the usual hill girl. But Vicky was different. He sensed it; he saw the qualities in her that I did, and he treated her like a gentleman. Big Hominy didn’t like that, having its own opinion of how she should be treated.

Oldham’s argument with her failed. He got in his car and drove off.

I crawled out of the brambles as she came up the slope; she moved as if she were tired, and her face was lined with frustration.

I spat out the pebbles. “What did Oldham have to say?” “He tried to talk me out of it.” “What did you tell him?”

“That Rock was dead. The truth, Wade, except I didn’t identify you.”

She looked at her high-heeled shoes, and then up the mountainside. She sat down, took the shoes off, and peeled her nylons from her legs. “Maybe I should have listened to him, Wade. He said it was crazy for me even to think I’d get blamed for Rock’s death. Clarence said he would hire a good lawyer. I’d get nowhere running away, he said. I hurt him, Wade, and he’s been nice to me.”

“He doesn’t know Big Hominy, though.”

“No, he doesn’t. Well, what do we do now?”

“I’ll take you across the mountain to the old Stillman place. The cabin is still sound enough for you to be comfortable there this time of year.”

We climbed up through the timber, following a dim trail that most eyes would have missed. But we were both hill bred, and the trail was as pl...