Duke, my old half German shepherd, half somethin’ else, huntin’ dog lay on the wooden porch of the store. ”Stay,” I told the mongrel. I pushed the double door open and the floor creaked where it always did. The warm air felt good. It was four miles from home in what my Pa calls Hill Oklahoma to this little store in Hackett Arkansas, and it was pretty cold today. I don’t know where the state line is, but it is somewhere between here and there.
Mr. Sanders, wearing his stained white apron over a sweater stood leaning on the counter. I leaned the empty shotgun against the doorjamb. I pulled off my ragged knitted gloves and stuffed them in my coat pocket.
“Howdy, Ike,” he said.
I returned his “howdy”, and then I took off my hat since I needed to ask for credit again. “Can I get five more shotgun shells?” I asked. We couldn’t afford a whole box of shells at one time, so I would get them five at a time. Actually, we couldn’t afford nothin’. Mr. Sanders had been carrying us all winter. I was the designated hunter since each shell had to provide a rabbit or somethin’ bigger.
“Shore. My pleasure. How’s your ma and pop?” Mr. Sanders made it seem like the most natural thing in the world for us to beg credit from him. He was carryin’ most of the town and most of the farm folk around these parts. He was a nice guy to all of us.
“Mom is poorly, today. It’s the cold, I reckon. It’s pretty hard on her.”
He counted out five shells and I signed my “Isaac Daniels” on his clipboard that says I got ‘em. I put the red 12 gauge cartridges into my left coat pocket. I put my hat on my head then tipped the brim to Mr. Sanders as a thank you. I took my shot gun and called for Duke as I left the store.
I had walked with the wind to get here, but it was against the wind goin’ home and the wind bit in hard as I pulled on my gloves. Duke kept his head down and his eyes half closed as we walked into the icy wind. I think it is getting’ colder. It is a grey day and the clouds were gettin’ darker.
It was my plan to go home through the woods down by the creek. I had seen a flock of wild turkeys in there several times. I was plannin’ to have one of them for dinner tonight.
I find plannin’ don’t count for much during this depression. As soon as I jumped the ditch to head for the woods, I saw the body. The man was dead, face down in the ditch. He had no coat. He just had on a shirt and trousers and black shoes and socks. Black suspenders held the pants up. His shirt was clean white except for the blood stain on the celluloid collar. The blood was frozen and he was frozen. His hair looked to have been cut by a barber. I knew I was goin’ to be late when I headed over to the Sheriff to tell him about the body. I was hopin’ there would daylight enough to get a shot at somethin’ for dinner before I got home. An occasional snowflake came swirling out of the grey. Sheriff Braxton was locking up to go home early. He was not too happy to hear there would be outside work in the evening hours. “Can you go get Donnie for me?” the sheriff asked me. “I will meet you two down there.” Donnie was the part time deputy. “Don’t touch nothin’ ‘till I get there,” he said as he unlocked the office to go back in.
Donnie Braxton was Sheriff Braxton’s nephew. “Keep it in the family” was their philosophy. Donnie lived in an apartment over the Dew Drop Inn and was the bouncer for the saloon in the evening. He pulled on a heavy coat and gloves when I told him about the body. He pinned his six pointed deputy badge on his coat since it was official business.
We got to the ditch on foot as the sheriff pulled up in his model A. Donnie and the sheriff climbed down in the ditch and pulled the body loose from the frozen ground. When they had the stiff man turned on his back and some of the leaves cleaned off his face, I told them I had seen him before.
“He was stealing pecans from our tree by the road.” I told them. “That was two days ago. It was warmer and he was drivin’ a fancy car. I had my gun and I told him to stop. Pa saw what was goin’ on and came down by the road. He looked like he knew the man. Pa said to him, ‘I see you are a travelin’ man.’ The man looked mighty relieved and Pa told me to lower the gun off him.”
“Pa told the guy he could have all the pecans that were on his side of the fence. The guy pulled out a pillow case from the back of his car and started loading up on pecans. Pa went back up the hill. I think Pa saw the guy had on a Masonic ring on his hand. Pa is a member of the lodge here in Hackett.”
“This guy told me his name was George. He invited me over the fence to look at his car. It was a Packard funeral car. It wasn’t a hearse. It was like the family limousine. It had fold down seats in back. The guy, uh, George here, told me he was sleeping in and livin’ outa the car. He said he won it in a poker game in Ft Smith. There were little polished metal signs in the windows that said, ‘Bowen’s Funeral Home.’”
There was no fancy car and no Masonic ring now. Just a frozen guy the sheriff and Donnie were trying to load in the back of the sheriff’s car. It was hard for them to get his joints to bend enough to get him to clear the door. Finally, they gave up and stood him up in the rumble seat. Sheriff Braxton had some rope so they tied him in place so he wouldn’t fall out. They drove off with George kind of leaning forward over the top of the Model A.
I decided against going into the woods as it was too near sunset. I would do good just to get a shot at a rabbit on the way home. “Come on Duke,” I called to the dog. Snow was coming down lightly and the wind had let up a little.
It was almost completely dark when I was crossing the last field of the hill we lived on. I heard a rabbit bolt as I approached. I fired more at the sound than anything I could see. The squeal of the dying rabbit told me I hit a target. Lack of scamper sounds told me it quit moving. "Get it, Duke," I told the old dog. I was temporarily blinded by the flash of the 12 gauge. I daren't move till my sight returned. Like a lightning flash, my vision was frozen with a negative image of what I saw when the gun went off. I could see a shadow of the rabbit about a foot off the ground stretched out trying to run. It was amazing to watch the scene of the jumping rabbit slowly fading away.
Duke took a whole minute of zig-zag to locate the rabbit, (I guess he was temporarily blinded, also.) but he managed to bring it to me. At least we would have supper tonight, and I would have a tale to tell about the dead, frozen stranger on the edge of town.
I had burned more than an hour getting back home at a slow trot. Supper would be very late, but at least there would be supper. I heard Izzy running and calling “Ike, Ike!”
"Mom's dead." Izzy cried. Izzy, my little brother had been waiting for me on the porch since he heard my shot at the rabbit. He had been crying. That was clear from his face. Izzy was nine. I picked up Izzy and started to carry him home. He was by far the youngest of us four boys.
"What? What happened?" I gasped.
Pa came out on the porch as we approached and put his hand on my shoulder. "You know your Mom has been sick for a while," he said. "This recent batch of cold put her to bed. She died of consumption this afternoon. We knew she had it since last spring. It was her idea that we did not tell you boys that she was likely to die. Doc said we should tell you, that all of you were old enough to know." Pa looked at Izzy when he spoke this last bit "You all know now, I guess." Pa kinda patted my shoulder. I followed him and Izzy inside to see Mom.
Izzy and Pete and Sam and Pa had already taken care of Mom. They had cleaned her up and put her into her best dress and her white socks with the little flowers embroidered on the ankles. Izzy had brushed her hair. She liked for him to do that when she didn't feel well. Pa had laid her on a rough sawn plank laid between two chairs. They had tied her hands together so her arms wouldn't fall off the narrow plank. They tied a scarf around her jaws to the top of her head to keep her mouth closed. "We will take her to town tomorrow. Does anyone feel like eating?" Pa asked.
We all agreed food would not be too good right now. I took the rabbit outside and gutted it. I tied the rear legs together with a leather thong, and hung it up on a post on the porch. It would keep fine in this cold. Washing the rabbit blood off my hands hurt in the frigid water I drew from the pump.
We got ready for bed mostly in silence. Izzy sobbed quietly when he covered Mom with a blanket and tucked it around her chin.
Pa asked when he climbed into bed why I was so late. I gave him the news about the stranger who took our pecans and who was now was frozen stiff headed to the undertakers.
"Jesus, what a day!" Pa said. "They must've killed him for that nice car he was driving."
"They took his Mason's ring, too." I told Pa.