Power in the Blood (7 page)

“Well, keep hard at it, both of you. I’ll be asking you again about him.”

“Yessir. Mr. Delaney?”

“What is it?”

“My brother, he’ll be coming by here in the next few days. I got a letter says he’ll be over to see me, so is it all right if he stays with me just one night? Ain’t seen each other in must be three, four years now. He could use my bed. No need to feed him. Bill generally brings his own provisions.”

“Very well. One night only.”

“Thank you, thank you, sir.”

Delaney watched him walk away. Something about Chaffey left him feeling unclean, even after so short an encounter as this. At least the man was a good worker, worth keeping for that reason alone. It was a pity, though, about Clayton. How could so ungainly a body sustain so extended a period of punishment? The clearing of trees had gone on for almost a month now, with no sign of Clayton bending under the pressure of a man’s work. He seemed, in fact, to be thriving, the long cords of muscle in his arms thickening almost daily; his chest, although still painfully narrow, was now layered with enough lean meat to hide the washboard bones there before. Edwin’s plan was not producing the desired results, but he would not call a halt just yet; something could still happen.

The horseman came on Sunday, while the Delaneys were at church in town. Returning home, they saw a sorrel mare hitched outside the cabin Chaffey lived in. “That’ll be the brother,” said Delaney, and drove on by to the barn. “Clayton, you’ll tend to the buggy and team.”

Clay got down, unharnessed the horses and curried them in their stalls, then pushed the buggy deeper into the barn to its appointed place. Everything had a special place on the Delaney farm, even the simplest of tools; nothing ever went astray.

He was wiping the buggy’s painted bodywork with a damp cloth to remove the dust of the road, when a shadow fell across him. A man stood in the barn doorway, a short man wearing a striped vest.

“You the boy?” asked the man in the vest.

“I suppose,” Clay said.

“You suppose? Ain’t you the boy around here, then?”

The man’s voice was similar to Chaffey’s, but deeper, with more of a drawl. To Clay’s ears the man sounded lazy and insolent, so he chose not to reply.

“Someone don’t know who he is,” the man went on, “I don’t know as I’d want to trust my horse to him. Likely he’d forget all about the horse and do nothing. That what you’d do?”

Again, Clay said nothing.

“Well, are you the boy or not?”

“I’m him.”

“Glad you remembered. I expect you seen my mount. Needs taking care of bad. I rode a long way getting here. Bring her over, boy, she’s gentle.”

“Bring her yourself.”

“Say what now?”

“Bring your own horse, I said.”

The man paused before laughing. “Had a banty rooster like you,” he said. “Stood tall for what he was, but skinny. Strutted considerable, but he was no scrapper. Had to wring his chicken neck one day when he pecked me. Never drew blood, but I twisted his head clean off for it.”

Clay turned his back and resumed work on the buggy. When he glanced over his shoulder the man was gone.

Some time later, his chores completed, Clay left the barn and went to the house. The sorrel mare stood as before, dusty and untended. Chaffey’s brother hadn’t even bothered to loosen the cinch. Conscientious by nature and training, Clay had to make himself ignore the horse and go inside.

Edwin was not happy about the new arrival. “Not once since we arrived home has Chaffey brought the other fellow over. Common politeness would have him do that. The man has no sense of what’s right.”

His wife asked, “Do you really wish to meet Mr. Chaffey’s brother?”

“That is neither here nor there, Mrs. Delaney. Common politeness brings the guest before the host. Chaffey is not the host here, even if the fellow is his brother!”

Clay said, “I talked to him.”

“You?”

“He came into the barn and said to take care of his horse. I said no.”

“Did you now. Well done. Does he think we’re here to wait on him? Damn that Chaffey for bringing him here!”

Mrs. Delaney hurried away before further profanity could reach her. Edwin was angrier than she’d seen him since the day he found the sow had rolled on her litter, killing eight of the ten. She couldn’t see why the hidden guest should arouse his temper so, and was secretly glad the Chaffey brothers had seen fit to isolate themselves. Mrs. Delaney had always found Chaffey peculiarly repugnant, even though Mr. Delaney swore he was a better than average worker. She occupied herself with embroidery.

When evening came, Edwin’s mood darkened. “This has lasted long enough.” He left the house and went to Chaffey’s cabin. Clay watched from the window as his father knocked and was let inside. The grandfather clock beside him ticked away less than two minutes before Edwin reappeared and stamped across the yard to the house.

“Drunk!” he raged. “They’re both drunk, flat-out devil-take-me drunk!” Clay watched him march twice around the room. “I won’t tolerate this tomorrow,” Edwin said. “A Sunday drunk is bad enough, but if Chaffey can’t perform his work come morning I’ll send him away, brother and all.”

He didn’t tell Clay that Chaffey’s brother had told him to either pour himself a drink and join in the merrymaking, or leave them in peace. Chaffey had looked a trifle sheepish at seeing his employer humiliated that way, but had said nothing. Edwin had already made up his mind about dismissing Chaffey, whether he was capable of work on Monday morning or not; the qualification was for Clay’s benefit.

“I … regret placing you in his hands, Clayton. Do you have any complaints to make about the fellow? I’m prepared to listen.”

“No.”

“You’re sure? A closed mouth is an admirable thing more often than not, but I want the truth now.”

“There’s nothing.”

Clay could not bring himself to speak of Chaffey’s advances. Delaney seemed content with silence, and began filling a pipe, muttering of ingratitude and low breeding. Clay excused himself and went to his room.

Morning saw the stranger’s horse still untended, and little improvement in Edwin’s disposition. Immediately after breakfast he went to Chaffey’s cabin and entered without knocking. Less than a minute passed before a gunshot was heard. Clay and Mrs. Delaney ran to the cabin. Edwin lay dead on the floor. Chaffey’s brother stood by the far wall, lingering wisps of smoke still issuing from the barrel of his pistol.

“Never did get acquainted,” he said, his voice slurred by liquor. “Bill Chaffey’s my name, and I don’t like for to be told my business.”

Chaffey was standing openmouthed in the corner, staring at the dead man. Mrs. Delaney moaned once and fell upon her husband to cradle his head.

“Won’t do no good, lady,” Bill assured her. “See where I got him? Don’t many men live with a bullet in the chest. He’s gone. I told him to quit yelling, but he wouldn’t, so I made him, and be damned if I say I’m sorry. He brung it on himself.”

Clay turned and left the cabin. He knew where Edwin kept his gun, a heavy cap-and-ball Colt of Civil War vintage; even hands large as Clay’s had trouble lifting the brute. Halfway across the yard, he heard a second shot. Instead of continuing on to the house, he turned and ran back inside the cabin. Mrs. Delaney lay across her husband, a patch of blood darkening the back of her dress.

“You be still there, boy,” Bill warned. “I’m in no mood for folks that don’t do what they’re told, so help me I’m not.”

Clay stared at the bodies. He felt paralyzed. He should have kept going to fetch the Colt from Delaney’s bedside table. Even now he could have been aiming it from the upstairs window, waiting for the murderer and his accomplice to step outside into sunlight. He’d made a terrible mistake, acted like a fool, and very likely would die for it. Vomit welled up inside him and gushed from his mouth, some of it reaching as far as the dead couple.

Bill watched him, not without sympathy. “Well,” he said, addressing no one in particular, “now what?” He seemed calm, even a little bemused by the situation. Chaffey hadn’t moved since Clay came in. A sour reek of bile filled the cabin. Clay began to hiccup with fear. Bill would have to shoot him too, as the only witness.

“Outside,” Bill told his brother. He had to push Chaffey’s shoulder to start him moving toward the door. Clay listened to the low buzzing of their voices. There was no other door to escape through than the one they stood near, discussing what to do with him. He heard his name twice before Bill came back inside.

“Boy, is there cash money on the premises?”

“No …”

“You sure?”

“He … he never kept money … not here.”

“I better not find any, or I won’t be happy about how you lied.”

He went out again, talked for several minutes, then was replaced by Chaffey, nervously holding Bill’s pistol. “He’s gone to see. I told him Mr. Delaney, he always paid his bills monthly in town. He’s gone to see anyway.”

“Let me go …,” Clay said.

Chaffey shook his head. “I can’t. He’d kill me too. He’s mean.”

“Before he comes back … we can both go! You didn’t do anything bad yet!”

Chaffey wagged his head violently from side to side, pressed his lips together to keep himself strong.

Clay used the word he’d been saving till last. “Please …,” he said.

The gun was lifted. “Bill says … he says I got to, so we’re both in this together. I swear, he’ll kill me if I don’t. I’m sorry, truly.…”

He thumbed back the hammer and took aim. To Clay the muzzle opening seemed impossibly large, big enough to swallow him whole. He heard the shameful sound of his own voice begging, begging as the seat of his pants filled with a fetid brown froth, and all shame was subsumed by the need to talk his way out of dying.

Chaffey’s eyes told Clay when the moment had come. They closed against the anticipated blast. Clay turned to throw himself away from the yawning muzzle’s line of fire, but he moved too late. The shot’s deafening sound was merely the aftermath to what felt like a skewer rammed through his face from one side clear through to the other. The bullet had passed through both cheeks, missing the teeth and gums only because Clay’s mouth was wide open in a scream he couldn’t hear. He fell, more from shock than any conscious plan to play dead, then lay still, his mouth filling with blood.

Clay heard Chaffey’s boots moving across the floor, and had the presence of mind to stop breathing. His face was buried against the surprisingly firm flesh of his mother’s side. He could feel blood gushing from his ruptured cheeks onto the cloth of her dress. Chaffey’s breath rasped a few feet above him for a long moment, then the boots moved away, and he heard Bill’s voice coming from over by the house.

“You get him?”

“I got him!”

The combined sound of their voices moved in the direction of the barn. Clay drew breath and lurched upright. He hurried from the cabin and crossed the yard, glancing at the barn door—no sign of the Chaffeys—then upstairs to the bedroom of his parents, a room he had never been inside. Delaney had told him once that the pistol was kept near to hand in case robbers should enter the house at night. Had Chaffey searched the upper floor during his brief time inside?

Clay yanked open the drawer of the bedside table. There lay the gun, smelling of oil. He picked it up. The Colt seemed to possess a weight beyond its own metal and wood.

Delaney’s two best horses had been taken from their stalls to the yard. The only saddle was placed on the first, then Bill went to fetch the saddle from his own inferior mount to put on the second. Unbuckling the girth, he hesitated, then turned. The last thing he saw was the boy standing in the house doorway, aiming a pistol at him. Bill heard the first chamber misfire, but the second killed him with a bullet to the chest. In the few seconds it took him to die, he cursed his brother for a fool.

Chaffey came hesitantly from the barn. Had that been Bill’s gun he heard? It sounded louder than Bill’s. The boy he thought he’d killed was already halfway across the yard, a pistol held before him in both hands. Chaffey felt his knees give way, and he sank to the ground. The gun grew larger as Clay approached to within a few feet of the kneeling man.

“He made me …,” Chaffey said.

The hammer went back. He watched the trigger squeezed. The dull click of a misfire was too cruel. The following chamber also granted him a few extra seconds, but the next did not. Chaffey felt his skull fly apart, then felt himself leap out of his own demolished cranium.

Clay watched the body crumple sideways into the dust of the yard. Both men were dead by his hand. The fact stunned him, elated him. How had any of this happened? How could Chaffey, who had worked alongside him this past month, aim a gun and try to kill him? The fact that he had done so made Clay’s reciprocal aiming and more successful killing acceptable. Clay didn’t doubt it, even if his body was beginning to twitch, even as the instrument of retribution fell from his hands. It had been right, right and good, to do the thing he had done.

He washed his mouth free of blood, then changed his fouled pants before mounting the horse that would take him to town. His face was on fire by then, the pain so bad he couldn’t keep himself from crying.

6

Hassenplug paid for a doctor. It was worth two dollars to be sure his son was born right. His wife could have organized the assistance of area midwives, but Mrs. Hassenplug was in no mood to cooperate, wouldn’t go anywhere near the girl or fix her food, hadn’t even spoken to Zoe after her belly started to balloon.

It was jealousy, pure and simple, Hassenplug could see that, but he didn’t interfere; best to leave his wife out of things till the baby was born, then he’d put her in her place. Zoe might even change her mind and begin showing respect for the father, might even consent to be his real woman, a second wife, like the kings in the Bible had. Yes, he’d keep Mrs. Hassenplug away from the baby, before and after its birth, just in case she was jealous enough to do the boy harm. She’d been acting very strange of late, and couldn’t be trusted.

The doctor earned every cent of his fee. It was a night birth, protracted, noisy, troublesome. He very nearly lost patience with the girl under his care; she didn’t seem to be trying hard enough to push her baby out, reluctant to experience the ultimate pain of passage. He encouraged her, instructed her, shouted at her, and finally the thing was done, another soul received into the world of men. The doctor went downstairs to inform the Hassenplugs their erring daughter (or servant girl; the doctor had not quite fathomed the relationship) had delivered herself of a healthy female.