The Grub-And-Stakers House a Haunt (2 page)

Then there was the Peeping torn whom some of the people who lived over near the inn had complained about lately. Strange things had been happening around there ever since Andy McNaster, the former innkeeper, had dashed off to become a movie star. In Zilla’s opinion, that new manager, Hedrick Snarf, was no more up to scratch than a cat in mittens. It was a rotten shame Lemuel Pilchard, Andy’s former right-hand man, had had that terrible fall so soon after his boss left town. Lemuel was a crackerjack at innkeeping, but it wasn’t a job that a person could do well all wrapped up in plaster.

Hiram Jellyby must have noticed, or perhaps divined by extrasensory perception, that his hostess’s mind was wandering. He broke into her reverie with a quite reasonable question. “Speakin’ of names, missus, you mind tellin’ me yours?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. My name is Zilla Trott. Mrs. Michael Trott, to be precise, though I’ve been a widow for thirty years. My husband was lost at sea.”

In point of fact, the late Mr. Trott had met his demise trying to run the rapids on Big Pussytoes in a borrowed kayak while under the influence of some mysterious potion that he and a few friends had cooked up in a borrowed washtub one Victoria Day weekend, but Zilla saw no reason why she couldn’t gild the lily a bit, as Mike himself would have done. She was something of a romantic at heart though a person might not think so to look at her, particularly when she was on the warpath about one thing or another, as she frequently was.

It occurred to Zilla that Michael Trott might have taken the trouble to manifest himself in place of this mangy old coot. Perhaps he would, when he got around to it. Punctuality had never been Mike’s obsession; Zilla had often told him he’d be late for his own funeral. In a way, her prediction had come true. Mike’s body hadn’t come ashore till more than a week after he’d been drowned, although his would-be rescuers had salvaged the kayak right away. They never did find the paddle; it was thought to have been claimed as salvage by a family of rather tough and rowdy beavers who lived downstream.

Nobody had wanted to tackle a beaver on the question of prior rights, so the matter had been allowed to drop.

Well, that was all water over the rapids now. Unlike her friend Minerva, Zilla wasn’t one to keep open house for every wayfaring stranger who wandered along. She was emphatically not keen on having an unkempt specter oozing through her furniture for any extended length of time.

A person could hardly come straight out and say so, but she supposed it wouldn’t hurt to hint around a little.

“Are you here on business, Mr. Jellyby, or just passing through?”

“Hell, Miz Trott, just call me Hiram. Damned if I know what I’m here for. Wait a minute, maybe I do. Yep, it’s comin’! Bones, that’s it. Bones.”

“Any bones in particular, or just bones in general?”

“My bones, dad-gum it. They got to be buried decent so’s I can rest in peace like it says on the tombstones. An’

furthermore, they got to be avenged.”

“That so? How were you planning to avenge them?”

“Cussed if I know, but I’ll think of somethin’. First off the bat, somebody’s got to locate ‘em for me.”

Zilla snorted. “Isn’t that just like a man? Leave things around and don’t remember where you put ‘em. Why can’t you find the bones yourself, for Pete’s sake?”

“You’re kind of a cantankerous old besom, ain’t you, Zilla? Meanin’ no offense, you understand. Don’t ask me why I can’t find ‘em. All I know is what I read in the Akashic Record. It says there I was murdered.”

“Well, that must have been a surprise. Who do you suppose murdered you?”

“Some ornery sidewinder in a black frock coat an’

purple gaiters, to the best o’ my recollection.”

“Are you sure about the purple gaiters?”

It was Hiram’s turn to snort. “How do you expect me to be sure of anything, with a wad o’ gray fuzz where my brains used to be? Assumin’ they ever was, which I ain’t sure of neither. But it does strike me them gaiters was purple. Or maybe kind of purply blue.”

“Or blue with purple polka dots?” Zilla didn’t mean to be sarcastic but purple gaiters on a murderer were a bit hard to swallow coming from a mule driver’s ghost in the dead of night. “Was the killer a man or a woman?”

“Man, I think. Could o’ been a woman, now that you mention it. Some o’ them dance hall girls was pretty tough babies.”

“I can imagine. They’d also be more apt than a man to wear purple gaiters, wouldn’t you think? How did you die? Were you shot, stabbed, poisoned, strangled, or hit over the head with something heavy?”

“You left out drowned, smothered, an’ blown up with dynamite.”

“If you’d been blown up with dynamite,” Zilla pointed out reasonably, “I shouldn’t think there’d have been any bones left to find. Didn’t the Akashic Record let on what happened, for Pete’s sake?”

“Could of, I s’pose. I was so cussed mad I plumb forgot to look. All I could think of was gettin’ my mitts on that bugger who done me in.”

“But Hiram, didn’t it occur to you that your murderer must also be dead by now? I don’t know when they stopped driving mule teams around here but it must have been quite a while back. I’ll have to ask Grandsire Coskoff. He’s our oldest inhabitant in Lobelia Falls. Oldest living inhabitant, anyway,” Zilla amended out of politeness. “Grandsire will know if anybody does. He was born in 1894, if my memory serves me.”

“Huh. Just a kid, next to me.”

“What year were you born?”

“I dunno, maybe it’ll come to me. Who’s out there?”

“Out where?” Zilla glanced nervously at the door that led to the woodshed. “I don’t hear anything. Maybe I’d better go look.”

“Maybe you better not, it’s prob’ly a skunk. Anyways, as I started to say, the reason this bugger in the purple gaiters killed me was so that he, or she, or maybe it for all I know, could steal my treasure.”

“What treasure, Hiram? Your Sunday teeth?”

“Don’t get funny, woman. This was a real treasure, dad-burn it. Gold pieces, a whole trunk chock-full of ‘em.

I dug it up, me an’ the mules. They was thirsty, see, an’

they could smell water close under the sod, so they started diggin’ with their hooves. Mules are a dern sight smarter than they’re given credit for. People don’t appreciate mules. Nor mule drivers neither.”

The ghost lapsed into moody silence, Zilla wasn’t standing for that. “Never mind the mules, get on to the treasure. How did you find it?”

“Well, like I was sayin’, the mules found water but it was just sort o’ seepin’ up an’ not collectin’. So I got a shovel out o’ the wagon. Us mule drivers never traveled without a shovel ‘cause we never knew when we’d have to dig ourselves out of a hole or bury a pardner that had died o’ lead poisonin’. Or rotgut whiskey, as the case might o’

been. Anyways, I begun scoopin’ out a good, big water hole so’s me an’ the mules could all drink together.”

“That was sociable of you.”

“Oh, yeah, I used to be a real nice feller. Good lookin’, too. You should o’ knowed me back then, Zilla. So like I says, while I was diggin’, the spade hit somethin’ hard an’

I seen that it was the corner of a box. So after me an’ the mules had drunk our fill, I turned ‘em loose to graze awhile an’ just out o’ curiosity I begun to dig out the box. I thought at first it was prob’ly a coffin but it turned out to be just a little thing, no bigger’n a crate o’ canned peaches. Once I got the dirt scraped off, though, I seen it wasn’t no crate but a fancy trunk, with bands of iron around it an’ a big lock on the front.”

“My stars, that must have been exciting.”

“I’ll say it was! The bands was all rusted out from bein’ so near the water but the box was sound enough ‘cause the wood was covered with waxed canvas. So I guv the lock a whack with the shovel an’ it fell right off clean as a whistle. An’ I opened the box, an’ there was the treasure!

An’ me out there in the middle o’ nowhere with no place to spend it an’ nobody to brag to ‘ceptin’ a passel o’

mules that didn’t give a damn nohow.”

Oo what did you do?”

Zilla prompted.

“Seems to me I hoorawed around for a while an’

poured me a snort o’ red-eye to celebrate, but then I got to thinkin’. I was ferryin’ in supplies for the Mounted Police barracks. I knew if them Mounties caught sight o’ that there trunk in my wagon, they’d get nosy an’ make me open it out o’ general cussedness. You can’t trust them Mounties one inch when it comes to law an’ order. They don’t give a hoot for nobody, they got to do the right thing irregardless of whose toes they step on. Sure as shootin’, they’d know where them gold pieces was robbed from an’

make me give ‘em back to the rightful owner.”

Hiram fumed a moment in silence, then went on. “So what I done was, I cooked myself up a mess o’ beans an’

bacon while I waited till the waterhole cleared, me an’ the mules havin’ muddied it up pretty good. Then I filled my water bottles an’ guv the mules another good drink, then I took my shovel agin an’ filled in the hole an’ put back the sod as best I could so’s you’d never o’ knowed there was nothin’ underneath. Then I made me a little wooden cross an’ planted it right over where the box was layin’, so’s it would look like a grave, see. Nobody’d go diggin’ up a grave, but I’d be able to find the right place when I come back to get the treasure. I even carved R.I.P Hiram on the crossboard. I thought that was a pretty good joke. Which just goes to show, don’t it?”

“It was tempting Providence, you old fool. You should have known better.”

“Why? What would you o’ done?”

“Taken the gold to the Mountie barracks and turned it over, of course, like any decent, law-abiding citizen.”

“Huh! Ask a dern fool question an’ you get a dern fool answer. Can’t trust a woman no more’n you can a Mountie.

Always got some bee in their bonnets about doin’ the right thing.”

“Yes, Hiram, you’ve made your point.” Zilla was trying not to yawn. “Get on with your story, can’t you?”

“Ain’t much more to tell. I delivered my goods an’ got my pay, then I went over to the saloon an’ downed a few shots o’ rotgut ‘cause it would o’ looked funny if I wasn’t rory-eyed like the rest. I didn’t want to start ‘em thinkin’.

Then I turned the wagon around an’ come back to collect my gold.”

“Back here to Lobelia Falls, you mean?”

“Here or hereabouts. This used to be a nice respectable town, as I remember. These days I s’pose it’s a regular Sodden an’ Gomorrah.”

“Well, you suppose wrong,” Zilla replied tartly. “Do you remember any of the people?”

“Couple o’ fellas named Hunniker from down in the States built theirselves a camp on top o’ that big hill over yonder. Used to burn off a big tract every year an’ plant rye on it.”

“That’s a nice surprise,” said Zilla. “Grandsire Coskoff seems to think the Hunnikers lived on salt pork and whiskey.”

Hiram Jellyby was amused. ” ‘Course they did. What do you think they grew the rye for? Fattened a few pigs on the leavin’s from the still an’ sold what they couldn’t eat or drink. I used to cart ‘em over to Scottsbeck, them an’

the jugs an’ the carcasses. Nice enough fellas, talked like they had a mouthful o’ fried potaters but I got so’s I could understand most o’ what they said, not that it amounted to much. Made theirselves a pretty good pile, then went back to where they come from. Left the rye field to the town an’ took their still with ‘em. Seems to me they was gone a while before that last trip o’ mine. Twouldn’t surprise me none if that field o’ theirs is where I’m buried.”

“It’s a small world, isn’t it.” Zilla was half asleep by now.

Hiram, like the Ancient Mariner, wasn’t about to relinquish his audience until his tale was told. “Wake up, woman, I’m still rememberin’. What I done was, I took my bearin’s an’ drew me a map o’ where the trunk was buried.

This was after I’d filled in over it an’ riz my cross. When I got to the Mountie barracks I bummed an envelope off’n their clerk an’ addressed it to my brother Bill, which I never had one, an’ ast ‘em to mail it for me in care o’ the Scottsbeck post office. Scottsbeck used to be a fair-sized town then. You ever been to Scottsbeck?”

“Certainly. It’s our biggest city in Lobelia County now.

The post office is a brick building with fancy lanterns out front and I don’t know how many people working inside.”

“I want to know! I wonder if they still got my letter, waitin’ for ol’ Bill to pick it up.”

“Considering the rate of speed at which the post office operates, I shouldn’t be surprised,” Zilla replied with an indignant sniff. “I could go and ask, I suppose. Or they might have passed the letter on to the Scottsbeck Historical Society. But you still haven’t told me how you got murdered.”

“Don’t rush me, I’m comin’ to it. Gripes, this is the first time I’ve talked to a human since I got my chips cashed in for me. At least you might let a ha’nt get in a little practice. Ain’t hurtin’ you none, am I?”

He was keeping her up long past her usual bedtime and Zilla was feeling the effects of her camomile tea. Moreover, she was getting stiff from so much sitting, but she supposed it would be an act of charity to let the long-mute shade ramble on a little longer. She put another stick of wood in the stove and settled back into her chair. “No, I’m all right. So you came back to where you’d left the gold.

Then what happened?”

“Well, I guess I must o’ shot my mouth off more’n I’d meant to that night in the saloon, ‘cause when I got near the buryin’ place, I realized some bugger on horseback was trailin’ me. Wasn’t no way I could o’ lost ‘im on the open prairie with me drivin’ a four-mule team an’ a cussed great big freight wagon. So I just kep’ my shotgun handy in case he showed signs o’ gettin’ too frisky, an’ pushed on.

‘Twasn’t unusual for a lone rider to stay near a team for comp’ny on the way an’ protection in case somethin’ happened.”

“Like what, for instance?”’

“Outlaws, grizzly bears, bad licker, mean women, you never knew. Anyways, after a while the rider caught up to me. I reached for my shotgun, but all he done was gimme a yell an’ a wave an’ gallop on ahead. By then I was pretty close to where I’d left the trunk, so I stopped an’ made camp, figgerin’ to let ‘im get a good ways ahead before I went for the gold. But I’d no sooner got the mules pegged out an’ the beans in the fryin’ pan when I’ll be cussed an’