“Say,” he said. “Ain’t that the dog your uncle used to keep in the house?”
“Not that I know of,” young Pembroke said. “He’s been out here with the others for the few weeks I’ve been visiting.”
“That’s funny,” the Sheriff said. He scratched his head. We finished the dogs, then the Sheriff said to young Pembroke:
“Mind if we look over the scene where your uncle was killed? Just routine, but I got to make out a report.”
“Not at all,” young Pembroke said. “I’ll show you. but if you don’t mind, I’d rather not go down there. You know how it is.”
“I reckon,” the Sheriff said. “Say, before we do that I wonder if I could talk to you about buying this here dog. That’s what I really came for, to be honest with you.”
Young Pembroke looked at him and then laughed. The other fellow showed up from somewhere and he laughed too.
“Shucks, Sheriff,” young Pembroke said. “You can have him to recollect my uncle by, if you want. You can have all the dogs. I don’t know much about dogs.”
“Yuh,” the Sheriff said. “Well, that’s settled. Now, me and the game warden will just mosey on over to the scene of the dyin’.”
The long jump was just a little ways past the stables, the path showing it was a favorite ride for the old man. The jump was right at the edge of the woods and on the far side of it there was a low place gouged out from all the horses landing there through the years. It was partly churned up from hooves and partly in grass. There was no mistaking the rock that killed the old man, either. It was off to one side and there still was blood on it. The Sheriff turned it over with his toe, but only some grass was under it.
“I reckon that’s enough,” the Sheriff said. He looked kind of serious, so we didn’t talk much on the way back. He opened the kennel run and the big white and lemon dog came out, tail wagging a little. The Sheriff snapped a leash on him and we walked around to the front of the house. Young Pembroke and the other fellow were standing there beside their car. They came to meet us. When they were about twenty feet off, the white and lemon dog kind of bunched himself and opened his mouth and said, “—” and jumped straight for young Pembroke.
“That dog doesn’t like me,” young Pembroke said.
“Doesn’t surprise me none,” the Sheriff said. “You expect him to be in love with the fellers that beat his master to death?”
Young Pembroke said, “You’re kidding, Sheriff.”
“Wish I was,” the Sheriff said. “Sure wish I was. But when you lied to me about this dog being out in the kennels for a couple weeks, I figured you might have lied about some other things. The rock that killed your uncle, for instance. It wasn’t lying there longer’n yesterday — the grass is still green under it. May even be some fingerprints on it. I’ll bet you,” the Sheriff said, “there won’t even be any grass stains on your uncle’s clothes, down in Doc’s ice box.”
Young Pembroke had turned as white as his friend was.
He said, “How in blazes did you know about the dog?”
“Hoarse,” the Sheriff said. “Put a house dog out in a kennel, he’ll bark himself hoarse in twenty-four hours. Then for a couple days he won’t make a sound, but after that his voice comes back. Only then he don’t bark any more because he ain’t a house dog no longer, he’s a kennel dog. You must have rassled this here dog outside yesterday morning, because he was trying to stave you off the old man.”
The two of them started to run, going in opposite directions. The Sheriff took the leash in his left hand and unlimbered his .38. Young Pembroke was going to the left and the Sheriff hit him in the calf of the leg with the first shot. The other fellow went to the right and the Sheriff hit him in the hand with the second shot as he tried to get the keys into the car door. Then the Sheriff flipped open the cylinder of the revolver, blew smoke out of the barrel and looked at me.
“If you game wardens would let a man use a .38 on quail,” he said, “I’d be all right, even on them going-away doubles.”
84
An Illusion in Red and White
Stephen Crane
Nights on the Cuban blockade were long, at times exciting, often dull. The men on the small leaping dispatch-boats became as intimate as if they had all been buried in the same coffin. Correspondents who, in New York, had passed as fairly good fellows sometimes turned out to be perfect rogues of vanity and selfishness, but still more often the conceited chumps of Park Row became the kindly and thoughtful men of the Cuban blockade. Also each correspondent told all he knew, and sometimes more. For this gentle tale I am indebted to one of the brightening stars of New York journalism.
“Now, this is how I imagine it happened. I don’t say it happened this way, but this is how I imagine it happened. And it always struck me as being a very interesting story. I hadn’t been on the paper very long, but just about long enough to get a good show, when the city editor suddenly gave me this sparkling murder assignment.
“It seems that up in one of the back counties of New York Sate a farmer had taken a dislike to his wife; and so he went into the kitchen with an axe, and in the presence of their four little children he just casually rapped his wife on the nape of the neck with the head of this axe. It was early in the morning, but he told the children they had better go to bed. Then he took his wife’s body out in the woods and buried it.
“This farmer’s name was Jones. The widower’s eldest child was named Freddy. A week after the murder, one of the long-distance neighbors was rattling past the house in his buckboard when he saw Freddy playing in the road. He pulled up, and asked the boy about the welfare of the Jones family.
“ ‘Oh, we’re all right,’ said Freddy, ‘only ma — she ain’t — she’s dead.’
“ ‘Why, when did she die?’ cried the startled farmer. ‘What did she die of?’
“ ‘Oh,’ answered Freddy, ‘last week a man with red hair and a big white teeth and real white hands came into the kitchen, and killed ma with an axe.’
“The farmer was indignant with the boy for telling him this strange childish nonsense, and drove off much disgruntled. But he recited the incident at a tavern that evening, and when people began to miss the familiar figure of Mrs. Jones at the Methodist Church on Sunday morning, they ended by having an investigation. The calm Jones was arrested for murder, and his wife’s body was lifted from its grave in the woods and buried by her own family.
“The chief interest now centered upon the children. All four declared that they were in the kitchen at the time of the crime, and that the murderer had red hair. The hair of the virtuous Jones was grey. They said that the murderer’s teeth were large and white. Jones only had about eight teeth, and these were small and brown. They said the murderer’s hands were white. Jones’s hands were the color of black walnuts. They lifted their dazed, innocent faces, and crying, simply because the mysterious excitement and their new quarters frightened them, they repeated their heroic legend without important deviation, and without the parroty sameness which would excite suspicion.
“Women came to the jail and wept over them, and made little frocks for the girls, and little breeches for the boys, and idiotic detectives questioned them at length. Always they upheld the theory of the murderer with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands. Jones sat in his cell, his chin sullenly on his first vest-button. He knew nothing about any murder, he said. He thought his wife had gone on a visit to some relatives. He had had a quarrel with her, and she had said that she was going to leave him for a time, so that he might have proper opportunities for cooling down. Had he seen the blood on the floor? Yes, he had seen the blood on the floor. But he had been cleaning and skinning a rabbit at that spot on the day of his wife’s disappearance. He had thought nothing of it. What had his children said when he returned from the fields? They had told him that their mother had been killed by an axe in the hands of a man with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands. To questions as to why he had not informed the police of the county, he answered that he had not thought it a matter of sufficient importance. He had cordially hated his wife, anyhow, and he was glad to be rid of her. He decided afterward that she had run off; and he had never credited the fantastic tale of the children.