“By Joe,” yells old man Cunningham, “us Yackeys has alius kilt our men fair an’ fit fair on all tother occasions. It shore saddens my heart to think thet a son of mine would shoot a yaller-bellied skunk like Ross Murphy Murdock in the back, let alone desecrating a Baptist hymnbook like he done arterwards!”
“He ain’t confessed yet,” says Mitch.
“He ain’t a-goin’ to confess neither,” says I, formal. “As his attunney I aim to prove him innercent.”
Sheriff Mitch Gullen couldn’t think of a word to say. But old man Cunningham Yackey rared back and let fly:
“Ye’ll have to be a dern’ sight better shyster than ye are a cow doctor, Jedge!” yells old man Cunningham Yackey. “My pore boy is guilty an’ I don’t no-ways approve of you bein’ his lawyer an’ encouragin’ him in sinful ways.” Then, he taken a look at Pearlina Murdock. “Cain’t say as I approve of this gal for Bijah, by Joe. Murdock blood will out in the next generation, by Joe!”
Pearlina sasses the old man.
“Leastways,” says Pearlina, “I ain’t turned agin Bijah like his paw — even if he is guilty!”
I left them to argue it out an’ went inter the jail to talk to my client.
Pore Bijah Yackey was hunched up in thet leetle cell like a bull calf in a chicken crate. He looked a caution.
“Howdy, Jedge,” he says.
“Howdy, Bijah,” says I. “I’m your attunney.”
Bijah shaken his head.
“Don’t reckon you can do much good, Jedge,” says he. “Paw’s turned plumb agin me. I reckon I’ll swing.”
I could see thet Bijah taken it hard. “Guilty, son?” I asks.
“Nope, I ain’t,” says Bijah. “I aimed fer to kill Ross Murphy Murdock, but I aimed to ketch him in the woods with his squirrel gun an’ shoot it out fair.”
“Whut’s your alibi, son?” says I. “Where was you the night Murdock got kilt?”
Bijah cheered up an’ lit into a long rigmarole. Fust he finished milking. Then he et supper. Then he rode over to spark Pearlina Murdock. Her maw put him off’n the porch at ten-thutty sharp. Then, Bijah rode home, but didn’t go to the house. His setter she-dog, Peggy, had gnawed her rope an’ had run off to the woods. Bijah knowed she was expectin’, so he went off to look fer Peggy an’ save her f’m droppin’ pups in the woods. Bijah didn’t get back to the house with Peggy an’ the pups ontil long arter midnight.
“A plumb bad alibi, son,” I told him.
“Yep. Reckon I’ll swing,” said Bijah.
Just then there was a big commotion in the sheriff’s office. I went out thetaway to see how come.
We-ell, sir, Mitch Gullen had jest got back his clues f’m Saint Looey. He was a-settin’ at his desk lookin’ at a tarnation lot of pictures them G-men had sent him by the mornin’ bus. The pictures was full of fingerprints.
“Quite a passel of fingerprints, Sheriff,” I says, casual.
“A hundred an’ sixty-one different prints,” grunts Mitch Gullen. “Most of ’em from that pesky hymnbook!”
I taken a look at the clues a-layin’ on a chair. Suddenlike I caught a sniff of wild onion smell f’m the piller that had been under Ross Murphy Murdock’s head.
“Mighty queer, thet smell,” I said, jest thinking aloud. “No wild onions a-growin’ this time of year.”
“That ain’t neither here nor there,” says Mitch Gullen, a-swingin’ his big magnifying glass so’s all the folks peeking in could see thet he was a feller with G-man expeerience.
“Mebbe not, mebbe not, Sheriff,” I says, meek.
Sheriff Mitch Gullen p’ints to a picture of Bijah Yackey’s fingerprints.
“If these prints tally with any of the hundred an’ sixty-one, the case is solved,” says he.
“If’n they do — still mebbe!” says I.
I went along outside, leavin’ Mitch to his magnifying glass’n.
The very fust pusson I run inter on the courthouse square was Johnny Durvupp.
“Howdy, Johnny,” says I.
“Howdy, Jedge,” says Johnny. “I hear tell they put Mister Bijah Yackey in the calaboose.”
“Temporary,” says I.
I started to walk on. An’ son, it’d take a smarter man than you be to guess whut came over me.
Whut say? We-ell — yep, thet’s right. I got a powerful whiff of wild onions.
Well, sir, I turned back to Johnny sort of casual.
“Whur’d you be gettin’ wild onions this time of year, Johnny?” says I.
Johnny grins, right well pleased. It tickled him to think a prominent citizen would bother to notice anything particklar about a shiftless, lazy white trash like him. Even a smell of wild onions.
“My missus cans ’em, Jedge,” says Johnny. “I shore like wild onion flavor on my sidemeat. Ever tried it?”
“Can’t say as I have,” I says, “but it must give sidemeat a right gamey flavor.”
“It shore does, Jedge,” says Johnny, tickled pink.
“Mighty glad to have met up with you, Johnny,” I says. “Goin’ ter be in town long?”
Johnny shaken his head.
“Dunno, Jedge,” says he. “My mules busted the whiffletree. I could fix it, if’n I could borrer a hammer an’ pick up a couple of ten-penny nails. Don’t happen to have some wire about ye, Jedge?”
I told him to inquire at the blacksmith shop an’ walked on casual-like. But in two shakes of a lamb’s tail I was hot-footing it out to Johnny Durvupp’s farm.
Missus Durvupp an’ them nine Durvupp children couldn’t make out why I would bother to call on ’em. I told a white He about lookin’ over the buildings fer insurance. Missus Durvupp made me light down a spell in the parlor. Whilst she went to get me some buttermilk, I taken a look at the double bed.
Whut say? Who’s tellin’ this, son? Sartainly, sartainly. There was only one mattress-ticking piller on thet bed. The tother piller was a corn-shuck an’ wheat-sack affair.
When Missus Durvupp came back with the buttermilk, I says, casuaclass="underline" “By the way, do y’all folks happen to have a Baptist hymnbook in the house? There’s a hymn been a-runnin’ through my head an’ I can’t place it.”
Missus Durvupp colors up an’ looks scairt plumb witless.
“I... I dunno, Jedge,” she says. “I’ll look. We usedter have — no, come to think of it I don’t believe we ever did have no Baptist hymnbook.”
I walks over an’ picks up Johnny’s gun whur it was proppin’ open a winder. One look at the stock told me all I wanted ter know. Thet gun stock had been screwed an’ wired recent. “Mighty nice gun Johnny’s got,” says I. “But he’s split the stock by putting it in a weasel-trap.”
Missus Durvupp looks more scairt.
“It was them skunks, Jedge,” says Missus Durvupp. “They been thicker’n bedbugs in our hen house.” She looks ashamed. “I told Johnny thet it’s a mighty lazy man who won’t set up to shoot his own skunks outer the hen house. But y’all knows Johnny. He allowed a gun trap fer skunks was jest as handy.”
I nods careless an’ sashays out to the hen house. A body had spilled white lye over a patch jest outside the hen-house door. They wasn’t no nests inside — jest boxes setting on the ground an’ filled with straw. I seen then why Johnny Durvupp desarved his repertation. A man who won’t knock together some reg’lar high nests for his settin’ hens is mighty piddlin’, mighty piddlin’.
Well, sir, I druv purty fast back to Troy.
Johnny Durvupp had borrered hisself a hammer whilst I was gone, but he was still lookin’ fer some nails. I walks straight up to the feller an’ looks him in the eye.
“Ain’t it about time fer you to tell the sheriff how Ross Murphy Murdock got hisself kilt?” says I.