The marshal said bluntly, “Sit down, Wirt.”
There was something about his tone that made Wirt blink; there was something in the steely cast of Elec's eyes that hinted trouble. Wirt realized that the marshal had not asked him here for just a friendly gab fest.
Without hesitation, Wirt cut himself away from the pleasantness of his dream. He pulled up a chair and sat down.
Blasingame leaned heavily on his elbows, his thick mouth drawn sharply down at the corners. “I'll come right out with it, Wirt. I've got some news you won't like to hear. I've got a letter here from the county sheriff in Landow —it didn't come from the sheriff, but from a deputy marshal up in the Choctaw Nation...”
Wirt frowned. He thought he knew what Elec was trying to say. “It's about Nate, isn't it?”
“Nate Blaine?” Something curious happened behind the marshal's eyes. “Yes, it has something to do with Nate, but not in the way you think, maybe. This deputy worked out of Fort Smith, but he was on the trail of a killer that had disappeared in the Nations. He found his man, finally, hiding out with the Choctaws, and had to kill him.”
Wirt broke in. “Does this have anything to do with me?”
“This is what it has to do with you, Wirt.” Elec's voice went harsh. “Before this hardcase died, he confessed to killing Jed Harper in that bank robbery five years back.”
The implication left Wirt numb.
“He still had some of the money with him,” Blasingame went on coldly. “A lone rider doesn't have much chance to spend twelve thousand dollars, I guess. Anyway, he had it, in those canvas bags that banks use.”
The chill of dread showed on Wirt's face.
“It's a lie!” he said tightly. “Nate Blaine killed Harper and took the money!”
Elec's voice cut like a winter wind. “It's no lie. A deathbed confession is the strongest evidence there is, and you know it, Wirt. Besides, those canvas bags I mentioned— they were stenciled with the name of Harper's bank.”
Wirt Sewell had ceased to be one of Plainsville's most successful businessmen; the flow of well-being no longer warmed him. He was now an old, bewildered man, his senses skating on the thin edge of panic.
“But Beulah saw him! It had to be Nate!”
“It wasn't Nate.” The marshal's voice was almost a snarl. “And your wife didn't see him. It was all cooked up inside her head. Out of spite, out of meanness... God only knows why a woman would do a thing like that!”
In sudden anger, Blasingame shoved himself away from the desk and paced wildly up and down the office floor. “Five years!” he said bitterly. “That's how long it's been. Five years of hiding, of being afraid to come back to his own country, even to see his boy. How Nathan must hate us, Wirt—all of us, for I was in it, too. I was the one who took Beulah's word for it and locked him up.”
Wirt's face was gray. His mouth moved, but no sound was made. The marshal turned on him and said harshly, “Well, that's what I wanted to tell you, Wirt. That's all there is to it.”
The marshal took his anger in a heavy hand. He breathed deeply, giving himself time to settle down. At last he said, “I shouldn't fly off the handle like that, it's bad for my blood pressure. Just forget what I said, Wirt.”
“Forget?” Wirt looked at him. “What am I going to do, Elec? How can Beulah stand up to a thing like this?”
“I don't figure that's the question. How is the boy going to stand up to it?”
It was well past sundown when Jeff came home to the Sewell house that night. He came in the front door as usual and hung his hat on the tree in the hall. At first he didn't notice the unusual silence.
“I locked the shop,” he called toward the kitchen. “When Uncle Wirt didn't come back—”
That was when he noticed the unnatural quiet of the room—it seemed to be an uneasy hush. Jeff frowned, listening for the familiar sounds that were not there, the rattle of pans, the shaking of the grate in the cookstove. But there was only silence—and still he could feel that the house was not empty.
He walked across the small parlor and into the kitchen, and there was Wirt sitting at the table, seeming even more shrunken and smaller than usual, his face grayer. Beulah was standing beside the cookstove staring dully straight ahead.
Jeff's frown deepened. He shot a quick glance at Beulah, then at Wirt. “What's the matter?”
Wirt cleared his throat, but did not look toward the door where Jeff was standing. “Jeff, you'd better sit down.”
Then the hush came down again, but it was not a passive silence. The very air seemed to crackle. The muteness that had seized his aunt and uncle began to rub on Jeff's nerves. “What's the matter here?” he said again, looking at Wirt. “You didn't come back to the shop. Now I come home and find you and Aunt Beulah looking like you were holding a wake.” When they made no sound, his impatience grew more demanding. “I want to know what's wrong!”
Then, for the first time, Wirt looked up at him. “Jeff, there's something we've got to tell you...”
“No!” The sound was small and thin, almost a wail. Jeff turned quickly to see his aunt cover her face with her hands.
Wirt sighed heavily. “It's no use, Beulah. He'll hear it anyway. Better for it to come from us.”
Jeff was aware of an excited hammering in his chest, and then a sudden silence, as though his heart had stopped its beating. “Is it something about Pa? Is that the trouble?”
Wirt glanced quickly at his wife. “Yes—” he said— “It's something about your pa, Jeff.”
“Then what is it?”
Wirt sat perfectly still, his eyes faded and old. “Do you remember the business about the bank, Jeff? When Jed Harper was killed?”
The hammering began again in Jeff's chest. “I remember.”
“And how your Aunt Beulah identified Nate as the killer?”
For five long years he had trained himself not to think of that day. He had smothered the fire of his anger in the darkest part of his mind, and he had thought until now that the fire was dead. Now he drew himself tall and straight. He said coldly, as though he already knew: “Go on.”
Wirt saw that he could stall no longer. “It appears,” he said quietly, “that Beulah made a mistake that day.”
The working of the mind is a strange thing. Sometimes it accepts only the things it wants to accept and rejects all others—and that is the way it was with Jeff at that moment. He heard the words but could not make himself accept their meaning. He said stiffly, “I don't know what you're talking about.”