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Excerpt

Excerpt

Buttermilk Sky

Chapter 1

1913

The blast hit Sheriff Chanis Clay square in the chest. He lost his balance, tumbled down the cellar steps, and landed hard against a rough rock wall. His head bounced twice before he slumped forward, his chin planted on his collarbone.

His last conscious thoughts were of his father. The badge on Chanis’s chest was the one handed to him at his father’s funeral, then proudly pinned there by his mother after the general election made it official. As darkness swirled, he wondered if his fate would be the same as his father’s—killed in the line of duty. Dead before he could even serve out his term. Dead and leaving too much undone.

His own strangled breath awoke him. How long he’d been out, he didn’t know. Probably not long, for a thin shaft of daylight filtered from the half-open door at the top of the stairs. What in the world had happened up there? Last he remembered, he’d eased open the door to check the cellar, but he hadn’t drawn his gun. Who would have thought he needed it? Obviously he was wrong about that.

Wincing, he leaned his head back. It felt like there was a pumpknot big as a goose egg on the back of his skull. His hands and feet tingled like a cracked crazy bone—circulation kick-starting. And his shirt stuck to his chest—with blood? His face and chest stung, but they seemed to be peppered with glass, not buckshot. Looked like it wasn’t his time after all, and he was thankful. What would happen to his mother and the kids if he died at twenty-three?

Not to mention Mazy. They’d never even had a real kiss yet. He was decidedly unwilling to leave Mazy and all their plans behind. Well, maybe they were more his plans than hers right now, but she’d come around. He just needed to get the house he’d bought readied up. He wouldn’t chance a proposal until he had a home ready for her, a home fit for a girl like Mazy Pelfrey. Just this morning he’d stopped by the general store to look at wallpaper samples. His throbbing head spun with images of cabbage roses, lilacs in bloom, ivy climbing trellises, and men on horseback chasing foxes.

Chanis rubbed the sore spot on his head, trying to put together what had happened. He’d come up here to check on Oney, who nobody had seen for days. It was known about town that Oney Evers had been ill for some time, ever since getting the sugar. The sugar was making him waste away. In six months’ time he was half the man he used to be. The doc brought Oney to Chanis’s attention when the old man missed an appointment with her. He was more than glad to come up here this morning to check on Oney. Now here he was blown against the cellar wall, about as useless as the sack of withered seed potatoes his elbow rested on.

Everybody who knew the Everses said Oney’s wife was crazy as a jar of crickets, but he never figured she’d shoot him. But maybe she didn’t—maybe Oney did. That would be out of character for him, but really, what did he know about Ina Evers? Whenever there was violence of any sort, folks were quick to blame whoever was most different. Now he’d done the same.

The door at the top of the stairs swung all the way open. Miz Evers waved a long-barreled six-shooter in front of her like a divining rod. Chanis scrabbled out of the line of fire, huddling behind the wooden steps.

“Who’s down there?”

“Miz Evers? It’s Chanis Clay—the sheriff.”

He heard the gun cock.

“I’ll blow you all to pieces,” she said with a voice high and reedy.

“Where’s Oney? I just came to check on Oney.”

“And you figured to help yourself to some canned goods whilst you were looking around? Likely story.”

Blam!The gun fired. A row of glass jars went up in pieces. Vegetables rained down. He tasted green beans.

“Did I get you? Good enough for you, you scoundrel! Your daddy will be turning over in his grave. Now there was a good man.”

“I swear I meant no harm. Miz Evers? Where is Oney?”

“That’s for me to know. Now get over where I can see you! I ain’t wasting the one bullet I’ve got left.”

Feeling around in the dusky dark, Chanis found a bushel basket. “All right, I’m coming out. Don’t shoot!” He pitched the basket toward the bottom of the steps.

A shot drowned out her laugh. The basket was done for. Chanis thought of drawing his own pistol, but he couldn’t see shooting a woman. His daddy always said, “Don’t take your weapon out if you don’t aim to use it.” Besides, her gun was no threat without bullets. She was just confused. He’d talk sense into her.

Chanis eased out from under the stairs, brushing cobwebs from his clothes. Raising his hands above his head, he looked up at Miz Evers. She was a tall, gaunt woman with a jutting jaw and long, bony arms. She put Chanis in mind of a praying mantis.

“I’m coming up.”

With a whine like a thousand angry hornets, a bullet parted his hair. Stunned, he dropped backward to the floor.

“Huh,” she said. “I guess I miscounted. Are you dead?”

Her voice echoed against the ringing in his ears. Chanis lay still, playing possum. He could feel blood trickling down his face, but he couldn’t be hurt too bad. He could still think and sort of hear.

She sighed—like he had really put her out. “How am I supposed to get a dead body outen the cellar?” She took the steps slowly like a toddler, bringing both feet together on each one before tackling the next.

Chanis held his breath until she prodded his chest with the business end of the gun. With one quick motion he grabbed the barrel and rolled away from her, taking the firearm with him.

“La,” she yelled, collapsing on the bottom step and clutching her chest. “You just about scared me to death.”

He pointed the gun at her. “Get back upstairs.”

“What? Are you aiming to shoot me now? Scaring an old lady out of her wits wasn’t enough for you?”

“Miz Evers, I’m arresting you. You tried to kill me.”

“Well, you was stealing my canned goods. Was I supposed to help you carry them to your vehicle?”

“I wasn’t taking anything. Like I said, I was looking for Oney.”

“Then how come you smell like sauerkraut?”

“Sauerkraut?” That’s what smelled so bad; he was dripping in fermented cabbage.

Miz Evers lumbered up the steps, pausing by a set of narrow shelves just this side of the doorway. “Yep, there’s a jar missing. Reckon it exploded on you.”

Chanis felt twice the fool. He could see the headline in the Skip Rock Tattler : “Exploding Sauerkraut Fells Sheriff Clay. See details page 2.”

“Well, come on. I ain’t got all day,” Miz Evers said.

He hurried past the remaining jars of cabbage, glad to put the root cellar behind him. Miz Evers was waiting at the kitchen table with a jar of iodine and a pair of tweezers. “Take off your shirt,” she said.

Chanis eyed the outside door. He could leave . . . but instead he spun the revolver’s cylinder, assuring himself there were no bullets in the chamber, and put it on the table. He’d play along with her for a minute. Maybe she’d tell him what he needed to know about Oney if he got on her good side. Unbuttoning the top three buttons of his shirt, he pulled it and his undershirt over his head. It hurt more than he would have imagined each time she fished another piece of glass from his chest. And it was even worse when she started on his face. He couldn’t help but wince when she prodded the new part in his hair and poured on the iodine.

“Too bad I ain’t got a bullet for you to bite on,” she said.

“Miz Evers, don’t you want me to check on Oney? He might be ill.”

“It doesn’t matter no more,” she said, sniffling as she stuck the cork back in the iodine bottle. One fat tear formed in the corner of her eye. “We don’t need nobody’s help.”

The shirt he’d ironed just that morning was ruined, so Chanis eased his undershirt back on to cover himself. Tucking his chin, he secured his badge to the proper spot directly over his heart. There. Now he was the sheriff again.

“Miz Evers, you might just as well save me some time and tell me where your husband is,” he said through gritted teeth.

Something in the old woman gave way. Her hand trembled when she raised her arm and pointed in the direction of the barn. “He’s yonder—just a-laying there with his toes turned up.”

Buttermilk Sky
by by Jan Watson