The Cemetery Man and Other Darkside Tales

It figured to be the drifter’s horse and carpetbag, sure enough. But whether the drifter had turned the animal loose himself, or somebody else had, we had no way of knowing. As for the carpetbag, it didn’t tell us any more about the hanging man than the contents of his pockets. Inside it were some extra clothes, an old Colt Dragoon revolver, shaving tackle, a woman’s garter, and nothing at all that might identify the owner.

Sam took the horse, and Boze and I took the carpetbag over to Obe Spencer’s to put with the rest of the hanging man’s belongings. On the way we held a conference. Fact was, a pair of grain barges were due upriver from San Francisco at eleven, for loading and return. I had three men working for me, but none of them handled the paperwork; I was going to have to spend some time at the feed mill that day, whether I wanted to or not. Which is how it is when you have part-time deputies who are also full-time businessmen. It was a fact of small-town life we’d had to learn to live with.

We worked it out so that Boze would continue making inquiries while I went to work at the mill. Then we’d switch off at one o’clock so he could give his wife Ellie, who was minding the mercantile, some help with customers and with the drummers who always flocked around with Christmas wares right after Thanksgiving.

We also decided that if neither of us turned up any new information by five o’clock — or even if we did — we would ring up the country seat and make a full report to the sheriff. Not that Joe Perkins would be able to find out anything we couldn’t. He was a fat-cat political appointee, and about all he knew how to find was pig’s knuckles and beer. But we were bound to do it by the oath of office we’d taken.

We split up at the funeral parlor and I went straight to the mill. My foreman, Gene Kleinschmidt, had opened up; I’d given him a set of keys and he knew to go ahead and unlock the place if I wasn’t around. The barges came in twenty minutes after I did, and I had to hustle to get the paperwork ready that they would be carrying back down to San Francisco — bills of lading, requisitions for goods from three different companies.

I finished up a little past noon and went out onto the dock to watch the loading. One of the bargemen was talking to Gene. And while he was doing it, he kept flipping something up and down in his hand — a small gold nugget. It was the kind of things folks made into a watch fob, or kept as a good-luck charm.

And that was how I remembered where I’d seen the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Medal. Eight months or so back a newcomer to the area, a man named Jubal Parsons, had come in to buy some sacks of chicken feed. When he’d reached into his pocket to pay the bill he had accidentally come out with the medal. “Good-luck charm,” he said, and let me glance at it before putting it away again.

Back inside my office I sat down and thought about Jubal Parsons. He was a tenant farmer — had taken over a small farm owned by the Siler brothers out near Willow Creek about nine months ago. Big fellow, over six feet tall, and upwards of 220 pounds. Married to a blond woman named Greta, a few years younger than him and pretty as they come. Too pretty, some said; a few of the womenfolk, Ellie Bozeman included, thought she had the look and mannerisms of a tramp.

Parsons came into Tule River two or three times a month to trade for supplies, but you seldom saw the wife. Neither of them went to church on Sunday, nor to any of the social events at the Odd Fellows Hall. Parsons kept to himself mostly, didn’t seem to have any friends or any particular vices. Always civil, at least to me, but taciturn and kind of broody-looking. Not the sort of fellow you find yourself liking much.

But did the medal I’d found belong to him? And if it did, had he hung the drifter? And if he had, what was his motive?

I was still puzzling on that when Boze showed up. He was a half hour early, and he had Floyd Jones with him. Floyd looked some like Santa Claus — fat and jolly and white-haired — and he liked it when you told him so. He was the night bartender at the Elkhorn Bar and Grill.

Boze said, “Got some news, Carl. Floyd here saw the hanging man last night. Recognized the body over to Obe Spencer’s just now.”

Floyd bobbed his head up and down. “He came into the Elkhorn about eight o’clock, asking for work.”

I said, “How long did he stay?”

“Half hour, maybe. Told him we already had a swamper and he spent five minutes trying to convince me he’d do a better job of cleaning up. Then he gave it up when he come to see I wasn’t listening, and bought a beer and nursed it over by the stove. Seemed he didn’t much relish going back into the cold.”

“He say anything else to you?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“Didn’t give his name, either,” Boze said. “But there’s something else. Tell him, Floyd.”

“Well, there was another fella came in just after the drifter,” Floyd said. “Ordered a beer and sat watching him. Never took his eyes off that drifter once. I wouldn’t have noticed except for that and because we were near empty. Cold kept most everybody to home last night.”

“You know this second man?” I asked.