Blood on Lake Louisa Page 13

  I was out again in an instant and bundled the frightened boy into the back of the sedan. The car leaped under me, and Buddy clutched my arm in terror as the Sheriff blew his police siren for an open road. I made an effort to quiet the boy into a semblance of sanity so I could find out what to expect.

  “Mah po’ pappy’s dying. Oh, mah po’ pappy.”

  “If you don’t quit saying that and tell me what’s the matter with him, I can’t help him at all, Buddy. Come now. Where was he hurt?”

  “He cain’t talk, Doctor. He’s dyin’. He done lef’ the house fo’ mawning agoing fishin’ in the lake. Now he’s dyin’. Mah mammy done find him ‘bout a mile from the house. His laig—hit’s all swole, and he cain’t breve. We done drug him home and he cain’t talk—“ The boy covered his eyes with a tattered arm. I did not ask him any more. I had learned enough to know that I had a battle on my hands if Abe Nixon was to live out the night.

  We reached the house as the last light faded from the sky. I made my way through the quiet negroes gathered in the yard—gathered together by the underground telegraph of the woods which so quickly broadcasts tragedy to one of their race—and picked my way gingerly over the litter of sleeping pickaninnies on the porch. The front room was silent except for the soft sobbing of three woman huddled close about the fire.

  “Where is Abe, quick?”

  One of the women rose and picked up a lamp from the table. I followed her into the back room. As soon as I entered I could hear the quick, uneven breathing of the man on the spotless white bed. “Get Mr. Crossley,” I said.

  “Here I am, Doc.” The Sheriff spoke in back of me.

  “Hold the lamp, Pete.” I turned to the woman. “You’ll have to wait in the next room. I’ll call you if I need you. Heat some water—boiling.”

  The man’s pulse was quick and feeble. I turned back one of the closed eyelids. As I feared the pupil was dilated. Carefully I pulled down the blanket which covered him, and recoiled from the frightfully swollen and discolored left leg.

  “Good God!” Pete exclaimed softly. “What is it?”

  “Rattler.” I broke open the tube of anti-venom I had taken from my case, fitted the hypodermic needle and drove it home. “I’m giving him a double dose. I don’t think he has a chance. He was bitten hours ago. Look.” I pointed out the two small punctures in the calf of the leg. “There’s nothing to do now but wait.” I was about to pull the covers back up when the Sheriff stayed my hand.

  “What’s that, Doc?” He pointed to another place on the negro’s thigh.

  “I said he didn’t have a chance, Pete. I’m certain of it now. He’s been bitten twice.”

  For two hours we sat silent by the bed, with no sound but Abe’s labored breathing, and the sobbing of the women in the other room. Carl came in and joined us, and I explained the case to him in low tones. We lapsed into silence again. Somebody cranked a car outside and drove away. Then I looked at Abe and saw that his eyes were open.

  “Abe,” I said quietly. “It’s Dr. Ryan. Do you know me?” It was plain that he did not understand. I tried again. “What happened to you, Abe? Can you tell me?” I thought I saw his lips move, and bent my ear close to his mouth.

  “Don’t go—“ he whispered.

  “I’m not going, Abe. Try to tell me what happened.”

  The negro made another effort to speak. I bent closer. “Keep way from dar. Ef you all wants ter live—keep way from de snake’s sister—de snake’s sister—“ The weak voice trailed away. Abe Nixon was dead. I sadly pulled the covers up over his face, and rose to my feet. As I did so I noticed that Abe’s coat was lying on the bed next to the wall. Automatically I reached over and picked it up. A sheaf of green papers tumbled from the pocket and scattered over the bed. The Sheriff leaned over and slowly gathered them together. He tapped them on the table until the edges were even. Then he slipped them in his pocket. “Poor old Abe,” he said bitterly. “I wonder where he found them? I’m afraid they cost him his life! Five hundred dollars in tens was more money than he ever knew existed. It’s a pity he couldn’t have known enough to have left them alone. Like everything else we’ve found during the past week they’re bad—all bad.”

  Sanderson lit a cigarette at the top of the lamp and inhaled deeply. “Maybe Abe Nixon left those papers in the Simmons house, Pete.”

  “He couldn’t read. No, Carl, I’m beginning to think that those were left there by David Mitchell.” The Sheriff turned down the lamp and we went into the other room.

  20

  In the presence of death, it has always been a strange thing to me what trivial facts occupy the human mind. As we left the Nixon’s farm house, stricken with the sudden loss of the head of the family, my mind was busy with the problem of what to do with the mule Buddy had ridden into town. The Sheriff solved it for me by telling the boy he would drive out again the next day and bring the mule with him tied to his car.

  Back on the hard road Crossley stopped and turned around in his seat to speak to me. “Doc, you’ve been up to your ears in this thing for a week. It all seems to have fallen on you. When Abe died back there, I made up my mind to act—right or wrong. I’m going to ask you both to stick with me on one more job tonight. There’s no more time to waste. I have to find out where Abe got those bills—”

  “You’re not figuring on going to Lake Louisa tonight?” Sanderson asked.

  “Louisa? For what? We’ve been over the ground there too many times already. No sirree. I’m starting to look in another direction. I want to ask Mr. Harry Bartlett a few more questions. That’s where I figure on stopping. Do you mind?”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “It’s on the way in, anyhow. Do you think he’s mixed up with those counterfeits?”

  “I intend to find out.”

  “Did you understand anything Abe said?” Carl inquired. “I thought you—”

  “I’m afraid his mind was wandering. It’s a characteristic of snake poisoning. He told me to keep away from the snake’s sister.”

  Pete slowed down a trifle. “The snake’s sister? That’s a weird one, Carl. Did you ever hear that expression before?”

  “No. Doc’s about right. He was out of his head. Say— he might have been talking about the second bite he got. Don’t rattlers run in pairs sometimes?”

  “Let me tell you something, Carl. I’ve roamed this State more than average since I’ve been Sheriff. I’ve heard a lot of talk about rattlesnakes. I’m yet to see my first one in the woods, and Abe Nixon is the first man I have ever seen bitten. How many cases have you treated, Doc?”

  “This is the third—in twenty years. I think one of the other two was a moccasin bite. I’ve killed one rattler in the woods in that time. That doesn’t prove that they aren’t plentiful—if you start to look for them. I know one man who makes a living catching them. He has found as many as ten in one day—”

  “But what I’m driving at is that rattlesnake bites are rare. They’re a lazy snake. They’d rather rattle than strike. But when they get mad, or something moves quickly near them and scares them, they’re sudden death. I don’t like it, Carl. I don’t like it.”

  A match glowed and revealed the troubled face of the State’s Attorney. “What are you hinting at, Pete? That Nixon’s death wasn’t an accident?”

  “Abe Nixon lived in this neck of the woods all his life. He was a guide and a farmer, but he wasn’t a rattlesnake hunter like Doc was talking about. He knew rattler territory and how to keep away from it. Yet he was bitten not once—but twice. It ties up too close with those bills in his pocket to be pure accident.”

  “But how, Pete?”

  “Yes. How? You can’t stick an active man twice with live snake’s fangs. It’s too much like one of those Chinese mysteries I’ve read about. Still I’d like to know—”

  We swung off the road and the light brought out in stark relief the unpainted boards of Harry Bartlett’s house. A pointer tied to the porch steps, barked a greeting. A wide gate strung with barbed
wire barred our way. Sanderson got out and opened it, and we drove into the sand yard. The house was dark, and there was no sign of Bartlett’s Ford.

  “Not home. Suits me just as well.” Crossley walked up the path and tried the door. It opened to his touch. “Come on in. I’ll do a little looking around until he gets back. Breaking and entering aided by an official of the State.” He struck a match, and I turned off the car lights. Blackness closed in. A lamp glowed through the open door. I followed Sanderson inside.

  Bartlett was a good carpenter. The house consisted of one large room, and a back porch which served as a kitchen. It was ceiled throughout, and the flooring had been expertly laid, and neatly varnished and polished. The furnishings were simple. A blue linoleum rug lent a touch of color. A white enamel single bed in one corner was carefully made—army style. A heavy gasoline chandelier hung from the ceiling on a rope which ran through a pulley. An ingenious device which allowed it to be lowered for lighting and filling. A reading lamp, and a few books and magazines were the only articles on the big table in the center of the room. In another corner a glass-doored cabinet contained dishes and more books. Some clothes were hung on the wall, shielded by a chintz curtain.

  The Sheriff started a quick, but thorough search. He turned the mattress back on the bed, and felt it over carefully. Then he took off all the covers and scrutinized the ticking on both sides, and along the edges. “Nothing there. Make it up, will you, Carl.” A drawer in the table disclosed a miscellaneous collection of odds and ends. I replaced them while Pete took the books out of the cupboard and shook each one to see if anything fell from between the pages.

  “No luck,” he growled. “Let’s try the kitchen. Bring the lamp, Doc.” The back room contained only a kitchen table and chair, a kerosene stove, and a big, trunk-shaped ice box built to hold several hundred pounds of ice. Pete lifted the lid and looked in. A large cake of ice was in each end of the box. A pan, half full of milk, a plate of butter, and some cold fried chicken, lay on one of the cakes. On the floor of the ice box in the center were five galvanized pails full of water. Pete closed the lid, and we went back into the front room.

  Sanderson looked at his watch. “It’s getting late, Pete. Looks like you’re wasting your time. Where do you think he is?”

  A thought occurred to me. “I’ll bet he’s at the Elk’s Dance. It’s Washington’s Birthday, you know.”

  Crossley was gazing speculatively around. “I wonder where he keeps his shotgun. I haven’t seen anything of it.” He rummaged through the clothes under the curtain. “Nothing here. I think I’ll take a look under the rug. It’s the only place left.” He pushed the table off the linoleum, and rolled back half of the nine by twelve mat. A brass ring was set flush with the floor. He hooked his finger in it, and lifted up a trap door revealing a closet about a foot deep skilfully built between the joists. It was lined with tin, and appeared moisture proof.

  “That’s pretty neat,” Sanderson remarked. “A gun closet under the floor.”

  The Sheriff picked out a pump shotgun and a 30-30 rifle and examined them under the lamp. There was nothing else in the closet except several boxes of ammunition. “A nice pair of guns for a jeweler’s clerk on twenty-five per week. The shotgun’s worth about sixty dollars, and the rifle considerably more. Where did he get off telling us he was an amateur hunter? No amateur ever picked out these two. And look at the way he keeps them.” He placed them back carefully where he had found them.

  I was about to lower the heavy lid which I had been holding, when Pete stopped me. “Hold on, Doc. I’m not satisfied with this yet.” He felt carefully over the tin sides of the closet, then got up and started kicking around in it with one foot. He went down on his knees again, and pushed one end of the receptacle. Like a well fitted drawer it slid out of sight under the floor. I held the lamp higher to better illuminate the opening.

  On the ground, a few feet below us, was a bulky, oblong bundle wrapped in heavy brown canvas. It was bound lengthwise, with a thin strong rope. By lying flat on his stomach, Pete was just able to reach the top of the bundle. He could lift one end off the ground, but his position was too awkward to get it up into the room. “Unh!” he grunted. “Give me a hand, Carl.” They tried it together, very much hampered by the cramped space in which they had to work.

  “It’s no go, Pete. I’ll have to get down in there. I’m smaller than you. No. Wait. I’ve just thought of the real reason for that rig-up on the ceiling lamp.” He stood up and walked to where the loose end of the rope supporting the light was tied to a hook on the wall. “Look out. I’m going to lower the lamp. Good! Now unfasten the lamp and lower the rope into the hole. That’s it. Hook it onto your package now—and up she comes. Your friend, Harry, thinks of everything, Pete.” Carl hauled in steadily on the rope. With the help of the improvised hoist we soon had the unwieldy thing on the floor, and I was working feverishly on the buckle of a strap.

  “Don’t take it all apart,” Pete cautioned me. “I just want to look in one end. I know what’s in it.”

  “You know what’s—”

  “Sure. It’s a boat. It had to be around the place somewhere. I traced it through a sporting goods store in Lakeland. They don’t sell a lot of these. They remembered Bartlett when I described him. All right, tighten her up again. We’ll put it back. Are things beginning to look clearer to you fellows now?”

  “No.” The State’s Attorney spoke decisively. “And I doubt if they look any clearer to you, either. I don’t know of any law prohibiting a man from owning two guns and a boat. And furthermore, he can bury them if he wants to. You can’t arrest Bartlett on that, and you—”

  “Did you hear me mention arresting anybody, Doc? I merely asked if things looked any clearer—“ We replaced the ceiling lamp, the rug, and the table. Pete looked around to see if things had been left as we found them.

  I went out of the house first to turn on the car lights. Bartlett’s dog thumped his tail on the porch as I passed. I patted his head and he wriggled appreciation. I felt like I had been intruding. The neat house, homelike and clean, the unlocked door, and the friendly pup—somehow they just did not fit in the picture with the hidden gun closet, and that damning canvas boat. A difficult thing to explain away—that boat so carefully concealed under the living room floor.

  The others joined me in the yard. I passed around my cigarettes. Carl held a match for the Sheriff and me, then flicked it away. “No three on a match for me tonight. Ugh! That business about the snake’s sister—”

  Pete interrupted. “You said back in the house that my friend, Harry, thought of everything. You really meant that, didn’t you?”

  “I certainly did. That gun drawer. The hoist to pull up his boat. You can bet—”

  “I guess I haven’t had experience enough with men with his brains.” Pete opened the door of the car, and paused with one foot on the running board. “A man’s pretty farsighted, Carl, when he can figure out that his comings and goings might be checked by feeling the radiator of his automobile. I think I better drive in town and see how long it takes for five buckets of ice water to cool the radiator of a hot Ford.”

  21

  There comes a time in every man’s life when he realizes he is past his prime. Whether it comes suddenly, or gradually, it is always a bitter pill to swallow. I had not fooled myself into thinking I was still young and chipper, but I had allowed the lure of terrific excitement to bolster me up through a week of mental distress, and physical exertion, which would have broken down many younger, and stronger, men. Tearing around in my car, trying to match the unbounded energy of the Sheriff, coupled with my own terrifying experiences, had proved too much for me. Ordinarily a sound sleeper, for seven nights I had been restless and wakeful. My ear was painful, and was not healing as it should. On the morning following Abe Nixon’s tragic death I was so exhausted that I knew I would have to stay in bed for at least a day and rest.

  I felt rather like a repentant schoolboy when I announced my
decision to Mae, and asked her to bring me some breakfast. She had warned me, more than once, that I was overtaxing my strength, and I had scoffed at the idea.

  “I’m glad you’re going to rest,” was all she said, when I told her. “If you like, I’ll set up the card table, and Celia and I will have breakfast with you in your room.”

  “If you do that I may decide to stay in bed every morning.”

  “But we’re going as soon as we eat. You have to sleep. I’m not going to wake you for phone calls.”

  “Now, Mae—”

  “Dr. Stuart can handle anything that’s urgent. You’re out of town for the day.”

  Our informal breakfast was very pleasant. Celia regaled us with the plans she and Marvin had made for their wedding, and how happy she was that her fiancé was released from his self-imposed silence.

  “He’s a fine man, honey. You won’t find one in a hundred who would have kept his mouth shut under the same circumstances.”

  “He couldn’t have stood it if you hadn’t believed in him.”

  “I think it was your belief much more than mine.”

  “Oh, he knew I would. You and Mrs. Ryan gave him the additional support he needed. It looked like everyone thought he was mixed up in this thing except you two.”

  “I don’t think that, Celia,” Mae said. “I doubt if Pete Crossley ever had an idea that Marvin was involved—”

  “If he ever had, it’s gone now, anyhow. He found a canvas boat under Bartlett’s house last night. It was a rather terrible evening. Buddy’s father died from a rattler bite.” I told them what had transpired. “I suppose you heard about the inquest, and the Miami papers disappearing.”