Kathleen Kent - The Outcasts

Jane made an ugly sound through her nose. “I don’t believe it for a minute.”

Nate stepped down from the wagon. “Why’s that?”

Her lips twitched in outrage. “Miss Carter, if that was her name, was an adventuress posing as a teacher. She and Bill Carter were after something they thought my father had.”

McKenzie added, “Yesterday, another man showed up on horseback leading a mule. He told Miss Grant that he was Bill Carter’s surveying partner. The Grants took these people into their home. We entrusted our children to that woman…”

“Nate, we need to move this along.” Dr. Tom climbed from the wagon, impatiently muttering, “Less hide and more meat.”

Nate asked the woman, “What were they after?”

She buried her chin in her neck. “I wouldn’t like to say with everyone listening.”

Dr. Tom abruptly motioned the settlers to move away from the wagon, directing them to see after the Waller women, who had elevated their agonized crying to a more frenzied level.

Jane waited for Dr. Tom to join them and said in a quiet voice, “My father uncovered a few gold coins on an island he owned in the bayou. Bill Carter believed there was more gold and tried to make my father say where it was buried…” She paused, staring at the bodies in the wagon.

Dr. Tom placed a hand on her arm. “What was the schoolteacher’s first name?”

“Lucinda.”

Dr. Tom nodded to Nate and asked, “Where are they now?”

“Miss Carter took my sister, May, yesterday morning in the Wallers’ buggy to Morgan’s Point for the day. They never came back.”

“And Bill Carter?” Nate asked.

“Gone. I don’t know where.” She ran one sleeve across her eyes and nose. “They must have taken my father from the house to the river sometime before this morning. That’s where his body was found. I slept at the Wallers’ last night. I couldn’t abide being in that house alone with those men. Mr. Waller was going to confront them today for my father’s sake, but it was too late.”

Her anger was turning again to tears, and Nate gave her a moment to collect herself.

Dr. Tom asked, “Did they get your father’s gold?”

She raised her chin and smiled tightly. “There was no gold.”

Nate thought he had misheard. “What’d you say?”

“There was never any gold.” She took a few breaths, ran her tongue over cracked lips. “Last spring, my father found a few old coins while clearing the island for planting. There are legends here about Lafitte’s treasure being buried in Middle Bayou. My father believed that he had discovered a part of that treasure. He spent months digging but found nothing more. Once he realized the island was empty, he went to Harrisburg and put about the story that there was gold waiting to be found, hoping to sell the land to someone fool enough to believe it. But he talked to the wrong people. I was the only person who knew the truth.”

“Why was he shot?” Dr. Tom asked, jerking a thumb at Elam Waller.

“I don’t know.” Jane brushed her fingers nervously across her face. “There was no reason for him to be shot. He was in the parlor in his chair when I came to Mr. Waller with my fears, but then…he’s always in his chair. He can do nothing else.”

Nate watched her nervous hands and in that instant a thought came into his head that she was lying about Elam Waller’s helpless state. The young man’s shoes were muddied as though he had walked along a soggy riverbank. He asked her, “Who found the bodies? Did anyone see the murder?”

“I did.”

Nate turned towards the voice and saw a black man in work denim approaching them. He was short and broadly muscled, with a meandering scar, like earthworm castings, across one side of his face.

He stood in front of Nate with what looked to be part of a plow harness across his shoulders. “I’m Tobias Kennedy. I live here.” He nodded at the bodies in the wagon and said, “I know how they come to be killed. I saw it. I helped bring the wagon to gather the bodies.”

Dr. Tom asked, “You want to tell us what happened?”

Tobias looked at Jane and then motioned for Nate and Dr. Tom to follow him some distance away. “There’s another body,” he said.

“Another body?” Nate asked, reflexively scanning the surrounding fields. He nervously chewed at the skin on his lips, confounded that one sparse settlement could support so many tragedies in one morning.

“Bill Carter?” Dr. Tom asked.

“No, he’s long gone. It’s Carter’s man. He’s still lyin’ in the river. What’s left of him. The men here just didn’t want to say so in front of the women.”

“Who killed him?” Nate asked, wondering just how high the body count was going to get.

Tobias pointed to Elam Waller and said, “He did.”

Nate shook his head. “Didn’t Euphrastus Waller just say that Elam was a useless cripple?”

Tobias dropped the plow harness to the ground. “Listen here. I served with the Thirty-Third Colored Infantry out of South Carolina. You know what I was? A sharpshooter. I got the best eyes in this whole part of the world.” He pointed to the settlers still gathered, their collective gaze on the three of them. “They told me I had to be lying. But I told the truth. I know what I saw.”

Nate nodded and said, “Show us.”

He and Dr. Tom mounted their horses and followed after Tobias, who walked the path towards the bayou. As they rode Tobias talked, turning his chin from side to side, throwing his words over his shoulder.

“I spent last night at the river. I’d put down catfish lines. This time of year, no mosquitoes, the air’s cool, I often sleep out. Pull in my lines before dawn after the catfish bite. A few hours before light, I hear men coming up to the clearing. I’d already doused my lantern, but there was a moon and I hid back in the brush. There’s no good reason for people to be up makin’ so much noise at that hour, especially angry white men in the jug.

“I hear old man Grant’s voice and two other voices I don’t know. But they’re arguin’ all up the path. They’re carryin’ lanterns, and when they get into the clearing, I see Mr. Grant and Carter with his man as surely as I see you.”

After that, Tobias continued his walk in silence until they reached the clearing. Nate and Dr. Tom dismounted and stood at the edge of the riverbank, looking at the blood and footprints left in the mud, while Tobias walked up and down the bank, peering into the water.

“There he is.” Tobias pointed at something floating in the river, caught in some reeds. “Gator got him. Dragged him off the bank.” He waded into the river to midstream carrying a long branch. The water came up to his chest but he moved easily, and after a few tries, he snagged the floating object and pulled it behind him out of the water.

It was a man, or the top half of a man; the legs were gone. Dr. Tom kicked the truncated bundle over and said, “Jacob Purdy. McGill’s man.”

Tobias watched Nate stone-faced as he stumbled away, gulping air and swallowing the bile rising in his throat. Nate had seen dead men before, mauled and mangled, but they had been mostly whole. Behind him he heard Dr. Tom ask, “You want to tell us now what happened?”

“Grant was drunk,” Tobias said. “So drunk he couldn’t hardly stand. Carter kept at him to say where on that island over yonder his gold was buried.” He pointed across the water to a promontory of land with steep clay edges and a dense stand of elm. “Kept goin’ on about the gold. Finally, Carter quit yellin’ and pulled a pistol. Threatened to shoot the old man if he didn’t talk.”

Tobias raised his chin to a bloody patch on the bank. “Grant fell on the ground pleadin’ like a man who knows his time is near, and I hear a voice say, ‘Hold there.’ I see a man walk into the lantern light and it’s Elam Waller, so help me God, carryin’ a pistol in one hand. Elam walks right up to them, within a few feet. Carter’s taken by surprise, ’cause he’s only ever seen the boy in a wheeled chair. Carter’s man pulls up his shotgun and, blam, both guns go off. Young Elam goes down hard and the other man staggers off into the water holdin’ his throat.