Scattergood Baines Part 46

"Be much 'bleeged," said Sheriff Watts.

Scattergood drove briskly to Asa Levens's farm, watered and fed the stock, and then led out of its stall Asa Levens's favorite driving mare.

He hitched it to Asa Levens's buggy and mounted to the seat. "Giddap,"

he said to the mare, and dropped the reins on her back. She started out of the gate and turned toward town. Scattergood let the reins lie, attempting no guidance. At the next four corners the mare hesitated, slowed, and, feeling no direction from her driver, turned to the left.

Scattergood nodded his head.

The mare trotted on, following the slowly lifting mountain road for a matter of two miles, and then turned again down a highway that was little more than a tote road. Half a mile later she stopped with her nose against the fence of a shabby farmhouse, and sagged down, as is the custom of horses when they realize they are at their destination and have a rest of duration before them. Scattergood alighted and fastened her to the fence.

As he swung open the gate a middle-aged man appeared in the door of the house, and over his shoulder Scattergood could see the white face of a woman--staring.

"Evening Jed," said Scattergood. "Evening Mis' Briggs."

"Howdy, Mr. Baines? Wa'n't expectin' to see _you_. What fetches you this fur off'n the road?"

"Sort of got here by accident, you might say. Didn't come of my own free will, seems as though. Kind of tired, Jed. Mind if I set a spell?...

How's the cannin', Mis' Briggs?"

"Done up thutty quarts to-day, Mr. Baines," said the young woman, who was Jed Briggs's wife, a woman fifteen years his junior, comely, desirable, vivid.

"Um!... Got a hoss out here. Want you should both come and look her over." He raised himself to his feet, and was followed by Jed Briggs and his wife to the fence.

"Likely mare," said Scattergood, blandly.

Startlingly Mrs. Briggs laughed, shrilly, unpleasantly, as a woman laughs in great fear.

"Gawd!" said Jed Briggs, "it's--"

"Yes," said Scattergood, gently. "It's Asa Levens's mare. Was she here last Tuesday?"

"She was here Tuesday, Scattergood Baines," said Jed Briggs. "What's the meanin' of this?"

"I knowed she was somewheres Tuesday," Scattergood said, impersonally.

"Didn't know where, but I mistrusted she'd been to that place frequent.

Jest got in and give her her head. She brought me.... Asa Levens is dead."

"Dead!" said Jed Briggs in a hushed voice.

"He deserved to die.... He deserved to die.... He deserved to die ..."

the young woman repeated shrilly, hysterically.

"Was you in town to lodge Tuesday night, Jed?"

"Yes."

"Asa come every lodge night, Mis' Briggs?"

"He always came--when Jed was here and when Jed was away.... When Jed was here he'd jest set eyin' me and eyin' me ... and when Jed was gone he--he talked...."

"Asa owned the mortgage on the place," said Jed, as if that explained something. Scattergood nodded comprehension.

"Keep up your int'rest, Jed?"

"Year behind. Asa was threatenin' foreclosure."

"Threatened to throw us offn the place ... ag'in and ag'in he threatened--and we'd 'a' starved, 'cause Jed hain't strong. It's me does most of the work.... What we got into this place is all we got on earth ... and he threatened to take it."

"He come Tuesday night," said Scattergood, as a prompter speaks.

"Hush, Lindy," said Jed.

"I calculate you'd best both of you talk," said Scattergood. "You'd better tell me, Jed, jest why you shot Asa Levens."

Lindy Briggs uttered a choking cry and clutched her husband; Jed Briggs stared at Scattergood with hunted eyes.

"It'll be best for you to tell. I'm standin' your friend, Jed Briggs.... Better tell me than the sheriff.... Asa Levens was here Tuesday night...."

"He excused us from payin' our int'rest," said Jed, and then he, too, laughed shrilly. "Let us off our int'rest. Lindy told me when I come home. Couldn't hardly b'lieve my ears." Jed was talking wildly, pitifully. "Lindy was a-layin' on the floor, sobbin', when I come home, and she was afeard to tell me why Asa let us off our int'rest, but I coaxed her, Mr. Baines, and she told me--and so I shot Asa Levens 'cause he wa'n't fit to live."

Scattergood nodded. "Sich things was wrote on Asa's face," he said. "But what about Abner? Wa'n't goin' to let him suffer f'r your act, Jed? What about Abner?"

"Him too.... All of that blood.... I met Abner on the road of a Tuesday when I wa'n't quite myself with all that had happened, and I stopped his hoss and accused his brother to his face.... He listened quiet-like, and then he laughed. That's what Abner done, he laughed.... When I heard he was arrested f'r the killin', I laughed.... Back in Bible times, if one of a family sinned, G.o.d wiped out the whole of the kin...."

Scattergood was thoughtful. "Yes," he said, "Abner would have laughed.

That was like Abner.... Now I calc'late you and Mis' Briggs better fix up and drive to town with me.... Don't be afeard. Right'll be done, and there hain't no more sufferin' fallin' to your share, ... You been doin'

G.o.d's rough work, Jed, and I don't calc'late he figgers to have you punished f'r it...."

Next morning at ten by the clock the coroner with his jury held inquest over the body of Asa Levens, and over that body Jed Briggs and Lindy, his wife, told their story under oath to ears that credited the truth of their words because they knew the man of whom those words were spoken.

The jury deliberated briefly. Its verdict was in these words:

"We find that Asa Levens came to his death by act of G.o.d, and that there are found no reasons for further investigation into this matter."

And so it stands in the imperishable records of the towns.h.i.+p; legal authority recognized the right of Deity to utilize a human being for his rougher sort of work.

"I knew it was something like this," Mary Ware said, clinging openly and unashamed to Abner Levens. "It's why he couldn't defend himself."

Abner nodded. "My flesh and blood was guilty. Could I free myself by accusin' the husband of this woman?... I calc'lated G.o.d meant to destroy us Levenses, root and branch.... It was his business, not mine."

"I've took note," said Scattergood, "that them that was most strict about mindin' their own business was gen'ally most diligent about doin'

G.o.d's--all unbeknownst to themselves."

CHAPTER XI

HE INVESTS IN SALVATION

From Scattergood Baines's seat on the piazza of his hardware store he could look across the river and through a side window of the bank.