Deadman's Crossing Read Free Page A

the color of dirt. And you smell like some pretty old dirt at that.”
    “You gonna keep on, mister,” Old Timer said, “and you’re gonna wind up having the undertaker wipe your ass.” Old Timer cocked back the hammers on the shotgun again. “This here gun could go off accidently. Could happen, and who here is gonna argue it didn’t?”
    “Not me,” the deputy said. “It would be easier on me you were dead, Bill.”
    Bill looked at the Reverend. “Yeah, but that wouldn’t set right with the Reverend, would it Reverend?”
    “Actually, I wouldn’t care one way or another. I’m not a man of peace, and I’m not a forgiver, even if what you did wasn’t done to me. I think we’re all rich and deep in sin. Maybe none of us are worthy of forgiveness.”
    Bill sunk a little at his seat. No one was even remotely on his side. Old Timer continued with his story.
    “This here beekeeper, Gimet, he wasn’t known as much of a man. Mean-hearted is how he was thunk of. I knowed him, and I didn’t like him. I seen him snatch up a little dog once and cut the tail off of it with his knife, just ’cause he thought it was funny. Boy who owned the dog tried to fight back, and Gimet, he cut the boy on the arm. No one did nothin’ about it. Ain’t no real law in these parts, you see, and wasn’t nobody brave enough to do nothin’. Me included. And he did lots of other mean things, even killed a couple of men, and claimed self-defense. Might have been, but Gimet was always into something, and whatever he was into always turned out with someone dead, or hurt, or humiliated.”
    “Bill here sounds like he could be Gimet’s brother,” the deputy said.
    “Oh, no,” Old Timer said, shaking his head. “This here scum-licker ain’t a bump on the mean old ass of Gimet. Gimet lived in a little shack off Cemetery Road. He raised bees, and brought in honey to sell at the community up the road. Guess you could even call it a town. Schow is the way the place is known, on account of a fella used to live up there was named Schow. He died and got ate up by pigs. Right there in his own pen, just keeled over slopping the hogs, and then they slopped him, all over that place. A store got built on top of where Schow got et up, and that’s how the place come by the name. Gimet took his honey in there to the store and sold it, and even though he was a turd, he had some of the best honey you ever smacked your mouth around. Wish I had me some now. It was dark and rich, and sweeter than any sugar. Think that’s one reason he got away with things. People don’t like killing and such, but they damn sure like their honey.”
    “This story got a point?” Bill said.
    “You don’t like way I’m telling it,” Old Timer said, “why don’t you think about how that rope’s gonna fit around your neck. That ought to keep your thoughts occupied, right smart.”
    Bill made a grunting noise, turned on his block of wood, as if to show he wasn’t interested.
    “Well, now, honey or not, sweet tooth, or not, everything has an end to it. And thing was he took to a little gal, Mary Lynn Twoshoe. She was a part Indian gal, a real looker, hair black as the bottom of a well, eyes the same color, and she was just as fine in the features as them pictures you see of them stage actresses. She wasn’t five feet tall, and that hair of hers went all the way down her back. Her daddy was dead. The pox got him. And her mama wasn’t too well off, being sickly, and all. She made brooms out of straw and branches she trimmed down. Sold a few of them, raised a little garden and a hog. When all this happened, Mary Lynn was probably thirteen, maybe fourteen. Wasn’t no older than that.”
    “If you’re gonna tell a tale,” Bill said, “least don’t wander all over the place.”
    “So, you’re interested?” Old Timer said.
    “What else I got to do?” Bill said.
    “Go on,” Jebidiah said. “Tell us about Mary Lynn.”
    Old Timer nodded. “Gimet took to