Winding Stair (9781101559239) by Douglas C. Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

her.”
    â€œAny beaus?”
    â€œNone I know of. Mr. Thrasher watched over her pretty close. He had a wagon fitted out for sleeping and cooking so when he went to races in different places, he’d take Jennie along and she’d make his meals and they’d live in the wagon. Sometimes on contract jobs, too.”
    Above us, the storm seemed to be blowing over. But no one made any move to leave the cellar. Joe Mountain was eating another apple, his teeth grinding in the dark.
    Somebody started speaking Choctaw and George Moon said a few words, too. I could tell they were questions.
    â€œCharley Oskogee here lives down the road a ways,” George Moon said. “Sometimes he hires out to help Mr. Thrasher slaughter hogs or crib corn. His woman comes up now and again. He says there ain’t many people come up this way. He says there ain’t nobody courtin’ on Miss Jennie. Charley Oskogee, he’s one of my policemen.”
    There was no need to point out that the man with this information was a Choctaw policeman, but George Moon did it as a binding seal to what had been said, like a notary public’s imprint.
    â€œCharley says in the last few weeks there’s been some whiskey peddlers in the hills, sellin’ their winter makin’s.”
    â€œWhat kind of peddlers? What did they look like?”
    â€œJust peddlers. Charley says there ain’t nothin’ he can remember about any of ’em. Just down here in the hills peddlin’ their winter makin’s.”
    â€œYou don’t remember any special ones, nosing around?”
    â€œCharley says no, he don’t.”
    The talk stopped and we sat listening to the wind and rain. The howling storm had moved off to the east, into the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas. The hail driving against the sides of the house was finished and now there was only the sodden roar of water falling on the roof. Climbing back to the kitchen, we could see shards of glass from a shattered window mixed with the other debris on the floor.
    George Moon went out to see to his men and Oscar Schiller began questioning the one called Charley. It wasn’t his real name, I knew. Many of The Nations people took up such names at least for their commerce with whites because tribal names were too often completely unpronounceable to English-speaking people, most of whom were not interested in learning Indian words, anyway.
    The two of them walked through the house, Schiller pressing the Choctaw for anything he might remember having seen before that was missing now. Charley said he could think of nothing. Except maybe Mr. Thrasher’s pearl hat. He said Thrasher always wore a black hat with a large mother-of-pearl button sewn on the front of the crown. He said they were always expensive hats, bought in Texas when Thrasher went there to race or on business. Schiller wrote it all down in his little book. Since we’d been at the Thrashers’, Schiller had been writing in a book, which he’d taken from the store of goods he carried in his saddlebags.
    Standing in the parlor, staring mutely at the ripped furniture, he took a small silver can from his pocket, not much larger than a thimble, that was filled with a light brown powder. He sucked on a wooden match until it was wet and dipped it into the powder. Deliberately recapping the can and slipping it inside his jacket, he put the matchstick back in his mouth and chewed on it. Father had told me there are many vices, women being one under certain circumstances. Hard spirits and black cigars, he’d said, would ferment the soul. But snuff dipping was just plain nasty. At least it explained the musty-sweet odor I’d noticed about Schiller.
    One thing was not explained. When he had a match, chewing it between his taut lips, his eyes were brighter and he moved more quickly. He was more talkative, too, for a man so naturally taciturn.
    Joe Mountain had the ham back in the oven. He had