Voices rose from the barn and soon Hackstedde and Tim reappeared.
Hackstedde spoke as he removed his gloves. “You know,” he said, “my daughter had a beau who fought out in Long Point. He got a spray of grapeshot to the face from a cannon and died faster than you could trip over a word. We never saw him again. Just got a telegram saying as much. But when I see that dead Negro in there I can’t help but think of that boy. Probably got his face blasted open just like that big fella. A sorry business. A real sorry business.”
“What’s that sorry business?” Prentiss said, his voice so low it was barely audible. “Her beau or my brother?”
Hackstedde put his gloves in his back pocket.
“A real sorry business,” he repeated to George, shaking his head. “But I see no reason to think there was any foul play here. Boy that big, going through them woods…well, a bad fall is not out of the question.”
A fall. The sheer lunacy of the conclusion—or the lie—was enough to make George laugh in the man’s face. Could he not at least be more creative? Was his imagination so stunted?
“With all that’s going on in this town,” Hackstedde continued, “the worries of a fallen Negro, alone out here, I just can’t see putting our resources toward what looks to be an accident.”
He glanced at George with a steady gaze and George merely nodded in response. This could end here, he thought, with Prentiss safe and the farm spared. It was as Hackstedde said: no one cared about a dead Negro.
“I suppose that makes the most sense,” George said. “We might consider the issue closed.”
Hackstedde’s eyes, two little black bullets, lit up, and he patted George on the back.
“Good, then,” he said. “So, I’ll be on my way. Tim.”
His deputy went to the fetch the horses and Hackstedde spoke with the vigor, the enthusiasm, of a job well done. “Those woods ain’t safe. Some boys just aren’t bred with any sense of caution. Maybe a bear got to him. You got bears out here, don’t you?”
Sensing that Prentiss was at his breaking point, George placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him, to signal that they had nearly made it through. It was best to ignore the sheriff’s incompetence, the rank idiocy, with a patience that would pay off once Hackstedde had finally ridden away. But when he heard the voice behind him, he knew the day would take a different turn altogether.
“Wait! Wait right there!”
Caleb had barreled out the front door in his one-piece pajamas. He was pallid, eyes sunken, as if he hadn’t seen the light for days. He hardly resembled his son at all.
“Who’s this?” Hackstedde said. “What’s the boy saying?”
George introduced Caleb, then shook his head vehemently, urging his son to quit. But Caleb was so stirred to action, so resolute in his demeanor, that there was no deterring him.
“I’d like to make a confession,” he declared.
“Caleb, no—” George said.
But the boy waved him off, tears welling and spilling down his cheeks.
“No more lies,” he said. “I’ll let the truth be known.”
George lowered his head. Just as his son had told him about August’s crime, it was now all, in one stream, given over to Hackstedde.
*
A day had passed since Landry’s murder. The stench of the body had intensified, though not a word was spoken about it, and Prentiss continued to walk around the barn as if there was no smell at all. He was packing a small duffel that George had given him, and George himself was standing at the entrance to the barn, watching on while keeping his distance. If Prentiss bore him any resentment over his son’s inaction, he kept it concealed.
“I should be back with the coffin shortly,” he said. “There’s a furniture maker in town who has a roomful of coffins in the back. Had a racket going all through the war. He should have exactly what we’re looking for. We can hold the ceremony later today if that sounds right to you.”
“It does.”
“Good. Good.”
“You want help?” Prentiss asked.
George shook his head. “I can manage with Ridley. You keep packing.”
The donkey was lethargic in the heat, but George harnessed him with his cart and took him to the main road at a slow clop. The day was not friendly. The screech of a mockingbird struck him like the clapper of an alarm. Exhaustion plagued him. He had slept fitfully last night, a problem so common recently that he’d begun to wonder if a good dream, or the fine mood that follows a true slumber, might ever find him again.