Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming

arms across her chest. “Why did you do that, son?”
    “Well, ma’am, he was trying to brain me with a rock. I had socked him, you see. I struck my own daddy, and he wasn’t having none of it.”
    “Why’d you hit him, John Lee?”
    John Lee bit his lip, then answered slowly. “He liked to hit my ma, Miz Tucker. He done that a lot when he was drinking, and sometimes when he wasn’t. I finally had all I could stand, so I jumped on him. I guess I pummeled him a mite. He chased me around a while, but later that evening, when he come at me with the rock, I shot him. I didn’t know I killed him, not ’til we found him that morning. He acted right shocked, when the bullet hit him, but then he just staggered off toward the barn. Didn’t seem to bother him that much. He didn’t even bleed that I saw. When I seen that the mule was gone the next morning, I figured that he just had rode off down to his still like he’s done a hundred times before. I didn’t know he was dead ’til my sister found him a few days later. Then I got to thinking about hanging, and after I fetched the sheriff, I run off. I know I shouldn’t have done it.”
    Alafair was listening to John Lee’s story with a growing sense of confusion. “What kind of gun did you shoot him with, John Lee?” she managed to ask.
    “A little old two-shot derringer. I wouldn’t have thought it would kill a flea.”
    “Them things aren’t easy to come by,” Alafair observed. “Kind of expensive, too. Where did you get hold of such a thing?”
    John Lee hesitated for so long before answering that Alafair was fairly certain that the answer was a lie. “I saved up money for it,” he told her. “I was going to give it to my ma for protection, but I had it in my bib pocket that evening.”
    “Was that before or after you met Phoebe on the road?”
    “Well, it was before. I was trying to cool down, walking along the road, when I run across her. I didn’t tell her nothing. She didn’t know. She was just so calm and gentle, and made me feel better, so I asked if I could walk her home.”
    Alafair’s hand went unconsciously to her forehead, which wrinkled with perplexity. “Sheriff Tucker says you were riding the mule when you came to tell him that your father was dead.”
    “Yes, ma’am. I came across him as I was walking over here, thinking to borrow a horse. He was just grazing by the side of the road as calm as you please, all saddled and everything. I caught him and rode him to my Aunt Zorah’s and told her the situation. She didn’t seem much surprised. She went to get the kids straight away, and I just rode off to think a spell.”
    “Where is the mule now?”
    “I let him go out in the fallow field behind the pin oak stand, close by the creek. He’ll have plenty to eat, but nobody goes out there much this time of year. I expected I’d throw the sheriff off a little.”
    “And how did you end up in our hay store?”
    “I was just wandering around looking for someplace to hide where I wouldn’t freeze. I thought my own farm was too easy to figure.” He paused. His big dark eyes were shiny with tears, Alafair could tell, even in the dim light. “I done the worst thing in the world,” he said. “I reckon they’ll hang me.” He sounded quite calm, but Alafair detected a catch in his voice. She resisted an urge to touch him, to comfort him. He sat down on a convenient bale of hay and perched his forearms on his knees. “Wish we had some light, don’t you, Miz Tucker?” he said. “Course, I don’t have no matches in here. But I wish you’d sit down a spell, ma’am, and let me talk a bit before we go to the sheriff.”
    Alafair was too curious to protest, and even if she had not been, she was in no hurry to make a decision about the boy. She folded her full skirt around her knees and sat down.
    Her move encouraged John Lee, and he smiled, grateful for her—well, if not trust, then suspended judgment. “I’m sorry I run away,” he began. “I don’t mind paying for my sins. I ought to, I reckon. I just got afraid of going to hell. I don’t see how God is going to forgive me for killing my own father. I guess I was looking to put off my eternal punishment as long as I could.”
    Alafair felt a physical pain in her chest as she listened to him talk. “If you face what you did, John Lee, if you’re truly sorry, and you take your earthly punishment like a man, you can look to the Lord for mercy. I don’t think God is so