Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming

harsh.”
    He gazed at her. “You think so, Miz Tucker?” he asked, with tentative hope.
    Alafair hesitated. This was the most important thing in the world John Lee was asking, and she wanted to be as honest as she knew how. “I don’t know the mind of God, but I’ll tell you this, son. I know how I feel about my own children. If one of them killed their daddy, now, I’d be practically killed myself. But I couldn’t stop loving that child no matter how bad he was. And no matter what he did, I could never send any child of mine to burn forever in hell. And I’m only a mortal woman, John Lee. I figure God’s love must be infinitely bigger than mine. So I don’t think you ought to be scared of God.”
    John Lee’s bottom lip, pushed out in youthful bravery, quivered a bit, and a couple of solitary tears escaped the corner of his eyes and slid down his cheeks. He let them go unheeded. “What shall I do, Miz Tucker?” he asked.
    “You’re going to have to turn yourself in.”
    “What do you expect will happen to me?”
    “I don’t know, John Lee,” she said. “If what you say is true, it sounds like self-defense to me. They don’t hang you for that.”
    “They don’t? What then?”
    “I’m not your judge and jury, son. I don’t know what will happen. You’ll probably have to go to jail for a while. But if you’ll trust me for a day or so, and not stir a hair, I’ll try to see which way the wind blows with Sheriff Tucker. Will you promise not to run away?”
    “Yes, ma’am, I give my word.” He paused. “What about Phoebe?”
    “Don’t you worry about Phoebe. I’ll see to her.”
    “Please don’t blame her for helping me,” he pleaded. “She’s a good, kind girl. It’s my fault she got led astray.”
    “Now, John Lee,” Alafair began.
    “Can I see her before they send me away for good?” he interrupted anxiously.
    “Oh, John Lee, you worry me like a dog with a bone! Let’s see how things fall out. Now, I’m going to go make the best arrangements I can for you. Will you trust me, young’un?”
    “Yes, ma’am, I will.”
    “You know that if you run again, they’ll find you eventually, and it’ll go worse for you,” she warned, “and I’ll see to it that you never see Phoebe again.”
    “Yes, ma’am, I know.”
    “Then you just sit tight here for a while. I brought you some breakfast here.” She handed him the pail and eyed the quilts and blankets critically. “I reckon I can spare a pillow, too. Looks like you’re set for bedclothes.”
    A ghost of a smile appeared on John Lee’s face. “Phoebe allowed as how you might be peeved that I have your best comforter.”
    “Phoebe knows me pretty well,” Alafair admitted. “You just stay stuck, now, ’til you hear word.”
    ***
    Alafair ran back across the field, through the scrub oaks, past the barn and outbuildings, and slammed into the house. It was getting colder by the minute, and blowing a gale. There would be an ice storm before the day was out. All the way back, she prayed that John Lee Day would get an attack of sense and stay where he was. She had already determined to delay telling Shaw where the fugitive was hiding until she had thought about this for awhile. Shaw may have been Alafair’s partner in all things, and the finest man ever to set foot upon the ground, but he was a man, after all, and had a different way of seeing things. Shaw was more apt to stick to the letter of the law, and Alafair, in her own humble opinion, would cling more to the spirit.
    And her spirit was telling her not to turn over an innocent boy for hanging. For Harley Day could not have staggered off to the barn after receiving the wound she saw. He would have dropped like a stone.
    She had to have more information. Of course, it was entirely possible that John Lee was lying. An innocent face certainly didn’t always mean an innocent man. If he was lying, he was not only a killer, he was so stupid it strained the bounds of credulity, and he did not strike her as such a dimwit. More likely, he could have thrown her that bit of disinformation just to give her pause. Which is exactly what it had done. If that were the case, he would be long gone before anyone could get back to the soddie. No, Alafair’s intuition, in which she placed great and justified store, told her that John Lee sincerely had no idea that his father had been shot in the head. And in that case, someone else killed Harley Day.

Chapter Seven
    There were