Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming

investigation.”
    She forged ahead as though he hadn’t spoken. “Did Scott mention to you whether or not he talked to Russell Lang, or to his son Dan? Nadine Fluke told me that Harley whipped Dan pretty bad last year.”
    “No, Scott never said anything to me about the Langs. Why would Harley want to whip Dan Lang?”
    Alafair shrugged. “I understand Dan and Maggie Ellen Day were sweethearts, and Harley didn’t care for the idea.”
    “Oh. Well, I’m sure Scott knows all about it,” he reassured her.
    “Did Scott say anything else to you about the murder just now? Anything new come to light?”
    “I don’t know if I ought to tell you,” Shaw said perversely. “You’re looking to me like you plan to rush to the rescue again.”
    Her bottom lip pushed out in a pout. “You ought to know by now that I’m not going to do anything foolish. But somebody’s got to watch out for the youngsters.”
    “And that somebody’s got to be you, I suppose.”
    Alafair laughed. “I don’t expect it has to be, Shaw, but it probably will be. Now, don’t torture me any more. Did Scott tell you anything new?”
    Shaw sighed. “Let’s see, now. Seems his deputy Trent Calder found John Lee’s mule on the back forty behind that stand of oaks on their property, saddle off and let loose, he thought. So they’re thinking the boy is still around here somewhere.”
    “Wouldn’t be surprised if his mama’s hiding him there on the farm,” Alafair said, without looking at him.
    Shaw didn’t notice her evasion. “Wouldn’t be surprised,” he agreed. Distracted, he whistled at one of the hounds, who had taken off across a rime-covered field, nose to the ground.

Chapter Eight
    Alafair awoke slowly. She was lying on her side, curled up into a tight knot under the quilts. Her body was warm enough in her wool flannel nightgown, but her nose was freezing, and she snuggled down under the covers. It was still dark, but she sensed that it would be time to get up before long. She turned her head enough to see that she was still alone in the bed.
    When she and most of the children had gone to bed the night before, Shaw and Gee Dub were still out in the barn with a mare who was in the process of giving birth. Alafair flopped onto her back and sighed. A difficult foaling, then. She hoped drowsily that Shaw had sent Gee Dub to bed at some reasonable hour. She opened her eyes, suddenly wide awake. She hoped it was a hard foaling keeping Shaw out until all hours, and not the discovery of a fugitive on the property. She chided herself for borrowing trouble. Shaw wouldn’t have left her to sleep if he had discovered John Lee hiding in the soddie.
    She screwed up her resolve before throwing off the covers and standing up. The cold hit her like a slap in the face. She drew in a breath between her teeth and skittered into the parlor in her stocking feet, casting a glance toward the boys’ beds in the corner as she made for the pot bellied stove in the center of the room. A lump under a heap of quilts testified to Charlie’s presence. The yellow shepherd curled on the bed at the boy’s feet lifted his head and gazed at Alafair benignly through the gloom. Gee Dub’s bed, however, didn’t appear to have been slept in.
    Alafair peered at the pendulum clock on the shelf by the door, and could barely make out the time—four o’clock. She built up a coal fire in the stove, using as a starter a corn cob which had been soaking in a jar of kerosene, which she kept next to the clock on the high wall shelf. She lit a lamp, then took it and the quart jar of cobs with her into the kitchen to start the fire in her big wood burning oven. She was still scraping last night’s ashes from the fire box into the ash bucket when she heard the sound of boots on the back porch. Shaw and Gee Dub.
    She got up and walked across the kitchen to lean out the back door. By the weak yellow light of the lantern they had hung on a hook, she could see that Shaw was pouring a bucket of water into one of her washtubs on the bench in the corner.
    “I just got the stove going in the parlor,” she called to them. “Y’all get on in there and warm up. You must be ready to drop.”
    Shaw paused in his pouring and looked over at her. Even in the dim light she could see the dark circles under his eyes. “We washed off in a bucket before we came up to the house, but we’re mighty filthy, darlin’,” he informed her. His breath fogged in the air. “A little more