Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming

day always consisted of leftovers from Sunday dinner, since cooking from scratch was out of the question on such a busy day. Alafair had just built up the fire in the stove when Shaw got home. It had taken him almost half the day to deposit all the kids where they needed to go and to take care of some business at Mr. J.W. Brown’s hardware store. The trip into Boynton only took twenty minutes in good weather, but a buckboard loaded with people took twice that long when it had to slog through the mud. His first stop had been to deposit the kids at Boynton Public School, including the twins, who along with two boys comprised the entire senior class. Mary had graduated high school in the spring, and now was helping Miss Trompler, the first-though-third grade teacher, while she decided if she wanted to be a teacher herself. Her parents had offered to send her to the teacher’s seminary in Tahlequah, since she could get her education and live with Alafair’s brother Robert’s family there. And Alafair and Shaw were great proponents of education, for the girls as well as the boys.
    It was the same when Martha had decided that she wanted to learn the rare and coveted skill of typewriting, because, she told her mother, she could always support herself and would never be totally dependent. Shaw had taken her to enroll in a six month business course in Tulsa, where she could, after all, get her education and live with Shaw’s aunt Suley and her husband. Martha had come back armed with myriad sophisticated skills and immediately gotten a well-paying position as secretary to Mr. Lucas Bushyhead, president of the First National Bank of Boynton. The grandparents were scandalized.
    After leaving Martha at the bank and doing his business with Mr. Brown, Shaw headed for home. He had already put in several hours’ work with the animals before he had taken the kids to town, and Alafair knew that when he finally got into the house after unhitching the team, parking the wagon, and feeding the horses, he was going to be ravenous.
    Alafair was standing at the kitchen window, tying her apron behind her back and watching Shaw drive toward the barn, when she caught sight of Sheriff Scott Tucker come riding up the drive on his tall roan mare.
    She turned and walked through the parlor and out onto the front porch just as Scott reined at the gate. Alafair walked down the steps, clutching her sweater to her, and Scott removed his hat as she neared.
    “Howdy, Alafair,” he greeted cheerfully. “Finally warming up, ain’t it?”
    “I reckon,” she responded. “I was glad it’s warm enough to do a wash without the clothes freezing on the line. We’ll be sitting down to dinner in half an hour or so. Come on in and join us. Have some coffee, gab with Shaw a spell.”
    Scott looked toward Shaw, who had almost reached the barn with the buckboard before he had seen the sheriff ride in. He had just begun to turn the wagon around and head back toward the house. “Sorry, Alafair,” Scott said regretfully. “Can’t do it. Just come to see if Shaw will help me in a bit of a chore. I’m on my way to the Day place.” Scott Tucker was Shaw’s cousin, owner of the Boynton Mercantile Company and the six room American Hotel above it, both of which were run by his wife. Scott was far too busy being sheriff to give much of his time to his businesses.
    “What brings you hereabouts?”
    “The oldest Day boy just rode in on that lop-eared mule of theirs to tell me that they found Harley Day froze to death out in the yard.”
    Alafair straightened. “Well, I’ll be,” she managed. “Froze, you say.”
    Scott, a shorter, rounder, and even jollier version of Shaw, laughed, seemingly unconcerned about the seriousness of the situation. “Yes, indeed,” he assured her. “Apparently he wandered off from the house drunk on Wednesday night, and they thought he was just off on one of his benders. Turns out he lay down next to the house on the north side to take a little nap and promptly froze to death. Just this morning the drift melted enough for them to figure out where he’d gone.”
    Alafair contemplated this for a moment. “Where is John Lee?” she finally asked.
    “He told me that he was going to tell his daddy’s sister and brother-in-law, who live north of town, see if they’ll take the kids for a spell.”
    Alafair nodded. “The ways of the Lord are strange,” she observed.
    Scott shrugged. “I don’t imagine that the family will