Chapter 13

The next morning Alexander Beall honed his razor and shaved with the hot water his wife had provided along with a very pointed suggestion. It was a chore he did just about weekly, and he was constantly surprised that the whiskers he scraped from his furrowed face had turned so white in recent years. It was going to be a sunny day as far as he could tell from the dust-filled light coming through the small window near his shoulder. After his usual corn mush breakfast, he saddled his mare, rode over to the McNishes and tied his horse near the small back porch. His knock was quickly answered by Thomas McNish.

"Tom," Beall said, "good to see you. Your boy to home?"

"Yes, why do you ask?" McNish said standing in the doorway with his jaw thrust forward and clearly not planning to invite Beall inside.

"Well, something's come up. Oh, did you get them oxen of yours shoed all right?"

"Did indeed. Stayed and watched too. Yes sir. Quite a show. I'm glad they don't need shoes very often."

"Lessen they break one, and that don't happen much."

"Which of my sons you want to see?" McNish asked, his stance now a bit relaxed.

Beall tried not to look surprised, "Well, Tim since he's home."

McNish turned his head and said loudly, "Timothy!"

The young man appeared quickly and nodded to Beall. "Man wants to talk to you, go on outside so's you don't bother your mother or track up her rug." McNish looked down at Beall's old boots, and Beall glanced at Tim's.

"I'll get my coat, Mr. Beall," the younger McNish said and disappeared for a minute to reappear in a heavy twill jacket with a fur collar. "Got this at Fort Pitt," Tim McNish said when he saw that Beall was admiring his coat. "Real warm." They walked together to the barn, and Beall accepted a pinch of the young man's snuff while he tried to line up questions in his mind. He had been expecting to ask Tim's brother if he had seen him and dig into that area.

"Tim, I talked to your brother and father a while back, and..."

"They told me, Mr. Beall, about that woman that got killed down in Georgetown. Damn shame."

"Yes, I wondered if you knew her. She was a dressmaker, maybe you and Polly..."

"What was her name?"

"Miller, Betsy Miller. I don't know where she worked. I think she usually went to her customers' homes."

"I did see a woman at Polly's house once that was pinning cloth on her and measuring and so forth, marking with chalk. It might've been her. All I 'member is she was left-handed, looked kind of funny, backwards, what she did with pins and scissors."

"But you don't know her name, never had any dealings with her or anything."

"Nope, never had need for a dress." Tim McNish laughed. "Ma made most of my clothes, and Mr. Sipe give me these trousers when I finished my apprenticeship. Better'n knee pants in this weather."

"Right," Beall said, making a connection to Gil's description. "Let me try a different hill here. Your brother suggested, well, maybe hinted, that you and Beth Clagett might'a been more than jus' how-dee-do acquaintances."

"Did he?" The young man's tongue distended the lower part of his mouth as he pushed his wad of snuff around.

"Yep. He right?"

"Well now, you still sound like a sheriff, Mr. Beall. Don't know if I should hurt that lady's reputation none?"

"Can't harm her now. I think it might help, Tim, help me understand some things."

"Maybe, though I can't figure why. Well, they's dead so's it don't matter, I guess. I visited Beth over there a time or two, and we done some pleasuring a'each other, too. She did enjoy a gallop. Would put that boy out in the front yard and go to it. Then one time after I seen Lem heading for the courthouse, I went over, and she had a fat lip and a black eye, all green and purple it was."

Tim was sitting on the edge of a cutting block with his long legs stuck out before him while Beall stood near the barn door. He noticed Tim's boots, cut slightly above the ankle, cracked across the instep and run down at the heels. He filed that picture away.

"Did she say what'd happened?"

"Yes, said Lem beat her after somebody told him he had seen a man riding away from their place?"

"Could it have been you, Tim."

"No sir, I never had a horse when I was apprenticing down there or humpin' her out here, and Pa wouldn't let me use his riding horse, no way. I walked over there. 'Tain't more'n two miles, and it was well worth it." The young man smiled broadly.

"Did she tell you who it was, the horse owner?"

Tim shook his head and drummed his fingers on the big block of hardwood.

"Can you guess? You ever see another man with her?"

"Kind'a embarrassing, Mr. Beall. But I did once. Got the itch and went over there one day, shoot, this was a long time ago, but it was jes' before they was killed. How long they been dead? Let's see, it was after we were Arnold County 'cause that courthouse where we had our trial was in business, was it Hungerford's tavern then?"