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And the Winners Are...
William Peschel
2nd Place,
International Category
The morning of the murder began like any other mid-summer day on the Gray farm. John Gray was out in the fields, checking the corn for borer-worm damage, Tom was tending to the hogs, and in the house upstairs, Sarah gathered sheets for the washing. Through the open windows, she could hear Mary and Deeth talking.
Deeth -- for that was the name the stranger gave, his true name being too difficult to pronounce -- was saying:
"She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudy climes and starry skies. And all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light which Heaven to gaudy day denies."
There was a squawk, suddenly shut off, of a chicken losing its essential contact between head and body. Mary dropped the bird to let it seek its maker at its own speed. She collared the gizzard of another and said:
"How you parade your words, Mr. Deeth. It's sweeter than molasses and about as thick, too. Did you make that up yourself?." Mary snapped the chicken's neck with merciful efficiency.
"Alas, no, Miss Gray. Someone else wrote them. But the emotion behind the sentiments are mine alone; O, my!"
Mary paused bending over to retrieve another doomed chicken. The catch in his voice made her start with the wariness of a Cooper Indian hearing a dry twig snap. She said:
"Mr. Deeth, whatever do you mean?"
"Miss Gray... Mary... stand for a moment. Here, let me hold that." Deeth held the bird behind him. The bird flapped in his grasp, and he reflexively gripped its neck tighter. He said:
"Mary -- if I may call you by that heaven-blessed name -- I am a stranger here. But when I leave, I should like to take you with me -- as my wife." He thumped his chest for emphasis, and the limp chicken bumped against his breastbone.
A chicken brushed against Mary's skirt, lay against her shoes and quietly gave up its ghost, but she did not attend. She could feel herself growing flushed, and she wiped the sweat from her forehead. She had taken hard her father's rejection of Hugh, but tending the stranger had occupied her time, and a young woman's heart can heal with startling rapidity under the attentions of another beau. She reflected on his handsome eyes, his manly bearing, his evident wealth and said:
"I love you mightily, Mary. I hope that it will not take too long to hear his answer. In delay there lies no plenty; then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, youth's a stuff that will not endure."
Mary would certainly have kissed him if her mother had not leaned out the window and shouted:
"Hurry up with them chickens. We've got cleaning and cooking ahead if your father's goin' have his vittles on time?
Clouds were gathering for the afternoon thunderstorm common in those parts. Noon saw Dave in his chair tilted back on the porch with the other loafers outside his law office when he saw Hugh coming up the steps. Dave grinned and said:
"Hello, Romeo? How's Juliet, eh? Oh, that's right. You lost your Juliet to this unseen stranger. She showed you your hat and the door, didn't she? Overruled your plea and sentenced you to pillory, I dare say."
The loafers on the porch chuckled at his clack. Hugh turned red and said: "You're going to press too hard one day."
"And then what? The worm will turn, no doubt you will say. Well, we'll see, we'll see." Hugh reached for the door but stopped when Dave said:
"I always wondered, Hugh, if you knew how close Mary held her cards. She seemed sweet on you until she heard I was making my estate over to her. Didn't want to queer her pitch, knowing what I think of you. Good thing she listens--"
No more wind was heard from Dave. Hugh pulled him out of his chair by his cravat and hit him amidships. He dropped to his knees, gasping for air, and Hugh stood there, looking at his fist like he had never seen it before. Then, before the loafers could respond with anything more than deadheaded gapes, he jumped off the porch and ran down the street.
The chickens were prepared for the oven and Mary set to making the biscuits. Her mind was in a turmoil and she felt feverish. The sweat trickled down the back of her neck and she gently rocked the table as she kneaded the unyielding dough. She had been thinking too much of Mr. Deeth's proposal, and had poured in too little water, and the mess refused to behave itself. She poured in another half-cup and berated herself for her inattention.
Her mother wiped her hands on the apron in a nervous manner and said:
"You've been walkin' out with Mr. Deeth ever evenin' and stoppin' in the willow grove by the river."
Anger jetted through Mary. She turned the bowl and attacked another side of the dough.
"It's cool there, mama. It feels good."
Sarah went on:
"Still, I wish you didn't--"
"Didn't what, mama?" She pushed her heel deeper into the mass and felt it give way, soaking up the water, becoming firm and pliable. Her mother stood by the table and said:
"Do you know what his intentions be? I won't have any harm come to you, I swear?
Mary paused to control her temper. She looked over at her mother, and with a shock saw her afresh: angry but worn with care; concerned but despairing; unwilling to hear the truth yet unable to stay silent. Mary could see herself years from now if she stayed on the farm: married, children, growing older; the years flowing by, unceasing, unchanging, unable to hold onto one day and call it memorable.
With a shudder she turned back to working the dough. Then she remembered Deeth, close to her. Under her gentle pressure, the dough softened. She could feel it grow beneath her fingers. She said:
"He wants to take me away from here." She heard her mother gasp, and with only a modicum of shame that thrilled her for being forbidden, she added:
"Far away. And I want to go with him."
Hugh ate in misery at a back table in Deer Lick's sole saloon. His conscience prodded his most tenderest spots as he recalled the scene with Dave. He picked morosely at a limp of gristle on his metal plate and his thoughts ran:
"Just my luck! I've been turning my cheek to him till my neck's twisted like a barber pole, and then go do a darn foolish thing like that. What will father say? But don't it felt good! His cheeks popped like bellows when I hit him, but -- oh! -- I shouldn't have. I'll have to apologize."
Hugh ate without tasting the difference between fat and stringy flesh. His thoughts turned the day after he proposed. He came back to the farm, nervous but confident, to hear the answer. Sarah greeted him with news of John finding the stranger and how Mary was ministering to him. Then, out in the barn, John told him with no more care than he took to slaughter a hog that Mary had no more use for him; she had greater prospects than anything Hugh could offer. Hugh felt the ground shift under him; he grew heated and he couldn't speak. But he had the wit, back in the house, to ask Sarah if he may see the stranger.
Sarah squeezed his hand while she led him upstairs, and the pity knifed through Hugh more than John's rough words. In the sick-room, the thin figure lay in bed as if ready for the undertaker's custom. The heavy curtains kept out the light and the clock marked the beats of the day. Despite the cold outside, muck sweat and body heat permeated the room. Mary was asleep in the chair by the fireplace in a white dress, still and pale as if she was in her coffin, and Hugh could feel his heart pull apart in grief.
Then, though it may have been a trick of the candlelight, Hugh saw the stranger's eye on him; gleams of deep reds twinkling through half-closed lids. One eye winked, as if saying, "Don't you wish you were under the covers with Mary beside you? I'll get her yet, don't you see."
Rage broke the spell Hugh was under, and he fled.
Ben Rodgers walked into the saloon and Hugh groaned. He had been one of the loafers on the porch and was, no doubt, here to spread the tale. He gave a lopsided grin at Hugh and thrust up an approving thumb as he headed for the knot of men at the bar. Soon, he had them laughing and several were casting glances over at Hugh. Fury and shame rose in him and Hugh slapped a coin on the table and walked out. He stomped down the street to help relieve his mind, but his conscience was not done shaming him yet.
Under Mary's tender care, the stranger had recovered rapidly. He was too weak to help with the plowing or to accompany the family to church, he said, so he stayed in the house, and helped with women with the chores. He would also disappear for hours at a stretch, and when questioned, would say only that he had been on the prairie in deep communion with nature. He never went into town.
News of the broken engagement had shocked Deer Lick. Hugh was not respected for his acuteness in business, nor feared when crossed. He was considered something of a gentle dog, good to pet and undeserving of ill-usage. A sympathetic tradesman put Hugh in Mary's way by having him deliver provisions to the farm, and he agreed, hoping for a few words with her.
Hugh found her in the kitchen next to Deeth, and he listened to the man's stories about the glorious music to be found in Vienna, the saucy glitter of Berlin, the wild weather of the Scottish highlands and the parties he attended in London. Mary said nothing; her finger inscribed tiny circles on the table next to Deeth's arm, and her eyes shined.
While Deeth was describing a coronation ball for England's new queen, Hugh sneered:
"Sounds like a book talkin'."
Deeth sent Hugh a languid look and said:
"And what book might that be?"
The stranger said no more, and Hugh could not come up to scratch in the expectant silence. He grew red in the face. Books were few in Deer Lick apart from Rev. Hurley's Bible, and he did not read. Deeth said:
"You see, there are some whose vision does not extend outside the shell of their skin, and some" -- Deeth took Mary's hand -- "who are not afraid to experience a wider knowledge of the world." And Deeth winked at him. Hugh fled, routed from the field.
The testimony in court established this sequence of events: After lunch, the storm rose up, and for over an hour the land was pounded with heavy rains and the air rattled with lightning. It was as violent a blast as the blizzard that heralded
Deeth's arrival six months before. When it was over, Mary left the house with Deeth to walk along the stream. John Gray took advantage of the cool weather to mend a broken chair in the barn. Tom was in town doing what boys did when there weren't chores to be done. Sarah Gray took a basket to go berry-picking on the other side of the river, upstream from the willow grove. The water was high and fast. Logs and broken branches swept by. She picked her way across the footbridge to reach the berry patches.
Hugh arrived at the house after the storm stopped, soaked to the skin. He was desperate to find Mary alone, to hear from her lips that it was her decision that she didn't want him.
Sarah did not see Mary and Deeth walk among the willows, but she heard the scream. She dropped her basket, warily crossed the footbridge rocked by the rapids, and ran on the path by the river. The stream had reached the very tops of the banks. In the thickest part of the grove where the river bended away and ran the swiftest, she saw footprints scattered in the mud. She slipped several times as she sought Deeth and Mary, but she could not find them.
That is what Sarah testified.
John heard the distant scream from inside the barn. He paused in his work, uncertain of what he heard. He left the barn and walked upstream by the path to the grove. The stream was running fast, and dark shapes bobbed in the race. He did not see Mary. He found Sarah and the tracks and what he thought were signs of a scuffle.
That is what John testified.
Mary was not called to the stand.
Hugh was on the front porch, knocking on the screen door when he heard the thin wail that shook him to his bones. He went around back and saw Mary running toward him. He met her halfway, but she ran past, frightened, disheveled and unable to speak. He ran to the grove. He hadn't seen the footprints, nor anyone else. Searching the woods away from the water, he picked up a red handkerchief. He heard voices calling for Mary and Deeth and found Sarah and John in the clearing by the stream. He mopped his neck with the cloth. As he rubbed his lips, he saw their faces turn white. Sarah stammered:
"God 'tween us and evil."
John stammered:
"Hugh, what have you done?"
He smelled copper and looked at the handkerchief.
The handkerchief was soaked in blood.
Hugh awoke at sunup in a dank jail cell that smelled of too much dirt and not enough soap. Outside his barred window, he could hear the talk of the town:
"-- He had murder in his eye. Dave says ..."
"-- I was there. Dave had barely spoke three words to him when he jumped up, pulled a knife long as my arm, and waved it around, threatening to kill anyone who'd
take his Mary. Took three of us to pull him away."
"-- found the body yet?"
"-- up and down the stream, but it's a-moving fast. Could be out of the state by now."
"-- or Natchez."
"-- blood all over him..."
Then Dave heard one strident woman's voice said, coming from an entirely different conversation:
"How romantic?
The cell door opened behind him. Dave came in and said: "Hugh. I'll be representing you at the trial." "You? Ain't you agin' me too?"
"That won't score one way or t'other. There's only two lawyers in the whole county, and the other one's prosecuting you. Don't worry about me. You'll get the best lawyerin' I'm a-capable of giving."
Hugh heard the tremor in Dave's voice. He was straddling the chair at the table and poised as if ready to spring if Hugh should pounce. That's when Hugh realized that, for the first time in his life, Dave might be just a wee bit afraid of him.
The days crawled by until the trial. There was nothing for Hugh to do except eat, sleep and lay on his bunk and stare at the ceiling. He gave up looking out the barred window early on. He could see the townspeople, the men he grew up with and played with and drank with, looking back at him like he was someone they had never seen before. The women, too, did the same, and their stares worried him more than the charge of murder. He stopped looking out of the window, except at night, when he could see the moon and stars shining out of reach.
Mary came in one day with a group of ladies from the church. They announced that they were there to pray for Hugh's immortal soul in the hopes of kindling in his breast a spark of repentance that would blaze into salvation. Mary stood in the back beyond Hugh's reach. She looked drawn and worn, and her suffering nearly broke Hugh's heart. The women saw Hugh through the barred window in the door, unshaven and dirty, staring at Mary like a hungry wolf eying a lamb, and shuddered with delicious expectations.
They prayed and sang hymns, and with a last harmonic "amen," the ladies turned to go. Mary hung back, hoping to share a few short words. Anything -- a look back from the ladies, a cry of"Come 'long Mary? would dash her chances. She waited -- and waited -- and, yes! She reached for Hugh's hands that gripped the bars in the door, and both said something unexpected, an exchange of soul-felt pleas, compressed by time and distilled into their essences.
Mary: "Repent for killing Deeth!"
Hugh: "I love you?
Both recoiled like magnets. Mary stumbled a little, then fled after the women.
Text of a letter smuggled out of the jail with the help of Ben Rogers: "Dearest Mary; There is so much to be said but this little slip of paper cannot contain all that my heart holds for you. I can't repent for that man's death if it means he will not have you. I love you, tho I know you don't feel the same for me. H."
"Father."
"Aye?"
Mary stood at the edge of the rug before his chair. She had been quiet after visiting the jail, and thought hard over Hugh's words, harder than she ever had in her life. She said:
"I have a favor to beg. I would like to marry Hugh."
"That --" he began to say no, then stopped as inspiration filled his being.
His thoughts ran:
"There's no doubt that Hugh killed the man. Which means within a fortnight he'll be a-swinging, and then what will happen to his estate? He only has his pa. Let my Mary have her way, and the money will come into our family where it will certainly do us a power of good. And of Dave, well, if Dave doesn't know about it until it's too late, maybe he won't be so upset over it neither."
At the thought of a stack of greenbacks so close at hand, acquired with so little effort, John Gray smiled lovingly at Mary, who didn't quite know how to respond, having seen it so rarely.
That night, Hugh was awakened by the sound of the hallway door opening. Lantern light swept the darkness. A voice called: "Hugh? You there boy?" "Mr. Gray?"
"Step up to the door. My Mary's got something to say to you."
Hugh saw what he thought at first were ghosts. Mary was there, and John and Sarah Gray, and Rev. Hurley, and Ben Rogers and Sid Jones. Hugh said: "What's all this about?"
John said:
"This is about a wedding, boy... son. We're fixin' to settle this now before you go to trial."
Hugh was dazed. Hope and consternation warred within him. Then he saw in John's hands the shotgun he brought in case Hugh needed some more convincing.
So the ceremony was accomplished amid quiet rejoicing, the witnesses signed the certificate, and, man and wife, Hugh and Mary were left alone for all of 10 minutes. And when he was alone again, Hugh laid on his cot, and a flood of happiness lifted him and he felt stronger than in a long while, and before sleep claimed him, he remembered the last thing Mary said before she kissed him clean through the bars, with an intensity that shocked and thrilled him:
"Don't lose heart, my darling Hugh. All will be well."
The trial opened the next day before Judge Roop, and by that time, news of the marriage had spread. The residents of Deer Lick were overcome with excitement over the murder, and the jailhouse wedding between Mary and the brutal slayer of her lover brought them close to ecstasy, and it was universally agreed that the hanging promised to be one of the largest events ever held in the state of Missouri.
Dave fulfilled his promise to Hugh and did his best in court, but there was little he could have done had he spoken with the tongues of angels. The story of the fight between Hugh and he came out, followed by the testimony of John and Sarah. Mary was not called to the stand, to protect her from indelicacy, which led the jury to speculate that something truly horrible happened in the willow grove, and as the words flowed on, they settled deeper into their seats and looked at Hugh with the sadness of men faced with an unpleasant but unavoidable duty.
Dave uncorked himself in his final speech to a degree never seen before; he finessed the evidence as much as he dared and still be called honest for a lawyer, and he implied unanswered questions where there were none; he shouted up Hugh's honest character and spotless reputation, his sober, bland earnestness, and his lack of enemies -- apart from himself-- for Hugh never did nor acquired anything that would inspire enmity; and suggested that since he never killed before, he wouldn't be likely to kill again. He ran on until his fuel grew low and he was forced to bank his fires and sit.
Judge Roop was about to charge the jury with reaching a verdict when Mary stood and said:
"Judge, may I speak?"
Consternation and speculation ran through the courtroom. Before Judge Roop could rule, Mary set off her mine and said:
"Hugh did not kill Mr. Deeth. I did."
This sparked an uproar. The townspeople were on their feet and shouting and milling about, the men waving their hats and the women their fans. John tried to pull Mary away, but she stayed mulishly in place. Judge Roop broke his gavel trying to silence the crowd, tossed the handle and banged the mallet until quiet was restored and said:
"Miss Gray, do you realize the import of what you're saying?"
"Yes I am, judge. I did not mean to kill Mr. Deeth. In the willow grove, he grew warm towards me. He said things I could not countenance. He -- I pushed him away and he hit his head against some of the rocks by the shore. He mopped at the blood and stomped and swore that if he wouldn't have me, no one would. He rushed at me again, but I dodged and he fell into the water and was swept away."
This sparked a second uproar, and Judge Roop banged the bench furiously, scoring dents into the mahogany. Mary stood tall amid the crashing waves around her and, when quiet returned, said:
"I'm sorry that I didn't say anything before, but I was in shock. I was scared to say anything. And Hugh was so chivalrous to take the blame for me, but I can't let him hang for it!"
"That's not true judge? Sarah stood. "My Mary didn't kill Mr. Deeth. I did!" Well! The noise raised the roof of the courthouse, Judge Roop banged his gavel with one hand, and when his palm grew sore, with the other, but it was of no use. Everybody had something to say about this piece of news, and they were determined to say it. Only when all speech was exhausted that Sarah continued:
"I heard the scream and ran into the grove and saw just what Mary said: Mr. Deeth wiping at the blood and saying he was gonna kill her. I pitched at rock at his
head and knocked him into the river."
Mary said:
"No! That's not what happened."
"Yes it is, Mary, arid you can't say otherwise." Then, one of the loafers stood and said: "That's not true! I killed the fellow? Judge Roop said:
"Sit down and shut up, Ben Rodgers, or I'll give you 30 days. You weren't even there?'
Another man stood and said:
"But I was, judge. I brained the man with an axe."
"No, judge, t'was me! I laid into him with a scythe and cut him to pieces."
"Me!"
More townspeople stood and confessed. By the time order was restored, twenty-seven people confessed that they had drowned, sliced, eviscerated, shot, hung, gashed, slashed, brained, dissected, cleaved, sawn, flayed and drawn and quartered the unfortunate Deeth.
Judge Roop pondered this problem. He didn't know who was telling the truth -- at least among the family -- nor did he know what to do or say next. He stood and paced the platform. The family members were still on their feet, as well as the other confessors, as unmoved as if frozen in ice. Only Hugh looked bewildered at the storm crashing around him, and Judge Roop took a crumb of comfort that at least one person was just as confused as he was.
It was only when his thoughts turned to the mysterious stranger that the solution struck him. He looked at the answer from all sides, and the logic was so clear that he couldn't help but grin from relief, and he turned hastily to the wall to compose himself. Then he settled in his chair with due gravity and said:
"Everyone set. I reached my verdict. As we know from John Gray's testimony, Mr. Deeth was not a citizen of Missouri, nor of these States of America. We don't know how he came to be here. He was found in Gray's front field after a blizzard, with no tracks and no evident means of transportation to show how he got here.
"Even now, all we know for sure of Mr. Deeth is that he has vanished from the skin of the earth. The only evidence we have are some footprints and the bloody handkerchief. All that's left are a pack of contradictory statements that may have been made more out of-- familial affection, rather than a desire to present evidence.
"Therefore, as we have no physical evidence now that Mr. Deeth ever existed, I rule for the court that Mr. Deeth NEVER existed. He holds as much viability as, say, a sketch in the newspaper, and even under the laws of Missouri, a man cannot be charged with murdering a fictional construct. The prisoner is free to go."
Judge Roop's verdict was lost in the cheering. Mary ran to her Hugh and hugged him; Dave pumped his hand hard and battered him on the back, and the townspeople lifted him skyward and give him three cheers and a tiger. That night, a bonfire was built in the center of town and the people fiddled and danced around it in celebration.
And that's the story of the Notorious Murderer of Deer Lick. While everyone said they knew Hugh didn't do it, no one was the least bit convinced. Not even Mary, who was grateful for her escape from life as a farmer's wife, and thought it quite the thing to have for her husband a man so ruled by his passions that he was willing to slaughter another for her. And although Hugh never killed again, or even demonstrated the mildest intention to do so, her affection for him did not diminish, and he grew to appreciate her passion and respond in kind.
Hugh grew prosperous. He acted as he did before that terrible summer, but no one had told him that he had unknowingly acquired an aura of blood and sin. Men wanting to associate with the desperado gave him their business and bragged of it. Women flirted and whispered. His attendance at Rev. Hurley's church drew crowds.
He became one of the richest men in Pike County and was thrice elected the town's mayor.
But while the townspeople of Deer Lick are satisfied with the outcome, we are left with this conundrum: Who was the mysterious stranger? Can we trust what John said he found out in the field? Was the Gray family the fever-dream of a lost wayfarer, alone and dying on the prairie one winter morning, or did the family conceive the stranger to suit their own unspoken needs? Or both?