Читать книгу Settling The Score - George McLane Wood - Страница 59

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Anyone in there, Jeff?” asked Ed, knowing full well Jeff wouldn’t say anything.

Jeff went to the barn and came back with a shovel. “Here, Ed. Go start digging three graves out yonder under that tree, two adults, one for a child. I’ll tidy up back there and then I’ll come help. Oh, put the child’s grave in the middle.”

Then Jeff turned and went back into the house. When he came back, Ed had dug two graves. Jeff took the shovel from him and quietly began digging the third grave.

“What was in the house, Jeff?”

“A woman and her kid. The woman’s name was Edith. The kid, her daughter, was named Sarah. The old man in the doorway was Carl Henson, Edith’s daddy. As I recall hearing, her husband, Dan Davis, was killed by somebody in Jasper, about three years back. I don’t recall if they ever found out who his killer was. That sheriff in Jasper couldn’t catch a cold if he took off all his clothes and jumped in a snowbank.” Jeff finished digging and climbed out of the hole; they went back to the cabin.

Jeff had taken quilts off the beds and wrapped the bodies. He and Ed carried the grown-ups out and laid them in their graves. Ed went back and got the kid. He gently laid her down in the middle grave, between her kin, where she ought to be, then Jeff and Ed took turns covering up the bodies. Markers would have to wait until later. Jeff stuck the shovel into the soft dirt as the temporary headstone of old man Henson. “That’ll have to do you for now, old man,” he said.