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Updated: May 1, 2025
He raised himself to his feet, and was followed by Jed Briggs and his wife to the fence. "Likely mare," said Scattergood, blandly. Startlingly Mrs. Briggs laughed, shrilly, unpleasantly, as a woman laughs in great fear. "Gawd!" said Jed Briggs, "it's " "Yes," said Scattergood, gently. "It's Asa Levens's mare. Was she here last Tuesday?" "She was here Tuesday, Scattergood Baines," said Jed Briggs.
It was a mark put on Asa Levens's face as a warning to folks that God mistrusted him." "When he was dead it was different," said Scattergood, with solemnity. "It said he had r'iled God past endurance." Mary nodded. She comprehended. "The truth will do," she said, confidently. "Did Abner mention last Tuesday to you?" Scattergood asked. "No." "Where was Asa Levens last Tuesday? Do you know, Mary?"
Let it remain there, my dear, said the lieutenant. He did not offer to speak to me, till I had walked up close to his bed-side: If you are captain Shandy's servant, said he, you must present my thanks to your master, with my little boy's thanks along with them, for his courtesy to me; if he was of Levens's said the lieutenant.
As the afternoon was stretching toward evening, Scattergood sauntered into Sheriff Ulysses Watts's barn. "Who's feedin' and waterin' Asa Levens's stock?" he asked. "Dummed if I didn't clean forgit 'em," confessed the sheriff. "Any objection if I look after 'em, Sheriff? Any logical objection? Hoss might need exercisin'. Can't never tell. Want I should drive up and do what's needed to be done?"
He paused, to speak excitedly to Scattergood, who sat as usual on the piazza of his hardware store. "They've jest found Asa Levens's body," he ejaculated. "A-layin' clost to the road it was, with a bullet through the head. Clear case of murder.... I'm gatherin' a posse to fetch in the murderer." "Murderer's known, is he?" said Scattergood, leaning forward, and eying the sheriff.
"Be you still a-goin' to arrest Abner Levens?" Scattergood asked. "To be sure. He done it, didn't he? Who else would 'a' killed Asa?" "Who else?" said Scattergood, solemnly. They raised Asa Levens and carried him to his house. Having left him in proper custody, the posse re-entered its picnic van and drove with no small trepidation toward Abner Levens's farm, a mile away.
"Be much 'bleeged," said Sheriff Watts. Scattergood drove briskly to Asa Levens's farm, watered and fed the stock, and then led out of its stall Asa Levens's favorite driving mare. He hitched it to Asa Levens's buggy and mounted to the seat. "Giddap," he said to the mare, and dropped the reins on her back. She started out of the gate and turned toward town.
The body was found lying beside a narrow path leading from the road through a field to Asa Levens's farmhouse; it lay upon its face, with arms outstretched, very still and very peaceful, with the morning sun shining down upon it, and the robins singing from shadowing trees, and insects buzzing and whirring cheerfully in the fields, and the fields themselves peaceful and beautiful in their golden embellishments, ready for the harvest.
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