her head. She’ll want her daddy.”
“Daddy is in Kentucky on a long hunt.”
“Her mother, then. Someone who will believe her; someone who will be on her side. She goes home to mother. I’ve killed Charlie, but it was an accident, Mama.” Spencer looked around at the tangle of woods. “The Stewarts lived on the other side of the river. Where is the river?”
“Across the paved road,” said Nora Bonesteel. “Did you see the dirt road across from the logging trail? Likely that takes you down to the river. From where we’re standing it might be a mile or more.”
“The Stewarts lived on the other side of the river. The land on this side belonged to the Silvers. There’s no bridge. It’s the dead of winter.”
“She can walk it. The river is frozen. The snow is knee-deep.”
Spencer nodded. He felt cold in the pale sunlight that filtered through the Silvers’ woods. “It’s night. Bitterly cold and dark. Frankie has to walk through the deep snow and across the frozen river to reach her mother’s cabin. It will take her more than an hour, but she has to go. She’s terrified. But. . .but. . .”
“She can’t take the baby,” Nora Bonesteel finished softly.
“No. The night is too cold, and the snow is deep. She must hurry. She can’t take the child with her. It would slow her down. So she leaves it in the cabin in the woods. No one will hear it cry while she’s gone. The baby is alone and afraid—”
“Because Daddy won’t wake up.” The old woman shivered. “Even now I can feel that little child’s bewilderment and sorrow.”
It felt right. Spencer could see things falling into place. It must have happened this way, he thought. Of course Frankie would go for help. She was eighteen years old. I’ve killed Charlie, but it was an accident. What must I do?He began to pace again. “And what does her mother say? She’s shocked at first, but she’s angry, too, that Charlie would get drunk and try to kill Frankie and the baby. Barbara Stewart doesn’t waste any tears over him. If only her husband were home. What a time for him to be gone! But Kentucky is days and days distant. There’ll be no help from him. They must see to things themselves.”
“If Mr. Stewart had been home, we wouldn’t be here now,” said Nora Bonesteel.
“Right. We wouldn’t be out here because there’d have been no legend of Frankie Silver to draw us in. She’d have got away with it! She would have said that Charlie didn’t come home from the Youngs’ place, and no trace of him would ever have been found. Her father would have seen to that. A strong adult man—a trapper and a woodsman—would have been able to hoist up Charlie Silver’s body like a sack of flour and haul him away. Into the deep woods perhaps. Or he could have broken the frozen ground and buried the body whole. But Isaiah Stewart wasn’t there that night. Neither was the oldest son, Jack. All Frankie has to rely on is her mother, and her brother Blackston, who can’t be more than thirteen.”
“But they have to do something.” Nora Bonesteel understood what the sheriff was doing now. She saw that she needed only to nudge his thoughts along and he would reach the conclusion on his own. It was all there. You had only to picture the scene and it all came clear, whether you had the Sight or not.
He nodded. “They have to do something. They don’t trust the law, and they don’t understand that self-defense isn’t considered murder. They think they have to hide the evidence that the death ever took place. Two women and a young boy can’t lift the dead body. At least not easily.”
Nora Bonesteel said, “The snow is knee-deep and the river is frozen.”
“Lord, yes. If they try to take the body out of that cabin, they’ll leave tracks through the snow that a blind man could follow. Besides, there’s no way to dispose of the body once they get him outside. The river is solid ice. They don’t have shovels—a pick, maybe, but it’s hard to dig frozen ground with a pick. It would take too long. Even the wild animals and the scavengers can’t be counted on to devour the remains in deepest winter. So the Stewarts are limited to what they can do with Charlie’s body inside the cabin.” Spencer ticked off the impossibilities on his fingers.