Ballad 10.50 Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past by Sharyn McCrumb

Author:Sharyn McCrumb [McCrumb, Sharyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abingdon Fiction
Published: 2014-07-30T21:00:00+00:00

*

The wind smelled of snow. It shook the bare branches of the oaks and rattled the windows in the old farmhouse. On the sagging porch, Spencer’s cheeks reddened in the cold, and LeDonne turned his back to the wind, but right now in terms of their concerns, the weather came in a distant second.

When Mr. Shull said that there was one thing about his arrest that he found troublesome, the sheriff willed himself not to groan. Just when you think you’re going to have an easy time of an unpleasant job, some trivial matter always comes up, turning the simple task into a tangled mess. He hoped that Mr. Shull’s problem, whatever it was, would turn out to be something he could solve—preferably in two minutes’ time. The snow clouds seemed lower, and the three men were burning daylight, idling on the porch in the bone-chilling wind.

Spencer resolved to be patient with the old man. “What’s troubling you, Mr. Shull? You won’t be locked up in a cell with any other prisoners, so you needn’t worry about your safety on that account. And before we leave here, we’ll give you time to pack clothes and a toothbrush. You might take a book along to pass the time.” Shull didn’t look like a big reader, but Spencer had made the suggestion anyway, just in case. People could surprise you.

Shull glanced back at the half-open door. “Well, Sheriff, don’t you worry about me. I’ll be all right. I was in the war—Korea—not the big one; that was my daddy’s war—but it was bad enough. I reckon I’ve been in worse places than a nice, clean Tennessee jail.”

LeDonne, who had served in Vietnam, and brought some of it home with him, looked at the old man with more interest, but then he shrugged and went back to watching the half-open door.

“The plain truth of it is that what troubles me about all this is Norma,” Shull was saying. “We live alone here on the farm, just the two of us, and we’ve been man and wife purt near fifty years by now. I keep things going about the place as best I can, but I’m not as spry as I used to be, and Norma has the arthritis awful bad. It’s worse in the winter, when the cold just seems to settle in your bones.” Tears welled in the old man’s eyes, and he sighed.

“I’m truly sorry, sir,” said Spencer, feeling more like Scrooge every minute. LeDonne remained impassive. “You know we can’t take Mrs. Shull with you, don’t you? You wouldn’t want her to be in jail anyhow, and we sure wouldn’t. But we don’t want to risk her safety, either. Maybe someone can stay with her. Do you have any neighbors or kinfolk nearby that could take her in for a few days?”

Shull gave them a sad smile. “Bless you, no, Sheriff. I surely wish we did, but sad to say all our old friends have mostly passed, and what kinfolk

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