Burn Forever by Zenith Brown

Author:Zenith Brown [Ford, Zenith Brown and Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Murder, Crime, Detective, Suspense
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 1963-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

What it was precisely that drew him to the Kilgores’ that afternoon Ben could not have told. Œdipus complex, he said to himself. He grinned at the idea of comparing his mother with Mrs. Kilgore, big-boned, broad-hipped, rough-handed. You could just as well compare a Watteau lady with an Epstein primal mother. Yet they were alike, subtly alike, for under their environmental differences both of them were wise strong women, gentle and understanding and courageous. Somewhere in the back of his head Ben had a vague notion that perhaps Mrs. Kilgore could help about Julie. She knew the Curriers, she had known Julie’s mother.

He was so engrossed with the idea that he did not see Loftus’s Buick parked in the Kilgore road until he came almost even with it. He was still too used to cars to notice one at a distance. The absence of them on the mountain roads was a sort of unconscious relief, and he had not been in the mountains long enough to think of the presence of one as an event.

It was too late for him to wave and drive on when he saw Wade and Loftus sitting on the porch. The Kilgores had seen him before he passed the tobacco barn on the lower road.

“Laws, hit’s Mr. Davidge.”

A smile of welcome beamed on Mrs. Kilgore’s broad kindly face.

“Howdy, Mr. Davidge. You ain’t been here fer a month a’ Sundays, I do declare. Hunt yerself a seat.”

Wade was eating an apple, peeling it carefully with a pocket knife, carving the shiny red skin into even spirals. He threw a piece of it into the yard and watched the chickens scrambling for it, without appearing to hear Mrs. Kilgore’s surprise and pleasure at seeing Ben after so long a time.

“Thinks I’m following him,” Ben thought. “Or why would I pick out today of all days to come here.”

Loftus nodded to him as he came up.

“Cass was sayin’ as how you’d got your letter from th’ gover-ment today,” he said, spitting into the flock of chickens.

Jess Kilgore’s placid face lighted with annoyance.

“He ain’t been by thisaway yet this evenin’,” he said.

“I passed him up at Farrell’s Crossroads,” Ben said. “Ten minutes ago.”

“Reckon everybody’ll know about th’ letter afore we git hit,” Mrs. Kilgore said. “They tell me Farrells air aimin’ t’ leave next week. Well, if gover-ment seed things as I see ’em, they’d not leave Mis’ Farrell sign no papers till they’d bought another piece a’ land for ’em. They won’t be a penny left when Joe Farrell comes back from Knoxville Sat’day night.”

“Air you fixed on where you all air goin’, Sairy?” Loftus asked.

Both the Kilgores sat silently looking across the road beyond the pasture to the little cemetery this side of the cornfields up the side of the ridge.

“We figgered we had six hunderd acres left, after we’d got shed a’ what Sairy’s pappy give us,” Jess Kilgore said. “Th’ way gover-ment measures hit, we ain’t go much over four hunderd fifty. We

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