To Smell A Rat

To Smell A Rat

Nothing but eerie, unnatural silence greeted Nellie-Rae at her usually cheery homestead when she arrived home with her cart full of butchered deer meat she'd spent the day hunting, field dressing and dragging back through the forested Georgian acreage her family owned. She even needed to salvage her share back from the greedy, drunken neighbor, Otis Crawford, when the buck wandered onto his property before it died from the injury she inflicted.

She was exhausted and needed her mom to help her hang the bounty into the smokehouse to prepare it for winter storage. She wanted to surprise her ailing father with a fresh venison steak for this evening's supper. He would be so proud of her managing to bag a buck alone. He wouldn't even be angry with her for borrowing his extra britches and old jacket to protect her through the woods.

Why didn't anyone come out or call back to her when she arrived? Even the chickens and the goats didn't stir. No braying from the donkey, Brownie, or Old Grey, the draft horse. Has everyone deserted her?

If Ma needed to take Pa into town to see the doctor, she surely left a note for me.

First things first before she lost all daylight. She took the meat to the smoke house, slung most of the cuts over the rafters and built a fire. She slipped out of the bloody clothing to leave them in a wash tub and shook out her skirts still under the britches before entering the back door of their cabin.

“Ma, Ma! Look I have some steaks to fry up for supper. Won't Pa be pleased? Where are you? Has Pa taken a turn for the worse?” She calls out as she searches for a note. “Um. Maybe up in my loft room? Nope, nothing there. Strange.”

This time of day there should be a pot of stew simmering on the cook stove or corn bread rising in the dutch oven in the embers of the fireplace. But both fires have grown cold though the autumn air is brisk. Knowing they'll be hungry when they arrive home if they did go into town, she shoves another log into the dying embers of the stove and slaps some steaks into an iron skillet before she raps on their bedroom door.

“Pa, how are you feeling. May I come in?” Still no answer so she eases open the door and is confronted with the biggest shock of her sixteen years. Her father with a bullet hole in his forehead thrown backwards across the bed. Her mother crumpled on the floor beside him bleeding profusely from what was left of her midsection.

She staggered backwards and sank to the floor her skirts billowing then deflating around her collapsed form. “Ma, Pa! It can't be! It can't be!” Nellie sobs into her hands covering her face. “No! No! NO!” Her mind refuses to accept what her eyes presented.

“How horrible! Oh, Ma! My beautiful, loving mother. Always leading and guiding and nurturing me. My Pa, strong, wise, brave, teaching me self reliance and assurance. You can't be gone. Our happy little family destroyed. Who did this to you? Why? Why?”

Then she noticed the heavy trunk at the end of the bed was moved. 'Why' solved. Pa's biggest cache of gold was once beneath the floorboards. Throughout the homestead were other smaller stashes of small stones and gold dust. Her pa knew too much in one spot could cause his daughter much suffering. She was sensitive to the heavy metal and could be overcome by headaches and nausea if exposed to too much at one time. She could go into the mine and find promising veins for him to explore but she couldn't stay long to help him mine it out.

As long as those other hiding spots were not raided she could find ways to survive. But no gold was worth the lives of her beloved parents. What was she to do now all on her own? Was the 'who' still lurking about to get rid of her, too?

Pa always planned to accumulate enough gold from his small claim to take his family elsewhere to enjoy it safely. He never flashed his good fortune in front of the locals lest they get greedy and overtake his claim. He paid for goods with only small bits of gold dust. Someone found out about his stash and attacked because he was weakened by injury. Ma must have gotten in the crossfire. She, herself, may be in great danger. Was the shooter still nearby? What would her father have her do?

Right now she was too grief stricken to make any plans. Nightfall made it impossible to go find the sheriff in town. She could be attacked by wild animals...or wild men. The front door was unbolted. No one ever locked it. Now she felt she must secure both doors if she could drag herself to do it. The steaks were sizzling but she lost all appetite. Still she flipped them on her way to the back door.

Before she reached the front door she heard footsteps on the porch and voices. A sharp rap on the door followed closely but the intruder didn't wait for an invitation. The door swung inward ushering in the sheriff and a stranger.

“There you are, Nellie-Rae.” The sheriff exclaimed. “Your uncle here has been so worried about you after he found your parents. I told him you didn't do it and run off. Nor kidnapped!”

“Uncle? I don't have an uncle, Sheriff Claiborne.” Nellie sniffled.

“Sure you have me, Nellie-Rae. You're even named after your old Uncle Ray, your mother's brother. I visited when you were about six or seven. Don't you remember me, Child?” The dandy dressed invader insisted. “What a good girl. You've got supper cooking for us. Smells wonderful.”

All Nellie could smell was a rat. A gold snooping rat. A sleazy, gold stealing rat. She could smell it on him and it made her nauseous.

“Crime scene's in that back room, Sheriff. Untouched the way I found it when I came to see my sister and her family. Unless Nellie moved anything. What else you got to go with this meat, Young Woman? Potatoes? Bread? I'll be taking over this farm now. You gonna be feeding me; you'll have to do better than charred hunks of veal!”