Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, Fall 1941

Wild Onions by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan

The rarest form of detective story — a humorous tale in dialect. This excellent one is about hillbillies.

Old Bushwhacker never does anything by halves. When it rains in Bushwhacker, medium-sized Indian Runner ducks perish in the gully washes; and when Bushwhacker gets a big dry, shorthorn steers are lost for weeks in the dust clouds. Hence I knew that when Doc Fraser, unterrified Pike County Democrat and Bushwhacker’s historian, announced there had been a murder mystery in Bushwhacker it must have been a humdinger.

“Humdinger? ’Twas, dern you!” said Doc. “My back hair still won’t lay right to the comb — an’ when I go to the root cellar these nights I alius carry two lanterns. A mouse squeak can start me a-shiverin’ and a-shakin’—”

“That scary, Doc?”

“Shet up, son,” said Doc, severely, taking a three-breath swig of sorghum beer to steady his nerves, “an’ be glad you wasn’t along with me the night I left old man Cunningham Yackey’s place. I’d been a-doctorin’ three colicky heifers till nigh on ter one in the morning. Them heifers all taken a notion to die on me. They didn’t pass on peaceable like a good veter’nary doctor like me has a right to expect — but with a powerful groaning and sighing.

Thet started the rats in the walls of Cunningham’s old barn to scuffling and squealing. And on top of thet the wind stirred up drafts in the barn — I dassn’t turn my head but whut a draft would go ‘Pooooh’ agin the back of my neck. Like a ghost a-whisperin’, son.

All of a sudden I remembered how Missus Otily Yackey had hanged herself up in the loft. And on top of thet a rusty hinge started a-screeching. I should have stopped long enough to snap shet the locks on my medicine satchel, but I knowed I wasn’t man enough.

I went away f’m thet barn, son, and dumb inter my car. An’ dern’ if I didn’t see two eyes looking at me in the rear-vision mirror. Whut say? Nope ’twasn’t nothing but a hoot owl thet had flew inter the back seat, but it give me right smart of a turn. I chased the hoot owl and whilst I was doin’ it I taken a look at the moon. Then I knowed.

Some human body was dead. Thet moon, son, looked like a big round platter of blood. Ongodliest moon you ever seed. I turned on my lights full-power an’ prayed she’d start. She started — on three cylinders. But I didn’t have no heart fer tinkerin’; I left Cunningham Yackey’s barnyard right then and there.

We-ell, I crossed Cuivre Crick at Dead Slaves’ Holler without hearin’ nothin’ but a few moans; and I made it over the ridge past the White Caps’ buryin’ ground without seeing nothing I could swear was a hant. But thet moon was a-riding on my left shoulder and when I turned inter the Louisville road I could feel a kind of bloody light acrosst my cheek. Yep. Fact.

Down in a deep, dark gully betwixt Bose Jenkins’ an’ Johnny Durvupp’s places, my headlights turned up this cross. It was a-stickin’ in a ditch alongside the road. Yep. A cross. Made outer fresh persimmon saplings. Whut say, son? Did I stop? Why, son, I didn’t have no choice exactly. My motor, she went plumb dead on me — jest sighed like one of Cunningham Yackey’s heifers, and quit. Fact.

Bein’ a releegious man, I taken comfort in The Sign. It give me courage to see whut I knowed I was a-going to see. Stretched out behind the cross was a long something covered with a piece of tarpaulin. My headlights still was a-burnin’ bright; and when I lifted up thet tarpaulin I was mighty grateful fer human light.

Speak well of the dead, but Ross Murphy Murdock wasn’t no good sight when he was alive, bein’ the meanest, oneriest cuss in the hull of Bushwhacker. Layin’ there dead hadn’t improved him none.

Yep. Thet’s whut I seed. Ross Murphy Murdock a-layin’ straight and respectful on his back. He had a mattress-ticking piller under his head and his hands was clasped undertaker-fashion with a big bunch of black-eyed Susans under ’em. His eyes had been shet with a couple of binder-bolt taps. There was a big Baptist hymnbook a-leanin’ agin the cross. A sight to caution this hell-bent, gone-gosling generation, son.

Whut say? Kilt? Sartainly he’d been kilt. The hull middle part of the pore feller had been wrapped in kitchen towels over his everyday clothes; but even in my sweating conniption I could see he’d been shot plumb in the back with a load of buckshot.

We-ell, arter the fust shock passed off, I found I could still holler. And arter I got out one good holler I found I could walk. And arter I walked a piece along the road I found I could run. But I didn’t feel real good until I had got Bose Jenkins and his hull family outer bed and the oil lamps in Bose’s parlor lighted up.

Bose and his missus wasn’t in no hurry to visit the scene; they allowed they was satisfied jest to hear me tell it. And thet give me time to reellize whut old Bushwhacker had on its hands — a fust-class murder meestery, son!

Whut say? Clues? Hold on — what sane man is a-goin’ to start pokin’ around fer clues on the loneliest stretch of Louisville road at one-thutty in the mornin’? Be reasonable, son.

I could tell thet Bose was in favor of callin’ the Pike County sheriff; but I had presence of mind enough to recollect thet Mitch Gullen, the Lincoln County sheriff, laid claim to G-man expeerience. In fact, the feller had got hisself elected on the strength of it. So I up and telephones to Mitch Gullen.

Mitch, he come right over with two deputies an’ one of these here submachine guns. Right there I seed I’d made a big mistake. Mitch was a wildeyed feller with a nervous Adam’s apple an’ jest too plumb quick on the trigger to solve a big murder meestery in Bushwhacker. His methods was all right fer them city folks around Troy; but Bushwhacker folks is peculiar.

I mind the fust thing Mitch Gullen said when he looked at Ross Murphy Murdock was: “Some woman who loved him done it. She was sorry she done it and laid him out with loving-kindness. That’s plain as daylight!”

Well, sir, I jest looked at Mitch like he was plumb daft.

“Sheriff,” says I, “no woman never loved Ross Murphy Murdock exceptin’ maybe his old mother, who’s been dead twenty year. Ross Murphy Murdock was the meanest, oneriest, no-count cuss thet ever lived in Bushwhacker. Why, Sheriff,” says I, “anyone will tell you thet Ross Murphy’s own hound dogs never follered him inter town. They alius hung back in the bushes, bein’ ashamed to own to him afore them tother dogs.”

Mitch Gullen, he’d had G-man expeerience.

“Who’s handling this case, you or me?” he says smart-aleck.

Jest then a Bushwhacker red-hog gave a snort in a fence corner an’ one of them fool deputies cut loose with thet machine gun. Well, sir, I laughed right smart.

Disregardin’ my advice was only the fust big mistake Mitch made. His secont blunder come when he insisted on movin’ the body afore half the folks in Bushwhacker could get to the scene. It created a lot of hard feeling among the folks thet lived in Skunk Crick community ’way back in the hills. Arter all, this was the biggest murder case Bushwhacker had ever seed; ’twouldn’t’ve done no harm to give everybody a good look at Ross Murphy Murdock.

Howsomever, Mitch, he was the sheriff, an’ he wouldn’t listen to reason. He gathered up thet cross an’ hymnbook an’ piller an’ tarpaulin — the best clues — and allowed he’d send ’em down to Saint Looey fer G-men to examine fer fingerprints. Son, have you ever handled a Bushwhacker Baptist hymnbook thet’s been used hard? It ain’t nothin’ but fingerprints. Let alone thet old piece of tarpaulin.

We-ell, Mitch sent his best clues off to Saint Looey an’ then he went to work on his love theory. It taken him two hard days to find out thet back in ’16 Ross Murphy Murdock had cuffed Missus Cowdray allowin’ she owed him four bits fer sassage meat; an’ thet summer before last Murdock had been give a pistol-whupping fer trying to cheat the Widder Spencer on a red-hog swap. Thet was the sum an’ substance of Ross Murphy Murdock’s love relations with women.

Even Mitch Gullen could finally see thet he was off on the wrong foot. So he up an’ allows thet some man-enemy of Ross Murphy Murdock shot him in the back an’ then laid him out to make it look like a woman done it. Mitch an’ his deputies rounds up thutty-odd near an’ far neighbors of Ross Murphy Murdock an’ hauls them over to Troy fer questioning. Word got out thet Mitch was aimin’ fer to third-degree the boys; all their womenfolks went along to see it, an’ Troy looked like the old Lincoln County Fair days.

Mitch questioned Sim Sime Bowcock as his fust suspect. Sim Sime retained me as his attunney.

“Mr. Bowcock,” says Mitch, “did you ever threaten to kill Ross Murphy Murdock?”

“Yep,” says Sim Sime, afore I can stop him, “I ’pinely did. I threatened the no-good feller eight or nine times — might’ve been ten.”

“Why did you threaten him?”

“Don’t answer,” says I, doing my legal duty.

“Shucks, Sheriff,” says Sim Sime, “any man thet’s a man in Bushwhacker has threatened to kill Ross Murphy Murdock. He was pizen mean — he kicked dogs.”

“Did you shoot Mr. Murdock?”

Sim Sime hangs his head, ashamed.

“Nope,” says he, “I aimed to but I jest never got around to it. I reckon I’m kind of shiffless.”

The secont suspect was Joe Tuck. I acted as Joe’s pussonal attunney likewise. But the dern’ fool went right ahead an’ incriminated hisself.

“Yep, Sheriff,” says Joe Tuck, “I shorely did tell Mister Murdock I’d kill him. He ruint my best patch of possum-timber, a-settin’ bee-traps in it on the sly.”

“Where was you the night of the murder?”

“Don’t answer thet,” says I, sharp.

Joe Tuck shuffled his feet.

“I was whur no married man ought to’ve been,” says Joe Tuck, “an’ on account of it I plumb missed the sight of Ross Murphy Murdock in thet gully.”

The upshot of the questioning come to the fact thet out of some thutty men all but three allowed they’d threatened to kill Ross Murphy Murdock. Their reasons was manifold an’ various, but their regret fer not makin’ good their threats was unanimous. Old man Stump Wheelock was one of the three thet allowed they’d never threatened to kill Ross Murphy.

“I was aimin’ to shoot the feller some day soon, Sheriff,” says old man Stump Wheelock, “but I don’t believe in threatenin’ a man aforehand. ’Tain’t Christian to cause a man to worry under sech sarcumstances.”

Mitch Gullen got hot under the collar. “You trying to make fim of me?” he yells.

“Don’t answer on advice of counsel,” says I.

Old man Stump Wheelock taken my advice. It got Mitch Gullen so riled up he refused to question Johnny Durvupp. Pore Johnny taken it right hard; he lived near neighbor to Ross Murphy Murdock an’ he thought he deserved some consideration. I reckon Mitch was within his rights, though. Johnny Durvupp never was right bright an’ had the repertation for bein’ the laziest white man in Bushwhacker.

“I’m a taxpayer an’ I voted fer Mister Mitch Gullen,” Johnny complained. “He’s got no call to slight me thisaway.” Some of the boys boughten him a sorghum-beer ice-cream sody an’ hushed him up.

Whut say? Wasn’t they any arrests made? Yep. Sartainly.

A passel of gossipy Pike County women told Mitch thet Bijah Yackey, third youngest son of Cunningham Yackey, had good reason to kill Ross Murphy Murdock. It appeared like Bijah was sweet on Pearlina Murdock, who was Ross Murphy’s secont cousin. Pearlina’s folks an’ Ross Murphy hadn’t spoke fer eight year, but jest the same Ross Murphy taken upon hisself to warn Pearlina agin Bijah. Pearlina sassed Ross Murphy Murdock at a basket dinner an’ then Ross Murphy and Bijah tangled. The women said Bijah swore ’pinely he’d kill Ross Murphy fer tryin’ to turn Pearlina agin him.

Whut say? Why did Ross Murphy object to Bijah? We-ell, Bijah Yackey was a harmonica player an’ a dancer an’ a gal-sparker. It did make a fairly reasonable motive fer the quarrel. Anyway, Mitch Gullen arrested Bijah Yackey an’ th’owed his pants inter jail charged with fust-degree murder.

Pearlina Murdock come to my justice-of-the-peace office in Eolia a-cryin’ her purty eyes out.

“The sheriff put Bijah in jail, Jedge,” she says, “an’ Mister Cunningham Yackey won’t lift a finger to help him. You’re the finest legal mind in Pike County,” she says, “an’ you’re Bijah’s only hope. Will you take the case?”

We-ell, son, I knowed my fee would be right dubious if old man Cunningham had turned agin his own boy. Pearlina Murdock had all her worldly goods an’ chattels on her own back, an’ her folks had owed me a veter’nary bill since the good days durin’ the war. But true love has alius made a plumb fool of me an’ a purty gal’s tears weakens an old man’s sensible resolutions. I taken the case.

I an’ Pearlina druv down to Troy in my car. On the way I asked Pearlina if Bijah reelly had kilt Ross Murphy Murdock. Knowin’ your client is guilty alius helps an attunney plan a good defense.

Pearlina busted out a-cryin’ again.

“Bijah allows he never done it,” she told me, “but Mister Cunningham Yackey thinks he did. Mister Cunningham Yackey is plumb out of patience with Bijah for shootin’ Cousin Ross in the back. He says Bijah should rest a spell in jail on general principles.”

“Do you think the boy is guilty?”

“I’m powerful a-feared he is, Jedge,” she sobs.

When I an’ the gal reached the Lincoln County jail, the hull Yackey family was a-settin’ in the yard. Bijah’s six brothers was a-chawin’ grass, and old man Cunningham Yackey was rared back a-talkin’ to Sheriff Mitch Gullen.

“By Joe,” yells old man Cunningham, “us Yackeys has alius kilt our men fair an’ fit fair on all tother occasions. It shore saddens my heart to think thet a son of mine would shoot a yaller-bellied skunk like Ross Murphy Murdock in the back, let alone desecrating a Baptist hymnbook like he done arterwards!”

“He ain’t confessed yet,” says Mitch.

“He ain’t a-goin’ to confess neither,” says I, formal. “As his attunney I aim to prove him innercent.”

Sheriff Mitch Gullen couldn’t think of a word to say. But old man Cunningham Yackey rared back and let fly:

“Ye’ll have to be a dern’ sight better shyster than ye are a cow doctor, Jedge!” yells old man Cunningham Yackey. “My pore boy is guilty an’ I don’t no-ways approve of you bein’ his lawyer an’ encouragin’ him in sinful ways.” Then, he taken a look at Pearlina Murdock. “Cain’t say as I approve of this gal for Bijah, by Joe. Murdock blood will out in the next generation, by Joe!”

Pearlina sasses the old man.

“Leastways,” says Pearlina, “I ain’t turned agin Bijah like his paw — even if he is guilty!”

I left them to argue it out an’ went inter the jail to talk to my client.

Pore Bijah Yackey was hunched up in thet leetle cell like a bull calf in a chicken crate. He looked a caution.

“Howdy, Jedge,” he says.

“Howdy, Bijah,” says I. “I’m your attunney.”

Bijah shaken his head.

“Don’t reckon you can do much good, Jedge,” says he. “Paw’s turned plumb agin me. I reckon I’ll swing.”

I could see thet Bijah taken it hard. “Guilty, son?” I asks.

“Nope, I ain’t,” says Bijah. “I aimed fer to kill Ross Murphy Murdock, but I aimed to ketch him in the woods with his squirrel gun an’ shoot it out fair.”

“Whut’s your alibi, son?” says I. “Where was you the night Murdock got kilt?”

Bijah cheered up an’ lit into a long rigmarole. Fust he finished milking. Then he et supper. Then he rode over to spark Pearlina Murdock. Her maw put him off’n the porch at ten-thutty sharp. Then, Bijah rode home, but didn’t go to the house. His setter she-dog, Peggy, had gnawed her rope an’ had run off to the woods. Bijah knowed she was expectin’, so he went off to look fer Peggy an’ save her f’m droppin’ pups in the woods. Bijah didn’t get back to the house with Peggy an’ the pups ontil long arter midnight.

“A plumb bad alibi, son,” I told him.

“Yep. Reckon I’ll swing,” said Bijah.

Just then there was a big commotion in the sheriff’s office. I went out thetaway to see how come.

We-ell, sir, Mitch Gullen had jest got back his clues f’m Saint Looey. He was a-settin’ at his desk lookin’ at a tarnation lot of pictures them G-men had sent him by the mornin’ bus. The pictures was full of fingerprints.

“Quite a passel of fingerprints, Sheriff,” I says, casual.

“A hundred an’ sixty-one different prints,” grunts Mitch Gullen. “Most of ’em from that pesky hymnbook!”

I taken a look at the clues a-layin’ on a chair. Suddenlike I caught a sniff of wild onion smell f’m the piller that had been under Ross Murphy Murdock’s head.

“Mighty queer, thet smell,” I said, jest thinking aloud. “No wild onions a-growin’ this time of year.”

“That ain’t neither here nor there,” says Mitch Gullen, a-swingin’ his big magnifying glass so’s all the folks peeking in could see thet he was a feller with G-man expeerience.

“Mebbe not, mebbe not, Sheriff,” I says, meek.

Sheriff Mitch Gullen p’ints to a picture of Bijah Yackey’s fingerprints.

“If these prints tally with any of the hundred an’ sixty-one, the case is solved,” says he.

“If’n they do — still mebbe!” says I.

I went along outside, leavin’ Mitch to his magnifying glass’n.

The very fust pusson I run inter on the courthouse square was Johnny Durvupp.

“Howdy, Johnny,” says I.

“Howdy, Jedge,” says Johnny. “I hear tell they put Mister Bijah Yackey in the calaboose.”

“Temporary,” says I.

I started to walk on. An’ son, it’d take a smarter man than you be to guess whut came over me.

Whut say? We-ell — yep, thet’s right. I got a powerful whiff of wild onions.

Well, sir, I turned back to Johnny sort of casual.

“Whur’d you be gettin’ wild onions this time of year, Johnny?” says I.

Johnny grins, right well pleased. It tickled him to think a prominent citizen would bother to notice anything particklar about a shiftless, lazy white trash like him. Even a smell of wild onions.

“My missus cans ’em, Jedge,” says Johnny. “I shore like wild onion flavor on my sidemeat. Ever tried it?”

“Can’t say as I have,” I says, “but it must give sidemeat a right gamey flavor.”

“It shore does, Jedge,” says Johnny, tickled pink.

“Mighty glad to have met up with you, Johnny,” I says. “Goin’ ter be in town long?”

Johnny shaken his head.

“Dunno, Jedge,” says he. “My mules busted the whiffletree. I could fix it, if’n I could borrer a hammer an’ pick up a couple of ten-penny nails. Don’t happen to have some wire about ye, Jedge?”

I told him to inquire at the blacksmith shop an’ walked on casual-like. But in two shakes of a lamb’s tail I was hot-footing it out to Johnny Durvupp’s farm.

Missus Durvupp an’ them nine Durvupp children couldn’t make out why I would bother to call on ’em. I told a white He about lookin’ over the buildings fer insurance. Missus Durvupp made me light down a spell in the parlor. Whilst she went to get me some buttermilk, I taken a look at the double bed.

Whut say? Who’s tellin’ this, son? Sartainly, sartainly. There was only one mattress-ticking piller on thet bed. The tother piller was a corn-shuck an’ wheat-sack affair.

When Missus Durvupp came back with the buttermilk, I says, casual: “By the way, do y’all folks happen to have a Baptist hymnbook in the house? There’s a hymn been a-runnin’ through my head an’ I can’t place it.”

Missus Durvupp colors up an’ looks scairt plumb witless.

“I... I dunno, Jedge,” she says. “I’ll look. We usedter have — no, come to think of it I don’t believe we ever did have no Baptist hymnbook.”

I walks over an’ picks up Johnny’s gun whur it was proppin’ open a winder. One look at the stock told me all I wanted ter know. Thet gun stock had been screwed an’ wired recent. “Mighty nice gun Johnny’s got,” says I. “But he’s split the stock by putting it in a weasel-trap.”

Missus Durvupp looks more scairt.

“It was them skunks, Jedge,” says Missus Durvupp. “They been thicker’n bedbugs in our hen house.” She looks ashamed. “I told Johnny thet it’s a mighty lazy man who won’t set up to shoot his own skunks outer the hen house. But y’all knows Johnny. He allowed a gun trap fer skunks was jest as handy.”

I nods careless an’ sashays out to the hen house. A body had spilled white lye over a patch jest outside the hen-house door. They wasn’t no nests inside — jest boxes setting on the ground an’ filled with straw. I seen then why Johnny Durvupp desarved his repertation. A man who won’t knock together some reg’lar high nests for his settin’ hens is mighty piddlin’, mighty piddlin’.

Well, sir, I druv purty fast back to Troy.

Johnny Durvupp had borrered hisself a hammer whilst I was gone, but he was still lookin’ fer some nails. I walks straight up to the feller an’ looks him in the eye.

“Ain’t it about time fer you to tell the sheriff how Ross Murphy Murdock got hisself kilt?” says I.

I’ll give Johnny credit, son. The cuss batted nary eye. He jest grins, lazy-like.

“I aimed fer to tell the sheriff, Jedge,” says he. “Thet fust mornin’. But Mister Mitch Gullen wouldn’t give me no consideration.”

“You come along an’ tell him now,” says I.

Sheriff Mitch Gullen was a mighty sick-lookin’ feller when I walked in with Johnny Durvupp. He was sicker-lookin’ when Johnny admitted right out thet Ross Murphy Murdock had been kilt accidental in thet skunk trap. But bein’ natchelly hardheaded, Mitch tried to get around it.

“You mean to tell me,” says he, “thet you went to all that trouble to cover up an accident, Mister Durvupp?”

Johnny nods his head.

“Seemed like the easiest way out at the time, Sheriff,” drawls Johnny. “My health ain’t good no-ways an’ I had all my winter pertaters to dig an’ it seemed like I jest wouldn’t have no time to come down h’yere to Troy an’ explain how it happened.” Then, he thinks a minute an’ brightens up. “Furthermore, Sheriff, thet doubletree was cracked an’ the whiffletree plumb broke through. I jest wasn’t in no condition to make a long trip thetaway.”

Still, Mitch Gullen wouldn’t give in.

“Why did you lay the body out with a cross an’ a hymnbook an’ a pillow an’ a tarpaulin?”

Johnny Durvupp sinks plumb exhausted inter a chair. He’s got somethin’ stickin’ between his teeth but he’s too dern’ lazy to lift a arm to pick at it.

“We-ell Sheriff,” says Johnny Durvupp, sleepy, “I shore didn’t aim to do nothin’ fer Ross Murphy Murdock. I figgered he desarved whut he got for try in’ to rob a pore man’s hen roost. But my missus is a good Christian ’ooman. She allowed it was plumb sinful to leave a corpse in a ditch without respectful attention.”

Says I: “Knowed it. Missus Durvupp done all thet trimmin’ of the corpse.”

Johnny looks plumb hurt.

“Thet’s mighty hard on a feller, Jedge,” he says. “I found them binder-bolts fer her. Had ter hunt mighty near a hour fer them bolt-taps, too.”

Sheriff Mitch Gullen hits the ceilin’, an’ I can’t say I blamed the feller. He’d mighty near wore his eyes out a-lookin’ at them fingerprint pictures. I knowed he hadn’t found a one thet tallied with Bijah Yackey’s neither.

“By rights the county ought to make you pay for the expense of this investigation,” yells Sheriff Mitch Gullen, “an’ serve out the bill at a dollar a day.”

Johnny Durvupp is a meek, amiable feller.

“That’s all right, Sheriff,” he says, “I aim to do whut’s fair. I’ll start sarving my time right now.”

Whut say? Nope. Mitch didn’t. He jest made Johnny sign an affidavit to whut happened an’ told him to stay outer Troy f m now on.

Whilst all this was goin’ on, Bijah Yackey had been turned loose. Him an’ Pearlina made some purty nice comments on my legal ability — not thet it brung me any more business, because folks in Bushwhacker takes thet fer granted. Solving the biggest murder case ever happened in Bushwhacker — an’ don’t get the idee I’m braggin’ — didn’t begin to test my legal mind.

Whut say? It wasn’t a murder, arter all? Why, son, be you daft? Sartainly it was a murder case. Sartainly.

Y’see, son, I follered Johnny Durvupp over to whur he’d hired a nigger to mend thet whiffletree. Johnny was a-settin’ in the shade right well pleased with hisself.

“I shore do thank ’ee kindly, Jedge,” says Johnny Durvupp, “fer pintin’ out my duty ter tell the Sheriff the gospel truth—”

“Gospel truth, eh?” says I. “Why didn’t yer tell Mitch thet all them nests was flat on the dirt floor of thet hen house, whilst thet shotgun was aimed high enough to hit a six-foot man in the middle of his back?”

Johnny Durvupp hangs his head sheepish.

“Jest didn’t get around to thet, I reckon, Jedge,” says he, “but I’m scot-free now, ain’t I?”

“Yep,” says I, “you be — jest as long as Sheriff Mitch Gullen don’t find out thet you ain’t kept no chickens in thet hen house fer at least six months. Reckon I know old chicken droppin’s when I see ’em. An’ I reckon a nose thet’s sharp enough at seventy-one ter whiff wild onions can still smell moonshine licker — even if same is hid under the hen-house floor!”

What say? Did Johnny claim like Ross Murphy Murdock had come to steal his moonshine? Why, son, a feller don’t ask questions like thet around Bushwhacker. Murder? Motive? Why, son, who’d believe Johnny Durvupp could plan a sure enough murder? He never was right bright. An’ besides, sech matters ain’t the consarn of an old man who never had G-man expeerience. Sech matters should be allowed to rest under the all-concealin’ veil of Christian charity. Y’see, son, when it comes to thet — I was one of the fellers who threatened to kill Ross Murphy Murdock!