An outlander,
a heavy booted carnival merchant married Wesley Flint’s only daughter, only
child: dim-witted Sally Flint of almost twenty-years; lived on a small farm
outside the city limits of St. Paul, Minnesota, like hermits.
Even after twenty-years of marriage old
man, Wesley Flint watched over his daughter, against the wilds, and potential
harm, Rambling Ramsey (his
son-in-law) might inflict upon
her—might do, not that he had ever harmed her, but it was in his head, he
might. He was the one who gave Ramsey the four-acres of land, and even built a
farm house on it for them, so they’d be close by.
According to the nearby township of
Stillwater, according to the resident’s accounts, old Flint hardly went
anywhere, in his later years, he simply just raised chickens and pigeons, sold
them at the Farmers’ Market, in the downtown area of the City of St. Paul, so
rumor said.
He bought Sally a new truck, and he
drove a second hand truck himself, a 1952, vintage; he bought the new truck in
1982. This is the truck Mr. Ramsey would drive Sally to church in every Sunday;
when he’d go play cards at the neighbors. In fact, everyone said he bought the
truck for Ramsey just so he’d go and play cards, get out of his way, leave him
and Sally alone for an hour or two out of the week. Nor did he allow Ramsey a
foot into his house unless he had to, that is, on Christmas, or holidays, his
birthday, or Sally’s birthday, or when Ramsey came to pick her up after she made a meal for her father, now and
then, living no more than four acres away.
Ramsey was a man in his early fifties
now. Taller than short, thinner than
heavy; in fact he didn’t have much of a shadow; but what he did have was a
cantankerous un-intellectual smirk on his face, permanently enveloped in
plaster of Paris, which never appeared to crack one iota. He was lazy as the
day is long, other than once being a dweller among the city’s bars.
He was known throughout the county,
Dakota County, as an opportunist by folks he’d never met. He drank his wine
heated with sugar in it, said it made him sweat all the evils, and poisons out
of him at night. He’d drink it as if it was water, or cool aid.
Then this Friday, old Wesley phoned the
sheriff he had killed his son-in-law, just like that, saying: “I done brought
him into the outside privy, you can come and get him there, anytime you wish.”
“It was an accident,” said the sheriff;
then hesitated, as if waiting for Wesley to confirm that statement. “Of course,
you can update me when I get out there.” He added.
“No,” said Wesley, “I aint never said
that, nor did I lead youall to think that, I done killed him, straight and
truthful, that’s exactly what I did, and I feel all the better for it!”
The Sheriff briefly and quickly brought
the matter up to the County Attorney.
“Interesting,” said the County Attorney,
“I’ve known old man Flint ever since I was a kid, and his dim-witted daughter
Sally, what’s he gone local?”
“I best hightail it on out there, see
what’s goin’ on,” said the Sheriff.
“Yaw,” said the County Attorney, “find
out the facts, seems to me like a rare case.”
Henry Dodge, was a big man, with big owl
like eyes, and floppy ears, a broken nose, pot belly, he had seen his day, not
much of a neck, but alert, perhaps closer to sixty than fifty. Not fast moving,
but moving nonetheless, and spitting out that tobacco like a pigeon flaps its
wings.
“Well, sheriff, why did he kill him?”
questioned the County Attorney.
“What are the facts?”
“Why does a father kill a son-in-law,
you mean?” he comes back with.
“Yes, why?” asked the County Attorney.
“It’s seems to me, he’s got thinkin’ his
days are numbered, he’s eighty-five now, you-know! and he knows Ramsey’s waiting for him to drop
dead—to inherit his whatever he’s got, and killing a varmint like Ramsey,
knowing his daughter might not be safe, while he’s in his grave, well, that was
just all too much for him to take. I do
believe he’ll sleep better now I reckon, something like that.”
“Well,” said the County Attorney, “that
makes sense to me. He hasn’t a thing to lose I suppose, or so he feels, a year
or two in jail and bingo he’s gone—and left us with all the paperwork and tax
overload.”
He batted his eye some. For a minute,
maybe more, gave the papers on his desk a hard look.
“So he wants the county to room and
board him and then pay for his funeral in a year or so, that’s it in a
nutshell, and to boot, his daughter likewise.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” said
Sheriff Dodge, a mouth full of slimy tobacco juice dripping onto his lips,
looking for a spittoon.
“No one saw the killing, correct?” asked
the County Attorney.
“Not even a bird,” said the Sheriff, and
Sally, she’s down at the jail visiting her father, comforting him.
“Good daughter,” said the County
Attorney, adding… “What do they call them things, you know when, when: an
unexpected result of a cartridge fires in a rifle, causing a fragmented
explosion during its escape, you know what I mean don’t you…?”
“Yes, sir, a backfire,” said the
Sheriff.
“That’s what I think really happened;
he’s a bit senile anyhow, right?”
“Right!...”
#914 (5-29-2012)
