An Xmas Murder

He sits at the table, cloudlight of March

One tone with his hair, gray-silver on silver.

Midday fare in Vermont is basic enough.

In West Newbury, eggs and toast will do—

Though our doctor’s had his sips of wine as well.

“Just don’t be fooled. They’re not as nice as you

Think they are. Live here a few more winters,

You’ll get to know them clearer, and vice-versa.”

Three years now, and we’re still finding our way;

Newcomers need a guide to show them the ropes,

And he has been explaining township and county

Almost from the sunstruck day we met him

That very first July in this old house.

“I’ll cite an instance of community

Spirit at work, North Country justice—

A case I just happened to be involved in.

No, please—all right, if you are having one.”

He holds his glass aloft and then lets fall

A silence that has grown familiar to us

From other stories told on other days,

The will to recount building its head of steam.

“Well, now, you have to know about the victim.

His name was Charlie Deudon, no doubt Canuck

Stock some generations back, but he

Nor no one else could tell you—if they cared.

Deudons had been dirt farmers here as long

As anybody knew. They never starved

But never had a dime to spare, either.

Charlie resolved to change the Deudon luck.

And that’s just what he did. Or almost did. . . .

He’d graduated two classes ahead of mine;

We knew each other, naturally, but not

On terms of friendship. Fact is, he had no friends,

And only one girlfriend, whom he married

Day after Commencement, June of ‘32.

And then he set to work and never stopped

Again, until they made him stop for good.”

A wisp of a smile, half irony, half

Bereavement plays about his guileless face—

Red cheeks, blue eyes, a beardless Santa Claus;

Whose bag contains (apart from instruments

Of healing) stories, parables and proverbs,

Painkillers, too, for when all else fails.

“What kind of work had all that hard work been?”

“Oh, farming, like his elders, only better.

All the modern improvements, fancy feed

And fertilizers, plus machinery—

He was the first in these parts to milk

His herd in any way but as ‘twas done

Since Adam’s boys first broke ground with a plow.

And anything machines couldn’t handle,

Charlie did himself, from dawn to midnight.

He never wasted a word or spilled a drop

Of milk or drank a drop of beer or liquor.

He was unnatural. And he made that farm

Into a showplace, a kind of 4-H model.

He made good money, yes, but not a dollar

Would he spend unnecessarily.

Do you get the picture? They hated him,

The boys that hung around the package store.

The most they ever got from tightfist Charlie

Deudon was a nod out from under his cap.

(His trademark—a baseball cap striped white and red.)

They envied him for getting his hay in first;

And there was more. A boy that he had hired,

By the name of Carroll Giddens, was their buddy.

Likeable fellow, regulation issue,

The sort that knocks back a pint or a fifth

In half a shake and tells off-color stories

Till he’s got them choked to death with laughing.

‘Course the wisecracks they loved best were those

About poor Charlie and his gold-plated farm. . . .

Just one more case of what’s been often said

By commentators on democracy—

How it helps everyone keep modest.”

Teasing mischief has crept into his voice.

A self-taught anthropologist as well

As teller of tales, he has other frames

Of reference to place around events

Local or international. He knows

That things can stand for more than what they are;

Indeed, says standing for things is why we’re here,

And quotes chapter and verse to prove his point.

“Think of the worldwide scapegoat ritual.

In halfway civilized societies

An animal’s the one relieved from life

Duty, am I right? A fellow tribesman

Will do in a pinch, if animals are lacking,

Or if communal fears get screwed too tight. . . .

Anyhow, it was clear that something more

Than common envy stirred up the lynch law.

Their own failure’s what they wanted dead.”

Seconds pass in silence as he stares

At something—perhaps a knothole in the pine

Floorboard. He looks up, eyebrows raised,

And twirls the glass stem between stubby fingers.

A coil of rope hung on the wall, we see,

Has made him pause and heave experienced sighs.

“Here. Have another. So: was Charlie punished?”

“I’m going to tell you—better me than others.

You see, I was involved—no, no, no,

Not in the deed, Lord, no, just as a witness.

It happened this way—hope you’re not squeamish.

Charlie had this boy to help with chores,

The one named Carroll. Married, two kids, I think.

Not too reliable. But so few are;

Nor could you call his wages generous.

His buddies must have stood him drinks, is all

I can say. He’d a skinful half the time—

Was certainly drunk that Christmas Eve morning.

No reason to doubt what Charlie told his wife.

Charlie’d been up to help at six with the milking,

And Carroll, drunk as a fiddler’s bitch, was there

Loading a pair of milk cans into the barrow.

He took a slip and the whole business spilled.

Wooden handle clipped him in the side,

And he fell, too, right in the puddle of milk.

And started laughing. Charlie, you can guess,

Didn’t join in; he told him to get on home.

‘What about the milk?’ ‘Go home,’ he said,

‘You’re drunk.’ ‘But what about the milk?’ asks Carroll.

‘Comes out of next week’s paycheck,’ Charlie says.

And then the trouble starts, with Carroll swearing

And yelping, till Charlie gives him a little tap

And goes indoors. By then Carroll could tell

The barrow handle had cracked a rib or two.

He drove into town to see his doctor—that

Wasn’t me—and word went out that Charlie

Had roughed up his innocent assistant.

That’s all they needed, Carroll’s friends. About

Time that stuck-up bastard got his due,

He’s gone too far this time, but we’ll show him,

Et cetera . . . . As it was Christmas Eve,

They had the leisure, the liquor, and the rope.”

“They hanged him?” “No, that’s not our way up here.

The honored custom’s to dump them in the river.

You see, the river’s New Hampshire all the way

Over to the Vermont side, and thus,

If the victim’s still alive when he hits the water,

New Hampshire law enforcement and legal justice

Steps in. It tends to confuse the issue, see?

In wintertime, the river freezes over,

And you can’t hope to fish the bodies out

Till the month of March at the earliest.

By then, who knows which state the victim died in?

A trick they’ve played a hundred years and more

Up in Woodsville, where the bridge is. That’s where

The loggers used to go to spend their money

On booze and hookers—who’d arrange for them

To get knocked in the head at the right moment,

And pitched off the bridge into the water.

A famous local industry, but rather

Fallen on hard days by the early fifties,

Just like others more legitimate. . . .

Well, our local rowdies knew the routine,

And, when time came to follow up their threats,

They laid their plans according to tradition.

They knew that Charlie’d have to do the milking

Christmas morning same as every day.

And when he came into the barn to do it,

They’d be waiting for him. And that’s what happened.”

We strain forward to hear him tell the rest;

The narrative spell is on him, and on us.

His voice weaves through fine-tuned nuances,

With sudden leaps in volume and skittish phrases

That somehow help flesh out what he describes.

We see the sprawling barn across the highway

From the white-columned porch of the old house.

See the barn closed up tight against the cold,

And the blue-gray light of December dawn

As Charlie crosses the road to do his chores.

The roosters shriek their morning alarm, the big

Doors creak open on the darkness—a darkness

Slit with tight-strung wires of light knifing

Through cracks between the boards of the east wall.

Tufts of hay spill from cribs on both sides.

The waiting cattle stir and low as daylight

Breaks in on the darkness. Their master strides

In past the parked pickup truck, his pail,

A battered Rath Blackhawk lard can swinging

At his side, a whistled “Jingle Bells”

His fight song for the working holiday.

He hears the verses harnessed to his whistling,

The tune drawing its text along march tempo:

. . . it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh-ay!

And then all changes. Smash of the blackjack

Against his skull, exploding carnival

Of fire-veined shock that flies to the far corners

Of night. Four assailants leap from the back

Of the truck and lift him partly erect, the quicker

To bind his arms behind and truss them to

His half-bent legs, as you might rope a steer

Or sheep you meant to brand or slaughter.

They take him out to where the car is waiting

And throw him in the trunk like a sack of feed.

Another car drives past but doesn’t slow.

The bandits duck and climb inside their own.

Tires screech, the driver slams onto the highway,

A smile and wink all round as they drive north

To Woodsville. The sun is coming up when they

Reach the bridge and stop the car. The lid

Of the trunk’s sprung open, its cargo discharged.

He is dragged to the railing, lifted, then heaved over.

The body falls, seeming almost to pause

In air before it hits the water and slides

Below the surface of the floating ice. . . .

Five miles back along the highway, the dark

Barn, the herd, a crushed tin pail, and signs

Of struggle in the dirt wait for someone’s

Startled face, back-lit in the doorway,

To see them, then whip aside with a shout of terror.

“He wasn’t found until spring thaw; he washed

Ashore just south of Bradford, still tied up

And looking like they’d tarred and feathered him—

Partly decomposed, but not his clothes.

First thing was an autopsy to test if he

Had died by drowning or was dead before

Going under. Conclusion was, he’d died

On land, so as I said, his death belonged

To the Green Mountain State’s criminal justice.”

“And what about the killers—were they caught?”

“Several suspects found themselves in jail—

And that’s where I come in: as star witness.

It happened I was on the road that morning.

Real early. See . . . I’d promised my house guest

Of the night—young Marine on leave—I’d drive

Him back to Lebanon to grab his bus.

I always keep my word, especially

When given in the night hours. Nice boy—

He’s been a good friend ever since. We’d said

Good-bye until the next three-day pass.

Well, I was driving home like Merry Christmas.

Into the headlights comes the Deudon farm:

And then I noticed the car. A two-toned Kaiser,

Side of the road, beneath a maple tree.

Didn’t know whose it was or why it was there.

I saw one face, Calvin Renfrew’s, that’s all.

He didn’t have wheels so far as I knew.

Occurred to me right then that something might

Be fishy; but locals never meddle till—

Till it’s too late, sometimes. I should have stopped.

They might have banged me on the head, but then—.

Well, even as it is they got revenge.

I’m still alive, however, and mean to stay so.”

He laughs a low laugh that would chill the devil . . .

Then takes up the thread—how when he heard the news

About Charlie’s disappearance, he drove down

To tell the state trooper what he’d seen.

“That was the very next day after Christmas.

By nightfall Calvin Renfrew and Norbert Joiner,

The owner of the car (the Kaiser), and two

Associates were in custody. But not

For long. Someone bailed them out, someone

Rich, it had to be, an enemy

Or rival of Charlie’s. That’s often our way,

You know, to let others fix the person

We secretly hate, then give them secret help

When they get their paws burned in the process.

A lot of people coveted that farm,

However much disparaged it was in public.

When Charlie’s widow put it up for auction,

Don’t imagine nobody came to bid.

I still see things of his on others’ farms.

What didn’t surprise me either’s how the town,

Lord help me, the whole county took the side

Of those arrested against the murdered man.

They said old Charlie had it coming to him,

Treating his employee that way. Meanwhile,

Carroll had quietly slipped across the border

To Canada; no way to prove that he’d

Hardly been hurt at all. So rumor flew.

If words could put you under ground, why Carroll

Was dead and buried six times over, a martyr

Hounded to his grave by a maniac

Who should have been taken care of years ago.

These are churchgoing people, too, but they

Figure they have a special insight as

To what the Boy Upstairs considers right.

Man is born for sorrow, so we’re told,

And some try to make sure he gets a close

Acquaintance with the sorrow that’s his due.

Meanwhile, if you can say the things people

Want to hear, then you may lynch at will.”

He folds his hands and brings them to his chin.

“The rest of the story you can figure out

Yourself. Their lawyer asked the jury be

Directed by the judge to return a verdict

Of Not Guilty. Motion granted—as never

Before for a capital offense in this state.

They’d do it again, don’t worry, if the case

Was dear to their concerns. Sounds cynical,

I grant you. . . . But then, you see, they started next

On me for fingering the guilty parties.

State trooper drops by to ask some questions.

Why was I on the highway that time of morning?

Oh? And who exactly was this friend?

Oh, really? Stayed the night, did he? I see. . . .

A doubt or two’d been raised before already,

Given that I had never married, and

Was locally famous for my special hobby.

I’m sure I’ve told you: I play a little pipe

Organ at church sometimes—I even travel

To play it elsewhere. I know organists

All over New England, and the town gazette

Used always to mention when I went to play

At musicales in other towns and states.

Nobody thought it mattered much beforehand,

But once the tale about the serviceman

Got out, my friends, well, you can just imagine.

Overnight young Dr. Stephens was

As ‘musical’ as you can be and not

Get tarred and feathered. My patients, some of them,

Began to melt away like ice cream. Stephens,

A local name, respected in these parts,

Became a byword for things we don’t discuss.

I wondered whether I should move, of course;

Some rowdy threw a can of paint at the house;

I still get unsigned letters from time to time.

Things must be better where you two come from.

But this is where I’ve always lived, it’s what

I know. If I had had the sense to pitch

Someone unpopular from off a bridge

Instead of enjoying music, chances are

I’d be a favorite son. In point of fact,

I’ve given up the organ, seldom play it

Nowadays. I’ve got a different hobby—

Your health, gentlemen! No more today, though.

Another call to make this afternoon.

But listen, now: if you’ll come up to me

Next week, I’ll play some pump organ for you.

I can still do a rousing ‘Hornpipe’—the one

By Handel. Tourist attraction hereabouts.

I am fairly confident you won’t

Ever have heard it played my way before.”

He stands to go, consenting to be ushered

Out under the black trees of late March, down

To where his battered station wagon sits.

Thunder of engines takes him off. . . . But his words

Stay lodged in us like arrows, arrows aimed

As carefully as acupuncture and meant

Somehow to warn or counsel. Not that warnings

In the abstract often help stave off

Particular misfortunes, inevitably

The body of most stories drawn from life.

Misfortunes are the hinges life turns on?

Reprieves as well—along with persons, places,

Passions. A fluent paradox, the realm

Normally termed external, I mean its way

Of overhearing thought and mustering

Fresh evidence. . . . Today, for instance, how

New green on branches and a liquid birdcall

Suffice to announce the chaste approach of spring.

Source: Poetry (December 1987)