Sheriff Lovell was almost, absolutely one hundred percent sure there were no wild turkeys left in Muhlenberg County. He couldn\u2019t say exactly when they disappeared, but it was sometime after the Shawnee, after everybody except Mennonites gave up horses for cars and after the invention of the telephone, but before anybody got a single line. That is to say, Jerry had enough of a notion of when the big birds flew away that he sounded almost confident when he told Mrs. Henryetta that she might not have seen a single wild turkey, let alone four, perched on the fence of the house opposite the one she shared with her sister, Mrs. Daisy, on a road so busy that a car whizzed by at least once every three minutes.<\/p>\n
But Henryetta replied, \u201cThink what you like. The only other birds that big around here are turkey buzzards.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI agree with you there. But I don\u2019t believe I\u2019ve ever seen a turkey buzzard in town.” Jerry was standing in the dress shop part of a hardware-dress store owned by Daisy, and Daisy was helping a customer. Henryetta called across to her nephew on the hardware side of the store, \u201cMark, tell the sheriff what Ray Ramsey said yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSaid he saw a big bird in his back yard,\u201d Mark said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow big?\u201d Jerry asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t know. Could\u2019ve been a pigeon. Ray exaggerates.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jerry thought Mrs. Henryetta was exaggerating, too. But he didn\u2019t say that because he\u2019d already crossed her more in a single conversation than he ever had in his life. He hesitated to press his luck any further, and not just because it was late October and he was up for re-election in November. He respected Mrs. Henryetta because everybody did, and because his mother would\u2019ve taken a switch to his little bottom a long time ago had he not. Mrs. Henryetta was a frail woman, not long for this world, and that had been true since the sheriff was a little boy, and, maybe, even since the Shawnee had become extinct in the county. He said, \u201cMrs. Henryetta, did anybody else see them?\u201d<\/p>\n
Henryetta arched an eyebrow and pursed her lips. The look was not lost on Jerry. He added, \u201cI have to ask as part of the investigation. The more witnesses to a crime the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henryetta said, \u201cIt\u2019s not a crime for birds to sit around.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jerry was tempted to respond, \u201cThen, why did you call the sheriff?\u201d But he was called for all sorts of things. Just that morning he got a kite off a roof. He thought the fire department would\u2019ve been the logical people for that, as they carried ladders; but they were mostly volunteers and not up for re-election. So he said, \u201cBut you suspected a crime?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot until you mentioned turkey buzzards. I just didn\u2019t want anybody shooting wild turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI see. Preventing a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark, who was leaning on a knife display case, said, \u201cIs shooting a wild turkey a crime?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sheriff Lovell didn\u2019t know. That was really the business of the state fish and game rangers, and the only dealings he\u2019d had with them were the occasional coordinated nighttime raid on Rocky Creek, where heavy petting between minors and fishing without licenses were common. Usually, any raid would collect one or the other, and the sheriff had a good working relationship with Fish and Game, so he said, \u201cI can find that out easily.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s not,” Mark said, “I\u2019ll set up on the front porch and bag us Thanksgiving Dinner.\u201d He was talking to his aunt, who along with his mother provided him, his wife, his children, his brother, his brother’s wife and children, and assorted cousins who dropped in unannounced, dinner every Sunday after church. So Henryetta just ignored that remark. She didn\u2019t expect Mark to actually provide a dinner until long after she was dead. She did say, \u201cWe\u2019ve lost the train of conversation. I saw the birds, whatever they are, about a half hour before dawn.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope they weren\u2019t owls. You can\u2019t eat those,\u201d Mark lamented.<\/p>\n
Sheriff Lovell said, \u201cWell, I promise you I\u2019ll get to the bottom of it.\u201d The hardware\/dress store family, like Jerry\u2019s, had been Republicans since the Civil War, but the county was split half and half by the parties, and the Democrats had the governorship, the senate seat on the ballot, and a machine with some money.<\/p>\n
\t\t\tPages:<\/span> 1<\/span> 2<\/span> 3<\/span> 4<\/span> 5<\/span> 6<\/span> 7<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sheriff Lovell was almost, absolutely one hundred percent sure there were no wild turkeys left in Muhlenberg County. He couldn\u2019t say exactly when they disappeared, but it was sometime after the Shawnee, after everybody except Mennonites gave up horses for cars and after the invention of the telephone, but before anybody got a single line. … <\/p>\n