The Witness

When she walked down Main Street, no matter who she was with, she looked for three things: the horses tied up at the mercantile to see who’d come in from their ranch to restock or socialize, the newest hats from back east in the milliner’s shop window, and Mattin. And as soon as she saw him, she heard the refrain: “Stay away from him!”

And no matter what adult had charge of her, they would immediately steer her away. It was the one rule all the adults had for her and her alone; none of them had said it to their children. The adults, to Catherine, were an interchangeable assortment of apron waists, overall pockets, big jangly silver belts and blue jeans.

She could remember her mother bending down, putting gentle hands on her shoulders, and looking her in the eye. It was the only thing she could remember: her mother, eyes kind and brown, a smile on her thin face, the wisps of hair escaping from her bun and fluttering across her forehead.

No one else really looked her in the eye at all anymore, except the man she was supposed to stay away from. She was sure he wanted to say something to her, but even she acknowledged within herself that it was a silly idea, because that man didn’t talk. He was called Mattin when he was called anything at all.

Even she, Catherine, had ignored him until that day when…when the something had happened, and now Mother was gone and…She shook her head like a horse ridding itself of a fly and dutifully followed the apron bow that had charge of her that day. She squinted at the neat bow. Must be Mrs. Andrews. She always tied hers neat and tight.

A stay at Mrs. Andrews’ left her smelling of lemon soap and vinegar, as Mrs. Andrews had her cleaning for her keep. It was better than Grandma Essie’s, at least, who did not clean at all, and whose only request was that Catherine not eat so much. Grandma was only an honorary title; she had no children or grandchildren. Catherine did her best. She knew they were being kind. She also knew they didn’t want to be.

When they had first begun taking turns to care for her, she had tried to look into their faces, to smile, to thank them, like her mother would want her to. But somehow, she couldn’t get past their teeth. Lips wide, teeth shining, sometimes crooked, sometimes missing, but all of them gleaming down at her. She couldn’t look up any further.

For now they accepted some social awkwardness from a nine year old girl with “traumatic and disturbing circumstances” as Miss Effie had explained several times, ostrich plume bobbing splendidly above her hat. But by instinct Catherine knew that eventually her age would no longer be an excuse, and they would expect her to smile and talk and look at people—to stop reminding them of those “traumatic and disturbing circumstances.” Whatever they were.

The jeans walking beside her had a black belt and gun holster that hung just at her eye level. She startled. Sherrif Smith had her? Hadn’t she been with Mrs. Andrews? She glanced around quickly in case Mrs. Andrews was just hurrying off and she’d only lost a moment or two. Three—no four times she had lost time; she had no idea for how long. She kept count to prove to herself that nothing was wrong. How long till someone noticed? Would they send her to an asylum for crazy people back East? Or just lock her up? She glanced fretfully up at Sheriff Smith to check his reactions. He was talking—he had a habit of talking, whether or not you were listening.

“Plumb foolish over the sound of his own voice!” Grandma Essie would say, but with a twinkle in her eye. Pretty much everyone was sweet on Sheriff Smith. And everybody pretty much did what he wanted them to do, nice and easy He always seemed to have enough money, too. They ate real good in the Smith house, and Sheriff was real proud of those fine looking carriage horses he’d bought in Catahoolie a few months back. Catherine thought about stories from other western towns where people shot each other and got into fights and wondered why Sheriff Smith always seemed to have it so easy. She thought about sharing a loaf of bread and some cheese with her mother and wondered how, in a town that seemed pretty wealthy, by her lights, she and her mother had managed to be so poor.

But now he was discussing, in muttered undertones, the long, bowlegged, hunch shouldered man coming down the sidewalk towards them. “Mattin. Always suspicious of this type. Never says nothin’ nohow!”

Cathrine, half a step behind the Sheriff and the swinging, bobbing movement of his gun in its holster, smiled up at Mattin. She found she liked looking at his slightly protuberant eyes, the worried crease between his eyebrows, the shy smile he gave in response to hers. The sheriff put a hand on her shoulder and guided her to his opposite side.

“Keep movin’, Mattin!” He grumbled as they hurried past. “Can’t stand loiterers. Get a job! If that man could talk I swear I’d shoot him myself. Who knows what the ding-blamed varmint saw and knows—or anything, could be nothin’…” The sheriff coughed and mumbled something into his mustache. “Anyhow, the man doesn’t talk, and that’s the main point. Can’t be havin’ children consortin’ with such low life…” He trailed off into his mustache again.

But Catherine had been listening. She had become very adept at recognizing the pause—the pause that said that someone was talking about something Inappropriate For Small Ears. And a realization sprouted in her brain so quickly that it must have seeded there ages ago—the reason nobody wanted her to talk to Mattin was because Mattin knew about her mother. He knew what Catherine had forgotten.

For the next week, Catherine made every effort to give Mattin a chance to speak. Surely he would tell her. He just had to speak. He had to! She lingered behind Grandma Essie on the way home from the mercantile, scanning the streets for his lanky figure. She wandered in the direction of his lonely little cabin when she was out gathering wildflowers with the Sheriff Smith’s three daughters. But every time, she was thwarted. She began to notice Sheriff Smith watching her, pulling thoughtfully on his mustache, not saying anything, and she felt a creeping crawling unease trickle down her back. His girls clustered round her when they went out together and there was no chance of her trailing off.

So one night she simply opened the back window in Miss Effie’s house at the edge of town (Miss Effie was otherwise occupied) and jumped out. The dust poufed around her feet and the buildings were black edges against a purple sky. Skirting around the back of town, she walked quickly and quietly, her head down, a cloak pulled around her, to the small, lonely shack down by the river, amongst the cottonwood trees.

Her hand was shaking so hard when she lifted it to knock on the door that it rattled softly against the wood a few times before she could control it enough to truly knock. The door opened and there, stooped a little, stood Mattin. She looked up into his face and the hope nearly trembled out of her—he had to speak. Surely he could speak, just for her. “Mr. Mattin, do you know what happened to my mother? Please tell me! I need to know, I keep forgetting things and everybody scares me and I think you know what happened to her, and I don’t—”

Mattin opened his mouth. Catherine stopped speaking. His tongue was just a short little nub. He couldn’t talk. He’d never talk. She would never know what happened to her mother. It was confusing, also because all the people in town acted like he’d chosen not to talk, like it was his fault. Disappointment swallowed her whole. The edges of her vision darkened. Mattin guided her inside and sat her on the single chair in front of the fire. A bed was in the back right corner of the room, a cookpot with the hearty smell of stew bubbled over the fire. Catherine stared at them dully. Mattin moved away. She did not watch him. He seemed to be rustling around in the back, lifting some things.

After some time—she wasn’t sure how long, he came back and put an envelope in her hands. It was ripped open on one end and the edges of the paper were browned like many people had handled it after it was opened. For a moment she just stared at it, and then her eyes focused on the words: Ellen Grey. Her mother. It was a letter someone sent to her mother from—she checked the return address. Someone back east. She pulled the contents of the envelope out. For a long time, the words seemed to squiggle in front of her eyes. And then they made sense. It was a letter, from a lawyer, letting her mother know she’d inherited money. A lot of money, from the man who was her father, who she had never known.

Catherine looked up at Mattin, her mouth open. “Where did all this money go? I-I could live on it, I could not be a burden…” Her voice trailed off as she looked into Mattin’s eyes. He looked so sad. So, so sad. “My mother got the money.” Catherine said, watching his face like the pages of a book. “But…someone found out. And we had nobody to protect us…”

Mattin’s face crumpled and he groaned, a pitiable, agonized sound. And the sound brought her memories back. It had been dark. She was in bed, upstairs. She’d heard loud voices, a lot of people. In her half awake state she thought she’d finally been taken to see the ocean, and the tide was roaring in. And then her mother’s voice rose out of the crashing of the waves in a shriek, “No! I already gave you half! I just want to take care of her—don’t you want good lives for your children, Sheriff? That’s all I’m asking! You can have the rest! Stop! Please! Stop!”

And then the memory was gone, and Catherine was sobbing, bent double with pain, because that was the moment when her mother had been killed, killed by Sheriff Smith, with most of the town watching. And they let him get away with it because he parceled out the money to them. Hadn’t she seen signs of it? Hadn’t she noticed Grandma Essie’s leather bag, hidden in the cupboard? Hadn’t she seen the old woman counting out the coins at night? Hadn’t she watched Sheriff Smith parade around those big dapple carriage horses, beaming from ear to ear?

She sat upright, her face grim, the tears leaving stiff, cold tracks down her cheeks.

“Mattin.” She said. He looked at her. “You were going to turn them in. You were going to tell on them, after they’d decided to keep a secret.”

He nodded.

“Mattin. Do you have a gun?”

He looked at her for a long time, and then he nodded.

She cleaned it, loaded it, and carried it to the door. They stood in the doorway, letting the scent of grasses and the sound of crickets rush into the warm room. Cathrine loaded the gun. “You know who taught me to shoot a gun? Sheriff Smith.”