seymoure

41.
“The Cabin”

“Were you close to here when he shot you?” Pappy asked as the pair of them moved closer to the house.

“Naw,” The Sheriff countered, “I was still in sight of the town. That’s how they found me so quick. I would have bled to death before anyone came this far down into this property.”

“Then we can be sure of only one thing,” Pappy thought out loud, “Whoever shot you, we assume Wiley Earl, was not doing it to keep you away from discovering anything in this house.”

“So, maybe there is nothing in the house to find,” Tooley surmised.

“They never gave you any logic classes in school, did they boy?” Pappy laughed.

“Huh?” The new Sheriff grunted.

“The fact that he shot you in such a situation as not to be keeping you from this house does not say there is nothing in the house. What it says is that you were shot for another reason.”

The boy was looking at a wooden sculpture of a squirrel that stood in the yard of the cottage. Pappy was sure he had paid more attention to the wooden thing than he had to his lesson in logic.

Pappy unlocked the door and began to open it when he noticed something carved into the jam. It was, in rather gothic style, the letters “B.O.U.” with nothing else around them.

“This mean anything to you, Tooley?”

It was like someone hit the man in the side of the head with a rock.

“B.O.U.? Damn, that sounds familiar. But I don’t recollect where from. It’s from a long time ago. It was important then.” He told the old man.

“Do you think it is connected with the killings, with Wiley Earl?”

“I don’t know.” He stood up straight and looked around, “It’s like when something is right in front of your eyes and you can’t see it? Like when you’re trying to remember what’s familiar about a taste or a song.”

“Well, let’s look around and maybe something in here will nudge your memory,” Pappy said as he opened the door.

“Boy, I hate a mystery,” Tooley said.

“You and me both,” Pappy agreed.