The Devil's Cold Dish by Eleanor Kuhns Page A

from Ward’s murder and allow Caldwell to look into this one on his own. With Rees making just a few suggestions here and there.

 
    Chapter Five
    By four a.m. Rees was awake and in the pasture with David. Once the early chores were finished, Rees harnessed Hannibal to the wagon, and by six he and Lydia were on their way to the mill. Lydia had packed a large basket with freshly baked bread, eggs, cheese, and a jar of honey. She turned and smiled at Rees and he grinned back. Once away from the farm happiness swept over him. Land and livestock measured a man’s wealth, but Rees frequently thought he would rather be a poor itinerant weaver than a farmer. And the worst task of all, haying, was still to come today. He shook off that thought so it would not lessen his pleasure in the day.
    He let Lydia down near Widow Ward’s hovel. The door stood open and a few battered chairs had been placed in the wagon bed. Once Lydia disappeared inside, Rees drove across the dirt road to the mill. It was just seven by his pocket watch. The sun had been up for some time and Rees could hear the turning of the huge millstone even from a distance away. His heart began pounding; he dreaded the inevitable remarks Tom McIntyre would make.
    Rees pulled up beside the other wagons. The miller had promised to finish grinding Rees’s corn by this morning. Hoping McIntyre had done that, Rees went inside and up the small rise and around the wall into the mill proper.
    To his surprise, Sam was there and McIntyre was just handing him a sack of something. Grinning and clutching the bag tightly in his hands, Sam brushed by Rees and disappeared outside.
    Rees touched Mac on the shoulder to gain his attention. Here inside with the sounds of the fast-moving water in the river, the splash of the mill wheel turning and the rumble of the stone filling the space with an almighty roar, it was too noisy to hear the speech of a man standing only inches away. Rees put his hands over his ears, wondering how McIntyre tolerated it all day. Mac’s father, Rees recalled, had gone deaf before he turned fifty.
    Mac motioned Rees back outside and then gestured to his two eldest sons. Rees escaped with relief. Several minutes elapsed before the miller and his sons appeared. Elijah and one of his young brothers carried Rees’s barrels on their shoulders; they dropped them into the wagon beds with a resonant clatter and went back inside the mill.
    â€œWhy was Sam here?” Rees asked. “Were you giving him charity?”
    â€œHe runs errands for us from time to time,” McIntyre said. He glanced at Rees and then looked quickly away. Although five years older than Rees, the same age as Farley, the miller had been smaller at sixteen than Rees was as an eleven-year-old. He was still much shorter than Rees now. “Ward’s funeral will take place in an hour. Mrs. Ward has Father Stephen coming. I hope you aren’t planning to attend.”
    â€œYou know I had nothing to do with his death, don’t you?” Rees asked, fixing an intent gaze upon the other man. Hearing Mac say he knew Rees was innocent of murder mattered a great deal.
    â€œYou’re not a murderer,” McIntyre said. Rees released his breath in relief. Although he and Mac would never agree on politics, they’d known each other all their lives, and he couldn’t bear having someone he knew so well believing him a killer. “Ward wasn’t a good worker. Too busy drinking and fighting. With everyone.” He fixed his gaze upon Rees. “I did wonder if you—by accident, I mean—you have that temper.”
    â€œWard was shot,” Rees reminded him. “From a distance by a coward.” He knew he sounded hurt by Mac’s implication.
    â€œI know, I know.” McIntyre took a step backward. Rees did not want to defend himself like a hysterical girl. He turned to the wagon and was surprised to see Lydia crossing the road, the full