Old

What are we looking for as we sort through?

Sid loved a good estate sale. But you could never tell when they’d be good or just junk. There was this time…Jesus, you don’t want to hear estate sale stories. You probably don’t want to hear coroner stories.

Sid got the call on a Saturday in the fall. He had decided to paint some of the exterior. It was still warm enough and rain was a bit off. He had the ladder out, the scrapers and sandpaper, the kids were elsewhere, Martha wrangling, then the beeper, just as he prepared to mount the ladder.

Sherriff’s dispatch. Sid went in to use the landline.

Old guy dead, the deputies were requesting the coroner. Is he just dead, or do I really need to go? Sid asked Julie on dispatch, because he knew her and because he knew she wouldn’t take offense at his offense. She chuckled. They want you doc.

Sid imagined Julie wanting him. Such fantasies sustained him. But then he got the directions, the road off the hiway, then the turn, the second left.

Sid knew he’d never find it. He’d go out there, beyond cell phone range, take a wrong turn. He’d done it so many times.

Julie heard his thoughts. I can ask the deputy to meet you on the hiway. She was so sweet.

So Sid just had to look for a county cruiser as he headed east. The east county was where the old white pine had been. Mills were now long gone as were the big soft clear pines. Sixty feet up to the first branches. Four foot across at the butt, some six, some eight. Board feet hauled out on rails, the soft straight grained wood made into trim or boxes before we invented plastic. Now long gone in these woods, but you could still see their grades, where the rails had been. Back when men did real work.

He looked at the weak timber by the road. Forty-year-old fir and pine, no white pine grows here anymore. Blister rust. We all succumb to something. Then we have an estate sale.

Sid saw the cruiser where he expected. Brandon was grinning at the Hilux as he rolled up.

Julie said you were worried about getting lost. I’ll take you back there. He got in his rig. Sid didn’t remember expressing any worry to Julie, just thinking it.

It was a gravel road, then another, then dirt and a steep grade that Sid slipped his clutch on. It was going, the clutch.

It was a nice place. A little farmhouse on a knoll with the mountains off to the north and east, but a clear view across the prairie to the south. Maybe a 150-acre homestead that had cows at one time. Sid knew it would soon have a McMansion.

So what have we got? Sid wanted to get back to the scraping and sanding, maybe primer if he was lucky today.

Brandon looked down. Old guy shot himself.

Sid exhaled. They do, don’t they.

Brandon looked at him. Yeah.

Did he have a dog?

Brandon smiled a bit at this. Not that we can find, Doc. Long gone if he did.

So do you have any questions about what happened here?

Not really. But I thought we should have your eyes on it. You are the coroner. We’re just deputies. He grinned at Sid, letting it sink in. Brandon never made detective. But Sid liked working with him.

How old?

Our records have him at 87.

Living out here by himself. Place looks like he cared for it. Sid could see the weak attempts at paint and fencing. Kinda like what he was trying to get back to. But the outbuildings were upright, nothing falling over. Does he have stock?

Brandon shook his head. Just him, Doc.

Had he gotten rid of them?

Maybe. Don’t know.

Sid could see a chicken hutch. The shed beyond looked like a milking parlor. So this place had the substance to sustain. But not now.

No dog. No chickens, no milk cow.

Just an old dead guy Sid was supposed to go up and look at. And do what?

Hey Brandon, I’m going to walk around a bit. I’ll be up on the porch in a bit.

Brandon nodded. He knew Sid was a weird guy.

Sid did his walk about. No eggs in the nesting boxes. The shit had been cleaned out. Maybe spread where there should be a garden?

The milking parlor was neat as a pin, no cow here for a while.

Another shed was a shop. It had an anvil and forge. Tools hung on nails. The pile of scrap iron in the dark corner made Sid want to go look. Sid wanted to touch the hammers, the tongs. But he didn’t. It was a very neat place. The estate sale guys would love this. Sid figured the anvil was worth over $500. Sid could only imagine what was in the drawers and cubbies. He stepped around the sack of coal as he left and latched the door.

Sid met Brandon on the porch.

He’s in here.

Sid felt the spring of the porch. It was fairly solid now, but it wouldn’t last. Everything fails.

Sid followed Brandon through the door. Four raised panels below a glass window. This place lost heat. Hard work to keep it warm in the winter. But it’s the fall now, winter’s coming. But he won’t have to split that wood and haul it. He’s done.

And there he was. Simple. A dead old guy who shot off the top of his head with a steady rifle between his legs.

Sid looked around. The kitchen had a big wood range and a water tank. Sid smiled. He loved how these worked. Heat the stove to cook, heat the water for when you need it.

There was a wood furnace in the living room.

Sid went into the back bedroom and felt like he was invading some privacy. The bathroom had no medicines, just the toothbrush and stuff you’d expect. Shaving brush and safety razor, like Sid’s dad used.

So there he was. Sitting at his kitchen table. Dishes in the drainer, no mess here. Just the skull pieces on the floor and the blood on the ceiling and walls.

The gun leaned between the thin old legs in the old denims. It had fallen to the side, but not on to the floor. The head had tilted back, what was left of it. That’s what happens. Sid wondered if, before they pulled the trigger, the folks who went this way thought about what it would look like, the mess, after they clicked and the firing pin hit the primer, the load exploded the lead up through their brain and skull.

Sid saw the gun. Winchester model 1894.

He looked at Brandon. Probably a 30:30.

The deputy smiled. We haven’t cleared it yet. Waited for you. But the box of ammo in the bedroom is 25:35.

Really?

Sid had a deep personal history with a Winchester 94 25:35.

Not with an anvil or the tongs, or an empty chicken coop. That’s what sustains us, those deep connections. Sid’s went sideways.

I’d love to have that gun.

Sid noticed the twenty-six-inch octagonal barrel, buck horn open sights. Almost like the one he’d shot his first deer with and then it burned up in the cabin, long gone. Old connection lost, right here between this dead old man’s knees. The butt rested still on the clean, cracked old linoleum floor.

Yeah, he probably shot a few deer with that, maybe even a couple elk. They move down through here from the mountains. Heck Doc, they’ll probably have an estate sale, you could bid on it.

Reconnect at an estate sale, Sid thought. He looked a Brandon. Just a suicide, right?

Yeah, Doc. That’s what we figured.

No note?

Not that we could find. Maybe he wasn’t a man of words.

Maybe not. He sure left the place nice.

Best he could, I guess. But he was done with it.

Sid left before the deputies. As he went down the drive he could hear the old metal of the Hilux rattling, but the clutch held. He wondered just how long the little truck had before he would have to let it go. Maybe he could get up and do some scraping before dark.