going on, “I don’t think we’re doing any too well here in Canada, either. You can hardly hear the cannon fire up north toward Winnipeg these days.”
Ever since the Yanks had overrun his farm, McGregor had used the sound of the guns to gauge how the fighting was going. When they were far away, the Yankees were making progress. A deep rumble on the northern horizon meant an Anglo-Canadian counteroffensive. He wouldn’t have minded in the least had shells fallen on his land; that would have meant the Yanks were pushed most of the way back toward Dakota. But it hadn’t happened. He was beginning to wonder if it ever would.
Mary, his younger daughter, spoke with great certainty: “We
McGregor and Maude looked at each other. They both knew better. “They can, Mary,” her mother said. “We have to hope they don’t, that’s all.”
“No, they can’t,” Mary repeated. “They shot Alexander. If they win, that means-that means-” She cast about for the worst thing she could think of. “That means God doesn’t love us any more.”
“God does what He wants, Mary,” McGregor said. “He doesn’t always do what we want. If He did, your brother would still be here, and the Yanks would be down in the USA where they belong.”
“If they win, they’ll try to turn us into Americans,” Julia said angrily. “They’re already trying to turn us into Americans.”
With American coins in his pocket, with American stamps on his letters, with American lies in the schools-so many American lies, neither Julia nor Mary went any more-McGregor could hardly disagree with her. Instead, he said, “What we have to do is, we have to remember who we are and what we are, no matter what happens around us. That may be the best we can do.”
He felt Maude’s eyes on him again. He needed a moment to understand why. When he did, his mouth tightened. Though he’d spoken indirectly, he’d never come so close to admitting Canada and her allies were losing the war.
His wife looked as grim as he did. So did Julia, who now had nearly a woman’s years and had been thinking like an adult for a long time, anyhow. If Mary didn’t follow-maybe that was just as well. Of them all, McGregor thought she was the fiercest one, even including himself. No matter how old she got, he doubted she would ever slow down to count the cost before she acted. He had to. He hated himself for that, but he had to.
After supper, and after the girls had gone to bed, he said to Maude, “I’m going out to the barn. I’ve got some work to take care of.”
The only question Maude asked was, “Shall I wait up for you?” When he shook his head, she came over and kissed him on the cheek. He blinked; they seldom showed affection for each other outside the bedroom.
He slapped at mosquitoes on the way to the barn. Crickets chirped. Frogs croaked and peeped in ponds and creeks and puddles. Spring was here. He shook his head again. Spring was here, and with it shorter nights. He could have used the long blanket of dark winter gave. But winter also gave a blanket of snow, and snow, unless it was falling hard or unless the wind was howling, meant tracks. He could not afford tracks. The family had already lost Alexander. He knew how hard a time they would have if they lost him, too.
“Counting the cost,” he muttered. He did not fear death, not for himself. He feared it for the sake of those he loved. Mary would not have feared, period. He felt that in his bones. It shamed him. It drove him on.
He did not light a lantern in the garage. The wooden box he sought was hidden, but he knew where. No Yankees on the road would see any light and wonder about it. He had to be careful.
He had to be careful about that road, too. He couldn’t travel on it, not unless he wanted to be challenged. The box under his arm, he approached the road. He didn’t approach too closely, not till nobody was coming in either direction. Then he crossed in a hurry.
His neighbors’ farm had a path leading to the road, just as his did. His neighbors’ farm also had a path leading southeast toward another road, an east-west one not so frequently traveled by Americans. If the dog stayed quiet, it would not disturb anyone in the dark, quiet farmhouse. The dog was quiet. It had known him for years, and knew him as well as it knew anyone outside its own family. Down that southeastern path he strode, and onto that east-west road.
“East,” he muttered. He had the road to himself. Alone with his thoughts: not a safe place to be, not with the thoughts filling his mind. If he set the box down and stomped on it, he would be alone with his thoughts forever. That was tempting, but he was not the sort of man to leave a thing half done.
Whenever he passed a farmhouse, he tensed, making sure it had no lamps burning. He did not want any wakeful soul noting the presence of a lone man on the road. No one could recognize him, not from those houses, but someone might note the time at which he walked by or the direction in which he was going. Either could prove dangerous.
He heard a distant rattle on the road behind him. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw tiny headlamps rapidly getting larger. He stepped into the field by the roadside and lay down. A Ford whizzed past, a Ford painted some light color, not the usual black: a light color like green-gray, for instance.
“Christ, let me be lucky,” he whispered. “Let me catch the whore and the murderer both.” He waited till the motorcar had gone a good way down the road before getting up and following it. The Americans installed rearview mirrors on most of their motorcars; he did not want whoever was in this one-Major Hannebrink’s name burned in his mind-spotting him.
On he walked, gauging time by the wheeling stars. If he could keep on, if he did not flag or falter, he might do what he had come to do.
The next interesting question, and one of whose answer he was not quite sure, was whether the Tooker family owned a dog. He didn’t really think so. If he was wrong, the best thing that could happen would be a long walk in the dark for nothing. Possibilities went downhill in a hurry from there.
A lamp went out downstairs. Lamplight showed a moment later in a room upstairs.
Where was her husband? Was he dead? Was he captured? Was he still fighting for his country farther north? McGregor didn’t know. He wondered if Paulette knew, or cared.
That light would not go out. McGregor muttered under his breath. What the devil was Hannebrink doing in there, driving railroad spikes? McGregor didn’t dare approach the house, as he’d intended doing. Hannebrink had parked the Ford a good distance away from the place, though, no doubt for discretion’s sake. McGregor wanted the man who’d ordered his son killed far more than he wanted that man’s Canadian whore.
Cautious as a man could be, he went up to the motorcar. The night smelled of fresh, damp earth. He took a trowel from his belt and began to dig in the fresh, damp earth in front of the Ford’s left front tire. When he’d dug enough, he set the box in the hole, covered it over, and scattered the leftover dirt its volume had displaced. Then he headed home himself.
He got back just ahead of morning twilight. A light was burning in a room upstairs in his farmhouse, too. When he went in, he found Maude sitting up in bed sewing. Breath gusted from her when she saw him. “Is everything all right?” she demanded sharply.
“Everything is fine,” he answered. “You should have slept.”
“I tried,” she said. “I couldn’t.” She shrugged. “About time to get up now, anyhow. One way or another, we’ll stagger through the day. So long as everything’s all right.”
“Yes,” he said again. Even as he said it, though, he wondered. He should have been able to hear the explosion, even if the bomb-and the Ford-blew up when he was almost back here. What the hell had Hannebrink and Paulette Tooker been doing back at her house? How long could they keep doing it?
He did get through the day, moving like a man of ice only slightly thawed. When night came, he slept as hard as he had since he was Mary’s age.
He wanted to go into Rosenfeld, to learn what, if anything, he’d accomplished. He refrained, not wanting to draw notice to himself. To how many people had Henry Gibbon given the name of Hannebrink’s paramour? The more, the better.
