remembered that he’d left Bill Crachit on duty downstairs. He relaxed again. “The service. It was all right?”
“How many times are you going to be asking? It was fine, Sol, just lovely. His family would have been pleased. Now, stop, already.”
Solomon shook his head. “Such a burden to have a kvetching wife . . .”
Rachael stuck her head around the corner. “I heard that,” she growled. But she was grinning. “You know, Solomon, that even a rabbi couldn’t have done a better job than you did. I couldn’t help but be proud.”
Solomon felt himself color slightly at her words. “Thank you, my Rachael. But you shouldn’t say such things. A rabbi would have been much better. Much better.”
She was still smiling. “Yes, dear. You know best, dear.”
Solomon felt the shroud of uncertainty lift from him like a cloak had been pulled from his shoulders, and barked out a laugh. He jumped from his chair and lunged for Rachael, who tried to duck back behind the shelving, but didn’t make it. Solomon caught her in his arms, and the two of them laughed like maniacs until Rachael was in tears.
“Stop, Sol!” she cried. “Stop, already! You’ll make me wet myself!”
He let her go, although he was loathe to, and she stepped back, still tittering, and moved the eggs from the burner to the sink, where she poured off the boiling water and replaced it with cool well water from a bucket.
“Why do you always do that?”
“Because you’re greedy, and I don’t want you to burn yourself.”
“Always thoughtful.”
“I try.”
He took her in his arms again. “And you succeed, my Rachael. You succeed.”
He kissed her, long and hard.
25
Jason was at home and halfway through his dinner—Jenny had made him pork chops and mashed potatoes— when the wind kicked up again.
He’d had a full day. There had been the killing, of course. He still wasn’t quite over it. After Abe had come down from the livery and collected Welk’s body for transport to Prescott, he had gone through his files and finally found some old paper on Ezra Welk. Welk had been quite a piece of work, having already been responsible for the deaths of seven people by the date of the poster, which was January, 1866. How many more had he killed since then? Jason hadn’t touched his pistol since, though.
In addition to all the racket the boys were making putting up their damn water tank, there’d been the official swearing in of Rafe—he was still nervous about that—the divesting of Ward’s house of his things, and all the normal stuff, plus bidding good-bye to Wash Keogh and being a pall bearer at a funeral, most of which he didn’t understand.
Ward’s place had been the worst of it. He’d been putting it off, but finally decided he couldn’t delay any longer. All that Ward had to show for his life was currently contained in a small wooden crate, out in Jason’s living room.
But no. A little piece of Ward still lived in his heart, and Jenny’s, and in the core of practically everybody else in town. He would be sorely missed for a long time.
And he was glad that the Davis funeral had gone all right. At least, the Cohens seemed happy. Judith Strong as well. It was good that now there was another Jew in town. Rachael, at least, would have another Jewish woman to talk to. He knew that she’d been ostracized by most of the other women in town for a long time, and he’d felt awfully sorry for her.
The Reverend Bean: Now there was a whole different kettle of fish. He’d made no attempt to secure land for a church, as Father Micah had done right off the bat (even if it hadn’t turned out too well), and had just about the same as disappeared. Jason hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him in days.
He shrugged and took a piece of dried apple pie from Jenny. It looked pretty good, too. He barely registered the hunk of prickly pear cactus that flew past the kitchen window.
But Jenny said, “Jason, what’s the matter? You’ve been mopin’ ever since you set foot over the threshold.”
The wind began to rattle the chairs and table outside.
He looked up from his pie. “Oh, nothin’. Just work, I guess. Well, that, and cleaning out Ward’s house.”
She slowly shook her head. “No, there’s something else. Is that business with Ezra Welk troubling you?”
He shook his head.
“Then have you been thinkin’ about leavin’ again?”
The next gust had hail in it. A few pellets dinged the window. A lot more pelted the side of the house.
“I’m always thinkin’ about it.”
“More than usual, I’d venture,” she said, crossing her arms over her bosom. “What’s got you goin’ this time?”
“Oh, all right.” He set his fork down and leaned back in his chair. “Abe. The town’s got Abe, now, or they’ll have him in a few days. And he’s a whole lot better at this than I am. And they’ve got Rafe. And I don’t want to be here. I wanna be back East, back where there are books and schools, and I’m not in charge of who gets which land, or what’s official in the newspaper, or what to do when a million Apache ride up on the town. Where they don’t even have Apache and never heard of a dust storm!”
