denly she was pointing the pistol at him, saying,
“Now your turn, Tristan, to join the dead . . .”
He felt a shock of relief that it had only been a
dream.
The door rattled again, He answered it.
Toussaint Trueblood stood there, his eyes dark and
brooding.
“You going to go out to the Swede’s and check on
the girl?”
“Yes, I’d thought that I would, though there is little
more I can do for her.”
“I want to go with you.”
“I’m not sure she will tell you what you want to
know.”
“I can ask.”
Jake nodded.
“I guess you have that right. Give me a few min-
utes, okay?”
“I’ll be outside waiting.”
In ten minutes they were moving along the north road
under a steady drizzle, a mixture of snow and rain
that lent the air a foggy quality. They could see their
breath, like steam, and they could see the breath of
their animals as well. All those weeks of summer
drought now forgotten; the rains started in early au-
tumn, continuous, and the fear became that they
weren’t ever going to stop. Men in the saloons and the
barbershop joked about building arks. Several streams
had flooded, including Cooper’s Creek, which swelled
over its banks twice, and residents discovered which
had leaky roofs and which didn’t.
Now the rain was mixed with snow and soon
enough it would be all snow, the very thing that Roy
Bean and others like him had forecast.
They skirted wide of Karen Sunflower’s place at
the suggestion of Toussaint.
“I thought maybe I’d tell her myself once I talked
to the girl,” he said. “But not now.”
They rode on in silence except for the creak of sad-
dle leather, the sloshing of rain, their heads down
against it, their hands numbing.
*
*
*
At last they saw the ramshackle homestead of the
Swedes. It stood almost ghostly in the gray mist.
Toussaint said, “It don’t feel right.”
They saw no smoke curling from the stovepipe, no
light on in the windows. Then they saw a thing that
was most disturbing: the Swede’s underfed hound lay
dead, its skull crushed, its fur wet and half frozen
with the sleet in it.
Jesus, Jake thought. He sat a moment listening.
Taking the medical bag in one hand, he shifted the
Schofield from his pocket to his waistband. The small
hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he got down.
Toussaint didn’t say anything, but followed his lead.
Jake called to the house and was answered by
nothing but silence.
Toussaint untied the shotgun that hung from his
saddle horn by a leather strap; it was cut off short in
both stock and barrels. They approached cautiously,
Jake calling out one more time as he stepped in under
the overhang. Toussaint stood off a ways watching
the house from a more distant angle.
“Hello in there, it’s Marshal Horn. Anyone home?”
Nothing.
He removed the pistol from his waistband, thumbed
back the hammer, pushed open the door that was
slightly ajar already and resting on leather hinges. The
sound it made when it swung open was like a moan.
No light on inside the house as there should be on
such a dreary day. It felt cold and damp. Not even a
fire in the stove that he could see from the angle at
which he stood. He called once more, and again no
answer. He looked back at Toussaint.
Then, he stepped inside even though his instinct
told him not to.
They were there stretched out on the floor. Three
boys lying facedown, side by side as though they’d
simply lain down and gone to sleep. Jake found a
lantern and lit it and the warm light chased off some
of the darkness.
Toussaint came to the door, looked in without go-
ing in. He saw the dead children, too.
“Son of a bitch.” It was more a soft utterance of
pain than a declaration.
Jake knelt by the bodies, held the light close. Each
had been shot in the head with what must have been a
small bore pistol judging by the lack of damage, even
though there was a copious amount of blood. Jake
closed his eyes as though to shut out the macabre
scene. Then he stood.
“Where’s the girl?” Toussaint said.
Jake looked toward the hanging blanket.
“You got my back on this?”
Toussaint nodded and Jake drew aside the blanket
with the barrel of his pistol and looked in. The girl
