had set. Of course the locals warned her the weather
was like a woman, highly changeable in her moods.
She found nothing amusing in such references.
It was during recess that she saw the rider ap-
proach, saw the boy being held by the man.
He introduced himself to her as Jake Horn, and the
boy as Stephen Kunckle.
The boy was fair and frail, the man was not. She
saw he wore a lawman’s badge and her heart jumped
a little figuring his business had to do with her, that
somehow Fallon had set the law to find her and that
this man was going to arrest her and take her back to
Fallon and back to a life she dreaded.
“Why don’t you go and play with the other chil-
dren,” Jake said to the boy, who did not have to be
asked twice before he was off.
“I’ve got a situation,” Jake said.
She listened with dread.
But rather than say he’d come to arrest her for de-
sertion of her husband, he told her about the murders
of the boy’s family.
“I just need someone to watch after him until I can
find his father.”
She felt deeply relieved that the lawman’s business
was not about her.
“Why me?” she said. “I hardly know anyone here
and I’m sure there are others much more capable of
caring for that poor child.”
He explained he knew of no one else he could call
on, that he was fairly new to the territory himself. She
appeared reluctant.
“I’ll be happy to see you’re paid for his upkeep and
your troubles. It shouldn’t be for more than a few
days until I can arrange to take him to the orphanage
in Bismarck.” She flinched when he said that, for she
could easily imagine her girls in an orphanage if any-
thing was to happen to her—knowing as she did that
Fallon was incapable of caring for them. The thought
of that child losing his entire family, of living out his
childhood in an orphanage, tugged at her emotions.
“Okay,” she said.
Jake liked what he saw in this woman. She was nei-
ther young nor old. She wasn’t beautiful or plain. He
couldn’t define it, exactly, but there was something
extraordinary about her that showed through her or-
dinariness, even though she tried hard not to show it.
He looked over to the boy who was busy running
around in circles with other children. He wondered
how much the murders would haunt the child, or if
they would at all. Children were resilient, this much
he knew from having treated so many of them as a
physician.
“I appreciate it,” he said.
He stood there for a moment longer than was neces-
sary, then said, “I’ll come back just as soon as I can cap-
ture the father. Not longer than a week at the outside.”
She thought he seemed terribly sure of himself, and
that bothered her a bit. Fallon had been terribly sure
of himself as well when he was an army officer. He
wasn’t anymore, however. She knew that men like
Fallon, and possibly this lawman, were men who
could fall far when they fell. She told herself to be
wary of him. But then she saw what he did and it
caused her to have doubts about her own judgment.
He walked over to the boy and knelt down in front of
him and spoke to him, then put a comforting hand on
the child’s shoulder and the boy suddenly hugged him
and the lawman returned the gesture and in seeing it,
she was touched again.
Otis Dollar had taken the occasion of the sunny day to
propose to his wife they ride out to Cooper’s Creek.
“Whatever for?” she’d said.
“It’s been a very long time since you and me did
anything saucy,” he said.
“Saucy? Have you been drinking?”
“No, but I’m about to start if you don’t find a way
in your heart to forgive me and getting us back to reg-
ular man and wife again.”
She knew what he wanted forgiveness for—his af-
fection and undying love for Karen Sunflower. She
could never prove it, but she was positive that twenty
years ago he and Karen had had an assignation. And
though she’d confronted him, he never would admit
to it. It had started what was to become twenty years
of icy tolerance between them. They worked the mer-
cantile together, they ate together, and they slept in
the same bed. But rarely were they intimate with each
other, and when they were it was always at Otis’s in-
sistence even though he knew she could barely tolerate
it; he could almost see in the darkness her squeezing
her eyes shut as though it was the worst kind of pain
she could suffer.
He’d often considered just leaving her. It was true,
he still carried a torch for Karen Sunflower, and it was
true there had been one occasion when he and Karen
had relations—this, during that winter Toussaint had
gone off somewhere to see his people and had not re-
turned till spring. And yes, there was even some un-
certainty as to whether Dex had been Toussaint’s son
