ing them apart all these years. She closed her eyes and
felt the sun warm on her face and Otis closed his eyes,
too. And the last words she heard him say before
sleep overtook them was, “You think we might do it
again, Martha?”
How long they slept they didn’t know, but some-
thing woke them quite unexpectedly, a tapping on
their soles. And when they opened their eyes, they
saw the face of madness staring back at them
The Swede said, “Oh, there you are, Inge. I’ve been
looking for you long, long time. I got lost out there,”
and he waved out toward the grasslands, a pistol in
his hand. “I got lost and come looking for you and
there you are. What you doing with this fellow, yah?”
Martha let out a yelp of terror.
Otis sprang into action, intending to disarm the
man and thus save his wife, and possibly himself from
the mad Swede.
But the Swede brought the barrel of the pistol
down hard atop his skull and Otis’s knees buckled.
Then the Swede struck him again and Otis fell back
onto the blanket, something warm spilling into his
eyes. He heard Martha yelping, and her shrieks and
cries seemed to get farther and farther away each time
the Swede struck him a blow with the pistol until he
fell into a stone silence.
The Swede looked at Martha and said, “We go
now, yah?”
11
Jake found the undertaker, Tall John, drinking
a glass of Madeira whilst sitting in front of his
place. The mortician had been enjoying the peace and
solitude of not having any business. And even though
his profession, and thereby his earnings, counted on
folks dying, he was glad for once nobody had re-
cently. After the spate of madness that had pervaded
the community over the summer, during the long hot
drought that resulted in him almost wearing out his
arms and back digging graves and burying folks, he
was more than ready for some rest.
His helper, Boblink Jones, had quit him, stating that
he didn’t care much for working with the dead and he
was returning to Missouri even though the James-
Younger gang had met their demise—Jesse, shot off a
chair that spring, and the Youngers not dead, serving
time in state prison. Boblink still had it in his mind to
become a desperado.
“Now that the James and Youngers is wiped out,”
Boblink said, “I guess there is room for a true outlaw
in that country.” Tall John of course tried to talk the
young man out of such foolishness.
“You’ll only end up like them, dead or in a prison
cell wasting your young vital life.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. John, but waxing the moustaches
of corpses, and shoveling graves just ain’t for me. I’d
like to believe there is some glory waiting for a young
buck like myself—even if it does lead to a dark and
early end. I’ve come to conclude it ain’t the place a
man’s going, but the way he gets there that counts.”
Tall John gave the boy extra pay to see him on his
way, but was dearly sorry to lose such a good helper.
So the timing seemed right that business tailed off
when it did.
Tall John and his Madeira had found a spot where
the sun lay across the wood sidewalk. He set himself
in a tall-back wicker chair facing the main street of
Sweet Sorrow. Directly across from his place stood
the newly opened millinery, run by Fannie Jones, who
used to waitress over at the Fat Duck Cafe. Tall John
could see her now through the glass of her storefront
placing hats on little stands. Some had big ostrich
feathers and some satin tied around the crowns and
some were large and some were no larger than a
saucer. He didn’t quite know why women wore such
hats; they looked quite foolish he thought, especially
those with large feathers. But it wasn’t the hats that
interested him as much as the young comely woman,
whom he knew was being courted by Will Bird, a lo-
cal rascal who came and went like the seasons and
never put his hand to regular work.
A young handsome woman, Tall John thought, de-
served herself a man a little less footloose, one who
was steady and had himself a business that wasn’t go-
ing to peter out anytime soon.
Fannie looked up at one point and John raised his
snifter in her direction and he thought she sort of
waved but couldn’t tell exactly because of the way the
sun was glaring off the glass.
I ought to mosey over there and see what sort of
odds are against me, he thought. But just as soon as
he thought it, he lost his nerve. For what excuse could
he offer for looking at women’s hats? None he could
think of. Others might say, if they knew of his interest
in her, that he was too old for her, and maybe he was.
Will Bird was younger, more her age, but Will never
hung his hat on the same nail too long. John had run
over all the arguments he might present to shore up
his case with Fannie, but he wasn’t sure if it came
