like a chicken and went around picking invisible
things from the air. They’d had to truss him up in
leather straps and take him off to the insane asylum in
Scotts Bluff.
The Swede prodded her with the pistol barrel into
the hansom then climbed on the seat next to her.
“What you wait for, yah?”
“You expect me to drive?”
“Yah, yah.”
She took up the reins. The Swede pointed again to-
ward the west.
“Go on,” the Swede said impatiently.
She snapped the reins and the horse stepped off.
They rode for an hour or so, she calculated, trying the
whole while to come up with an excuse to trick him,
to escape. If I had a hoe, I’d kill you, she thought. I’d
hit you over your damn old skull and split it in two
and leave you out here for the wolves.
He rode next to her, his gaze fixed on the horizon
as though he was expecting to see his damn fjords any
minute. She wasn’t sure exactly what a fjord was. She
noticed spots of blood on his shirt cuffs. It caused her
to shudder. The beautiful day did not seem quite so
beautiful any longer.
“I have to go,” she said.
He turned his head.
“I have to go,” she said again.
“Go?”
“Squat,” she said.
He shrugged.
“You squat, yah.”
“No, you damn fool, I have to go off in the weeds.”
He seemed not to understand.
“Pee?” she said. “You understand what it is to have
to pee?”
“Yah, sure.”
Finally she hauled back on the reins and brought
the horse to a stop, then climbed down without asking
and lifted her skirts to her knees and made the motion
of squatting. He sat and stared at her.
“I got to go off aways for some privacy.” She
pointed.
“Yah,” he said. “Yah.”
“You understand?” He didn’t say anything. She
pointed again. “I’m just going to go off in the grass
there aways . . .”
He watched. She walked slowly backward. He did
not move. “Just over here, is all . . .” she said. He had
a slight smile on his face revealing old long teeth. She
thought he looked like a badger—a very skinny, mean
badger.
12
Clara had gotten the children down to sleep—
the orphan boy whimpered, but once read to along
with her own children, he closed his eyes and his
dreams took him. She felt relieved, tired, and as was
her usual custom at such an hour, poured herself a
small glass of sherry and sipped it as she read from a
book of Shakespeare’s sonnets. One she liked espe-
cially—“Venus and Adonis”—helped relieve her of
her own troubles, made it possible for her to not think
so directly about Fallon and what he might do if he
ever found her.
How long she read she wasn’t sure, but when the
knock came at the door, she woke with a start, the
near-empty glass falling from her hand and shattering
against the puncheon floor. Her heart tripped rapidly
and fear gripped her. It had to be Fallon—he’d some-
how found her. She barely breathed. Then the knock
came again. She had nothing to defend herself with.
Again the knock, this time more urgent. She was
afraid the sound would wake the children. She’d as
soon they not see their father, it would only make
things worse.
She hurried to open the door before whoever it was
banged on it again, and cut her foot on a piece of the
broken glass. Ignoring the pain she opened the door a
mere crack, prepared to tell him to go away, prepared
to do whatever it took to run him off.
But instead of her husband, she saw a man she’d
not seen in years, whose unexpected appearance was
nearly as shocking as if it had been her husband.
This man wasn’t the same man in appearance she
remembered, not the same as the memory she’d held
of him all these years. For, the man standing at her
door was drawn and haggard in the face, and much
more terribly thin than she recalled. He looked ill,
broken.
“Clara,” he said.
“What are you doing here?”
He leaned heavily against one hand held flat
against the outer wall.
“May I come in?”
“It’s late,” she said, searching for any excuse not
to have to deal with him.
“I know it is,” he said. “Later than you can possi-
bly know.”
“There are children asleep. I shouldn’t want to
