work,” he said.
“Few men do,” the undertaker said. “But it is a
job that must be done and it’s God’s work you’ll be
doing.”
“God and me never were on the same road to-
gether.”
“Not too late to start,” John said.
They could smell the death as they halted several
yards away from the cabin.
“Might be best we cover our faces with kerchiefs,”
John said.
“It’s near dark,” Will Bird said. “We can’t bury
’em in the dark.”
Tall John nodded.
“You’re right, it would be onerous work at night.”
“Couldn’t we just set fire to the place?”
Tall John took a deep breath, let it out again.
“We could, yes sir, we surely could, but we ain’t
going to. Have you no compassion?”
“Just think of the time we could save, and it sure
ain’t gone make no difference to them folks inside.”
“No, the marshal asked that they be buried. He
didn’t say anything about burning them. If he had, I
might have considered it.”
Will thought about what it felt like when he fell off
the windmill and onto the snake and how the snake
bit him—the fear that went through him with the poi-
son in his blood—and the suffering that followed. He
told himself he’d just as soon fall off ten windmills
and get bit by ten snakes as he would to go inside that
cabin and deal with the dead folks in there. “Kids,
too,” Tall John had said on their way out.
“Buck up,” John said. “It won’t be nearly as bad
as you think.”
“I reckon it will be worse,” Will Bird said.
“Yes, you’re right,” John said. “But I find it is best
not to think about how worse things can be. Worse
would be me or you lying in there instead of them.
What say we drive off a little upwind and have our
supper and get started first light?”
“ ’At suits me just fine.”
Later, lying in the dark, John said, “How you and
Miss Jones getting along, Will?”
“Fine,” Will said.
“She’s a nice-looking young woman to be sure.
Smart, too, I’d say; saved her enough money from her
waitress job to start that little hat shop.”
Will could see the moon reflected in the glass sides
of the hearse, could hear the horses cropping grass.
“You planning on marrying her, Will?”
“I ain’t the marrying kind,” Will said. “Though if I
was to get married to anyone it would probably be
someone like Fannie.”
John was sorry to hear such news.
“But you ain’t the marrying kind, as you said,” John
replied. “So I don’t imagine that you’d even marry
someone like Miss Jones, even if she was to ask
“I don’t reckon,” Will said.
He’d finished rolling himself a cigarette and now
struck a match off his belt buckle and the flame leapt
up showing his handsome dark features and John felt
envious of him for being such a handsome man and
having himself a sweetheart like Fannie.
“No, Will, life is too short for a man to tie himself
down to one woman. Why I bet you ain’t seen half the
country you aim to see before you get old, have you?”
Will shrugged.
“And I bet you still got a eye for the young ladies,
Miss Jones notwithstanding.”
Will smoked in silence, thinking about how maybe
John was right about him not being ready to settle
down, that even though Fannie was a fine enough
woman, there might be finer women still out there
somewhere. He heard wolves howl, the yip of a coy-
ote off somewhere in the dark. He looked up and saw
a thousand stars to go along with the moon that was
shining down and showing in the hearse’s glass.
“I reckon a young fellow like you still has plenty of
plans,” John said. “I know I was your age, wouldn’t
be nothing to tie me down. Hell, I’d at least want to
see one of the two oceans, wouldn’t you, Will?”
Will closed his eyes.
“Maybe so,” he said.
John felt hope rising. A smart feller could talk a
less smart one into or out of almost anything.
13
Toussaint said, “How you like this business?”
“Lawman? It isn’t my first choice of things to
do,” Jake said.
They’d been riding along the north road, back out
to the Swede’s place. It was decided a good place to
begin looking for the Swede.
“I don’t much care for horses,” Toussaint said.
“Riding them. It’s the thing Karen was always trying
to get me to do. Go in the horse-catching business and
I might have done it, except I don’t care for them
much—can’t trust them.”
“That why you ride a mule?”
