what a pleasure it is to have such wonderful guests in
my house.” She said this more for Toussaint’s benefit
than anyone else’s.
The wind was kicking hard now, bucking against
the sides of the house, rattling windows.
Karen started a fire in the stove to set water to boil.
She saw Toussaint looking at the carcasses of the dead
water and began to wash Otis’s face, the crusted
blood, tenderly and with all mercy.
“Hell,” Jake muttered over the news that the Swede
was not only a murderer but now a kidnapper, too.
Karen looked up.
“If he comes round here, I’ll be forced to shoot
him,” she said. “I won’t be fooled with or raped and
murdered.”
“I’d hope that you would shoot him if it comes to
that,” Jake said. “I’d consider him very dangerous.”
She wasn’t sure if she could shoot a man or not,
even if he was a killer and kidnapper. It was one of
those times when she wished she didn’t have to go it
alone. A man in the house to shoot murdering Swedes
would be a nice thing to have about.
Toussaint came back in the house.
“You want, I’ll cook them,” he said.
“Be my guest,” Karen said.
“You got flour, some salt?”
“What I’ve got’s in the cupboard.”
He opened the cupboard doors, saw the canned
goods that only reminded him of the visits by Otis that
fateful winter before Dex was born. But for the time
being at least, he put such thoughts out of his mind. It
didn’t do any good to haul over the past; nothing he
could do to change whatever may have happened.
They ate as the sky outside grew the color of galva-
nized tin.
“I’m surprised to see you fooling with rabbits,”
Toussaint said halfway through the meal.
“Beggars can’t be choosers and I’d eat a turtle or a
snake if I had to.”
“Pretty good ain’t they?”
Karen looked at him. Toussaint did not try overly
hard to hide his pleasure at eating a meal at her table
again.
Otis ate very little, such was his appetite. His stom-
ach felt queasy as he swallowed the few bites of rab-
bit. It felt to him as though he was standing on the
rolling deck of a ship tossed in bad seas. He thought
he might pitch out of his chair and he had to con-
stantly grip the sides of the table.
Jake asked him about the event that led to his
beating.
He wept telling about how the Swede had come
upon them and threatened to kill them and how he
tried to save Martha. “Then when I fought him to
protect her, he clubbed me with his pistola and left
me for dead. When I come round again, he was gone
and so was Martha. I fear terrible for her having
fallen into the hands of that devil. I should have been
more a man . . . I should have protected her.”
Toussaint met Karen’s gaze.
“You weren’t armed and he was,” Jake said. “You
couldn’t be expected to do more than what you
did.”
“I don’t know why he just didn’t shoot you,” Tous-
saint observed.
“I couldn’t say, either.”
Then Otis swooned and nearly fell over and Jake
with Toussaint’s help carried him back to the bed and
laid him down in it. He moaned and tossed, then fell
silent. Jake checked the pulse in his wrist, said, “His
heart’s strong at least.” Toussaint didn’t fail to notice
this, either.
Then, except for Otis’s moaning, there was naught
but an embarrassed silence around the table until
Toussaint said, “I’ll go and check on the animals.”
Karen said, “I need to pump water” and followed
Toussaint out.
Jake placed his hands upon the table and looked at
them.
Outside Karen approached Toussaint.
“You seem to be spending more time out here now
than you did when we were married, why is that?”
He shrugged as he took the saddles off the mounts.
“Just poor luck on my part, I guess.”
“You mean on mine.”
“I’d just soon not quarrel with you.”
“Then quit coming around.”
He stood for a moment, knowing as he did about
the small silver ring he’d bought that morning. He’d
wanted to ride out as soon as he bought it to give it to
her, but he knew he had to wait until the exact right
minute when she’d be open to such a proposal. He
didn’t know when that time would be, but he knew
now wasn’t it.
“Karen, in spite of what you think, I’m not here to
make you miserable. I’m sorry as hell it didn’t work
out between us and all the rest of it. I can’t even tell
you how sorry I am, especially about what happened
to Dex and all. But I was a different man back then
