than I am now and I can see the parts of it I was
wrong about.”
She wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, she
hadn’t expected any sort of apology from Toussaint
Trueblood, a man whom she never heard apologize to
anyone.
“I’ve been thinking of pulling up stakes and leav-
ing this place,” she said, not sure why she felt com-
pelled to tell him this except to test his reaction.
She saw the look of surprise as he finally turned his
full attention to her instead of that mule he seemed to
favor.
“Where would you go?”
“Back east somewhere, where I could make a living
without having to struggle so damn hard every single
day of my life. I still got kin in Iowa—a cousin.”
He said, “That’s funny, I was thinking about the
same thing—going somewhere else, I mean. Maybe
west. I’d sort of like to see the ocean once.”
“I guess we’ve both had it with this place, and no
wonder,” she said, and turned back toward the house.
“Karen.”
“What?” she said, pausing without turning round
to face him.
“I know this is going to sound funny to you, and I
don’t mean to upset you, but I mean to win you
back.”
She started to turn, to light into him for such as-
sumptions that he could just do whatever the damn
hell he wanted whether or not she wanted it, too. But
instead she said above the rising wind, “You won’t
win me back, Trueblood. Not in a million years,” and
went on into the house.
They stayed the night, Jake and Toussaint sleeping
on the floor with the glow of the stove’s fire between
them and the wind scraping along the eaves. Karen
slept in a chair.
*
*
*
The next morning Jake and Toussaint set out for the
Swede’s, the dawn a cold gray, the morning sun like a
blind eye behind the gray, the wind rushing over the
grasses flattening them near to the ground. Karen did
not go to the door to see them off, but instead stood
at the window and watched. She saw Toussaint look
back at the house just once before he turned his mule
out toward the road. She remembered the last thing
he’d said to her: “I mean to win you back . . .”
Damn crazy Indian, she thought, and never gave it
anymore consideration the rest of that day until Otis
said that evening, “That’s a pretty song you’re hum-
ming. I only wish my spirits were as high.”
Martha could hardly sleep that night for the cold
wind in spite of the Swede having wrapped himself
up against her. She’d made it a point to keep her back
to him the whole time. What had begun as a pleasant
picnic had now turned into a cold nightmare of a
time. She could feel the Swede’s warm but sour breath
on the back of her neck as they sat awkwardly in the
cab. His snores seemed like a danger and twice he
muttered in his sleep before calling out: “Stephen!
Stephen!” and when he did, his body trembled and
shook. She knew nightmares were running through
him like wild horses through the night and it scared
her that they were. She would have run and taken her
chances out on the prairies, knowing wolves and pos-
sibly bears roamed out there in the dark. But the
Swede had made sure she would not get such foolish
thoughts in her head by tying her to him with a length
of rope. She considered the odds: what it would be
like to freeze to death, against getting et by a wolf or
a bear. Either seemed preferable to being molested by
the crazy Swede. She fretted over the fate of Otis,
thinking him probably dead from having his brains
bashed in by the Swede.
And she tried not to think about the future—of liv-
ing with a madman on some far-flung frontier, possi-
bly eating grasshoppers and crickets and drinking
dirty creek water, all the while aware that at any given
moment he might take it in his head to kill her. It
nearly drove her crazy thinking about it and shivering
from the cold.
Lord, what had she done so terrible as to deserve
such a fate?
At one point she thought she heard footsteps out
there in the darkness. She was too afraid to look to
see who would be walking around on such a miser-
able cold night such as this. She closed her eyes and
waited to be et.
She thought of her girlhood, of a time of inno-
cence, and wondered what it was the Lord had against
her to deliver her into the hands of this madman.
Was she now paying for her sins of being dry and
distant from her husband, of not serving him as a
wife should, of the sin of jealousy? She wondered, she
wept, she prayed.
The nasty old Swede snored and dreamt his mur-
derous dreams and she felt his fingers play along her
