everyone was tucked in bed, Clara told William about
the boy’s circumstances.
“That’s a piece of tough news,” he said.
“I don’t think his father realized the suffering he
caused, and how his only surviving son will have to
live with the horror and shame of it the rest of his
life,” she said. William Sunday did not fail to get her
not so subtle point about a life lived wrongly, about
sins of the father passed on to the children.
“I was a terrible son of a bitch most of my life,” he
said. “I did lots of things I am not proud of, and now
I can see I did them for the wrong reasons. But I can’t
change any of that, and you can’t, either. I’d like for
both of us not to try. I’d like for both of us to start at
this moment and try and be good to each other—it’s
all I have to offer you and all I want to offer you.”
“I’m not sure I can forget,” she said.
“I’m not asking you to forget, Clara. I’m asking
you to forgive.”
“I’m not sure I can do that, either.”
He started to say something else, but then the pain
shot through him like a bullet and he took a deep
breath and held onto the back of a chair to keep from
collapsing. He’d run out of laudanum and by the time
he realized it the pharmacy had closed.
“I don’t suppose you’d have a drop or two of
whiskey around?”
She shook her head.
“I won’t have it in the house.”
“Because of him?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry your marriage turned out bad,” he said.
“I guess my luck just runs bad when it comes to
the men in my life.”
He found his hat on the peg by the door he’d hung
it on and said, “It was a good supper, Clara. My
granddaughters are lovely and I want to get to know
them more if you’ll allow it. I wonder if maybe to-
morrow, if the weather isn’t so bad, we could all go
on a picnic?”
“I’ll have to give it some thought.”
He nodded.
“I’ll call on you tomorrow, then,” he said and went
out the door. Rain was hitting the window glass like
someone tossing sand against it. Darkness had fallen
while they’d eaten. She wondered if she were doing
the right thing, having him to supper, having him
meet her children. She wasn’t sure anymore what was
the right or wrong thing.
She set about doing the dishes, then checked on all
three of the children making sure they were asleep
and the rain hadn’t awakened them. Then she was
alone there in the house, without a husband or much
of a future and with a father whom she had never ex-
pected to see again. Even if she wanted to start over
again with him, to renew an old history and even if
she wanted to love him, what chance did she have
now that he was dying, near death? It all seemed so
futile. She felt tired.
Finding her cloak she stepped outside for a last trip
to the privy before her own bedtime.
That was when she found him: lying there, in the
mud, the cold rain soaking his clothes, unable to lift
himself, moaning against the pain.
19
They moved in cautiously, in an ever-tightening
circle around the cabin, ready to shoot into it if
they saw the barrel of a gun poking through one of
the windows or out of the door.
They drew to within a few yards.
“What do you think?” Toussaint said.
“I think there’s something wrong.”
Toussaint dismounted, Jake did, too.
“You want to go in first, or you want me to?”
Jake said, “I’m the one they hired, you cover me.”
He went to the door and standing to the side
knocked on it. They waited for someone to answer.
And when nobody did, Jake turned the fancy glass
doorknob and swung the door open.
“Hey!” he called.
No answer and he stepped inside, pistol cocked
and ready. He stepped back out again and said to
Toussaint, “No need for that shotgun—there’s two of
them, both dead.”
“Otis’s wife?”
Jake shook his head.
“No, both men, one’s the Swede.”
Toussaint followed Jake back inside and saw them:
two bodies: both men. One the Swede, the other
somebody they didn’t know. Old man, curled up on
his side, butcher knife sticking from his neck, gallon
of blood, it seemed, leaked out under him. The Swede
was on his back near the door, a dark hole center of
his forehead like a third eye socket with no eye in it.
Toussaint walked over to the one wall where light
fell in through an open window—one without the oil-
skin to shade it. He saw old pages torn from a cata-
logue tacked up—mostly drawings of women wearing
