Devil, and Jesus wore a fancy blue shirt with pearl
buttons and said to him, “I am going to walk across
that river” and pointed to a river that was wider
across than the Missouri in spring time. It looked aw-
ful deep and treacherous and mighty swift.
“I don’t believe you ought to try it,” Otis warned,
for he was afraid that even Jesus would drown in a
river that wild and raging.
“Him that believeth shall not fear,” Jesus said.
“Let him who believeth lay down his worldly goods
and follow me,” then stood up and started walking
across the river and Otis felt the greatest desire to fol-
low him, but his own fear of drowning paralyzed him
and the next thing he knew the Lord was on the far
side walking up the embankment by himself in that
nice blue shirt. Otis felt ashamed, for he knew he’d
been left behind to wallow in his fear and that he’d
never be anything but a coward when it came down to
the hard stuff.
“What’s the matter with you?” Karen said shak-
ing him by the foot until he came fully to. “You’re
yammering in your sleep like there was somebody
chasing you.” That’s when he said how it felt like
he’d been beat with a fry pan and she said, “The
marshal said you told him you were beat with a little
gun.”
Otis saw that it was sometime in the day, the
windows to the cabin full of white light. He could
smell something frying in the black iron skillet atop
the stove and it smelled good to him but his head
hurt so terribly that he fell back twice trying to
stand.
“I guess I was dreaming,” he said, but he didn’t
care to mention what his dreams were about, for he
was ashamed of his cowardice and knew the dream
that scared him only proved the type of the man he
truly was, for he’d let that madman steal his Martha
and hadn’t put up that much of a fight to save her.
Looking at Karen standing at the stove, he felt the
love he’d always had for her come to the surface.
Maybe he hadn’t really wanted to save Martha, he
thought. Maybe if Martha was to be taken off and he
became a single man again, Karen might . . . Oh, it’s
such a damn foolish notion!
They ate dinner in silence.
Then Karen said, “I’ve been watching for that fel-
low who the marshal said bashed in your head. The
marshal is after him, but that crazy old Swede could
still come around here. I told the marshal if he did, I’d
shoot him.”
Otis said, “Good. He deserves shooting. He stole
my wife. I’ll help you shoot him.”
She looked at him hard across the table.
“How come you and Martha were out there in the
first place?” she said.
Otis was reluctant to say why, but Karen waited
for an answer.
“We were on a picnic,” he said.
“Picnic, huh. Sounds like something lovers would
do. You back in love with her, Otis, Martha?”
“I waited a plum long time for you to come
around, Karen. I waited twenty years and you never
came around, never so much as gave a hint you’d
want me . . .”
She shook her head as she poured them each a cup
of coffee, then turned the frying meat in the pan with
a fork.
“I never wanted you, Otis. I mean you’re a decent
fellow, more than decent, and what we had that one
time was just that one time and that’s all water under
the bridge now and always has been. Sure, I was
tempted at times to ask you to leave Martha and
marry me. But it wouldn’t have been love on my part
if I’d done it. I would have done it for Dex’s sake; so
he’d have a father.”
“You saying . . . ?”
“No, Dex wasn’t yours. Dex was his daddy’s, my
husband Toussaint’s child. Only he don’t believe it,
but then Toussaint is a dark trouble who has his own
mind about things and far be it from me to try and
convince him otherwise.”
“I wish it weren’t so, Karen. I wish Dex had been
mine and that you had asked me to leave Martha—I’d
done it.”
“And you’d ended up regretting it, Otis.”
“Maybe so,” he said. She filled his plate with
fried slices of ham, and mush from a pot and set a
plate of warm biscuits on the table to go along with
the coffee.
“You kept saying her name in your sleep, Martha’s,”
Karen said.
“Did I?”
They ate for a time without saying anything more,
then Karen said, “He killed his whole family. All but
one: a little towhead boy.”
Then she realized that she probably shouldn’t have
said anything about the Swede killing his family, that
it would only cause Otis to fret more, but it was too
late to take any of the words back.
