to blow a heavy door off its hinges or a man clean out
of his boots. He snapped shut the breech and curved
his finger around the triggers.
He watched the house, watched the sun till it sank
below the line of earth and grass like some fiery liquid
draining into an unseen glass. His first instinct was to
just go in there and kill anyone who might be in there
bringing harm to Karen. But his logic told him if
there was someone in there and they had harmed her,
a few more minutes of waiting wouldn’t make any
difference. He couldn’t do her any good if he got shot
out of his own boots trying to save her.
One good thing about the Mandan in him, Indians
were good at waiting.
I’m coming to get you, Karen. Maybe you’re al-
ready dead. But if you are, those who did it to you
will soon enough be dead, too. And maybe I’ll be
dead by the time this is over. And maybe if that hap-
pens, I’ll see you in the afterlife and we can start over.
He waited, the shadows of the house began to fade
in the gathering dusk. Out at the edges of the earth,
the light ran gold below the purple.
Hurry on night, he thought. Hurry on so I can go
in there and kill those sons a bitches if they’ve even so
much as looked wrong at her.
25
Toussaint patted the extra shells in his pockets.
The shotgun felt like a length of iron in his hands
as he came up to the house.
There wasn’t any light on inside. If Karen had been
in there she’d have lighted a lamp. She’d have wanted
light to cook by, to read a book, maybe darn holes in
some of her shirts. The house was as dark inside as it
was out.
He came up close to the window off the back and
looked in. Didn’t see anything. He listened and didn’t
hear anything. He moved around front to the door,
turned the knob quietly. It turned easy and the door
fell open and when it did the leather of its hinges
creaked.
He waited a moment, then slipped inside.
If anyone was in there they weren’t saying any-
thing, they weren’t moving. He waited for his eyes to
adjust, then found a lamp, raised the chimney, struck
a match and put it to the wick. The soft yellow light
filled as much of the room as it could.
“Karen,” he called.
First nobody answered. Then he heard it: soft little
sounds like a kitten mewing coming from the bed-
room. He leaned the shotgun against the wall and
took up the lamp and walked over to the doorway of
the room.
She was there, still tied to the bed.
“Goddamn,” he muttered.
Three of them on two horses. The going was slow.
They’d headed out around noon, having gotten all
they wanted from the woman, having eaten her little
bit of food and gone through her things and found a
few pieces of jewelry, a couple of knives, the Sharps,
and the needlegun she’d tried to shoot them with.
Zack wanted to take a tintype of her. It showed her
and a man together, obviously taken in a photogra-
pher’s studio, but Zeb said, “What the hell you want
that for?”
“So’s I can remember what she looks like.”
“Why the hell you want to remember what she
looks like? Ain’t you seen enough of her already?”
Zane felt ashamed and didn’t say anything. He hadn’t
wanted to be a part of it. Not that way. When it came
his turn, Zeb told him to climb aboard. He’d said no,
that it was okay, he didn’t need no turn with her.
“Why the hell not?”
“ ’Cause I don’t, is all.”
He remembered the look he’d gotten from his eld-
est brother, and the look his other brother gave him.
“It’s just the way it is, is all,” Zack said. “Go on
and have your turn.”
“No, I don’t need no guddamn turn!”
That’s when Zeb drew his revolver and put it to his
forehead and said, “You’ll by gud take a turn or you
won’t be riding no farther than this here. This here is
where you’ll end up for the rest of all time. We’re ei-
ther all in it together, or we ain’t. Those who ain’t
stays here.”
Zack tried to intervene saying, “Ah hell, Zeb, it
ain’t nothing if he don’t want a turn.”
Zeb levered the hammer back with his thumb. So
Zane did what he hadn’t wanted to do and the whole
time the brothers stood there watching silent. He said
it was hard for him to get anything going with them
standing there watching. They laughed and drifted
out into the other room. The woman hadn’t said any-
thing, had long before stopped her cursing them and
begging them and just lay there silent the whole time
and he felt like God himself was watching him even if
his brothers no longer were.
He lay there beside her for a moment, then sat up
on the side of the bed and said without looking at her,
