thing more done to her. He was about sick to his
stomach over it.
Zeb was smart enough to know it as well. He seen
something in his brother’s eyes he hadn’t ever seen
there before and he said, “Looks like you done got off
the sugar tit, boy, and got you some backbone,” then
turned and walked outside and began to saddle one of
the two horses in the corral. A little bay.
And Zane and Zack walked outside and saddled
the other horse. And as they turned them out, Zeb
said to his kid brother, “Don’t ever pull a gun on me
again or one of us will be dead as guddamn Moses.”
*
*
*
She heard them ride away and then she wept so hard
her entire body shook. And she wept so hard and so
long she exhausted herself and fell into a welcome
sleep and did not awaken again until it was dark
when she heard a noise, and the fear of them return-
ing flooded back into her again and she thought, no,
this can’t happen again.
She heard someone call her name. She wasn’t sure
that she wasn’t dreaming. Then there was a light in
the doorway, and the shape of a man behind the light
and she cried out, only no words came out of her. It
came to her that maybe she was dead and that this
was hell; that hell was a place where every moment
was a repeat of what you feared the most.
But then the light came closer and she saw some-
thing familiar in the shadowy features of the man
whose face came down close to hers and the man said,
“Karen,” in such a soft and gentle way that she
couldn’t be sure it wasn’t God.
He cut loose the ropes that held her wrists and an-
kles and touched her face with his hands and kept
talking to her and stroking her hair. He was so gentle
with her that she wanted to cry but she’d cried all the
tears that were in her already and all she could do was
tremble whenever he touched her until he drew her
close to him and held her there.
They stayed like that the rest of the night. She fell
asleep with him holding her and he was still holding
her when she opened her eyes to the light that fell in
through the windows. It seemed to her like a dream
she was in; the room and everything in it a bit blurry
and Toussaint there with her, like she’d remembered
him when things were at their best between them.
Toussaint had his eyes closed, sitting there on the
bed next to her, holding her, and when she went to
move he awakened and said, “You okay?” He looked
startled, ready to do something.
She tried to speak but her throat was dry, felt like
it was stuck and had a bitter metallic taste in it she
recognized as blood. He touched her face, her hair,
and eased himself free from her and went out and
came back again with a dipper of water and gave it to
her to drink and it tasted like pure heaven that cold
water.
She wanted to tell him what had happened, but
when she tried he said, “Shh . . . not yet. There’s
plenty of time,” and went and heated water and
hauled out the copper tub from the summer kitchen
and filled it full, then carried her to it and set her
down in it an inch at a time letting her adjust to its
heat.
And when she was fully set down in it, he took a
bar of soap and gently began to wash her using his
hands in small soft circles over her until he’d washed
every inch of her, then he washed her hair and rinsed
it. Then he said, “Just sit there for a time,” and went
and brewed peppermint tea from a tin she had setting
on a shelf—wild peppermint she’d picked in the
spring and dried. He poured her a cup and brought it
to her. He left again as she sipped the tea and came
back and sat beside her, sitting on the floor, his hand
dangling in the water, rising to touch her shoulder,
her still-wet hair.
In a little while, he took a towel and dried her hair,
then lifted her from the water and wrapped her in a
blanket and carried her to the bed. He’d gone in and
changed the old bedding and put on fresh and straight-
ened the room so that it was like it was before the men
had come. He kissed her forehead and left for a time
and came back again with a glass jar full of the last
wildflowers that could be found before winter fully set
in and placed them on the nightstand next to her bed.
They smelled like the prairie.
“You’ll be okay,” he said, looking directly into her
eyes.
“They came in the night . . .” she whispered.
He touched his fingers to her lips.
“Plenty of time to talk about it later on,” he said.
“Right now you should just rest.”
He started to take his hand away but she held
onto it.
She knew he was anxious to go and she knew why
he was.
