“Mr. Trueblood.”
“Marshal.”
Jake stood holding the reins.
“You come see me for a reason, or can I mark this
down to social visit?”
“For a reason.”
“You want some of this tea? It’s pretty good.”
“I just came back from the Swedes’ place.”
Jake saw the way Toussaint’s eyes narrowed hear-
ing the reference. He’d held his tongue over the mur-
der of his boy, not placing any blame on the girl for
the murder of his son. She was just a sin, a tempta-
tion, one that any man young or old might fall victim
to. No, he never blamed her, but Karen certainly held
it against her—against all of them.
“What about them?” Toussaint said.
“The girl, Gerthe, is bleeding to death.”
Toussaint tossed the dregs that had grown cold
from his cup.
Whatever his thoughts were on the matter, he
didn’t say, but Jake could see the news was troubling
to him, even if in an oblique way.
“Why are you telling me this?” Toussaint said at
last.
“She had a child in her she lost—that’s why she’s
hemorrhaging. I think maybe the child might have
been Dex’s.”
Toussaint stood from his bench, looked down into
his empty cup.
“She tell you that?”
“No. But it seems reasonable to suspect who the
father would have been.”
“Could have been that young outlaw who killed
Dex, put that child in her.”
“It’s a possibility,” Jake said. “But I think maybe
there would have been signs if he had raped her. I
didn’t notice any when we found them.”
“Signs . . .” Toussaint said, almost derisively. “The
world is full of signs, Marshal.”
“It’s not going to matter much,” Jake said. “I just
thought I owed it to you to let you know.”
Toussaint hung his cup on a nail he’d hammered
for that purpose into the doorjamb.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell this story to any-
one else,” is all Toussaint said. “I’d hate for Karen to
hear it through gossip.”
“You’ve got my word.”
Then there was just this long moment of silence
where neither of them spoke, and the silence of snow
falling all around them, but nothing that was going to
make a difference to the way of life on these
prairies—at least not yet, not this snow that would
start and stop and eventually give way to a cold sun in
another hour, and whatever had fallen would be com-
pletely gone and forgotten by the next day, except for
the foretaste it left in the mouths of those who’d win-
tered in this place before.
4
He hired a man to take him to the Dakotas.
“I need to get up north,” he said to the man.
The man, who owned a carriage factory, said,
“Why not go there the usual way, by train and coach?
I’m just a carriage maker.”
“Can’t,” he said. “I’ve got a condition that won’t
allow me to tolerate long scheduled rides on trains or
stages. I’ll need to stop when I need to stop.”
“What sort of condition?”
“Does it matter as long as I can afford to pay
you?”
The man said, “Why me? Why not someone else?”
“I’ve been looking over your carriages,” he said.
“I’ll need something with extra cushioning, springs,
and seat. You think you can arrange that?”
The man looked him over, saw that he was well
dressed, not a piker. In him, the carriage maker saw
an opportunity. His wife was the worrisome sort,
never quite content with the way things were, always
after him to do a little more, to make their life a little
more comfortable, and even though he’d worked hard
at making carriages, it still wasn’t enough to suit her
needs. She was always in need of a new hat or dress.
They worked out the arrangements. The man said
he’d need a day or two to add the extra springs and
cushioning to the seats and put his business affairs in
order.
William Sunday gave the man his room number at
the railroad hotel, saying, “A day would be better
than two if you can manage it.” He had his meals de-
livered up to his room and sat out on the veranda out-
side his third floor room in the evening and watched
the trains come and go, as well as the foot traffic up
and down the street. Life seemed normal in every re-
spect, except it was no longer normal at all for him
and each thing he watched felt to him like it would be
the very last time he was going to see it. He sent for a
bottle of whiskey and drank it without pleasure. And
when the pain stirred in him like something old and
terrible awakening from a drowse, he fought it down
