“It’s over, isn’t it? He’s dead?”
Jake nodded.
“He didn’t suffer,” he said, knowing that wasn’t
completely true, but what difference would it make to
tell her otherwise.
Her hand came to her mouth to stifle the emotion.
“You were there with him?”
“I was,” Jake said, and reached a hand into his
pocket for the envelope. “He wanted me to give you
this. He said to tell you he loved you.” William Sun-
day never said those last words, but he may as well
have said them as far as Jake was concerned.
The tears brimming in her eyes spilled over the lids
and down her cheeks when she saw the drops of blood
staining the envelope.
She turned and went back inside and he followed
and saw the children all sitting at the kitchen table
looking at her and him, their faces full of questions.
With her back turned toward them all, she opened the
letter and read it.
Jake watched as she quietly folded the letter before
turning to face him again.
“I must go and make arrangements,” she said.
“It’s already seen to,” he said.
“I must go anyway. He needs someone to look af-
ter him.”
“Go ahead,” Jake said. “I can watch the children.”
She came close and touched his hand.
“I won’t be long,” she said, then turned to the chil-
dren and instructed them to mind Mr. Horn and not
cause him any trouble while she was gone. The girls
wanted to know where she was going. She told them
she would explain it to them later. The Swede boy sat
watching with a somber face as though he knew all
about death and the demands it placed on those who
were its survivors.
Jake walked her to the door and told her that he’d
asked Tall John to see to her father and that it would
be best if she went to his place and waited there to
take charge of the rest of it. She nodded and touched
him again on the hands before hurrying off.
Jake went back and sat with the children.
“Somebody’s dead, ain’t they?” the boy said.
Jake saw it again in his mind: the shooting, the
look of near relief on William Sunday’s face; relief he
didn’t have to worry anymore about dying hard, eaten
up by something he couldn’t see and couldn’t shoot.
Two people were waiting for Tall John back in his
funeral parlor when he finished bringing in the dead
from the saloon: the schoolteacher, Mrs. Monroe,
and Emeritus Fly, the editor of the
spoke to the undertaker, paying keen attention to
the exchange but not getting much information
since the woman had taken the undertaker discreetly
aside and spoke to him in whispers, Tall John nod-
ding to what she was saying. Then when she pre-
pared to leave, Emeritus said, “I was wondering if I
might have a word with you, Miss Monroe?”
“No, I think not, sir,” she said and left before he
could even ask her a single question about her rela-
tionship to the deceased.
Tall John explained as Emeritus took notes, formu-
lating the lead story in that afternoon’s special edition
in his thoughts:
Irony of ironies presented itself in the midst of our
community today when five men were slain—among
them none other than the notorious William Sunday—
in the once uproarious and raucous Pleasure Palace
that has long been out of business. How it has come
to pass that such violence could occur in a defunct
den of iniquity as opposed to one thriving, such as
the Three Aces, is but a grand and glorious mystery
that will be cleared up in the ensuing passages. Read
on dear reader! . . .
The editor’s only regret was that he wished now he
had invested in purchasing one of the cameras he’d
seen in the American Optical Company’s catalogue
from Waterbury, Connecticut. To have photographs
of the deceased—especially that of William Sunday—
to go along with his prose would be quite memorable.
33
Fallon saw her leaving the undertaker’s. He’d
drifted back into town like a skulking dog, his arm
