“Aw.”
“Did you see them dead?”
Molton gasped a breath. “Yeah.”
“What’d they look like?” He put the gun down at his side, and Box remained still.
“Look like? They was dead.”
“I want a picture. If you give me a picture, I’ll leave you alone.”
“Box’ll tell you. I’m give out.”
“I stayed with the horses, Daddy.”
“Tell me.”
One eye opened. “Then you’ll clear the hell out?”
“Tell me.”
The voice now was low, fired with a deep, anxious rasp. “They died all at once. Nobody was movin’ when we got in.”
“Go on.”
“The woman was on her stomach and the girl was under her left arm.”
“What color was their hair?”
“Damn it to hell, I can’t recollect that. Don’t you know?”
He got down on his knees and put the pistol on the edge of the blanket. “You’ve got to understand. That’s why I’m here. I never saw my mamma’s hair.”
Molton looked him in the eye. “It was brown,” he said. “Clean. And so was the little girl’s.”
“Where was the boy?”
“Agin the back door.”
“How was he dressed?”
The old man wet his lips. “I remember that. He had him on a new bandanna. A slug passed through it and broke his neck.” He looked up and focused. “He went quick, too, that one. Hardly any blood.”
“Broadcloth?”
“Striped broadcloth. We saw the loom out back.”
“My father?”
“He was the one we come to get.”
“Were you drinking?”
“Well, hell, yes. And I don’t guess we thought he was in there with nobody.”
“Where was he?”
He writhed. “I checked his damn eyeballs to make sure that one was dead. I remember he was startin’ to bald. Ain’t that picture enough for you?”
“Where was my father?”
“Dead agin the stove. We pulled him under a light, seen he was finished, then we rode off.” His eyes blinked and watered with the pain of telling.
Sam stood up and looked around at the filth in the room, at the walleyed son. He lowered the hammer on the pistol, knowing there was nothing he need do. The hog under the window, angry and wheezing, bumped against the house as if it wanted in for more slops.
“Where was you?” Molton asked, staring up now into Sam’s face.
He looked down at him and smiled.
“We saw a son-of-a-bitchin’ dog and heard a cat somewheres, but we didn’t see no baby. Where was you?”
He slipped the pistol into the hollow of his back. “I was somewhere biding my time. I didn’t know it, but I was already on my way to meet you.”
“Won’t worth the trip, was it?”
Sam’s eyes went from one man to the other. “I wouldn’t take a million dollars for it.”
Suddenly, the black hog scrabbled up against the house and put its hooves on the windowsill, its monstrous head filling the frame over the old man’s body. Sam backed away as Box gave it a punch in the snout, and it fell back with a splash.
The old man began to shiver. “Great day, don’t let him get me.”
Box wiped his hand on the blanket. “Shit, Daddy, he’s just a huntin’ slops.”
“Is that feller left yit?”
“Naw.”
Molton’s head turned toward the center of the room. “You think I’m goin’ to hell, don’t you?”
“I don’t know where you’re goin’. You already put yourself and others through a ton of hell.”
“I say I ain’t goin’ no place.”
Sam turned for the door. “Well, you’ll find out.”
The old man’s voice came out as a growl. “There ain’t nothing to find out.”
Sam stopped at the door and looked back into the room. “That’s the one thing nobody can avoid. One way or the other, when you die, there’s always something to find out.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
HE STOOD BEFORE the husk of Babe Cloat, still sitting in the yard like an effigy of his clan. “So long,” he called.
“Twelve of ’em,” Babe Cloat said, his eyes vacant. “And a boat.”
At the edge of the compound he turned and looked back. The Indian woman shuffled toward Molton’s shack, dragging a blanket through the dust. Within a year or two the houses would be eaten by weeds and insects. An inevitable flood would reclaim the drift lumber and wash clean the land of any sign. What would last, as some believed, would be the long mystical tally of terrible acts done by loveless hearts. He watched a long time, confirmed in his belief that punishing the Cloats would be a waste of good revenge, if that quality could ever be called good. He found the horse and mounted, riding west without a backward glance.
HE FIGURED he could make it back to Soner’s place by dark, and on the way he did visitation, examining the details he’d found out about his family until like seeds they began to sprout memories he never had, or would’ve had, and he was glad of that. “Anything more than nothing,” he said to the constable’s mare, “is something.”
HE WAS PUTTING the horse up when Soner came out with a lantern.
“Are you hurt?”
“Nope.”
The constable stared at him. “Then you didn’t find them.”
“Oh, I found them, all right.”
He raised the lantern high so Sam could replace the saddle on its board. “Then you must have killed them all, because I don’t see a bullet hole in you anywhere.”
“There’s not but one whole man back in there, and he’s about blind. Will be soon. You can start unloading your gun collection.”
Soner studied Sam’s face as if suspecting a lie. “You didn’t find the ones who killed your family?”
“Two of them were there.”
“You’re a fool if they’re still alive.”
“Well, then.”
Soner put down the lantern. “Come in and tell me about it. I’d appreciate it if you could spend another
