THE GREAT MYSTERIOUS a Thesis Presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Akron in Partial Fulfillment of the Require

Home , Assassin (horse), Back Against the Wall, Behind the Cow, Chicken Hawks, Dark Globe, Dark Hole

THE GREAT MYSTERIOUS

A Thesis

Presented to

The Graduate Faculty of The University of Akron

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Fine Arts

Jeremy Sayers

May, 2010

THE GREAT MYSTERIOUS

Jeremy Sayers

Thesis

Approved: Accepted:

______Advisor Dean of the College Robert Pope, Jr. Chand K. Midha

______Faculty Reader Dean of the Graduate School Varley O’Connor George Newkome

______Faculty Reader Date Eric Wasserman

______Department Chair Michael Schuldiner

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SECTION Page

FENCELINE………………………………………………………………………………………………………….1

PRIMROSE…………………………………………………………………………………………...... 25

IN ANOTHER WINTER…………………...... 37

CONSEQUENCES………………………………………………………………………………………………...64

HORNS………………………………...... 80

INHERITANCE…………………………...... 95

AWAY, DOWN TO THE SEA……………………………………………………………………………….122

POCHEEN………………………………………………………………………………………………………...140

A LOVE FOR BUCKS…………………...... 151

ASHCAMP………………………………………………………………………………………………………...172

THE GRAY AND THE GOLD……………………………………………………………………………….184

iii

FENCELINE

“Kinda scrawny, ain’t ya?” The foreman leaned against a rail. When the kid

didn’t answer, he fired again. “I seen chicken hawks with more meat on ‘em than you.

How old’er you anyway?”

“Eighteen.” The kid stretched his neck.

Scratching his back against the fence like a bear, the foreman said, “Umm hmm.

You sure you can count, son? Look more like fifteen to me.”

He stood his ground, looked the foreman in the eye. “You want somebody to tend

your fence, or somebody to teach arithmetic?” The tone of voice made the kid’s horse

toss its head. He let the rein go taut one time then pulled the nose down, scratching at the

animal’s jaw to calm him.

Pointing at the old bay, the foreman said, “Can you ride?”

Without touching a stirrup the kid swung up in the saddle, gave a whistle through

his teeth and tore off at a gallop that would have seemed impossible from that horse. He

hugged the fenceline for about a hundred yards, turned back in a cloud of orange dust and

thundered toward the foreman again. Still fifty yards out he slowed to a lope, turned the

horse so the fence was at their backs, cantered him out through a figure-eight, switching

lead in mid-stride, and to the fence again. Then he barreled back down the line, dust

boiling up behind like smoke from a freight train, slowing to a fancy high-stepping trot a

few horse lengths away from where the foreman still leaned against the rails, the horse

jigging sideways in a cross-legged dance step an instant before the man would have had

to break and run or clamber up the fence.

The kid pulled the old bay to a smart stop. His eyes were blazing. “And I ain’t fifteen neither,” he declared, glaring down at the foreman.

“Well, son,” the foreman laughed, catching his breath, “remind me not to ask you if you can wrastle, ‘less I have a black bear with me.” “Yes sir,” the rider conceded. He still throned the saddle. “Tomorrow soon enough to start?”

“Hell, start now, son. Dinner’ll be on the table time you get Methuselah there unsaddled and rubbed down.” An even two dozen men ranged around a pair long tables. Already eating, most of them stopped, raised their heads when the new hand came in. He spotted the foreman, an empty chair beside him. Sauntering up to the table, the kid pulled off his hat. Brim pointed at the plate he asked, “That my place?” “Don’t see nobody else setting there do ya?” The foreman grinned. He scraped the chair out, hung his hat on back and sat down. A slab of beef swam in steaming gravy on the plate. He felt almost dizzy. Before he could reach for the fork the foreman held his hand out across the corner of the table. “Tom Short.” The kid shook the proffered hand. “Henry Jenkins.” He got the fork and knife in his grip. First bite in his mouth, he almost swallowed it whole when Tom Short bellowed, “Fellers, this here is Henry Jones. New fence rider.” Around the wad in his mouth, Henry said, “Jenkins,” but his voice was muffled. He worked his jaw. The foreman looked confused. Munching a few more times, Henry worked the wad down. “Henry Jenkins,” he repeated. “Not Jones. Jenkins.”

The foreman gaped at him, then a corner of his mouth pulled up, and he bellowed out again, “It’s Jenkins, boys. Henry Jenkins.” “Knew a fellow called Scat Jenkins out in Montana. Any kin a’ yers?” Henry turned to his right. One intense brown eye scrutinized him, its partner stared unfocused at the wall. Scat? He pictured himself trailing out of the dairy barn behind his father, still early morning, Dad raking his boot soles on the iron jack by the carriage house door. Always scrape the scat off your boots, son. Don’t want folks in Pittsburgh thinking your some kind of bumpkin. Was the fellow trying to get his goat?

“Scat?” Henry repeated. “Yep. He was a scout, but fellers called ‘im Scat ‘cause he tracked by by following its scat. Either that er they was just to lazy to say scout, I reckon. ” Trying not to commit, Henry said, “Huh.” “Kin a’ yer’s?” Henry ticked a shoulder. “Could be.” “Could maybe be yer granddaddy’s older brother.” Across the table a middle aged fellow in a checked shirt grinned, leaned on the table, fork in mid-motion. “Hell Jake,” he winked at Henry, “Scat Jenkins was older’n Moses when you knowed ‘im. And that was near forty year ago.” Jake studied his plate. “Wasn’t neither.” He looked up, the wall-eye bulging. “More like twenty.” “Jake, yer boots is older’n twenty years old.” “Well, I had these boots on last time I seen Scat. So there ya go.” Jake contemplated his supper for an instant, sliced off a neat little square of beef, and socked it in his mouth.

Uncomfortable with conversation, Henry looked at his plate too. Beef. Cows are cows, only these kind are easier to work; never have to milk ‘em. So why feel out of place? Likely not half a dozen of these men could milk a cow. Never mind getting the big cans into the icehouse. And the way most of them sat a horse, like they were about half asleep. Why, in Pennsylvania no one with an ounce of self respect would slouch in the saddle like that. Besides, riding fence wasn’t like riding herd. The point was to just keep the cows from wandering off too far, didn’t have to rope ‘em, or drive ‘em. Just drive nails to keep loose fence wire in place. Why would anyone want to wash twenty

udders twice a day, and put up with chapped knuckles, and mucking out stalls, and forking hay, when you could just be out away from people, and ride, and see something new every morning? By the time a coffee pot was put on the table Henry could hardly sit still. He hadn’t come all this way to wait around with a bunch of hired hands talking about twenty year old boots, and fellows with names like Scat. When the whole thing was over it would be nice to have that roll of bills in his pocket. Right now, though, all he wanted was to get away from these talkers. You ain’t gettin’ paid to talk, your gettin’ paid to work. That’s what Dad always told jabber-jawed day laborers--Pete Johnson leaning on his hay fork, telling Bible stories to a bunch of good fresh heifers like he was their Sunday school teacher. Or Delroy Clinton idling around with a milk can top in his hand, telling some never-ending tale about the little cows in Ireland, and how the barns were made of stone, and they kept the milk in clay pots; how there were frogs in the spring house where they put the pots to stay cool and one day a frog up and jumps in one of the pots, only nobody sees it until this old woman buys some milk. She has a cupful, and when she’s done, there’s this old frog sitting in the bottom of her cup. She blinks at it a few times, and while her eyes are closed it jumps out, and when she opens ‘em again, she says Faith lads, I don’t know what you been 4

feedin’ dem cows, but if it can make de milk as strong as dat, never mind runnin’ it tru de udder, I’ll pay yous for it full strength. Then Delroy would always laugh and repeat the last part a few times, he liked hearing it so much. And in the meantime everybody else has all the cans loaded in the cart to go to the icehouse, and there’s Delroy, with one can still not lidded. The fellow across from Henry, in the checkered shirt, was still ribbing old wall- eyed Jake. Something about the way his blanket smelled. “And that feller’s got to sit by ya. No wonder he ain’t got no stomach fer ‘is food. Why if I was any closer to ya I’d be looking at my boot soles.” Not two seconds later Henry felt an odor creeping into his head, somewhere between tobacco spit and unwashed socks. “Ain’t nobody makin’ you sit there, Charlie.” Jake’s voice was almost a growl. He hunched over the plate, cup trembling in his hand. “Yer dadgum mouth ruint more meals than a dozen skunks, anyways.” A loud slurp punctuated the statement. Charlie was grinning, caught Henry’s eye when he looked up. “Yer lucky yer a- ridin fence, Hank. Ain’t got ta put up with this ‘un here,” index finger stabbing the air. “Only good thing is, he keeps cyotes away, ‘cause they’re skeered a buffaloes, and when they get a whiff a’ Jake, they think there’s a whole herd of ‘em hidin behind the cows.”

The bunkhouse was more of the same. But Henry took an empty cot across the room from Charlie and Jake. Their voices started to ring distantly in his ears almost as soon as he lay down. He never remembered the light going out. In the morning, sunup just bluing the uncurtained window, he woke to near silence. Only a soft wheezing whisper of human breath from other bunks disturbed perfection. Then somewhere outside a bird’s voice rose in a long clear whistling note, followed by an undulating chitter. Silence. And the long whistle again. Before the 5

pizzicato, the whistle was echoed from an unseen point, and another, and another. In his mind’s eye Henry saw the small bodies, shaped like air, white and brown, bobbing on a twig green and dewy, stretching their necks to shape the sounds. He could have left his own body, could have left the world, all but for that instant, the color and sound. The next instant a phlegmatic rasping vibrated through his bones: a sudden snore turned to choking. Then someone was coughing. Across the room wall-eyed Jake hunched up on his mattress, heaving his blanket aside, squirming until his feet hung down. Another cough and a wet missile plinked into a coffee can beside his bed. Henry glared, fixed a suddenly heavy-lidded gaze on the mismatched socks dangling from the ends of pale legs. A big toe poked through the sock that had once been red. The brown one, a bulkier knit, hung loose all around the foot. Henry felt eyes on him, shifted his stare to meet them. “Must be mornin,” Jake rasped. “Sounds like.” Henry tried not to let disgust register in his voice. He would still have to sit next to Jake at breakfast.

Before noon he was happy again. Alone in the corral with Old Sammy, voices of the other hired hands at his back, distant, he went over the list in his head: fence tool, two pair of gloves, staples, the fold-up shovel . . . clove-hitching leather ties to the cantle rings. Big saddle bags. He had a mackinaw in there and a stocking cap, a hatchet, smoked bacon, and a .44 pistol nobody knew he’d brought with him. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Dad had a saying like that for everything. But he was usually right, too. Sunshiny shower won’t last half-an-hour. A fool and his money are soon parted. No foot, no horse. Henry tugged gently at the belly girth one 6

more time, looked down at his shadow spreading not two feet from his leg; ten-thirty, quarter-til-eleven. Footsteps in the dusty pen. “ ‘Bout ready there, son?” He jumped at the booming voice behind him, though he knew an instant before that someone was there. “Reckon so, Mr. Short.” He turned, squinted one eye against autumn sun. “Well, three days you oughta be at the line shack, ‘less the fence’s got real bad. Had some rain up there, week or so back. Shack’s provisioned good, though. Good spring up there.”

“Yes sir.” Henry pinched his hat crown, tipped the brim down to shade his eye. Tom Short gazed out across the open country. Henry followed the line of his sight. Grassland rose into steppe, up and up, until green seemed to give way to gray. “Gets cold up there. Got a coat?” “Yes sir.” Tom Short nodded. “Well, it’s only three day’s ride, more or less. Ain’t the end of the earth. Need help, you come on back here.” “Yessir, Mr. Short.” The foreman slipped both hands into his pants’ pockets, and nodded. Henry toed his stirrup, swung up. “ ‘Preciate the work, Mr. Short.” “Well . . .” Tom Short hunched his shoulders. Henry clicked his tongue, squeezed Old Sammy with his heels.

Henry eased Sammy to a halt, eyed the steep grade ahead of them. Rocky, some loose dirt. Dry though. He leaned forward a little, closer to Sammy’s ear, whispered, “Watch your step, buddy.” It was a perfect jewel of a day. Bright sky, high and blue and clear. All the grass still green, yellow aspens quaking in the breeze. Impossible to be more alive. And just miles and miles of fence, posts and wire. Didn’t even seem like a boundary, something marking this side and that side, the allowed, and the unknown. More like a safe line, really. Just pure wilderness without it. The fence gave everything purpose, focus. It was

the reason to be there. They crested a rise. Water trickled down through a deep cut of rock. When it stormed, though, it was plain to see this place would become a torrent. Loamy silt nested all among the low pale stones, except where the ever running trickle had washed it away. Henry’s eye followed the wash, the stony gash through green. Twenty feet down the hillside, where the fenceline ran along the bottom, wire, posts, silt and saplings snarled in a pile. The ground around was still wet, two days, maybe less since the rain. Then he saw it. Muddy, black and brown, twisted in the mess of wire, a cow lay belly down. But no flies. She wasn’t dead! Too steep to ride down to her, he swung his leg over-cantle and stepped onto the ground, trailing Sammy close to his shoulder as quick as he could go. Cutters in the saddle bag. It wasn’t so bad, he could get her out. Already fumbling for the long metal handles, he stopped a few feet behind the cow. His heart went flat. He gazed up, pleaded silently at the high blue sky. Sloshed out on the wet ground right behind her, (how had he not seen it?) a calf, still in the birth sack. He gripped the metal cutter handles tighter in his fist, raised them, looked at the tool’s head. But he couldn’t move. Cut the wire? Get the cow free? His eyes fixed on the calf, clear sack tight over it’s body, over it’s face. Red, painfully delicate, the umbilical stretched 8

from cow to calf. Under the clear bag the calf’s open eye rolled a little, taking in the broad bright sky. Small creamy pink hoofs kicked, dream like. Henry’s heart pounded. He felt like his boots were nailed to the earth. Next thing he knew, he was on his knees, thumb and forefinger tearing at the sticky sack where it clung skintight over palm size nostrils. The fence tool was gone. He had a pocket knife in his hand. A blue tongue was oozing between the calf’s lips. He tore, felt soft, bristly nose against his thumb. He tore, saw the clear skin over the other nostril suck in. Finger in the cold mouth, he raked along the tongue, pulled out a clear glob. Eye pinched tight, the calf hacked, wheezed, hacked again, sucked in a big breath and its tongue was pink. Henry’s hand scrubbed along the bony spine, still sack covered, felt his own breath coming quick and shallow. The umbilical was shading purple. He scrubbed at the back. “You’re on your own, little ‘un. Breathe.” One quick slice of the blade and his pocket knife had the cord in two, a soggy rip of a cut. Then blood. Lots of blood, so warm. He hadn’t noticed his hands were cold. It gushed, gushed, each time the cow’s heart beat. Henry rolled the end of the sticky cord, pinched it hard in his fist. “Don’t,” he told the cow. “She’s out. You’re supposed to stop.” He loosened his grip on the cord. Blood pulsed out, splattered his face, drenched his hand. He squeezed harder. “No!” he pleaded, fixing on the cow’s dark eye. She tried to roll her head, but tangled in the wire, she couldn’t. He felt the cord swell in his grip. “Think about your baby,” he tried to reason. He was scanning around for the fence tool. Again he said, “Think about your . . .” looking at the calf, its tongue blue, its bright eye still. Henry felt his hands shaking. “Where’s the goddamn . . .” Frantically he scanned the ground. Right under his knee. . . He grabbed the fence tool, squeezed the umbilical in the plier jaws, stuffed the handles under his shin. Then he was rubbing the calf, scrubbing at its back, at its ribs, its jaw, with his palms. Its tongue worked a little. 9

“Come on, buddy. Come on.” Was it ten minutes? Twenty Minutes? The fat blue tongue was starting to dry. Henry held his chilled, damp hand over the calf’s upturned nostril, willed a breath against his palm. Willed a breath for a long time. He moved his hand to the sticky chest. The dark globe of bright calf eye stared up, at him, at the sky, at God maybe; maybe saw a million years of little dead calf souls gambolling around overhead, skimming above the grass they would never touch. Henry was looking up, let his gaze wander, slide down the sky to distant ridges. Yellow leaves vibrated, long clouds stretched away. Across the valley, Henry’s eye lighted on a shape, coyote, or a young wolf maybe, lifting it’s nose to the slight breeze, a scent of new death. Scowling, Henry pronounced in a low voice, “Not today, you bastard.” When he finally cut the cow free, she just lay there. Henry hefted the dead calf, lugged it up and laid it near her nose. “You had it, Bossie. Just bad luck is all. But you done good, you had ‘er just right. She’ll be back next year. You can run with her then.” He leaned close, his face near the cow’s eye, close to the dead calf’s nose. He wanted to make a deal, wanted the promise to be true. Thumb rubbing gentle between the cow’s eyes he whispered, “She’ll come back next year.”

By the time he had the calf buried and the cow on her feet, fence posts reset and the wire stretched and nailed, the sun was a hand’s breadth above the horizon. Still the afterbirth to come. Too bad they didn’t have a bucket handy, he could milk her, let her drink it; she needed the little extra. Henry thought about a fire, looked at Sammy grazing fetlock deep in shiny grass. A good horse. A hard first day.

-2- Late afternoon on the third day, they found the line shack. Shack was just the right word. A little board and batten house with a shed roof, the roof just boards too, with a rusty stove pipe sticking up, wearing a pointed hat. A horse pen made out of saplings ran off one side of the building. Twenty yards out, Henry whoaed Sammy. Got the lay of the land, got a feel for the place: sitting on a little knoll of a broad ridge. A stone’s throw to the right a spring, shaded by the arrow straight spike of an ash tree, broke out of the hillside, pooled, tumbled away and down toward the valley. He could hear it from where he and the horse idled. Just like Tom Short said, a good spring. “That’s home, Sammy. Wanna take a look?” The horse rotated an ear back. Henry gave a tongue click. Just as they began to move, a black shape rose from the ash, wings spreading in a slow, deliberate arc, climbing up and toward their right. “Grandpap always said crows are a good sign, Sammy.” Henry grinned. Carrion birds only stay around a place that has plenty of game; there’s plenty in the woods for a man to eat if there’s enough for crows. A little heel tap sent Sammy on up the rise toward the shack. They stopped a few yards from the sliprail gate. When he dismounted, Henry walked Sammy up to it, slid the three weather worn saplings back, one at a time, each giving a tuneful thunk when it hit the ground. Loose-reined, Sammy ambled into his new pen. Henry followed him, stripped off the saddle and bridle. Sammy nuzzled at ankle high grass. That would last two days. Henry dumped his gear on a rail, found a bucket on one of the pen posts and followed the worn path springward. Faint wisps of steam drifted up from the pool. Not until then had he noticed how chill the air had gotten. Pulling up the filled bucket, he looked back toward the shack. “Hope there’s a wood pile inside.”

When he opened the door it was dark in there. Something rustled. Against the far wall he could see the potbelly stove. And in a dark corner, split wood stacked almost to the roof. Then the rustle again. Wood clattered. Straight toward him, through the shaft of light the open door dropped across the floorboards, a dark shape was trundling. He jumped back as a raccoon scuttled past his feet, out the door and across the grass. In a couple of heartbeats it was over the edge of the ridge, and for a minute or more Henry could hear it crashing down through hillside brush. A few minutes later, with the shutters open, all the treasures of the line shack dazzled his eyes. A narrow bed, with wooden headboard and footboard, dressed with a corn shuck tick and three striped blankets, commanded the wall beside the stove. By the flu pipe, a bucksaw and a three pound ax hung waiting for use. He counted eight slabs of smoked bacon hanging from rafters at the roof’s high end. Canned beans crowded on a shelf underneath. There was a chair and a table, a pitcher, a basin, a metal plate and cup, even a little mirror on the wall. It was heaven. The first thing Henry did to claim the place as his own was to climb up on the roof of the shack and pull the stack cap off. Pale light shone through vent holes in the stove’s door illuminating the sooty smokepath. He was glad there was no swallow’s nest to push out of there with a stick. All the same, his heart sunk a little. Back in Pennsylvania there was never an autumn fire set in the parlor fireplace without first having to clear last season’s abandoned nest from the chimney. Somehow, the lack of a few fistfuls of dried grass and bird dung made him feel farther away from home than ever before. The work that followed that first evening, though, made him forget about homesickness. He carried the saw and ax down the hillside to where aspens had spindled out among the rocks and died. He felled them, sawed and split wood until that fuel pile in the shack crammed right up against the ceiling boards.

After a few days, it started to snow. Gray squalls swirling down from slow- moving brown-edged clouds. Standing right outside the cabin door he could watch wind sculpting patterns in the air, or, when the sun broke through and the air cleared, the sky blossomed to an intense blue. Then, but for patches of white feathering clumps of grass, snow receded to scarce more than a memory. Three miles, maybe a little more, spanned from where he stood to the far side of the valley. An aspen studded rocky slant of yellow met sky over there, sweeping down in counter ridges and switchbacks, basining out in a snaking creekbed. Early mornings, he could make out the sough of water far below, though he could not see it. From behind the house that little spring somehow fed down into that distant creek. Days ahead would teach him how. And nights, silver cold, a lopsided chunk of moon glowed through cloudbreaks, bluing everything. All the soft curves of the world glimpsed among dark treetrunks, snow dusted, wide open cold, broad flung in the dark, bending down at its horizon where sky and world went on and on forever. After settling in, for three days, three nights, Henry trailed the fenceline, retacking wire, straightening a few posts. It hardly seemed like work. He could imagine those other fellows, full of noise and endless talk, sprawling their smoky camp near a group of lowing cows, trampling everything they came close to, cluttering pasture and hillside. But here with Sammy, and a peaked tent, and a little fire, except for their tracks in the light snowcover, the world hardly noticed. There would be a circle of stones, charred sticks from his fire when he was gone. Nothing else, except the long stretch of unbroken fence, would give any sign humans had ever come this way. He chopped down aspens, sawed them into stove length pieces and stacked them on staddle logs all along the fenceline, shingled with their own stripped-off bark. Next season, if he came back here, he would have more time for other things, with cured

firewood already laid by. And if it was someone else, well, wouldn’t he be happy at the little treasures he found along the way? On the forth night away from the cabin, already a day’s ride on the way back, the moon rose full. It looked enormous, the biggest he had ever seen, and bright as an August peach. Casting crisp long shadows on the whitened ground from every tree, every bramble bush along the ridge, it called Henry out, begged him to walk the deep woods a little way. Fire stoked high, he loose tied Sammy by the tent, gave him a pile of aspen leaves, his new favorite, and tucked the Peacemaker in his belt. “You eat slow, Sammy.” He scratched at the old bay’s wither. “I’m gonna have a look around. Reckon I’ll be back before you’re done.” Sam flicked an ear, lipped some dried leaves aside to get at more tender ones. But he kept a sharp eye on Henry as he walked out of the orange fire light into cooler moonglow. Henry nearly danced down the hillside, almost daybright where leaves let light reach the ground. The snow was soft, damp. It clumped on his boot toes, under his heel. He left tracks a mole could have followed, edging down around a stone outcrop where water trickled and a pair of birches soared a hundred or more feet overhead. He felt light, joyous, like the only creature in God’s creation. For a long while he ambled down the elk path, taking in the spectacular night until he was almost a part of it. Until he noticed his feet were wet he never gave a thought to time. But his hands were cold too, and his ears. He wondered if it would be closer to turn back and retrace his steps, or round out the outcrop and go back to camp from the other side? He stood still, tried to picture himself in the scheme of the countryside. Surer to turn back, even if it is longer. This muddy track could leave him stranded halfway back going the other way, so he turned, stepped lively, looking down at his own big tracks in the snow.

Something about covering the same terrain twice tires the mind, and the body generally follows. Not winded exactly, a nameless kind of fatigue crept into his back, into his legs. He found he was thinking about a big red apple. Climbing back toward the ridge, he pictured the orchard at home in an October evening, ladders leaning in the branches ready for the next morning’s work. Northern Spies, Cox’s Orange Pippins, Sops of Wine. No apples up here though. Instead, he knelt where that ribbon of water traced over rocks and crossed his path. He dipped his cupped hand, surprised that the water felt warmer than he had anticipated. Two palmfuls down his throat and Henry let his eye wander back toward the footprints, lazily marking their way back up to the ridge. His heart jumped. Interspersed with his footprints were other tracks. Squatting in the snow, he leaned forward, getting a better look. The tracks were longish, multi-toed, pointed. Drawn upward, his eyes scanned the ledge of outcrop above him. A quick sweep among the trees, then he carefully backtracked the wolfprints for as far as he could see heading the same way he was going, back toward the ridge. Henry’s hand moved to the butt of his pistol. He gripped it tight, pulled it slowly from his belt, thumb ready on the hammer. All the while his eyes scanned the hillside before him. Carefully then, he stepped along the line of tracks, cautious as he went for any movement among the shadows. Halfway up the incline he followed to where a span of leaf-sheltered rock lay snowless. And though he crossed the open space, crossed back, and checked where snow started again, he could not find where the animal had gone. But if this is where he came, where’d he come from? Henry turned to peruse behind him, noticed a faint trickle of water. When he walked toward the sound, he realized he was above the spot where he had stopped to drink. In a patch of white where the cover of tall trees broke and snow began again, wolf tracks picked downhill. So, he was backtracking on me already. Heading down maybe when I stopped to drink. 15

Henry leveled the pistol hip high, turned, sweeping the dark expanse of bare rock with the muzzle. Stepping gingerly, he edged down over the stonecrest, following the little stream back down toward where he had stopped, dreaming of apples. It was slow going, steep and narrow. But in a few minutes he was back at the same place he had knelt, drinking. He had no need to kneel again. Blue moonlight clearly showed what he had only half suspected. There by the ribbon of water, his own tracks showed, pointing down the path and back up. And mixed up among them, wolf prints, the ones he had followed,

even spaced along his own track. Only now, there was another set, circling, weaving, turning to sniff. He followed me up there a second time. But where did . . . Bits of gravel sparkled into the moonlit rivulet. Henry pivoted, looked up just as a dark shape separated from the rockface. His hand came up as he moved and the peacemaker fired--he would never remember cocking the hammer. He might have heard a canine yelp, might have imagined it, might have made the sound himself. All he knew for certain, after orange muzzle flash and what seemed to be a distant explosion, was that he saw a mass of gray fur, fangs and yellow eyes, in that order. Then nothing, just a smell of gunpowder smoke. As fast as he could walk without breaking into a panic-run, Henry climbed back toward the ridge and his camp. For a few hundred yards he kept looking over his shoulder. After that he kept his eyes forward, concentrating on his destination. Sammy. Oh, God! Sammy. What a jackass. I can’t believe I left you all alone, tied up. But the fire’ll protect you. It’s got to. It’s just got to. Please, God--Sammy!

A week later his prayers had changed. It was so cold he had brought Sammy into the cabin, afraid his old bones would break if he stumbled on the rock hard dirt. Aspen leaves had carpeted the hillsides where the yellow trees shimmered, and Henry had 16

scooped them up by the sackful, for Sammy. Now, with two feet of snow on the ground and the gray air still filled with it, the old horse got only a few handfuls a day. Henry had restacked the wood pile, making a little closet behind it where he hid the leaves. Henry peered out from the half-open shutter. Nothing but a gray swirl over gray, muted shapes. Where were the cows now? Never mind the fence. Let them go where they would. Those that didn’t freeze to death would likely starve.

A bucketful of snow on the stove would have been the easy way to have water.

What wasn’t easy was spending night and day, day and night in the cabin. Going down to the spring didn’t only provide water, it kept him from going crazy. Besides, there was no window on that side; no other way but going out there to see what the weather was doing in that direction. Except ‘see’ wasn’t exactly right; everything just faded into that grayrose swirl. If he kept a hand on the outside wall of the cabin, then on the horse pen until he got to its corner, the rope was just long enough, with one end tied around his waist, to reach from fence to spring. He made the trip a few times a day to give himself something to look forward to. By the end of the second week--he thought it had been two weeks--he couldn’t get the door open any more. One night the wind shifted, and when it got murky daylight, the door would not open. Henry cracked the shutter and stood there for a long time. A double hand-span along the bottom of the glass was packed with snow. He left the shutter open; otherwise it was like a grave inside. Sammy built up quite a pile. At least he went to the same corner every time. Probably helped keep the place warm. The ammonia though--rafters and roof boards were turning white. No bacon left for it to ruin, anyhow. And how long could those sacks of leaves last? A few more days and there wouldn’t be enough wood pile to hide 17

them behind. He would have to cut open the bed tick, feed the old corn husks to his pony. Maybe he would have to eat leaves himself. If you could live on beans, how different would leaves be? The prayer, just stop, just let us get through this, tailed onto the string of thoughts flowing through Henry’s head. He slept in fits, had no idea how long: minutes? hours? He felt tired all the time, restless all the time, dreamed as soon as he shut his eyes. One time, the old story went, Grandpap had been riding home late in the day after a rainstorm. He was a young man then, not long after the war with Mexico, maybe. He

had been in the cavalry, spent hours, days at a time in the saddle. But there he was, on his way home. And when he started up a grade his horse slipped. Grandpap couldn’t get off in time, no warning really. Just there he was, his horse falling. Then the horse was on its side, on top of him. Well the horse’s fall was broke, and so was Grandpap’s leg. And Gum, that’s what Grandpap’s horse was called, Gum scrambled up and run off. So there he was, leg busted right above his knee, must have hurt like hell, the horse run off, and it getting dark. He had a pistol with him, of course. There was no telling when a cougar or a wolf would just show up in those days. Anyhow, the gun was in the saddle bag. Grandpap was a small man, couldn’t have been more than five foot six. He always looked like a giant, though. Even bowlegged in the one leg, standing next to him you had the feeling he was bigger than anyone. And what did he do, laying there with a broke leg? Just dragged hisself over to where a tree had fell, hooked his ankle under one of the branches, and with his good leg, pulled the busted one back ‘til the bone met again. Well, the way he always told the story, he just said, when he woke up, there was Gum standing over him. He must have got scared out there on his own, so he come back and found Grandpap. That was a good horse.

Somehow he must have wrapped his leg, splinted it with something, got back on the horse and rode home. He could just as easy have died. But he didn’t. They didn’t even have kids then. But Grandpap didn’t die; didn’t die in the war, didn’t die when the horse fell on him, didn’t die ‘til he was an old man. And still had all his teeth, too. Sammy heard all the stories about Delroy Clinton’s exploits back in Ireland, those little ‘saws’ Dad always said, Grandpap’s stories about the war, and about logging, and he got to hear them again and again, and when they ran out he got to hear Henry’s dialogue with God.

One night Henry remembered something new. It felt good. Pete Johnson had a way of telling about Noah. Lot’s of animals on a boat, like you and me, Sammy. Only a lot more fodder, and a lot more mucking up, I reckon. Something like, what was it? Forty days! Good God. Not that long, please, Lord. Just let us get through this. Then one day one of his birds flew away from the boat, and back he comes with a twig in his beak. Henry sat on the edge of the bunk. A few feet away Sammy stood, hind leg cocked, nearly asleep. There was land somewhere, not just all water. That was a sign, see. Wish we had a bird. He hooked his thumbs together, fingers spread like wings, watched the shape soar from his knee over toward the widow. “Just let us get through this,” he whispered. Henry left his lantern burning on the table when he went to bed; a poor substitute even for a winter sun. He wrapped his blankets over his head so only a little of his face felt the cold. It was hard sometimes to look at those walls, so close by. Dark was closer than the walls, too close. But dreaming of a dark bird made him feel lighter. When Henry dreamed, he saw strong, shiny black wings, black eyes, and a black beak. All well and good to bring back a tree leaf, a man could eat leaves if he had to--crows were birds that knew where to find corn, sweet fall berries. A good, black crow . . . there was a bird.

Not timid like a dove, not a mourner. Black feathers made the best quills for writing, Grandpap said. And a crow can even talk. If it has a mind to. In yellow lantern light, under the blankets, Henry knew the stove needed wood, but not yet, make it last as long as it could. When gray light filtered through the window, he squirmed over onto his other side and looked up. He was aware that he was awake, aware that he was seeing something he would never have expected to see, but realization lagged behind what his eyes took in. It seemed like forever, and no time at all. Gawking up into the rectangle of window, seeing the snow line, his stare fixed, dreamlike: on the other side of the window glass, a pair of yellow eyes burned down at him--hungry, desperate, canine eyes. Very still, Henry glared up at them. The pistol was in the saddle bag, on a peg at the far side of the cabin, away from the stove. Wolf breath fogged the glass. Henry saw yellow teeth. His hand slid under the heavy blankets, gripped a handful, and threw them free of his body. He was at the saddle bag in half-a-dozen steps, cold feet on the ice cold floor, and fumbling at the buckle. The pistol was in his hand; he was halfway back across the floor. Sammy trumpeted, backed wildly, tossing his head. His soles aching on frigid boards, Henry stopped. He hadn’t meant to frighten the old horse. And when he looked again where the gun barrel was already pointing, no face at the window, no trace of breath on the glass. He stepped up on the bed tick cover. Silver-white shards of daylight skittered past the glass, swirling, an elaborate cursive script he could only guess at. But there were no tracks. He let his sight drift. Forty yards along the ridge, ringed aspen branches crooked up out of spin drift, Henry’s eye fixed on a black shape. It was dawn, cloudless, as if all those gray afternoons and mornings had never been. High up, he could still make out one bright star lingering in the clear winter sky. Lower, against morning-bright blue, black wings

spread, rising from that skeleton of a tree, slow spreading, light backed. The bird lifted, arcing toward the cabin, it’s abandoned, quivering perch spilling snow through bright air. For a while, Henry watched it winging in the cold light. The morning sun was about to crest the horizon, out across gold tinged snow waves. He could see that distant line where sky touched hilltop, could see all the way out to the beginning of a new kind of day.

-3-

The old bay stepped lazily down along the puddled track. Henry rocked slightly in the saddle at every step, shifting his balance to help Sammy keep his. Thaw-mud churned up through sun pocked snow, coloring bay fetlocks a paler brown. Winter sun, an over-washed yellow spill far off in faded blue, brushed white snow cover for miles around into a glaring sheet that made everything glow green in reverse if Henry closed his eyes. Two weeks before, snow had made those unimaginable distances of wire and wood posts insignificant, inconsequential under rose tinted gray drifts. That a single cow could have survived in that torrent of cold and dark seemed impossible. But when the snow retreated, and the fenceline grew back into daylight prominence as an alien presence in the open country, Henry had ventured into the world again. And after a day- and-a-half of aimless riding, there were cows, hundreds of them, rummaging in the lee of a box canyon, cropping at sparse vegetation through snow so shallow it left his pant cuffs dry when he dismounted, walking close to the animals. In Pennsylvania winters of his youth they had herded lowing dairy animals into the cathedral of a barn. For days on end the whole family sloughed out from the house,

pitching hay down from the towering mow, doling it into row after row of long mangers. And after an hour of milking, it was filling the tall cans, separating cream, and trudging back to the house for more of the same twelve hours on. And in between, the house was filled with whispered prayers that the cows might survive. Out here a chapped udder would never be noticed. There were cows, and then there were cows. Henry had come to feel at home with those self reliant longhorns. Squirrel stew with cattail tubers suited him better than bacon and beans. And where cows could feast, Sammy was happy too. When the bunk house, the paddocks, the stable came into view, it all looked

foreign somehow. The long roofed place where the hired hands ate, and where Tom Short did his paper work stretched like a distant, ambiguous memory, dwarfed by hills ranged blue in the distance, everything so man-made the mind wanted it not to be there. No cow sounds came from the broad fenced yards. From somewhere, though, a single horse’s high voice stuttered out to them. Sammy raised his chin, mouth open, and answered. A conversation Henry could only guess at. It was afternoon, three o’clock maybe. Desert like, the deceptive sun would drop from the sky suddenly at some not-too-distant point and leave the world dark. This blinding, almost twilight, would seem like a thing imagined. Around the buildings, out among the fenced places, nothing stirred. Loose-reined, the old bay stopped a few hundred yards from the road gate. Henry scratched at his jaw. “I know just what you mean, Sammy. Kinda strange, ain’t it?” The horse did not move. “Reckon all those other fellers that left out after we did are still out with the market herd.” He could picture them in their camp, the noise and the clutter, Charlie and wall- eyed Jake at each other until well after the sun was down. In the stillness a hermit thrush’s watersilk voice suddenly colored the air. Henry pictured its plain dark body. Once, in Pittsburgh, he had seen a peacock, a giant, blue-green, strutting bird. Its tale 22

was a fan of eyes and soft feather shimmering from copper to pink as it turned in the light. But when it opened its beak, the sound that came out was like a rusty hinge. Henry leaned forward, patted Sammy’s shoulder. The horse flicked an ear. Something like a bird fluttered in Henry’s chest, a bright instant that left an imprint, like an outline of a leaf in mud that long ago turned to stone. Whatever it was had passed before he knew it, a salmon flashing under the silver curls of a river, yellow leaves a- quiver in dappled light of windswept cloud. He let his rein hand go slack. It would be easy enough to ride through the gate.

Beef and gravy and coffee could be had for the asking. Hadn’t he earned it after all? He thought about touching a heel to the horse’s ribs. But something stayed his foot. Remains of snow drifts curved over the bottom gate rails. To their right, and behind, the fenceline drifted across the plane, toward the hills, and out of sight. Back there the line shack waited, housing a thousand memories of a story he would one day tell. Evening would have overtaken it already, sunlight through cracks of its closed shutters retreating across the bare floor. And farther back, a lifetime back, Enon Valley and the dairy farm. His parents’ house with the lamps already lit. Along the road, and before them, the fenceline reached toward where the sun hung far off in the winter sky, an umbra of posts and wire canted across the snow. The air half smelled like spring, muddy and warming, but with no hint of green things waiting to push up into longer days. A metallic clank brought Henry out of his reverie. He could see Tom Short standing on the porch of the eating house; he had dropped a bucket. Henry raised a hand in greeting, felt the horse move under him. The foreman was coming down the steps. “Don’t you want a mouthful of hay, Sammy, after all those corn husks?” Henry’s voice was a whisper. He raised it to a shout. “Howdy, Mr. Short.”

Tom Short stood on the bottom step, shielded his eyes against the glare. “Henry Jones,” he declared. A few yards separated them. “Jenkins. Henry Jenkins . . .” he sat his horse. “Jenkins . . .” Tom Short nodded. “Tarnation, boy. We thought you musta run off, you been gone so long.” “Naw. We just had some snow up there. Run plumb outta everything. We just come back for stores, like you said.” “Well, put yer horse up and we’ll get you somethin’ to eat.” He picked up the fallen bucket, was mounting the stairs again. Sammy walked toward the stable. It would be good to sleep on a real bed for a night or two, good to have some regular meals. A man with a job has responsibilities, after all. And there were still some things to work out. Maybe he could get some fish hooks and one of those pull-apart cane poles that would fit in a saddle bag; lot of trout in the streams out there. He reined Sammy in by the stable door, kicked his boot toe out of the stirrup and dismounted.

“I’ll get you a big red apple, Sammy.” Henry unsaddled his mount, opened the stable door, but turned before he led the horse inside. A shadow moved across the landscape, drew his eye up into spotless blue. A crow was winging westward. Henry watched until it was a small black spot. In a day or two he would follow, the fenceline would be waiting.

PRIMROSE

Robb brushed sandy loam over exposed roots of a clump of primrose, sea air already wilting its leaves. Spring’s fresh breeze belied the harsh winter wind of a few weeks before. Still, he sheltered the plant with his body. Intent on his task, deafened a little by the wind, he was startled by a voice from behind. “Thes es no place for a tender thing to thrive, Robb Parker.” Robb froze, shoulders stiffening. He knew the deep lined face, the stern grey eyes of the woman behind him. He did not turn to look. But instead, raised his eyes forward, gazed out across the spit of rocky coast, fixed on a tern, barely visible, gliding west on currents of sea air. “Ded I ask your opinion, Grace.” He lifted his hands from packed soil, gently gripped new-cut edges of gravestone. The tern sailed on, intent, smaller, outpacing long- streaked white cloud beyond. He heard skirt fabric flapping in the breeze. “Would ye leave me in peace?” He was not angry; he was exhausted. “What peace will you ever find here?” What right had she to be angry? If she was, it was difficult to tell. She always sounded so. Robb couldn’t take his eyes from that distant bird. When it had gone out of sight, he stared after it. Somehow an eternity passed. Thin wisps of cloud skitted away leaving a bluer sky behind. Without resting his weight on the stone, he held to it as he stood, turned to face the intruder on his grief.

But she was not there. He scanned the shoreline, shifted his sight inland. Heather rustled green up the hillside. Grace Hunter was a small dark spot breaking the undulating vegetation. He could just make out her grey hair, her blue shawl fluttering. As with the bird, his eyes marked her progress; hers was slow. Everything was moving away. His mind was far away; everything he had cared for . . . Robb tried to focus his thoughts. Grace’s little dark form was gone. He tried to think, but the sea said hush. The day was clear; he could see two rocky islands out across the water. Wet snow had clung to the standing stones over there, driven in off the brutal waves a fortnight past. Through curling waves higher than his head, he had rowed over to them, appealing to some ancient force when God seemed to have turned a deaf ear. Or was it Robb who was deaf? Pleading with God, the only answer had been silence. Before that desperate boat ride he had dragged the bed over by the fire. Annie lay there, rasping with every breath, bathed in sweat though the touch of her cheek was cold. Losing the children was cruel enough, innocent things. Maybe it was a way of slapping God in the face. But on that other island in the dark, amidst a torrent of blinding snow, the circle of tall thin stones had been silent too. Wind whistled through them. That was all. Rowing back home, his boat had yawled wildly, rolling hard over in the wave troughs, icy sea water lapping over the gunwales, the whole world twisting back the other direction as swells rose under his keel. Far off, the standing stones stood mute yet, backed by blue sky. And behind him, a smaller echo. Four standing stones cut with his babies’ names, one with Annie’s. Grace was right, No place for a tender thing to thrive. For a long time, Robb stood without moving, except when gusts of wind pushed against his back. He felt like a thing planted there, buffetted by movements of the world without in any way feeling a part of the world. Early April sunlight brightened the forenoon, scents of brine and distant heather jostled each other in the wind. It was the 26

sort of day Annie loved. Robb thought of wisps of dark hair escaped from her plaits; how they fluttered about her mouth end eyes, her gaze intent on pulling weeds from the kalie patch, or watchful lest Andrew or his sisters get too near the crashing surf. The beach, littered with sunlight, was empty. Walking in a dream, he let wind gusts push him forward. Then that was gone too. At the edge of the sand he raised his head, looked at the low stone wall, the newly patched thatch of his now empty house. Inside, it was dark, shutters still closed, table tressles where the coffin had lain still spread by the fireback. He left the door standing open. The fire was out. Twelve years of married life, through rain and sunshine, quarrels and croopy babies, hard work and happy times, ashes in a cold hearth. Robb felt too tired for rage. At thirty-one he was an old man. Grace Hunter was older than him by almost two years. The winter after her husband’s boat had vanished in a storm, he and both of his brothers wiped off the earth, Grace’s hair had gone from auburn to steel grey. Her face had gone gaunt, stiff about the mouth. Something in her eyes made looking at her very long uncomfortable. Robb could feel his children, could feel Annie close-by but out of reach. He knew what Grace was looking at when her eyes drifted through and past another human. A week before the house had been full of neighbors for the funeral ale. And he had visited other houses that cruel winter. Part of a mutton leg crowned a greasy plate on the sideboard, and a pitcher kept it company. Robb took a bowl down from the shelf, poured ale into it and drank. The stuff was bitter, nearly flat. Food held no promise for him. The bed was pushed against the wall. He shuffled over and sat, ale bowl on his knee. A thought started to rise, he drained the bowl, washed it away on a yellow swirl of fog. Robb sat the bowl between his feet, stared at the empty hearth again, let his shoulders sink back. Light through the open door struck across dark rafters above him. 27

Black purlins, black thatch stared back. For a long while he watched them. Minutely, light and shadow shifted. He was conscious of the lids closing over his burning eyes. Beyond the walls at the back of the house a cock crew, wind whispered, raising a creak from the door hinges. No clear thought stirred.

Soft night air drifted through the open window, purple curtains a-flutter. Frogs and crickets sang out in the unseen dark. Robb closed the door behind him, watched a dozen flames in a pair of candleabrum shift on the air; five flames guttered, but rose again in bright peaks. He sat down at the broad, dark table, candlelight softly doubled in its polished surface. When he looked up, Annie was smiling at him, Andrew and Miranda sitting on one side of her, Suzanne and Tessie on the other. The bubbling murmur of their voices mingled with the sounds of summer night. Glasgow. They should have come sooner. The children had never seen it. He and Annie had not been there since they were married. It was like sitting in a pool of sun-bathed, still water. The faces and voices of his family were honey in warm wine; Annie’s eyes glistening in the candle light as she talked with him. Impulsively, he stood, leaning across the table to touch her cheek. When his arm crossed through the invisible wall the candle flames spread between them, everything was gone. He sat up, alone in his unkempt bed. Hand yet in motion, he tried to grasp whatever was vanishing in that instant. For a while he did not move, filling up with memory of what he had just had, all he had nearly possessed. Then he got up from the bed. Walking outside again, he locked the top half of the door carefully back against the wall, shut the bottom half, setting the latch with respectful quiet. It was twilight. Heading toward the back of house, he knew it was well past time to feed the horse. 28

Around in the stable, Prince Charley stuttered out a soft nicker. Far out over the Atlantic, broad water lay raked in orange light, though inland, over hill and heather, stars glistened. Robb moved slowly along the house wall, rounded its corner and stopped at the open half-door. The animal’s dark eyes mirrored the retreating daylight; he chuffed quietly as Robb drew near. “Es et the oats ye’r wanting, Charley?” Robb had not spoken since morning. His voice sounded strange in his ears. Somehow, the world still depended on his being there.

Wailing away at a horseshoe, Robb stuck slag off the hammer with every third stroke. The smithy was stifling. He worked a perfect curve, shoved the red iron back into charcoals until the tong ends were buried, pivoted, set his smallest chisel in the pricthard hole. Then the tongs were in his hand, the hammer moving. Six even-set nail holes and he dowsed the red-hot shoe, steam rushing up in his sweating face. Long August days shuffled toward harvest time, afternoons with plenty of work. Robb laid his tongs aside, picked up the terra cotta jar, a companion since spring, and drained it in a long swallow. The stuff made the day hotter, still numbed a little. Of its own accord, it seemed, his sight shifted toward the smithy’s door as a figure passed. Jar in hand he stood, dull headed, looking after it. When it stopped, turned after an instant’s hesitation and came toward him, his hand began trembling. It took a few heartbeats to realize it was Grace Hunter. She was already at the door, parked at the threshold, hand on the doorjamb as if holding herself back. “What es et, Robb?” The voice was soft, for her, quizzical. Robb Stared blankly. “Air ye struck dumb, man? Did ye call ta me?” Her voice had not changed. “Not I,” Robb heard himself say.

She lingered, confused. “ ‘Twas someone’s call carried from the market, then.” She made a motion to go, but was not convinced. “Robb?” He was gazing past her, shifted his eyes to see her face. “Air ye a-right, man? . . . Have ye been eating?” She looked him up and down with a critical eye. Her voice had returned to its customary gruff, demanding tone. Robb tried to think clearly. His head started to shake side to side, but he stopped himself, nodded, lips pursed. “Aye. . . aye . . . getting on fine.”

Grace cocked her head, half-sneering, half-smiling. “Come ‘round tae my house when ye close the shop. I’ll feed ye. Ye look a sight man.” She was walking away; her step looked angry. No shawl in the summer heat, thick grey hair piled in a knot on top of her head. Robb’s lip twitched as if a foul odor permeated the smithy. At sundown Robb banked the fire in his forge, locked the shutters, took down his saddle and bridle from their pegs. Bonny Prince Charley tossed his head in greeting when he saw Robb round the corner of the shop. Even at that time of day, under the little roof where the horse was tied, heavy summer air dumbed the senses. In an hour the tide would change, the evening begin to grow cool, but as Robb set the saddle, sweat trickled past his ear. When he swung onto the animal’s back and rode down the street, he was just the blacksmith leaving his shop for the evening. Tomorrow, there would be folk wanting buckles mended, hinges and horseshoes made. Reins slack, Prince Charley ambled his familiar way. When they got to the crossroad, though, for no reason, he stopped. A chill swept along Robb’s shoulders. Charley flicked an ear, stood still. A couple of miles down the road to their right, the bay gave way to dark Atlantic swells. The hard scrapple tenant farms dotted the low rocky hills. Robb ticked his left heel 30

against the animal’s side. Counter to his better judgment he let Prince Charley walk down the road that unfamiliar direction. Any time, he knew, he could turn the horse’s steps back the way they had come. But when he thought of the dark door of his house, the hearth with no flame, his hand held the reinlines loose. Only one cottage stood along that stretch of road for more than a mile. Its lighted window glowed through twilight. Prince Charley quickened his step just a little when it came in view. Let walk where he would, the horse went to the trough by the garden wall, halted and lowered his head. Not drinking, he breathed over dark, cool water.

Robb dismounted, stripped off the saddle and parked it atop the wall. Grace was standing in the kitchen doorway. Neither spoke until he left his horse by the gate and was walking up the short path. Grace wiped flour from her hands, white stains patterning her apron. “Es et you, then?” Robb laughed. He had no idea why. “As best I can tell.” Grace laughed too, surprised. Inside the kitchen, a lamp sat at mid-table. Still hot from the oven, Grace had all the shutters open. The air smelled of new bread and roast meat. Without ceremony, she pulled a chair back from the table. “Sit . . . ye look half-dead.” Robb feigned offense, but felt more annoyance at her insensitivity. He thought of getting up from the table, walking out again and saddling his horse. He was dead tired, though. Grace handed him a steaming cup. “Primrose tea.” Robb looked at the drink in his fist, wanted something stronger. Grace’s eyes looked less harsh in the soft light, her face less lined. “Et’s good fer the melancholy.” Somehow, her voice had altered as well. “Don’t go about looking so offended, Robb.” She set a plate of sausage and rashers in front of 31

him, stepped back to the stove and forked out a serving for herself. She pointed with the fork. “Drink that.” Across the table, she sat down wearily on a stool. In the absence of voices, the stove ticked, cooling. “Ef et’s prayer over the food ye’r waitin on, et’s a cold meal ye’ll be havin.” She leaned over the table, pushed the lamp to one side. “Fine company you air.” “Sorry, Grace. I’m obliged for the hospitality. It’s only . . .” “Only that ye’r mourning?”

Robb looked down at his plate. “Life does nae wait on us, boyo. Get on with et. That’s best . . . I know.” She took a mouthful of potato, watched him as she chewed, swallowed. “Death es not fer the chosen few.” Her tone was nearing the customary level of harshness. “We’re all of us going that direction. Some of us just get there sooner than others. Still, why waste sausages, or a summer night? . . . Do ye think I’ve never dreamt of walking down tae the sand and findin Davey tarring his boat? Do ye think I would nae give my teeth to hear the sound of his voice, and his boots comin up the path? D’ye think I don’t mind ‘im every time I see a bloody mackerel laid out in a market stall? Yet mornin after mornin I wake. There’s somethin in the worold fer me tae do yet . . .And perhaps et’s tae tell you tae quit yer mopin.” “And what is there for me to do, Grace? What is there fer me here?” “Ye needn’t stay here! Ye’ve got a horse. I can go no farhter in the worold than my two feet can carry me.” “And you reckon I’d fare better at the other side of the island?” “There’s more tae the worold than this island, Robb Parker. Ye could sell that bloody smithy . . . Go tae the mainland, tae England, tae America fer God’s sake. Et’s six miles a’ this cottage and the whole worold fer me. A woman on her own has no other 32

lot than what she’s left by her husband. But ye’ve no reason fer goin home tae yer cold hearth.” Robb looked blankly past the woman. “Ye’r no eatin. Et’s plenty a’ sweat I put intae that.” She pointed at his plate. “Would ye waste everythin ye touch?”

So little night was left by the time Robb took his leave, he just rode back to the smithy. No one saw him come an uncustomary direction to the crossroad, so there was no need for explanations. Later, though, his shop in sight, market-stallers were already laying out their wares; he passed them with no more than the perfunctory exchange of nods. At his forge, bellows bringing the fire up for a new day’s work, he could not get Grace’s words out of his mind. What was it about her? That she was right? The sea was her Davey’s grave; she had no stone markers to turn her back on. Could be, that made leaving seem easy in her mind. There she had stood at the garden gate, arms crossed over her stomach, still taking turn-about, browbeating him, then being almost kind. And before the road took him down over the hill, turning a bit in the saddle, there she had stood, a tiny figure by the disappearing stone wall. Grace stood by her gate long after Robb was out of sight. The first company she had seen in her house since the last morning her husband had walked down to his boat and never come back, she was not so much pained at his going, but by the familiar, empty aftermath. Cool morning air rustled hair strands escaped from her topknot, chilled her a little. First light had crept into the garden. Turning back toward the house, a footprint, not her own, shown starkly in raked yellow light. Not a half-step away, it had a 33

companion--one print leaving, one coming toward the house. For a moment they blurred. Her heart was pounding. She stepped to the cabbage bed, picked up a flat stone, turned back and carefully laid it over the exiting footprint. For a long while she kept her hands on the paver. Then she stood, took another stone from among her cabbages, and covered the footprint leading to her door.

September’s gibbous moon blanched town and countryside with dark-shadowed silver. Robb halted Prince Charley, slowly got to the ground, took the bride in both hands. For a moment he said nothing, looking hard at the horse’s moonlit face. “Life does’na wait on us, Charley,” he whispered. “Ye’ve got a good many years in ye, and grass a-plenty to crop wi’ ye’r grinders.” He slipped a thumb into the animal’s mouth, lifted the upper lip mechanically, inspecting the teeth, let the lip close. Charley raised his nose to Robb’s face. Fingertips scarcely touching midway between the horse’s eyes, Robb exhaled a sigh. “Ye’ll be well cared fer. Count on et.” He slipped both reinends through Grace Hunter’s iron gate-ring. Three firm claps on the animal’s thick neck, and Robb was walking away. It took the better part of three hours to tramp the empty road as far as the bay. Moon-cast shadows shrunk from inky swathes in the vales to close-set dark pools under trees and bramble. Robb’s own shadow contracted from a dark image of himself stretched out before him until it was only a ring about his feet, as if he hovered above the open mouth of a well. Though a calm night, damp winds began to tussle his hair while he was yet some distance from the bay. As dark water finally came in sight, a shape rose from the reedy curve where hillside sloped down. A sound like canvas unfolding in the breeze traveled 34

across the night, drew Robb’s eyes. The huge, dark shape of a heron rose between himself and the stars. Airborne, it became silent, gliding toward the moon on slow wings. Standing still in the road, the solitary watcher marked its progress, until rustling treetops hid it. With slower, lighter steps, Robb moved on toward the hill, and the mouth of the Atlantic below. When he reached the edge of the land, he paused for fully five minutes, though he took no measure of the time. Then he sat, gazing out into the dark. Above, velvet black pocked with stars curved up and away forever. And below, ever-changing, incessant, black waves, crested cobalt, rolled in from eternity, dying as spent ripples far below his feet. He sat there a long time before little square lights appeared down across the bay, shops and warehouses along the quay opening for business. Later, the moon, uncommonly large, seemed to pause above tree covered ridges west of the bay as night waned. It was a sinking silver disk as sunlight washed pink along the Atlantic’s endless curve. Stiff with morning chill, Robb pivoted where he sat. In the clear morning light dark shapes seemed to float just above the bright water far out at the earth’s visible end. “Ireland.” It was the only word he had spoken since leaving his horse behind. Far beyond that scarcely perceptible land, days and nights across the sea, Robb knew, lay more distant shores, Greenland, Canada, America. Pink dawn had given way to gold, then to white daylight. Robb still sat on the hill above the bay, until, from the north-east, another shape appeared out on the water, peaked like those distant mountains that were Ireland. Smaller, closer, these peaks moved toward the bay. By the time the big schooner docked, Robb had left his perch above the sea, come down to water level along the quay. It was a warm September morning. He did not mind standing in line, though it took close to an hour. He had been around the bay more times than he could count in the 35

course of his life. But this time, it was something new. The ticket agent pressed an inked cork stamp onto a strip of paper and handed it to him. Then he was walking up the ribbed planks, feet swaying under him a little. Tall sails were hauled, filled with wind. Robb, at the rail, stood with other passengers, taking a last look at the Hebridean shoreline. Some waved or shouted to people on the quay. Some on the quay waved, or shouted back. Robb let his eyes drift. Cables were being cast off, the ship rocking in first seaward movement. Inland, where he had walked in moonlight, where the road sloped down toward

the bay, a lone traveler was approaching. Though far away now, he could yet make it out clearly enough; the curve of Prince Charley’s neck, the set of his head. He could even see clearly the rider’s steel grey hair, her blue shawl bright in September sunlight.

IN ANOTHER WINTER

Emily sat up in the deep red sunlight flooding through open loft doors. The rest of the barn was already dark. Outside, distant mountains were crags of tangerine and shadow, the plain raked with evening. When she shuddered just a little, Henry picked his coat up from the hay, caped it around her shoulders. She pulled the collar close against her neck, brushed lose hair behind an ear, turned her head to face him, smiled. “Who are you, Mr. Jenkins?” “Who’d ya think I am?” He pulled a smile too. “Well . . . not who you seem to be. You’re not like the other men around here, that’s for certain.” She leaned her head on his shoulder, her voice cozy. “I knew that the first time I saw you.” “How’d you know that?” She inched closer. Scents of hay and something soothing rose from her hair. He realized his arm draped her shoulder. Her fingers touched his collar bone. Far away a whip-poor-will’s long whistled call rose and fell, rose and fell, then was silent. Emily held on tight, pressed him against her. Her arms, though thin, were surprisingly strong. She lifted her head, looked Henry in the eye, smirking. “Daddy is going to like you. . . He does already, sort of. Tom Short told him about you.” “Told him what?” “Oh, things. You’re the sort he admires.” Her temple rested on his shoulder again.

“How’bout you? Am I the sort you admire?” She squeezed harder. He could feel her head nodding. “Daddy would love to have a son like you. . . I’m a disappointment to him, of course.” Her voice was soft in the dark and along with her touch, almost became a part of the dark. “I had a brother. . . Did you know that?” Henry felt a little sleepy, took a few seconds to answer. His thoughts were wandering. “What happened to ‘im? Did he go off to sea, or something?” “No. He was older than me. He died when he was two. I never knew him.”

Henry felt his arm tighten around her. “Do you have any brothers or sisters, Henry?” He pictured the dairy barn, lantern lit, the hay fields, the wooded hills. Always, they were peopled with his family. “Yeah. . . two brothers. I’m the youngest.” She nestled closer again. The evening was beginning to cool. “Tell me a story about yourself, about home. Why’d you leave?” Her voice was trailing off. “I grew up in Pennsylvania, near a place called Enon Valley. We had a dairy farm; forty cows most years. That’s a lot of udders to wash.” He paused, startled a little by the comment. But she wasn’t offended. “You must have been good at that work. You have such gentle hands.” Her voice had a hint of teasing. “Didn’t you like it?” “I liked it alright.” “Why did you leave?” “Winters can be hard there.” “They can be hard here too.” “I know. But we didn’t have a big operation like this, just my family ‘n two hired hands. And both talked more than they worked. Our cows, weren’t for beef. You can 38

eat a dead cow, but you can’t milk one. We had wheat and corn, of course. And you can buy anything at all in Pittsburgh. That’s the city around there. “Milk can be an up and down business, though. Some years things got tight. My brothers and me had to hunt for meat some winters. The deer are different back there, white tails. Smaller than those big mule deer out here. “Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t bad. Sometimes we could just walk out to the empty fields and find ‘em gleaning the corn stubble. Sometimes though, by January or February we’d have to pack up the horses and travel a couple days to find game.

“One time, this was the winter I turned sixteen, my oldest brother, Charley, and me went out on foot. Hec, Hector, our brother in the middle, had gone off with the U.S. Navy the summer before, so there was just the two of us going out. It was dry that winter, pretty cold . . .”

All around the harvest and fallow fields, hills rose. Acres of brown, short- cropped pasture, dotted with the slow shapes of tan and red cows, ended where lines of zigzag split rail fence followed the contour of hillside and hollow. Beyond the fences, fruit trees, apple, pear, and plum, hunched in rows from farm to farm, the saw-pruned M- shapes of their branches like hundreds of bird skeletons frozen just before taking flight. Between farmsteads, the hills were wild. Huge leafless trees crowded in over dense tracts of mountain laurel, shadowing the waxy green even from winter sunlight. It was a cold afternoon. The boys trudged uphill, cradling their guns. Their breath puffed white, hanging in still air. They climbed without talking, eyes sharp for movement. When at last Henry halted, resting his back against the shaggy trunk of a hickory tree, he broke the silence. “You’re . . . puffin’ like . . . a freight train, Charley.” He paused to catch his breath, swallowed cold air to wet his throat. “If there’s any deer ‘round here . . . you’ll 39

drive ‘em off. . . Just blow a steam whistle, why don’t ya?” He tried to suppress a grin, but couldn’t. Charley threw his head back, laughed out loud, drew breath in the cold. A curl of steam rolled from his rounded lips when he howled, “Whooooo . . . Whooooo . . . WHOOOoooooo,” pulling an invisible cable near his ear with his left hand. What breath he had left rasped into laughter. Rocking forward, almost doubling over the shotgun held against his chest, Henry laughed too. He felt dizzy, he let his back rock toward the tree trunk again, gripped his gun

near the barrel muzzles, planting its shoulder stock over hoary leaves by his boot. He slid down the tree, squatted, eyes closed, tearing, still enveloped in lightheaded giddiness. When Henry opened his eyes, Charley was squatting near him, the long stock of his hog rifle shouldered, muzzle to the sky. His eyes were thin, immersed in good humor. “Dad’s gonna take a strap to our hind ends if we come back without dinner.” Charley’s face had relaxed toward seriousness. “Well, I ain’t the one hootin like a train whistle.” Henry ticked a smile but wasn’t looking at his brother. His eyes scanned the laurel bushes. “If there ain’t at least a few grouse in them calico bushes, I’ll eat my hat.” He nodded his stocking cap toward the greenery, lapsed into silence. Three blows of a Ghost-eye woodpecker hammered somewhere in the distance, were silent, hammered again. “Somebody's finding hisself some dinner.” Charley eyed the treed ridge, his face bright. “Ghost-eye.” Henry followed Charley’s line of sight. “Hoo-doo Bird.” Charley flicked a glance toward his brother. “Ivory Bill.” Still searching the trees for telltale red, Henry forgot his brother’s presence for a moment. “Willie Elephant-nose.” 40

When they looked at each other, Charley was grinning again. “It ain’t the same kind of ivory . . . Is it? “We’ll have to catch ourselves a elephant and find out.” Charley’s stare fixed on the laurel stand again, his hands fidgeting at the stock of his long rifle, his thumb rolling the ramrod side to side in its thimbles. The ivorybill hammered again, was silent, hammered. They heard its laughing call, then nothing. “Took ‘im a while to get yer joke, Charley.” “Well, he’s birdbrain.”

They both watched the laurel thicket. Something rustled. Henry’s eye caught a dark shape. An instant later the startling sound of a grouse’s wings filled the air. Henry was on his feet, sighting down the barrels of his shotgun, right-hand hammer already cocked. But there was just a flicker of brown from thicket to thicket. Before Henry could bring his muzzles around to it, the waxy laurel leaves were still. “Damn.” Henry was lowering his gun, his voice a rasped whisper. Charley kept his eyes on the greenery. “Almost had that one.” “Reckon Dad almost won’t take the belt to me?” Charley looked up with a crooked grin. “We’ll get somethin. Lot a’ daylight left.” Henry eased the hammer back down, set the butt of his shotgun on the frozen ground, barrels resting against the tree trunk at his back. He pulled off his knit gloves, blew into cupped hands. “My fingers are cold.” He blew on them again. Charley reached into his coat, came out with a flat brown bottle. Without rising or looking at his brother, he offered it. “Try some ‘a that, brother. It’ll warm ya up.” Henry wrinkled his nose, shook his head a little. But Charley wasn’t looking at him.

“That stuff don’t mix too well with guns, Charley.” Takes after Grandpap, Henry thought. Can’t go anywhere without his friend the bottle. Charley didn’t move, still held up the bottle. After a few seconds Henry took the offering. He looked down at his brother, followed his line of sight toward the thicket. Nothing moved. He studied the bottle in his hand, pulled the cork. When he raised the neck to his lips, he hesitated, caught the sharp odor. Then he tipped his head back, let a long drink pour into his mouth and down his throat. After a second it burned all the way to his stomach. He exhaled, stifled a cough, could have sworn he saw a transparent cloud of heat hovering around the white trail of his breath. Charley was right; he felt warmer. Still without looking, Charley reached to retrieve the bottle. Henry handed it back. Charley took a longer drink than Henry had, held the bottle, took another. Henry handed him the cork. Taking it between his finger and thumb, Charley closed the bottle one-handed and slipped it back inside his coat. For a long time they were both quiet. When a chittering sound came out of the thicket to their left, Charley slowly raised his hand toward Henry. His eyes were fixed on the brush. Leaves sounded, and clawing on bark. A moment later two reddish fox squirrels clambered out of the laurels and spiraled up the thick trunk of a maple. Concerned with their dispute over territory, the animals took no notice as Charley raised the muzzle of his rifle, shouldered the butt tight against his coat, clicked the hammer into position. The combatants raced out onto a limb, pursuer gaining on the pursued. When the forward squirrel, at the twig end of the bouncing branch, turned, the whole limb quivering, and faced his adversary, they froze for an instant. A loud crack startled the air. The bigger animal, the pursuer, tumbled from the branch, dropped against gray sky, rattling laurel branches when it disappeared. A muffled thud told the boys it had reached ground. 42

Both rushed forward. Charley’s empty gun swung arcing hip-high as he trotted. Empty handed, Henry ran full force, gloveless. By the time he reached the thicket, his brother had vanished into the green leaves. Henry halted, parting the branches with his hands, and saw his brother kneeling. Then Charley stood up, grinning broadly, dangling the huge squirrel in front of him by the tail. “You son of a . . .” Henry felt his face spread in a wide grin. “ ‘Nother one a’ these and there won’t be no belt tonight.” Henry shook his head. It was damned fine shooting. That squirrel had been sixty, maybe seventy yards away. He knew he would never have been able to hit it with his shotgun, but Charley took it with a single ball from the old muzzleloader. If they had brought Grandpap’s peacemaker, if Charley had a chance at a second shot, he might have got both those squirrels. But Grandpap had given the revolver to Henry, and he kept it in a dresser drawer. “Son of a . . .” Henry shook his head.

Charley hefted the game bag over his shoulder, heavy with the squirrel. Winter sun edged along treetops. A cycle of moon hung pale over west-facing hills. Shadows crept gray along the valley’s curve. In an hour or so it would be milking time. “Want’ta move back down, Charley? Coons and possums might be comin out closer ta home.” Charley had the ramrod in his hand, eyeing down into his rifle barrel. He blew a long breath into the muzzle, checked for live sparks. Then he looked away, scanned the line where hill met bottom. “Bet you’re right, brother.” They both held their places while he poured in powder. Then he slipped the flask back in his pocket, set a patch and ball in the rifle’s muzzle with his thumb. 43

Henry had his gloves on again, blew into his cupped hands, took in the scent of damp wool. He watched his brother push the ramrod down, a slow, even motion. Nothing Charley did was hurried. He was gazing off across the valley. “We tan ourselves some hides, you could make yourself a pair a’ mitts, little brother. Coon for your right hand, possum for the left.” He slipped the rod back in its thimbles, turned his head, grinning at Henry. Picturing big furry mittens on his gray gloved hands, Henry laughed, buckling at the knees a little. He turned to retrieve his gun from the tree. The barrels bit with cold

right through his glove. As he shifted it up into the crook of his elbow, muzzles skyward, he pictured a little hole in a raccoon mitten he could slip his trigger finger through. There would be a leather flap inside to keep out the cold when he wasn’t using it. Charley shouldered his rifle, its butt plate back toward Henry. Without speaking the two started walking down the slope. Henry moved a few steps ahead of his brother. That’s what Charley meant, carrying his gun that way. It was Henry’s turn. For close to half an hour they trudged without speaking. Henry kept his eyes sharp, listened for noise in leafcover. Far enough downhill that the ground was shadowy, the air got colder. Though the black trees were sharp in raked light, backed by a tangerine sky. Leaves underfoot whispered, rotted, frozen. Henry was thinking about the evening’s milking, how the cavernous barn seemed to magnify cold, until you’d got two or three cows milked. They would balk at chilly hands on their udders, switch at your ears with their tails; their discomfort echoed through your sinuses, your temple and cheek pressed against the animate flank. By the time the fifth animal was done, you’d be sweating, glad to get away from the radiating heat for the time it took to empty your bucket into the waiting milk can.

Henry stopped dead at a slight movement off to his left, something shifting on a treebranch. He noticed his hands shaking, his breath coming in uneven waves. The temperature was dropping fast, new frost would be forming soon. His eyes were shifting, head turning slowly, hands repositioning his gun. The righthand hammer set with an almost imperceptible click. Then the movement again, a raccoon readying to move down a tree, not eighty feet distant. Even in this light, an easy shot. He took note of Charley at the edge of his field of vision, swung his muzzles up and had the bead on his target. When he squeezed, the hammer clicked down dry. Henry suppressed his urge to swear at the misfired shell. He inhaled slowly, held his breath, eased back the lefthand hammer. In less than a second, the report echoed down the valley. Through smoke, he saw the coon roll back and drop. A good, clean shot. From the corner of his eye he saw Charley nodding. Henry tilted his shotgun down, thumbed the break lever to extract that dead shell before going to fetch his quarry. But something wasn’t right. There was an explosion, a sound of gunfire too close for comfort. Then a bellowing shout. Henry’s heart was thumping, his throat tight like someone’s hand gripped it hard. He looked around in the closing dark, his mind racing. Who would be here, shooting on their land? He saw no one. Then he saw Charley. His brother lay half on his side, twisted at the waist, right knee cocked skyward. His pantleg was ragged, black and bloody. His rifle seemed to be gone. It had been a couple of seconds since hearing the shot, but the world was moving in slow motion. Henry felt like it had been hours. He was kneeling by Charley. His own gun was gone too. He heard a voice, realized it was his own. “Just take it easy, Charley.” “Just take it easy . . . “Are ya hurt bad? 45

“Charley . . .? “Can you stand . . .? Charley rolled his head side to side, leaves whispering. His eyes were closed. “Can ya hear me, Charley?” The head motion stopped, and his chin ticked down toward chest, stopped, lolled side to side again. Charley’s eyes opened, looked past Henry toward the treetops, wild with pain. Henry put a gloved hand on his brother’s forehead, brushed his hair aside.

Charley had lost his hat. “How did . . . ?” Henry froze. A new thought suddenly in his head out of nowhere, his eyes found his shotgun, stretched on the ground a yard away. His hand hesitated on Charley’s forehead, pulled away. Still squatting, he turned, picked up the gun. He was standing then, had the breech broken open. He pulled the shell from the righthand barrel, marveled at the uncrimped green paper blossoming at its end. Incredulous, confused, he rechambered it, pulled out the left barrel shell. It was the same. So that explained the second gunshot—when he tipped his shotgun down to pull that shell he thought was a dud, it had gone off, torn into Charley’s leg with a load of buckshot at point-blank range. He had no idea what he had done with the gun after that. He was kneeling again, tugging the scarf from around his neck. As tight as he could pull it, Henry knotted the thick cloth around Charley’s knee. The pantleg, the leaves, were shinning with dark blood. Henry twisted, leaning over to see his brother’s face. He put his hand on Charley’s shoulder and shook it. Charley’s eyes opened, looked at Henry, glazed. “I’m gonna fetch Dad. Don’t try and move, Charley. Dad’ll know what to do. I’ll be right back with ‘im.” 46

* * *

Henry’s chest ached, running in the cold air. It was twilight in the valley. He wanted to be home, longed for the drudgery of milking those cows, secretly competing with his brothers, with the hired hands and Dad in the lantern light, seeing who could finish their cows first. He thought of the sound of milk squirting into pails, cow sounds, chewing, lowing, their insides churning next to his ear. Delroy Clinton’s voice always seemed to be somewhere in the dark, softly telling a story. But part of him never wanted to see the place again. How could he ever tell anyone what had happened? It couldn’t be anyone else’s fault. Charley was dying. He made for the gate at a full run, each step jarring breath from his chest. He clamored over the rails, couldn’t waste time undoing the chain, opening the gate, shutting it behind him. An image of his own hands carefully setting the gate chain dissolved from his mind as he heaved along toward the house. He couldn’t stop, just kept running, hoping a voice would call to him from behind asking what was wrong. But there was only his wheezing breath. Finally Henry was in the barn, one of the big doors open for his arrival. And there was light from a lantern inside. Then he wasn’t running anymore. His father, hayfork extended, filling the high manger, turned toward Henry. The old man was a dark silhouette. Long fork tines up, the shadow turned, came forward. Henry’s mind raced. Hands braced on his knees, he heard his own breath, ragged, his heart pounding. “What is it? What happened?” Henry could hear his father’s voice, but his mind wouldn’t form words to answer. Then the hayfork was sailing toward the manger, hands gripping Henry’s arms hard, just below each shoulder. He felt his body shaking. 47

“What happened? Where’s your brother?” Henry couldn’t get his breath, couldn’t think. But he wrenched his right arm free of the visegrip. Mute, he pointed. For a long time he tried to make words, tried to think how to say what had happened, but there was so little time. Charley needed help. “It’s Charley . . . He got hurt.” Henry couldn’t explain, it would take too long. He had a handful of his father’s coat front, pulling him toward the open door. It was like he didn’t have a body anymore, couldn’t feel tired, couldn’t feel anything but that lightheaded desperate need to get back to where his brother had fallen. He had to run. Henry was over the gate and laboring up the dark rise. He had rushed down blindly, curving with the contour of hillside. Somehow, though, his feet were following back the same way he had come. The dark didn’t matter.

Charley was on his back, just the way Henry had left him. The long rifle was under him, its muzzle just visible under his shoulder. The brass butt plate shone dully below his thigh. Distantly, Henry wondered how he had not seen it before. He was cradling Charley’s head. In the near dark he could see their father coming over the rise at a run, the tails of his mackinaw swinging behind him. He had a long folding knife in his hand. He was opening the blade with his teeth while his left hand groped for his coat pocket. Then the old man was kneeling beside Charley. He brushed Henry aside, cradled his son’s head, holding a flat bottle in his other hand. Henry, on both knees, watched silently. He followed every movement his father made. Their father uncorked the bottle with his teeth and spat it away, he was dribbling whatever liquor that bottle contained into his prone son’s mouth. It crossed Henry’s thoughts that he ought to pray. 48

He stood up, backing a couple of paces. The sky had gone dark, twilight’s last glow fading behind forested hills naked of their leaves. There under the branches of huge old trees no snow lay on the ground. Somehow though, Henry could see everything clearly. It was as if his father had forgotten he was there, as if the world contained only the two figures Henry watched like some kind of dream. A yard to his right the double barreled shotgun stretched glistening along withered leaf cover. Guilt seized him for letting the valuable thing lay unattended. If he picked it up now, though, the instrument of his brother’s and of his own undoing, there was no telling what rage his father might fly into.

Hours might have passed. Henry had a sense that he had left the world of the living. Wet snow had started falling, thick and fast. He returned only when he heard his father’s voice. “Henry! Goddamnit boy! I said get yer coat off and help me make a pallet to carry ‘im.” Before he knew what he was doing, Henry was out of his coat. His father was threading an arm-sized piece of deadwood up the sleeve. In a dream, Henry found another. No more than five minutes could have passed before they had their coats rigged into a stretcher, had Charley laid between the poles and were lifting him.

When they came through the front door the first thing Henry heard was his mother screaming. Henry and his father carried Charley to the kitchen. Henry’s mother and Delroy were clearing a place for Charley, plates, spoons and knives shuffled noisily to the sideboard. Then the stretcher was on the table, Charley’s weight off of the bark-shedding poles. 49

Henry felt like he had not eaten for days. Exhausted, he thought what he could best do to be of aid. Doctor Fergusson lived just over in the village. He thought of saddling a horse. Dad had Charley’s pantleg cut open to the knee. His finger lightly probed at swollen, blackened, bloody flesh. A chunk the size of a fist was missing. Henry had never seen his father’s face so wrapped in concentration. “Should I fetch Doc Fergusson, Dad?” His father’s gaze broke away from the wounded leg. He looked angry, confused. For what seemed like a long time he glared at Henry. Henry wished he was anywhere else in the world, felt he could not bear that look from his father’s eyes any more. “Get Doc Fergusson . . .” It sounded like an order. Henry wondered if he had thought the thought before his father’s voice put the notion in his head. “Go on, boy!” The old man’s face was crimson, his neck purple, swollen. Without his coat, Henry was out the door, down the steps and trudging through ankle deep snow toward the stable. Sammy wasn’t the fastest horse they owned, but Henry thought he was the best. They understood each other. With the lantern left hanging by the manger, Henry found saddle and tack. Sammy was ready in a couple of minutes. Henry wrapped a spare saddle blanket over his shoulders before mounting, swung up in the saddle and set Sammy at a quick walk. Dad would yell at him for leaving the stable door open later. But if he took the time to dismount and close it, and Charley bled to death, what then? He still had to open and close the pasture gate. What moon there was showed him the road clearly enough. The ride to Enon was just a little over four miles, wouldn’t take an hour, even in this snow. It was plenty long enough, though, for Henry to run a dozen possibilities through his head. However he tried to get around what had happened, whatever angle he took it from, he couldn’t believe it had happened so sudden. He had never been reckless with guns, hadn’t been reckless even today. Just unlucky. Who ever heard of a dud shell going off late like that? 50

And hadn’t Charley moved when he was breaking open the breech? Not that he would blame Charley. Henry rehashed the scene in his head. As he lowered the barrels, at the edge of his vision he could see Charley stepping right, checking to see where the coon landed. When it was daylight he could hike back up there, check the tracks. He watched the muzzles moving again, Charley stepping right as they lowered. It was just a split second, then the flash. “Did I see the muzzle flash?” Sammy’s ears rotated back at the sound of Henry’s voice. He realized he had spoken. His face was cold. He looked around. Sammy halted,

waiting for a sign. Henry felt his heart thumping under the saddle blanket cinched around him. He nudged the horse with both heels. In a minute, he knew, he would recognize where they were. The road edged down, out of tree cover. Lights from the village shone yellow in the purple of winter evening. The creak of his saddle made Henry feel colder. When they were on level ground he shortened a rein, ticked Sammy to a canter. Everyone, he reckoned, was at supper; the place seemed deserted. When they got to the doctor’s office Henry was out of the saddle before Sammy came to a full halt. Quick-tying the lines with one hand, he heaved up the wooden steps to the porch. The front window was dark. THOMAS FERGUSSON, SURGERY & GENERAL PRACTICE festooned the glass, gold letters with a black shadow. Henry knocked at the door. The rattling window glass sounded hopeless. He thumped along the floorboards to the side door, raised his hand to knock. Inside he could see a single lamp burning, beside the table in the surgery room. A shape lay outlined along the leather padding. Henry could make out the doctor’s curly head, his dark woolen trousers and white shirt. His left sleeve was rolled up above the elbow. Heat rose from Henry’s collar, making his

face and ears burn. He banged on the door with his fist, wanted to pound so hard the glass would shatter. It was three minutes, maybe four, before the doctor roused himself. He sat up on the table, looked confused. For another moment he held his head cradled in both hands. Finally, he looked toward the knocking. Then his feet were on the floor. He walked toward Henry like a man in a whirl wind, fighting to keep his path from rolling to the left. As he moved he tried to fit his suspenders over his shoulders. The right one cooperated, the left one dangled down his back.

When at last the door was opened, Henry had the impression that the doctor’s eyes had been replaced with glass marbles. He looked at Henry, but didn’t seem to see him. “You gotta come quick, Doc. It’s my brother Charley. He got shot. He’s bleedin real bad.” Henry felt his voice begin to quiver. “Who are you?” The doctor’s voice was small. “Henry Jenkins, Doc. Silas Jenkins is my dad, runs the dairy east of here.” Henry leaned forward, an inch from Fergusson’s face. Then he found he had hold of the doctor by both shoulders. “My brother’s at home bleedin to death. His leg’s near shot off.” Ferguson was rolling down his sleeve. Eyes closed, he strained his face to concentrate. “Hunting accident?” Eyes still closed he fumbled at the coat tree by the door, nearly knocking it over. Henry hadn’t answered, but doctor Fergusson had turned his back anyway. Stumbling toward the surgery, he shrugged into his long coat, disappeared behind stripped wallpaper. In less than a minute he returned, his huge black medical bag in his hand. He picked up a glass syringe from a stand near the surgery table, fumbled it between the handles and into the bag, moved toward Henry again.

“Help me harness Jessie.” He shooed Henry from the door. On the porch he stopped, seized Henry’s arm, eyes wide as if he had just woken from a nightmare. “Did you tourniquet the limb?” . . . “Did you tie something tight around the leg to stanch the bleeding?” Shocked at the doctor’s transformation, Henry nodded, mouth open. “Yessir. Knotted my muffler tight around his knee.” They descended the side steps. The doctor was on the verge of speech again. “It’s his calf got hit, Doc.”

Fergusson’s tense frame eased a little. The two slogged through shin-deep snow. When they were in the carriage house Fergusson stopped by the harness rack, seemed to wither again. From his stall, Jessie whinned softly. Henry lit a lantern. The doctor’s buggy was a Studebaker, smallish wheels in front with a low axle. He carried the light over to where Furgusson stood, looked up at the driving rig. “We’d ought to hurry, Doc. No telling what shape Charley’s in by now. Best saddle your horse--likely too much snow for the buggy. You’ll get bogged down out on the road.” The doctor looked over his shoulder, head sagging. He spoke in slow, slightly slurred words. “Young man, my saddle is broken. The cinch buckle pulled off of the strap.” “Can you go bareback, then?” The doctor didn’t answer. Henry felt his hands begin to shake. “Take my horse. I don’t need a saddle.” Still the doctor didn’t move. Henry stepped forward to grab his shoulder, thinking he might have drifted off. But before he caught hold of the black coat sleeve, Fergusson roused. “I can’t ride . . . can’t . . .” 53

Henry grabbed the sleeve, took the bag from Ferguson’s hand. “Come up behind me, then. You can at least sit, can’t ya?” He dropped the lantern bail over a peg, left it burning. Rougher than he meant to, he quickstepped Fergusson toward the open door. “Sammy might be old, but he can gallop with both of us, even in this snow. All you gotta do is not fall off.” They stepped out into the dark. Snow was falling again. Henry slammed the carriage house door shut. From around the corner of the house Sammy whinned. Behind the door, Jessie answered.

The doctor was walking on his own by the time they reached the hitching post. Medical bag in hand, Henry swung up in the saddle, kicked his foot out of the stirrup and offered a hand down to the doctor. Fergusson got his foot on the iron unsteadily and Henry hauled him up. He saw the doctor take hold of the cantle ties, and Henry heeled Sammy to a quick walk. Once they were up the rise and out of town they could step up to a lope. Going back, the trip seemed to take forever. The snow was too deep to keep up the lope, and Sammy too old with so much weight. No tracks from their coming to town remained. Wind was kicking up, snow eddying down in a white whirl. Behind him, Henry could feel Doc Fergusson swaying with each step of the horse, mumbling to himself. Was he asleep? Henry willed himself to see the doctor slipping off, buried face first in a drift, then rising, shocked and sobered. But he just kept rocking back there, mumbling to himself. The fantasy faded from Henry’s thoughts. Even his anger at the doctor couldn’t keep the scene of those few seconds before and after that gunshot out of Henry’s mind for long. He tried to concentrate on the doctor, on keeping to the road. A pink-white swirl of big flakes, the night went on forever. Time could not be reckoned.

Fergusson slumped forward against Henry’s back, weight shifting left. Brought out of his thoughts so suddenly, Henry caught the doctor with an elbow, tried to drive it into his ribs but the blanket around his own shoulders and the doctor’s coat were too much padding. Sammy, confused, started in a circle, turned his head to see the riders. Henry reined him back toward the middle of the road. “Keep awake back there, Doc.” Henry waited for a response, but heard nothing. At least the shadow behind him was upright again. Should have gone for doc Atkins, the veterinary over in Cottonwood. Maybe half

an hour farther to ride, but at least Atkins wasn’t a dope addict. For the first time Henry noticed how his fingers and toes were aching with cold, wondered if the doctor’s dope would make him freeze to death faster or keep him alive longer? At some point Henry realized he was thinking about what he would say to his father, forgetting the other thing praying on his mind. Hardly ever had Atkins let a cow die, even uterine infections were usually no match for his skill. It was Dad said to get Fergusson, wasn’t it? He should have ignored the old man, gone for Atkins. Atkins could at least ride his own horse, wouldn’t freeze himself to death for lack of brains. How could you trust a man like Fergusson to do the right thing when your brother was . . . Then it came back to him what he had been trying not to remember. He felt his jaw begin to quiver. The dark road blurred. Henry sniffed hard. “Freeze to death myself if we don’t get there pretty quick. Teeth are chattering.” Saying so reassured him. He thought of his father seeing him cry and he was angry again. That was better. Then Henry saw the gate. His heart was racing, cold-aching hands trembling. Slowly, something in him wanting to stretch time out for once, he pulled Sammy to a halt. The horse nickered, stamped a foot.

Both hands fisted tight Henry drew breath, nudged at the doctor. “Here we are, Doc. Time to get down. . . You can walk from here, can’t ya?” Fergusson mumbled, shook his head. Henry couldn’t tell if he was signaling no or trying to wake himself. Slipping his foot out of the stirrup, Henry shifted reins to his right hand, slapped Fergusson’s leg with his left. “We’re here, Doc.” Somehow Fergusson got his boot toe in the iron, heaved himself left, nearly pulling Henry from the saddle. But he got onto his feet. Then Henry dismounted, led Sammy to the gate and opened it. Fergusson was clear enough in his mind to turn toward the lights of the house. After he was inside the yard, Henry latched the gate behind him and followed. Because he stopped to tie Sammy, Henry wasn’t at the door until after the doctor had knocked. Mrs. Jenkins opened the door. She said nothing, just stepped back to let him in. Henry followed, carrying the doctor’s satchel. His mother would not look at him, left him to close the door as she led Fergusson to the kitchen. Charley was spread-eagle on the kitchen table. Fergusson was holding Charley’s wrist, the watch out of his vest pocket, frowning down at it. After a couple of minutes he laid the arm across Charley’s stomach, snapped the watch shut and slipped it back in its pocket. He didn’t look at anyone, didn’t talk. Then he came around the table. Charley’s leg was black under the caked blood. His boot and sock were off, foot propped on a doubled pillow. Fergusson fingered the scarf at Charley’s knee, then he looked at the old man for the first time. A slow circle motion in the air with his finger, the doctor said, “Turn him on his belly.” The old man’s red eyes fixed on Henry. When he set the doctor’s bag down and stepped forward, his father waved him away. “You done enough.” His voice was husky, flat. 56

“Delroy.” The hired hand rose from his chair by the stove, stepped up to the table. Beside Mr. Jenkins, Clinton looked like a scarecrow made of sticks. The old man motioned him to take Charley’s feet. His skinny frame at the foot of the table, Clinton turned his empty hands. “Is it dis way we’re goin ta torn ‘im, Mr. Jankins? Or dat way?” His hands circled counter clockwise. “Lift by his good leg for Christ’s sake!” The old man already had hold of

Charley’s shoulders. His voice was like thunder. Clinton shrunk a little more. He gripped the still booted ankle with both small hands, followed the motion of the turning shoulders, letting go with one hand to timidly slide the wounded leg as the hips turned. The doctor was already bending over the dark mess, groping at his coat pocket. Out came a pair of wire spectacles. Then he was looking around him at the floor. Henry snatched up the medical bag, crossed the floor and set it by Fergusson’s foot. With a nod in Henry’s direction, Fergusson unsnapped the case, opened the top into two little shelves of strapped-in bottles and tools. Then he took a bowl from the sideboard behind him. He poured alcohol from a brown quart bottle, washed his black-nailed hands in it. Then back into the case. Something like a cross between scissors and a pair of pliers in one hand, a long, ivory handled needle in the other, the doctor started picking very carefully at the gaping maw on Charley’s leg. It started to bleed immediately. Without being asked, Henry picked up another bowl, held it out toward the doctor. For a long time Fergusson picked at the ragged calf, fidgeting pieces of buckshot into the forcep jaws one at a time with the probe, dropping them into the proffered bowl.

Henry fixed on the blood trails and little bits of lead patterning the white porcelain. Try as he might he could not look at his brother’s leg, nor at his father’s face. The parlor clock had struck four times while doctor Fergusson worked on Charley’s leg. It was after midnight. All of his mother’s tea towels, and a bed sheet lay wadded under the kitchen table, purpled with blood. Perforated strips of snipped off skin mixed with dried blood and buckshot in the receiving bowl. With his silver and ivory tools the doctor was deftly packing thumb-sized bundles of cottonwool into the now neater hole in the leg.

After white cotton cleanly bound the boy’s calf and shin Fergusson looked up for the first time. His voice was dry, very weary but insistent. “This dressing will need to be changed every two days for the next week.” He was bending then, reaching into the bag. The syringe Henry had seen him take from the table in his surgery was in his hand. He stood again, over the receiving bowl gurgled alcohol across the needle. Then he took a white bottle from the bag, shook it and pulled some white liquid into the glass syringe. He was injecting the white stuff into Charley’s leg when he started to talk again. “These next few days will be critical, Mr. Jenkins. As long as we keep the wound aseptic the boy has a chance of keeping that leg.” He looked Mr. Jenkins straight in the eyes. “If infection sets in, he may lose not only his leg, but his life. You understand? This whole area,” he circled the bandage with his index finger, “must be kept clean.” From the bag he took another brown quart bottle, set it firmly on the table. “Remove this bandage every two days. Irrigate the site with iodine.” He put two fingers on the brown bottle’s cork. “Do not remove, or even touch the sponges. I will change them.” Fergusson’s coats were on a chairback, his shirt sleeves rolled to below his elbows. He was sweating, though Henry noticed that the doctor’s hands were shaking. All at once, he seemed to wither. He lifted the eyeglasses from his face as though they 58

caused him pain, folded them with one had and dropped them in the open black bag. In the light from the smokey lamps his face looked sheet white. There was no money in the house. Henry’s father offered the doctor his grandfather’s silver cased watch, but Fergusson waved it off. “Let’s think about keeping that leg tended to, Mr. Jenkins. We can talk about money when the pastures come in.” The hired men, Delroy Clinton and Pete Johnson, who had sat drowsing by the kitchen stove, were on their feet the second old man Jenkins turned to them. They helped carry Charley to the front parlor where the chesterfield was made up for a sickbed.

Delroy offered to stay and tend the fire and let the family know if Charley woke or there was any change in his condition. Delroy eased a mouth hart from his pocket, but it disappeared again when old man Jenkins looked his way. Pete Johnson had to resaddle Sammy for the doctor to ride, and Rose, the roan mare, for himself so he could bring Sammy back. A black velvet sky shone with frost and stars. The wind had died, too. But snow muffled the horses’ footfalls. Henry, his father, and mother all stood under the porch roof watching as the silent horses carried the men out of sight, the clouds of their breath the last thing to be seen of them. It had crossed Henry’s mind when he first came in behind the doctor to suggest riding out for doctor Atkins right away. To help Fergusson, he could have said, in case he needed more doctor-knowledge of their odd tools and such. Now he was glad he had kept his mouth shut. The whole time he was working Fergusson was a grand master. He only fell apart afterward, could hardly get his coats back on, slumped in the saddle like a dying man. “I’ll pray ‘em safe home,” Mrs. Jenkins told her husband, bowing her head in the cold. The old man grunted. Henry, standing behind his parents, could see his father’s right fist clench, unclench, clench in the shadow of his big frame. 59

“Dad, I’m . . .” Henry stepped forward. The old man wheeled to face him. “Don’t you talk to me, boy.” Even by starlight, Henry could see that his father’s face was almost blue with rage. He stormed past his son, rocking him against the bannister. Henry felt his jaw set, his own fists clench, watched the old man’s back move through the door into lamplight. Then the door slammed shut. For he didn’t know how long Henry stood on the dark porch, fuming toward the closed door. Was it wrong to wish it was his father lying near dead in the front room? Charley

would have understood that it was just a dumb accident, not recklessness. And Hector, off somewhere on a ship, if he was still alive, would have understood. Something pulled Henry out of own thoughts, made him look toward the gate. His mother was still standing there, watching him. For a long time she just looked at him, hands worrying at each other in stuttered spasms. “He don’t mean nothin.” She raised a hand, like she could have touched him from so far away, but didn’t move any closer. “Henry . . .” she sounded so worn out it was a wonder she could talk at all. “Charley’s his first born, that’s all. He’s just worried . . . He don’t blame you for it, Henry. He don’t. “If only you hadn’t had liquor on your breath when you came in. ‘Count of how your Grandpap was. Oh, Henry, I don’t blame you, son.” A futile gesture, Henry tossed a hand skyward, let it slap down against his thigh. “Charley’s the one give it to me, to stay warm.” His arm waved toward the front parlor window. “He’s the one brung the bottle. I didn’t even want any, he just . . .” The front door flung open, old man Jenkins’ bulk filling the lamp yellow rectangle, the big, dark silhouette closing on Henry. “Silas, don’t. He didn’t mean nothin.” Henry turned away from the approaching shadow at the sound of his mother’s 60

voice. Before he quite took in what the words meant, he felt a thud, his back against the snow covered ground, the air knocked out of his lungs. His father, coming down the porch steps, was snow and star lit. He was coming straight for Henry. But before he reached the bottom step, Henry was on his feet, fists up. The old man made a lunge with both hands. Somehow Henry sidestepped, caught his father’s shin with his boot toe. The old man hit hard almost where Henry had lain. He lay still, face down. Henry shifted his weight to step forward, heard his mother scream, heard the old man groan and start swearing.

Then Henry’s mother had hold of his coat sleeve. “Don’t! Don’t do no more. Just let it all be.” Her face was contorted, pale. But no tears. She pushed him sideways, waved him toward the barn. “I’ll take ‘im in. Just stay out of ‘is way ‘till he cools down a mite.” A few steps in the direction of the barn, Henry had stopped. He stood looking at his mother: a thin woman with rounded shoulders, her plaited hair dark on her shoulder, gray all around her face. He had an odd feeling that he didn’t know who she was, like he was looking at a stranger. “It’ll be alright in the mornin.” The old man moved, groaned. She stepped toward him, knelt. “Stay with Pete tonight. We’ll sort it out in the mornin when you come in for breakfast.” Henry turned, didn’t say another word. His head down, like walking into a strong wind, he trudged toward the barn. Once inside he went to the hired hands’ room, piled wood in the stove and sat by the window, watching the lighted curtains of the house. Delroy would be asleep by the parlor stove. Henry didn’t even have a blanket. After he saw lamplight come into his parents’ window and go out again, he waited, then walked quietly to the house. The front door opened without a sound. At the parlor door

he could hear Charley’s steady breathing. Delroy, his chair leaned back on two legs, wheezed softly near the stove. Henry crept up the stairs to his room. It was still a couple of hours before daylight when the gate chain jangled and Henry saw sleepy Pete Johnson leading Sammy in behind Rose. Tucking his blanket bundle in an empty stall, Henry, in his blue mackinaw, met Pete at the stable doors. “Got your stove all warmed up in there, Pete.” The rider answered with a nodding smile. Henry took Rose’s reins and held her while Pete got down. Henry ticked his head

toward the sleeping room. “Go on. I’ll tend the horses.” Same nod, same smile, Pete slumped toward his door. With deliberate calm Henry unsaddled Rose, led her to a stall. He backed her in and stripped off her bridle. He stepped in with her, checked her hooves. All clean. Put a hand to her shoulder, her wither. Not too heated. Pete had made a slow ride home. He scooped oats from the bin, poured some in Rose’s manger, then brought the bucket to Sammy. He let the old horse eat from the bucket, still wearing his bridle. Henry watched him, strong and fit for his age, calmly chewing. Nothing fussed that horse. When Sammy had finished his oats Henry led him to the stall by the front doors and stopped him. He got the blanket bundle, rolled it out. He had a johnny cake, a few mason jars of his mother’s beans, lard wrapped in a cloth, rope, a hatchet, and the peacemaker Grandpap had given him. He packed gear and provisions into saddlebags and tied them on behind Sammy’s saddle. There were plenty of little patch towns down in the coal country where a young fellow could find work. There were little towns out there far enough away from Enon Valley that no one would recognize him or his family name.

The barn was completely dark. In the silence Emily’s voice asked, “Was that the last time you ever saw your family?” Henry nodded, knew she could not see him, but pulled her shoulder against his. He loved that smell in her hair. Then he told her, “I hope not.”

CONSEQUENCES

Muddy lanes between the barracks puddled. Cloudy chill grayed the sky, the high wire fence. Wet snow even on the tin roofs did nothing to brighten the day. Ungloved hands deep in their pockets, young men shifted, restive, impatient. Stepping from foot to foot under a dripping eave, Robb Parker ventured his hands into cold air, turning up the

stiff collar of his coat. Work in the US of A was not as plentiful as he had imagined it those couple of years ago. When he set off from the Hebrides to Ireland his mind had been on venturing farther, so he paid no attention to the slack need for blacksmiths, or working men of any sort, come to that. But after a year in America, and no steady work, the army began to seem like a fair place to stop for a time. The remote hills of Virginia where he was stationed reminded him a bit of the Scottish Highlands, though he had spent but a few weeks in those parts. “Hey, Parker, got a butt?” The camp expression always made his face feel hot. Turning his head just far enough to see the man behind him, Robb let out a laugh, hoped it didn’t sound nervous. “Don’t ye owe me a smoke a’ready, Peterson?” “Hey, you’re gonna get paid in ten minutes.” Peterson gestured toward the head of the line with coat pocketed hands. Robb was already reaching into his own coat. “Have ‘e got a match on ye? I’ve none.” “Do I got a match? What’oo I look like?” Peterson grinned. Crumpled green pack in his cold fingers, Robb shook out two cigarettes, stuck

one into his lips. Peterson took the other. The instant it touched his mouth Peterson’s left hand raised a match. It flared off his thumb nail, almost went out behind his cupped fingers. Greedy, he hogged the flame. Robb waited. Finally Peterson exhaled, moved his hand. Robb caught just enough flame to light before the match went out. Smoke tightened his chest. He exhaled slow. For an instant he glared at Peterson, thought about the warm feeling of blood from that long thin nose if he smashed his knuckles into Peterson’s face. Peterson tried to stare back, but shifted his gaze.

Cigarette lip-pinched straight under his nose, Robb eased his hands back into coat pockets. He turned forward. Muffled in the right pocket of his uniform jacket he could feel the snub-nose .38. It was one of the first things he had bought for himself on coming to America, given what he had heard about the place. Private guns were not allowed on the army base. But what fool would walk the road alone at night without one? Jenny Raimey’s house was a three hour walk in good weather. Tonight could be longer. His feet would be soaked. He stepped forward. The paymaster was up to the G’s. Compared to tramping around looking for day work, soldiering was not a bad job. Three meals a day, clothes, running water in the barracks. It didn’t pay like the mines, but you weren’t likely to get killed cutting fire breaks; even fighting a live fire out in the open had work underground beat by a mile. And Jenny made such a fuss over the uniform. Just some of the chaps you had to put up with made it worse than it had to be. Like that horse’s ass, Peterson. He said he was from Cleveland, Ohio. What was someone like him doing here anyway? Had he been on the bum too, and took to the army as a last resort? Was America not the land of opportunity it was said to be, even for its own sons?

When Robb got his money he walked through the gate, idling just outside. Peterson fumbled around with his bills, talking to that Paterson kid. Paterson shook his head, stashed his pay in his coat pocket and headed toward the gate. With a taunting laugh Peterson followed him. Robb kept leaning against the post until Peterson came out. Then he straightened. “What?” “I beleave there’s money ye owe me.” “Ya just got paid, sonny. What're ya beggin from me for? I ain’t yer momma.”

He stepped past Robb with a laugh. But before he had taken a second step he was spinning back again. Then he was flat on his back, blood streaming from his nose, steaming in the cold afternoon air. He shifted his weight to roll, to heave himself up on an elbow to kick. Robb was by his shoulder though. The side of his foot caught Peterson across cheek and temple. Already beginning to swell, his face, half in a snow edged puddle, throbbed with dull pain. As his arm was wrenched up the middle of his back, Peterson yelled, “Agghhh . . . Goddamnit . . .” For an eternity the only sound was his raspy breathing. From another world the paymaster’s voice dully said , “Thomas. . .” more breathing . . . “Williams . . .” Peterson’s money had been in his fist inside the pocket. Now, with the matchbox, it lay wadded in a muddy footprint, except for three rolled dollar bills curling out of each other like some kind of Christmas candy. Robb shifted his weight, knee grinding harder into the prone man’s back. He picked up the stray bills hesitated, palmed the matchbox. Giving Peterson’s arm another yank, forcing gritted teeth but no sound, Robb rocked back on his feet and stood. In an instant Peterson was up, gripping his shoulder, but hunched in an aggressive posture, six feet between himself and Robb. Blood oozed, dripped from his chin. 66

“Goddamn you, you foreign son of a bitch.” He massaged his shoulder through the thick olive drab coat. “Yer gonna pay for dat. Dere’s gonna be consequences.” Robb’s overcoat was unbuttoned, his right hand inside the pocket of his uniform jacket. His other hand, holding three rolled bills gestured toward the money still on the ground. “Ye’d better pick that up bafore you lose it.” He sniffed. “Dere’s gonna be consequences, Parker.” Peterson peeled his lips back, glanced at his money on the ground, then back at Robb. “Thes es the consequences, boyo. Come back, I’ll serve ‘e more a’ the same.”

Robb spoke slowly, kept his eyes on Peterson. Squeezing his shoulder, Peterson started to step forward. “After thes, the only consequences’ll be, yer mether won’t ken where you got buried.” Man and money were still in the same places when Robb walked away. At the edge of his field of vision he could see the city boy. If Peterson had a gun he would likely have used it as soon as Robb had turned aside. Just to be safe though, Robb kept his finger on the trigger until trees along the road hid the camp from view. Dave Paterson might have walked with him part of the way, but now he would make himself scarce. He lived on the next farm to Jenny Raimey and her parents. But they seemed to be fanatic pacifists. No telling why David had got himself into the army, unless through conscription. So much as talk about a fight, and those Patersons felt too holy to share the road with you. Robb flexed his right hand. Why was it your knuckles never hurt 'til later?

He walked fast, shoulders hunched against the cold. He pulled out the .38, slipped it into his overcoat pocket. Without slowing he looked back a few times. When it was clear no one was following, he slowed his steps. His arms were trembling. It was 67

colder in the woods; sun hadn’t shone along that stretch of road since early October. He buttoned the long coat right up to his neck. Low winter sun hid behind the hill, behind clouds. “Consequences,” Robb said out loud, and sneered. Consequences. That’s like when the mule breaks his leg because you didn’t see a rabbit hole. The mule steps in the hole and breaks his leg. Then you have to shoot the mule. Shoot the rabbits first. That would be better. But you don’t always see the holes, anyway; just like sometimes a rabbit sees your trap, and sometimes he doesn’t. There was one cigarette left in the pack. Robb fished it out, put the empty wrapper back in his pocket. He shook Peterson’s matchbox, held it between finger and thumb, and pushed it open. Three matches. He got one out, lit, puffed. His hand was shaking. His knuckles hurt. A smoke should have made him feel better. It made him sleepy. One more time he looked back over his shoulder. At a bend in the road the hillside had slipped, left a gritty pile of dirt, stone, and shale half across the road. Robb stopped by a tipped chunk of sandstone, rested his backside against it, reached into his pants pocket for a handkerchief and wiped at his nose. His eyes burned. Once a month, when he got paid, he always walked to the Raimey’s farm for the weekend. Jenny’s Da had killed a hog last time. There would be pork chops left. Robb pushed his thumb and index finger against both eyelids until light shapes kalidascoped through his mind. Walking usually made him feel warm, but it was a raw afternoon. His feet were wet already. When he opened his eyes a place where bark had slipped from a dead elm came into focus not ten feet from where he sat. Gray, worm-patterned branches stood out against the color of living, leafless trees. In ten minutes he had snapped enough branches off to make a decent pile. Squatting by two rows of sticks laid cross hatched on a slab of shale, Robb got his pocket knife out, whittled a handful of long curls, stacking a tee-pee of kindling over them. Do we just never notice the air moving all the time, or does getting ready to strike a match 68

actually force a breeze to kick up? Behind a cupped hand Robb set fire to the curls. A thin rope of smoke twisted toward his face, faltered. Through pursed lips he encouraged invisible flame. A long steady breath, then another. When orange fingers reached up around the sticks he carefully laid on more fuel. For a while he just stared. Flames flicked and sticks snapped. An automatic response, his palms hovered near the fire. The smell of woodsmoke filled his mind. A roaring fire filled his mind--branches the size of his arm criss cross under straw, a roof of limbs raging in orange flame, and inside the pyre, the brown lifeless body. Snow melted two feet or more all around the blaze. Robb was fifteen, sitting in the snow, forehead on his knees, sobbing. Grandma Alice said the old island folk believed the spirit sailed away on the smoke, up into the other world. That’s how she wanted to go, she said. It was better than being buried in the ground. You got to heaven quicker. Robb opened his eyes. They stung. He was crying. Thin smoke whirled up. He watched it rise while the back of his hand scrubbed his cheek dry. He pictured the ride home from school, Nicodemus, the old mule picking his way along the rocky path. Then the tumble, the sickening sound of cracking bone. He wiped at his eyelashes. All the tree branches went soft, ridge melted up into sky. “If I’d ‘ave been paying attention and seen that damn rabbit hole . . .” he whispered, quiet as a prayer.

Shoes off, his socks and feet were dry in a little while, though the oxfords were still damp inside when he put them back on. He tied the laces tight, stood, kicked snow and shale sand over smoldering ashes. Three hours. No point in wasting more time. He felt a little better, had hit a comfortable stride as afternoon faded into winter twilight. The long skirts of his coat swung as he walked. It was a good coat, warm. 69

Cash in your hand is a powerful feeling. It fixed the worth of things. When he had traded his piglet to Denton Mullens for that .22 rimfire rifle, that seemed like a good deal. But Da had been furious. He was supposed to raise the piglet, supposed to learn--a pig’s worth more than a piglet, see? And Da didn’t let him keep the rifle, but gave him that pocket knife for it. He wouldn’t have dry feet right now without that knife. And never could have taken the rifle to the camp. Maybe it was a better deal after all. Maybe things had a way of working out right in the long run, like Grandma Alice said. You just have to wait long enough to see.

A half moon was already up, lighting the road through empty branches when the sun was finally gone. Robb slowed when he saw someone up ahead, walking slow. A little, dark figure. He was gaining on it, looked like a woman in an old fashioned long dress. She must have heard his steps on the muddy road, but she never turned around. “Avenin, Missus,” he said, when he had almost overtaken her. The other walker’s step hesitated an instant, then moved ahead. She did not acknowledge him. Right beside her, three feet between them, Robb said, “Good avenin to ye, Missus,” a little louder. The figure turned, looked at him, but kept walking. It was an old woman, a shawl over her head, thick gray hair haloing her eyes and cheeks. “You needn’t be afraid of me, ma’am.” He spoke louder than usual, and slow. “I mean you no harm.” In the moonlight her eyes looked clouded. For a long time she gazed at him in silence. “Is they a war on, young feller?” she asked at last in a reedy voice. “No ma’am.” Robb sniffed. She took a bony hand away from where it gripped her shawl, waved her index finger at the road. “I seen you young’uns a-coming up and down hyere this last little 70

while. Seemed to me like you might be a-lookin’ fer yankees or feriners or some such a- slippin’ along hyere in the dark. I thought meb’ee you was one of ‘um when I hyeared you a-comin’ up behind me just now.” Thin dry lips stretched over toothless gums in a smile. “No ma’am. There’s some of us has got a camp up yonder. But we’re only clearin brush out ‘a these woods so it won’t burn so bad if lightnin were te strike or some such.” The woman’s pink gums appeared and she shook her head. Two fingers rose to cover her mouth like a shy girl talking with a beau. Then she waved a hand toward the ridge. “They’s a tangle a’ blackberry bramble right along the ridge.” Robb’s eyes traced where bare trees met dark sky. “Would you leave ‘em fer me? I pick ‘em fer jam right along about when they get black. That’s when they’s most sweet. You ain’t cut my blackberry bramble have ye young feller?” Robb shook his head, smiling. “No ma’am.” “Don’t let them fellers ride ‘em down with their horses. We lost a whole field a’ corn one time when I was just a girl when the army come through hyere.” She waved her arm again. “Why they just rid ever thin right into the ground.” She covered her mouth again, looked like she might cry. “We don’t have no horses, Missus. We’re all just on foot and never goin ta be about ridin anybody’s corn dou n.” For a while they walked in silence. “I had a son was in the army. Sherman Lowry. You ever know him?” “No ma’am.” “He got killed in Cubie.” “I never have been in Cuba, Missus Lowry.” 71

“Eighteen-and-ninety-nine. They was a mess a fellers causin trouble up there I reckon. Sherman worked the fields with my Sam, that was his daddy. But then he went in the army and he got killed up there.” “I’m terrible sorry fer it, Missus Lowry. . . I never set eyes on ‘im.” “He was a good boy.” She stopped, put a frail knuckle to her eye, sniffled. Robb looked at the ground, pushed his hands deeper into his coat pockets. Looking into the dark woods Mrs. Lowry said, “My lane’s right yonder.” Robb fumbled with the empty cigarette pack in his coat pocket. “Will I walk to the gate with you, Missus?” She put a hand out, palm down. “Oh, you’re a good boy. Land, if I cain’t get to my own door after a hundred years . . . You go on. Young fellers is always got somewhere to be.” “Well, goodnight ta ye.” “Goodnight, son.” Robb trudged up the road, wondered if he should have walked with the old woman anyway. Wouldn’t he have wanted someone to walk with Grandma Alice in the dark? He stopped, turned. He hadn’t been able to see the path she said was her lane. He looked for a dark shape moving among paler tree trunks, strained his ears. It seemed like she was never there. He turned back toward the Raimey’s farm, started walking fast. Lowry. Never knew anyone of that name. But over here was a long way from home. The only people he knew were Dave Paterson from camp, and the Raimeys. Somewhere far off a fox yelped three times. A big old world. And no way of knowing what all’s out there. Robb’s nose had started to run. He got the handkerchief out, wiped. The moon was high, the road well lighted. He was tired. His stomach rumbled. Pork chops, fired apples, fried potatoes, corn bread, fresh milk with the cream stirred down. You got fed at 72

camp, if you wanted to call that food--mushy beef in gravy over fried bread, shit on a shingle. That name didn’t make you want to eat it. But the taste didn’t either. There were good things about working for the government. The food wasn’t one of them. For a while, he noticed, he had been stumbling, feet slapping down on the road like he was walking in his sleep. Robb stopped, shook his head side to side. Raised a hand again to rub his eyes. Against his cold fingers his face felt hot. “I gotta sit doun fer a wee bit.” On a little knoll back from the roadway the lacy bark of a hawthorn shone in moonlight. Robb walked toward it. Near the knoll a little creek wound down from the hillside, sang softly over worn rock. Guarded from strong winds, wild grapevine and witch hazel canopied the high ground. Thumbnail size yellow flowers still hung on the dark twigs. Sweet, woody perfume imbued the air with peace. His hand slipped into the coat pocket, touched the .38. Then he was sitting, back against the tree. Had his eyes ever burned so much? He let them close, felt tree trunk against his scalp as his head drifted back. Who could say how much time had passed? Asleep, conscious that he was dreaming, Robb saw himself sitting under the hawthorn tree on the little rise by the creek. He saw his own legs, left knee bent, right leg straight out in front of him. Felt his legs in the same position as in the dream. It was night, with a scent of witch hazel. Then he was himself, in that dream, sleeping under the tree. Aware of someone standing over him in the moonlight, his heart racing suddenly, mind racing, he tried to think what to do, tried to see himself from the outside again, but couldn’t --Pretend to go on sleeping, buy a few seconds? Leap and lash out where he thought the presence was? But what if he was wrong? He opened his eyes. Strained back involuntarily as a mouse colored mule’s nose, inches from his face drew back in surprise. Head held high, the animal inclined its 73

muzzle, trying to focus its eyes. For Robb, recognition was instant. The mule backed, tossed his head, reared, strong forelegs slashing moonglow. Robb felt light as a feather. The bay mule danced playfully, agile as a colt beside the grapevine arbor. Wanting to throw his arms around that powerful neck in pure joy, Robb stretched his right arm, pushed against a mossy root with his left hand to stand. But, exuberant, the mule tossed his head again and galloped off, obscured by trees almost at once. “Nicki . . . Nicodemus . . .” The sound of his own voice waked him. Right arm stretched forward, left hand on a moss covered root, Robb froze stock still, then closed the fingers of his right hand slowly. He looked out through endless tree trunks, his thoughts grasping after what he was already realizing he would not be able to touch. But there was something out there. A nearly nonexistent breeze fluttered witch hazel blossoms. Twisting twigs and grapevine formed a curtain, but it was filled with holes. The tablecloth they used on Sunday at Jenny Raimey’s house was like that, lace her grandmother brought from Ireland. An intricate pattern, thousands of tiny pieces of thread weaving together--flowers, birds, pattern on pattern. A whole world. If you could see the whole thing, you missed the detail. If you looked at the detail, you could get lost in it. He didn’t feel so tired any more. For a while though, he just sat there. Those plain little flowers held his attention for a long time. Then his eyes shifted focus. Something beyond that veil of vine and twig shone blue-white--something tall and flat. Never, since the leaves came down, had he walked this road. He had no idea what the countryside beyond was like. Where could the Lowry’s have had a corn field? It must have been treed over twenty years ago. Standing up slowly, like an old man, Robb braced himself against the hawthorn, then walked toward the creek. With cautious fingers he pushed aside tangled vine. Beyond was a weedy clearing, ringed with trees, but moonlit. Slabs of stone, waist high, 74

ranged in straight rows, interspersed with sawgrass and blackberry bramble. It took a few seconds before he realized they were grave stones. If he looked, likely he would find one marked Sherman Lowry. Robb shook his head, felt guilty even thinking the name of a dead man he didn’t know. One time, a man buried out there was that old woman’s little baby. She carried him in her arms. Letting the vine sink back where it wanted to hang, he walked up along the creek, arms crossed over his chest. His stomach growled. For just an instant, he thought of that piglet he traded to Denton Mullens. For two miles he cradled it in his arms. He talked to it, calmed it, told it how he was going to hunt squirrels with that rifle he’d get. It was only later, on the walk home that he had thought about the piglet’s future. That knife Da had given him, when he wouldn’t let him keep the rifle, was in his pocket all these years later. Six months after that walk to the Mullens’s, that pig was in their smokehouse. They must have done it the same way Da taught him--rope over a barn rafter and around the pig’s hind leg, haul her up. She’d squeal. The knife had to be razor sharp, but never gash the throat. Just a little nick. Bleed it out clean. Let the meat cool slow, or it ruins the taste. Then slit her open, the sloose of intestine into a washtub. The gutty smell, still warm. He pictured the little piglet cradled in his arms, gripped his sleeves tight, coarse wool against his fingertips. He held on, then pulled his arms away from each other, stuffed hands deep in his coat pockets. Da smoked the best pork on the island. Anyway, pigs can be dangerous if they’re let get big. They can kill a dog, lame a horse, ruin your fences, waste a corn crop. Still, you can’t help but remember. We mean to remember; that’s why there’s names carved in stone. Even if it hurts, even if we don’t like it, we mean to remember. Grandma Alice and Grandpa Gus both have their names cut in stone in the meadow 75

above the cornfield. . . remember a summer day. . . lugging the box up that hill--Uncle Noah, Da’s brother, had built the box the night before. Robb and his cousins had dug the hole. They set the coffin down opposite the dirt pile, and Pastor McIntyre slid the lid off. Then aunts and girl-cousins, even Ma, were wailing, throwing their hands in the air, dropping on their knees in the damp afternoon grass, eyes shut, chins pointed toward the sky. They filled the air with sounds of sorrow until you couldn’t help but start to cry yourself. It wasn’t the real Augustus Parker, Pastor McIntyre was saying. It was only a shadow, only what he’d left behind, what he didn’t need any more. We weren’t burying

Gus Parker; Gus Parker was immortal, Gus Parker was part of something else now, something that could never be buried. It was right for us to put away these mortal remains. But Augustus Parker would go on forever; he was part of forever now. And the minister had his hand in the air, talking about when Grandfather Gus had got on that ship from Ireland, lo those many years ago, and his Ma had wept to see he son a-leaving her. But she was weeping tears of joy today to have him back again, in that beautiful place just over yonder where Jeasus dwelt and welcomed us all home. And with both hands in the air, said, this was a reminder, and a call to renew our faith. The women’s voices got ragged, and they were wailing again, high and wild. Pastor McIntyre said Lo! I am with you always sayeth the Lord. And the good news today is, Gus Parker’s there with Him. Then it got so quiet. The keening was over, and the minister quit talking, and for a long time it seemed like, there was no sound at all. Then a cricket started its long chirping song somewhere, and a wood thrush whistled a water-bright silvery tune from someplace invisible. When we closed the lid and let the box down with ropes, it felt lighter than when we’d carried it up the hill. What we’d thought was in there was over yonder. That was Grandfather Gus. We have to remember because . . . because they’re never that far from us. Like Mrs. Lowry. Her boy, Sherman--he was there with her

while she was walking the road tonight. Son, she said when she left. Goodnight son. I thought she was talking to me. I thought . . . Nicodemus. He was here, as well. I never sleep in the woods. It’s beggin a visit from the Fae, that’s what Grandma Alice always said. And I wouldn’t dream I was sitting sleeping in the woods, just the way I was sitting under a tree asleep. Nicki. But it wasn’t frightening to think he was here. He tossed his head, had four good legs, came to show me he’s happy. He’s ney mad at me. He’s happy! Running in these woods like a deer.

Robb stepped over the creek, walked out into the road. It was dark where an outcrop of sandstone forced the road into a sharp bend. Robb rounded the blind corner and all at once felt a sharp pain in the side of his head. Dizzy, he dabbed a finger at his temple. It came away sticky. It only took a second. Then he was tipping through the dark, both arms, elbows out, striking cold sandy mud. Someone was on top of him, grappled to his right side. A loud pop and his ear was ringing, needles of pain spiking through his head. Robb shifted right, rolled left, swung his right arm, cumbersome in the big coat. But his fist caught something. He heard a grunt. Kicking as hard as he could at the dark shape on the road in front of him, he struggled inside the wool cocoon, ripping at the buttons. His foot made contact--another grunt. He knew it was Peterson, and instantly something hard glanced off his cheek. Amid waves of blue and white Robb felt his eye swelling shut. He rolled away from the pain, got to his feet, thought Peterson would be to his left, tried to find him with his good eye. But he wasn’t there. Fingers dug at his blind shoulder. As he started to spin a fist hit his throbbing eye a second time. Left arm up to guard his face, Robb pulled free of the overcoat. He held to the out-turned sleeve though, and caught a glimpse of Peterson reeling forward. Robb kicked again. Muffled by the heavy coat, his toe bounced. He pulled at the coat, kicked harder. 77

Then, he felt the .38 in his hand. Peterson was on his knees, ready to push himself up. The gun flat in his open palm, Robb swung wild, caught Peterson just between the ear and eye. Peterson didn’t get up. Scarcely able to see, Robb thought the other man was still kneeling. He gripped the pistol’s cylinder in his fist. Pistol butt out like a hammer head he swung like he was cracking a whip. His elbow suddenly stung from the force of the swing and Peterson was stretched on his side in the moonlit road. Robb backed a few steps, planted his feet square and cocked the pistol. After a few seconds he could see well enough. He aimed at Peterson’s head; Peterson didn’t move. Pain ebbed, spiked, ebbed again in Robb’s ear and eye. Still Peterson lay without moving. Was he playing possum as they said in those parts? Keeping his good eye trained in the moonlight, Robb edged around behind the prostrate man, stepped close, pistol still aimed at the unmoving head. Shifting onto one foot Robb shot a swift kick into Peterson’s back. He groaned a little, rolled more onto his stomach. Robb looked up at the stretch of starred winter sky between the leafless trees and hills. Somewhere separated from pulses of hot nails deep in his head, an image materialized of Nicodemus galloping light footed through close set trees. What good would it do to kill this horse’s ass? Robb nudged the prone figure with his foot. He took a few steps. “Even dead, you’d still not be gone.” Kneeling then by his attacker’s feet, Robb tugged a soaking oxford from his antagonizer’s foot. Wagging the heel at Peterson, he said softly, “Yer lucky ye didn’t try this stunt an hour ago.” As hard as he could he threw the oxford into the stand of black trees, then he heaved up Peterson’s other foot and wrenched the shoe off. “You’d be dead now.” He stood up, lobbed the shoe underhand toward the outcrop of rock, heard it thud in wet snow. Robb crossed to the side of the road to retrieve his overcoat.

There was a chance Peterson might still die. He’d been still a long time. If not, he’d be at camp on Monday, unless he ran off. “And don’t ye think I won’t finish the job if you make me, ye bitch’s bastard.” Robb whispered. His teeth gritted together. He slipped an arm into the mud caked coat. When his hand came out of the sleeve, he reached into the pocket, let go of the pistol, and took his hand out again, shrugged into the other sleeve. Monday’s a long time off yet, Robb thought. If he wakes up, he won’t find his shoes ‘til daylight. Or, if he can’t find ‘em at all, and has to walk back barefoot, he’ll be mad as hell, or just so tired he’ll give up the grudge. Either way, before then, there’s Saturday night supper--pork chops and fired apples. And Sunday. And Jenny, sitting at that table with the fancy lace cloth, a whole world of little threads twisted this way and that--a curtain; a whole world full of little holes. A whole world between now and Monday. Maybe it’s enough time for things to sort themselves out. Maybe it will be enough.

HORNS

Out of the tunnel on hands and knees Robb crawled. A close fit. But the seam widened into an L-shape, twelve feet high, maybe, and more than forty long just to the bend. No ponies, no track, not with a low tunnel like that. He looked back over his shoulder, bent for his headlamp beam to light the hole, tugged at the rope, pulled his tool bag through. Then he stilled his breath. No water. Listened to the close air. Sandstone up above, but no sound of the ceiling moving. Breathed in, let the lamp beam roam along the far wall. Hint of sulfur. Struck a vein round the bend, must be. No sign out here. Some men would start at the far end, keep the ceiling supported until they were ready to get out. Robb shook his head. Stronger near the walls. A smart man’ll take the outside first. He had the star drill in his hand, but hesitated getting the hammer out of his bag. Just a feeling. Something nae right. His eyes drifted toward the dark, his mind toward that jar in the barn loft. Should ‘a left it in the woods. Jenny’ll see me goin in the barn if I ‘m nae careful. Damnit, a man ought to be able to have a drink, and it no harm to a soul. He knelt by the pillar closest to the low tunnel, eyed it. Half a ton of coal right there. Followed the wall with his lamp beam again. Nine I can see, just as many maybe round that bend. Drill tip at the pillar base, he raised the hammer. What? That feeling. He shook his head, hit the drill, turned it, hit, turned. Never easy with the anthracite, but in ten minutes he was ready to set the first charge, had the dynamite in his hand. Caps kill, dynamite doesn’t. It was like a good

luck charm. He pressed the cap in, circled the end of the stick with his thumb. Tight fit. He pulled a squib from the bag, bit the end off, spit oily paper. When dynamite takes the fuse, you hold your own death in your hand. Nothing else in the world matters, just concentrate on what your fingers are doing. But something made him turn his head. Kneeling there in the dark, flame of his carbide light hissing two feet from the live fuse in his hand, he turned his head. Couldn’t be anyone else in the shaft. They never would have sent him down to shoot pillars without seeing all the other men were out. But there it was, from around the bend, a light. Robb opened his mouth, drew breath to shout a warning. Damned fool, right near got himself killed. But the breath went out again, and no shout. Somebody there alright, casting a shadow on the wall, plain as day . . . the shadow of a man, with horns on his head. Hammer and drill were in the bag, Robb pushing it ahead of him into the little tunnel. Everything went so fast: he could see the cap flipping free of the oily red paper, couldn’t remember where it landed though. He tipped his head down, still skidding the bag along the rough stone. There was the dynamite, all six pockets on the bag side filled. Low. Don’t want a knock on the head now. So hard to breathe. Jeasus, stand between me and . . . The tunnel opened where track ended. A hundred feet up the incline he could see light at the pit head. Robb felt his arms clutching the leather bag to his chest, heard his own breath, exhaled hard each time his feet stamped down. Then he was out in the daylight. Still running a few steps, he stopped when the whole gang of breaker boys turned their heads, hammers pausing in mid-strike as they gawked at him. It took a minute to catch his breath. Standing in afternoon sunshine, hugging the tool bag, winded, he felt ridiculous. 81

“You get back to work, you boys,” a voice called from the foreman’s shack. Hammers started tapping slag from coal. Slowly, Robb lowered his horsehide satchel to the ground, but he didn’t turn, just stood watching the boys at their chipping. “And just what the samhell do you think you’er doing?” the voice foreman’s demanded. Robb watched the long spikes on the hammers, curved like the Devil’s horns. His heart started pounding again, seeing that shadow about to round the bend. The voice started again, closer. “I said what the sam. . .” Robb turned, watched the foreman stop dead in his tracks, watched his expression change. “Parker? What happened down there?” The voice was quieter, cold with fear. Robb looked away from the interrogator, at the dark hole in the hillside. Just a pithead. Just looks like a mine. Nothing had followed him into the sunlight. The hiss of his lamp flame sizzled into his ears. He felt his hand moving, took his cap off, stared down at the lamp, listened to the click, click, click, as his thumb pushed the drip control, watched the little flame sputter and go out. “Parker? . . . What happened down there?” He just kept looking at the lamp. “I’ll take what pay’s comin to me right now, Mr. Jenkins. I quit.” Then he looked up into the strawboss’s face. For an instant, no expression. Then a grin pulled one corner of the strawboss’s lips up, kept pulling until his teeth showed. “Oh. Bad as that, is it? Now listen, Parker. You wanna go and get yourself a drink, you wait ‘til work’s over. You quit now,” the smile faded, “You ain’t gettin your job back tomorrow.”

“And I’m nae askin fer the job, Mr. Henry. I’m askin fer me money. I quit.” “Alright.” Henry turned, walked back to the shade of his shack. Robb followed him, a few steps behind. 82

Inside the shack Henry had his keys out, twisted at a lock on the middle desk drawer, yanked it open. He grabbed the cash box, hesitated an instant, lifted it from the drawer and slammed it down on the desk. His eyes drifted down to the leather satchel. “I’ll sell ‘em back. I’ve no need fer dynamite.” Robb was looking out the dirty window of the little shack, bright afternoon sun dazzling his eyes.

Slung over his shoulder, the tool bag clinked at every second step. Robb listened

to the rhythm, tried not to think. Tool steel played its marching tune; Robb found he was thinking. Jenny’s gonna be terrible mad. How can I tell ’er? I couldn’t even tell Jenkins. He felt his heart start to pound. The bright sun was gone, just dappled spots in green shade where the road climbed along hillside, underbrush thick up alongside the dirt ruts. He walked, listened to the song of steel against steel. When it started to ring faster, he realized he had stepped up his pace. No sense in hurryin. I got ta take some time and think. Jenny would not expect him until just after sundown. If she saw him coming up the road in early afternoon, it would scare her, she would think there was some kind of accident. But she’ll see I’m alright. He knit his brow. Why was it so hard to think this out? Hooves on the dirt behind him broke his line of thought. His eyes darted side to side, into the stands of trees at either border of the road ahead. Been walking maybe an hour. Long enough for ne’er-do-wells to know I’m alone on the road with a bag of money. Plenty of folk would kill a man for twenty-five dollars. One of the long drill spikes would make a better weapon than the hammer. He pictured in his mind how they lay in the tool bag. But there was no movement in the trees ahead. And the hoof beats were slow. 83

“Robb Parker!” Hollis Beech. Robb stopped, turned to look back at the approaching rider. The big mule plodded forward. Robb set his tool bag on the road. When Hollis came alongside, he reined in. He was shaking his head. Reins slacked, he leaned forward, rested an arm on the saddle horn, shook his head again. “You was sure lucky you quit when you did, Robb. Know what happened?” He did not wait for an answer. “Next feller they sent down there to shoot them pillars, the roof fell in on ‘im. They reckoned he’s still alive when I left out after you to tell you. You could hear

‘im a-moanin under there ever so often. Sandstone though. That old red kind. Come down in one big block, couple ton, I reckon. If he’s lucky, he’ll be dead ‘fore they get to ‘im. You hear anything down there?” Looking at the road between his feet, Robb shook his head. “No, I didn’t hear nothin.” Hollis leaned closer, eyes narrowed, whispered, “How come you left?” One eye squinted, Robb looked up at him. “Wanted a drink.” “Get one?” “Not as yet.” “I reckon Joe Ratliff might know where you could find one.” Robb nodded. “Would he be up on Feds Creek yet?”

“No. He’s set up right yonder, in the next hollow.” Hollis pointed with a tilt of his head. Robb nodded again. “I’m obliged, Hollis.” Reining the mule back the way he had come, Hollis said, “Best to Jenny.” Hoof falls plodded off behind him. Robb started walking fast. The next hollow. After what I seen today who wouldn’t want some of the stuff ? If I wouldn’t have been 84

paying attention, that could’ve been me under two ton of sandstone. Again, his heart started to pound. Who was it instead, I wonder?

A log shed sat all alone in the clearing at the end of the hollow. Coal smoke drifted out from the stovepipe into summer air. Within shouting distance, Robb stopped. Fescue waved in the breeze, nothing else moved. He slipped a hand in his pocket, felt the two dollar bills he had tucked in there, then held his palms up for anyone inside to see he was unarmed. “Hello in the house,” he called. Nothing. “Joe Ratliff?” The door creaked open a chink. “Who knows my name out there?” An inch of double shotgun barrels glinted. “It’s Robb, Joe. Robb Parker. Hollis Beech told me ye was up here.” Robb let his hands drop as the door swung open. He could see Joe’s hand beckoning him to come in. Joe’s eyes hid in layers of wrinkles, the dark slits twinkling. His jaw jutted in a grin, showing off two broken teeth. Voice like a rasp on wood, he said, “How come you ain’t at work?” grabbing Robb’s hand, shaking it like a broken pump handle. “They ain’t shut that mine down already?” Robb tried to grin back. “Just lookin to give ye a bit a’ business befare it’s too dark to find ye up here.” “Well, come on in, come on in.” Joe’s grin spread even wider, his eyes wrinkling smaller. “Have yourself a chair. I’ll get us a jar.”

Shadow filled the hollow by the time Robb was heading back toward the road. His pocket was empty, and he had a quarter of a jar of the stuff in his hand. Eyes burning, he felt his steps, light and wavering, on the weedy dirt. Enough. Save the rest. Under the trees along the main road he concentrated on walking as straight a line as he could. Evening light made him sleepy. He unscrewed the lid, took a sip, exhaled as it burned its way down. Screwing the lid back in place, he realized, when he thought of stowing the jar in his tool bag, that he didn’t have it. Bleary eyed, he turned to his right, surveyed the darkening brush. Hid it. Where? Some lowdown son-of-a-bitch’ll want to steal my money. I’ll cut his damn throat. He felt his fist clinching. No. I hid it. Mouth of the hollow. He looked into the brush again, waited for his mind to catch up, turned back the way he had come. It seemed like he walked a long time, just walked and walked. But the hollow was not there. Halting along the edge of the road, dizzy, he gazed back toward where the mine would be if he walked long enough. Evening smeared shade all over the hillside, down under the brush. It felt strange. He looked back the other way, toward home. Drunk too much . . . don’t rightly know where I am. His eyes drifted shut. When he opened them, something up above caught his attention. All the treetops were fired orange with evening sun. A shape appeared, arcing slow like a bird made out of fire. It turned, vanished, appeared again in a wider circle, higher up. Hawk. After mice I reckon. He watched it soar, circle, bank against the light and disappear, then reappear in a blaze of wings. That’s the one and only thing in this world that’s free. He watched it circle. The air felt chill all at once, cleared his mind for a minute. The light was wrong. Somehow he had turned himself around. Stepping slow in a half circle, he stopped when the hollow, draped in shade, stood open in front of him. Robb looked down at the jar in his hand, a finger’s breadth of liquor in the bottom. Must’ve made this 86

stuff just today. He wanted to unscrew the cap, but something stayed his hand. What? Something was close, a forgotten thought, an odd feeling. Just a step away, he wanted to push it back. Then he remembered why he had wanted the drink. The air was ice cold on his skin, his heart pounding. Shallow breath rasped in the gloom. Jeasus, stand between me and all the things walking in the dark. He wanted to run, but his legs felt like rope, about to collapse under his weight. Jeasus, stand . . . His eyes were fixed on a dark shape, something squatting in the brush. He couldn’t focus. But he breathed a sigh when it dawned on his mind what it was. Tool

bag. He looked around. No one on the road. Looked up the hollow as far as he could see, could not see smoke from Joe Ratliff’s still. The fire was out. Joe was slumped in his rocking chair in the dark hovel, sleeping like the dead. Robb pictured him. With a feeling like eyes were on him, Robb pulled his satchel from under the hawthorn bush. Three waxy red berries fell in a triangle on the ground by his foot. He had the bag open, stood holding it waist high, his right arm up to the elbow inside its maw. Cold steel drills, hammer handle, the soft slick bills, flimsy between finger and thumb. His fingers retreated from the papers, slid around one of the drill shafts. Glass and steel conversed softly. He lowered the bag, mushroomed head of the drill idling near his knee. When he started to walk, leather case swinging in his left hand, long drill in the right, he felt safe. A few minutes later, rounding a bend, the blood orange ball of sun hovered, shimmering in the valley’s gap. Even after he looked away, alternating twin green and white suns drifted in the air in front of his eyes. Tipping his head so his cap bill let him see, he walked on, giddy with the drink and the bright light. His feet felt like dancing, moved on the dirt side to side, rhythm seeping up to his head, swaying it slightly. A tune crept into his brain, somewhere between a reel and an air, bright fiddle notes sparking under the soles of his feet. 87

A small shadow swept across the roadway, including the solitary traveler in the spiraling gyre of its path. Looking up, Robb caught another glimpse of the hawk before it soared behind him and out of line of his sight. A few minuets later, when his way led into the valley and he passed under the gloaming again, the imagined music still carried him, still brightened his spirit. Fragments of the melody, unvoiced pitches of air, escaped unnoticed from his lips. Floating on the buoyant crest of his two-dollar excursion, liefly unemployed, the miner drifted homeward beneath blackening trees. Jenny liked to dance, when we were keeping company. Frisky as a spring filly,

racing the wind. Not shy when the music had her in its spell. Eyes on fire with joy. For a time, a second, maybe, or an evening, a whole soft summer evening, cricket-song bright, and fireflyed, silver moonlighted along the creek, dizzy with the night scent of tobacco flowers, Jenny moved with him in a dance. That fiddle tune, part air, part reel, floated around them. And Robb held her hand, soft, mysterious as a bird sitting in his palm. A snatch of the fiddle tune stuttered from his mouth. He heard his own voice; the lively little puff of bird was gone. Eyes cast down, his open, empty hand wavered in his gape-mouthed stare. I’ve nae seen her dance in years. Just now she’s likely just done with the milking, fussing around the kitchen. Soft curve of her lips when she blows out the match after setting the lantern alight. Strands of hair come loose, longer on one side, framing her face in the yellow glow. Not walking anymore, not buoyant, Robb became aware of himself, looking at nothing, standing in the evening. Crickets chirrupted. A fresh-cut hay smell --snakes-- contra-stepped on the faint breeze, there, and gone, and there again, but not as noticeable. Leaves rustled on their branches. Old leaves rustled on the ground. Chilled, a breeze slipped around them all. Robb shivered, came out of his reverie, started to walk. He had not gone very far when something on his right caught his eye, a light moving in the woods, low to the ground. Someone carrying a lantern. It was a little 88

ahead of him, arcing toward the road. Keeping up his pace, Robb hefted the drill iron in his fist, flicked a second glance at the light, looked ahead, and left. Didn’t I ken somebody was watching me, seen me take my satchel from under that hawthorn? Up on the west slope of hillside, orange evening would linger for another hour. The valley was dark. He saw the light again, stippled by underbrush and tree trunks. Whoever it was, they were keeping a distance. His eye ran the rough half-circle where their paths would likely cross. A pure fool of a footpad, stalking up on me with a light, and me in the open road. But who would . . .

? Joe Ratliff? Why, damnit all to hell, he never lives in that shack. A crooked smile pulled up the corner of Robb’s mouth. The damned fool was even drunker’n me. Likely can’t even find the road. He almost laughed out loud, waved the drill-end like a cane, shooing away his fear. Another glance into the trees, a long stare, a slow search, eyes narrowing. The light was gone. Far up ahead in the road something flickered, a breath-long yellow pulse. Then just a breeze and evening. How could Joe move as fast as that? He was right there, then . . . Tiny hairs on the back of Robb’s neck hackled up. Who could that be? Awful lot of folks walking around in the dark this evening. All at once, it was hard to swallow. . . walking in the dark . . . Jeasus, stand between me and all the things walking in the dark! The drill stuck under his arm, his free hand caught at the bill of his cap, pulled it off. He had to stop, set the satchel down. Click, click. His thumb set water dripping into the carbide tank. Palm over the reflector, he counted . . . seven, eight, nine, ten. A blue flash and flint reek shocked an instant of evening to stillness. But no flame. He covered the reflector again, counted, struck. Nothing. Anyone watching would know he was trying to light his lamp. Robb tipped the gas jet lifted to his ear and listened.

His hands inexplicably trembling, he unclipped the light from his cap, unscrewed the carbide tank. No acetylene, just the musky stench of spent fuel. Tipping the can, he could see the milky ash-water slip out, heard it splat near his foot. Thirty seconds? Forty? Threaded back together he hooked the lamp back on his cap, scanned the dark trees. These six years now, the whole time I’ve been out of the army and married again, I’ve been cleaning up in the Devil’s parlor. Why should I care if I have to break some fool’s head open fer him wantin to steal my money? Cap set on his head he gripped the

drill iron again, hefted it, felt anger swell in his chest and shoulders. Ah, now ef there’s only one of ‘em . . . Plain stupid. Let ‘em tangle with me. Then, another thought . . . His voice rattled off what he was thinking. “Joe Ratliff, quit that stumbling around out there like a damned fool.” His voice was louder than intended, higher pitched. He picked up his tool bag. “Don’t be such fool, now, man. You know I’ll use this pistol.” With all his heart he wished for a pistol in his hand instead of the star drill. From the corner of his eye motion registered, spun him left. Far back in the trees, moving behind him out of his line of sight, that light again. Then it was gone. What in the name of bleedin Jeasus . . . Taking a step back the way he had come, all at once he felt weak. Something fluttered in his chest like a little caged bird trying to crash through its bars. Next minute, he was walking fast, tool bag clutched to his chest, choking the iron bar in his fist. Up out of the valley, there would be red sunset light, there would be room to think. Up out of the valley, not so flustered, he could get his bearings again . . . Up out of the valley he could see his shirt and hands bathed in orange-red. He turned to see his shadow lengthened along the blazing roadbed. Home lay just beyond the next rise: Ivory munching at her fodder after milking, warm lantern glow in the 90

kitchen, Jenny. Chilled in the slanting light, Robb trudged ahead, dizzy, spent, aching for home. Red light. Red hillsides. Red stone. Red stone. I wonder who it was Jenkins sent down when I left? Hours living under two ton of rock, dying under two ton of rock. He’s dead now fer certain. As soon as he thought it, he knew it was true. Right at that instant. Snakes die at sundown. A smell of fresh-mown hay brushed against his nerves. Eyes stinging, he scraped a thumbnail sideways along his cheekbone. It came away wet. Almost running, he hugged horsehide tight to his chest. Jenny. Oh, Jenny . . . so alone . . And then, there was the barn roof. Walking slower, the whole barn came into

view. Just coming home from work. A little early, sun not down yet. The cow pen. Ivory at her hay. Tool bag hanging easy, she looked up as he came nearer. Robb stopped at the fence, eased his drill into the bag as quiet as he could, heard it tink against the almost empty mason jar. Stretching to scratch between Ivory’s white horns, Robb felt his heart settle, not like a bird anymore, but like a big fat cat nestled in hay. “Hey, Ivr’y. How’s m’ gerl?” Soft brown eyes rose at his soft voice. She chewed, lowered her attention back to the fodder. A wee bit early. Don’t want to scare Jenny. She might think . . . He looked past the cow pen. The kitchen window was dark. Not a light in the whole house. The sleeping cat roused, startled the bird into fluttering. So long ago, when he had gotten up, it was like any day. Just another morning on the day shift--up at 3:30, smell of eggs and bacon grease, breakfast, walk to the mine before sunup. How came it all to change? How was Jenkins had put it? ‘What happened down there?’ Death. I know it was Death; can’t fool meself. He come for me and got somebody else. Robb’s chest fluttered, eyes fixed on the dark house. Where’s her lantern? She ought tae be in the kitchen, fussin at her stove. Ivory chewed her fodder. His yes flicking away from the house, he watched her, slow head halfway down in the manger. Can’t be an hour since she was fed. Jenny was right here an hour ago. But, I was right 91

where that other feller was, the one that’s dead now, an hour before the mine caved in on him. . . . “I come in the twinkling of an eye.” That’s that what the Bible says. His hands were gripping the top board of the manger so hard his fingers ached. Again, he was looking at the dark house. From somewhere an image formed in his mind, not like that shadow on the wall, with horns on its head, and not a memory either. This picture was something that hadn’t happened. Not yet. He was sitting in the house, in the rocker in the front room. Maybe it was summer, getting dark. But he didn’t get up to light the lantern. He just sat there, a nearly empty jar of corn liquor on his knee, loose hand holding it. There was no reason to set a match to the wick, no reason to get up at all; Jenny wasn’t there. Just not there. That little fluttering bird in his chest was gone; just the empty cage was left. What if . . . ? I would’ve paid my own debt. But, I couldn’t stay down there when I saw . . . He shook his head, eyes closed. I never should’ve drunk so much. Too hard to think. Ivory chewed. He opened his eyes, watched her. Don’t animals know when something’s wrong? Mourning doves coo. Dogs howl. God, stand between me and . . . Jenny . . . stand between . . . With both hands he pushed himself away from the manger, rounded the cow pen and made for the house, almost running. Jenny! “Jenny!” The sound of his own voice, though quiet, startled him, stopped him in his tracks. But only for a second. His boots clumping on the porch steps and across the floor, his hand was nearly on the screen door handle when the match struck. Stanched before the thresh hold, he watched her appear out of the dark. So familiar, the way she bent forward just a bit, waving out the match flame, turning down the wick. With the globe seated, yellow light suffused the kitchen, dissipated through the front room, scarcely passed through the screen to illuminate the prodigal husband. The vision flooded his whole mind, baptized him into new life. 92

“Oh!” Jenny straightened, a trap being sprung, a fishing pole when the line snaps. Still smoking match behind her thigh as if she meant to hide it, for an instant she did not move. “Robb?” Her voice shaded with apprehension. “It’s alright. Nothing to be scared about, Jenny. It’s alright.” “Robb, what’re you . . . I didn’t expect . . .” “I would’ve been earlier . . . I mean, I know I’m earlier than usual . . . There was an accident at the mine . . . A feller got killed.” “What? Robb!”

“I’m alright.” Awkwardly idling at the screen door, looking through rusty wire, he somehow felt odd about going into his own house. She’s so pretty. Wish I’d found a sassafras tree and chewed some of the bark. When she smells the stuff on my breath . . . But then, I have a reason today. A feller got killed . . . Can I ever tell her what really happened? Jenny turned, took a step toward him. “Why are you standing there, Robb? Why won’t you come in the house?” Her voice was still edged with something dark, jarring. How could he tell her? The shadow. Those queer lights in the woods. That awful thought that maybe she was . . . “I fell asleep is what happened, Robb.” Her hand absently brushed wild hair back from her temple. “That’s how the house come to be dark. I was just . . . sleeping. Coming down with something. Taking a cold, maybe.” She hugged herself suddenly, both arms tight across her stomach. Silence. “Somebody got killed, you said? Who?” She sounded like she might cry. “I . . . I don’t . . .” He reached for the door handle, swung the screen open with a squeak of rusty hinges. For an instant, a lifetime, he just stood there. Across that thresh hold it would all be over. He knew it. Felt it in his bones. How many men get a second chance? Who needs whiskey. He would have his life back. 93

Pushing the door wider, he felt like he could sail toward Jenny. His Jenny. And he was crossing the thresh hold, tossing his tool satchel aside as he passed through the doorway, eyes fixed on his wife. In that instant, though, before he left the twilight, before the doorjamb hid the outside world . . . Ignore it . . . Don’t think about it. Jenny was holding her arms open. He could not even be sure he had seen it. Quicker than the batting of an eye, something . . . He could still see it in his mind. A motion in the dark, ducking past the porch, behind the coal shed, into the beech trees . . . Hardly visible, a shadow, the shadow of a man.

INHERITANCE

Charley’s uneven gait sounded up the steps and across the front porch. Conversation stopped inside the sitting room. Hector, the prodigal son, bearded and in his navy blues, made it to the door before his brother had the screen open from outside. For an instant Charley was taken aback. Then he reached to shake his brother’s hand. “When the devil’d you get in, Hec? You should ‘a told us you was . . .” His eyes shifted from his brother’s face toward the mantle piece at the far side of the room. Their mother stood close to the smoking grate. Beside her a neighbor, Rachel McGuinn, smiled at Charley. Charley felt his grip loosen, felt the grin slipping away from his face. Before he could stop the expression from betraying his feelings, his brother was letting go of his hand, turning back toward the women. Rachel stepped forward a pace, halted. “You remember Rachel, don’t ya, Charley? . . . We just got in not half an hour ago.” Hector stepped away from his brother, toward Rachel. “Ma said you was out plowin. Knew you’d be in ‘fore long.” Charley flicked his gaze away from Rachel’s face, fixed on the black and orange bed of coals nested in the fireplace. When he felt like he had looked at it for too long, he looked down at his own muddy boots. “How’ve you been keepin, Rachel.” He finished speaking before looking at her again. They made a fine picture, Rachel, her hand sheepishly resting on Hector’s arm, and the prodigal brother looking foreign and exotic with his longish black hair and beard.

“Just fine, Charley. I’m well.” She smiled, took her hand from Hector’s arm. Next to that dark clad, dark haired sailor, her hair looked more red than Charley remembered it, her face more pale. “You remember my Aunt Elizabeth?” Rachel gestured toward an old woman, content in the rocking chair near the fire. Charley was nodding. “Well, Ma’s got you fixed up for coffee, I see.” He limped forward, past his brother and Rachel, stopped in front of the grate. An instant later he had the long iron poker was in his hand. He jabbed at the smoky coals. “This the best you can do for a fire, Ma? Rachel’s goin ta freeze. She’s pale as a sheet.” Mrs. Jenkins watched her son violently jab at the fire for a few seconds, her face resigned as usual, neither frowning nor smiling. She looked at his muddy boot-tracks across the floor. “Well, you just come in. Might be that’s why you’re still feelin a chill.” “I ain’t cold, Ma.” He kept watching the poker-end push cinders and coal. “I was just thinkin Rachel . . .” “I’m fine, Misses Jenkins.” She looked toward her hostess, but halted her gaze on Charley’s shoulder. “Charley, I’m fine . . . Your mother’s coffee made me feel almost too warm.” She reached to touch his shoulder, but stopped. “Well . . .” Charley leaned the poker back against the fireplace’s stone front. Aunt Elizabeth tightened her dry lips in a half-smile. “Thank you, young man.” She did not look at Charley, just closed her eyes again. “Ma, why don’t ya get Charley some coffee?” Hector’s voice was loud. “Sit down here, Charley. I’ll bring up some coal.”

When Charley looked at Hector, he was grinning, gesturing toward the Chesterfield. Rachel looked ill at ease, unsure if she should sit or go with Hector. “I don’t want no coffee, Ma.” Charley was looking into the grate again. Mrs. Jenkins had already stepped away. She didn’t seem to hear Charley. Then Hector slapped his brother on the shoulder and picked up the coal scuttle. “Go on.” Hector ticked his head toward the Chesterfield. “Rachel won’t bite ya.”

Rachel and Charley were sitting on the Chesterfield when Hector came back with

the coal. Her fingers were retreating from Charley’s shoulder. She slid away from him, pulling her hand close against her own thigh. Charley raised his ankle to rest on his knee, muddy bootsole toward Rachel. Aunt Elizabeth gazed off at nothing, dreaming in her rocking chair. Hector was intent on the fire. Over the scrape of coal skidding from scuttle to grate he said, “Might as well get used to her Charley.” He set the bucket down, took the poker in his hand. “You’re gonna be seein a lot more of her.” He pushed fresh coals toward the grate center, raked red ones over them. Standing straight, the poker back on its hook, Hector warmed both hands behind him, watching his brother and Rachel at their opposite ends of the Chesterfield. “We’re gone ta get married in June.” He grinned at Rachel, her face flushing pink. Hector remarked to himself how much Charley looked like their mother. He had never really noticed it when they had been at home together. But there was that same look on his brother’s face. “You’re supposed to congratulate us, Charley.” Charley pulled his gaze away from nothing toward his brother’s face, heard himself saying “Congratulations, Hec . . . Rachel.” “Yeah, we decided . . .” 97

Charley spoke over his brother’s loud voice. “Gawd. Look at my boots. Ma’s gonna kill me.” He grabbed the muddy boot resting on his knee and slipped it off, set it gingerly on the hearth, leaned back and pulled off the other. Then he stood up, holding the offending things by their tops. In his socks he limped across the gray wood floor toward the second floor stairs. Sitting on the edge of his bed, a Sunday shoe in one hand, Charley watched spring twilight coloring clouds through his window. Knuckles taping at the doorframe made him turn his head. His mother, a cup and saucer in hand, stepped from the hall.

“Hec said you was up here changin yer shoes.” She walked toward him. Charley set his eyes on her hand gripping the saucer. “I don’t want that, Ma.” She walked past him. A clink of china told him she had set saucer and cup on his chest-of-drawers. When he looked up, his mother was standing by the window, looking out. “Do ya know why yer dad went to Pittsburgh, Charley?” “To get that cream gadget so you don’t have to skim the cans no more.” He sounded disinterested, answering out of obligation. “Well,” she kneaded her thin hands together, “partly yes.” Charley did not move, looked past her through the window. “He’s talkin to that lawyer out there, Charley. He’s makin a will.” When Charley’s shoe thumped against the rug, Lydia Jenkins turned from the window. She and her son’s eyes met in the evening-lit room. “He just feels like he’s got old this last year or so, son.” “But what’s he need a lawyer about? What’s the law got ta do with . . .?” “He’ll tell ya about all this hisself, but I wanted you ta know first, so it won’t . . . So ya won’t be shocked like.” Speechless, Charley stared at her.

“It’s just with Henry gone, and that leg ‘a yours . . . Hec’s gone ta have a family, Charley. He’ll need someplace for his kids ta grow up. You’ll still get your third share of the cows, and Silas figured you’d do fine with a hundred acres and the cabin other side ‘a the ridge. A fella with a family, he needs more, that’s all. So Silas just figured Hec ought ta have this house and the barns and paddocks. . . You can still take a third of the apple crop.” Before either realized it, Charley was standing. “And because Henry shoots me, and runs off, Hec gets his share? Whose been workin this place practically single-handed since last year, Ma? “Here I am stumpin around on this damned leg, breakin my back to milk cows and get corn in the ground while the old man’s laid up too drunk to stand. And this is the thanks . . .” “Don’t talk about yer father like that. And don’t swear in my house like you was some kind ‘a . . .” “Like some kind ‘a sailor? Like some kind ‘a sailor who goes off without a word, and then comes back expectin ta get the best ‘a the farm? takin away my birth-right as the oldest son? and takin the only . . . the only . . .” He realized he was shouting, standing a few feet from his mother, a fist raised. Lydia’s eyes searched her son’s quivering face through gathering shadow, felt a rising tear sting one of her eyes. She raised a hand, almost touched his face. “I didn’t know, Charley.” “And just because he comes back here,” his voice was soft now; Lydia had to strain to hear him, “with his fancy clothes, and his fancy stories about ships and storms and places nobody ever seen.” And then his voice became so faint, she was scarcely sure she heard what he said. “Why would she take up with him?”

March frost blanched fence posts and boards, trees, furrows, and weeds. Before anyone else in the house was awake, before cows began lowing for their morning milking, Charley was leading Soot, the big black mare, out through the barnyard gate. While he set the gate chain, Soot snuffed, pawing the ground, anxious to be gone. She stood for her rider to swing up onto her back, but was up on her bit, clipping along the frost-hard dirt of the road before he could put a heel to her. Cutting along the cow track, Charley pushed the horse hard, turned her toward the split rail fence, standing in the stirrups. With a handful of mane, reins loose, his face flushed hot, even in the cold morning air as he felt the horse beneath him take leave of the ground. In less than two seconds it was done. They were over the fence and galloping up the sugarbush track. They would avoid Silas Jenkins returning from Pittsburgh, and be at the old cabin on the other side of the ridge before full daylight. No one had lived in the place for years. He needed to see it before his father talked to him about taking it, and a hundred acres around it, for his inheritance. Charley remembered the homestead as a long gray log house with wooden shingles on its roof. He could not have been more than ten years old last time he saw the place. Even then, what fences there were had been falling down. He remembered a sort of pony shed, but no barn at all. After maybe half-an-hour his leg hurt so much he had to stop. Reins looped up to the saddle horn, Soot grazed at stubble while Charley rubbed sore muscles in his bad leg. He sat on the ground, dark soil, green shoots around the brown clumps left by winter. No cow had grazed those parts in fifty years. He wished it was June, so he could see how hot weather treated that side of the ridge, but by summer Hector and Rachel . . . Pink skin on the back of Charley’s leg throbbed right down to the bone. He pulled a green blade of soft grass, held it between his thumbs, stood. When he put his lips up to both cupped hands and blew, the whistle was a high clear note. Soot tossed her 100

head, playful, ambled toward where the man stood. He caught her bridle and unlooped the reins. It took some effort, but he got himself into the saddle. Full daylight spread down the western slope. At home the cows would have been calling for their morning fodder for a good long time. Charley’s horse rounded a bend where the hillside turned back. The Jenkins homestead sat a quarter of the way up an east-facing rise. Pole-sized maple, thumb-thick oak, marked the dooryard with thin shadows. Laurel clumped near the house. The ax-squared logs of the walls were gray, but all the chinking seemed to be in place. Not a shingle was missing from the roof. The fences, though, were no more than a tumble of stacked rails zigzagging into under brush. Charley rode up close before dismounting. When he was on the ground he scrubbed at an untended windowpane. Inside the house was dark. He led Soot to the door, opened it. A big stone fireplace spread across the opposite wall. A pot-crane hung over the grate, a half-bushel black kettle still hooked there. The floor boards ran end to end of the main room, were a foot wide, heavy and straight. Behind Charley, the horse snorted. “Yep, its dusty alright.” He scratched at Soot’s jaw, looked around, imagining he had just stepped out the door. With some of that fence wire like folks used out west, one man could have ten acres enclosed in a week. Cows would strip those pesky little saplings bare in a summer and leave ‘em for firewood. Bigger trees up the ridge gave good shelter, hay would have to be put up in open air ricks, though. “Well, it ain’t mine yet.” Charley eyed Soot. The horse gazed back. For a long while Charley just stood there, looked around, took it all in. Then he dropped the reins. “Not yet. There ain’t nothin been decided yet.” Unhurried, he limped through the house. At one end there was a pump and a big stone sink, shelves on the wall, and another door, likely to the vegetable garden in times gone by. He tried the pump, squeaky handle working up and down, up and down in the air. Then a deep 101

sucking, the handle pushing back against his hand. A little rust-tinted, then clear water in a gush as wide as his wrist splashed from the spout, pouring into the stone basin. Charley did not even realize he was smiling, did not notice at first when he started to whistle. He stopped, considered the happy sound, struck in again with more vigor, walking back the way he had come. The other end of the house was walled off, had a door with an iron latch, the bedroom. Around in back he found a good stout corn crib, built like the house but without chinking. A pair of doors rose out of the ground, under them, a root cellar half as big as the house. Charley eased the cellar door shut, looked around one more time, whistled for his horse. Soot moped around the corner dragging her reins. Lost in thought, the sore leg was forgotten as Charley seated himself. There was a long way to go, frost burned off already, and an anxious feeling creeping into Charley’s chest. Before rounding the bend he turned in the saddle. For just an instant, more like a memory than a vision, Rachel was framed in the door.

Cows were bellowing like banshees, Charley could hear them half-a-mile off. Four years at sea seemed to have been long enough for Hector to forget what running a dairy was all about. Delroy and Pete were in a lather loading the yard mangers with hay. If Hec was in the barn his hands were sure rusty; most of the fresh heifers were still lined up, and the sun already getting high. Delroy spotted Charley first, called to him while he was scarce close enough to hear. “Ah nouw, dere’s de Prodigal Son come home at last.” His red face accordianed in a riot of wrinkles. “And houw’s yerself dis fine mournin’, yer honor? Roiddin doun ta see houw da common folks is gettin on.” His face hid in a smile again. Charley was close enough to hear him clearly. 102

“Hec in there?” He nodded toward the barn. “And his louvley woif ta be.” Delroy made a ludicrous bow, sweeping one hand toward the open barn doors, hayfork at rest in the other. Shaking his head, Charley climbed down, slow, stiff, led Soot toward a stall. He strolled along the shadowy milking bays. “You in here, Hec?” A stool scraped on the stone floor; an empty bucket thunked. “Down here, Charley.” Hector’s loud voice echoed off the tiled walls, milk streams suddenly ringing in a near empty metal pail.

Following the sound of frantic milking, Charley passed down the aisle toward the pasture door. Through the open top half he could see half-a-dozen or so cows already turned out and grazing. Before he came to the stall where his brother sat, Charley stopped. Rachel McGuinn sat cheek to flank with one of the Jenkins cows. Her hands worked quick and easy at the udder. She smiled at Charley as he stood there, but did not say a word. Walking the extra few yards, hands in his pockets, Charley stopped again behind the cow his brother was milking. Hector’s face contorted in concentration as he worked the udder. “Got a few done there I see, Hec.” “Oh, hey, Charley.” Hector looked up at his brother, his face red. “Yeah, been at ‘em a while. Rachel’s helpin out. Where you been?” “Well . . . I need ta work on this muscle in my leg. Took Soot out fer a morning ride over t’other side ‘a the ridge. Beautiful pasture land over there. Remember it?” Hector shook his head as best he could against the cow’s side. “Yep, mighty productive lookin land. House Grandpap was born in’s still standin over there, too. Like the day he left it.”

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“That right?” Hector sat up straight on his stool, arched his shoulders back. “Don’t mean ta interrupt you, Charley. But with Dad not here there’s lots ‘a work needs done. Rachel’s helpin out, but . . .” Milk pouring from bucket to can sounded behind Charley, then the clack of the headstall opening, and a cow ambled past toward the door. Charley held a hand up to stop Rachel. He followed the cow, pushed the door open and stepped aside, closed it behind her. When he turned back, Pete Johnson was already driving a new heifer down the aisle. Rachel guided it into the stantion and latched the head stall. Before Charley spoke he heard milk ringing into the bucket.

“Don’t fret, Hec. I’ll get a pail and give you two a hand. Don’t want Rachel wearin herself out.” It was a little past eight-thirty when the six of them sat down at the kitchen table for breakfast. Hector proclaimed the time as eight-twenty-seven, looking at a gold watch in his palm. He snapped it shut with a flurry, slipped it into the front of his broadfalls before he took a chair at the table. “How many eggs would you like?” Hector’s mother stood behind his chair, a broad pan with a dozen fried eggs hovering over his shoulder. “Just two fer me, Ma.” He leaned back, grinning at Rachel while his mother spooned the eggs onto his plate. “Rachel?” She raised the pan slightly. “One please, Mrs. Jenkins. And one for Aunt Lizzy.” “Charley?” He was glaring at the coffee pot. “When’s Dad supposed to get back?” His mother raised the pan again in silence. “Uh, two Ma.” “Well, I thought ta see ‘im before this. Might be his train’s late.” She spooned two eggs each onto Delroy’s and Pete’s plates without asking. She had rounded the table, 104

went back to the stove. Egg pan up on the warming shelf, she lifted fried bread off the stovetop with a fork. “He ain’t been out that way for years. Might be the train schedules are different and he just didn’t know.” The brothers exchanged a silent glance. Both looked at Delroy, who rolled his eyes and then looked down at his plate. Mrs. Jenkins was coming to the table. Everyone got a slab of fried bred and bacon, then she sat, one egg, bread, no bacon on her plate. The coffee pot was making the rounds. Forks and knives clinked against plates, spoons in cups. Aunt Lizzy’s gums

worked with vigor. Even on cold mornings the kitchen was always warm from the big stove. “Rachel, would you like some tea? Wouldn’t take a minute.” “Oh no, thank you though. We always have coffee at home after milkin.” Lydia Jenkins nodded, sipped her black coffee. “Puttin the corn in after breakfast, Hec. Want ta help? You can take the drill, and I’ll walk the team with the harrow.” Charley’s voice was uncharacteristically sonorant, quelling the scrape of knife and fork on plates. Hector leaned back in his chair, both hands hammocking the back of his head. “Well, I might better get Rachel home. Her folks might be gettin worried.” “Worried?” Charley winked at Rachel. Hector was looking at the ceiling. “They know where she is, don’t they? Besides, she won’t mind seein how hard her future husband can work.” He turned in his chair, elbow on the table, “Will you, Rachel?” Rachel looked down at her plate, blushed, smiled. “See there.” Charley caught Hector’s gaze, held it. “Soon as we’re done with our coffee you can harness the grays and hitch ‘em to the corn drill. I’ll get Soot and Old Nick on the harrow, and be a row behind ya.”

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Hector seemed to sink in his chair. Coffee cup in hand he raised it like he was making a half-hearted toast. “Well, since Dad ain’t back yet, guess I can help out.” Charley flashed a glance at his mother. She looked his way for an instant, then got up and went to the stove.

By supper time they had nearly eighteen acres sewn with corn. After the horses were rubbed down, and all the harness wiped and hung up, the brothers came in through the kitchen door. Lydia Jenkins and Rachel were calmly at work. Aunt Elizabeth slept in her rocker by the stove. The house smelled of fried apples and beef. “Seventy bushels an acre?” Hector sounded incredulous and tired. Charley grimaced with every step, hung his coat on a chair back. “Yep, if we get fifty here. Why that dirt’s so black, you could stick a wagon axel in it and grow a new oak tree.” He rolled his sleeves elbow high and went to the sink. He ran the pump handle a few times to fill the ram. Then, the tap open he worked a bar of soap to a lather. “Dad upstairs, Ma?” He watched his hands, working dirt from around his fingernails. For a moment she did not answer. Charley turned around, hands idle. “He ain’t come back yet.” Lydia’s voice was slower, higher-pitched than normal. Limping from the sink, Charley toweled his hands. With a low voice he leaned close to Rachel. “Dad don’t get out much. Makes up fer lost time when he does.” Rachel looked toward Lydia. She had not heard; her mind was far away, lost in memory. In the shining joy of a May morning all the streets of Pittsburgh jostled with the excitement of a county fair. Now that war was over the whole world seemed infused with a sense of hope and possibility. Even Silas appeared to feel it, marching along the pavement with his column. On such a day his leg seemed not to bother him in the least.

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Crowds lined the streets along both sides, boys and men in dark suits, girls and women in variations of lace and cotton, cream and white in the springtime air. Dogwood and forsythia scented the sunny breeze. Lydia Davis, dark haired, dressed in white, and her best friend, Rosemary Ternovski, red headed and in ivory, had a perfect vantage point along the curbstone to show off their new dresses. Evenings by one or the other’s family hearth they had sat stitching away the winters for two years running. And now this brand new spring let them display the fruits of their labor.

Rosemary, mischief raising color in her freckled cheeks, squeezed her friend’s arm. “Lydia, I’ll declare that soldier was looking directly at you.” She spoke above a pleasant noise from the gathered crowd. “Rosemary Ternovski, you are a scandal in skirts.” Lydia blushed, looked down at paving stones near her shoes, then raised her eyes again to the blue parade. “Which one?” “That tall sergeant right over there.” Rosemary pointed with her head, tucking a twist of red hair back up under her hat. Lydia could not suppress a laugh. She brushed at her cheek with a closed fan, flipped the ivory handles apart and hid her smile behind the painted silk. At the sound of her friend’s amusement, Rosemary had no choice but to join in. Doing her best to sound proper, without really meaning it, Lydia took her friend’s hand. “Shall we walk a while? I’m feeling overheated in this sun.” Lydia fanned her face. Rosemary stepped quickly along with her companion, begging pardon of everyone whose view they interrupted. “Where shall we walk to, Lyddie?” They moved into the open avenue. The column of soldiers had stopped marching, were forming up for a close-order drill in front of the dignitaries’ dais. 107

“Well I’m sure I haven’t any idea.” Lydia fixed her eyes on the raised span of bridge over the Manongahala River, and the park just before it. Upon reaching the park, the soldiers would be dismissed from formation and be at their leisure for the rest of that morning. At a steady pace the two young woman would reach the bridge and have time to cool their faces before the first soldiers arrived at the parade’s ending point. “Why don’t we go as far as the park, Rosemary. I’m sure we can get a better view of the parade from there anyway. Don’t you think so?” “I don’t doubt we can get a better look at particular parts of the parade from there.” Rosemary giggled, covered her smile with a gloved hand.

Both walked quickly. When the bridge abutments came in sight Lydia raised her chin, began running, but was held back after a few steps by Rosemary’s hand. “Lyddie, what has got into you? Why, you’re acting so impetuous anyone would think you were . . . me!” Each burst out laughing at the same moment, were compelled to stop and catch their collective breath. As they began walking again, not looking at one another, their heads were held high, dignified, though neither could keep a mischievous smile from her lips. In the park the two companions situated themselves among the resting public so that they could gaze at the river, yet still be in proximity to where the dismissed soldiers would take their own ways. They had nearly fifteen minutes’ wait before the martial music and rhythm of marching boots drew near them and finally stopped. The sergeant who had been looking at Lydia was easy to spot, he stood a head taller than most of the others. When Lydia saw him she fixed her gaze on his face. After less than thirty seconds, he looked her way. The instant after their eyes met Lydia looked away, drawing Rosemary’s attention to a pair of ducks floating on the water. The sergeant had stopped looking when she turned her eyes in his direction again. 108

Suddenly very serious, Lydia grabbed Rosemary’s arm. “Oh, Rosie, am I a terrible shameless girl?” Rosemary patted her friend’s gloved hand. “Shame on you for thinking so, Lyddie. I’m sure that gentleman would be very pleased to make your acquaintance, and have nothing but the best intentions toward you.” She squeezed Lydia’s hand, whispered, “But you can always hope.” The parade had broken up, soldiers walking among civilian families. Lydia fixed her sight on the sergeant, then on a point directly past him. She nodded to Rosemary and let go of her hand. Determination sounded in the crunch of her white shoes along the gravel path. She walked straight toward the unsuspecting soldier, closed in, brushed against his arm dropping her fan as she passed, and walked on with stolid purpose. Silas Jenkins turned to beg pardon of whomever he had bumped into, saw the young woman treading quickly away, obviously in the midst of urgent business. In almost the same instant he saw the ivory and silk fan nearly under his heel. He picked it up, strode after her. “Miss? Excuse me, Miss?” Terrified all at once for no reason she could name, her face burning, Lydia decided to ignore the summons from behind her. Though that fan had been her grandmother’s and was one of the most valuable things she owned, she determined at that moment to leave it behind and just keep walking, lest she die of shame. Silas’s long legs soon caught up with the young woman. He reached out his hand, touched her white cotton shoulder. Instantly she froze, then turned around to face him as if she had been struck. “Beg pardon, Miss.” He offered the fan. “I believe you may have dropped this.” For an instant she could not look him in the eye, fixed her sight on the fan instead. Then, to her surprise, she began crying. 109

Silas retreated a step. “I’m awfully sorry, Miss. I meant no effrontery . . . I thought it was yours.” “My grandmother’s,” Lydia sobbed. “I mean, yes, it is mine. My grandmother gave it to me.” She reached her lace gloved hand, closed her fingers around the extended fan, around three of Silas’s kid gloved fingers. She knew her eyes were red, she cheeks splotched with uneven color. Somehow it did not matter. She raised her eyes, then her face to look this man in the eye. His eyes were blue, restless and a little sad. “It’s very good of you, sir. I’m sure I should be devastated if I should lose it.”

“My pleasure, Miss.” Silas searched for something more to say. He kept hold of the fan, hoping she would keep her fingers wrapped around his. “How can I ever thank you?” Lydia’s tears were gone. She smiled shyly. Silas seemed to speak automatically. “May I escort you to where ever it is you are going?” “Oh, I’m just looking for my companion. We came to the parade together. Somehow we got separated.” Silas let go of the fan. Lydia bit her lip, cursed her loose tongue, flitting away what had been growing in her imagination from the time Rosemary had pointed out the tall sergeant, as if that silly organ were not a part of her own mouth at all, but some bothersome thing her mother had slipped between her teeth to confound any plan of happiness she might grapple at. Lydia pushed the thought of her mother from her mind, mustered her thoughts. “I can’t think where my companion could have gotten to. She is very flighty at times, just goes off on the breeze like some tuft of cottonwood floatsam. If you could help me find her I would be ever so grateful.” She saw Rosemary still idling near the bridge, turned the other direction. “We were over by those trees not twenty minutes ago. Perhaps she may still be there.” Lydia knit her brow. 110

Silas offered the young woman his arm. “Then by all means, let us look there.” He grinned at her. Lydia wrapped both hands around the proffered blue sleeve, gripping her precious fan firmly. Almost more that anything she wanted to look back over her shoulder to see Rosemary’s reaction. But she stayed herself, fixing her sight where she imagined she and her friend had parted. More than anything in the world, at that moment, she wanted to never look back.

Late winter twilight colored the kitchen, shadows a soft gray, low, yellow sunlight from far away paling the west facing walls. For what seemed like a long time the kitchen was silent, all the souls grouped there lost in their separate spheres. A thing like speech passed among them, but sound seemed an impossible notion just then. Soon though, the strange sense passed as unbidden as it had come. A commotion outside broke the spell. Something like roaring, a human voice bellowing, man and bull elk together, came from some other world, demanding to be recognized. Before anyone had a chance to react, Pete Johnson swung open the front door. He stopped, not crossing the threshold, hat already in his hand. Somehow he talked in the direction of the kitchen, but never looked toward the people there. “Mr. Silas is home.” It was his preaching voice, resonant, low. Already turning back for the porch, he hesitated. “Hot coffee wouldn’t do no harm.” And the door was closed. Minutes passed. In the kitchen no one moved, ready to carry on life when their cue came. Then the front door opened again. Delroy held Silas Jenkins by the elbow. Concentrating on the floor a yard ahead of them, the smaller man led the larger, talking him through each step. “Dat’s roit nouw, Misther Soilas. No horry. Go juste as asey as ye please.” 111

They were in the house, Pete Johnson closing the front door just as Delroy let out a silly cry. The next instant he was rocking on the floor, brogans kicking wildly, his read face slack with surprise, Silas’s bulk clumsily atop him. Quick as he could Charley was in the front room, had the old man by an arm. Though he managed to free Delroy, Silas was too heavy for him to lift alone. He shook his head at Pete, ticked his chin toward the open door, turned toward the kitchen as it shut. Without a word he sought his brother’s help. But to no avail. Hector stood at the window, hands on his hips, suddenly interested in the setting sun. Rachel, near him, hesitated, moving away toward the stove. Then Delroy was up and he and Charley were lifting Silas to his feet. “Come and have some ‘a Ma’s coffee, that’s all you need.” “Don’t tell me what I need, boy.” The old man’s voice was almost a growl. “Think ya can tell me . . . ?” There were tears in his eyes. He stared at Charley as if he had never seen him before. “Slogged through corpses knee deep at Antietam . . . blood and stink.” Silas stopped walking, shook Charley’s arm. “I been ta hell, boy. Hell. . . Think ya can tell me . . . anything?” Head sagging, he sobbed. “Can’t. Can’t tell me a goddamned thing.” Sobbing and liquor slurred his voice to silence. He let himself be led to the table. Lydia stood at a safe distance while Charley got his father into a chair. She set a cup in front of him, poured steaming black coffee into it. Silas’s head lulled a foot above the table. “Two horses shot out from under me . . . dammned good horse, Billy. . .” He was mumbling to himself. “ . . .that piebald, bucktooth sonofabitch afterward, not worth two shits.” He focused on the coffee cup, stilled his swaying head. Lightening fast, he slapped cup and saucer from the table, swearing at his burnt hand before the sorry shattering of china against wainscoting.

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Near the window, Hector took a step, one hand on his hip yet, the other cramped in a fist. Lydia still held the coffee pot, not moving at all. Her face was blank. A hand raised toward his brother, Charley waved him back. “Just let ‘im be. We’ll get ‘im upstairs in a bit.” Through a tense moment no one moved. Orange sunlight separated walls from dark woodwork. Already, on another day, lamps would have been lit. “My dad was in the war, too.” Rachel’s voice was soft. She was speaking to Lydia. Lydia seemed not to hear.

Still no one moved, until Rachel took a few steps forward. “Mr. Jenkins? Don’t you want ta lie down?” She laid a hand gently on his forearm, brushed her thumb over a splatter of mud on the sleeve of his good coat. There was roaring again, Rachel shrieking in terror and surprise. Then her back thumped against the wall and she sat amid china shards, skirt hem to her knees revealing black hose and ankle-high lace-up shoes. It all happened at once. At the same time Charley had his father by a handful of coat, swinging his fist twice against gray jaw stubble; a heartbeat, and a third punch, spewing a thumb-thick spume of blood from the old man’s mouth. In the next instant Charley was stumbling backward, bad leg buckling, and he splayed along the kitchen floor. Before Charley could sit up, Hector crossed from the window, threw his body weight against Silas, crashing both against the plaster, rocking Lydia’s china cupboard. Simultaneous with the crash, Charley was on his feet, shaking his head, then he was spitting blood. Both sons grappled with the old man then, toppling him to the floor with a thud that rung spoons in cups on the table. Charley fumbled at his own belt buckle, freeing it from the loops with the fury of a Hussar drawing his sabre.

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“Don’t!” Lydia had both hands reaching forward, the coffee pot gone. Inches from her son she halted. “He don’t deserve that. He’s still your father.” Hector pushed both knees into Silas’s back, held his arms, though they were not fighting back any more. Charley’s face was pale. He wrapped the belt, binding his father’s wrists together. The mumbling had grown unintelligible. Breathing hard, Charley wiped the back of his hand at his lip, regarded the thickening blood with disgust. Unbid, Hector stood, came around by the now stilled, gray spatted, muddy shoes. Each bent and grasped an ankle, dragged the old man to the

front room. An angle-topped door in the wainscotting opened to a closet under the stairs. Without ceremony the unconscious drunk was dragged, pushed, rolled, his feet lifted and dumped in the confines of the dark cubbyhole. Hector had already turned his back, was walking away as Charley snapped the door latch shut. Unconscious in the dark, Silas dreamed the dream that so often haunted his sleep. Dawn had scarcely brightened the eastern sky, fog still gray and cold across the field, when a rumbling of hooves quickened his heart. From somewhere behind him a long whistle pierced the air. In the foggy distance, an explosion, and the sky was unnaturally bright. The rear line had fired a range flare. A muffled torrent, not the flare, nor oncoming hooves, but something swirling them together in his head made Silas feel off- balance. He gripped the guide horse tighter with his knees, eased the reins toward his chest. His mount, Billy’s, three harness mates jostled in their traces. Blaze, the impatient mare off to his left dug at corn stubble with her forehoof. “Jenkins, take ‘em up to the line after you hear the first volley.” Sergeant Dawson was ten yards off, bellowing in that better-than-you voice of his. Then his back was turned and he was walking southwest, right arm waving. Silas could no longer make out what he was saying. 114

An uneven crackling peppered the fog, spooked the horses again. Rifle fire. Silas held the reins tight with both hands, leaned his weight back. Out in the fog a bright flash broke from the confederate line. Two more flashes followed, almost together. Silas let Billy have his head free, heeled him, brought him up on the bit. The magazine limber lurched, jolted along behind them. A second round sounded, this time from his company’s own guns. Heeling the horse hard, he brought the team and limber up onto a knoll. Lieutenant Saunders was there, directing the gun crew. Through smoke and fog his white britches faded, invisible, as if he were a legless ghost in a blue coat floating beside the field gun. Canon fire erupted again from the unseen enemy. Overhead, the air whistled, then from behind, mud flew at Silas and the others. “Napoleon seven-inch by the sound of ‘em. We’re out ranged.” Saunders was shouting. “Doubt our three-inch bore guns can even reach ‘em . If we can move up and get ‘em in range while they’re still overshooting us, this fog might do us some good after all.” He was speaking to the gun crew, but coming toward Silas before he stopped shouting. He looked Silas in the face for a moment. “Soldier, we’ve got to move our battery up.” Saunders was addressing Silas now, but not looking at him. His hands were busy unclasping Silas’s horse from the three team-mates. He had the straps undone and a man from the gun crew had come up. Then Blaze and the other two horses were being led away, limber in tow, toward the canon. “What’s your name, soldier?” Like all artillerymen, Saunders shouted when he could have been heard plainly speaking in a normal voice. “Silas Jenkins, sir.” Without meaning to, Silas shouted back. “Well Jenkins, ride as fast as you can down the line here.” Saunders pointed into the fog somewhere to Silas’s right. “Tell the other two gun crews we’ve got to move up.

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Can’t even reach those secessionists bastards from here, and we’ll be sausage if they find their range before we hit ‘em.” Silas raised his hand in a salute, but the lieutenant had already slapped Billy’s rump and he was bolting into the mist. With a vague notion that the field guns he was looking for were somewhere behind and to the right of Lieutenant Saunders’ position, Silas reined Billy to the right. The animal’s eyes and nostrils gaped wide with fear. Horse and rider cantered for a few hundred yards.

Then a blasted tree trunk appeared out of nowhere in the fog. Silas pulled the horse’s head hard to the right. They went down on the soft, damp earth. But Silas had felt the fall coming, had managed to kick his right foot free of the stirrup, and launched himself backward out of the left. For an instant he was on his feet in the ruined cornfield, then on the seat of his pants, then flat on his back. When he sat up again, tears were welling in his eyes, terrified lest he lose the horse. Billy was on his side, kicking. Before Silas could get to his feet, the animal rolled and was standing, reins dragging in cold mud. Then, no idea how it had happened, Silas had the reins in his hand and was stroking the horse’s neck to calm him. Both man and horse were caked with mud. Silas could hear roaring and swirling, and explosions. He was on Billy’s back, but he had no idea now where his own gun line lay. He tapped the horse’s belly once with his heels. Maybe he could smell his harness mates amongst all the fracas. Minutes passed. Canon fire had ceased. Silas reined Billy to a halt. When he put his free hand to his aching head he found that his cap was gone. He tried to think which way to turn, but a rumble of hoof beats filled his mind, tremors vibrating up his own mount’s legs. All at once, he knew where he was. The battle line had come to him. 116

Shapes appeared from the mist, a loping line of horses, men in gray cloaks, their sabres leveled. Somehow their motion was separate from the sound in his ears. A second row formed from the fog. Silas’s hands were moving in slow motion. He looked down at the handle of his own sabre, bouncing in its scabbard by the saddle cantle, saw his hands shift the reins, hold them short, close to Billy’s jaw. They were moving forward, though in the confusion, Silas had forgotten why. Then his eyes shifted left, his head followed. At the front of that oncoming mass a single rider far out ahead of the rest fixed his gaze on Silas.

The snowy mane of the outrider’s horse billowed. Unlike his compatriots this figure wore a black cloak, aflutter behind him. In his right hand something dark pointed toward Silas, a revolver. A small orange flame broke from it muzzle. Silas tried to drive the horse harder, but everything was moving too slow. In his head he felt something burst free, heard a voice, then realized it was his own. The voice shouted, “Jesus, save me.” And he felt himself tumbling sideways. As soon as he felt Billy’s weight pinning him, Silas knew his leg was broken. When the horse began kicking, torrents of pain fired from Silas’s leg down to his foot and up to his brain. Then miraculously, Billy was standing. He took three steps, crumpled at the forelegs, fell onto his other side, and lay still. It all happened in a few seconds. Before Silas could try to stand, before he could think what to do next, a volley of canon fire ripped the air. From their sound he knew it was Battery E’s three-inchers. Somehow they had moved up without his dispatch and hit the Confederate Cavalry from their left flank. Riderless horses charged amid the tangle of horsemen attempting to control their mounts. Everyone was scattering into the fog. Silas found that he was counting off the seconds since he had heard the volley. At fifty he pressed himself to the mud, covering his head with both arms. On the training field the men of Battery E had

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been proud of themselves. Only one unit in the Third Artillery, B Battery, had beat their reloading time of one-minute-three-seconds. When Silas had counted to fifty-eight, the ground jumped under him; horses were screaming, somewhere out in the fog he heard a man calling desperately for his mother. Then Silas was up. Wobbling on his good leg, he nearly fell. He hopped once, and a smallish paint horse, just a fat pony really, ran toward him. To his surprise, within arm’s length, it stopped. He caught its bridle, pulled the animal close, managed to throw himself belly down across its saddle. When the pony started running, he prayed it would not trip on its dragging reins. Eyes shut, he held on tight. Eventually he caught up the reins and got astraddle of the pony, but had trouble keeping upright in the saddle. He rode, not knowing where he was going. Not more than ten minutes had passed when Sergeant Dawson’s gun crew came in sight. He knew he was supposed to say something when he got where he was going, but Silas noticed the words kept slipping away. His eyes were closed again. When he opened them Dawson had him by the arm, steadying him in the saddle. The sergeant looked so serious. Silas tried to catch the words swimming around in his head. Dawson and one of the teamsters were sliding Silas from the saddle. As soon as he was free of the pony, it bolted, cut a wide circle and faded into the fog. Silas noticed he was flat on his back. Sergeant Dawson loomed over him. Then Dawson was kneeling, an ear canted at the messenger’s mouth. Silas could feel his lips moving. It took what felt like a long time until he understood what he was telling the sergeant. “Lieutenant says our artillery can’t reach ‘em. . . Gotta bring ‘em up.” “And you surely done it, Jenkins. Brought the bastards right onto our muzzles. Damn good work son.” Dawson’s voice boomed. He put a hand on Silas’s shoulder. “You’ll be in a nice field hospital by nightfall, son.”

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But Silas was thinking of the paint pony that had come to save him. He said, “God’s been good to me.” After that, the dream sometimes started again. But this time he came awake, taking in the darkness all around him. His head ached, and he slipped back into sleep.

Morning dawned gray and cool. Rachel, up before the rest of the house, already dressed and wrapped in a shawl, leaned on the paddock fence, facing east. She watched clouds, gray above, white lower down, scudding away toward what lay behind her,

toward Ohio, and farther on, the Great Plains. Out there, she imagined, things could be different. When her father got sullen, and cried about what happened in the war, she could always lead him off to bed. He would hang on her arm like a sleepy little child, climb the stairs and shuffle into the bedroom. His thoughts always turned toward the west, out where the world was still new. “Spring’ll be here soon.” The voice was Charley’s. He was close behind her. Somehow she had expected him; she was not surprised. “It is spring, Charley. Almanac says spring starts March twenty-first. That was last week.” “Dad says it’s spring when you can go to the outhouse without freezin to the seat.” He leaned on the fence a few feet to her right, watched clouds with her. “I’m sorry about last night, Rachel. Dad has bad memories about the war.” “I know. My dad was in the First Pennsylvania Infantry. He was at Antietam, too.” Charley nodded. “My dad was with the Light Artillery, Battery E. Thirteen ‘a their horses got killed, and one man. Wasn’t anybody Dad knew; some feller from Pittsburgh.” He gripped the top fence rail, leaned his weight back. Rachel kept watching the clouds for a long time. 119

“How come you never came back to see me, Charley?” Charley shrugged, leaned forward, resting on the fence rail. “Lot ‘a work here with Hec and Henry gone . . . My leg bothers me, too. Some days I just don’t . . .” “Hec wrote me every week. Did ya know that? Told me about scrubbin decks with a big square piece ‘a sandstone, workin twelve hours at a time. Sometimes the work was just standin lookin for anything in the water, like ice, or anything floatin out there.” She looked toward him, but not at him. “It wasn’t like he told me anything, really . . . You was just a stone’s throw away, Charley. And never a word . . . Did ya forget

about those walks we used ta take? About . . . the hayloft?” He looked at the side of Rachel’s face, pale, framed with dark red hair in the gray morning light. “I’d never forget. Never forget anything we done together.” She looked at him, looked away, gripped the fence rail hard. “Hec ain’t give me a ring yet . . .” Charley shook his head slowly. His voice was nearly a whisper. “Dad made a will. That’s what he went to Pittsburgh for yesterday. . . He’s givin the house and two- hundred acres around it to you and Hec.” Rachel looked Charley full in the face. “Charley Jenkins . . .” She turned away again. “Rachel?” He saw her bite her lower lip. “If I gave you a ring, would ya . . .” Her lip quivered. She looked down, then raised her head again, nodded three times. Charley took his hand from the rail. Both of Rachel’s arms were around his neck, her face pressed against his chest. “I could have the trap hitched in ten minutes. We could be in Pittsburgh by tomorrow. We could get a license up there, don’t need to wait for bands to be read out in church.”

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“I been yours all this time, Charley. Ever since . . .” For a second she squeezed herself tighter against his chest. “Let’s go, before anyone else is up.”

In the warming morning air they heard the front screen door bang shut. Aunt

Lizzy’s reedy voice carried across the stillness. “Come on in soon, children. Breakfast’ll be ready directly.”

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AWAY, DOWN TO THE SEA

There was no bugler aboard the frigate Morrison, but the boatswain blew his whistle to signal “boats away.” McDonald, the First Lieutenant, bellowed out in his raspy voice, “All hands, uncover.” And when the crew all had their hats in hand, he ordered again, “Stand at, attention.”

For what seemed a long time everyone stood there, a light breeze tossing their neck scarves and hair. Who ever thought it would be like this? Back home, Hector recalled, it had seemed like the perfect way to slap the Old Man across the mouth without getting worse in return for the trouble. The way Dad always cursed the army, talked about the sea like it was heaven on earth just because he’d been to Philadelphia for his artillery training. What could have been better revenge than stealing his dream? Months at a time in a ship smaller than the dairy barn at home, eighty-six men crammed into it, if you could call the officers men, they acted like they were gods. Well, it was one hell of a dream. Damn the old bastard.

His last morning at home, Hector had gotten up when he heard the case clock in the front parlor strike three. Ma would get up at four, to start breakfast. Everyone else in the house would be in the barn and milking by the time she had the bacon cut. Hector eased down the stairs, fully dressed except for his boots. Once he got to the chesterfield

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he sat, gazed at the smoldering grate in the fireplace for a moment while he held one

boot, ready to slip it on.

When he shut the front behind him, he lifted its bulk to keep the hinges from

squeaking. There was nothing he could do about the long, off-key note of the screen

door’s spring. But seconds after it sounded he was walking briskly toward the front gate,

and the road beyond. Less than four hours later he was sitting in the Enon Valley train

depot.

The big engine that pulled the train was a coal-burner. So it couldn’t be the one that had taken his father to Philadelphia all those years ago, Hector decided. Back then trains ran on wood. The Pullmans were old, though, could well have been the same ones running on this line in ’62. Or were army trains owned by the army? He had never thought to ask Dad about that. But he might well have got the back of the old man’s hand across his mouth for an answer, anyway.

Hector settled back against the prickly mohair seat, watched unfamiliar countryside slipping by. It had been a good stout walk. An hour on the rails now and his heart was still thumping. A telegram could beat a train to the coast, but the old man would be in such a furry he wouldn’t be able to think straight for at least a day or two.

Once he had joined up with the navy and was free of the old man’s grip, Hector decided, he could send a telegram. He fidgeted in his seat. Vengeance spread a slow smile across his face. His heart slowed to a restful beat.

Finally, Captain Roberts stepped up alongside where the planks were rigged on the port gunwale. He held an open book, but it was not the Bible. Without looking at the

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page, he said, “This company is assembled for a most solemn duty, to commit our

shipmate to the Everlasting.” His voice was deep, tired, his words slow-paced. “We

therefore commit the body of,” Captain Roberts inclined an ear towards Jeb Vail, a

Middy, officer of Whitey’s division. The Captain nodded when Mr. Vail mumbled

something, went on speaking. “Jonathan White, able seaman, to the deep, to be turned

into corruption, looking for the general Resurrection in the last day, and the life of the

world to come, through our Lord, Jesus Christ . . .”

Wind caught the ensign, nearly whipped it free of the sailclothed shape it covered.

But Hector held on tight, eased the flag back down into place. He could feel the

Captain’s eyes on him.

Then the voice went on just like before, just like nothing had happened. “. . . at

whose second coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the sea shall give up her

dead; and the corruptible bodies who sleep in her shall be changed, and made like unto

His glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue all

things unto himself.”

The Captain had no more than stopped speaking when McDonald bellowed out

again, “Squad ready . . . Aim . . . Fire!” The seven rifles made an uneven ‘pop’ in the

sunny breeze. The squad slid their bolts, shell casings hitting the deck with an untidy

sound. “Aim . . . Fire!’ McDonald called again; the pop and light thud following. “Aim

. . . Fire!”

Midshipman Vail nodded at Hector. They all held tight to the ensign, tipped the

rigged planks as high as they could reach. The canvas-clad shape slipped over the plank grease, and an instant later, a splash. Hector could not see, from where he stood, how

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Seaman White’s body dove through the air, down past the ship’s side, torpedoing into the

green water. He felt his stomach go with it, though.

And McDonald was shouting another order. Everyone had their hats back on.

The Lieutenant was calling, “Watch crew aloft. Idlers, dismissed.” Mr. McDonald and

the Captain exchanged a glance. McDonald called to the carpenter, in a softer voice,

“Mister Hopkins, strike those planks, if you please.”

McDonald had stepped closer to the Captain. Hector, on his dogwatch, idled in

the afternoon sun. Captain Roberts spoke in a normal voice, Mr. McDonald bellowed out

an echo, word-for-word. “Mast Captains, mains, tops, and t’gallants, if you please. Fore- men, haul your sprit’s’ls. Look sharp now.”

Roberts climbed the ladder to the quarter deck, had moved away from the taff rail before Mr. McDonald had followed him up. He stood by the helm, glanced down at the binnacle, then looked far out past the starboard bow. The book was in his hand yet, index finger marking a page where it closed over his finger tip. Hector fumbled around, helping the carpenter undo the plank rigging. Head down most of the time, he could plainly see the Captain with a quick glance upward. Hector watched as Captain Roberts spoke to the helmsman, who shifted the wheel slightly. In a somewhat humorous tone

Roberts called to McDonald, still idling at the taff rail, “Watch your sprit s’ls, Mister

McDonald.”

The Lieutenant straightened as though he had been slapped, bellowed forward,

“Handsome on those sprit s’ls!” And the six men forward jumped to their ropes, correcting them to catch more wind at the ship’s new tack, the big square sales behind them straining full of wind as though the heavy canvas were gossamer.

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Hector coiled the finger-thick rope in his hands, had no more excuse to keep so near the quarterdeck ladder. Mr. Hopkins leveled the greasy planks under his arm and nodded at Hector. Together they walked aft to return their burdens to the ship’s stores.

Hector felt a little sick to his stomach. When he came back up on deck he walked past the aft stack, dropped and canvas covered, to the starboard rail amidships, leaned there a while looking out at the water. It was a clear day, heavy white clouds far off, and a good, stiff wind. He felt like he might cry if he didn’t hold tight to his feelings. If he did let a tear slip, likely the others would think it was on account of Whitey’s death. He would be the butt of jokes in the fo’c’sle for weeks. Best not buy anything when his gear was auctioned off, just to be careful. Not like White had kids or a wife who would need money from his tack. Lame-brain got what he deserved, always drunk. Of course the damn fool fell and broke his scrawny neck.

Then, for no reason he could think of, that girl from the McGuinn’s farm came into his head. There were two if them. Wanda was the older one. Rachel was the shorter one, not pretty like Wanda, but what you’d call cute maybe, just the same. And that same red hair.

The red hair took hold of his imagination. He thought of how it would feel, slipping through his fingers like water, like a silky rope. He put a hand to the pocket in the front of his broadfall britches. There was a silver dollar in there. Before he knew it he was on his was to the Purser. He wanted paper and a pencil. He pulled out the gold watch he had bought in Marseilles. An hour yet before he would be on duty, plenty of time to start a letter to that Rachel girl.

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Rachel,

I hope this letter finds you happy and in good health. I will bet you are suprised to be hearing from me. As I am sure the news has got around the valley though I am in the Navy and right now on a ship out in the Atlantic Ocean.

How come I decided to write this letter to you was that I was only just thinking of home and always remember how nice you was for a neighbor. Hopeing your sister

Wanda and both your Mother and Father is doing well too.

This may be something you never thought of. But today we buried one of the fellers from the ship. It is called the Morrison. A frigate of 38 guns and 86 souls including the officers. He was buried at sea which I bet you never heard of before. Me neither.

It is kindly like a funeral only instead of the dead feller being in a coffin and put in the ground with a preacher talking over him the captain of the ship does it and then we slip him over the side with him wrapped in his hammock that he sleeps in and he goes down in the water to be buried instead of in the earth.

I don’t mean to shock you. But I know you are a strong girl and have seed folks that died. And your Dad was in the war like mine and told you stories about when they was fighting with the rebels and how some got killed and all. My Dad got shot at

Anteetum Creek and I think your dad was there too. This feller today, he didn’t die in the war as there ain’t no war on. He fell off one of the masts of the ship the Morrison and

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broke his neck when he fell. It was kindly a shock to all of us that worked with him

except the officers. They don’t care like the mine owners down in the coal country.

On a happy note we was up in the mediteranian sea a few weeks back and was in port there in Itlee. A town called Napoli. Folk said the town has been there over more than a thousand year like the injuns or something only it is like a real town with brick buildings and streets kindly like Pittsburgh only a lot more dirt and hard to find your way around in. The folks is dark like injuns too. Only they talk in Italeun. But some can talk kindly regular too with accents like the old German folks out around the valley but different. We got fresh water and took on feed stores there. Mostly dry goods. And fire wood for the cookstove.

A month before that we was in France in port where they make all that nice lace.

You would of liked it there. We stayed about a week fixing up the ship the Morrison.

Most folks there can’t talk in English either but some can. I bought a gold watch. It keeps time right good. There is somebody on the ship the Morrison who keeps the time and rings a bell every half hour like churches used to do. My watch is right even with him.

You can wright to me Rachel any time and put Navy Post Office Norfork Virginia

The USS Morrison with my name and I will get it. I hope you will write.

Your friend and neighbor,

Hector Jenkins

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Hector wrote only on one side of the paper, folded the sheets book fashion down

the middle so they would have fit in the Bible at home. He used four of the dozen sheets

of paper he had bought. The spares he stowed in his sea chest. The letter to Rachel he

carefully folded over three times, dripped wax from his writing candle and sealed it with

his thumb. On the front he wrote:

Miss Rachel McGuin c/o Mr James McGuinn Enon Valley Post Office Pennsylvania US of A

It was both a surprise and a disappointment to Hector that he had to spend his first four weeks in the navy on land, running and marching, and standing at attention with the rest of the recruits for hours at a time while a petty-officer with stripes on his sleeve shouted at them. He began to hate the sight of those stripes.

After a month they got to go onboard a ship, to learn the names of all of its parts, what different ropes and pieces of canvas were called, and what they did. The recruits

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learned too where and how they were supposed to stand, to work, and how they were

supposed to respond before doing anything they were told to do.

Hector hoped to be put on a gun crew, but was assigned to the mizzen top. Less

work most of the time than a gunner, and he was not likely to go deaf. He found shortly,

though, that it was not the height of his assigned station that bothered him, but the sight

of nothing but water everywhere he looked. From up there, leaning far out one way, then

the other way, as the ship rocked side to side along the sea’s surface, the deck was a

narrow dark stripe, far below his feet a third of the time. The rest of the world, wherever

he looked was a round, shimmering disk of variously colored water. Mostly it was blue.

He discovered after a while, though, that the water’s color foretold of coming weather,

green or gray, for wind, or rain.

The first time the Morrison made port at a non-European call, Hector found his heart beating like it had that first day on the train ride from Enon Valley. In school, and in church, he had heard of Egypt and was not kindly disposed toward the place.

Something nagged at the back of his mind about Moses wanting to get out of there. And he couldn’t quite recall what it was the Egyptians had done to Jesus.

Captain Roberts looked down from the quarterdeck at the slovenly gang that passed for a crew aboard the Morrison. Shirtsleeves rolled to their elbows, caps set on

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the backs of their heads, hands and clothes stained with tar. He spoke out in his best

voice of command.

“Gentlemen, for many of you this may be the first sight you’ve had of Islamites.

The Turk, even in his lesser form here in Egypt, is not a fellow to be trifled with. He will

not step from the roadway to let a white man pass. He will not remove his hat in your

presence. Nor will he answer to a summons of ‘Boy.’

“However, neither are these men magicians, nor minions of the devil. Treat them

as you have treated the foreigners in Italy, and you should find them able men to deal

with.

The Captain drummed his fingers on the taff rail.

“But do not trust these fellows. Stick with your shipmates at all times while ashore, and if altercation should arise, never turn your back to one of these boys. They handle their knives like the redskins at home.

“You will find, too, that some of the fellows ashore here are Christian. And while few may speak English, you may spot these Coptics by their hats. Every man here knows the looks of a turkshead bend. The Turk wears a hat like that twist of lineage. The

Coptics, these Christians here about, wear a small cap, like a tradesman’s cap without the bill. Like a bellman’s cap, for any of you who may have seen the inside of a hotel with private beds. Look like the poor sea-monkeys you are, and you should be let alone.”

A laugh rippled through the crew.

“Stay to the Coptic quarter of the city and you should find yourselves in good form. If you should find yourselves in the Turk’s part of the city, I advise you to return to ship as soon as may be.”

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Captain Roberts turned to Mr. McDonald, nodded, walked aft. Lieutenant

McDonald stepped up to where Captain Roberts had stood, called out, “Dismissed, gentlemen.” He waited for salutes, paused a moment, then put his hand to his cap bill.

An hour later Hector and his messmates had been to the foc’s’le, retrieved money and tobacco from their chests, had tucked their knives in easy reach under their jumpers.

The jolly boat was over the side and made ready to go ashore. Mr. Daniels, the Chief

Petty-officer stood at the gunwale, ready to be first into the boat. He was decked out in his double-breasted blue coat with brocade stripes on the sleeve, his full dress uniform, complete with revolver in its white leather holster.

Jeb Vail, the Middy, nudged Hector. “Take a gander at his royal hinder, the king of Pruesha.”

Hector stifled a laugh, sneered at the stripes on CPO Daniels’s sleeve. “Think he’ll stand in the bows ‘a the jolly boat, like he’s Napolean?” It was Vail’s turn to suppress his laugh.

CPO Daniels sat in the bow of the jolly boat, but did not condescend to speak. He kept his seat until the rowers had shipped their oars, jumped over the sides and pulled the boat’s keel onto the sand. Without a word, Daniels rose, stepped from the boat, and without waiting for a salute he was not likely to get, strode off, enfolded by the market crowd in seconds.

The market was a swarm of little wooden booths, pushcarts, and rugs all laid out with anything the mind could think of. And driven in tight among everything were people in their strange long robes. And there were donkeys, horses, camels, and dogs, always moving in a crowded slow push. The air smelled like the sea, mixed up with

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animal dung, frying food, sweat and odd spices. Hector and Middy Vail stuck together.

The others wandered off and were lost in the confusion.

Vail was younger than Hector by a year or more. He said he was fifteen, but

looked twelve except for his height. He was from Carolina. Hector, at nearly seventeen,

filled in as a sort of older brother. Had there been other midshipmen aboard the

Morrison, the friendship would never have developed, but it was the first time out for

both of them. If Captain Roberts knew an officer in training looked up to a lowly able

seaman, he would have had the boatswain flog Vail with a cane. The two walked side-

by-side through the noisy market. Hector slipped out his watch, took a quick glimpse at the time.

“What do ya reckon them Islams are cookin, Mr. Jenkins? Smells almost like real

food, don’t it.”

“It’s likely camel dung er one ‘a their extra babies that they couldn’t afford to

feed, Mr. Vail.” Hector cast a sidelong glance, tried to keep from smiling. He and Vail

exploded into laughter when Hector’s mouth twitched. Then, a hand grabbed Hector by

the ankle.

He jumped against Vail, nearly knocking him over in his surprise. The next

instant, though, he saw that the hand was from an old man, squatting next to a rug. Both

of his hands were dark, bent like claws. He was dressed in dirty white trousers and a long

buttonless shirt. Hector noted that he wore one of the small caps Captain Roberts had

described, marking him as a Coptic.

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Vail had a hand raised in offense, but Hector stayed his arm. “Wait. . . Lookee here. This feller’s one ‘a them Christians the skipper was telling us about. And he’s a silver smith.”

The old man waved a dark hand over an array of jewelry built of flattened and wrapped silver, glistening cups, small shining boxes. Hector thought of Rachel. He squatted near the rug for a better look. The old vender smiled, a crooked display of tobacco brown teeth, and glimmering eyes in his dark wrinkled face. Vail stood awkwardly, looking around, but finally knelt, too.

Hector picked up a bracelet, traced the fine work with his index finger. It was a shimmering ring of air-light silver rope, woven back on itself, as broad as three of his own fingers. Set around it, coils of flattened, twisted silver wire glimmered.

“I know a redheaded girl back home that would sure like the look ‘a this thing,

Mr. Vail.” Hector kept turning the bright metal in his fingers, spoke barely above a whisper. “Reckon what it’s worth?”

The midshipman by now was enthralled with the workmanship as well. “Could be a king’s ransom, Mr. Jenkins.”

Hector looked up. The silver smith still grinned in his jolly way. “What’ll it take to get this off yer hands, mister?” Hector raised the bracelet toward its maker.

The old man grinned broader, nodded his head. He spoke a thick-tongued string of words. Hector, still holding the bracelet, dug in his pocket, pushed his watch aside and pulled out a fifty-cent piece, offered it to the seller. But the old man pushed his hand away, talking faster than before. Hector pulled out two more coins, a dollar and a half in silver.

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Still grinning, the smith pushed Hector’s hand away again, took the bracelet with his other hand. The words made no sense, but Hector knew the smith was extolling the virtues of his art. He traced the fine wires with his thick fingernail, turned the bracelet over, showed how smooth the mountings were on the inside.

Hector slipped the three coins back in the front of his broadfalls. The old man froze, grin fading. Then he was talking fast again. Hector took a gold dollar from his pocket, held it up and winked at the old smith.

A thick tongue slipping out past those ragged teeth. The smith laughed a dry throated laugh, nodding his head again. He wagged a finger in the air, pushed the bracelet back into Hector’s right hand, closed both of his hands around it, squeezed. The next instant the gold dollar was in his hand. His dark eyes glinted at Hector.

The smith turned he gaze toward Vail. Said something in the outlandish language.

“Not today Gran-dad,” Vail told him, shaking his head. He showed his straight white teeth in a smile. “I gotta keep an eye on brother Jenkins, here.” The two sailors rose.

Either a wave, or brushing away a mosquito, the old silver vender put his hand momentarily in the air. He was looking back into the tangle of humanity in the market.

In his dry voice (it could not have carried more than ten feet amid the noise of the place) he seemed to be reciting his seller’s tale, like a marketeer at a county fair back home.

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The sun cast long shadows through the winding, sand colored streets. Its

reflection glowed in the still water of the bay. Vail, Hector, and three other men from

their berth stood watching as the jolly boat crossed the glassy water. No one spoke.

Heat, and having seen so many new sights turned their thoughts to silence. Hector pulled

out his watch, snapped the cover open; back on the other side of the world it would be

milking time.

When they got into the boat, one of the rowers was telling a story in a subdued

voice. When he saw Vail, he stopped.

“Mr. Vail, sir, beggin your pardon,” he waved his right hand toward his unbilled

cap in a lazy salute, “Captain says shore leave is cancelled for the rest ‘a the time we’re

in port here, sir.”

Vail was uncomfortable with the respect due his station. “Why’s that, sailor?”

“The Chief got killed, sir.”

“What?” He did not give the man time to answer. “It’s Hawkins, ain’t it? What the hell are you talking about, Hawkins? Mr. Hawkins?” Vail sat rigidly on the thwart.

The rowers started pulling.

Hawkins raised his oar, took a breath, and started talking as the blade hit the water. “Well sir, some ‘a the fellers found Mr. Daniels dead, not a stone’s throw from the mouth ‘a the bay here, sir.” Hawkins spoke while he pulled at his oar. All the oars went up, made their turn, hit the water. “Looks like somebody killed ‘im for his pistol. It was gone and so was his brocade coat.”

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“How the hell . . .” Vail sat, open mouthed.

The oars hit the water. “One ‘a these apes just put a knife in his back. Must of hit

his heart. Just bled ‘im out like a stuck pig.”

Oars made their sound in the water. The thwarts creaked. The oars made their

sound again. “Beggin pardon, sir. Captain and Mr. McDonald both said he ought to of

knew better. Ain’t nothing these fellers won’t do for a .38 pistol.”

Climbing over the gunwale, the first thing that met their eyes was CPO Daniels’s

body, laid out on a deck grid. In the setting sun it looked like a bad dream. He lay on his belly, face turned toward the land. His eyes were open. His white shirt was still tucked.

The left side plastered to his body with what looked like drying purple paint, the right side billowed gently in the evening breeze.

All the men from the jolly boat were on deck. Behind them, oars plashed, returning for another load of crewmen. In the boat, Hector had thought he didn’t care that Daniels was dead. Without those stripes on his sleeve, though, he was just a burley middle-aged man, dead, with a faintly surprised look on his face.

Hector felt a little sick to his stomach. Next to him, he heard Vail crying softly.

Without looking at him, Hector kicked Vail just above the ankle, walked past him toward the foe’s’le. With any other superior, he would never have dared it for fear of being hanged. But Vail would never put him on report.

In the stale, stuffy air below deck, Hector set a lighted candle on top of his sea chest, sat at one end of the closed lid and spread his sheets of paper for the candle to light. He was alone below decks. Before starting to write, he put the pencil tip to his tongue.

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Rachel,

Today was the very first time I ever seen the lands they talk about in the Bible.

We are at port in Egypt, right near to where Moses lived when he was alive back in Bible time, I expect.

Queer as it might seem, not all the folks that live in the Bible lands are Christian.

Ain’t that strange? But some of them are. I was on shore with another feller from the ship the Morrison just today, and bought something from one of them Christian fellers.

He was a real nice old man that reminded me of Hiram Blakely down at the livery in

Enon Valley. This feller was a smith too. But he didn’t work iron he worked silver. I bought you a present from him. I will send it along when we get back to the civilized world.

It is real pretty here Rachel. The water is as blue as can be and the sun is warm.

Only you couldn’t farm nothing here because the soil is all sand (ha ha).

Speaking of queer Bible things, there is this one feller on the ship the Morrison who is called the Chief Petty Officer. It’s like a sargent in the army like my dad was when he got out. When there ain’t other work to do this feller hands out Bibles and

Prayer Books. Only they ain’t real books, just pieces of sandstone about that big. The decks are made from wood called teak and we scrub them clean with these here stones.

Mostly we are on are knees too, so that’s like praying too (ha ha).

This feller the Chief, like we call him, I used to think was a no good sort who thought he was better than you. But that is how officers are supposed to be I kindly

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think. Wouldn’t nobody listen to a officer if he was just like the hands. So, now I think the Chief ain’t a bad sort after all.

Wright to me when you get a chance Rachel. I hope you like your present that I got you when you get it.

As ever,

Hector

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POCHEEN

Beyond the trickle of rainwater down the spout by my window, I could hear the dancing notes of Deltoy Clinton’s mouth harp. And it made the fingers of my hand tick faster down the ledger. Somehow a shilling had gone missing, but I’d find the little bugger out now and be down below by the time Delroy’s feet led him in.

Ma was in charge of the Moon and Stars, but it was Mr. Murran owned the place. It was Mr. Murran let us the flat above, and it was him took half of what he claimed to pay Ma and me, for three rooms up under the eaves. It was better than resting our heads on the curbstone, Ma said. And I suppose it never occurred to me, there could be room in between for other possibilities. Wouldn’t it be like putting new words to a familiar song, to take what she told me every day and lace it with queries? Ink had dried on the nib of my pen, keeping rhythm down the column. The reedy harp put words in my head, ‘Twas in Dublin city, where the girls are so pretty. . . My eyes pushed them out again, searching the black numbers for that quid, two-and-six, three, three, two-and-nine, makes a florin and three. . . The music was like numbers, could be counted out. Only notes didn’t get dropped. . . That I first laid my eyes on sweet Molly Malone. . . I put another tick on my cuff, read them off to myself. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty . . . not twenty-one pounds! Twenty pound and a Guinea, even. So there it was! I pulled the jacket sleeve down. Ma hated when I inked my cuffs. “Twenty pound, one Guinea,” I reminded myself, shutting the ledger. The harp had stopped. I made for the door and down the stair.

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It was a clammy wind followed Delroy in through the open door, his face red with it, and his hands, just slipping the harp in his pocket, and clapping the door shut against the damp as I came down. “God bless all here,” he said, and blowing on his cold fingers after. Halloos of all the regulars drifted at Delroy through smoke. He saw me, tossed me a wink, and made for the bar. Ma knew he was there, but kept her back to him until tan foam slid down the glass in her hand. She parked the tap handle and had the skimmer in her fingers before she turned to face him. Then flat across the glass, foam in the scupper, and her shoulders came around, following her grin, the pint kissing pink marble just as Delroy’s shoeleather touched the foot rail. He had the silver in his hand, laid it in Ma’s palm, touch lingering just a heartbeat. Like she always did, Ma smiled, pretending to count. “Ah, keep it, Mary,” he said, like always, and she was slipping a sixpence in her apron pocket as the other clinked in the til. One day, I said to myself, they’ll marry; he’ll be my Da, and that will make Ma happy twice over. Two years since the summer they’d been keeping company. I fiddled with the numbers in my head. Just two years old and a bit I’d been when my real Da had gone, lost in a storm at sea. That’s when we moved here from Sligo. Ma said she couldn’t bear to look at the sea any more. Two and a bit; that was a sort of magic number. Tide out, tide in, like. That same night when I went up to bed I was still thinking about Ma and Delroy. Last call was hours off yet, but the crowd was quiet down below. Alone in the dark I could hear the drippling water singing down the drain pipe off the roof. It sang me to sleep with a sweet mournful tune swirling down through the night outside.

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Next morning dawned pink and brassy. When I had been at the school bright spring mornings made me long for the time I could be out and about in the world and not cooped up in some chalky, oil-smelling room waiting for the egg of wisdom to drop like I was one of the old hens scratching behind wire in the lanes along the river. Brindle Johnny, Mr. Murran’s pony, was fat and he moved slow. But I had him harnessed and taking me in the cart to the railway depot with dew still damp along the iron railings. Old Murran got cases of whisky from the distillery down in County Cork. I counted them out as they went from a train car to the cart always. And always he managed to sell about

two more cases worth than I brought. It’s a clever man can sell water at the price of whisky. But wouldn’t he become a fool over night if ever anyone knew? So, it was down to the station to cart back the bottles, and my half-day off starting yellow and pleasant. Then didn’t it happen that some event would have to set it off- kilter? Always two day coaches trundled behind the stoker car, and freight cars trailing in back. Mostly it was people passing along on their way somewhere else rode in those coaches. Though a time and more people from the town boarded and rode away somewhere else, looking at towns and villages along the way through the window glass. But there it was, big as you please. Just as Brindle Johnny come even with the platform, off steps this girl, wearing a dark skirt, and a grey sweater. She had foreign-looking shoes, and a big leather grip bound up with threadbare straps and a piece of twine. And pinned to her sweater, a big piece of brown paper that someone had written on with pencil. It said Duffy. She wasn’t a stone’s toss from me. Masses of black hair all in curls down her back and over a shoulder. I’d never seen hair like that. I didn’t mean to, but I laughed out loud. Then she was walking toward me. Her eyes were pale. I wondered if she might be a Welsh cousin. Pointing at the paper sign, “Duffy,” I read.

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She nodded, heaved her case into the cart. “Sank you,” she said, steadied herself with a hand on the seat back and stepped down into my cart. Skirt smoothed against the backs of her thighs, she said, “I vas not certain, zis vas zee correct station.” And she sat down beside me, smiling. But she leaned forward excited, said “Ach,” grinning, and unpinned the paper from by her collar bone. I begun to think she wasn’t Welsh, after all. “A decent trip, Miss Duffy?” I asked her. The train doesn’t make so much noise with its heaving and puffing that she couldn’t have heard me. But she just sat there looking at the big black engine.

Then those pale eyes turned to me, and her black brows were knit. “Vhat? Oh, you vere speaking to me? It haas been a long trip, tsorry.” She laughed so I saw her teeth. “Vhat did you ask me?” “Was it a decent trip you had coming here?” “Oh, yes.” Her lips twitched at another smile. “Ferry nice, Mistur Duffy.” “What? . . .” “I’m tsorry?” “What about Mr. Duffy?” I spoke a bit louder; trouble with the hearing, maybe. Then she started to look scared. “I’m tsorry? Perhaps I misunderstood?” She looked at the old bill cap on my head. “Iss it Captain Duffy, perhaps?” Pointing at my shirtfront, I said, “You think I’m your cousin? Have you never set eyes on Duffy, then? Isn’t he twice my age, and big as a horse?” It was half scared and half smile her face wrestled with then. But the smile won. Both hands smoothed the skirt over her knees. “ I zee. You are taking me to Mistur Duffy.”

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“Looks like it. Only I’ve freight to take off the train first, if you please.” The black hair of her head moved soft down over her shoulder when she gave a nod, quick and crisp. It was well into the supper break by the time I finally got back, and had the crates in their storeroom among the big copper pots and iron cranes old Murran’s ma had used for jam and tallow. And Brindle Johnny put to his fodder, of course. Ma wasn’t at her place behind bar, so I climbed the stair, my heart going with a joy that had no words to tell about it. All the same, I went through the door saying, “Ma, you never seen the like.

Down at the station this morning there was a . . .” But I was talking to the walls. Ma was nowhere about in the front room, nor back in the kitchen. And when my knuckles wrapped at her door, I knew she wasn’t taken to her bed, but out of the place entirely. Harder than ever my heart hammered under my ribs, only it was sick at the stomach I felt. At the sound of shoes treading up the stair my fury settled, and I felt silly, champing at the bit after my Ma when she wasn’t right there. It was her step I heard. Then she was standing at the door. I wondered had she been out scouring the town for me, so I started in on my news. “Ma, I was down at the station this morning, early. And never would I have believed . . .” “I know Michael. But we have to think it’s for the best. I can’t get it right in my head either that he’s gone . . . Gone.” And when she repeated the word, she begun to cry, standing there in the open door. It was exactly like ten years dropped down over her like that, while she stood there. “Who’s gone?” She didn’t answer me. But all at once I knew it was Delroy that was gone. “Gone where, Ma? . . . How come?” He had used to work on a dairy farm in America. And I thought maybe he’d gone back there for some reason.

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So lonely she looked I went over to where she’d stopped, awkward like, and put my arms around her shoulders. She just stood, like she had no notion I was there. It’s an odd thing, how God seems to want a sacrifice from us, of the thing most dear to us in exchange for the thing we most want. Didn’t that old man in the Bible, Abraham his name was, want to show he loved God? But to prove it, he had to put a knife into his own son, and spill his blood. Except he didn’t have to outright kill him in the end. But the price for loving God was to suffer. Now Ma was suffering, and I was too, twice over; for her sake, and because I couldn’t tell her how happy I’d been earlier in the day. I couldn’t tell anyone how happy I still was deep down inside when I thought about Eva. There was a rage in me. I thought about a great oak tree, one half green, branches waving in the wind, the other half roaring in orange flame. It’s what I thought of, so help me. That was just how I felt.

After that, when she was behind the bar, Ma never let on that a thing in the world was on her mind. But upstairs the talk had gone out of her. I let her be on her own. Not really intending it at first, I’d walk down along the river when I wasn’t working, to collect my thoughts. Somehow, though, I ended up at Duffy’s place two days running. Eva was glad of my company, Duffy being a sour old coot. We agreed I would come by regular those two hours following afternoon close and before evening hours begun. Ma still appreciated my help, washing up glasses, fetching in peat for the grate, and all. But when the commotion and noise closed up for those two hours, it was quiet in a chair by the window with a book I knew she wasn’t reading, for the place she cracked it open never changed. And the cool song of those waving branches, and the blaze of that fire drew me in all at one time.

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I promised Eva the fortnight next when I’d leave to take the cart and horse again, we’d drive the liquor shipment the long way home, same as that first day. But it didn’t work out like that. I drove to the station, but the train never came. Not that day, not the next. Then we all got word that the track was out. The secret army, they said, had blown up a bridge, where it spanned the Liffy. They wanted to show the English they meant business, the story went, to squeeze their purse. For the old Moon and Stars, though, it meant no business as soon as those crates down cellar ran dry. Ma looked more worried than ever; Murran just went stupid, said he’d sell the place and go to his sister’s in Dublin. What fool would buy the place when liquor and beer shipments couldn’t get through? And as for fools, what was it teaching the English to kill a little town like ours? Wasn’t Dublin still swimming in the stuff, when they made it there, right where all the folk with money had their shops and houses? Go he did, for he was the sort to run from a fight. But to be fair, he slipped Ma a month’s wages before the hired trap took him away. I asked Eva if Duffy could use an extra paid hand at the shop. But it was only room and board he gave her. Sponsoring an orphan he called it; getting a slave given to him by the church was what it was. We sat there on the bank, Eva and me. It was nearly as bad as Ma had looked that first time after Jimmy had gone that I felt. But for Eva, I’d have sunk my head in my hands and bawled like a calf. Knowing what hard times were all about, she tried to lift my spirits. “My Uncle Hans had a shop where be made bread.” “A bakery?” “Ya, dat’s right, a bakery. But it vas not from making bread zat got his money. No. In zee back he hat ziss big pot.” She put her arms around the air. “Ant from it came a pipe, like ziss.” Her finger moved like a spindrift leaf. “Into ziss pot went potatoes, how do you call it?” 146

Fist twisted against palm. “Mashed? He put mashed spuds in a pot?” She nodded her clipped nod. “And viss zem shugar, after sitting. It smelt very . . .” Her nose wrinkled. In spite of my misery, it made me laugh. “Like zee bread, maybe, ya? Only strong. You zee?” “What? . . .” She shook her head. “No? It vas like zee public house, in back of zee . . . bakery.”

It was like I’d been sleeping, and just opened my eyes. “Pocheen?” Her black brows knit. “Your uncle made whisky in the back of the bakery?” The clipped nod, and her eyes twinkled. If figuring out the pocheen was opening my eyes, the next thought was someone letting the window shade fly up and a noontime sun streaming in on me. “Could you?” “Tsorry?” “Could you make the stuff, like your Uncle Hans?” Now she was grinning. “Coult you make ziss machine, if I explain?”

Before the crates had gone empty we had the contraption built. Simple enough, really, the boiler, the place being littered with jam coppers. But the spout, where the whole mess cooled from steam back into liquid, now there was a puzzle. Where to find a bit of copper? For Eva declared it must be copper or the taste would be spoiled. Well weren’t there any number of things kept in that shed at the depot for if the steam engine should need mending, and no need of them with the train never coming? Half a pint of unwatered Dublin prime got me a length twice as tall as myself. Same for the spuds, a 147

cartful for the other half pint. And once we’d got going, there’d be more at pennies to the pound so to speak. So we were in business. With the stuff that came out, water was no bother, but a blessing. For looks it was nothing like what came on the railway. Clear as water itself it was. The taste was close though. And it felt the same, going down, and after. Eva said if we ran the contraption early of a morning when Heanan, the baker, had his ovens going, no one would smell it cooking. A time and more we even took the cart, with a tarp strapped over the empty back, out of town and down the pike, as if to say we had a new more local supplier. I knew there must be something afoul of the law in what we were doing, but it kept body and soul together, for ourselves, and those with money to spend at the Moon and Stars. Being in the neighboring shop, Heanan pieced the scheme together after a bit. But a little sharing and he even pitched in burnt sugar to make the pocheen look more like the old stuff everyone was used to. And didn’t it add something to the taste? More and more elaborate the workings got, sugar and potatoes in, jars and bottles out. In the end though, we turned a better profit than Murran had ever done with paying for rail shipments and all. Ma seemed to be getting over Delroy, God having given her a new suffering to ease her mind about him. She and Eva even worked together sometimes. Eva was happiest of all, I think, having a family again, like. And she kept a sockful of money behind a lose stone in the cellar. A riot might have welled up had it been known our customers were putting down there money for something that started and ended right there under the floor boards. As long as they thought it came from somewhere else though, they were happy enough to pay for it. Everything had settled into a new pattern. Fine. Until one morning I set out along the pike just after sunrise. Down along the river in a lonely, willowy place, by the bridge, I’d taken to stocking up a few crates 148

that I’d bring out over several nights. We could make a show of lugging them into the store room. Brindle Johnny was happy at his willow shoots while I slipped down along the bank. Not a dozen yards in among the bushy green though, I caught a whiff of something. A familiar smell, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I thought I saw something move in the thicket ahead of me. Near my foot a lose branch lay on the ground. I picked it up for a cudgel, eased out the way I had come in and legged it around to the high side of the willow grove.

Close by where the cart and pony idled I caught sight of a man. He flicked a fag-end from his fingers and stamped it out. It was tobacco smoke I’d smelled. A long coat hid most of him, and his cap was pulled low. Not too big of a fellow. I tested the weight of the stick in my hand. If I could work my way around to the right, couldn’t I get up behind him and see what he was up to? Back in among the brushy stems and leaves I went. When I came out where he’d been though, nobody was there. “Pssst.” He’d got behind me already. I knew in that instant, I was done for. Quick as I could, I turned myself around. Then the stick dropped from my grip. Delroy! A finger to his lips to keep me quiet, he motioned for me to follow. At a little open place we could hear the rushing of the river, but not see it. “Delroy,” I hissed, trying to whisper, but I was too excited. “When did you . . .” Up went the finger again. Barely could I hear him when he spoke. “Ah, its a good lad you are, Michael, doing what your doing for your Ma.” He looked years older. For I don’t know how long I just gawked at him. Finally I found my voice and whispered, “Ma’ll be so happy to see you, Del . . . I’ve got the cart.” I waved a hand up toward the road, knew he’d seen it. “You can ride back with me.” 149

Then it was his turn to just stare. He had another smoke out, put it in his lips, but took it out again. “Michael . . . I can’t come back with you.” A stop motion of his hand withered my question. “Michael . . . Ah, it’s a bugger of a world we live in, son. It’s a . . . Listen . . .” He made to put the cigarette in his mouth again, slipped it into his pocket instead. “It’s like . . .” His eyes searched my face, and the trees behind me. Then he outlined an invisible shape in front of him with his two hands. “It’s like the whole sotted place is some big tree. See? And part of it’s the green beauty a tree ought to have, just as the Lord intended it. But the other half,” He glared at the empty place between his hands, “that’s blazing orange, with a flame the world never needed. See? And that orange menace, it’s got to be put out. See?” I did see. “Delroy . . .” “No names, lad. I have no name anymore . . . Ah, it’s alright. You’re a good lad . . . a good man . . . Just take care of your Ma. You’ll be looked out for, the both of you.” While he talked the air went out of the shape between his hands. The cigarette came out again, stuck in his lips, then his fingers found a match. As it flared off his thumbnail, he tossed me a wink, then watched the flame shrink as he drew in. Smoke drifted from his parted lips, and the cigarette bobbed. “Your a good man,” he said again, and he was stepping off into the willow branches.

I wanted to go after him, wanted to make him go back and marry my Ma. God help me, I even wanted to snatch that cudgel up again and clout him in the head. I just stepped into the green, uphill toward the road . . . a good man. “And you,” I said, swallowing his name before it passed my lips. For I knew, the time for keeping secrets had come.

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A LOVE FOR BUCKS

“Oh, Henry, hold still.” Emily pinched her lips tight, her face reddened. She really was getting mad, he thought, holding his chin a little higher. “What is Daddy going to think if your tie is knotted crooked with all those important men there?” “Mebe he’ll think I got better things ta do than knot a piece a silk ‘round my neck.” Henry tugged at his earlobe, looking down sideways at her. Emily gripped his elbows, steering him back another step from the oval peer glass. “Now don’t you look distinguished?” Henry looked at his reflection: a tall man in a frock coat, bare headed, big mustache. “I look like a Methodist preacher.” He frowned at his reflection. “Henry please,” she said pouting a little, “Daddy will make you a trustee, but you’ve got to show the other board members how much you want it. You’ve got to be on your best behavior tonight. Promise me.” Bored members, he thought, picturing dinner at the long table, those endless plates of food. You could tell some of them were beef, but some of that stuff . . . At least there’d be strong coffee and a good cigar at the end. Just get through all that talk about numbers. Marrying Emily van Pier meant marrying one of the biggest cattle families in Montana. He just didn’t know they had more two-legged bulls in stiff collars than four legged ones in the herd. The old man was all right. He knew what range life was about, probably even missed it sometimes. But he was the old bull now; that meant keeping

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things in order, using the frisky young ‘uns to keep all the cows run together. Wouldn’t want to lock horns with that old cuss unless you meant it.

A steam whistle was blowing. Henry came full awake, rocking on the red mohair seat. In the distance, beyond the windowglass, fir trees ticked by like the paper ribbons out of that noisy machine old man van Pier kept on his desk. Without looking down, Henry squeezed his ankles against the leather satchel. Awful lot of cows in there; eight

thousand bucks. He tensed his arm, felt the butt of the big revolver between bicep and chest. Four days from Missoula out to the southern frontier of the van Pier empire. Supposed to be some kind of a test, prove to that herd of jackasses that he could be trusted. The eight-thousand in that bag might have seemed like life and death to some men. But when you’d listened to those lobster eaters for half an hour it was clear they could steal more in five minutes with a fountain pen than most working cattle men would ever hold in their hands. So who needed to prove they could be trusted? Henry squeezed the satchel between his ankles again. Just have to not be fool enough to lose the thing and they’d all act like they’d struck gold. Anyway, it’d make Emily happy. Then maybe it would be easier to talk to her about all of that sitting on the board business. Three seats ahead of him a gray head rocked slightly, square haloed by a newspaper. Across the aisle a woman sat staring out the window, clutching the seat in front of her. Henry closed his eyes again, thinking now of Emily’s smile. He thought of the first summer he’d known her, how her dark hair flowed, cutting along in the open surrey, her pretty face in the sunshine, dark eyes flashing. Somewhere in the distance he could still hear the train wheels as they went click-click, click-click and the seat rocked slow and even. But suddenly the dream vanished. Iron wheels were screeching, and he 152

was pitching forward out of the seat. Henry rolled, sat up. He was in the aisle between empty seats. Before he could stand, a man burst through the door at the end of the car, a Winchester in one hand, a confederate dragging two canvas sacks labeled U.S. Mail. Henry was about to reach for the peacemaker when behind him he heard a triple steel click, then a stranger’s voice said, “Sit tight, Mister. Won’t nobody git hurt lessen he’s stupid.” The long barrel of a pistol pointed at his head. He spread his fingers, palms pushing down hard against the floor. From the far end of the car the man waved his rifle toward Henry. “Get him outta the way.” His checkered bandana sucked in as he drew breath. Then the voice from behind said, “You heard him, Mister. Git.” Henry stood slowly, not straightening to his full height. He took a seat on the other side of the car, flicking a glance down the aisle at the fellow with the pistol. Above the blue kerchief, ice blue eyes glared back. “You got a watch, Mister,” he demanded, raising his pistol more toward Henry. Henry glared. “What for,” he said. “I got eyes, ain’t I. I can see the sun.” “Not fer much longer if’n you don’t learn to keep that ‘ar mouth shut,” the other fired back. Tugging at the sacks, the other man came forward. “Leave ‘im alone,” he ordered, waiving his rifle again, then pointing down toward the sacks with it. “We got what we came for. But the subordinate kept stalking down between the seats, closing the few yards between himself and Henry. “Yer a mouthy son of a gun, Mister. Mebe you oughta give up on preachin’. Don’t nobody want a hear what you gotta say.”

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Outside the window a third man with a covered face appeared, straddling an Appaloosa, leading two bays and a fleabitten gray. “There he is. Help me with these pokes,” the fellow with the Winchester said. The tormentor hesitated, then walked past Henry, the pistol still trained on him. Together the two dragged the mail sacks to the far end of the car, near where the woman sat. If she wasn’t so close, thought Henry, I could drop ‘em both before they could get out of this car. ‘Course I don’t know how many are waitin’ out side. They had a window open, were handing the mail bags out to the third man. He

was having a little trouble getting the first bag into the pannier on the gray. “Hold still, Bucephilus,” Henry heard him say as he yanked on the reins, turning his appy in a tight circle. The mail sack teetered above the pannier, but would not go inside. For a moment Henry watched the clumsy horseman. When the pannier finally yielded, taking the canvas sack, Henry stole a glance at the pistolero, staring at the window like a sideshow gawker, slack-jawed. When the second bag was out, he turned back toward Henry and took a few steps down the passage. “You ain’t seen the last a me, Mister,” he said, this time pointing his finger like a gun barrel, the pistol limp at his left side. Henry snorted a laugh. “Why you . . .” He took three more steps, right hand clinched in a fist. A few seats in front of Henry, he stopped. Waiving the pistol barrel to his left he said, “That yer’s?” From where he sat Henry could not see the leather valise, but knew what was there. “What?” he said flatly. Shifting the revolver to his right hand again the kerchiefed man picked up the money case. “This here va-leese. Is it yern?”

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“Damn it, Zeke,” Winchester barked, “let that feller alone an’ get up here.” With the courier valise still in his hand Henry’s antagonist backed away up the aisle, gun barrel leveled again. When he got up to the door the boss stepped close to Zeke, and pushed his subordinate backward out of the car. Then, Winchester raised hip high, he looked in turn at each of the three passengers, tipped his hat to the woman near the front of the car, and backed out. An instant later they heard two shrill whistles and hooves pounding. Henry and the white haired man with the paper rushed to the windows. Peacemaker in his hand,

Henry leaned on the windowsill. The riders were already lost in a cloud of dust.

At the next town, Henry got off the train. Lamps were already burning along the busy platform. He reached for his vest pocket, palmed his watch, pressed its crown. When he looked down, Emily’s enigmatic eyes arrested his gaze: dark, glinting, she could have been laughing at him, showering him with adoration, or condemning his foolishness. Beside her face the sweeping second hand urged him to hurry. He gently snapped the disk shut, slipped it back in its place. Three silver dollars nested in the pocket above the timepiece. It cost him some effort, but Henry kept from feeling for them. Behind him the train belched steam, its whistle moaning. With a din of iron wheels slipping on the tracks, the big machine lurched, halted, lurched, halted, and hauled itself away from the platform clacking and rocking. Strolling into the depot, Henry looked around, tried to appear bored, like he had been there before and thought it was a waste of his time. Then he spotted a porter. A motion of his hand brought the brass buttoned servant. “Is there a livery stable in town, son?” Henry asked as soon as he was close enough. 155

The other nodded. “Well, where is it?” Scratching at the back of his head, the porter’s blue cap slid forward. “Lemme see,” he said. He scratched a little more and the cap fell off. With practiced ease, he caught it in his free hand and held it out to Henry like a collection plate. “Seems to me it ain’t too far.” Henry looked down at the Brilliantine stained cap. “Then I reckon I can find it on my own.” Turning on his heel, he headed for the nearest door.

As soon as he stepped out onto the street a big dray rumbled past, one wheel almost on the boardwalk. Henry had to step back to avoid being splashed. But, surprised, found there was someone behind him. He swung around, almost face to face with a man of about fifty, a buckskin shirt slick with trail dirt his most prominent feature. The fellow’s cheeks and eyes were red, his nose even redder. Pushing his hat to the back of his head, he grinned at Henry. “Sorry, Mister,” Henry told him. The other man went on grinning, then looked confused. “New in town?” he asked, trying to focus his eyes. “Might say that,” Henry answered. The drunk’s hand gripped Henry’s coat sleeve. “Have a drink . . . Show you around.” His head bobbled under the ruined black hat. “Can’t do it, Mister. Gotta get myself a horse.” “Horse? I gout a horse. Be-utiful buckskin mare.” He put his free hand to his heart, then looked blearily down the street. Walking Henry a few steps, he halted, teetering by an iron post where a pale mare stood tied. He gazed at the horse, then grinned at Henry, raising one eyebrow. “Huh? Ain’t she purity? Let you have her for fifty dollars.” 156

Henry looked at the horse; probably worth a hundred and fifty. He lifted his arm, breaking the grip on his sleeve, clapping a hand on the drunk’s shoulder. “Not today,” he said. Stepping away with purpose, he headed up the walkway past vendors selling fruit, boys waving newspapers, and women leaning in doorways, toward where he hoped there might be a livery stable where he could rent a mount for a day or two. Then he could get back on the train. Behind him he heard a thick voice call out “Forty-five.”

Before the sun was up the next day, Henry was following the rail. By ten he had left the iron track, picking his way through scrub. “Didn’t even try to hide their tracks,” he told the hired horse. The animal turned an ear back. “Just in a hurry to get where their a-going,” he went on, watching the ear twitch minutely to the sound of his voice. Slowly the ear turned forward again; the only sounds were hooves and wind, and an intermittent creak of leather. Every so often Henry scanned the horizon, but nothing moved against it. He was not sure when it started, but he found himself thinking about the winter he was sixteen, about the job riding fence. Three or four weeks, he never figured it out for certain, snowed in at the line shack. No sign of a cow that whole month. Just white and gray all mixed up everywhere when he ventured out to dig through to the spring for water, the long rope around his waist so he could find his way back. Could have melted snow on the stove, but it broke the cabin fever. Sammy, the old bay, ate the bed tick when his fodder ran out. The slabs of bacon hanging from the rafters got thinner and thinner. The canned beans and fire wood ran out. Rafters and underside of the wood shingles turned white from horse ammonia. 157

Henry blinked, eyes dry from the wind. His heavy wool overcoat skirts flapped against his shins in the stiff breeze. Not enough wind to cover the trail yet, but enough to make his eyes sting. He wanted a cup of coffee. Henry shifted a little in the saddle, got the flask out of his coat pocket and held it for a minute in his raised hand. Curled, wispy letters spelled out: To Henry, with love. Emily. He lowered it to his rein hand, unscrewed the cap; with a little metallic ‘clink’ it swung from the chain. He raised the flask, took three sips, scanned the horizon. About a mile ahead he could see a ravine cutting across the landscape. Beyond it, thinner scrub to

the right, hills to the left. Screwing the cap in place, Henry told the horse, “If they got any brains a-tall, we’ll be outa this pesky wind come night fall.” The ear rotated back. Henry pocketed the bottle, leaned forward, patting the horse’s shoulder. “Rate they were a-going, likely we’ll come up on some water soon, buddy. Least one of ‘um ain’t a damn fool.” Less than half an hour later Henry reined the horse to a stop. Down the floor of that ravine, fifteen to twenty feet across, a river tumbled along rocky banks. He nudged the horse, walking it down a wash to the water. Hoof tracks were plain in the gravel. At the water’s edge the paint stopped of its own volition. Crooking a long leg over the pommel, Henry slid from the saddle, letting the reins drop. The animal lowered its head to drink. For a minute, Henry watched the black and white side of the horse bulge, bulge, bulge as it sucked up water. Then he knelt, filling his cupped hands. The far bank, lee side of a deep meander, could have been climbed anywhere. As he squatted, drinking, Henry looked up and down along the shale incline. It was pretty clear they hadn’t gone straight across; no deep trail rose from the swift water. Henry stood, slowly walked one way then the other along the shale bank. No sign of hesitation. The tracks just went straight into the water and didn’t seem to come out 158

anywhere on the other side. Henry pushed the black Hamburg hat back, scratching along his hairline. When he started to walk, the paint followed, keeping a few paces away, up the bank and back down to where they had started. Finally Henry stopped, reached for the dragging reins. The horse’s head swung up, eyes wide as it backed away--a typical hired horse, a wary animal. Henry froze. Slowly raising his empty hands as a peace offering, he said softly, “It’s alright, Buddy. Don’t ya wanna cool yer feet?” The horse lowered its head a little. He took a step toward the animal, then another. When he took a third step, the paint raised its nose toward him, nostrils wide. Henry eased his hand up to stroke the jaw. Then he stepped close, lowering his head as he raised the animal’s chin. He breathed gently into one nostril, holding the head tight against his cheek. Still hugging the animal’s head, by slow degrees he reached out for the near rein, dangling inches from his hand. The horse didn’t move. Henry let the head go, took hold of the other rein, stepping back a pace. Reaching in front of the pommel, he looped the off rein around the horse’s neck. Then taking both line ends in his left hand, he caught hold of the saddle horn, stirupped his toe and swung up into the saddle. Lightly, he flicked the reins, squeezing both heels. Leaning forward a little, he whispered, “Show me where the river takes you, Buddy.” The paint walked forward into the water and followed the current, nervous on the uneven bottom, nostrils wide, breathing hard. Henry’s rein hand trembled a little. Any minute, he could go head first into the rushing water, maybe get his skull cracked, maybe drown. He could have sat back and let the federal marshals hunt those fellows down. They stole mail bags, the law would likely be out for them by tomorrow. But then he would have to explain about the valise. Sure, nobody would blame him for not standing up to armed men, not to his face. “But, doggoneit, I’d just feel like a damned fool,” he 159

hissed. The black and white ear rotated back toward him. “Not you, Buddy. You’re doin’ a fine job,” he said soothingly. When the water got deep enough that Henry’s feet were wet, he slacked the reins. For another half dozen steps the horse waded down stream, then turned for the far bank. They had rounded out of the meander a few hundred feet from where they started. Buddy splashed toward the left, heaved onto the bank, and wandered along gravel, dripping. Up out of the moving water, Henry eased the lines toward his chest. They stilled on the shale and gravel bank. Henry’s eyes roved over the shingle for a minute. Soon, he made out faint tracks, little nicks pressed into the gray-brown stone chips. He twitched his heels.

The piebald horse walked at an easy pace. Reins gripped in his left fist, with his right hand Henry pushed the overcoat aside, brought his open palm up, gazing down into it. The spider thin watch hands told him he had a few hours before twilight. The slim gold pen knife swung pendulem-like at the end of the gold chain, a wagging finger telling him what he already knew. He slipped the watch into a vest pocket, the knife into another. The question was, to look around for more tracks on the stony ground, or follow his hunch and make straight for the hills. With just a little bit of luck he would see smoke from their campfire before sundown. But if he guessed wrong, he might lose them to the law. Henry flicked the reins, giving a little squeeze with both heels. At a quick walk they started off toward the hills. The hard, sometimes brushy plane stretched away to the southwest all afternoon. Far off, the low sun hid behind coppery clouds when the rocky ground began to rise. Long shadows stretched eastward. Spindly pines stuck up wherever rock had

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crumbled into sandy loam. Rocking in the saddle, those long shadows reaching through orange light began to feel like a dream. All at once, a quick shadow flitted in the landscape, then it was gone. Henry clicked his tongue, scurried the horse close in along the ridge, and jumped to the ground. He already had the peacemaker in his hand as he wrapped the reins tight around a pine trunk, knotting the leather with a stiff yank. Crouching with aching thighs, he scrambled up the incline, trying to be quiet. At the ridge he paused, pulled off his hat, easing his head up just enough to see. Pine

boughs, obliquely lighted by a soft glow from the setting sun, shivered now and then in the deepening shadows. But nothing else, nothing on feet, moved. His left hand fingered the slick satin along the stiff edge of the hat brim, eyes scanning along ridge and valley. Wiggling his wrist, feeling the pistol’s weight in his right hand, Henry sank slowly toward a kneeling position. But before his knees took his full weight, a soft sound came across the darkening vale. The unmistakable jitter of nickering drew all of his attention to a gap below a yellow outcrop. Then the sound stuttered out again. Henry raised the pistol, balancing it near his ear, barrel straight up as his thumb tensed slightly on the hammer. Then a light clip-clop drifted up from below. He drew breath, held it. Below the big yellow rock he caught sight of a horse, head down, ambling lazily from shadowy sun into deeper shadow. Another followed, and another. A buckskin and two roans, smallish, riderless. Henry eased the pistol down, flipped the black hat once by its stiff brim, and tipped it onto the back of his head. “Mustangs,” he choked out softly. His face burned. Straightening to full height, his pistol limp at his side, Henry walked to the top of the ridge. Hand on hip, he stood for a long time, gazing along the uneven horizon, and down into the darkening little valleys. He could still make out the shapes of the three mustangs now and again as they wandered among rocks down there in the dark. Half a 161

big orange ball where the clouds had drifted off, the sun wavered far away across the obscuring land. Henry turned his back to it, tapped the cylinder of his revolver against his thigh, and took a step back down the incline. But he stopped, loose rocks sending up small skidding trails through shadow. Two ridges over, from where he stood silhouetted against that azure and gold evening sky, a thin column of smoke rose, coloring at its top in the day’s final light. Henry blinked at it once. And like he had just woken from a trance, took another step, skidding dustily down the side of the ridge toward the dark trees where his horse stood tied. With long strides he made for the scraggly pine, stuffing the long pistol into its holster under his arm. When he got close to the bald face pinto he checked his pace. Walking up slowly, he took the animal’s bridle gently in his left hand, and at the same time pulled the knotted reins free with his right. He leaned close to the horse’s eye and whispered, “Bastards went upstream. B’leave that?” He eased the horse back a pace, stepped around in front of it and got his foot in the stirrup. “What kinda doggone . . .” He stepped up and across the saddle. It wasn’t too difficult to pick their way back along the trail they had followed in the waning light. Halfway down the first draw, Henry halted the horse. The light clip- clop of mustang hooves echoed in his mind. Better go the rest of the way on foot. The paint kept close, letting the reins go slack. When they reached a place where the draw switched back around, following the next ridge, Henry found a big, flat rock to knot the gelding’s reins to and climbed up the ridge high enough to see where he was in relation to the column of smoke. Two more times he stopped to reconnoiter. Once he was well east, and a little south of where the fire was, he searched around in the dark until he found a heavy root poking out of the hill side. Lashing the horse one more time, he tugged on the lines to make sure they wouldn’t work loose. Then he patted the shadowy wither, keeping his 162

hand on the warm animal for a minute while he looked up. Overhead the indigo dome was spattered with blue-white stars spreading out from the slanted belt of Milkyway, rimmed with uneven black at shoulder height all around. Forty-five minuets or an hour before moon rise. Plenty of time, he thought. With the sun down it was considerably cooler. As he stepped away from the horse, Henry got the peacemaker out of its holster, stuffed it into his armpit and held it there while he buttoned the frock coat. Then he buttoned the overcoat right up to the collar.

Looking down at his black sleeved arm in the dark, Henry saw nothing. He felt the bones of his hand close around the hard butt of the pistol, saw them in his mind’s eye, white against oiled rosewood. Slowly he made his way up the long dark passage between low hills, putting his feet down flat, Indian-style, with each step. He had been walking maybe ten minutes when, on their own his nostrils dilated; he got a strong whiff of coffee. His head began to ache slightly. Up the incline he crawled on his belly, at last raising his head just enough to see over the top. Out on the flat, less than a hundred yards away, two men lay on their sides near a fire, black shapes outlined in orange. A third figure sat cross-legged, his back to Henry. He could hear their voices in disjointed snatches of conversation. Steam rose from the spout of their coffee pot. Henry’s stomach growled. He slid back down the incline, rolled over and sat with his back to the stony earth, one leg crooked to hold him in place. When his stomach rumbled again, he put his hand over it. Stooping his shoulders in the pitch black, he crept along the gully a little farther, until it began bending west. There, he climbed up again and lay on his belly. He could make out the outlines of four horses, hobbled, he guessed, standing in the thin scrub at the edge of the firelight. For a long time he watched them, and the men beyond.

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Over his shoulder he could see the east beginning to pale before moonrise. Once more he scanned all around the fire, looking at everything but the light source itself. The gray-white of those mail bags was plain enough, a few arm’s lengths from the upright sitting man. And there beside them--it could be the valise with the van Pier cattle money, or a rock. Then he saw one of the inclined figures tip a bottle over his coffee cup. He passed it to the next, who did the same. Then the third man got the bottle. If I wait, Henry thought, they might do half the job for me. But that dadblamed moon might give me some trouble. He rested his chin on his arm, flexing his fingers time to time. Henry watched the horses, the men, the slowly changing stars. The long coat was cumbersome when he finally rose, edging sideways down the hill. His hands, feet, and face were cold even though his heart pounded. His ears stung in the chill air. The quarter moon a palm’s breadth above dark ridges cast such pale light that he could hardly see where he walked. All three men were flat out by the fire. The four horses stood droop headed, hind legs cocked. Henry could see an appaloosa and a fleabitten gray. The other two horses were dark, had to be bays. At the border of the scrub he squatted, stilling his breath. Keeping low, he moved in among the dark greenery, closer to the horses. One of the bays nickered softly. Henry stopped. But it didn’t make any more noise, so he moved closer to the appaloosa. It wasn’t hobbled, just halter tied to one of the thinly leafed branches. Moving very slow, Henry lowered himself onto one knee, then bent down until his face was nearly touching the ground. His hat fell off with a muted thump, but he stopped himself from grabbing for it. He saw the gray’s feet shift slightly. None of the animals were hobbled it looked like. Still kneeling, Henry gingerly picked up the Hamburg, slowly pressed it down tight on his head. Then he unbuttoned the long overcoat, shifted the pistol to his left hand, and reached into his vest pocket.

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The watch fob knife opened with a faint click. He cut the gray’s line halfway up, controlling the swing of loose rope toward the horse. It didn’t move. He cut two more lines the same way. When he cut the appy’s line, she snorted, a high loud trumpet blast that brought the men around the fire to their feet like a gun shot. He slapped the pale horse’s flank as hard as he could, ducked back through scrub and ran, crouching, in the opposite direction. When he heard shouts, he threw himself belly down onto the dirt. Through thin wavering dark leaves he could see two of the men running after the retreating horses.

The third, hopping on one foot, trying to pull on a boot, yelled something Henry couldn’t understand. Then he stamped his foot, grabbed up something from beside his blanket pile, and hobbled off after the others, shouting curses. As soon as Henry saw the third man’s back to the firelight he was up, running for all he was worth toward their camp, the heavy black skirts of his overcoat fishtailing out behind him. He made straight for the mail sacks, but when he got up to them, found that what he thought was his valise was a piece of rock after all. Pointing his pistol into the dark, toward where he thought his now invisible adversaries might be, he frantically looked all around the flickering circle of orange light. Then, like he had been yanked by a rope, he turned back toward the big canvas bags. He tore into the one closest to him, spilling the opened top toward the fire. Letters, parcels wrapped in brown paper, and smaller canvas bags slid toward the flames. He grabbed the second, tugged at the knot, and tipped the open canvas mouth down. The familiar black valise flopped out on its side. He snatched down at the handle, missed, reached again. Then he heard a shout. The kidskin wrapped handle was in his hand and he was running. In the dark it was hard to tell where, beyond that dark ridge in the distance, he had left the piebald horse tied. He aimed his steps toward the pale quarter moon, unable to tell over the 165

sound of his own breathing and the pounding of his feet on the hard earth if all the running feet sounds were his, or if he was being chased. He swung the case up, clutching it against his chest. He was still not quite sure where the horse was. Cocking the pistol, he flung his right arm back, fired a shot, cocked, fired again; two shots behind him into the dark. Was he just signaling his position? Both arms across the case, pistol barrel bobbing by his shoulder, Henry bent forward a little more, trying to run faster. From behind, he heard a single shot. It sounded far away. But any gun shot aimed at him was too close. He was cresting the

ridge. Sidestepping, he jigged down the incline, raising a cloud of dust. Moonlight illuminated the western incline. The far side of the bottom was black. Henry stopped skidding down, turned left, then right, hoping for a landmark, but everything looked the same. He spun halfway around, pointing the pistol back up the bank, then turned again at a sound from his left. A harsh, trumpet-like sound. Head tipped down, hat brim shading his eyes from what overhead light there was, Henry quickstepped up the dark gulch toward where the noise originated. An amorphous white patch moving in the dark caught his eye. “God bless yer horse sense, Buddy,” he said into the dark. Squinting, head forward, he saw the paint tossing his head against the taught reins. Henry jammed the valise under his right arm, his pistol hand supporting its bottom. “Easy, Buddy,” he whispered, almost laughing. “It’s me.” Toward the horse’s nose, he held out his empty hand. One more time the paint tossed his head. Then he let Henry get the reins untied. With the Peacemaker stuffed into his overcoat pocket and the valise hooked over his thumb, Henry got reins and saddle horn both in his left hand while he hopped on one foot beside the pivoting horse. The instant his boot toe touched the stirrup he vaulted up, leaning close to the almost invisible neck. He let the horse have its head. They went off

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at a bobbing lope. Eventually Henry got the reins right in his hands. Both knees tight against the fenders, he urged the horse as fast as he dared toward the open plain. Across the hard flat they cantered for a good while in the milky light. When he could smell the horse beginning to sweat, Henry slowed him to a walk, but kept moving steadily. Not a sound came from behind them. When at last the river became obvious, its sounds of sweep and splash displaced in the night air, he pulled the paint to a stop. Stiffer than he thought he would be, Henry got down and walked the last hundred yards or so to the swift water. He took the bag down from the saddle horn and let the horse go. Moonlight painted the landscape silver. For a moment he watched the animal drinking. Fishing around in his overcoat pocket, he took out a wooden match, picked at his front teeth with it for a little, then chewed at it absently. Consciousness rekindled in his eyes. He sat down on the damp gravel bank with the valise resting on his knees. Thumbs on brass case latches, he chomped at the match stick, then popped the fasteners open, flipping the leather jaws wide in the same motion. A silver mirror and a white silk shirt both reflected dim moonlight. He lifted them out, laid them respectfully beside him on the damp gravel. Reaching in again, he took out a straight razor, a shoe brush, and a pair of black wool britches, setting each in turn on the cool ground. Inside the shadow of the bag’s interior he could just make out neat stacks of paper wrapped with brown strapping. He lifted one out, thumbed the edge, listened to the undulating wave of paper. For a while he held the bundle of bills in his hand, judging its meager weight, feeling the slick paper along his thumb. He dropped the money back in his valise, put his own things back in on top, snapped the case shut, and pushed himself up. The leather bag hanging from his hand, he ambled along beside the swift water, toward the horse. He fumbled in his pocket again. Six matches in his hand, he rolled them out between index and middle finger one by one, 167

like tiny batons, sticking them into his hatband. When he caught up with the horse, gently, Henry picked up the dragging reins. Close beside the animal for several minutes, he listened to rushing water. The cloudless east was like a giant rainbow stretched on its side by the time they got some more dry land between themselves and the night’s work. Soaked to the waist and shivering, Henry had stopped to build a fire before the sun rose. As he was taking his watch out of his hat he noticed three riders cresting the eastern horizon in the early light. He slipped the watch into his pocket, squeezed his arm against the revolver under his

coat, and stood stock still while he watched them close on him. Never slowing their pace until they were less than twenty feet from him, the three men halted in a semicircle just out of range of sparks from Henry’s fire. One was a huge man, tall as Henry, and broad as a horse’s rump. He wore an enormous black hat with a five inch brim. His tarnished badge hung at an angle from the lapel of his coat. “Mister, you know where you are?” the big man asked Henry. One of the riders snickered. The third scanned the horizon like he had no idea the others were there. “More or less,” Henry said, curving half of his mustache with a crooked grin. “Ain’t you got a map in that fancy French saddle bag?” said the rider who had snickered. He pointed at Henry’s valise, laughing out loud. The big man half looked toward him, eyes slit. Then he looked back at Henry. In a deep, humorless voice, the big man said, “You happen to see three fellers out here?” Henry pursed his lips, skin crinkling around his eyes. “ ‘Sides you?” “We’re lookin’ fer train robbers, Mister,” said the one who had been ignoring them all. “You know anything, speak up. If ya don’t, keep quiet.” Skin crinkling around one eye, Henry said, still addressing the big man, “There’s three fellers a-foot t’other side a that creek yonder.” He cocked a thumb back over his shoulder. 168

The big man shifted his gaze to the horizon, scanned it, then looked back down at Henry. Nodding once he said, “Obliged, Mister.” He gazed back across the plain, toward the low hills, poked his horse once in the flanks, and shortened rein as he rode past Henry. Both hands spread above his fire, Henry watched the riders over his shoulder as they got smaller. His stomach rumbled. At last he lowered his hands, patting palms against the thighs of his britches. For a moment he held the warm cloth against his skin. An image of Emily holding him by the shoulders rose in his mind.

Abruptly, he flicked a glance at the pinto where it stood tied to a scrawny, now nearly leafless tree. He took the brandy flask out of his coat, unscrewed the cap and took two quick sips. First it felt warm, then he felt a little sick. Methodically, he kicked the glowing sticks away from each other, pushing dirt over red ashes and charcoals with his boot toe. Staring down at the extinguished fire circle he said, “Buddy, let’s get outta here.”

The sun was high, morning still chilly, when Henry stopped in front of the livery stable. A boy slept, open mouthed, in a chair tilted against the jamb of the wide front doors, a few late-season flies buzzing in his vicinity. Henry had already walked the pinto past him when he woke, abruptly tipping his chair back down on all fours. He eyed Henry suspiciously. “Help you with sump’n, Mister?” Dusty, wrinkled, Henry held out the rein-ends. “This here’s a good horse, son. See he gets a good brushin. And oats when he cools.” The boy had risen, plodding sleepily to do as he was bid. “Oats costs,” he said groggily over his shoulder as he lead the horse into a shadowy stall. Henry took down a brush from a post by the door. Brushing at his coat tails, he said, “See he gets ‘em. I’ll be back.” 169

Looking respectable as residual trail dust and a day’s growth of beard permitted, Henry left the stable, heading down the main street toward the bank. There was no need to ask where it was. He strode confidently among light morning town activity, stopping to tip his hat to a woman selling apples. Farther down the street he passed by the buckskin mare that drunk had tried to sell him. She still stood tied to the iron post, but the jolly faced owner was nowhere in sight. Henry turned in at the bank, a little door bell jingling his presence. At the back of the room, behind one of a pair of barred windows, a man with cuff protectors counted

money into a drawer. When the bell tinkled he looked up. He slipped the drawer under the counter. “Yes sir? Help you?” he smiled. Henry crossed the floor in a few strides, swung his leather bag up and plunked it on the narrow shelf in front of the bars. “I got some cash here. I’d like you to hold it while I send a draft. Can you do that?” The teller smiled, nodding. Henry opened the valise. Picking out the bill bundles, he slid them under the bars. “It’s eight thousand even,” he said. The teller watched stack after stack of neat paper bundles slide toward him. Finally, he looked up at Henry. “It goes to van Pier Cattle and Enterprises in Lawrence.” The teller didn’t respond. “I got a little sidetracked,” Henry confided, half smiling. “Can it be there tomorrow?” “Yessir. I’ll wire it right this morning, sir.” He took a pencil out of his shirt pocket, frantically writing on a paper pad there on the counter. Henry strolled back up the street toward the depot. The man in the buckskin shirt was feeding his mare oats from a bucket. As Henry walked toward him he looked up, 170

squinting into the sun. His red face looked angry, but then a toothy smile spread across it until his ears raised. “Mornin.” He waved his hand in a lazy arc, the other still bobbing under the bucket. His eyes flitted to the valise then back to Henry’s face. “New in town, Mister?”

Henry smiled crookedly. “Just passin through,” he said, and kept walking.

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ASHCAMP

In the glare hissing from his headlamp Robb Parker snapped shut the gold cover of his watch; nearly 5:30. Soon the third shift would be over. Behind him, in the dark, the clop of Toby’s hooves sounded along the track. The last loaded car of the shift followed with a slow grate of metal wheels. Robb waited for the pony, took the animal’s halter in his hand. Always best to look like you were working hard when you stepped into the light. Together man and pony walked to the mouth of the shaft. All around the pit head shadows of men moved behind headlamp glare. Out in the pre-dawn black, machine images shaped themselves in Robb’s mind. Up hill where the tipple sat a creak of cable in pulleys sounded. To his left conveyor belts rumbled. There breaker-boys raised their black mist, invisible now in the morning dark as it drifted toward that ghost motion of lights. And farther off, at the base of the hill, the incessant chug, chug, chug of the unseen steam engine thrummed out a base rhythm for those higher pitched sounds of machinery and spring peepers. Robb let go of the leather cheek piece, watched tiredly as Toby trundled on along the rails toward his stop near the conveyor. Then, from out in the dark, a long throaty cry from the steam whistle, and the third shift was over. Other miners would be streaming from the pit mouth in a few minutes. Robb turned, plodded toward where the checker stood in his tiny metal roofed shack. Without a word he held up the work badge pinned on his overall bib, idling while his number was recorded in the book, then set his feet for the woods with a little more vigor. On the long path home dawn would catch up with him.

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Night birds still sounded in the trees, far off, like a dream. After eight hours underground, everything up in the world was like a dream. The tall woods around him, flecked with cries of foreign birds, the unfamiliar slant of constellations above the trees, muscle aches of this new work, so different from long gone days sweating over the forge, a nip of sea air in his nostrils, and home across the treeless hills where his wife waited with their daughters and son, busy in their house just up from the sand. There was a horse round in back, too, where the stable door opened onto pasture, giving way to heather halfway up the glen in that dream that was the other world, home. Here there

was only this long walk in morning dark to the empty little house of rough boards, a day spent sleeping, and evening sitting on the high porch, alone. All those nights, those hours and months spent since putting Druness to his back, and no matter how far he traveled, the grave stones there on the sand felt no more than an arm’s reach away. It was different with the farm where he had lived with Jenny. She had inherited the place when her parents died. So, that was always her place more than his. And after that business with Hollis Beech he knew it could never be his home. Robb paused by where another path cut off from the well trodden track the miners always walked. No one ever took it. Verge spread where feet might have trod, bracken and branches of saplings drooped in from each side making the way seem still more constricted. He turned his face forward again, walked on. Somehow that path ran down along toward the river, he judged, came out onto some other section of the town, Ashcamp, where the Germans lived maybe, their little houses all painted white, with geese fenced in the tiny yards, or cows in neat kept sheds where the backs of houses met. Or maybe that track came out farther down by where the knacker’s yard reeked up warm mornings. Poles and Slaves sprawled drinking beer together on the front steps of the sagging houses down there. Mostly, they were the second shift. Walking aimlessly in

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the daylight, when sleep avoided him, Robb kept away from those foreign, unkempt allies and streets. The white swath lit by his carbide lamp had begun to gray, then tinge with pink while Robb trudged, thinking on the clumps of people in Ashcamp, a place that could never feel like home, with all the broadcast seed and chaff of other lands cast onto this place as if new countries might spring up and spread. Somehow, this Kentucky countryside and seemed barren for all its green hills, its creeks and rivers. As dawn came across the woods the air changed, grew warmer and lighter, and river sounds reached to where Robb walked. He stopped, pulled the cap from over his shock of graying hair, clicked the drip lever on his headlamp shut, and watched as that now insignificant blue pin of flame sputtered to nothing. A breeze began to stir. Light infusing the woods made him feel more sleepy. He thought of Prince Charley, his horse, of Grace Hunter. She would take good care of him. Of the Prince, he first thought, but a twinge pulled somewhere in his gut. She and Robb could have worked something out, his wife gone and her husband. Even in Grace’s bed, though, he sometimes woke from dreaming of Katie. His mind was growing foggy. By the time his empty house came in sight he was thinking what a life with Grace would have been like. She was abrasive sometimes, her long gray hair belying her age, just a few years older than him. He ran fingers through his own hair. There was a time when forty was an old man’s age. To be sure, a terrible lot of life had passed over him. Was there something in the world left for him to do? Grace had said something about that. She went on living after her husband had drowned because there was something in the world for her to do yet. When he reached the front steps it was almost too much effort to climb them. But climb them he did. Inside, new sun shone through dusty uncurtained windows. He walked straight through the front room and to the bed, hung his cap on the footboard, sat on the lumpy mattress, unlaced his boots and let them drop to the floor. Without washing 174

the greasy black from his face or hands, his overalls and shirt slick with coal dirt, he lay back on top of the wool blanket. Before sleep overtook him, somehow Katie, still young as they day they were married, and Grace, her premature gray braid draped over a bare shoulder, became one woman. There in the empty house their presence, her presence, comforted him a little, though he knew through the haze of fatigue, any presence in that house but his own was no more than a dream.

When he woke the room was lighted from the west. He fumbled for his watch,

wound it before popping open the cover. It was hours yet until work started. There was beer and cheese in the larder, bread in the box if mice had not got to it. He knew he should eat, but there was no desire for it. Feeding himself had become another chore. Instead of eating he rolled onto his side, slept again, and dreamed about horses. They were running on an open plain like no place he had ever seen. Nor were they a breed he recognized, not the huge, barrel chested cold bloods he had grown up admiring, not the sleek and fancy stepping palfreys folk around Ashcamp stood still for in the street, watching them pass as if they bore royalty. These were little, rugged, light-footed animals, piebalds, bays, and blacks, thundering across rolling meadows of grass that stretched on forever. They held their noses high, taking in the wind as though it belonged to them alone, their dark eyes bright with glee at their freedom. Robb woke again, this time in twilight, disoriented, energized for a moment, growing tired as he recognized his surroundings. His hand reached for the watch, but he stilled it, sat up judging the hour by the length of shadows. Seven in the evening, maybe, or half past. April here, he had noticed, was a time of lingering light on west faces of hills. East facing slopes cooled early in the afternoon, sun slanting off behind the tall peaks and switchbacks. The valley bottoms, though, stayed sunlit well into evening, hilltops glowing even after everything else had given way to darkness. How unlike 175

evening by the seaside, coming all at once as the sun slipped down into water so fast he never gave up thinking it would hiss if only he were close enough to hear. Scarcely noticing his own movement, Robb was on his feet, walking from the tiny room where his bed stood, through the nearly empty front room as if he were a ghost left behind when the house had been abandoned. He opened the front door, stepped onto the porch. He did not remember putting his boots back on, but they were laced and tied. At one end of the porch a rocking chair huddled close to the unpainted siding, like him a castoff of lives now gone elsewhere. Robb avoided looking at it, sensing the loneliness

the thing would layer over his own. Without intention of any kind, he descended the steps, slipped both hands into his overall pockets, walked uphill along the dusty street, focusing his eyes on a distant point of the freshly greening hillside that marked the edge of town. Tangerine sunlight lingered all along the hilltops even when the houses of Ashcamp were behind him. A thrush called from the undergrowth, a voice he recognized from home, a song trilling and rolling like water over stones, bright and silvery in the dusky emptiness. Someone, he recalled, had said a thrush’s voice was like the sound of heaven. Katie’s voice for an instant echoed in the bird’s song. Seldom, anymore, could he remember the particulars of it. And, sure enough, as soon as he halted his steps, straining his ears to hear her note in that singing from the dark, it was gone. “Jeasus, con ye not gi’e me one lettle comfort?” Then he laughed hoarsely, unused to the sound of his own voice. “Ach, fer al these berds ond machine soonds, thes es a terrible quiet plaece.” In silence, he turned, walked back the way he had come. Not twenty minutes before Robb had washed down a fist sized chunk of black bread and a tasteless white lump of cheese with his last bottle of beer. His larder was now empty, and though there was time for the walk, he felt no compunction for a trip to the company store to restock his pantry. He sat motionless in the porch’s abandoned rocker for close 176

to an hour. Finally, the warning whistle sounded, three short blasts echoing down the dark valley. Time for the third shift to leave for the pit head. Since he was just a drover he had nothing to take with him but his pit cap and a pair of gloves. Keagle, the shift foreman, had promised to make him a cutter if he kept good hours, avoided fights with other miners, didn't look drunk too often when he showed up for work. He would need to buy himself a pick and a shovel for cutting and loading the coal. But the wage was better, and there was always credit at the company store. Harder work as well, no doubt. Drovers and cutters both died of the black lung just the same, though. He made a quick trip of it through the woods, wanted to talk to Keagle before work got started. If he knew that other path, could be he might save himself some shoe leather. It was a moonless April night, star spattered, but deep dark for all that. He felt a sudden pity for those poor creatures who worked the first shift, going down before the sun rose, not coming out into the world again until evening. Not so bad in the summer months, it might be; he hoped he would never have to suffer the torture of first shift. Third shift was bad enough when the sun had gone by five in the evening. But days were getting longer, and money was the thing now. The more he could put away, the sooner he could be into a better kind of life. He he had that extra coin of a cutter, what would he buy, where would he go? Robb pushed the thoughts from his head. Somehow different work would make things better. Like fate leading him by the hand, when he came up to the checker station to have his number recorded, there was Keagle talking with Malloy, the checker. When his number was in the book, Robb motioned Keagle away where they could have a word. Over the sound of the steam engine Keagle spoke first.

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“Hankerin after a cutter’s job are ye, Parker?” “Aye, thot’s aboot the size o’it.” “Come summer there’ll likely be some younger fellers ready to move on. Soon as we’re short a cutter, you’ll go on the crew.” “Summer?” “I don’t make the jobs, Parker. I just decide who gets the ones there is.” “Right. I ken yoor meanin.” “That it?”

Robb hesitated. “Woll, there was one other . . . I was thinkin . . . Why is it folk never use that path as runs off midway twixt this and the toon? Does it not coom out at Ashcamp?” Keagle’s face turned stern. “Don’t you go down there, Parker. There ain’t nothin good to be had from walking that a-way.” “Why’s that? Ded some fool hang hisself doon there sometime?” Keagle caught Robb by the sleeve, pulled him till there was no more than a hand’s breadth between their noses. “I don’t know nothin about nobody a-hangin hisself.” His voice was a whisper. “But there’s haints down there sure enough.” Robb whispered in reply, unsure if Keagle was pulling some prank on him. “Es et havin me on yoo are, Denny Keagle?” “No I ain’t. I seen it myself more’n ten year ago. And the thought stops my heart like it was ten minutes.” “God’s sake, mon, whot es et?” Keagle hauled Robb around so they both faced where that mysterious path lay out there among those dark trees. “It seems like a fair enough short-cut down to Ashcamp, don’t it? But you listen to me, mister, it takes you right through the heart a hell. . . Folk warned me right enough, like I’m a-warning you now. And I wished to God I’d a listened. There’s a creek cuts across that path, Parker, real as anything in this world. But 178

that water comes right up outta hell. Any man’s crossed it knows better’n ta do it again . . . You step out to cross that creek and there’s a ghost walks right beside you the whole way across. Turn ta look and it’s gone. But as soon as you set back ta gettin to the other side, there it is right beside you.” “Who’s ghost es et, Denny?” “I don’t know. Maybe it ain’t a ghost. Maybe it’s the Devil hisself, or, something old from back in Injun times that white folks ain’t got no business havin truck with. What ever it is, Robb Parker, you take my word. Don’t go foolin with it.”

Robb had more questions, but the long blast of the shift whistle put an end to them. If he wanted to go from leading ponies to cutting coal with a pick, he knew he had to look timely in front of the boss. So he walked off toward the pit mouth. All night he thought about that ghost down there in the woods, waiting along that path for someone to come along. What could it want? Travelers’ souls maybe? Wasn’t that what water spirits were always angling for? Wasn’t it their favorite sport, like Englishmen in the Highlands after trout whatever the cost. There were stories galore from back home--the mysterious stranger who helps three hunters cross a swollen creek when they get caught in a summer storm. He helps two across, but when the third reaches out for what he thinks is that helping hand, the shadow of a stranger says, “Not yet for you,” and calls him by name to boot, if you please. And aren’t the first two fellows wives their widows instead within a fortnight? But Mr. Number-three, he goes on with a long and prosperous life. Or there was that tale all about the countryside of some terrible creature who stole the souls of drowned fishermen and sailors, and kept their souls in jars, like fox tails, or elk heads along the wall in a great manner house. For all her bravado and bluff, that one gave Grace Hunter rough nights more than once. All night Robb meant to work hard, loaded cars up to the tipple dump, empty cars back underground. But his mind was drawn astray by thoughts of living water and the 179

spirit world. Oceans all connected to each other right around the world. So it was said back in his grammar school days, and folk still held it so today. And such being the case, it could just as easily be that all waters were some way connected. Wasn’t it the same with the air? What we breathe here is the same as back in the Hebrides, and even in China. Could be that was why his family’s grave stones still felt so close; the same air touched him here as touched them back home. When the shift whistle blew, Robb was first out of the pit head, almost forgot to stop and have his badge written down, but it would not do to be taken for dead, not now.

He tried to look like he was in no particular hurry. All the same, he wanted to be well ahead of the others so no one would see what he was up to. By the time he got to the mouth of that unused path, his heart was pounding. He never hesitated, though, just turned off like that was the way he always went. No foot steps behind him, so no need to even turn around. His fingers itched to check his watch. A story from his grandmother sounded dimly in his mind, though, saying that faiery folk abhorred metal. Though it was a bit of a conundrum, for they did often seem to like gold well enough. The watch was steel inside, though, gears and cogs and springs. He had looked in there more often than usual lately to make certain the works were staying clean. Best to keep it pocketed. He could still offer it by word if they asked for gold, until he knew just where they stood on the subject of watches. Reckoning he had walked maybe ten minutes, Robb slowed his steps. Ahead a little way he could hear water gurgling over stones. It was hard work to keep his breathing even, but he kept a steady pace. When he could see water crossing the path his head felt light. Then he was stepping into it, eyes fixed straight ahead. He had imagined the water feeling colder; it did not even soak through his boots, and he was out on the other side. After a few steps, Robb halted, let a slow breath drift through his lips. Before he knew it, he heard laughter. Then he realized it was his own. He turned, stepped back 180

to the creek’s low bank, shone his light upstream, then down. “Et’s joost a tale. A tale fer ould wives.” And he laughed again, louder, shaded with bitterness. True, he had wanted with all his sad heart for some miracle, but was relieved all the same when no spirit trod the running water beside him. Somehow, Robb felt like a new, more callous man as he trudged on down hill. Likely Dennis Keagle thought this was a fair howl of a joke. Dennis Keagle with his wife and children all alive and here in the valley with him. Well, bugger the coal cutter’s job. He’d bloody well have a joke for Keagle, so he would. Let the bastard laugh when a good stout smith’s fist had put some of his teeth down his throat for him. Let the bastard laugh at that. Seething with rage, stamping along the path fit to frighten a mad bull, Robb had lost all thought of where he was until the track sloped sharply down in front of him, a high, bare rock face to his left, a dark hollow to his right. And at the bottom of the hill, a broad creek rippling over gravel and stone. “Bugger the lot!” Robb drove a fist skyward, slapping his arm with the other hand. He trudged down, hit the water at a good pace. And no sooner than he was surrounded by water, to his left, clear as a hand before his face, a figure matching him stride for stride. He stopped dead. Drenched in sweat as he was, ice cold shivers fingered up his spine. Robb set his jaw, tried to quell his racing breath. Then he turned to look at the thing straight on. There was nothing, save the smooth rock wall he had seen on his way down the path. His breath eased of it’s own accord, his heart slowed. He felt a little dizzy, sweating yet, and cold. Coming down with a fever? In a single motion he turned toward the pathway again, and splashed forward through icy water. Before he knew it, he was running, that figure matching him stride for stride again, arms outstretched. Then he heard his bootsoles slopping on grass. He was 181

out of the beck, on dry land again. Nausea seized him, stopped his running feet. Buckling at the knees, his palms scarcely caught the ground before his face smashed against it. His gut purged itself until there were only dry heaves. After a while, they stopped too. Robb felt too weak to stand. Blackness overtook him. Daylight birds and green spring shoots filled his senses when Robb came to consciousness. A sweet smell of sassafras infused the air. He felt neither cold nor pain. Then a crow squawked near his ear sending him bolt upright. Robb looked at his hand, at the trees around him. He did not look a hundred years older, and neither did they. He felt his jaw; no beard. Nor had seven years passed either. This was not that other world sung of in old songs, it was that abandoned path between the pithead and Ashcamp. His lamp cap lay nearby, burnt out. He picked it up, walked back toward the creek. If everything of a spirit world was to be shown a lie this day, best see it all and have no misgivings. He waded into the creek, stepped toward that rock wall, pressed his palm against it. Sure enough, that explained what he thought was some other being. A thin film of water shimmered down that smooth rock. In the early daylight he could see a pale reflection of his own image. In the dark, his lamp would have lit it enough to make it mirror-like, until he looked straight at it. The full light, of course, reflected only its own brilliance. Dennis Keagle had been right after all, even if it was for the wrong reasons. He should have stayed away. Now his heart and his spirit would be forever broken, unable even to think of some place where miracles could happen. He turned his back on the creek, plodded off, not caring if he were to come out at Ashcamp, or not. Likely he would be moving on anyway. No reason to stay in this god-forsaken place. It was not a shorter walk after all, turning up hollows and sidling around hillocks and hogbacks. Just an old path no one used any more because there was a better straighter one folk had laid through the woods. But, Robb saw, he was right about one 182

thing, it did come out in Ashcamp. While still well back in the trees he could see a few of those whitewashed German houses. When he came out of the trees, to his surprise, he was at the back of little house, and in the yard, a woman, twenty, maybe twenty-five, sat milking a cow in early sunshine. Her back was mostly toward him, red hair, unbraided, spilling down her back. He took a step closer, snapped a twig under his bootsole. She turned a little, started, jumped from her stool, nearly spilling the milk. “Ach, you gafe me such a start.” Hand to her heart she looked down at the pail in

her grip, then back up at Robb. Amused, she brushed red hair back from one eye. “No von efer compz ziss vay. For a moment I tought you must be grimlin-mon.” Then she grinned broadly. “You are not a grimlin, ah you?” So long since he had heard a woman’s voice, and one with such a strange accent, Robb struggled for a reply. “Nae, oonly a Scotsmon.” “A Scotsmon? Never before haf I met a Scotsmon.” Morning sun shone in her face. “Voult you like zom milche? Fresh, ass you con zee.” She patted the cow’s flank, held up the bucket. “Ta, I wood.” He reached forward. “Och, but I’m felthy from the coal.” The woman lowered the bucket. “Mama hass new soap, unt varm vater, schtill. Just here, in zee keechin.” She opened the gate, held out her hand. “Comst du. My Papa iss also a miner. Mama’s soap iss goot for ziss dirt.” She took Robb’s hand in hers. “I am Gizella.” Robb shook Gizella’s hand. “Robb.” Still holding his hand, she turned, called toward the house, “Mama, ein nachbar ist commt.” Against his palm, her palm was warm as she led him toward the open

kitchen door.

 Mama, a neighbor has come.

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THE GRAY AND THE GOLD

Henry found out the first day he took over as foreman at the logging camp to give

the Indian cook his space. From British Columbia and over to Belgium, facing five-nines

and mustard gas on horse back, he had somehow got into jobs where he controlled other

men’s fortunes. Usually it was enough to treat his charges fair, try to keep ‘em from

doing anything too stupid, and give ‘em a stern word when it was needed. But how could

you reason with a deaf man? It was a good enough arrangement to let the cook stick to

his kitchen and his garden.

The straw-boss job came with a little whitewashed office house. There was a bunk, a chair, a good stove, and a coffee pot in there, and some days that was more than enough. Keeping the peace, and counting out wages when the pay box came was easy money. Leave wintering out in a line shack to the young crowd. After fifty, a man deserves a little rest.

With his shirt cuff pulled over his hand Henry lifted the coffee pot off the stove, filled his speckled cup. That smell always made his mouth water, though he knew the coffee was too hot to drink. Blowing his cup cool, Henry stepped over to the door, looked out the little window; tan canvas roofs of the bunk houses, the mess tent, and kitchen shack drew his eye in gray morning light. Down the slope the sagging horse

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shed, the stick corral hunkered in dewy shadow. But the ridge above, cleared through the

long summer months, lay raked with bare sun. Farther down the valley, red-gold of

October woods stood in majestic contrast to the squalor of the camp. Another day and

they would break everything here down, cart it all up river, and start cutting again. Henry

sipped. Still too hot.

He opened the door, stepped into cool morning, and paused on the top step. Far

off, birds twittered like an echo. The camp everything was quiet otherwise. Henry took

another sip, choking, as a sharp crack broke the morning silence. There was a pause, then

two more shots.

Tossing his cup aside, Henry charged back through the door of his office. In three

strides he was at the bunk and had the .44 Peacemaker in his hand.

Though he trotted downhill, it seemed like a long time before he got to the horse

pen. Already, most of the first shift were gathered in a circle three men deep. Henry

slogged in, his pistol barrel high, shouldering the loggers aside. Someone was yelling,

horses whinnie-ing.

Henry pushed backs out of his way just in time to see one of the horses, a gray

Percheron, slashing its iron-shod forehooves in the dim light. A second later her

enormous hooves struck down in sawdust, inches from a prone logger’s head. Henry

stopped himself from lunging forward. Another man already had hold of the big animal’s forelock, his hand on her nose easing her head down. Steam boiled in curls from her nostrils, mingling in the dim light with rising puffs of human breath.

The man on the floor wore canvas britches and a striped shirt, had yellowish gray hair and beard. His knee drawn to chin, the man on the floor was still yelling, bloody

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hands gripping his shin. Above him, the horse tossed her head, snorted, reared again.

Henry slipped his pistol under his belt, grabbed the down man by both shoulders and

dragged him clear as hooves hit sawdust again.

“Hold that horse,” he shouted.

The logger who held the animal by her forelock chanted, “Eeeasy, eeeeasy . . .” in

a soft, urgent voice, backing the big mare toward a corral door.

In the wood shavings where the injured man had lain, a half-buried pistol shone darkly. Henry knelt, trying to pry the wounded man’s hands from the bloody leg. The logger shrieked and rolled onto his side.

“What the hell’s going on here, McKieg?” In his head Henry had roared the question, but in his ears he sounded disgusted, tired. He was standing again.

McKieg wailed, gripped his leg. He fixed his eyes on Henry as if he had materialized out of a fog.

“Dat damn ting tried to kill me, so it did.” He gritted his teeth, rocking slightly.

“Dat goddamn Perch’ron’s a killer.”

A shaft of sunlight crept across the floor. Another logger separated from the dark crowd of men and knelt close to McKieg, an open bottle in his hand. He cradled

McKeig’s head and tipped the bottleneck tipped to his lips. “Don’t fret, Denny. Mr.

Jenkins is here . . . He won’t let ya die.” The kid with the bottle was scrawny for a logger. He had a way with horses though.

“Lucas.” Henry stood over the pair, held out his hand, “Run up to the bunk house and fetch a blanket. We’ll take ‘im up to the mess tent.” Lucas corked the bottle, handed it to Henry and took off running.

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“And if anybody’s left up there . . .” Henry yelled after him, “tell ‘em to get to the mess tent and clear off a table.”

Kneeling again, Henry uncorked the bottle, sniffed at the neck, corked it again.

The blood had stopped, caked dark on McKieg’s fingers. Henry leaned close, “Is that your gun, McKieg?”

McKieg stared at the shadowed rafters, eyes glazed. “Don’t think about dyin’,

McKieg. You ain’t that lucky.”

Henry looked up toward the faces around him. “Does anyone know what the hell went on here?” He couldn’t expect an answer. Back in the winter when he shot a couple of deer and there was something to eat besides salt pork and cornmeal, he was everybody’s pal.

Now the invisible door had shut. He was the boss again. Their sniffing and clearing throats joined with horse sounds. Past the crowd’s knees, through the open door,

Henry could see down toward the morning lit valley, where someone led that gray mare, calm as a lamb. For an instant he pictured himself sprawled face down in the sawdust, kicked in the ass by his own boot. Why hadn’t he paid attention, noticed who had hold of that horse?

Up in the mess tent McKieg was laid out on one of the long trestle tables. The makeshift stretcher bearers idled close by. Fishing out a pocket knife, he flicked the blade open, then Henry nodded to two of the idlers. Joyfully, they seized McKieg’s legs, pinned them to the table. When he made a weak motion to sit up, other men grabbed his shoulders, his arms, his head. Henry slit the pant leg open to the knee.

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McKieg moaned, tried to flail, but gave up. Henry took the whiskey bottle from

his pocket, flipped the stopper free. With his thumb over the cork hole he dribbled a little

on the bloodiest spot. The patient was silent, transfixed. The surgeon took a sip, tucked

the anesthetic out of sight. A lump the size of a peanut stood out on the exposed shin.

Henry touched it.

“You shot yourself.”

Pale faced, McKieg stared at the canvas.

“Somebody go get some towels and hot water.” Henry pointed with his Barlow.

“And a good sharp knife.”

A general movement stirred among the onlookers, but no one took more than a step. A few men cleared their throats. Henry tried to fix a couple of the men with his stare, but they found something else to look at. “Aw, you bunch a’ lilly livered . . .” He snapped his pocket knife shut. “Scared of a deaf Indian?” Shuffling feet added to the broken chorus of sniffing and whispers. “Jesus.” Henry stuffed the knife in his pocket. “I’ll do it myself.” He pushed away from the table with a shove, stormed down along the aisle between the tables. When he got to the door in the tarpaper covered back wall he grabbed the wooden door latch. But just before he lifted it, his zeal deserted him. Meekly he knocked on the door boards, shook his head, took a short breath and exhaled it.

When he was in the kitchen with the door shut behind him, the handle stayed clamped in his fist. His other hand instinctively touched the pistol butt sticking out of his belt. He scanned the kitchen. In the middle of the room the big black stove squatted with its back to him, ticking as it cooled from the breakfast fire. The sandbox underneath, 188

meant to protect the floorboards from heat, was kicked askew. The shelves along all three outside walls were neatly stacked with towels and bundled sacks, then metal plates and cups, cookware, mason jars, and sacks of flour and meal. Pork barrels were marshaled under the shelves. Bacon hung from the rafters. But no cook. The door leading out to the garden was shut. Henry took a step toward the back door, but froze at a scraping sound from the other side of the stove. Joe appeared, slapping yellow cornmeal from his shirt. Then his head jerked up, his broad, dark face startled, his dark, pupil-less eyes fixed on the intruder. Slowly, deliberately, Henry raised both hands in front of him, displaying empty palms. The dark eyes shifted, watching henry’s hands. Forcing a crooked smile, Henry raised one hand, rocked his thumb toward the door behind him. Then he cocked a knee, pointed at his shin. Joe’s dark eyes were angry, confused. He looked down at Henry’s leg. “Some fool shot hisself. Don’t ya get it?” A real smile took over. Henry shook his head, pointed at the shelf of towels. “I just need some towels . . . and some hot water.” He took a step forward. The cook disappeared behind the stove, tripped on the sandbox, appeared again. For a half-minute his huge black shoes looked nailed to the floor. But when Henry took another step, Joe backed up, kicked the box again with his heel, almost fell over. When he righted himself a long bacon knife from off the stove was in is hand. Henry shook his head, both palms out again. He edged toward the towel shelf. When he finally got a couple of them in his hand, he picked up a boning knife from the utensil can with two fingers, slipped it into the bundle and pointed at the hot water tank on the side of the stove. The Indian followed the line of his finger, knife hand hanging limp at his side. 189

The dark eyes looked from Henry to the stove and back again. Then the Indian laid his knife down and with both hands he lifted an enameled kettle from the stove’s warming shelf and set it on the floor under the water tap. In a few minutes, he hefted the steaming cauldron, scuffing sand underfoot in his otherwise spotless kitchen, following the white man to the door. The hum of voices stopped dead when Henry stepped back into the mess tent. Unfolding a towel with one hand, he ambled back down between the tables. Six men still held McKieg pinned to the boards. Henry eyed them, glanced around at the others.

“If it ain’t too scary for you fellers, couple of ya can go fetch that water Joe left by the kitchen door.” When the kettle was on the table, Henry dipped a towel in, nodded at the man holding McKieg’s leg. Steam rolled thick through chilly morning air, water drizzling musically while Henry twisted the white wad. He carefully washed blood from the dirty leg. When he dipped the cook’s boning knife in the water pot, all attendants leaned on the patient with renewed fervor. After a few seconds of useless squirming, McKieg had given up. But the instant the blade touched his skin, he came to life again, began howling like a heart-broke wolf. Almost on its own the knife point slit through the damp skin, cut a tiny flap loose. It was over in a few seconds, though it seemed like a long time. Ignoring the noisy display, the surgeon flipped the lump of lead free. It hit the tabletop with a weak thud. He picked it up, held it close to his eyes, turning it between finger and thumb. “Thirty-two.” Henry spoke under his breath, to no one. Then his heart thudded; a thought suddenly entered his mind. What happened to the gun? He slipped the slug into his pocket, took out the whiskey bottle, dribbled a few drops onto McKieg’s shin, pushed the skin flap back in place with his finger. McKieg had given up again. His face looked like he was miles away. 190

Henry couldn’t get the towel to tear until he nicked it with the boning knife. Once he got it started, he tore half its length. He wrapped it tight enough to hold the skin in place, rolled the ends and tied them in a square knot. There was nothing left to do, but the loggers were reluctant to let go of the novelty. Henry thought for a full minute. “Okay boys, you can let him go. . . Carry him back to his bunk.” It was a good way out. As many men as possible became stretcher bearers. A few stragglers followed.

When the second shift finally went out to the valley to work, Henry walked down

to the stables. Inside he could hear a carpenter bee buzzing, a bored horse cribbing at its stall. He reached into his pocket, took out his watch. For a while he just held it, thumb poised on the crown, cover still shut. With half the horses out working the stable was eerie. Distractedly he popped the watch open, stretched his arm to bring the numbers, the delicate hands into focus. It would be at least two hours before the first shift migrated back for their dinner. It was impossible to ignore the sepia photograph opposite the watch face. Melancholy invaded Henry’s posture, a pall of disappointed possibility. For a long time he gazed blankly at the picture, the woman’s dark hair and inscrutable smile. He snapped the watch shut, slipped it back in his pocket and walked around in the gloomy stable kicking at sawdust, peering into stall corners. The gun was gone, of course. He sank back against a post. Behind him a horse backed into the wall, whinnied. By the time he turned to look at it, the animal had recovered from its surprise and was lazily scrubbing its rump against the logs. He watched it for a few seconds. “If that gray’s a killer,” he told the quiet animal, “I’m a Chinese assassin.”

Up at his office shack, the metal cup lay on its side by the steps. Henry picked it up, flicked out brown drops pooled inside and wiped it along his coat sleeve. As he 191

ascended toward his door, the steps creaked, annoying him more than they should have. But when he shut the door behind him, it was cozy inside, almost too warm. The air smelled like wood smoke and burnt coffee. He pulled the pistol out of his belt, tossed it onto the cot. He shrugged off his coat and tossed it over the gun. Shirt cuff over his hand, he poured bitter coffee into his waiting cup. The chair scraped as he drew it stoveward. He sat down and leaned over, took the bottle from his coat pocket to cool his coffee. He put his bootsole against the stove’s ash door, rocked his chair back and stared at steam curls rising from his cup. His mind ran over versions of what might have gone on early that morning in the stable. Give McKieg a little time, let him stew in his own juice, then he’d find out what was what.

From outside the bunkhouse, Henry could hear snoring, like a dull crosscut saw in wet wood. McKieg was alone inside, stretched out on his bunk under a pile of blankets, his mouth open. For a few seconds Henry watched in silence. Then he kicked the bunk and backed off a few steps. McKieg half sat up, smacking his lips, serene confusion coloring his face. Then his eye drifted a little toward Henry. In an instant his breathing grew labored, mouth contorting in a grimace. He raised his knee under the mountain of blankets. “Ahw, Chroist. How long must a mon lie in pain?” His begging eyes drifted toward Henry. “Is dat yerself, Mister Jenkins?” He paused for three beats. “Could ye not give me a drop a’ somethin’ fer dis pain?” His yellow teeth clinched. Henry stepped closer and took the flat bottle from his coat pocket. McKieg raised on his cot, reaching. Henry took a drink, hesitated, handed over the bottle. He crossed both arms over his chest. “Who shot you, McKieg?” Propped on an elbow, McKieg held the bottle to his lips, letting his mouth fill. 192

He swallowed, took another sip, handed the bottle back to Henry. His look said no dice. “I taught ye might be able ta tell me dat, Cap’n.” He watched the bottle disappear into Henry’s coat. “You want to keep your job, McKieg?” Henry aimed a finger. “Tell me who shot you . . . Or did you do it yourself to get out of work?” “It was terrible dark doun dere,” McKieg offered. A pale light dawned in his eyes. He adjusted his weight on the elbow, stared Henry in the face. “Dat perch’ron’s a killer,” he said with more conviction. “Wouldn’t it be a mercy to us all to put da dammed ting doun?” “All right.” Henry crossed his arms again. “You were gonna do us a favor and shoot the horse.” McKieg gave a nod and a hard little smile. “Then where’d you get the gun. You can be fired for having a gun.” McKieg sat up, confused. “Well, I never said it was me goin’ to shoot da ting, did I?” “Goddamnit, McKieg, that’s enough of that.” Henry grabbed a corner of the blankets, yanked them from the bed. “You’re fired. Get your gear and clear out!” Then, more calmly, “Your trespassing.” McKieg had reached for the blankets, but missed. He sat on the bare bunk, knees drawn to his chin. He still wore the striped shirt, ripped longjohns and socks, but he began shivering. “Ah, now, wait Cap’n. You’d not trow a wounded mon out in da cold, would yous?” Henry moved back a step, sat on the empty bunk behind him. “All right, McKieg, last time.” He cut the air chest-high with his hand. “What the hell happened down there this morning?”

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McKieg gazed across his bent knees, eyes like a trapped possum’s. He clutched at his bandaged leg, flicked a glance toward Henry. “Well, ya see, yer honor, it was like dis. Da god’s honest trute, so help me.” His right hand raised for the oath. “I took meself doun ta da stable early dis mornin’ and was after harnessin’ Bess, dat gray. I was a bit off me feed, ya see. Dat’s how I come ta be doun dere so early like. “Well, I get da harness on ‘er, only she won’t take da bit, see. And when I try it again, what does de old whoer do but toss ‘er head and clip me in de chin. ‘You old whoer’ says I, and I hauls off ta give ‘er one across da nose, tit fer tat, as ye might say.

Only someone grabs me from behind . . . I don’t know who it was. I swear.” “Well, I swings me elbow back into ‘is ribs, and de next I know, I’m flat out. I taught Bess had kicked me, her bein’ a mankiller and all. But, a’ course, I’d been shot. Next ting after dat, you was pullin’ me out from under dat beast’s great hooves. And so ye saved me life, so ye did, sir.” Henry pursed his lips. “There were three shots.” “Was dere?” McKieg’s hand went to his chin. “I tink I was only shot de once . . . Tank god he was a bad aim, sir.” Henry stood up. “All right.” A sheepish look came over McKieg’s face. “Uh, could I have me blankets, Cap’n?” He pointed to where the pile sprawled on the floor. “Sure, take ‘em.” Henry walked past McKieg toward the door. The next day, there was no first or second shift. At sunup, everyone worked side- by-side taking the camp to pieces. By nightfall only the mess tent and its tarpaper and board kitchen would be left standing. By midday Henry’s office was packed onto a wagon-- his cot, his stove, his straight-backed chair, the metal boxes that held his papers- - all mixed in among coils of rope, crates of chain, seven-foot saws and double-bit axes, roof canvases from the bunk houses. Henry checked his watch. At ten-thirty he broke 194

the first-shifters. Joe fed them cornbread and bacon with a kind of white gravy made from flour and fat. Henry ate with the early crew. Lucas Darvey got two platefuls, took one up to McKieg, still in his bunk in the roofless ruin. Near the head of the table, where Henry sat, spirits were high. Any change from the daily monotony was cause for jubilation. Conversation turned to the special breakfast gravy. “Joe’d druther feed us all the cornmeal and flour he’s got left, than pack it, I reckon.” one logger offered. The table erupted in laughter.

“Yeah,” put in the pimple-faced boy, “and it don’t do not good to complain to a deaf Injun if ya don’t like it.” That got more laughs. When both shifts got a repeat of breakfast at one o’clock, no one was laughing. At six, when supper was the same again, the fellows were downright glum. They talked excitedly though about pulling the mess tent down after breakfast the next day. Only the sagging horse shed and the stick fence around it would be left the tomorrow to show that a camp had ever been there. By supper that next day, there would be a new camp up river, the first logs cut for bunk houses and a mess tent. October air turned from chilly to cold as night fell. Fog crept up from the river. Smoky fires in among the packed wagons gave the place a spooky feel. Henry took a lantern down to the horse shed, idled there among the animals. It galled him that he would likely never get to the bottom of that business with McKieg. Any real evidence would be miles behind by noon the next day, and that old Mick was such a liar even he didn’t know when he was telling the truth half the time. If he could just find out who it was that took Bess away the other morning. That was more than likely the fellow who had shot McKieg, if he hadn’t done it himself. Hands over the lantern, Henry caught rising heat, rubbed his palms together. That same fellow would have that .32 pistol in his pocket or his boot right now, unless he had 195

panicked and thrown it in the river. Through his coat Henry touched the butt of the .44 Peacemaker in his belt. Best keep an eye open for trouble as winter came on and daylight and tempers got short. His thoughts drifted toward winter; he imagined a steaming cup of coffee. Empty resolution echoed through his chest. Lantern in hand, he slogged out through the horse pen, up the muddy incline toward the mess tent. Fog and smoke haloed all the little fires, smeared the muddy shapes around them. Lucas Darvey’s whiskey bottle thumped against his leg as he walked. He slipped his hand into the coat pocket.

Finger and thumb around the neck, he hesitated a minute, then it was out in his hand. He squeaked the cork loose. In the foggy moonlight the brown bottle gleamed silvery in his grip. He tipped the neck to his mouth and swallowed, walked on. Enough left to cool some coffee. Henry stopped at a row of river rocks and chunks of white quartz. Silvery vines curved through fog along the ground: the Indian’s pumpkin patch. Lifting his foot high, he stepped across the line. A sandy path flecked with white curved around to the kitchen door. It gave underfoot, but wasn’t muddy. It was fresh. Henry slipped the bottle into his pocket, raised his lantern for a look around. No sign of Joe. Carefully, raised the door latch, though he realized it was ridiculous to sneak up on a deaf man. “I’m the boss,” he whispered, reassuring himself. “I can have a cup of coffee if I want one.” Inside it was a little warmer. The fogless air took Henry aback for a few heartbeats--a cold night, whiskey on an empty stomach. He shook his head, stepped in, pulled the door shut silently. Only a few flour and meal sacks were left on the shelves. The stacks of neatly folded empties were gone. At mid-floor the big stove was quiet, gone cold hours ago.

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But he could smell coffee, could see the pot sitting on the stove. He scanned the room. Something didn’t look right. His eye halted. The sand box was pushed aside. Some fool had started pulling up the floorboards. He took a few steps, looked closer. It was a hole about the same size as the stove sandbox. Henry reached under his coat tail, pulled the pistol from his belt. Then he got closer to the hole--it was more than pulled-up floorboards. A dark, gaping pit yawned underneath. He aimed the pistol barrel down the hole, and raised the light over his head, straining to see in the yellow pool it illuminated. There was something in the pit. He kneeled and lowered the lantern. Parallel bars and the first few rungs of a ladder shone up from the gloom. Henry took a deep breath, sat and dangled his legs into dark nothing, reaching out until he stepped on a wooden bar. He turned the lantern bale in his hand, let it slip over his wrist, slide along his arm to the elbow. Pointing his pistol down where he could see only black, he descended to ladder. Down a few feet the walls turned white, shimmery quarts amplifying the light of his kerosene flame. The hole was a good twelve feet deep, shot through with the white stone. At the bottom it was wider, ran back like a little room dug out down there, following the vein of quartz. Henry held his lantern up close to the wall. Tiny dark flakes sparkled through white in thin strips. Most of the heavy veins had been cut out. Just like Joe’s kitchen, it was a neat, orderly operation. Henry set the light down, slipped his pistol back into his belt, fished the folding knife out of his pants pocket. The lantern in hand again, he picked at a thumb tip sized lump of metal chest high. In a few minutes it gave way, tumbled into his palm. He had seen plenty of panned gold up in the British Columbia. High concentration quartz gold like this was a rare sight. He licked the shinning lump, tasted the bitter-flat savor that 197

told him it was not pyrite. He slipped his hand into his coat pocket and let the nugget fall from his palm. Back up in the kitchen he set his lantern on the stove top, put his hand on the coffee pot. Lukewarm. He lifted the pot top off with two fingers. Holding it in his palm, he filled it nearly brim full, sipped, the pot still gripped in his other hand. Details poured into his mind. He had spent maybe half an hour down in that hole. That, and the time he had whiled away ambling up to the kitchen for coffee would have given them maybe just enough leeway to get the horses loaded.

Must have goaded ‘em something terrible when he was idling around down there in the stable. That coffee maybe was bait; maybe he really had smelled it from down there at the horse shed. He took another drink. One thing for sure, next week when the pay box came up to camp, it would be clear who all knew this story. Just everyone who wasn’t there: Joe, of course and the fellow who had led Bess away, maybe McKieg, easy enough to find out in the morning. Could be he figured out what they were up to. Could be he was in all along and got greedy, or nervous. That kid, Lucas, McKieg’s pal, might be in on it too. And there would be horses missing, of course. He finished the coffee, shook his head, chased the bitter aftertaste with the last of the whiskey. All of the fires were out, and the sun was none-too-quick to burn off the fog next morning. Henry sat at the head of one of the long tables when loggers started straggling in. Out of forty men it was a little difficult to tell who was not there in the early light. Cold and surly, none of the men seemed to take notice that breakfast wasn’t coming. But after they were all seated, and still no breakfast, sour looks kindled into rude remarks, then into shouting. But no one would go to the kitchen door. Finally, someone down the table shouted over the din, “What’s up, cap’n? Where’s that damn Injun with our breakfast?”

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Then Henry stood up. He moved his hands like he would pat down the noise, but it didn’t exactly pat. “Looks like we likely won’t have no breakfast boys,” he started. Then everyone was shouting. Henry held his hands higher, waved them in a sterner motion. The noise just got louder. When he saw no one was listening to him, Henry felt his face get hot. He reached under his coat, pulled the pistol out of his belt, waved it at the canvas ceiling. Quick as he could hammer and trigger it, he fired three deafening shots over his head. Everyone sat frozen in mid-motion, fingers pointing, mouths open, fists raised. A smile ticked at the corner of Henry’s mouth. He laid the .44 on the table in front of him. There was no more need to shout.

“I want my breakfast too, boys. Can anybody here cook?”

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