THE DAY AFTER THEY CAME HOME TO ROUND HOLE, MATTHEW RAN three-quarters of a mile to meet the Reno coach so he could be the first with the news to Liam and Beaner. “Karl and Momma got married,” he puffed as Liam hauled him aboard by one arm.
“It’s about damn time,” the taciturn old driver replied, but he was pleased and paid his respects with his hat in his hand when they arrived at Round Hole.
The weeks passed and Sarah grew as quick to answer to “Mrs. Saunders” as she had been to “Mrs. Ebbitt.” Karl was slower, and suffered the good-natured teasing of the old customers when he referred to his wife as Mrs. Ebbitt.
The weather turned cold in late September, and life moved indoors. Sarah or Karl would leave the guests after supper and find a quiet corner where they could teach Matthew his lessons. Sometimes they held hands or sat close, but Karl still absented himself from the stop on nights when Sarah raised the calico flag.
The Saunderses saved enough money over the winter so that the following spring they were able to buy a bull. They hoped to have a healthier crop of calves the following year. Coby’s pay was raised to two dollars and a quarter a day. He took better than half a week off, and rode to Elko to pay his debts. When he returned, a free man, with some money left over, he settled back into the tackroom and showed no inclination to move on.
Several more of Sarah’s hens disappeared and she reinforced the wire fence around the coop. There were no more raids for a while; then, early in November, Matthew forgot to latch the gate behind him after gathering eggs for supper and in the morning three hens were gone. One was Sarah’s best layer.
Karl and Coby had gone to Standish to buy hay and firewood for the winter. Sarah, enjoying the solitude, whistled breathily to herself as she checked the roost one more time, peering into the gloomy recesses of each box and poking her arm in to feel behind the messes of straw nesting. Her missing hens were nowhere to be found, but she inadvertently discovered an egg so old it broke when she touched it and the smell drove her out into the open. The sharp November air cleared her lungs of rotten-egg smell. Wrapping her arms in her apron for warmth, she took a last look around the henyard. Her flock, small and brown-and-white-speckled, scratched complacently. Corn kernels from the morning still littered the ground near the fence. Two snow-white feathers blew by her feet, catching her eye. She picked one up and turned it over in her fingers; the end was mangled and there was rust-colored matting near the tip. She let the wind take it, left the chicken coop, and hurried across the yard. Under the porch steps, out of sight from a distance, were more feathers-half a handful. Sarah knelt by the steps and stuck her head under the porch. Shadowy and indistinct, something crouched behind the feathers.
“Moss Face,” she called, “come here, fella.” Slowly the shadow crept forward, hunched down, his chin low over his paws. Sarah reached in, ducking her shoulder under the porch floor. Moss Face stopped, his brown eyes bright in the dimness. Small white feathers were stuck to the fur around his jaws. “Come on now, come here, boy, attaboy,” she cajoled. The coyote crept forward another few feet and she grabbed at his neckerchief. “Gotcha!” she cried as she dragged him out into the light. All around his mouth the fur was spiky with dried blood. Holding on to his collar, Sarah smacked him. “Bad dog!” He growled and bared his teeth. “Don’t you growl at me! And don’t you go killing my chickens!” She spanked him hard. Writhing in her grasp, rubbery lips pulled back in a snarl, Moss Face twisted to bite. His teeth grazed her wrist, barely breaking the skin, but it scared her and she let him loose. He was around the corner of the house and out of sight before she recovered herself.
“It’s Moss Face been killing the chickens,” she told Karl that night as she brushed out her hair. He sat on a chair beside the bed, his heavy workboots neatly side by side under the window, sewing a button on one of his shirts.
“I thought it might be,” he replied. “I guess no one wanted to know it for sure. Did you catch him in the henhouse?”
“No. Almost, though. He was under the house, too full to do anything but sleep. I got him to come out. He had feathers and blood all around his mouth.” She pulled back her sleeve. “I spanked him and he turned and bit me. I think he’s going back to being wild.”
“Maybe. I remember Mac said he might. I guess we’ll have to get rid of him.”
Her hand flew to her cheek as though he’d slapped her. “That’s Matthew’s dog!”
“He’s killing chickens. Today he bit you.”
“We can’t kill him.” She brushed her hair vigorously for a hundred strokes. Adjusting the lamp, Karl squared up his spectacles and pulled the thread around and around the button before tying it off. With the light so close, his face showed the years, the lines chiseled through the flat cheeks and fanning out over the high cheekbones.
“We can’t kill him,” Sarah said again.
“We can’t keep him, if he’s killing chickens.”
Sarah put the brush down and tied her long hair back at the nape of her neck with a faded blue ribbon. “Couldn’t we take him somewhere and leave him? Let him go wild again?”
Karl thought for a moment. “We could do that. I’ll do it tomorrow. Coby and I planned to ride south of here, toward Tohakum Peak. I think the cattle may be ranging too far; I’m afraid to let them get too near the Paiutes or we’ll lose them.” He smiled. “I don’t want them eaten before they’re paid for.”
Sarah came to kneel between his knees. She still slept in the old flannel gowns Imogene had given her when she’d left Pennsylvania with nothing but the dress on her back. The fabric was yellowed with age, the hem frayed. She put her arms around Karl’s waist and rested her head on his chest. “Oughtn’t you be getting ready for bed?” she asked. “I laid out your nightshirt.”
He let her bound hair slip through his hand, long and silken. “Mrs. Saunders,” he said, and smiled.
“Mrs. Saunders.” Sarah turned her face up to be kissed. “You need a haircut,” she commented. “Put it off much longer and we’ll have to get out the hairpins.”
He touched her lips softly with the tips of his fingers. “Sarah, do you ever miss Imogene?” he asked.
She was quiet a long time, and when she replied her voice was warm with remembering. “A little. I miss the small things mostly, I think. Pushing in hairpins before any big jobs-things like that.”
“Sometimes I miss her too.”
In the morning he was ready to go before sunrise, before Matthew was awake. Moss Face had not been in his usual place in the boy’s room, but under the porch, and he was uncharacteristically suspicious when Karl called him. He would only crawl into the light and whine, but wouldn’t come close enough to be touched. Finally, Sarah came out in her nightgown and slippers. She put a piece of venison left over from supper on the ground, and when Moss Face came out to eat it, Karl grabbed him. They fashioned a leash out of twine, the coyote’s neckerchief serving as a collar. He slipped out of it twice, but the third time they tied it as tight as they dared, and he couldn’t wriggle free. Karl swung into the saddle and started out, but Moss Face would not follow; he braced his feet and fought the lead until, afraid he would be choked, Karl bundled him into a gunnysack, taking him out of Round Hole the way he had come in.
He leaned down from the saddle to kiss his wife. “Tell Coby I’ve gone out early to lose Moss Face. He can meet up with me at the bluff just south of Sand Pass.”
“I’ll send your lunch with him. It slipped my mind till just now.” Sarah folded her shawl more closely around her, and held the neck of her nightgown shut. A lantern burned on the ground at her feet; in its uneven light, her breath steamed.
“You’d better get inside.”
She nodded and picked up the lantern. “What shall I tell Matthew? First thing he’ll look for is that dog.” She laid her hand on the warm bundle by her husband’s knee. Moss Face stirred inside, whimpering, and Karl’s horse shied and sidestepped.
“Easy.” Karl gentled the old gelding with a touch. “Tell him the truth, Sarah.” A ribbon of light appeared around the porch door as it was opened a crack. “It looks like he’s up. Do you want me to tell him?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “No. You go. Quick, before he comes out. You’ll be at Sand Pass-south side-around noon?”
“That’s right-don’t forget my lunch.” He touched her hair lightly and turned the horse’s head to the southwest. Behind him the night sky was just beginning to lighten, stars paling into the day. The air was cold and still in the windless calm before sunrise. Karl turned his collar up around his ears and, looping the reins around the saddlehorn, shoved his hands in his coat pockets.
Where the desert began its ascent to Sand Pass, the road started winding, snaking up through the sage to a notch in the rounded mountains west of the stage stop. Over the pass, Karl turned his horse from the road and struck out through the sage, the eight-thousand-foot peak of Tohakum Mountain on his left and the ragged brown Pah Rah Range on his right. Moss Face lay quiet in his burlap prison. Occasionally he would shift or whine, and Karl would reassure him with soft words.
The sun was well above the horizon when Karl approached the pyramids at the north end of the lake. There was still no wind, but he rode with his coat buttoned high. The lake glittered a hard deep blue, the dark cobalt blue of the sea. He swung free of the saddle and threw the reins over the horse’s head. It began cropping the sparse dry weeds with a tearing sound. Karl lifted the gunnysack from the saddlehorn and crouched to untie the mouth of the bag. Both his knees cracked. “I’m getting to be quite an old lady,” he said, “creaking like her rocker. Come on, Moss Face, you’re home.”
On wobbly legs, the coyote ventured halfway out, the sack draped over him like a cassock, and looked around. He closed his eyes and pointed his nose at the sky, his nostrils quivering as he took in his new surroundings.
“There’s water here, and even such a hearth-dog as you should be able to find enough to eat.” Karl stroked the rough fur, then untied the neckerchief and put it in his coat pocket. “Come all the way out. I want my sack back.” He upended the bag, poured the rest of Moss Face out, and scratched him behind the ears. “Good-bye, old fella, you’ll be fine.” He looped the sack over the saddlehorn, gathered up the reins, and, digging his heels into the horse, started off at a stiff trot.
Moss Face sat where Karl had dumped him, looking around with the confused air of a sleepwalker awakened in a strange bed. As Karl rode past the first hillock, Moss Face shook himself vigorously and started out after him.
Karl turned for a last look and saw him. “Go on!” he yelled. “Git!” Moss Face stopped and sat down, but as soon as Karl rode on, he trotted along behind the same as before. Karl dismounted and picked up a handful of rocks. “Go on!” he shouted. Moss Face sat down to wait him out. Karl threw a rock at him. It landed short and the coyote nosed it curiously. “Scat.” Karl threw another, closer this time. Moss Face tried to catch it in his mouth. The third rock struck him in the shoulder and he stopped cold to stare at Karl. “Go on! I mean it.” Karl threw another rock, striking Moss Face in the side.
The coyote retreated a few feet, then turned back. The next stone struck him hard in the face, and Moss Face turned and ran. Karl threw rocks as long as the dog was in sight.
“Damn,” he said when the dog ran out of view, and let the rest of the rocks fall from his fist. “Karl Saunders just lost a good dog.”
The men got in late, after sundown; both were tired and cold to the bone. Coby’s face was chapped raw from the wind. Sarah turned down their offers to help with dinner, and the four of them dined simply on bread and beans. The milk was still warm from the cow and there wasn’t much of it. Karl and Coby cut theirs with coffee so Matthew could have the rest. He asked them if they’d seen his dog. He wasn’t really worried, he said, Moss Face had gone off before for a day, and once he was gone overnight.
Karl shot Sarah a hard look and she avoided his eye. “Sarah, tell-” he started.
She shushed him, and the conversation was strained for the rest of dinner. Coby excused himself early and retreated to the tackroom.
By the time Sarah finished up her chores and came to bed, Karl was a formless lump under the bedclothes. The sheets were cold and Karl’s back was warm, but she didn’t snuggle close. She was afraid he was still mad at her. For a few minutes Sarah tossed and turned, hoping to wake him. “I’m being childish,” she thought, and let herself drift off to sleep.
The frantic sound of chickens clucking and beating their wings woke them both several hours after midnight. Without lighting the lamp Karl pulled trousers and a wool shirt over his long night shirt and yanked on his workboots. Sarah sat up in bed. “What is it?” The violent cackling subsided, then burst forth in a fresh wave.
“Sounds like something is after the chickens.”
“Bobcat?”
“Maybe.”
She struggled out of the tangle of bedclothes, pulled on her shoes, and slipped Imogene’s hunting coat over her nightgown. Karl led the way through the darkened house, stopping to take the Henry Repeater from its place in the corner behind the bar. Sarah took the lantern from its hook by the door and together they crossed the yard.
The night was cold and still, with no moon. Luminous, the Milky Way streaked across the southern sky, and overhead the Big Dipper poured out its mysteries. Starlight picked out the Fox Range and the ghostly silver of the alkali flats. There was no noise except the shushing sound of something softly scraping the earth. Sarah held the lantern high. Half a dozen maimed and dying chickens littered the henyard. Feathers and drops of blood, black in the wavering light, were scattered everywhere. Two of the hens flipped pathetically on the frozen ground.
Suddenly a brown shape streaked from under the coop and squirmed through a loose place dug under the wire. Karl pulled the Henry to his shoulder, fired, and the coyote dropped. Sarah ran over and set the lantern by the dead animal. “It’s Moss Face.” She reached out to stroke the coarse fur, but drew back without touching him. “He’s dead.”
“I thought it might be him, it was too bold for a wild coyote. You see where he wormed his way under the fence?”
“Karl?” The call came from across the spring.
“Go back to bed, Coby. Coyote in the chicken coop. We got him.”
The chickens were quiet but for the two in the yard that were still thrashing. “He couldn’t have eaten six chickens,” Sarah said. “He must have killed them just for the fun of it.” She looked down at the inert form. “Poor little fellow, he did good for so long.” Imogene’s coat fell forward, and Sarah held it back so it wouldn’t touch the dead coyote. Blood trickled from the ragged neck fur and dripped onto the ground, bright glossy drops that rested like bugle beads on the frost. “We’ve got to bury him,” she said firmly.
“Sarah, the ground is rock-hard, we’d have to go at it with a pickax. Let’s worry about it in the morning.”
“We can’t leave him here-Matthew might see him.”
“We’ll cover him with sacking. Coby or I can take him out and dump him in the ravine behind the hill tomorrow.”
“No. Matthew might see you doing it.”
“He has to know sometime, Sarah.”
“He does not.” She rocked back on her heels and looked at him defiantly. “And don’t you go telling him.”
“I don’t think we ought to lie to the boy.”
“It’s not lying!” Sarah said heatedly. “It’s just not telling him something there’s no need in his knowing, something that’s just hurtful.”
“What is it, if it isn’t lying? What are you going to tell him? He’ll look for Moss Face and wait and hope every day. If you don’t tell him, I will.”
“He’s my son,” Sarah declared. “If you had a child of your own, maybe you’d know. Matthew’s my son, and don’t you dare say a word to him about this.”
He turned and left her.
Sarah lit her way to the shed. Behind one of the wagons, on the back wall, half a dozen burlap sacks were hung on a nail. Taking three of the sacks, she made her way back out to the chicken coop and Moss Face. In the house, a light burned in the bedroom window and she could see Karl’s shadow moving behind the curtains.
The sacking disguised the coyote, making him an impersonal bundle, and Sarah was able to pick him up. Cradling him in her arms, she started out through the sage, away from the house. Uneven ground, darkness, and the snagging arms of the brush made her weave a little, but she held onto the dog and trudged up the hill. Over the crest, half a mile from the stop, a ravine had been cut by the short, fierce floods that had washed down over the years. By starlight it yawned black and sinister. It was close to fifty feet deep and partially filled with a dense tangle of sage and deadwood.
A few feet from the lip of the gully, Sarah stopped, her breath streaming out in clouds. She dropped her burden over the gully’s edge and watched it tumble into the black, choking arms below.
Karl was gone when she got back. She checked the kitchen and the bar and looked in on her sleeping son. The hall clock struck half past four. Sarah sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled off her coat. There was a dark smear of blood on the front. She dabbed at it, but it was dry.
For half an hour she sat in bed with the lamp burning, waiting, listening. It was nearly daybreak when she blew out the light and lay back.
In the morning, as she was clearing up the breakfast things, she saw Karl through the dining room window. He went to the barn, spoke briefly with Coby, then saddled up and rode out to the south. Coby came in shortly afterward. Karl had gone out hunting, he said. Sarah set Coby to work cleaning the weeds from around the icehouse and cutting lumber for the new shelves she planned to build there. Matthew wanted to go look for Moss Face, but Sarah forbade him, giving him chores to do in the kitchen. She was curt and he sulked most of the morning.
The Reno coach arrived around two o’clock and Sarah went to meet it. Bareheaded, ears crimson with the cold, his bright blue eyes gone milky, McMurphy stared owlishly down from the high seat. Mac was older, bent and more gnomish then ever. “Mac!” Sarah cried.
“Sarah?” He blinked several times. “Sarah!” He climbed stiffly down and she ran to hug him.
“Oh, Mac! It’s been forever. Since Imogene…But come in. You’re so cold, your hands are like ice. Why didn’t you wear a hat?” Sarah forgot Liam, Beaner, and the passenger, to take Mac indoors. Both of Mac’s eyes were streaked white with cataracts, and though he pretended to see as well as any man, he held firmly to Sarah’s arm.
“Wait a damn minute!” The door of the mudwagon was thrown open and a dirty yellow dog bounded out, followed by the lanky form of David Tolstonadge. “Man’s own sister ignoring him for a dried-up old man not worth his boot leather! There’s a fine howdy-do!” David reeled and steadied himself with a hand on the wheel. “Congratulations, Mrs. Saunders!” he roared. “Why the hell didn’t you invite me to the wedding? I’d’ve dropped the railroad and come, hell or high water. Where’s Karl? Me and Mac been celebrating all night. On two counts-you getting married and Sam Ebbitt being sure as hell dead, unless you’ve gone Mormon on me.”
Sarah left Mac to embrace her brother and tug his beard. “You’ve been so long,” she cried. “Years and years. It’s so big out here. It’s always so far. I’ve missed you. It’s been so long.”
David growled, bearlike, as he always did, and burrowed his great reddish beard against her neck until she screamed.
“Leave Momma alone! Leave her alone, damn you!” Matthew’s face was purple; he was on the top step, his little body tense with rage, shifting his feet, not sure what to do.
“Honey, honey.” Sarah ran to him, laughing, concerned, and pleased. “It’s okay. Momma’s okay. Oh, honey, I’m okay.” She held him, and his anger started turning to embarrassment under the smiles of the company. He struggled to get away.
“I’ll be damned,” David exclaimed. “My nephew, I’d lay money on it. Some kind of hell-raiser. Did you see that?” he asked no one in particular. “He was ready to tear into the whole lot of us.” He whooped. “He’s going to be hell on wheels, give him ten years.”
Matthew still squirmed uncomfortably, but the look of a cloud about to burst had left his face; the big man was obviously pleased with him. David loped over and thrust out a hand. Matthew shook it warily, his little hand vanishing from sight in his uncle’s. Letting out another whoop, David caught the boy under the arms, tossed him into the air, and smothered him in a bear hug. When he set him on the ground again, Matthew was shaken up but smiling a little.
“That’s how maybe he sees that the ice is broke,” Beaner said.
“Dave’s got a way with kids,” Liam grunted. “Move it, Beaner. Let’s get these horses stabled.”
“You two come in out of the cold as soon as you’ve done. I’ll have coffee ready,” Sarah called as Liam shook the reins. The horses were reluctant to drag the mudwagon even the few feet to the barn.
Liam watched Sarah lead Mac into the house. Manny darted up behind to weasel in the door with his master, and Matthew came last, still on his guard. “She ain’t half so shy as she used to be,” Liam said. “I remember when old Mac retired and I started this run, it was more than you could do to get two words out of her. She hid out most of the time folks was here, and just did the cooking.”
Indoors, David told them he’d been sent up from Los Angeles to work on a new railroad spur being constructed ninety miles south of Reno. He’d taken a room over the Bucket of Blood in Virginia City. On his first day off he’d taken the train into Reno to get news of Sarah and Imogene. It was more than two years since he had seen them.
“I ran into Mac at the Silver Dollar,” David said. “He told me Imogene was dead and Noisy’d heard you and Karl had gotten married. Sare, I ain’t heard one word from you in two years, how come? Last you wrote, the kid had come. You made no mention of Imogene’s dying-she was a hard-bitten old gal but we got on well enough-and where the hell’s the groom?”
Sarah stood, her head bowed under the onslaught of questions. When David paused for breath, she handed him one of the cups of coffee she’d been holding while he paced and growled in front of the fire. “You haven’t written, either,” she reminded him.
“I don’t write anybody, Sare, it’s a different thing altogether.”
“Karl’s out hunting. If he’s lucky, we’ll have fresh venison for supper. If not, it’s rabbit stew. Mac?” She held out coffee for the old man. McMurphy was more wizened than ever, scarcely taller than Sarah. Alcohol had reddened his nose and scratched a crosshatching of broken veins on his cheeks. White stubble bristled along his jaws. When he reached for the coffee, he was slightly to the left. Sarah guided the cup into his hands. He cradled it in his palm, the stumps of his fingers curled around, steadying it with his other hand.
“Thanky, Sarah. I don’t see like I used to. Catracks, the doc said. Hell, Uncle Suley had the same thing and the doc said it was stone-eye.” Mac slurped his coffee noisily.
“It’s hot,” Sarah warned.
“Mac’ll snap at anything that doesn’t snap back,” David said.
Sarah smiled at the old man, laying a hand on his shoulder. “It’s good to look at you, Mac, it’s been a long time. You too, David, much too long.” There was a scuffling of boots outside and Sarah fell suddenly silent, her hand at her throat. The front door opened and, with a last stomp to clear the mud from his boots, Coby came in.
“Karl’s coming,” he said. “Saw him riding up the west road. Looks like we’ll be having spuds for supper tonight, unless he’s got something hid in his bag. Maybe I’ll go out and try my luck before dark.”
“I forgot the calico flag!” Sarah whispered. She ran to Matthew. He was curled down by the kindling box, listening to every word, his eyes full of his Uncle David’s dog-half-asleep under Mac’s chair-and the old man’s mangled hand. “Honey,” she said as she knelt beside him, “get your coat on and run and tell Karl who’s here. Tell him your Uncle David and Mac are here. Don’t forget-Uncle David and Mac. Scoot now.” She spanked him lightly on the bottom.
“Maybe he’s seen Moss Face,” Matthew suggested as she helped him on with his coat.
Sarah stopped him long enough to kiss him. “Maybe.”
“Tell him the drinks are on his brother-in-law,” David called as the door closed behind the boy.
Sarah watched out the window after him, her face drawn around the mouth. The sky was a sullen gray and, as it neared four o’clock, the light was leaving the desert to an early winter dusk. It was the time of day when there are no shadows and the sky seems close to the earth. Sarah cupped her hands to the glass. Matthew, square in his heavy coat, ran across the yard. His mittens were tethered by a string behind his neck and flopped out of his sleeves like a second pair of hands. Just beyond the stable, Sarah could see Karl; he rode slumped in the saddle, the reins looped over the saddlehorn, his hands tucked in his armpits. In a minute he would ride out of sight behind the shed.
Suddenly he jerked his head up like a man awakened. Matthew ran behind the buildings and reappeared a moment later. Karl had seen him. He levered himself out of the saddle and dismounted to walk with the boy. They stopped, Matthew hopping from foot to foot and waving his arms, and Karl, hands on knees, nodding. Sarah smiled when Matthew put both wrists to his chin and waved his fingers in pantomime of David’s beard. Karl pulled the game bag from behind the saddle and handed it to the child. They talked a bit longer, then Matthew ran back toward the house. Karl swung into the saddle and turned the horse back the way it had come. Sarah expelled the breath she had been holding during the little scene, and turned from the window, smiling.
A few minutes later, Matthew clattered through the front door, the game bag flapping over his shoulder. “Karl got two ducks, Momma. He’s been to the lake and back.”
“He’ll be all in,” Mac commented.
“Momma, he said to tell you-”
“Come on, honey,” Sarah interrupted, “tell me in the kitchen. I must get the coffee.”
“All he said to tell you was-”
“Come on now.” She hurried him out of the room. In the hall, she helped him out of his coat and hung it on a handy peg. “What did Karl say to tell Momma?”
“We’re not in the kitchen,” Matthew said mischievously, and Sarah laughed.
“That’s right.”
While she poured the coffee, Matthew took two female mallards from the bag and laid them on the chopping block. “Karl said he was riding back out. He said, ‘Tell your mother I may be gone all night, I’ll be where I always am…and not to worry.’ Where’d he go, Momma? It’s almost nighttime.”
“Maybe he went to hunt some more. I expect that’s what he did. Maybe he saw a big old buck and didn’t want to lose its trail.”
“He hadn’t see Moss Face.”
Sarah set the coffee down on the table. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry.”
“I looked everywhere for him.”
Sarah brushed the dark hair from his face. “Come on, you can help me carry the coffee. Careful not to spill, it’s hot.” Beaner and Liam had come in from the stable and were warming themselves before the fire. David and Mac sat with their feet stretched to the blaze, David chatting amiably with the driver and the swamper, and Mac, a dreamy look in his dim eyes, a smile on his lips, looking every inch at home. Occasionally the old man dropped his arm down to rub Manny’s ears with his finger stubs, and the dog thumped his tail against the floorboards.
“David, Mac, there’s a cup left,” Sarah said. “Can I heat either of you up?”
“No thanky, Sarah,” Mac replied. “I’m still nursing this one.”
“Better save it for your husband,” David added. “It’s colder than a witch’s…” Liam laughed and David winked at him. “…toe out there,” he finished.
“Karl’s gone out hunting a big buck,” Matthew volunteered.
“He has, has he?” David ruffled his nephew’s hair. “Don’t you think maybe it’s a little late for tracking? Be dark in less than an hour.”
“It’s true. Ask Momma.”
“Hush, honey,” Sarah said. “Why don’t you go see if Coby’s ready for supper?”
“Supper won’t be done for hours,” Matthew complained.
“Go on now, your coat’s in the hall.”
Reluctantly, Matthew left the fire and the dog and the strange old man and his new uncle.
David unfolded from his chair as the boy let himself out the front door. “I’ve been sitting for two days, one way and another. Guess I’ll stretch my legs while it’s still light out. Give your husband a hand with his horse. I haven’t seen Karl since that tinhorn shot his coyote dog.”
“David, Karl has gone out again. I don’t expect he’ll be back until late.” Sarah busied herself collecting the empty cups.
“That’s a hell of a note. A man’s got to take a day off once in a while. We aren’t going to starve.” David shrugged into a heavy leather coat lined with creamy fleece.
Sarah set the cups on a table. She put them down too hard, and a chip flew from the bottom of one. Her face was tight. “David, where are you going?”
“Going to fetch him home. Can’t have the wedding party without the groom.”
“He’s already gone. Long gone. I don’t know which way he went.”
“I’ll ask Coby. He was out messing around, he might’ve noticed. Coby, that’s his name, right? The blond kid?”
“Yes. Coby. Please don’t go, David. It’s so cold…”
He laughed. “You’re as bad as Mam ever was. You’re hanging on to a thirty-dollar coat. It kept some sheep warm over a west Texas winter, it’ll do me. Let me go, woman, or I’ll never catch him on foot.” His feigned roughness failed to bring a smile. “I’ll be back in half an hour, Sare, even if I don’t catch up with him,” he said more gently, and before she could say another word, he was out the door.
She ran and jerked it open. “David!” He turned and waved as he loped across the yard, his dog at his heels, toward the pump where Coby was finishing washing up. Slowly, Sarah closed the door and leaned her forehead against the frame.
“You okay, Sarah?” Liam called. “You want to sit a spell?”
She wiped her face and smiled weakly. “No thanks, Liam. I’d best get on with supper. It’s too late for duck, but I’ll rustle up something.”
“You want company, Sarah?” Mac’s gravel voice was as strong and sure as ever, and she smiled to hear it.
“I’d like that, Mac.” And she went to take his arm.
The sun had long since set, and the sky was patched with stars where the wind had torn through the clouds. Twice, Coby had offered to go look for Sarah’s brother, but she had insisted he stay by the fire.
At half past seven, Sarah served the dinner she’d kept warm on the back of the stove, and they sat down at the table without David. The biscuits had grown hard on the warming shelf, and the men sopped them around in their hash. Their chomping took the place of dinner conversation. Sarah was distracted and spoke little; even Mac failed to hold her attention. She started at every sound and ate almost nothing. Matthew had been fed earlier and now moped at the hearth, shoving his books about, pretending to study. Every few minutes he’d run to the door, insisting he’d heard Karl or horses or Moss Face scratching to be let in. Sarah gave up trying to get him to concentrate on his lessons; she didn’t even bother to make him do his supper chores, but cleared the table and washed the dishes by herself.
At nine o’clock, Coby reached for his coat. “I’m going after him, Sarah. It’s been too long now.”
“No!” she snapped, and Coby looked at her sharply.
“What’s eating you, Sarah? If David’s hurt himself, your stewing won’t do him no good. Let me go after him, I ain’t afraid of the dark.”
“No,” she replied. “You are not to go after him, not if you want to work here. Take your coat off.”
“I’ll be going out to the tackroom,” he said stiffly, and left, slamming the door behind him.
It was after ten when Matthew was put to bed. Being up so late made him peevish, and he whined to be allowed to stay up another hour and sulked and fussed until he knocked over his washwater and broke the pitcher. Sarah spanked him and put him to bed with a dirty face.
David returned just before midnight. He let himself in the front door without his customary banging. One of his eyes was blacked-a purple, puffy mark the size of a thumbprint near the bridge of his nose. Manny came in with him; his hackles were up and he stayed close on his master’s heels. Liam and Beaner were at a game of checkers. Mac dozed by the fire and Sarah, her darning needles and yarn in her lap, picked through a bag of socks on the floor. She saw David first and rose to go to him, but his look stopped her before she was halfway across the room.
“What in hell happened to you?” Liam grunted.
David went to the bar, pulled an unopened bottle of rye whiskey from the shelf, and uncorked it. The glugging of the whiskey into the glass was loud in the quiet room. When the glass was full he turned and faced his sister. For a long minute he regarded her, his eyes unreadable, the line of his mouth hidden in the wild red beard. He jerked the glass high, slopping liquor over the floor. Sarah’s hands flew to her face like frightened birds, and her fingers pecked nervously at her lip.
“To the bride.” He sneered, threw back his head, drank the whiskey down, and hurled the glass the length of the long dining room. It sailed by Sarah’s cheek to break into fragments on the stone of the chimney.
David grabbed another glass, slopped it full, made the same toast, drank it off, and sent it smashing into the fire. The rye was making his eyes water and flooding his face with color.
“Just a damn minute,” Liam began as David reached for a third glass.
“Stay out of this,” David growled. “You stay the hell out of this.” He poured himself another, but turned his back on them and nursed it in silence.
“David…” Sarah took several tentative steps toward him.
“You stay the goddamn hell away from me!” he exploded. Sarah clamped her hand over her mouth and ran from the room. David tossed off the last of his drink and slammed his fist into the wall with a sudden violence.
“The son of a bitch, he is crazy,” Beaner whispered.
“Leave him be,” Mac said. “Davie’s a mean drunk if you bother him. Leave him be and he won’t hurt nobody. You go on now, turn in. I’ll stay with him.”
One-handed, David was pouring himself another whiskey. His right hand lay on the bar, already beginning to swell. Over the knuckles of his little and ring fingers, the flesh was rounded, smooth, discolored.
“Better let me take a look at that hand,” Liam said.
“Stay the hell away.”
“Go on,” Mac urged. The driver and the swamper sidled past David and went upstairs.
Fully dressed, the covers pulled up around her chin, Sarah lay in bed, her eyes fixed on the door. In the hall, the pendulum clock struck. For three hours she’d lain awake, listening to glass breaking and furniture being overturned in the next room. Around one o’clock there had been a terrific crash, as if a chair had been hurled against the wall, and shortly afterwards her bedroom door was opened a crack. It was Matthew, awake and afraid, coming to crawl in with her.
She turned to look at the small face on the pillow next to hers. “My son,” she whispered, and kissed his cheek tenderly.
The familiar smack of the front door banging against the side of the house made her start, and Matthew stirred in his sleep. Sarah sang a lullaby softly. He didn’t awaken and she lay back, listening, but there was no more to hear.
Near four o’clock, as the moon was setting, Sarah fell asleep. The sun was above the horizon and Matthew was gone from her side when she awoke. She slipped on her shoes and hurried from the room, her dress crumpled and her skirts askew.
Mac and Coby were cleaning the main room. The air was warm with the smell of coffee. Matthew poked sticks into a growing fire while Liam and Beaner slurped their coffee and threw out bits of advice to Mac. Mac’s sight was so weak he’d confined himself to righting upended tables and chairs. There was a sizeable pile of broken glass swept up near the hearth. Coby, broom in hand, had worked his way down to the other end of the room. Sarah stopped in the doorway.
Matthew caught sight of her. “Momma, Uncle David tore up the room and broke all the glasses.” He ran over from the fireplace to take her hand. “Looky,” he said, leading her to the far end of the bar. There was a dent in the wall the size of a horse’s hoof. “Mr. McMurphy said Uncle David did that with his hand and broke it all to hell.”
“To pieces,” she corrected him. “Don’t swear, Matthew, I’ll give you a licking.”
“Mr. McMurphy just said.”
“Hush, honey. Why don’t you go bring in some kindling from the woodpile.”
Coby looked up from his dustpan. “Looks like you better order some glasses before Liam takes off. I don’t think your brother missed a one.”
“Where is he?” Sarah asked.
“He took off around two, three o’clock this morning, Sarah,” Mac replied. “Said he was going to walk as far as he could and sleep till the coach came.”
“Was he okay?”
“His hand was mashed some. Swelled up three times its regular size. He was feeling no pain, but it’s going to hurt like hell when he comes to this morning. He’ll be all right. There’s nothing on this desert going to mess with your brother, the mood he was in. Mean enough to bite a snake.”
Sarah laid a hand on the old man’s arm. “I’m glad you were here, Mac.”
“What do you figure set him off like that?”
“Somebody get the door for me,” Matthew called, banging on it with his foot. His arms were full of wood.
Sarah opened the door for her son and picked up the trail of kindling sticks he left across the floor. “I don’t know, Mac. He used to get that way about Pa sometimes, when I was a girl.”
The Fort Bidwell stage arrived shortly after noon. While Liam and Beaner traded gossip with Ross and Leroy, Mac wandered out across the road to lean on the paddock fence. His dim eyes were on the bright alkali flats and the blue shadows of the Fox Range beyond. A breeze came to him over the sage, and he quivered his nostrils like an old dog reading the news on the wind.
“Hello, Mac. Sarah told me you’d come.”
Mac jerked, his half-blind eyes peering into the darkness of the barn. He took a sharp breath, and for a moment his eyes seemed to light up from inside. “Miss Grelznik…”
“It’s Karl Saunders, Mac.” Karl stepped partway into the light. His clothes were dust-streaked and the side of his face was scraped raw. He took Mac’s hand. The stumped fingers and knobby thumb had browned and twisted over the years into the likeness of a gnarled old root.
“Karl…” the old man repeated, squinting into the light. “I thought…”
“Karl Saunders.”
Mac shook his head. “You get old, your mind plays tricks on you. Good to see you, Karl. You get that deer you went after?”
“Never did, Mac.”
“Missed a hell of a show here. I expect Sarah told you all about it.”
“I haven’t talked with Sarah.”
“David find you?”
“He caught up with me a mile and a half from here. Those long legs of his really cover the ground.”
“Something between you two set him off?”
“He didn’t say anything to you?”
“No. Closemouthed as an old squaw.”
“I don’t know what it was, then.”
Mac nodded to himself and chewed thoughtfully on a splinter he’d levered off the fence rail with a fingernail. Karl studied the seamed face; darker spots, burned black by years in the weather, dotted the old man’s cheekbones like outsized freckles, snowy hair stood upright in the breeze. Karl smiled and dropped his hand gently on Mac’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, my old friend.”
Mac shivered. “Your voice…somebody steppin’ on my grave, I guess. Something’s give me the willies this morning.”
“Aayah!” Liam barked.
“Guess I’d better get a move on, or the coach’ll leave without me.” He spit over the rail, carefully downwind. Karl walked with him to the mudwagon and saw him off.
Karl didn’t return to the house, though Sarah motioned to him from the window. Instead he shouldered an ax and set to work.
The dull fall of the ax, chopping out a regular rhythm, stopped. Karl dragged another log across the woodcutting rack, settled it snug with a kick, and the beat started again, hollow-sounding in the west wind. Sweat was running down the sides of his face, and his arms trembled. His coat was unbuttoned, his face raw with the cold. He’d been at it for several hours. He wiped the perspiration from his eyes, wincing as he brushed the salt sweat into the broken flesh on his cheekbone.
The kitchen window opened with a screech. “Karl,” Sarah called. “You’ve been at that all afternoon and you were up all night. You’re being silly. Stop before you chop yourself.”
Karl grunted and swung the ax. It bit deep and he couldn’t pull it free.
“Answer me!” Nothing. Sarah banged the window shut.
He rocked the ax back and forth, then planted his foot near the head and jerked. The handle pulled free of the head and Karl stumbled back into the small figure of Matthew Ebbitt. The boy stood square-shouldered, feet wide apart, ready to take on the world. Karl blinked at him, unseeing for a moment, then let the ax handle slide to the ground.
“Momma was crying,” Matthew said accusingly. “Are you mad at her because she let Uncle David break the dishes?”
Karl pulled his kerchief from his hip pocket and mopped his face. “No, son, I’m not mad.”
“Momma said you won’t talk to her. She told me to come tell you she said you could tell me about Moss Face if you wanted to.”
“Sarah said that? That I was to tell you about Moss Face?”
“That’s what she said.”
Karl leaned the ax against the wood stand and upended a chunk of wood to sit on. He folded the damp kerchief into a neat square and stared out across the desert so long that Matthew began to fidget. “Come here,” Karl said at last, and his stepson came to stand between his knees. Karl pulled him up on his lap and wrapped his coat around him. “Last night I thought I heard something,” he began, “out by the chicken coop. When I went out to see what it was, I saw Moss Face. He was with a pretty lady coyote. They ran out toward those mountains together.” He pointed south to the blue Fox Range. “He grew up, Matthew, and had to go back to the wild to raise a family. Maybe we’ll see him again, come spring. Or maybe we’ll see puppies and they will be Moss Face all over again.”
Matthew buried his face against Karl’s shoulder, and Karl held him close.