HE STOOD BEFORE the husk of Babe Cloat, still sitting in the yard like an effigy of his clan. “So long,” he called.
“Twelve of ’em,” Babe Cloat said, his eyes vacant. “And a boat.”
At the edge of the compound he turned and looked back. The Indian woman shuffled toward Molton’s shack, dragging a blanket through the dust. Within a year or two the houses would be eaten by weeds and insects. An inevitable flood would reclaim the drift lumber and wash clean the land of any sign. What would last, as some believed, would be the long mystical tally of terrible acts done by loveless hearts. He watched a long time, confirmed in his belief that punishing the Cloats would be a waste of good revenge, if that quality could ever be called good. He found the horse and mounted, riding west without a backward glance.
HE FIGURED he could make it back to Soner’s place by dark, and on the way he did visitation, examining the details he’d found out about his family until like seeds they began to sprout memories he never had, or would’ve had, and he was glad of that. “Anything more than nothing,” he said to the constable’s mare, “is something.”
HE WAS PUTTING the horse up when Soner came out with a lantern.
“Are you hurt?”
“Nope.”
The constable stared at him. “Then you didn’t find them.”
“Oh, I found them, all right.”
He raised the lantern high so Sam could replace the saddle on its board. “Then you must have killed them all, because I don’t see a bullet hole in you anywhere.”
“There’s not but one whole man back in there, and he’s about blind. Will be soon. You can start unloading your gun collection.”
Soner studied Sam’s face as if suspecting a lie. “You didn’t find the ones who killed your family?”
“Two of them were there.”
“You’re a fool if they’re still alive.”
“Well, then.”
Soner put down the lantern. “Come in and tell me about it. I’d appreciate it if you could spend another night.”
“I guess I’d appreciate it myself.” They began walking across the lot. Sam felt a lightness in his arms, as though finally he’d put down a weight he’d been carrying for years. Suddenly he stopped and turned toward Soner. “Say, did I catch sight of a piano in the front room, left of the stairs?”
“Yes. It was my wife’s. It hasn’t been played in years.”
“Fix me a sip of something, and I’ll let you hear some real music.”
He opened the door and motioned Sam in ahead of him. “Why, that’ll be fine. You’ll want a bite of food, too.”
Soner lit the table lamp and the men sat and talked over bread and ham and the contents of an old jug of wine.
When they were finished, he asked, “What brand of piano is it?”
“I forget, but it’s a good one. My wife…” his voice trailed off.
Sam stood up and stretched. “Let’s take a look, then.”
And later that night, a boy out on horseback could have seen all the constable’s windows yellow with light high up, where they weren’t boarded. He could’ve taken in the tinkling of an out-of-tune piano as if it were his first sip of fine bourbon. A little girl wandering home late from berry picking could have heard the music and wished she had a piano and the time to learn it. A husband and wife could have been passing through on a journey, lingering there to listen and grateful for the pianist’s fine technique. A murderer crouching in the wind-rattled weeds could have been distracted from his plans, envious of the good time.
Within an hour, the men were singing, their voices wavering and sailing across the empty land. It was something to hear, this sound of profound release. But out in that darkness, nobody heard, and this vacancy would go on forever, a painful void Sam would feel later that night as he came out onto the porch, emptiness falling like a schoolboy’s rock into the well of his heart.
THE NEXT MORNING he left the holstered pistol on the bed upstairs, had breakfast with Soner, then drove back to Helena. After turning in the muddy Ford, he walked down to the wharfboat. No upbound steamer was expected that day, and from his splintered desk inside the freight house door the agent asked him where he was going.
“Memphis.”
“And after that?”
“New Orleans.”
“Well, hell, the Kate Adams is makin’ a New Orleans run. Why don’t you take her all the way down?”
He looked out toward the river and noticed a big wooden crate outside on the dock. “All in all, the train ride’ll be quicker.”
“The America might stop northbound tonight, if it don’t sink from old age first.”
Sam cocked his head. “Wasn’t that crate here when I got off the other day?”
“Yes, by damn. The lady ordered it didn’t come get it when she should, and it rained before she finally did show up with a dray. Said she didn’t want no piano been left out in a thunderstorm.”
“A piano. What’ll happen to it?”
“The shipper’s insurance already paid off. The agent sent me a wire to sell it for sixty bucks, but hell, I don’t have no way to sell it, and I ain’t about to drag it inside my warehouse. They’ll probably send me a note in a month to ship it off somewheres.”
Sam pointed behind the agent. “Let me see your little crowbar there.” He walked over and read the shipping label. The piano was a high-grade Knabe. He pried up one of the top planks and saw a full upright sheathed in heavy waxed paper, and the little rip he made in the covering showed a golden oak veneer. He banged the board back in place and ran his hand carefully over the rough-cut poplar case.
That afternoon found him standing on the forecastle of the Kate Adams as the sidewheeler huffed southbound. Behind him was the new Knabe, and he fought the urge to uncrate it and play right there in the open afternoon. He stayed out until they passed Island Sixty-five, the domain of the infirm and mind-darkened Cloats. He stared at the river-thrown sand and twisted willow brakes, trying to imagine how those people came to be. He thought about it until sundown and he could come to grips with snakebite, random illness, war, lightning strikes, and the death of loved ones, but the Cloats remained for him a mystery. Then he remembered what Constable Soner had said two nights before: the worst thing that ever happened to them was each other.