Chương 15
Mae looked at him. “Didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And then he died.”
“Yes.”
“So maybe people stop after you hit them.”
Nora closed her eyes.
Silas pulled out a chair. “Sit down, Mae.”
“I do not want to.”
“Neither did Thomas.”
The girl sat.
Silas told her what happened in Abilene. Not the softened version. He had accused Thomas of cheating at cards. Thomas insulted him. Silas struck first. The fight spilled into the road. A freight team startled. Thomas fell beneath the wagon.
“I did not mean to kill him,” Silas said. “But I meant to hurt him. That matters.”
Mae stared at the table.
“What happened to you?”
“I left.”
“You were not punished.”
“I lost your mother.”
“That was her punishment.”
Nora looked at him.
Silas nodded. “Yes.”
Mae’s shoulders sagged.
“What do I do about the girl?” she asked.
“You apologize for hitting her.”
“She will think she won.”
“Probably.”
“I hate that.”
“So do I.”
The next day Mae apologized. The other girl did not. For a week they avoided each other. Then the girl lent Mae a pencil during arithmetic, and neither mentioned the slate again.
In January, Albert Sweet testified before a territorial grand jury in Denver. Sheriff Dugan went with him. Nora was summoned but too weak to travel, so an examiner came to Mercy Crossing.
Gideon Voss remained in his house under bond.
He sent Nora one letter.
Silas found it in the mailbox and gave it to her unopened.
She read it at the table while the children slept.
“What does he want?” Silas asked.
“He says the company will offer settlements. Families keep their houses if they withdraw accusations.”
“Will they?”
“Some.”
“Can you blame them?”
“No.”
She folded the letter.
“He says I can have the old ranch cottage and forty dollars a month if I testify that the alterations were mine.”
Silas waited.
Nora looked at him. “You should say something.”
“What?”
“That I would never accept.”
“Would you?”
Her face hardened.
He continued, “We owe Mrs. Pike. Doctor Vale sends bills with religious devotion. My work may end in spring. Jonah needs boots. I do not know what you will choose.”
“You think I might go back.”
“I think hunger makes honest people inventive.”
She looked down at the letter.
“I hate when you speak as though you understand me.”
“I am trying.”
“That is not always the same.”
“No.”
She carried the letter to the stove and held it over the flame. Fire moved along the edge, turning Voss’s handwriting black. She dropped it into the grate.
Silas watched without praising her.
After a while, Nora said, “I wanted the cottage.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to say yes for one minute.”
“I know that, too.”
She began to cry, quietly and with irritation, wiping her face as if tears were another debt. Silas remained across the table until she reached for him.
Their first embrace was not romantic. Nora pressed her forehead against his chest because she was tired. Silas held her carefully, afraid that any pressure would send her away.
In March, Gideon Voss was indicted on fraud, conspiracy, bribery, and obstruction charges. No charge was filed for Caleb’s death. Rance Cole was dead. The cut rope had been lost after the grain-shed fire. Sweet’s testimony established suspicion, not proof.
Nora read the telegram twice.
“So that is all,” she said.
“For now,” Silas replied.
“No. For Caleb, that is all.”
Silas had no comfort worth speaking.
Voss’s trial was moved to Denver. He sold his house to pay attorneys. Western Agricultural claimed ignorance of his crimes and continued operating the ranch under a new manager.
Some families regained land. Others accepted money. Lila Hammond received her east field but discovered the irrigation ditch had been redirected during winter. The law returned property. It could not return water.
Mercy Crossing survived.
The feed store reopened under a cooperative arrangement that produced more meetings than feed. Mrs. Pike became treasurer because no man trusted another man with the cashbox. Doctor Vale forgave half Nora’s bill and complained for months that generosity had ruined him.
Sheriff Dugan resigned.
At his farewell, only twelve people came. He stood outside the jail holding a carpetbag and said he planned to live with his sister in Omaha.
“Will you be a sheriff there?” Mae asked.
“No.”
“What will you be?”
Dugan considered. “Less important.”
He gave her his badge. Nora objected, so he took it back and gave her a brass button instead.
Albert Sweet’s daughter lost her lease. The Hammonds allowed her family to build a cabin near their restored field. It was not forgiveness. It was winter shelter.
Silas kept working for Harlan Price.
He discovered he disliked permanent employment because it allowed other people to know where to find him. He also discovered he liked coming home to the same stove.
Jonah followed him everywhere.
The boy asked questions without waiting for answers. Why did cows chew twice? Why did smoke follow him? Did worms sleep? Could Caleb see them? Did Silas know how to repair a clock?
“No,” Silas said.
“Papa Caleb did.”
“I know.”
“You should learn.”
So Silas opened Caleb’s tool chest.
Inside were small screwdrivers, springs wrapped in paper, three unfinished watch hands, and a notebook filled with sketches. Silas spent six evenings trying to repair the kitchen clock. It gained four hours each day and rang at random.
Nora said it was worse than before.
Jonah said it was alive.
Mae did not call Silas anything.
When she needed him, she began with the question.
“Can you fix my boot?”
“Will you come to school?”
“Did you eat the last apple?”
Sometimes she used his name. Never Father. Never Pa.
Silas did not ask.
In May, Nora found work at the hotel sewing sheets and mending clothes. Mrs. Greer refused to employ her in the office near the account books. Nora accepted this without argument.
She repaid the stolen thirty-eight dollars into a fund established for ranch workers whose wages had been withheld. Then she began restitution to the families named on the forged papers, fifty cents at a time.
Some returned the money.
One man threw it in the dirt.
Nora picked up every coin.
Silas and Nora did not remarry, because legally no one could determine whether their first marriage had ever ended or whether Nora’s marriage to Caleb had been valid. Reverend Holt offered to perform a new ceremony once the territorial court clarified the matter.
Nora said she was tired of men deciding which of her marriages counted.
Silas agreed.
They shared the front room by summer, though not every night. Sometimes an old argument rose between them and remained until morning. Nora accused him of treating patience like a favor he granted others. Silas accused her of hiding decisions until everyone else was forced to live with them.
Both accusations were true.
Once, after he disappeared for two days on a cattle run without leaving word, Nora packed his shirts into the canvas sack and placed it by the door.
Silas came home exhausted, saw the sack, and sat on the porch until dark.
Mae sat beside him.
“Are you leaving?” she asked.
“No.”
“Mama put your things there.”
“I saw.”
“You could move them back.”
“That might be unwise.”
Mae watched a beetle cross the step.
“Papa Caleb used to sleep in the barn when they argued.”
“Did it help?”
“No. Mama got mad because he slept.”
Silas laughed despite himself.
Nora opened the door.
“You can come inside,” she said.
He looked at the sack.
“Leave it,” she added.
He did.
In August, a year after Mae had approached his table, the territorial court convicted Gideon Voss on six counts. He received eight years in prison. His attorneys appealed.
The newspaper called Nora a courageous witness. The same article called her an admitted accomplice and misspelled her name twice.
She folded the paper and used it to line a kitchen shelf.
That evening, Mrs. Pike brought a peach pie. Lila Hammond brought cream. Albert Sweet brought nothing but stayed for supper. Doctor Vale arrived uninvited and complained that the pie needed more sugar.
The table was too small for everyone.
Jonah sat on a crate. Mae gave up her chair to Mrs. Pike and stood between Nora and Silas.
They spoke of Voss only briefly. No one knew whether the conviction would survive appeal. No one knew whether the land settlements would hold. Caleb’s death remained officially accidental.
Life had refused to arrange itself into victory.
After the guests left, Nora washed dishes. Silas dried them. Jonah fell asleep under the table with pie on his shirt.
Mae carried the plates from Silas to the cupboard.
“You missed a spot,” she told him.
“Your mother washed it.”
Nora splashed water at him.
Mae laughed.
Silas dried the plate again.
The kitchen clock rang eleven times, though it was not yet nine. Jonah woke enough to complain, then crawled into Nora’s bed without opening his eyes.
Mae took the lamp and started toward the smaller room.
At the doorway, she stopped.
Silas was folding the tablecloth. Nora stood beside the stove, wringing water from a dish rag. Neither noticed the girl at first.
Mae looked at the empty place where Silas usually sat.
“Pa,” she said, “you left your hat on my chair.”
Silas’s hands stopped.
Nora did not turn around, but her shoulders moved with one careful breath.
Mae picked up the hat, placed it on the peg by the door, and went to bed before Silas found an answer.
He stood beside the table for a long time.
Then Nora handed him another wet plate.
May you like
“You missed a spot,” she said.
This time, when he looked at her, she was smiling.
