In The Moon Of Red Ponies

If there was a dramatic turn in the story, it was one that few people will ever know about. After the federal and state charges against Joh

“Oh, hi, Billy Bob,” she said, as though awakening from sleep. “We couldn’t find Darrel’s grave.”

“It’s in back. I’ll show y’all,” I said.

We walked up a knoll, though trees, into shade that was cold and smelled of damp pine needles and fresh piled dirt. I could see rain falling on a green hill by the river, and the sun was shining inside the rain.

“You think the dead can hear our voices?” she asked.

“Maybe,” I said.

“The sheriff told us Darrel was probably tortured for hours. At any point he could have given up our whereabouts,” she said.

“They would have killed him anyway, Amber,” I said.

Joh

“I think he’d appreciate that,” I said.

When we came out of the cemetery, the sunshower on the hill by the river had turned itself into a rainbow. I saw Joh

So maybe this story is actually about the presence of courage, self-sacrifice, and humility in people from whom we don’t expect those qualities. Not a great deal was changed externally by the events I’ve described here. Wyatt Dixon’s newspaper friends in Dallas published the story of Karsten Mabus’s co

But as the old-time African-American hymn admonishes, I don’t study war anymore. I made my separate peace regarding my own excursion into violence at Mabus’s ranch, an event that left two men seriously wounded, consoling myself with the biblical account of Peter, who, after drawing blood with his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane, received only a mild rebuke from the Lord.

In fact, perhaps my greater sin was my presumption that violence, in this case the attempted assassination of Karsten Mabus, can change history for the better. As Wyatt Dixon suggested, Mabus ca

I also knew that Mabus had a long memory and my story with him was probably not over.

But I refused to borrow tomorrow’s trouble and make it today’s concern. Our child would be born in spring, and each day Temple seemed happier and more lovely than the day before. During the fall she, Lucas, and I packed a straw hamper with supper and made a point of spending at least two afternoons a week fishing for German browns on the Blackfoot River, not far from the steel suspension bridge that led to Wyatt Dixon’s house.

The river was low, the coppery color of tarnished pe