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Ketchum took Carmella by the arm, and they walked down the hill through the tall grass to where the town had been. Da
Ketchum guided Carmella closer to the riverbank, but even on a dry and su
“As I suspected,” Ketchum said. “If we try to scatter Cookie’s ashes in the river, we can’t get close enough to the water. The wind will blow the ashes back in our faces.”
“Hence the rifle?” Da
The woodsman nodded. “Hence the glass jar, too,” Ketchum said; he took Carmella’s hand and pointed her index finger for her. “Not quite halfway to the far shore, but almost in the middle of the basin-that’s where I saw your boy slip under the logs,” the riverman told her. “I swear to you, Da
The three of them looked out across the water. On the far shore of Twisted River, they could see a coyote watching them. “Give me the carbine, Da
“Please don’t shoot it, Mr. Ketchum,” Carmella said.
“It must be sick, if it’s out in the daytime and not ru
“Let’s not kill anything today, Mr. Ketchum,” Carmella said. Lowering the gun, Ketchum picked up a rock and threw it into the river in the coyote’s direction, but the animal didn’t flinch. It seemed dazed.
“That critter is definitely sick,” Ketchum said. The coyote took another long drink from the river; now it didn’t even watch them. “Look how thirsty it is-it’s dying of something,” Ketchum told them.
“Is it the season for shooting coyotes?” Da
“It’s always open season for coyotes,” Ketchum said. “They’re worse than woodchucks-they’re varmints. They’re not good for anything at all. There’s no bag limit on coyotes. You can even hunt them at night, from the first of January till the end of March. That’s how much the state wants to get rid of the critters.”
But Carmella wasn’t persuaded. “I don’t want to see anything die today,” she said to Ketchum; he saw she was blowing kisses across the water, either to bless the spot where her Angelù had perished or to bestow long life on the coyote.
“Make your peace with those ashes, Da
“I’ve made my peace,” the writer said. He kissed the cook’s ashes and the apple-juice jar good-bye. “Ready?” Da
“Just throw it,” Ketchum told him. Carmella covered her ears with her hands, and Da
On the far shore, at the sound of the shot, the coyote crouched lower to the riverbank but insanely held its ground. “You miserable fucker,” Ketchum said to the animal. “If you don’t know enough to run, you’re definitely dying. Sorry,” the old logger said-this was spoken as an aside, to Carmella. It was a smooth-working rifle-Ketchum’s “old-reliable, bolt-action sucker.” The woodsman shot the coyote on top of its skull, just as the sick animal was bending down to drink again.
“That’s what I should have done to Carl,” Ketchum told them, not looking at Carmella. “I could have done it anytime. I should have shot the cowboy down, like any varmint. I’m sorry I didn’t do it, Da
“It’s okay, Ketchum,” Da
“But I should have!” the logger shouted furiously. “There was nothing but bullshit morality preventing me!”
“Morality isn’t bullshit, Mr. Ketchum,” Carmella began to lecture him, but when she looked at the dead coyote, she stopped whatever else she was going to say; the coyote lay still on the riverbank with the tip of its nose touching the ru
“Good-bye, Pop,” Da
“Good-bye, Cookie!” Ketchum called out, over the water.
“Dormi pur,” Carmella sang, crossing herself; then she abruptly turned her back on the river, where Angel had gone under the logs. “I need a head start on you two,” she told Da
“What was she singing?” the woodsman asked the writer.
It was from an old Caruso recording, Da
“Clean?” Ketchum asked.
“Meaning, ‘Sleep tight,’ I guess,” Da
“Shit,” was all Ketchum said, kicking the ground. “Shit,” the logger said again.
The two men watched Carmella’s arduous ascent of the hill. The tall, waving grass was waist-high to her truncated, bearlike body, and the wind was behind her, off the river; the wind blew her hair to both sides of her lowered head. When Carmella reached the crown of the hill, where the cookhouse had been, she bowed her head and rested her hands on her knees. For just a second or two-for no longer than it took Carmella to catch her breath-Da
Ketchum had lifted his face to the sun. He’d closed his eyes but was moving his feet-just the smallest steps, in no apparent direction, as if he were walking on floating logs. “Say it again, Da
“Sleep tight,” Da
“No, no-in Italian!” Ketchum commanded him. The river driver’s eyes were still closed, and he kept moving his feet; Da
“Dormi pur,” Da
“Shit, Angel!” Ketchum cried. “I said, ‘Move your feet, Angel. You have to keep moving your feet!’ Oh, shit.”