Bittersweet

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 di

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 di

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 pla

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.