Full dark, no stars

“It’ll never be over,” he said, and turned facedown on the sofa. He put his hands over his ears, even though Elphis couldn’t be heard from in here. Except Henry still was hearing her, and so was I.

I got my varmint gun from the high shelf in the pantry. It was only a.22, but it would do the job. And if Harlan heard shots rolling across the acres between his place and mine? That would fit our story, too. If Henry could keep his wits long enough to tell it, that was.

Here is something I learned in 1922: there are always worse things waiting. You think you have seen the most terrible thing, the one that coalesces all your nightmares into a freakish horror that actually exists, and the only consolation is that there can be nothing worse. Even if there is, your mind will snap at the sight of it, and you will know no more. But there is worse, your mind does not snap, and somehow you carry on. You might understand that all the joy has gone out of the world for you, that what you did has put all you hoped to gain out of your reach, you might wish you were the one who was dead-but you go on. You realize that you are in a hell of your own making, but you go on nevertheless. Because there is nothing else to do.

Elphis had landed on top of my wife’s body, but Arlette’s gri

Nothing can be any worse than this, I thought. Surely I’ve reached the end of horror.

But yes, there are always worse things waiting. As I peered down, frozen with shock and revulsion, Elphis kicked out again, and one of her hoofs co

Part of the cap had fallen into the well; part of it was still hanging down. I loaded my rifle, rested it on this slope, and aimed at Elphis, who lay with her neck broken and her head cocked against the rock wall. I waited for my hands to steady, then pulled the trigger.

One shot was enough.

Back in the house, I found that Henry had gone to sleep on the couch. I was too shocked myself to consider this strange. At that moment, he seemed to me like the only truly hopeful thing in the world: soiled, but not so filthy he could never be clean again. I bent and kissed his cheek. He moaned and turned his head away. I left him there and went to the barn for my tools. When he joined me three hours later, I had pulled the broken and hanging piece of the well-cap out of the hole and had begun to fill it in.

“I’ll help,” he said in a flat and dreary voice.

“Good. Get the truck and drive it out to the dirtpile at West Fence-”

“By myself?” The disbelief in his voice was only faint, but I was encouraged to hear any emotion at all.

“You know all the forward gears, and you can find reverse, can’t you?”

“Yes-”

“Then you’ll be fine. I’ve got enough to be going on with in the meantime, and when you come back, the worst will be over.”

I waited for him to tell me again that the worst would never be over, but he didn’t. I recommenced shoveling. I could still see the top of Arlette’s head and the burlap with that terrible picked-over tuft sticking out of it. There might already be a litter of newborn ratlings down there in the cradle of my dead wife’s thighs.

I heard the truck cough once, then twice. I hoped the crank wouldn’t kick back and break Henry’s arm.

The third time he turned the crank, our old truck bellowed into life. He retarded the spark, gu

I’ll see that he gets a good di

I saw a rooster-tail of dust coming toward us. I looked down into the well. It wasn’t good enough, not yet. Half of Elphis was still sticking up. That was all right, of course, but the corner of the bloodstained mattress was also still poking out of the dirt.

“Help me,” I said.

“Do we have enough time, Poppa?” He sounded only mildly interested.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Don’t just stand there, help me.”

The extra shovel was leaning against the side of the barn beside the splintered remains of the well-cap. Henry grabbed it, and we began shoveling dirt and rocks out of the back of the truck as fast as ever we could.

When the County Sheriff’s car with the gold star on the door and the spotlight on the roof pulled up by the chopping block (once more putting George and the chickens to flight), Henry and I were sitting on the porch steps with our shirts off and sharing the last thing Arlette James had ever made: a pitcher of lemonade. Sheriff Jones got out, hitched up his belt, took off his Stetson, brushed back his graying hair, and resettled his hat along the line where the white skin of his brow ended and coppery red took over. He was by his lonesome. I took that as a good sign.

“Good day, gents.” He took in our bare chests, dirty hands, and sweaty faces. “Hard chorin’ this afternoon, is it?”

I spat. “My own damn fault.”

“Is that so?”

“One of our cows fell in the old livestock well,” Henry said.

Jones asked again, “Is that so?”

“It is,” I said. “Would you want a glass of lemonade, Sheriff? It’s Arlette’s.”

“Arlette’s, is it? She decided to come back, did she?”

“No,” I said. “She took her favorite clothes but left the lemonade. Have some.”

“I will. But first I need to use your privy. Since I turned fifty-five or so, seems like I have to wee on every bush. It’s a God damned inconvenience.”

“It’s around the back of the house. Just follow the path and look for the crescent moon on the door.”

He laughed as though this were the fu

“Poppa,” Henry said. He spoke in a low voice.

I looked at him.

“If he finds out, we can’t do anything else. I can lie, but there can’t be anymore killing.”

“All right,” I said. That was a short conversation, but one I have pondered often in the eight years since.

Sheriff Jones came back, buttoning his fly.

“Go in and get the Sheriff a glass,” I told Henry.