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She mustn’t think of the trenches or the war, she thought. That was all she had heard about for years. First it was the sinking of the passenger ships by the submarines, the stories about the survivors crawling like lines of ants along the hull, slipping helplessly into space, finally succumbing to the coldness of the depths. Then there were the photos of the disfigured, the amputees, and those who sported glass eyes and prosthetic faces so others would not see what they really looked like. War was bad. Who could argue with that? Why did everybody have to keep talking about it?
But her depression and angst and guilt were not about the war or having to hear about it. She wadded up more paper and stuffed it between the logs, trying to shut down her thoughts before they got out of hand. Then she gave up and allowed herself a moment of clarity, the kind she usually avoided, and thought about the telegram and letter from Ruby Dansen to Hackberry that she had burned in the fireplace at their home on the Guadalupe.
With forethought and design, she had destroyed any chance of Hackberry and Ruby reuniting; she had inculcated suspicion and animosity in each of them that had lasted for years. She had created a masterpiece of deceit that had ruined a large part of their lives.
She stared wanly out the window at the hills. She could see bare trees silhouetted against the sky, like stick figures hooked together in a medieval painting depicting doomsday. No, she mustn’t think like that. As bad as her deeds were, they were understandable. She was fighting to save her home. She was Hackberry’s wife; Ruby Dansen was not. What woman wouldn’t do the same? Who were they to judge her?
The answer was no one. And that was because no one else knew what she had done.
The thought was not a comforting one. By the river, she witnessed a phenomenon she had heard of but never seen. A streak of lightning struck a hill, and instead of disappearing inside the darkness with a clap of thunder, it rolled in a yellow ball across a meadow and exploded at the base of a tree with the rippling brilliance of a Klansman setting fire to a kerosene-soaked cross, burning brightly in the great blackness that seemed to cover the land.
She stepped back from the window, swallowing, waiting for the thunder. But none came. Instead, a motorcar pulled up in front, one wheel sinking into her lawn, and two men got out, grinning, even though the rain was blowing in their faces. She felt her stomach curdle and her buttocks constrict.
THEY COMPRISED HALF of the group Arnold referred to as his J Boys. What were their names? It didn’t matter. They represented a group that had been poured into a single mold from the same mix, like primeval ooze that had been separated from the rest of the gene pool and couldn’t be disposed of in any other fashion.
She opened the door, the wind blowing inside. “What are you doing here?” she said.
“Mr. Beckman wants you protected,” one of them said.
“From what?”
“Someone who might hurt you. Like they done to Jessie.”
“I can’t begin to understand your English.”
“He got a hat pin rammed in his mouth and out his cheek. Right now he’s spitting blood and whiskey in a pail. He’s not having a lot of laughs about it. We’ll just step inside, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind.”
“Sorry, ma’am, it’s what Mr. Beckman says. You have a right nice place here.”
Then they were inside, one of them pushing the door shut, their eyes roaming the walls and framed pictures and paintings and bookcases and mantel and furniture, everything that was hers, that told her who she was.
“Want us to take off our shoes?”
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She didn’t answer. She stared at them, her thoughts concealed. Don’t fight or argue with them. Don’t play on their terms.
“Do you like working for Arnold?” she asked.
“Mr. Beckman? It’s all right.”
“Are you afraid of him?”
“He don’t hire men that’s afraid.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Do you want a drink?”
“We’re not supposed to do it on the job. But in this kind of weather?”
“That’s a good attitude. Sit down at the kitchen table.”
“We won’t argue,” the second man said. Unlike his friend, he had the upper body of a hod carrier and walked with a slouch, the way recidivist convicts did, and smelled of earth and damp wool. His work boots were smeared with bluish-green clay. “I better take them off.”
“The cleaning lady is coming tomorrow,” she said.
“I could tell you was looking at them.”
