They need to get clear. She sees Daniel there behind the fence post. He has a shotgun. They need to get clear.
Daniel drops his chin to his chest and rests his forehead against the wooden fence post. Without looking up, because he isn’t ready for the sight of Mrs. Robison again, he sticks the index finger of his right glove between his teeth, bites down and pulls his hand away. Letting that glove drop into the snow, he does the same with his left. Maybe he only thought he saw blood splatter across Dad’s chest and into Mama’s face. Maybe blood didn’t spray onto the snowdrift that runs along the back of the house. With the shotgun balanced on his lap, Daniel presses his bare hands between his knees and raises his chin.
“Don’t do anything foolish now, Ray,” Dad says. His hands are still in the air and Mrs. Robison’s blood is a black stain across his shirt.
“I ain’t no damn fool,” Uncle Ray says, beginning to back down the driveway toward Aunt Ruth and Mama. “You’re the fool. All of you.” He staggers a few steps and his head wobbles. “You killed her,” he says to Dad. “Same as if you put a gun to her head.”
“Please, Ray. We’re leaving,” Mama says.
For an instant, she seems to look right at Daniel.
“Come on now.” Yes, Mama sees him. “Ruth and I, we’re leaving.”
Uncle Ray backs away until he can see Mama and Aunt Ruth and Dad all at once. He seems to settle on Aunt Ruth. He points the gun at her and waves it like he wants her to come closer. “You tell me. You tell me that you knew what he did.”
“Please, Ray. Don’t do this,” Mama says, pulling Aunt Ruth away, farther down the driveway.
“Tell me now,” he shouts.
Aunt Ruth lowers her head. She must be crying because her shoulders are shaking but she isn’t making any noise. Uncle Ray swings around, presses the stock to his cheek and aims at Dad.
“You God damned well better tell me.”
Uncle Ray pulls back the bolt action, presses his cheek to the barrel. He is steady now, lined up, ready for a solid shot.
Daniel slowly stands, his leg unfolding beneath him. Feet shoulder width, Ian had said with a sawed-off broomstick in hand. Left foot forward. Toes pointed straight ahead. Knees slightly bent.
Uncle Ray tilts his head an inch to the right the way a man does when he closes one eye and looks down the barrel of his rifle.
“No,” Mama shouts. “Ray, stop.”
Daniel lifts the shotgun. Brings the stock to his cheek. Back straight.
“Ray, please.” Aunt Ruth is crying. She sounds far away, like she’s inside a dream.
Daniel lines up the bead sight with the notch at the tip of the gun. Something snaps. A gun is cocked. Inhale. Exhale halfway. Just halfway, Ian had said. Hold steady. Be careful of the blockers. Give them twenty feet or so. Buckshot will scatter. The target will rise up between the pushers and the blockers.
“Now, Daniel,” Mama shouts. “Now.”
Uncle Ray squares his stance. Dad lunges. Daniel fires.
There is a crack in the air. A loud pop. Celia grabs for Ruth, pulling her so closely that together they nearly fall, tumbling and tripping over one another in their matted and muddy slippers. No matter what they see now, what they saw Ray do, he was Ruth’s husband, a good man long ago. So many things led him to this moment, things set in motion twenty-five years earlier. What man would have taken a different path? Not even Arthur. Wouldn’t he have started to drink? Wouldn’t he have eventually hated the woman who could never be Celia? Wouldn’t he have tried to kill the man who took her away? No, Ruth won’t be able to live with the sight of what’s happening to Ray.
She needs to remember him through pictures. A younger man, smiling, in love with Eve. She needs to remember that he would have been a good father had life turned a different direction. She’ll love him because he loved Eve and she’ll pass on these memories, but none of that will be possible if she sees Ray now, his shirt tearing open, his blood spraying up toward the porch light, his lower skull ripped open. She could live with the knowledge, but not the sight. Holding Ruth’s face against her side, Celia pulls her backward, down the drive as Arthur dives back and away. Daniel’s shotgun echoes in the clear night air and ends with a sharp clap. There is silence.
The force throws Ray forward. He lands near Mary Robison’s feet. Steam rises up from his torn body and, like Mary Robison’s blood, Ray’s splatters across the snow that drifts near the back door. It soaks in, leaving holes and dents in the soft white mound. At the top of the stairs leading into the house, Celia checks for Evie and exhales with relief when she isn’t there, peeking through the screened door. She’ll be in her closet, huddled under the skirts and dresses. Celia screamed at her to make her let go. She screamed at Daniel, too. She told her only son to kill a man. Had there been a kinder thing, she would have done it. Standing with the wind whipping at her skirt and blowing her hair from her face, her body harder and leaner than the day they arrived in Kansas, this is what she knows. Sometimes there is no kinder way.
Daniel is the first to move. He lowers the tip of his grandfather’s shotgun and lets it slide off his shoulder. His movement pulls Arthur from the ground, slowly. He doesn’t want to startle Daniel. He has that look about him, as if he’s not quite inside himself anymore, as if he doesn’t know his own father, as if he might fire again. Staring down at Ray, Arthur nods. He is dead. So is Mary Robison. Arthur knows dead. It takes him no time to see that. Then, he walks to his son, lays one hand on Daniel’s wrist and the other on the barrel of the gun. Daniel lifts his eyes.
“It’s what had to be done,” Arthur says in a strong voice.
There was a time when Celia would have quieted him, asked him to lower his voice. Some things are best whispered, for the sake of fine manners. But she knows that Arthur speaks in a full voice so Daniel will never feel shame.
“You did a fine job, young man. Just fine.”
Daniel turns to Celia and she nods.
Fine. Just fine.
Chapter 35
Evie closes her eyes, tilts her head toward the sky and inhales. This warm day, after so many cold, has a special smell about it. Aunt Ruth says things are greening up, so this must be what green smells like. With the sun warming her cheeks, Evie leans into Aunt Ruth, who pulls Evie close and kisses the top of her head. Aunt Ruth doesn’t have to lean down as far anymore. Lately, most often at night when she lays in bed, Evie’s shins and elbows ache. Mama says they are growing pains. Just that morning, she marked Evie’s height on her bedroom doorframe with a black pen. Since moving to Kansas, she’s grown almost an inch and a half. Mama has always said Evie would grow in her own sweet time.
Laying one hand on Aunt Ruth’s hard, round belly, Evie cradles Aunt Eve’s Virgin Mary statue in the other. In less than a month, Aunt Ruth will have a baby instead of a big belly. Evie holds her breath, waiting for a gentle nudge from Elisabeth.
“Get ready,” Aunt Ruth says, squeezing Evie even tighter.
Evie clutches the statue to her chest, presses one ear against Aunt Ruth’s stomach, and covers the other with her free hand. Near Grandma’s barn, Daniel is wadding up old newspaper as kindling for the fire Dad asked him to start in the old trash barrel. Across the driveway, Jonathon sits behind the wheel of Grandpa’s tractor, his hat pulled low on his forehead. Standing nearby, Daddy gives a nod and after a few chokes and coughs, the tractor starts up. Daniel leaves the barrel, smoke drifting up into the air and walks a few feet to stand behind Mama, Elaine and Grandma, his arms crossed, his hat pulled low like Jonathon’s.
Aunt Ruth touches the Virgin Mary’s head. “I’m glad you fixed her up,” she says, leaning down and talking into Evie’s ear so she can hear over the tractor.