The three smallest toes on the man’s left foot are broken on impact. He slips and falls sideways, back toward the busted window, where he curses and howls like the animal he has become. The woman still lies facedown on the counter, her feet still dangling above the floor.
The boy moves forward again, raising the pointed edge of the shoeing hammer in an attempt to strike once more before retribution. It is too late. The man reaches forward and grabs him by the shirt and most of his undersized chest. The hand sledge falls from his small hands. The man feels a surge of pain from his foot and pulls himself up and onto his knees; he shakes the little body, draws it close, and slaps the boy backward with his open hand. His free one scrambles across the floor in search of the hammer and pounces on it like a five-legged spider. He smiles through his teeth as he raises the heavy metal head and takes aim on another man’s child.
There is a sudden tugging at his collar.
He feels strange, almost peaceful, as he looks down at the unconscious boy. He stares at the geometric pattern of the floor, having never noticed it before. The hammer drops to the side, forgotten, as he reaches up to his throat. It feels strange and wet, and he coughs as thick, dark liquid passes from his mouth onto the child. The weight of his head pulls it forward, and there is more blood flowing onto his shirt and arms and hands. He opens his mouth to scream, but the liquid blocks his voice and spills onto the floor with the force of an open spigot. It fills the room with its smell and slippery texture, and it is everywhere.
The man tries to raise his head, but the muscles refuse to work, and his face will not rise to follow the boy who is being pulled from him. He slips sideways and falls back against the cabinets below the sink. He lies there, blinking at the tableau before him, as the mother holds her eldest in her lap close to her, her legs tucked as she crouches against the stove like a panther.
He feels cold. He blinks again and remembers how one of the uncles had told him how they always allowed her to butcher the hogs in the autumn, how she had the blood touch. He looks into those baleful eyes, which are willing him to die. Slut. And she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. Bitch.
He takes forever to die, but she waits, unmoving, and watches him for the better part of an hour to make sure, finally kicking his leg to see if there is any reaction. She gathers the still unconscious child and feels his breathing on her neck, and this is when she cries, smearing the tears away with the back of her hand. She carries him to the bedroom where the twin daughters wait, eyes wide, as she gently places their brother between them. She tells them that she must go to the Aranzadi’s, eight miles distant. It will be late when she returns, but they must remain in the bed. They must not move, and they must not make noise, but most of all they cannot go into the kitchen. The smallest cries that she is thirsty but is silenced by her mother’s look.
She reins in the large bay and wheels him around the motorized carriage. The automobile is his, and she does not trust it. The bay is spooked by the lightning that pounds the black edges of the Big Horns. The wind is up, and it might rain; the buffalo grass sways like an undulating ocean of flax and seed. Tired as she is, she hopes for rain. She drives her naked heels into the horse’s flanks and gathers herself low behind his neck. There is only one two-track back to the main road and the nearest phone.
The rhythm of the horse’s hooves on the hard ground lulls her; she tries to stay on, gripping the hair of the horse’s withers. The first drops of rain hit like mercury dimes as she makes the rise overlooking the neighboring ranch house. There are no lights, but they will understand.
The hard flat drops of the high-altitude rain continue to strike at her as she urges the horse faster down the slippery track. Lightning flashes again, and the horse sidesteps in the yard, his stocking feet glowing like spats. She has started off, but the horse has taken her by surprise, and she tumbles forward. He backs away, dragging her as he goes. She holds to the single rein as the horse shakes his head up and down in an attempt to be free. He stops when she speaks to him in the language her husband had never tried to know. “Ialgi hadi kampora…”
She drags herself up toward the door and stumbles at the steps, is pounded by the rain, and shakes with the chill of the cold water as it streams from her hair and onto her skin. Her muscles contract, and it is all she can do to drop a clenched hand against the screen door. She cries and tries to strike the door again but can’t. Her head sinks to the step, and she rests there; it cannot end like this, it must not. She stirs, but her hair clings to her broken face, and her joints ache with the strain. Whatever was there, whatever had pushed her to this point, is washing away with the cold wind and rain. She pulls her legs and arms in to protect them, to allow them rest.
There is a sound from within the house, and the door swings wide. A kerosene lantern shines on her with the pointillist pattern of the reinforced screen. Someone is kneeling now, lowering himself to her view and reaching out a thin and gentle hand. As his fingers close around her shoulder, she raises her head and, shivering with the last strains of energy she can afford, she speaks. “ Polizia constabule.. Lucian.”
He smoked his pipe for a while and then got up quietly, positioning his leg, and moved around to the bar. He pulled a paper filter from a stack on the shelves, placed it in the maker at the bar back, pulled the urn from the burner, and filled it with water from the small bar sink. “You ever seen a man cut like that? Ear to ear?”
“No, not like that.”
He nodded, poured the water into the machine, and placed it back on the heating element. “If you cut an artery completely through, it tries to heal itself by pinching off but, if you’ve got the touch, you only cut the blood vessel halfway so it keeps bleeding until there’s nothing left to bleed.”
“Lucian, this was a clear case of domestic abuse and self-defense.”
He shook his head as the coffee began to percolate. “Not in 1951.”
I waited. “I thought you said it was ’52.”
“That’s when the goddamned Indians stole the car out of the irrigation pond Isaac and I stuck it in down on Four Brothers.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the bar. “How’s I supposed to know it was gonna be a drought summer?”
“Why the elaborate charade with Marcos down in Vista Verde?”
“She wanted him alive.”
“Why didn’t she just file for abandonment?”
He shrugged. “Religion.”
I waited. “Bloomfield was in on this?” He looked away for a moment and didn’t speak. “He’s in a room over at Durant Memorial.” I got Lucian’s undivided attention. “He tried to drive to Billings last night to assist in Mari’s autopsy and wrecked his car near Sheridan.”
Lucian nodded. “She needed medical attention, and I knew he would understand.” He looked at me. “He all right?”
“Yep.” I sat on the stool opposite him. “Lucian, her heart gave out.”
“I don’t believe that.”
I thought about the things I had believed when my wife died, complicated, hurtful things, and how the only thing that seemed to help was to have somebody listen. I glanced back over at him as he waited for me. “Did you see anything that night?”
“No.”
“Would you tell me if you had?”
“Yes, goddamn it. I ain’t got nothin’ to hide.”
“You have up to now.”
He shook his head and turned around, pulled two cups from the cluster below the coffeemaker, and poured us a fresh pair. He pushed one of the cups toward me with his fingertips. “That’s my personal life.”