Which, she notes with an unexpected sense of relief, explains the Suburban.
When she finally enters the room, Louie now quiet at her heels except for a low whine, she finds Adele toppled forward on the rug, the legs of her walker jutting absurdly past her hips. Blood has soaked her short grey hair, stiffened by the freezing cold into scarlet spikes. An elderly man lies half on and half off the bed, his battered skull partly concealed by a fold of the comforter. Clumsy with the bulk of her gloves, Koda removes his billfold from his hip pocket and thumbs through the plasticine card pockets until she finds his driver’s license. He is—he was, she corrects herself—Theodore Hurley, also of Pierre.
Koda knows that Paul’s father is long dead, having attended his funeral three years before. Theodore must have been an uncle.
A search of the rest of the house yields no sign of Virginia or her three adolescent daughters. In the kitchen Koda discovers that the hot tap is dripping and that there is still water from it. Thank you God for propane. She sets about feeding and watering Louie and examining the contents of Virginia’s pantry. As she counts the cans of beans and the Mason jars filled with bright gold and purple preserves, spiced peaches, pickled beets, a shudder creeps over her skin that has nothing to do with the cold. She feels like a ghoul, pawing through the remnants of a woman’s life.
Remnants that will help feed her own family and the refugees gathered in their home. Virginia would not want her good food to go to waste. There will, she tells herself, be no more trips to the Safeway anytime soon.
Koda finds the matches and lights a burner to make herself a cup of the Hurleys’ instant Maxwell House, then lights the oven, leaving it open so the room will warm. She closes the swinging door behind her as she returns upstairs to search the linen cabinet. Five blankets she carries down and sets out on a chair in the den; one, the thickest quilt she can find, she makes into a bed for Louie beside the stove. She is almost comfortable as she sips the dark brew—almost coffee, she thinks wryly— warming her fingers that seem to be gone all to cold bone against the thick earthenware of the cup. Almost she finds herself smiling as Louie turns twice widdershins and thumps down onto the mounded bedspread with a wheezy sigh, full-bellied and secure for the first time in days. Within seconds he begins to snore.
Promising herself another cup before she leaves, Koda pulls her gloves back on and slogs through the snow to the barn. The doors are closed but not locked. When her eyes accustom themselves to the dim light, she finds a pair of Holstein cows and a heifer huddled together amid the hay, their breath making cloudy weather about them. An Appaloosa turns his head toward her expectantly as she approaches his stall; his quarterhorse stablemate, more impatient, whinnies loudly and stamps. She rubs their noses in turn, speaking softly.
Half an hour later, the cows and horses are fed and watered, the stalls mucked out. In the process of finding and dragging out a sack of feed, Koda has also discovered a dozen red hens and a rooster along a shelf in an empty stall. Now, replete, they are back on their perch, clucking softly, settling down once more. Like Louie, they are as comfortable and safe as she can make them.
Only one thing left to do now.
Koda takes the snow shovel from its place against the barn wall and makes her way to the north side of the house, where the sun, when it comes out, will be slow to melt the drifts, where more fall will pile high. With it she digs a shallow trench, long but narrow, under the eaves. The ground beneath is frozen.
One by one, she brings the dead from the house and lays them in all the grave she can make for them. She expects the children to be the hardest. And while her heart clenches as she wraps their bodies, cold as any stone, and bears them out to their burials, it is the old folk who come nearest to breaking it. They should have died in their beds, at home, their children and grandchildren about them. Wise, content in their passing.
Ate, she promises her father as the silent tears spill from her eyes; Ina, my mother: I will not let you die like this.
Gently Koda drops the snow over the bodies; gently smoothes the surface so that there will be no sign of disturbance with the next fall. She turns to go.
It is too stark; there should be some ceremony, some leave-taking. The Hurleys are Irish Catholic, every man jack and woman of them for four generations all the way back to Ellis Island and a thousand years before that. She cannot find their priest in Rapid City and send him back; it is far too dangerous, even if he is somehow still alive. She will have to do, half-heathen that she is.
She searches her memory for the words, and they come to her, the Church’s prayer for those about to step onto the Blue Road of the spirit. She signs a cross above the snow and murmurs, “Go forth, Christian souls, out of this world: in the name of the Father, who has created you; in the name of the Son, who has redeemed you; in the name of the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies you. Into Paradise may the angels lead you; at your coming may the martyrs receive you, and lead you into the Holy City, Jerusalem. Amen.”
Koda stands a moment more by the grave, head bowed in respect. Then she turns once again to the care of the living.
Back in the house, the second and not nearly so satisfying cup of not-quite-coffee in her hand, Koda wrestles briefly with herself whether to leave the oven on for Louie. She opts for safety and her mother’s training in the end, turns it off, ruffles the sleeping dog’s ears a last time, and returns to her truck. As she swings back out of the driveway, she thumbs her CB on. “Tacoma. Tacoma, come in.”
“Hey, Koda! You comin’ home already? You got a flat? You need me to come help you?”
“Hey yourself, bro. We’ve been there, done that. Mom and Dad need you at home.”
“Yeah, sure.” A whole world of adolescent male discouragement is loaded onto the two words.
Virginia. Charleston. Koda’s hand clenches on the mike. I won’t let that happen to you either, little brother. Not while I live. But she says, steadily, “Is Dad around? Phoenix?”
“I’ll get ‘em. Hang on.”
It is Phoenix who takes the call. “Dad’s out in the barn. What’s up?”
Guardedly, Koda describes what she has found at the Hurley ranch. “It’s the same pattern. Paul and the boys are dead. So are an elderly couple I think were his aunt and uncle. The girls and Virginia are missing. Soon as you can, you and Dad need to come get the food out of the pantry and take the livestock, including a small shaggy dog named Louie.”
“Louie?” There is laughter in Phoenix’s voice.
“Yeah, Louie. Mom’ll like him. There are trailers here; you just need to bring the trucks.”
“Gotcha.”
“And listen. Nobody’s been here since they were killed. If you see more tracks than mine, one set coming and another set going—
“Gotcha again,” he interrupted her. “We’ll be careful. You do the same.”
“Yeah. Later.”
“Later,” he echoes, and breaks the connection.
9
Kirsten pulls along the drop off curb in front of the Shop ‘n Go Market. Jumping out of the van, she walks to the back and opens the large cargo doors, displaying an interior which now has a number of five and ten gallon gas cans, filled to the brim with fuel. Gas had taken her awhile to get, given that without any electricity to power the pumps, she had to resort to siphoning, which left her nauseous and with the foul taste of gasoline in her mouth.
Asimov whines at her from the rear bench seat and she looks at him. “You stay here and guard the truck, boy. No chasing cats, or dogs, or rats, or whatever else strikes your fancy. You just stay here, alright? I’ll be back in a little while.”
The large dog whines again, but finally settles down, propping his big head on the top of the seat and looking at her through soulful brown eyes.