Full Dark, No Stars

“It is,” I said. Knowing it wasn’t. But if things went al right, we were closer to the end than we had been. If.

He started across the dooryard, then turned back. He used his silk handkerchief to mop off his face again, then said, “If you think those 100 acres are yours just because you’ve scared your wife

away… sent her packing to her aunt in Des Moines or a sister in Minnesota—”

“Check Omaha,” I said, smiling. “Or Sain’-Loo. She had no use for her relations, but she was crazy about the idea of living in Sain’-Loo. God knows why.”

“If you think you’l plant and harvest out there, you’d better think again. That land’s not yours. If you so much as drop a seed there, you wil be seeing me in court.”

I said, “I’m sure you’l hear from her as soon as she gets a bad case of broke-itis.”

What I wanted to say was, No, it’s not mine… but it’s not yours, either. It’s just going to sit there. And that’s all right, because it wil be mine in seven years, when I go to court to have her declared legally dead. I can wait. Seven years without smelling pigshit when the wind’s out of the west? Seven years without hearing the screams of dying hogs (so much like the screams of a dying woman) or

seeing their intestines float down a creek that’s red with blood? That sounds like an excellent seven years to me.

“Have yourself a fine day, Mr. Lester, and mind the sun going back. It gets pretty fierce in the late afternoon, and it’l be right in your face.”

He got into the truck without replying. Lars waved to me and Lester snapped at him. Lars gave him a look that might have meant Snap and yap all you want, it’s still twenty miles back to Hemingford

City.

When they were gone except for the rooster-tail of dust Henry came back out on the porch. “Did I do it right, Poppa?”

I took his wrist, gave it a squeeze, and pretended not to feel the flesh tighten momentarily under my hand, as if he had to override an impulse to pul away. “Just right. Perfect.”

“Are we going to fil in the wel tomorrow?”

I thought about this careful y, because our lives might depend on what I decided. Sheriff Jones was getting on in years and up in pounds. He wasn’t lazy, but it was hard to get him moving without a

good reason. Lester would eventual y convince Jones to come out here, but probably not until Lester got one of Cole Farrington’s two hel -for-leather sons to cal and remind the sheriff what company was the biggest taxpayer in Hemingford County (not to mention the neighboring counties of Clay, Fil more, York, and Seward). Stil , I thought we had at least two days.

“Not tomorrow,” I said. “The day after.”

“Poppa, why?”

“Because the High Sheriff wil be out here, and Sheriff Jones is old but not stupid. A fil ed-in wel might make him suspicious about why it got fil ed in, so recent and al . But one that’s stil being fil ed in… and for a good reason…”

“What reason? Tel me!”

“Soon,” I said. “Soon.”

Al the next day we waited to see dust boiling toward us down our road, not being pul ed by Lars Olsen’s truck but by the County Sheriff’s car. It didn’t come. What came was Shannon Cotterie, looking

pretty in a cotton blouse and gingham skirt, to ask if Henry was al right, and could he take supper with her and her mama and her poppa if he was?

Henry said he was fine, and I watched them go up the road, hand-in-hand, with deep misgivings. He was keeping a terrible secret, and terrible secrets are heavy. Wanting to share them is the most

natural thing in the world. And he loved the girl (or thought he did, which comes to the same when you’re just going on 15). To make things worse, he had a lie to tel , and she might know it was a lie. They say that loving eyes can never see, but that’s a fool’s axiom. Sometimes they see too much.

I hoed in the garden (pul ing up more peas than weeds), then sat on the porch, smoking a pipe and waiting for him to come back. Just before moonrise, he did. His head was down, his shoulders

were slumped, and he was trudging rather than walking. I hated to see him that way, but I was stil relieved. If he had shared his secret—or even part of it—he wouldn’t have been walking like that. If he’d shared his secret, he might not have come back at al .

“You told it the way we decided?” I asked him when he sat down.

“The way you decided. Yes.”

“And she promised not to tel her folks?”

“Yes.”

“But wil she?”