Full Dark, No Stars

He sighed. “Probably, yes. She loves them and they love her. They’l see something in her face, I reckon, and get it out of her. And even if they don’t, she’l probably tel the Sheriff. If he bothers to talk to the Cotteries at al , that is.”

“Lester wil see that he does. He’l bark at Sheriff Jones because his bosses in Omaha are barking at him. Round and round it goes, and where it stops, nobody knows.”

“We never should have done it.” He considered, then said it again in a fierce whisper.

I said nothing. For awhile, neither did he. We watched the moon rise out of the corn, red and pregnant.

“Poppa? Can I have a glass of beer?”

I looked at him, surprised and not surprised. Then I went inside and poured us each a glass of beer. I gave one to him and said, “None of this tomorrow or the day after, mind.”

“No.” He sipped, grimaced, then sipped again. “I hated lying to Shan, Poppa. Everything about this is dirty.”

“Dirt washes off.”

“Not this kind,” he said, and took another sip. This time he didn’t grimace.

A little while later, after the moon had gone to silver, I stepped around to use the privy, and to listen to the corn and the night breeze tel each other the old secrets of the earth. When I got back to the porch, Henry was gone. His glass of beer stood half-finished on the railing by the steps. Then I heard him in the barn, saying “Soo, Boss. Soo.”

I went out to see. He had his arms around Elphis’s neck and was stroking her. I believe he was crying. I watched for awhile, but in the end said nothing. I went back to the house, undressed, and lay

down in the bed where I’d cut my wife’s throat. It was a long time before I went to sleep. And if you don’t understand why— all the reasons why—then reading this is of no use to you.

I had named al our cows after minor Greek goddesses, but Elphis turned out to be either a bad choice or an ironic joke. In case you don’t remember the story of how evil came to our sad old world, let

me refresh you: al the bad things flew out when Pandora gave in to her curiosity and opened the jar that had been left in her keeping. The only thing that remained when she regained enough wits to put the lid back on was Elphis, the goddess of hope. But in that summer of 1922, there was no hope left for our Elphis. She was old and cranky, no longer gave much milk, and we’d al but given up trying to get what little she had; as soon as you sat down on the stool, she’d try to kick you. We should have converted her into comestibles a year before, but I balked at the cost of having Harlan Cotterie butcher her, and I was no good at slaughtering much beyond hogs… a self-assessment with which you, Reader, must now surely agree.

“And she’d be tough,” Arlette (who had shown a sneaking affection for Elphis, perhaps because she was never the one to milk her) said. “Better leave wel enough alone.” But now we had a use for

Elphis— in the wel , as it so happened—and her death might serve an end far more useful than a few stringy cuts of meat.

Two days after Lester’s visit, my son and I put a nose-halter on her and led her around the side of the barn. Halfway to the wel , Henry stopped. His eyes shone with dismay. “Poppa! I smell her!”

“Go into the house then, and get some cotton bal s for your nose. They’re on her dresser.”

Although his head was lowered, I saw the sidelong glance he shot me as he went. This is all your fault, that look said. All your fault because you couldn’t let go.

Yet I had no doubt that he would help me do the work that lay ahead. Whatever he now thought of me, there was a girl in the picture as wel , and he didn’t want her to know what he had done. I had

forced him to it, but she would never understand that.

We led Elphis to the wel -cap, where she quite reasonably balked. We went around to the far side, holding the halter-strings like ribbons in a Maypole dance, and hauled her out onto the rotted wood

by main force. The cap cracked beneath her weight… bowed down… but held. The old cow stood on it, head lowered, looking as stupid and as stubborn as ever, showing the greenish-yel ow rudiments of

her teeth.

“What now?” Henry asked.

I started to say I didn’t know, and that was when the wel -cap broke in two with a loud and brittle snap. We held onto the halter-strings, although I thought for a moment I was going to be dragged into that damned wel with two dislocated arms. Then the nose-rig ripped free and flew back up. It was split down both the sides. Below, Elphis began to low in agony and drum her hoofs against the wel ’s rock sides.

“Poppa!” Henry screamed. His hands were fists against his mouth, the knuckles digging into his upper lip. “Make her stop!”

Elphis uttered a long, echoing groan. Her hoofs continued to beat against the stone.