Killing Mr. Sunday

by Bill Brooks

  into a nice little basket.

  “I thought maybe we could start things off with a

  picnic,” he said, when his wife asked him why it was

  he wanted her to accompany him to Cooper’s Creek

  that morning.

  “Picnic?” she said. “What’s so saucy about a pic-

  nic; and, my lord, it’s nearly winter!”

  “I was thinking a picnic might be a good way to

  get things started. It’s such a pretty day,” he said.

  “We’re not likely to get many more before next

  spring.”

  “What about the store?” she said.

  “I’ve asked Gus Boone to watch it.”

  “He’ll steal us blind . . .”

  “No, he won’t steal us blind. Will you come with

  me on a picnic, Martha?”

  She could see the look of desperate determination

  in his eyes, could hear it in his voice. She knew she’d

  been hard on him all these years, her bitterness fueled

  by jealousy, even though she was sure that Otis loved

  Karen Sunflower, she didn’t suspect he and Karen

  were fooling around with each other, that it was just

  that one time if at all.

  “I suppose,” she said. She saw the smile on his face.

  It’s a start, maybe, she thought, and went and got her

  wool capote, then decided she might spray just a tiny

  bit of perfume behind her ears. What foolishness, she

  thought, watching herself pin a hat atop her head.

  Picnic!

  They rode leisurely out to Cooper’s Creek in a

  rented hansom, Otis humming happily, the sun warm

  on their faces.

  Once arrived, Otis pulled into a grove of young

  cottonwoods that bordered the bank of the creek and

  said, “This looks like a good place” and immediately

  she wondered if he’d ever met Karen Sunflower here

  and if that was why he wanted to come here, then just

  as quickly pushed the thought away. Best to give him

  the benefit of the doubt if we are ever going to get past

  this thing.

  Otis took a blanket and the basket of food and

  wine out of the cab and spread the blanket atop the

  still somewhat damp grass from the previous night’s

  storm. But the blanket was a thick wool and would

  keep them dry. They reclined on the blanket and ate

  the sandwiches and sipped the wine.

  “Isn’t it pleasant, Martha?”

  She had to agree that it was.

  “When we were young . . .” he said wistfully. “Do

  you remember when we were young and how some-

  thing like this thrilled us so?”

  Off in the grasses cedar waxwings and yellow war-

  blers and black-capped chickadees sang to each other,

  fooled no doubt by the changeable weather, but seem-

  ingly oblivious. A horned lark swooped down and

  pecked at a bit of the sandwich Martha had set aside

  on a piece of butcher’s paper.

  “It’s like we’re Adam and Eve and this is the Gar-

  den of Eden,” Otis said, feeling buoyant now that the

  wine had gone to his head. He reached out and

  touched Martha’s hand and she did not withdraw it.

  “It’s been so long,” he said, and she felt a great

  compassion for him, if not the first fires of a new pas-

  sion outright.

  “Well, you know . . .” she said. “We’re not youth-

  ful anymore, Otis.”

  “But it don’t mean we can’t . . .”

  “Oh, Otis,” she said blushing. “You do have a way

  of embarrassing me.”

  “But Martha, there is no one here for you to be

  embarrassed in front of. It’s just you and me . . .” and

  he began to unbutton her dress. At first she tried

  pushing his hands away, but then he kissed her as pas-

  sionately as he ever had and it caused her to swoon

  and fall back upon the blanket and he fell with her.

  She stared up at the flawless gas-blue sky as Otis

  worked the rest of the buttons on her dress. Perhaps,

  she thought. Perhaps . . .

  Afterward, they dressed slowly, and Otis said, “I

  feel drowsy, Martha. I feel complete and whole again

  and drowsy.”

  “It’s just the wine,” she said lying next to him.

  “No, it’s a lot more than just the wine. It’s pure

  happiness, is what it is.”

  “Oh, pshaw,” she said, but secretly she felt as

  though they had crossed a bridge that had been keep-

  ing them apart all these years. She closed her eyes and

  felt the sun warm on her face and Otis closed his eyes,

  too. And the last words she heard him say before

  sleep overtook them was, “You think we might do it

  again, Martha?”

  How long they slept they didn’t know, but some-

  thing woke them quite unexpectedly, a tapping on

  their soles. And when they opened their eyes, they

  saw the face of madness staring back at them

  The Swede said, “Oh, there you are, Inge. I’ve been

  looking for you long, long time. I got lost out there,”

  and he waved out toward the grasslands, a pistol in

  his hand. “I got lost and come looking for you and

  there you are. What you doing with this fellow, yah?”

  Martha let out a yelp of terror.

  Otis sprang into action, intending to disarm the

  man and thus save his wife, and possibly himself from

  the mad Swede.

  But the Swede brought the barrel of the pistol

  down hard atop his skull and Otis’s knees buckled.

  Then the Swede struck him again and Otis fell back

  onto the blanket, something warm spilling into his

  eyes. He heard Martha yelping, and her shrieks and

  cries seemed to get farther and farther away each time

  the Swede struck him a blow with the pistol until he

  fell into a stone silence.

  The Swede looked at Martha and said, “We go

  now, yah?”

  11

  Jake found the undertaker, Tall John, drinking

  a glass of Madeira whilst sitting in front of his

  place. The mortician had been enjoying the peace and

  solitude of not having any business. And even though

  his profession, and thereby his earnings, counted on

  folks dying, he was glad for once nobody had re-

  cently. After the spate of madness that had pervaded

  the community over the summer, during the long hot

  drought that resulted in him almost wearing out his

  arms and back digging graves and burying folks, he

  was more than ready for some rest.

  His helper, Boblink Jones, had quit him, stating that

  he didn’t care much for working with the dead and he

  was returning to Missouri even though the James-

  Younger gang had met their demise—Jesse, shot off a

  chair that spring, and the Youngers not dead, serving

  time in state prison. Boblink still had it in his mind to

  become a desperado.

  “Now that the James and Youngers is wiped out,”

  Boblink said, “I guess there is room for a true outlaw

  in that country.” Tall John of course tried to talk the

  young man out of such foolishness.

  “You’ll only end up like them,
dead or in a prison

  cell wasting your young vital life.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. John, but waxing the moustaches

  of corpses, and shoveling graves just ain’t for me. I’d

  like to believe there is some glory waiting for a young

  buck like myself—even if it does lead to a dark and

  early end. I’ve come to conclude it ain’t the place a

  man’s going, but the way he gets there that counts.”

  Tall John gave the boy extra pay to see him on his

  way, but was dearly sorry to lose such a good helper.

  So the timing seemed right that business tailed off

  when it did.

  Tall John and his Madeira had found a spot where

  the sun lay across the wood sidewalk. He set himself

  in a tall-back wicker chair facing the main street of

  Sweet Sorrow. Directly across from his place stood

  the newly opened millinery, run by Fannie Jones, who

  used to waitress over at the Fat Duck Café. Tall John

  could see her now through the glass of her storefront

  placing hats on little stands. Some had big ostrich

  feathers and some satin tied around the crowns and

  some were large and some were no larger than a

  saucer. He didn’t quite know why women wore such

  hats; they looked quite foolish he thought, especially

  those with large feathers. But it wasn’t the hats that

  interested him as much as the young comely woman,

  whom he knew was being courted by Will Bird, a lo-

  cal rascal who came and went like the seasons and

  never put his hand to regular work.

  A young handsome woman, Tall John thought, de-

  served herself a man a little less footloose, one who

  was steady and had himself a business that wasn’t go-

  ing to peter out anytime soon.

  Fannie looked up at one point and John raised his

  snifter in her direction and he thought she sort of

  waved but couldn’t tell exactly because of the way the

  sun was glaring off the glass.

  I ought to mosey over there and see what sort of

  odds are against me, he thought. But just as soon as

  he thought it, he lost his nerve. For what excuse could

  he offer for looking at women’s hats? None he could

  think of. Others might say, if they knew of his interest

  in her, that he was too old for her, and maybe he was.

  Will Bird was younger, more her age, but Will never

  hung his hat on the same nail too long. John had run

  over all the arguments he might present to shore up

  his case with Fannie, but he wasn’t sure if it came

  right down to it, he had the nerve to broach the sub-

  ject with her. He drank more of his Madeira.

  John was still thinking on Fannie when he saw Jake

  coming up the street, was surprised when the lawman

  stepped up onto the sidewalk and stopped there by

  his chair.

  “Marshal.”

  “John, I’ve got a situation I need you to handle.”

  “Certainly.”

  Jake told him about finding the Swedes.

  “Lord, I thought we’d gotten past all the craziness.”

  “Not quite.”

  “How many did you say?”

  “Five; wife, daughter, three boys.”

  Tall John shook his head in sympathy.

  “Terrible news, Marshal.”

  “You’ll need someone to help you bury them, I

  suspect.”

  John wasn’t sure why exactly but the first person

  he thought about was Will Bird. Far as he knew Will

  wasn’t working and had the time on his hands if he

  could get him to agree to do it. It might give him a

  chance to pick Will’s brain about Fannie, see what he

  could learn about her, her ways and such, what she

  liked and what she didn’t. Give him a leg up when he

  got around to presenting his case.

  “I think I might know someone,” John said.

  “The sooner the better,” Jake said.

  “You don’t want ’em brought in then?”

  “What would be the point?”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  “One more thing.”

  John looked earnest.

  “The old man—the Swede. He’s still out there

  somewhere, so you make sure you’re armed in case he

  comes back round again.”

  John had never known burying folks could be a

  dangerous profession, but the sound of the marshal’s

  voice in his warning made it seem possible.

  “Yes sir, I will.”

  Jake went over to Otis Dollar’s mercantile and found

  Gus Boone behind the counter.

  “Otis took the day off,” Gus volunteered without

  being asked. “Him and Martha went on a picnic. A

  picnic, can you imagine?”

  “Pleasant enough day for it,” Jake said.

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “I’ll have a few cans of beans, slab of bacon, cof -

  fee, extra cartridges, a box of those shotgun shells,

  and one rope.”

  “Going on a trip?”

  “Going after the Swede.”

  “What’s he done?”

  “He killed his family, Gus.”

  He could see the effect such news had on Gus,

  said, “If you could get those supplies together sooner

  rather than later, I’d appreciate it.”

  Toussaint was waiting for him when he came back

  around. Jake tossed him the extra box of shotgun

  shells. “Ten gauge, right?”

  Toussaint opened the box and dumped the shells in

  his pockets.

  “Hell, I’m set, you?”

  “What do you intend to do with me?” Martha said.

  Otis moaned nearby on the blanket, his head stream-

  ing red ribbons of blood. The Swede was skeleton

  thin, his hair stuck out in whitish spikes from his

  head. He had the eyes of a dangerous man, and he

  had a pistol, too. She wondered if he was drunk or

  simply had gone mad.

  “You let me alone,” she demanded. “You let me

  and my husband be.”

  “We go on now, yah.” It was as though he hadn’t

  heard a word she said.

  “Go where, you damn fool!”

  She couldn’t help but somehow blame Otis for

  their predicament. If only he hadn’t suggested such a

  foolish thing as a picnic. If only he had asked her to

  go upstairs over the store to their bedroom, she would

  have gone, perhaps begrudgingly so, but she would

  have gone, and he wouldn’t be lying with a bleeding

  head and she wouldn’t be in danger of being as-

  saulted. She could think of nothing more terrible than

  to have a madman assault her.

  “We go that way,” the Swede said, pointing with

  his pistol off toward the west. She hadn’t a clue as to

  what lay in the direction he pointed.

  “How far that way?” she said.

  “Sweden, maybe.”

  “Sweden?”

  “Go to the fjords.”

  “Fjords?”

  “Yah, yah,” he said.

  “No!” she said.

  “You want I shoot you again, Inge?”

  She had not a clue as to who Inge was. The man

  was obviously deranged. She’d had an uncle once

  who became deranged
and she remembered what a

  time her family had with the man, how he cackled

  like a chicken and went around picking invisible

  things from the air. They’d had to truss him up in

  leather straps and take him off to the insane asylum in

  Scotts Bluff.

  The Swede prodded her with the pistol barrel into

  the hansom then climbed on the seat next to her.

  “What you wait for, yah?”

  “You expect me to drive?”

  “Yah, yah.”

  She took up the reins. The Swede pointed again to-

  ward the west.

  “Go on,” the Swede said impatiently.

  She snapped the reins and the horse stepped off.

  They rode for an hour or so, she calculated, trying the

  whole while to come up with an excuse to trick him,

  to escape. If I had a hoe, I’d kill you, she thought. I’d

  hit you over your damn old skull and split it in two

  and leave you out here for the wolves.

  He rode next to her, his gaze fixed on the horizon

  as though he was expecting to see his damn fjords any

  minute. She wasn’t sure exactly what a fjord was. She

  noticed spots of blood on his shirt cuffs. It caused her

  to shudder. The beautiful day did not seem quite so

  beautiful any longer.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  He turned his head.

  “I have to go,” she said again.

  “Go?”

  “Squat,” she said.

  He shrugged.

  “You squat, yah.”

  “No, you damn fool, I have to go off in the weeds.”

  He seemed not to understand.

  “Pee?” she said. “You understand what it is to have

  to pee?”

  “Yah, sure.”

  Finally she hauled back on the reins and brought

  the horse to a stop, then climbed down without asking

  and lifted her skirts to her knees and made the motion

  of squatting. He sat and stared at her.

  “I got to go off aways for some privacy.” She

  pointed.

  “Yah,” he said. “Yah.”

  “You understand?” He didn’t say anything. She

  pointed again. “I’m just going to go off in the grass

  there aways . . .”

  He watched. She walked slowly backward. He did

  not move. “Just over here, is all . . .” she said. He had

  a slight smile on his face revealing old long teeth. She

  thought he looked like a badger—a very skinny, mean

  badger.

  12

  Clara had gotten the children down to sleep—

  the orphan boy whimpered, but once read to along

  with her own children, he closed his eyes and his