Killing Mr. Sunday

by Bill Brooks

  want to get to know my grandchildren. I want you to

  know me and I want them to know me. That’s all I

  want. And in exchange, I’m leaving you and them

  everything I have.”

  He reached for a satchel sitting on the floor at the

  foot of the bed; even that much was a struggle for

  him. He set it on the bed and said, “Open it.”

  She didn’t want to, but she did.

  “That’s for you and the girls,” he said.

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “Who else would you want me to give it to? You’re

  all the family I have left.”

  “I don’t care who you give it to. Give it to the

  whores or whoever you spent all your good years

  with.”

  “Clara,” he said, but she didn’t want to hear any-

  thing more from him, turned, and rushed out.

  He winced when the door slammed closed behind

  her; it had the sound of a gunshot, and the feel of

  one, too.

  He knew, without knowing how he knew, that they

  would be coming for him: men who wanted to make

  a reputation by killing him, maybe even some relative

  of that boy he and Fancher had shot off the fence, but

  surely they would come for him. It wouldn’t matter to

  them if they killed him sick like this, or if he would

  even have the strength to pull a trigger in self-defense.

  The strong killed the weak. That’s the way it was, and

  that’s the way it always would be.

  Well, let them come. Let them get it over with in a

  hurry. He’d had enough already.

  He looked at the valise of money—close to forty

  thousand dollars for nearly fifteen years of work. He

  felt like laughing at the situation. He’d planned on us-

  ing the money to go to Mexico someday and buy

  himself a small ranch and live out his days in the sun,

  possibly even re-marry and have more children. He

  laughed because he knew if there was a god, he would

  be laughing as well.

  He reached for the laudanum. Thank Jesus for the

  laudanum, for nothing else seemed to work.

  *

  *

  *

  Try as she might, Clara could not get her thoughts off

  William Sunday since her visit the day before. She had

  the children do their arithmetic followed by a spelling

  bee and then let them out to play for recess. She se-

  cretly wished she had a cigarette to smoke—a habit

  she’d given up when she left Fallon.

  She thought about her father, the fact he was dying.

  Why should she care, she asked herself. Yet, it wasn’t

  that simple. He was right about one thing, they were

  blood kin and even though they’d not truly known

  each other very well, blood kin still meant something

  to her. She watched her two girls playing with the or-

  phan child—oh, to be a child herself again. She won-

  dered if William Sunday ever felt about her the way

  she felt about her girls. Did he ever have such love in

  his heart for her, or was he too busy looking out for

  his own interest to notice her, much less care?

  Damn him all to hell.

  She told herself she would not care. That if he had

  dragged his sick self all the way here to see her, to im-

  pose upon her, he had just wasted his time.

  The children ran about and shouted and chased

  one another. They laughed and squealed, and the

  smallest of them showed their innocence by mimick-

  ing the others. Those a little older displayed traits of

  socialization with one another, and the eldest of

  them—the boys and the girls—even flirted a bit, the

  girls being coy, the boys, well, being boys.

  Then she saw him. Lingering near the schoolhouse.

  Tall, but stooped a bit, dressed in black, watching

  her, the wind tugging at the flaps of his coat. His face

  seemed bloodless and it dawned on her fully then that

  if what he’d told her was true—and she had no reason

  to believe that it was not—he would be dead in a mat-

  ter of weeks and whatever questions she might have

  of him, whatever secrets he might hold, would pass

  with him from this life into death and be forever lost.

  Their eyes met and held and when she did not turn

  her back to him, he walked over, slowly, painfully,

  and something in her felt weak to see him like that,

  limping like some old hound, for she’d always known

  him as a man whom it seemed not even lightning

  could strike down.

  “Looks like you got a yard full,” he said as he came

  to stand next to her. “You like teaching?”

  “I like it well enough,” she said.

  “It’s something to be proud of,” he said.

  The spirits of the children rose and fell like a cho-

  rus of joy.

  “Which are yours?” he said.

  “Those two,” she said, pointing out April and May.

  “They look just like you.”

  “I think they look more like their father.”

  “No,” he said. “They look just like you. They got

  the Sunday tallness in them.”

  It was true, the Sundays were tall people and she

  was tall and so were her girls for their age.

  “Where’s he at, Clara? Their father?”

  “I guess he’s in Bismarck where I left him,” she

  said.

  “He hit on you?”

  “No.”

  “It’s none of my business, I know. But no man has

  a right to beat on a woman.”

  “I’d as soon not get into my personal life with

  you,” she said.

  “Of course. Well, I won’t trouble you further.”

  She watched him limp off, then called to him.

  “If you want to stop by for supper this evening,

  that would be okay, I suppose. Meet the girls.”

  He halted, turned. “I’d like that,” he said. Then

  walked on toward town, the pain so bad he thought

  he might bite off the end of his tongue.

  She wasn’t sure why she’d made him the offer to

  come to supper. What could she possibly hope to

  achieve by doing so?

  Damn it, I wish I had a cigarette.

  William Sunday did not know if it was accidental or

  by design that his daughter had him seated at the

  head of the table. Whatever it was, he felt honored.

  The children could barely take their eyes from him.

  He tried his best to warm to them in a way that

  wouldn’t scare them. He thought about telling them a

  story, but the only stories he knew to tell weren’t ones

  a child was likely to understand, and certainly not

  ones his daughter would tolerate him telling—stories

  about shootings and whorehouses and whiskey drink-

  ing. Finally, the eldest child spoke.

  “I’m April,” said April.

  “And I’m May,” said May.

  The boy did not say what his name was, but sim-

  ply sat there big-eyed and waiting for Clara to fill his

  plate. The fare consisted of salted pork, turnips,

  baked beans, biscuits, and buttermilk. It was spartan

  by William Sunday’s standards. He was
mostly a

  steak-and-potatoes sort of man; oysters and such. A

  man accustomed to washing everything down with

  good bourbon and later having a fine cigar with his

  sherry. But again he felt honored to be eating at this

  table with his daughter and granddaughters, and the

  food did not matter to him.

  Family, he thought, and nearly choked on the

  emotion of it, then felt foolish for feeling suddenly so

  sentimental.

  They ate with little conversation until April said,

  “Are you our grandpa?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Your grandpa, William.”

  May giggled and Clara told her not to laugh with

  food in her mouth.

  “And who is this?” William Sunday asked of the

  boy.

  The boy didn’t answer.

  “His name is Stephen,” Clara said. “He’s staying

  with us for a time.”

  William Sunday could see by the expression on

  Clara’s face that the subject was not open for discus-

  sion.

  “You look like a fine lad,” he said and the boy

  looked away toward Clara who said, “Finish your

  supper.”

  Later, when the girls had cleared the table and

  everyone was tucked in bed, Clara told William about

  the boy’s circumstances.

  “That’s a piece of tough news,” he said.

  “I don’t think his father realized the suffering he

  caused, and how his only surviving son will have to

  live with the horror and shame of it the rest of his

  life,” she said. William Sunday did not fail to get her

  not so subtle point about a life lived wrongly, about

  sins of the father passed on to the children.

  “I was a terrible son of a bitch most of my life,” he

  said. “I did lots of things I am not proud of, and now

  I can see I did them for the wrong reasons. But I can’t

  change any of that, and you can’t, either. I’d like for

  both of us not to try. I’d like for both of us to start at

  this moment and try and be good to each other—it’s

  all I have to offer you and all I want to offer you.”

  “I’m not sure I can forget,” she said.

  “I’m not asking you to forget, Clara. I’m asking

  you to forgive.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that, either.”

  He started to say something else, but then the pain

  shot through him like a bullet and he took a deep

  breath and held onto the back of a chair to keep from

  collapsing. He’d run out of laudanum and by the time

  he realized it the pharmacy had closed.

  “I don’t suppose you’d have a drop or two of

  whiskey around?”

  She shook her head.

  “I won’t have it in the house.”

  “Because of him?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m sorry your marriage turned out bad,” he said.

  “I guess my luck just runs bad when it comes to

  the men in my life.”

  He found his hat on the peg by the door he’d hung

  it on and said, “It was a good supper, Clara. My

  granddaughters are lovely and I want to get to know

  them more if you’ll allow it. I wonder if maybe to-

  morrow, if the weather isn’t so bad, we could all go

  on a picnic?”

  “I’ll have to give it some thought.”

  He nodded.

  “I’ll call on you tomorrow, then,” he said and went

  out the door. Rain was hitting the window glass like

  someone tossing sand against it. Darkness had fallen

  while they’d eaten. She wondered if she were doing

  the right thing, having him to supper, having him

  meet her children. She wasn’t sure anymore what was

  the right or wrong thing.

  She set about doing the dishes, then checked on all

  three of the children making sure they were asleep

  and the rain hadn’t awakened them. Then she was

  alone there in the house, without a husband or much

  of a future and with a father whom she had never ex-

  pected to see again. Even if she wanted to start over

  again with him, to renew an old history and even if

  she wanted to love him, what chance did she have

  now that he was dying, near death? It all seemed so

  futile. She felt tired.

  Finding her cloak she stepped outside for a last trip

  to the privy before her own bedtime.

  That was when she found him: lying there, in the

  mud, the cold rain soaking his clothes, unable to lift

  himself, moaning against the pain.

  19

  They moved in cautiously, in an ever-tightening

  circle around the cabin, ready to shoot into it if

  they saw the barrel of a gun poking through one of

  the windows or out of the door.

  They drew to within a few yards.

  “What do you think?” Toussaint said.

  “I think there’s something wrong.”

  Toussaint dismounted, Jake did, too.

  “You want to go in first, or you want me to?”

  Jake said, “I’m the one they hired, you cover me.”

  He went to the door and standing to the side

  knocked on it. They waited for someone to answer.

  And when nobody did, Jake turned the fancy glass

  doorknob and swung the door open.

  “Hey!” he called.

  No answer and he stepped inside, pistol cocked

  and ready. He stepped back out again and said to

  Toussaint, “No need for that shotgun—there’s two of

  them, both dead.”

  “Otis’s wife?”

  Jake shook his head.

  “No, both men, one’s the Swede.”

  Toussaint followed Jake back inside and saw them:

  two bodies: both men. One the Swede, the other

  somebody they didn’t know. Old man, curled up on

  his side, butcher knife sticking from his neck, gallon

  of blood, it seemed, leaked out under him. The Swede

  was on his back near the door, a dark hole center of

  his forehead like a third eye socket with no eye in it.

  Toussaint walked over to the one wall where light

  fell in through an open window—one without the oil-

  skin to shade it. He saw old pages torn from a cata-

  logue tacked up—mostly drawings of women wearing

  corsets and stockings with a description and price of

  the items next to the drawings. The paper was yel-

  lowed, curled, some of it ripped and tearing, some of

  it rain soaked.

  Toussaint saw that this is what happened to old

  men who ended up living alone far out on the prairies

  without the benefit of female companionship: they pa-

  pered their walls with the pages from catalogues and

  dreamt no doubt of beautiful ladies there with them

  in the loneliest of hours and sometimes ended up dy-

  ing violent and unexpected deaths.

  Jake saw it, too.

  “What do you think?” Toussaint said.

  “Looks like they had one hell of a fight and killed

  each other,” Jake said.

  The cabin was just one room. A bed in one corner,

  a small wood stove in the center of the room, table

  and a chair in the opposite corner, and the catalogue

 
; women.

  “No sign of Otis’s wife,” Toussaint said.

  “She must have gotten away while these two were

  busy killing each other,” Jake observed.

  “Well, you want to take time to bury them?” Tous-

  saint said squatting on his heels outside the cabin af-

  ter they had a look around.

  “No,” Jake said after several moments of thinking

  about it. “I’d rather get on the trail of the woman.”

  “Just leave them then?”

  “Wouldn’t be quite right to do that, either. Wolves

  would come, badgers, coyotes, birds would come eat

  their eyes out.”

  “Well, hell. What then?”

  Jake went back in the cabin and came back out a

  few moments later. Toussaint could see smoke start-

  ing to curl through the open windows. He knew then

  Jake had set the place afire. It wouldn’t be any sort of

  great loss.

  “It’s the best,” Jake said as the first flames licked at

  the walls then ate through the dry shake shingles of

  the roof.

  “Seems somehow fitting,” Toussaint said.

  They watched until the roof collapsed and sent a

  shower of sparks rising orange against the smudged

  sky.

  “Mount up,” Jake said.

  “Where you think she is?” Toussaint said, stepping

  into the stirrups.

  “That’s what we need to find out.”

  They started searching for sign by riding a loop

  outward from the cabin. There wasn’t much sign to

  be cut, but then Toussaint saw where the grass was

  knocked down just a little like someone had ran

  through it and they followed that for a time until they

  found a piece of torn cloth not much more than the

  length of a finger—gingham.

  “She’s heading this way,” he said.

  “Back toward town,” Jake said, “hell, she might

  even be there by now.

  “Town’s still a long way.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “Let’s pick her up.”

  Big Belly saw the horses. Three nice-looking saddle

  horses. Looked like they were just out there eating the

  grass waiting for someone to come along and take

  them. Sometimes the Great Spirit provided unex-

  pected gifts to his favorite people. Big Belly squatted

  there in the grass just about eye level watching those

  horses. He didn’t want to be seen in case those horses

  had owners around somewhere. Most horses did have

  owners, though some got away from their owners still

  wearing saddles like the three he could see. Might be