Killing Mr. Sunday

by Bill Brooks

  creaked.

  He waited a moment, then slipped inside.

  If anyone was in there they weren’t saying any-

  thing, they weren’t moving. He waited for his eyes to

  adjust, then found a lamp, raised the chimney, struck

  a match and put it to the wick. The soft yellow light

  filled as much of the room as it could.

  “Karen,” he called.

  First nobody answered. Then he heard it: soft little

  sounds like a kitten mewing coming from the bed-

  room. He leaned the shotgun against the wall and

  took up the lamp and walked over to the doorway of

  the room.

  She was there, still tied to the bed.

  “Goddamn,” he muttered.

  Three of them on two horses. The going was slow.

  They’d headed out around noon, having gotten all

  they wanted from the woman, having eaten her little

  bit of food and gone through her things and found a

  few pieces of jewelry, a couple of knives, the Sharps,

  and the needlegun she’d tried to shoot them with.

  Zack wanted to take a tintype of her. It showed her

  and a man together, obviously taken in a photogra-

  pher’s studio, but Zeb said, “What the hell you want

  that for?”

  “So’s I can remember what she looks like.”

  “Why the hell you want to remember what she

  looks like? Ain’t you seen enough of her already?”

  Zane felt ashamed and didn’t say anything. He hadn’t

  wanted to be a part of it. Not that way. When it came

  his turn, Zeb told him to climb aboard. He’d said no,

  that it was okay, he didn’t need no turn with her.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “ ’Cause I don’t, is all.”

  He remembered the look he’d gotten from his eld-

  est brother, and the look his other brother gave him.

  “It’s just the way it is, is all,” Zack said. “Go on

  and have your turn.”

  “No, I don’t need no guddamn turn!”

  That’s when Zeb drew his revolver and put it to his

  forehead and said, “You’ll by gud take a turn or you

  won’t be riding no farther than this here. This here is

  where you’ll end up for the rest of all time. We’re ei-

  ther all in it together, or we ain’t. Those who ain’t

  stays here.”

  Zack tried to intervene saying, “Ah hell, Zeb, it

  ain’t nothing if he don’t want a turn.”

  Zeb levered the hammer back with his thumb. So

  Zane did what he hadn’t wanted to do and the whole

  time the brothers stood there watching silent. He said

  it was hard for him to get anything going with them

  standing there watching. They laughed and drifted

  out into the other room. The woman hadn’t said any-

  thing, had long before stopped her cursing them and

  begging them and just lay there silent the whole time

  and he felt like God himself was watching him even if

  his brothers no longer were.

  He lay there beside her for a moment, then sat up

  on the side of the bed and said without looking at her,

  “I’m sorry for what they did. I couldn’t stop them.

  And if they come in and ask, you tell them I did what

  they wanted me to do or else they might kill you and

  me, too. You understand that, lady?”

  He looked at her to see if she understood, but she

  simply stared at him. He waited a few minutes longer

  then went out where the others were sitting around

  the table.

  Zeb said, “That sure didn’t take no time, boy. You

  sure are quick on the trigger.” And he thought Zack

  might laugh or something, but he didn’t say a thing.

  They left her tied up to the bed like and began rum-

  maging through her things, the cupboards and an old

  trunk where they found some men’s clothes and

  changed out of their still-wet shirts into the dry ones

  they found. The shirts were all too big for them.

  “She must have a husband,” Zack said trying on a

  dry shirt.

  “Big son of a bitch,” Zeb said, “by the looks of it.”

  Zane kept thinking of her lying in there and said fi-

  nally, “I ought to go and put a blanket over her, it’s

  terrible cold and wet.”

  “Go ahead, little sister,” Zeb said sarcastically.

  He went in there and she had her eyes on him like

  a wild creature trapped in a corner and he put his fin-

  ger to his lips and said softly, “Don’t fear. I just aim

  to put a blanket over you, is all.” And he took up one

  of the blankets that had fallen or been tossed on the

  floor and laid it over her and she never said anything

  except he could hear little wet sounds coming from

  the back of her throat and from her nose that had still

  some blood leaking from it.

  He tried not to look at her nakedness when he put

  the blanket over her.

  “I’m sorry this all happened,” he said.

  He started to leave but then he realized she was

  trying to say something. He was worried Zeb would

  come in and finish her. He shook his head and put his

  finger to his lips again warning her to be quiet. But

  she was trying to say something and so he came closer

  to the bed again and leaned down, his ear near her

  mouth and said, “What is it?”

  And she said, in a wet raw whisper: “Kill me.”

  He pulled back from her as though she’d bit him.

  “Please,” he said. “Please be quiet.”

  She mouthed the words again and her eyes went

  soft this time and he could see tears leaking from

  them down the sides of her face and she said it once

  more, her voice a rasp, and he turned and went out of

  the room where his siblings now sat around the table

  eating beans out of cans they’d opened.

  “You in there taking another turn, wasn’t you?”

  Zeb said. He had a rough growth of dark beard and

  his teeth were crooked in front and yellow as hard

  corn and he looked like he had a rodent’s mouth

  when he talked.

  “I just put a blanket on her, is all,” he said and sat

  down at the table and took a spoon and started eating

  beans from a can, too.

  “I’m thinking we ought to finish her,” Zeb said.

  “Thing like this could get us hanged.”

  “We shouldn’t have done it all,” Zane said.

  Their eyes met, held.

  “Who died and left you in charge of things is what

  I want to know?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Then keep your damn mouth shut.”

  They ate the rest of the beans and some salt pork

  they found, then they took a half jar of clover honey

  they found and leaked it onto slices of hardtack and

  ate that, too, Zeb taking his time. The others sat ner-

  vously awaiting his orders.

  “Well, that’s it, then,” he said, finally standing

  from the table.

  “What’s it?” Zack said.

  “Go on in there and do her,” Zeb said.

  Zack held up his hands.

  “You ain’t got the stomach for it, do you?”

  “No sir, I ain�
��t.”

  “Well, we know this one here ain’t, either,” Zeb

  said pointing at Zane. “I might as well get you girls

  some dresses and poke bonnets to wear.”

  Neither of the younger brothers spoke.

  “I guess the old man’s juice got weak after he had

  me,” he said. “I guess what he put into the old

  woman later was nothing but weak juice and out

  come you two.”

  He turned toward the bedroom door.

  Zane said, “Don’t do it, Zeb. Don’t go in there.”

  And when Zeb turned around to look at him, Zane

  had that Smith & Wesson .44 single action with the

  hardwood grips pointed at him. He held it steady, too.

  Zane hadn’t planned on pulling his piece on his

  brother. He hadn’t even thought about it. It was just

  there in his hand next thing he knew. And he knew

  something more: that if he had to, he’d pull the trigger

  because of the way he was feeling about the woman,

  what he’d helped do to her. He’d just as soon beat a

  puppy to death with a stick as to have to watch any-

  thing more done to her. He was about sick to his

  stomach over it.

  Zeb was smart enough to know it as well. He seen

  something in his brother’s eyes he hadn’t ever seen

  there before and he said, “Looks like you done got off

  the sugar tit, boy, and got you some backbone,” then

  turned and walked outside and began to saddle one of

  the two horses in the corral. A little bay.

  And Zane and Zack walked outside and saddled

  the other horse. And as they turned them out, Zeb

  said to his kid brother, “Don’t ever pull a gun on me

  again or one of us will be dead as guddamn Moses.”

  *

  *

  *

  She heard them ride away and then she wept so hard

  her entire body shook. And she wept so hard and so

  long she exhausted herself and fell into a welcome

  sleep and did not awaken again until it was dark

  when she heard a noise, and the fear of them return-

  ing flooded back into her again and she thought, no,

  this can’t happen again.

  She heard someone call her name. She wasn’t sure

  that she wasn’t dreaming. Then there was a light in

  the doorway, and the shape of a man behind the light

  and she cried out, only no words came out of her. It

  came to her that maybe she was dead and that this

  was hell; that hell was a place where every moment

  was a repeat of what you feared the most.

  But then the light came closer and she saw some-

  thing familiar in the shadowy features of the man

  whose face came down close to hers and the man said,

  “Karen,” in such a soft and gentle way that she

  couldn’t be sure it wasn’t God.

  He cut loose the ropes that held her wrists and an-

  kles and touched her face with his hands and kept

  talking to her and stroking her hair. He was so gentle

  with her that she wanted to cry but she’d cried all the

  tears that were in her already and all she could do was

  tremble whenever he touched her until he drew her

  close to him and held her there.

  They stayed like that the rest of the night. She fell

  asleep with him holding her and he was still holding

  her when she opened her eyes to the light that fell in

  through the windows. It seemed to her like a dream

  she was in; the room and everything in it a bit blurry

  and Toussaint there with her, like she’d remembered

  him when things were at their best between them.

  Toussaint had his eyes closed, sitting there on the

  bed next to her, holding her, and when she went to

  move he awakened and said, “You okay?” He looked

  startled, ready to do something.

  She tried to speak but her throat was dry, felt like

  it was stuck and had a bitter metallic taste in it she

  recognized as blood. He touched her face, her hair,

  and eased himself free from her and went out and

  came back again with a dipper of water and gave it to

  her to drink and it tasted like pure heaven that cold

  water.

  She wanted to tell him what had happened, but

  when she tried he said, “Shh . . . not yet. There’s

  plenty of time,” and went and heated water and

  hauled out the copper tub from the summer kitchen

  and filled it full, then carried her to it and set her

  down in it an inch at a time letting her adjust to its

  heat.

  And when she was fully set down in it, he took a

  bar of soap and gently began to wash her using his

  hands in small soft circles over her until he’d washed

  every inch of her, then he washed her hair and rinsed

  it. Then he said, “Just sit there for a time,” and went

  and brewed peppermint tea from a tin she had setting

  on a shelf—wild peppermint she’d picked in the

  spring and dried. He poured her a cup and brought it

  to her. He left again as she sipped the tea and came

  back and sat beside her, sitting on the floor, his hand

  dangling in the water, rising to touch her shoulder,

  her still-wet hair.

  In a little while, he took a towel and dried her hair,

  then lifted her from the water and wrapped her in a

  blanket and carried her to the bed. He’d gone in and

  changed the old bedding and put on fresh and straight-

  ened the room so that it was like it was before the men

  had come. He kissed her forehead and left for a time

  and came back again with a glass jar full of the last

  wildflowers that could be found before winter fully set

  in and placed them on the nightstand next to her bed.

  They smelled like the prairie.

  “You’ll be okay,” he said, looking directly into her

  eyes.

  “They came in the night . . .” she whispered.

  He touched his fingers to her lips.

  “Plenty of time to talk about it later on,” he said.

  “Right now you should just rest.”

  He started to take his hand away but she held

  onto it.

  She knew he was anxious to go and she knew why

  he was.

  “Don’t go,” she said. “Don’t leave me.”

  “No,” he said. “I won’t leave you.”

  He sat with her until she fell asleep, then he went

  into the other room and made himself a pot of coffee

  and wished he had a little whiskey to go in it, for his

  nerves were about as frayed as they ever had been. He

  couldn’t get the sight of the bruises he’d seen on her

  out of his mind or what they must have done to her

  for her to suffer bruises like that.

  He didn’t know how he was going to get her be-

  yond this thing that happened to her. He knew she

  was tough, but what woman was so tough she could

  get over a thing like this? He didn’t know how he was

  going to get himself beyond this thing.

  Ultimately he told himself, he’d find the ones who

  did this to her and kill them. But it wasn’t anger that

  filled him at this very moment as much as it was

&n
bsp; grieving for her.

  He went and stood at the window and watched the

  gray light come over the land. Winter had already be-

  gun its slow steady march on the land. There would

  be occasional warm days, but soon enough the snow

  would lay like a thick white blanket over everything

  and the creeks would look black running through it,

  and silence would be everywhere. Time would come

  to a long halt.

  It might be a good time for her to get over what

  happened to her: when things were slow and quiet.

  He saw the gravestone of his son and knew now

  why Karen had him dig the grave where it was—so

  she could see it from her kitchen window. He sipped

  the coffee and watched the light grow and spread over

  everything. He wasn’t worried about finding the men

  who hurt Karen. He’d find them sooner or later and

  they’d be lucky to be laid down in graves marked by a

  stone, or that anyone would care to visit and remem-

  ber them by.

  Such men did not garner favor.

  “She said town was this way, right?” Zack said after

  they’d been riding two hours.

  They came to a creek that ran deep and green and

  looked like a place that had fish in it. Zeb rode the lit-

  tle horse and Zack and Zane doubled on the larger one.

  “That’s what she said,” Zeb replied as they reined

  in and allowed the horses to drink.

  They stood around, each with his own thoughts,

  Zane wishing it had never happened. He had a sense

  of himself that didn’t fit with the others. Zeb was fox

  smart and Zack was just Zack, dumb as a box of old

  Mexican pesos and would go along with anything

  Zeb told him to. And he mostly did as well, except

  for this last thing. It was like it wasn’t happening so

  much to her, what they were doing to her, as it was to

  him. The way she fought them at first was one thing,

  but when she suddenly just gave up and quit fighting,

  that took all the heart out of him to see her like that

  and to see his brothers set upon her anyway. It was

  the worse thing he’d ever been part of.

  He stood there looking down in the creek water

  and saw his reflection in it staring back up at him

  only the reflection was darker and he couldn’t see his

  eyes and it troubled him he couldn’t see his eyes.

  He heard his brothers talking about the woman.

  He walked off far enough so he couldn’t hear what

  they were saying. And when Zeb called to him asking

  where he was going, he said, “I need to squat off in