“Tell me.”

One eye opened. “Then you’ll clear the hell out?”

“Tell me.”

The voice now was low, fired with a deep, anxious rasp. “They died all at once. Nobody was movin’ when we got in.”

“Go on.”

“The woman was on her stomach and the girl was under her left arm.”

“What color was their hair?”

“Damn it to hell, I can’t recollect that. Don’t you know?”

He got down on his knees and put the pistol on the edge of the blanket. “You’ve got to understand. That’s why I’m here. I never saw my mamma’s hair.”

Molton looked him in the eye. “It was brown,” he said. “Clean. And so was the little girl’s.”

“Where was the boy?”

“Agin the back door.”

“How was he dressed?”

The old man wet his lips. “I remember that. He had him on a new bandanna. A slug passed through it and broke his neck.” He looked up and focused. “He went quick, too, that one. Hardly any blood.”

“Broadcloth?”

“Striped broadcloth. We saw the loom out back.”

“My father?”

“He was the one we come to get.”

“Were you drinking?”

“Well, hell, yes. And I don’t guess we thought he was in there with nobody.”

“Where was he?”

He writhed. “I checked his damn eyeballs to make sure that one was dead. I remember he was startin’ to bald. Ain’t that picture enough for you?”

“Where was my father?”

“Dead agin the stove. We pulled him under a light, seen he was finished, then we rode off.” His eyes blinked and watered with the pain of telling.

Sam stood up and looked around at the filth in the room, at the walleyed son. He lowered the hammer on the pistol, knowing there was nothing he need do. The hog under the window, angry and wheezing, bumped against the house as if it wanted in for more slops.

“Where was you?” Molton asked, staring up now into Sam’s face.

He looked down at him and smiled.

“We saw a son-of-a-bitchin’ dog and heard a cat somewheres, but we didn’t see no baby. Where was you?”

He slipped the pistol into the hollow of his back. “I was somewhere biding my time. I didn’t know it, but I was already on my way to meet you.”

“Won’t worth the trip, was it?”

Sam’s eyes went from one man to the other. “I wouldn’t take a million dollars for it.”

Suddenly, the black hog scrabbled up against the house and put its hooves on the windowsill, its monstrous head filling the frame over the old man’s body. Sam backed away as Box gave it a punch in the snout, and it fell back with a splash.

The old man began to shiver. “Great day, don’t let him get me.”

Box wiped his hand on the blanket. “Shit, Daddy, he’s just a huntin’ slops.”

“Is that feller left yit?”

“Naw.”

Molton’s head turned toward the center of the room. “You think I’m goin’ to hell, don’t you?”

“I don’t know where you’re goin’. You already put yourself and others through a ton of hell.”

“I say I ain’t goin’ no place.”

Sam turned for the door. “Well, you’ll find out.”

The old man’s voice came out as a growl. “There ain’t nothing to find out.”

Sam stopped at the door and looked back into the room. “That’s the one thing nobody can avoid. One way or the other, when you die, there’s always something to find out.”

Chapter Thirty-nine

HE STOOD BEFORE the husk of Babe Cloat, still sitting in the yard like an effigy of his clan. “So long,” he called.

“Twelve of ’em,” Babe Cloat said, his eyes vacant. “And a boat.”

At the edge of the compound he turned and looked back. The Indian woman shuffled toward Molton’s shack, dragging a blanket through the dust. Within a year or two the houses would be eaten by weeds and insects. An inevitable flood would reclaim the drift lumber and wash clean the land of any sign. What would last, as some believed, would be the long mystical tally of terrible acts done by loveless hearts. He watched a long time, confirmed in his belief that punishing the Cloats would be a waste of good revenge, if that quality could ever be called good. He found the horse and mounted, riding west without a backward glance.

HE FIGURED he could make it back to Soner’s place by dark, and on the way he did visitation, examining the details he’d found out about his family until like seeds they began to sprout memories he never had, or would’ve had, and he was glad of that. “Anything more than nothing,” he said to the constable’s mare, “is something.”

HE WAS PUTTING the horse up when Soner came out with a lantern.

“Are you hurt?”

“Nope.”

The constable stared at him. “Then you didn’t find them.”

“Oh, I found them, all right.”

He raised the lantern high so Sam could replace the saddle on its board. “Then you must have killed them all, because I don’t see a bullet hole in you anywhere.”

“There’s not but one whole man back in there, and he’s about blind. Will be soon. You can start unloading your gun collection.”

Soner studied Sam’s face as if suspecting a lie. “You didn’t find the ones who killed your family?”

“Two of them were there.”

“You’re a fool if they’re still alive.”

“Well, then.”

Soner put down the lantern. “Come in and tell me about it. I’d appreciate it if you could spend another night.”

“I guess I’d appreciate it myself.” They began walking across the lot. Sam felt a lightness in his arms, as though finally he’d put down a weight he’d been carrying for years. Suddenly he stopped and turned toward Soner. “Say, did I catch sight of a piano in the front room, left of the stairs?”

“Yes. It was my wife’s. It hasn’t been played in years.”

“Fix me a sip of something, and I’ll let you hear some real music.”

He opened the door and motioned Sam in ahead of him. “Why, that’ll be fine. You’ll want a bite of food, too.”

Soner lit the table lamp and the men sat and talked over bread and ham and the contents of an old jug of wine.

When they were finished, he asked, “What brand of piano is it?”

“I forget, but it’s a good one. My wife…” his voice trailed off.

Sam stood up and stretched. “Let’s take a look, then.”

And later that night, a boy out on horseback could have seen all the constable’s windows yellow with light high up, where they weren’t boarded. He could’ve taken in the tinkling of an out-of-tune piano as if it were his first sip of fine bourbon. A little girl wandering home late from berry picking could have heard the music and wished she had a piano and the time to learn it. A husband and wife could have been passing through on a journey, lingering there to listen and grateful for the pianist’s fine technique. A murderer crouching in the wind-rattled weeds could have been distracted from his plans, envious of the good time.

Within an hour, the men were singing, their voices wavering and sailing across the empty land. It was something to hear, this sound of profound release. But out in that darkness, nobody heard, and this vacancy would go on forever, a painful void Sam would feel later that night as he came out onto the porch, emptiness falling like a schoolboy’s rock into the well of his heart.

THE NEXT MORNING he left the holstered pistol on the bed upstairs, had breakfast with Soner, then drove back to Helena. After turning in the muddy Ford, he walked down to the wharfboat. No upbound steamer was expected that day, and from his splintered desk inside the freight house door the agent asked him where he was going.

“Memphis.”

“And after that?”

“New Orleans.”