Caroline has just measured the coffee and put it to brew when she notices an envelope with Susan’s sprawling handwriting sitting on the kitchen table next to Eldon’s newspaper. She tears it open and sits down to read.
September 21, 1957
Dear Caroline,
I’m sorry I was so evasive when you phoned but I couldn’t be sure my neighbour wasn’t standing in her door, eavesdropping on our conversation. I suppose you’re curious about John, so here goes. I caught a glimpse of him on campus one day at the start of the semester. He looked terrible, pale and gaunt, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a perverse sort of pleasure seeing him like that. Needless to say, I dropped his class and enrolled in another. Etta was waiting for me outside class one day and we went to the cafeteria for tea. She told me that before classes began she met with John’s wife (a very sweet girl, she said, and nothing like the sort of harridan she expected) and told her about the lengthy affair she and John had been having. She also told her John was involved with a second girl, although she didn’t mention me by name. Etta didn’t know what came of her revelation, but I can’t imagine it’s good.
I’m better now. I’m so glad you and Alice convinced me to face up to John and carry on with school. How are you? Dad told me harvest has been on hold because of the rain. I hope you were able to get finished. Thank you again for being such a good friend and being there for me when I was home. You and Alice are the dearest friends anyone could ask for. I won’t be home for Thanksgiving, but plan to make it back sometime before Christmas. Hope to see you then.
Yours,
Susan
Caroline tucks the letter back into the envelope, tears stinging her eyes as she thinks about Susan, and she blinks them away when Eldon comes into the kitchen, pulling his suspenders over his shoulders.
“I see you found your letter. It was hidden between the pages of the classified ads. I didn’t notice it there until last night when I was reading the paper.”
Caroline gets out a pan and adds a sliver of butter, considering the possibility he’s kept the letter from her by hiding it himself; it’s been at least two weeks since it must have arrived and it’s unlikely the letter wiggled in between the back pages of the Co-operator by itself.
You’re not the only one capable of deception, she thinks. She’s hidden her own letters — ones she’s written and addressed to Susan and Alice explaining the reasons she’s leaving and begging for the girls’ forgiveness — in an old trunk in the attic. They are stamped and ready to post tomorrow before she and Nick leave for Alberta.
“What’s new with Susan?” asks Eldon, tapping his foot against the leg of the table as Caroline scurries between the stove and the table, setting the plates while keeping an eye on his egg sizzling in the pan. “I hope I don’t have to haul you all the way out to the Wawryks’ to see her again. She should be in better spirits by now, you’d think,” he says sarcastically.
“She’s back in school so you don’t need to concern yourself,” says Caroline curtly and pours him a cup of steaming coffee. Eldon complained both times Caroline asked him to drive her to Susan’s in August, acting as though doing her that small favour was a major imposition on his busy life. “She missed coming home for Thanksgiving but she’ll be here this weekend so we’re planning to meet at Alice’s on Saturday afternoon,” she adds.
The lie tumbles out as easily as the rest of the stories she’s made up since she met Nick; the truth is she’s not likely to see Alice and Susan again for a very long time, if ever, and it pains her to abandon her two best friends in the world. She’s leaving tomorrow at midnight, meeting Nick a mile down the road where he’ll be waiting in his truck in the moonlight. It should be her father she’ll miss most, but she won’t; she’ll never forgive him for tricking her into trading her freedom for a piece of land. He’s bound to be furious when he finds out she’s run off and he’s sure to take Eldon’s side, although she can’t help but wonder how civil they’ll be to one another when it comes to discussing the fate of Beulah’s land.
She fretted for days about leaving Sport behind, imagining him cowering under the table when Eldon discovers her betrayal. When she told Nick, he insisted they take the dog along. She threw her arms around his neck, both crying and laughing with joy, picturing Sport on the open road with his head out the truck window, ears flying in the wind, the three of them together heading off to a life she never would have dreamed possible six short months ago.
“Bert and I are bringing the cows and calves in from the north pasture this afternoon. Can you make an early lunch?” Eldon asks.
“Of course,” Caroline answers quickly. “What time?” She’s planning to meet Nick one final time at the tree this afternoon to go over the last-minute details and she’s relieved to know Eldon will be out of the yard.
She has an hour before she has to meet Nick so she digs her battered old suitcase out of the attic and stops at the bathroom for a damp cloth to wipe off the dust. In the mirrored medicine chest over the sink she catches sight of herself — her untamed hair, the ripe flush on her cheeks — and she tells herself it’s true what Betty Cornforth said: she does appear to be glowing. She is running water over the cloth, looking at the calendar tacked next to the mirror, when another thought nudges into the edge of her mind. It occurs to her that her monthly hasn’t yet arrived, and she’s never been late. Heaven knows, she’s been jumpy as a wet cat since she and Nick put their plan in motion, all that nervous tension, worrying that somehow Eldon or Elvina would read her guilty mind and their plot would be discovered. But could it be? She falls to her knees, rifling through the trash basket for the torn-off calendar page for September. There they are; bold black F’s marking her most fertile days, and the night she spent with Nick on the porch is among them. Could it really be? Her knees are too weak to stand as a tremor of hope threads its way through her and she folds up September with its magical F’s and slips it into her breast pocket to show Nick.
A gust of wind snatches the door and whips it out of Caroline’s hand as she steps out on the porch. Yesterday, leaves in hues of ochre and crimson and copper still dressed the trees, but the blustery north wind has stripped the branches bare during the night and fallen leaves skitter like mice across the yard. There is a light dusting of snow in the clefts left behind in the flower bed where she’s pulled out the bachelor’s buttons and love-in-the-mist and there is a sharp bite to the air. She goes back inside and digs deep in the closet for mitts and a knitted hat before she sets out, her head bent to the wind.
She looks around the yard, wondering where Sport could be, but there is no sign of him, no sign of life at all except for sparrows tittering on the hydro wire and a few daring hens strutting about near the coop. “Sport! Here, boy,” she calls and he doesn’t come bounding up like he usually does. Thinking it odd, she resumes her brisk pace.
Nick is not there when she gets to the tree. She waits for an hour, her toes numb in her shoes, and she wishes Sport were curled up next to her, his warm body cutting the wind. She can’t imagine where Nick could be. He had a couple of errands to run that should have taken an hour — clearing the scant bit of money out of his bank account and leaving the title to Carl Morgan’s land with Fred Dunbar, the lawyer in town. Last week he loaded up and delivered six of his best heifers to a farmer from Locklin, pocketing the cash to hold them over until he secured a job and they found somewhere to live. He would send his mother a letter once they were settled; his face twisted with anguish when he told Caroline he couldn’t yet bring himself to tell her why he was turning his back on the farm and the family. He would send Fred Dunbar a letter, too, permitting Anton to sell his land and the rest of his stock. Nick reassured her that Anton would send the money on and never disclose their whereabouts to Eldon, no matter how much he threatened. Caroline can only imagine the ill will between them when Eldon discovers Anton’s complicity in their plan.
Caroline finally grows tired of waiting and heads home. Their plans are clear enough; she will meet Nick on the road at midnight tomorrow. Her news about the baby will have to wait until they’re headed west. Maybe she’ll wait to tell him until they’re settled in bed at the first motel. She can’t wait to see his face, the delight and joy in his eyes when he learns he’s going to be a father.
Feathers, like hundreds of tiny, rustling flags of surrender, are strewn around the yard amid the bodies of battered, bloodied hens when Caroline gets home. Some are still alive, squawking pitifully, dragging torn wings along the blood-soaked ground. Eldon’s truck is parked near the chicken coop, the door wide open, and Caroline runs across the yard to find him inside the fence, wringing the fragile neck of each dying bird before throwing it onto a pile.
“Where the hell have you been?” he shouts when he sees her.
“I … I went for a walk,” she stammers.
“Where’d you walk? All the way to town? Couldn’t you hear the racket of this bloody slaughter? Wait until I get my hands on your fucking dog!”
“What do you mean?” She assumed the destruction in the yard was the work of the stealthy pack, gone now after they’d had their fill of chasing and killing.
“Just what I said,” Eldon snaps. “It was Sport and half a dozen others, with a shepherd like Bilyk’s at the head of the pack. I saw them tear out of the yard when I drove up.”
“It can’t be,” Caroline cries. “He would never do something like this. He’s never bothered the hens, never shown any interest in them at all.”
“He would and he did. I saw him myself. Dropped the bird like it was a burning stick when he saw me jump out of the truck.”
“I don’t believe you! Sport! Come, boy. Sport?” She looks helplessly around the yard, expecting to see him bounding toward her from the other side of the barn.
“He ran off with the others,” Eldon says. “He’ll be damn sorry, too, when and if he ever comes home. There’ll be a bullet with his name on it, waiting for him.” He strides away, leaving her with the carnage. Already, blue-black flies buzz around the dead birds and a pair of turkey vultures circle in the sky. She cannot bring herself to lay her hands on the flopping birds so she finds a sledgehammer in Eldon’s shop and drags it out to the yard. A screaming hen with a severed foot looks up at her with a beseeching eye before she lifts the hammer and swings. Raw, ripe blood spatters her white canvas shoes.
Her mind is numb, a frozen wasteland, as she goes about her task, silencing the birds one by one. She cannot believe Sport had a part in this. He isn’t accustomed to other dogs and he must have been surprised when they showed up, barking at them at first, trying to act fierce and in charge before following after them, sniffing and circling, as they roamed about the yard. The gate to the chicken fence was open and a few hens were out, she’d seen them herself before she left. When the dogs flushed the other hens out of the pen and started to chase them, Sport was likely to follow along, thinking it a game, gambolling next to the others, nipping and yapping, with no ill intent. He couldn’t have known what the dogs were going to do. It was a one-time mistake; she must convince Eldon of that.
Soon it is over, the yard now still except for the odd call from the circling vultures, and she returns to the house, wishing she had a wood stove like her mother’s with a greedy fire inside so she could burn her blood-soaked shoes. She leaves them by the door and washes her hands then washes them again, scrubbing with a brush under her nails. She can’t rid herself of the stench of fresh blood or the sticky feel of it under her feet.
The next morning, Eldon’s rifle is leaning against the wall by the door, the stock resting on Sport’s rug. Sport still wasn’t home when Caroline went to bed. She searched the yard after supper, looking under the granaries and in each of the stalls in the barn, hoping to find him. Wherever he was, he was afraid to come home, knowing he’d done wrong, but what he couldn’t know was that Caroline would forgive him, that no mistake he made was too great to absolve. She wants him to be safe from Eldon’s rage, but she needs him to come home. She’ll do her best to protect him for the rest of the day, hide him somewhere if she has to; there’s no way she’ll leave tonight without him.
She was awakened during the night by Eldon prowling around downstairs, opening and closing doors, taking no care at all to be quiet for her sake. She could not fall asleep again, thinking about the eventful day ahead and about Sport, alone and afraid somewhere in the dark. She thought about the final visit she planned to make to lay the last chrysanthemums from her garden on her mother’s grave. It is one of her greatest regrets, knowing the gravestone will be left untended when she goes away. Quack grass and thistles will sprout up around the cold granite stone and grow tall enough to eventually obscure her mother’s name. That’s what troubles her most, thinking her sweet and gentle mother might be forgotten once Caroline’s gone.
Eldon comes in from outside, digs a box of shells out of the closet and throws it on the table then reaches for the gun.
“Where are you going with that? Did Sport come back?” She runs to the door and looks out. “You can’t shoot him for this one mistake. I won’t let you.”
Eldon drops a shell in the chamber and cocks it. “It’s that dog of Bilyk’s that’s the ringleader. The other dogs, Jip and Sport included, are just following along. You said so yourself. If Bilyk had put him down after Howard’s heifer was killed, the other calves and our chickens would still be alive. I’m going over there to make it right.”
“You can’t just drive into their yard and kill their dog!”
“Just watch me. I’ll walk into their kitchen if I have to and drop that dog right where he stands,” Eldon says, clenching his jaw so tightly a thick blue vein bulges on his temple next to his eye. He’s been stewing over this all night, Caroline thinks, and it’s burrowed into him like a tick under his skin. He thinks he’s been wronged by Anton Bilyk and he can’t let that happen. Eldon Webb does not lose.
“I’m going with you,” Caroline says, opening the closet and pulling out her coat “You’ll go nowhere near their house, raving like a lunatic, waving that gun around. She has children, for God’s sake. If you have a bone to pick with Anton, you’ll do it out in the yard.”
“You’ll stay right here at home where you ought to.” Eldon props the rifle up on his shoulder as casually as if he’s off to shoot gophers in the pasture. “This is business I’m discussing with Bilyk and no wife of mine is meddling in my affairs.”
Caroline races for the door, skirting around him, and she feels her blouse jerk off her shoulder, hears the split of a seam when he lunges, but he is unable to stop her. She runs to the truck, pulling on her coat, and clambers in. She has to go with him so she can communicate to Nick in some way. He’s sure to think Eldon has discovered their secret when he sees him stalking across the yard with the gun. She feels a gut-wrenching danger tumbling toward her as she pictures Nick half running across the yard to confront him.
Eldon yanks open her door, grabs hold of her arm. “You’re not coming with me. Now get out of my truck.”
“I won’t!” Caroline braces her feet on the floorboards and presses her back to the seat. She feels something rise up, a match that’s struck and lit up inside her, and when Eldon leans in, she strikes out with her fist.
She half expects Eldon to lash out but he is stunned, his eyes wide, shocked at the nerve of her, or maybe she hit him just right and she’s punched out his air. “Have it your way. I’m not about to drag you out,” he growls.
Scant drops of rain spatter the windshield then turn into pellets of sleet on their way over. Howard Cornforth’s truck is parked close to Anton’s house and beside it is a black car Caroline has never seen before. No one is out in the yard, the barn door is closed. No wild barking, no lunging dog at the end of a chain.
“What are you going to do?” Caroline asks.
Eldon is staring at Anton’s front door as if he’s reconsidering his plan. Caroline’s eyes slide over to the other house under the bare-limbed maple and she wonders if Nick is inside. Her world seems to be twisting apart, changing direction, and she feels as though she’s lost her place, skipped over a page in the book of her life. She doesn’t know what she’s doing here, how it’s come to this, sitting in Nick’s yard with Eldon and a gun, and she needs to see him, if only for a moment, to ground her again.
“Going in to talk to Bilyk like I planned,” Eldon says, reaching for the gun.
Caroline grabs his hand, stills it. “Leave it.”
Eldon grunts, an acknowledgement of sorts, and takes his hand off the barrel.
“I’m coming with you.” There’s a chance Nick might be in the house and she wants to let him know, if only with her eyes, that everything’s all right; she’ll be waiting for him at midnight like they planned.
Eldon grunts again. “Suit yourself. I can’t very well stop you but you’re not to speak. Not a word. This is between Bilyk and me.”
It is Betty Cornforth who answers the door. “Oh, you’ve heard,” she barely whispers when they step inside. “I meant to phone you but it was so early. It was Millie Tupper who let me know. Phone ringing at six in the morning, I just knew it had to be bad news. He passed on shortly before midnight, Millie said. Lay eight hours on that hillside before he was found. Such a shock for someone so young,” she says, shaking her head. “Howard always said it was too dangerous to plough up those steep hills.”
Caroline feels the room begin to spin — too warm, too bright — and she braces one arm against the door jamb. A simple question is pinging off the edges of her mind; she has to ask it but she can’t compel her lips to form the puckered O, can’t force her lungs to exhale that faint puff of air.
And then Anna appears in the doorway, dead-looking eyes in her ashen face. Little Jack is hefted up on her shoulder, too big to be carried, but whimpering nevertheless into a pale blue blanket, and Caroline thinks please, please, let it be Anton, let this agony, this razor slicing my heart be Anna’s burden and not mine to bear but then Anton is standing behind her, his huge calloused hand weighing down Anna’s narrow shoulder, and Caroline tastes bile at the back of her throat and a moan rises up from the pocket of her soul but she holds it inside. She doesn’t need to ask her simple question, who, because she already knows.