But Ida discovered it wasn’t that easy to push Henry away. He’d wakened her physical self and abruptly gone off, leaving behind an ache like a phantom limb. Add to that, she’d finally begun work on his father’s portrait and was forced to spend a portion of each day staring at another kind of phantom. She’d set out her supplies and mapped out her canvas, the haze of apple trees in the distance, the single gnarled trunk in the foreground, the man leaning against the tree, so utterly comfortable in his skin. The hand hooked on his belt conveyed an air of knowing just what to do with it next; the arm propped against the tree looked both strong and relaxed; the eyes linked to an intimate half-smile aimed at the painter. Or, rather, the photographer. And yet the eyes Ida painted were the eyes that had gazed down on her at Makonikey.
Ida tried again to push Henry away but in his place marched the investigator. Why had he wanted to see the house? What did he think he’d find? The gold came first to Ida’s mind. If it was stolen, and this investigator had somehow gotten wind of it . . . but why an investigator and not the law? Why was the constable held out as a threat only as a last resort? It made no sense to Ida, but sense or not, the man wanted something.
Ida began to look, searching all the hollow places she could access, but other than a dead mouse, an embarrassing array of cobwebs, and some whiskey bottles so frosted with dust they surely predated Ezra, she discovered nothing. She went through Ezra’s desk again but found nothing that she could possibly imagine meant anything beyond that card from the assayer of gold. That, and the keys to the buildings on Main Street: office, warehouse, apartment. If the investigator had attempted to call at the office he’d have found no one there, but that didn’t mean whatever he was looking for wasn’t there. Ida pocketed the keys and mounted her bicycle.
The building in its emptiness felt desolate, cold. Henry had done some clearing out, and while it helped that the floor was no longer piled with pieces of old chain, lanterns, and spittoons, it did nothing to cut through the desolation. She began by unlocking the desk drawer but slammed it shut when someone came down the stairs.
“I thought I heard something,” the woman said. “A rat, I presumed. What are you doing here?”
It took Ida a full five seconds. The person. The place. The person in the place. The person with Henry’s keys jingling in her fingers. Either a trick of the light or a trick of the mind made Perry Barstow’s hair seem more brilliant, her skin more luminous. Even her voice sounded more knifelike.
Ida took a final second to make sure her own voice came out strong. Cool. It was the voice she used to call up in the face of any verbal assault from Ezra. Not that there was any assault here. “Shouldn’t that question more logically be directed at you?”
Perry walked over to where Ida had left the bicycle leaning against the wall. She ran her hand over the seat, lifted it, wiped it on her skirt. “Henry told me he lent you my bicycle.”
“I understood you wouldn’t miss it. I was told you’d . . . gone off it.”
Perry Barstow laughed. “That does sound like Henry. Gone off. Like a bad piece of meat. No matter. I gave up riding the thing once I saw what it did to my calves.”
“What are you doing here?”
Perry Barstow looked down at the desk and picked up the pens, one at a time. “Henry and I have come to something of an understanding. I’m here to collect a few of his things.”
“He’s not here?”
“Heavens, no. He’s at home with our girls.” The woman looked harder at Ida. Henry had labeled his wife’s eyes emotionless, but Ida saw enough in them to burn a hole through the desk. She turned for the door.
“Wait!” Perry Barstow called after her. “I remember now, you’re that artist. The one Henry admired.”
Idiotically, Ida flushed, not over anything she’d done or said but over the fact that even this empty-eyed woman had noticed in her husband’s eyes or heard in her husband’s words his admiration for Ida. No, not Ida, she corrected herself. Ida’s painting. She mustn’t mistake the two. But at least that admiration had been real, then, had been visible to another besides Ida, or even more disconcerting, perhaps Henry had actually mentioned his admiration to his wife. But when? Then? Now?
“I am that artist,” Ida said.
“I believe I spoke to you then about a portrait. Do you know, the more I think on it now, I think it a fine idea. I could sit for you while I’m here, a gift for my husband. He’s always wanted my portrait done.”
“I’m already working on a portrait for Mr. Barstow.”
“Oh, how lovely! May I see it? What photo did he give you? What have you put me in? I hope not white. I so hate a white gown. Like a shroud. Green is impressive against my hair. Or rather, my hair is impressive against green.” She laughed.
“I’m sorry,” Ida said. “I should have explained. The portrait I’m working on is of Mr. Barstow’s father.”
They stood eye to eye in silence, Ida unwilling to turn her back until she’d given the woman a fair chance to reply, the woman apparently unable to form one.
“I’d best go,” Ida said at last.
“Did you find what you were looking for? I wonder Henry hasn’t locked this place up. Oh well, I’ll do it for him before I go.” She jingled the keys in her hand. Henry’s keys.
“Thank you, then I won’t need to,” Ida said, holding up her own keys. Ezra’s keys. She jingled them much as Perry Barstow had done and stepped through the door.
Ida slept poorly, her head full of the flinty shards of Perry Barstow’s words. Something of an understanding . . . Home with our girls . . . A gift for my husband. In daylight Ida had managed to dismiss the words as those of a spiteful wife, one who would rip up her paper dolls rather than let another child play with them, but at night the words chimed in a different tone. Henry could have gone home, seen his girls, changed his mind, and come to “something of an understanding” with the girls’ mother; Ida could only imagine the pain of leaving his children behind. But even if all of that had happened, would the Henry Ida thought she knew and trusted send his wife to collect his things and never explain, never even say good-bye? Or was that desperate kiss in her kitchen his version of good-bye? She didn’t know.
But Ida knew Henry. Trusted Henry. Or did she? She tried to think back to the days when she’d felt she knew and trusted Ezra, but she could no longer remember what those days had felt like. And if she’d been fooled by Ezra, why not Henry? The same old mistake only played out with a different man. But was it the same old mistake? Ida thought back to that night at the Boston town house, at Ezra pushing his agenda for lying with Ida before they married, at Ezra overriding her objections. She thought of her bedroom the night she’d shown Henry the hiding place for the gold, of Ida’s pushing her agenda, of Henry standing her away. She thought of Makonikey and how again that had been Ida’s agenda, how Henry had even then been reluctant until she’d carried him too far along for any going back . . . In the dark, alone, Ida’s face burned.
A long time later—or so it seemed—Ida had almost fallen into sleep when beside her in the bed Bett went rigid, growled low in her throat, leaped to the floor. Over time Ida had stopped hearing noises but now she was instantly on guard again, although it took her a few seconds longer to hear what Bett heard—a commotion among the sheep. Ida raced to the window and through the moon dark saw what appeared to be the entire flock stampeding toward the gate, a dark arrow behind them, another in among them, bringing one of Ida’s flock violently to the ground.
Ida snatched up the canvas painter’s duster she’d draped over the door, barreled down the stairs, grabbed the rifle, and called Lem. “Something’s got into the sheep.” She hung up, thrust her feet into her boots, grabbed the lantern, and raced to the door. Bett was ahead of her, waiting.
Once outside, the sounds crashed on Ida’s ears: Bett’s primal howl; a sheep’s squeal of terror and pain. She opened the gate and let Bett through; in quick succession three stray dogs rounded on her, snarling, but Bett gave no ground, and Ida was about to call her off—better a dead sheep than a dead dog—when Lem pounded up the track on his horse and dropped to the ground, shotgun in hand.
“Dogs!” Ida cried.
Lem lifted the gun to his shoulder and fired; one of the dogs yelped and stumbled as he attempted to leap over the wall, but two others cleared it and made for the trees. Lem vaulted after them; Ida heard two more shots, then silence. She held the lantern high and inventoried the carnage at her feet. One lamb dead, two bloodied, a bloodied ewe.
Lem returned and between them they carried the injured lambs into the barn, the injured ewe trailing in stoic silence; Lem went back for the dead one, taking care to separate it from the living ones, but he needn’t have bothered; by the time he knelt to examine the wounded lambs they’d died too.
They sat in the kitchen, Lem stirring the fire, Ida putting on the kettle, setting out the cups. And the whiskey bottle.
Lem pointed. “This some kind of habit now?”
Ida ignored him. “Whose dogs were they?”
“Looked like Croft’s. He’s been told enough times not to let them run loose nights. I’ll be paying him a call in the morning.”
Ida fetched the kettle, but Lem had already filled his cup with whiskey; Ida poured herself some tea but left room. She pushed her cup toward Lem once, and when Lem hesitated, again. Lem dosed her.
“What I can’t figure is why Bett didn’t sound the alarm earlier, keep them off,” he said.
“Because she was inside, asleep on my bed.”
Lem gave Ida a long look. “Sheets too cold with him gone?”
Ida went to the sink, poured out her tea, picked up the whiskey bottle and filled her cup. She leaned across the table toward Lem. “This is a bad night following a bad day and I don’t need you at me about Henry Barstow.”
Lem raised his cup. Point taken. Ida slumped into her seat. “They got three lambs. This puts me over on the count.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to do this. I wanted to climb that hill to Ruth and say I’d done it. They were my responsibility and now—”
“And now you learned something, Ida. That’s how it works. Take the lesson, file it away, move on.” It was something Mr. Morris would have said. “What happened today that made it a bad one?” Lem looked at the clock. “Yesterday.”
Ida hesitated. She would admit to a smallness in her, a thing that hated to be wrong, that hated to admit when someone else was right. But there was another thing in her, growing stronger by the hour, that wanted everything out in the open and told straight, no hedging, no subterfuge, no deceit. Especially not with Lem. “I ran into Henry’s wife in town. She’d come to pick up some things for him.”
Lem drained his teacup and stood.
“Where are you going?”
“You’d rather I stay and tell you I told you so?”
“I’d rather you stay and—” What? What would she rather he do? Put his arms around her as she cried over those sheep much as she’d cried in Henry’s arms over her mother? She already regretted that; she wouldn’t want to regret the same thing twice.
But did she regret it? Ida flushed, thinking of Henry’s hands on her, a thing she found little desire to regret, but thinking of Henry at home with his daughters, thinking of those hands on his wife . . .
His wife. The place where his hands belonged. Still.
As if he were reading her mind Lem said, “The rules were written a long time ago, Ida. They were written for a reason. Don’t go thinking outside them and you’ll save yourself a lot of grief.”
Lem came by in the morning to check on the wounded ewe and offered Ida a ride up the hill to report to Ruth.
“I can walk up a hill.”
“I’m going up anyway, but trot alongside if you like.”
Ida got into the wagon. They rode the short distance in silence; Lem stopped at the side of the house by the back porch. “One word of advice. Ruth Pease was once a sheep farmer’s wife. Don’t tell her where that dog was.”
Ida looked sideways and saw Lem grinning. “Go on and get out or I’ll make you help me unload this wagon.”
Ida looked behind her and saw what she might have seen before: a bed full of cordwood.
“I’ll help.”
“No you won’t. Nothing gets easier for the waiting.”
But Ida slid out of the wagon and grabbed an armful of wood. Lem shook his head at her, but didn’t say anything else, so they worked side by side, crossing from the wagon to the back porch, stacking the wood outside the door. After the third trip Lem stopped and leaned against the porch rail, his breathing coming hard, or that was to say, harder than Ida’s.
“Getting old,” he said.
Ida leaned on the rail beside him. “Just how old is that, anyway?”
“Fifty-three come fall. If I live.” He grinned; pushed off the rail. “You go on inside, now. Ruth gets nastier as the day grows older.”
Ida rounded the corner and walked into Ruth’s kitchen. Without sitting down she told the old woman about the dead sheep. She told her she was over the count. She didn’t tell her about the dog.
“So, it will cost you,” Ruth said.
“I know that, Ruth.”
“Same as it will cost me.”
“I know that too.”
“So we share and share alike.” The idea seemed to please Ruth. She nodded, almost smiled. “You’ll stay till the livestock sale then, get me a good price, see if we can recoup. Now, are you going to sit down or are we done?”
“We’re done.”
Ruth peered at her. “Sit down. We’re not done.”
Ida sat, but on the edge of the chair. Ruth went to the stove and began to fuss with the teakettle; Ida saw no recourse but to wait on a cup of tea she didn’t want and suspected Ruth didn’t want to give, but what Ruth did want to give was a sundry collection of advice that kept Ida long past the time when Lem’s wagon rattled off down the track.
Ida walked back down the hill, looking out over the Sound, noting how it stretched out pale and calm in front, but how a dark line marked the farthest reaches at the horizon. She’d seen that line before—often, in fact. Perhaps that was the problem with Ida’s rendering of water—she’d forgotten about the dark line that always lurked in the distance.