Dixon reined his horse to a halt a few feet from Mrs. Black. He saw the pastor leave her just moments before. Why did the man not escort her to the soddy? Not long now, and she’d have to cross that burnt ground in the dark. Surely it would frighten her. Yet, here she was singing, as though no tragedy had touched her life. “Mrs. Black.”
She opened her eyes. “Oh, Sergeant, I didn’t know you were there.” She smoothed her skirts. “I mean, I was just singing.”
“Yes ma’am. I never knew you had such a beautiful voice. Angelic, almost, and certainly moving.” He removed his gray Stetson. “It’s getting late …”
“I love this time of night. The heavens open up and reveal God’s splendor.” Her face glowed in the early evening light.
Dixon cleared his throat. He should be used to the Blacks saying such things, but it always knotted him up inside.
He dismounted. “Are you going to see Joab?”
Her shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. “Yes. It is time I moved past myself.” She touched his gauntlet. “I’m afraid I’ve been terribly selfish.”
“You’ve experienced great losses. No one would deny you the time to grieve in your own way.” He patted her hand, noting that she wore a pair of Mrs. Clumpit’s kid gloves.
“But I lost my focus.” A light shone from her eyes, like a torch at night, strong and dependable. “I forgot eternity.”
Eternity. He never gave it much thought. Was hard enough living in the here and now. Why should one worry about eternity?
She swept her delicate fingers through the air. “When I look at this prairie sky, with its millions of stars and endless depths, I think of eternity. There is no end up there. Each star leads to another, and then to another, and so on, without boundaries or walls. Death doesn’t exist there, in the universe. Instead, the dark lives with the light in an endless dance of rejoicing.”
Dixon pushed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The night only brought him fierce memories. How could anyone find joy in it? “Please, ride my horse. I’m on my way to the soddy as well.” The sooner the better.
“I’d rather walk, thank you.”
“Then I shall walk as well.” He took a step forward.
A coyote howled in the distance. A forlorn sound—one he had come to both love and hate, like the extremes of the prairie weather. “They feel the cold.”
“Another of God’s creatures. A reminder, perhaps, of our need to be dependent on Him.”
He slapped his Stetson against his leg. Why could she not be silent? But she was his friend’s wife, and he owed her respect.
“Something bothering you, Sergeant?”
Dixon scanned the sky as though it would provide an escape. It offered none. “I do not think of eternity.”
“God dwells there.”
“In eternity?” He scratched his forehead.
“Well, yes. Though I was actually talking of the heavens, the universe.”
She must still be feeling ill. Barty had indicated she went, well, a little loco. “Come, Mrs. Black. Joab’s waiting. I’ve brought some fresh bread and barley stew for him.” He pointed to the bulging gunny sack hanging from his saddle.
She smiled. “He loves barley stew.”
They walked to the soddy without further word.
What of eternity? He never much thought about dying, even in battle. To do so would have quelled his courage. Living. Now that was a topic. But eternity? He looked to the black sky with stars set in constellations, pictures with no frames. Did man exist like that—endless even after death?
They stopped at the door.
“Sergeant, I know you do not believe as I do, but consider this. If the universe never ends, then could not your soul also have an eternal makeup?”
She slipped through the door, not waiting for his answer. But her words made their mark. If he believed in eternity, that meant there was no end. No end to his guilt. No end to his secrets plaguing him like some pestilence bent on destroying his peace. His peace. Did he ever have that?
He ducked his head and entered the musty one-room soddy with a gunny sack of bread and a pot of barley stew.
At some point, he would have to face the music. What did he believe? And was it truth?