Turnip hurried out the back door, and when presently Roscoe heard him riding away, he ordered Puddy: “Get hold of yourself,” and went out of the kitchen, back to the sitting room. There he looked around the room carefully before he sat down in one of the rocking chairs and stared into the fire, ignoring the dead woman at his feet, her eyes glazing open in her head, her throat still bleeding.

18

Sheriff Byrne saw the new tragedy as a continuance of a curse begun with the suicide of Clarence Anderson. Roscoe Elk’s story was generally accepted as truth, the nervous distraction of Puddy and Turnip merely giving weight to what had been testified. Clovis died on Friday and was buried on Saturday, with scant formality and a short service, the allegation of suicide excusing haste and brevity. Of those who may have doubted the official account of the event, only Leon was certain that Clovis had been murdered, and there was nothing he could do about it. He could not go forward and say that he had sat and talked with her an hour before her death and that she had appeared to be—for her, anyway—in good enough spirits. He could not say that he visited her often and that he certainly knew her as well as anybody, without reviving the old scandal of their youthful encounter.

He kept silent except to talk once to Floyd when they first heard of her death on Saturday morning. Floyd offered to go to the funeral, seeing Leon’s anxiety and knowing that Leon could not go without an explanation he was unwilling to give. Lovey went with Floyd. When they returned, they went together to the office where they found Sarah and Leon and gave them a report of the ceremony. Clovis had not been taken into church at all. The Bible was read over her mortal remains at the side of her grave. There were only a dozen people, themselves included. Roscoe and Junior were there, but not Junior’s wife and child. The Elks had not acknowledged the presence of Lovey and Floyd in any way.

Lovey said now, “He buried her in the cheapest box he could buy.”

Sarah said, “Poor thing.”

Leon said, “She wouldn’t care.”

Angry and grieved, and with no one he could talk to about it, Leon walked alone on Sunday morning in the woods. He could not say he had loved Clovis in a way anyone else would understand, but there are kinds and degrees of love. Certainly during the last year they had shared a bond based on early error, if error it had been, and middle-aged disappointment of life. However it was, he felt anger and regret.