“I loved your daddy but I never could abide that woman he took up with. Werent worth risking one for t’other.”

“What about C.J.?”

He grinned and I saw all his teeth were gone. I wondered if he’d pulled them himself. “C.J. were a good boy. That’s why I come down when Ermel sent word. C.J. allays had a silly streak. Dreamer, you know. I was fond of that. But he passed on from me to Ermel. He become a store man. That’s all right. I wouldnt take nobody with me.”

With that, the talk seemed to die between us. We looked at the toes of our boots.

“Why dont you come on down to the hotel, have a drink?” I said at last. “After all, hit’s your liquor.”

He rolled his shoulders around like he’d been carrying a heavy load. “I cant abide a room for long. I reckon you’re a store man, like C.J. Reckon you like a room. Like all this ugliness too. Like all these outlandish folks that made it this a way. I seen em when I come to trade with Ermel. They live like sheep. They like to be ordered around. You pull them outen the fire, they’ll jump right back in again. I cant abide em.”

I had nothing to say back, not even a muttered hope that I would see him again. That was the last thing I wanted. For all these years I had known only what C.J. and Daddy had told me of him, and he had been something to dream about. It was a good thing to live on the land, to respect it and to hate anything that would tear it down. But Dillon was hoarding the land like a miser his gold, and he had nothing to give anyone. It seemed to me he was no longer among the living.

I dreamed of two men that night. Of C.J. alive and walking with me among the miners’ tents. Of Dillon dead, a burnished skeleton lying on its back, the fingers of one hand curved and twined through the rib cage.

Sixteen

ROSA ANGELELLI

FRANCESCO IS BACK FROM THE DOCTOR. HE SITS BESIDE MY BED and talks with me. He brings me oranges.

Senore Davidson is not here. He goes to Carmello and Luigi, to see why they stay so long with the doctor. I stay in his house to watch over the butterflies.

The butterflies weep. Let us out, they cry. The glass case is so hot.

Mama tugs at my sleeve. Break the glass, she says. Let them go. They have been here so long.

I break the glass. I hit with the lamp. The butterflies scream. They are so frightened, but I whisper to them and they are quiet.

I cannot carry them all but Francesco helps. We must hurry, he says. When the butterflies are gone this house must burn.

But Chi Chi, I say, this is Senore’s house.