“Well.” He pushed his cup across the table. “We were sitting on stumps in front of the cabin. We’d stopped bathing when the snow started. I saw a movie once of an old king. He crawled out of his bed in the morning, naked with a fur wrapped around him, and broke the ice in the top of the water bucket so he could wash his face. I always wondered why he didn’t have somebody heat water for him. Wouldn’t you? If you were king?”

The question sank into the walls. I nodded and heard the bedsprings squeak as Rennel nodded.

“The sun was just getting fancy across the valley. There were chickens and the goat. I was waiting for the energy to get up and shoo them inside for the night. Lichtenstein was talking about a girlfriend he’d had once. A champion pool player. He was still kind of interested in her. It was very quiet. I don’t know if you can quite understand how quiet it is in a place like that. I could hear the creek down the hill and Lichtenstein’s voice was the same as the water. But the quiet beat on your ears. Then there was this sound from the cabin. A groan or something. Lotta stepped out of the doorway and stood there for a minute. She looked strange. I don’t know how else to describe it. Her mouth was hanging open and her eyes were all white. Then she made the noise again.”

Sam stared at the ceiling pitched low near his head. He turned stiffly to Carlotta, still facing away on the chaise.

“It wasn’t a regular sort of noise.” He paused again. “There was this little white dog that we had brought along, Pogo. A friend of Angelina’s. The dogs were lying in front of the door. There was an ax Lotta used to cut wood. She’d gotten pretty good at it. This ax was leaning against the step. I wasn’t really paying that much attention to her, I was just sitting in the last sunshine, you know? Then I saw Lichtenstein’s mouth drop open, watching Carlotta. I looked up just as she brought the ax down. I saw all her muscles move through her dress. Angelina yelped and jumped away, but this little Pogo didn’t move. He wasn’t very sharp. The ax went through his neck. His head fell over, with the tongue hanging out. It didn’t fall all the way off. It was just hanging over to the side, almost upside down. But he was white and the snow was white, and the blood sprayed out, like a water balloon breaking.