is a wonderful thing, son,” Seth said after a spell of watching three hens peck the corn. “But it’s a far cry from secrets.”
C.W. kicked the dirt and stared at his dusty boot. “I never met her,” he said quietly.
Seth nodded, knowing it was the truth.
C.W. ran his hand through his hair with a long sigh.
“Well, I guess I was hard on her for a while there. Skinny New York women have a way of getting on my nerves.” He was relieved to hear Seth chuckle. “From what I know of MacKenzie, she’s going to be a real pain.”
“What you know of MacKenzie?”
Clever man, mused C.W. “I know what I hear. Let’s see, from you I heard he was ornery as a mule and late to pay his bills. From the boys I heard he was short on charm and long on demands, and from Esther…” He paused. “I get mixed messages from Esther. I gather she both hates him and, dare I say, admires him?”
Seth rubbed his jaw again. C.W. sensed an untold story there. Seth looked away for a moment, but when he swung his head back, his face flattened to a deadpan.
C.W. went back to his hay. He hadn’t thrown more than three forkfuls before he heard Seth’s voice again.
“You workin’ up a frenzy today,” Seth said.
“Lot of delays,” he grunted between pitches. “Lot to get done before the sun sets.”
“Lot of thinkin’, seems to me.”
C.W. slowed, stopped, and peered over his shoulder once again. Seth was standing with his hands in his rear pockets and one foot slightly before the other. His eyes were boring into him.
“When a boil starts to fester, it’s time to stop everything and clean it. Else it spreads and ruins you. Makes you mean and ugly and you hurt bad all the time.”
“Just what is it you think I need to clean out, Seth?”
Seth gummed a bit, holding back. “Reckon you know that best, son. But I do know that you’ve been festering for months now and it looks like its comin’ to a head. Might be time to tend to it, that’s all I’m saying.”
A quiet pall settled in the barn. C.W. leaned on his fork while staring at the ewes. They stared right back at him, as though waiting for his response.
C.W. shook his head and dug his fork into the ground. Festering was the word for it. Perhaps it was time to purge. He trusted Seth, both his wisdom and his silence. Running his hand in his hair, he approached Seth.
“I never met Mrs. MacKenzie,” he began slowly. “But I knew Mike.”
Seth’s eyes widened.
“Everyone on Wall Street knew the ‘Big Mac.’ Mac, the big dealer. Mac, the big spender. There was this inside joke, spawned by jealousy: ‘Have you heard today’s Mac Deal?’”
He looked up at Seth. The old man wasn’t smiling.
“MacKenzie was this ruddy, handsome fellow with a loud, confident laugh and a firm handshake,” C.W. continued. “People enjoyed gathering around him and listening to the ribald stories that he told with professional skill. But his eyes were cold and calculating.
“At least he was honest about it,” added C.W., kicking the dirt. “Mike wanted to make money. And boy did he. Some called him a genius. Others called him a shark. He had an instinct for the kill and devoured businesses and swallowed profits in huge gulps. And that was business.” He shrugged. “I saw him as a highly leveraged con artist.”
“I guess I ain’t surprised you’re some kind of money man, the way you handle numbers. Still, it makes me wonder. I know how MacKenzie left. Why’d you leave?” Seth asked.
C.W. flinched, hearing in his mind the revolver’s retort, Mike’s blood blurring his vision again. His nose burned. His breath choked. C.W. wiped a shaky hand across his face, squeezing his eyelids tight. Then, suddenly, the answer came to him. A burst of clarity, after so many months of confusion. C.W. took a great gulp of air before speaking, more to himself than to Seth.
“I don’t want a killer instinct.”
C.W. didn’t move; he stared out of the barn with his hands in his hip pockets, while a muscle twitched in his broad jaw. From across the barn the sound of bleating was a staccato against the quiet dusk. Seth waited, giving C.W. the time he needed to clean out the wound.
After a spell, C.W. blinked, absently stretched his shoulders, and turned toward Seth, a sheepish look on his face.
“I suspect the boil burst.”
“Yeh-up.” Seth shifted his weight. “Speakin’ on MacKenzie. The missus, she ain’t nothing like the mister.”
“Oh? How is she different?”
“She’s a sad one. Used to wonder what made her so. When they first came up here she laughed all the time. Sweet thing, always comin’ down to the house with a gift from town or to buy more syrup from us than she’d ever use. They didn’t always have that big house. Nope. Used to camp up there before the building set up…and during. Some of them nights was cold enough to freeze water in a pail.”
He shook his head and chuckled. “We used to credit it to love. And them being young, ’course. Heard he got pretty rich, real quick. Money can change a man.”
C.W. felt a chill. “So I hear.”
“Not her though. She was sweet as ever. But she started getting that sad look on her face, like a ewe what’s been left behind in the field.”
“Then they just stopped coming up?”
“Yeh-up. No word, no nothin’. Just stopped coming.” He shrugged. “I guess that’s the way it is with rich folks. Maybe they just get bored. Still…” Seth scratched his belly then his head, ending the pause with a slap of his cap against his thigh.
“This still be her place and she’s a nice lady.”
“I understand, Seth.”
“Figured you would. Well, better get down to dinner before Esther starts to calling. Lord, how that woman can holler.”
C.W. walked over to the hay pile and resumed a steady rhythm of throwing hay.
Seth slipped his hat on, paused, then added, “If you feel like jawin’ a bit more, you know where to find me.”
C.W. stopped and faced the old man. His chest swelled.
“Thanks, Seth. I believe I will.”
Seth gummed a bit, then gave a brief wave. Before he left the barn, he threw a final sentence out. It seemed to reach C.W. after Seth had left the barn.
“You’re a good boy.”
The few words touched C.W. in a deep place that no words had reached in a very long time. It had been a very long time since anyone had called him a good boy. Or since he had thought that of himself.
C.W. sat on a bale of hay and rested his head in his hands.
The blue skies outside the great room were turning misty, signaling the end of her first day home in the mountains. Birds skittered in the sky, frantic at being away from home so close to dark. Nora went out on the deck to watch them arc, swoop, and bank turns, understanding how they felt. The warm day was becoming cool night. The sweet day songs had ceased; only the nighthawk, with its long pointed wings, kept up its nasal peent, peent. From the north, a wind was picking up and carrying off the first of an army of leaves. In the air, Nora could taste sweet rain.
She wrapped her arms around her shoulders. She should go in, but the cloud mist on her face refreshed her. So she stood out on the deck awhile longer to stare out at the mountains, dark purple now under lowering clouds. The clouds would soon swallow the house. Thunder rumbled in the valley.
“I’m