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I wanted to ask him if he was saying Henry was raised wrong. I kept my mouth shut instead, and let him say all the things hed been fuming about on his drive over here. Hed thought up a speech, and once he said it, he might be easier to deal with.

Id like to blame Sallie for not seeing the girls condition sooner, but first-timers usually carry high, everyone knows that and my God, you know the sort of dresses Shan wears. Thats not a new thing, either. Shes been wearing those granny-go-to-meetin dresses since she was 12 and started getting her

He held his pudgy hands out in front of his chest. I nodded.

And Id like to blame you, because it seems like you skipped that talk fathers usually have with sons. As if youd know anything about raising sons, I thought. The one about how hes got a pistol in his pants and he should keep the safety on. A sob caught in his throat and he cried, My little girl is too young to be a mother!

Of course there was blame for me Harlan didnt know about. If I hadnt put Henry in a situation where he was desperate for a womans love, Shannon might not be in the fix she was in. I also could have asked if Harlan had maybe saved a little blame for himself while he was busy sharing it out. But I held quiet. Quiet never came naturally to me, but living with Arlette had given me plenty of practice.

Only I cant blame you, either, because your wife went and run off this spring, and its natural your attention would lapse at a time like that. So I went out back and chopped damn near half a cord of wood before I came over here, trying to get some of that mad out, and it must have worked. I shook your hand, didnt I?

The self-congratulation I heard in his voice made me itch to say, Unless it was rape, I think it still takes two to tango. But I just said, Yes, you did, and left it at that.

Well, that brings us to what youre going to do about it. You and that boy who sat at my table and ate the food my wife cooked for him.

Some devil-the creature that comes into a fellow, I suppose, when the Conniving Man leaves-made me say, Henry wants to marry her and give the baby a name.

Thats so God damned ridiculous I dont want to hear it. I wont say Henry doesnt have a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of-I know youve done right, Wilf, or as right as you can, but thats the best I can say. These have been fat years, and youre still only one step ahead of the bank. Where are you going to be when the years get lean again? And they always do. If you had the cash from that back hundred, then it might be different-cash cushions hard times, everyone knows that-but with Arlette gone, there they sit, like a constipated old maid on a chamberpot.

For just a moment part of me tried to consider how things would have been if I had given in to Arlette about that fucking land, as I had about so many other things. Id be living in stink, thats how it would have been. I would have had to dig out the old spring for the cows, because cows wont drink from a brook thats got blood and pigs guts floating in it.

True. But Id be living instead of just existing, Arlette would be living with me, and Henry wouldnt be the sullen, anguished, difficult boy he had turned into. The boy who had gotten his friend since childhood into a peck of trouble.

Well, what do you want to do? I asked. I doubt you made this trip with nothing in mind.

He appeared not to have heard me. He was looking out across the fields to where his new silo stood on the horizon. His face was heavy and sad, but Ive come too far and written too much to lie; that expression did not move me much. 1922 had been the worst year of my life, one where Id turned into a man I no longer knew, and Harlan Cotterie was just another washout on a rocky and miserable stretch of road.

Shes bright, Harlan said. Mrs. McReady at school says Shans the brightest pupil shes taught in her whole career, and that stretches back almost 40 years. Shes good in English, and shes even better in the maths, which Mrs. McReady says is rare in girls. She can do triggeronomy, Wilf. Did you know that? Mrs. McReady herself cant do triggeronomy.

No, I hadnt known, but I knew how to say the word. I felt, however, that this might not be the time to correct my neighbors pronunciation.

Sallie wanted to send her to the normal school in Omaha. Theyve taken girls as well as boys since 1918, although no females have graduated so far. He gave me a look that was hard to take: mingled disgust and hostility. The females always want to get married, you see. And have babies. Join Eastern Star and sweep the God damned floor.

He sighed.

Shan could be the first. She has the skills and she has the brains. You didnt know that, did you?

No, in truth I had not. I had simply made an assumption-one of many that I now know to have been wrong-that she was farm wife material, and no more.

She might even teach college. We planned to send her to that school as soon as she turned 17.

Sallie planned, is what you mean, I thought. Left to your own devices, such a crazy idea never would have crossed your farmers mind.

Shan was willing, and the money was put aside. It was all arranged. He turned to look at me, and I heard the tendons in his neck creak. Its still all arranged. But first-almost right away-shes going to the St. Eusebia Catholic Home for Girls in Omaha. She doesnt know it yet, but its going to happen. Sallie talked about sending her to Deland-Sals sister lives there-or to my aunt and uncle in Lyme Biska, but I dont trust any of those people to carry through on what weve decided. Nor does a girl who causes this kind of problem deserve to go to people she knows and loves.

What is it youve decided, Harl? Besides sending your daughter to some kind of an I dont know orphanage?

He bristled. Its not an orphanage. Its a clean, wholesome, and busy place. So Ive been told. Ive been on the exchange, and all the reports I get are good ones. Shell have chores, shell have her schooling, and in another four months shell have her baby. When thats done, the kid will be given up for adoption. The sisters at St. Eusebia will see to that. Then she can come home, and in another year and a half she can go to teachers college, just like Sallie wants. And me, of course. Sallie and me.

Whats my part in this? I assume I must have one.

Are you smarting on me, Wilf? I know youve had a tough year, but I still wont bear you smarting on me.

Im not smarting on you, but you need to know youre not the only one whos mad and ashamed. Just tell me what you want, and maybe we can stay friends.

The singularly cold little smile with which he greeted this-just a twitch of the lips and a momentary appearance of dimples at the corners of his mouth-said a great deal about how little hope he held out for that.

I know youre not rich, but you still need to step up and take your share of the responsibility. Her time at the home-the sisters call it pre-natal care-is going to cost me 300 dollars. Sister Camilla called it a donation when I talked to her on the phone, but I know a fee when I hear one.

If youre going to ask me to split it with you-

I know you cant lay your hands on 150 dollars, but you better be able to lay them on 75, because thats what the tutors going to cost. The one whos going to help her keep up with her lessons.

I cant do that. Arlette cleaned me out when she left. But for the first time I found myself wondering if she mightve socked a little something away. That business about the 200 she was supposed to have taken when she ran off had been a pure lie, but even pin-and-ribbon money would help in this situation. I made a mental note to check the cupboards and the canisters in the kitchen.

Take another shortie loan from the bank, he said. You paid the last one back, I hear.

Of course he heard. Such things are supposed to be private, but men like Harlan Cotterie have long ears. I felt a fresh wave of dislike for him. He had loaned me the use of his corn harvester and only taken 20 dollars for the use of it? So what? He was asking for that and more, as though his precious daughter had never spread her legs and said come on in and paint the walls.

I had crop money to pay it back with, I said. Now I dont. Ive got my land and my house and thats pretty much it.

You find a way, he said. Mortgage the house, if thats what it takes. 75 dollars is your share, and compared to having your boy changing didies at the age of 15, I think youre getting off cheap.

He stood up. I did, too. And if I cant find a way? What then, Harl? You send the Sheriff?

His lips curled in an expression of contempt that turned my dislike of him to hate. It happened in an instant, and I still feel that hate today, when so many other feelings have been burned out of my heart. Id never go to law on a thing like this. But if you dont take your share of the responsibility, you and mes done. He squinted into the declining daylight. Im going. Got to, if I want to get back before dark. I wont need the 75 for a couple of weeks, so you got that long. And I wont come dunning you for it. If you dont, you dont. Just dont say you cant, because I know better. You should have let her sell that acreage to Farrington, Wilf. If youd done that, shed still be here and youd have some money in hand. And my daughter might not be in the famly way.

In my mind, I pushed him off the porch and jumped on his hard round belly with both feet when he tried to get up. Then I got my hand-scythe out of the barn and put it through one of his eyes. In reality, I stood with one hand on the railing and watched him trudge down the steps.

Do you want to talk to Henry? I asked. I can call him. He feels as bad about this as I do.

Harlan didnt break stride. She was clean and your boy filthied her up. If you hauled him out here, I might knock him down. I might not be able to help myself.

I wondered about that. Henry was getting his growth, he was strong, and perhaps most important of all, he knew about murder. Harl Cotterie didnt.

He didnt need to crank the Nash but only push a button. Being prosperous was nice in all sorts of ways. 75 is what I need to close this business, he called over the punch and blat of the engine. Then he whirled around the chopping block, sending George and his retinue flying, and headed back to his farm with its big generator and indoor plumbing.

When I turned around, Henry was standing beside me, looking sallow and furious. They cant send her away like that.

So he had been listening. I cant say I was surprised.

Can and will, I said. And if you try something stupid and headstrong, youll only make a bad situation worse.

We could run away. We wouldnt get caught. If we could get away with with what we did then I guess I could get away with eloping off to Colorado with my gal.

You couldnt, I said, because youd have no money. Money fixes everything, he says. Well, this is what I say: no money spoils everything. I know it, and Shannon will, too. Shes got her baby to watch out for now-

Not if they make her give it away!

That doesnt change how a woman feels when shes got the chap in her belly. A chap makes them wise in ways men dont understand. I havent lost any respect for you or her just because shes going to have a baby-you two arent the first, and you wont be the last, even if Mr. High and Mighty had the idea she was only going to use whats between her legs in the water-closet. But if you asked a five-months-pregnant girl to run off with you and she agreed Id lose respect for both of you.

What do you know? he asked with infinite contempt. You couldnt even cut a throat without making a mess of it.

I was speechless. He saw it, and left me that way.

He went off to school the next day without any argument even though his sweetie was no longer there. Probably because I let him take the truck. A boy will take any excuse to drive a truck when drivings new. But of course the new wears off. The new wears off everything, and it usually doesnt take long. Whats beneath is gray and shabby, more often than not. Like a rats hide.

Once he was gone, I went into the kitchen. I poured the sugar, flour, and salt out of their tin canisters and stirred through them. There was nothing. I went into the bedroom and searched her clothes. There was nothing. I looked in her shoes and there was nothing. But each time I found nothing, I became more sure there was something.

I had chores in the garden, but instead of doing them, I went out back of the barn to where the old well had been. Weeds were growing on it now: witchgrass and scraggly fall goldenrod. Elphis was down there, and Arlette was, too. Arlette with her face cocked to the side. Arlette with her clowns grin. Arlette in her snood.

Where is it, you contrary bitch? I asked her. Where did you hide it?

I tried to empty my mind, which was what my father advised me to do when Id misplaced a tool or one of my few precious books. After a little while I went back into the house, back into the bedroom, back into the closet. There were two hatboxes on the top shelf. In the first one I found nothing but a hat-the white one she wore to church (when she could trouble herself to go, which was about once a month). The hat in the other box was red, and Id never seen her wear it. It looked like a whores hat to me. Tucked into the satin inner band, folded into tiny squares no bigger than pills, were two 20-dollar bills. I tell you now, sitting here in this cheap hotel room and listening to the rats scuttering and scampering in the walls (yes, my old friends are here), that those two 20-dollar bills were the seal on my damnation.

Because they werent enough. You see that, dont you? Of course you do. One doesnt need to be an expert in triggeronomy to know that one needs to add 35 to 40 to make 75. Doesnt sound like much, does it? But in those days you could buy two months worth of groceries for 35 dollars, or a good used harness at Lars Olsens smithy. You could buy a train ticket all the way to Sacramento which I sometimes wish I had done.

And sometimes when I lie in bed at night, I can actually see that number. It flashes red, like a warning not to cross a road because a train is coming. I tried to cross anyway, and the train ran me down. If each of us has a Conniving Man inside, each of us also has a Lunatic. And on those nights when I cant sleep because the flashing number wont let me sleep, my Lunatic says it was a conspiracy: that Cotterie, Stoppenhauser, and the Farrington shyster were all in it together. I know better, of course (at least in daylight). Cotterie and Mr. Attorney Lester might have had a talk with Stoppenhauser later on-after I did what I did-but it was surely innocent to begin with; Stoppenhauser was actually trying to help me out and do a little business for Home Bank amp; Trust, of course. But when Harlan or Lester-or both of them together-saw an opportunity, they took it. The Conniving Man out-connived: how do you like that? By then I hardly cared, because by then I had lost my son, but do you know who I really blame?