Around these parts, all the boys loved Abel.  At least they loved him as much as they feared him.  He had shown them how a frog’s leg moves after being hacked from its stumpy body.  He regularly caught snakes, the harmless bright green ones that slithered through their fathers’ fields, and pinched their heads off, demonstrating how the serpentine form wriggled and struck in protest.  He was a professor of wiles and a prophet of mischief.  Everyone knew he was the one who started that venerable tradition of ‘bagging a cat.’  One fine Sunday he lured a tomcat to him with some rotting meat, gingerly placed it inside a burlap sack, twined the package shut, and teased and kicked the hissing jumble for half an hour.  The cat scratched and tore at the bag trying to break free, but soon the burlap mesh shone dark and oily and the movement finally stopped. 

            Abel was a fighter too.  He had once beaten an Indian boy so bad, the boy lost all his teeth.  To see Abel’s eleven-year-old body in a fight, you’d think he was thirty.  He stretched and pounded with power and grace, like a well-trained boxer.  It was a far different sight than the comical rolling, scratching fights the others performed half in fear, half in fury.  No one had ever come close to beating Abel and was lucky to get away with less than a broken nose.  The Indian boy, after all, had no teeth now.

            Even though parents told their kids not to spend time with Abel, you’d rarely see him alone.  A string of kids, some a little older, many much younger, always trailed along after him, ducks in a row, off to find a cat or some luckless beast. 

            Malachi Marbry, a local cattle rancher, once found a cow of his beaten to death.  A few sharp sticks were jabbed in the carcass and a cobblestone lay across its bloodsticky, dented skull awash in flies.  He thought it might have been Abel and the boys so he sought out Abel’s father, Abraham Krause.  But Krause assured the old man the boys had been on or nearby his farm the whole day.  He had lied.  He knew when he heard about the cow that his son was probably guilty, he just didn’t know what to do.

Abraham Krause came to Oklahoma territory during the second land run, in 1893.  He had married Elisabeta a short time before.  Krause and Elisabeta grew up close to each other in Michigan, near Fort Foster.  Krause’s father was German as was Elisabeta’s entire family.  Both families possessed good, grain-rich farms.  The two had received generous provisions before they left to claim their free stake of land in the newly opened territory, the ‘land of milk and honey.’  They hadn’t returned home since, busied with the challenges of pioneer life.

            Abraham, a hard-working and clever farmer, made his land succeed right from the start and had done well enough in the first few years to gain a handsome surplus.  With that he had funded a smithy in Guthrie—capital of the area—about ten miles to the east.  He received a regular income from the smith but preferred to remain on his farm, tending it as he had been taught.  Despite his commanding proportions, Abraham had never raised his voice to another man.  Though still young, deep furrows were set into his olive-skinned face.  He had the kind of wavy, gray-blond mane that one sees in ancient sculpture; thick and profuse like an Alexander or Hermes.  His clear-conscienced eyes made gentle whatever boldness his face conveyed.  Blessed with an easy disposition, Abraham avoided all conflict. 

In August school was still out and the boys had chores only on weekdays.  So on the weekends Abel and his crew found what trouble they could far from judging eyes.

The stout boy had just finished eating a large breakfast.  His mother plied him with food but the Abel never got fat.  At eleven, he had a stalwart frame, thick-boned and showing sinew along his corners.  He stood just over five feet tall but would certainly make his father’s grand proportions, over six feet, before many years passed.

            Abel excused himself from the table.  His father had already left for Guthrie to spend the day helping at the smithy.

            “Mother, I’m going with some of the fellows to the creek.  I’ll come back for lunch after the noon.”  He always spoke to his mother in a direct, matter-of-fact way that made her chuckle.

            Elisabeta came out from the kitchen and fixed Abel with her eyes. 

            “Abel, now listen, you behave yourself.  Don’t do any fighting, don’t dirty your clothes overmuch, and be back for lunch. I’ll need some wood before evening comes.”

            “Yes, mother.”  He turned quickly, grabbed his satchel of treasures and darted from the house.

            Elisabeta tailed after him, stood at the threshold, and called to him.  The boy left a small cloud of dust on the road.  The fields on either side were tall and the plants heavy with wispy, golden grain.

            She yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth to amplify her delicate voice, “You behave yourself, boy.  And be back for your lunch.” 

            Abel kept straight as an arrow, never turning around.  “Yes, mother.”

            He crossed over the small hill, leaving only a faint trace of dusty air that caught the early sunlight and looked like gold dust scattered in the air.

            He ran about a mile down the road and cut along a small path in Pearson McDonough’s fields that led to the creek.  The creek had gotten low.  Sheltered in a sandstone embankment, it was a place of wonder for the boys.  Abel found a small cutaway that led straight down to the muddy creek until the rocks rose up on either side like an ancient tomb.  He jumped right into the shallow water.  Muddy water coursed around his legs and dots of it splattered his trousers.  He trudged along, the water line on his pants slowly creeping upwards until he was submerged from the waist down.  He climbed out and walked down the narrow shores.  His leather shoes were caked with a clay-heavy mud and his monstrously misshapen feet looked twice their normal size.  After a couple hundred yards the creek fanned out wider and wider, the muddy bottom turned into stones and moss became visible through the water.  A pool lay just ahead, where the smaller creek met a larger one.

            He sat on the rocks nearby and used a wet stick to pick away clods of the pliant mud.  After half an hour he turned red and began slamming the dirty stick against rocks until it splintered and floated away in the slow-moving stream. 

            Finally he heard some noise and a trampling of feet above.  Five boys ran down the rocky slope shrieking and laughing like the Four Horsemen—plus one. 

            The eldest, twelve-year old Tom Ross, shouted to Abel as they approached. 

            “Sorry, Abel, we had to trick our parents so we could get out.  Phil’s parents,” and he pointed to the smallish six year old, quietly hovering near his hips, “weren’t going to let him go but we told ‘em we were off to help Mrs. Little at the school.  We told ‘em she wanted to paint the school room.”  All the boys smiled mischievously and nodded their heads all goggle-eyed. 

            Abel looked at them calmly and donned a friendly smile.  Then he lazily rose from the rock—his pants damp and stained—and walked over to Tom.

            “That’s fine, Tom, just don’t leave me waiting again.”  Right as he came up to Tom, who had sensed some heaviness in the air and whose smile had begun to fall, Abel let fly a strong punch into Tom’s belly.  He struck Tom just with impressive force, knocking him up into the air.  The boy’s knees buckled and he landed on his side, falling hard upon the gravel and mud.  The wind had been taken from him and his face contorted demonically as he blanched white.

            “And I mean it, don’t ever make me wait for any of you slugs again,”  Abel commanded, clubbing his thick index finger through the air like a gavel.  He met each set of down-turned eyes with his own fiery ones.  Tom’s younger brothers, Pete and Willard, seven and nine, went to their elder’s aid and sat on the ground near him.  They looked at Abel and spite wiped across their faces.  But no one, including Tom, was going to stand up against him.  It was always best to accept his demands and move on. 

            Phil Turner looked down at his older friend and then to Abel, whom he feared greatly.  The six year old enjoyed running around with the older boys but was generally relieved when he returned home to the safety of his parents and baby sister.

            Stan McDonough, whose father owned most of the fields just above the creek, was there too.  He was the same age as Abel, and even an inch or so taller, but built thin and bony.  His spindly hands emerged from his cuffs like pasty straw from a scarecrow.  He liked Abel.  Abel never beat on him and Stan always felt like a tough guy hanging around with him. 

Any other kids they ran into always deferred to them because they knew of Abel’s fierce temper and strength.  Just about every kid around had seen the toothless Indian boy.  Word had it that his mother worked at Miss Lindy’s, a saloon and house of ill-repute in Guthrie.  The boy dressed like a white kid and worked in the saloon as a bar hand and shoeshine.  He ran around town with a few kids even though he got a lot of grief for being a redskin.  Most of the Indians had their own schools and kept away from the whites as much as they could.

It had been nearly a year since Abel smashed the Indian boy.  The gang had gone into town to watch the hanging of the cattle-rustling Clayton brothers.  They peeked through from the back of the crowd and hushed to listen.  The marshal read something about the brothers’ crimes.  Hayden Tommersall, the Baptist preacher in Guthrie, dressed all in black, a foreboding symbol of Christian love, said some words about forgiveness and the terrifying power of the Almighty.  He traced a big cross in the air before the sour, unrepentant Claytons—their nooses already fastened around their necks—and then someone kicked a lever.  After that the brothers disappeared into the platform as the ropes, crackling terribly like breaking joints, jerked taut.  The boys even got to see one of the Clayton’s head pop back up for a moment after the rope had tightened, spit flew from his mouth. 

They were walking through town, talking excitedly about the hanging when they saw the Indian boy sitting in front of the smith’s tossing a rusted horseshoe about.  Abel smiled as he left the group and approached the boy.

“Ain’t your name Thomas?”  he asked.

“Luke,” the boy said, not meeting Abel’s eyes.

“What are you doing here in front of my father’s smithy, Tom?”

“This is Mr. Pike’s smithy,” Luke replied.

“Naw… you got it all wrong,” Abel sauntered close up to him.

“See Pike just works for my father,” Abel said and dug his finger into Luke’s chest.

“Oh.”  Luke said, a little nervous.

“See, the thing is, we don’t want any dirty Indians sitting outside our place,” Abel said calmly, lowering his head to stare up into Luke’s eyes.

“Sorry,” Luke replied and tried to walk away.

Abel rushed up behind Luke and stomped the back of his knees.

Remembering what an old man had once told him, Luke quietly got up, never looking back at Abel, and kept walking, as if nothing had happened.

“Come on dirty Injun’, ain’t you got any guts,” Abel thundered.  Then he pushed him, following the boy to the ground.  Abel sat atop his chest and began pounding into Luke’s face with squared fists.

            Luke said nothing—didn’t even cry—he just tried to shield his face from the storming blows. The force was too great, though.  Luke’s head bounced heavily as it received each of Abel’s thrashing punches. Abel didn’t stop until blood ran red out of a broken nose and streamed from a misshapen, coughing mouth. With that, Abel jumped up, kicked some dust Luke’s way and walked over to the boys who looked at him, and at Luke, with fear and awe.  No one said anything as they walked out of town.  They caught a ride on Mr. Turner’s wagon heading towards home. 

            “Come on ya sissies, let’s go swimming,” Abel yelled.  The boys began to undress quickly and Tom sat up.  They all screeched into the water and Tom joined them a few moments later after he had regained his color.  They liked to jump off the rocks into the water, which was just deep enough to make a plunge.  Abel would hold some of them under the surface until they came up choking.  He just laughed.  They splashed and dove and dunked and swam until their skin turned pinkish from the cool water and wrinkled up like prunes.

            They crawled out and sunned on rocks until they were clean and dry and reflected the August sunlight like cherubim and gods, full of youthful splendor. 

            Tom spoke up, waking Phil and causing Abel to part his eyes,

            “What are we gonna do today?  You wanna go into Guthrie?  We could probably hitch a ride from the crossing and still get back before dark.”

            Silence held for a moment then Abel spoke,

            “Naw.  Let’s go to my place.  I found a puppy a couple of days ago and hid it in the barn.  My parents don’t know about it.”

            Stan and Tom’s brother, Willard, chimed in at the same time, their eyes bright, “A puppy!”

            Abel spoke slowly, like he had a plan already in mind,

“Yeah.  It’s all fat and round.  I stowed it in a box up in the hayloft.  It’s been yiping a little but my parent’s haven’t come upon it.”

            Tom answered, “Let’s go see it.”

            The boys dressed quickly, darted up the slope, and tore through the McDonoughs’ fields until they came to the road.  They sprinted off towards the Krauses’ farm.  Abel grabbed little Phil from behind, one hand on the back of his neck and one holding his broad belt.  Phil began to screech and his legs spun faster.  He was sure the older boy was going to thrash him.  Abel lifted him off his feet until the boy was aloft like a scrambling lizard in the talons of a hawk.  Abel kept the boy supine, parallel to the ground, and ran until Phil screeched in delight rather than fear.  Then he lifted Phil onto his wide shoulders and clamped the boys’ legs to his chest with the strong hands.  Phil sat tall, like a rider on a grand horse, and Abel tore off down the road, outrunning all the boys until they came just in sight of his parents’ home.  They had glass windows with good mouldings that made the house look rich and out of place in the Oklahoma wilds.  It was unpainted but the wood shone golden, the planks already kiln dried from the sweltering summers.  As they approached, Abel saw no movement but stopped suddenly, the boy on his shoulders lurched forward and nearly vaulted headlong in front of him.  The clamping hands held him fast.

            Abel turned and faced the other boys rushing towards him.  Both Tom’s brothers were yelling, “Wait up,” and “Come on, ya’ll!” their voices twanging with a tone new to the land.  Abel looked at the crowd angrily and raised a hand to his mouth, his index finger pointing upwards rigidly.

            “Shhhh!  Be quiet or I’ll smack you!”  They all stopped and kept quiet, their lungs heaving and their mouths wide, gasping for air.  Willard and Pete bent over huffing while Tom and Stan stood tall and redcheeked looking at Abel expectantly.

            “Okay, now let’s go around the back of the barn.  But don’t make any noise, I don’t want my mother to know we’re here.” 

            The boys’ demeanor became sneaky and slow as they tiptoed through a wheat field and creeped around the back of the barn where they paused awhile.  When Abel gave the signal they sprinted across the clearing between the fields and the barn and made a quick dash to its door which faced the house at an angle.  Once they had all made it inside they gasped in relief and Abel peeked out the door.  The house across the central clearing was still.  No one had seen them.  It was early yet and his mother hadn’t expected him home for a couple more hours. 

The barn remained unusually cool and dark for that season, a tribute to his father’s thoughtful construction.  The sweat on the boys coursed down their faces and ran in dusty rivulets until it dripped slower and slower, leaving small dirty veins and splotches upon their clothes.  They sneaked around the barn and variously petted the horses, which neighed quietly and the goats that Mr. Krause kept for the milk he savored.  The animals kicked up and whinnied as Abel stole past them.  They knew his cruel hands as well as anyone, if not better than most, and always seemed to sigh after he had passed.

            His father’s coach rested in the middle of the barn.  He must have come home for some reason.  In fact, Krause had not yet made it into Guthrie for the day.  He had left early but ran into a neighbor, Ronald Comfrey, who had a farm some miles from the crossing.  Comfrey’s wagon had broken a wheel just beyond the crossing on the way into Guthrie.  Abraham helped him transport the cargo then the broken wagon back to Comfrey’s farm.  Abraham had offered to help fix the wheel but Comfrey thanked him and assured him he had helped more than enough.

            Krause had decided to return home afterward and work there until lunch, then head for Guthrie after midday.

            Abel led the boys up a ladder to the hayloft.  Back in a corner, under a box, with a small bowl of water, now dried up and marked with a ring of mud, was a golden retriever puppy fast asleep.  The boys lifted off the box excitedly and began to pass the puppy around.  It licked their hands and furiously wagged its tail in delight.

            The boys looked at the dog with joy in their eyes and asked Abel what he’d named it.

            Abel looked at them sternly,

“No name.  It’s just a dumb dog.  I don’t want it to get a name.”

            The boys looked at him strangely and then Phil said,

“You should name him Sunny or how about Mitch!  Yeah Mitch!”

            The other boys quickly chimed in with their own ideas for a name. 

            But Abel didn’t seem interested and stepped into the tight circle and took the puppy away from Stan who’d been holding it at the moment.  Stan held fast but Abel pulled it away with a jerk.

            “The dog isn’t getting a name, I said.  It’s just a stupid dog, whoever had it, didn’t want it.  So now it’s mine and it’s not getting a name.”

            The boys looked a little frightened.  They saw the way Abel was holding the retriever and realized it wasn’t a pet to him.  He didn’t like it the way they did.

            Abel suddenly threw the dog high into the air.  The golden blob wrangled around and performed a strange flip until he caught it, just a foot or so off the ground.  The dog whimpered and before it could regain its bearings Abel had launched it up again, even higher this time, until it nearly hit a barn timber.  Again, he caught it before the thing hit the ground.  Then he brought it up to his chest and held it tightly. 

            “It’s just a dumb little dog.”

            The boys looked at him and Tom spoke up.

            “You know, my brothers and I could take that dog for you.  We could take care of it and any time you wanted to play with it you could come over.  But we’d be happy to take it for you.”

            Abel looked at him hard and Tom swallowed.

            “Naw.  I’m gonna keep it here.  It’s my dog.”

            Tom answered quickly,

“Well of course it’s your dog, we could just take care of it for you, so you wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

            “I don’t worry about it.  It’s easy,” he paused looking down at the dog, “Naw.  It’s gonna stay right here.”

            Then Abel, the dog in one hand, began to descend the ladder to get down from the hayloft.

            The boys looked at each other and followed him down.

            Abel walked over toward his father’s workshop.  Abraham had added a large tool room to the barn; it jutted from the main structure into the clearing.  A bright window on its farthest wall filled it with light.  He had hammers and sickles, shovels, and all sorts of files.  They were nicely hung from the ceiling and walls.  It was orderly and the tools gleamed with oil; not a spot of rust on a one of them.  Abraham had crafted a wide workbench beneath his most used tools and a sturdy iron vice reached out from bench’s side.  Abel had watched his father place red hot horseshoes in the vice and hammer and bend them until they precisely matched one of his horse’s hooves.  He could’ve gotten all this work done for him at the smithy but he enjoyed using his own skills, just as his father had shown him back in Michigan.

The boys followed Abel into the workshop and stood around admiring all the implements with their rounded, honey-colored handles and exotic iron shapes. 

Abel, the puppy still held against his chest in one mitt-like hand, reached up to a coil of twine that hung from the wall.  He unwound a length of it and gnawed a piece off with his teeth.  Then he reached towards a low hanging beam and threw the twine over it until the blond, wispy string hung in a long, upside-down U from the beam.  He knotted one end of the twine around its couple and pulled tight until it looped upwards and fastened itself around the beam above.  Now, a single thread hung all the way to the ground where a stretch of it rested on the dirt floor like a wet noodle thrown from its pot.  Pinching off the slack, Abel tugged the twine and a soft twang resounded through the air.

He grabbed the puppy with both hands and held it in front of him.  He admired the fleshy rolls of its wrinkled face and its small domed head.  The puppy’s brown eyes gazed at him and it whimpered softly.  Abel mimicked it and whimpered back with an expressionless face.  The boys looked on anxiously and the stuffy air, with dust particles hovering in a golden shaft of light, felt sticky and thick.

Finally Stan spoke up,

“My Dad said he was going to bring home some candy today.  He should be back about now.  We could go over to my place and get some but we have to hurry or my older brother will probably eat it all.”

The other boys answered,

“Yeah, let’s go over and get some.”         

But Abel wouldn’t be deterred.  He just stared at the puppy’s fleshy face and copied its whimpering.

Then he let the dog drop to the ground.  The golden pup yelped and began to putter off in search of darkness.  The boys gasped.  Abel grabbed the puppy and held it up by its hind-legs.  The dog wriggled and walked on its front legs which buckled, leaving the dog bent over on its head; its face pressed flat against the dirt floor.  The pup moaned while Abel laughed.

He reached behind him and grabbed the long twine.  Abel wrapped it around the puppy’s back legs a couple of times until it was tight and disappeared into folds of the golden coat.  The dog hung in the air, supported only by Abel’s hands.  Then he let go and the twine tightened.  The dog hung upside down, its back arched and its body stretched out.  Thick little paws stretched for the ground below but remained just inches above it.  The dog whined and Abel pushed it until it swung back and forth like a golden metronome.  The dog’s whimpers and comical flight delighted Abel and he laughed in glee.  He turned to the other boys who looked at him questioningly with troubled eyes.

An extra length of twine still hung from the coils and knots around the puppy and doodled in the dust.  Abel reached into his satchel to retrieve his jackknife.  He searched through its contents and a look of happy recognition shone across his face.  He pulled out the jackknife and a gleaming .45 caliber bullet.  It came from his father’s Colt and looked impressive, the golden metal casing holding a wide, dumpy plug. 

“You guys ever fired a bullet?” he asked.

The boys looked at each other and Tom answered,

“I fired my father’s rifle once.  He said he’s going to take me hunting soon.”

Abel looked at them and replied,

“Well, the thing is, you don’t even need a gun to fire a bullet.  It’ll blow up if you put it in a fire.  You can also stick it in the ground and hit the back of it with a rock.  I’ve done it over at the creek before.”

Thrown into a nightmare, the dog slowly swung and stretched for a ground tantalizingly close to its paws. 

Abel walked over to the workbench and opened the oily vice.  Its long shaft rotated smoothly like a barber’s sign.  He placed the bullet between the clamps and carefully closed the vice until it daintily pinched the fat cylinder like a boy with his marble.

The boys circled around looking at the bullet held snug between the metal fingers.  The flat back of it emerged from the clamps and seemed to hang expectantly, waiting for something to tap it. 

Abel reached up to the wall behind the bench and grasped a thin, elegant hammer with an iron sphere on one end.  He’d seen his father use the hammer to tap horseshoes onto hooves like a careful cobbler.

            Abel held the hammer just behind the bullet and looked at the boys gathered around.  He smiled at them.

            The boys’ eyes widened as the hammer began to descend through the air and then struck the back of the bullet.

            Abraham and Elisabeta were both inside the house when they heard the silence put asunder.

            Sitting in a small room with a handful of books and a desk, which he called his ‘library’, Abraham started and jumped to his feet.  He called out to his wife.

            “Mother, what was that?”  he shouted.

            “I don’t know.  It sounded from the barn.”  she answered.

            “Abel hasn’t come home?”  he asked.

            “No, no.  He’ll not be home for hours.”

            Abraham bolted to his bedroom and grabbed his Colt and holster.  The gunbelt, studded with bullets, lacked a single cartridge, but he didn’t notice as he wrapped it around his waist and cinched the leather tight.  He slung open the revolver which held its six cartridges, slapped it closed, then walked outside and approached the barn with care.

            The boys had run out in shock and tore threw the backfields, sprinting for their lives, their minds splintered and the wind knocked out of them.  Now the barn was eerily silent.  Abraham noticed that some sloppy glass shards were sprayed across the ground a short distance from the workshop.  The window had been blown out.  He sidled up to it and peeked into the room, awash now in golden sunlight.  He stuck his head through the broken, red-splashed glass, which circled the window frame like dragon’s teeth.  His eyes didn’t seem to work, he saw a long piece of twine, hanging from the low beam, supporting a small radiant… puppy?  He could hear some whimpering, then he looked lower and saw…

            He tore around to the barn door and looked inside.  It was dark and the animals were clambering.  He felt his heart pounding in his chest like a thumping fist.  It bludgeoned him from the inside and his pale face felt cold, tight, and sweaty.  After he was sure the barn was empty he walked into the workshop.

            “Oh… Oh, my Good God.” he said.

            Abraham lifted the puppy to his chest and held it in his brawny arms.  He yanked at the twine strung from the low-hanging beam and it snapped free with a high-pitched salute.  All the blood in his legs drained away and they went out from beneath him.  He fell, his back leaned against the workbench.  An uncontrollable sob wrenched through his body.  The acrid smell of freshly flashed gunpowder lingered in the air.  Looking up at the vice he saw the empty .45 casing.  He looked down at his belt and noticed the empty leather hoop.

            Then he looked up at the shattered window that had exploded into the clearing leaving nothing but the bloodied mouth of glass.  The sun streamed through and illuminated a small body that was missing the top of its head.  In spite of the gruesome shape, Krause recognized the still child at once; it was little Phil Turner. 

            Abraham rested crying until he heard his wife’s voice call for him from outside. 

“Don’t come near, mother.  Stay right there!”  he shouted hoarsely.

He gathered what strength he could and walked out to face her.  He paused before he went through the barn door and made sure the tears were wiped from his face.  He harnessed all his energy to calm himself. 

            He walked out and looked at her.

            “Don’t come in here Elisabeta.  The boy must’ve just been here.  He fired a bullet in the workshop.”

            She cut in quickly,

“Is anyone hurt?”

            Abraham looked at her crestfallen,

“No, no…  Abel already cleared out.  He broke the window and it’s a mess.  There’s glass everywhere.  I don’t want you to come near here.  I’ll clean it up.  Just go on inside and finish lunch.  I’ll be half an hour or so.”

            Elisabeta, looked at him unsure, sensing something terrible had happened,

            “Is this blood?” and she held up a small piece of glass.

            Abraham looked at the small red crystal with horror,

            “Oh no, no.  There was a can of resin that blew up.  It’s a mess, I’m afraid.”  And he snatched the glass away and wiped her stained finger against the back of his hand.

“Where’d the dog come from?” she asked.

He looked at her and faked a smile,

“Oh, the boys must’ve found him somewhere and left him after they ran off.”

“Go on, now, I’ll take care of the mess out here,” Abraham muttered.  Elisabeta accompanied him as he escorted her back inside, desperately keeping her attention from the broken window of the workshop.

            He returned to the tool shed and sat back down to his terror.  Tears streamed down his face like a flashflood and tore through the arroyos carved in his face.  He began to shiver as he contemplated the situation.

            After a few moments he put the dog down.  It began sniffing around and walked over to the body.  Taking a hammer by its head, Abraham used the wooden shaft to break out the blood-covered glass that remained in the frame.  Hopefully, Elisabeta hadn’t seen it up close.  He pulled out a section of burlap from beneath the workbench and began wrapping the boy in it.  It fit nearly all the way around him, except that his small feet, bound in leather shoes, hung free.  Abraham wrapped the boy completely and bound the package in loop upon loop of bristling twine.  He carried the sixty pound child up to the hayloft.  There he buried him in a thick pile of hay.  He’d have to entomb him later, sometime during the night, when his wife couldn’t stumble upon the murderous scene.

            Abraham descended and found the puppy lapping up blood off the wall of the tool shed.  He nudged the puppy away, still licking its chops, and reached for a wheat broom.  Abraham scraped up all the glass and scoured the dirt floor until a fresh layer of soil lay beneath.  Then he went outside and did the same.  Nearly an hour had passed.  When all was relatively clean he went inside for lunch.  He felt sick and it seemed every nerve within him had burned out, scorched by the lightning that had struck him.  His entire body felt like a piece of red-hot iron, simultaneously hard and soft.  He gathered himself as best as he could and ate the worst meal of his life.  Elisabeta piled food onto his plate and he ate it slowly and completely, meditating on something far away.

            “You’ll have to discipline that boy, Abraham.  He’s getting in so much trouble.  You can’t let him get away with destroying that window.”

            “No, no.  I’ll be firm.  He’s got to change.  He can’t keep on like this.”  Abraham answered.

            “I’ve already had two or three mothers tell me stories about Abel.  It’s embarrassing, Abraham.  He’s got a demon inside him.”

            “Yes, dear.  He’ll have to walk a straighter road from now on.  He’s not a child any longer.”

            “That’s right, and what then?  It’s our job to raise the boy right.  After all, we only have one.  Some are overburdened, raising five or six kids on farming alone.  We are blessed.  We can afford to give him all that he needs.  He can become a good man, educated.”

            Abraham dug through his food and after finishing lunch returned to the barn, nervously inspecting and cleaning some more.  Tiny spots of blood hid in unlikely places: on the tips of sickles, on the wooden rafters, and dotted upon Abel’s abandoned satchel.  He framed some cloth in the window until he could replace the pane of glass.  The diffuse white light illuminated the shed with a ghostly hue.

            He considered a million things he must do and say to the boy and his friends.  “How can we get over this?” he wondered.

            The puppy snooped around the barn and then toyed in the clearing, chasing and darting after crickets and gnawing on a thick piece of lumber he had dug up. 

            Elisabeta came outside calling her husband.

            He met her.  “Yes?”

            “When are you going to Guthrie, dear?  If you could add some baking powder to your list, I’m lower than I thought.”

            “Yes.  When will the boy return?” he asked nervously.

            “Don’t you worry.  I’ll talk to him when he returns and tell him you’re angry.” 

            Abraham looked at her for a moment,

“I should stay until he returns.”

            “No, no.  Go on with your business.  He said he’d be home for lunch but knowing that boy I don’t expect him ‘til supper.”

            Abraham thought quickly and then answered as his wife pleased to keep up appearances,

“All right.  I’ll head into town but keep the boy here.”  He then added, “If any of his friends are with him, keep them too.  Make them stay for supper, I need to talk to them as well.”  He paused, “You must do this, Elisabeta.”

            “Yes dear, now go on now before it gets too late in the day.”

            “You will do this?”

            “Of course, Abraham, go,” and she made a flinging motion with her arm.

            He left by wagon for Guthrie though his eyes eagerly scanned in all directions for the boys.  Never had his insides felt so muddled; his heart pulsed in his brain, his bloated stomach stifled his lungs, and his skin creeped all over like a serpent engulfing its prey.  A child was dead by another child, his. 

“What might the town do?”  he wondered.

“After all,” he thought, “a boy cannot be hung.”  But the family, perhaps they would need to leave, leave the farm, the smithy, everything.  This wouldn’t be forgotten.  Abel would forever be a murderer here.  Abraham looked inside for a solution and outside for any scampering that revealed children. 

The sun seemed to bleat like a wounded lamb.  A mealy sweat came over him, hot here, cold there, confused all over.  Abraham’s sorrow could only take the form of desperate prayer. 

“What have I done to deserve this, Oh Lord?  If I could take his sin, I’d take it a thousand times over and gladly.”  He thought about how Abel must be feeling, his horrid fright and scared repentance. 

The boys had run straight through the golden fields, crashing through wheat and demolishing the heavy corn that fell like bricks upon their weary shoulders.  Abel led the way.  Whereas the others felt terror and punishment he stretched his arms wide, like a grand T, to tear down the grains and litter the soil with its precious fruits.  He succumbed to the freedom of exile.  Never to return, he had changed the course.  Since the moment he saw the bloodied boy on the ground, his head torn apart like a poorly cracked egg, yolk flowing earthward, a surge had come up from the base of his spine.  Though he hadn’t meant it, by any means, it seemed right.  Peril and destruction, the unhealed wound of irreversibility, the thousand tears and heart rending cries.  At last, he had come.

He could scarcely think, so complete was his joy.  All at once everything was different but just as it was meant to be.  He felt the thumping of stalks as they bent to his will and broke or collapsed in upon themselves.  He heard the shrieking of one of the boys behind him, the others were silent as nightriders.  Finally, gaining some bearing after his soaring flight, he led them to Squirrel’s Knoll, atop the sole bluff that rose from the flatness as an uninvited wrinkle. 

He stopped in front of a gnarled juniper, probably a thousand years old, and began pacing.  The others stopped, some bent over and huffing, all looking scared and terribly confused.  Tom, who’d been yelling, began pacing too, while the others sat on the ground around the juniper. 

“What are we gonna do?  Oh my God!  God!  Did you… He wasn’t moving!  I think…  Oh God!”  Tom mumbled and reasoned while the others sat looking at the two older boys.

Abel walked over to Tom and looked him square in the eyes. 

“Sit down and shut up.”  he rumbled. 

But Tom was in shock, his eyes seemed fixed on some haunting image, an image of Phil, motionless on the floor of the workshop.

“He’s dead.  Do you hear!  What… What…” Tom’s lips quivered in terror and tears erupted.

Abel calmly raised his hand to Tom’s shoulder and steadied him.

“Sit down.”

Tom shook his head then looked at Abel with a new kind of fear in his eyes.

“You did it!  You killed him.  You bastard!  I don’t care what you do!” he screamed.

Abel moved his hand from Tom’s shoulder to the back of his neck and with a smooth power pressed him down.  Tom resisted but his hips wavered and bent so that his legs stood straight but his face pointed down towards the rock.  Abel kept pressing until Tom buckled and fell to the ground.  Rolling over he looked up at Abel with hatred. 

“You’re a killer.  They’ll hang you now.  Hang you!”  He curled up into a ball and sobbed.  Neither his brothers nor anyone else moved.  Abel walked to the tree and looked down at everyone, though they avoided meeting the eyes of a killer.

“You all know it was an accident,”  Abel stated matter of factly.

“He was standing in the wrong place,” his steady voice faltered, “ I didn’t mean to do it.”

No one said anything.  Stan, his long legs spread awkwardly over the rocky soil, picked up some pebbles and began tossing them at the bony knuckles of the juniper.  He seemed ready to say something.

“We know it was an accident, Abel.”  Then he went on,

“I was just thinkin’, it’d be better if this hadn’t happened.”

Tom shouted out from between sobs,

“Well, of course, you fool!  Of course it shouldn’t have happened.”

Stan kept tossing pebbles and looked thoughtful.

“So maybe it didn’t.  I mean, who’s to say what happened back there?” 

Abel looked at him and spoke.

“What do you mean?  What the hell are you talking about?  We all know what happened!”

Tom began laughing like a maniac. 

“Hah, hah, hah, you just said it.  You… you… killer!  You said hell and that’s where you’re going.  Hah, hah!”

Abel strode over to Tom who quickly tried to raise himself but had just managed to sit when Abel delivered a fast hard kick straight in his ass.

“If you don’t keep you’re damned mouth shut we’ll all see you accidentally fall from here you stupid bastard!”

And with this mortal threat Tom cowered silently, rubbing his backside.

Everyone paused while Stan seemed to be working out an equation.  After some moments, he spoke.

“Maybe we didn’t go to your place, maybe we went fishing and got scared when we saw…” he considered, “…a pack of wolves running through the grove.”

Captured by the dream, Stan saw the details drop in place.  He proceeded while everyone began to look at him and see what he described.

“Maybe we ran through the trees over at Myer’s pond.  We ran and ran.  One of the wolves chasing after us.  We all went different directions.  We got through the trees and met up a couple hundred yards away.  Everyone was there.  Except Phil.  We began shouting after him but no one wanted to go back to the pond.  It was horrible.  We didn’t know what to do.  Don’t you remember?”

Everyone looked at him with amazement, like they had just woken up from a bad dream and were happy to find themselves safe in bed. 

Abel smiled then rushed over to Stan, grabbed him under his arms, and threw him up to his feet.  Stan looked jostled and wondered if Abel was going to hit him.  But he didn’t. 

“Stan, you’ve got the best memory of any of us.  I remember just what happened!”

Abel spun around to face the others.

“Don’t you remember?  Remember the fishing then the wolves then how we lost Phil?”

The boys looked at each other confused but then Willard chimed in,

“That’s right!  We went to help Mrs. Little paint the school but then we realized that was next Saturday.  So we went fishing.  That’s just what we did.  Then the wolves.”

Pete, the youngest, shook his head first in confusion and then nodded in agreement.  He faltered on the word,

“Wolfs.”

But Tom wouldn’t say anything, he just looked at the ground and wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand.  His skin was blotched white and red.

Abel looked at him sternly.

“Tom, do you remember?”  he asked menacingly.

“Sure.”  Tom uttered.

“You sure about that, Tom?”  Abel replied.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Master of the moment, Stan continued,

“We’d better run home and tell everyone.”  Then he stopped abruptly and looked at Abel seeming to remember something he had forgotten,

“Abel… your parents.  Wasn’t your father’s wagon there?  Weren’t they inside?”

Abel looked at him sadly.  Then he said quietly,

“Go home and tell everyone what happened.” 

Abel looked at the tree, thinking for a moment, then turned around and began to trot home.  He looked behind at the guys still just standing there, a little unsure.

“Go on home!  Tell everyone.  Tell it good!”  he shouted.

He ran through the fields the same way they had come and raised an arm to trash the grains.  He kept the other arm hanging loosely and seemed half-balanced between two ideas.

As he saw his house in the distance he slowed.  He watched everything with the eyes of a hawk, scanning for any movement.  He came up behind the barn and walked slowly around it.  He was shocked to see the cloth in the window.  The wagon was gone.  He paused in the workshop looking at the clean floor.  He wasn’t sure what to think.

“Oh God!  Has father gone to tell someone?”  he thought.

Abel stared at the house where all appeared calm and still just like a normal day.  He squinted his eyes to look into the dark windows and began walking towards it.  He saw something move inside and then come to the window quickly.  Mother.

She disappeared and then the door opened.

“Abel!  Abel, where have you been?  You’re father is awful upset you blew the window out.  Come on in boy and don’t you move.  Your father will be back before long.”

“Mother, where is father?”  Abel demanded.

“Don’t you worry after your father, just you come in and get to waiting.”

“Mother, where is he, right now?”  he repeated sternly catching her askance.

“Well, he went on into Guthrie to get some goods.  He had to wait a spell because he spent the whole morning with Mr. Comfrey helping with a broken wheel.”

“He went to Guthrie?  Just to get some goods?”  Abel asked in confusion.

“That’s right.  Probably has to buy a pane of glass too now that you busted that window.  Now come on in boy.”

Abel trudged inside, his hands in his pockets, his face washed with uncertainty.  His mother knew nothing, of that he was sure, but father.  Father cleaned up.  Father saw the broken headed child, the dangling puppy, the empty cartridge fixed in the vice.  Father knew. 

Mrs. Krause put her hand on Abel’s shoulder and ushered him to the large pine table. 

“Sit you down, I’ll find you a book to practice some reading.  You’re staying right here until your father returns.  He was awful angry with you and even wanted the other boys to stay if they were with you.” 

She rustled through some papers in the adjoining library and brought out a three-month-old copy of Harper’s and set it in front of the boy. 

“What were you doing out there anyway.  Have you gotten yourself a gun?  I don’t want you going near those things until you’re older.  The pistol is the devil’s right hand.”

Abel laughed.

“Don’t you laugh at me boy.  I hate your father’s but we live in a savage place now.  It’s fit for outlaws and drinkers, not good folk like us.  At least the government’s tryin’ to civilize the territories.”

Abel thumbed through the magazine and felt strong.  He had killed someone and his mother knew nothing.  He stopped on an advertisement of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, June and July, Madison Square Garden, New York City.  The caption showed a picture of a fierce looking bearded man with a ten-gallon white hat holding about ten-gallons of hair.  He stood proudly, all covered with leather and bangles; two silver pistols hung from his waist.  There were Indians with ropes in the background and horses all about.  A woman stood with a shining pistol in her gloved hand, holding it as if she was advertising a bottle of perfume.

Maybe he could show them a thing, he thought.  He pictured himself spinning pistols and shooting flying glass bottles that exploded into smithereens.  Then he aimed lower and shot out the men who threw them then he chased down the hairy, bangle-bedazzled Buffalo Bill who begged at his feet for mercy.  Then he shot him square in the ten-gallon hat.  Or maybe he’d be the new Jesse James and rob banks and become a hero.

He lay his head down on the magazine while his mother shuffled around and began cooking dinner.  He inhaled the aromas of the baking cornbread and the hamhock and beans.  He thought about milk and broken heads. 

“Everyone’s looking for Phil now,” he thought.  They were.  His eyes closed and he fell asleep.

Abraham Krause had gone about his business getting provisions at Grant‘s Mercantile and even found a pane of glass nearby.  His sick stomach turned every which way the whole afternoon and he couldn’t look anyone in the eye.  He tartly demanded his needs and left no room for chatting.  As he drove home in the setting sun he felt so guilty, like he himself had murdered the boy.  Right now the Turners were wondering where their child was.  This thought sent him in a spin.  He pulled the wagon to the side of the road and jumped off and began to vomit.  His body ached and streams of spittle and lunch hung from his open mouth.  Tears splashed to the red earth and a cold sweat covered his skin and made his clothes sticky.  Lucky no one passed by for he’d have no reason to give them.  He was broken down.

The rest of the ride home in the hot, dusty haze of twilight was hideous.  He had wiped his face and cleaned up but still felt ruined.  The vertebrae of his spine creaked and grated against one another making each bump seem like a dagger thrust.  He hadn’t any idea what to do.  What could he tell them?  What words could hide one life to protect another?

 As he approached the crossing a wagon veered towards him. 

“Oh God,” he thought, “they know.  Now they’re after us.”

The wagon came alongside him and Abraham looked nervously at Pearson McDonough. 

“We’ve been looking for you Krause,” McDonough said in his deep voice.

“Yes.”  He said in resignation, it was all over.

“You seen your boy yet?”

A terror came from his belly and a feeling of ice immobilized his entire body.

            “What have you done?”  he asked sharply.

            McDonough furrowed his brow.

“The boys got in some trouble, it seems.  They went fishing over at Myer’s pond and spotted some wolves.  They tried to get away but we think the wolves got Jim Turner’s boy.”

            Abraham Krause sat in stunned amazement.

            “We’ve already looked through the area but haven’t turned up anything.  My boys are at home now but some of the men thought we’d organize a search.  We’d like your help.”

            Krause couldn’t speak.

            Finally, after a long pause,

“I… I need to get these things home.  I’ll… come help you right away.  Where?”  He spoke quietly, knowing that he’d never lived so many lies in so short a time.

            “We’ll meet at the church, round eight o’ clock.  We’ll find that boy, or some of him, I’m afraid.”  McDonough tipped his hat and proceeded north towards his house for a brief respite.

Abraham felt strangely liberated but far from clear.  If he’d been in hell earlier he was elsewhere now, a hope he hadn’t dreamed of before.  He whipped his horses up and quickened the pace home.  He pulled into the clearing a few minutes later and jumped from the wagon.  He gathered the bags and parcels, flung them over his sturdy shoulders, and carried them inside.  He entered the house all at once, unannounced. 

Elisabeta turned and smiled but he avoided her eyes.  He looked at Abel who had quickly woken and turned to stare at him like an owl.  The two gazed at each other for a moment and exchanged volumes but knew nothing.  After the pause Abraham set his things down.

“I’m going to unhitch the wagon.  Abel, help your mother with these things.”

Abraham led the horses into the barn and quickly shut them in the stalls without brushing their short, stiff hair or teasing them as he normally did.  He fastened the barn door and rushed up to the hayloft.  He upturned a section and saw some burlap.  He hadn’t been completely sure a moment ago if the rest of the day was somehow a dream, some insane misunderstanding.  No, the child’s body remained right as he’d left it.  He briefly considered dismembering the body and littering some pieces near the pond.  The thought broke what little humanity was left in him.

He descended the ladder until his feet touched the hard ground.

He walked inside and immediately addressed Abel who was stowing some of the goods,

“Wolves, huh?  That right?”

Abel looked at him unflinchingly. 

“I didn’t tell mother yet.”

“Well go on.  Tell her.  Tell her about the Turner boy.”  Abraham was stern but accepting, happily replacing one horror for another.

“Mother, we were chased by wolves today.”

Elisabeta stopped all her cooking and rushed to Abel and, grabbing him by both shoulders, wrapped herself around him.

“What!”  she gasped.

Abel wriggled from her hold and went to the table and sat down.

Elisabeta turned to Abraham and cursed him,

“You see, you… Abraham Krause!  You see where you’ve brought us.  I don’t care if it was free, this is wild land.  Indian country.  It’s only fit for savages.  Wolves chasing our children.  It wasn’t this way in Michigan.”

Abraham stared her down and then looked at Abel,

“Mother, there’s wolves everywhere.  Ain’t nothin’ you can do about it.”

Abel looked down at the table, his face away from his father’s, and smiled.

“I must go.  They think these wolves took Jim Turner’s boy.  We’re meeting at the church to start a search.”

Abraham left for the church and tried to steel himself.  He’d have to stay up all night with these men, guilty as he was, and help them look for a boy who he’d wrapped in burlap and twine and buried in his hayloft.

Elisabeta began questioning Abel who told her the story.  She gasped and shook her head and barely managed to keep her food from burning she was so shaken up.

“I’ll tell you, child, I don’t care if we have to send you to my family in Michigan… or even to our kin in Deutschland, her voice changed to utter this word, but I don’t want you growing up in this… this country.”

She complained and ranted as she ladled beans and ham on Abel’s plate and served him large squares of cornbread.  He sat wordlessly eating his dinner, hungrily lapping up the food, while she nibbled, too worried and angry to eat much.  She prepared Abraham a large plate and set it inside the cooling oven. 

By the time Abraham got his meal, around dawn, the breakfast was cold and soggy.  His body had never been so worn.  His nerves, like a large, dusty cobweb, fell throughout his flesh leaving him formless and weak.  He had no more strength for sorrow or anxiety.  He felt a broken vessel, just the form of a man.  He quietly shoveled the food in his mouth, his eyes hypnotically locked on something unseen.  The puppy, snug in a corner, just his head peeking out from beneath some bags, watched Abraham’s mechanical motions.

They’d killed two wolves—and two dogs—during the night.  Tearing through the countryside lit only by a half moon and torchlight, they hunted down the beasts.  The flickering of the torches raced across the darkness of the land and covered the golden fields with the light of hellfire.  When the darting black forms were spotted then gunshots, enough to make a war, echoed across the plains. 

Not a trace of the boy was found.  Earlier in the day they had discovered a torn strip of white cotton that Jim Turner thought a piece of Phil’s shirt; the same which still covered Phil all nestled in burlap beneath the hay.  Turner carefully smelled it, trying to remember, and stowed it lovingly in his shirt pocket.  It had probably come from a junked bag of flour.

Abraham finished eating his unpleasant breakfast just as the first rays streaked through the eastern windows.  He climbed on top of the bed slowly, clothes and all, trying not to waken Elisabeta.

“Did you find anything?”  she asked smartly.

“Nothing,” he replied. 

“I’m sorry to wake you,” he added.

“I didn’t sleep much.  It’s time to get up anyway.”  She quietly got out of bed just as he’d settled in.  He passed out.

He awoke, in the brightness of eight o’ clock, feeling like a deadman.  He looked up at the wooden rafters half-expecting to see vultures lingering there staring down at him with hungry eyes.

“Is this what the boy feels?”  he wondered.

Abraham rose to an empty house.  He stripped himself of his clothes, wrinkled and smelling of stale sweat, and dressed in crisp ones.  He went out to the clearing where he saw Elisabeta sweeping near the barn.  A nervous jolt staggered his frayed nerves.

“Mother, I’ll keep care of the barn.  I didn’t get to it last night but don’t you worry.  Come on inside the house before you get hot.”

“Just doing some sweeping Abraham.  I don’t mind.”

He thought quickly and uttered the nauseating words,

“Maybe you’d cook me some eggs?”

“Of course dear.  On my way.”  And with that she returned to the house and began preparing food in the kitchen, fooled by devotion.

Abraham looked around the house for anything unusual.  He checked his gun and filled in the empty cartridge holder around his gun belt with a fresh bullet. 

“Mother, where’s Abel this morning?  I mean to keep watch over that boy from now on.”

“He left early with that puppy of his.  Said he was going fishing… but not near the pond, he assured me, just over at the McDonough’s creek.”

“Oh God,” Abraham thought but too tired to chase after anyone, he ate the second breakfast and thought about a grave.

Abel sat at the creek by himself and watched the water pass by.  The golden puppy lie next to him asleep, its fat head nestled between its paws. Abel sat at the precise point where the clear water becomes muddy, where the miracle occurs.  All at once, clear, all at once, red and brown muddled into trails and eddies.  “Just like Moses,” he thought, remembering Sunday school. 

He thought of his fathers’ eyes looking at him last night, not seeming to recognize him.  He felt angry.

“Dog.”

He said it louder,

“Dog!”

The puppy opened its eyes and without moving looked up at him.  He slid a hand underneath its soft, pink belly and the other across its back.  He lifted the dog like an awkward lump of clay and threw it into the creek.  The puppy spun and splashed with a quick yelp.  The brown waters swiftly bore him away though his tiny paws churned rhythmically and veered him towards shore.  Between paddling and the right current he landed ashore just a few yards down, dripping red water, his paws brown with mud.

Abel quickly strode over to him.  The dog sulked, retreating in the other direction just like the Indian boy had done.  Grabbing him in the same manner, Abel flung the dog back into the creek.  The current caught the morsel and rushed him around a stone and down a quick flume.  Paddling, the dog again reached shore, muddier and coughing water.

Abel jumped unto some rocks and vaulted to the dog landing right next to him.  The puppy remained motionless, flattening himself against the mud.

Abel lifted him high into the air and smiled.

“Good dog.  You’re strong.”

Grasping the puppy on either shoulder, he slowly lowered it to the water.  Like a loving baptism, he quickly dunked the thing rinsing it of its mud. 

“You’re a good dog.”

Then, for a second baptism, he held the struggling puppy underneath the water.  Its tiny golden paws raced and danced and Abel thought he heard a bark come from underneath the water’s surface.  The paws slowed and then seemed free of their own will.  They dangled along in the stream like the long wisps of moss affixed to the stones barely visible in the dirty water.  Abel let go and the submerged thing toppled and coursed downstream as lifeless as a piece of wood.  Abel sat quietly watching the water and wondered if he’d see a puppy pass by him if he waited long enough.  Hearing something, he turned around.  Abraham looked down from above at him, caught the boys’ eyes quickly, then turned and walked away.  Abel threw a large rock into the muddy stream.

Abraham stood in the middle of his largest field, surrounded by bunches of drooping wheat, and stabbed the soil with a long shovel.  He upturned some of the mighty plants and they crashed to the earth, their grains sprinkling across the furrows, littering food.  He dug furiously until his boots were thick in soil and patches of sweat seeped through his shirt under his arms, around his neck, and in the middle of his back. 

“It’s so goddamned hot,” he thought, angry at himself for taking His name in vain, even if only in thought.  The strong August sun piled down, its rays falling on him with the pain and weight of a thick chain clinking from the high heavens.  The sweat poured from under his hat, coating his face in slobbering rivulets.  The red earth, airborne from the churning, covered him.  It worked itself between his collar, gritting with the moisture to rub his neck raw, and stained his clothes blood red.  Succumbing to heat and exhaustion, the smell of eggs, salt, and garlic exuding from his pores, Abraham dropped. 

He sat on the ground and dug his hands into the soil.  He pulled up clods of the darker earth underneath the red.  It wriggled alive with worms.  He placed the heap under his nose and inhaled the rich aroma with its faint scent of ammonia, like old piss.  He dropped it into his lap and began sobbing, holding his wet face in his dirty hands.  He couldn’t think, couldn’t even imagine.  All at once, death and meaninglessness forced itself from all sides into his skin and suffused his body.  He couldn’t decide to be angry, sorry, despairing, or relieved.  He just gave up.  His boy had brought him ruin but he couldn’t blame him.  When his eyes dried he stood in a trance and finished his digging, his face covered with earth and his mouth parched.  He had carved a shallow grave, just over five feet long and three feet deep.  He wondered if the wheat would show, if the heightened stalks, their roots buried in the rich soil of a human life, would reveal the resting place, the dying place, of a six year old child.  The thought worried him.  He walked a quarter mile back to the barn. 

He had told Elisabeta he’d be walking through the fields, “…just checking everything,” he’d said.  He’d also asked if she would mind river washing the clothes today.  “I always love the smell afterwards,” he entreated and she happily obeyed giving him a space of about three hours.  She always washed everything when she went to the river and hung it to dry in the branches of trees and bushes.  She knitted pacifically while the sun and wind warmed the clothes.  Still careful, Abraham looked inside the quiet home, his face muddy and frightening, to make sure she wasn’t around.  Then he walked around the house and around the barn and up and down the road, just to be certain no one was about.  When he was all done he rushed up to the hayloft, uncovered the burlap package, flung it over his shoulder and hurried out to the grave.  He dropped the pliant package into the hole and carefully flattened and placed it lovingly, like a new wife making the bed of her lover.  Then he piled shovelful after shovelful of earth upon Phil Turner who had lived just six years upon the Earth.  He’d already covered the body when he heard a noise ahead.  He stopped and strained to make sense out of the jungle of stalks and golden grains.  He saw a shape.  Abel.  Their eyes met, Abraham’s like moons.  He stared like a madman full of the spirit.  Abel looked at him coolly and sadly then disappeared back into the stalks.  Abraham grunted and finished his burying, carefully leveling the dirt.  Then he took the fallen stalks of wheat and burrowed them in straight lines upon the earth that stood out as a dark rectangle in the middle of a red sea.  Little Phil Turner was gone, devoured by wolves.

Abraham came home and stripped himself of his filthy clothes in the barn until he stood naked except for his skivvies.  He piled his clothes in a corner, intent upon wearing them some other workday and telling his wife that they had become dirtied later. 

He washed in well water out in the clearing, cleansing himself of sweat and sin.  The clear water splashed off him in the sunlight and he wondered if they’d all forget the last few days.  Inside, a washing peace passed through him: he knew they would.  It was all done now, he’d keep a better watch over Abel.

He dried in the sun, sitting naked in a splintered old chair.  He closed his eyes.  His nerves were looser, his body refreshed, his mind relatively clear.  It had all worked out.  When only his hair remained moist he lifted himself carefully from the chair and walked inside and dressed in clean clothes of the same type.  He went to his library and found Abel sitting quietly, methodically penciling a large building from an old magazine. 

“Well now, well look there…,” he muttered, “…now that’s something.  You got a gift, boy.  Maybe you’ll be a draftsman.  They make a handsome living, draftsmen.”

Abel kept drawing uninterrupted by his father’s praise.

“Why there’ll be plenty of opportunity for such men.  I’ll tell you these buildings are growing in the cities like mushrooms after spring rains.  That’d be a fine life for you.”

Abel quietly nodded but continued copying the fine details of the building.

“You know, Abel, your mother mentioned something to me.  She thinks it might serve you to visit her relatives in Germany.  All us Krauses, so far as I know, are either in Michigan or Illinois but your mother’s kin, there’s still a few of them around München.”

He looked at the boy for any signs of interest.

“It wouldn’t be any time real soon.  Maybe go over in a year or two and try that German schooling, learn the language proper.  Why your mother and I, we wanted to bring you up pure American, that’s why we never speak German to you but maybe it’d do you some good.  We could send you over in early summer and you’d have plenty of time to learn a bit before you began school.  How’s that sound?”

Abel nodded as before and continued drawing.

“That’s capital.  Your mother will have to make some correspondences but I bet her relatives would love to have a big-shot American boy come visit them.”

Abel stopped drawing and stared off in the distance for a moment.

“Father, do you think the wolves got Phil?”

The question startled Abraham.

“Abel, Phil’s in heaven now.  It was a horrible thing that happened but it’s best we not ever talk of it again.  Nothing can ever be changed.  We’re all very sorry he’s gone.”

Abel stared into the distance.

“Yes.”

Abraham began to walk out but a nervous thought shook him.

“Abel, are your friends very sure they saw the wolves?”

“Yes.”

Abraham paused and looked at Abel guiltily. 

“It’s all over now.  We’ll be much more careful won’t we?”

“Yes.”

Abraham spent the afternoon in the phantomed workshop filing and shaping a horseshoe he’d been meaning to fix.

Abel drew large buildings all afternoon and showed his mother a cache of drawings. 

“Wonderful!” and she went on and on as she raced through the house efficiently stowing mounds of crisp laundry, sun-dried in trees and smelling of river water.

The family spent a calm evening eating a supper of chicken and rice.  Sensing the gloom, Elisabeta recounted the first days she knew Abraham and made him and Abel laugh and laugh, Abel excitedly asking questions about Michigan and the families. 

Abraham smoked his pipe alone, on the same splintery chair in the warm, clear summer night.  He stared into the immensity of stars while his family lulled inside, softly asleep.  Everything was right.  Around ten o’ clock he joined them, sleeping atop the covers because of the heat.  He felt at peace.

Not more than an hour after he’d fallen asleep he woke to noises outside and saw the dancing oranges and reds illuminate the house with hellfire. 

“Am I dreaming of my guilt?” he wondered.

“Krause!” a loud, deep voice boomed.  Abraham jumped from the bed while Elisabeta woke, frightened by the noise. 

Abraham looked outside to see a group of men, some tall on horses, others standing in the clearing.  Nearly all bore flaming torches. 

“Krause.  We want the boy.”  It was Pearson McDonough.  Abel’s friend Tom Ross stood beside him while Jacob Ross, his father, stood in the background.

“We know how you must feel, but this is out of your hands now.  It’s justice.” 

Elisabeta, confused and scared, asked,

“What are they saying, Abraham?  What do they want?  It’s horrible.  It’s horrible.”

“Mother, you stay right here.  I’ll talk to them.”  Abraham held out an arm in her direction motioning her to remain, while his other arm searched the post of the dresser, half-lit by the firelight.  He raised his gun belt without looking but immediately noticed the lightness. 

“My God, where’s my pistol?”  He quickly searched his mind wondering if he’d left it somewhere or if, unimaginably, one of the men had entered his bedroom and pilfered the Colt.

Fearful and with light-steps he worked his way through the living room and library in the flickering darkness.  He looked for the glint of metal.  Nothing.

“Krause!  The boy!  Goddamnit, don’t make this any harder than it already is!”  the voice echoed. 

“Abraham!” Elisabeta cried.

Just then he heard a window break followed by gunfire. 

“Oh my God!  They’re after Abel!” 

He rushed to the boy’s bedroom to guard him.  He entered to see Abel, fully dressed, bent to the level of his window and sticking a pistol, the Colt, out a broken pane of glass.

“Abel!  What are you doing?”

The men returned the gunfire showering the house with bullets.  Flashes of gunpowder from the clearing illuminated everything in a ghastly white light for frozen moments. 

Abraham fell to the ground, half-perched against a wall, and couldn’t think to protect his head, cover the boy, or go to his wife.  He noticed a slight throb in his left shoulder.  He raised his right hand and felt a gaping wound in his shoulder. 

“Abel?” he asked.

The boy continued firing and the men returned fire.  Windows shattered, pots fell, noises from all over crashed around them while Elisabeta screamed from the bedroom.  Abraham heard the barn door creak open and the sound of animals rushing into the clearing.  A devilish light began to flicker.

“Abel?” Abraham asked.

The boy turned and sat against the wall under the window and stared at his wounded father.  He raised the pistol, his hands, sturdy as they were, barely able to hold the giant, glimmering Colt .45.

“Abel?” Abraham asked.  His face, not frightened, not even confused, shone a quiet disappointment.  The boy fired.  The man bounced and then slumped to the floor.

Long bodies of dancing flames stole across the outside of the barn and animals of all sizes and shapes mooed, neighed, bahhed, clucked, and yelled throughout the clearing.  Shots continued against the house.  Elisabeta cried out for Abraham.

Abel stood right in front of the window and began walking casually through the house.  He entered his parents’ bedroom and looked at his mother pulling the covers near her face and shaking with terror. 

            “Abel?” She asked looking at the confident, dressed man not sure if it was her child or a demon from the outside.

            A shot exploded and Elisabeta lay dead.

            Abel fired from his parents’ window and saw a man’s leg break and blood dribble forth accompanied by an agonizing cry.  The gunfire multiplied and Abel dropped to the ground.  He felt a stinging from his arm and look to see his left hand torn apart.  He began to sob and cry.  The gunfire continued for a few moments then petered out; the crackling of the fire stirred the quiet.  The rich smell of wood smoke filled the air and began to choke him. 

            “Krause!”  a voice yelled.

            Some moments passed and then the front door cracked and splintered as three men came storming through with rifles.  They looked in all directions and discovered Abraham Krause dead on the ground.  They searched the house and when one entered the bedroom he called for the others.  The boy, weakened, tried to lift the pistol with his awkward right hand but a man gently held it down.

            “It’s all over now.  It’s all over.”  He tugged the boy up from the ground by the back of his collar. 

            “She’s dead, McDonough.”

            “Must’ve been cross-fire.  Krause shouldn’t’ve started firin’.”

            Pearson McDonough dragged the wounded boy outside and dropped him onto the ground amid a circle of men.  Abel looked up in the brightness and heat of the fire and saw the fathers of his friends.  Their faces were contorted and hideous in the firelight.  He also saw Tom Ross.  He wished he could kick him or blow his head off.

            A voice rang out,

“The boy’s got a devil in ‘im.” 

            A few others mumbled in agreement.

            “Won’t let my kids near ‘im.”

            Another crackly old voice offered, “He killed my cow, smashed its head right in!”

            A third voice said, “Knocked the teeth right out of that Indian boy, works over at Miss Lindy’s.”

            “That’s right, ‘twas Squaw Sally’s boy.  Don’t have no teeth.”

            Another even more somber man broke the circle and looked down at Abel with evil eyes. 

            “You talk here about cattle and Indians!  He killed my boy!  He took my firstborn!  Goddamn him.  My wife is dumb with grief.”

            “And he said he’d kill any of us that told,” Tom Ross added.  His father placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders assuring and comforting him.

            “Well, what do you think?”  asked Comfrey.

            “Not a matter of thinkin’.  There’s right and there’s right.  This boy’s got a rope comin’,” Pearson McDonough answered.

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