You fool, she said. Her voice broke on it. You beautiful, stubborn, tonedeaf fool. Is that a yes? I've loved you since the night you sang to Abel Lund.
Is that a yes, Odessa? Yes. She was laughing and crying both. Yes. Yes.
A 100 times. Yes. They were married that afternoon in the front room of the gilded pic. Because the church was snowed in and Reverend Amos Fairley was 81 years old and refused to walk through drifts. Ione Mulgrew stood up for the bride, wept through the whole thing into a dish towel.
Walt Dunore stood up for the groom. Baby Ruth asleep on his shoulder. There was no music. There were no flowers. There was a cold pot of coffee and half a pie.
It was the best day of Anel Branick's life. That night in the big house on the ridge, they did not do anything the town would have whispered about. They sat by the fire, her head on his chest, his arm around her, her little wooden ren on the mantle, and she fell asleep there, safe, deep, like she had not slept in years. He did not move all night for fear of waking her. Married.
He was married. Leland couldn't touch the land now. He couldn't. Anel had beaten him. Anel had actually he drifted off sometime after 3.
He woke to a fist hammering on the door. Gray light, cold ashes. Odessa jerking upright beside him. Branick, open up in the name of the law. He opened the door.
Sheriff Boyd Tull, six deputies, rifles, all of them aimed at his chest and behind them, white-faced and grave, Leland Ashcom. What is this? Anel said. Tol did not answer. He just jerked his head toward the barn.
The barn door was open. Anel walked across the yard through the snow barefoot, the deputies parting to let him through. He looked inside. Jubel Varnum was lying in the straw. On his back, eyes open, staring at nothing.
His face a terrible purple black and his throat, his throat was crushed, mashed in, bruised all the way around in the shape of something huge, something like a giant's hands. Behind him, Odessa screamed. Somebody grabbed Anel's wrists, wrenched them behind his back. Cold iron snapped shut. He did not fight.
He could not stop staring at Jubel's throat. Leland Ashcom stepped up close beside him, so close, close enough to whisper, and he put a hand on Anel's shoulder. Gentle like a friend. Felony, Anel, he said softly, so only Anel could hear. And the deed is still the deed.
The jail in Copper Hollow was a horse stall with bars on it. Anel had said so himself, standing on his own porch. Back when he still had a porch, now he was inside it. Iron bars bolted into old pine timbers, a dirt floor, a bucket in the corner, no stove, no blanket, just a slit of a window high up on the back wall where the snow blew in and piled up in a little white drift by his boots. He had to sit on the floor.
The ceiling was too low for him to stand. Three days he sat there. Three days of people walking past the window, slowing down, peering in, whispering, "That's him. Look at the size of those hands." crushed his throat like a chickens. Always knew it.
Didn't I always say, "Devil?" He didn't answer. He didn't look up because if he looked up, he would see faces. And some of those faces had brought pies up the mountain last month. Some of them had shaken his hand. Some of them had stood in the gilded pick and watched him get married.
And now they were looking at him like he was something that crawled out from under a rock. Four years. It had taken four months to make them stop being afraid. It took one morning to make them start again. On the fourth day, Judge Roswell Kemp rode into town.
Tall, thin, a face like a dried apple and a black coat shiny at the elbows. He was the territorial district judge for six counties. He rode circuit. He was not supposed to be in Copper Hollow until April. Leland Ashcom had sent a telegram.
Judge Kemp owed the Ashcom bank $1,100. The trial was held in the dining room of the Gilded Pick because it was the biggest room in town. Ione Mulgrew had tried to refuse. Tull had threatened to shut her down. So there it was, tables pushed against the walls, chairs and rows, a dozen men in the jewelry box, which was two church pews dragged across the floor.
Anel knew every one of them. The blacksmith who owed Leland for his forge. The barber who owed Leland for his chair. the freight man who owed Leland for his wagon. 12 men, 12 debts.
They brought Anel in wearing chains, wrists, and ankles. He had to duck under the door frame. A woman in the front row gasped and clutched her husband's arm. He sat in a chair too small for him. It creaked like it was about to give up, and then he saw her.
Odessa, sitting at the end of the front row, back straight, hands folded in her lap, her black dress, her silver hair, and her eyes on his. Steady, steady. She mouthed one word at him. Breathe. He breathed.
It took less than two hours. Sheriff Tull testified that he had found the body. Leland Ashcom testified with great reluctance and deep personal sorrow that he had seen Sliff Jubel Varnum by the throat. The week before, Walt Dunore was called, and he tried. God bless him.
He tried, but he let him go. He let him go. I saw it with my own eyes. He had him and he let him go, but he did lift him by the throat, said Judge Kemp. Yes or no, Mr. Dunore.
Yes, but thank you. That will be all. And then Odessa stood up. Nobody had called her. She stood anyway.
Your honor, I examined the body. Sit down, madam. I am a trained physician's assistant. 11 years. I examined the throat.