A/N1: New chapter, lots to do.

Heaven and Hell

Book One:

Bring My Coffin Along

CHAPTER THREE:

Fever Dreams

Late Friday, September 4, 1885,
Idaho Falls, Idaho

Bells are ringing, What's the matter? See the smoke and hear the clatter; Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Pour on Water, Pour on Water.

-Sacred Harp Song, Fire Alarm

The stagecoach clattered into Idaho Falls in the pitch black.

The soaked horses foamed and stumbled. Chuck had witnessed, fascinated, Casey's skill with horses as Casey coaxed effort from the horses beyond their endurance.

As they entered the dark edge of town, Casey aimed the stagecoach at its lit center. A moment later, he reined in the weary horses in front of the Bar None Saloon.

The lanterns outside lit the front, and light spilled from the interior over and under the swinging doors. A piano, poorly played, tinkled drunkenly from inside. Casey handed Chuck the reins and jumped down. Just as he did, a man came through the doors and took in the scene. Carina had opened the door and was helping Steve get out. The man held one of the swinging doors open for Casey, who hurried inside. After he did, the man hurried up the street into the dark.

A moment later, a wild commotion broke loose inside, as cries of "Hold up!", "Bob's murdered!", "The Number Gang!".

People poured into the street. Most were men, dressed like Casey, but there were several women, dressed like Carina One woman, dark-haired and dark-skinned, cried out: "Carina!"

Carina jerked. She sought the woman's eyes and Chuck saw an unspoken greeting pass between them, along with a simultaneous unspoken command. The woman neither approached Carina nor did she say Carina's name again.

A sizable crowd had formed in the street around the coach, and on the boardwalk before the Bar None. The flickering lantern light made the faces in the crowd distorted, and their jumbled talk and excited cries made them seem damned, imploring for mercy.

Chuck squeezed his eyes shut. His stomach knotted and he jumped down from the seat and stumbled away into the darkness on the opposite side of the street. He knelt down and hugged himself. After a few seconds, the pain and nausea subsided. Chuck felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up into Carina's concerned face.

"The Doc just got here. I guess that first guy went to get him. Doc's seeing to Steve inside. You need to have him look at you. That pistol-whipping...I...we need to be sure you're okay. Like I said...not going to have you on my conscience." She rubbed Chuck's shoulder.

Chuck stood up shaky. "I'm sorry I didn't stop that guy, Number Two, with the apple."

"Don't be. He'd have beaten you bad for sure, Boston. I prayed he wouldn't. And, anyway," she half-smiled, "it's not like I haven't been licked before. I'm just glad he didn't lick you - lick you anymore, I guess."

Chuck was not sure how to respond to that. He stood, tongue-tied, and Carina reached into her bodice. She got a look of concentration on her face as she hunted then produced a lace handkerchief, white, trimmed blue. After putting it to her mouth, she began to wipe Chuck's face. She smiled as she did it.

Chuck looked back across to the coach and the saloon. The crowd's noise had quieted and Casey was standing amid them, talking. Chuck could not hear him but he was explaining what had happened.

Chuck reached up and stopped Carina's hand. "Thank you, Carina, but I want to hear what Casey's saying."

She put her hand on his chest, cupping her handkerchief in it. "Better for you to stay out of it. You're here to teach, right? That's what you said on the coach yesterday. No need to get more involved in this. Just be a witness, a victim. No need to draw extra attention to yourself.

"Towns like this are hard on strangers, new folks. They'll want the man teaching their kids lilly white.

"Speaking of which, not a good idea for us to be seen together much...if at all." She twisted her mouth. "I'm here to work for Anna Wu at the Bar None. A lateral move, but I needed a change of scenery - a change of clientele. I'm not the sort of person a school teacher should be seen with, unless it is on the busy street at high noon, exchanging an otherwise disinterested greeting."

Chuck looked at her and put his hand on hers. "I meant what I told that highwayman, Carina. All women deserve respect; I don't make distinctions."

Carina grinned sadly. "That's high-minded of you, Boston, very noble, but I guarantee, folks around here will make distinctions for you. You keep to your side of the street when I walk by." She sighed. "I'll send the Doc over when he's finished with Steve. Just sit here." Carina started to turn.

"'Disinterested'? 'High-minded'?" Chuck stared at her, regarding her. She stopped her turn and he thought she blushed - but he could not be sure in the dark.

"Sorry, Boston. There's a lot of...downtime in my work. I look at books." She gave him a sharp smile. "Not Swedenborg, mind you, but you know, books with words, not just...pictures."

Carina turned and marched away. She looked back over her shoulder, her eyes brooking no disobedience from Chuck. He shook his head and sat down, sighing, putting his pillowcase at his feet. He leaned against a pole and watched the crowd. They eventually dispersed, most retreating into the Bar None. As they did, Casey wove through the stragglers to Chuck.

"You okay, kid? I think the Doc'll be over here soon. He had to dig a slug outta Steve's shoulder. Lucky, they was operatin' in the saloon. Steve's in there singing now." Casey's face showed a brief flicker of a smile but it vanished as soon as it appeared. "How's your face?"

"Fine, John. Carina helped me clean up a little."

Casey raised an eyebrow and then a speculative look filled his eyes. "Some kind of woman, that Carina…" He stopped talking but his sentence portended more.

"I agree."

"Best you stay away from her, kid. No future in that. That bed's a place of business."

"I wasn't…"

"No, but you might, and that'd be the kiss o' death for you in Idaho Falls."

"You know this town?"

Casey gave Chuck an inscrutable look. "No, but I know towns, towns out here. They're all the same. You don't know. Step lively; watch where you land your feet."

Just as Casey finished, a young man, a dandy, walked up. He was as tall as Casey. His hair was blonde and he had an athletic build. Without preamble or introduction, he bent down and peered at Chuck's face, his face in Chuck's face. He looked thoughtful, then he placed his small leather bag on the street next to Chuck's pillowcase. After a moment's continued study, the man readjusted himself so he was no longer in the light from the opposite side of the street.

As he knelt, he spoke. "Hi, stranger. I'm Dr. Woodcomb. Lady inside told me one bandit pistol-whipped you." Without waiting for comment, he put his large hand around Chuck's chin, and turned his head one way and then another. He put his hands on both sides of Chuck's nose and moved them. After thinking, he held up his index finger and asked Chuck to follow it as he moved it side-to-side.

"You seem to be okay, I think. No broken nose. Your face will be sore for the next few days, and your eyes might be black; we must wait and see. Come to me if you have headaches or feel sick."

"I'm Chuck," Chuck said.

"Right. Lady inside told me. From Boston, right? I'm from San Francisco. We should have dinner one night this week, get to know each other."

"I'd like that, Dr. Woodcomb."

"Call me, Devon, Chuck." The man smiled, grabbed his bag, and stood up. "Do you have a place to stay?"

"Yes, I have contracted with a Mrs. Fitzsimmons."

Devon's face brightened. "That's just down the street," he pointed, "she's awesome and her house very comfortable."

"That's quite a commendation," Chuck said, laughing and then wrinkling his face in pain. "Ouch."

"Like I said, sore. Come by and see me tomorrow, even if everything seems fine."

"I will."

Chuck and Casey watched Devon walk away. Casey turned to Chuck. "You need me to walk you to your lodgin's?"

"No, I can find it. What are you going to do?"

"I'll help with the coach and the horses. Good horses. With Bob's body. Then I'll get a room above the saloon. Sheriff's out in the territory, they say, supposed to be back tomorrow. I'll talk to him then."

"Why are you in Idaho Falls, Casey? Are you just passing through?"

Casey's face went slack. "Not passin' through. Not sure I'm stayin' either. Still things t' work out. Maybe I'll see you 'round." Casey shrugged and lumbered toward the coach. He fell in with two other men working to unhitch the horses. Two others were getting Bob from inside the coach.

Picking up his pillowcase, Chuck started down the street.

Mrs. Firtzsimmons had been expecting Chuck earlier, and let him know that, but she was still awake. Word had reached her of the stagecoach hold-up, and she was full of questions and comments.

Chuck answered as best he could but many of the questions were too local for him to know how to answer them: he did not know Steve's last name or the name of Bob's wife, or if he even had one.

Mrs. Fitzsimmons was a distracted, chatty, plump woman, her hair still dark, despite streaks of grey. She rattled on with questions and comments as she showed Chuck around the house, large and comfortable, then to his room. It never seemed to occur to her that Chuck had stopped responding, that he was just humming in the brief breaks between her speeches. She went on as they stood in his room.

"The previous teacher, Miss Reynolds, let this room. She left town rather suddenly, and she left behind her library. It's not a lot of books, but they seem nice. I've left them in the room for you, although if she writes for them, we will have to send them on." She sighed officiously, then took a deep breath and began again.

"But, until then, as long as you are careful with them - as you will be, seeing as how you're a teacher yourself - you may use them. I serve breakfast early, between six and seven. No later, except weekends. No dinner, although I will make you box lunches for a small, additional weekly fee. Supper is at seven. Coffee later, if you want it.

"You are my only lodger, so your schedule decides the use of the common rooms." They left his bedroom and walked down the hall.

"This is the living room; there's a small study off to the side. If any other lodger comes, you and that person will have to work out a schedule between you. I stay out of such matters. You will find me in the kitchen or in my sitting room on the opposite side of the house. My bedroom is beyond the sitting room." She sighed again, the tour over.

There was a knock at the door. Mrs. Fitzsimmon looked puzzled. "I'm sorry, Mr. Bartowski, let me see who that could be."

Chuck heard voices from the door, Mrs. Fitzsimmons and another woman. The conversation rose and fell and ended. Mrs. Fitzsimmons came back into the living room. Behind her was Carina. "This...young woman will be here this evening. Her room...elsewhere...is not ready. She tells me you know her from your stagecoach journey."

Chuck smiled. "Yes, Miss Miller and I traveled together."

Mrs. Fitzsimmons nodded. "And you are fine with her staying here?"

Carina gave Chuck an I-told-you-so look.

"Yes, ma'am. Like me, she's had a long day and needs some sleep."

"Good. Then she will stay. It is just for tonight, right, Miss Miller."

"Right, Mrs. Fitzsimmons." Carina looked at the shorter, wider woman and Mrs. Fitzsimmons looked back at the taller, thinner woman.

"Well, I need to prepare Miss Miller's room. Your room, as you saw, is ready, Mr. Bartowski."

Mrs. Fitzsimmons made it clear that she was waiting to follow Chuck. He looked at Carina and she winked at him from behind Mrs. Fitzsimmons. Chuck turned and walked up the hallway to his room.

Chuck took off his clothes, putting his stained shirt into the washbasin and pouring water from the large pitcher over it. He half-stirred it around, watching the water pink. Climbing into bed and turned the lamp down, then off.

Darkness swallowed the room. He could hear a dog barking in the distance. Otherwise, the night was still.

Chuck rolled around on the unfamiliar bed. His head throbbed. The pain was not severe, it was a dull, lumpy pain.

He was not worried about it; he was too tired to worry. After another turn or two, he fell asleep.

Chuck was in bed, twisting in sweaty covers. He was nine and burning up with fever. His mother's face appeared above him, soft and out-of-focus, but her loving smile still somehow registering.

"Shhhh. Chuck, sweet boy, it's okay. You will be fine."

He heard his dad's voice, Stephen's voice. "Mary, how is he?" The worry in his voice was palpable. Chuck's mom did not answer. She just put a cool cloth on his head. "Shhh. Chuck. Shhhh."

"Mary, you don't look well." His dad coughed and kept coughing.

…

A funeral in the rain. The second in as many days. Chuck's mom in a cheap box. The box was stationed beside a rectangular hole on one side, a recently filled rectangular hole on the other. Chuck was well. He had survived the fever - brought it home and gifted it to his mother and father. Ellie had not gotten sick.

Chuck had killed them. His parents were gone and he was the reason. He should have died, not them.

They stood in the rain, Ellie holding an umbrella over them both, and he wanted to be dead, to crawl into the cheap box with his mom, descend into rectangular eternity with her. But Ellie held his hand and she was crying - and Chuck could not abandon her. He was the reason she was crying. He was nine and he had ended his world.

…

Chuck sat in the dreary room, holding the little girl. She was crying. Her mother was dead. Beaten and bloody on her bed. Chuck kept trying to keep the little girl from looking. He did not understand what to do, but he had to do something, had to save the little girl. After failing her mother, he would not fail Molly. Ellie would have to understand; she would understand.

…

Chuck was weeping. It was too much. The weight of the world. The guilt. The betrayals of his own eyes. He had to make it right. Had to balance the scales.

…

"Chuck! Chuck! C'mon, Boston, wake up. Don't wake the landlady, for both our sakes." Chuck jerked awake. A candle burned beside his bed. Carina crouched next to him, her hand rubbing his chest. She had a thin dressing gown around herself, but her underwear was visible. Chuck made himself look her in the eye.

"You're having a nightmare, Chuck, and you're soaking. Are you okay? You're burning up."

Chuck threw the blanket off himself and felt cooler. Carina stood up and opened the window. A cool breeze wafted in, blowing out the candle. "Carina, Carina. I'm okay. A bad dream. A terrible dream."

He heard her cross the room back to his bed. He could not see her but he could hear her. "Are you sure you don't need the doctor, Boston?"

The name of the city brought the dream back and it took Chuck a moment to find himself there in the Idaho dark. "Yes, I've...I've had the dream before. It has this effect on me."

He heard her sigh. She had crouched down again. He could hear her breathing, then he heard her whisper. "You're a handful, you know that?"

He could feel her face close to him. He could smell soap, the clean scent of it. Then he felt Carina's lips on his, as he had earlier in the day. This time her kiss lingered. She pulled back and stood. "A handful, I have to say." She chuckled. He heard her pick up the candle and tiptoe from the room. He hardly knew how to react.

The first kiss had seemed a mere thanks. This one seemed...more.

Saturday, September 5, 1885
Idaho Falls, Idaho

Chuck was sitting at the kitchen table in Mrs. Fitzsimmons' house. He had half a biscuit on a small plate in front of him, smothered in Mrs. Fitzsimmons' amazing strawberry preserves. He was drinking a third cup of coffee. It was still early. The landlady was buzzing in and out of the kitchen, talking as fast as she could about people Chuck did not know, although presumably, he would meet them. He was not paying much attention.

The dream of the night before had stayed with him, not that it was replaying before his mind's eye, but rather that it had colored his mood, made him stretched and anxious. Carina's kiss had added to his anxiety. He had not sorted his reaction to that out yet - not even close.

Carina had not yet been down to breakfast, and Chuck knew that lingering over his coffee and biscuit was not the best idea. He needed to sort out his reaction to her kiss and he knew he would be hard-pressed to do that if she were right there in the kitchen with him. But his appointment with the representatives of the town was scheduled at 11am, three-and-a-half hours away. Unsure what to do with himself in the meantime, he sat, half a cup of coffee and half a biscuit, hoping Carina would not come to breakfast - and hoping that she would.

Chuck had just taken a bite of biscuit when Mrs. Fitzsimmons came into the kitchen, trailing a large man. The man had his hat in his hands, and his hands were huge, his fingers thick and calloused, tree roots. Two guns were strapped to him, one tied down to each leg. Heavy, dusty boots were on his feet, obscured by his light brown pants. Above them, he had on a blue shirt and a dark brown vest. A star hung from the vest, shining through the dust.

The man had a long grey beard and tired blue eyes. Taking in Chuck at a glance, he waited for Mrs. Fitzsimmons to see to the introductions.

"Mr. Bartowski, our new school teacher, meet Mark Constance, Idaho Falls' sheriff."

Chuck finished his bite and wiped his mouth with his cloth napkin. He stood up. "Good morning, Sheriff Constance."

The sheriff shook Chuck's hand, still considering him.

He sat down, heavy. "Mr. Bartowski. I'm plumb sorry your trip to Idaho Falls took such a turn. That Number Gang has been givin' me fits. I'm a patient man; the bad men make a mistake, and the job is waiting for that mistake, but, I admit, I've been waiting and waiting where that bunch is concerned and I just keep waiting. Had a good tip that they holed up way outside of town in an old line shack. Took my deputy and went out there. Wasted trip.

"I unnerstan' they got the strongbox, the Walker payroll?"

"I guess so," Chuck answered, "They emptied a strongbox of lots of cash. It seemed to have been their primary aim. They took a watch from one passenger and a bracelet and locket from the other."

"'Primary aim', huh? I guess you are here to teach. The other passenger: she's here, ain't she?"

Chuck nodded. "Yes, but she has not yet come to breakfast."

"Did they take anythin' from you?"

"No. Well, an apple. They took the apple I had with me."

"The cowboy whose watch they took, Casey, I talked t' him earlier. He told me that but it sounded a lil'...crazy. Which one did it?"

"The one they called Number Two. I mean, Number Two. He's the one - I mean, he did it. Number Two."

The sheriff grinned at Chuck's numbering trouble. "He's one mean sumbitch, that Number Two. But Number One is the real killer. Cold as a mountain creek but filthy as a flooded river. I don't fancy being on the wrong end of his gun. What can you tell me about them?"

Chuck shrugged, embarrassed. "Not much, to be honest. Number Two had green eyes. And I noticed, when he pulled up the bandanna covering his face, that he had a gold tooth among his bottom teeth. I noticed when he took a bite of my apple."

The sheriff gave Chuck a look. "That's more than I had before. The few other living witnesses was terrified, couldn't remember anythin', although Casey remembered the eye color too."

Sheriff Constance stood. He looked at Mrs. Fitzsimmons who had been listening, watching the sheriff. "Tell that Miss Miller I want to see her whenever she finishes her beauty sleep - although from what I hear, she needs little." The sheriff looked at Chuck and Chuck blushed. If the sheriff noticed it, he did not let on.

Constance left the kitchen. Mrs. Fitzsimmons followed him, telling him she would show him out and that she would send Miss Miller to as soon as she finished breakfast.

Chuck heard the door close and a moment later Mrs. Fitzsimmons came back in the kitchen. She was blushing herself. "That Sheriff Constance - he's a...fine man."

"He seemed like it," Chuck offered. He drank the last of his coffee and, thanking Mrs. Fitzsimmons, headed to his room.

Running his eyes along the shelf of books Miss Reynolds had left behind, he noted a small hardback copy of Emerson's Representative Men and a copy of Shakespeare's Hamlet. After a moment's hesitation, Chuck slipped the Emerson into his jacket pocket - he was wearing his Boston suit - and headed out to take a walk around Idaho Falls.

He needed to locate the schoolhouse both for the sake of his curiosity and since he would meet the representatives there later.

It didn't take long to walk around Idaho Falls. 'Around' was not the right word, really. Mrs. Fitzsimmons' house, surrounded by flowers, was on one end of the long, dusty main street. The Bar None, dark and quiet in the daylight, was in the middle. On the other end, distant, was the new schoolhouse. He must have ridden past it in the dark last night without realizing it.

Chuck started for the schoolhouse. Along the way, he noticed various shops and businesses: Patel's Dry Goods Emporium, The Montgomery Law Office, the Post Office, Dr. Woodcomb's, Large Mart Hardware, the Sheriff's (also the jail), Graham's Mortuary. Chuck didn't pay close attention to any or to their names; he just sauntered along, musing and hatless. His white hat had seemed wrong with his Boston clothes, the bowler seemed wrong with Idaho Falls.

Few people were out, it was still early on a Saturday, and they were intent on their business. A few who Chuck passed spoke or smiled, but several walked on as if he wasn't there. Chuck noted each man.

One mother, leading a young girl by the hand, passed by. The mother did not speak, but the girl stared at Chuck's dark city suit. He smiled at her. She asked her mom (Chuck heard her behind him), "Does that tall man bury people for Mr. Graham?"

"No, Honey, I believe that was your new teacher."

"Oh." Disappointment.

Chuck considered turning and introducing himself, but decided against it. Time enough for all that next week. He stopped as he neared the schoolhouse.

He turned then, rotating in place, and gazed behind him, around him, all around. Two smaller streets ran parallel to the main street, although neither was as long. From his glimpses, gotten as he walked and from what he saw now, each looked residential, housing shopkeepers and their families, people who worked in town. In the distance, he could see Mrs. Fitzsimmons' house. Beyond her house and all around was the open Idaho sky, blue and blue, an all-seeing eye, focused on everything and nothing. He looked at the schoolhouse, sitting, neat, beneath the blue in its fresh white paint. The sign in front read: Idaho Falls School. Church services on Sunday. Chuck remembered then that a letter had mentioned that the schoolhouse would do double-duty, school by week, church by weekend.

The building was rectangular. There was a bell tower on the front, stretching up above the red roof, and Chuck could see a bell, shiny in the morning sun. The front door was red above the steps leading up to it. It was an attractive building.

Beyond it to the left was a small hill, topped by a grove of trees. To the right, was the train depot. It was still under construction. Chuck could have shortened his long journey if he had traveled by train, but his lack of funds prevented it. Even if he had the funds, a bridge had fallen between Idaho Falls and Cody, and it would be another month before the train began to run again. He had been told that in another letter.

Chuck pulled his small, cheap watch from his pocket. (He could afford no chain, not even a fob.) Still lots of time before his meeting. He walked up the hill toward the grove of trees.

The grove of trees turned out to be beside the cemetery. Chuck could not tell that from below. The discovery suited Chuck's mood. A huge tree stood in the center of the grove, and someone had constructed an encircling bench around its massive trunk. Chuck opened the cemetery gate, walked to the tree, and sat down, his elbows on his knees, his head cast down. He stared at the ground.

It had all been so much. The obsession, the travel and then the hold-up - and then the dream and Carina's kiss in the dark. Everything jumbled his head and his heart. He missed Ellie and he missed Molly. And Morgan. Ellie had not wanted him to go to Idaho Falls. She had not understood his reasons, though she divined something else behind his story about teaching. Chuck would worry about that something else soon, as the situation came into better focus. First, he needed to get himself established in the town. Second, he needed to practice with his gun. Then he could plan. No mistakes; this had to be done...right.

Chuck pushed the thought from his mind as best he could. He reached into his pocket and took out the small volume of Emerson, paging to the Swedenborg essay, Swedenborg; Or, the Mystic. Chuck had read it many times back in Boston...at Harvard...at Divinity School.

Skimming over the first paragraph, introductory, he settled back against the tree and read.

"I have sometimes thought that he would render the greatest service to modern criticism, who shall draw the line of relation that subsists between Shakespeare and Swedenborg. The human mind stands ever in perplexity, demanding intellect, demanding sanctity, impatient equally of each without the other. The reconciler has not yet appeared. If we tire of the saints, Shakespeare is our city of refuge. Yet the instincts presently teach, that the problem of essence must take precedence of all others,—the questions of Whence? What? and Whither? and the solution of these must be in a life, and not in a book. A drama or poem is a proximate or oblique reply; but Moses, Menu, Jesus, work directly on this problem. The atmosphere of moral sentiment is a region of grandeur which reduces all material magnificence to toys, yet opens to every wretch that has reason, the doors of the universe. Almost with a fierce haste it lays its empire on the man..."

In the past, Chuck found those words heartening. Now, he found them disheartening. He closed the book and leaned more heavily against the trunk of the tree. In a moment, he was asleep.

Fever. He was burning up with fever. Swedenborg, Shakespeare, Jill, Molly, Ellie. Idaho Falls. He was nine. He was much older. He was burning, burning up. Visions, dreams. Fever dreams…

Kill a man. Kill a man. I am not a killer. Fever. Fire, Fire, Fire!

...

"Mister," a soft voice, a cool hand, gloved, on his forehead, "Mister, you're dreaming. Wake up!"

Chuck opened his eyes to the sky.

No, he opened his eyes to her blue eyes. Infinite. Blue encircled, a halo, by gold. He beheld the most beautiful face of his life.

"What?" Chuck stammered. "Where am I? What am I doing here? Who are you?"

"Be calm; don't fear." A kind, worried smile. "You were dreaming. You're in the Falls, Idaho Falls. I'm Sarah. I don't know who you are, yet." She smiled and he reacted to it so strongly it registered as physical pain and shortness of breath, a momentary attack of the heart.

The Emerson was open, face-down on his chest. He sat up straight, grabbed the book and looked at the woman, who had stood up and taken a step back. Her worry seemed to have shifted into gentle amusement. She was wearing a light blue dress, the blue on a slow journey to white, and she had a small bouquet in her gloved hand.

"I'm Charles Bartowski - Chuck, people call me - I'm the new schoolteacher."

She tilted her head a little and her smile grew. "Chuck?" She pronounced his name as if she were testing it. Her gaze softened. "I like it. I haven't heard it much. So you're from Boston?"

"You know about me?" He put the Emerson on the bench beside him.

She shrugged. "Just a little. Folks have been talking about the new teacher coming. They seem to believe they are lucky to have gotten you. Harvard, right?"

He nodded and she went on. "That exhausts what I know about you…" She seemed to be waiting for him.

He stood. "Forgive my manners. I'm...out of sorts today. Long, difficult journey and a strange night."

"I heard my father talking to Sheriff Constance." Her face changed expression. "That's all...terrible. I didn't know Bob, but I saw him come into town now and then. He seemed like a nice man..."

"He did. But I didn't know him. I wish I could have helped him…"

She gave him a soft smile, her eyes full of something he could not quite name, although sympathy was mixed with it. "I heard of your bravery. And I can see from your face, forgive me, that you paid a price for it."

Chuck had forgotten his bruising. He ducked his head self-consciously and noticed her flowers again. "I must have kept you from your...errand."

She looked down at the flowers too and they were both quiet for a moment. "Oh, yes, I am here to put these on my mother's grave."

The quiet became heavy. Chuck cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. My parents died when I was small; I know what it is to lose…"

"That's kind, Chuck. Thank you." She gave him a soft look, but decisive, as if she had expected no less. "I often come on Saturdays and...visit her."

Chuck held up his hands. "I don't mean to interrupt...or intrude."

Her smile had left her face but now it returned. "This is often a lonely errand for me. My dad...well, he doesn't come. Would you like to?" She was now holding the flowers in both her gloved hands in front of her. Chuck heard music as he looked at her, soft, woodwinds.

"Yes," he said, his voice quieting the music. "It would honor me."

She turned and left the shade of the tree. He walked beside her, stealing a glance at her bowed head. They stopped before a small stone, marked simply.

Emma Walker, Wife and Mother.

Sarah stooped down and pulled three long, thin weeds that had grown in front of the stone. Brushing its top, removing dust and some faded flowers, and keeping the faded ones in her hand, she then put her fresh bouquet there. She shut her eyes.

Chuck stood still. A long silence. A dusty breeze. Sarah opened her eyes and stood. She looked at him, her eyes damp. "At Harvard - they say you were studying to be a...minister?"

Chuck flinched inwardly but kept himself still outwardly. "Something like that…"

"Do you know some words, something to say?"

Chuck spoke without hesitation and without thinking:

"You now must hear my voice no more;
My Father calls me home;
But soon from heav'n the Holy Ghost,
Your Comforter, shall come.
That heav'nly Teacher, sent from God,
shall your whole soul inspire,
Your minds shall fill with sacred truth,
your hearts with sacred fire."

Sarah looked at him, her eyes wondering.

Chuck blushed. "I'm sorry, maybe that was inappropriate. It just flashed into my mind." Chuck cursed himself. He knew better than to speak without consideration. When he did, he spiraled, often into irrelevance or into downright inappropriateness.

Sarah placed her gloved hand on his arm. "No, that was...beautiful, somehow. Thank you, Chuck."

He nodded, glad not to have offended her. She cleared her throat and wiped her eyes, removed her hand. "It was good meeting you. I...have to go. My father and I are having dinner with my fiancé." Sarah looked at him but did not meet his eyes.

"Your fiancé?" Chuck kept his voice neutral, barely.

"Yes," she said, gazing at the faded flowers in her hand instead of meeting his gaze, "Daniel Shaw."

The blow was two-fisted. Sarah was engaged. Sarah was engaged to the man Chuck had vowed to kill.

A/N2: Thoughts?

This chapter was early. Don't know when the next one will post.