Author's Note: This chapter is far darker than the previous two but continues in the same story line. I've been toying with this chapter for several years, trying to fit it together in my head. It's morphed through several changes and concepts. I won't say I'm 100% happy with it, but perhaps that's the way it should be. It's not meant to be happy in the first place. Besides; the dark, sadistic side of my muse is pleased with it, so there is that. Chalk it up to the accumulation of two years' worth of grad school tension. LOL

(In other news, I did pass my thesis defense with very minor corrections, my thesis formatting was approved by the graduate school, and I've officially graduated. I have a new job waiting in the wings and I'll have the option to continue another degree of my choosing. So I'm pretty excited overall.)

Warnings: Character death, violence, language, dark themes in general. There is also one line in the second half of the chapter in which Cora refers to African Americans as negroes - this is merely in keeping with the language of the timeframe in which the story takes place.

Pairings: Kate/Jewel

Murder

ca. Late Summer, 1936

They first hear of the situation while at church one Sunday, when old Whitfield announces to the congregation of New Hope that an unknown person has broken into a few homes and barns in the community. Hissing whispers of worry erupt throughout the pews even as Whitfield continues to speak: Quick fired a shot at whoever it was just two days earlier but missed. The break-ins all occurred at night, which makes it hard to identify the man. What they do know is that he's a white male, short in stature, with dark hair.

As the boys climb in the back of the truck after the service, Jeb confidently comments, "Pa'll kill 'im if he comes in our house."

Kate climbs in the cab as Jewel snarls at the boys to sit down, before he gets in and slams the driver's door behind him.

"All this talk of break-ins makes me nervous," she murmurs, shifting the baby. Thank God the child fell asleep halfway through the sermon; her husband hates it when the baby cries in church.

"I wouldn't worry none about it." Jewel starts the truck with a scowl, and two thuds in the bed tell her the boys have finally obeyed him. "Jeb's right; I'll kill anyone who breaks in the house or the barn."

"Not in front of the boys, you won't."

"Don't start with me, Kate."

oOo

He is sleeping lightly when he hears a noise that isn't normal. It isn't the old house settling or the wind rattling the windows. He lifts his head to listen – it sounded like the old dipper in the cedar bucket outside on the porch.

After a few minutes of tense silence, in which the only sound is the house creaking, he lays his head back down, intent on going back to sleep because he'll have to be up before dawn to start harvesting the bottom fields. Even with the boys, there's much to be done and he doesn't have a lot of time to get the barley harvested before cold weather sets in.

And then, without warning, a scream rents the still night air.

"Paaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Jewel is on his feet and out in the hall before it has even ended. He hears Kate scream his name from their bed, for she has no idea what has happened either, and Jeb's scream would wake the dead.

Jewel collides with someone in the hall, but it isn't one of his children. The man stumbles backwards, away from him, and before Jewel can grab him and throw him, the unknown intruder gains his footing and flees through the back door.

Jewel runs back to the bedroom and grabs the shotgun from beside the door. Back in the hall, Jeff meets him, wide-eyed and frightened, with Jeb right behind him. Jewel pays them no heed and runs into the back yard. The moon is only a thin crescent, shedding hardly any light, and he realizes he wouldn't be able to find the intruder even with a lantern. He listens intently, but all he can hear now is the breathing of his wife and children, behind him in the doorway.

He turns quietly, and quickly goes back onto the stoop, where he whispers to Kate, "Get the pistol out of the dresser. If someone comes in and they don't tell you who they are, shoot 'em."

"He's probably gotten away by now...!" Kate is shaking with fear, her voice barely audible.

"No. He hasn't. I can't hear anything. I'd hear him running through the fields – too much crop out there. He's close to the house. Go on. I'll check the barn."

He walks off before Kate can argue, moving silently towards the barn.

But to his confusion, there isn't anyone there. He searches the loft and the stalls, only to find the cows and horse and mules staring at him balefully, not understanding why he's there at 2:00 in the morning. He checks the cotton house and the shed, but there is no one there, either.

Thirty minutes later, he mounts the steps and enters the kitchen.

"Kate?"

"I'm here," she says, emerging out of the darkness. She's holding his pistol in trembling hands, the barrel pointing down at the floor. "You didn't get him?"

"No. Everything was empty." He frowns over his shoulder, out towards the dark yard. It doesn't make any sense. Anyone fleeing would have to go through the fields, and he should have heard the rustling of corn and barley if that were the case. Even if whoever it was hid somewhere near the house, he should have been able to find them in the barn or the sheds, despite the lack of light.

"Maybe it was a ghost," Jeb whispers.

"Ain't no such thing," Jewel growls. "Git on back to bed. We got work to do in the morning, boy."

As the boys trudge back to the room they share, he adds quietly to his wife, "You keep that pistol on you tomorrow, ya hear me, Kate? You can use the holster to make sure you got it on you all the time."

"I can't shoot no one," she mumbles in a low voice. "It ain't Christian, Jewel."

He turns and grabs her shoulder roughly. "I don't give a damn about that. Someone comes in this house, you defend yourself, Kate. You understand me? You shoot any son of a bitch who dares to come in this house!"

She looks down at the pistol in her hands, but says nothing.

Jewel shakes her lightly. "Kate. You got a right to defend yourself and the baby. The Lord ain't gonna begrudge you that. I'll have the boys with me. We'll be too far away tomorrow morning. But if I hear a shot, I'll get back here quick-like. I'll have the horse down there with me. You understand me? Don't you let no one in this house iffn you don't know 'em."

She finally nods, presses the pistol back into his hands, and crawls into bed, turning her back towards him. He ignores that; he doesn't care if she's mad. He cares about protecting what's his.

oOo

While the boys hitch the team the next morning, Jewel rides the horse over to Tull's and tells them what happened the night before. Cora nods and insists she'll go sit with Kate for the day. Vernon just rubs the back of his neck and mumbles about needing to harvest his crops like he can't make up his own mind to save his life.

But nothing happens that day – Cora and Kate see no one around the house, and though Jewel pays more attention to the nearby woods than the crop or the boys, he sees nothing unusual, either.

However, later in the evening, after dinner, Cora and Vernon come back over to his place, their faces pinched and worried.

Kate meets them in the yard.

"Something wrong, ma?"

"Someone's been in the eggs," Cora says without preamble, her brow knitted together.

Jewel, having locked up the barn for the night and happening upon the conversation, narrows his eyes. "How'd you know?"

Cora purses her lips together, like she always does when he's around, but she finally says, "I gathered 'em afore I came over this morning to sit with Kate. I had 'em in a basket in the kitchen. There were twenty-eight. When I got home, there were twenty-three."

Jewel doesn't argue with her – everyone in the goddamn county knows Cora counts eggs like a city man would count money in a bank.

"He probably took some of our crops, too," Vernon says, gazing out across Jewel's fields.

"Wouldn't know if it he did." Jewel frowns and gazes out into the twilight. "Still..."

"Makes me uneasy," Vernon admits.

"Ain't never had anything like this 'round these parts," Cora says flatly. "No one in New Hope would steal like this."

"Well, whoever it is, he knows the area," Jewel responds, frowning at his mother-in-law.

She starts to protest, but he shakes his head and cuts her off. "No. Whoever it was knew how to get around me last night without making noise going through those fields. There's corn and barley all out there. I'd have heard it rustling if someone were running through it. They were smart enough to know not to run through the crop. I think they came in the front door too, and they knew how to get around me to get to the back door. Seems to me they know their way around these farms and our houses. And whoever it was didn't look in your hen house for them eggs either. They went into your kitchen and found 'em."

Cora turns a shade paler, and Kate murmurs, "Jewel's got a point, ma. Any normal person aiming to steal eggs would look in the hen house first, wouldn't they? And you usually put 'em in a basket on the back of the counter, so no one'd be able to see 'em through the screen or the window."

"Door was unlocked though," Vernon replies gravely. "We never lock it. They could've come inside and seen the basket. No one 'round here locks doors."

"If I were you," Jewel responds, "I'd lock 'em tonight. He's still around the area. He might'n go on down the road, or he might stay here, out'n the woods. He knows there's corn and eggs at our farms. Milk, too."

"Jewel's right, Cora." Vernon sighs. "We'd best lock up tonight."

Cora looks like she wants to argue, but instead she starts singing under her breath and she storms back for the wagon. Vernon sighs and follows her after nodding to Kate.

Jewel heads back inside, and Kate follows him only when he hollers for her to get in before it gets dark.

oOo

Though they remain on edge for two more days, no one sees hide or hair of the thief. The men around New Hope openly carry their guns, watching the tree lines warily, for news has spread that the man broke in at Jewel and Tull's places. Kate wonders if the stranger has moved on, but her husband doubts it.

And then, four nights after Cora stormed off to lock her doors for the first time in her life, the boys come in from the barn looking edgy.

"Y'all wash up," Kate reminds them without looking at them, for she's checking dinner on the stove.

The boys glance at each other, but say nothing – nor do they move.

Kate turns to them in annoyance. "Y'all hear me?" she demands, wondering if they are deliberately sassing her.

"What the hell's gotten into you boys?" Jewel growls, coming in the back door looking furious. "Yer ma told you to wash up –"

"Strange man in the barn," Jeff mumbles, looking at the floor.

Instantly, Kate feels her skin prickle and her heartbeat jumps; Jewel is already out the door and striding across the yard to the barn. She hurries to the screen to watch him, her hands twisting together. Her husband is a strong man, but she still doesn't want him hurt.

"Where'd you see him?" she demands of the boys.

Jeb answers. "He came up and spoke to us."

She turns and looks at him sharply. "He what?"

"He said he was our uncle and didn't want to hurt us. Looked a bit like Uncle Cash, I guess, but I ain't never seen him before."

Kate glances back out the door. "Cash is in town..."

"Naw, ma, it weren't Uncle Cash, it just looked kinda like him. But he was real strange. Something wrong with 'im. He weren't normal-like."

Kate's eyes widen in horror as something dawns on her, and she pushes herself through the screen door. "You boys stay in the kitchen!" she hollers over her shoulder, while running towards the barn.

Jewel would kill him if he sees him...!

"Jewel!" she shouts. "Jewel!"

Jewel emerges from the barn, looking mad as fire. "Kate, what the hell are you doing out here? Would've thought you'd've had enough sense to stay in the goddamn house while I –"

She skids up to him and grabs his arms. "It's your brother," she breathes.

He looks at her in confusion. "What in God's name you going on about?"

She pulls him away from the barn a bit and glances around nervously, before she says in a low voice, "That stranger spoke to the boys while they were in the barn, Jeb just told me."

"That son of a bitch spoke to our boys?"

His face is going pale, never a good sign, but she plows on. "The boys said the man looked like Cash, but weren't Cash, 'cause Cash's in town..."

"Ain't no one else looks like Cash that I know of...! 'Cept maybe Vardaman but –"

"Yes there is," Kate insists. "There's one other person."

She sees the dawning in Jewel's eyes, but he shakes his head. "Can't be. He's –"

"Could've gotten out," she murmurs. "Boys said this man was awfully odd. Not right in the head. Something wrong with him."

For the first time, she sees a flash of fear in Jewel, replaced immediately by sheer anger. "Come on," he says, taking her arm and guiding her back to the house. "He ain't in the barn, I finished checking. Explains how he got away from me the other night too, and how he knew where yer ma kept eggs in the kitchen."

"Jewel," she pleads, but he ignores her.

When they get back to the kitchen again, Jewel towers over the boys. "What'd that son of a bitch say to you boys?" he demands. "You start at the beginning Jeb, you hear me?"

Jeb looks sullen. "Was putting the mules away, and Jeff was milking the cow. Strange man came in through the back and I was gonna holler for you when I saw him pa, but he shushed me. Said he weren't gonna hurt me and asked if I'd just listen to him 'cause he was hungry. Said he'd traveled a long way and knew you a long time ago and that he was our uncle, but then he started talking to someone else, someone who weren't in the barn. Like a dead person or somethin'. Started talking about a coffin. Kept sayin' he done tried to help some dead woman and the coffin but someone kept stopping him from helping her. He didn't make no sense. I was getting kinda scared so I called out to him a couple of times and then the cow lowed and he sorta came back, looked all him around like he didn't know how he got there. Begged me not to say nothing to you, said you didn't like him because y'all didn't have the same pa. Dunno what he was on about. Said we looked like you and your pa and not him and his pa. Then he started talking to himself again. I wondered if'n he got bit by a mad coon or something. I was about to holler for you when he suddenly looked ran out. So Jeff and I came on back to the house, quick like, and told ma."

Kate sank into a chair at the table. God help her...

"You boys listen to me, ya hear?" Jewel's voice is dark and low. "Jeb, you're gonna carry a pistol tomorrow, and if'n you see this man, you're to shoot him, you understand me?"

"No," Kate interrupts, her voice stronger than she feels. "They ain't gonna commit murder, Jewel, not on their own kinfolk –"

"He ain't kinfolk," Jewel snarls, his lip curling back in fury. "Least of all not ours! I swore I'd kill him if I saw him again –"

"Then you kill him!" Her voice raises sharply. "You kill him, Jewel, but don't you dare ask the boys to kill for you! Jeb's too young to be committing murder! Ain't right, Jewel, it's a sin! Bible says murdering is a sin!"

Jeb looks like he doesn't know who to agree with – pa done give him an order, but he knows he ought to follow the Bible, so he stays silent, his eyes wide and round.

Jewel takes a deep breath, his face paler than ever. "Fine then. Pack up yer supper, I'm taking you over to yer ma's tonight, and you and the boys and the baby can stay there until I get this sorted. I'll ride over to Quick and the others, tell 'em what's happening. We'll find the son of a bitch –"

"Stop swearing in front of the boys, Jewel!"

In anger, he shouts, "Damn it, Kate, shut the hell up for once and listen to me! I ain't gonna let him live! If he's got the goddamn nerve to show up here and test me, I'll kill him! He's dangerous! He ain't supposed to be out of that asylum, he's mad – we all know it! Even Jeb thought he was mad! Pack up your supper now!"

Rounding on his sons, he snarls, "Boys! You be ready to leave in five minutes, you hear me? Jeb, you get the baby, damn it, and help your ma! Iffn' I find out you sassed her or don't do something she tells you to do, I'll tear your backside off, you understand me?"

The boys scamper off down the hall to do as they're told faster than they've ever done in their lives, and Kate weeps silently as she packs up supper to take to her ma's.

oOo

Cora and Vernon look shocked to find them at her doorstep thirty minutes later. Kate's eyes are red and puffy, the boys look scared, and the baby is crying. Kate drove the wagon over, and Jewel is on that horse. Seems Jewel is always on that horse.

"Kate'll explain," he says shortly. "Don't want to waste no time. 'Ppreciate if you put the mules and wagon in your barn for the night, Vernon. Don't trust 'em in my own. Hated to leave the cow and the truck there, even if Kate's got the key to the truck. But I got to head over to Quick's straight away. Need to form a posse and find that son of a –"

Cora's lips purse together, and Jewel glares at her.

"Who is it?" Vernon asks seriously, catching on to the fact that Jewel knows whom the stranger is.

Jewel's voice is low and full of hate.

"Darl."

oOo

"Someone needs ter ride to town and tell Cash," Cora insists, pressing a cup of coffee into Kate's hands. "This is nonsense –!"

Kate shakes her head. "What's Cash gonna do, ma? He can't do nothing with his leg, hardly."

"He can talk sense into Jewel! Darl doesn't deserve to die just because Jewel doesn't like him," Cora snaps. "He was a good boy, Addie's favorite, and –"

"Darl scared my boys half to death," Kate whispers angrily. "God knows what he would have done to them in a few minutes more...! I can't lose my boys, ma. I can't."

Vernon sighs and rubs his hand behind his neck. "Kate's right, Darl ain't in his right mind. It's why he was in the asylum in the first place. Jeb told me when I put him to bed that he thought the man was mad. Jeb was scared, Cora. They thought a rabid coon done got the man, wondered if they'd be next."

"It still ain't no reason to be committing sin! 'Vengence is mine, saith the Lord'! Darl was a good man –!"

"The Lord also saith 'Give until Caesar'," Vernon says quietly. "We set laws in the land for this sort of thing. Jewel and Quick'll go to the sheriff and the sheriff'll deputize 'em and then it'll all be legal. Maybe someone'll stop Jewel before he fires a shot, and they'll just arrest Darl before any killin' happens."

"Arrest him?! They'll lynch him, Vernon! It ain't right! They'll lynch him like he's a common negro –!"

"Now don't go jumping to conclusions, Cora..."

Kate interrupts out of sheer frustration and worry. "I'm going to bed with the boys. Jewel's a good man, ma. Don't you start on him like you always do! It's Darl something's wrong with, even if he was Addie's favorite! Don't matter now, Addie's long dead, and Jewel and I have a right to protect our boys!"

"Don't you dare tell me you approve of Jewel killing his own kin!"

"I don't know what Darl did to him, but it was something. He ain't ever told me but I've known it since before we were married. He don't like to talk about it. It's between him and Darl. Ain't my place to interfere, but it is my place to protect my boys."

"Jewel's been committing sin his whole life, just like Addie, and this'll put him straight in hell, Kate! I never wanted you married to a man going to hell!"

For once in her life, Kate loses her temper. "Ain't your place to say who goes to hell or not, ma. It's the Lord's."

Without waiting for a response (for Cora is too shocked at Kate's outburst to do anything other than sputter incoherently), Kate turns for the spare bedroom to sleep with the boys.

oOo

Whitfield shows up at the Tull's place the next day, his face grave and worn and old. Man must be well into his late eighties, but he still rides on horseback as though he were forty.

"I suspect they will flush him out," he says quietly, as Cora plies him with black coffee and a bit of cake. "The Lord saith thy shalt not steal."

"Cora's worried that Jewel will kill Darl," Vernon responds, rubbing his neck.

Cora snaps angrily, "I'm not worried. I know Jewel will kill Darl. And that's just as much a sin as theft!"

Whitfield sighs. "I placed strict orders on the posse not to kill the man. He is to be turned directly over to the asylum. Don't know if Jewel heard me or not, though. Sometimes I think he deliberately ignores me. Can't imagine what I've done to him..." He trails off, looking awkward.

"Jewel is just concerned is all, Reverend," Kate answers. "Darl gave the boys an awful fright last night."

A knock on the door signals another visitor, but to Kate's surprise, it isn't a member of the posse or her husband. Instead, Cash hobbles in, leaning heavily on his cane. His oldest boy drove him out, though how the lad is tall enough to see over the dash of the truck, Kate doesn't know.

"Men from the asylum just told us yesterday. Don't know why they didn't tell us sooner. Been at least two weeks since he got out," he says, nodding politely to Cora, who quickly and politely hands him a cup of coffee and pulls a chair out for him. "Mrs. Bundren was in a right state about the whole thing. Pa just kept saying 'For God' over and over. Vardaman acted right strange about it, couldn't get any sense from him. Reminded me of Darl when Darl went mad, actually. Bit eerie. Mrs. Bundren told him to straighten up or she'd kick him out of the house. Hated to leave him there but I didn't have no choice."

"The asylum was probably trying to find Darl on their own," Cora says, as though she knows everything. "Hoping they wouldn't have to tell y'all. They probably knew Jewel would try to kill him!"

"Right shame." Cash sighs. "Him gettin' out at all, I mean."

"Kate says he scared Jeb and Jeff half to death," Vernon says.

"I don't doubt it. He was peculiar even on a good day. I sent Andy on around to the barn to help Jeb and Jeff with the milking while he's here. Sorry I can't help you myself, Vernon."

"No, no." Vernon shakes his head. "Wouldn't want you to with that leg. Acting up, still?"

"Mostly when the weather changes."

"Well," Whitfield rises, still tall despite his age. "I'd best head back to the church. Cash, I suspect we'll need you to join the posse as a precaution. Vernon, you too. Cora, you keep praying – pray they won't kill him."

"Might be best for him," Cash murmurs, gazing into his coffee.

Cora gasps. "Cash Bundren, I ain't ever –!"

Cash smiles sadly. "This world ain't his, Cora. Never was. He was all right when we were young'uns, but he changed when ma died. Don't know what came over him."

"It was dragging that coffin and body all over –!"

"We was doing what ma wanted," Cash reminded her. "I wondered sometimes, why she planned it out that way. Darl did, too. But nothing excuses a man from destroying another man's property, and that's what makes the difference. Darl ain't right in the head, Cora. I'm worried he might burn someone's house or barn down, or an entire field. Nothing makes that kind of destruction of property right. If he does it again, the law wouldn't be forgiving to just put him back in the asylum."

oOo

It is almost midnight and the moon is new, but the men of New Hope don't need the light of the moon when they have lanterns and torches. Armstid caught up with them only twelve hours earlier, concerned because one of his pistols was missing from a few nights ago and he didn't have any idea what happened to it. With him were thirty-five other men from nearby communities, armed to the teeth and ready to help search.

Whitfield rode along in an attempt to be a voice of reason, though admittedly, many wondered how hard he actually tried, for he said very little even in the midst of tragedy and horror.

MacCallum's youngest twin's body has been covered with a couple of feed sacks from Brown's place, Armstid's pistol has been retrieved with three bullets instead of six, and the culprit has been restrained with ropes and a noose thrown over a dead tree.

He still struggles however, his dark eyes black in the night and boring into Jewel Bundren's, who stands wooden-backed at the front of the circle of nearly seventy men who have been searching for nigh-on sixteen hours.

Despite looking right at Jewel, the culprit screams instead at Cash Bundren, who looks pitifully at him and murmurs something about how killin' just ain't right.

Whitfield finally speaks up. "Cash speaks the word of the Lord," he says, his voice ringing across the crowd, and silence falls from the grumbling, angry men. "The Bible says thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not murder! Thus saith the Lord! Sheriff, you must administer the law as you see fit, as deputized by the state of Mississippi and in the name of the Lord."

The Sheriff nods solemnly.

"Should we get a judge?" Vernon Tull asks hesitantly. He stands back from the scene, rubbing his face and not meeting anyone in the eye.

"No need for a judge, Vernon," the Sheriff says somberly. "Fifty men done seen him kill MacCallum's boy."

The culprit screams. "It was self-defense! Cash, it was self-defense! They all attacked me all at once! What was I supposed to do, Cash?"

Cash winces and shifts his weight off his leg, but he says nothing else.

"Someone put a goddamn gag on his mouth!" Jewel shouts, grabbing a bandana from Joe Hempstead's pocket and storming forward.

"I can tell 'em all about you, Jewel Bundren! They've a right to know who sins in this community! Who was your pa, huh? Tell them! I know who it was! I know Addie Bundren sinned! Your pa wasn't Anse Bundren, it was -"

But Jewel has already stuffed the bandana in the culprit's mouth and punched him in the face. He turns sharply to the sheriff, his eyes cold as ice.

"Enough of this goddamn nonsense. String 'im up, Sheriff."

oOo

The only reason Cora is speaking to any of them is because Reverend Whitfield condoned the whole thing.

"If the preacher hadn't said it was right in the eyes of the Lord, she'd have disowned all y'all, pa included," Kate comments quietly to Jewel a couple of mornings later.

"Preacher just didn't want to get lynched himself," Jewel says darkly. "But don't you tell yer ma that. She's still mad at me'n Cash regardless."

oOo

A couple of weeks later Jewel finds himself in town, much to his displeasure. Miss Daisy ain't none too pleased to see him, but when he flashes the badge the Sheriff gave him the night they formed a posse, she grudgingly lets him in and agrees to fetch Della down if Jewel don't say nothing to the authorities about her house of women of the night.

Time hasn't been good to the woman who calls herself Della; she looks far older than she is, thin as a rail and her hair dull and stringy, but he doesn't care about that. Her eyes briefly widen when she sees him, and then narrow dangerously. Their last meeting was supposed to be their last.

"This man says he's a sheriff's deputy. Says he has something to tell you," Miss Daisy says shortly. "Ain't here for anything else and ain't here to turn us in. Hurry it up, deputy – if that's what you really are. We got plenty to do before nightfall 'round the place."

He picks his words carefully. "There was a break-out at the asylum in Jefferson."

Her eyes snap to his and her face drains of what little color it had.

"Bastard stole a pistol near New Hope and shot Lafe MacCallum. Understood MacCallum came here often and saw you some. Thought you might want to know he won't be coming back around no more."

Her lips purse together and her eyes close tightly, but she nods once to show she understood. After a moment, she asks coldly, "The man who broke out – what happened to him?"

"Hung." His lip curls back. "For murder and theft of property, in accordance with justice and the law."

She nods again to show she understood. "Good. I thank you for letting me know, deputy."

"I won't be coming back around," he adds, glancing at Miss Daisy, so she thinks he's speaking to her instead of the girl. "Appreciate you letting me in."

"Glad that good for nothing son of a bitch MacCallum won't be back," he hears the matron scoff to Della. "Was always drunk off his ass and never had much money to pay. You have better customers than that sorry son of a bitch. Back upstairs with you, Della. You got work to do."

oOo

When Whitfield passes away a few months later, no one can make heads nor tails of his will, which leaves most of his worldly possessions to various members of his congregation. But it's not that part that confuses the community of New Hope. Rather, no one has the faintest idea why Whitfield would leave Jewel Bundren his horse. Plenty of people in the community could've used a horse besides Jewel Bundren. Everyone knows Jewel's got a horse already, plus that Ford truck he paid off two summers ago, four mules to pull the plows and the wagon, a milk cow, and chickens. And everyone knows Jewel hates going to church almost as much as he hates his mother-in-law. Not to mention Whitfield and Jewel never seemed to get along, if they even spoke at all on Sunday mornings.

"I suspect Whitfield wanted you to remember the Bible," Cora says knowingly, in that infuriating way of hers that pisses Jewel off to no ends. "The book of Job saith, Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? The glory of his nostrils is terrible!"

Jewel rolls his eyes and mutters something profane under his breath.

Cora's eyes flash. "You just remember, Jewel Bundren, that the Lord is the ruler of this universe, and it was by his law and hand that your brother died, and not yours!"

"Just so long as he's dead," Jewel responds coldly, "I don't care whose hand it was by."

"And you remember that Whitfield was trying to save your soul by giving you that horse! Don't you go worshipping it more than the Lord!"

"It's the Lord's job to save my soul, not Whitfield's or a horse's."

"Whitfield was an instrument of the Lord!" she shrieks. "If not his job, then who's?"

"We'd best be getting home," Kate interrupts. "Tomorrow morning'll be here early and Jewel and the boys have work to do in the fields."

Without another word, they leave Cora to wash the Sunday dinner dishes, Kate steering Jewel to the truck and ordering the boys into the back, while they call goodbyes to their cousins and Aunt Eula.

She'll be glad when all this blows over, she thinks, as the engine turns over with a roar. It's enough to make her head hurt, still.

~FIN~