But he didn’t come out, and soon she had them quiet again, and all Anna had to do was haul the woman’s body over the swaying back of her pathetic mule that had been stabled. She was heavier in death. Anna struggled, her muscles quivered, but she managed it—and then, bundling up in Gunner’s coat and hat and gloves and boots, which she’d stashed away out here after dinner, she led the beast out of the barn.
Turning her head against the slight wind—it wasn’t so bitterly cold, it was simply a February night in Nebraska—Anna led the unsteady mule with its silenced burden out on the prairie. Anna’s feet swam in her husband’s boots, making the journey more difficult. She glanced up, grateful for the full moon illuminating her path. She led the mule out for what seemed like miles, before she reached a small ravine, far from any homestead in the area. After studying it for a long moment, she began to dig out the snow, two or three feet of it—it took longer than she thought it would. Her hands, even in Gunner’s rawhide work gloves, grew numb with cold, and her arms ached.
Finally, she had carved out a well large enough for the body of a small, hateful woman. She dumped Mrs. Thorkelsen into the snowy grave, and suddenly Anna felt nauseated. She saw once more the small, almost blue body of Fredrik Halvorsan lying in a similar grave, next to Anette. But then she closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them she found she could get on with her work. She pushed and kicked the snow over the body until it was completely covered.
She was hot now, perspiring beneath the heavy coat. But she would cool off on the walk back home—she slapped the mule, sending it stumbling farther out on the prairie. It wouldn’t last more than a day or two and then it, too, would be a pile of bones come spring. There was no saddle on it; she’d remembered to unbridle it, so that there was nothing identifiable, just in case.
And it would snow again, soon; she sniffed the air. It had that heavy, moist scent. Oh yes, it would snow again soon, and cover every track.
Satisfied now—content that she had saved Anette once and for all—Anna was resigned to her own fate. But she wasn’t in any hurry to meet it, so she kept the pistol in her pocket as she started the long walk back to her house. She would get there before dawn, the household still asleep. She would clean herself up, take the woman’s carpetbag and hide it somewhere until she could burn it. Then she would sneak into the makeshift cot next to her children where she’d been sleeping for weeks now. Gunner would never notice she hadn’t spent the night inside.
There would be questions in the morning—but not too many. No one would be sorry that the mother was gone; Anna could easily make up a story about giving her some money and sending her back, everyone would believe her. The mule, of course, would be gone, too. Anette might be sad, but not for long. After all, she’d been abandoned before.
Soon everyone would be gone from the house: the Newspaper Man, the Schoolteacher, Anette. She had to give the girl up; she’d saved her life twice now. That was enough. Someone else—someone without a mortal sin on her soul—would have to see the girl through to adulthood. So it would be just her family again, no interlopers, no strangers coming to gawk. Anna felt a soaring within, anticipating the house back to normal, everything polished and shiny, everything—and everyone—in its place. Including the pistol, tucked back in the loose brick behind the stove, where it would remain until the next time she needed it. Now she understood why her sister had given it to her before she left Minneapolis. In the city she would have had no use for it. But out here, well—
Out here, a woman needed an ally that would ask no questions. And tell no tales.
Anna stopped for a moment, halfway home; she stood, breathing heavily, and she looked up at the sky. The moon was so bright that she could see her shadow, but even so the stars were visible, and so numerous she gasped. How had she never looked up at them before? The prairie sky was a dazzling display of flickering ice, leaving scarcely any room between the stars. She felt that if she was up there among them she wouldn’t be able to take a step without touching one—she raised her hand, pointed a finger, imagining how cold they must be, icy to the touch, so far away from the sun.