legs as she scooped dry food out of a metal garbage can and shared it out amongst the five grubby bowls lining a wall. Her favorite of the cats, a big marmalade-colored tom, had fresh scratches on his nose and she stooped to make sure he was okay before going through to the old milking parlor to get the pistol.
It had been her father’s, from World War II, and after he got back, he’d kept it in a box in this room, the ammunition beside it in a small leather pouch. She wasn’t sure why he’d kept it out there—people didn’t worry about children and guns in those days—except that she’d always suspected it reminded him of the war and he’d wanted to keep it out of sight and out of mind. But Ruth and her mother had known where it was in case they needed it. It occurred to her then that the gun hadn’t been cleaned in years. “You have to take care of your things,” her father had liked to say. “Or they won’t be there when you need them.”
Standing there, she had a sudden flash of recall—winter evenings, her father and brothers bent over the Holsteins, the cows’ nostrils encircled by halos of steam in the cold air. There was the scent of sweet manure and woodsmoke and the creamy, warm milk as the boys dumped full buckets into the tank. Sometimes, when she wasn’t needed in the house, Ruth had come out and watched them milk, listened to their talk. She found the things the men said to each other out here much more interesting than what the women were saying inside.
Her brothers had all died young and, after her parents were gone, the house and farm had gone to Ruth and her husband, Choke. Choke wasn’t from a farm family; he’d grown up in town. But he’d picked up the milking all right, as long as Ruth was on hand to tell him what order everything had to be done in those first few months. The kids had helped, too, Sherry and Dwight, before his accident. They had gotten along all right. Then in the ‘70s, when a lot of farms in Vermont had gone under, Choke sold the cows and Ruth got a job as a secretary in an insurance office. They’d hardly known what to do with each other after that. Ruth realized that her marriage had been based on the rhythms of farm life. They had talked easily about finances and children and world events while they worked together on cold mornings and evenings in the barn. But sitting across the dinner table from each other or watching television, they’d been strangers. Choke had been dead for twenty years now. She’d almost forgotten what he looked like.
Now, she opened the box and slipped her hand under the pile of rags that the gun had always been wrapped in. It wasn’t there. Frantically, she searched the shelf, thinking it might have fallen out. She’d checked for it just a few days ago, when she’d started to feel afraid. It was an insurance policy of sorts, the idea that she had it, that if anything happened, she could go get it. There was a rifle in the house, but she had never felt like it would be much use if she needed it. Too bulky, not very quick. The one time she’d used it—to shoot a raccoon that was going after the chickens—had taught her that.
As far as she knew, nobody knew where the pistol was kept, except for Sherry and Charley. Charley had probably talked about it, told Carl. That’s where it was. Carl had taken it. She’d bet her life on it. Well, she’d get it back from him. That was the only thing to do.
As she stepped out of the barn again, a single shot sounded in the frigid air. Then another came, and another. Ruth stopped and listened. The shots were coming from the woods behind the cemetery. It was the Wentworth boys. Target-shooting again. They’d been at it for a few days. Patch must have gotten them new .22s for Christmas. She stood and listened for another moment, then took off through the snow. A few minutes later, the shots ceased and silence hovered in the cold air. The boys must have gotten cold, she thought, must have gone back inside. She walked out into the frozen field.
TEN MINUTES LATER, she came into the cemetery. The snow was