Evered stayed in the house alone for a moment; and when he could bear to be alone no longer he went out into the farmyard. As he did so Zeke Pitkin drove in, on his way back from that errand in North Fraternity.
The bleak face of Evered appalled the timid man and frightened him; and he stammered apologetically: “W-wondered if you got the b-bull in.”
“Yes,” said Evered. “After he had killed Mary.”
Zeke stared at Evered with a face that was a mask of terror for a moment, and Evered stood still, watching him. Then Pitkin gathered his reins clumsily, and clumsily turned his horse, so sharply that his wagon was well-nigh overthrown by the cramped wheel. When it was headed for the road he lashed out with the whip, and the horse leaped forward. Evered could hear it galloping out to the main road, and then to the left, toward Fraternity.
“Town’ll know in half an hour,” he said half to himself.
The man was still in a stupor, his emotions numb. But he did not want to be alone. After a moment he went out into the stable and harnessed the horse to his light wagon and started down a wood road toward the spring. The wagon would serve to bring his wife’s body home.
The vehicles on a Fraternity farm are there for utility, almost without exception. Evered had a mowing machine, a rake, a harrow, a sledge, a single-seated buggy and this light wagon. He was accustomed to take the wagon when he went butchering; and it had served to haul the carcasses of any number of sheep or calves or pigs or steers from farm to market. He had no thought that he was piling horror on horror in taking this wagon to bring home his wife’s body.
He laid a double armful of hay in the bed of the wagon before he started; and he himself walked by the horse’s head, easing it over the rough places. The wood road which he followed would take him within two or three rods of the spring.
John Evered, going before his father, had found Ruth MacLure passionately sobbing above the body of her sister. And at first he could not bring himself to draw near to her; he was held by some feeling that to approach her would be sacrilege. There had been such a love between the sisters as is not often seen; there was a spiritual intimacy between them, a sympathy of mind and heart akin to that sometimes marked between twins. John knew this; he knew all that Ruth’s grief must be. And so he stood still, a little ways off from her, and waited till the tempest of her grief should pass.
When she was quieter he spoke to her; and at the sound of his voice the girl whirled to face him, still kneeling; and there were no more tears in her. He was frightened at the stare of challenge in her eyes. He said quickly, “It’s me.”