“Have you any idea why he disappeared?”
“I got my idees. My husband was a man sot in his ways—not but what I could manage him when he needed managin’, and a better or more generous provider never drew the breath of life. But he calc’lated to do his duty. I guess he done it too well!”
“What do you mean, Mrs. Churchill?”
“The sheriff was an honest man. When the folks elected him they chose him because he was honest and nobody couldn’t move him out of a path he set his foot to travel. He was close mouthed, too, but I seen for weeks past he had suthin’ on his mind that he wouldn’t come out with. He says to me once, ‘If folks knew what they was livin’ right next door to!’ He didn’t say no more, but that was a lot for him....” Suddenly her eyes glinted and her lips compressed. “My husband was done away with,” she said, “because he was a good man and a smart man, and I’m prayin’ to God to send down vengeance on them that done it.”
She paused a moment and her face took on the grimness of righteous anger. “It’s reported to me they’re settin’ afoot rumors that he run off with some baggage—him that couldn’t bear me out of sight these dozen year; him that couldn’t git up in the mornin’ nor go to bed at night without me there to help him! They lie! I know my man and I trust him. He didn’t need no woman but me, and I didn’t need no man but him.... Some says he stole county money. They lie, too, and best for them they don’t make no sich sayin’s in my hearin’....”
“What do you think is at bottom of it all?”
Mrs. Churchill shook her head. “Some day it’ll all come out,” she said, and her word was an assertion of her faith in the goodness of God. There was a pause, and then woman’s heart cried out to woman’s heart for sympathy.
“I try to bear up and to endure it like he’d want me to. But it’s lonely, awful lonely.... Lookin’ ahead at the years to come—without him by me.... Come nighttime and it seems like I can’t bear it.”
“But—but he’ll come back,” said Carmel.
“Back! Child, there hain’t no back from where my husband’s gone.”