I nodded. There wasn't anything else I could think of to do.
“But you aren't tall enough to look through that window;” sings out Mis' Rogers. “How could you see into the shop, Danny?”
I didn't know, so I didn't say anything at all; I just sniffled.
“There's a store box right in under the window,” says another one. “Danny must have climbed on to that store box and looked in after he saw Hank crawl through the window. Did you scramble on to the store box and look in, Danny?”
I just nodded again.
“And what was it you saw him do? How did he kill himself?” they all asked together.
I didn't know. So I just bellered and boo-hooed some more. Things were getting past anything I could see the way out of.
“He might have hung himself to one of the iron rings in the joists above the forge,” says another woman.
“He climbed on to the forge and tied the rope to one of those rings, and tied the other end around his neck, and then he stepped off the forge and swung. Was that how he did it, Danny?”
I nodded. And I bellered louder than ever. I knew that Hank was down in that cistern below the kitchen, a corpse and a mighty wet corpse, all this time; but those women kind of got me to thinking he was hanging out in the blacksmith shop by the forge, too.