“He wouldn’t come?” asks Hashknife, and Glory shakes her head.
“She was my daughter,” says the old man, and then he says to Glory, “Will yuh come in with me and he’p me a little?”
The little kid looks at us and then follers them inside. Me and Hashknife looks at each other. We’re kinda hard-boiled, but it’s getting under our hides a little.
Then we hears voices out by the gate, and here comes a lot of men. We figures it’s the council coming to notify Eph’s wife. It ain’t right to feel thataway, but I’m kinda glad she wasn’t able to hear what they has to say. Hashknife touches me and I steps around the corner with him.
This gang trails around to the back door and we hears one of ’em speak to Glory. The old man must ’a’ come to the door, ’cause we hears somebody ask Glory who the old man is. The old man starts to talk, but one of the gang says:
“We jist wants to say that Eph got killed today.”
We hears Glory say:
“Eph Sillman?” kinda strained-like.
“Uh-huh.”
“Dad, is this true?” asks Glory, but we don’t hear Jim Sillman answer.