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I mean I don t want to be part of this.
He nodded, said, I didn t imagine that you would.
You re not the only one who wants nothing to do
with it. But you are my only kin, and you ve no more
choice in the matter than I do. We can t change cer-
tain facts even as much as we may want to.
Please, she said. I ve enough problems.
I heard you married. Where is your husband?
It isn t important. What is important is that I be
left alone to live my life and raise my children in
peace. Please, you have to leave now.
He rose with great effort, his features knotted in
pain.
I won t trouble you further tonight if you promise
to meet with me tomorrow.
92 Bill Brooks
I can t.
You must.
Why must I? You haven t been a father to me in
years and now suddenly you want to change all that,
you want me just to forget about the fact you weren t
in my life when I might have needed you; that you
took up the profession of killing men over that of be-
ing a husband and a father? I can t forgive you these
things. You re who you are and I am who I am. I m
sorry that you re dying, but there is nothing I can do
about it.
Her words were as painful to him as if someone
had unloaded a revolver in his chest.
I didn t come to ask your forgiveness, he said as
his hand gripped the door s knob. I did come to ask
something of you in exchange for something. But it
can wait until tomorrow.
She watched him limp away down the darkened
street toward the heart of town, knowing that he was
probably going to stay at the hotel. She waited until
his shadow became lost in deeper shadows, then
closed the door.
At least, she told herself, it wasn t Fallon who d
found her. And for that she was grateful. A dying fa-
ther of whom she knew so little, she reckoned she
could deal with.
A stiff wind kicked down from the north, across the
benchlands and onto the grasslands; it had the feel of
Canada in it. Tall John rode next to Will Bird atop the
glass-sided hearse. Inside were five caskets of basic
pine, ropes, and shovels. It would be at best a pauper s
Dakota Lawman: Killing Mr. Sunday 93
funeral. The prairies were awash in the purple light of
evening. Way off in the distance from the height at
which they rode they could see the lone cabin.
That s it, Tall John said.
Will Bird had recently arrived back in Sweet Sor-
row after nearly six months gone to Texas where he d
worked as a helper building windmills in and around
Victoria. The days were nothing but hard hot work
under the stifling Texas sun and he would have quit
except the men he worked for said they wouldn t pay
him until his contract was fulfilled. His bosses were a
pair of itinerate Germans named Meiss and Fiek
hard, taciturn men who lacked humor and who could
outwork a mule. They ate liverwurst and onion sand-
wiches that caused their breath to stink worse than a
dung heap. They had big teeth and never laughed.
Will Bird s last job had been building one of the
old Dutch-style windmills outside Goliad, as rough-
and-tumble a place as there ever was where the
liquor was cheap and plentiful, the whores fat and
wicked, and the gamblers mostly cheats and back
shooters.
Tragedy struck the day he fell off one of the damn
platforms and landed on a rattlesnake that had curled
itself up under a mesquite bush. The snake bit him on
the hand and he grabbed it by the tail and cracked it
like a whip snapping off its head. But his hand
swelled to three times its normal size, turning black
in the process and causing the skin to split. He lapsed
in and out of a fever that had him talking to long-
dead kin.
Somehow he recovered and did not die himself.
94 Bill Brooks
And with the assistance of one of the Germans nieces
who d been hired to feed the crew and wash their
clothes, he began to flourish. Her name was Hilde-
gard, whom he affectionately called Hildy. She
spoon-fed him soup and washed his bit hand in the
shade of a tent near where the Germans continued
their construction of the windmill, the ringing of
hammers and the groaning of timber a sort of sweet
symphony as Hildy ministered to him.
His hand went from black to bright red, and in a
week he could almost close it, but not enough to hold
a hammer or carry a bucket or even grip a ladder well
enough to be of much use to the windmillers. But a
snake-bit hand proved no impediment to his growing
desire for Hildy, a big strapping girl with yellow pig-
tails, rosy cheeks, and large bosoms. Will talked her
into following him down to a nearby creek with the
ruse they were going to collect drinking water.
But Meiss, the elder of the two, and uncle of the
girl, had his suspicions about the handsome but some-
what lazy and inept young westerner and had been
keeping a close eye on the doings between the two.
He, in fact, had long held something of a plan to
marry his niece once their work contracts were fin-
ished in Texas. Had set aside a certain amount of
money each job to pay for a wedding. He grew suspi-
cious when he saw her and Will Bird heading off into
the brush with a bucket. Jack and Jill, he thought
climbing down from the platform with growing anger
and jealousy.
What he found beyond the canebrakes unleashed
his fury.
Dakota Lawman: Killing Mr. Sunday 95
He smacked Will off the girl with his large felt
hat whap, whap, whap!
Will didn t take the assault easy and laid into the
older German with lefts and rights, his arms flying in
windmill fashion, landing blows that drove the old
man to the ground. It wasn t until the German was ly-
ing on his back, eyes rolled up in his head, that Will
felt the snake-bit hand burning as if it was on fire.
Will looked at the old man, looked at Hildy, saw
her chubby bare legs still exposed, said, What the
hell! and finished up what they d started prior to
the arrival of the German uncle, then rode away on
the same piebald mare he d come to Texas with in the
first place. He didn t see no true future in being a
windmiller and he sure wasn t looking to become no
bridegroom, neither.
Of course, he never planned on returning to Sweet
Sorrow to become some grave digger s helper, neither.
Yet here he was, working for Tall John the under-
taker. At least temporarily, he told himself, until
something more befitting of his talents came along.
There was one other thing that kept Will Bird from
leaving: Fannie Jones.
He met her at the café and he liked what he saw,
and he guessed she did, too, and he d been sparking
her regular ever since. He wasn t a hundred percent
sure she was the gal for him in the long haul, but in
the short haul she d do just fine.
Will looked toward where Tall John pointed. The
cabin looked lifeless and lonely, as if it, too, had died.
I got to tell you, I don t much crave this sort of
work, he said.
96 Bill Brooks
Few men do, the undertaker said. But it is a
job that must be done and it s God s work you ll be
doing.
God and me never were on the same road to-
gether.
Not too late to start, John said.
They could smell the death as they halted several
yards away from the cabin.
Might be best we cover our faces with kerchiefs,
John said.
It s near dark, Will Bird said. We can t bury
em in the dark.
Tall John nodded.
You re right, it would be onerous work at night.
Couldn t we just set fire to the place?
Tall John took a deep breath, let it out again.
We could, yes sir, we surely could, but we ain t
going to. Have you no compassion?
Just think of the time we could save, and it sure
ain t gone make no difference to them folks inside.
No, the marshal asked that they be buried. He
didn t say anything about burning them. If he had, I
might have considered it.
Will thought about what it felt like when he fell off
the windmill and onto the snake and how the snake
bit him the fear that went through him with the poi-
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