The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich Page A

spoken a more complex German. Her voice was fading in his mind, or getting used up, like everything else about her. She had written letters back to her familyin Heidelberg and made copies, written love letters to Frederic and notes to Johann himself, and she had kept a detail-filled diary of their little adventures and all that happened in their daily lives—except the beatings Frederic gave her once she got sick: those she hadn’t written down. All the same, Frederic never liked all that writing and he ripped out a page of her diary or used the fine paper of a letter whenever he rolled himself a cigarette. Johann hated to see it.
    He came around the corner of the house now, and there they were. The Buckendorfs were also smoking. His father had rolled cigarettes for them. The slender tube of paper and tobacco hung off the younger Buckendorf’s boulder jaw. As they stood there, talking, Johann watched the men breathe the burning paper into their lungs. His mother’s exact words vanished into their chests and emerged as formless smoke.
    Johann walked into the house and hid his mother’s diary in a new place. He had grown about a foot in the months since she’d died and put on muscle. He wasn’t used to how strong he was now. When he walked out again, Frederic grabbed him by the collar and said, “Catch the horses,” then shoved him toward the pasture. He came back with a horse called Nadel and his father made him saddle Girlie, too. As they mounted their horses, his father said, “Now you will see something.” And they rode off after the Buckendorfs.
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    â€œSo that was old Johann,” I said. “That’s the one you called the Deutscher.”
    â€œYa vole,” said Mooshum. “The Deutscher. Later on, he told me what happened when he and his dad caught up with the others, and when the sheriff and the old colonel tried to stand in their way.”
    Death Song
    COLONEL BENTON LUNGSFORD and the sheriff, whose name was Quintus Fells, caught up with the party of men as they were searching out a place that would do for hanging. Oric Hoag had fallen back and approached from a distance. The men were standing at the side ofa well, peering down the hole, discussing the problem and testing the rope that held the bucket. The colonel and the sheriff maneuvered their horses in front of the wagon and they blocked the party of men from moving forward.
    â€œWell, friends,” said Sheriff Fells in his easy way, “I see you’ve done some of our work for us.”
    â€œWe’re going to finish it, too,” said Frederic Vogeli.
    Eugene Wildstrand, a neighbor of the slaughtered family, and William Hotchkiss, a locksmith and grain dealer, stepped their horses close to the sheriff. Some of the men were on foot. Two or three had even ridden in the wagon. Emil Buckendorf was driving the wagon. His pale-eyed brothers sat on the wagon seat with him, their hands in their laps. They looked like oversize boys in a pew.
    â€œStep down,” said Sheriff Fells. “I’m commandeering this wagon and it is my duty to drive the suspects to jail.”
    â€œCommandeer,” said Emil Buckendorf. He snorted through his beard. One of his brothers laughed, and the other, with the big jaw, just stared at his knees.
    William Hotchkiss craned forward over his saddle. He was carrying an old repeating rifle. Sheriff Fells had his shotgun out, and Colonel Lungsford had his hand on the revolver he had carried in the Spanish-American War, and kept oiled and clean on a special shelf ever since. The men and horses were so close that they grazed one another as the horses nervously tried to avoid a misplaced step.
    â€œThat’s a boy you caught,” said Colonel Lungford to them all. “No more than.”
    â€œThat’s a killer,” said Vogeli.
    â€œDon’t you have no conscience?” Wildstrand, holding his horse tight up, spat and coldly addressed the