The Stars Tonight

24. Come to Dust

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Baldwin lowered the shot gun as the breeze swept the smoke away over the lake. Opening the chamber he put another round in and closing it he took aim at the glass lake. A crackle in the grass startled him and he spun around.

"Holy!"

Baldwin lowered the gun at the sudden appearance of his cousin.

"You know," Dick said as he lowered his hands. "Most people count sheep to sleep."

Baldwin aimed the gun at the lake again. "The reason for my waken stands before me," he said cocking the gun.

"Me?" Dick questioned. "What did I do?"

Baldwin tilted his head back and turned the gun toward his cousin. "You tell me."

"Easy, Baldwin," Dick said. "You don't want my soul on your conscious as well do you? And here of all places."

Baldwin lowered the gun. "Tell me you weren't the one who attacked the cottage."

"Is that what is keeping you up?" Dick asked. Stuffing his hands in his pockets he laughed. "It's the teacher, isn't it?" When Baldwin didn't answer he laughed. "I knew it would come to this. It's a shame..."

"Be out with it!"

Dick looked into his cousin's eyes and saw not a calm collected man but a terrible white hot fire that dared to catch. "I heard her gossiping about certain families; slandering them. I told her it was wrong but she insisted it was fact. When I threatened to tell of her lose tongue she threatened to tell on you about me."

"Go on."

"Well," Dick shrugged. "Did she happen by recently and accuse me of anything dreadful?"

Baldwin faltered.

"Ah," Dick said waving his finger. "You didn't believe her did you?"

Baldwin looked back at the lake. "Espen says you wanted to court her."

"I only meant that in jest," Dick said. "You can't truly think I would fancy a negro woman could you?"

Baldwin looked at his cousin and shook his head. "Why would she make something like that up?"

"Easy," Dick said. "After all, Baldwin the whole town knows you are partial to the schoolmarm. Perhaps she wanted to have a laugh and see how much sway she held over you."

Baldwin nodded slowly. "Is that what people think?"

"It's what she herself boasts," Dick said and he watched the change wax over his cousin. His cousin, obsessed with doing right, being right, and making things right. The combination mixed and blended together and came out in a perverted sense of justice. "She mocks me?"

"Yes."

"She mocks my compassion and my...care for her..."

"Yes."

"She's taking advantage of me." He looked down at the spent shells around his feet.

"She's a liar," Dick said. "A slanderer, a Jezebel, a Delilah...and she is breaking your heart."

"I've done nothing but right by those girls," Baldwin said.

"And see how she repays you?" Dick said. "You saved me so many times, Baldwin. And I've buried our secret so deep not even the dead could dig it up."

Baldwin nodded his head. "You didn't write it down anywhere?" there was still a flicker of hope he could be wrong about Pleasant.

Dick frowned. "Why would I do a stupid thing like that?"