Chapter 85

When he was out of sight, I turned to Andre. “We’d better start cutting grass across the crick for the tabby.” I indicated the hay pile covered with a tarp west of the burned barn. “You lost the hay in the loft, so you’re going to be short on fodder for the animals. We’ll use as little of that as possible for the tabby.”

Andre’s face cleared as he picked up a stiff piece of hide and called to his wife. “Look, Bella, I salvaged this for you.”

It was the black fawn.

Without a word, I took it from his hands and threw it into the flickering embers of the destroyed barn. Then I waded across the cold crick and began hacking tufts of prairie grass with my knife and stacking them into small piles. 27

“You are a strange man, Joseph Otter,” James said upon his return to the Tiller farm from Yanube City. “You’re as well educated as anyone in the territory, yet you toss a deerskin into the fire because of superstition.”