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playing. There were tinkling horns and a drum. It was cold outside, and snow on the ground.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œThat’s all,” Danny said. “That’s it.” He took off his big, floppy hat and set it on the floor beside him. He said, “Do you think that woman is the reason he left? That’s what Herman Stroud told me. That he left Mother for another woman.”
    â€œNo,” Eli said.
    â€œDo you think he still loves Mom?” Danny asked.
    â€œYes,” Eli said.
    â€œWe’re going out there to Bismarck, though, aren’t we? To her place—that Laura Powers? Even though he’s not there?”
    â€œWhat else can we do? At least she’s seen him. She has to know something .”
    â€œMaybe she sent the letter right after he left, maybe he’s already home,” Danny said, his large eyes gleaming. “Have you thought of that?”
    â€œNope,” Eli said, “but I like the idea. I really like it.”
    â€œBut you don’t believe it.”
    â€œNo, do you?”
    Danny shook his head. “Where is he then?” he asked, his thin face knotted up by the question. He looked like an old man suddenly. “Where is he?”

4
    Plainwater
    F or all the worry he’d caused in the home he walked away from, all the justifiable tears and anger, his movements across the countryside by rail and by foot had attracted little in the way of attention from those who may have seen him. A tall man, eyes drawn to the ground, carrying no bag or rifle, and sleeping in barns, ditches, and a house or two. By appearance, a man stripped of luck, cuffs frayed and cheeks unshaved, stopping finally in this river town where for several weeks he’d hired himself out to a merchant who was building a warehouse down along the shore. Nights, he’d been sleeping in a small, unpainted church. He rose now from the maple pew he’d been using for a bed, rolled his blanket, gathered his few possibles, and walked up the aisle. He passed by the altar and knocked at the door of the room where the parson prayed in the morning, early, before the sun.
    The old man was sitting next to a bookcase, oil lamp burning on the table beside him.
    â€œI wanted to thank you for letting me sleep here. It’s been comfortable.”
    â€œYou’re no burden to me,” the parson said. “Are you moving on, then?”
    â€œI am.”
    â€œYou never said where you’re from.”
    â€œIt’s been my opinion that people don’t harbor what you’d call any real concern for those not kin to them.”
    â€œWhere are you from?” the parson asked. “If you don’t mind.”
    â€œNowhere that you would know about.”
    The parson smiled, a hundred wrinkles claiming his face. “Is the idea to be gone from there? Or to go someplace?”
    â€œI like to think I’m going someplace.”
    â€œIt would seem, then, you’re looking for something.”
    â€œOr somebody, yes.”
    The parson turned down the flame of his lamp as the sky outside the window lightened. He cleared his throat. “As pastors go, I likely haven’t been a good one. The words people need to hear have been hard for me to come by.” He gestured toward the sanctuary. “It’s my fear that those who sit out there on Sunday mornings often leave unsatisfied—unless they’ve fallen asleep, in which case they go off rested at least. But I will say this. I have a clear notion that my prayers reach heaven, and in that respect I am fortunate. More to the point, of late I have found myself praying for you.”
    Ulysses laughed. “I’ll take all the prayers you’ve got, though I ask that you spare me your sacraments.”
    A rooster crowed in the distance. “I can hardly give you Communion against your will, can I?” the parson said.
    â€œNor baptize me all over again, thank God for that.