Shallow Graves

killing anyone.
    Yet she remembered his face today—when he was shooting with Pellam. It looked so determined. So adult. Scary, at times.
    “Can I talk to him?”
    “He’s asleep.”
    Tom smiled, looked past her. “Doesn’t seem to be.”
    Sam was standing in the hallway, in his pajamas, staring at the sheriff uneasily.
    “I heard a noise.”
    “Hi, Sam. How you doing?”
    “Hi, Sheriff.”
    “You feeling better?”
    “Yessir, I am.”
    “You must’ve heard me. Sorry I woke you up.”
    “I wasn’t asleep. I heard you come in. This was a different noise. Outside my window.”
    Meg was looking at his round, sleepy face. She thought: No, he’d never kill anyone. Yet . . . His eyes seemed so cold. He seemed so different. She struggled to smile. “Honey, it’s probably that owl. Remember.”
    “Wasn’t the owl.”
    Meg was thinking: Where is that .22? But, no, he couldn’t have done it.
    Tom stood. “How ’bout I take a look?”
    “I guess,” Sam said.
    “Tom—” Meg began.
    In a whisper the sheriff said, “Okay, Meg, tell you what. I’ll come by tomorrow. You and Keith’ll be here and you can have a lawyer too, you want. Okay?”
    She nodded.
    Tom put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and they started up the stairs. “Now let’s check out that noise.”
    “I’ll be there in a minute to tuck you in,” Meg called.
    Where was that gun? She had to find it.
    She was halfway to the back porch when the gunshot, from upstairs, shook the house.
    A scream burst from her lips. She ran to the stairs and leapt out of the way just as Tom stumbled down them, a terrible wound in his chest.
    “I . . .” He glanced at her with unfocused eyes, crawled toward the front door. He got three or four feet. Then dropped to the floor, lay still. Blood soaked the carpet.
    “Jesus . . . Sam!” She started up the stairs again.
    For a terrible moment she believed that her son had done it all—killed Ned and then lured the sheriff up to the second floor to kill him. And felt too that it was all her fault—for her infidelity, for her not being grateful for the wonderful life Keith had given her.
    But then the boy appeared on the stairs, running in panic, tears streaming down his face.
    “There was a man! He hurt Sheriff Tom. He shot him!”
    “Where is he?”
    “I don’t know. He was at the window. I’m scared. . . .”
    Then she heard the noise.
    Coming from the basement, the sound reminded her of the time she’d pulled apart an old lettuce crate for the wood, using a claw hammer to pry the nails. The loud squeal from the rusty friction.
    Then a snap and the tinkle of glass on stone.
    The basement window.
    “Mommy! It’s him. He’s there. He’s in the—”
    “Shhh.”
    Meg ran to the basement door. She locked a small brass latch and grabbed the telephone. The line was dead. She tapped the button.
    Silence.
    She glanced at Tom but the pistol was no longer in his holster. He must have dropped it somewhere or the intruder had stolen it.
    “Sam, where are those guns you and Mr. Pellam were shooting?”
    “I don’t—”
    “Sam, it’s okay, honey. It’s going to be fine. Where are the guns?”
    He gasped in fear. “I put them in the basement. We were going to clean them. He said he didn’t want me to by myself.”
    “All right, baby.”
    She led him to the first-floor guest room, which was windowless. She put him inside. “You lock the door when I close it. And don’t open it for anybody but Daddy or me.”
    “I’m scared.”
    Hugging him hard. So hard it seemed that she’d never be able to let go. “You’ll be all right. I promise.”
    She closed the door and heard it lock.
    Meg sprinted into the den, tore open the gun cabinet door. The carbine, smelling of oil and sulfur, was in her hand. The hundred-year-old Springfield ( breechloader, not muzzle-loader. . . . Oh, Pellam where are you?) The saddle ring jingled as she blew dust off the brown metal barrel.
    She found a dozen of the long, heavy shells, put one in the chamber and the rest in her sweater pocket. She closed the breech with a snap and ran into the hall.
    On the first floor she checked the front and back doors. They were locked. The windows on the ground floor? She usually kept them locked but had she aired the house recently? She couldn’t remember and she wasn’t going to check now.
    She paused, heard delicate scraping sounds. Metal and wood being adjusted. She walked to the kitchen. Slow, determined. Okay,