Ignorance is Bliss

TW: contains violence, blood, self-harm, and suicide

I wiped my brow and replaced my hat. Prompting my horse forward, I surveyed the field ahead of me. More than an acre still, and no time to lose. My wife worked steadily, moving row by row, planting each seed with care in the ground I tilled. This went faster when both my children helped. I sighed, missing my son and my daughter something fierce. I even missed that girl my son had brought home. Any help, really, would have been treasured. 

We planted corn, and I aimed to make a profit come harvest time. With less help, an older horse, and a bigger field, we tilled, planted, and prayed. Sunrise to sunset. The corn would grow better with my children here. It always did when we worked together. God rest their souls. 

Anna leaned on my arm as we led the horse back into the barn. He deserved a rest, the old stallion had done the hardest labor, pulling the plow. I wondered how many seasons the old boy had left in him. 

“Maybe I should buy those oxen off of Ol’ MacBride,” I murmured. I locked the stallion’s stall. My son had named the horse as a boy, though my daughter insisted on another name. It was too painful to remember their laughter and arguments and the life they had breathed into our home, so the old boy no longer had a name to call his own. He didn’t seem to mind. 

Anna took my hand in hers. Both were weathered with age and hardened by callouses. I wondered how many seasons we had left in us. She hummed a tune as we walked back, and I remembered my daughter playing the same tune on her fiddle one Easter morning. I bit my tongue, refusing to beg Anna to stop. I held our front door open for her, and in the kitchen, I pulled down our usual mugs from the cabinet. She grabbed a pitcher of tea she’d brewed earlier in the morning, filling each mug. 

Our ice box was empty. Normally, I would have sent our son into town to buy a new ice block. I’d go by myself in the morning. 

“John,” my wife started. She paused to sip at her lukewarm tea. Her nose wrinkled, but she looked down and sobered her expression. “I miss them, too.” She tugged at her shirt and the sloppy stitching that Sam’s girl had attempted. “Katie may still come home.” 

“It’s been months, Anna,” I said realistically. I stared at my tea. Six months since my daughter ran away, five months since my son died, four months since Victoria chased after Katie. She thought she could bring my daughter back. But they were both just girls, and this was a man’s world. “I should have gone,” I mumbled. 

I half-hoped Anna hadn’t heard, but a heartbeat later, she responded, “You’re needed here, John.” 

“They’re as good as dead. If they haven’t been killed already, they will be soon.” 

“Don’t talk like that,” she scolded. She had faith that our daughter would return, that the girl our son brought home would find her. I loved her more for it, though I couldn’t see how she held onto hope. Our son never returned. 

We finished our tea in silence, and I washed out of the mugs while praying Anna didn’t see how my tears mingled with the water droplets on the ceramic.  I missed my children desperately. I missed the girl that should have been my son’s wife if he hadn’t been murdered. I missed when my house was full. Full of life and conversation, more than just the sad melodies my wife hummed.

Anna prepared dinner: chicken and potatoes. I sat down to write to my sister’s husband. He and his sons kept an ear to the ground in search of my daughter. They were infantrymen, fighting against the Southern traitors, and they were the only hope I had of finding Katie or Victoria.

My pen only scratched in the first letter of a greeting when Anna called, “John, there’s a knock at the door. Can you get it?” Her hands were full with dinner. 

I tucked my chair back under the desk in our bedroom and walked past my children’s empty bedrooms to the front door. My shotgun leaned against the wall near the door’s hinges, ever since that bastard shot my son. Somewhere deep inside, my heart wished the man at the door was my son’s murderer: I could find out why it had to be my family he destroyed. 

Instead, a cowboy stood at my doorway, leaning back in his boots. His brown hair had been lightened by the sun, just as his skin had been darkened. He looked like my son, if I took off my eyeglasses and squinted. For a moment, I let myself believe this stranger was my son, that my son didn’t lie in the ground somewhere west of the Rocky Mountains. 

“Are you John Thompson?”

“Have we met before?” I asked. It was possible; I hired cowboys back when I raised cattle. Before my son died and my daughter ran away and Sam’s girl chased her into the Confederacy. 

“No, sir.”  He offered me his hand to shake. “Ken Conrad.” 

His handshake was firm, and he looked me in the eyes when he spoke—the mark of a trustworthy man. Instead of inviting him inside the house, however, I led the cowboy outside. I left the shotgun behind. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care. 

Conrad continued, “I knew Sam, back in California. Good man.” He sounded like a Reb, but I held my assumptions back long enough to learn why he stopped at my doorway. He pointed to a wagon parked next to my field. “Heard about your daughter, Katie.” Conrad scratched the back of his head. “Figured I owed Sammy. Lord knows he saved my life enough times out West.” 

The cowboy strolled closer to the wagon. Now I saw another cowboy soothing their horses. A gun belt was slung low around his hips. “You mean to tell me Katie is in that wagon?” I asked. 

Conrad exhaled with a whistle. “I don’t mean to tell you anything, sir.” 

Frustration and excitement and cold dread mixed in my stomach. “Did you or did you not bring my daughter back to me?”

The cowboy laughed. “See for yourself.” He smacked his palm against the side of the covered wagon. 

Victoria stepped out first. She embraced me and kissed my cheek. When she stepped away, she took her place at my side. We waited for Katie. 

A minute passed. No Katie. 

Resentment bubbled in my chest. I poked my finger into Conrad’s chest, not that I could do much else. I was an old farmer up against a fit cowboy with a Colt at his hip. I didn’t care, he promised me my daughter and left me standing empty-handed. “What sort of cruel joke—” 

“C’mon now, Katie,” Conrad called into the wagon. “Ain’t funny, and you got your pa all riled up.” 

My daughter jumped out of the wagon, finally. Her lips pursed together as she suppressed a giggle. I raced to her and crushed her in my arms. My daughter, my heart, was finally home. 

“Katie, where have you been?” I asked between kisses pressed into her auburn hair, only stopping to order “Victoria, go get Anna.” 

My son’s girl rushed back to the house to comply. She would have made a good wife for Sam. 

Katie pulled herself away from me. She struck her proud chin in the air. “I joined the Union Army,” she announced when Victoria returned with Anna. 

My wife nearly fainted into Conrad’s arms. 

“She’s a nurse,” Victoria explained. 

Conrad piped up, “Eric here and I found these girls at Fort Donelson.” 

“Figured we owed Sammy enough to bring ‘em back to ya,” the other cowboy, Eric, added.

Anna invited the cowboys in. She cooked up another batch of potatoes, and I slaughtered another chicken. We ate and talked and laughed, and my house was alive again. I took off my spectacles and squinted and pretended that Ken Conrad was my prodigal son. The cowboys told stories of their travels and how they met my son. Sam had saved both of them from drowning in a river, and they’d stuck together as they traveled to California. 

Conrad hadn’t been there when Sam was shot, but Eric had, and he said it was a senseless killing. Some politician’s son had a little too much opium, and poor Sammy got caught in his crossfire. Victoria knew this already and comforted my wife as she cried. Katie, too, had heard this story before, but she chewed her meat with a determined look on her face and a fire in her eyes. 

Eric left in the morning, and Victoria returned to her parents, but Ken Conrad stayed. He went to town and bought an ice block. He helped Anna and I in the fields, and I squinted and pretended he was my son. He stayed the whole summer, in fact. I ignored the looks that passed between him and my daughter. I was just happy to have my daughter back. 

We had a bumper crop, and I made a significant profit, enough to buy a new dress for Katie. She wore it to a dance at the town hall, and I ignored Conrad’s eyes following her around the dance floor. 

The cowboy stayed through the fall and into the winter. He chopped firewood to warm my house, like my son used to before he left for the West. He went into town and came back with dinner for Anna to cook and trinkets for Katie. He slept in my son’s room and respected my wife as his mother and I as his father. If I squinted, Sam had returned. If I ignored his Rebel accent and the looks he shared with my daughter, I had a son again. 

In late January, fourteen months after my daughter ran away, thirteen months after my son died, nine months after the cowboy brought my daughter home, Ken Conrad went into town. A letter to that other cowboy, Eric,  slipped out of his back pocket, but he was off before I could inform him. I pretended he was my son, I let him live and work with my family, I pretended to trust him, but I opened his letter, and I read it.

My heart dropped. My stomach twisted. I read and reread this revelation. I treated him like a son, I ignored the way he stared at my daughter. I let him fill the empty space in my home, in my heart. 

But Ken Conrad killed my son. He shot my son and complained about not finding enough gold on his corpse to make him worth the spent bullet. 

I threw the letter in the fire and immediately regretted it. I plunged my naked hands into the flame before the paper could crumble to ash. My skin came away blistered, but I ignored the pain that danced around my fingers, just as I ignored the looks that bastard shot my daughter. 

I locked myself in my bedroom. What to do next? I wanted Ken Conrad dead. He’d become a favorite in town but surely the sheriff would understand. I had proof. Ken Conrad killed my son. 

And I saw but ignored the looks he gave my daughter. I ignored the sounds that came from Katie’s bedroom each night. I ignored my daughter’s discarded pile of clothes that had grown too tight in recent months. I knew what Ken Conrad did with my daughter, but I ignored it because it was nice to have a son again, to have a house filled with life. 

But he killed my son, and I wanted the bastard dead. 

“John,” Anna called through the locked door separating me from the world. I was done ignoring Ken Conrad. I burst through the door. “John! What happened to your hands?” 

I thrust the letter at my wife and marched towards the front door. My shotgun had waited for this moment since the bastard shot my son. “Take Katie,” I said to my wife, “Go to the barn. Don’t come out until I say so.” 

“John,” she protested. Tears sparkled like gemstones in her eyes. She knew what Conrad did, but she still wanted to ignore it. 

“Do as I say, Anna.” 

She skimmed Conrad’s confession again and nodded. My wife pulled my daughter out of her bedroom, where she sewed clothes for Conrad’s child growing in her belly. Katie saw the shotgun in my hand and read my face. “Pa, you can’t—” 

“Hush, Katie,” her mother warned. 

“He killed your brother.” I tried and failed to keep my voice even. 

“No, Pa, no you can’t,” Katie insisted. Anna yanked her past me and to the door. “No, you can’t, Pa. Pa, listen to me!” Sobs interrupted her ramblings, and she clutched her stomach. She hiccupped. “I love him, you can’t—”

“Love him more than your own brother?” 

“Killing Ken can’t bring Sam back,” she coughed out the words. 

I spat in her face. “Anna.” I pointed out the door with the shotgun. Conrad would be home soon. 

Katie broke away from my wife’s grip. “Pa, you can’t—it’s not his fault.” 

I roared, “NOT HIS FAULT?” 

“It’s mine!” she cried. 

“Katie!” my wife snapped. 

“He found me when I ran away; I was so angry with Sam for leaving. Ma was too.” 

Anna slapped Katie across the face, trying to shut her up. 

“We—” A shrieking wail broke Katie’s voice. “We told Ken where Sam was, told him Sam had gold or, or a map to some gold. It was en-enough. PLEASE, PA!” 

I raised the shotgun, aiming at my daughter’s heart. 

“Please. Ken was just supposed to rough Sam up, scare him into coming home. Please, Pa. It’s not his fault.” 

I glanced at Anna. “This true?” 

“Every word of it, Pa,” Katie insisted. 

“Anna,” I sighed. “Why?” 

She sneered. “Sam was ungrateful. He deserved to be taught a lesson.” 

I promised myself I would kill the bastard that murdered my son. I shook my head, took up my aim, and fired once into my daughter’s chest. Blood splattered the whitewashed front door and on my wife’s pale face. Our daughter was torn to shreds, slumped over her swollen belly, dead. I shifted the twin barrels to Anna next. 

She raised her proud chin; a movement Katie had inherited from her. She knew what I had to do, that I had to do it. I squeezed the trigger, firing my remaining shell. As my wife fell, her mouth froze in a silent scream. 

I dragged their bodies to the cornfield, reloaded my shotgun, and waited in the winter air for Ken Conrad.  

I didn’t ask Conrad why. I returned his greeting with a shot. Red splattered the snow behind him. 

Whispering a prayer for the night’s fallen souls, I stripped Conrad’s body of his Colt. I tossed my shotgun in the snow beside the cowboy’s body. The Colt was loaded with a single bullet. With my mouth wrapped around the barrel, I fired a final time. 

They found our bones in the spring when no one worked from sunrise to sunset, tilling my field. The corn always grew better when we all worked together.