The Pastor’s Wife

“The Pastor’s wife killed him?”  

Though shocked, Clarice directed these words at her husband, John, with a measured tone. He had stated the news so matter of factly as they ate their stew at the small table in a small room.  The words had fallen out of his mouth much like hard liquor finding its way into a town drunk.  

Not that she drank hard liquor as she was a teetotaler.

John raised his eyes from his meal as he was surprised at the level of her voice and the precision of words underscoring a bewildered disbelief.  “Yup. He’s… as one would say, dead as a door nail.”

“How?”

“She shot him.  Right in the face.”

“In the face?”

“Yup, right in the face.”

“How’n she go do that?”

“With his shot gun. And then she shot him some place else.”

“Some place else? You mean she shot him twice.”

“Yup. Sure as day.  Right between the legs. So to speak.”

“She shot him between the legs? So to speak?”

“Sure as day.”

It was a lot for Clarice to take in.  Though she was not certain if she was actually surprised, all things considered. More than likely, she concluded, she was more acting as though she were surprised.  She had gotten so damn good at acting surprised she often finds she deceives even herself. She slightly chuckled at the thought.

“What? You find it funny that the Parson’s wife shot him?”

“Oh, no, no, just surprised is all. Didn’t seem the type.” 

“Not the type” she thought to herself again. Then she reconsidered it and thought “aren’t we all not the type when we first arrived?” Life was rough out in these parts.  It was a hard scrabble life.  Bereft of ease.   People out here had to be hard.  They had to be hard to survive this rabid bitch of a wilderness.  Hard people in these parts could sometimes do some rather hard things.  Violent things. Things happen and people either grit up and survive them or they perish.  Often with nary a trace.

A certain irony resonated around Clarice.  She was a rather small, thin, mousy woman. And nasty without a shred of insecurity about such.  She had intensely penetrating ice blue eyes.  They were captivating. And probing. They had a tendency to make you feel immediately small. Despite her slight size, when you caught her staring at you, you felt much like a wolf was sizing you up as prey.  

Still, despite her apparent adaptability and ability to survive in the harsh frontier conditions that abounded, she was human and that meant that she too could be startled and surprised by how harsh these conditions could be out here. Even if she weren’t entirely sure she were actually surprised.  

“Yeah” she silently puzzled some more. Ought she really be surprised that the Pastor’s wife did such a thing as shot her husband- twice? As she knew certain things in this particular instance. Certain details of particularly intimate things- so to speak- involving the Pastor.

Clarice looked up at their own shot gun, hanging up above the mantle in their tiny one room cabin.  It was a quick glance.  But John saw it.  A sudden gust rattled the cabin and the air shifted.

They ate the remainder of dinner saying nothing else.

Later that evening they sat in front of the fireplace over which, above the the mantle, hung John’s shotgun. The wind howled outside as a blizzard had taken hold shortly after dinner. There was a notable draft inside the cabin that corresponded to each gust and they both pulled on bear skin shawls to ward off the increasing cold that cloyed to them despite the large fire in the fireplace.

Clarice continued to ponder the news John had shared about the Pastor and his wife. She was knitting in a particular, fastidious, manner.  Of this John took note.  He knew that Clarice only behaved as such when she was furiously chewing on something that was nagging her.  It always made him uneasy.

She rocked her chair with an unnatural abruptness, causing a slight bend in the floor boards beneath her.  Her doing so produced a rhythmic, anxious, penetrating ghostly squeak each time the chair would descend downward. It was a slow yet deliberate action on her part. The energy radiating about her was entirely unnerving to John.  

Clarice again caught herself looking up at their shot gun. This was going to be a big one, she thought.  

Again, there it was, it was quick glance, directly at the gun, John noted to himself. This time he ever so slightly narrowed his eyes in response and slightly cocked his head. The sounds were the door buffering the the wind and the rocking chair creaking the wooden floor of the cabin.

“I guess I could understand why she did it.” Clarice said, her voice cracking like whip through the rhythmic squeak from the rocking chair.

“Understand who did what?” John asked, though he was uneasily pretty certain he knew of that which she spoke.

“Understand why the Pastor’s wife shot him.  Twice.”
“What do you mean you can understand why she shot the Pastor twice?”

“I mean, people talk, you know.”

“He’s a man of God. You know.”

“Not a particularly holy man of God. Not least from what I know.”

“Not at least from what I know?”

“I’m just saying, John.”  She drug the his name out when she said it and looked up from her knitting directly towards him with those deep intimidatingly blue penetrating eyes. Her lips were pursed. It was an unmistakable, subtle, yet clearly condescending tone. One to put him in place. She knew him.  She said it as though he were a slow dimwit. 

He thought to respond, but he knew better.

“You’ve heard the stories, John. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard things about the Pastor.”

“I’m not sure that I like that we are talking about. Talking about a man of god, a man who was murdered by his bride, as though he were some devil in disguise.” John’s words were undermined by the meek apologetic lack projection.

“Oh, devil, no. Look, I’m just saying.” Was all Clarice said in response.

John felt uneasy.