The Kept by James Scott Page A

closet.”
    Elspeth started to say that she knew exactly where the dress was, and there was no way it would fit the heavier, taller Amos, but she remained mute.
    By the time she’d cut the back of the dress open and affixed some ties to keep it shut, evening had descended on them. Amos fought her as she tried to put his arms into the sleeves. The door slammed and she heard Jorah’s footsteps coming toward her. Instinctively, she held the child closer.
    “Now,” he said. They carried no lamp, and Jorah pulled Mary along by the hand, more than once lifting her by it when she stumbled, unable to keep up with his pace or to know the dips and holes in the earth as he did. Amos cried on Elspeth’s shoulder. As they approached, the creek grew louder, the spring melt lending power that made the water roar.
    Elspeth could see little but the white collar of Mary’s dress, and the black shape of her husband stepping down into the creek. She heard the water splash against his thighs and his sharp intake of breath as the icy water enveloped him to the waist.
    “Give him to me,” he said. He sang the same song, but not in the lilting, patient way as before, this time more of a chant. “ O Father, bless the children ,” he began. Amos wailed. His white dress glowed in the dark. Jorah sang louder. “ Lift up their fallen nature, Restore their lost estate. ” Mary, too, started to cry, and she grasped at Elspeth’s skirts. The wind grew in strength, and the trees rocked toward them and then away. “ Receive them, cleanse them, own them, And keep them ever thine .”
    Elspeth saw the dress dip and Amos stopped crying for an instant, but then recommenced louder than before, and Elspeth pictured his tiny mouth opened wide, his face turning purple. Jorah did not hand the child out, but stepped onto the shore with the boy in his arms, and Elspeth felt the cold radiating from her husband, and heard the chattering of his teeth.
     
    T HE RHYTHM OF the shovel consoled Caleb as he dug out the barn door. The task gave him something to concentrate on and he wrapped his hands in rags that grew wet with perspiration. Soon blisters opened on his palms. When the sun lowered behind their hill and the chill sharpened, he stopped, jammed the shovel into the pile of snow and, setting his feet, pulled on the door. It swung open, scratching a half-moon of dirt, the rich brown earth shocking against the snow.
    Inside, he piled straw on the floor as close to the fire as he dared. One funeral pyre had been enough. He covered this in his thin set of sheets, and though the straw poked through the cotton in places, it would have to do. His footsteps crunched as he followed the path of his own prints back to the tent. He removed the canvas from over his mother and laid it on the snow. While the chill had eased her fever, he understood another night might kill her. Bent at the knees, he imagined lifting her like a swaddled child and placing her on the canvas as gently as he could, but all he could do was roll her. She grunted. “Sorry, Mother,” he said, and at the sound of his own voice, he looked to the hills behind them, as if even that brief speech would bring the murderers out from the trees, screaming and waving their guns before they leveled their steel and the shots cracked again. Caleb dragged his mother toward the barn. He contorted his neck to avoid the black mark where it all had originated.
    With the back of his hand he felt his mother’s forehead, leaving a small smear of blood at her temple as he did so. Her fever had fallen. The grip of her muscles had loosened, her brow had relaxed, her jaw no longer flexed until small striped shadows developed on her cheeks, and her eyes no longer squeezed tight as if against a bright sun. He gave her some water and spoke to her as he did the animals, nonsense, a collection of soothing tones and syllables, near-words. Caleb thought it did his heart more good than hers. He placed his head by her hip, the