About this story
A duel leaves two dead, and a traveler's Dante opens a ten-year war fought in the margins. Years later, in the church he built for the friend he killed, that man tells you his whole history at the rail, and a white pigeon circles the ordination and lights on the pulpit pillar. Thirty-six chapters carry Edna from a bucket at sunrise to vows on the church steps.
How it opens
At twelve, you carried spring water beneath Lookout Mountain and sang toward sunrise.
Aaron HuntPearl, morning has heard enough praise; breakfast still requires that bucket.
Two pistol shots broke the mountain quiet before you could lift the cedar pail again.
SurgeonStand clear, child; this is business arranged between gentlemen.
Choose
Business does not make killing less deliberate.
Stop the other man before he fires again.