Jackalope in an ornate frame on a thigh

Mother has finally given up on the parlour, so the taxidermy has come down off the wall and into the back room of Hollis's store, where Dad says it will do more good. The jackalope is still the best of them. You'll remember Hollis's father shot it in the sage flats the winter before you left, and the antlers went on by a man from Casper who swore the glue would hold through a dozen Wyoming winters. It has not held. One horn leans like a drunk against the frame, and the beads round its neck have gone grey with dust.

Still, the frame is something. Mrs Pruitt brought it from a sale in Cheyenne, all scrolled gilt gone the colour of weak tea, and she made Hollis promise to hang the thing with the rabbit sitting centred inside it, paws folded, looking off to the left as if someone has just said its name from the far end of the room. Nobody in town will admit it, but everybody notices it looks back at them when they reach for the cash drawer.

Last Thursday I found a string of black glass beads on the counter, the same ones from its neck, unhooked and laid out straight as a rosary. Hollis swears he never touched it. I have decided to believe him, because the alternative is that the rabbit wants to go somewhere, and I have no wish to find out where.

Write back soon. Tell me the sea is as flat as the postcards make it look.

Love, Ruth