Driving home from the cemetery where he had just buried his wife of six years, Anton Jervik, still dressed in black, stopped at Harriman’s Hardware. From behind the counter, old man Harriman stepped out to greet him. Anton bought a steel axe, sharp as a lover’s lie that she would stay forever. …
Anton Jervik returns from burying his wife, convinced that the tree in his backyard was responsible for her suicide. He begins to attempt his revenge in many ways, with drought and poison and steel, but things don’t go as smoothly as he had hoped …
Editor Joseph K. Cherkes published the piece in the Spring 1991 issue of Haunts. This is yet another magazine that is no longer with us, though he did manage to publish 33 issues through Winter 1997.