Alice's Tulips: A Novel (27 page)

That argus-eyed sheriff has called twice more, each time asking
me the same questions, trying to confuse me, but Nealie and Annie refuse to leave my side when he is here, and if I falter, one or the other jumps in with an answer. There is not a single doubt that he and the others at Slatyfork have made up their minds I killed Mr. Samuel Smead. When I went to Slatyfork to get Mother Bullock’s pills, I stopped at the post office, but as soon as I entered, everyone else left. The message was as clear as if they had pelted me with rotten eggs. “I must have scarlet fever,” I say to the postmaster.

“Or a good ax,” he replies sourly. I would have given him Hail Columbia but knew it would hurt my reputation even worse, if that is possible. These days, I send Annie to the mercantile so that I do not have to face Mr. Huff. We pay cash or do without. We will not ask for credit, knowing the request would cause much smirking and would not be extended anyway.

Mrs. Middleton, who calls every few days with a tea she brews for Mother Bullock, says I ought not to worry about what others think. “I know you would not hurt a person, for I see how kindly you have always been to Mrs. Bullock, and her to you,” she says. Well, that is not much reassurance, for Mother Bullock and I have never been kindly to each other, and if my innocence is based on that presumption, I shall be found guilty indeed.

I pick up my pen again, after doing chores. The wind was rackety, and the sky heavy, the dull color of pewter, and it weighed me down. Still, the chill felt good, since we keep a too-hot fire burning in the house for Mother Bullock, who is always cold. The cold weather refreshes me, and I am so near wild, I think one more drop of trouble would upset my reason. So after doing chores, I walked deep into the woods, and for a moment, I thought about walking on and on and never returning to that dark house. I pretended I was walking to Pikes Peak, where the cool snow never melts, for I have thought that when Charlie comes home, we could sell the farm and go a-westering, maybe even find Billy. But since I couldn’t leave just then, I spread my shawl over a pile of golden leaves and lay down. I intended to
rest only a moment but went to sleep, and when I awoke, I was covered by a thin blanket of snow. Lizzie, as I lay there, not sure for a second or three where I was, I thought I might return to sleep—the sleep that never wakes. Perhaps mine was the corpse the hawk called. But I knew I could not face Charlie in the hereafter if I did not go back and accept the burden that had been placed on me. So I folded the shawl, then gathered a handful of crimson leaves from under a maple tree. When I returned, no one had missed me, so none know I had almost succumbed to a near-fatal attack of self-pity. I spread the leaves on the bureau beside Mother Bullock’s bed. “Look, they are the soft color of a faded turkey red quilt,” I tell her.

She turned her head and studied the leaves. “Or of blood.”

Oh, I have forgot to tell you. Mrs. Kittie did indeed marry Mr. Howard—and no fresh strawberries were served. I was not in attendance, of course, but Nealie was, and she said that in her low-cut dress, which fitted her like paper on a wall, Mrs. Kittie looked sort of whorish, although not enough to hurt. So much flesh has not been seen in Slatyfork since Independence Day, when pigs were roasted on a spit near the bandstand. She believes Mrs. Kittie is being roasted, too. Mr. Howard announced all bills for the party were to be sent to him, for he had taken charge of his wife’s accounts. The couple embarked for Hannibal on a wedding trip. Oh, Lizzie, just now I laughed out loud, thinking about Mr. Howard claiming his marriage privilege in bed—or perhaps it is Mrs. Kittie who will claim it. I knew I should find some reason to be glad I am yet alive.

With love,

Alice Bullock

November 22, 1864

Dear Sister,

The dollar arrived not five minutes ago, when I picked up the mail and did not wait, but opened your letter. Right grateful am I for your kindness. I know you have much need of it and that you sent the coin at sacrifice to yourself. I would return it if I were not so desperate, for Mother Bullock needs pills bad. Nealie said she would pay us, but perhaps she has forgot, and I could not ask her for the money for fear she would think our hospitality is for sale. So I sit here at the post office to write you a prompt reply before searching for the doctor to purchase the medicine. The no-account old doctor has left us, but a new one is setting up in Slatyfork. He is a veteran with one arm, and the question in town is whether he should be paid only half the regular fee.

Your advice on the dream is greatly appreciated. I had not thought that believing a dream is giving power to the devil. Perhaps now I can get that awful night out of my head.

With love to the best sister anybody ever had,

Alice K. Bullock

November 23, 1864

Dear Lizzie,

I had barely reached our front gate yesterday when Nealie threw open the door of the house and called to me to hurry. “She’s asked for you every minute. We thought you’d never get here.” Nealie all but pulled me through the doorway, then pushed me toward Mother Bullock’s room.

Expecting the end was near, I did not even take off my shawl, but rushed to the bed and looked down at Mother Bullock, but she was still plenty alive. “I have brought your pills,” I says, brushing snow off me onto the floor, for a storm had begun as I was walking home. “There’s a new doctor in Slatyfork, who has a rolling chair he will lend us so we can push you about the house—and outside when spring comes.”

“You know I won’t be here when spring comes.”

“He gave me laudanum to mix with warm water, which he claims is better for your pain than any other remedy. He was an army surgeon and learned a great deal from treating the soldiers.”

“I have not got a battle wound.” Mother Bullock’s face was bloodless, but her lips were cracked and smeared with red, for she bites them over and over.

“Well, he is cheaper, then,” I says, knowing if nothing else would please her, the savings would. “This medicine cost only a quarter-dollar.” I took off my mittens to untie the string holding the package together. But my hands were cold, and as I fumbled with the knot, I wondered how a one-armed man could tie anything so tight. I couldn’t get the string undone, so I called to Annie, asking her to untie it.

She came into the room with Nealie and took the bundle, picking at the knot. Mother Bullock paid no attention to either one of them, but spoke to me. “Forget medicine. I am passing away.”

“No,” Nealie cries, but Mother Bullock waved a hand impatiently. The old woman hadn’t given in to sentiment before, and she would not at the end. “Alice, I want you should fetch someone.”

“Mr. Doctor,” Annie says. Mother Bullock gave a single shake of her head.

“The preacher?” Nealie asks.

Mother Bullock snorted. “What good’s a preacher, since I fear that God’s killed, too, in this war. And I would not care to see Sister Darnell, either. She was bother enough in life to me. I don’t want her on a deathwatch. Alice, I want you to bring Josiah Couch.”

Nealie and Annie and I exchanged glances. “He’s the sheriff,” I says.

“Don’t you think I know who he is?” Mother Bullock asks with a touch of sarcasm in her voice. “Will you fetch him, or must I get out of my deathbed to go for him myself?” Mother Bullock’s eyes glinted as if she had an inflammation in them. You would think a dying woman would not be so mean-tempered, knowing that folks would remember her as she was at the end. But you
could as easily thread a broom straw through a needle as expect Mother Bullock to go soft.

I sighed, tightened my shawl around me, and picked up my mittens, but Annie took my arm. “Shall Annie go, lady? Annie runs fast. If Annie goes, you would not need to went.”

“That’s a good idea,” Nealie says. “You’re wet, Alice, and likely you’ll catch a chill going back into the weather.”

I was tired and cold and thought that Annie’s offer was a fine one, but Mother Bullock would not hear of it. “No. Alice is to go. And you best hurry, for I haven’t got long.”

Annie protested, but Mother Bullock says sharply, “Be still, Annie. Go along, Alice.”

“She’s got to warm herself first, or we’ll have two that’s dead in this house,” Annie says. Then she added darkly, “The hawk flew over twice.”

Mother Bullock looked at me impatiently, however, so I drew on my mittens and, without a word to the others, I opened the door and went into the damp. The weather wasn’t the only thing I feared. I did not know what mischief Mother Bullock was about and thought perhaps it would be better if the sheriff came after she had passed on. I disbelieved Annie and Nealie would blame me if I had dawdled on the road. But it was becoming so bitter cold that I was likely to freeze if I did not move fast. So I hurried along, and when I reached Slatyfork, I found the sheriff right off.

“Mother Bullock—Charlie’s mother, that is to say—she’s dying, and she wants you to come,” I tell him, removing my shawl to shake off the snow, then warming my hands in front of a little stove in the jailhouse. A teakettle steamed on top of the stove, and I hoped the sheriff would offer me something warm to drink.

Instead, he stood up and put on his coat. “She’ll want to purge her soul,” he says. “I been expecting it. She’ll give me the proof.”

“I don’t know what she wants, but I would like a cup of tea, if you please. I’m chilled to the bone.”

“Be quick about it, then. I’ll saddle my horse and follow alongside your buggy,” he says.

“I walked in. We’re saving the horse for spring plowing.”

“You could’ve come faster with a buggy.” The sheriff studied me a moment, then went out to harness a team to a wagon, while I brewed a cup of tea. I poured it into a jar and took it with me when I got into the wagon, sitting on the board seat and holding the jar in both hands to keep them warm. The steam rose to my nose, then cooled, and I felt as if my face was covered with a layer of ice.

“What’s she got to say?” the sheriff asks, hurrying the horses along.

“I told you: I don’t know.”

“Not likely something you’d care to hear. But likely something I would,” he says, gloating.

“Perhaps you should take a lesson from the chicken, which cackles
after
she lays the egg.”

I had hoped to offend him, but he ignored me and asks, “Does she say to send for a preacher?”

“I thought you knew her.”

He chuckled and glanced at me. “I been acquainted with her since she first come to Slatyfork. She had a nicer disposition then. I guess you’d turn sour, too, if you was married to Joseph Bullock. Might be that’s why she’s hung on so long, for fear of meeting up with him in the hereafter. He gambled, left his widow and boys a mountain of debts to pay off, but they done it. I misdoubt she still owes old Huff.” When we reached Bramble Farm, the sheriff jumped out of the wagon and tied the horses to a tree; then, not bothering to help me down, he went into the house without knocking, directly into Mother Bullock’s bedchamber. I hurried to keep up.

“Well, Serena, they tell me you’re dying.”

“You always did have a direct way of putting things,” Mother Bullock says.

He took off his hat and sat down in the chair beside the bed. “Well, I’m sorry for it. I truly am. But you haven’t had much use for me these last years, so I figure you didn’t call me through this storm to make amends.”

“You’re right about that,” Mother Bullock says. “Alice, tell
Annie and Nealie to come in. This needs to be said, and I want witnesses. I never did fully trust you.”

“What ‘you’ was you talking about?” the sheriff asked her.

“You, of course.”

Annie and Nealie came to the doorway, and the sheriff motioned with his hat for them to enter the room. He slapped the hat against his leg, and snowflakes flew onto the quilt.

Mother Bullock waited until we were crowded around her, then opened and closed her eyes a few times. She glanced from the sheriff to me. Sheriff Couch looked at me, too, and my head began to spin. With all of us crowded into that little room, there was no air. My mouth was dry, and I reached for the jar of water beside the bed.

“I got something to say about the killing of Sam Smead,” Mother Bullock says.

My hand began to shake, and the water slopped out of the jar onto the floor. The sheriff saw it but didn’t remark on it. Nealie put her hand to her mouth to stop a cry, and Annie jerked up her head so fast, I thought she would crack her neck.

“It’s time for you to know the truth,” Mother Bullock says. “I’d hoped you’d let things be, Josiah, but you never do.” I had an odd feeling she was enjoying herself, but if she was, I was not. There are two kinds of people in this world—those that go to the grave in forgiveness and those who die settling scores.

“I promised to live until Charlie came home. I’d have told him and give him the burden of it. I am awful to hang on, but it’s plain I can’t do it this time.”

“Get on with it,” the sheriff says gruffly.

“In my own time,” she says, then gave a dry little laugh. “Are you afraid I’ll die and leave you wondering?” Mother Bullock coughed and motioned for the water. I held it to her mouth, and she sipped but didn’t swallow. The water slid out of her mouth onto her nightdress. “First off, have you ever known me to lie?” she asks the sheriff.

“Not that I can recollect.”

“Ever?”

He thought about it. “No, I never knew you to lie, Serena.”

“Then you’ll believe what I say?”

“I expect so.”

“Good.” She closed her eyes, then opened them and took a deep breath. “I kilt Sam Smead. Kilt him dead. It was me that done it.” Her hands fluttered on the coverlet like dying moths.

The sheriff leaned forward until he loomed over the bed, his eyes as bugged as a fly’s. He looked at Mother Bullock for a moment, then turned to me, as if to ask whether he had heard her right. Nealie grabbed my arm and pressed her fingers into it, and Annie wrapped her hands in the quilt, turning them over and over in the coverlet until it was mussed into a ball.

“I kilt Sam Smead,” Mother Bullock repeats, as if she liked the sound of it.”