Charity (26 page)

Those times she was awake, Lena would sometimes talk. The talking made sense if one knew Lena and got used to the way her mind jumped around under the influence of her medicine. “He was the sweetest little boy. He would suck his finger and smile and smile. And you could give him anything, it didn’t matter. A cookie, a pretty stone. Didn’t matter. He’d be so happy. He’d giggle and play with it, and save it. Always a happy little boy. Ma and Pa didn’t have much time for him. He was no trouble, you see. Not like me. I was always doing something to get a whipping for. And then the twins were born, and they were never well, and Ma really had her hands full then. Ella and Ragna were older and took care of the house and the cooking and so forth. I took care of Tori. It was always Tori and me. When the twins died, Ma lost interest in all of us, so things went on... Ella and Ragna keeping house and Tori and me... Pa started drinking. Ragna’s too blame old to have another baby. That’s why she’s so sick. But she just can’t keep that Pete off her. He’s no better than an old billy goat. Tori had the blondest hair. More white even than yellow. It darkened up when he was about fourteen. My Pa was a good man. Even when he drank, he was quiet and gentle like. None better when he was sober, that’s for sure. So the Lord came for him Himself. When Pa died, I was in his room and he said to me, ‘There He is. He’s come for me. It’s time to go.’ And I looked to the foot of the bed, where Pa was looking, and Jesus was standing there. Smiling. And Pa was smiling. It was no dream. I saw it. I looked back at Pa, and he was gone with that smile still on his face, and then I looked to the foot of his bed and Jesus was gone then too. I felt very happy for Pa that day, though I missed him something awful. I was only sixteen then. The Lord came for my pa Himself. For me, probably just an angel or two. That would be fine. For Tori, I’m sure it was the Lord Himself. The Lord Himself, standing there opening his arms to my little brother like He did for Pa. And whoever did this to my brother will go to the other place. I know that, too. The fires will consume him. It won’t be the Lord with His sweet smiling face, but fire he’ll see.”

Gustie was startled. She assumed that Lena, like everyone else, thought Tori’s death was suicide. She had not discussed with Lena her and Mary’s conclusions about the cleaned floor. She asked her gently, “You don’t think it was a suicide?”

“Suicide?” Lena threw up a hand and uttered a snort of derision. “My Tori? Never! He wouldn’t have thought of it, you see. He was always so happy. Used to irritate me to death when we were younger. Always that smile. That happy way about him. No, someone killed him. And whoever it was will pay for it. If not in this life, then in the next.”

“Do you have any notion who?”

“No. He never hurt a soul. He was a little angel of a child, my Tori. He shouldn’t have died that way.” Lena sobbed horrible wracking sobs and Gustie gave in and gave her another drink of Doc Moody’s medicine to calm her and make her sleep—to escape for a few hours more this convulsing sorrow. Gustie understood grief—that there was nothing more private. She was also beginning to understand that Lena’s grief for Tori was much more that of a mother than of a sister.

During one of these periods when Lena was in deep sleep and Mary had gone early, Gustie was in the kitchen making sure there was something for Will’s supper when Julia arrived in Ma Kaiser’s carriage, driven by Frederick. He helped her down, said a few words to her, and drove off again. She entered the kitchen, her arms laden with peonies in full bloom. Their huge blossoms nodded, heavy with rich magenta color. When Julia saw Gustie, a shadow passed across her face but disappeared quickly leaving her usual expression of faint surprise. As Gustie took the flowers from her, she noticed red ants crawling among the pink inner petals. She put them in a jar of water and left them on the drain board. “These are beautiful,” she said, smiling. “I’ll put them on the dresser so Lena will see them when she wakes up.”

“Oh, is she still sleeping?” Julia asked with the same mild wonderment with which she greeted almost every remark.

“She just went back to sleep. Will said she had a very restless night. I know she had a difficult morning. Would you like some coffee?”

“That would be very nice.”

“We’ve got pie, and rolls, and three kinds of cake...people have been very generous.”

“Any apple pie? I’m so fond of apple pie. Though I really don’t need it.” She giggled coquettishly.

“Apple it is.” Gustie poured the coffee and dished up a slice of pie.

Julia sat in the chair next to the window. Gustie tried to keep the conversation going on the weather, the visitors, the food. Julia’s white, blue-veined hands moved back and forth across the table cloth like creatures who had lived generations in the dark. They moved up the curtains and she said, “Lena is such a lovely seamstress. See how everything is finished just so. Never a loose thread.”

“Yes,” Gustie agreed. “She is very accomplished.”

The conversation flagged. Julia ate her pie.

“How is your little cat?” Gustie asked.

“Feather? Oh, he’s fine.”

“Lena told me of that unfortunate incident at the open house.”

“Oh, yes my little Feather is fine. The little rascal.” Julia, faintly smiling, rubbed a small circle on the table with her finger, as if she was rubbing out a slightly soiled spot, although the table was perfectly clean. “He is my treasure. Always getting into mischief.”

Gustie was relieved when she saw Frederick drive up in the carriage to retrieve his aunt.

“I’ll tell Lena you came by. I know she will love the flowers.” Gustie waved as they drove away. When they were out of sight, she took the peonies outside and dunked them in a bucket of water till the ants floated. Then she emptied the bucket leaving the ants to scurry about in their new world of grass, gave the flowers a gentle shake and returned them to the jar of water. She placed them on Lena’s dresser.

The day after Tori’s funeral, Gustie made a decision. She arrived early before Will left for his work. She asked him to bring up the washtub from the basement. Gustie cleaned the kitchen after Will’s hasty breakfast, made a fresh pot of coffee, and took her place at Lena’s bedside as usual.

When Lena opened her eyes, Gustie began to talk. “Lena, Alvinia was here. She left some lovely things. She brought her children to cheer you up.”

“Oh, they are precious things. Every one of ’em. Such a nice family.” Lena said it with such sadness and longing, Gustie almost cried. But she remained firm. “So many people have been here to wish you well. Lena, I want you to get up. Will brought up the tub. It’s a warm day. You can have a nice bath, and I’ll change your sheets.”

“Oh.” Lena looked frightened. “I don’t feel like it.”

“I know you don’t.” Gustie left her for a minute to get her a cup of coffee. “Here, drink this.”

Reluctantly, Lena took a sip, sputtered, and made a face. “Oof!”

Gustie laughed. “It’s coffee the way
I
make it, and the way you need it right now. So make all the faces you want but get it down. I’m going to fill the tub in the kitchen. I want you to take a bath and wash your hair. You’re a mess.”

“I am?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s Will?”

“He is out on the Swenson place. He said he might be late tonight. He is trying to finish the well...so let’s get you up and fresh to see him when he comes home.”

“How long have I...”

“You’ve been in and out of sleep for three days.”

“Yesterday was the funeral?”

“Yes.”

“Was it nice?”

“Yes, Mary said it was a very nice service.”

“Were a lot of people there?”

“The church was full, Lena. Mary had a book there for people to sign. You’ll be able to see that everyone was there.”

“I’m glad. Tori would have liked to know that.” Lena began to cry, and Gustie left her to her tears while she went into the kitchen and filled the tin wash tub with bucket after bucket of water. She warmed it with several pots of boiling water so it was a comfortable temperature when Lena slipped into it.

“Where’s Mary?” Lena asked. “She has been here, too, hasn’t she?”

Gustie answered from the bedroom where she was changing the bedding. “Yes, Mary has been here every day. We have taken turns looking after things.”

“That was nice of her—to think of a book for people to sign.”

“Yes. She is a very thoughtful person.”

Lena peered through eyes squinted nearly shut to avoid the soap she had just scrubbed over her face and noticed her dining room set still missing one chair. “Where’s my dining room chair?” she called out to Gustie.

Dennis took it. He thought Tori had used it...”

“Well, he didn’t use it! The idea...that Tori would jump off a chair in my attic to kill himself! No wonder that Dennis is sheriff. He’s too dumb to be anything else. Tell him I want my blame chair back! It was my mother’s.” Lena choked again on tears but continued scrubbing herself. “What happened to my medicine? Did I drink it all up?”

There was a slight pause before Gustie answered. “You drank enough of it. I threw the rest down the toilet.”

“Well, what do you know?” Lena muttered to herself and lathered her hair.

Will came home late, hungry, and covered with mud and grease, but he broke into a wide grin when he saw Lena, dressed, and at the door to meet him.

“Hey, Duchy!” he said, and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

Gustie appeared behind her. “Supper is ready when you are. Lena waited to eat with you.”

“Okey dokey! I’ll just get cleaned up.”

He washed himself out by the well and put on a clean shirt and trousers. When he came in he noticed the table was only set for two. Lena sat, rather peevishly, while Gustie served up a hearty supper of various dishes left by neighbors. “Aren’t you going to sit down, Gustie, and eat with us?”

“No, I am going home now and leave you two alone.”

“She has been very mean and bossy all day,” Lena complained.

Will chuckled.

Gustie said, “Mary will drop by in the morning, and I’ll be here for awhile in the afternoon. Goodnight, you two.”

Falling Leaves Moon

T
he sun lets fall its
cold glare upon the town of Charity. Breath crystallizes in the early morning air. Flies are sluggish and easy to kill. The mosquitoes are already dead. What a mercy! The summer-golden hay now lies dark, blackened from the first night frosts.

A thin figure in black leans against a sharp October wind, making her once-weekly round of Charity: the bank, where she receives a warm welcome from Lester Evenson; O’Grady’s, where she does her shopping; Koenig’s livery, occasionally, to check her horse’s hooves and shoes; then an hour or so in Olna’s Kitchen where she has coffee and sometimes a light dinner, sometimes alone but oftentimes in the company of Lena or Mary Kaiser.

People wonder about her. Where did her money come from all of a sudden? She has gone from being poor as a church mouse to at least being able to maintain herself in the necessities of life. Some say it was that strange fellow from the east. Must have brought her some money—maybe an inheritance of some sort. Some worried about her when they heard she was dismissed as teacher of the section school. Offers were made from Kenneth O’Grady—a part-time position as a clerk in his store; from Lester—the same in his bank. She gratefully acknowledged their kindness and graciously refused them both. They wonder, the good people of Charity, why she prefers to spend so much time with Indians over decent white people.

The men treat her no differently than they ever did. Behind her back, perhaps a few of the earthier still crack, “We know what she needs...” and another will say, “Maybe she’s gettin’ it. I’ve heard some of those big Indian bucks can sure do their homework.” And they snicker knowingly. Some of the women may still raise an eyebrow and exchange an oblique word or two among themselves. They may even show some aloofness in her presence. But she has known much worse—open hostility, downright nastiness. These people are not given to such displays. They keep their feelings, for the most part, to themselves. “Live and let live,” is the motto. And, as the colder weather gathers and people pull inward, readying themselves and their households and their stock for winter, even the wonderings become as sluggish as the flies and eventually subside. Gustie finds it easy to live here.

She walks, leaning into the sharp wind, a gentle smile on her lips, and a warm place in her heart. She is happy. She has no way to describe the source of her happiness, nor any language to make known to the people of this town who she is. Gustie remains invisible for want of the words to describe her. Meanwhile, she walks and thinks, but mostly, remains in her house, thinking, planning, waiting for time to ripen, for the next chapter of her life to unfold, a chapter she never thought to have. When Clare died, she thought the book was ended.

Shedding Antlers Moon

“Y
ou drunken fool! I’m not
cleaning up after you this time. You straighten yourself up and get away from me! Don’t you touch me, you dirty thing!” Lena’s voice was sharp with anger.

Next, Gustie heard a bellow of rage, followed by words so slurred and guttural she could barely make them out. “Go on, get out of here. Go on. And don’t come back.”

“Oh, I’ll be back.” Lena spat out the words. “And if you’re not cleaned up or out of here, and this place clean, I’ll call the sheriff on you and don’t you think I won’t!” Her voice was getting louder, more strident.

So was Will’s. “You call the sheriff all right. That’s right. All right. You call him. You cow.”

“He can lock you up this time and throw away...”

“That’s fine. That’s fine. I’ll be out of this shithouse...”

“If it is, who made it one? You tell me that?” They were both yelling at each other now, at the same time.

“You bitch! You’ll call him all right. He’d like that. Don’t think I don’t know... Come back here.”

“You filthy pig! You filthy pig!” Lena screamed. There was a thud, then a little squeak from Lena as she scuttled out of the bedroom with a carpet bag slung over one arm, her purse over the other. She grabbed her hat and coat, which were draped over a chair, her muff, and ran past Gustie. Crying, “Let’s go! Let’s get out of here,” she was out the door.

Gustie was about to turn and follow her when Will staggered out of the bedroom. He stopped when he saw her, swayed, and tried to focus his good eye upon her. His jaw hung slack. Spittle oozed from the corners of his mouth. His long underwear, which was all he had on, was wet halfway down the open front and soiled at the crotch. He smelled like a whiskey-soaked outhouse. Gustie’s stomach lurched. His lips formed a weird little smile as he recognized her. “Gustie.” It was as much a belch as a spoken word. He continued in a little sing song, “My pal. You’re my gal and my pal. Don’t you worry.” He leaned forward and caught himself on the door frame, “We’ll always be pals, you and me. Always pals.”

Gustie could bear no more. She ran out the door after Lena. Once seated in the wagon, she snapped the reins over Biddie and the horse jumped forward. She kept the pace brisk as they headed out of town. A wretched silence hung about Lena, and Gustie let it be. She was shaken herself. She had heard about Will’s drunken episodes, but this was the first she had witnessed. She was filled with fury and pity, a mixture that made her stomach hurt.

They were well outside Charity on the straight road to Crow Kills before Lena spoke. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Gustie.”

Gustie didn’t either so she kept quiet.

“He’s killed it. Any love I had for him. He’s killed it.”

Lena shook her head, and Gustie took a sidelong look at her friend. Lena looked like a woman whose love wasn’t dead, but wounded and in terrible pain.

Lena became quiet again. Gustie searched the sky. The thin white haze above them could either melt away in the unpredictable November sun, or thicken and drop the first snow of the season. She hoped it wouldn’t be the latter and wished they had gotten an earlier start. Both, because of the weather, and because she might have missed that scene between Will and Lena.

Long stretches of road passed beneath them with no sound but the clopping of Biddie’s hooves and the rattle of the wagon.

“He hadn’t had a drink since Pa’s funeral.” Lena said.

They passed between two corn fields, stubble now. A couple of hopeful blackbirds pecked about for any kernels that might have been overlooked by man or beast. By the time the wagon passed the corner of the field, the birds were above them, flying south in search of better forage.

Lena continued her train of thought as if there were not the long minutes between each sentence. “I thought Pa getting killed would straighten him out. He was scared enough, I’ll tell you. I didn’t think he’d ever touch another drop.”

Suddenly Gustie felt her own happiness wash over her like a summer wind. She looked across the long back of the black mare and was grateful for this faithful, affectionate animal, for her little house where peace reigned, for her inexplicable friendship with Dorcas, and, most of all, for Jordis’s love, which amazed her. Gustie did not doubt Jordis’s love for she felt it as surely as she felt the sun and the rain and the wind against her skin. But she did not understand it. She felt herself so ordinary, so plain; and Jordis was to Gustie everything vibrant and lovely and surprising. “What can I possibly be to you?” Gustie asked her. They were on their way down to the shore of Crow Kills to fish for their supper.

Jordis stopped and shot Gustie one of her inscrutable looks. She laid her pole and bucket down, sat Gustie down under a tree, and seated herself next to her. Looking out across the lake, Jordis told a story. “Back in Pennsylvania they introduced me to a lot of people. I was a good moneymaker for the school—a book-smart Indian. Once they took me to the governor’s mansion. I walked into a great hall. I had never been inside a building so large. Vaulted ceilings. Winding staircase. Red carpeting. Large paintings on the walls. I had never seen such things.”

Gustie knew what Jordis was describing for she had been in the same foyer several times with her father.

“I had never even imagined such a place. But the most wonderful thing of all was the chandelier. It was made of hundreds, maybe thousands of pieces of glass. I couldn’t stop staring at it. The governor skipped the formalities, and for my pleasure, asked his staff to cover all the windows. When the hall was dark, they lit the chandelier. It was like a star captured from the sky and suspended there in that hall. It glowed there in the dark with crystals hanging all over it, like icicles, or long crystal tears. I will never forget it.”

Gustie was fascinated by the story but wondered what it had to do with herself.

Jordis continued, “You are like one of those crystal tears inside me. I can feel you running from my throat down to my toes, and when I look at you, sometimes I feel it—the crystal—vibrate. It shimmers and tingles and sounds a note as if it has been struck by a silver spoon. Someday I think it will vibrate so hard it will shatter, and I’ll be full of tiny shards of glass all reflecting light and cutting me to pieces, and I shall die an exquisite death.”

Gustie’s throat felt swollen shut.

Jordis kept speaking, looking at Crow Kills, “You are life to me. When you die, I shall die. If you go away, I shall disappear.”

Such words from anyone else could have been dismissed as hyperbole. But Jordis’s words, Gustie knew, precisely described Jordis’s experience. Gustie had never encountered words that held such verity, like a sapphire its star.

Gustie could not match Jordis’s eloquence, and she did not try. She said with a slow smile, “Well, I’m not going anywhere without you, and I don’t think I’m going to die. I feel quite well.”

Jordis took Gustie’s left hand and held it palm up in her own two larger hands. She brought it to her lips and kissed the center of the palm, then held it to her cheek, then to her forehead. When she let it go, she rose and brushed the twigs and grass off her skirt. Gustie rose also, surrounded by a rosy glow and followed her down to the lake.

Reliving this lovely moment, Gustie felt a small twinge of guilt, seated next to her troubled friend. Was there no end to the burdens this tiny woman had to bear?

It was a useless gesture, but Gustie made it anyway. “My house is always open to you.”

Lena nodded and answered in a quivering voice, “I will not be driven out of my own home.”

Lena wiped her eyes with the handkerchief she had been clutching inside her muff, and for several miles continued to dab at her eyes and try to cover her sniffles. They passed some hills in which rocks were embedded in a scattered formation. Gustie tried to make conversation. “Look...how interesting those rocks are.”

“Look like dead sheep. They should haul them out of there and plant something. Rocks aren’t any good to anybody.”

Gustie chuckled.

“I’ll bet you we get snow,” Lena said, pointing to the sky.

The miles rolled on. The hills began to grow as they got closer to Wheat Lake and Crow Kills. A sharp wind rose. Gustie handed Lena the reins and buttoned up her coat. She put her cap on and tied a scarf over it to cover her ears.

“He was a handsome man when I first met him,” Lena remarked.

“He still is.” Gustie took back the reins.

“When he’s cleaned up,” Lena qualified. “Will’s mother, you know, didn’t want us to marry. She didn’t care when Oscar and Walter got married. She thought she’d just have two more people to boss around in Nyla and Mary, and she thought right. Anything she says is okay by them. But not me.

“Now, Nyla and Oscar are still in that house with her and Frederick—who’ll
never
move out. They should all be at their own places by now, but no. I can just see it. Every time Nyla and Oscar make a move to go home she’ll be whining, ‘Ooooh, don’t leave me yet.’” Lena imitated Ma Kaiser’s high wheezy tone and put on a face to match. “She’ll get the whines and the vapors and they’ll stay another month. She did that on me and Will, by heck, on our wedding day! We were married in the morning because Pa and Oscar and Walter—they were all still working together at that time—they had to go to Argus to get pipe or something. They were going to have to stay overnight there and come back the next day. Oh, did she carry on! And after the little reception we had, and they left, she cried and cried.” Lena screwed up her face again and whined in such a wicked imitation of her mother-in-law that Gustie started giggling. Lena was a superb mimic: “‘Oh, don’t leave me alone in this big house.’ I don’t just remember where Frederick was at the time. ‘All my boys are leaving me. All my boys,’ and she whined and carried on. She wanted Will and me to stay there until Pa and them got back the next day. Well, I’ll be jinxed if I was going to spend my wedding night sleeping with my mother-in-law! No sir, and I said so, too! Will was inclined to stay. Now he’s always been good to his mother. There is no wrong in that, but this was too much, I thought. We had rented that little apartment over the bank, and I had spent two months painting it and fixing it up, and it was all ready for us. Our clothes and everything we’d moved in the day before. So I said to him, ‘Will,’ I said, ‘I’m a married woman now, and I’m going to spend the night in my own home. You can do as you please. You know where I am.’ And I up and walked out of that house and walked home to our apartment. I fixed a little supper and ate it by myself and went to bed early. Then about eleven o’clock I hear him coming up the stairs lickety split!” Lena was smiling. She paused briefly. “We were busy that night, I’ll tell you!”

Gustie stared at Lena. They both threw their heads back and laughed loudly. Biddie slowed down and looked over her shoulder. “Mind your own business!” Lena reprimanded the horse, and their laughter rang out again against the dull sky. Curious cows looked up, then went back to pulling on the cold grass.

“My! The first time Will brought me home to the Kaiser’s for dinner, I didn’t know what kind of nest of something I’d stepped into. It was Pa and Ma at the table, one at each end. Will was at his mother’s right, then me, then Oscar and Mary, I think. Across from me was Nyla, who never looked up. Not once. What a sour puss! ’Course, married to Oscar, I can’t blame her. Frederick was across from Will, at his mother’s left, then next to Pa at the end was Walter. What a bunch! Only Walter and Will talking, and me, when I would think of something to say...and there was Ma spooning potatoes onto Will’s plate and ladling gravy over them. Oh, that gravy! Mostly flour and potato water and salt and pepper. Ishta! For heaven’s sakes, I thought. Is she going to cut his meat for him too? But Will didn’t pay much attention. He is always good to his Ma. He doesn’t seem to notice her doting on him something sickening. I almost didn’t go with him again, after that, but...”

“But you did...in spite of his family,” Gustie reminded her.

“Yes, in spite of them, it was. Pa was good to me though. Quiet like. Course, I didn’t know why at the time. Why he was quiet, I mean.”

“Why was he?”

“He was drunk all the time. Drunk as a hoot owl! Ma told me that. Just after the funeral. He was not a drunk like Will is. Pa was always well dressed and thought well of himself in his younger days. A ladies’ man. Carried over into his middle years as I told you. Oh, well. He was a man. They’re not like us.”

“No,” Gustie agreed, smiling slightly.

“No, not by a long shot!” Lena slapped her thigh, and they both began to laugh again.

When they came to the road that led to Crow Kills, Gustie had to rein Biddie hard in the opposite direction toward Wheat Lake. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. The sky had thickened steadily and snow carried by a bitter north wind was already beginning to smart against their faces.
Perfect timing
thought Gustie in relief. One could never be sure what was going to be a light snowfall, and what would turn out to be a killer blizzard. Gustie had heard enough stories about the blizzard of 1860, and every other year, for that matter, to not want to be caught out in a heavy snow. On the prairie, away from shelter, snow and freezing weather meant death.

She decided to drop Lena off at Ragna’s without staying for conversation and head directly out to Crow Kills before things got any worse.

The desolate row of wood buildings that was Wheat Lake’s Main Street looked poor and spare compared to Charity’s.

Gustie happened to glance to the right down the side street. What she saw there made her pull Biddie to a halt. All up and down the street were gathered many Dakotah, sitting, standing, wrapped in their blankets, trying to keep warm. Some were seated in their wagons, some hunched over on ponies that drooped and shuddered in the wind.

“What’s the matter?” asked Lena.

Gustie nodded in the direction of the people hunkered against the cold. Lena sniffed, “Oh, it’s just the Indians waiting for their handouts.” She added under her breath, “Nobody ever gave me a handout.” Uncharacteristically, Lena bit her tongue and said no more.