Dark Coulee (10 page)

E
LLA Gunderson looked in the mirror, squinted her eyes, and patted her hair. She couldn’t risk putting on lipstick because she really could not make out the outline of her lips anymore. There was nothing that made a woman of her age look like a senile old lady quite as much as smeared, crookedly applied lipstick.

Her bags were packed and waiting by the door. She had taken enough clothes to stay for several weeks, optimist that she was. Pit Snyder said he would come by for her around noon.

This morning she had watered her flower garden, the blossoms just blotches of color for her, but she still enjoyed them. Her neighbor, Tina Ludvig, promised that she would water them if they needed it.

She had no cat to leave food for, no dog to fret about. The mice would probably come in and take over her kitchen while she was gone, but that was nothing that couldn’t be fixed when she got back. And yet she was worried about her house. Sometimes she felt like the small house was a being, had some sort of soul, it was so much a part of her. She had lived in it for nearly forty years.

She loved the smell of it when she walked in from the outside, a hint of sweet spice, the warmth of oil and wood fires. She had painted every room all by herself at least once. She was leaving it clean and tidy: new sheets on her bed, the bathrub rinsed out, all the dishes washed and put away, her violets watered, her floors swept. Once a month she had a cleaning lady come in and really do all the floors because she just couldn’t see the dirt, and she knew it would congregate in corners if she didn’t get help. But the day-to-day cleaning she managed well.

She heard a horn toot out front and checked her purse one more time. She had her pills with her, her checkbook, her magnifying glass. She had asked the postmaster to forward her mail to the Spitzlers’ farm for the next few weeks. Brad could drive, so he could bring her into town and even back to her house if she needed. She would try not to be a burden on him, though; he was already shouldering so much.

A rap came at the door, and she pulled it open. She could recognize Pit by his shape, a stocky short body and a bullet head.

“All set?” he asked.

“I hope so.”

“Let me get those.” Pit picked up her two bags and waited for her while she shut and locked her front door.

“This is awful good of you, Mrs. Gunderson.”

“Think nothing of it, Pit. I’m glad to be able to be a help. Not so very much I’m good for anymore.”

“You have served as a role model for countless scores of children. It’s your turn to relax and enjoy your retirement.” He opened the passenger-side door for her and waited while she got in. Always the gentleman.

After he came around to his side and got in the car, she responded, “You know, retirement is all well and good, but I have to tell you truthfully, Pit, I’m mighty bored sometimes. I used to hate it when any of my students said they were bored, and now I find the word popping into my mind. I miss conversation.”

“Well, I think you’ll be kept busy up at the Spitzlers'. And those kids could use some loving, too. The last few years with their father have been awful rough.”

Ella decided to take the bull by the horns. “Do you still miss Rainey?”

Pit started the car and pulled out of her driveway. “I do at that. You know we grew up together. I always thought we’d be together the rest of our lives. Didn’t happen. What can I say?”

“Do you think Jed had something to do with that accident that killed her?”

Pit didn’t answer at first, turning onto County Road N, which took them to the top of the bluff. “It’s hard for me to talk about that sensibly. I have no proof. Nothing concrete. I know Dr. Lord said it was an accident, as far as he could tell. The kids both said she fell into the press. But I’ve got this gut feeling that it was somehow Jed’s fault. Now, I’m not saying he pushed her. But why was he having her feed the stalks of sorghum into that press? That’s not a woman’s job, and besides Rainey wasn’t that big a woman. Jed should have been doing that. Maybe he criticized her, made her go too fast, something. Somehow I have always felt like he was behind her death. I think he’s regretted she’s gone when he has to raise the kids on his own. But I never sensed he was really mourning.”

“Well, you’d probably be the last to know that, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess.”

Mrs. Gunderson had had Jed in for conferences the year that Rainey died, when she had been quite worried about the change in Jenny’s behavior. He had yelled at her. Told her she was a silly old woman and to mind her own business. Said he’d pull Jenny from her class if she didn’t watch it. She would never forget his abuse. She never told anyone about it, but she tried to help Jenny as much as she could that year.

“I didn’t like him either,” Mrs. Gunderson confessed.

“He was an A number one shit,” Pit said.

Mrs. Gunderson didn’t like it that he swore. But more than that, she heard the loathing in Pit’s voice when he talked about Jed Spitzler. “Still and all, he shouldn’t have been killed.”

Brad was so mad when he got on the school bus that he didn’t sit with anyone, even though Peter Crenshaw had saved a seat for him. He walked to the back, slumped down in one of the last seats, and stared out the window. He felt like slamming his hand against the glass, but he would never do such a thing.

Brad had felt so happy this morning when he got up. He could smell something cooking downstairs, and he knew that Mrs. Gunderson was up already and stirring around in the kitchen. After their mother died, they had had to fend for themselves in the morning. Dad only ever had coffee and maybe a piece of toast. He didn’t care what the kids ate.

When he went downstairs, he found she had made oatmeal for breakfast. Nora was standing right by her side, and she explained proudly that she did all the measuring. “My eyes can’t see to measure anymore. Between the two of us, we’re quite a team,” Mrs. Gunderson had said and patted Nora on the shoulders. Nora had beamed.

This new sense of happiness had all started when Mrs. Gunderson had come yesterday afternoon. When he got home from school, she was there. She had moved into their father’s bedroom, which was fine by him. She had stripped the bed of its sheets and opened the blinds for the first time in four years. “I need some light in here so I can see as best as I can.”

Having her around felt like a blast of fresh air. Last night they had had bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches using the fresh tomatoes from the garden. Mrs. Gunderson said they were the best tomatoes she had ever eaten. She had brought out some ice cream and root beer, and after dinner they had all made floats.

Then she told them the rules: They needed to clean up the house and keep it clean, they needed to get their homework done every day, and they needed to respect each other. “That means no swearwords, no tantrums. We’re all in this together, and that’s the only way it’s going to work. It doesn’t mean you can’t get mad or feel bad, but then we’ll talk about it.”

Mrs. Gunderson was totally up front that her eyes were fading out on her, but she didn’t mind if you helped her out, and she seemed comfortable asking for help. She actually couldn’t do that much cooking or cleaning herself, but she encouraged them and talked to them, and they all had cleaned up the whole kitchen last night after dinner. It had been fun. Except for Jenny.

And that’s why he was steaming mad, sitting on the bus in a seat by himself.

Jenny had been sober but strung out yesterday. He could always tell when she was trying to go straight—she’d fidget and pick and jerk around. She didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands.

She had promised him that she would go to school when Mrs. Gunderson came to stay. And, in fact, this morning she had dressed and come down for breakfast. But she had looked like shit. Her hair was stringy, dark circles ringed her eyes, her eyes were bloodshot, her hands shook as she tried to spoon sugar on her oatmeal.

Mrs. Gunderson had asked her how she had slept, and she said lousy.

But Jenny had walked down to the bus stop with him. He had been proud of her. He knew how hard things could be for her. She wasn’t especially well liked at school, and she was very sensitive to what the other students said about her. But he also knew that everyone would be nice to her, because of their father’s death.

They were standing at the end of their road, waiting for the school bus. They could see the orange bus circling the fields on County Road R. It would pick them up in about five minutes. There was one stop before theirs.

Jenny had looked up at the sky and then at Brad. “I can’t do it, Brad. I can’t go to school yet. I feel like everyone will be staring at me.”

“No, Jenny, no one will stare. Everyone’s been really nice to me.”

“Well, they’re always nice to you. That’s nothing new. I’m the freak in the family. You and Nora are the perfect kids.”

“Listen, Jen, it will only get harder. The longer you put it off, the more people will notice. Just go to school today. I’ll walk in the building with you, even to your first class, if you like.”

“I don’t need your help. I need to do some thinking today. I won’t go back to the house until you come home from school. I’ll just hang out. Mrs. Gunderson won’t have to know I didn’t go.”

She never even gave him a chance to argue with her. She had just turned and walked away, cutting across one of the fields of sunflowers.

He knew where she was going. It was where she always went when she was feeling bad. She would go down into the coulee that ran along the back of their land. He suspected she had a hiding place down near the edge of the wash. Once she had told him she had seen a black bear in there, walking through the underbrush.

He thought everything would be better after his dad had died, but Jenny didn’t seem like she was doing any better at all. He was worried that something bad would happen to her, and then there would be only Nora and him left in the family.

Mrs. Gunderson could see the sunflowers. Their bright yellow heads bobbed in the sunlight. If she had tried to hold a head in her hands and pick the seeds out, she wouldn’t be able to do that, but scanning the field, she had a good visual sense of it. Colors seemed to flood her eyes more than they used to. She took special joy in the bright yellow of the sunflowers and felt like she understood van Gogh’s work better than ever.

There were so many ways to see. She had been sad to lose her eyesight, sad to be unable to read much anymore, but sometimes it wasn’t a bad thing to be reminded of how precious our senses are. In full sunlight, looking out over a colorful field, she didn’t even notice that there were holes in her eyesight.

She stood in the farmyard and took some deep breaths of the late-summer air. It had started cooling down a bit. They were moving into September. The nights were lengthening and getting chilly. She didn’t look forward to winter.

And she didn’t look forward to what she had decided to do next.

She had made up her mind last night that she would call the police and tell them what she saw.

They could do with it what they would, but her civic duty would be done.

The truth, she believed, was worth some sorrow and pain. After watching Jenny last night and this morning, she didn’t think that young girl could stand much more pain. The sooner they found out who had killed her father, the better it would be for the children—and for the community. They could all get on with their lives.

She walked slowly back into the kitchen. Going up stairs wasn’t so hard for her, but she really had to watch it coming down. She had fallen once or twice when she thought she was at the bottom and then realized, too late, that there was one more step.

The kids had all worked hard last night, and the kitchen looked a lot cleaner than when she had come. Nora had helped her with breakfast, but she would need to insist that Jenny help out too.

She had brought some groceries from town, and when she got out to the farm, she found they had a fair supply of food in the pantry. Brad had told her that they also had a freezer downstairs. She’d have to go look and see what was in there, but not today.

It felt a little odd to be sleeping in Jed Spitzler’s bed, but there really wasn’t anyplace else for her to sleep and no good reason not to sleep there. She didn’t believe in ghosts, and it was just a bedroom. She had opened the two windows in the room and was airing it out. She had put her suitcase on a chair at the foot of the bed and would live out of it for a while. She wasn’t quite ready to have the children help her empty out their father’s drawers and closet. But maybe this weekend. Brad could keep anything that might fit him, but then they might as well drive the rest of it in to Durand and give it to the Goodwill. Someone could get some use out of his old clothes.

She went to the phone, which was attached to the wall, and picked up the receiver. She would need to get the number of the police from directory assistance, since she was unable to look it up herself in the phone book. The woman was very nice and even said she could connect her directly to the police.

When a young woman answered, Ella gave her name and then said, “I’d like to talk to the woman deputy sheriff. I think her name was Watson.”

“It’s Watkins.”

“Oh, dear, that’s a bad mistake,” Mrs. Gunderson felt herself start to laugh nervously and pulled herself together. “Yes, Watkins sounds right.”

When Deputy Watkins came on the line, Mrs. Gunderson explained who she was and why she was staying out at the Spitzlers'.

“Oh, I’m so happy to hear someone is out there with the children. I’ve felt so badly about them being on their own.”

“Do you have children of your own?”

“Why, yes, I do.”

“I thought as much. You talked like a mother and not a deputy sheriff there for a moment.”

“I don’t know. Us deputy sheriffs can be pretty caring when we set our minds to it.”

“I don’t doubt that. Are you still investigating Jed Spitzler’s death?”

“Yes, we are.”

“Well, I have something to tell you. Could you possibly drive out to the farm this afternoon and have a talk with me?”