Fervent Charity (19 page)

But then we speedily arrived at another moment of frustration, when Betty was looking through the trunk full of music, unable to play a note of it for want of an instrument. So I flew out of my chair and said—take what you can carry and let’s go! More eager for an outing than any one of us would have admitted, we grabbed our caps and veils and coats, and attired again like Joe’s missionaries in case anyone should spot us, we set out for Shoonkatoh, trusting that my poor wagon looks like any other poor wagon and that, at a distance, one black horse is much like another.

The roads are muddy but where the wagon trail was impassable we just drove around it over the prairie grass, which is going to come through rich and green any day now.

What a lovely day for a ride, cool and clear. When we pulled into the mission grounds in the late afternoon, Betty and Mary kept their faces covered and waited in the wagon while I went to find Father Flagstad. I knocked at the rectory first and he answered the door with his usual politeness; then, as I raised my veil, he was all amazement. I told our story briefly. He grasped the situation at once, most surprised that he had suspected nothing and that the many people on the reservation and off who have shared our secret have done so with absolute confidence. Without hesitating to even put on his coat, he rushed out to greet Mary and Betty and invite us in. He was most kind to Mary and served us coffee and bread and butter. Matt and Tim came in (they seem a foot taller than when we last saw them in November), their mouths agape at the sight of us. Father Flagstad took them aside, spoke in low tones, and sent them back out to their chores.

I don’t know who is the baker at the rectory, if the good priest bakes his own or if one of his parishioners performs that task for him and I didn’t ask. I just relished the taste of oven-baked bread again after all these months.

The time came to explain why we had ventured out. He was again taken by that enthusiasm which animates his whole being, and loping—his shabby frock coat flapping—led us to the church. Betty arranged herself and her music before her on the ancient piano and began to play. The boys came into the church to listen, and so did Leo LaBourteaux who had been doing some handy-work out back. No grand piano in any concert hall ever sounded so fine as did that old battered upright. She played for about forty-five minutes. There was not a dry eye among us—even Matt and Tim tried to suppress a sniffle or two.

Oksana told me that when I was an infant my mother used to park my cradle in the parlor and play her baby grand for me for hours on end. I do not remember this, of course, but I believe it accounts for the feeling of incredible sweetness that comes over me when I hear piano music. I settled there and then on my wedding present for Betty. It means another letter to my aunts and one to my father as well. For this, I do need his permission.

We then returned to the rectory and had dinner with Father Flagstad and his boys. It is Tim, I believe, who plays the piano, and he very hesitantly asked Betty if she would teach him to play better. She agreed wholeheartedly, though how they will actually arrange lessons on a regular basis, I have no idea.

We were all enjoying being out so much that for a few moments we forgot the reasons for our keeping out of sight. When some visitors came to the mission, we all tensed visibly, and Father Flagstad rose from the table and told us not to worry. He would take care of it. Fortunately, it was only some travelers asking for directions and for permission to water their horses. They were soon gone and it was time to don our caps and veils and start back to Crow Kills. Father Flagstad promised to visit us only when he could do so without attracting attention, and he invited us to return any time Betty wished to play. All in all, it was a fine day marred only by your absence.

My dear, I have not thanked you for helping my friend Lena. You will say, no doubt, that thanks are not necessary, but I thank you all the same. I know that you have had more opportunity to see Lena’s crustier side, and fewer opportunities to see her finer nature, which runs deep and better than even she knows. I miss you sorely and long for our reunion.

Your loving Gustie

Anything was better than sweeping floors, washing glasses and emptying spittoons. That’s why, when the sullen, one-armed man came into Snuce’s place that afternoon in early May looking for a hand for a couple week’s work, and paying three times what Snuce paid, Gleeve tore off his apron and announced, “I’m your man!” It sounded easy. Drilling a hole in the ground—how hard could that be?

After looking him over the same way a man might eye a horse at auction, the man growled, “You look strong enough. Worked around big machinery before?”

Gleevie admitted that he had not.

“Follow orders?”

“Good as anybody,” Gleevie said.

“Okay then. Meet me at the Hanson place on Monday. I’ll be pulling out of Charity at sun-up with my rig, and I expect to pull in there before dark. Be there to help me set up.”

“Where’s the Hanson place?”

“Ask around.” The man, who said his name was Oscar Kaiser, threw money on the bar to cover his half-drunk glass of beer and left.

Gleeve left the Spittoon that day and collected his wages for the week. With the new job starting on Monday, he gave himself the weekend off.

He found Jack lying on his cot in his long johns, smoking a cigarette and staring at the ceiling, waiting for the supper hour when he and Gleevie went to the Blue Bird Cafe for their one meal of the day. Gleevie told him the news.

Jack stubbed out his cigarette in a coffee can of dirt by the side of his bed and pulled on his pants. “Well, good luck with that. I’ve heard that that Oscar Kaiser is a hard man.”

Jack was not given to sober pronouncements about anything, but Gleevie shrugged it off. They went to a supper of tough beef and undercooked, greasy potatoes, then back to Snuce’s for their bottle of whiskey and game of cards. Snuce was not much put out that Gleevie quit. Help came and went. It was part of the business of running a saloon. In any case, Eddie Hansmeier was due back shortly. If the glasses weren’t always so clean that he served his whiskey in, the lights were too dim inside the Spittoon for anyone to notice.

Jack knew where the Hanson place was and gave Gleevie directions. He made sure he was there well before dark, and Mrs. Hanson, a tall woman with large hands and deep lines in her face, kept his coffee cup filled as he sat on her porch waiting for Oscar Kaiser to show up. Mr. Hanson greeted him with a tip of his hat but was busy with his boys finishing chores and didn’t stop to talk. The sun was low and a sharp wind was blowing up when the well rig, pulled by a team of four huge draft horses rolled into the yard.

Somehow, Gleevie had gotten through twenty-nine years of life without laying eyes on anything more complicated than a shovel whose sole purpose was to sink a well. What rolled into the yard that cool evening in May was an incomprehensible contraption of large and small wheels, levers, pulleys, shafts and belts and rods and a derrick that was taller than anything Gleeve had seen before. It looked like a cross between a horrible giant insect and a big pile of junk. It did not look like it could do anything but grind up whatever got close enough. How it would drill a well, he couldn’t see. And when it was belching hot steam and noise and the derrick was pumping and all those wheels, levers, pulleys, shafts, belts and rods were whirring and pumping, it was his worst nightmare.

My dear Gustie,

It is too ridiculous for me to send my letters to Philadelphia, so I have written a note to Joe—from now on all my letters addressed to Little Bull, Winnie, or Carrie are to be brought to you.

There is no need to scold me. I am taking Skydog home tomorrow. Moon is getting restless. She is used to some freedom, and I want him to have the taste of freedom as well. Tomorrow we will go as far as your house, where they can wander the pasture. When he is well enough, we will come to Crow Kills. I asked Lena if she wanted him, since she is, after all, his savior, but she cannot afford to keep another horse, and Skydog is going to be a handful. He likes her, but she says she would be afraid to ride him. He is high-spirited, even though he is not yet at his full strength.

He is beautiful. White as a cloud with sable brown markings—wide patches, not spots. Where Moon is all the lady, he is a real boy. He will bear his scars forever, but that just makes him more ours. He is terrified of thunder. I believe the sound of the rifle in the boxcar must still be sharp in his ear. When it thunders, no one can get near him but me.

As skittish as he is, the whole town, one by one, has come to see him. I have the feeling that they do not want others to know that they have come, except for the Torgerson children who stop by every day with something for him, a carrot or apple or a piece of sugar candy, and sometimes they bring something for me. Yesterday they brought a whole sack of cookies, all for me, as if I am not getting fat and sleek on Lena’s cooking. I have never eaten so much, or so often. I must get away while I can still fit through the barn door. (Even Feather has put on weight, and I have not seen him prowl for mice lately. Lena is stuffing him with cream and chicken. I tell him not to get used to it.)

Anyway, the others who have come around include Mrs. Axel Kranhold saying she came to call on Lena and “while I’m here I thought I’d peek in on you...” Well, she peeked in and did not visit Lena at all, as I suspected she had no intention of doing. Hank and Orville Ackerman came by to tell me they would paint your fence and keep your grass scythed down while you were gone. The O’Gradies brought me a bag of oats. Said it was on the house. I have even seen all the members of the school board except Axel...he must have felt his wife’s coming was the same as his coming himself—and in a way it is, as one is as odious as the other—and one was enough. Even Lena’s minister came by. I think the only one who has not is the Catholic priest, Father Nicolay.

It did not take me long to realize that neither I nor Skydog were the object of all this attention, but you and Mary. They will not come right out and ask all the questions that must be on their minds, and I will not help them by volunteering anything. I say only that you are both well and enjoying Philadelphia in spite of the rain.

Your Jordis

PS. Tell Betty that her brothers and sisters miss her. Especially Alice. Though Alice has perked up of late due to the regular visits from Dr. Llewellyn. Alvinia had invited him to dinner some time ago, hoping, I believe, to spark something between him and Betty. He took to Alice instead and she to him, though Alvinia frets that Alice is not serious or even tempered enough to be a doctor’s wife. Lena has told her that that will be his problem!

Are Jimmy Saul and Leonard still bringing you fish and game? I told Joe to make sure to let them know I would not be there for a while. I know you can fish but, my dear, when will you let me teach you to shoot? Then I do not have to worry about your starving to death. You cannot live on fry bread and potatoes.

I asked Father Flagstad about the Lesnars, the poor family who unwittingly brought the plague upon the Red Sand. He said they suffered with the disease for a long time but were lovingly cared for by Mrs. Tollefson at Doctor
Llewellyn’s place
. The children died first, then Ina, and last, Reuben. Father Gregory buried them in the Catholic graveyard in Wheat Lake.