Justice (13 page)

Being outside also allowed Enid to watch for her father's approach. Her mother had stayed behind in Wild Rose in case her father returned. She would explain to him that Enid was already gone, married to a Montana rancher, and would try to convince him to accept the situation. But Enid knew her father and his ability to make Mrs. Garling do what he wished. He would not use force on Enid's mother, and he wouldn't threaten her. But he had a power that made it seem as though natural forces were on his side—as though the rocks and the rivers wanted you to submit to his will—and Enid's mother might not be able to resist telling him what was happening in Bentrock on this day. Enid didn't expect him to show up, but she knew she would be foolish not to be on the lookout for him. To any prayer she said on her wedding day, she would silently add, And please, God, don't let my father come.

On the way to the church, Enid tried to explain to Julian what it might mean if her father came. “I'm afraid,” she said. “What if my father comes?”

Julian was in such high spirits he could not take any warning seriously. “If he comes,” he said and laughed, “he comes! Everyone's welcome here today.”

“You don't understand. He might make trouble.”

“Wait until you see Ernie Fergusson get into the jug. You'll see some trouble!”

She almost told him, I had a dream. I saw my father in the dream. But she stopped herself.

The wedding was scheduled for early afternoon, and the number of people who came astonished Enid. Not only was a sizable portion of the Bentrock population there, but farmers, ranchers, and sheepherders from the surrounding countryside as well. She knew they came primarily for the free food and drink, but the crowd pleased her anyway. They came because Julian invited them. Surely they must like and respect him. And though they didn't know her—and she didn't know them—she felt, nonetheless, that on this day they were compatriots. She didn't dare think of herself as a Montanan yet, but perhaps today she would be wedded to the region as well as to Julian Hayden.

Julian pulled into a small grove of trees. The churchyard was already filled with other buggies, with farm wagons, with spirited saddle horses, and with shaggy, heavy workhorses. Enid was certain that Julian's high-stepping blacks were the best-looking horses of the group.

Next to the church was a lectern covered with a white cloth held in place by a rock. Not far from this makeshift altar were the tables laden with food and drink. As Julian and Enid came closer, she saw the pans of fried chicken, the platters of steaks and ribs, the bowls of beans, the stacks of fresh-baked bread, the crocks of fresh-churned butter, and the pies cut from their tins and stacked three and four high. To drink there were gallons of milk and pitchers of home-brewed beer and jugs and bottles of whiskey. An older man turned the crank on an ice cream freezer while a small group of children pushed
close to see his progress. The crowd cheered Julian and Enid as they approached, and one man, a tall, ruddy-faced rancher with a patch over one eye, said, “Jules, let's hurry up and get you hitched so we can get to the grub!”

“We'll take care of that directly, but before anyone ties on the feedbag you're all going to hear my new missus sing and play the piano.”

That was when Enid noticed the piano and stool set up under a large oak tree. She had sung at weddings before, but at her own? A woman was not supposed to sing at her own wedding! And this wind would tear the words to any song right out of her mouth before anyone could hear her. She started to protest, but Julian said, “That's what they came for. To hear you.” As she looked around at the people assembled in the churchyard, she had difficulty believing that anyone cared whether she sang or not.

The briefest wedding Enid ever witnessed was her own. The minister pronounced them man and wife after so few words that she wondered if he hadn't omitted an essential part of the ceremony. Before he kissed her, Julian made a great show of brushing his moustaches out of the way.

Then it was over. She was no longer Enid Garling but Enid Hayden. Everyone cheered, and amid the shouted congratulations and the handshakes and the backslaps, Enid was ushered to the piano, where Julian instructed her to play.

“What should I play?” she asked.

“You're the musician. You pick something.”

She touched his hand. “What's your favorite song?”

He began to back away, moving toward the tables, where
his friends waited to toast his marriage. “Anything,” he said. “Anything you play is my favorite.”

She had a repertoire of songs that she was often requested to play and sing at weddings, but none of these would be appropriate for the bride herself to sing. Finally she settled on a Stephen Foster song, but since the piano was set up so that Enid's back was turned to the crowd, she couldn't be sure anyone listened to her. When she finished her song she heard no applause or acknowledgment of any kind.

While she waited and tried to think of another song, an old man, so thin Enid wondered if a gust of wind might blow him off his feet, approached her. He leaned on the piano and asked, “Do you know ‘Lorena'?” His voice was amazingly deep and strong for a man who looked so frail.

She nodded.

“By God, I'd love to hear that again. I first heard it during the war. A young soldier from Pennsylvania used to sing it. Never heard anything so beautiful.”

Enid was sure he meant the Civil War, but she didn't question him. She just began to play and sing, and the old man closed his eyes and gently tapped the top of the piano with his long, knotted fingers. His lips moved while she sang, but she couldn't be sure if any sound escaped.

Before she could finish the song, Julian returned. He had taken off his suit jacket, his vest, his tie, and his collar. He had bought a new collar for the occasion, and Enid could see that it had been too tight; a red rim, as fine as a pencil line, circled his neck. He had a thick black cigar jammed awkwardly in the corner of his mouth, and when he spoke he raised his voice to
get the words past the cigar. “Come here,” he said. “You got to see someone.”

The muscles in her legs contracted into icy bands, and she couldn't get up. She was certain Julian meant that her father was there. He hadn't said she had to
meet
someone but
see
someone—that must mean it was someone she already knew. Who else could it be?

“Come on,” Julian repeated, and he put his hand around her upper arm and made to lift her from the stool. His hand was almost large enough to encircle her arm, and she could feel the fabric bunch and twist against her skin. It was a new blouse. Enid feared that if Julian's hand was dirty, the bishop sleeve would bear his handprint and she would not be able to wash it out. In the months they had known each other he had touched her many times and in many ways, but he had never handled her so roughly. She couldn't be sure—was she making a judgment about marriage and her new husband or was she simply preparing herself to go back to Wild Rose with her father?

She stumbled to her feet and tried to keep up with him, though her long skirt made it difficult to match his long strides.

“I want you to look over these Roosian girls,” Julian said. He pointed toward three young women standing by the food table. They were a few years younger than Enid—late teens, she figured—and they were dressed in new or freshly laundered shirtwaists (although they were not wearing corsets), yet they seemed uncomfortable in their clothing. One of the young women had taken off her shoes and stockings and her
bare feet were darkened with dirt. All three were considerably shorter than Enid, and the barefoot girl was quite plump. She also had breasts larger than any Enid had ever seen.

“You get to know them,” Julian instructed Enid. “Pick one you like. She'll be your hired girl.”

“Mine?”

“You didn't think I'd have you breaking those piano fingers on ranch work, did you?”

Enid looked at the girls' hands. They didn't seem so different from hers. “I can work,” she said. “I want to.”

“Oh, there'll be work aplenty. Don't you worry. But I don't want you scrubbin' floors or stringin' wire.”

Enid had scrubbed floors before, but she wasn't sure she knew what he meant by “stringing wire.” She imagined it had to do with putting up barbed wire fences. One of these girls would do that work?

Julian left her side again. “Some of us are getting a baseball game going. Why don't you have something to eat and then come over and watch the game?”

They had originally planned to leave the wedding early so they could travel to Williston, North Dakota, and spend the night in a hotel, an arrangement that especially pleased Enid because it meant that if her father did come, they might already be gone.

“I thought we were leaving before two,” she said.

“I can't disappoint these fellows. They want me to pitch for them. They want me to use my drop ball on those hitters from over Delton way.” Delton was a small town in an adjoining county.

Before Enid could say another word, Julian was gone, and when he rejoined his friends, she heard them cheer his return.

She turned back to the three girls and smiled at them. She had no idea what to say to them—had Julian already spoken to them about working on their ranch? Did they know Enid would be their employer?

Enid pointed to the platter still stacked high with wedges of pie. “Are any of those pies of your preparation?” she asked.

The heavy-breasted barefoot girl smiled at Enid but when she spoke it was in a foreign tongue, a garble of clicking consonants and little explosions of air that were almost like grunts. Although she never took her eyes from Enid, obviously what she said was for the benefit of her friends. They tried to suppress their laughter, but they could not hold back. Finally all three of them turned their backs to Enid so they could giggle and chatter in their own language. Enid walked away.

She found the baseball game being played in a field right below the church's cemetery. She sat down in the grass on a gentle rise where she could watch Julian and the other players.

She had never seen baseball before, and the game was absolutely incomprehensible to her. She knew the players were supposed to be arranged in teams, but she couldn't tell who played with whom. Some players threw the ball, some tried to hit it, some tried to catch it—and others ran in different directions while all this was going on. She could not even tell what the game's object was, what indicated winning and losing. On a makeshift bench alongside the playing field the players had placed pitchers of beer, and men drank from them
at regular intervals. Enid didn't know if the drinking was part of the game or not. Was there a certain performance that was rewarded with a draught of beer?

Others came to watch the game too, but they crowded around the field, while Enid stayed where she was; she didn't know what the game's boundaries were, and she did not want to place herself where she might be in the way. The spectators cheered certain actions, but again, since Enid did not know which players or teams the observers favored, their applause and shouts of encouragement were as baffling to her as the game itself.

She did note that Julian was often at the center of the game's action and that he handled the ball as often as anyone. Did he want everyone to hit the ball or only certain players? He frequently shouted instructions to other players. Was that part of his duty on the field?

The afternoon wore on. Occasionally someone looked back at Enid sitting alone on the hill, but no one approached her or invited her to join them. Her boredom grew to the point where she became drowsy, and she thought of lying back on the grass and going to sleep. Yet she worried that if she closed her eyes, that would be the moment her father would appear.

The game finally ended, not, apparently, because a team won but because they lost the ball. A player hit it into a slough directly across from Enid, and although every player and many of the spectators walked up and down the length of the ditch, stamping down the tall grass and pushing aside the clumps of sage and thistle, no one found the ball. After the search there
was a discussion about going after another ball, but no one knew where another could be obtained. Did no one bring his own? Did no store sell them? The players, sweat- and dirtstained, finally drifted off the field, and the crowd followed them.

Enid stood and waved her handkerchief to Julian, and after a long moment he acknowledged her with a wave of his own, but he continued to walk back to the churchyard with the rest of the ball players.

The end of the game seemed to signify the end of the wedding celebration as well. When Enid returned from her post on the hillside, she saw that the tables of food were being taken down, the leftovers being wrapped and dispersed among the guests, and people were heading toward their horses and buggies. She didn't see Julian anywhere, but she hoped they could leave soon.

Then she saw him, coming from behind the church with his friend Len McAuley. Julian had his coat and tie back on, and she could tell from his slicked-back hair and glistening skin that he had washed up.

“Do you want to take any of that grub?” Julian asked her.

She shrugged, unsure of the correct response.

“One of those pies maybe?”

“If you like.”

“I'm not much of a pie eater.”

Enid smiled shyly. “I'm not either.”

“Let's head out then.” He took her arm—gently this time—and led her toward the buggy.

Len called out after them, “We'll take care of it here.”

It was not until they were seated in the buggy and rolling out of the churchyard that Julian said, “You don't have to worry about your father showing up. Len's been watching. And he'll make sure no one's on our trail.”