Nathaniel (9 page)

Magic, nervously eyeing the three boys, suddenly snorted and reared in her stall. Eric moved forward as the other two boys backed away.

“Easy, girl, easy,” Eric soothed her. He continued talking to the nervous mare, and waved Michael and Ryan out of the barn. A moment later the horse calmed, and he joined them. “You guys want to come out when she foals? I’m gonna help the vet, but you could watch.”

Ryan shrugged, pretending lack of interest. “I’ve seen lots of colts being foaled.”

But Michael was intrigued. “When’s it gonna happen?” he asked.

“Maybe over the weekend, or next week. You want me to call you?”

“Sure. But what if I don’t get here in time?”

Eric grinned. “You will. Sometimes it takes all night, but it’s always at least a couple of hours.” He looked at his watch. “Hey, it’s almost three, and I gotta clean up the yard before Ma gets home. You guys wanna help?”

“I can’t,” Ryan replied. “I gotta be back home by three-thirty.”

Eric’s eyes shifted over to Michael, but Michael, too, shook his head. “I better not. I have to take the bike back to Ryan’s, then walk home.”

“Keep the bike,” Ryan offered. “You can give it back when you get one of your own.”

“Won’t Aunt Laura be mad?”

“Nah.”

“You care if I stay?”

Ryan shrugged. “All I’m gonna do is go down to the store and help my dad.”

Michael made up his mind, and a few minutes later, after Ryan had left, he sat happily on the seat of the tractor-mower while Eric showed him how to work the controls. As he put the tractor in gear and began moving across the lawn, he decided that Prairie Bend wasn’t going to be so bad after all. Except that the only reason he was here was that his father had died. His good mood suddenly evaporated, and a stab of pain shot through his temples.

As he rode home through the soft lazy light of the spring afternoon, Michael was unaware of the eyes that followed him. First there were the eyes of Laura Shields and Ione Simpson, looking up from the final stages of their cleaning of Janet Hall’s old farmhouse, watching as Michael rode by. Then, a little further on, there was Ben Findley, peering out from behind the heavy curtains that kept his rundown house in constant gloom. As Michael slowed and peered at the Findley place through the darkening day, the old man’s hand automatically reached out and clutched the shotgun that stood on its butt next to the front door. But Michael passed on, and Ben Findley relaxed.

The first word that came into Janet’s mind was “firetrap,” but she made herself deny it, even though she knew it accurately described what she was seeing as the Shieldses’ Chevy slewed over the bumpy dirt driveway and the house came into view. Then she got a grip on her emotions and reminded herself that any wooden structure can burn, that this house was no different from any other house. What had happened to the house she grew up in would not happen to this house. She would not let it happen.

Her sudden panic checked, she made herself look at the house objectively.

Objectively, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

From what she could see, the building had no discernible color whatsoever. The prairie weather had long ago stripped it of its paint, and its siding was a streaked and dirty gray, far from the silvery color of the salt-weathered cedar cottages of the eastern seaboard.

She’d wanted a red barn.

This barn, crouched almost defensively behind the house, bore the same drab color as the house, but was in an even worse state of disrepair. Its shingles were half gone, and the loft door, visible beyond one of the dormers of the house, seemed to be hanging from only one hinge.

“This place,” she declared at last, “lends new meaning to the word ‘awful.’ “

“Are we really going to live here, Mom?” Michael asked, voicing Janet’s own thought. He had been tempted to giggle as he watched his mother’s reaction until he realized the terrible truth: this … 
place
was his new home.

“Maybe it’s not so bad, once you get inside,” she replied doubtfully.

“Actually, it’s worse,” Laura told her.

Janet turned to gaze at her sister-in-law. “Worse? What could be worse? It doesn’t have dirt floors, does it?”

Laura carefully brought the car to a stop in the weed-choked front yard, and Janet fell silent, studying the house once more. There was something about it that didn’t fit. And then she realized what it was.

“My God,” she breathed. “All the windows are whole.”

Laura gave her a puzzled look. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

“But the place is abandoned. What about—well, don’t kids like to throw rocks anymore?”

Suddenly understanding, Laura laughed. “Amos fixes them when they do get broken. I’m not going to pretend everybody’s perfect around here.” She opened the car door and eased her bulk out, smiling wryly at Janet. “I hope you carry your babies more gracefully than I carry mine,” she said, then turned her attention to the house. “Actually, it isn’t nearly as bad as it looks. It’s weathered, and it needs a lot of work, but basically, it’s sound. And the floors, believe it or not, are hardwood.”

Slowly, the three of them went through the house, and to her own amazement Janet discovered that Laura was right. Though the paint and wallpaper were peeling and the floors needed refinishing, the house did seem to be solid. The floors were level, and the doors square. The plaster had no holes in it, and the plumbing worked.

There were four rooms downstairs—a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a pantry; four more upstairs-three bedrooms and a bathroom, with an attic tucked under the steeply sloping roof. Each of the upstairs rooms had a dormered window, including the bathroom. A narrow staircase through the center of the house connected the two floors, with a spring-loaded pull-down ladder providing access to the attic.

There was no furniture.

Ten minutes later, Janet and Laura were back in the living room.

“I know it isn’t much,” Laura sighed, moving out onto the front porch and lowering herself awkwardly onto the top step.

“No, Laura,” Janet protested. “You were right. It’s much better than it looks from the outside.”

“And it’s a lot better than it looked yesterday,” Laura pointed out, brightening a little. “Ione Simpson and I worked like dogs cleaning out the grime.”

“I wish you hadn’t,” Janet began. “The kids and I could have done it. And in your condition—”

Laura brushed her objections aside. “You’d have taken one look and fled. Ione and I almost gave it up ourselves. But by next week or the week after, you won’t know the place. We’ll have all the weeds cleaned out, the buildings painted, and the fields plowed.”

“But I can’t afford—”

“Janet,” Laura said quietly, “this was Mark’s home. Now it’s going to be yours, and we’re your family. Let us do for you what we’d do for each other.” When Janet still hesitated, she added, “Please?”

“But there’s so much that needs to be done—”

“And the whole town can do it,” Laura stated. “We’ll make a party of it, just like an old-fashioned roof-raising. Except, thank God, the roof’s in good shape.”

The two women fell silent, gazing out into the prairie. It was a comfortable silence, and Janet could feel the quiet of the plains seeping into her, easing the tension that had been her constant companion over the last several days. “I think I’m going to like it here,” she said at last. Next to her, she felt Laura shift her position slightly.

“Really?” the other woman asked. Then she laughed, a brittle laugh that made Janet turn to face her.

“It’s so quiet. So different from New York. There’s a sense of calm here that I haven’t felt since I was a little girl. I’d almost forgotten it.”

“That’s boredom you’re feeling,” Laura remarked, her voice tinged with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “Right now it seems like peace, but just wait a year or so.”

“Oh, come on,” Janet cajoled. “If it’s that bad, why do you stay?”

Now Laura turned to face her, her large eyes serious. “You think it’s that easy?” she asked. “How do you leave a place like this? When you’ve grown up here, and your husband’s grown up here, and you’ve never been anywhere else, how do you leave? They don’t let you, you know.”

“But Mark—”

“Mark ran away,” Laura said, her voice suddenly bitter. “Mark fled, and I should have too. Except that when he got out, I was too young to go with him. And by the time I was old enough, it was too late. I was already trapped.”

“Trapped? What do you mean, trapped?”

“Just that,” Laura told her. “That’s what a small town is, you know. A trap. At least that’s what Prairie Bend is. I used to dream about getting out. I used to think I’d take Ryan and just run away. But of course, I never did.” Suddenly her eyes met Janet’s. “You won’t either, if you stay. They’ll get to you, just like they get to everyone.”

“Who? Laura, what are you talking about?”

“Father—all of them.”

“Laura—”

But Laura pressed on, her words building into a torrent. “I can’t get out, Janet. I’m stuck here, trapped by this whole place. I tried to leave once. I really tried. Do you know what happened? Mother just looked at me. That’s all she had to do. Just look at me, with those sad, empty eyes. She didn’t have to say a word. Didn’t have to tell me that I was all she had left, that Mark was gone, and the baby was dead, and there was no one left but me. It was all right there in her eyes. Ever since that night …” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes wandered away from Janet, across the yard, fixing finally on a pair of doors that lay low to the ground, covering what Janet assumed was a root cellar.

“What night?” Janet asked at last. “What are you talking about?”

Laura turned back to her, and when she spoke, her voice was unsteady. “Didn’t Mark ever tell you about it?” Then, without waiting for Janet to reply, she sighed heavily. “No, I suppose he didn’t. No one ever talks about that night. Not mother or father, not even me. So why would Mark?”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Janet asked, her voice gentle, sure that whatever had happened that night must account for the odd haunted look she had seen in Laura’s eyes.

There was a long silence, and then, finally, Laura shook her head. When she spoke, it was in a whisper. “I’m not even sure I know what happened, really. Isn’t that strange? I think it was the most important night of my life, and I’m not even sure what happened.” Again she fell silent, then finally nodded toward the twin doors she had been staring at a few moments before. “I was in there. Right in there, in the cyclone cellar.”

“Here?” Janet asked, her voice reflecting her puzzlement.

Laura’s eyes came back to Janet. And then she suddenly understood, and a harsh laugh emerged from her throat. “My God, they didn’t even tell you
that
, did they? This was
our
house. This is the house Mark and I were born in.”

“But I thought—their farm—”

“This
was our farm until that night. It was in the summer. I was nine, and Mark must have been sixteen. And mother was pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” Janet repeated. “I thought there were only the two of you.”

“There were,” Laura replied, her voice dropping to a whisper. “The baby—well, mother lost it. At least, that’s what they always said.” Her eyes clouded for a moment, and she seemed almost to disappear somewhere inside herself, into some dark corner Janet knew she couldn’t penetrate. And then Laura’s expression cleared again, and she began speaking once more. Something in her voice had changed, though. It was almost as if she was repeating a memorized story, reciting carefully rehearsed words.

“It was hot that day,” she said, “and Mother had been trying to do too much, and her labor came on early. Father was furious at her. It was almost as if he blamed her for the early labor. And then a storm came up, and they sent me to the cyclone cellar. And I stayed there. All afternoon, and all night. I stayed there,” she repeated. And then, once more, “I stayed there.”

Janet wondered what to say. There was more to the story, she was sure. But she was also sure that Laura didn’t want to talk about it. Still, she had a certain feeling that she needed to know the whole story of that night, needed to know not only what had happened to Laura, but what had happened to Mark, as well. “And that was the night Mark left home?” she asked.

Laura nodded. “The next morning, Father came for me. He told me the baby had been born dead. I didn’t believe him. There was something inside me that didn’t believe him, but I don’t know what it was.” She smiled weakly at Janet. “It’s still there,” she said. “Even after all these years, I don’t believe that baby was born dead, but I don’t know why I don’t believe it. It’s as if there’s something in my mind, something I know, but can’t remember.” She sighed. “Anyway, after that night, Mother was crippled, and Mark was gone.”

Janet stared at her, speechless.

“You’re still wondering what happened, aren’t you?” Laura asked at last. “Well, I can’t tell you. I’ve always wondered, but Mother never spoke about it, and neither did Father. It almost seems as though Mark must have done something, but I know he didn’t.” Her voice changed, became almost pleading. “I
know
he didn’t, Janet. Mark was a wonderful brother, but then, after that night, he was gone.” She reached out and took Janet’s hand, her eyes taking on the look of a hunted animal. “For a while, I didn’t hear from him. Then he wrote to me—he was in college. Just one letter, and then, later, another one, from New York. I wrote back. Oh, I wrote so many letters! No one knew, not even Buck. But he never answered my letters. Maybe he never even got them.”

Janet slipped an arm around the distraught woman, cradling Laura’s head against her shoulder. “How awful,” she whispered. “How horrible for all of you.”

Laura nodded. “It was as if our whole family came to an end that night. And I can’t remember why. A little while after that, we moved to the other farm, where Mother and Father still live, but it never really made any difference—ever since that night, I’ve been so terrified. When Ryan was born, I was sure it was all going to happen over again. And now—” Unconsciously, Laura touched her swollen torso.