Sisters (9 page)

Finally the young man had
asked his last question, and as Mrs. Syms showed him out, Sophie went
upstairs. She paused on the landing, running her hand over the soft
leather of Deer Woman's buffalo robe, surveying the place which had
been so important to her sister. How many letters had Helen written
at this desk? Sophie wondered. How many hours had she spent trying to
find Julia? And then Sophie looked back down the stairs, thinking how
unexpectedly, how suddenly it had all ended for Helen.

On the second floor, Sophie
walked to the door of Helen's room and stepped inside. A narrow bed
with a painted iron bedstead stood in one corner. Its quilt had been
blue and white, she saw, but it had faded through many washings until
it was almost entirely white. Only one object hung on the white,
unfinished walls, a beribboned cross above the bed, and on the oak
bedside table was a Bible. Except for an oak dresser covered with a
lace dresser scarf, there was no other furniture in the room.

Sophie walked slowly across
the hall to the guest suite. Once inside, she picked up "A
Midsummer Night's Dream" and took it to the window seat in the
round tower part of the room. She pulled the curtain, closing herself
in, then reread the passage Amy Travers had marked off. She sensed
there was a pattern here, and she tried to empty her mind of all its
preconceptions so that she could see it. Who had been important to
Helen, after all? Their grandmother, whose robe she had kept near
her; their mother, for whom she had spent years searching, her friend
Amy Travers, who loved her. And her daughters, too. Sophie thought of
Helen lying in childbed, looking at the female child just come from
her body and feeling that they two of them were still, somehow, one.
Where James fit in, Sophie didn't understand, but not in that bare,
unfinished room, not in that narrow bed. And when Helen had shut him
out, who was left? Only women.

As she looked again at the
passage Amy Travers had marked off, Sophie realized Helen hadn't even
told her Miss Travers was in Cheyenne. Probably she had thought that
Sophie wouldn't care, wouldn't understand the importance. And how
could I? Sophie asked herself, thinking how different a life she had
had. Her world had been a world of men. There had been those few
months with Adah, but outside that, it was not women who befriended
her, not women who loved her. Men were the ones with whom she had
formed the bonds of affection and intimacy. They had been her
friends, her mentors, her lovers.

She and Helen had dwelt so
far apart in many ways, Sophie wondered if the distance could ever be
crossed. Still, she wanted to try.

(But why now? a tiny voice
interrupted. Why was it so important now? Was the guilt she felt
suddenly more piquant after last night in the hall with James?)

She tried to shrug off her
doubts. Whatever the reason, se wanted to know about Helen's
life--and to understand her death.

(Again the still small
voice broke in: How could it have happened? Cautious, precise Helen,
who had never been careless, how could she have had an accident? How
was it possible she had taken the fatal misstep which had sent her
plunging down the stairs?)

Any Travers called at the
Stevenson house before noon. When Sophie saw her sitting in the
drawing room, she thought how much at odds her Christian name was
with her physical appearance. "Amy" suggested someone
diminutive, but Miss Travers was a tall woman, changed little in the
many years since Sophie had last seen her. She had the kind of face
which ages well, the skin drawn tightly over prominent bones, the
eyes deeply set. She wore her hair in the same way Sophie remembered,
pulled back severely, plaited in a tight coil.

Miss Travers put her hand
out, and when Sophie took it, she was surprised at its heavy
softness. It was like something alive but sleeping, Sophie thought,
like a warm, boneless animal. When the schoolteacher spoke, Sophie
was surprised again. She had forgotten how high and emphatic her
voice was. "I'm pleased to see you, Sophie."

"And I you, Miss
Travers." Sophie saw the schoolteacher looking at her waved
hair, her light blue gown, and she realized Miss Travers was seeking
evidence of frivolity. When she had been Sophie's teacher at Fort
Martin, she had considered her a frivolous child, and Sophie could
tell she meant to cling tightly to that old opinion. She had no
intention of being impressed by Sophie's achievements.

Mrs. Syms brought tea;
Sophie poured from a richly colored majolica service and made polite
conversation. But all the while, her thoughts were on Helen and how
close Miss Travers and Helen had been. Surely if there were anyone
who could answer Sophie's questions, it would be this woman. Bringing
them up might seem rude, but nothing would be accomplished if
Sophie's only concern were to seem mannerly. Besides, by sitting here
asking innocuous questions and responding with meaningless phrases,
wasn't she simply acting out Miss Travers' idea of her?

"Esther and I were
talking," Sophie began, "and she told me something quite
surprising. About Helen. About the baby boy who was born dead."

"Yes?"

"She said that you and
Helen blamed the doctor. That you said the doctor killed the baby."

"I had no idea Esther
was aware... Well, she must have overheard. We talked about it often
in the months after, had to talk about it, really. Losing the baby
was so hard on Helen. And she couldn't forget the pain. The memory
wouldn't go away..."

"How was the doctor to
blame?"

"He seemed at a
complete loss what to do. He was new in town, and he seemed...
embarrassed every time he came into the bedroom with her. And he
insisted on draping her with all these sheets, as though he didn't
want to see her."

"Perhaps he hadn't any
training."

"No, it wasn't that.
It was the kind of training. I finally asked him if he'd ever seen a
baby born before. Of course not, he said. He'd just graduated from a
'very fine' medical school, and of course they'd never permitted
their students to witness an actual birth. What sort of indecency
would that be?" Well, it wasn't an easy birth. The baby came
feet first, and the cord got wrapped around the neck. If only the
doctor had some experience... of if Helen had only called a midwife.
She swore that she would after that, but it was too late."

"How do you mean, too
late?"

"The long labor
weakened something inside her. After that, she couldn't carry a baby
more than four or five months."

"But she conceived
them anyway."

Miss Travers looked at her
coldly. "She became pregnant, yes." The implication of her
words was unclear, but she spoke them with a finality which indicated
the subject was closed.

"Tell me how Helen
died," Sophie said after a moment.

"I'm not certain I
understand. Surely..."

"I know she fell down
the stairs, but I know nothing else, and I can't ask here, not the
family. Was it morning? Night? What had she been doing? Who found
her?"

"It was in the late
afternoon. It appeared she'd been going over the correspondence she
had with the detectives about your mother. She did that fairly often.
The letters were out on her desk."

"And who found her?"

"Esther. When she came
home from school."

"Oh, no."

"Sally was with her,
but Esther kept her away from the body and sent her to find Mrs.
Syms. She was downstairs with the servants, had been for a half-hour
or so. It apparently happened in that time."

"Where was James?"

Miss Travers sat down her
cup, averting her eyes. "He was out. It was several hours after
she was found before he came back home."

"Where was he?"

"I don't recall.
Perhaps no one ever asked him. Why should they?"

Was there irony in her
words? Sophie couldn't be sure. It was difficult to identify emotion
in that high, flat voice. Sophie spoke again. "My sister's death
has troubled me greatly, the way she died, I mean. It was so unlike
Helen to have an accident. She was careful, meticulously so. It seems
impossible to me when I think about it." Miss Travers said
nothing, but her eyes were locked on Sophie. "Is it possible
Helen was distracted or worried about something?" Sophie asked.
Miss Travers' eyes, examining her, probing, made her feel uneasy. "I
have to confess I know very little about my sister's concerns. We
corresponded, but...," Sophie shrugged, breaking off. "Since
you were very good friends with Helen, I thought you might..."

"I loved your sister,"
Miss Travers said.

"And did she share her
deepest cares with you?" Sophie's intonation was wrong, and she
saw Miss Travers tense. Without meaning to, Sophie had sounded
sarcastic, and she rushed to cover it up. "I'm told Helen was
very involved in temperance work, trying to close down saloons,
houses of prostitution too, didn't I understand? Could she have been
concerned about those things? Distracted by some difficulty she had
encountered?"

"It was entirely the
other way. Helen found great comfort in the help she gave to others."
For a moment Miss Travers had seemed close to telling Sophie
something, but now she was slipping neatly out of her questions. Why
had Helen needed comfort? Because of all the miscarriages? Is that
what had troubled her? "I'm not sure you truly comprehend what
Helen was doing," Miss Travers continued. "It wasn't a
nay-saying thing, closing down this, getting rid of that. What she
was doing was helping others, the women especially. The ones who are
married to drunkards, the ones who sell their bodies to them."
Now Sophie was certain she detected emotion in Miss Travers' voice.
It gave her words a bitter, curling edge.

"There's a woman who
lives with a man named Wilson. I understand Helen was helping her."

Miss Travers lifted her
eyebrows, as though surprised by Sophie's knowledge.

"I had an encounter
with Mr. Wilson."

"Yes, we'd both been
trying to help Baby Wilson. That's what she's been calling herself,
though she and Zack aren't married. In fact, I'm still trying with
Baby. I'm leaving from here to go out there."

"What do you do out
there? How do you help her?"

"By talking to her,
letting her know there's someone who believes in her better side."
Miss Travers' words were curiously without conviction, Sophie
thought, almost as though she were repeating a lesson by rote. "She's
isolated out there on the prairie," the schoolteacher continued.
"Zack's hardly ever around, and so it's just she and the two
children--and the occasional cowboy who drops by to see her."
Miss Travers caught Sophie's questioning glance. "Oh, yes,
Baby's still a prostitute, though perhaps not so blatantly--or
busily--as she was when she was at Ida Hamilton's."

"James said Zack
Wilson's a cattle thief."

"James thinks any
homesteader's a rustler. I suspect Baby's bought more cattle with her
favors than Zack's ever thought of stealing." She had a locket
watch pinned to her dress, and she opened it and turned her head to
see the time. "I really must go. I want to get back here and
visit with Esther and Sally this afternoon."

"Might I come with
you?" There were so many more questions to ask. And she wanted
to meet Baby Wilson, the woman Helen had tried to help.

Miss Travers looked at her
doubtfully. "Surely not in those clothes."

"I'll change right
away."

*

The double-seated buckboard
waiting in front had large yellow wooden walls. As Sophie climbed in,
she noticed a shotgun had been mounted on the back on the front seat.
The weapon looked well cared-for, though it was far from new. It
appeared to be about the same vintage as the patient old roan
standing in the hitch.

Miss Travers drove out of
Cheyenne, and as the town grew small in the distance, Sophie realized
this was the first time in many years she had been out on the prairie
in anything but a train. This was completely different from crossing
the land in a great puffing machine, an experience suffused with
nostalgia for her. She remembered childhood days running and riding
across the prairie, long afternoons lying on her back in the prairie
grass, watching the wind mold cloud shapes. The silent stretch of
land on all sides recalled for her the way life had been, and at the
same time, made her feel unexpectedly serene, at peace with herself
about the present. Cares and questions dropped away, and she felt a
gentle happiness as she looked at the far horizons and listened to
the quiet. Miss Travers seemed to recognize her mind and talked
little.

After nearly two hours,
Miss Travers pointed out a shape on the horizon. As they drove
closer, the shape gradually separated, resolving itself into a line
of cottonwood trees along a creek, and on the far side, several
hundred yards up a gentle slope, three rectangular buildings. A few
brown-and-white cattle were lying in the shade of the cottonwoods,
Sophie noticed--and then she thought she heard something. She sat
forward on the seat, listening. What was it? Not the wind, though the
wind was blowing. The sound was more a wailing noise, but
intermittent, choppy.

"Probably one of the
children crying," Miss Travers said.

But as they drew nearer,
they could make out words in the sound: "Help me! Oh, somebody,
help me!"

"That's Baby!"
said Miss Travers. "You'd better hang on." She urged the
old roan to a gallop and the buckboard began to rattle and sway. They
pounded over the prairie, Sophie clinging to the iron armrest,
wondering if they would arrive before the buckboard disintegrated and
the horse collapsed. Miss Travers slowed to cross the small creek,
then urged the old roan on for the last two or three hundred yards,
stopping abruptly when she came to the first of the rectangular
buildings, a wooden shack with the windows broken out. She jumped
down from the buckboard and ran into the shack, moving with
surprising agility for a woman so tall.