The Orchardist (31 page)

T
hey gave her a cell at the far end of the jail. The twelve cells, and the larger holding cell near the front of the jail, were all empty as she passed them the first day. They’re out in the yard, explained the guard who opened the cell door for her and stepped aside as she entered.

They aren’t to talk to you, the warden had told her that afternoon, of the other prisoners in the jail. She had spent the better part of the morning and afternoon in his office, after her initial conversation with the young man at the front counter. She confessed her crime to the warden; and then a secretary was let into the room, and she confessed again, and the secretary wrote it all down on a typewriter. Della’s throat hurt from talking; she could not remember ever talking so much at one time. Was tired from holding in her mind all the pertinent details she wanted to relate to the warden, so that he would consider her guilty and dangerous enough to warrant incarceration in his jail.

The warden, when he could see Della was tiring, called to the young man at the front desk. When the young man appeared in the doorway, the warden said: Get Miss Michaelson a sandwich from the cafeteria. And—coffee? Do you take coffee, Miss Michaelson?

She said coffee would be welcome.

Knowing what we know, the warden said, we cannot let you room in town. You’ll have to stay here. You understand.

She was silent, looked down at her lap.

But, he continued, we can assure you that you will be safe here, quite unmolested by the men, until we figure out—your situation. Do you have any objection? Then, as if he’d just thought of it: Would you like a lawyer?

She pretended to hesitate.

I don’t have no—any—objections, she said. And I might get a lawyer—later. But—I know what I did. I killed a man. I deserve to be locked away.

The warden stared at her. When he realized she was finished speaking, he told her he would see her the following morning. The guard had then taken her to the jail, in the basement of the courthouse.

After the guard left her alone, she studied the cell. It was more accommodating than she had thought it would be—a cot along the side wall; a basin on a pedestal; a slop jar behind a canvas partition in the corner. A small rectangular window that overlooked a portion of the front lawn. The jail was not in a proper basement, but was only half submerged in the earth. And the cell was relatively large: approximately ten by eleven feet. Packed dirt floor. Brick walls.

There were seven incarcerated men there at the time, and two in the holding cell. They occupied the cells at the front of the jail. The cell across from her was empty.

She went and looked out the window. There was a great cottonwood on the lawn that the wind was upsetting; it nodded like an encephalitic. She went and sat on the cot, touched absently the wool blanket. She would do all right here, she thought.

The men were let in from the yard soon after, and she went to the bars and observed them as they walked down the hallway past her. They looked in at her, startled. Impressed. One or two chuckled, poked their neighbors in the ribs:
Look, a woman!
They all looked at her but one—Michaelson—who trailed behind the others, shuffling, holding his side. He seemed to be in pain. A guard walked slowly behind him, watching Michaelson’s movements carefully.

Neither the guard nor Michaelson looked at her.

That’s it, murmured the guard, we’re almost there.

Della stepped quietly back from the bars after Michaelson had passed, went to the cot, sat down. Listened to Michaelson’s unsteady progress down the hallway.

That’s it, said the guard.

The sound of a cell door opening, and then metal on metal: a lock slipping into place.

I’ll get the doctor, said the guard.

W
hat’s wrong with that man? Della asked the guard who delivered her breakfast the next morning. It was the same guard—tall, dough-faced—who had followed Michaelson and ushered him into his cell the day before.

The man glanced at her, said: He’s sick. His tone neither friendly nor unfriendly.

How sick?

It seemed the guard would not answer her—was ignoring her—he was sliding the tray through the slot, and she took it—but then he shrugged.

Awful sick, as far as I can tell.

She wanted to ask him, What’s he done? But she thought it was too soon for that, too quick. And so she accepted the food tray, and that was all.

T
hat evening, when the men were let in from their time in the yard, Michaelson wasn’t among them. She came away from the bars again—alert, confused—and sat on the cot. Her heart pounding hard and steadily in her chest.

W
hat happened to that man? The one who was sick?

There was another, younger guard—thin as a stick, nervous, pimply-faced—who served her breakfast. He shot her a startled look.

I just heard he was sick, she said. I saw him. He didn’t look well. I was just wondering what happened him—

The boy opened the slot and shoved the tray in; it made a grating sound. Suddenly he muttered, Needs an operation. But he should last for the trial. That’s all we care about here—

And he glared at her, as if angry for disclosing so much information. But then she realized he was just excited.

She looked away. Said, flatly: Well, he didn’t look well. Glad to hear he’s getting help—

T
almadge had thought, before, that he would just go and see Della directly—he would drive the mule and wagon up there—but the Judge said that since she was incarcerated, there was a procedure to these things. It could be that Talmadge would travel all the way there and not be able to see her, for whatever official or legal reason. And so, with the Judge’s help, Talmadge composed a letter to the warden, asking for permission to come see the prisoner Della Michaelson, who, it had just been verified, was incarcerated in his jail.

Two weeks later, the Judge received a reply. Talmadge was welcome to come visit any time between the hours of ten and four o’clock the following Friday.

T
he next evening, over a supper of trout and creamed spinach on the porch, Talmadge told Angelene that the Judge had found Della. She was living in Chelan, he said.

Angelene, who had been chewing, slowed, stopped.

He did not tell her Della was in jail. That would come later, he decided, after he had learned more about Della’s situation.

I’m going to go visit her, he said. I’ve thought about it, and think I should go by myself this time. I’ll take the mule. Then: I just think it’s best if I go by myself, this time.

Angelene said nothing at first. She took up her fork again, took a bite of trout. And then said, surprising him: I don’t want to go anyway.

Her voice was soft. He studied her profile momentarily before she turned her head away, pointedly, and looked at the trees. Should he ask her what was wrong? Why she didn’t want to go? He felt himself rise to ask these questions and then, at the last moment, falter. And then it was too late: the moment had passed.

He would not question her now.

H
e set out in the early morning. Angelene came out onto the porch, a blanket around her shoulders, and watched his last preparations.

He asked her again if she was certain she did not want to stay at Caroline Middey’s. She shook her head.

You said I didn’t have to.

You don’t have to. I just don’t want you to get scared out here all by yourself.

I’m not scared.

Well. It might get lonely.

She shrugged.

Don’t let a bear come and carry you off.

Aren’t no bears around here.

I saw one just the other day.

Didn’t.

But she had smiled, briefly.

You know where the money is. You know where the gun’s at.

Yes, she said. I know where it’s all at. And then she looked askance at the trees, half amused, half annoyed. You going to Chelan or what?

All right, he said, and got up into the wagon and waved at her. When he was halfway across the pasture he turned and looked back at the cabin, but she was no longer on the lawn, or on the porch.

T
he man, Michaelson—but he was going by De Quincey now, she had heard a guard and a prisoner both call him that—was indeed sickly. What she had first observed in town, when he walked, squinting and disheveled, down the street, was not a passing discomfort but a disease. She did not need to know what it was exactly: only that without an operation, at some point soon, he would die.

He was getting progressively worse. She had been at the jail a month now, and passing outside her bars he was a head hulking against a frame of bones. But even so, hunched over, he was still impressively tall. That old rangy frame. He was not able, because of his sickness, to move freely. When he walked down the hall and passed her cell—holding his arms around his stomach as if holding his insides together—he continued not to see her. But then one day the men were led back in from the exercise yard, and she was at the bars, and he passed her, again behind the other men—the guard had not come in yet, he too lagged behind—and she said his name: Michaelson. He looked over at her, confused, a man coming out of a distant dream. His gaze took a moment to recognize her. But then he continued on, was not impressed, or didn’t care. But it was him, Della thought, coming away from the bars and sitting on her cot. It was him!

C
ome on, said the dough-faced guard.

She was let out once a day into the yard, before the men. She, being the only female, was led out there by herself. She walked a circle just shy of the perimeter, strolling but not lingering too much in one place lest she draw attention to herself. Every once in a while she would look over her shoulder and seek the whereabouts of the guard. If he was not looking, or dozing—the dough-faced guard was prone to napping—then she would bend and pick up an object from the ground that might be of use later. If he was looking, she would pretend to be tying her bootlaces. Some stick, wedged into her boot. Rocks, the same. A glass bottle she stuck down the front of her pants.

The guards were lax about patting her down: she amassed a collection of objects in her cell, stuck them in a split in her mattress.