Tisha (29 page)

It was just after the class came back from lunch. It was sixty below that day and the little children were using my bed again. I was beginning to think the bed was the most important article of furniture I had. Besides the kids using it when the floor was too cold, Nancy and I had had to put our sack of potatoes in it because it was the only place we could be sure they wouldn’t freeze.

We were tidying up in my quarters when I heard Evelyn Vaughn start up with Rebekah in the schoolroom. “Hey, Rebekah—how much two and two?”

“Fo’.”

“How much one and two?”

“Tree.”

“How much free and two?” she mimicked.

“Fi.’ “

“Rebekah, me think you one damn smart woman,” Evelyn said, “right Eleanor?”

“That’s right.”

At first I used to interfere when anybody made fun of her, but by now she could take care of herself.

“Oh no,” she said to Evelyn as I walked into the room. “You not think Rebekah smart, little lady. You think
you
too much smart. Think you not speak good English and Rebekah not know.”

Evelyn looked as though she was sorry she’d started, but Rebekah wasn’t going to have any mercy on her. She was as tough as Evelyn anytime, and a lot smarter. She opened her eyes wide and pointed a finger at her. “You not be nice I make bad medicine. Send Brush Man get you at night.”

“Who’s the Brush Man?” Evelyn asked, uncertainly. Rebekah’s expression was so horrible the whole class was spellbound.

“You not know Brush Man?”

“No.”

“He live all over—in tree, in hole, anyplace—only come out when dark.”

“I don’t believe it,” Evelyn said. She was afraid of the dark and everyone knew it.

“Aagh!” Rebekah cried. The sound was as terrible as her expression. “You say this, Brush Man get you for sure! You know how when too much cold you see little blue light in bushes?” I’d seen it myself once in a while—static electricity. “That tell you Brush Man near. But you never see him till he grab you—
then
you see him, ha ha.”

“What’s he look like?” Evelyn asked. She was trying to make out that she didn’t care, but she was worried.

Not taking her eyes off Evelyn, Rebekah raised her hands over her head and bared her teeth. “Ten feet big,” she growled, “maybe more. Much hair. Face all black from cold and long teeth like grizzly. Yellow eyes like punkin. My father big medicine man, tell me how bring him. You make more fun me,” she warned Evelyn, “I send Brush Man for
you!”

In the silence that followed we heard three distant rifle shots, one right after the other. We all knew what that meant. Someone was calling for help. I asked the class to sit quietly while Nancy put on her coat and went outside to see if anyone knew where they’d come from. She came back a few minutes later. “The Carews think they came from somewhere over towards the Purdys,” she said. “Your mother and father’s goin’ over,” she told Jimmy. “They said you and Willard could go along.”

After that there was no keeping the rest of the class in, so I let them all go, with the exception of Joan Simpson. Three more shots came as they all ran out.

“I think maybe come from Mary Angus, Tisha,” Rebekah said.

“You feel like going over?” I asked Nancy.

“If you want.”

Outside, even though I had a scarf over my face the first breath I took caught in my throat. Before we could head over to Mary’s we had to take Joan Simpson home. She was too young to let her go alone. For the first few steps our warm moccasins slipped on the snow, but then the bottoms coated up and we were able to walk. Joan lived in the opposite direction. It took us fifteen minutes to get to her cabin, and then we started back for Mary Angus’ place. A gray-black mist hung over everything, and the cold made it impossible to talk, so we trudged all the way in silence, moving fast enough to stay warm, slow enough to avoid perspiring.

The kids were playing outside the shack when we got there. A couple of them were riding in Mary’s hand sled while Robert Merriweather pulled it and Jimmy pushed from behind yelling, “Mush!” As soon as they saw Nancy and me they came running over.

“Mary’s dead, Teacher!” Jimmy yelled.

“Dead as a doornail,” Willard chimed in.

“And there’s blood all over the place. They won’t even let us come in. Ask ’em if they will, Teacher? We wanna see.”

Jake Harrington was standing outside the door with Rebekah.

“Is it true?” I asked them.

Jake nodded. I pushed the door open. There were a lot of people inside, but only a sputtering candle for light so at first I could only make out Angela, the Carews and Joe Temple. “Close that goddamn door before this candle goes out!” I heard Angela yell.

I closed it

“Well, it’s our little teacher,” she said sarcastically. She was drunk, smiling at me in a way that made it plain she didn’t have any use for me. She’d been drinking more than ever the past few weeks and getting worse every day. A few days ago in the roadhouse Ben Norvall had said something she didn’t like and she went after him and gave him a couple of good wallops before anybody could stop her. He was in a corner with Chuck, the two of them bending down over what must have been Mary’s body. Ben was covering her up with a wolf robe.

“What happened?” I asked Maggie.

“She musta hemorrhaged,” Maggie said. “When they get as far gone as she was they go fast.”

Mr. Vaughn was there too. “Take a slant at her,” he said, jerking a thumb towards the corner. “See what a good klooch looks like.”

“There’s no need for that kinda talk, Arnold,” Maggie said. “We’re tryin’ a decide what to do,” she said to me. “Joe here’s gonna get his sled and mush the body over to our place. We’ll keep it in the extra cache till Strong can tote it up to the Indian village, but we ain’t figgered out what to do with the kids yet.”

Now that my eyes had adjusted to the darkness I saw Ethel. She was sitting on a box, with nobody paying attention to her. She was wide-eyed and scared from all the commotion. I went over to her.

“How about it, Joe,” Angela said. “You gonna take the kids?”

“What am I supposed to do with them?”

“All you gotta do is keep ’em a week or so,” Maggie said. “Then Strong’ll mush ’em outta here.”

“I don’t know anything about taking care of kids,” he said.

“That’s what they all say,” Angela said. “They can
make ’em, but they don’t know how to take care of ’em.”

Ben and Chuck got up from Mary’s body. I was glad Ben had covered it with the wolf robe. I didn’t want to see it There was blood on the edge of the mattress and a big pool of it on the dirt floor that was all frozen and blackened. Chuck was in shock. I put an arm around him and he just let me hold him without making a sound. ‘This one had it the worst,” Ben said, putting a hand on Ethel’s head. “I was going by and didn’t see any smoke coming from the chimney. Came in and she was sitting alongside Mary there.” He patted her head. “If ol’ Ben hadn’t happened by,” he said to her, “you’d liable to have froze to death.”

“Maybe she’d of been better off,” Maggie said.

“That’s sure as hell true,” Angela said. “She certainly ain’t got nothin’ to look for’ard to in that Indian village.” She took out a flask and drank a couple of mouthfuls.

Mr. Carew spoke up. “Unless we’re gonna stand around here jawin’ all day, let’s decide what we do with the kids.”

Chuck was limp against me. I put a hand on his shoulder.

Angela said, “I vote Joe takes ’em. Teach ’im a good lesson.”

“That’s not funny. I told you before I wouldn’t know what to do with them.”

“How about you, Maggie?” Angela asked. “You got the bunkhouse.”

“I got my own to look after.”

“I’ll take them,” I said to Joe.

“
You
’ll take ’em!” Angela said.

“Yes.”

“How are you going to take care of them and teach school too?” Mr. Vaughn asked.

“I can manage it.”

“That’s fine with me,” Joe said, relieved. “Thanks. Anne.”

“I don’t think it’s right,” Mr. Vaughn said.

“I agree with ’im,” Maggie said. “She’s just a kid.”

“Then why don’t you take them?” Joe snapped at her.

She looked as if she was considering it and for a few seconds I held my breath. I wanted them. I wanted them badly.

“I got my own,” she repeated.

“They’re all yours,” Joe said to me.

I picked up Ethel. “You take Chuck,” I said to Nancy.

“Sure.” She was a little surprised.

Nobody made a move to get out of the way. They just stared at me as if I was some kind of a circus freak.

“Anybody else want them?” I said.

Nobody answered.

“Then if nobody minds, we’ll take these children home.”

Ethel was quiet until we reached the door. Then she realized that I was taking her away and she began to scream. By the time we were outside she was fighting me tooth and nail and I had to let her down. Even then I could barely stop her from running back inside the shack. She was just too young to realize her mother was dead.

If it hadn’t been for Ben Norvall I don’t know how we’d have gotten her home. He went and got Mary’s hand sled from the kids, then helped me tuck a blanket around Ethel and tie her into the sled. It was the only way we could get her out of there. She wouldn’t even pay any attention to Chuck when he tried to talk to her.

Harnessing myself to the sled, I started pulling, but
I hadn’t gone twenty yards before my lungs felt as though I were breathing fire. I was so rattled I’d forgotten to put a scarf over my mouth.

It was hard going, the snow so dry that it tugged at the runners like sand. After ten minutes Nancy took over, and all the way back to the house Ethel kept screaming and struggling. When she threw her head back the first time and I saw her face I thought for a second something terrible had happened to her—until I realized it was her tears. They’d frozen all around her eyes.

By the time we were inside the house, Nancy’s cheeks and nose had turned white, and from the numbness I felt I knew mine had too. Ethel ran straight under the table and sat there crying. And no sooner was Chuck inside than he started crying too.

Nancy put the kettle on for tea while I tried to console him. It took a while before he was able to stop, and then he wanted to know when his mother was going to wake up. I had to tell him that she wasn’t going to, that she was dead. Even though he knew what the word meant he couldn’t accept it as meaning he’d never see her again. “Who take care me now?” he asked me.

“I’m going to take care of you.”

“When my mudda come?”

“She’s not going to. You’re going to stay here with me and Nancy. Chuck—” He looked as though he was going to start crying again. “I need your help. Can you help me? The first thing we have to do is explain to Ethel that she has nothing to be afraid of here. She doesn’t understand what’s happened. You’re going to have to tell her. Can you do that?”

He went over to the table and kneeled down beside his sister. She was still sniffling, but she listened to him. She almost started crying again at one point, but he made her stop. They exchanged some words, and when they were done she looked kind of lost. She let Chuck lead her out from under the table. My sense of smell had been frozen up to then, but it came back just as Ethel stood up. The worst odor in the world hit me. Her parka was covered with grease and old food, but that wasn’t what it was coming from.

Nancy wrinkled her nose. “She must have done something in her pants.”

“We’ll have to give her a bath.”

“The sooner the better,” Nancy said. “Pee-yew.”

While the water was simmering on the stove there was a knock at the door. It was Maggie and her husband with Chuck’s and Ethel’s things, some moccasins and clothing, a .22 rifle and a couple of pairs of children’s snowshoes.

After we had enough hot water in the washtub I took off Ethel’s parka, but when I tried to take off her clothes she pulled away and began to cry. I asked Chuck what was wrong.

“She not like take off clothes,” he said. “Nevuh take off.”

“She has to have a bath.”

Chuck explained to her in Indian, pointing to the washtub. She shook her head. It was no.

“You better tell her she’s going to have to,” I said. “There’s no two ways about it.”

That did it. He explained, she took one look at Nancy and me and the next moment she dived under the bed. There was nothing else for it but to go after her, which we did. I got a bite on the hand and Nancy a good healthy kick before we dragged her out screaming to high heaven. Chuck put his fingers in his ears, and while Nancy held onto her I took off her clothes—knee-length moccasins, a light jacket, and a calico dress with another cotton dress underneath. Her undergarment had me stumped when I got to it. It was tight-fitting, like a union suit. It even had a drop seat, but there were no buttons up the front.

“What is it?” I asked Nancy.

“Indian-style underwear. The mothers sew ’em up in it around October and it stays on till April.”

“How do you get it off?”

“Cut it off.”

I got a pair of scissors and Nancy held her still, but as soon as I started to cut Ethel panicked. She struggled and screamed so loud it made my eardrums ache. It scared Chuck, and he began to cry in sympathy. I stopped, not knowing what to do.

“She’s gotta have a bath, Anne,” Nancy said.

I knew that, but I couldn’t help feeling like a villain. The best thing to do, I thought, was get Chuck out so he wouldn’t have to watch.

“Ugh,” Nancy said, trying to hold Ethel away from her. I didn’t blame her. The drop seat was brown, soggy and foul. Some of the stuff was on me too.

“Chuck, are you hungry?”

He said he was, and as soon as he stopped crying I got him into his parka and brought him over to the roadhouse. After I explained what was going on to Maggie, she said she’d give him something to eat and keep him until I came over for him.

When I got back, Ethel and Nancy were just as I’d left them. Ethel was still in tears. As soon as I came near her with the scissors again she was so terrified she tried to climb Nancy.

“Maybe if we gave her something to eat first she’d calm down,” I said. “She loves bread and butter and honey.”