To Helen Back (7 page)

Chapter 13

I
DA
B
ELL AND
Dorothy Feeny decamped from Ida’s mud-splattered Jeep parked on the shoulder of the River Road.

There was no ribbon of footpath before them, not even a dirt road that led onto the property situated barely a half mile up the road from River Bend. The only indication that others had been there recently was a succession of crisscrossing tire tracks, which made parallel lines of mud where weeds and grass had once grown, and an enormous billboard perched incongruously before the fog of trees and brush.

FUTURE SIT
E OF WET ’N’ WOOLLY WATER PARK!
the sign proclaimed in brilliant blue letters.
Opening next summer!
was added beneath in hot pink.

Merely reading the words made Ida feel sick.

She buoyed her spirits with the thought that Milton Grone was out of the way so there was a chance, however small, that she might put a stop to the construction before it ever came to pass.

Just a few hours after the funeral service, she’d gotten wind of a ceremonial ground-breaking involving several token suits from Wet ’n’ Woolly’s corporate office, as well as a photographer and reporter dispatched from the
Alton Telegraph
. Rumor had it that a bulldozer hired by the company planned to knock down a small tree or two in a show of force, a promise of how they intended to turn this pristine land into a concrete and plastic jungle despite the small but vocal opposition.

Ida had tried to round up as many of her fellow environmentalists as possible, so that they’d be able to present a strong front against the heartless bullies. She’d spent a better part of the morning, in fact, dialing up one after another of her comrades.

But her watch showed a quarter to twelve already, and so far she and Dot were the only ones who’d appeared.

“To think someone could sell all of this for mere money,” she said, and waved a callused hand at the copse of trees below the craggy bluffs. She screwed up her face, fighting the sudden urge to spit. “It makes me mad as hell, Dotty. Mad as hell.”

“Me, too,” Dot chirruped from beside her as they pulled up the Jeep’s soft cover and retrieved two of the protest signs they’d brought.

Handmade on poster board and stapled onto two-by-fours, Ida’s said bluntly:
Murderers!
Though slightly tamer by comparison, Dot’s was no less spirited.
Wet ’n’ Woolly,
she’d written,
Nature’s Bully!

Several additional signs lay in the back of the car, brought along for any of their cohorts who arrived unprepared. Only, it appeared those would go unused.

Ida glanced at her battered watch.

Eight minutes till noon.

She joined Dot in leaning against the hood of the Jeep, watching as a dusty pickup or car swept past them in a whoosh of dust and wind, headed up the highway toward Grafton.

“I’ll be honest with you, Dot,” Ida said, wrinkling her nose as grit from the air settled down on them. “I had a hard time keeping my emotions in check this morning.” The white featherlike seeds from cottonwoods blew into her face and stuck in her hair. She didn’t bother to brush them out. “It was all I could do not to stand up and cheer during that eulogy of Fister’s.”

“Ida, watch what you say!” Dot warned her, wide eyes blinking as she glanced around them and then heavenward. “It’s bad luck to speak ill of the dead.”

Ida snorted. “And why shouldn’t I?” she asked. “I never spoke well of him when he was alive. I’d be a hypocrite to do it now.”

“Goodness, but that’s awfully strong talk,” Dot responded, and fanned at her flushed cheeks with a liver-spotted hand. She frowned. “Though it’s true, I guess, that no one much liked the man except his second wife.”

“Two of a kind, I’d say,” Ida remarked. A cottony tuft stuck to her eyelash, and she promptly plucked it off. “She’s rotten, too, and no more concerned about the wildlife than he was. I can’t help but think it would’ve saved us a great deal of trouble if she’d joined him on his trip to Hades—”

“Ida!” Dot stopped her from going further. “Don’t judge the poor woman too harshly,” her friend said gently. “It’s not her fault the contract’s already been signed. The deal has been struck, and there’s no going back.”

Ida scowled. “That might be true as far as the law’s concerned, but it certainly won’t stop me from trying to put a halt to this destruction. I’ll do whatever I have to, no matter how much blood I get on my hands.”

“Ida!” Dot blanched.

“Figuratively, of course,” she said, and Dot nodded.

Though Ida knew she’d do whatever it took to stop the construction of Wet ’n’ Woolly. She’d grown up around here, had been raised on a farm in Jerseyville and moved to River Bend when she graduated from Illinois Agricultural.

She’d watched as so-called civilization had encroached on the area. Pollution poisoned the air, pumped out of smokestacks from electrical and industrial plants on either side of the river. She ground her teeth, thinking of the waste dumped into the Mississippi waters, lending new meaning to its label as “muddy.” It was surely brown as chocolate milk, but hardly safe to drink. “Don’t eat the catfish either,” she murmured, remembering when it wasn’t toxic to do so. Well, she wouldn’t let them ruin this valley so near to her home. She wouldn’t let them destroy the habitat of countless owl, deer, and rabbit.

“After all,” she said aloud, “the animals can’t speak for themselves, so someone must.”

“I’m with you, don’t forget.” Dot’s round face beamed up.

Ida glanced at her sideways. “No, I doubt if I could ever make that oversight.”

The noisy growl of an engine came into her earshot, and Ida edged around the Jeep, squinting at the van that approached.

“Ah-ha.” It was the boys from the
Telegraph
. She held her sign up and nudged Dot, who raised hers high as well.

The van pulled off the road and onto the shoulder ahead of the Jeep. Its doors came open and two men emerged. A big black camera hung from the neck of one, a tall sort in blue jeans and ponytail; the other, fat and freckled, flipped open a notepad.

“Hey, look who it is, Tom,” the reporter said to his buddy. “Nice ta see you again, Miss Bell. It is Bell, isn’t it?” he asked, scribbling across the paper. He glanced up at her, the grin unhidden on his mouth. “B-e-l-l,” he spelled out, “as in ding-dong?”

Ida stiffened.

The men laughed.

“Please, don’t attack him like the last time,” Dot whispered, and Ida tightened her grip on the two-by-four.

A thunderous noise rent the air, drowning out Ida’s dark thoughts. She turned toward the sound, as did the others, and saw a dirt-splattered bulldozer moving up the highway toward them. A fellow in an orange hard hat sat at its helm, working the gears.

The ground shook beneath Ida’s feet as the tractor came nearer, finally veering off the road and onto a spot very near her jeep. Behind it, a black Mercedes sedan glided onto the shoulder and parked.

The air vibrated as the bulldozer idled, the cacophony nearly drowning out the voices of the men who got out of the car. The driver rolled down his window and lit up a cigarette, but otherwise stayed put.

“Let’s make it quick, all right?” a thin man in a boxy gray suit and red tie loudly barked to the younger chap at his elbow.

“Yes, sir, will do. As fast as we can.” His assistant bobbed his head and scurried around to the trunk to withdraw a shovel. Then he led the way for the impatient executive, picking a path through the knee-high weeds toward the billboard.

The reporter and photographer followed.

Sign in her hand, Ida went after them, Dot bringing up the rear.

Red Tie snarled when he saw the two females. “What’re they doing here?” he shouted at the man with the shovel. “Where’d they come from?”

Ida took a step forward. “We’re from God’s green earth,” she said before the young fellow could reply. “We’re to protect what’s rightfully ours.”

“Rightfully yours?” The suit stared at Ida, eyes narrowed in disgust. He turned to his assistant and jerked a thumb. “Who’n the hell’s that?”

“She’s a protestor, Mr. Ridgely.”

“I can see that, Johnson.”

“It’s best to ignore them, sir.”

Cheeks flushed, Ridgely nodded and reached up to fiddle with the knot of his tie. “Yes, ignore them,” he repeated. “How much damage could two little old ladies cause?” He snapped his fingers at the pair from the
Telegraph
, and they hurried to his side like anxious pups.

Ida lowered her sign and stood in silence, fuming as she watched the Wet ’n’ Woolly executive pose for a picture, his grin as wide as the Cheshire cat, the large blue and pink sign a backdrop behind him as he pressed the tip of the shovel to the dirt. He propped the toe of a leather oxford gingerly atop the metal spade, as if about to push the blade into the ground.

Several yards away, the bulldozer waited for the go-ahead, the groan of its motor like a growling pit bull straining at its leash.

The reporter jotted down whatever Ridgely’s assistant was telling him, while the photographer moved from one spot to the next, getting shots from all possible angles.

At Ida’s elbow, Dot sighed noisily. “I guess he’s right,” she said. “What could a couple of antiques like us do to a big corporation like Wet ’n’ Woolly? We might as well go on home now. It is time for lunch.”

Ida didn’t answer.

She held her head high and the sign even higher. She fixed her gaze dead-ahead on one man in particular, unwilling to bend.

“Ida, I said maybe we should go back . . .”

“Did MacArthur throw in the towel?” she argued under her breath. “Did Eisenhower capitulate? Did Lee?” she uttered, every muscle within her thin body tensed.

“But Lee surrendered at Appomattox,” Dot told her, and poked her side.

Ida swatted at her. “Pish posh!” she hissed, and shook with indignation. “I will not be defeated now nor ever, do you hear me? I won’t let them win. I won’t!”

“Ida, be reasonable . . .”

But reasonable was the furthest thing from Ida’s mind.

Tossing aside her handmade sign, she strode forward, her riding boots crashing through the high grass.

“Ida, wait!”

But she did not slow her steps or back away when the red-tied Ridgely scowled and screamed at her: “Take your friend and get off this land, old woman, or I’ll have you arrested for trespassing!”

Ida forged ahead, undeterred, brushing off the pale hand of Johnson as he stammered at her, “Please go, ma’am, please.”

Still Ida didn’t hesitate. She stopped only when she stood before Ridgely, staring fearlessly into his face, red with fury.

Then she lunged forward, grabbing the wooden handle of the shovel, jerking him off-balance. His foot, which had been propped atop the metal spade, came up from beneath him.

“Now maybe you’ll listen!” Ida told him, the rise of her voice causing a nest of bluejays to squawk from the branches of a tree above. She brought the shovel up over her shoulder and swung it down like a hatchet.

Dot screamed.

Ridgely flung his arms over his head.

A hand reached out from behind and grabbed Ida’s arm, deflecting the shovel from its mark.

But not before the
Telegraph
photographer snapped a shot of Ida attacking Wet ’n’ Woolly’s senior vice president.

“I could sue you for assault and battery, you crazy hen!” Ridgely shouted as Ida marched undaunted toward the Jeep. A string of curses reached her ears as she tossed the signs into the back of the car, not bothering to fasten the soft cover.

“Come along, Dot,” she said to her wide-eyed partner, climbing up and into her seat behind the wheel.

With a squeal of tires, she pulled the Jeep onto the highway, U-turning across the yellow line between the lanes. Then she headed away from the construction site, thinking as she raced back to town that it was too bad she’d been stopped from banging that foul-mouthed Ridgely on top of his fat head.

It might have rid the world of one more despicable fellow.

Chapter 14

S
UNDAY DAWNED WITH
nary a storm cloud on the horizon. The air seemed oddly calm, Helen thought, peaceful after the rather turbulent days that had preceded it.

The bells from the chapel clanged promptly at eight and then again at half-past when the morning service was to start.

The half-dozen members of the church choir stood on the dais singing “The Garden of Prayer” as Helen entered in the company of Clara Foley and Lola Mueller.

Fanny and Amos Melville greeted them as they passed through the vestibule. The pair handed out copies of the morning’s program and welcomed all with warm hellos.

Madeline Fister sat at the helm of the old organ again, and Helen supposed Emma MacGregor must still be having those arthritis flare-ups. The girl played in the same hesitant manner as she had at the funeral service. Helen wondered if she felt no better now than she had then.

Slipping into a pew midway up the aisle, Helen scooted in beside Clara. Within another few minutes the place was nearly filled.

The choir sung the final chorus of the hymn, the birdlike soprano and bullfrog bass of their voices trailing off. There was a moment of relative quiet, of rustling programs and whispers, before Earnest Fister emerged from the door to the right of the dais and approached the pulpit. He was draped in his familiar white robe, his bearded countenance as solemn as ever. “Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning, Dr. Fister,” Helen said, joining in with the congregation’s dutiful reply.

He shuffled the notes he’d set to the side of a Bible stuffed with bookmarks. “I’d like to thank you all for coming on this particular Sunday morning. I know the past several days have been hard on all of us, so it’s especially good to see you here.” He nodded his head, but Helen saw no trace of a smile. “I’d also like to thank my daughter, Madeline,” he added, gesturing at the girl. “She’s agreed to play for us again, as Emma’s still not up to par, though she’s certainly in our prayers.”

Helen glanced up from her seat in the sixth row, peering between the heads before her. Madeline Fister did not acknowledge her father’s words; indeed, she sat on the bench at the organ, her hands in her lap, eyes downcast.

She looked, Helen thought, truly miserable. Her complexion was more sallow than during the funeral service, if that was possible. Her hair hung limply in her eyes without a headband to restrain it. The dark strands fell about her like a half-drawn curtain.

“I think a most appropriate theme for this morning’s sermon is truth,” Fister said, and paused to clear his throat. Then he gripped the pulpit with both hands. “In these difficult times we live in, it seems that this much-valued quality of truth has become more and more elusive. What we find in its stead is dishonesty. Lies. Empty promises that can never be fulfilled.” His voice slipped into its soothing monotone, the sound of it so lulling that Helen was tempted to close her eyes and nod off.

Beside her, Clara Foley yawned unabashedly, stirring up the hair on the head of the fellow in the pew before her. Helen gave Clara a nudge, and she covered her open mouth with the palm of her hand.

“Why is it so hard for us to be honest with each other? Why does it seem so impossible to be our true selves every minute of each day instead of donning masks for different occasions?” Fister asked, and his dark eyes swept across the room. “Can we halt the spread of lies,” he went on, “and instead speak only what is real, what is right?”

Helen found herself looking down at her hands, and she fiddled with her wedding ring. Clara shifted her rather ample rear end, bumping Helen and muttering an apology before she stopped fidgeting. Helen heard a smattering of coughs and then what sounded like a snore.

“Mark, Chapter Four,” Fister said, and tapped a finger to the thick Bible before him as he read: “ ‘And he said to them, “Is there a lamp brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed, and not on a stand? For there is nothing hid, except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret, except to come to light . . .” ’ ”

Despite how hard she tried to focus, Helen’s mind wandered, and she glanced at those around her. She thought of Milton Grone’s widow and wondered if she’d attended the service. Though she sought out the frizzy blond mop that identified Shotsie Grone, she couldn’t find her. Helen knew she hadn’t seen her upon entering the chapel. Perhaps Shotsie had come in late and slipped into a pew farther back. Or, more likely, she hadn’t come at all. Milton had never been a churchgoer, and Shotsie always seemed to follow his lead.

Delilah had not lived quite as much in Milton’s shadow. She’d made an impression on the town all her own after she wed Milt several decades before. Before their children were born, she’d tried joining the bridge club for a spell and had once volunteered at the annual bake sale. But her attempt to blend in had been brief and ineffective.

Shotsie had been more invisible. Many townsfolk had not even known what Milton’s second wife looked like until a year or more after the couple was married.

Helen tried to recall if Milton Grone had ever attended a town meeting. After a moment’s pause, she nodded as a vivid image came suddenly to mind. On a Thursday night after Gerald Grone had died, Milton strode into town hall and interrupted the proceedings. He’d nearly caused a brawl when he told the gathered crowd that the land promised to River Bend by his father was not theirs at all but his own. They had no document to back up their claim, so the property was his, he reminded them. And if they wanted it, they’d have to pony up a seven-figure sum.

It was but three days ago that Shotsie had popped into a Thursday night meeting and nearly started a fistfight with Ida Bell.

Helen sighed quietly, finding it disturbing that two generations of Grone men had died, leaving townsfolk feuding over the same patch of land.

Only, this time, there would be no question about to whom that land belonged. Milton had closed the deal with Wet ’n’ Woolly weeks ago, though that hardly put a stop to the opposition. And no one, she decided, was more opposed than Ida Bell.

She smiled, remembering the photograph she’d seen on the front page of the
Alton Telegraph
: Ida with a shovel raised high in the air, looking mad as hell. Below her a balding man cringed, arms outstretched.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS,
it had read, and in smaller print below it:
Naturalist Ida Bell Threatens Wet ’n’ Woolly Veep During Ground-breaking.

Oh, Ida! She felt a bubble of laughter tickle her throat, though she fought to suppress it. It would hardly do for her to erupt into giggles in the midst of Dr. Fister’s sermon.

Settling her hands in her lap, Helen tried to be good.

“Despite what television and the movies seem to be telling us—that children are cute when they lie, that it’s amusing to deceive—we must realize deep within ourselves that it simply isn’t so. We must teach our children that to hide the truth is wrong, that to prevaricate is harmful. As it says here in Proverbs . . .”

Once again Helen’s mind drifted, and she found herself staring at Madeline Fister seated at the organ.

The girl didn’t look at all well, she decided. She seemed to sway upon the stool, and her hands gripped the sides of the organ to hold herself steady. Helen worried that she might collapse again, but she did not fall. Instead she lifted her head higher as her father gave a nod, and she pumped her feet, plucking out the notes to “Lead, Kindly Light.”

Her strokes did not flow so much as hesitate every now and again, so that the congregation, singing along, appeared to pause with her and then speed up again.

Clara gave her a nudge, and Helen fixed her gaze on the hymnal held open in Clara’s plump hands. “ ‘Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom . . .’ ” Helen sang along, wincing as her friend’s tremulous falsetto rang painfully in her ear.

“ ‘ . . . the night is dark, and I am far from home . . .’ ”

Maddy stumbled on a wrong note, and Helen’s voice flagged with the rest of the congregation until the girl found her way once more.

“ ‘ . . . the distant scene, one step enough for me. Ahh-men.’ ”

The congregation drew out the last word, the organ winding down, and Fister resumed his sermon, adroitly turning talk of truth and light into the subject of donations.

Right on cue, a pair of men rose from their seats in the foremost pew, going forward to the dais to collect two gilded plates from the minister. The choir stood as well, and formed two neat rows beside the pulpit. While they harmonized to yet another inspirational piece, the men went about the collection.

Madeline hunched over the keys, her face slick beneath the lights. Her fingers stuttered and stammered, though she covered up her mistakes well enough for most not to have noticed. After all, they were used to Emma MacGregor, who was hardly a virtuoso where the pump organ was concerned. Emma made errors often, though no one was ever unkind enough to remark upon them. Helen found it amazing that a woman whose fingers were constantly swollen with arthritis could still play as well as she did and on so many Sunday mornings.

When the song concluded, Helen saw Madeline rise to her feet and dash through the door that led to Fister’s office.

She glanced around her, but no one else seemed startled by the girl’s departure. In fact, she doubted if anyone noticed, as the choir dispersed to their seats and the pair passing the plates continued to move about.

Was she truly ill? Helen wondered, her eyes shifting to Fister, standing in his robes at the pulpit, his sober face focused on the pages of the open Bible.

Did the child need help?

Madeline
was
seventeen, she reminded herself, hardly a baby. Should the girl want assistance, she’d no doubt ask for it. Though her decision left her feeling uncomfortable, she stayed put until the service ended and Dr. Fister closed his Bible and stepped off the dais, leading an exodus from the church.

Helen remained inside, moving against the departing crush, edging her way up the aisle, past the pulpit, and through the door where Madeline had made her escape earlier.

“Maddy?” she said as she looked across the cramped room: at the old wooden desk where Earnest Fister no doubt sat to compose his various lessons, and at the overstuffed couch and end tables topped with mismatched lamps. Then her eyes went to the stained-glass window. The sun penetrated the colored panes, touching the plain pine planks below with a prismlike rainbow.

She stared at the depiction of the Virgin and baby Jesus, and thought suddenly of the day when the window had been put in. There’d been a lengthy renovation of the chapel, something Gerald Grone had done his part to finance. New floorboards had replaced rotting ones, electrical outlets were repaired, sturdy shingles covered a once-leaky roof, and fresh exterior paint lent brightness to a façade that over the years had cracked and peeled.

DONATED BY G
ERALD AND EDA GRONE,
the bronzed plaque beneath the window read, and Helen shook her head, wondering what Gerald and Eda would think of Milton’s deal with Wet ’n’ Woolly. She doubted their reaction would be anything but sad.

A small noise cut into her consciousness, and she turned around, thinking she heard a voice. Had someone called out?

The door to the attached bathroom stood slightly ajar. Helen could see no light on inside, but again heard the sound. It was rather like a low moan, a stifled cry.

Without further pause, she hurried to the door and pushed it wide.

Madeline lay curled on the floor in a fetal position. Her dark hair stuck to skin damp with sweat. Her thin arms hugged her knees. Her body convulsed, and a frightened groan passed through her lips, though the girl fought to smother it. She pressed her wrist to her mouth and bit down on it like a gag.

“Oh my,” Helen murmured, “oh my.”

The girl moaned again, and Helen quickly set aside her purse and knelt beside her. She brushed back the stringy hair exposing Maddy’s frightened eyes, her delicate features screwed up with pain.

“Good Lord, what’s wrong?”

Maddy’s eyes welled with tears. At Helen’s touch on her feverish brow, the tears broke loose. “I . . .” she tried to get out, but another spasm shook her. She squeezed her eyes shut again until it passed. “The baby,” she uttered between sobs so tremulous Helen wasn’t sure she’d heard right.

“The baby,” Maddy breathed. “Something’s wrong.”

Helen stiffened.

“Please, help me.”

“Hold on, dear, hold on,” Helen told her quite firmly, slipping her purse beneath the girl’s head. Then she rose to her feet, hurrying toward the door and through the chapel as fast as her legs would carry her.