Dakota Dusk (2 page)

All his life, Dag this and Dag that. And now his brother had a wife that all the town praised while his wife mewled from the back of the wagon. The flames flared higher.

The horse broke into a trot. Augusta clutched the side of the wooden bench. Jude heard a whimper from behind him. Even his mother had gone against him. Here she was, glad they were coming because they brought a good supper. He sucked the juice out of his chaw and spat it off the side of the wagon. It’d be a long time before he sat down to eat with his brother.

When they reached the farm, Jude leaped from the wagon, helped the womenfolk down, and trotted the horse down to the barn. He secreted his bottle down into the grain bin. Now he could take a swig when he needed one and no one would be the wiser.

As soon as the dog barked a welcome for Dag and Clara, Jude slipped out the back door, telling his mother he was off to do the chores.

“You be ready for supper in about an hour?” she asked as the door slammed behind Jude’s hurrying form. He lurked behind the corner until he heard the visitors go inside the house.

The internal muttering continued while he threw grain to the chickens and walked out in the pasture to round up the milk cow. Usually she waited patiently beside the barn. But today everything was going wrong, even the cow. When he finally found her, laying down in a slight dip in the sparsely grassed field, chewing her cud, he hurried her up to the barn. Udder swinging, she trotted to the barn door and stopped. The look she shot him from over one shoulder would have rebuked a more tenderhearted man.

As Jude swung open the door, he slapped her on the rump. When he slammed the wooden stanchion bar in place, it pinched her neck. She lowed in protest.

Jude stomped off to the well house for the milk bucket. A slight smile lifted the corners of his mouth when he dug the grain out of the bin. His bottle lay snug in the bin, covered by the golden oats. His mouth watered at the thought. He brushed the grain away and lifted the bottle, sloshing the liquid inside. Did he dare? He shoved it back into its nest. Not now . . . not with Dag on the prowl.

As he milked the cow, its milk streamed into the bucket, the
swish, swish
a music all its own. The milking song covered the sound of the door opening.

“Hello.”

At the sound of his brother’s voice, Jude jerked on the cow’s teats. Before he could recover, the cow planted her foot squarely in the bucket and her tail whipped him across the eyes.

Jude leaped to his feet, milk running down his pant legs. “Did ya have to scare a body to death, creeping up thata way? Look what you made me do.” He turned on his brother, fury transforming his handsome face to a mask of hatred.

“I’m sorry I startled you.” Dag, his white shirt glistening in the dimness of the barn, crossed his arms over his chest. “But you and I need to talk and this is the only way I could see how to do so without the women around.”

“I don’t need to talk with you.” Jude dumped the milk in a pan for the cats and, after rinsing the bucket out, returned to his stool. “ ’Sides, I gotta finish here.”

“I’ll make this short and sweet. Ma says you have come home to help her out. We both know she needs help here since the last hired man quit. She can’t manage all alone.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here.” Jude returned to the squeeze and pull of milking.

“But the truth of the matter is that I’ve been bringing her supplies and paying her bills at the stores in town.”

“So, you want a medal or somethin’?” Jude pushed his head harder against the cow’s flank.

“No, I just don’t want to see your tobacco on the tab. And I don’t want to hear you’re in town gambling and drinking. That would break Ma’s heart, she’s so glad to have you home again. So the rules are: no drinking, no gambling, and you buy your own tobacco and cigars.”

“Who do you think you are, coming here and trying to tell me what to do with my life?” Jude stripped the last drops of milk from the cow’s udder and shoved himself to his feet.

“I’m your brother, your older brother, and right now you need to join us for supper. Clara and Ma have it on the table. I’d like you to meet my wife since you had such a hand in bringing her to me. I never had a chance to thank you for that, you know.” He offered his hand in gratitude.

Jude pushed aside the extended hand and, after releasing the cow, stalked off to the well house.

While the meal was indeed tasty, as Augusta had promised, Jude squirmed whenever he looked across the table to the woman who smiled so lovingly at his brother. Her laugh, her intense blue eyes, the golden hair waving down her back, the way she charmed his mother—they all irritated him. Especially when he glanced at the washed-out woman sitting beside him.

And the look of Dag himself. Had that man really been hiding under the dirt and stench of the blacksmith? And the way he talked. Why, one would think Dag had been to school for years. And Jude knew for sure that that hadn’t been the case.

The apple pie Jude was eating was turning into prairie straw in his mouth. Jude shoved away from the table, mumbling that he had something he had to do. He didn’t return to the house until everyone else had gone to bed.

The next few days did nothing to alleviate the anger festering in Jude’s heart. A coyote raided the chicken house and killed three of their best laying hens. Every time Jude tried to fix something, he needed a new part or another piece of lumber or fencing wire. Only his secret friend buried in the grain bin consoled him.

One day the sun scorched the earth, ignoring the fact that fall was supposedly on the way. The sun burned down on Jude’s head as he dug the few remaining potatoes and dumped them in the cellar. The cow came into estrus and broke through the fence to go visit the neighbor’s bull, so he not only had to bring her back but had to repair the fence. All day his temper broiled along with the heat devils whirling away over the prairie.

Supper that day was a silent affair. Even Augusta relaxed her steel spine to sit down on the rear porch and fan herself with her apron.

“You’d think this was July rather than September,” she said as she wiped the beads of moisture from her upper lip.

Jude merely grunted. The thought of his bottle down in the barn made his mouth prickle.

“Think I’ll go on up to bed.” Melissa stood in the doorway wiping her hands on her apron.

“Think I’ll go on into town.” Jude spit a gob of tobacco juice off the porch onto the hard-packed earth.

“What for?” Augusta jerked awake from her slight doze.

“Just to talk to the fellas at the mercantile. Find out where we can get some cheap grain. Not much left out in the barn.”

“You won’t go near the sa—” Melissa cut off her question at the fierce look Jude fired at her.

“You can go to the store tomorrow.” Augusta drew herself up in the rocking chair. “It will be closed before you get there. The only place open in Soldahl at this hour is the saloon.” Her voice brooked no argument.

“If I say I go now, I’ll go—”

This time it was the mother’s look that stopped the son.

Jude jerked open the screen door, shoved past his wife, knocking her against the counter, and stormed into the sitting room. He dug a cigar out of the humidor and stomped back into the kitchen to light it in the embers of the stove.

But instead of leaving by the back door, he returned to the sitting room. After kicking the hassock into place in front of the brown velvet chair, he flung himself into the chair and propped his boots on the hassock. The puffs on his cigar sent spirals of smoke drifting to the high ceiling.

Who does she think she is to tell me what to do like that?
His thought kept time with the billows of smoke.
A man should be able to do what he wants in his own house.
He shifted his dusty boots on the hassock, deliberately ignoring the tiny voice that reminded him of the household rules. No smoking in the house and no feet on the furniture. The only time the room was ever used was when company came.

Tonight Jude considered himself company. He ignored Melissa’s quiet “Good night” and refused to respond when his mother started to say something. As the smoke cloud darkened around him, she snorted and made her way upstairs. A lesser woman might have marked her displeasure with heavy feet but not Augusta. Her feelings seemed to float back and freeze the room.

Jude called his mother every name he could think of and then created a few new ones, all in the regions of his mind, of course. When he finished with her, he started on Melissa. Why was he, of all men, so abused?

Sounds ceased from above except for the rhythmic snoring that indicated that his mother had fallen sound asleep. Jude listened carefully. Only the song of his bottle could be heard in the stillness of his mind.

Jude set his cigar on the edge of the small table beside the chair. If he hurried out, he could be back before anyone were the wiser.

The evening breeze that had felt so refreshing on the porch had increased to a wind, raising dust and dancing devils across the empty fields. The harvest moon shone down, lighting the path to the barn like midday.

Jude swung open the barn door and followed his nose to the grain bin. Practice made finding the bottle easy in spite of the darkness that encircled him like a comforting blanket. Out here, no one would try to tell him to remove his feet from the hassock. That’s what footstools were for—resting feet. And chairs for bodies, especially tired bodies like his. His mind kept up the litany of complaints as he jerked the cork out with his teeth, dropped it in his hand, and raised the cool bottle to his lips. The first swallow was all he’d dreamed of.

Jude started to replace the cork, but a glance in the direction of the house and those interfering females made him take another.

After a couple more swigs, he edged his way over to the ladder to the haymow and, clutching his bottle to his chest, clamored up. He snuggled his backside down into the pile of hay and leaned back, exhaling a sigh at the silence and the comfort. No one would look for him here.

Soon his head fell back, the empty bottle slipped from relaxed fingers, and gentle puffings deepened into snores.

“What’s—” Jude struggled up from the bowels of his sleep. What was the dog barking about at this time of night? He blinked, trying to decide where he was. After rubbing a hand across eyes filled with grit, he looked up to see gold lights dancing on the walls and ceiling above him. Was it morning already? He stumbled to his feet.

His mother would rip him limb from limb if she thought he spent the night drinking in the barn.

“Shut up, you stupid dog,” he muttered as he fumbled for the ladder. “You’ll wake the whole world if you haven’t already.”

When Jude stepped from the barn, his heart stopped in his chest. “Oh, no!”

Flames flickered within the downstairs windows of the house, smoke spiraling upward from the open windows.

Jude raced for the back door. His heart pounded in his chest. His mind pleaded for the God he so often profaned to help him get the women out. Surely the barking dog had awakened them, too.

“Ma! Melissa!” His screams rent the air. The wind tossed the sound away, creating instead its own monster song of roaring flames and crashing timbers.

Jude jerked open the door and, arm over his nose and mouth, stumbled through the smoke and heat, searching for the staircase.

The heat beat Jude back. The dog leaped beside him, barking furiously at the flames. Jude choked and coughed, gagging for air as he leaned forward, nearly toppling to the ground. When he got his breath, he stumbled to the rain barrel at the corner of the house, soaked his shirt in the water, and wrapped the wet cloth around his face. After grabbing a deep breath, he charged through the back door.

The fire wasn’t burning as furiously here as he made his way to the stairs. He couldn’t call, saving every breath for the ordeal ahead. But the raging flames beat him out again. As his mind dimmed with the heat and smoke, he turned back. He never noticed the pieces of burning wood peppering his back or the heat searing his lungs. His final cry of “Ma” went no farther than his lips as he collapsed on the ground outside.

“Here he is!” the man yelled. “Jude’s alive, I think.”

“Ma, Melissa.” Jude croaked.

“It’s gone. All gone.” The man draped a wet cloth over Jude’s back and offered him a sip of water.

“Gone?” Jude tried to raise his head. Instead he collapsed into oblivion.

“Dag, I think he’s coming around.”

Jude heard the feminine voice from somewhere down in the chasm where he preferred to remain. At least down there, he didn’t hurt so cruelly. His back, his head, his arms—all on fire. He twisted his face to the side. What was he lying on?

“Drink.” He forced the word through lips that felt coated with some kind of grease. His throat spasmed around the single word.

“Here.” A glass tube appeared between his lips and he sucked greedily.

Where am I? What’s happened?
The thoughts chased through his mind like the flames had—the flames—the house—Ma and Melissa. The memories seared his mind like the flames had seared his back. A groan tore from his heart and forced its way out his throat.

“Easy now.” The voice belonged to his brother, Dag.

“Ma?”

“Send Mrs. Hanson for the doctor.” Dag seemed to be talking from far away.

“Ma.” Jude put all his energy into the request.

“Easy now, Jude. There’s nothing more you can do. You’re at my house and burned terribly. It’s a miracle you’re still alive.”

Jude digested the words. But what about his mother and Melissa? Had they gotten out? He could hear the roar of the flames, the dog barking. Were there screams? He tried to remember.

“How about another drink?” The tube appeared again.

Jude drank gratefully. The cool water slipped down like the elixir of life itself. He fought the pain and the fog trying to blanket his mind. “Ma!”

“She’s gone, Jude. Both of them.”

The simple words sent him spinning back into oblivion. Pain and searing agony brought him back.

The tube appeared and, as before, he drank, sucking in the life-giving moisture. He tried to figure out what he was lying on, but the effort was too great. Instead, he let himself slip back to that no-man’s-land. The pursuing flames of his nightmares hurt far less than the thought of Ma and Melissa dying in the fire.

“How do you think it started?”

Jude heard the voice and fought against the pull back to reality. How did he think it started? How would he know? He’d been out in the barn, slugging down his nightly antidote for living.

“Maybe a lamp?” This voice rang with feminine sweetness.

“We may never know. It was an accident pure and simple.” The gruff voice belonged to a stranger. Who was it?

“Thank you for coming, Doctor.”

Ah, that’s who it was. He’d heard the voice before, sometime during the long, long night.

“You take care of yourself now, too, you hear?” Footsteps faded along with the voice.

While Jude kept his eyes closed, he couldn’t shut off his mind. Ma was always so careful. She always banked the stove. Only used candles in an emergency. How did the fire start? Had there been a lightning storm? He tried to shrug his shoulders to relieve the itching. Instead, he bit his lip against the fiery pain.

“Drink.” He swallowed and forced his voice to obey the command to speak louder. “Drink, please.” The tube appeared at his lips again and he sucked greedily.

“Jude, we have to get some nourishment into you so I’m going to give you some broth by the tube now. Can you manage that?”

Jude knew Clara’s voice by now. He nodded.

This time the drink was warm and tasted of beef and onion.

“How long since the fire?” Jude raised his head and turned to the side so he could see. This laying on his stomach was getting hard to handle.

“A week.” Dag sat down on the floor in front of his brother so they could look each other in the face. “How are you feeling?”

“Guess I’ll live.”

“We were afraid you were gone, too, there for a time.” Dag crossed his legs and leaned against the wall. “Dr. Harmon says it’s a miracle you made it.”

“He the one who rigged this bed?”

“No, I did.” Dag ducked his head in the old habit of humility. “When he said you couldn’t be on your back and you looked like you’d smother on your stomach, I built this. Clara padded it with quilts.”

“I allus knew you could make whatever was needed.” Jude’s voice took on a dreamy quality. It was like looking through a telescope backwards. “Pa said you was one clever boy, even when you was a kid.”

“What?”

“That’s why I teased you so much.”

“Jude, you’re talking through your head. Or are you delirious again?” Dag shook his head with a snort.

“Nah. I hated you sometimes . . . most of the time, you know.”

Jude let his mind float down the telescope. The pain met him halfway down. He slipped off without answering Dag’s last question. How would he know how the fire started?

Just before the blackness claimed him completely, he saw the cigar, smoking on the table in his mother’s sitting room. His cigar! The one he’d left when he headed for the barn. The pain now searing his heart made the pain from his back seem like a hangnail.

When Jude awoke he wished he were dead. Why didn’t they let him die? He wasn’t worth keeping alive. He clenched his teeth and arched his back. The pain drenched him and nothing could erase the agony in his mind. His carelessness killed both Ma and Melissa. How could he live? Why bother?

“Jude, what is it? The pain is worse?” Clara knelt in front of him. “Can I get you something?”

Jude shook his head. He couldn’t tell her. How could he tell anyone?

“Here. I made you some chicken broth this time. Doc says you can have whatever you can swallow. But I know that position makes eating difficult.”

Her caring words drove the nail deeper. He didn’t deserve anyone taking care of him like this. He clenched his teeth against the tube she held to his mouth.
God, please let me die.
He felt like roaring at whatever it was had kept him alive and let them die.

“Jude, you have to eat.” Dag took his place against the wall. “It’s been two days now and you haven’t taken even a sip of water. What is it?”

Jude left the land of the screaming voices and raised his head to look at his brother. Couldn’t he tell? Wasn’t it written across his forehead—MURDERER—in giant red letters.

Jude took a wet cloth and wiped his brother’s face. “Doc says you can get up tomorrow if you are strong enough. He says if we don’t get you moving, you’ll lose all the muscle tone in your back.”

Jude clenched his teeth. All right, tomorrow he’d get up. The sooner he got better, the sooner he could leave. Since he wasn’t dying this way, he could take care of the matter better when he could ride away. He took the offered drink and grunted his thanks.

From then on Jude gritted his teeth against the pain and forced himself to down all the fluids and nourishment he could stand. He did exactly as the doctor ordered, all except the laudanum. He refused to let his mind dwell in that no-man’s-land that the drug brought with it. He didn’t deserve the release.

He still couldn’t lie on his back, so he slept on the slotted bed Dag had devised, where his head fit into a brace and looked straight down. In that position, Jude found he didn’t have to look at anyone unless he wanted to. And he didn’t so choose.

One afternoon when he was lying there, he heard Clara, the doctor, and Dag speaking in the other room while they thought he was sleeping.

“But he was doing so much better. I can’t understand the change,” Clara said.

“Ja, it’s not like Jude to be so silent.” Dag’s voice sounded weary.

“He’s been through a lot. Sometimes accidents like this completely change a person.” Doc paused before continuing. “Thought for a while there when he quit eating and drinking we was gonna lose him after all.”

Ah, if only it were that easy,
Jude thought.
After all the meanness I’ve bothered my brother with all these years, I couldn’t quit and die on him in his own home. How can the man treat me with such love and gentleness when all these years . . .
His mind drifted back, picking out the instances of his cruelty and he winced.

If his mother’s ideas of the Maker’s judgments were true, he’d not be standing in line for angel’s wings, that’s for sure. He had to get well enough to get out of here soon. The thought of being a continued burden ate at him like a canker. He studied the healing burns on the back of his hand and arm; his back they said was worse. The angry red welts glistened under the healing salve Mrs. Hanson kept forcing him to apply. At least now when she spread it on his back, he could stand the touch. Soon, he would be able to wear a shirt and then he could leave.

The thoughts of the bustling housekeeper seemed to bring her to him.

“Time for more cold cloths and medicine,” Mrs. Hanson said.

Her cheery voice could change in an instant if he didn’t respond. He’d learned that the hard way. He knew he was only here on sufferance. While she tolerated him, he could tell from her eyes she wouldn’t hesitate to toss him out.

He turned his head when he heard a cane tapping along with a much lighter step and entering his room. Mrs. Norgaard leaned on her cane, but he couldn’t raise his head far enough to see her face.

“If we move that chair over by the wall,” Mrs. Norgaard said, “I shall be able to converse with our patient more easily.” Mrs. Hanson huffed but did her employer’s bidding, and Mrs. Norgaard settled herself into her chair in her normal pose, back ramrod straight and never touching the back of the chair.

Silence descended on the room as she studied the man on his stomach. Jude studied the spot on the floor immediately below his face.

Why doesn’t she say something? Why don’t I say something?
The thoughts tiptoed around his mind, fearful the woman in the chair could read them. Jude cleared his throat. Why was she here? Had she come to see him before, when he was unconscious? Had he said anything to her he shouldn’t have?

He could feel her eyes drilling into the top of his head. The regrowing hair tingled in response. This was as bad as being called before the class back when he was in school.

Did she suspect the fire had been his fault? That a cigar, the one he’d been warned to not smoke in the house, burned his wife and mother to death. He felt the twisting between his mind, heart, and gut. If she knew, surely she would have thrown him out long ago.

He could stand it no longer. He raised his head, refusing to flinch when the wrinkling skin of his neck and upper back sent pain rippling and stabbing. It wasn’t judgment he saw in her eyes. No, they were the eyes of love. Compassion flowed from her to him as if they were bound by golden cords.

He could feel tears burn at the back of his eyes. Tears!
Grown men don’t cry.
The order failed to stem the flow. Jude sniffed as quietly and subtly as possible. He blinked not only once but several times, but still one fat tear managed to escape and drip off the end of his nose.

Why didn’t she say something? Who turned on the furnace? The room seemed to have heated up twenty degrees or so.

Still, the silence stretched . . . and stretched. But Jude was the one who felt like he was being pulled apart, limb from limb.

“I want to thank—” he cleared his throat and started again. “Thank you for . . . aah . . . having me here . . . in your house.”

“This is no longer my home. It now belongs to Dag and Clara.”

“Oh.” Then the rumors were true.

“They’ve become my family.”

Silence settled in again. Why in the world did he feel like crying?

Jude gritted his teeth. When that didn’t help, he bit his bottom lip. Even the taste of blood failed. One didn’t yell at a lady. His mother had drilled that into him from the time he was little, but that didn’t prevent him from screaming in his head. His body, the fire, the tears, the pain, the heat, the—he ran out of things to scream about.

“It will do no good.” The words crept past the damaging words and shut him right down.

“Huh?” He threw his head up as far as possible. “Oh—” He stopped abruptly, but the grimace said more than he intended.

“All the anger you harbor. It will only cause you more pain.”

Jude shook his head. If she only knew. The silence seeped in again.

How could she sit so still? He felt his fingers twitch . . . then his toes. He felt like twitching all over. Itching . . . twitching . . . Oh, how he could use a drink!

“When you can accept our forgiveness, it will always be here. Dag and Clara can live no other way and neither can I. Always remember that.” She rose to her feet and walked to the door. “Remember, too, that Christ died so we might live forgiven. We all might live so. Good evening, Jude.” Her footsteps echoed faintly down the hall.

In the morning he was gone.