Fervent Charity (22 page)

Iver never did show up, so it turned out to be a good thing for Lena that Orville and Hank had. After they had drunk most of the coffee she’d brewed and ate all of her rhubarb sauce, they took a few whacks at the weeds around Gustie’s house and offered to take Lena home. Now Jordis was alone again in the barn and settling her horses in for the evening.

She heard his first footfall into the barn. Skydog had nickered and stamped his feet restlessly at his approach, so she was not surprised that someone stepped through the side door, only surprised by who it was. Gleeve Pruitt.

He held a gun and it was pointed at her. “Don’t reach for your knife or I’ll shoot your hand off and then by god we’ll see what you’ll be reachin’ for.”

She took him in as if a poisonous snake had just risen in front of her—she became suddenly, deeply still.

He was just inside the door and he moved in a little closer. “I asked last time, and I was willin’ to pay. Now I ain’t askin’ and I ain’t payin’. Now you can reach down, ginger-like, and take that knife out of your boot slow and lay it down on the floor.”

He took another step forward, keeping his gun level, pointed at her. “I will shoot you by god.”

Jordis said softly, “You look hungry. I will bring you something to eat.”

“I’m tellin’
you
what to do! Put the knife on the floor or I’ll pull the trigger.”

She had no doubt that he would shoot her. She had survived a bullet once before. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to, and now that bullet had finally caught up with her again. This wasn’t how she expected it would end. But she was not going to give up her knife just because he had a gun pointed at her. He might kill her but he couldn’t tell her what to do. “You will not get what you want while I am alive,” she said.

For a moment, she thought that he might drop his aim slightly, relax slightly, but he didn’t. “You’re brave, I’ll give you that,” he said.

She said with less softness, “You can walk out of here with nothing on your head, or you can kill me. Those are your two choices.”

He snorted softly. “Shit. I’ll shoot you.”

Her mind slipped into a higher, more perfect plane of stillness, where she felt Dorcas’s presence strongly. So, she would end not as the keeper of her soul, but as its companion. The irony was not unpleasing. All her thoughts rose and fell in less than a heartbeat.

“Now lose the knife.”

“No.”

“I’ll kill you.”

“You will have to.”

“I ain’t particular. I can take you with a bullet in you as well as not. I ain’t the sort who needs the fight to get it up.”

“Kill me then.” She was bored with him now.

He took another step forward, placing himself in the shaft of light coming through the small west window directly in front of Skydog’s stall. Jordis saw the light suddenly flash off the barrel of the gun at the same time as she heard the soft
chink
of the hammer as Gleeve cocked it. She didn’t have time to begin her next breath or think
Dorcas
before Skydog screamed and smashed through the stall-gate.

She saw Gleevie pause in mid-breath in the first infinitely small fraction of a second when the edge of that scream hit his eardrums. Just his eyes moved toward the sound to behold a horse. Just a horse. Now on top of him. And for Gleevie, by the time he realized it was the horse whose blast of rage was directed at him, there was nothing more.

In the same moment, she saw Skydog make one hop forward, his hooves striking Pruitt, knocking the gun out of his hand, probably breaking his rib cage and bringing him down. The gun went off with a
crack!
as it hit the floor, firing the bullet harmlessly into the north wall, and Skydog, half kneeling over the man, grabbed him by the neck with his teeth and lifted him and shook him.

Quick as a snake, inexorable and crushing as an avalanche, Skydog had struck, and even she, who could have slipped her knife between Gleevie’s ribs without losing her smile, was stunned.

She had heard stories from tribal elders, those who remembered the tales of their grandfathers who, as boys, saw the wild herds—how a stallion was capable of grabbing a sick or injured colt and killing it like this. But she never thought to see it herself. And never like this. From the time he burst out of his stall to when he stood over the lifeless broken body of Gleeve Pruitt, it was less than eight seconds.

She had been calm as the bottom of Shoonkatoh. Now she had to control her own trembling to find her voice. “Skydog!” she commanded raggedly. “Back.” The horse stepped back. She was vibrating from head to foot but managed to grasp his halter and lead him out of the barn. She stood for a time, her arm over his neck, leaning against him, her forehead pressed into his white mane. He trembled and blew out through his nostrils. They remained so until their breathing and heart rates had slowed. Then she lifted her head and looked around her. Moon was nervously pacing the perimeter of the corral. She heard the swallows under the eaves of the barn cheeping, and she wondered for the first time how they escaped the claws of the cat. The sun shone down soft and warm. She heard the far-off bark of a dog.

She knew what she had to do. She could not put Skydog back in the barn. In his current state he could jump the corral fence as easily as he had broken his stall gate. She had only ridden him once. She pulled herself onto his back for the second time and galloped him in to Charity.

In front of the sheriff’s office she did not dismount. The door was open. She called, “Sheriff Sully!”

He came to the door, his tin coffee cup in his hand.

“Hello, Jordis.”

“Come with me.”

The sheriff looked at her face and the sweating horse. He tossed the dregs of his coffee in the weeds beside the wooden walk, left the cup on the windowsill, and reached inside the door for his hat.

Chapter 15:
June 1901

“C
ould one of your boys
take me out to Gustie’s place?”

Alvinia, her hands deep in dishwater, took a long look at Lena standing in her kitchen doorway and gave a yell, “Kermit!”

Gracia leaned in to Lena, clutching her skirt.

Alvinia’s gangly sixteen-year-old, clad in too-big hand-me down overalls, sloped around the corner.

“Take Mrs. Kaiser out to Miss Roemer’s place and then come right back. Daddy needs you at the locker this afternoon.”

“Yeah, Ma, but Miss Roemer ain’t there...”

“
Isn’t
there,” Alvinia corrected sharply as she wiped her hands on a towel.

Lena said to the boy, “I know. I want to speak to Jordis. She’s still there, I believe.”

“Sure. Team’s hitched.”

“Wait a minute. These are still warm from the oven.” Alvinia dumped a plate of breakfast rolls into a bag and added a loaf of bread. “For Jordis. Help yourself, too.” She brought the bag over to Lena and gave it to her, and with the other hand, which she took from behind her back, gave Gracia a cookie. The girl took it and stuck it in her mouth. “Say ‘thank you,’ honey,” Lena instructed. The child made an inarticulate squeak through the mouthful of cookie and Alvinia said, “You’re welcome.”

Skydog raised his head, and the new light in his eyes lifted Lena’s heart, if only for a moment. He shared the corral with another horse—a small brown gelding that Lena didn’t recognize.

“Thank you, Kermit. And thank your mama for me again. Here, hang on to Gracia.” She clambered down from the wagon and reached up for her daughter.

“Sure, Mrs. Kaiser. Want me to come get you later?”

“No. I don’t know when I’m going back, exactly.”

Lena went into the house. Fresh flowers sprouted from a mason jar of water on the table by the window. She could tell Gustie was not the one living here now. It was too tidy. Gustie had a tendency to leave books and papers about and dishes in the sink. Lena left Alvinia’s rolls and bread on the table and dropped her own small bundle on the chair. Gracia’s face was flushed, so she removed the child’s sweater and draped it over the chair back.

Shifting Gracia from one hip to the other, Lena walked a mile east on a back road that was little more than a wagon path. The deepest ruts were filled with muddy water. She stepped or, when she had to, jumped over them. She arrived at water’s edge, removed her shoes, tied the laces together and slung them around her neck, and waded north until she came to a smooth sandy patch, a beach artificially constructed by fishermen who needed a place to launch their boats, otherwise impossible through the weeds and cattails, mud and tangled rushes that hugged Dryback Lake. Lena sat on a skinny log, what was left of a cottonwood that had snapped off in the wind and had been either hauled or blown here. There were no trees growing around Dryback.

The sun was high and warm. Gracia in only her diaper and a shirt played in the shallow water as it lapped around her in gentle waves. Followed by their harems of smaller brown females, drake mallards turned their shiny blue-green heads to look at them and kept swimming. A long-legged killdeer picked through the sand at a distance from them, cautious but not deterred from pursuing its livelihood. Farther away, rounded piles of brown twigs and moss and leaves marked the industry of muskrats. Clam bubbles rose through the clear water from tiny holes in the sand. Seagulls mewed above her.

Clutching her prayer like a life rope, Lena tucked her head down and leaned her forehead into her tightly clasped hands, her body clenched in bitter tears before her God. Her world, today, had come to an end.

When Jack Frye first got the news, he was in his corner of the Spittoon, slow-nursing a bottle of whiskey and hoping somebody would come in who was willing to lose money at poker. So far he’d had no takers.

He only half listened to the talk around him, but pricked up his ears at something Harold Bjordahl at the bar said to Snuce: “Hey, I think that guy worked for you for awhile, last winter, didn’t he? That guy—Puckett or Parker or—”

“Pruitt. The guy worked for me was Gleeve Pruitt.”

“Yeah. Him.”

“What about him?” Snuce, not much interested, was gathering up dirty glasses into his wash pan.

“He got himself killed a couple weeks ago.”

Snuce paused in his bar-keeping duties to look at Harold.

“Ja. Got killed by a horse.” Harold took a deep satisfying drink of his beer and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

Jack got up from his chair. “What?”

Harold Bjordahl turned around and addressed Jack, happy to have someone more interested in conversation than was the barkeep. “You know him?”

“Yeah. Gleevie. If that’s the one you’re talking about. Used to play cards with him.”

“Got killed by a horse.” Harold lifted his glass again. It was a warm day and the beer was cool.

Jack shook his head and chuckled. “Well, by God! That damn kid couldn’t find his way out of a snow bank with a shovel and a blowtorch. He gets himself kilt by a horse. How’d it happen? He fall off’n it?”

“No. The horse belongs to that squaw. The one that—”

“I know the one.” Jack suddenly did not think it was so funny. “That white horse she always rides?”

“Different one. Anyway, she’s in her barn there, see? And the horse is there, and this Pruitt fella goes after her. With a gun. Sheriff ruled it self-defense. Or—whatever you’d call it. Ja. They found just enough money in his pocket to bury him.” Harold Bjordahl chugged the rest of his beer. “Well, I better go see if the missus is through at the store. We’ve got to be getting back for chores.” He belched grandly, put a coin on the bar and left the Spittoon.

“I never knew he had a gun,” mused Jack, returning to his seat in the corner. He didn’t feel much like talking any more or playing cards. He poured himself another drink. The more he thought about what Harold Bjordahl had just told him, the madder he got. The more whiskey he drank, the sadder he got. By the end of the afternoon, he was crying into his last glass of sour mash, vowing to avenge the death of the best goddam friend he ever had at the hands of that murdering savage bitch.

Snuce threw him out.

Jordis found bread and rolls on the table, a pillowcase and a baby sweater on the chair. She checked the barn. It was empty. In the middle of the yard between house, barn, and pasture, she stopped. Then she mounted the white horse again and took the rutted trail to Dryback.

As she approached the lake, she heard what sounded like a wounded animal. When she got closer, she realized it was the sound of a woman crying. Jordis slid off Moon’s back letting the reins drag, and padded in soft moccasins toward the sound. She saw Gracia first. Jordis stopped a few feet away from her. Neither mother nor child was aware of her presence. Gracia stood up and tottered forward, following the line of suds that headed the lapping waves. Then, she wailed and turned to her mother who, self-absorbed, was slow to react. In two bounds, Jordis was at Gracia’s side. She picked her up around her waist. Lena, startled, asked, “Is she all right?”

Jordis examined the child’s foot. “She stepped on a piece of shell and cut herself. It is not deep. Just scared her.”

“Come here, Precious. Mommy’ll kiss it.”

Jordis placed the child in Lena’s outstretched arms. Lena lifted the foot and kissed it. Gracia reduced her volume to a whimper. “There, there, you’re all right now.” The youngster forgot her hurt and squirmed. Lena let her go and she toddled back to the undulating line of foam. She ran after it, and back again, squealing as it chased her.

Jordis sat down next to Lena on the log and watched Gracia play.
All our hurts should be so easily forgotten,
she thought. She watched the flapping of some ducks taking flight, some chasing others away. A melee of squawking and quacking and flapping ensued over territorial or nuptial rights, and then the water was peaceful again.

She knew enough of Lena’s history to suspect the cause of her tears. Jordis had lost a brother to whiskey. She had nothing but sympathy for Lena. She let some time pass before she asked, “Will drinking again?”

Lena’s shoes were still slung around her neck. She raised them over her head and thrust them at Jordis saying, “Look at my shoes!” and started to cry again. Jordis took the shoes and turned them over in her hands. They had holes in the sides, the heels were worn thin and they were lined with stiff paper.

“I said to Will I need new shoes and he told me he would get paid for the well he just finished last night and I should go to O’Grady’s and pick out what I wanted—that was yesterday—and he’d pay for them this morning on his way out to his next job.” Lena wiped her nose with a handkerchief she took from her sleeve. “We don’t have any more credit. There was only one pair Kenneth had that I liked and that fit me and I told him to keep them, and Will would come in and pay for them this morning. Fine. That was fine.” She gestured emphatically with her wadded up handkerchief. “So, this morning as soon as I got the baby fed and dressed, I went to O’Grady’s to get my new shoes and Kenneth looked at me so funny. And I said, ‘What’s the matter, didn’t Will pay for the shoes?’ And he said, ‘Yes but Will took the shoes with him.’ And then I went out on the street, just going to walk over to Alvinia’s thinking maybe Will brought them back to the house and I saw
her
. That widow woman. You know her. Widow my eye! The town
whore
…” Lena cried so hard she almost choked on the words, “She was wearing my shoes!”

Jordis knew about Stella Ronshagen. She had appeared in Charity about a year ago, rented a house on the western outskirts of town and soon after, the whispers began to swell. She didn’t take in washing or sewing but appeared to do well enough on favors extended to her by men who visited her after dark and left before daybreak.

A few local men, some married, were rumored to visit her when they left Leroy’s Tavern with too much whiskey heating up their blood, but the rumors had not reached the amplitude of naming names. Jordis was heartsick at the thought of Will being one of these unnamed men.

“After Gracia was born I was in pretty bad shape for a long time...you know... I couldn’t...” Lena stopped to wipe her eyes. “...so I began to wonder if sometimes when Will was drinking he didn’t go see her. But I thought, no it couldn’t be. Will would never do such a thing. Not even drunk. And in that condition, what woman—even a whore—would want him? But he’s been drinking a lot lately. Oh, not the falling down kind of drunk this time—staying sober to go to work, and drinking after work and coming home later and later. But no, he’s been there with that whore and he’s bought her things when we pretty near don’t have enough to eat sometimes. Where’s all the money for the last two jobs I asked him and he says, ‘Oh I had to buy more pipe or the price of acid went up or I lost a wrench.’ Well he didn’t lose any blame wrench and she got my shoes!”

“Are you sure he didn’t take them to bring them home to you?”

“They were the only pair Kenneth had that I liked that fit!” Lena repeated angrily. “And you don’t see me wearing them, do you?” She cried again, and Jordis listened with her eyes on the bank of clouds building up on the far side of Dryback.