Justice (11 page)

For the rest of her life, scarcely a month went by when Julian's mother did not gratefully lift to her lips her son's hands—hands once calloused from farm and ranch work but softened when Julian himself moved to town to buy and sell real estate and eventually to become his county's Clerk of Court and finally its sheriff. She would kiss the palm of each of her son's hands and say, “You take such good care of me. These hands can do anything.”

O
N THE Saturday before Palm Sunday, the day she was to marry Julian Hayden, Enid Garling had one fervent wish: she hoped that her father, Bertram Garling, would not appear at the church. If he did, it would be for one reason and one reason only: to stop the wedding and take Enid home with him. And if her father came, Julian Hayden would surely try to stop him any way he could.

Enid left her home in Wild Rose, North Dakota, only two days before the wedding. She could leave because her father was temporarily living in Washington state with his brother, providing food for the men working in the lumber camps. Her father didn't assist in the actual preparation of the food—his brother and sister-in-law did that—but he helped purchase the supplies, hunted and fished, and drove the chuck wagon from camp to camp. Once Enid decided to leave, she had to get out quickly; her father might return at any time when it became clear that this venture, like so many others, would not make him a wealthy man. And when he came back, he would rely on Enid to tell him where they should next try to make their fortune.

Bertram Garling believed that his only daughter had the power to see the future, a belief he had held since an incident
that occurred when Enid was four years old.

They lived in Wisconsin then, or, more precisely, they had just moved to the state. Mr. Garling had been working in the family dairy in Rockford, Illinois, since he was a boy, and he decided he didn't want to spend his life rising before dawn just to sit with his head leaning against one cow after another. He had an opportunity to try running a small cheese factory, so he moved with his family to Prescott, Wisconsin. When they first pulled up to their rented house, Enid went to the back door, took one look inside the house's tiny kitchen, screamed hysterically, and backed away from the open door. Enid's mother picked up her daughter to carry her into the family's new home.

Mr. Garling, a superstitious man, was quick to excuse any behavior on the part of his beloved daughter, and he said, “Wait! She sees something! Something has frightened her!”

“There's nothing in there,” Enid's mother said. Enid's brother, Hiram, older by three years, was already in the house, and he confirmed his mother's assessment. “It's empty all right!”

“Nothing we can see,” Mr. Garling said, “but the child might have powers of sight that we lack.”

Mrs. Garling scoffed. Less than four months later, however, it was Hiram who was carried into the kitchen, and his dead body was laid on the kitchen table. He had drowned in a neighbor's cistern. Mr. Garling was convinced that on their first day in Wisconsin, Enid had had a vision of her brother dead in the house. From that day on he would make no decision about the family without first consulting his daughter to
determine whether she had a vision about their future.

And though she had no memory of what frightened her that day, Enid
did
see things. She could close her eyes at any time, day or night, and within minutes a form or shape would emerge from the darkness. The image never lasted long. She could seldom catch more than a glimpse of it, as if she were looking from the window of a fast-moving train. The import of these visions was even hazier. It was up to her father to interpret exactly what they meant and what actions should be taken on the basis of what Enid saw. In fact, her father played such an important role in this process that by the time Enid was in her early teens she wondered if she ever saw anything on her own or if she merely reproduced what her father implanted.

Perhaps the gift was not hers but her father's—he could make people see something that wasn't there. Nevertheless, every plan he undertook, every move the family made—to Minnesota to try wheat farming, to South Dakota to try gold mining, to Wyoming to try marketing a friend's newly invented windmill pump, or to North Dakota to try capturing and selling wild horses—came only after Enid had a vision—of a patch of green grass, of water running down a rocky slope, of a man and woman standing in the shadow of a stone tower. Enid was secretly pleased whenever her father had a plan that required him to leave his family for any length of time, because it meant that the swarm of whirling images in her brain would temporarily subside.

Enid's mother tried to find ways to free Enid from her father's domination and to allow her the life that other girls had.
Mrs. Garling made certain that her daughter was always enrolled in school, even though Enid was so shy that any occasion requiring her to leave the house caused her so much distress she became physically ill. Mrs. Garling was not deterred; if she had to walk her weeping daughter to the schoolhouse, then so be it. Since Enid had difficulty making friends, her mother signed her up for membership in clubs and organizations. Mrs. Garling made it a point to befriend women who had daughters near Enid's age. Yet her efforts did little to transform Enid from the strange, fearful, reclusive child she had been since infancy. As part of her efforts on Enid's behalf, Mrs. Garling signed Enid up for piano and singing lessons, and it became apparent that Enid had gifts of a more conventional nature than vague visions of the future.

She took to the piano instantly, and could play almost any tune by ear. She had as well a lovely, delicate soprano voice, as pure and effortless as rushing water. Whenever they moved into a new community, Mrs. Garling advertised her daughter's talents, and Enid was often asked to perform at civic, school, and church functions.

It was at one of those affairs, the weekly Friday night Wild Rose Dance Club meeting, that Julian Hayden first saw Enid Garling and heard her sing. This was August 1905 and Julian and Len McAuley had come from Montana to buy cattle from a North Dakota rancher.

The night was hot and damp, and the dance club was meeting, as it did throughout the summer, under a large canvas tent staked out in the school yard. A platform of planks was laid for dancing, and benches were set up in the tent and in the yard for
rest and refreshment. During the band's intermission, Enid Garling, accompanying herself on the piano, entertained the crowd. Julian heard her sing “In the Gloaming.”

Julian Hayden was not the first man to be attracted to Enid Garling. She had pale, luminous skin, large brown eyes, finely sculpted features, and a trim figure. She wore her luxurious dark brown hair swept up into a pompadour held in place with tortoiseshell combs. She accentuated the grace of her long neck with high-collared blouses and high-necked dresses.

But men drawn to Enid Garling's beauty always backed away. They saw that agitation shimmered in the very air around her, that she trembled her way through the most ordinary exchange of small talk, that her eyelids fluttered as though she were always on the verge of fainting.

And here was another suitor. A tall, sunburnt, wide-shouldered cowboy who was probably Enid's age but who tried to look older by sporting a dark, drooping moustache. He didn't say a word but leaned on the piano and listened, never taking his eyes from her, never ceasing his smile.

His presence made it difficult for her to sing. She tried to concentrate on the lyrics but then she worried that he might believe she was singing those words especially for him. She stopped singing altogether and simply played the piano, but he stayed where he was. When the song was finished, he applauded her so loudly that his hands clapping together sounded like gunshots. She wanted to cover her ears but instead merely bowed her head. Then he said something she had never heard said about her singing or playing: “Civilizing. Very civilizing.” And he walked away.

In the next few months Enid came to understand what Julian Hayden meant by his remark. He came to Wild Rose at every opportunity, sometimes arriving in the middle of the night and sleeping in his wagon in their yard. Enid wondered whether she finally weakened in her resistance to his affection because he so often simply appeared—there, under the willow tree when she looked out her bedroom window; there, in front of the mercantile when she exited the store; there, alongside the railroad tracks where Enid walked on her way to the post office or butcher shop—like a figure in one of her visions. From the very first time he came to call, Julian Hayden made his intentions clear: he wanted Enid to marry him, to marry him and return with him to his home near Bentrock, Montana. There, her delicacy, her fine manners, her music would help to soften and civilize that rough, wild region. She would give it beauty. He repeated this argument so often that she began to wonder if he wanted her for his state's sake or his own.

She learned that he was indeed very close to her age—twenty-four. In fact, he was seven months younger than she. He owned a small ranch that he was working hard to enlarge. His father was no longer alive, but he supported his mother, who lived in a rented room in Bentrock; life on the ranch was too hard for her. He was determined, ambitious, confident—so many things she was not. And he was persistent.

He loved to talk about horses and his skill in breaking them. From a boy new to Montana who couldn't even sit on a horse correctly he had become, in his opinion, the best bronco buster in his part of the state. Life had no satisfaction, he said,
like getting a horse to walk how and when you wanted him to walk. His secret, as he told Enid many times, was discovering how a horse thinks. “Now a horse, he's got no sense of time,” Julian would say. “It doesn't mean anything to him that you've been climbing up on him for four or five hours. He doesn't know that by now he's supposed to be getting the idea that you're in charge. He doesn't care if it's ten o‘clock or two o'clock. All he knows is one thing: he's either got the energy to rear up and throw you off or he doesn't. Time makes people give up. They say, ‘I guess I won't be riding that horse. I've been at it for hours and he still hasn't settled down.' But there's only one thing to do. Get back on. And keep getting back on. Plenty of fellows can stay in the saddle longer than I can, but nobody's better at dusting himself off and getting back on. Nobody. Like that horse, I just forget about what time it is, and I keep at him. And I haven't come across a horse yet that won't give up before I do.” He would talk about saddles and one-ear bridles and Spanish bits, about how to keep a horse from fighting the reins all day, how to cinch him so he'll carry you fifty miles if need be, how to make sure you train a cow horse to be ground tied.

But Enid couldn't keep from her mind what he said about breaking horses. She had the uneasy feeling that he was practicing the same technique on her, that she could put him off for any number of days, weeks, months, years, and Julian Hayden would keep coming back.

He had her mother's help. As if she had her own visions of the future, Mrs. Garling told her daughter over and over what her life would be like if she rejected this young man's suit.
Soon her father would return, but then he would be off again—up to Saskatchewan to work in an oil field, or down to Medora to be a partner in a slaughterhouse, or out to the Judith Mountains to raise sheep, or back to Wisconsin to run freight on the river. He'd always have another scheme, and he'd badger Enid until she told him what he wanted to hear—that this time he couldn't miss; this time he'd become a success. If Enid didn't take this opportunity to get out, she'd end up traipsing around the country with her momma and daddy forever, and the closest she would come to pleasure in this life would be singing and playing the piano at other women's weddings. Give yourself a chance, Mrs. Garling said to her daughter; give yourself a chance to know and love a man, to settle down and to know and love a place.

When Enid Garling told Julian Hayden she would marry him, he gave no sign of rejoicing. He didn't laugh or weep with happiness. He didn't throw his hat in the air or sweep Enid into his arms as she hoped he might. He said simply and solemnly, “This is right.”