One Came Home (8 page)

After the second visit, Placid was filled with waiting and
watching. The pigeons had yet to choose a place to nest, and we desperately wanted them to do so in our woods. We followed news of pigeons in the newspapers, asked the stationmaster repeatedly what he’d heard. Some rubbed their lucky rabbit foot. Others offered up plea-filled prayers. If those pigeons came back, we’d all be rich. A nesting meant weeks and weeks of barrels of pigeons to sell,
and
the accompanying influx of pigeoners. We in Placid would be ready to supply anything those pigeon hunters might need or want. And after the eggs hatched? There would be the babies, the acorn-fattened squabs—a delicacy for discerning big-city palates, and a moneymaker for our Placid, Wisconsin, pockets.

It was during this waiting period in the beginning of April that Grandfather Bolte went hunting with Mr. Benjamin Olmstead. As Mr. Olmstead scared up a covey of bobs, he mentioned my sister. My grandfather was so taken aback at the mention of Agatha that he jerked. He tried to shoulder his gun, but the stock ended stuck in his armpit. He didn’t bother pulling the trigger. Mr. Olmstead, however, fired into the clapping, and three bobwhites tumbled from the sky.

My grandfather asked him to repeat what he had said. As Grandfather Bolte remembered it, Mr. Olmstead then said: “I’d like to court your granddaughter Agatha—with your permission, of course.” Grandfather Bolte said the richest man in our county had difficulty meeting his eyes.

I suppose it was a few days later—right after dinner—when
a knock came at the front door. Grandfather Bolte answered it. From the seclusion of the kitchen, the rest of us heard Mr. Olmstead’s voice. He asked if he could go for a walk with Agatha.

Ma, Agatha, and I looked at each other, confused.

Agatha got up, started to undo her apron, touched her hair, and then glanced at Ma. Ma was beside her in an instant, helping.

“You don’t have to go. He’s only rich,” I exclaimed.

Ma gave me a hard look. “Wait for me here. Don’t leave that spot until I come for you.”

Then Ma put a hand on Agatha’s back. “Let’s get you changed.” They both went upstairs.

A minute later they returned, and while I seethed in the kitchen, I heard the usual sorts of greetings between Mr. Olmstead and Agatha. It was the kind of thing you might read in
Godey’s Lady’s Book:
“I wondered if you’d go for a stroll with me, Miss Burkhardt.” “It would be my pleasure.”

It was like that. I do not mind telling you that I did not care for hearing that sort of language in my own home. I nearly laughed out loud when Grandfather Bolte called the night “fine.” It certainly was not! April rain had mucked up the road, and there was enough bite in the air to make your nose run. But out went Agatha and Mr. Olmstead into that “fine” evening.

I never doubted the evening’s outcome, though. Poor Mr. Olmstead! Agatha would refuse his courtship because Agatha
would never get married. She’d said as much that February blue-sky day. What was marriage when you could live life encumbrance-free by running a store with your sister?

But I did not foresee that Agatha would come back from that walk carrying a book. It was a hefty tome entitled
Ornithological Biography
, written by a man named John James Audubon. Apparently, there was an entire library of these sorts of books, all about flora and fauna, at the Olmstead Hotel.

That night, up in our room, the book was laid open on the desk. I peered at the page before I got under the rugs on our bed: “Passenger Pigeon,
Columba migratoria
.” I read on silently: “The Passenger Pigeon, or, as it is usually named in America, the Wild Pigeon, moves with extreme rapidity.…”

I turned on her. “You
can’t
see him. You asked me to run the store with you, remember? We made a pact.”

Agatha laughed. “We did not make a pact.”

“You did! You asked me to run the store with you.”

Agatha frowned. “Did I?”

I huffed. “In February? The day I shot the pigeon? You said, ‘We’ve always got the store.’ You said you and I would run it. You did.”

Agatha tilted her head as if she were trying to dislodge the memory. Then she remembered. “I was upset, Georgie. That was the day I turned Billy down.”

“You
said
.”

“When you’re eighteen, you’ll understand.…”

“What does age have to do with keeping your word?” I said.

“What has got into you?”

“Are you going to see Mr. Olmstead again?” I looked her square in the eye.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Later, I saw the way she ran her hand along the spine of that book.

Then—lo and behold—the wild pigeons came back to Placid. We could not believe our good fortune. Everyone, including the newspapers, had said they were gone from our area. Even Grandfather Bolte had grown despondent. Yet here they were—back again in April. A miracle! It was the third (and final) visit of pigeons in 1871. But this time they were here to
stay
.

The pigeons hovered over the woods in a thunderhead for two days, April 17 and 18. Then the thunderhead settled on the forest and it became a nesting. The newspapers called it the largest pigeon nesting “within recorded memory.” This nesting was shaped like a capital
L
lying on its side. The short end went up north fifty-five miles. The long end went west seventy miles. Altogether the nesting covered one hundred twenty-five miles. In addition, the thickness of this letter
L
nesting was between six and ten miles. It was a
big
nesting, and Placid, Wisconsin, was only five miles away.

Word of the nesting traveled from one rail station to the next, newspaper to newspaper. Men, women, and children came by train, steamboat, and wagon, on horseback, or by foot. The trains from Milwaukee, Chicago, and St. Paul doubled and tripled their runs to accommodate the extra passengers wanting to go to Placid, Wisconsin. Pigeoners (some professional game dealers, most opportunists) came from every corner of the United States—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Massachusetts, Alabama, and Louisiana (to name a few). Several clans from the Winnebago and Ojibwa set up camp along the Wisconsin River. The countryside was covered with tents, lean-tos, and open-air sleepers. All these people gathered around the nesting in the woods. Suffice it to say, I’d never seen so many people. I could barely cross the street without a struggle!

The atmosphere reminded me of a holiday gone on too long. Gin shacks sprung up along the river overnight. When the birds flew overhead (which they did somewhere between two to four times every single day), gunshots flared from porches, a cellar door, and even from the outhouse behind the blacksmith’s. One drunkard danced in the pigeon sleet, fired into the winged mass, and caught the falling birds in his cap. Bands of children abandoned their chores and wandered the hills with sticks and boards to hit the birds out of the sky for the pure fun of it.

I watched Mrs. Hazeltine come out with a frying pan! Her belly, six months pregnant, preceded her. She stepped
off her porch and stuck that fry pan into the flight path. The pigeons came so fast and hard—whack, whack, whack—they pushed Mrs. Hazeltine backward across the street as if she were a sailboat with a fry pan for a sail and pigeons for wind.

I took part in it too. I could not resist shooting the Springfield out our bedroom window. The sky was so thick with birds that a single bullet brought five or six tumbling from the sky. I retrieved them from our garden like late-autumn squash.

Most nights Agatha and I fell asleep to the sound of drunken singing on Main Street. A few times it was accompanied by a guitar. (I do like guitar.) Sometimes Grandfather Bolte slept in the rocker on the front porch with the double-barrel across his lap to, as he put it, “help prevent foolishness.” This boiled down to making sure no one shot rifles too near our property, or tried to rob our store.

No one went hungry and that’s a blessing to everybody. I am sure every table in our corner of Wisconsin held a pigeon pie (pigeons cooked in a broth, walnut catsup added, covered with a crust, and then baked twenty minutes). In addition, all those who kept their minds on working could make some money.

The Bolte General Store was a hullabaloo every minute the doors remained unlocked. If there was a hint of a sale to be made, Grandfather Bolte made sure it transpired.
PIGEONING SUPPLIES
!
WE SELL
EVERYTHING
A PIGEONER COULD WANT
OR NEED
! read one sign in our front window. Ma, Grandfather Bolte, and Agatha advised, recommended, gathered, and packaged. I restocked and kept everything clean. Cleaning meant never-ending scrubbing. Outside, I scrubbed pigeon lime off porch floorboards from the birds’ twice-daily flights. Inside, I cleaned up after the pigeoners: tobacco spit, and nesting whatsits tromped in by their boots.

Unbelievably—in the midst of all of this—Ma and Grandfather Bolte allowed Agatha to leave anytime she wanted as long as it had something to do with Mr. Olmstead. So while I scrubbed floorboards (wearing away precious knee skin), Agatha went off on a “walk.”

Mr. Olmstead and Agatha even visited the pigeon nesting. Trudging through pigeon lime, enduring a stench of epic proportions, and using burlap sacks as hats to avoid getting covered with pigeon excrement should have sunk their courtship, but Mr. Olmstead and Agatha had such a good time they went back a few days later. When they went a third and fourth time? I started thinking that Mr. Olmstead must truly care for my sister. Why else would a man let himself be shat upon by thousands of birds?

Did Agatha return those affections? I didn’t know. To be truthful, I was beginning to attribute evil to my sister’s motives. See, Mr. Olmstead gave Agatha full access to the library at the hotel. During the time they courted, Agatha could be seen walking to and from the Olmstead Hotel with a book under one arm. The study of birds—ornithology—was the
topic. At the end of the day, I’d fall into bed exhausted while Agatha sat at our desk reading.

I told Ma and Grandfather Bolte my suspicions straight out. I walked up to the two of them and said: “Agatha is keeping company with Mr. Olmstead for his books. That’s a sin. You need to put a stop to it.”

Grandfather Bolte took the pipe out of his mouth and laughed. Laughed! “You worried about your sister’s eternal damnation? You leave that between your sister and God. Who do you think collected those books? It’s called having similar tastes.”

Ma put her hand on my head. “It’s a good match, Georgie. Leave it be.”

Those books made me feel my first bit of sympathy for Billy McCabe, though. Billy had known Agatha for years and years and he had
never
given her a book—not once. I saw how lending Agatha those books was like dangling a worm before a sunfish. Agatha couldn’t help but bite.

Of course, by then it was generally known that Billy was courting Polly Barfod. I heard people talk about the situation, and the consensus seemed to go something like this: Though it was doubtful someone of Mr. Olmstead’s station would choose Agatha,
if
Mr. Olmstead chose Agatha, it was for the best. Agatha’s beauty would surely go to seed after a year or two of homesteading through Minnesota winters. Better for Billy to choose a Dane like Polly—someone with cold winters in her blood, and the strength to stump a field.

*  *  *

It was the beginning of May when I saw Agatha and Billy kiss. I knew then that Agatha did not love Mr. Olmstead, because Billy walked away with a whoop and a whistle. My sister loved Billy
and
Mr. Olmstead’s library full of books.

It’s funny how months of memories can flash through a person’s head in moments. How many minutes has it taken me to tell you? Five minutes? Ten? But for me, I stood upright in that pigeoner camp and did all of that remembering in under a minute.

Billy called out: “You going to stand there all morning? I’ve got bacon.”

I looked over. Billy squatted by the fire, shaking a skillet over the flames. As I’d suspected,
my
saddlebag sat open next to him. The audacity! That was
my
bacon.

And then I thought of Polly, Billy’s fiancée. What was Polly going to make of Billy and me traveling together? Everybody knew that Billy had loved Agatha. Now, despite his promises to Polly, Billy had run off with Agatha’s little sister. To make matters worse, we were heading to the place where Agatha’s body was supposedly found. Billy being here was unmistakable evidence of a divided heart. If I were Polly, I would break my engagement and not look back. The question was this: Why was Billy risking
everything
to be with me? This was more than a simple favor. This trip
meant
something to him.

I watched Billy pull another slice of
my
bacon out of the waxed paper in which I had carefully wrapped it. He waved the bacon at me and flipped it into the pan.

Did this have something to do with that kiss? Maybe something had been planned. Was Billy meeting Agatha? But wouldn’t that mean my sister had staged her own death?

No. Not possible. I could not believe it.

“You wouldn’t dawdle if you knew how good this egg biscuit is.”

It would not do to send Billy away, or to sneak off in the night. Billy McCabe was part of this puzzle. I needed to keep an eye on him so I could figure out what was going on.

“I am not your manservant, Fry. Come here. Eat,” said Billy.

I laughed at that. “Don’t get feisty. I want to leave as much as you.”

I walked over and took the plate out of his hand. Seeing that plate of bacon, eggs, and biscuit made me groan. The biscuit was perfection: browned golden on the top
and
bottom. Grandfather Bolte says I make a masterful blackened biscuit. I took a bite, and gasped at the pure delicacy of Billy’s biscuit out in the wild.

“Good, huh?” said Billy.

“It’ll do,” I said. No boy should be able to cook like that. It isn’t natural.

We sat there eating for a moment and then he said: “Aren’t you going to tell me to go home?”

“You can come,” I said.

“Why? I was sure you’d want to fight about it.”