The Last Letter (36 page)

Katherine squatted beside Jeanie, having painted for the past two hours, as though the canvas sucked her essence right from her body and onto the canvas.

“Do you like it?” Katherine held the canvas up for Jeanie to see.

Jeanie stopped scrubbing and drew back. She started to grab it to get a closer look then stopped. Her wet hands would ruin it. She craned her neck.

“Katherine,” Jeanie said. She wiped her hands on her apron.

“Is it all right? It’s not finished, but I need it to sit a while before I really finish it. Sort of a first draft, like the writings you do. I miss you writing. The way you look when you frantically scribble over your paper. When you look into thin air, thinking.”

Jeanie shook her head and took the painting into her lap. “I miss it too. But your painting is remarkable,” Jeanie pointed to various parts of the painting, not touching it. “All the women in the cooperative. There isn’t a person I can’t pick out. You’ve really captured every one of us, doing the things we love.”

“Well, no, I was thinking I captured what you
had
to do more than what you loved,” Katherine said.

“Is that how you see us?”

“Not completely, but—”

Jeanie and Katherine stopped talking as the quiet day grew somehow even more so and in an instant, the atmosphere released itself with the sound of earth detonating, crushing them with pressure Jeanie had never felt before. She and Katherine hunched away from the sound, waiting for a physical blow to follow, like the earth moving, or rock falling on top of them from nowhere, but none of that happened.

The rumbling noise filled their bodies, shaking their insides. They grabbed hands and looked north where the sky seemed to peel from itself, falling, blacking out the atmosphere, until, in front of their eyes, ice and snow burst from nothing, blowing them so hard they doubled over and nearly didn’t make it the ten feet from the wash to the dugout door.

Jeanie pushed Katherine the entire ten feet and with a heave that caused her to fall to the ground, she jammed Katherine into the dugout. Jeanie crawled the final two feet inside, slammed the door with her entire body before falling to the floor, sitting against it for fear the great wind might blow it open.

Katherine stood over the cradle and put her finger to her lips to signal Yale hadn’t wakened at all. Then the two of them stared at each other, ears taking in the sound of a storm that had shown no sign of coming until the air exploded on itself, shooting ice so fine Jeanie’s face felt as though she’d been pricked by thousands of pins at once.

Jeanie waved Katherine over to the door. She made a funnel with her hands so, though she had to shout, she could more quietly than if they weren’t so close. “This can’t last. It must be a freak storm, like summer hail, it’ll be gone in a few minutes.” Katherine nodded and sat with her back against the door too, her head on her mother’s shoulder, wrapped up in her arms, shaking so hard that Jeanie couldn’t tell if it was Katherine or her own body quivering.

Jeanie thought there was no way something like this could last, but she also knew she’d never experienced or heard of such a thing happening in the first place. As though someone had pulled the weather off the earth and replaced it with its polar opposite. Things like this didn’t just happen. Yet, there it was, crushing, unbearable weather, trapping them inside the earth, making Jeanie further consider the existence of God. And it did seem possible in those moments that if there was one, he was a surly fellow with some sort of score to settle.

Two hours passed. Jeanie and Katherine attempted to move from the door, but the wind, stiffer than any that had plagued the dugout so far, kept blowing open the door. They hesitantly moved the chest with the books in front of it, afraid that if Frank, James or Tommy were attempting to come in, they wouldn’t be able to hear them knocking. The wind was so loud, unimaginably deafening that every so often Jeanie would attempt to talk in a normal voice just to remind her that the wind was blowing as hard as she thought it was.

“This isn’t ending. The horses must be spooked. We can’t lose the animals. And buffalo chips or hanks, we need something to burn until the boys get back,” Jeanie said.

Katherine nodded, her eyes glassy as though she felt what Jeanie did—that something about this storm was different, that its stark inception—crashing out of nowhere was the least of what would set it apart from others.

Yale began to wail, stopping Jeanie from putting on Frank’s coat and hat. “I’ll feed her, Katherine, then I’ll tend to the animals and…well, I don’t know.” Jeanie rubbed her forehead and smoothed back the bangs that had popped from her bun and tickled her forehead.

She ripped down her blouse and tried to relax, but knew her stiffness would keep the demanding Yale from settling in for a good meal. She was petulant as usual and until that moment, Jeanie had viewed that as just part of who Yale was. Now she viewed it as a big problem.

Finally, the babe latched on to her breast and ate about half her normal take. After it was clear Yale was finished eating, Jeanie handed her to Katherine and ordered her to nuzzle the baby until she was back to sleep, hopefully, somehow unaware that she hadn’t eaten her normal fill.

Jeanie buttoned up her blouse, pulled on long johns, extra socks, Frank’s coat, his hat, and even stuffed an extra set of socks into her coat just in case. For the first time on the prairie, Jeanie was grateful for her too big shoes. She drew another pair of socks over the first and jammed her feet into the ugly clodhoppers.

Jeanie tended the fire, checked the water level in the barrel, and took a swig of coffee then water. She faced the stove, lifted her skirts and let the warmth travel up, hoping to trap extra. She took several deep breaths as though readying herself for what was waiting outside, but instead of tearing out of the house, she removed all of Frank’s outerwear and unbuttoned her blouse again.

“Mama?” Katherine rocked Yale.

“I’m going to dispense as much of this milk as I can. We have one more of those cups from Templeton that we didn’t use after Christmas. Then I’ll cover the milk with clean material, tie it on and set it right inside this bowl. We’ll fill the bowl with snow and every once in a while you’ll have to open the door and take a handful of snow to replenish the bowl. It’ll stay cool there for when you need it.

“You’ll have to use this spoon or your finger to drip it into Yale’s mouth. But, don’t use your finger unless you’re absolutely sure it’s clean or she’ll get sick. Um,” Jeanie yanked on her breast as though milking a cow. “If the milk runs out, remember the most important thing is that she gets some liquid. Don’t give her lots of water, but if the milk is gone and I’m nowhere in sight, give her drips of water, just enough so that she keeps her pants wet. She
has
to keep making water. That’s how you’ll know she’s all right.”

Katherine’s eyes grew wider then narrowed on her mother. “You sound like you’re not coming back.”

Jeanie looked up from her breast. “Of course I’m coming back. But I just want to be sure the horses are tied and safe and I need to get fuel. I don’t trust this storm’s pattern. It started too strange. But if we don’t get something to burn and if I don’t attach this red cloth to the top of that shack we call a barn, if your brothers and father are out in the storm…they’ll never find this pit we call a home. They’ll walk right over it never to be seen again. And I can’t have that.”

Katherine laid her cheek against her sister’s forehead and closed her eyes.

“They’re safe, right? You can feel it like you did when we were caught in the fire, right?”

Jeanie tucked her breast into her dress and buttoned up. “I don’t feel anything particular, right now. Except that the next thing I need to do, is to get something for fire and make our home noticeable from a distance. I won’t be long. Ten minutes is all it will take me.”

Jeanie leaned over Katherine, kissed her cheek and inhaled the scent of both of them before standing and heading toward the door. Katherine grabbed Jeanie’s hand, pulling her back. She squeezed her mother’s fingers three times for I love you.

“Come back quick. I’m not the mothering kind, you know.”

“You are. We’re mothering people, we Arthurs.”

“Still,” Katherine said.

“I’ll return in five minutes.” Jeanie gave Katherine three squeezes of the hand.

Katherine nodded and Jeanie turned from her, hiding the tears that rimmed her eyelids, telling Jeanie that despite all her willing the world to be the way she wanted, she wasn’t so sure she had the kind of power that this type of willing would require.

Chapter 17

Jeanie touched every item she needed. Frank’s hat, his coat, extra socks in his pockets, the red cloth to tie to the stick above the barn. Then she mentally drew a map of where she needed to go, knowing that as soon as she committed to the storm, the only way she would find her way to the barn and back would be to count every step, inventory every turn she took and follow the exact path back. Jeanie knew that the very short distance between the house and the barn would take exponentially longer to navigate than it did on a typical day.

She took a deep breath at the door, slid the chest to the side and bent toward the wind, pushing through the doorway as though plowing through mud rather than thin air. She hung on the door knob until she was sure Katherine had slid the chest back and finally turned into the wind, focusing her mind on every step, and how the earth felt as it sloped up. She counted each step she took. Jeanie’d been caught in snow storms before, not been able to see, had to turn away from punishing winds, full of snow that pelted her like knives, but nothing she’d experienced prepared her for the current storm. She held her hand up, touched her face and drew it back a bit, just to be sure, sure that she hadn’t gone crazy, that in fact it was true that she couldn’t see two inches in front of her nose. Whatever storm had befallen them, it was not typical in any sense. And by the time Jeanie decided checking on the horses, gathering fuel, and tying a cloth to the barn was not a profitable idea, she’d wandered too far not to finish her task.

Jeanie didn’t know how much time had passed when she realized she’d expended her mental energy just telling her body how to stay upright, she’d no idea at which point the land sloped which way or how many steps she took. She bent at the knees, chin tucked to her chest, heaving for breath, but only taking in searing granules of ice. She righted herself, trying to find a glimmer of the sun, to locate the ghoulish outline that often came with cloudy stormy weather.

But, every time she raised her face to look, ice pierced her eyeballs and when she’d look away, shutting her eyes, the ice would crust across her lashes, sealing her lids until she warmed the lashes enough with her glove to open her eyes. The only sense she could apply to actions seemed to be the mantra she began to say keepyoureyesopenkeepyoureyesopenkeepyoureyesopen.

The wind ripped in several directions at once and in an odd instance, it stilled, the particles of ice and snow hanging there long enough for Jeanie to realize she could see. She turned her head, and caught the sight of a clump of brown. The olive trees! Jeanie knew if she could rest against one of them for a moment she could reorient herself and head directly northwest to the barn from there. So quickly, Jeanie had to pray the lull had actually happened, the winds tangled up from all directions, again. Dropping her head and shoulder into the wind, she ruptured a seam in the wind and pushed ahead.

She’d gathered her wits enough, focused on the barn ahead, forcing the thoughts associated with cold from her mind. If she didn’t acknowledge the cold air—so icy it felt three-dimensional, as though if stilled and turned on its side it could hold a cup of water—the way it froze in her nose, making her swipe at it cutting the skin, feeling blood seep warm, then beginning the reclogging again.

Jeanie trudged, pushing her legs forward, losing time, though sure she would reach the barn any second. Her lungs felt as though they were cementing in her chest as they grew used to the searing cold and she adapted a more shallow breath pattern. She bowed into the wind, and as she did, it let up again, the swirling snow and exploding particles of ice stopping mid-air. As the atmosphere stilled, Jeanie raised her head, seeing the outline of the olive trees again.

She plodded faster at that thought, giving up on the idea that she would find the animals, and finally letting her mind go to Katherine and Yale. The storm kicked up again and the lull had given enough space in the air for Jeanie to note that it had turned from day to night. Sunset, maybe a little after five o’clock. When that happened, Jeanie couldn’t have said; she didn’t notice in the blackout caused by the avalanche of white.

Jeanie finally reached the trees. And it was at the first tree in the bunch that Jeanie began to hear the sounds of Frank’s violin, the dark, slow version of Marie Antoinette’s song that he fancied. Another boost to her confidence. Frank was in the home, with the kids, keeping their minds off their missing mother by playing the violin. Thank you, Lord, for dear Frank. Jeanie knew he would have managed to make things right when they needed him most.