The Last Letter (38 page)

Jeanie glared at him, could feel her cheeks shuddering with her clicking teeth. She wanted to spit at him, tell him he would care for them like an adult, that their entire lives shouldn’t have to depend solely on her. She felt a stubborn mass in her belly, telling her not to go to the stove, to make them suffer in seeing her freeze to death, to have to explain to the children that she’d died because Frank was a piss-poor person full of nothing but dirty pig shit. But, he wouldn’t do that. He’d somehow sell the story as brimming with heroism, his, of some sort.

Jeanie shoved him away, making him stumble backward. He caught himself with his hands, behind him, but rolled onto his back flipping over doing a somersault. Ruthie came into the keeping room and stopped at the sight of them having actually moved. She stared down at her hands then whisked into the kitchen to load the buffalo chips into the stove.

Jeanie pulled a heavy carved, mahogany chair near the stove. She sat it in, disgusted because she knew without anyone telling her, that this stunning, expensive chair had been carved by Frank. His stupidity, that he thought she might never notice this chair on a call to the Moores, that his signature, thick carvings would elude her. Though this chair was different in the content of the carvings—fruits and trees and a violin graced this one, it was unmistakably Frank’s work.

Frank took the modest pine chair beside Jeanie, and Ruthie pulled a decrepit chair that had been wrangled out of raw tree branches from the kitchen. Ruthie tossed the last bunch of buffalo chips in and sat on the chair. It eeked with her body weight, until she shifted and finally settled into silence.

A few minutes passed. “We’re out of buffalo chips. That’s the last load,” Ruthie said, her voice thin and empty of emotion.

“Hanks?” Frank said.

Jeanie bent forward to see past Frank. Ruthie shook her head so slightly Jeanie wasn’t sure she answered at first. Jeanie noted the dried blood on Ruthie’s cheek then looked at her hands, now getting their feeling back, the numbness and pain finally fading.

Jeanie leaned back and cursed them to herself. What kind of fools would play with their lives like that. Even if the unexpected blizzard hadn’t dropped upon them, they still should have managed to collect a few bushels of extra buffalo chips. Stupidstupidstupid people.

“We’ll be all right,” Frank said. He squeezed her shoulder and Jeanie threw his hand off with a growl.

“I’m not upset for us you stupid ass. It’s your daughters. They’re alone in the dugout, that horse-shit hole in the earth, alone, with nothing to heat themselves with. They’re probably dead. They’re probably dead already.”

Jeanie bounced in the chair and pulled her knees up to her chest again, hoping if she physically latched herself together she might not fall apart inside. Her sobs settled, her head was stuffed and it felt as though her brain had swelled and was pulsing against her skull.

“You don’t believe that, Jeanie. They’re alive and you know it. Like with the fire, you felt it in your bones that they were safe. I know you know they’re safe.”

Jeanie used her knees to knead her brow bone, hoping the rubbing would release the pain. She tried to find that place in her that would divine the safety of her children. She couldn’t find that place, she was filled with numbness and all she knew was she knew nothing about her children’s conditions. She wasn’t panicked, but she wasn’t calmed either.

She silently traced the various scenarios that could have befallen each child. Tommy could be warm at the Zurchenko’s or he could have left their homestead at just the time the storm broke. James could be hidden inside the bottom of the flag station, at Templeton’s, or, or, well, no she wouldn’t think of the other scenario, that she couldn’t bear. Katherine, dear Katherine with another child’s life in her hands. Jeanie knew she was smart enough to carry out the directions Jeanie had given her.

The problems would be what was beyond Katherine’s control— the end of the fuel, the end of the milk and a reliable way to feed the baby. Jeanie felt the most dire about Katherine and Yale because she knew the exact limitations under which they would be living. She knew they didn’t gather more fuel, or enough for the night before the storm broke.

Stupidstupidstupid people.

She knew how hard it would be to keep Yale alive. And Lutie. Stupid Lutie. Either so dumb that she didn’t notice her sister’s affair, or so dumb that she would give them sanctuary to carry it out. Stupid, stupid Lutie.

She stared at Frank’s profile as the fire lit his face with dancing light. And she knew it was all Frank’s fault. Because he had to have an affair.

A weakweakweak man.

She stared at Frank, and as the flames began to cast less light on his face, the accompanying chill was immediate. They were out of fuel. Ruthie began a squealy sob. Frank turned to her. “Ruthie, don’t cry. We’ll be all right.”

Jeanie shot to her feet. “Of course we’ll be all right, you dumb jackasses. We have plenty to burn in the house, don’t we?” Jeanie twisted at the waist, looking around the house for just the right thing to burn. She saw it. She waltzed across the room to the lounge. On it, laid Frank’s violin.

“This is first to go. The perfect size for the stove.”

Frank started to get up, but her gaze leveled him, pushing him back into his seat. Jeanie sauntered to the stove and ceremoniously laid it on top of the remaining chips and ashes.

“Oh, well, yes, that burns very well. Slow, it looks like,” Jeanie said. She turned to Frank and Ruthie. “Well, let’s get to the next stage of making fuel. She tapped the mahogany, carved chair. “This will do well.”

“Now, Jeanie, there’s plenty of other things to burn before that chair,” Frank said. Jeanie spun around and grabbed the rifle from its spot leaning against the wall. She pushed the center of it back and it expelled a casing, cocked and ready to go. The sound it made as it was readied seemed to hang in the air. “We’ll start with that chair Frank and I’ll take no arguments from either of you. And mark my words. If we’re trapped in this place for a week or so, I’ll eat you for dinner Frank, and you for breakfast the next day Ruthie Moore. So you better just do what I tell you.”

Ruthie and Frank pushed to their feet and then the two of them began to dismantle the chair while Jeanie made coffee. Every once in a while she’d turn to watch them, as the two of them seemed so dour about the process as though the dismantling of their secret little life was embedded in the process of saving all of their lives. Jeanie felt a surge of pity for them, and a sense that she should tell them she was sorry for threatening them. But she’d earned the right to threaten them at the very least.

Thoughts of what to do next, how to deal with a cheating husband came to Jeanie. Ruthie could oblige them by leaving the prairie, killing herself, whatever. But due to the circumstances of life and society, Jeanie had no choice but to keep Frank. As much as she wished he were dead or gone. Divorce. No, that was impossible. They’d starve. She couldn’t keep four children without a husband, even a lazy sloth like Frank.

There would be plenty of time for that. They had to get through the night and she was sure, that feeling had come over her at that moment, that everyone was safe. She knew it in the bones that had been nearly frozen down to the marrow, that her children were safe.

Jeanie expelled breast milk into the cleanest cup she could find. That process turned her stomach. This was so wrong, to be so separate from her baby. She ignored the thought and tugged at her breast as though it weren’t hers and it was the natural thing to do. If only she’d stayed at the house. She never should have left, been so damn sure she could take care of things. She imagined herself in the dugout, with Katherine and Yale in her arms, James, stoking the fire and Tommy claiming his boredom as lethal. She ached with the emptiness, the sensation, that she’d never have the four of them together in her home again.

As the night grew deeper and they were down to zero chairs, they sat in their assumed spots, staring into the fire. Frank leaned forward to shift some wood from the front of the stove with a poker. When he did, thin strands of light leapt down the length of the poker and off his hand. He flew back across the room. The women turned to see his hair standing on end, dancing in the air like seaweed in a fish tank she’d seen once in Des Moines. His breathing steadied but his face grew horrified as he looked back and forth from one woman to the other.

“What?” Jeanie asked. Frank pointed and the women looked at one another to see each other’s loose tendrils waving above their heads as well. It was then that sparks of electricity would appear out of nowhere, running across the top of the stove, down a mirror, and at times, right off the ends of their fingertips. The storm had indeed gone completely the way of bizarre and if it hadn’t wrought such turmoil, Jeanie would have merely been impressed by its atypical power.

Jeanie balled up again, trying to make sense of such an occurrence. She tried to believe this was simply another component to a normal storm, that it wasn’t unprecedented, that what everyone knew about surviving wouldn’t be challenged by such great complexity, that it actually made sense that fire snapped right out of thin air.

Though none of the three pioneers taking cover in Ruthie Moore’s home ever slept that night, they did fall into exhausted stupors characterized by blank stares into the fire, only coming to consciousness to break furniture into pieces and toss them into the fire.

Every once in while, Ruthie would sob, apologize to Jeanie and beg for forgiveness. Jeanie didn’t respond, nor did she feel anything at all.

In the midst of one of these trance-like silences, pounding on the front door, like bullets from several guns at once, signaled that day had broken, perhaps the storm as well. Jeanie got to the door first and wrenched it open. A blast of air threw her back and its frigid force in combination with sun so bright turned her vision to black. She spun away from the door before she could even see who was there.

As she turned back, shielding her eyes, the sounds of Tommy filled her ears. His squeaky voice chirping about the time he’d spent overnight at the Zurchenko’s poked through the relative silence. Jeanie’s eyes finally adjusted as Tommy’s arms collapsed around his mother, squeezing. “Oh, my Tommy, I’m so glad you’re well.” She rubbed his body, making sure he was actually standing there. His unusual affection made clear the weight of the night before.

She kissed him over nearly his entire body, not able to formulate thoughts or words regarding her relief at seeing him. Tommy reddened. “Ah, Mama, I’m fine. You knew I was at the Zurchenko’s. It’s Artem, Aleksey, and Anton we need to find…“

Tommy rattled off thirty-three ways—God this and God that—all the ways God would help them locate the Zurchenko boys while Nikolai hung back at the door, holding his hat. Ruthie disappeared into her bedroom. Frank was already pulling on layers of clothing, as was Jeanie.

“Mama, Father. Where is everyone? It’s mighty cold outside. Mr. Zurchenko said we should all just stay put today…hey, where’s everyone else?”

“We don’t know,” Jeanie said. “And I’m afraid this day is not so sumptuous as to allow our staying put.”

“We’ll need to check your place,” Nikolai said. “Aleksey set off yesterday for your place with a load of buffalo chips. He was probably half way there, when the storm came up. As for Artem and Anton. I cannot guess.” Nikolai nodded. Jeanie knew the panic he must have felt inside.

“I’ll go,” Frank said. He shoved his arms through his coat.

“Oh no you won’t,” Jeanie said. “You give me that coat right now. It’s not my dilemma that you chose to so foolishly spend your day yesterday, without a thought for your heavy coat. I’ll take that and you can—”

“Here,” Nikolai stripped out of his outer coat to reveal another underneath. “It’s got to be fifty below outside with the chill quite raining down from north. We’ve got to make everyone safe, not bicker about who was where yesterday.”

“You’re right, Nikolai,” Jeanie said. “Let’s go.” She pulled on the coat he offered her then hiked up the hem that dragged by a foot or so on the floor. “We’ll check the house first. They’ve got to all be there safe, they just have to.”