The Last Letter (9 page)

She took a deep breath and crept into the hovel, ears straining for the tell-tale rattle. Like a trained snakes-woman, if there were such a thing, Jeanie gritted her teeth and goaded the pair of snakes into a corner, then stabbed at them with cold, silent calculation Jeanie imagined only a person possessing great hate and a black, shallow soul could deliver. Somehow demure, ladylike Jeanie found that place inside her and made the most of it for the sake of her family.

Once the snakes were dead and their exposed innards shoveled out with the tainted dirt that had been sullied under the carcasses, Jeanie came to the conclusion that laying a rug on the dirt might not be ideal. If they were going to slay intruders on a regular basis, it wouldn’t be long before a thick rug held the smells of death, defining the space as even more hellish than she cared to imagine.

Jeanie and the boys draped the ceiling with the spare wagon sheet, staking it into the dirt with a mallet and dowels that had been tucked into the floorboards of the wagon. Once that was finished, she commenced breathing again and for the first time in hours she remembered she was pregnant. A spark of fear that all this activity would surely end in another miscarriage was replaced with a calm grounded in the thought that the other miscarriages had come while she’d been ordered to bed. If this child was meant to be, he’d come amidst the birth of their new life and be the stronger for it.

A person didn’t require a genius IQ to discern that the Arthurs would not be able to entertain their neighbors within the confines of their dugout. Jeanie knew—okay she was attempting to convince herself—it wouldn’t take much for her to organize a system that would allow her to graciously accept guests, even the unexpected ones, but with that day being their first, she had nothing to offer the impending influx of visitors. Unless they each desired an embroidered handkerchief —not only did she have a store of them in one of the trunks, but she could stitch a spare design inside a few minutes.

She rotated around the center of the hovel, trying to decide what to do next. The stove top which sat near the back, with a stove pipe extending out of the top of the dugout, was charred underneath the layers of loose dirt she’d scraped off. She’d never seen something so primitive, not even her summer kitchen had such a filthy, small device. She wondered how they’d live with the beastly thing. She imagined the space either too hot or them suffocating on muck that surely would escape the thing when in use.

Jeanie stared at the bedstead the Henderson’s left behind. The one the Arthurs would put to use. She shook her head. She could clean the bedstead up, recover it with fresh, plain cotton from her trunk and that would suffice. But its proximity to the rest of, well, the rest of everything, displeased her. The bedstead stood a mere six feet from the stove. A little behind it, was a similar bedstead, which all three children would share, until they moved out. And they would, Jeanie thought, they would be out of that hovel by spring.

Jeanie grew tired of staring at the contents of her new home and took some fresh air atop the house. Like a joke, it made her laugh that she stood on her roof, like a chimney sweep. She peered into the prairie, growing considerably irritated at Frank’s decision to assist the sisters Moore with some household matter and to have decided to invite a pocket of Darlington Township for supper. He should have known better than to think even Jeanie could make that a pleasurable exercise in society.

Just before calling the children to her to put them to work after a day’s exploration, heads began popping out of the earth’s surface at the horizon. First an enormous man with legs like barrels—Jeanie could see that even from a distance. And with him, several only slightly smaller men, a little girl, and a woman carrying a small child.

That turned her blood on, Jeanie admitted, the sight of guests plodding toward her like an approaching army with her husband still nowhere in sight. She wanted to hide, and claim no admittance to supper and the shanty, but she’d never be able to gather the children in to participate in the ruse.

As the group got closer, it was entirely clear they were a family. They marched nearly in step, white blond hair flouncing under their hats and bonnets. When they reached her, Jeanie noticed their red skin blared like beets contrasting their eyes so greatly that she kept staring at each of them, questioning whether it were possible for eyes to be so definitely blue, but nearly transparent, the color of water, almost. They were not a smiley bunch—each wore an expression that bore what appeared to be the results of bouts of acid stomach or the onset of death.

“Mrs. Arthur,” the man of the group announced as he held out his hand. His swallowed Jeanie’s in what felt like sand paper, “I’m Nikolai Zurchenko. His voice was gentle, though its deep, accented tones boomed and reverberated easily. Jeanie nodded as each boy—Artem, Anton, Aleksey, and Adam introduced himself with grips that nearly buckled her knees. Little Anna, six years, and baby Anzhela, two years, stared at her from their parents’ arms as though she’d threatened to kick them.

Finally, Greta broke into what Jeanie was sure was a smile, but only made her face grimmer. “Hello, Jeanie, pleasure to make your acquaintance. We’ve brought some things for supper, to get you started on the land.” Greta shook her hand in both of hers. They were nearly as big as her husband’s hands and just as rough. Greta was the largest woman Jeanie’d ever seen. Greta blocked the sun out as she overshadowed Jeanie’s five-foot, seven-inch frame. She must have been at least six feet.

“Thank you so much for making the trek to see us,” Jeanie said. “I’m afraid Frank is seeing to the Moore sisters and I’ve fallen behind in setting up house today, what with some snakes and, well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you,” she said. Greta nodded along politely, but there was evidence that mucking about in the troubles of her day was not high on the list of the Zurchenko’s wants and needs.

Nikolai stared at Jeanie, blank faced, but eyebrows raised at attention, as though Jeanie might offer heavy words of wisdom and portent of wonderful things to come. His expression didn’t seem uninterested, but it offered no other signs to his thoughts either—whether Jeanie should stop yapping. The boys stood with board-straight backs, watching Jeanie with the same expressions as their father, ones that nearly made her giggle as she wondered what could possibly be careening around their minds, watching some prairie novice prattle on about snakes and things they’ve probably seen numerous times.

One of the boys handed Jeanie a hen. Another set one down near the wagon.

Jeanie stopped talking.

Greta turned sideways and swept her hand toward the hand wagon the boys had drug across the land. “Besides the hens, we’ve brought some potatoes—some ready for planting, watermelons—we’ve had a blessed crop that yields at least three ripes a week—some cakes, a bucket of water to get you started, and…”

Greta continued with the inventory and Jeanie grew twisted with a stew of gratitude, embarrassment, honor, and dismay that they were deemed so needy from so far a distance. She wondered what Frank had told everyone as he met them. Mostly, she couldn’t take her eyes from the wagon, the watermelons the size of two of the Zurchenko men’s heads, if they were set crown to crown. Jeanie wiped the corner of her mouth as she thought it was surely showing signs of dribbling saliva.

Jeanie swept her finger over the melon then knocked on it twice. She turned to see all of them staring, scowling. “Thank you all so much.” Jeanie nearly bowed at them. She didn’t know what to say except that her family couldn’t accept all this. “Maybe once we’re settled and bring in some—”

“Nonsense,” Greta said. Baby Anzhela hung around her neck, legs latched around Greta’s midsection like a monkey so that Greta didn’t even need to touch her. She held her hands out to Jeanie, stretching around Anzhela, as though inviting her into their embrace.

Jeanie gave her hands to Greta but didn’t step into any sort of clinch. Warmth coursed through Jeanie’s body. Even when Greta’s scowl broke into an even more severe grin, they instantly connected, with the suddenness that a room, blackened by night then suddenly taken by morning sun would do and they were, at once, old friends.

Greta squeezed Jeanie’s hands. “We have many ways of helping one another and this is small compared to what will change hands among us in the future. These lands are…they’re not for the…well, let’s just say the prairie shows things that only will be endured by us, supporting each other. Our families.”

Jeanie nodded, absorbed in Greta’s liquid gaze. They released hands and Greta spun Anzhela around to her back where the little one peered over her mother’s shoulder, squinting. Greta turned her attention to the wagon. Finally, Anzhela smiled at Jeanie, making her laugh at the little girl’s chubby, delicate face—not at all Greta-like.

Off to the side, Nikolai barked orders—meaning he used about six words to get the boys moving as they spread out over the prairie doing only heaven knew what. Heavens, Jeanie thought, how that man could get a point across and conserve words at the same time.

Baby Anzhela rode on Greta’s back and Anna held items from the wagon as Greta searched for something. Jeanie was still struck by them, unable to be mannerly or useful. Jeanie stared at Greta, her great size—she could be a man in a dress. She’d never seen a woman with so few charms. She didn’t lack manners, but she didn’t have delicacy about her—that coy womanly expression that most females used on each other as well as men, a means of manipulation, to present a certain image, to evoke a certain emotion or behavior in others. This woman simply was. And that was the greatest thing Jeanie’d ever seen in all her days.

Greta pulled Jeanie over to the line of trees that extended from the dugout. “These are Russian olive trees. They’re not enormous, but I planted these here when we arrived with the Hendersons three years ago. They’ll break the wind for you. You’d be surprised how much these can do in the dead of winter.”

Jeanie clamped her hands in front of her at her waist, surprised that such still small trees could make a difference on this great plain. “And the bee tree? Mr. Templeton told me a little bit about it.”

“Ah, the bee tree. You have the only one at present and I’d like to say we all make use of it in one way or another.”

“The prospect of sweet honey does fill my mouth with water,” Jeanie said.

“Being that it contributes to honey production, it makes the hard times a little sweeter. And it’s the perfect landmark for those times when the boys go a little too far out on the prairie, or in the unusual case of guests finding their way to our property. But the inside of it is almost more valuable than the outside. There have been times when we were in need of roping one thing or another and I’d thought of having Nikolai chop it down and cut it open for its innards that make fine rope. But luckily, Nikolai is more level-headed than me. He understands the need to be particular as to what resources we take and those we leave.”

“It’s a bit surprising that such a scrawny tree can be so important. It’s tall of course, but scrawny, indeed,” Jeanie said.

Greta pulled the front of her bonnet out a bit to give her more shade as she stared at it. “The tree reminds me of us—we pioneers. Strong, resilient.” She shrugged.

“It seems as though that’s imperative for pioneers all right,” Jeanie said.

Greta turned abruptly—so fast that Anzhela’s legs nearly lost their grip on her mother. “Did you know that if a Bass wood tree is cut down, falls down, or burned or whatever might happen to one, it begins to sprout from itself—the seemingly dead trunk. One day it’ll just start growing again.” Her face was as animated, as animated as it could be, Jeanie guessed as it still managed to grow grim with the enthusiasm. Jeanie imagined how her mother would have dealt with Greta’s lack of natural charms.

She could hear her saying “Dearest, Greta, you must sit in front of the mirror until you shape your scowl into a picture of peace and beauty. And if you can’t muster a pretty expression while smiling, well, then develop an expression that doesn’t make use of a smile.” Jeanie’s mother wouldn’t have managed one minute on the prairie. For the first time, Jeanie wasn’t merely glad her mother’s life had ended before her father’s for her sake, but Jeanie was glad for her own sake.

Jeanie shook off thoughts of her mother and let the inspiration of Greta’s hopeful words sweep into her body. “I think the tree is magnificent. Ugly or not. It’s as though its dream is to one day be the biggest, longest living tree on the prairie, the one that provides quiet useful service.” Jeanie said only half joking.

“Dream? Well, dreams aren’t much help out here, Jeanie. Dreams are sort of…” Greta swung baby Anzhela around front and began to poke at the bottom lid of her right eye, wiping dirt from the inside corners of it then the left with her thumbs. Anzhela finally squirmed and re-grasped onto her mother around the neck so she’d stop picking at her.

“Dreams are the only things that make me happy,” Jeanie said. “The next step toward making the life I want. I couldn’t live without dreams. The picture of myself living on our own property, in a white house, flower boxes, cutting gardens, luxury and writing. I’ll write again and have something important to say. And the children. Having children who are educated and respectful. And, full of their own dreams. I don’t remember a time in life when I didn’t have a set of dreams for which I strived.”