The Orchardist (51 page)

I
t was Caroline Middey and not Talmadge who finally told the Judge, Emil Marsden, about Jane’s suicide in the orchard. The Judge had, incredibly enough, not known about it before the trial. No one knew about it, except of course Talmadge and Caroline Middey and, only recently at that point, Angelene—though not as many details as she would soon learn. Caroline Middey wanted to tell the Judge about Jane because, she argued, it would help them all in their cases. If the jurors knew that Della’s sister had killed herself out of fear of the same man with whom Della had been so recently incarcerated, they might better understand Della’s fear of him. Or they might better understand her impulse to hurt him, and thus understand also Talmadge’s desire to free her, his desire to liberate her from such an impulse. He wanted to free her so that she wouldn’t murder a man who, if she was forced to live with, she would be compelled to murder. Because she could not help herself.

But when Caroline Middey explained to Talmadge how disclosing the story of Jane’s suicide would help both his and Della’s cases, he refused to tell the Judge about it. With more reflection, he most likely would have changed his mind. Because Caroline Middey, in theory, was correct. But before he could change his mind, Caroline Middey, acting on her own, told the Judge what had happened in the apple orchard those fourteen years before; she told him the whole story.

After this, the reporters and journalists took a different interest altogether in the case. It grew into what it did in fact resemble, a sordid saga of sex, murder, and mayhem. And the focus was not only on Della and this new character, Jane, and their tormentor, James Michaelson; the
Wenatchee World
also picked up on a cue from the
Leavenworth Echo
, where somebody in town reminded the writer about Talmadge’s past, primarily the fact that as a young man, just seventeen years old, he had lost his sister in the forest beyond the homestead. She had gone out with her basket to pick herbs in the afternoon, and simply disappeared.

It was astounding how one fact can blossom, with the nourishment of speculation, into myriad stories. Talmadge, who was orphaned utterly (
utterly
because his sister was taken away too) at a young age, lived in the orchard alone for more than forty years before Della and Jane came to live with him. In all that time, some said, he had not stopped grieving for his sister, whom he had loved dearly. One old-timer was tracked down in Peshastin and quoted as remembering the two siblings, Talmadge and his sister, both of them dark-haired and very quiet—“mute-quiet”—walking down the main street of town, holding hands, looking into storefront windows. She was his everything, his alpha and omega, gushed one writer, and then pointed out that it was not surprising that later in life—but did time really matter in affairs of the heart?—he would cling to and act so protectively toward other females. Just as Della Michaelson could not be blamed for wanting to punish her abuser, Talmadge could not help attempting to rescue her. It was as simple as that.

The stories were traded at a fever pitch among reporters and then, of course, among strangers, those who came to watch the trials in Chelan but also the townspeople of Cashmere, Leavenworth, and Peshastin who were acquainted in different ways with Talmadge, with Angelene, and even with Caroline Middey. All of Angelene’s classmates and their parents reading the newspaper, openmouthed, shaking their heads. It was impossible to say how many people thought they deserved it—You take up with trash, you get what you pay for, one Leavenworth citizen was quoted as saying, bizarrely—or how many people were shocked with them, grieved for them. It was only too bad that to gossip and support mean ideas was easier and more enjoyable, really, than to keep quiet and know in silence that the true story can never be told, articulated in a way that will tell the whole truth. Even if it is better to be quiet, quietness will never reign. People talked, even the best of them.

Talmadge sat defeated at Della’s trial, a look of incomprehension on his face. The most closely held stories of his life had been plundered and spelled out in the newspapers, his business there for all the world to see. It seemed nothing was kept private, nothing sacred.

Because of the grand portraits that were drawn of Talmadge and Della, of their pasts and their emotional landscapes, many people sympathized with them. What they had done might not seem right, exactly—the law was the law—but it could certainly be understood why they had done what they had done.

There were others who were able to keep their distance, who looked at the situation objectively, kept their cool while reading the feverish emotional accounts in the newspapers, and finally decided that the law had been broken, and the reasons why the players had done what they had done didn’t matter, ultimately. If Talmadge had cared too much for the girl, then he should not have adopted her. And what ridiculous logic, they said, a lie really, that Della didn’t have a choice in punishing Michaelson. Of course she had a choice. We all have a choice. She just did not practice self-restraint. These people were amazed by how much print was devoted to, and ultimately wasted on, the feelings of the people involved. As if feelings finally made any difference at all.

C
aroline Middey and Angelene were allowed to see Talmadge after his surgery. Caroline Middey stood by while a nurse bathed him; Angelene excused herself beforehand, waited in the hallway.

Talmadge, who was overcome perhaps with embarrassment, perhaps by it all, wept silently. Caroline Middey pursed her lips in frustration. It’s all
right
, she said, after the nurse had gone and she, Caroline Middey, buttoned his pajama shirt and eased him back into the bed, covered him up. He had shut his eyes but was still crying. Caroline Middey sat beside him. Held his hand.

It’s my fault, he said.

No, said Caroline Middey.
No
.

Soon he was asleep.

T
he day Della was to be transferred, two weeks after her sentencing—almost a month after the attempted escape—Caroline Middey and Angelene made their way to the courthouse. There was already a crowd forming. Suddenly it became obvious that there would be newspapermen there, and those men would want to talk to them—Della’s people. And so Caroline Middey led Angelene across the street to the café, where they had a view of the front of the courthouse.

Vermin, said Caroline Middey.

When a guard came outdoors and stood on the step and spoke to the people waiting on the lawn, Caroline Middey and Angelene went out.

When people saw them coming, they let them go to the front. There was a hush as Della was let out. For some reason Angelene thought there would be shouting, or jeering, but there was not, it was very quiet.

Della came out flanked by two guards. She was squinting, as if it was too bright outdoors. She and the guards reached the bottom of the stairs and began to head toward the prisoner wagon, which was a short distance away.

Della! Caroline Middey shouted, and raised her hand.

She looked over at them, confused. Blinked.

Caroline Middey waved to her.

There was the sound of someone taking a photograph, a mechanical expulsion of air. It was that quiet in the crowd.

And then the guards ushered her onto the wagon, and they couldn’t see her anymore.

VI

O
n the way back to Cashmere, on the train, it began to snow. Caroline Middey, who sat across from Angelene, dozed. Angelene looked out the window, at the flakes floating silently in space. It was late afternoon, and the sky was neither light nor dim.

She recalled the time on the train, only two years before, when she and Talmadge went to Dungeness Bay. Do you remember? she wanted to ask him now, and was startled again—the core of her startled—at his absence. Where was he? But even before this thought was completed, she knew: he was gone. Elsewhere. Another space held him.

She watched the snow.

That trip to Dungeness Bay, that whole time, seemed very far away now.

T
hey arrived to find the orchard in a state of squalor. The late apricots had gone unpicked, and the fruit, having rotted on the limb and in the avenues, lately frozen, had thawed under the sun. A quiet, gleaming excrescence. The rodents and other animals had begun their work. The apples below in the field and in the canyon hung heavy on the limbs, expectant. Some wore hats of snow. They would be useless if a frost had already got them. They glanced at it all. It was pointless to perform an inspection now, this late in the day, said Caroline Middey, wearily. They entered the cabin.

I’ll make coffee, said Angelene.

T
he men arrived two weeks after Angelene and Caroline Middey returned to the orchard. They came into the field as they usually did, thronged by horses, but this time was different because neither Clee nor the wrangler was with them. No one came to greet Angelene right away, though she stood at the lip of the apricot orchard and watched them. Finally a man detached from the herd and came to her. Caroline Middey came from the cabin and stood behind Angelene, her hands on Angelene’s shoulders. Protective. The man was young, broad-shouldered, handsome. Angelene faintly recognized him. A distant cousin of Clee’s. Caroline Middey had never seen him before. He gazed beyond the women, at the cabin, and then looked at Angelene.

We have something for you, he said.

The women followed him down into the field. The other men, as soon as Angelene entered the field, drew to attention. Whoever had been sitting, stood. The man who had come up to Angelene and Caroline Middey went into the herd, and appeared at the far edge a minute later, coming toward them now. He was leading a gray horse with a spotted rump.

What’s this? said Angelene.

It was the horse that Talmadge had paid for and Clee had arranged to be waiting for Della in Stehekin.

He paid for him, he’s yours, said the man. We brought him for you.