But as we put the harvest by in jars and crates and beds of straw, a spark of strength flared in my mother’s breast. It was the first time in all my life I had ever known her to be so steady. At first, I thought it was Nettie Mae’s nearness that had braced Ma up, in spite of the yellow jackets that swarmed between them. I thought the mere presence of another grown woman was a comfort to my ma, even if that woman was hard and cold, ever alert for the least excuse to throw Cora Bemis out of her house. Nettie Mae hated my ma, but at least Nettie Mae was society, of a sort. But soon enough, I came to see the situation more clearly. After Nettie Mae would rake Ma with her eyes or spit a few hard words of instruction and then storm from the room, my ma would smile to herself with her head down over preserves or sewing. It was the comforting smile she had used on us, her children, when we had skinned our knees or stubbed our toes and cried from the pain. It was the smile that had always said, You’ll be all right. The pain will pass. By and by, you’ll see.
I came to understand that my ma was brooding a secret. Some plan had taken root within her, and she was nurturing it with all the tenderness she gave to her children. It was as precious to her as I was, or Charles or Benjamin or my baby sister. And in the presence of that secret, sheltered by her private thoughts, the meekness fell away from my ma’s demeanor, replaced by a clear-eyed determination I had never seen in her before.
I noted a change in Nettie Mae, too. For all she prided herself on her unbending hatred, her rigid adherence to the rules of moral life, she was softening, bit by bit. Oh, not to my ma; Nettie Mae was firm in her resolve to hate poor, tender Cora unto the very end of days. But as we settled into a new routine of life, the mistress of the big sod house grew a little less harsh with my brothers, and gentler with tiny Miranda’s feelings.
Nettie Mae Webber was a natural lover of children, and there was nothing she could do about it. She had set her heart to despise every creature that carried the Bemis name, and she still wore her dire frown whenever she laid eyes on Cora’s offspring—me, most especially. Yet I noticed the way she would turn to watch my brothers as they scampered outside to their chores. The faint lean of her body, yearning after their boisterous energy. I saw, now and then, how she smiled over her spinning, and all because Charles and Benjamin were singing a soldier’s marching tune in the low glow of an overcast afternoon, somewhere out beside the long shed. Miranda had solemnly presented Nettie Mae with a handful of withered chicory flowers, and I had thought Nettie Mae would toss them in the scrap bucket for the hogs. But later that day, when the call of a bird drew my attention away from my chores, I looked up from the wall of the sheepfold to find Nettie Mae standing at her bedroom window, holding back the curtain with one hand, watching with disapproval as Clyde and I counted the flock in the pen. There on the sill before her were the ragged blue flowers, soaking in a cup of water.
It was Nettie Mae’s native tenderness for children that brought her to the yard, running, panting, pale faced but flint eyed, when we heard the thunder. And it was she who acted in time to save Miranda’s life. Hard as Nettie Mae was, tightly as she had bound herself to hatred, without her level head and steel command, my sister would never have survived.
CORA
When she heard the thunder, so close that it seemed the very Judgment of God come down from a vengeful Heaven, Cora bolted up from her chair. Her letter box, the lid of which converted into a small lap desk, flew from her knee and crashed against the floor, sending its contents clattering and rolling around the close quarters of the bedroom. Something hot and prickling rushed through Cora’s body, concentrated in her throat and lungs. For a moment, she knew only that the sky had split overhead with a force so sudden and violent, so shockingly near, that reality itself must have splintered. Then she felt the fire in her throat, the fast pulse burning along her limbs, and she believed she must have been struck by the lightning. A heartbeat later, she scolded herself for a fool. How could she have been struck? She was in her cramped new bedroom, writing a letter to Ernest, safe behind the sod-brick walls of the Webber farmhouse. The heat and pressure in her chest were relics of her own terrified scream. As the roar of thunder quieted a little, leaving only its frantic, trembling echo in her ears, she heard the reverberation of her shriek, too, fading quickly in the confines of her room.
Cora gasped and turned to look at the spilled letter box. The inkwell had fallen, of course, but luck had dropped it squarely on Cora’s green shawl, which lay crumpled beside the chair. She hissed through clenched teeth, struggling to hold back a curse, and fell to her knees, fumbling the inkwell with hands that would not stop shaking. Half the ink had poured out already. Her shawl would bear an ugly black stain; she must make another, assuming there was enough yarn to spare. But at least the ink hadn’t spilled onto Nettie Mae’s floor.
Cora scooped the rest of her writing implements back into the box and found the letter to Ernest, which had skittered beneath the bed. Cora whisked it out of the shadows and examined the page. The tumble hadn’t damaged the letter, thank God, for Cora wasn’t certain she could bring herself to write those words again. What little courage she had found would inevitably fail if she were to begin the letter anew.
I will leave Wyoming Territory by train in the spring. I will take our children with me. Come and find us in Saint Louis if, by the time you are released from prison, you can still think of me as your wife.
She thrust the letter into her apron pocket and hurried from the room, down the stairs, and into the empty kitchen.
But for the memory of thunder—shocking and close, a palpable tightness in the air—the Webber house was silent and still. A fire crackled on the hearth, simmering the stew pot and sending tendrils of steam up the dark hollow of the chimney. Outside, the cattle called to one another, the pitch of their frantic voices rising to bellows of panic. Horses screamed in their paddock; the drumbeat of their hooves cut through the sod walls as they ran the perimeter of their enclosure, seeking escape. She could hear the sheep coming closer, too, bleating in fear as they abandoned the open pasture for the solid comfort of the stone fold.
Cora edged closer to the kitchen window and peered outside. The rear yard of the Webber homestead was dark as twilight, yet the day couldn’t have been later than two hours past noon. The sky was so black with cloud that Cora could scarcely make out the ramparts of cottonwoods along the river.
Why hadn’t Clyde or Beulah thought to mention the storm? Surely they had seen it coming; they had been outside all day, fortifying the cattle fences with the willow branches they’d cut from the banks of Tensleep Creek. Cora craned her neck, struggling to see the cattle pen clearly through the rippled glass. She could make out little of the scene, but there was no mistaking Clyde’s strong, lean form running toward the house.
Has someone been struck by lightning? Her heart froze between one beat and the next. Beulah. No, God, please!
Cora flew out the kitchen door into the yard, already shouting for Clyde, dreading the news he would bring. But he ran past her, waving his hat in one hand, and Cora turned to watch him go. One of the horses had jumped the paddock fence; Clyde seemed to dance with the terrified animal, dodging this way, that way, dodging again to cut off its flight. When the horse finally recognized its master, it calmed just enough for Clyde to approach, though it still tossed its head and chewed the air. White spittle flew from its lips.
“Ma!” Beulah shouted from the barn, gesturing with one spindly arm through the partially open door. “Get inside, Ma! There’s lightning.”
Thank God she’s safe. Cora reeled in the yard. The air was dense, choking, tight with the intrusion of the storm. Her body had gone frigid with fear, stiff and clumsy, as she braced for another hellish crack. That thunder had been like the voice of Hell itself—not the long, gentle roll, the mellow power of weather skirting the world at a distance of many miles. This storm had torn the sky directly overhead. Breathless, Cora looked up and found a flat slab of cloud, blacker than pitch, protrudin
g over the crest of the Bighorns. The storm had come upon the two farms suddenly, then, from north and east—not the usual route for autumn weather. No wonder they’d had no warning; the mountain range had hidden from view the advance of that great, dark beast of cloud and wind and striking fire.
Cora turned back toward the house but had only stumbled a few steps when Nettie Mae erupted from the root cellar. She burst out so suddenly that Cora lurched away and almost screamed again. For once, Nettie Mae didn’t bother scowling at Cora’s proximity. Pale and shaken, she took the fabric of Cora’s sleeve in a hard fist and would not let go.
“Lightning?”
Nodding, Cora swallowed hard. It was the only answer she could manage.
“Did you see it strike?”
Cora shook her head.
Nettie Mae, too, looked up at the bank of cloud. She watched for a moment, narrowing her eyes slowly, tracking the storm’s pace as it sailed beyond the mountain peaks. The day gave up more of its feeble light. Cora strained against Nettie Mae’s grip, desperate for the shelter of the house, yet unwilling to wrench her sleeve free of the other woman’s hand.
Finally, Nettie Mae spoke. “It’s not likely any of our buildings were hit. If they were, we’d see smoke rising by now. So the worst of the storm hasn’t arrived yet, but it soon will. Look—do you see the rain?”
Trembling, Cora followed Nettie Mae’s eyes. The jagged teeth of the Bighorns had caught the belly of the storm; black cloud ripped and sagged, bleeding a veil of charcoal gray and sickly, unnatural blue. In moments, the highest spurs of granite vanished behind a sheet of rain.
“Flash flood coming,” Nettie Mae said grimly. She turned on her heel, still holding tight to Cora, and called across the farm. “Clyde! Flood on its way!”
Clyde had returned his horse to the pen. He nodded once at his mother’s shout, replaced the wide-brimmed hat on his head, and sprinted to the sheepfold to shut the returning flock inside.
Cora still struggled for her breath. “Won’t . . . won’t the animals be trapped? If the water—”
“Likely not,” Nettie Mae said. “We’ve had a few bad floods before; you remember two years ago, surely.”
“Our farm is high enough on the slope that floods never threatened our animals. Or our home. But here, you—”
Nettie Mae cut her off again, pulling Cora along as she marched around the house. “We’re high enough on the slope, too. I know it doesn’t seem so from where we stand, but Substance was always particular about such things. He situated the house and the animals’ pens just so, when he built this farm. Leave the sheep to Clyde; he knows what to do. We must account for the children and get them inside the house before the rains arrive.”
“The children!” Cora hadn’t forgotten her children, but neither could she bring herself out of that damnable fog of confusion and fear. Her mind refused to work as swiftly as Nettie Mae’s. She swallowed hard, insisting that her nerves calm themselves, willing away the panic. “Where were they last? What chores did you give them today?”
“I sent them all into the orchard,” Nettie Mae said, “to pick up the apples that had fallen and begun to rot. They were to feed the apples to the pigs.”
The orchard lay ahead of the two women now. Long before they reached the trees, Cora could see two tin pails resting under the apple boughs, abandoned and forgotten. There was no sign of the children. Now, at last, she jerked free of Nettie Mae’s grip and ran into the orchard, but there was nothing she could do, save turn slowly in a helpless circle, staring down at the half-filled pails and trampled grass. The cloying smell of rotted fruit hung heavy in the air.
“Did they go back into the house?” Nettie Mae asked.
“No; I was there when the thunder sounded. I came down from my room and found no one inside.”
“Come along.” Nettie Mae left the orchard and completed her circuit of the yard. As they returned to the back portion of the Webber farm, they found the sheep streaming past the long shed, crowding through the gate and into the fold. Far beyond the flock, Cora spotted Benjamin and Charles running toward the house. Charles tumbled, then disappeared in the tall grass as he crashed blindly into a stand of sage. A moment later, he regained his feet and pelted after his brother.
“God protect us!” Cora exclaimed. She ran toward her sons.
The boys met her at the far end of the barn and flung themselves into her arms. Tears streamed down their cheeks; they were red faced, choking on their spit, sobbing for breath.
“There, there.” Cora tried to comfort them, even as she dragged them toward the barn door. The lightning might return at any moment; they mustn’t be caught in the open. “There, there; you’re safe now.”
Suddenly, Beulah was beside her, thrusting open the door from the inside. She took Benjamin by the collar and hauled him into the cool interior.
“Land sakes,” Beulah said rather casually. “That’s some storm.”
Nettie Mae pushed Cora and Charles into the barn and stood on the threshold, arms braced across the door as if to prevent their leaving. “Where is Miranda?”
Benjamin and Charles exchanged a stupefied look. Charles began to cry again, his red face falling into a mask of agony and shame. His little body heaved and shook as he struggled for his breath.
“She . . . she was with us in the orchard,” Benjamin said.
Nettie Mae scowled. “And you left the orchard.”
“But she didn’t follow us.”
“Are you certain? You must be certain, boy.”
“I . . . I never saw!”
Beulah rested her hand on Benjamin’s head. “Where did you go when you left the orchard, Benji? Tell me. I promise I won’t get angry.”
“To the riverbank. We wanted to skip stones.”
“The river,” Cora cried. “Mother of Mercy! The flood, Nettie Mae—the flood!”
This time, when Nettie Mae touched Cora’s arm, she didn’t seize her sleeve, made no demands with her strength. The touch was almost gentle. “You must remain calm, Cora. We don’t know for a fact that Miranda went to the river. We’ll spread out and look for her. No, not you boys; you’ll remain here in the barn come what may, do you understand? There may be more lightning. You aren’t to leave this place until I tell you it’s safe.”
Benjamin had taken Charles under his arm; both boys nodded, eyes on the packed earthen floor.
Nettie Mae caught Cora’s eye and jerked her head toward the pasture. “We’ll fetch Clyde, and together, the three of us will scour the entire farm. Very likely the thunder frightened Miranda and she’s hiding somewhere. She may even be in the house, safe and sound, quiet as a mouse for fear of the storm. Don’t despair, now; let’s just bear down and do what we must.”
Mute, numb, Cora followed Nettie Mae outside. A cold wind tore down the slope, whipping grit and fragments of sage against Cora’s face. She flinched from the sting, squinting against the storm, praying that God would hold back the lightning until Miranda had been found and whisked off to some shelter. She followed Nettie Mae along the edge of the pasture. Nettie Mae spoke as she walked, murmuring her plan for searching the fields and orchard, or perhaps offering encouragement. Cora couldn’t make out a single word over the rising howl of wind, but the low, soothing tone was like a rope stretched taut through a lightless passage, and Cora clung to Nettie Mae’s calm strength with all her will.
Over the wind came the crash of the barn door slamming shut. Cora and Nettie Mae both looked around and saw Beulah running against the force of the storm, pushing across the pasture’s weedy border, making steadily for the river.
“The fool girl,” Nettie Mae snapped.
“Let her go,” Cora said. “She’ll be all right.”
“Against lightning and a flash flood?”
“Beulah has good sense,” Cora answered. “I trust her; you must trust her, too.”
They reached the eastern edge of the apple orchard, the last place anyone had accounted for Miranda with any cer
tainty.
“She may be cowering in the long grass,” Nettie Mae said briskly. “I’ll go to the other side of the orchard. On my signal, we’ll both walk toward the house, calling her name. If she doesn’t show herself, we’ll look around the outhouse and the root cellar next, and then the horse shed.”
Cora nodded. She was calm now—too calm, resigned to the truth. Miranda was a small, helpless child, and the prairie was vast as a raging sea. It was a wilderness of inhuman things, wolves and bears come down from the mountains, the unsettling movement of wind across the grass, that never-ending motion like the stirring of a great beast’s flank, a steady inhale and exhale. She and her youngest daughter—all of her children—were no more than fleas on the prairie’s hide. Another lightning strike, another slash of thunder, could shake any of them loose and send them falling out into the fathomless dark of the storm.
Cora pressed on through the orchard, calling Miranda’s name, wondering why she didn’t shiver when her terror was so great. Every moment, she waited for the separation, the terrible knowledge that would come to her—must come, now—that Miranda was lost forever. She would never see her youngest child again.
Nettie Mae rejoined Cora, striding under the apple boughs. There was no point talking; neither had found the least sign of Miranda. They turned as one and pressed on toward the outhouse.
One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow: A Novel Page 21