And it was that desire for fairness that had landed Hank flat on his back, unable to do anything but eat, sleep, shit, and hope to die.
To the best of everyone’s figuring, Hank had stepped in a gopher hole as he went for a shot last season. He stumbled forward and somehow shot himself in the face. The worst of it came when he fell backward and broke his neck, paralyzing him instantly.
He couldn’t remember a thing about the accident, and if there were any blessings in all of this it was that. He couldn’t replay his actions in his head over and over again, belittling himself, trying to turn back time to employ the good sense he was born with. I was glad he didn’t have the torture of that to face every day.
It had been a matter of luck that Hilo Jenkins, the former sheriff of Stark County, found Hank before he died. But Hank, of course, didn’t see it that way at all. Luck had left us both that day and had yet to return.
“I’m not one for anniversaries or irony,” Hank went on. “I feel fine. There’s no worry for you on this day; I’m sure of it.” The lilt in his voice was still detectible even in the whisper; a hint of ancient Norwegian and a lifetime spent on the North Dakota plains. His grandparents on his mother’s side had come over on the boat as children from the old country, Norway, nearly a hundred years ago. My mother, Momma, had come over with her sister and parents when she was four. Our fathers’ families, the Hoaglers and the Trumaines, had come from other parts of the world, Germany and England, at one time or another. Those family stories were lost in the dust of time. Most of what they had known about the old ways had been forgotten in their desire to be like everyone else—new and American. But I could still hear the snow and wind in Hank’s voice, an old language trying to speak on a foreign, unforgiving land. He sang without singing, and I could listen to him talk all day, when he was in the mood, as we sat on the porch and watched the magpies, meadowlarks, and prairie dogs go about their business of living on their native land.
“All right,” I said. “If you say so.”
“I say so.”
“I have work to do.”
A slight nod shifted across Hank’s face, and he blinked tiredly. “I’m glad of that. I’m sure Calla’s fine. She’s a hardy one. Been tested more than we know. She was helping someone, that’s all. It’s what she does.” He hesitated, then arched his throat forward for emphasis. “Today’s no different than any other day; you know that, Marjie. You know that.”
CHAPTER 3
Outside the four walls of my little house, the country still grieved for the loss of a young president almost a year ago. Sadness and profound silence were palpable every time I went in to town, to the Red Owl grocery store, the Rexall drugstore, or Doc’s office. Even the library was quieter, but I’d barely noticed, given my own circumstances of the last year. The strained gray mood of our nation seemed natural, expected, and certain beyond my own nose.
The Cold War was more visible in North Dakota than most anywhere else. Missile silos were being drilled into the flat-as-a-pancake ground less than an hour away from our farm, offering nuclear destruction to the world at the simple press of a button. Signs of human obliteration came in the form of rumbling B-52s flying overhead, giant airplanes capable of dropping bombs in case the missiles failed—a one-two-punch delivering extinction. We all feared the fireball in the sky, the mushroom cloud of our nightmares, becoming a reality. The closest thing we had to a bomb shelter was the root cellar. It would have to do, even though I had no desire to die in a nest of spiders and bugs who loved the darkness.
No one knew what the Russians would do in our moment of weakness, and I didn’t care any more than normal. I just couldn’t bring myself to be too concerned about the outside world going to hell in a handbasket. My world already had.
I’d been secretly grateful that Hank had resisted the temptation to bring a television into the house. His resistance to living in the future had saved me from seeing the images of an optimistic man and his wife in that pink pillbox hat arriving in Dallas before the tragedy, and a sad little boy saluting his father’s coffin in the black and white aftermath. Maybe it would have been better if the morbid images had entered our house, if I had insisted that we keep up with our friends and neighbors and get one of those talking picture boxes, too. But I knew better. We had enough of everything to occupy our time, including grief, depression, and fear. There was no room for the chatter of the world’s woes to be delivered by anything more than the radio that we already owned.
My connection to the outside world came into the house in the form of books. It always had, and there was no plan in my mind to change that anytime soon. It seemed like ages ago that Lloyd Gustaffson, our former extension agent, introduced me to the world of back-of-the-book indexing via a correspondence course offered by the United States Department of Agriculture. A series of droughts, hailstorms, and bad weather had dropped our yields to an all-time low, and with them went the surplus of our savings. Indexing, Lloyd had thought, knowing my love of books and reading, offered a way for me to make some extra income through the coming winter and beyond. And he’d been right. I took to indexing books like a grouse to sudden flight. It was books, and a good turn in the weather, that had saved us, put us back on an even plain.
I stared at the page of text from the Common Plants book lying on my desk one more time, trying to figure out what I was missing.
A prolific seed bearer, a single musk thistle (Carduus nutans) plant can produce up to twenty thousand seeds, though only about one-third prove to be viable. The tallest shoot, the terminal, flowers first, then shorter, lateral shoots develop in the leaf axils. An aggressive, healthy plant has the ability to produce over one hundred flowering heads over a seven-to-nine-week season. Seeds disseminate two weeks after the first bloom. The plant dies after it sets seed. Ninety percent of the lifecycle of musk thistle is spent as vegetative growth, thus making it difficult for the untrained eye to detect. Musk thistle is commonly confused with native or less productive invasive thistles such as bull thistle. Prevention of seed formation is the utmost action required in range management. Complete eradication is unlikely.
And that was that. There was nothing more than the description of the plant at various stages and the flowers. I flipped the page and there was nothing else there concerning musk thistle, either. The text moved on to another invasive thistle, plumeless thistle (Carduus acanthoides), and Leonard Adler went on writing and immediately identified this plant as a winter annual or biennial. Frustration continued to careen though my fingers as I tapped them against the marred walnut top of my desk, then flipped the page back and scanned the page on musk thistle once again to make sure my eyes hadn’t glazed over, missing the information I was looking for—but nothing was there. The omission was maddening.
I turned my attention to the index card that I had inserted in my trusted, reliable, and prized Underwood typewriter. It said:
milk thistle. See also ??????
I was tempted to type in weeds after the blank See also reference, but the tone of the text dictated that I make the distinction between perennial and biennial plants, and also provide the reader another access point into the text. It was as simple as that. The section of the index I was working on was taking shape and nearly complete, and I was stumped.
B
biennial thistles
bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare), 256
Flodman thistle (Cirsium flodmanii), 239
musk thistle (Carduus nutans) ??????, 258
tall thistle (Cirsium altissimum), 247
bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare), 256
I
invasive species
thistles, 250
bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare), 256
Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense), 251
musk thistle (Carduus nutans), 258
M
musk thistle (Carduus nutans), 258. See also ??????
N
native species
thistles, 238
fi
eld thistle (Cirsium discolor), 243
Flodman thistle (Cirsium flodmanii), 239
swamp thistle (Cirsium muticum), 245
tall thistle (Cirsium altissimum), 247
wavyleaf thistle (Cirsium undulatum), 242
P
perennial thistles
Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense), 251
field thistle (Cirsium discolor), 243
Flodman thistle (Cirsium flodmanii), 239
musk thistle (Carduus nutans) ??????, 258
swamp thistle (Cirsium muticim), 245
wavyleaf thistle (Cirsium undulatum), 242
T
tall thistle (Cirsium altissimum), 247
thistles
bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare), 256
Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense), 251
field thistle (Cirsium discolor), 243
Flodman thistle (Cirsium flodmanii), 239
invasive species. See invasive species
musk thistle (Carduus nutans), 258
native species. See native species
origin of name, 252
Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium), 252
swamp thistle (Cirsium muticum), 245
tall thistle (Cirsium altissimum), 247
wavyleaf thistle (Cirsium undulatum), 241
If Calla couldn’t answer my question for me, I was going to have to call my editor and have him call Leonard Adler to find out.
You would think that as an indexer I would have a way to communicate with the author of all of the books that I worked on, but that was rarely the case. Sometimes, the author reached out to me once the index was assigned to me, but generally there was a locked door between us that only my editor had the key to.
Calling Richard Rothstein had never been on my list of favorite things to do, and today was no exception. Asking him to gather information for the index was an admittance of failure and put me in a line of fire that I didn’t want to be in. His attitude had always been caustic and rude under the best of circumstances. Asking him to do a task that was distinctly my job would only make him less tolerable. He would be furious.
Failure was not an option, so I pushed away from my desk and trudged to the phone with Shep close behind. I’d call Calla one more time.
I tapped my red pen on the wall again and listened for Burlene Standish on the other end of the party line before I dialed. Thankfully, the line sounded quiet. Burlene’s intrusiveness had lessened recently, but she still eavesdropped on the party line on occasion. Old habits were hard to break.
I dialed the library’s number slowly, just to make certain that I didn’t connect to the wrong number.
It was picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”
Only it wasn’t Calla’s voice on the other end. It was a man’s voice. A man’s voice that I recognized immediately. It was Guy Reinhardt, a Stark County sheriff’s deputy. A policeman in the library.
My initial concern that something was wrong catapulted itself into a frightened reality. The sound of Guy’s voice felt like an atom bomb had gone off inside my head.
CHAPTER 4
“What are you doing answering the phone at the library, Guy?”
Silence from Guy and static in the line answered me back. I could hear muffled voices in the background. It didn’t sound like the library at all. I felt cold and tingly all over, and it wasn’t from the weather.
“The library’s closed, ma’am,” Guy finally said.
“Guy it’s me, Marjorie. Marjorie Trumaine. What’s going on there? Why are you answering the phone at the library? It’s a weekday; Calla should be there.”
“Oh, hey there, Marjorie. I didn’t recognize your voice. How are things out your way?”
There was no denying that he was doing his best to sound normal, but there was a nervous edge to his voice that instantly betrayed him.
I liked Guy, even though he was a bit troubled—going through his second divorce and rumored to like the taste of whiskey a little more than he should have. I suppose he had reason for that, even though I’d never seen any sign of it. In his youth, Guy had been a big time basketball hero in Stark County but had made some bad choices at the wrong time and ended up in a car wreck that had permanently injured his leg, ending any hope or dream of becoming a pro player. He still walked with a slight limp.
“What’s going on there, Guy? Can I speak to Calla, please?”
More silence. I could hear Guy breathing, so he didn’t have his hand cupped over the receiver like he was trying to hide something. Instead, it was like he was trying to decide what to say without telling me what was going on or lying to me.
I tapped the pen on the wall again. If I kept it up there’d be another mar to note my presence in the house. This old house was nicked and battered by the weather outside and my fingers on the inside. It was a wonder that it hadn’t collapsed from such abuse.
“Library’s closed, Marjorie,” Guy said.
“I need to speak to Calla.”
“That’s not possible. Not possible at all.”
I lowered my voice. “You tell me what’s going on right now, Guy Reinhardt. You hear me. You tell me that Calla Eltmore is all right, that there’s nothing the matter with her.” The words jumped out of my mouth unfettered. I knew I was speaking with an officer of the law, but I couldn’t help myself. That happened sometimes, a product of my bloodline and spending inordinate amounts of time alone. I had few filters to consider, especially when I was nervous.
“I can’t tell you that, Marjorie. I can’t tell you anything. I’m sorry, I really have to go. Goodbye, Marjorie.” Then the phone clicked harshly in my ear and the line went dead.
I was stunned by Guy’s action. He could’ve told me what was going on. It wasn’t like I was Burlene Standish, apt to blab whatever he told me around half of Dickinson. I really needed to know that Calla was all right, but my gut feeling told me that wasn’t the case. Something was wrong. Horribly wrong. I just didn’t want to imagine what that something was.
For the second time in a day, I stood rigid, unbelieving, staring at the phone. I wanted to scream, Tell me what’s going on! But I knew it wouldn’t do me any good. Screams never changed anything.
I hung up the receiver, turned around, and slid down the wall on my back; gravity was stronger than my will. I suddenly found myself face-to-face with Shep, who, out of concern and brazen compassion, leaned in and licked off a nervous tear that had started to trail down my cheek.
Night fell and darkness wrapped itself around the house like it had a right to, even though I wished it wouldn’t, covering everything in a thick blanket of petulant silence. The wind, almost ever-present in October, had whimpered away at last light and had not been heard from since. Such a thing could be disquieting and deeply unsettling. Sanity in the middle of nowhere had always been fragile, but it had felt even more so of late.
The world kept on changing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The days were growing shorter, and the time to prepare for the coming winter was long past the critical point. I barely had enough wood stacked outside to feed our two Franklin stoves through December. The reliable January deep-freeze was not something I was prepared for in any way.
Earlier in the day, I’d been tempted to grab up my purse, rush out the door, jump in the truck, and speed into town as quickly as I could after speaking with Guy, but I didn’t have the freedom to come and go like I once did. I couldn’t just leave Hank to himself. Not anymore. I was just as trapped by his condition as he was. There were times when that fact was beyond frustrating, but it just was what it was: Our lot to carry.
In the past, I could have called Lida Knudsen to come and sit with Hank while I tended to my town chores, but she was dead and buried, a fact that I still found to be unbelievable, especially in the moments when I needed her the most. All I’d had to do in the past was call, and she’d have been at my door in the blink of an eye, eager to help out. But with Lida and her husband gone, there was only the
ir son, Jaeger Knudsen, to call on. His younger brother, Peter, was off in the Air Force.
I hadn’t wanted to bother Jaeger earlier, and now it was too late to go into town. I had already put up the chickens, fed the winter hog, closed the barns up, and brought Shep inside. I had overridden Hank’s rule of no animals in the house. Nowadays, it was just as important to have the dog at my side as it was to have a loaded .22 rifle next to the kitchen door.
Hank had taken his evening broth, and I stared at the strips of bacon on my plate and the bowl of canned fruit that sat next to it. We ate a big dinner at noon and a smaller supper in the evening. It had always been that way, and I was in no mood for any more changes in my life, even given Hank’s condition.
I brought my dishes to the sink, turned off all of the lights in the house, padded easily to the bedroom, and climbed into bed next to Hank. He smelled of baby oil—to keep the bedsores away—instead of the wind and toil. I missed his healthy scent more than I could say.
“You don’t know anything is wrong, Marjie.” Hank’s eyes were open, staring straight up at the ceiling.
“I do. I do know something is wrong. So do you,” I said.
Hank didn’t answer; he just exhaled as fully as he could and closed his eyes. It was my turn to stare into the darkness. I was afraid of the dreams I would have if I let myself fall asleep.
CHAPTER 5
There were days when I wished Shep was a retriever instead of a border collie. It would’ve been a fine luxury to have the capability to send the dog out for the morning newspaper, then have him bring it back inside the house and deposit it at my feet. But Shep was not that kind of dog, and I certainly didn’t have the time or the inclination to try and convince him why such a duty would have been in his best interest to take on. He was too busy worrying over the wandering chickens that had already been let out of the coop.
The necessities of the morning had been tended to before the sun had broken over the flat horizon. Hank had been fed, bathed, and exercised. Coffee simmered on the stove, and what little livestock was left on the farm had already been seen to.
See Also Deception Page 2