Ten Thousand Charms

by Allison K. Pittman

  Then he looked into the earnest, clear-eyed faces of Eliza, James, and Charles as they offered to share with him their treasures of ribbons, buttons, and rocks. Periodically, Josephine would turn around to check on her children and would include him in her reassuring smile. David filled the silence with occasional details about the land, the crops, the promises of this new country. Maybe, he thought, none of it would matter after all.

  “Hey, Logan,” he called, “will you have me back before dark?”

  “Should be. Worried?”

  “Yeah," John William said. “She doesn't know how to start a fire.”

  Gloria watched the Logans wagon disappear over the horizon. As far as she could tell, John William never looked back.

  “Have a wonderful day,” she called into the wind. “Don't you worry about me here. All alone. With two babies.”

  The far-off lapping of the Umatilla River was her only response.

  “Oh, no. I'll be fine, just fine.”

  Both Danny and Kate were awake now. Their lusty cries declared breakfast long overdue. She lifted each child down and removed the night's soiled diapers. She wrapped a fresh one around Kate, but allowed Danny to roll around naked on the blanket while he waited his turn.

  “I'm feeding your daughter,” Gloria called in the general direction of the long-vanished wagon. “I'm feeding your daughter and I haven't had a bite to eat for myself yet.”

  The babble of brooks blended with the babble of babies while Gloria sat, staring and dreaming of doughnuts.

  There was no bell tower, no church bell, just a man standing in front of the small whitewashed building, shouting a welcome. John William heard the thin thread of his voice before he could make out any discernible features.

  “Good morning! Good morning! God bless us today”

  The voice belonged to a tall, gaunt man with a stunningly shiny bald head and gray beard.

  “That the preacher?” John William asked.

  “Yep," David Logan replied. “Reverend Fuller. Thomas Fuller.”

  “Oh, he's a wonderful preacher,” Josephine said. “Of course we've only heard him a few times, but those few times were wonderful. Just wonderful.”

  “He talks a long time,” James said. “Sometimes for hours and hours.”

  “Now stop that,” his mother said, a warm lilt to her chastisement. “You are exaggerating, and that's as close to lying as 1 ever want you to get.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” James said, but he caught John William's eye and made a face of excruciating boredom, crossing his eyes and lolling his head against the wall of the wagon bed.

  “You've only heard him a few times?” John William said. “How long have you been settled here?”

  “We've been here a while,” David said, without turning around. “But Fuller just started up the church about a year ago. And he don't just stay right here. He goes all over the territory— preaches here once a month.”

  “Yes," Josephine said. “It's a pity, too. I do miss having church every Sunday.”

  “Guess I was lucky to make camp when I did,” John William said. “Else I might have missed it.”

  “Mama says luck is man's word for God's perfect timing,” Eliza said with a heavy lisp.

  “I think your mama's right.” John William looked at Eliza and wondered what his own Kate would look like, all grown up with ribbons and shiny shoes. “I think every day we find ourselves right where God wants us to be.”

  “Well, today,” David said, pulling his team to a halt and setting the brake, “God wants us to be in church. And if we don't stop all this gabbing, we're going to be late.”

  The last flicker of the breakfast fire lost its will to live, and by the time Gloria thought to fan the flames, there was nothing left but a pile of cooling ashes and charred sticks.

  Her stomach rumbled as she thought about the little plate of last night's cold beans, the remnants of the morning coffee, yesterday's rock-hard biscuits. Furious and starving, she muttered a furtive curse.

  Instinctively she looked up, looked around, awaiting the glare of disapproval. But there was no one to disapprove, just Danny and Kate who were too involved with their little feet to pay her any attention.

  Gloria stood straight and cursed out loud.

  No sense of reprimand.

  She reared her head back and screamed profanity to the vast Oregon sky

  No response, although Danny and Kate were jarred enough to tear their attention from their toes and give her a four-eyed blinking stare.

  “Do you see?” she said, granting the infants a bitter smile. “They'd never let me in a church.”

  Reverend Fuller stood on the step of the little shack-of-a-church house. He spoke to the milling crowd in a voice that proved to be much gentler than the one used to summon his flock.

  “Brothers and sisters,” he said, “we have a new member here with us this morning. Please join me in welcoming John William MacGregan to our church.”

  Each member of the congregation greeted John William before entering the building. It wasn't an arduous process. There were three other families besides the Logans. The children mixed and mingled so much it was impossible to tell which set of parents each belonged to. And while John William tried to concentrate on names, he found himself distracted having to repeat the story of Gloria, back at their camp, with two small children too young to come this morning. His mind scrambled around the word wife, answering questions with nods rather than statements, careful not to lie outright, hoping his representation of the truth would satisfy even Josephine Logan's intolerance for untruths.

  There was an abundance of bachelors—he counted five—in the congregation. Some, he would learn, were homesteaders. Others lived in modest cabins and hired out their labor on neighboring farms. However, there were two women there who seemed to be alone.

  The first was a tall woman whose copper-colored hair was arranged in a complicated fashion that made John William think of a massive coiled rope. She had fall lips, tinted to match her hair, and a look that he recognized from his boxing days. It was the look shared equally by hungry opponents and hungry women, both itching for a victorious encounter. In the old days, he would have answered such a look with a grin that said, “You don't stand a chance with me.” But now, facing such a look from this woman in this place, he found himself scrambling for a defense.

  “I'm Adele Fuller,” she said, her voice husky with promise. She'd peeled off a glove to offer John William her bare hand. “Reverend Fuller's daughter.”

  “Not his wife?” John William said, amazing himself at the stupidity of the statement.

  Adele Fuller brought a slim hand up to emphasize a short, coy laugh. “Oh, no, I'm not anybody's wife. You here all alone?”

  “No, no. Gloria…she's back at camp, with the babies…” His voice trailed off as he searched within the tiny room for David Logan to come and rescue him.

  “Adele Fuller,” came a sweet, bird-like voice from somewhere near his elbow, “you just leave this man alone and take your seat before your father sees you behaving so shamefully.”

  Adele gave John William a slow smile. “We don't have many hymn books, so you're welcome to share with me if you want.” She walked past John William, allowing the skirt of her dress to glide against his leg.

  John William turned to meet his savior, saw nobody, then looked down and saw a mass of wild gray curls surrounding a soft smiling face.

  “You better watch that one,” the tiny woman said, her dancing brown eyes following Adele. “Her mother died about ten years back, and her father's so busy travelin’ he don't have much time to look after her.”

  “That so?" John William said.

  “I'm Maureen Brewster, and if you're going to share a hymn book with anybody, it'll be with me.”

  The basket was oval shaped, nearly four feet long and two feet deep. A gift from Jewell, something she used to haul washing. Gloria remembered when both Danny and Kate seemed to get lost in the vastness of
it. John William had attached a handle made of rope, and these days it served as a mobile cradle. Now Kate protested its confines as she rode, jarred and bumped against Gloria's leg, on a trek to the river's bank.

  Gloria struggled with the basket in one hand, Danny clutched in the other arm. John William had not set up camp right at the river's edge; there was a brief thicket of trees between the clearing where the wagon rested and the song of the lapping water. Gifted with the rare opportunity of time alone, one thought crossed Gloria's mind.

  A bath.

  Nestled in with Kate was a blanket, a relatively clean change of clothes for each of the babies, Gloria's cotton sleeping gown, and the only intact linen towel. A small wooden box held the remains of what had been, at the beginning of their journey, a substantial cake of soap. Much of it had been used laundering the endless supply of diapers, stretched across the wagon's cover to dry in the daily sun. But there was a small cake of it left, and Gloria had mixed in with it the last drops of her lavender oil, intending to pamper her and the children with a full all-over bath.

  The first bare step into the cold river water sent painful jolts up Gloria's legs. Her breath was stolen by the initial shock, and a sharp squeal accompanied each step toward submersion. Kate remained within the basket on the river's bank; Danny was clutched firmly in Gloria's arms. His sun-warmed soft baby skin felt delicious in contrast to the icy water lapping around her legs. He cooed, his tight, toothless grin creating a face of pure adoration.The expression changed to one of wide-eyed gaping surprise when Gloria brought a palm full of water to dribble down his bare back.

  “Is that cold, baby?” she said in response to his swift gasps. “I'm sorry Danny" she continued in a soothing voice. “It'll get better.”

  As she lowered herself into the water, Danny's little feet hit the surface, then his chubby knees. Each inch converted his initial shock and discomfort to squealing joy He kicked wildly and slapped at the river's surface with his hands.

  “Well, you're a regular little water rat, aren't you, Danny boy?” Gloria said, enthralled with his joy She wondered if her own mother had ever held her like this, exposed together in a moment of pure happiness.

  She'd placed the wooden box of soap on a large rock jutting from the shore. Now, Gloria moved in slow bobbing steps over to it. She held Danny tight in one arm and with the other hand reached in, scraping off a layer of soap with her fingernails and used it to cleanse the glistening folds of her son's soft skin, then gave him a final rinse with the river's clear water.

  After allowing a few more minutes of playful splashing, Gloria brought Danny to shore and dressed him in a clean, sun-warmed shirt. She laid him down on the outspread blanket. She draped the waist of her discarded skirt over the lip of the basket and extended the material out, creating a makeshift tent to protect the babies’ sensitive skin from the sun. The pleasure of the bath met the warmth of the afternoon, and by the time she finished taking Kate through the same process, Danny was fast asleep. Kate, too, succumbed to the ritual, and soon Gloria found herself looking at her son and daughter—no, his daughter— sleeping like angels.

  She thought about the Logan children—clean, combed, ribboned—and wondered if she would ever see these two so groomed and proper. Quite the little family. Gloria sat on a river rock, her hands folded demurely in her lap.

  “Children, time for church,” she said out loud, trying to capture the soft sweet cadence of Josephine Logan's voice. “Come, Kate, let mother comb your hair. Why, Danny, how handsome you look!”

  Gloria pictured the stark comb marks in the Logan children's hair. Such discipline. Such cleanliness. So prim and pure. The product of a lovely perfect mother.

  She waded to the depths of the river one more time and plunged beneath the surface, then emerged to claw a handful of soap, work it to a lather, and attack her scalp. She grabbed still more, and soon red tracks marked the passage of her nails across lavender-scented skin. She threw herself backward, allowing her hair to rinse as it dangled in the water.

  Gloria wondered what would happen if she fell asleep right now Would she roll over and drown? Maybe the river's current would just take her away, far from Danny and Kate. She pondered, for a second, which would be worse. She realized she really had no idea how long John William and the Logans would be gone. What if that happy little wagon pulled up right now? What a sight she was, the naked water nymph floating on the surface of the sacred Umatilla River. She pictured John William's face, shocked and ashamed. She heard Josephine Logan's voice, softly surprised yet kind.

  The thoughts poured through her head as she poured rivulets of water across her stomach, once again flat and firm, all traces of having carried a child lost. Forever.

  Gloria righted herself and walked to shore, wringing her sodden hair over her shoulder. She stood on the bank and wrung until no more droplets fell, then ran a wide-toothed wooden comb through the wet tresses before wrapping her head in the towel she'd used to dry the babies. Although the sun felt glorious on her clean dry skin, a nagging bit of propriety insisted that she don her loose-fitting cotton sleeping gown, sleeveless and cut to just below her knees.

  Suddenly a nap on the rivers bank seemed irresistible. She stretched herself out on the blanket, her head just parallel to the triangle of shade she'd created for the babies. She took one last look at their sleeping forms—Danny on his tummy with his little face half-smashed against the quilt, and Kate on her back with her arms flung open to the world. Gloria curled on her side, facing them, and closed her eyes.

  She was just making her way to the edges of sleep when she heard the buzzing. She brought her hand up to send halfhearted slaps toward the sound, but it wasn't until one of her fingers made contact with something that she actually sat up, fully awake and aware.

  Bees.

  At least a dozen of them swarmed around her, landing lightly on her skin. She leapt to her feet crying, “Shoo! Go away!" slapping her hands together, successfully crushing two of them between her palms.

  She swept the towel off her head and whirled it through the air, feeling little fuzzy bodies make contact. When the bees refused to leave, she grabbed the towel by its corners and furled it into a tight coil which she snapped, whip-like, killing two or three more in midflight.

  She had no idea how long she waged battle, but at some point she stopped to catch her breath and realized that the air was clear. The bees were gone, and she was full of an exhilaration she had never felt before. This instinct to protect, this animal-like passion to drive the wolves from the nest made Gloria feel alive and proud. So proud, in fact, that her only regret was that nobody had been there to witness the feat. The very lives she was protecting napped through the valiant display.

  Then she saw it. A tiny red welt just beginning to swell on Danny's left cheek.

  “Oh God,” she said, calling out a plea that surprised her. She fell to her knees and gathered her son into her arms, bringing him close to put her lips on the red, hot flesh. “Danny Danny, I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry.”

  Still holding Danny close, she scanned every exposed inch of Kate's sleeping body and was relieved to see that her flesh was milky white and unmarked.

  “1 could never let any harm come to you, Kate,” she whispered as she gently ran a finger down Kate's soft cheek. “If I did…he wouldn't need me any more.”

  The voice of Reverend Thomas Fuller filled the tiny church. True, any voice would fill the space—barely four hundred square feet—but Reverend Fuller seemed to attempt to reach every corner without overwhelming the congregation.

  John William sat on a bench at the back of the church. The wood was smooth and varnished to a gleam. Maureen Brewster sat next to him.

  Early in the service, Reverend Fuller led them in songs of worship. Adele had been right about the sparse number of hymnals: there were exactly five. But the reverend led them through songs the congregation knew by heart, and John William felt months of spiritual reserve chipping away as he raised his s
trong baritone to join the others. Maureen's voice, as diminutive as her body, quavered somewhere around his elbow, and often during a song he looked down and she looked up as they shared both a note and a smile.

  Now the sermon was in full swing, and John William was thrilled to hear God's Word spoken by a man who'd studied it and knew its full meaning.

  “We are all newcomers here,” he was saying, his hands gesturing to encompass both the congregation and the outlying countryside. “We are all strangers in a strange land, and we will determine whether or not this will be a land for God.”

  John William thought about the places he'd lived, places he'd seen. Wild towns built on gold and promises, fueled by whiskey. Men driven by a quest for fortune. Women…

  “So we must commit our lives to this land just as we commit our lives to our God. We must take root and grow a society that will be pleasing to His nature.”

  Living in fancy hotels or tents. Or four-walled shacks that let the winter snows blow right in. No place for a family. No place for a daughter. Or a son.

  “And so 1 have decided to make Middleton my permanent home.”

  A unanimous gasp went up from the congregation followed by whispered joy.

  “I will be sharing my itinerant duties with a minister in Centerville, and will hold church services here the first and third Sunday of every month.”

  The elation of the people expanded into applause. The excitement of Maureen beside him made John William feel comfortable to join in the celebration of these strangers. It wasn't until the ruckus died down that he noticed the intent gaze of Adele Fuller, turned fully around in her front seat, fixed on him. He returned a polite smile, but was so startled by the boldness of her expression that he didn't hear what Maureen said.

  “What was that?” he asked, bending his large frame to better hear her.

  “I said, if we're going to have a proper church, maybe I'll stay after all.”