Dollybird

by Anne Lazurko

  “Oh Lord, reprove me not in your anger,” I started. “Nor chastise me in your wrath. Have pity on me, O Lord, for I am languishing: heal me, Oh Lord, for my body is in terror: My soul, too, is utterly...”

  Ivan retched and his vomit stained my boots. I tried something less morbid. “When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place – What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man...?”

  James finally passed out and I sighed heavenward, thankful for whatever benevolence might be out there. All three men ran out of the shack, clutching their hands over their mouths.

  We applied a poultice and bandaged the stump. James woke to the vision of his new life cursing, screaming he wanted to die, since we’d killed him anyway and his whole family too. This last was directed at me, his eyes wild, frightening. The men urged whiskey down his throat until he passed out again. All night I held his hand and sponged his face, visions of a skeletal family accompanying me in and out of consciousness. We emerged from the shack exhausted, the sun just beginning to burn off the morning fog. Father left written instructions with Ivan. Looking back I could see Ivan’s lips moving, slowly sounding out the words. He would take James back to his family as soon as James was able to travel.

  The ride home was long and cold. My stomach clenched at the thought of a dirty home filled with howling children waiting for their father to bring home money and food. Instead, he would come back disfigured and useless.

  “I’ll see if the church can help,” Father said absently, then sighed. “It’ll be all right, Moira. We did everything we could.”

  i i i

  The letter I’d been writing lay on the table in front of me along with the memory of James’s fierce, shattered will to do the right thing, even to die. Sitting now in this horrid place, I remembered with vivid clarity what I’d been too preoccupied to notice that morning on the way home from the camp – the countryside had displayed a frightening beauty, and the granite and limestone outcrops loomed over us as we rode by, the bright green mosses and contrasting red berries a stark contrast to my own plainness, my failure to help the legless man heard in the whispering sound of the waves.

  Suddenly covered in goosebumps, I climbed into bed. Such a rich landscape and the degradation of the people so complete. How could anyone succeed?

  From my bed I could just see out the window. Past the outhouses, the moon rose, a perfect globe lighting the sleeping homes of Ibsen. Silhouettes of horses, barely distinguishable except for the occasional tossed head or flicked tail, melded into one as they tucked into each other against the cold. The real world. The expansive landscape and huge skies of the prairie had not proven any more friendly than the forests of home. My world had become dark and foreign, peopled by characters as deeply haunted as James. My being here was unimaginable, yet here I was.

  Tomorrow I would start as helper cook downstairs, a way to earn at least part of my keep. Annie begged the job from the landlord on my behalf, appealing to his kinder self on account of my being pregnant. Blowing out the bedside lantern, I huddled under the covers and fell into a troubled sleep.

  CHAPTER 10

  i i i

  A door banged somewhere down the hall. Not again. Every night for three nights they’d screamed at one another, coming home late from the Ibsen Hotel, each accusing the other of absconding with her beau. It was hard to believe either of them could actually attract a man.

  “You stay the hell away from him.” The voice belonged to Katy, a tiny woman with long dark hair, a hooked nose and cold grey eyes. Diminutive, yet frightening.

  More noises in the hall were followed by a sudden thud against the wall. Slowly I opened the door and poked my head out. Lynn was lying on the floor, limbs askew, blood pouring from her nose. Throwing the door wide, I stepped out to help her.

  “Get the hell back in your room,” Katy hollered from behind me. “This is none of your goddamn business. You want I should belt you one too?” I turned, but could only gape at her. Katy suddenly shouted, “Boo!”

  A short scream leapt from my mouth and I scooted back into my room, latching the door and leaning against it. Katy’s laughter followed, and suddenly I was shaking. What did I owe Lynn anyway? Just days before, she’d accused me of stealing her boots, as though I would steal anything, let alone ragged old boots from a stranger. Annie said to pay Lynn no mind, that she was a good person, her mind a little fragile. Especially since her mother’s necklace was stolen, the only remaining piece of a set she’d been pawning to feed herself. Still, I resented having tried to help her.

  When it was quiet, I poked my head out again. Everyone was gone. I felt like a turtle, afraid of anything but its own shell. I had to see Annie. At least she understood this place, the women, how to get what she needed and stay out of trouble. As I crept down the hall, my belly preceded me, conspicuous even under my housecoat.

  We’d agreed on three quick knocks. But in my distracted state, I forgot to wait for the appropriate reply and shoved the sticky door open to slip in.

  “Moira, no!” I heard it just as the door closed.

  A man’s bare and hairy backside greeted me, Annie on all fours in front of him. They were on the bed, the man in paroxysms, tufts of pubic hair and dangling breasts visible between their two sets of legs. I couldn’t move, didn’t know if the man was aware of me yet. I stared in shock until Annie twisted around to peer at me, took one hand off the bed and waved wildly toward the door, gesturing at me to get out. Spinning back, I grasped the bent nail serving as a latch. Too large for the frame, the door stuck. I gave it a yank. The latch slipped from my fingers. I tried again. In that eternity the door finally opened. Glancing back, I saw the man turn, and our eyes met. His were cruel and unwavering. It was Mr. Penny.

  I was not a turtle. Dashing down the hall, feet thudding, I scrambled into my room and banged the door. Mr. Penny could easily barrel through the weak latch. All my senses strained to hear him, the vision of his backside and eyes burning my eyelids. I felt dirty, a co-conspirator, Annie’s look so normal, as if I’d simply walked in on her at an inopportune moment, like an “oops, pardon me” would suffice to absolve me of the sin of bad timing.

  But I knew what I’d seen. Vomit filled my mouth and I rushed to the wash basin. Soon the dry heaves quieted and I sat down on the narrow cot. The house was quiet: Mr. Penny probably gone, Annie cleaning herself up. I remembered the note I’d discovered in his pocket and shuddered. I’d become the friend of a whore. How could I have let that happen? How could Annie let it? I hadn’t allowed myself to believe she might be doing what the other girls so obviously were. And with such a pig. But then they were all pigs.

  I felt a kick on my left side as the baby rearranged its limbs, seeking a more comfortable position, maybe finding its thumb. This was the world it would be brought into. I was sick again, rinsed my mouth and threw the whole mess out the window. Desperation constricted my throat and tightened my stomach. I had to leave, but was so hopelessly alone. Afraid to go. Afraid to stay.

  For the first time since leaving home, I longed for Mother, the realization shocking. She’d been so harsh, yet it was her cold, reasoning voice that could bring the world into perspective. I needed her to convince me that somehow this would turn out all right; I’d survive pregnancy and poverty and parturition, and I’d be able to feed and clothe this child and find it a good home. But now I had no one, the isolation overwhelming.

  When sleep finally saved me, I dreamed that Evan peered at me from Annie’s bed, his embrace tight around my friend, who became only a stricken stranger. The dream transformed Mr. Penny’s mocking face into Evan’s. The transformation did not change the cruelty in his eyes.

  i i i

  “How did you think I afforded to live, to stay here?” Annie looked at me like I was at best naïve, at worst an imbecile.

 
After days of avoiding her, I answered the familiar knock at the door, fearing a three-headed monster. But it was the same Annie, blonde hair pulled into a girlish ponytail, eyes bearing just a hint of sadness.

  “Well.” I closed my eyes against the tears threatening. “I don’t know. I thought you were different from the other girls, that you worked somewhere else. Maybe family money?” It sounded ridiculous.

  “Hmmph.” Annie snorted. “Not all of us are so lucky.”

  I shrank back. “Wait a minute. I’ve got nothing from home. Nothing.”

  “Yeah, but you know you can go back. When that baby is born...,” Annie gestured at my belly, “you can go back to Mommy and Daddy and all the comforts of home.”

  “I don’t know that I want to.”

  “Well, I don’t have the choice.” Annie’s glare dared me to argue. I lowered my eyes.

  “It was the shock.” Shame filled my chest. Annie was the first person to react to me without judgment or dismissal, to give real comfort. Yet I’d been only marginally aware my friend might have her own sad story, and she might need compassion in return. I’d been frantically sorry for myself while Annie’s terrible reality moved on unnoticed and unacknowledged. I was not a good friend. Quietly, I went to the door and pulled her into the room.

  “How do you manage...” I blushed and hurried on. “What about diseases? And so many women die in childbirth. It’s so dangerous for you.”

  “We have our ways,” Annie shrugged. “Condoms made of linen or animal gut. And there’s a new thing called a womb veil. As though a veil is all it takes.” Her laugh was a short bark. “And I use a douche I make up in the kitchen.”

  I gasped then, like a little girl. How had my father kept such basic things from me?

  “Lynn thought she was pregnant a few months back. We used pennyroyal to induce her.” She looked up then. “It’s okay, Moira. We all know what to do.”

  “But Annie, is there nothing else you can do? Nowhere to go?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “But you’re smart and beautiful.”

  “What does that matter out here?” Annie was less angry, more resigned. “Look, I’ll be fine. I am what I am. I’m not unhappy.” A weak smile flitted across her face. “It’s not bliss. But mostly they treat me well.” At my flinch, she repeated, “But I’m not unhappy.”

  Hugging her, I whispered into her hair, “But I wish you could be blissfully happy.”

  “Maybe I choose not to be.”

  “I don’t know if it’s about choice.”

  “Sure it is. Like right now.” Annie grinned. “You’re choosing to be my friend despite what you know.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you could choose differently and then you’d never know what I found.” She laughed mischievously. “I found a job for you.”

  “Oh my goodness.” I could hardly breathe. “Where?”

  “You could be a dollybird.”

  CHAPTER 11

  i i i

  “Who knows, you might snag a husband along with the job.” The homestead officer’s name was Walter. He was dressed in a black suit and bow tie, a sheen worn into the knees of his pants, the collar of his white shirt slightly frayed and grey. My ears turned hot.

  “She’s not looking for a husband.” Annie came to my rescue.

  “Well, with her condition and all, she might do worse.” Walter surveyed me with a calculating eye, as though I were a heifer he might be considering at the local fair.

  “I just need a place to see me through,” I said sternly. “Nothing else.”

  “Whatever you say.” He bowed ceremoniously. “I only need your name and particulars and we’ll do the paperwork. Won’t cost you a thing.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’ll cost somebody,” Annie murmured behind me.

  Walter forced a smile, looked out the dirty window of his small office and shuffled some papers on his desk. “I’ve only got one prospect might take a dollybird. Flaherty. Young fellow from the East Coast.”

  At least he was from home. It was a slight consolation; perhaps we’d share at least a common background in good manners.

  “Found the kid a piece of land. He’s coming in tomorrow to make it official. He’s only getting a chance ‘cause the powers that be would rather have him out there homesteading than the bastard from Eastern Europe what applied.” Walter shrugged when Annie clucked her disapproval at his language. “That one’s getting a piece of land two miles south, all carved up with ravines, lots of stones and scrub. It’ll be perfect for him.” Walter laughed laconically. He was a grotesque man. He would sell his mother.

  “And when do I meet this man, Flaherty?” I asked. “To decide if he’s appropriate?”

  “Appropriate?” Walter roared with laughter. “It’ll be him choosing whether he’ll take you. Not the other way round.”

  The idiocy of the whole plan struck me. I was going to the middle of nowhere with a complete stranger to play house. A dollybird. I backed away. Annie touched my elbow. When I turned to her she looked wise beyond her twenty-two years.

  “I don’t see you have much choice, Moira,” she said quietly. “There’s a contract you’ll sign. He has to live up to it. You’re not his slave, just his housekeeper. And if he hurts you, you can leave and he has to pay you for six months. Walter told me.”

  I didn’t trust Walter, but I had to trust Annie. She was right. There was no other choice. “All right then.”

  Walter held the paper for me to sign. “The way the weather’s warming, your man will be wanting to go soon. You’ll be his in no time.” He winked as I lifted the pen.

  “Not likely.” I marched out the door.

  “I’ll be fine,” I reassured Annie when she caught up to me outside. She had to get back to the rooming house for an appointment. I tried to smile, called, “Thank you,” as she rushed away, turning briefly to grin and wave.

  I desperately wanted to believe everything would indeed be fine, that my man would at the very least be a decent human being whose intentions were as honest as my own.

  “Well, hello there Moira,” a man’s voice called out behind me. It was Silas, the rider from the buffalo stone. “So how is it I find you in Ibsen?” He fell into step alongside me.

  I owed him no explanation but quickly told him of leaving Moose Jaw shortly after meeting him, for employment in Ibsen. It all sounded so respectable when I left out the part about Mr. Penny and the brothel.

  “Mind if I walk with you?” He took my arm and glanced down at my belly protruding through the buttons of a coat grown too small. “I see you’re pregnant.”

  It was stunningly inappropriate, and I thought to tell him, but just then the honey wagon rattled by, pulled by a stringy mule driven by a young man. Several children followed, calling after him, taunting him with rhymes about his dirty occupation. He was clean-shaven, but one of those dark men who appear to have stubble ten minutes after they’ve shaved. A rim of black hair was visible beneath his cap. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him. I’d seen the wagon from my window in the rooming house, and witnessed, too, these same children, their shrill voices rising an octave when he emerged from the outhouses carrying their buckets. Sometimes he tried to spray them a little as he swung the bucket up and over to dump it into the tank. I wished for his success. The children deserved a little of their own medicine. But he seemed only to be playing with them, and they ran screaming then, threatening with little conviction to tell their mothers, calling him names – shithead, pissman – their voices drifting away as he moved on.

  We stopped to let the wagon pass. “Hey Silas,” the man waved, and Silas gave him a nod. I saw a child’s small foot sticking out the end of the seat where he must have been sleeping beside the man.

  “Now there’s a sorry fellow. On
ly job he could get,” Silas said as the wagon moved down the street. He lifted his hat and ran long fingers through thinning hair. “Sounds like he’s had a pretty rough time of it. Wife died of typhoid right after the birth.”

  “Oh Lord.” I imagined his poor wife shaking with the cold, the delirium of her fever. I’d seen it before. Victims of it, everything inside purged from every orifice until their bodies were mere shells. “The stench of typhoid is unbearable, you know.”

  Silas raised his eyebrows and frowned. My neck and cheeks went hot.

  “No, that’s not what I mean. It’s just an observation I’ve made.” He stopped walking. “No. You don’t understand. My father’s a doctor. I was his assistant.” The words tumbled out. “In fact I was planning to take over his practice before...well. Never mind.” I hurried away. “I have to be going.”

  “Moira,” he called behind me. I turned briefly. “Anything I can do?”

  I shook my head. What could he do? Let me be a doctor? Do real work? Live a real life? I walked quickly back to the rooming house where I boiled cabbage for women who led foul lives. While the baby kicked harder and deeper with every day, I would work and wait for my only chance to be somewhere else, someone else.

  CHAPTER 12

  i i i

  DILLAN

  I’d had my fill of moonshine. It was Silas brought it, brought the rotgut to this abandoned place, the dark sod shack I found after my ribs healed from Gabe’s beating. People had stopped asking about the thief, bought my story of the dark and not seeing his face, thinking I was some kind of hero for trying to stop him. No one else knew about the girl being there, and we were both keeping our mouths shut.