Charity

by Paulette Callen

  “Yes, I know. And what about you? The things you don’t understand?”

  Will grinned broadly and chuckled in that silent way that Gustie was used to. “Hell. If I was to get worried and bothered every time I didn’t understand something, I’d lock myself up in a Johnny and jump down the hole. Oh, here, I brought you a little something.” Will fished in his big jacket pocket and came up with a parcel which he laid carefully on the table and unwrapped, revealing two goose eggs.

  “I had a bunch of sausages that Hank give us, but I figured you were still off eaten’ pig.”

  Gustie nodded and thanked him for the eggs.

  Will tossed back the dregs of his coffee and got up. “Well, I see your screen door is a little loose on that hinge there.” He examined it more closely. “Oh, ya. Rusting out. I’ll bring you a new hinge next time. Fix it lickety split.”

  “Will, I appreciate what you do for me, but you don’t have to, you know. I don’t feel you owe me anything. You and Lena were my first friends when I came to Charity. My only friends. You’ve already done a lot for me. I’ll never forget it.”

  Will put his hat on and shoved one hand in a pocket, and wiped his nose with the back of his other hand. He really did remind Gustie sometimes of some of the little boys in her school. “Well, I’ll just bring that hinge by next time I’m passing.”

  Gustie waved as he rode away on Tom. She was hungry and went back inside to scramble the goose eggs for her dinner. Outside sounds brought her back to the window. She saw Lester Evenson climbing down from the far side of a buckboard, Sighurd Dahl tying up the reins and hauling his great bulk down. Axel Kranhold, tall and stoop-shouldered, was already approaching her door. They were three of the twelve members of the school board.

  She opened the door in welcome. “Good afternoon, Gentlemen. Please come in.”

  They removed their hats and came in, filling her small house in a way that gave her a moment of discomfort. She offered them all seats and cool drinks. They took the seats and refused the refreshment.

  “I’m glad to see you. I was going to ask if the school couldn’t be whitewashed this year. It is looking a bit drab. The children are always more cheerful if...”

  Sighurd Dahl interrupted her. “Miss Roemer, the school will be whitewashed.” He flushed a deep red. “But that isn’t why we’re here.”

  “Oh?” Gustie sensed something was going to happen she was not going to like. She pulled up another chair and sat facing them. Her hands rested in her lap.

  “There’s a lot of talk around,” Sighurd made the opening sally.

  “Yes?”

  Sighurd Dahl was so visibly uncomfortable that under other circumstances Gustie might have felt sorry for him.

  Axel Kranhold took up the sortie. “About you spending time on the reservation.”

  Sighurd gained in confidence. “Are you teaching out there, Miss Roemer? We understand the new chief is building a school, and we certainly approve of that.”

  “No. I’m not teaching. And the school has been built. It was completed some time ago.”

  “Well...” Sighurd shifted in his seat and looked to Axel for more support.

  Axel obliged him. “What are you doing out there?”

  Lester Evenson lowered his head.

  Gustie remained silent for some time. Finally she said, “Visiting my friends,” offering it up as the most natural thing in the world, to visit one’s friends.

  “I understand that many of the people on the Red Sand are Christians,” Sighurd said hopefully.

  Gustie was aware that all three men before her were deacons in the church. She, nevertheless, told them the truth. “Some...far better Christians than I, as I do not profess the faith.”

  The deacons fell into a fidgety silence.

  “We know you’re a fine teacher, Miss Roemer,” Sighurd Dahl began again. “I can’t tell you how pleased we were when we got your letter answering our ad for a teacher...what was it now...” he turned to Lester for verification, “about three years ago? You had such a fine education. Such a fine background.”

  “My education and background have not changed.”

  “No, of course not.” He fumbled, and flushed. “And as I say, you have proven to be a fine teacher. My boy and girl—why, they think the world of you.”

  Gustie responded, “What has changed, Gentlemen?” It was painfully clear what they were about. She was losing patience.

  Axel Kranhold spoke. From his sharp featured face, she saw beams of serenity that could only emanate from one who inhabits very high moral ground.

  “Miss Roemer, we feel that someone who instructs our children should not only teach reading and writing and such, but also set a Christian example. We can’t allow anything to affect our children that might be harmful or misleading.” He pronounced the words ‘our children’ as if he had procreated at least every other child in the county, though, to Gustie’s knowledge, he and his wife were childless.

  Axel had apparently come to the end of his say. She looked again at Sighurd, who was still pink, then at Lester Evenson, who returned her gaze without flinching, without the defense of moral rectitude. He said, “I came along, Miss Roemer, to tell you myself that I disagree with their decision. But mine was the only dissenting vote, and I failed to sway them.”

  Gustie nodded her thanks.

  She looked again at each of them. No one said any more. “How soon would you like me to leave this house?”

  All three men started. “Oh, we aren’t asking you to leave the house.” Sighurd Dahl appeared much relieved to give her this assurance. “You can stay here until a homesteader makes a formal claim. Just as you’ve been doing. It doesn’t belong to anybody. It’s still on the books as public land. Nobody’s going to throw you off.”

  “That’s generous of you,” Gustie said. She meant it.

  The three men became fidgety, and sighing in three-part harmony, rose, and muttered their goodbyes.

  She let them pass her and open the door themselves. Lester was the last. Before he was through the door, he stopped in the doorway and turned. “Miss Roemer, this doesn’t change anything as far as the bank is concerned. You are still in good standing...just the same. No difference at all.”

  “Thank you, Lester.”

  Lester shook his head sadly. “I don’t like what just happened here.” He shook his head again, and left.

  Gustie closed the door and sat by the window watching them drive off. Well, Lena, you were right. She remained staring out across the land—a land that passed no judgment nor afforded any sympathy. She had said nothing in her defense. She could have said she was teaching Indian children, or ministering to the Indians in some way in the spirit of the missionary or the reformer. They would have accepted that. But she did not lie to them; nor tell them the whole truth. Gustie uttered a little laugh and shook her head. She thought, They fired me for the wrong reasons.

  Leaves Turning Brown Moon

  Biddie cantered easily—Gustie astride her back—across a fallow field scattered over with yellow mustard that filled the air with a warm musky scent. Ahead a small stand of cottonwoods marked the beginning of wetland. A flock of blackbirds ornamented the trees like dark fruit, the sound of their chirping in harmony with the rustling of leaves. As Gustie passed, the birds in threes and fours took flight, leaving the cottonwoods to sing alone.

  Gustie reined the mare to the left. After a half-mile, they turned right onto a narrow wagon path that continued on raised dry ground to the west toward Charity. On their right, the marsh smelled wet, reedy, and sweet, like something being born. A snake streaked off the road in front of them. Small yellow butterflies moved in clusters over the tops of brush and grass. With a piercing unearthly buzz, dragon flies lifted themselves out of the vegetation that encroached on the path.

  Beneath the robin’s egg blue sky the prairie g
lowed with porcelain fragility. The greens of early autumn were dark and rich, having steeped in sun, warmth, and moisture all spring and summer. Corn was shoulder high. The binders were already leaving swaths of shiny stubble through the wheat fields. Stacked hay glistened like gold in a woman’s hair. Stone County had been blessed with a near-perfect year.

  Lena came home to a musty house. She had been out most of the day visiting, so before she went about opening windows, she pulled the pins out of her hat and took it off carefully and placed it on the kitchen table. She poured herself a glass of cold buttermilk from the pitcher in the icebox, sat a moment, and considered the hat. She must change the pink flowers and ribbon to something darker for the fall. Perhaps the gold ribbon with that little batch of brown feathers she had saved from last year.

  I thought I left those blame windows open. Lena was irritated by her own forgetfulness. On the first cool day she would scrub the house from top to bottom. In the meantime, she could stand it no longer. Lena demanded a fresh house. She drank the last of the buttermilk, got up and went through the house checking windows. On her way through the dining room, she noticed one of her chairs missing. She’d worry about that later. All the downstairs windows were open. As it had not been a sweltering summer, she had not had to open the upstairs window, which she did when it was necessary to lift the air and keep it circulating.

  The second story had never been finished. The floor was laid, but nothing else had been done. If she and Will had a child, they planned to finish it. Until that longed-for event, they didn’t need the room. Lena seldom climbed the stairs—the emptiness up there only reminded her of her childlessness—but she needed to get that window open.

  The stairway was in the front of the house, narrow and steep with a bend near the top. A thin iron rod was bolted to the wall as a handrail. Half-way up the stairs the smell was stronger. Whatever was making the house smell so peculiar was coming from up there. Probably a dead squirrel or raccoon. Sometimes they found their way inside a house and then couldn’t find their way out again. If that’s what it was, Will would have to remove it when he got home. She wouldn’t touch anything dead, that’s for sure.

  A small square landing marked the bend in the stairs. In the wall above it, just enough light filtered through a tiny window to form a dusty glow in the corner of the landing. As she stepped into that pool of light Lena knew exactly what she was smelling: human excrement. Oh, for heaven’s sake! Who’s been up here? Someone has been in my house! She wavered between anger and fear. Then, It’s Will. He didn’t go to work today. He got drunk—he’s passed out up here and dirtied himself. She was burning mad now, turned and took the last three steps bounding. An archway of bare boards to her right marked the division of a space that would someday be two rooms and also served as support for the roof, which sloped down toward the sides of the house. The smell was strong but not fresh, and the drone of flies filled the emptiness. It can’t be Will. She had seen him only this morning, and he was sober. He couldn’t have gotten so drunk as to pass out up here, make his mess, and lie in it for awhile—there had not been time enough.

  She saw the body hanging, its back toward her, the rope strung over a ceiling beam. Only a few inches between the floor and the bottoms of Tori’s feet marked the distance between his life and his death. The flies buzzed over a pile of black excrement that had formed on the floor as it had dribbled down his pants leg. The missing chair lay overturned to his right. Lena made a little grunting sound and then over and over again, “Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus...” She ran down the stairs, knocked herself hard against the right wall as she turned the corner, almost fell, and ran out of the house.

  Halfway down her driveway she stopped: What if he’s not dead? What if he just needs help? Lena turned and ran back into the house, stumbled up the stairs, and stood again behind the lifeless body of her brother. She touched his back. She laid a finger on his wrist where a pulse should be. The skin was cold. But what did that mean? She was too warm. She had been running. Anything would feel cold. She could not bear to look at his face. Flies buzzed there too. His hair stuck out in all directions and she resisted the urge to smooth it down. She couldn’t reach it anyway. She touched the back of his other hand and felt for a pulse again, all the while making inarticulate soft cries. Finally she turned away from the horror that was once her brother and once again ran down the stairs and out of her house. She continued running down the driveway, whimpering, “Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.” She kept running.

  Gustie tethered Biddie in the shade of the barn with her water bucket and went into her house. She poured herself a glass of water and put on fresh clothes. She intended to ride into town to pick up some things at O’Grady’s. A pounding on her door startled her. Jordis never knocked, and she so seldom had any other visitors that she paused for a moment in surprise before going to the door. She opened it to Fritz Mulkey. From the look of his horse, he had been riding hard.

  “Miss Roemer. I came to tell you. I thought because you’re a friend of hers, and her sisters aren’t here and prob’ly won’t be, you might...” he rubbed the sweat off his brow with a broad handkerchief.

  “Fritz, what’s the matter?”

  “It’s Mrs. Kaiser, Ma’am.”

  “Lena?”

  The deputy nodded.

  “What’s happened to her?”

  “Well, we picked her up a while ago. That is, Iver Iverson saw her running down the road and picked her up and put her in the back of his cream wagon. He couldn’t get anything sensible out of her so he took her to the office and Sheriff Sully got it out of her finally that her brother Torvald is hanging in her attic.”

  “What do you mean he’s hanging in her attic?”

  “By his neck, Ma’am. Looks like he’s killed himself.”

  “Oh, dear God. Where’s Will?”

  “He’s there. I went and got him—he was drilling up on the Swenson place north of here not too far. He rode back like a house afire on Ole Tom. The O’Grady boy’s gone to tell Ella and Ragna in Wheat Lake. Didn’t think it was right to just break that kind of sorry news in a telegram. And Orville and Hank went out to the Peterson place to tell them poor old folks. Don’t know who else to get. So I am gettin’ you.”

  “Thank you, Fritz. You go on. I’ll be right behind you. My horse is saddled.”

  Gustie saw Tom and the sheriff’s quarter horse under the cottonwoods by the well. She tied Biddie next to them and strode toward the house. Even before she opened the screen door, she heard Lena crying. She took a deep breath and went in. She stopped in the dining room. From there she could see Will in the big living room chair cradling Lena in his arms. Her small form shook with sobs. Her fist was knotted around a piece of his shirt, her other arm was around his neck. Will rocked her. Big tears rolled down his face and dripped off his chin wetting the shoulder of her dress. He looked directly at Gustie but nothing seemed to register but the woman in his arms.

  Above her head Gustie heard feet scuffling. A thud. More noises and voices. She recognized Dennis’s voice giving orders. She heard a clumping down the narrow stairs and ran to the front of the house to open the door, making sure the men would not carry the body through the house, past Will and Lena. The body was wrapped in a blanket, and she could smell the unmistakable odor of the loosened bowels of a strangled man.

  The sheriff nodded his appreciation as she held open the door to allow the men laboring under the dead weight to pass through. As the men laid the body in the back of a flat bed wagon, the sheriff turned to Gustie and ran his hand over his head. He made a sound from deep in his throat and said, “It’s a shittin’ mess up there. Sorry, Ma’am. Maybe her sisters will help so she doesn’t have to clean it up.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Dennis. Did someone go for Doc Moody?”

  “Yup. He’s got a message to come over as soon as he gets back to his office. Should be pretty soon.” The sheriff ran hi
s hand over his head again and then over his face. “Never seen nothing like this. Never seen a suicide before. Seen a lot of things. But never a suicide. It makes me—I got to tell you, Ma’am—it makes me kind of sick.”

  Gustie nodded her understanding.

  “We took the chair out. Didn’t think she’d want to look at it, it being the one he used and all.”

  “Yes, that’s fine.”

  Someone was coming in through the back of the house. Gustie excused herself and returned to the living room. Will and Lena had not moved. Doc Moody rested his hand on Will’s shoulder. He looked up when he heard Gustie.

  “Miss Roemer,” he said in greeting. If he felt any animosity from his last encounter with her, he did not show it. He just shook his head and turned back to Will. “I think we should get her to bed, Will. I can give her something to help her rest.”

  Without even a nod, Will stood up. Lena was so light in his arms, he didn’t seem to feel her weight at all. He carried her into their bedroom and laid her down on the top of the patchwork quilt. She still clung to his arm and his shirt so he remained kneeling on the bed. Lena’s body was clenched, like her fist.

  Gustie knelt on the other side of the bed and gently pried Lena’s hand open and away from Will’s shirt, slowly easing her down onto the pillows.