Charity

by Paulette Callen

  Gustie’s heart was racing.

  “Some winters after Warrior Heart Woman passed on there was a young man among us who liked to wear the women’s clothing. A winkda, he was—a two-spirit person in the body of a man.”

  “Was she, Warrior Heart Woman, a winkda?”

  “No. The two-spirit person in the body of a woman is koskalaka. My people were glad because they had someone among them touched by Wahkon Tonkah, someone to give the secret names to the children. It was a good thing to have a koskalaka or winkda. He had a brave heart. He could ride and hunt and do all things properly. He danced to the sun, sacrificing for his people three times. But then the missionaries came. They shamed him and made him wear clothes like the other men. And he sickened in his heart and died. After that we had no one blessed by Wahkon Tonkah with the two spirits, the spirit of the man and the woman in one person. The wasichu consider this a very bad thing. I do not know why.” Dorcas shrugged her shoulders sadly. “I saw what happened to that winkda boy, and I was afraid for Jordis. For I knew she had two spirits, and my heart fell down because her life would not be one of honor, but one of sadness and loneliness. My little wounded bird rode these hills like a ghost until you came.

  “In your sickness, you talked of the woman who died. I was sorry for you. But I believe you were brought here by Wahkon Tonkah. It does not matter if you believe this. You are here. That is plenty. I knew that you, too, are koskalaka, a two-spirit person, and that you had been guided here for my wounded child. I was glad. I could join my mothers and grandmothers with a good heart, knowing my little wounded bird would fly. Even our own people—some have forgotten that the two-spirit people are gifted ones from Wahkon Tonkah. Should be treated with respect. Now you two must take care of each other. It will be very hard, I think. But you are strong, and she...” Dorcas treated Gustie to one of her rare and brilliant smiles, “...is stubborn.”

  Gustie’s heart was singing with the knowledge that there had been others, like her, and that they had had a name—the koskalaka, the winkda, the two-spirit people. They had been respected and honored. She felt like she could do anything, be anything, soar as high as a skylark.

  Maybe Dorcas was right after all. How had she come here? She had begun with an empty and fearful heart and a soul that sat darkly like a lamp without oil in a big house with thick carpets, chandeliers, staircases, and many fine things she could no longer even remember...she had turned her back on them all for her strange love. And then, her heart, after being utterly broken, was mended and whole once more. She had discovered a new way of being that had nothing to do with doing or having. Gustie was not a religious person, but she felt touched by a Mystery that quickened her pulse like the dancers’ drum, that gleamed in the old woman’s eyes, and throbbed in the air of the tiny cabin.

  “Why didn’t you leave me on that cold pile of earth to die? You couldn’t have known then—”

  Dorcas interrupted her. “I wanted lots of new stuff. New chair, I got. New bed, I got. See? Pretty good deal. Now I can throw you to the fish. I am tired, Granddaughter. I want to have a little sleep. Go away now. You—” she nodded again toward the outside where Jordis waited, “have many plans to make.”

  “Yes, Grandmother.” The words came easily out of her mouth. She took her coat, kissed Dorcas on the cheek, and left the cabin.

  Gustie’s heart was full. Dorcas had called her ‘Granddaughter.’ She told Jordis all the things Dorcas had said.

  “She is not my real grandmother, you know. We are not blood relations. I call her Grandmother as an endearment, and out of respect because she has been a grandmother to me. I never knew her before she came to the mission to take care of me. You have been adopted by her as much as I have been.”

  Moon and Biddie were standing ready, Biddie saddled, Moon in her winter blanket. “Let’s ride,” suggested Jordis. They mounted their horses and strolled them up away from the cabin. They could see the road winding from Crow Kills toward Wheat Lake. A horse galloped toward them stirring up the dry snow.

  Gustie recognized the rider. “It’s Lena!”

  Lena was going so fast she rode past them and had to rein her horse in and turn around. “Gustie! I’ve got to go back to Charity! Now!”

  “What for?”

  “I’ve got to see the ice house!”

  “What’s in the ice house?”

  “I don’t know. But I’ve got to see for myself.”

  “Why?”

  “Ella said that Tori was here to visit them. He...”

  Lena started to cry. Jordis and Gustie dismounted and helped Lena down.

  “It’s all my fault. I should have...”

  Lena was crying hard, unable to get out full sentences. Gustie kept an arm around her until the spasm of grief passed.

  “I’m sorry.” Lena said, reaching into her coat pocket for a handkerchief. She blew her nose loudly. Over the top of her hankie, she cast a watery look at Jordis.

  Gustie had forgotten that the two had never met. “This is my friend Jordis. Jordis, this is Lena Kaiser.”

  Jordis only nodded. Her eyes narrowed.

  “How do you do?” said Lena, as polite as she could be with her streaming eyes and runny nose.

  “Well, I was talking to Ella this morning...” Lena blew her nose again. “...and she said when Tori was here he was saying...” Lena wailed, “I didn’t even know Tori had been here. After Pa’s funeral I just got so wrapped up in things, with Will and all, I didn’t even think about Tori. I didn’t think about him not being to see us or anything. But he came all the way here, and he told Ella and Ragna that as soon as Will’s trial was over he was going to be able to get it all fixed up. And they asked him what it was he needed to fix up, and he said he couldn’t say now while I had so much on my mind, because he’d made a promise, but when it was all over, then he could come and talk to me and put it straight. They tried to get him to tell what it was, but he said he’d made a promise. He was such a child that way. He wouldn’t say anything more. But when they asked him to go to the ice house he started to cry, and he said he couldn’t go to the ice house again. Not till he talked to me. They didn’t understand it at all. He was just a dummy to them, you see. They let it drop because they just thought it was some dumb thing. And when he died, they didn’t think of it then either. They never paid any attention to him. But I always knew that he had a kind of...oh...I don’t know. Things made their own kind of sense to Tori. You just had to try to see it his way. If you could see a thing the way he saw it—simple—things he said would make sense. I could do that, you see, and that’s why he came to me with everything. I never laughed at him. He told me everything that was bothering him. So that’s why I knew that when he said he couldn’t go into the ice house, he didn’t mean their ice house...well he did...but he got it mixed up in his head. He was thinking of them as the same ice house.”

  Gustie shook her head. “Lena, I don’t understand you. What was in your sister’s ice house?”

  “Nothing! Nothing was in her ice house. It was in Pa’s ice house. When he came out of Pa’s ice house the day of the funeral, he was sick. Something must have happened to him in there. I don’t know. But I never paid attention. I never asked him.” Lena started to cry again. “But I’ve got to go back and look in there. Right now. Can you go with me, Gustie? I don’t have anyone else. Will is a mess. Please?”

  Gustie and Jordis exchanged a long look. Then Gustie nodded, “We will go with you.”

  The cold snapped. No cloud broke the way of ascension from earth to sky-high infinity. No breeze disturbed the powdery ground cover of snow on this bright day as three women rode out from Crow Kills. They rode the straight road, abreast, sun on their faces. Only hooves disturbed the snow beneath them as their horses took the distance between Crow Kills and Charity in a ground-eating lope. An unlikely trio these three, with little in common but the rhythm of their horse
s moving in sync, and the sudden, unexpected tendrils of love and friendship.

  Gustie had never seen Lena on a horse before, but she was obviously at home there. “Oh, Pa put me on a horse before I could walk,” Lena said. Gustie surprised herself, as well, by her ease on Biddie’s back. Her months of practice had been well spent. Jordis rode, as always, like she and her horse were one.

  We ride—my love and I—and my love’s friend who is now my friend—who, were it not for Gustie, would not allow herself at my side, but now her red-brown horse moves abreast of the Moon and the Black—the magnificent black of my love’s riding. We are like the moon, the night, and the red earth flying.

  It is a fine thing to ride a straight road with friends.

  “Now, why in Sam Hill would anybody lock an ice house?” Lena rattled the ice house door in frustration. “Where there’s a lock, there’s a key,” she asserted and stalked through the back door of Ma’s house. On the walls of the shanty were several tiny nails all bare. Then Gustie followed Lena next door into the back of Julia’s house while Jordis stood, rather uncomfortably, where she had dismounted from Moon. To her right were the two Kaiser houses, Gertrude’s and Julia’s; to her left, a barren spot where the big barn had recently been torn down, the ice house, and beyond that, and directly behind the house that was Julia’s, a small barn. A light dusting of snow covered everything. Since last night, at least, no one had been back here to disturb it, except for clear tracks to Julia’s barn where a team of horses had been taken out that morning. Gustie and Lena came out of Julia’s back door. Lena had a key in her hand.

  When Lena slid the key into the padlock on the ice house door, it snapped open. “Hmmp,” she grunted in satisfaction.

  Jordis wondered what the point was of locking a door if the key was so easily found.

  “Where is everybody?” Gustie asked.

  “It’s Sunday,” was all Lena said, and Gustie remembered that, except for Will, the Kaisers were a church-going family.

  The door to the ice house was proportioned large, like a barn door, so that when it was open two people could pass through with a block of ice carried between them and the inside would be illuminated; there were no windows.

  Lena, Gustie and Jordis stood together in the doorway, then they moved to the side to let in more light. “Good grief, what’s all this?” Lena asked. She went inside.

  In the middle of the ice house was a rocking chair. Piles of straw had been pitched all over, covering the ice blocks and packed into the empty places, and everywhere, candle drippings spattered the ice and straw.

  “This is sure peculiar.” Lena fingered a small hard mound of wax on the nearest straw pile. “But I don’t see anything in here that would make Tori sick. I was looking for blood or something, you know.”

  Gustie and Jordis stepped inside. Both women were taller than Lena and had to stoop slightly to keep from bumping their heads on the roof. Jordis asked, “Is there always so much straw in here?”

  “Well, I suppose as they take the ice out, they bring in more straw to insulate what’s left. I don’t know. It’s a good place to store it, now they tore Ma’s barn down. Julia’s barn is small.”

  Gustie felt, rather than heard a low humming, like distant earth-bound thunder. She was overcome with dread, cold, and felt herself suffocating. Oh no! Please, no! The avalanche of earth was pouring down upon her again, crushing her. It had never come upon her wide awake. She was not dreaming now. What is this? Her sight dimmed. She thought she was going down, though she did not feel the impact of the ground. I’m dying. Now. She almost gave in to it. Then...Clare...Jordis! Help me! She did not know if she said it or thought it.

  Jordis had moved farther into the ice house and begun to examine the piles of straw. She stirred the straw up with her hands but in places it was packed too hard. She was looking around for a pitchfork when she heard her name and an eerie little cry for help. She whirled and saw that Gustie had collapsed and was choking for air.

  Gustie felt strong hands lift her up off her knees and help her outside. Once out of the ice house, she could stand again; she could see and breathe, but she could not speak to answer Lena’s and Jordis’s worried faces for she was overcome by a wrenching sorrow. She began to weep uncontrollably and did not know why. This weeping was not for Clare; Gustie knew that sorrow. It was clean. Its edges were gone. This was a sharp, murky, fearful thing.

  “What’s the matter with her?” An unsympathetic voice fell on them like a chill. Lena and Jordis both started. Oscar Kaiser was watching them. His left armless sleeve was tucked into his coat pocket. His right arm hung at his side. More sounds at the front of the house told them that the family was home from church. Julia and Frederick appeared around the corner and stopped short when they saw Lena and Jordis, their arms around a weeping Gustie, the ice house door agape.

  Frederick echoed his brother but with more concern. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. She got in there and went all to pieces,” Lena answered.

  Oscar asked, “What were you doing in there?”

  “We were just looking,” said Lena.

  “What for?” Oscar seemed annoyed, but Lena couldn’t tell if it was because they had been in the ice house or, because of their commotion, he was going to be delayed sitting down to his dinner.

  “You tell me.” Lena could get just as annoyed. “Come here,” she commanded. Oscar followed her back to the ice house. “Look at this. What’s Ma’s rocker doing out here? What’s all this wax?”

  When Lena went in Oscar remained in the doorway, killing the light. He was not as tall a man as Will, but he was broader and heavier. “You make a better door than a window,” Lena commented.

  Oscar shifted to the side. “Ma probably wanted that chair out of her way. Nyla’s brought in some things of her own so the house is crowded. No place to put things since we took Ma’s barn down. I told her we shouldn’t have done that,” Oscar growled. “Julia’s barn is just big enough for the team. You keeping company with squaws now, Lena?” He produced a leering kind of grin.

  “What do you care who I keep company with?” Lena snapped like a terrier. She asked again, “What’s all this wax?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Lena threw a hand up in frustration and, pushing past Oscar, went back outside. “It’s freezing.” Gustie still sobbed and Jordis stood with one arm around her protectively. Julia had apparently gone into her house. Frederick stood eyeing Gustie and Jordis, and then Lena and Oscar. His ears were red with cold, but he made no move to go inside or to warm himself.

  Lena returned to Gustie’s side. “Let’s get her indoors.”

  “Bring her in to Julia’s,” Frederick said. “It’s warmer than Gertrude’s.”

  Jordis shook her head. “This is a bad place. I’m taking her out of here.”

  Just then Julia came flying out of her house, shrieking, “Where’s Feather? Where’s Feather?”

  Jordis looked astonished.

  “That’s her cat,” explained Lena.

  “I saw a cat slip out when she went in. It went for the ice house,” Jordis said.

  “Funny I didn’t see it.”

  “You were talking to him,” Jordis nodded toward Oscar.

  Julia was crying and wringing her hands. “Oh, no. He’ll freeze. He’s so little. He’ll freeze to death!”

  Frederick patted Julia’s arm, murmuring some assuring words. He was about to go bring the cat back to her when Ma Kaiser came through her back door. Frederick saw her and stopped.

  Lena thought he seemed suspended between his mother and his aunt, but now there were two people crying and no one doing anything. “Will somebody get that blame cat? Honest to Pete, I don’t know...” To Jordis she said, “Take her out of here, you’re right.” Then, in exasperation, Lena went back into the ice house to get the cat herself. She found Feather down
in a hole between two blocks of ice. He had burrowed his way into the straw. Probably a mouse nest down there or something, thought Lena. She bent over the ice block and called the cat’s name. When Feather raised his head, she scruffed him and hauled him up neatly just as Frederick came in.

  “Oh, you’ve got him.”

  “Yup, I’ve got him.” Lena held the little animal securely in her arms and ran her hand soothingly over his head.

  “Is he all right?”

  “Well, of course he’s all right. Why shouldn’t he be? For heaven’s sake, such a fuss! Her blame cat is fine.”

  Frederick let Lena pass him, then he closed the ice house door securely. Julia had gone back inside her house, but her wailing could still be heard. Lena was so disgusted with her that she handed the cat to Frederick. “Tell her to keep him in the house if she’s so worried about him. I’m going to go with Gustie and come back later without all this commotion.”

  Jordis had just helped Gustie get up on Biddie. Both Oscar and Ma had disappeared as though they had never been there. No one had offered to help Lena or Gustie, or even Julia, for that matter. And except for Oscar’s nasty crack, Jordis had apparently been invisible to the others. What a bunch! thought Lena. Gustie, slumped in the saddle on Biddie, was no longer sobbing, but her face was gray, wracked with grief.

  Lena looked her over. She had never seen her friend so distraught. “Maybe we should take her over to the Doc Moody’s.”

  “No. I don’t need a doctor,” Gustie said weakly. I need Dorcas.