“I’m fine. No, I am perfectly fine,” Gustie protested Jordis’s insistence that they keep riding on out of town to Gustie’s house. “I feel like nothing ever happened. I remember it happening, but I don’t feel it anymore—not a trace of it.”
“What did you feel?”
“The dream again. Inside the ice house it was that dream. But, of course, I was wide awake, and this time it was not anything to do with Clare. This time it was...I was not the grave digger—I was the one being buried. But when I got outside it changed again.”
“What did you feel then?”
Gustie took a deep breath and brushed her fingertips across her lips in an effort to find the right words. “It’s difficult...I felt...like my heart was breaking. But I didn’t know why. I don’t know why.” Gustie stopped talking for a moment, then asked, “Where’s Lena?”
Jordis answered, “The last I saw, she was going into Julia’s house.”
Gustie sat, her hands braced on the saddle horn, her face deeply troubled and an expression in her eye of one looking inward, not out at the world. Jordis respected her silence and waited. At length, she said, “Lena will not be allowed back into the ice house. They won’t let her.”
“Who’s they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You cannot go in. The same thing will happen to you.”
“Yes, probably.”
“I can go in.”
“I don’t like to ask you.”
“You did not. I volunteered.”
“As you said to me once, ‘This has nothing to do with you.’”
“I was wrong then.”
Gustie considered. “How will we manage it? The key isn’t going to be so easy to find this time.”
“Could Will help us?”
“Perhaps. One can’t be sure of Will, though.”
“I thought you liked him.”
“I do. But he has a problem with whiskey.”
“Oh.”
They left Moon and Biddie at Koenig’s livery stable and went to Olna’s Kitchen for dinner. The main Sunday dinner crowd who came directly from church was mostly gone. They chose a table in the back by a window.
Betty Torgerson approached their table. “Hi, Miss Roemer.” She smiled at Jordis with the curiosity of the young. Then she asked politely, “How is your friend?”
Jordis remembered the girl from the afternoon that she and Dorcas had asked her about Red Standing Horse. “He is fine. Thank you.”
“We had roast beef and roast chicken today,” Betty said. “But the beef is all gone.”
“Chicken then,” Gustie smiled, “with everything.”
“Be right back.” Betty disappeared into the kitchen. She returned with plates piled high with Olna’s home cooking.
They ate more or less in silence. A few people whom Gustie knew came in and exchanged brief greetings with her and nodded to Jordis. The tables immediately next to them remained empty. Gustie didn’t mind a bit. “They’ll get used to us,” she said, biting into a hot biscuit. “Give them time.”
Mary Kaiser came in and looked around the room uncertainly. She saw Gustie and lifted her hand in a shy wave. Gustie motioned for her to join them.
“Hello, Gustie.”
Gustie made introductions.
Jordis nodded to Mary in a friendly way.
“Sit down, Mary...if you like.”
“Thank you. I’m just waiting for Walter. He’s up the street talking well-business with some men. I’d rather be comfortable in here. He can take a long time when he gets to talking.”
Betty came back and Mary said, “A cup of coffee, please, Betty.”
Gustie asked, “Mary, what do you know about the ice house out back of the Kaiser place?”
Mary was thoughtful. “Well, it’s funny. But now that I think about it, After Pa died, Tori was the first one that I know of to go out there. Do you think there is something in there?”
“I think so,” replied Gustie. “Or, if not, then something...happened in there.”
“Pa was killed in the barn, not the ice house. That’s what Dennis said.” Mary looked back and forth between Gustie and Jordis.
Betty returned with Mary’s coffee. When she had gone again, Gustie continued, “I know. But something happened in there before that. A long time before that.”
“How do you know?” Mary fixed her luminous eyes upon Gustie.
“I don’t...know.” Gustie described for Mary her episode in the ice house earlier that day.
Mary wore a very serious expression. “Only Pa ever went in there. Walter and Oscar and Will helped him cut ice and haul it back, and after Pa got older, they’d carry it in. But he was in there telling them just where to put it. It was his little domain, the only thing he kept his hand in, really, after he sold off his business to the boys.”
Gustie wondered, “Why would he be so possessive of a little wood shed full of ice?”
Jordis said, “Maybe he had some documents or money hidden in there. Something worth killing him for.”
Mary was almost breathless at the thought. “Oh, my! Pa made a nice living, but you can see we are not rich people. Nobody has money out here. Nobody kills anybody for money, do they?”
Neither Gustie nor Jordis said anything to that. But Gustie did agree with Mary, that there was not much money to be had out here. At most, people might have a little savings which they kept in Lester’s bank. With Clare’s inheritance, Gustie herself was probably the richest woman in Stone County, if not far beyond.
“We’ve got to get back in there,” said Gustie, “but I don’t know how. The door’s kept padlocked with a key that’s hanging in either Gertrude’s or Julia’s back porch. I gather it moves back and forth. After our poking around in there this morning, it may be in somebody’s pocket. We won’t find it.”
Mary took a sip of coffee, swallowed, and said, “There’s a second key.”
“There is?”
“Oh, yes. It’s in a broken china cup in the big hutch in Ma’s dining room. It’s always been there.”
Gustie and Jordis looked at each other, then at Mary.
“I can get it for you,” she said taking another sip of her coffee. “Walter is going to pick me up, and then we’ll visit Ma and Julia before we go back out to our place. We always do on Sundays. I’ll get the key and leave it for you behind the outhouse. There’s a big rock back there. I’ll leave it under there.”
“Won’t they notice?”
“No one ever notices what I do.”
“There’s somebody in there,” Gustie whispered. They had waited till after midnight to go back to the Kaiser place, approaching it from the pasture that backed the property. From where they crouched behind Julia’s barn, they could see light flickering within the ice house.
“Let’s wait and see who comes out.”
They waited all night, under a cold sliver of moon, afraid even to whisper for sound carried so far in the cold. All the small creatures and insects that throughout the summer and fall provided night music were already in their winter stasis. There was nothing to cover a sound that might give them away to the person inside the ice house. They sat, hands clasped tightly in each other’s, and watched. Gustie had become almost numb, dozing off, when Jordis jostled her arm and pointed.
A small form was leaving the now darkened ice house. “It’s Julia!” whispered Gustie. Julia was the last person she had expected to see. Julia quietly entered her own house. No light came on in there.
“Either she’s the one who’s been camping out in there by candle light, or she was in there looking, just like we wanted to.”
“Do you suppose she found something?” Jordis wondered.
“Who knows?” A light came on in Gertrude’s house. “Someone’s up over there. We can’t risk going in now.”
The back door of Gertrude’s house opened and the matriarch herself came out, carrying a chamber pot. She went into the toilet. Gustie and Jordis pushed themselves close to the back of the barn so they would not be seen.
Gertrude returned to the house. A few minutes later Nyla came out. They waited huddled behind Julia’s barn for forty-five minutes until the entire Kaiser family—Ma, Oscar, Nyla, Frederick, and, finally, Julia had been to the outhouse.
After another half hour, Gertrude came out the back again and emptied her slop pail into the frozen weeds.
The door opened again. This time it was Frederick dressed in a long coat as if he were going out, but he went only to Julia’s.
Oscar emerged and came directly toward them. Gustie and Jordis held their breaths. He went into the barn. He led the horses out, harnessed them to the buggy and went back inside the house. There was the sound of his loud, angry voice. Nyla was apparently too slow for his pleasure. Fifteen minutes passed before she came out with Oscar and they climbed into the buggy and pulled away.
Jordis and Gustie waited another half hour. Frederick still had not come out again from Julia’s.
Jordis said, “I’m going in.”
“Shouldn’t you wait till Frederick leaves—or at least goes back to Gertrude’s?”
“He may have already gone out Julia’s front door. I want to get in and out of here before Oscar comes back. He’s the one we have to worry about, I think.”
Jordis lit one of the candles that were placed randomly about the place. The morning had lightened so that no one would now be able to see a candle flickering inside the small shed. Yesterday, there had been only candle drippings. Julia had left the candles behind her. Maybe that meant she had been here only searching. Or maybe it meant she was becoming more careless.
Jordis stood for a moment and looked around at everything carefully. Some ice blocks were pushed up against the back wall and another row was in front of them, but not flush against them. Yesterday, the straw had been tightly packed into that space between the two rows. Now, the straw appeared loose, as if it had been dug out and tossed back in without being tamped down. That is the place she went to. She shoved the candle into a chink in the wall and pulled out the hay. Then she slid ice blocks aside so she had room to get on her knees in that space. She pushed aside the straw on the earthen floor only to find that the floor was not earth, but wood. By feeling along the floor carefully, she realized it was not all wood, but that the wood was a rectangular shape, fitted into the earth. She pulled on it. It came up easily. Someone must have recently worked it out of the frozen ground. It surely could not have been Julia. The little old lady would not have had the strength to do it, nor could she have moved even one block of ice. In the dim light Jordis thought she saw colors...yellow, blue, pink...she rose, removed the candle and brought it low over the cavity she had just opened.
A little sound of pity and sorrow escaped her. She thought Ah, these wasichu. She knew why Gustie had wept.
“Did you find anything?”
Jordis suddenly felt the cold of the long night as she had not before. “Yes,” was all she could say.
“Worth killing for?” Gustie’s eyes were large and fearful.
“Oh, yes.” Jordis felt very tired.
“Tell me.”
She could say nothing at first. Gustie urged again, “Tell me!”
“I can only tell it once. We must get to Lena’s.”
“What if they see us?”
“It doesn’t matter now.” Jordis grabbed Gustie’s hand and pulled her into a long stride that turned into a sprint. She dropped Gustie’s hand and ran like a horse. Gustie was bewildered and could not keep up with her. Jordis slowed to keep a pace Gustie could match.
I am filled with fear.
The eagle is far away.
Lena rode home on Millie, enjoying the fine, cold day. She had been out early to do her shopping. Her few purchases from O’Grady’s were tucked in the saddle bags. It was exhilarating to be on a horse again. She hadn’t ridden so much since she was a girl. Tom was so tall and cantankerous, she didn’t feel secure on his back, and they could not afford another horse for Lena just now. She would be sorry when she had to return the sweet mare to Ragna and Pete. She doubted that Pete was as good to his horses as he should be.
When she left O’Grady’s, she rode out to check on Gustie. Lena was deeply worried about her. But she wasn’t there. It was a funny thing, but it had looked to Lena like she and Jordis hadn’t been there. Did they go straight back to Crow Kills? That was not likely. They would have given their horses a rest first. Gustie was sure good to Biddie. Jordis looked like she would know how to take care of a horse, too.
Now there was a strange one, that Indian, and what Gustie wanted to hang around those people for, she didn’t know. But Jordis seemed clean enough, and she was educated. That made a difference, no doubt—a decent, Christian education. Jordis might even be a pretty girl if she would do something with her hair. Maybe she had lice and had to shave her head. Lena had heard that the Indians all had lice. She shuddered.
Lena wanted to tell Gustie that she would be going back to Wheat Lake this afternoon to take her place with Ragna and relieve Ella, whose patience, and that of her husband and children, was wearing thin. She had come all this way back and not discovered anything at all. An ice house full of candle drippings. What in the world did that mean?
Yesterday, when she asked Ma about it, the old thing got all huffy puffy and said the ice house should be torn down along with the barn. Julia’s reaction was pure fright, especially when Lena confided in her that Tori’s death was not suicide, but murder. Dennis didn’t let it get out that it was murder. He thought it would help him in his inquiries if everybody still thought Tori’s death was a suicide. So much for his inquiries. That sheriff didn’t know beans about anything. Lena could understand Julia’s fear...to think that there might be strangers lurking around the place...camping out in the ice house for heaven’s sake! What if it was the same as had killed Pa? Maybe Ma was right. The ice house should come down. Electricity was all anybody talked about now. When the lines were strung, people would start getting those electrical ice boxes and nobody would need ice houses anymore.
In appreciation of Will’s meeting her at their kitchen door yesterday, clean and sober, Lena planned to fix him a good dinner before she left, with lots of extras that he could nibble on for a few days before he had to start eating at Olna’s. Or he could eat at his mother’s. That’ll make her happy. She’ll probably want him to move back in with her! Lena snorted. Well, he could do as he pleased. Mary might fix him a meal or two as well...now that was a surprise... Mary turning out to be a brick.
Will and Lena’s barn was big enough for a couple of horses and feed storage. Will also kept some equipment and tools in there. The door was ajar. That meant Will was home.
Lena slid down off Millie and led her to the barn. She opened the door wider so they could get through. Tom wasn’t there. Will must have come home and left again.
Lena left the barn door half way open so she could see what she was doing without lighting the lanterns. “Okay, old girl,” she crooned, “I’ll fill your water bucket in a minute. Let’s just get you comfortable here.”
Lena untied her head-scarf and draped it over the side of the stall. As she did so, her eyes took in a shape, straight ahead, denser in its darkness than the surrounding shadows. She stopped to focus on it and as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and the barn door creaked open another few inches with a gust of wind, she saw a pale smiling face materialize out of the gloom. She sucked in a breath and uttered a cry of alarm, then she brought her hand to her heart. “Oh, for goodness sakes, you scared the life out of me!
What are you doing out here? We looked for you yesterday. Where’d you disappear to? What are you doing out here? Why didn’t you go inside? Will’ll be back pretty quick, I expect.”
The smile grew. “No, he won’t,” said Frederick, who was seated on an upside-down cream can.
Lena felt queasy. “Has something happened to Will?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Frederick beamed. “I left him about a half an hour ago at Leroy’s.”
Her stomach settled when she remembered what they still owed Leroy’s Tavern. He wouldn’t extend any more credit to Will Kaiser. “All he’s going to get there is water to drink.”
“Oh, no,” Frederick disagreed pleasantly. “I gave him some money. He’ll be there for awhile.” Her brother-in-law chuckled.
Lena felt a certain dread creep over her. And a dead calm. “Why would you do that, Frederick?”
“So I could have some time with you.” Frederick’s voice sounded flat. So far he hadn’t moved, or even shifted his position. His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of Pa Kaiser’s old great coat. Lena had never seen Frederick wear that coat before. He seemed small inside it.
“Why don’t we go into the house then, where it’s warmer,” suggested Lena, although the barn suddenly felt plenty warm to her.
“No. I’m comfortable.”
Lena licked her lips. “What do you want to talk to me about?”
“Mother. She says I have to go away.”
Well, it’s about time. Lena never thought Ma Kaiser would have the gumption to throw him out. Good for her. “Frederick, you’re thirty years old. You should be out on your own. Don’t you want to be out making your own way?”
“No.” He was sullen now, withdrawn. He rubbed the knuckles of his right hand hard. “Where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do?” He looked Lena squarely in the eye. “You really balled things up.”
As much as Lena had always thought that Frederick should be shown the door of Ma Kaiser’s house, she had never discussed it with anyone. “Why is it my fault? I haven’t even talked to Ma about you. How could I have anything to do with her throwing you out?”
Charity Page 25