Out of Innocence

by Adelaide McLeod

  ‘‘Florence? You mean Flo.” Belle didn’t know what to say. Thank the good Lord the canyon women thought that the woman in the runaway stagecoach had left with Zeth. The scarecrow propped up in the carriage apparently worked. Yet she rued the day that they would figure it all out--and they would. Of that she was sure.

  “Oh, Ada, dear, I have to see about the food. I’ll tell you all about Flo later.” Belle needed time to think. What would Ada do if she found out Flo had been a lady of the evening? The canyon ladies would leave the party in a huff and that would ruin Harlow’s party. Belle couldn’t allow that to happen. She’d talk to Harlow about it later. He’d know what to do.

  Flo was doing a fine job of passing for a canyon lady, until Pretty wanted to take her into the milk shed where they could be alone. She tried her best to resist, but old habits die hard. “Oh, what the hell,” she said, and went with him.

  The heavy web of darkness began to disappear, and the gray landscape colored before the last guest left for home.

  “You’d better take some of the cake home with you,” Belle said to Beatrice.

  Beatrice looked down at herself. “With a body like this, who needs cake?” Then, “Where is it, Belle?”

  It was too late to go to bed and too early to be up. Harlow and Flo sat over a cup of coffee, while Belle nursed T.J.

  “Did you have a good time?” Harlow stretched back in the kitchen chair until its front legs were off the floor as he yawned and stretched.

  “A great party, Harlow. I felt like I almost fit in,” Flo said.

  “You did, right there with the best of them. No doubt about it.”

  “I’ve got to leave. You were about to tell me that, weren’t you Harlow? The time has come.”

  Harlow was taken off guard. “Well, Flo, as long as you’re around people who know your past, it’s going to be hard to start off with a clean slate.”

  “I know.” Flo’s eyes grew distant as they began to tear. Harlow fidgeted.

  “In a place like this people gossip.” Harlow rocked forward in his chair. “You’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, course you will.” Belle was at Flo’s elbow and stretched her arm around Flo’s shoulder.

  “You’re thinking I ought to be going now.” Flo held her chin in her hands.

  “One of these days the canyon folks will figure that you were the woman who rode in here with Zeth. When they do they’ll make your life miserable,” Belle said.

  “I can still see those horses charging into the ranch like their tails were on fire,” Harlow said as he grinned at Flo.

  “It was funny, wasn’t it?” Flo asked.

  “Plenty funny. It’s one of those stories you save to tell your grandchildren.” Belle laughed.

  “I’ll never forget old’ Zeth peeking out, looking so dang sheepish,” Harlow said. “That was about the most exciting thing that’s happened in the canyon since I tipped over an outhouse with Roddy Biggers inside.”

  “Harlow, you didn’t,” Flo gasped.

  “Oh, yes he did,” Belle said. “He caught Roddy cheating at poker and that was how he got back at him.”

  “How’d you know that?” Harlow raised his eyebrows at Belle.

  “There isn’t much I haven’t heard. The canyon is one big beehive of information,” Belle said.

  Flo’s eyes were wistful as she said, “Boise--I’ll go to Boise. It’s as good as any place. If you’ll take me down to Horseshoe Bend tomorrow, I’ll be on my way.” Flo looked at Harlow for his reaction.

  “I’ll take you if you’ll promise to behave yourself,” Harlow teased.

  It was hard for Belle to see Flo leave, but Flo was set on a new life course. It was up to her now. Belle had done all she could. There was something endearing about Flo and she would always be Belle’s friend.

  “You’ll not be far away. We’ll see each other often,” Belle said as she hugged her.

  “See you in the funny papers, Belle,” Flo hollered, as Harlow drove the hack down the road. Belle waved to Flo, floozy that she was, looking for the world like a canyon woman.

  Chapter Eleven

  On the seventh of April, 1916, Harlow sat at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. Edna Darnelle ordered extra copies of this special edition of the Idaho Statesman because it held news of the war. The United States had been at war for two days before the Pruetts knew about it. “President Wilson has declared war on Germany,” Harlow said as he looked up from the paper.

  “Our country’s at war? What will it mean to us?” Belle asked.

  “It’s too early to know. Listen to this, it’s Wilson’s address to Congress: ‘There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried in our hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own Government, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by a concert of free peoples.’"

  Harlow lowered the paper and stared into the distance. “I’ll be going, Belle, to do my duty. I’ll be fighting in this war.”

  Their baby was due in a few short months and if Harlow left, it would mean having it alone. A chill ran through her body; she needed him there.

  “You understand, don’t you, Belle?”

  Belle mustered a weak smile. “Ye have to do what ye have to do, Harlow.” She was proud that Harlow wanted to serve his country, and she knew she mustn’t make him feel apprehensive about leaving her. The life ahead of him would be hard enough. “Aye, it is the patriotic thing to do. I’d have it no other way. “

  “You’re strong, Belle; you’re making it easy on me. I love you so much.”

  The canyon was in an uproar. The war was all anyone talked about. Belle and Harlow picnicked down by the river while T. J. played on a blanket. April was early for an outing but there wasn’t a tomorrow. Harlow would leave in the morning for Fort Lewis in Washington State. It had rained most of the day but the sun came out and a rainbow arched over the ranch house.

  “It’s a good omen.” Belle’s hand rested on Harlow’s knee.

  “Yes. It means I’ll be coming back,” he said. “Looks as though the rainbow is coming down right behind the house. Maybe we should go grab that pot of gold.” He laughed. “Our place hasn’t got a name, Belle. Think we should call it Rainbow Ranch?”

  “A perfect name for this treasure of a place. Rainbow Ranch.” Belle liked the sound of it. She thought about the rainbows in her dream after Tommy’s death and how that dream had somehow helped her heal.

  Bottle-green and frothing, the swollen river raced downstream with the runoff from melting snow. The wild grasses had appeared overnight harboring waxy trillium. The cottonwoods were beginning to leaf. It was chilly but the Pruetts hardly noticed.

  “You’ll be all right, won’t you, Belle?” Harlow asked as he put his head in her lap.

  “Yes, Harlow dear, I’ll be fine.” Belle stroked his thinning hair back with her finger tips. “Don’t ye go fretting over me. I’m healthy as a horse and Colleen and Gracie have offered to help when my time comes. I’ll write to you so you won’t worry. Harlow, say you’ll write to me?”

  Harlow rolled over on the grass and stretched. “I’m not very good at it, but yah, I’ll write.” He hesitated a minute and then he said, “I was talking to Cal Riemers. He got turned down by the Army, didn’t pass the physical. He’ll come help if you ask him.”

  Belle thought about Cal Riemers and knew she’d have to be desperate before she’d do that. “Of course, Har.”

  “There’s the gold pieces under the loose board in the bedroom floor if you need them. A check will come from the government but no telling when it will reach you.”

  Belle nodded.

  “I have to go. You know that Belle.”

  “I know, Harlow.” Belle felt Harlow’s unborn baby stirring in her
belly and wondered if the sweet angel would ever know its father. Harlow reached for her hand and their fingers intertwined as the sun went behind a cloud. Belle trembled from the thought of Harlow’s leaving, from the chilling wind that blew down the canyon. She pulled her shawl tightly about her shoulders as if she could ward off both.

  The next day, Belle and T.J. took Harlow in the hack down to Horseshoe Bend where he would board the troop train. They rode in silence most of the way. It seemed as if there were nothing left to say. They stood by the track as he waited to board the train. Wives were weeping as they said their last goodbyes. She could hear her father’s voice and she set a smile on her lips as she resolved not to cry. It was the least she could do for Harlow--he couldn’t stand to see a woman in tears. He kissed her and held her for a long moment. She raised her face and they kissed again. Then the train began to move and Harlow was on it and she waved until the train was out of sight and then she allowed her welled-up tears to stream down her cheeks. How she loved this awkward, bumbling, good-hearted man.

  There was nothing to do but hope for the best. It was lonely at Rainbow Ranch, but Belle had been alone before when Harlow camped out at his mines. She’d not complain. Tommy kept her company. She found herself telling him everything that went through her mind. She danced with him to the music in her head and tied him to her back, Indian style, and rode Horse along the Payette. The earth was coming to life and with it the heady scent of locust blossoms. As Belle planted her garden, she felt the strength within the soil that would bear new life as her unborn child stirred within her--she was connecting with the earth.

  One rainy June day, under menacing clouds, Belle held the telephone receiver in one hand as she stood on tiptoe to reach the mouthpiece. “Colleen? Is that you Colleen? It’s time. Can ye come?”

  “Go lie down, dear. I’ll call Gracie and we’ll be there as soon as we can.” Colleen’s familiar voice reassured her.

  Belle could visualize Colleen and Gracie in their hack, racing wildly through the rain, hitting every puddle along the way. “Hurry, Colleen, I don’t want to have this baby alone,” she said as though Colleen could hear her. Never in her life had she felt more alone than she did at the moment, unless perhaps aboard The Caledonian as she threw her few grains of salt over the railing into the desolate waters. Outside, the sun, as though it took pity on her, found the canyon walls.

  When her friends finally arrived, Belle’s pains were only a couple of minutes apart but something was wrong. Gracie tied a knot in the middle of a tea towel and gave it to Belle to bite on to help get through the pain. Colleen disappeared from the bedroom and had Doc Bumguard on the telephone. “The baby’s breach. I’ll need your help to try to turn it around,” Belle heard her say. The Doc must have put his spurs to his mare’s flanks because he arrived in record-breaking time. The mare was winded and so was he.

  “This baby’s putting up a hell of a fight. It doesn’t want to come into this war-torn world, Belle. Can’t say I blame it,” he said as he examined her. She was glad the old codger was there. She caught the concerned look in his eye and tried to put thoughts of her mother who had died in childbirth out of her mind. She couldn’t leave Tommy, he’d have no one to care for him. “The baby’s going to be born breach, Belle. There’s nothing I can do to change that.”

  Time wore on. She was tired, so tired. It took so much effort to push again and again with every pain. Her screams of agony grew harsher as the pain intensified. She clenched the posts in the bedstead until her knuckles turned white.

  Doc Bumgard offered her a piece of gauze he’d dampened with ether. She refused it, fearing it would put her to sleep and she’d never awaken again.

  “Colleen, you’re the one that should have Tommy if anything happens to me. Would ye take him--would ye give him a home?”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you, love, but rest assured that I would and I’d love your Tommy like I love my own.”

  Up on the ridge, the coyotes howled into the darkness as though they were mimicking Belle’s soulful shrieks of pain. The wind blew relentlessly, rattling the windows, blowing in the cracks of the ranch house. Just as the soft light of daybreak touched the mountain peaks, Belle gave one last wail and it was followed by the bleating of a newborn baby. Hannah Pruett had come into the world.

  When little Hannah was finally in Belle’s arms, the doctor passed around his flask. “We’ve earned this one,” he told the Irish ladies, and then to Belle, “None for you, young lady, I don’t want to be responsible for that beautiful little girl having a hangover.” Then he grew serious as he sat on the edge of Belle’s bed and held her hand. “Two births in less than a year, and a hard delivery this time. You’re going to have to take it easy. You’ll need some help for a while. Harlow’s gone along with the rest of them, hasn’t he?”

  Belle nodded.

  “Don’t worry, dear, we’ll see you through this,” Colleen said.

  Belle was slow getting her strength back. Colleen took Tommy home with her and Gracie stayed with Belle and baby Hannah for several days. Although Belle disliked it, she had to give up on the outside chores. She swallowed her pride and asked Cal Riemers to take care of the stock. Necessity made her forgive him.

  Little Hannah was a beautiful baby but she didn’t have a hair on her head. She wasn’t as easy as T.J. had been. She had the colic and cried a lot. It was hard taking care of a one-year-old who was getting into everything and a newborn who fussed night and day. Dizzy with exhaustion, there were times she found herself stumbling about, holding on to furniture, trying to get things done.

  “Harold said to toast her feet in the oven, Belle,” Colleen said over the telephone. “His mother used to do that when her little ones had colic.”

  “I’m desperate, I’ll try anything,” Belle said. Sitting in front of the Majestic, she held little Hannah’s tiny feet near the warmth and that seemed to relax her. “Does this help, sweet baby?” Belle asked. “Sweet little Hannah, don’t you cry. Your papa will come back bye and bye,” she sang. She held Hannah close. “You didn’t want to be born into this world, did you? Doc Bumguard was right, but I can’t put ye back.”

  Belle had little time to read that winter except when she was nursing Hannah. Sometimes Hannah would go to sleep in the process and Belle would nod off, too. Belle woke up one of those times to discover Tommy playing with the fire in the Majestic.

  The canyon women wrapped bandages for the war effort, and patriotism overflowed in their hearts as they lived the war vicariously. It was in their every thought every day their men were gone. They held prayer meetings where they prayed over pictures of their loved ones. This was a real solace to Belle, as it seemed to be for all who attended. Harlow fought on the front lines in the trenches in France. It was a horrible war. New and massive ways of delivering death in the trenches of France convinced the men who fought there that mankind could never again endure such destruction. It had to be a war that ended all wars.

  In the fall of 1918, Harlow was discharged from the army. The doctors said he had shell shock. As he got off the train in Horseshoe Bend, Belle was there with her children to greet him. He was pale and fragile, not the robust man she’d sent off to war. Yet she was relieved to have him home. There was lamb stew simmering on the stove, fresh bread in the warming oven and Harlow’s favorite cherry pie.

  He hesitated as he came into the kitchen. “Oh, that smells good. I haven’t had a good meal since I left Idaho.” But when they sat at the table and Belle put his dinner in front of him, Harlow couldn’t eat. “It’s like I’ve got a bayonet poking around in my gut,” he told Belle. He had no appetite, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t sleep, and the recurring nightmares when he did, discouraged him from wanting to. A bomb had blasted his trench-mate into pieces. Harlow had been talking to him when it happened.

  Harlow screamed in his sleep. “No! No! Get down, they’ll blow your head off. Get down! No! No! Don’t go that way, it’s not safe.”

  Belle wok
e him and rocked him like a baby in her arms. “There, there. You’re home now, safe and sound.”

  Harlow hated being coddled like one of Belle’s babies. It demoralized him. “You’d better sleep in the other room until I quit this. No need both of us being awake,” he insisted.

  Belle was reluctant to leave his bed. There were many nights that Harlow still fought the war, and Belle cried in her pillow knowing that she couldn’t gentle his night. Harlow’s resentment of his poor health grew.

  He was a hero. He had fought for his country. Belle did everything she could to help him recover. Colleen told her that she heard that there was something in raw carrot juice that eased the digestion and was good for the nerves. So, Belle put carrots through the meat grinder and squeezed the pulp in a cloth bag. There was very little juice in a carrot but she was determined to nurse him back to health. Carrot juice seemed to help but by then Harlow had discovered his own medicine.