River People

by Margaret Lukas

  His wool pants dripped water over his bare feet. His nails the color of cow hoofs. He picked up her green silk, and she reached out, but he kept the dress at arm’s length. She scolded herself for still being so self-conscious of her body. She quit grabbing, closed her eyes and tried to feel the sun on her skin and the hand of the Divine on her shoulders.

  She felt only cold. Where was the stained-glass window in her heart? Where was the clapper of dove wings? She opened her eyes.

  Rev. Jackdaw stared at her breasts. She was near naked with her cold nipples erect, their shape and color stark through the thin cotton. She spun, putting her back to him and slapping her arms across her chest.

  She wasn’t blessed. No tongues of fire crackled over her head. She felt sick the way she’d felt leaving the hayloft with Jury, the sick way she’d felt realizing how much Pa wanted her gone.

  She faced Rev. Jackdaw. “Give it!”

  His one eye lusted. But the other eye, the eye twisted by a scar, held such obituary she could not name the darkness. That eye hated her for her nakedness.

  Grabbing back the dress, she stepped into the silk. As her cold fingers worked, button by button, the fabric turned wet and dark. She turned for home. She deserved the Redstone Bridge. One step off and it would be over.

  Skeet lay in the weeds not ten yards away. “Skeet!”

  He stood, gave a lopsided smirk—more a snarl—and started back at a lope.

  “Skeet! Don’t tell Pa. Please, it’s not what you think!”

  Coming into the yard, she saw Pa and Skeet standing side by side just outside the barn. To Skeet’s grin, Pa’s face was foreboding, his large, calloused hands fisted. His glare pierced her and then slid to her right. Only then did she hear Rev. Jackdaw just a few feet behind her.

  Wearing a faded but dry farm dress, Effie sat at the crowded supper table, holding two-year-old Curly in her lap. Meat from an old hen, boiled from the bone, doused in white gravy and layered over pasty-bread, stared up from her plate. She couldn’t eat. Earlier, she’d told Ma she was ill and didn’t want to sup, but Ma scowled. “You’ll help me, same as always.”

  The others ate, knives and forks clicking on plates. Ten around a table better suited for four or six. Skeet balanced on a narrow milking stool, his shoulder brushing Effie’s. He always brought his stool next to her, the better to pinch her leg under the table—the only sibling he could torment without their screaming.

  Effie let Curly pick food from the plate they shared, gravy dribbling off his chin and into her lap. She felt no anger toward the old preacher for what had happened earlier, only emptiness. In taking advantage of her, he’d tried to steal from her, but she’d already been emptied out.

  From her end of the table, Granny shrieked suddenly. “Murdering thavages.”

  Johnny dropped his fork in alarm and looked with wide eyes across the table at Effie.

  “Savages,” Skeet sneered. “It starts with an s.”

  Effie kicked him, glad to see him wobble on the peg of his stool. “Don’t correct her.”

  Granny, a thin arm poking out from the folds of the patchwork quilt she’d named Never Forget, stabbed the air with a spoon. “Wanting to kill white Chrithians. Wanting our land. That what thavages want.”

  Rev. Jackdaw scooped more chicken in his mouth. “Fancy shooting and God-sent plagues wiped out the heathens.”

  Granny’s spoon jabbed in Pa’s direction, a trail of gravy sliding down her quilt. “He let the thavages kill my children right here in my kitchen. Thavages ain’t dead. Lincoln left all them nooths empty.”

  At the other end of the table, Pa’s jaw blanched with the pressure of his gritted teeth.

  Skeet jerked his leg out of Effie’s reach. “Nooses.”

  “There’s worse ’an redskins,” Rev. Jackdaw said. “Whores.” He wiped the beard around his mouth with his sleeve cuff and looked directly at Pa. “I’ll take your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

  Effie needed a moment to make sense of what she’d heard. Then felt something she hadn’t in over a week: the urge to laugh.

  Pa wasn’t laughing, and Ma’s eyes widened as if she’d been slapped. Neither parent spoke.

  The quiet grew, clutching at Effie’s throat. Why was no one roaring objections? Why wasn’t Pa using the barrel of his shotgun to nudge Rev. Jackdaw across the floor and out the door?

  Granny clapped her bony hands together. “God-a-mercy!” she shrieked. “If-fee, you’re to be a preacher’th wife.”

  Pa’s eyes still didn’t lift. He still didn’t rise from his chair, bang on the table, and shout, No! Not my daughter.

  Rev. Jackdaw went on eating. Across the table, Johnny’s face looked fixed to weep. Skeet leaned closer to Effie. “Istressmay Ackdawjay.” Mistress Jackdaw.

  “God-a-mercy!” Granny cried a second time. As though she’d just received the white dove that failed to descend on Effie at the pond. “A preacher’th wife.”

  “Pa?” Effie managed. What did he suppose she’d done with the preacher? He’d sent her to Jury. He’d stood in the dark that night holding the reins of a saddled horse. “Go,” he’d ordered. “Go see that boy. Go see that boy. Wife him, need be. He’ll do what’s right by you.” He’ll do what’s right by you.”

  When she arrived back home two hours later, Pa sat in the dark on the porch. He nodded and took the reins to stable the horse.

  But the ploy hadn’t worked; they’d both misjudged Jury. She’d made a fool of herself, and suppose she was pregnant? If she was, she needed to wed quickly in order to fool a new husband into thinking he’d sired the baby. There were no other suitors in the picture, and if they waited too long, there might never be.

  Pa took another bite; his eyes on his plate.

  He’d sent her to Jury, but he hadn’t sent her off with Rev. Jackdaw. She’d listened again to what someone else wanted for her, this time the preacher.

  Rev. Jackdaw spoke around the pale, pasty glob in his mouth. “We’ll be off to Nebraska. Omaha.”

  Pa looked up, his eyes full of misery, or was it shame? “Omaha?” The question asked as if he wanted Rev. Jackdaw’s word on it.

  “I’m to build a church there.”

  Effie’s head spun. The preacher was older than Pa by nearly two decades, but her parents’ silence proved they were considering it for her. They wanted her gone. The knowing—or was it knowing again?—struck her like a fist. But leave Minnesota? Johnny, Curley, and the other boys? Leave Pa and Granny and Ma?

  “Why do fish like water?” Johnny shouted.

  “Cause they’re fish,” Skeet barked.

  “Because,” Effie said as calmly as she could, “it’s quiet, very quiet, under there.”

  “Like under the black?”

  Effie listened to the silence winging around the room, telling her she was leaving. Jury didn’t want her, and she’d let Baby Sally die. One way or another, she’d killed her little sister. With the grief she’d already caused the family, she would not heap on a scandal. She deserved Rev. Jackdaw’s battered face, yellowing beard, and weak shoulders. He was the furthest thing from Jury’s youth, broad shoulders, and handsome face. But Rev. Jackdaw would take her away. He offered an escape, and maybe that would be one breath better than a watery grave in the river.

  Her legs began to tremble. In her lap, Curly felt the vibration and hummed a long O sound. His voice warbled out over the table.

  Pa made grunting noises in Rev. Jackdaw’s direction. Effie had heard him wrangle with more spirit over a puppy he’d trade for a few garden vegetables. And if the deal failed, he’d shrug and a week later have Skeet drown the puppy.

  Granny sputtered. Her jaws and tongue worked to keep the tough chicken under her remaining teeth. “If-fee will be the pill-her of the community.”

  Ma, her white hair hanging, squinted at Rev. Jackdaw as though looking at him hurt her eyes. Her gaze shifted to Pa. “He’s likely to drop dead and leave her with mouths to feed.”

  “Thut up!”
Granny said. “You’re a fool.”

  An hour later, with Rev. Jackdaw’s trouser legs still damp, Effie stood beside him at the table not yet cleared of dishes. She’d refused to change, despite Granny’s fretting that she ought to be in green silk. Ma watched, one tired hip braced against the stove for support. Her eyes swam, but she offered no protest. Pa, eyes steely, waited at the back door, needing to hear the words spoken before he left the house, stepping out into the quick-gathering dark.

  Johnny stood at Effie’s side. They grasped hands as Effie placed her other trembling hand on Rev. Jackdaw’s Bible. “I do.”

  “In the name of the Lord, I pronounce us man and wife.”

  He carried in his valise and journal from the barn and pulled the slim mattress from Johnny’s bed up the ladder to the dark attic. He motioned for Effie to climb.

  She’d never been in the attic, and she stood motionless in the musty-smelling hold amidst cobwebs and the skittering of mice. Rev. Jackdaw left the trap door open and pointed to the mattress just visible in the meager lantern light rising from below. She lay down. He lifted her dress to her waist. His pants came off, and he dropped onto her to seal the deal he’d struck with Pa. In the kitchen, he’d pronounced them married, but the real binding, this consummation, needed done before anyone changed their mind.

  She tried to quiet her weeping as he rutted, her face turned from his sour breath and from his sweeping, unwashed beard.

  “Quiet,” he growled.

  When he finished, she turned on her side, a fist between her teeth.

  He growled again, louder. “I said quiet. That’s enough.”

  The deed was done. She was his wife. Jury, her family, everything else was gone.

  Later still, despite her best efforts to stop crying, he shoved at her. “Go sleep with the crazy bat.”

  Only then did she realize that two stories below, Granny wailed for her. She hurried, her bare feet finding their way across the rough attic floor, her toes finding the ladder rungs down. Her body made no sound, and she had no shadow. She felt empty as the kitchen ghosts.

  The upstairs lantern was out, but moonlight coming in the windows allowed her to see the open door to the room where her little brothers slept. She couldn’t see whether Johnny had crawled in with Curly or the twins. The door to the smaller room—little more than an over-large closet where Skeet slept—was closed, and Pa had dropped the bar across it. Skeet claimed the bar kept annoying siblings from disturbing his sleep. Effie believed otherwise: Pa dropped the bar each night to keep Skeet from running away. Something Skeet often threatened to do.

  The open door to her parents’ room gave only a perfect, cold silence. No rhythmic breathing from Ma saying she slept. No snoring from Pa. Effie wanted to stand in the doorway, make them look at her, but sorrow threatened to buckle her knees.

  “If-fee!” Granny’s cries were louder. Effie took the unlit stairs to the first floor, her tears making her way even harder to see.

  “Where you been?” Granny cried.

  Fumbling in the darkness, Effie found the black cloth she kept folded beneath her pillow. “In Rev. Jackdaw’s bed.”

  The baby suddenly wailed overhead and Granny gasped, “Thavages killing my baby!”

  Dropping onto the bed, Effie pulled up her knees and hugged them to try and stop her shaking. “No,” she managed. “That’s not your baby.” She drew the black cloth over her head.

  In the attic, Rev. Jackdaw turned on his side, tried to stretch out the ache in his lower back. Effie had sobbed. Gagged when he’d done his duty and planted seed in her. If he ever felt himself growing soft in regards to her, he’d remember she gagged. He clenched and unclenched his fists, fought the demon convulsing his eye, sending the whole side of his face into a fury.

  He’d lingered a week at the farm just watching Effie, waiting, knowing God was presenting him with an opportunity. After three barren wives, God was giving him Effie. She had six brothers and would bear him as many sons. Building a church could take a decade or more, and only sons could be sworn to finish the work, should it come to that.

  He’d take the necessary measures to bring Effie into submission. The Bible was clear. He was husband of his property: horse, wife, and soon sons. He was a stronger man than his father, would not let his wife run off, would never let her go to a house like Miss Myra’s.

  He fumbled in his valise for matches, struck a single stick and held the flame over the spot where Effie had lain. Back and forth. Another match, squinting, covering the area inch by inch. Flame burned his thumb and forefinger and went out.

  Just as he suspected. No blood. That explained her father’s willingness to have her gone and out of his household. It also meant she was unclean and needed watching.

  Effie stood on the porch and Pa close by, both of them watching Rev. Jackdaw climb into his buggy and slap the reins over his old horse, Nell. Every time the preacher walked the nag in from the pasture and began hitching her to the buggy—saying he was going into town to check for a letter—Pa sent Effie to the attic to be sure the man was leaving his belongings.

  In the spring, she’d said, “I do.” Now it was late August and yet they remained at the farm. Week after week Rev. Jackdaw reported he still hadn’t received news from Omaha. And week after week Effie watched Pa’s frustration grow. He came in the house only for meals and sleep, biting his tongue, avoiding any rift that might cause his son-in-law to try and sneak away without the daughter. His only compensation for tolerating the situation was that Granny screamed less. Rev. Jackdaw knew to keep her occupied and distracted, reading to her from his Bible. Or from Granny’s Jonathan Edwards tract: “God holds you over a pit of hell. He holds you as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire.”

  With the buggy heading down the lane, the dust rising and blowing along the pasture fence, Pa turned back to his work in the field. Effie saw Ma and Skeet bending over baskets, the twins carrying ears of corn. As always, she’d been left with the baby and Curly. Granny and Johnny too, who were no help in the field.

  She shared Pa’s fears. The preacher could not leave her behind in shame. She hadn’t been pregnant, but everyone in New Ulm knew she was married—even Jury. She wouldn’t be left behind now, not with his wedding so close.

  When she was sure Rev. Jackdaw wasn’t turning around for any reason, she ran through the house, climbed the attic ladder, and stepped into the heat. With shaking hands, she opened his valise. When she’d accidentally seen the dress hidden there, he’d explained it had been a favorite of his dear sister, and that he kept it in memory of her. Effie touched the edge of the red, wanting to take out the satin and feel it glide over her body. Perhaps she and his sister were the same size. But she didn’t dare. She wouldn’t get the dress refolded and tucked in exactly right. Just poking fingers down through his two extra shirts and touching the softness made her nervous.

  “If-fee! Injuns!”

  She turned and hurried back down. Johnny and Granny sat at the kitchen table. Granny wore her Never Forget quilt around her shoulders, patches made from the clothes of her murdered children. Red slashes of ripped cloth randomly placed on top. Symbols of spilled blood. Her cane banged up and down on the floor. “If-fee, If-fee!”

  “I’m right here, Granny. Shush, you’ll wake the babies.” And to Johnny, “Everything is all right.”

  Johnny held his slate but no longer practiced his name. He covered his ears against Granny’s screaming, but his eyes fixed on the rapping cane as though it were about to attack him.

  “I’m right here,” Effie said again. She grabbed Granny’s hand, stopping the noise. It was always the same, Granny needing her every second, day and night. For seven years she’d slept in Granny’s bed, seven years of brushing up against aged and chiseled bones, Granny’s nightmares and stories, dozing in them and waking startled, pulled from her own nightmares by Granny’s screams.

  And times like this with Granny mentally resurrecting her children. And the day
they died. Her mind so crippled there was no way to save her from having to watch them be murdered over and over.

  “Get my gun,” Granny cried, her eyes wild.

  “There aren’t any Injuns,” Effie said again.

  Johnny’s face, red with fear, and Granny’s stark terror were a cold wind weaseling into the room. When Ma and Pa were there, the screaming was less frightening, but with them off in the fields with the other boys, fear came up through the floorboards, crept out from the corners of the shadowy kitchen where children had died. The cold blew over Effie, stroked her with icy fingers.

  “Breathe,” she coaxed Johnny. “Work on your letters.” And to Granny, “No one’s coming. Look.” She lifted a corner of the quilt and knocked hard on the stock of the gun in Granny’s lap. “Your gun is right here.”

  Granny’s eyes narrowed on her, as if Effie were lying, trying to fool a poor old woman in her distress. Even on the first day after Baby Sally’s death, Granny hadn’t noticed the toddler’s absence. She’d had no understanding of how her screaming for her dead babies filled Effie’s mind, rocked Ma to the core, and sent Pa fleeing to chores he’d already done.

  The chalk Johnny used snapped in two under his pressing and he howled.

  “No Injuns are coming,” Effie told him. With a shaking finger she traced a J on his dusty slate. “Like this, you’re doing it backwards again.” She couldn’t read well, but she knew how to spell and write the names of her family. “Johnny starts with a J. The letter comes down and out. This direction.”

  Granny’s cane swung again, pointed to a spot on the floor. Effie couldn’t keep herself from checking to be sure no blood suddenly pooled there. No children’s ghost faces looked up at her.

  Granny’s fits could scare the bee-jesus out of a fence post, and Effie searched the kitchen for distraction. Bread dough beneath a floury cloth rose over the top of a pan and waited to be kneaded down. Rinsing her hands at the kitchen pump, she told herself she wouldn’t give in to fear this time. She’d carry on as naturally as possible, let Granny’s fit of derangement pass. She punched the dough. Slapped it.