She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She’d done it again, let her mind float back to Homeplace and all the pain she’d caused there. “Maybe,” she said, “if we change the color, Rev. Jackdaw will stop calling you Rooster. I’m not saying your hair is terrible, but if you look less Irish, good folks might start coming to visit. Even if you are an orphan.”
“Maybe only river people visit river people,” Bridget said.
Effie cringed. “We’re not that.” The hideous name lumped them together not only with Mae Thayer, but with snakes and mud. Even the Injun.
At the sound of a horse on the road, a single rider, not a buggy, Effie’s eyes darted to the shotgun on the wall. She stood without moving, not breathing until the horse had gone by.
“It was probably Mr. Thayer,” Bridget said. “I don’t like him.”
“Mae’s husband?”
“Sometimes when I’m on the road with Jake, he spits tobacco juice at me.”
“I’m sure he’s just spitting.”
“I followed the road to his house, but I didn’t see Mae. I don’t know if she had her baby.”
“Stay away from there. I don’t want them thinking we’re friends and they can come running, asking for a woman’s help with that birthing.” She shuddered. “I don’t know anything about that. We don’t want anything to do with people so needy.”
Loneliness settled over her shoulders again. Why had no suitable women come calling? She crossed the floor for a pan and the ingredients she’d purchased at the mercantile. Soft, loose boards moaned under her feet. On first arriving, the ghostly sounds rising whenever someone crossed the planks had stolen her breath. But now, at night when she couldn’t sleep and the fire danced shadows on the walls, the undisturbed boards helped assure her no Injun was inside, sneaking to her bed with a raised tomahawk.
The pan was so dented it wobbled. Injun-touched the day of the massacre, possibly slammed against a wall. Maybe kicked or used to smash in a baby’s skull. The Injuns made off with everything they thought worth carrying. They hadn’t bothered with the pan.
Bridget ran a finger over the embossed letters on the red bottle.
“I’ll mix both formulas together,” Effie said, “and you can have blonde hair with no extra fuss. How much caustic potash do we need?”
“It says one dr.”
Effie considered. “I know dr means dram. I mean I’ve heard the word before . . . but I don’t know how much that is.”
“It sounds like a little bit,” Bridget said. “Like a drip.”
“I think it’s more like a cup. What use would a drip be?”
Bridget moved a finger back over the front of the bottle, touching each of the embossed stars and the letters L-Y-E. Concentrating, she read the recipe again. “It doesn’t say l-y-e.”
“Potash is lye.”
“Grandma Teegan likes my hair this color.”
“Hair isn’t a serious thing,” Effie said. “Would you rather I cut it off ? One winter, because of lice, Ma shaved every one of the boys’ heads.” She drew back at Bridget’s expression. “I won’t shave your head. I’d go back to the mercantile for another round of ingredients before I did that.”
“Are you sure potash and lye are the same?”
“Bridget. You’re trying me. Even the grocer’s wife said she uses lye. You aren’t going to drink it; I’m just putting it on your hair.”
“What if it’s ugly?”
“Blonde hair isn’t ugly.” She estimated the amount in the bottle was just shy of a full cup. She poured what she hoped was half into her pan. She stepped away to the window, tucked up a curtain, and gave Bridget a knowing smile. She held the bottle up to the light. “I don’t want to use too much, but if I use too little and the lice don’t die, then I’m wasting.” She poured in salts of tarter, substituted rosewater for a gush from the pump, added the other ingredients she’d bought and stirred. “Like I said, hair isn’t a serious thing. That’s what Ma told the boys.”
“If I went to school,” Bridget said, “I could learn how much is a dram.”
Effie stopped stirring and looked into the mixture. There was no way to test its potency. If Ma or Granny were there, she’d ask their opinion. But she was alone, a married woman now, seventeen, and she had to learn to live without them.
“We could go to school together,” Bridget said.
“No we can’t.” Effie rapped her spoon hard on the rim of the pan and laid it down on the red scarf. “You know how Rev. Jackdaw feels about you going to school.” She held Bridget’s gaze and swallowed against the lump gathering in her own throat. “If a girl has a smart mother, one who teaches her how to care for a man and children, she don’t need schoolhouse schooling.” Even to her own ears, her words lacked conviction. She’d longed to go at Bridget’s age. Now she was married and too old.
Bridget’s eyes pleaded. “I have to be a doctor.”
Effie ached to say she would help with that dream, but what could she promise? “Lie out on the porch. Put your head over the side. That’s how Ma washes Pa’s hair.”
Bridget rose slowly, moved to the door even slower.
“You lived back at Homeplace,” Effie said, “Ma would drag you by the ears.”
They stepped outside and Bridget saw Jake standing only a few yards away, swatting flies in Wilcox’s shade and enjoying his cud. His chewing made Bridget think of food again and her hunger. The evening before, she’d eaten the last bit of potato. Some critter had stolen her stash, leaving her only a quarter of a potato full of teeth marks. Walking Jake along the road that morning, she’d found a mulberry tree, its branches nearly cleaned of fruit by the birds. She’d picked a half-rotten handful. Not enough, and too mushy and full of tiny fruit flies to bother taking back to share. She swallowed the whole sweet mess and licked her sticky hands. Even that was hours ago.
She lay down, the sharp edge of the porch cutting into the back of her neck.
Jake flicked his ears and moved from the shade to the edge of the clearing. Was it the smell coming from Effie’s stinky pan?
While Effie fussed, brushing back Bridget’s hair, making sure it all hung down over the side of the porch, Bridget watched the sky. The sun burned red in the west. Overhead, a string of clouds drifted, smallest first, followed by larger and larger ones. Woolly as Grandma Teegan’s sheep. Fear scuttled through Bridget’s stomach. Things were wrong. Big sheep didn’t follow little sheep. Rams led the way in and out of pens. Lambs on their thin legs lagged behind.
But Effie was seventeen. She knew about lye and potash and mixing two recipes. She was already pouring a thin stream of cold over Bridget’s crown and that proved she did want to look like sisters.
“Are you all right?” Effie asked. She poured more.
The tickly sensation might have been Grandma Teegan’s comb making a part. “It tingles.” Before Bridget could speak again, the touch changed to a narrow, icy finger. It scratched. Then clawed. “It’s hot. It’s really getting hot.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Effie said. “Lice probably need a good scalding to die. Quit squirming. Hold still.”
The finger widened. Became two. Three. Shatters of pain splintered over Bridget’s scalp. Her arms flung out, one knocking Effie’s pan away. It clattered off the porch. “It’s burning!”
“All right,” Effie said. “We’ll rinse it out. What a waste. It’s spilled clear across the sand.”
Bridget couldn’t lie still. She scrambled to her feet, stomped and danced. Her screaming ran through the trees, echoed back.
Effie was gone, the lodge door open, a bucket banging under the water pump.
Feeling picked up and shoved down the ramp, Bridget ran. Beneath her screaming, her scalp sizzled, still cooking like beans boiled dry over a fire. The pain flogged her, threatened to buckle her knees. She fought to stay on her feet, to keep moving, to obey the voices pushing her to the river.
Water reached her ankles, her knees. She splashed up to her waist and
sank under. When she rose, she went back under. The third time she needed air, she rolled onto her back. Belly-up, she pushed her head deeper and let the river wash over her face. The cold helped cut through the worst heat. She forced her head completely under and her mouth filled with river. She had to stop screaming. Gagging and clearing her throat to keep from drowning, she lifted her head out of the water but that called back the torture.
Effie dropped her pail at Bridget’s screaming. Pumping water was too slow. “Go to the river,” she shouted, running back out. She’d hurt Bridget bad. It seemed impossible; she’d not meant to do so. Water pulled at her dress, and she fought her old terror of drowning. She’d been overconfident with the recipes, so sure she knew what she was doing. How could this happen? She ought to have tested the liquid on her own skin. She’d been foolish and careless. She reached Bridget, wrapped her arms around her, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“No!” Bridget screamed. She twisted and pushed. “Go away!” And again, choking on sobs, “Go away!”
Bridget didn’t want her there. Trying to hug her only drew her out of the water, exposed her burns to the air, and made her howl louder. Effie let go. Bridget didn’t deserve the additional upset of having her there.
Effie backed out of the water, her soaked dress dragging heavier with each step until it clung to her ankles. When she could, she turned and ran up the ramp, her stomach heaving. She’d never meant for this to happen. But it had all the same, and it proved something unspeakable about her.
In the lodge, she reached a chair breathless, the weight of what she’d done making her collapse into it. Seeing Dr. Chase’s book with the hideous recipes, she swept it off the table. The pages fluttered in the air and the book landed on the floor. She grabbed up the spoon she’d used to stir the mixture and threw it against the wall. Still fraught with upset, she reached for the red scarf. Her breath caught. The lye on the spoon had eaten through the wool, leaving a hole the size of her palm and ringed by sickly yellow. If the lye had done this to fabric, how much more damage had it done to Bridget’s tender scalp?
She tore the curtain from a window. Johnny’s marbles rolled onto the floor and away. She couldn’t see Bridget’s head from where she stood, only the blue dress floating on the surface. Horror engulfed her. Her hands slapped against the glass. Bridget was drowning. “No. Please no.” She pushed away, ready to run back into the water.
Bridget’s knobby knees moved, then her arms, turning her body. Her nose and mouth were above the water. She knew how to swim. “Not dead. Not drowned.”
The best Effie could do for Bridget was stay away. She made it to the bed, dropped, and curled in her wet dress and shoes. The black cloth was there. She drew it over her head and in the darkness, bit into her fists.
Baby Sally’s death had been an accident too, but what difference did that make? She saw the toddler lying on the kitchen table. A neighbor woman draped a black cloth over her to keep off flies. Overcome by the sight, Ma doubled over and the woman helped her away and into bed. Alone with Sally, Effie lifted a corner of the cloth, and ducked beneath. She was ten, so much older than Sally. She pressed a hand over Sally’s tummy where her Sunday dress was wrinkled, fussed with her golden ringlets, counted her tiny perfect toes.
“I’m sorry,” she wept. And then, “I want to go with you.”
The cold water stabbed Bridget’s ears, but she kept her head thrown back, letting only her nose and mouth rise out of the water. The river’s current tugged her, carried her only a short distance before her arms knocked against one of Wilcox’s roots. She grabbed it and wound her legs around roots as thick as her arms. Wilcox had reached out and grabbed her. Or Mum as a selkie had lifted her up and into the watery sling.
With her head thrown back and the last of Wilcox’s leaves blowing in the October breeze, the pain gradually decreased. Minutes later, her head pounded, felt swollen with cold. Despite the fierce headache, she needed more minutes before she worked herself onto her knees. After so long in the water, her body jerked with cold and her ears pounded more than her scalp burned. Her bones felt locked in a frozen numbness. Brittle. If she didn’t move now, didn’t force herself out of the water, she’d never be able to do so. She couldn’t give up; she’d promised Grandma Teegan she’d fight death.
Jake, his head high and the black pools of his eyes watching her, stood on the bank looking ready to charge.
“I’m all right,” she said, but couldn’t hear herself speak. She had to reach him. She’d ridden on his back and knew he was warm. They’d go to Old Mag and stay there forever.
Crawling from the water onto the silty land, she stood and pulled her hair over her shoulders to look for the blonde. Red hair. Rooster red. She didn’t care what it was called. Her hair still matched Mum’s.
Water streamed from the ends of her hair, growing it longer. Inch by inch, her hair lengthened while she marveled, unsure of what it meant. The long strands grew to her waist. Then dropped off, slid down the skirt of her dress, and onto the ground.
Jake stepped closer, sniffed.
Bridget stared at the clumps lying at her feet. Red nearly to the top, then three inches of ash-colored straw. She stood shivering, too frightened to move for fear the tug of the water dripping off her head would pull out more. She reached trembling fingers to explore how much was gone, but touching the scorched flesh made her wince in pain. She didn’t need to touch her burns to know their size. The searing strip was three fingers wide and ran over her crown and down.
Jake kept pace at her side, and they hurried up the river’s edge in the direction of Old Mag. Avoiding the easy path through the trees, they hugged the shore and when the pain rose again, Bridget knelt in the water and dunked her head.
When she thought they’d gone far enough to intersect with the tree, she geed Jake right, and they entered the woods. She’d not gauged right, and undergrowth and fallen trunks stopped them again and again. “It’s only a labyrinth,” she promised Jake as they worked forward and frequently had to backtrack because he couldn’t slide through the narrow slits or crawl over downed trees like she could.
Once in the sanctuary of Old Mag’s arms, she’d tell her she’d fought death. She wouldn’t go back to the lodge. E-V-E-R. She was safe in the trees, and she’d sleep under the stars with Jake and the river nearby. She’d not think one time about Effie. Let Effie stand at the window, bawling and screaming all night.
Twice through the evening Bridget had to tell Jake “Stay” while she cut back through the trees and doused her head in the cold river. In the dark, she coaxed him to the southern side of Old Mag’s trunk and out of the north breeze. “Down, down.” She pushed on his left flank, not the right one where he’d been burned like her, only with a sizzling brand. His front legs bent at the knees, his rump sunk heavily on the ground, and then the front legs finished folding, and he settled with a grunt.
The temperature dropped lower through the next hours. She shook with cold in her wet dress and wished for the warmth of the buffalo hide and the fire in the lodge. But the cold also soothed her scalp. And she never wanted to return to the lodge and Effie.
She tried to curl close to Jake, holding her head up and sleeping against his warmth. But each time she dozed off, her head dropped against his side and she woke with a jolt of pain. And every time she woke, she heard, or imagined she heard, Effie’s far away screaming: “Bridget!”
Finally, she draped herself like a saddle across Jake’s warmth, her arms on one side, her legs on the other and her head propped up by her chin, a cheek resting against an outstretched arm.
She’d trusted that living along the river with trees meant she’d be safe. But an emptiness, painful as her burns, bore into her. She didn’t want to think what it all meant—how maybe being West didn’t mean a good thing at all.
Jake’s rising to his front knees made Bridget slide off, limp with chill and exhaustion. Night covered her. Even with Jake’s warmth on her front, her back stung with cold.
Her body shook and her chattering teeth rattled in her ears. She’d awakened off and on and told herself she needed to find the will to walk back to the lodge. But the cold made her so tired. If only she rested one more minute, she’d have the strength. The next time she woke, her legs and arms even more wooden, her shaking harder, she had even less will to move.
Beside her, Jake rocked forward to get his back legs under him. She’d slipped nearly beneath him, too close to his hoofs and massive weight as he gained the full extension of his front legs. She scooted out of his way, feeling Old Mag’s trunk against her back.
Jake took a step away, and pulling herself forward on her knees, Bridget worked her body back into the leaves he’d left. She wanted to grab up the ground there, wrap the warmth all the way around her. She wanted to scold him too, make him lie back down, but in the next moment he vanished into the darkness. His disappearance startled her, made her groggy eyes open wider. She was alone. Even Old Mag seemed asleep and far off. The moon was a faint smear overhead and a thick fog had settled in the trees. Her heart raced with the realization. Fog! The stories all said fog was a doorway to other worlds.
A slight crackle on the path. She lay as still as her shaking allowed. Listened. Had she heard something large on the dead leaves?
The night was silent and heavy as the cold. Too quiet. Even trees that had swayed earlier, their ragged leaves swishing when she first sank across Jake, were still now. Then a hoot. The sound sharp. A hoot returned, distorted, both off and close at the same time.
Her heart beat faster. “Jake?” Her voice, a trembling thread in the night, waving shakily and exposing her fear. The sound of it sent shivers of a new kind up her back. Nera. Nera. She tried to be silent, to still even her breathing so she could hear better.
A minute passed, then two and three. She couldn’t see through the fog, but now she didn’t need eyes. The sound on leaves was soft, cautious. Not four feet, not Jake, but two halting feet. Advancing, stopping. Stalking. Whatever approached wasn’t coming from the direction of the lodge, wasn’t Effie, who would never come into the trees, and never, never at night. What approached came from the other direction, the direction she’d not yet explored. She scooted back again, pressing herself farther into the deep curve of Old Mag’s trunk, making herself as small as she could. Her lips trembled, made sucking noises, and she pressed her cold hands over her mouth.
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