River People

by Margaret Lukas

  The sound came again, carefully placed weight on dry leaves. A twig snapped. A shape disturbed the edge of the fog. An almost form. A something that knew the night better than she did. That lived in the night.

  Rounded and close to the ground, the dark shape stretched tall as a man. She tried to scoot deeper, but her back was already pressed hard against the trunk, and her movement in the leaves sounded near deafening in her ears. It watched her. A wolf on hind legs? A man? Yes, a man with his arm raised and holding the stub end of a branch like a club. He stepped through the fog at exactly the spot where Jake disappeared. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if Jake had shape-shifted.

  Nera, Nera. But reciting the name didn’t help. Her throat was trying to scream.

  The man passed fully through the curtain. The man took the final few steps, dropped his stick, and lowered to one knee in front of her. The Indian! In his battered hat and his braids, and his face even craggier in the darkness. His name was Chief. He’d brought them food, and through the window he’d looked into her eyes. Her body went limp. She was crying.

  He said nothing, but his face pinched as he looked her over, carefully moving each arm and then each leg. He took off his coat, spread it wide, and lifted her onto the warmth. She couldn’t move, couldn’t find the strength to mumble a thanks. He carried her, but not in the direction of the lodge. Her eyelids closed. The rhythmic walking was a gentle sea rocking her.

  Bridget woke in a strange room, in a bed—a real bed. Something she’d not slept in since leaving Ireland. Her burns tingled and with a light touch she explored the wrapping around her head. She closed her eyes again and smiled. No pain, only the tingly sensation. She vaguely remembered Chief, his face in the night, but his carrying her seemed no more than a dream. Still, she was in a new room with cloth strips wound around her head. She wasn’t dreaming. This had to be his house.

  The smell of bacon rose from the floor below and made her stomach growl. She pushed back the blankets and realized she wore only her short bloomers. Her dress hung on the door, its blue color returned but more worn than she realized. She needed to save it.

  At the bottom of the stairs, she stepped into a room with a fireplace, roll top desk, two wide leather chairs, and a leather sofa. On the long leather seat, blankets and a pillow told her someone had slept the night there.

  Noise from the next room made her turn. Another door, this one ajar. She crossed the room and peeked through the opening. Chief sat at a table eating, a fork in his hand. She hadn’t imagined how an Indian’s kitchen might look, or that Indians used the same household items as other people: tables, chairs, knives, plates, and shiny pots.

  “Come on,” Chief said. “I haven’t taken a bite out of you yet.”

  She stepped just inside the room. “Your house is big.”

  “Take this with you.” A jar sat on the table, and he pushed it in her direction. The contents looked like sheep’s fat with flecks of green herbs. “It’ll help the pain. Keep the burns wrapped.”

  She thought to thank him for helping her, but if she did it now, she’d have no more reason to stay. Several other things lay on the table, and her eyes ran over them: a battered board only a foot long, a hammer, a small pile of bent nails, his floppy hat, a large toy ship. And his plate of food—eggs, thick slices of bacon, a hunk of bread as fat as a book and covered with butter. The sight and smell started a hundred tiny hands clawing in her belly.

  He’d not asked her to stay, and the way he nudged the jar in her direction again seemed to say, “Take it and go.” She couldn’t. Her mouth watered and her hunger kept her feet rooted. She needed the bread worse than she needed the salve.

  “Your name is Chief.”

  He studied her a moment and pushed his plate in her direction. “Eat. Then you best get on home. You already been here too long.”

  She hurried to the plate, using his fork, forcing herself to keep her eyes down so he wouldn’t think she’d had enough and pull the food away. She finished the eggs and the bacon and held the bread tight. She’d give it to Effie. “Effie isn’t my mum, and she’s not my sister.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Rev. Jackdaw signed a paper on me.” Grandma Teegan, her hand shaking, had also signed a paper. Getting a kid was easy and so was getting rid of one. “The paper says I’m his now.”

  Shadow passed over Chief ’s eyes, and he answered slow. “The whole world’s alone. Best get used to it.”

  “Are you used to it?”

  He scowled.

  “Why do you have braids?”

  He rose with his coffee cup, walked to the stove, and refilled it. He lowered himself back to his chair. “My mother wore braids.”

  “I have Grandma Teegan’s braid. Effie doesn’t like braids. I hid it.” He sipped his coffee. “How did you find me?”

  “Heard you crying.”

  Effie was right. Indians did prowl around at night. “I wasn’t crying. I was sleeping.”

  “Then you snore like a girl crying.”

  She felt certain she’d been so cold and tired she hadn’t been crying. Only inside. To hear that, a person needed a different kind of ears. “Were you on the path?”

  Chief ’s black-gray brows pinched, and the furrows across his weathered forehead deepened. “Children oughten be crying in trees on cold nights.”

  She shifted her weight from foot to foot. By now, Effie would be screaming or sobbing under the black cloth. “Is that your hat?”

  His hand, large and brown, lifted the hat to his head. Beneath the droopy brim, he nodded at the table. “Them are my nails. My hammer.”

  “Do you live here all by yourself ?” Effie said he did.

  “Ain’t your business.”

  “The man from the mercantile told Effie your wife rode away.”

  “That ain’t his business. Hers neither.”

  “He said your boy drowned in the river. Were you looking for him? Is that how you found me?”

  He took the hat back off and laid it close to the toy ship. “I ain’t got all day to sit and listen to your foolishness.”

  She shouldn’t have mentioned his boy. He didn’t think that was her business, but it was. Rowan was dead, and she didn’t have a toy ship or anything once belonging to him. She wanted to talk about death and the dark emptiness she’d seen around Mae.

  He pulled the board and hammer forward. Taking a bent nail from the pile, he held it against the short plank and with one blow straightened it. She’d seen the hammer rise and still the loud whack made her jump. He took up another nail. “I got work to do.”

  “Thank you for the vegetables.”

  He nodded at a pail in the corner. “Mae and Pete could have used them.”

  Bridget told her eyes not to look hard at the bucket, but they did. It was the same one Effie told her to throw in the river. A bit of white paint on one side proved it. She hadn’t been strong enough to throw the pail far—even emptied.

  “Effie wasn’t hungry.” That didn’t explain why they’d thrown away a good bucket. With the bread still in one hand, she reached for the jar with the other and noticed a shelf on the wall holding a small painted box. “Effie has one that size, but it’s not painted with marks. If I had one, I’d put in Grandma Teegan’s braid.”

  She turned to leave, then stopped. “Do people homestead in Nebraska? Irish people?”

  “Homestead?”He whacked another nail straight.“The government’s still taking Indian land. Reservations and breaking legal agreements. That land is still being given to whites. You call that homesteading?”

  Nera. Nera. She needed courage for the next question. “Do you think my face looks like someone?”

  His thumb rubbed up and down the hammer. “What’s your name?”

  She swallowed. Changing the subject meant he didn’t think she looked like anyone. He hadn’t seen Mum with hair like hers. “My name is Bridget.”

  “Bridget. What happened to you?”

  She licked her lips.
Wider. “Effie can’t read because she’s Rev. Jackdaw’s wife. She traded.” She looked at the slice of bread she held and pinched at one corner of the crust. The whole outer brown edge peeled off like a ribbon. Her burned scalp wasn’t all Effie’s fault. Like Effie, she’d also traded: the message of the clouds for having Effie like her. “It was an accident.”

  “An accident happens once, you learn something.” His eyes said she’d better listen. “Same accident happens again, you’re a damn fool. You ain’t a damn fool, are you?”

  “No.” The crust was in her mouth. With the remainder of her bread and the jar, she turned for the door. A basket sat in window light and inside it, something moved. She stretched and smiled to see the head of a sleeping dog. “You have a puppy.” She stepped closer. The dog was wrapped in bandages around its middle and over one hip where a leg was missing. “What happened?”

  “He ain’t said.”

  She knelt. The dog, smaller than Ogan, had a black head with a white, straggly muzzle. His body, though the bandages prevented her from seeing much of his torso, was white with several black spots.

  “Fished him out of the river,” Chief said. “Looks like someone wrapped him in barbed wire and threw him in.”

  The food Bridget had eaten threatened to come back up.

  “Did what I could. Leg so mangled, I needed to take it off to give him a fighting chance.”

  She couldn’t see a shadow around the dog, but that didn’t mean one wouldn’t come. “Is he going to die?”

  “I thought so. But he’s a fighter.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Going to call him Wire.”

  “He’s like us.” She turned and looked up at Chief. “He’s left too.”

  He scowled for the second time. “Our business is finished. Go on before the sheriff comes looking for you.”

  The sheriff wouldn’t come looking. Effie hadn’t run into town during the night. Even in daylight, she’d spend hours before she worked up the courage to go for help and admit what happened. But it was time to go: Chief wanted her gone. She raised the jar. “Can I come back when it’s gone?”

  “You got plenty.”

  “Can I come back even if it isn’t gone? I could help change Wire’s bandages. I’m going to be a doctor. I have a doctor’s book.”

  He stepped up to the door, opened it. “That dog ain’t your business, and you don’t belong over here. Not for any reason.”

  Bridget pressed her lips together to keep her tongue from licking. Chief wanted her away, and there was nothing to steal to fill the hole he was making. Not with him staring at her. You don’t belong in our trees, either, she wanted to say. Not for any reason.

  He pointed at her and swung the finger back to tap his own chest. “This ain’t gonna be one of those fairy tales where the little girl makes friends with the wild and mean old bastard in the forest. I ain’t and I can’t ever be that man.”

  “You brought vegetables.”

  His eyes narrowed and he shook his head, but then the corner of one side of his mouth lifted. “You a piece of work. I got nothing against you, but you’ll be moving on faster ’an rabbits breed rabbits. But the trouble you cause me is likely to stay.”

  She wasn’t his trouble. She could take care of herself. “If the sheriff comes, you should tell him someone hurt Wire.” She stepped out the door and stared at the wide yard and a road at the end of a long lane. Where were the trees, the river? “I don’t know how to get back.”

  He walked with her around the corner of his house and pointed past two barns, one three-stories high, and across a pasture to a wall of trees. “That big oak. Tallest one. Path starts there. Taking the road’s near a mile longer.”

  She saw the tree, but paid little attention. Five horses were in his corral. Four she’d seen hitched to his wagon, but the fifth was the most beautiful horse she’d ever seen. Sleek, taller and larger than Nell, it was also spotted like Wire and Ogan. Three matching animals meant magic. “I love your horse. What’s his name?”

  “He calls himself Smoke. Now scram.” He turned back, then mumbled over his shoulder. “Likely it’s the sheriff ’s dog.”

  She walked slowly from his yard, trying to memorize everything. A large fenced garden, the ground turned, which meant most of the root vegetables had already been dug. Two rows of fruit trees. One apple, one pear, only partially picked. A coop with red chickens, roosters, and laying hens. As she passed the door to his larger barn, shine on the ground caught her eye. She turned back to check that the grumpy man who didn’t want to be “that man” wasn’t watching. She grabbed up a nail.

  Bridget tried the door to the lodge, but the bar was dropped across inside. She knocked. “Effie!” Knocked again.

  The door finally opened and Effie stood huddled in her quilt, her eyes red and tired, her hair tangled around her face. “You aren’t dead,” she said. She opened the quilt into wings and wrapped it and her arms around Bridget. “You aren’t dead,” she said again. “I never meant to hurt you. You know that.”

  Feeling Effie’s arms made up for all yesterday’s pain.

  “Who did that?” Effie held her back and looked at the tight bandaging, an edge rising in her voice. “Where did you go?” She touched the hair hanging down over Bridget’s shoulders. “It isn’t all ruined. Are you burned bad? Who helped you?”

  Bridget lifted the jar. “I got medicine.”

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “I ran to Old Mag and then . . .” She stopped. Hearing about Chief would shut Effie’s love off. Effie’d be so angry she might insist the salve be thrown in the river. And when the awful pain returned, how could it be stopped?

  Effie turned away, her feet dragging as she moved across the room. “A woman, Old Mag? She helped you?” She fell onto the bed, the corn shucks crackling as she curled, turning her face to the wall. “You were with someone while I was near dead of fright and thought you was dead too.”

  Bridget didn’t know how to answer.

  For minutes Effie didn’t speak, her face still turned to the wall. Finally, “That woman, Old Mag, she’ll tell the whole town.”

  “No, she won’t. I told her it was an accident.”

  “She knows, doesn’t she?”

  Bridget stood rooted, staring at Effie’s back. Every day it seemed there were more secrets to keep—spoons hidden in walls, Grandma Teegan’s braid hidden overhead, the space she’d seen around Mae. And now Chief.

  Taking up a log she’d carried in the day before, she placed it on the hot ashes and stirred the embers with the poker. Her heart skipped. Lying just out of the pile of ash, black and singed all around, was a scrap of red wool.

  Bridget woke, checked to see Effie still slept, and began unwinding the strips of cloth from around her head. The bands always loosened in the night and needed to be rewound in the morning. Something best done when Effie wasn’t looking. So that her face didn’t drop and her hands didn’t start twisting.

  With the soft pads of her fingertips, Bridget touched the burns. Most of the water had gone out of what she thought of as peeled eggs. Wren eggs, robin eggs, even hen eggs. She looked up into the rafters to Grandma Teegan’s braid and whispered, “Can you see my eggs?” But braids couldn’t see, and she promised herself Grandma Teegan was home in Ireland. Grandma Teegan hadn’t stayed too long in America just for her. Wasn’t buried this side of the water and hadn’t died in the crossing. One day, they’d see each other again.

  She wrapped Effie’s cape over her shoulders and opened the door. The clearing lay under a shiny layer of frost, the air bunched and bullied with cold, the river steamed, and doves cooed in the trees.

  “Wait.” Effie crawled from bed. She reached for her bonnet. “That sound, I can’t stand it. Close the door.”

  “It’s just birds.”

  “It’s not.” She held out the bonnet. “Here, it will help keep your head warm.”

  “No,” Bridget said. “I don’t need it. My head is
warm.” The calico was worn and faded, and still too valuable to risk to low hanging limbs or anymore wear than necessary. Effie wore the bonnet every trip into Bleaksville and though nearly all women wore hats now, at least Effie had head covering. When she tied the strings under her chin and tucked her hair up, she could force herself out the door. Bridget needed the cape for warmth and because it helped hide the ugly dress she had taken to wearing since seeing her blue hanging on a closet door at Chief ’s. That dress would be the one she changed into when Mum and Pappy came running down the slope for her.

  She led Jake up to the road and across. A quarter mile of dry grass and weeds stretched between the road and the railroad tracks. “This way.” He grazed, his square teeth chomping off bits of remaining greenery hidden in the taller, dryer grass. The shimmery frost burned off as they walked. A flock of turkeys with iridescent feathers pecked and gobbled in the distance. The squat birds pretended to be undisturbed by the slow approach of a girl and an ox, then one by one moved into the taller weeds.

  The sun was high overhead by the time Bridget and Jake reached the end of Chief ’s lane—though Effie said not to walk in that direction. Chief, if he was working outside, might see her. If he was going into or returning from Bleaksville, he’d also see her. She’d stood in his kitchen, eaten all his eggs and bacon right off his plate using his fork, but they’d not talked since. She’d ask him about Wire. He’d ask her about her burns. Maybe she’d tell him Effie was scared of trees and birds that talked to her. And Mae had a gray shadow.

  She saw no motion around Chief ’s house or barns. She stretched and stood on tiptoes, but there was no sign of him. Jake continued to stroll forward, but she held her ground, not moving until he’d grazed nearly around the next bend.