“Whole town’s coming in. Christmas celebration at the church. They push back the pews and a young scrapper brings his accordion.”
Bridget followed the line of Effie’s gaze to the single white cross at the end of the block. Men carried in chairs and women baskets or small children. Red and green bunting hung in festive drapes. “We need to get home.”
“That’d be a shame,” Thayer said. “A pretty girl like you ought to be out more.”
Effie looked again to the rocker. “I have to go home.”
Bridget didn’t want them talking, though she wasn’t exactly sure why. “She has to go.”
Mr. Thayer gave Effie a last long look.
As they walked away, Effie reaching out to keep a hand on one moon-shaped rocker, Bridget wondered about Mr. Thayer. Why had he looked at Effie like that? She wished he could have seen Effie when they first arrived. She’d been even prettier then. Bridget wondered too, about Pete. Were he and Mr. Thayer friends now?
“Jury,” Effie watched the church. “Our first dance was at Christmas time. I wore this dress.” They walked to the sound of Jake’s hoofs. “Granny had just had it made over for me.” She was quiet for a bit. “Turn Jake. Let’s go right past the church and down Main Street. We’ll stop at the post office and mercantile and everyone will see I have a fine rocker.”
Bridget’s heart sped. She was always hungry, but with Mr. Thayer ogling Effie, the Christmas celebration to which Effie hadn’t been invited, and the sadness Effie felt over the death of her granny, Bridget didn’t want Effie arguing with Mr. Graf too. “Let’s go home.” She smiled as big as she could. “I’ll build a really warm fire, and I’ll go and ask Old Mag for two eggs. You can rock in your new chair, and I’ll tell you a story.”
Effie didn’t answer and headed toward the post office. Leaving empty-handed, her eyes were moist and her face red.
Waiting for her outside the mercantile, Bridget tried to push the rocker higher up Jake’s side. Since leaving the depot, the cumbersome chair had slipped inch by inch, and now the heavy piece hung too low. By the time they crossed Nettle Creek, the rocker would drag under Jake’s belly and be crushed with his hoofs.
“You! Irish!” She imagined she heard the sheriff, his badge bright on his chest, though he walked on the other side of the street and paid no attention to her. Wasn’t even looking in her direction. Still, the man Chief thought mean enough to wrap a small dog in barbed wire yelled again in Bridget’s head. “I been getting reports. A woman lost a sheet right off her clothesline. Missing turnips and cabbages.” He yelled the same words in her sleep, using the voice of a mean New York policeman, reminding her the thin thread that had kept her from prison there was just as thin in Nebraska.
Chief ’s wagon sat empty across the street, only two of the four workhorses he owned harnessed to the front. She still hadn’t spoken to him since the morning she stood in his kitchen, though she’d seen him at night through his windows, eating alone at the kitchen table. Or in the next room working at a desk and his ledgers. She never watched long, heading for his fruit trees or hen house before Wire sensed her outside and began barking. Or Chief rose and put on his coat for his nighttime walk.
In the mercantile, Graf frowned at seeing Effie. “If you haven’t got money, turn right on out of here.”
Effie clenched her jaws. I’d like nothing more. But they needed food, the community was gathering while she and Bridget were heading back to the cold lodge alone, and Granny was dead. “Rev. Jackdaw will pay you in full. Soon as he’s able to make the trip. He’s busy with his work in Omaha.”
“It ain’t mine to keep carrying you.”
Had Rev. Jackdaw not paid the bill on his last visit? Had he spent all he had on his new coat, his fancy inkbottle? Not paid the bill for his wife and child’s food?
Effie had been shaking since realizing Granny was dead. Shaking since seeing the chair and learning of the town’s gathering, friends greeting friends. Shaking since hearing Pete say Rev. Jackdaw had wanted the chair sent to Omaha. How had he known about it? Had he heard from Mr. Thayer? Was there someone else in Bleaksville that spied on her, heard all the news, reported to Rev. Jackdaw?
“I’m not asking much,” she said to Mr. Graf. “Just a bit to see us a few days. Maybe beans this time?” Could she pay off her debt with the rocker? But how could she part with it so soon? “I’m not asking for charity. Only a bit more time.” She paused, motioned toward the door. “The orphan . . . Bridget, she’s hungry.”
Graf fisted the front of his apron, whipped it off, and slapped it down on the counter. Two small sacks hit the floor. Licorice drops spilled out and lay in week-old sawdust and mud carried in on boots and pram wheels and ground to dust.
“God dammit,” he spat. He came around the counter, his cold eyes pinning Effie. “No reason I got to be the one to feed you.” He grabbed the sacks in one hand and the soiled licorice in the other. He looked at the candy for a moment and then very slowly held out his open palm to her. Was it a test to see if she’d fallen low enough to accept it? His hand closed and he pulled the fist back.
Effie ached. She’d gladly take the sweets. She’d brush off the dirt and she and Bridget could have candy for Christmas.
Behind the counter again, Graf held the sweets over a trash barrel, paused, and moved his hand away. He laid the penny sweets on a shelf behind him. Was he keeping them? Did he intend to resack them?
“Tell your husband,” his voice a low growl, “I have a business to run.”
The Injun stepped out from behind a display. She knew not to scream, but she flinched and took a quick step back. Needles in her palms.
“You got what you need, Chief ?” Mr. Graf asked.
The bronze face nodded at Effie. “Finish with her first.”
Effie backed farther away, turned, and moved halfway down the aisle to Cora’s display of unwrapped soaps. She wouldn’t have the Injun hearing her beg.
The curtains parted behind the counter and Cora stepped through. She wore a crimson velvet gown. Effie once imagined that as a preacher’s wife she’d have fine dresses, but she’d never imagined a dress so beautiful: boned through the bodice with wide, poufy shoulders and slender sleeves that ended with six-inch cuffs of lace.
Cora came forward. “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Jackdaw.”
Shame over her poor bonnet, her dress with holes, her pauper’s cape, washed over Effie. She didn’t belong even standing beside Cora.
“Merry Christmas, Chief,” Cora called.
As the Injun picked up his packages and nodded, his brown face as hard for Effie to read as Mr. Graf ’s. Had he smiled or sneered? With the door closed after him, Cora turned to her husband. “It’s the holiday season. Surely we can offer Mrs. Jackdaw a little something.” She winked at Effie, but the gesture was also for Mr. Graf ’s eyes. “My husband is a shrewd businessman, but he’s kind.”
The store buzzed around Effie. She was dissolving in the air, growing thin as fog, losing her substance, not like something drifting off that eyes could follow, but simply ceasing to exist.
“Effie?” Cora’s voice was warm. “Are you all right? You’ve been crying. You’re getting so thin.” She turned and faced her husband squarely.
Graf ’s gaze lingered on his wife, then his hands rose in defeat. “One pound of beans.”
“Of course,” Cora said. “I’ll wait on her. You’re late dressing.”
He hesitated before leaving. When he was gone, Cora snapped open a paper bag, added three large scoops of meal, and spoke louder than necessary. “That will be one pound of beans on your tab, Mrs. Jackdaw.” She reached for a sack of beans, already round and weighed, from the counter behind her. She hesitated at seeing the candy, sighed and swept it into the dustbin. She brushed the area free of dust and pushed the beans across the counter to Effie.
Charity. Wasting candy.
“Merry Christmas,” Cora said again. Then whispered, “Hurry.”
Charity. The word still
rattled in Effie’s head. She hesitated, needing to say something about the wasted candy. Cora didn’t understand hunger the way she and Mr. Graf did. But if the man came back and found them arguing, he’d take the meal away, and he’d likely be angry with Cora. That wasn’t fair to her even though she’d been cold hearted in throwing away the licorice.
“He doesn’t mean any harm,” Cora said. “He has his demons. We all do.”
Effie couldn’t force herself out the door. “Why are you helping me?”
Cora checked the curtain—still closed. “Mae has died.” Her eyes filled, and she touched the paper bag in Effie’s hand. “Go. Hurry, now.”
Effie stepped onto the wooden walk outside the mercantile and nearly dropped her things. The Injun stood beside Bridget and in broad daylight was stealing the rocker. “Get away from there.” She rushed down the stairs. “Get your hands off my chair!”
“I asked him to help,” Bridget said. “The chair’s falling off. It’s going to break.”
“You what?”
The Injun with its foul hat and gray braids finished untying Thayer’s knots and lowered the chair to the ground.
“Quit that,” Effie cried. Two women with baskets and nearly to the mercantile door stopped to stare. Was it at the Injun? Or at her? She wanted to strike him, but she wasn’t brave enough—even with two witnesses. Nor would she step so close she could use her fist on his back. “Thief ! Someone call the sheriff.”
The women smiled to each other. They didn’t believe the Injun was stealing. They thought her as dim-witted as she’d thought Mae. The clenching in Effie’s stomach changed from fear to anger. The pair would take their story into the church gathering. The story would walk around on its thin legs, collect strength, and split into new stories. By the end of the night, a hundred versions would come out. Each more embellished than the last.
The Injun lifted the rocker by the arms and swung it upside down above his head. “I’ll sit it on your porch.”
As he carried it across the street to his wagon, Effie silently cursed him, then sucked in a sudden, ragged breath. On the underside of the seat, in a finger-wide smear of paint, was a backwards J.
Bridget watched Chief carrying the chair. She didn’t see a shadow around him. Not the way death announced itself, but his loneliness was there in the flop of his hat, the set of his shoulders, and in his worn coat—the one he’d wrapped her in. It was there, too, in the way he climbed into his wagon, flicked the reins, and the wagon rolled down the street, the chair rocking in back. The people of Bleaksville didn’t cross the street to avoid him, but they hadn’t invited him either to their Christmas party. You can be with us, she wished she could have said. Effie would have screamed, said no.
Walking at Jake’s shoulder again, Bridget carried the sacks while Effie trailed behind, her head down. They passed the school, the windows dark now, and crossed the bridge. Dusk was settling, the wind blew colder, and the tips of tall grasses and weeds rustled either side of the road. The rope scraped over snowy ruts.
Effie let out a worn sob, and Bridget turned to see her cover her face with her hands and drop to her knees on the frozen road.
“Stay,” Bridget told Jake. She ran back and knelt on the ground beside Effie, so close Rev. Jackdaw’s coat touched the hem of Effie’s cape. So close Effie could, if she wanted, reach out and hug, or just hold on. “I’m sorry your granny is dead.”
“It isn’t only that.” Effie’s nose dripped. “Johnny painted the rocker. He hasn’t forgotten me.”
The ground beneath Bridget rolled. Effie would leave her. Not that day, but one day. She’d go back to her family and Johnny. Like Grandma Teegan, she’d go.
“All this time,” Effie said, “I thought they didn’t know where I was. Thought that’s why they haven’t sent a single letter. But they know I’m here. These months . . . they’ve known.”
Rev. Jackdaw shivered on the cold street corner, pacing back and forth for warmth. He held his slate high, the word “REPENT” fading in the wet, falling snow. No use pulling out his stub of chalk to write the word again. His overturned hat sat on the sidewalk close to his feet and served as a bucket for donations. His thin hair hung limp and dripped onto his brow. His eye slept quiet as a baby. This was the Lord’s work; the cold was a privilege. God allowed those who would be great to be tested. Just as He’d allowed Job to be tested.
Half a block away, Storz Brewery stood six hundred feet tall. All fifteen buildings, the paper reported, had red tiled floors, stainless steel and copper fixtures. With that edifice to the devil in the background, the corner was normally profitable. A woman hurried down the street with her eyes lowered against the snow, and her hat tugged down on her forehead. He waited, watched her come, saw the moment she saw him: too late to step across the street.
“I see by the light in your eyes, sister.” He’d seen only dread. “You are one of God’s chosen.”
Her stance softened realizing he was a man of God. “Good day, sir.” A small tip in her lips as she tried to pass.
Some days his work reaped more profit than others. Today, the snow and cold kept most home, but on a good day, a bill or two was dropped into his hat, and women stopped to hear his preaching. He caught her elbow with his fingers, not pressing too tight. She didn’t jerk away, though to keep hold he had to step forward with her backward step. A young man would shove him off, maybe raise a fist, but women were schooled to be inoffensive. They dropped coins in hopes of negotiating and considered themselves lucky to get away. “A bit to help our church,” he said. He lifted a hand toward the brewery. “Together, we will rid the city of its evils.”
She fumbled with her purse strings, and he let go of her arm. Though she refused to meet his gaze, she stepped the two feet ahead to his hat and dropped in a coin. He knew to keep his hat always three feet in front of him in the direction the pedestrian was moving. The placement allowed an easier escape; let a person drop in money and hurry on with no chance of being grabbed again. Trial and error had taught him relief made them more generous.
“The Lord’s blessings,” he said. Not all were as cold as this one. Some stepped up close as soon as he mentioned the light in their eyes or his desire to rid the city of its evils. Women mostly, prohibitionists who supposed they, too, had a calling. Those were the women who invited him to their houses and fed him hearty meals.
His stomach growled at the thought, and he wondered about Effie and Rooster. They were also hungry, though Effie didn’t understand the benefit of suffering for a cause. He’d meant to return more often. Effie was young flesh going to waste, but there wasn’t money to fritter away on train fare, and for weeks the roads had remained nearly impassable for a buggy. Even the man who pastured Nell expected payment every time he came for her. Nell wasn’t but glue on hoofs now, and he couldn’t afford to have her drop on the road between Omaha and Bleaksville.
The crack of a sharp laugh made him look up. A young man eyed him, aimed for him with a steady gait. A sneer on his face. Dangerous, looking full of spit and malice.
“Well, if it ain’t my brother-in-law out begging on the street.”
Skeet. At Homeplace, Rev. Jackdaw had paid little attention to the thug. No cause to with the Mad Matriarch and Effie’s pa holding rein over him. But meeting him alone on the street, his size more than Rev. Jackdaw remembered, his eyes beady with drink, there was cause to be uneasy. “Effie’s not here.”
“I heard.”
“She’s living the next town over. Bleaksville.”
“While you live here.”
“I keep a modest room. No space for a wife.”
Skeet walked around him, peered into the hat, lifted it and pulled out a penny. Handed over the hat. “This it? A penny for your work?”
“You have no business with me.” His eye was waking up. “What do you want?”
A slow smile spread across Skeet’s wet lips. “I need to thank you. I didn’t know about Omaha’s treasures until you started bragging
about them at Homeplace. Them ladies are mighty fine.”
Rev. Jackdaw beat the snow from his hat. Put it back on his head. “You’ll rot in hell.”
“I will. I expect you’ll already be there shoveling coal, keeping the place warm for me.” He held the penny between two fingers, pulled open a pocket on his coat and dropped the coin in. His fingers remained still and wide for seconds after the coin disappeared. “So where is the church you’re building?” He looked around, his palms lifting. “I don’t hear any hammering, don’t see any steeples being raised. I’ll bet Effie’s real proud of her preacher husband.”
“Go home. She doesn’t want you here. She’s trying to put the sins of her past behind her.”
Skeet smiled. “I’ll tell her you said hello.”
The sound of horses neighing on the ridge made Effie quit rocking, work herself out of Jury’s arms, and open her eyes. The lodge was empty. Bridget had been there only a minute earlier, Effie was sure, but now she was nowhere to be seen. I only closed my eyes. Finding Jury was as easy as shutting out the world and whispering his name. Only that to open the door on him.
Voices were coming down through the trees.
Effie spent so much time thinking of Jury that she considered it her living time, not the narrow slot of not-living time when she shivered with cold, hunger, and fear.
A moan on the front steps outside, sent a creak across the floor inside. The whole lodge being of one old piece. A hard knock.
She opened the door. “Skeet!” Was it possible? “What are you doing here? How did you get here?”
Cora, bundled in fur, smiled from behind him, lifted a basket as though that answered everything. “He came into the store looking for you.” She spoke fast, keeping Effie quiet. “I told him I had your order ready, and I was heading out to make the delivery. So here we are.”
Effie cringed as the pair, smelling of winter, stepped past her and inside. Cora went to the table with her things like she’d been there a thousand times, but Skeet stopped, his big shoes just inside. He gawked. Made a point of gawking. Savored every second of her poverty revealing itself to him. Thin skins of it peeling back like the layers of an onion, growing more pungent. Dark and cold, less habitable than the barn at Homeplace. Yet there was the barn’s rubbish: the dented coffee pot on the stove, banged up pans, chipped plates. At six and eight-years-old, the two of them had taken the housewares from crates in the barn, set up a playhouse in the haymow.
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