River People

by Margaret Lukas

  Fear played across her face.

  “You’ll manage,” he said. He’d planned on telling her he’d bought the lodge during the buggy ride back home. She didn’t get buggy rides anymore, so riding with him was a treat, but now she stared straight ahead, her face as bereft of life as her womb. He’d tell her in the morning, just before he left. “Stay right there.”

  He crossed the street to the post office. The front-end of the establishment was no more than a counter for sorting and wrapping mail and a wall of numbered cubbyholes. He’d not reserved a slot like other folks in Bleaksville—better to have his mail held back during his time away.

  The place was empty and he frowned. “Hey!” he yelled, hoping to bring someone from the back. “Hey!”

  There was no point in waiting. Suppose Graf came back and saw Effie in the buggy? He walked behind the counter and pulled out a small box from beneath.

  “Nothing there,” he said, crawling up beside Effie. She still refused to look at him. Her face was more upset now than when they’d walked out of Graf ’s. “What now?” A few other horses and wagons waited on the street for drivers, but he saw no one who might have spoken to her. He glanced back at the mercantile. The “Open” sign swung ever so slightly on its chain.

  “She give you back that soap?” He grabbed Effie’s hands, pressed them open. Empty. “Wasn’t no mail for you. Your family ain’t missing you.” He slapped the reins over Nell’s back. “Leastwise, not enough to pen you a line.”

  In the morning, Effie stood hugging herself. Out the window, Rev. Jackdaw slid Nell’s tail through the crupper and began inspecting the leather lines. Once again the journal—his precious journal—lay open on the table. His pen propped across the inkbottle as if he still had some vital writing to do. She hated the book, all those words she couldn’t read. His fancy script—loops and curly cues and scratches—not printed like the clear lettering she could read on a can or sack: Sugar, Flour. His thoughts kept secret, yet flaunted at the same time. The book was a mistress.

  Bridget had stolen pages a couple of months back, but Effie hadn’t asked to have them read. She didn’t need, or want to hear, the crowing. She didn’t need or want to hear what he wrote about her. She’d told Bridget to get rid of them.

  Behind her, Bridget scraped Rev. Jackdaw’s breakfast plate, collecting the crumbs and bits of bacon his horse teeth had snapped around and refused—morsels too brown or too white for his liking. “Keep them,” she’d whispered to Bridget. Come evening, she’d heat his refused rinds for a bit of grease and fry some of the dandelion sprouts beginning to peek through the chilly ground. She and Bridget would eat at least that.

  Tomorrow, she’d go and see Cora. Standing in the store, Effie had nearly fainted with the fear that Cora would reveal the bill had been paid. But Cora kept the confidence. If she’d told, Rev. Jackdaw would have assumed the worst: that Effie whored with the Injun.

  Moments later, Cora had opened the door of the mercantile, addressed Effie in the buggy. “Are you all right?” And frowning. “There’s no Old Mag around here. No one by that name visits you. Why would you lie to me?”

  Just after, Rev. Jackdaw told her that no one from Homeplace thought her worth a letter, and she felt wind blowing through her.

  Out the window, Rev. Jackdaw turned from Nell and started back in. Effie hurried across the room to stand beside Bridget at the sink and pick up a pan to act busy.

  He entered with his shoulders back as though some glad proclamation puffed him up. Did he have news about her house? She dared not hope, though he’d had the winter to see to the construction.

  He sat down to his journal, picked up the pen as if to write, but stopped. “How is it you’re getting along here?”

  Effie’s knees felt suddenly loose. They weren’t getting along. Had he heard about the Injun? She took the few steps to the rocker and sat. His questions could snake around, bite from the front or the back. What was he really asking?

  His gaze swung to Bridget. “I asked a question.”

  Bridget looked to Effie.

  “Ain’t there a goddamn one of yous can talk?”

  “We were hungry all winter,” Bridget said.

  “Well now, you’ve got time to prepare for next winter.”

  Next winter? A rapping like knuckles from inside her chest. Another winter?

  “Come here.” He pointed to the second straight back chair at the table. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

  Effie found the strength to approach the table, but she couldn’t make herself sit so close to him.

  “Sit.”

  She sat.

  “I bought this place for you.” His hand lifted, cut the air. “No need for you to worry over a house in Omaha. I’ll see if I can’t find someone to fix the roof, chop you next winter’s wood.” The hand came down and he looked around, his gaze lingering on the mud-patched walls. “You’ve got a fine place here. You’ve fixed it up real nice.”

  Cold crawled up Effie’s ankles. “My house?”

  “You got a fine place here.”

  The freezing clawed at her knees, her arms, her lungs. “You bought this?” She was shivering. “This trashy hut!”

  “You bought it?” Bridget asked, excitement tumbling in her voice.

  The corner of Rev. Jackdaw’s eye twitched. Jerked. “Not another word,” he hissed at Effie. “I see your sins. Envy and pride. Coveting things of this world like Graf ’s whore.” He rose, stood above her. “Thinking God ought to favor you more.”

  Effie’s shoulders gave way, and she slumped against the table.

  “You still expected a house in Omaha?” His voice boomed. “You ain’t put that out of your head yet? I’ve the Lord’s house to build.”

  “Did you buy Jake too?” Bridget’s voice, sliced into Effie. “Is he ours now? You bought him too?”

  “Look there.” Rev. Jackdaw pointed a long finger at Bridget. “She ain’t acting put upon. And she ain’t even got a blasted pair of shoes. What’s wrong with you?”

  Rage lifted Effie from her chair. She faced him at her full height. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying. All she thinks about is that animal. Look at her.” And Effie did: a child with fear in her eyes. “Wearing that raggedy dress. Both of us river people.”

  She’d never spoken back to him and now the force of her yearlong silence rolled over her. She focused on his eye, jumping, blinking, watering. “We can’t live any longer in rags. Eating off charity and your table scraps. We can’t do it.”

  “God holds you over a pit of hell,” he said. “He holds you as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire.”

  She’d heard the words before. The phrase came from Granny’s Jonathan Edwards tract. The words no longer frightened her. On the lips of this broken preacher, they seemed as powerless as a little boy’s ditty. Lines Skeet would bring home from school to torment Johnny. “You fool.” She stared straight at him. “This is the pit of hell!”

  She’d said it without thinking, without first rehearsing her words, weighing each one and its possible consequences before she let it out of her mouth. “What does that make you? A liar!”

  “I wanted my sons to grow up in a fine house. I never promised for you.”

  “What about Jake?” Bridget asked again. Her voice softer, more afraid.

  They both swung to face her. “That animal is mine,” Rev. Jackdaw said. “Mine.”

  “You won’t sell him because you’re poor?” Bridget asked.

  “What I do with my animal is none of your goddamn business. You understand me?”

  Effie shoved the chair she stood behind into the table, knocking Rev. Jackdaw’s pen off the inkbottle. A penny-sized spot of ink marred his page.

  He bent to it. “Christ Almighty!”

  “You brought us here.” She could also be loud. “Took me away from my family. You ruined me, and you think this stinking roof is all you owe me?”

  “I didn’t ruin you. I tried to save y
ou.”

  “You leave us here. With no food, in a shack, while you live in a warm place and eat fancy. What good are you to us? You’re as worthless to me as—” Her gaze swung around the lodge and settled on Bridget, who cared only about a stupid animal. “You’re as worthless as a girl.”

  He flinched as if she’d spat on him. She didn’t see the fist though she heard Bridget scream. The strike knocked her to the floor. For a moment, her jaw hurt so bad she couldn’t open her eyes. She cupped the side of her face with both hands and tasted blood.

  He grabbed a fistful of her hair. “You’ve no authority to speak to me like that. ‘Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’”

  He dragged her. She twisted at the end of his long arm, her hands grabbing his, trying to free her hair and stop this new pain. She made it to her knees and then managed to get her feet half way under her. Unable to fully extend her legs and stand, she hunched along under his grip.

  They wobbled and groped across the floor, nearly reaching the back wall before her foot caught on the hem of her dragging skirt. Then the other foot, tripping her as though her feet tried to run up the inside of her dress. She fell against his knees. As they both went down, he reached out and grabbed the end of the rope on the wall. It sliced and flicked and slithered down.

  They landed with thudding sounds, him moaning as his back slammed against the wall’s uneven logs. She lay caught in the vee of his splayed legs. Cursing, he drew the rope across her throat. Pulled tight.

  She gasped at the sharp hitch to her windpipe. Gasped again for air that didn’t come.

  Using the rope, he pulled her back hard against his chest. The coarse woody fibers scraped off skin, and a bead of warmth crawled down beneath her collar. He leaned his head forward, pressing his cheek into hers. Words hissed through his gritted teeth.

  “He looks upon you as worthy of nothing.”

  “Don’t fight!” Bridget screamed.

  Effie struggled to work her fingers under the rope, pushing her feet against the floor and bucking. She managed a single gulp of air, but he pinned her again, pulled the rope tighter. Panic surged through her. She couldn’t breathe. Her heart and head pounded in unison. She clawed at the taut rope.

  “Like fiends,” his words floated through her mind, “whores move under men.”

  It took only moments before her chest felt near exploding. She tried to twist out under the rope, pry off his grip, even reach behind and hit him. Nothing.

  Be still.

  The words were a part of her nightmares. Be still. Her life depended on it. She couldn’t go back into the darkness.

  She was blacking out, curtains of shade rushing in from both sides, but she knew he wanted her to fight in order to justify his actions—as though killing her would then be self-defense.

  Be still.

  She had no fight left. No air. Her arms fell limp, her knees sank. Beams circled overhead, light corkscrewed down through a pinhole in the roof, pigeons flew leaving trails of sound.

  A wisp, no more than a thread, of coolness flew in over her tongue, fluttered at the back of her throat, sank into her lungs. A single tiny stream of air resparking her terror, urging her body to fight again.

  Be still.

  Rev. Jackdaw’s groaning increased. He drew in his own air with long whistling sounds. “I never bought a roof for the others.”

  Another thin string of air found her lungs. She feared moving even an inch. Feared he’d realize his back pain had made him ease his grip. Be still. She was breathing, though the painful rope rubbed and scraped, and the rattle of her panic remained.

  “The world’s headed toward damnation,” he said. “Free lovers. Squawks calling themselves spiritualists, claiming to conjure up the dead, making their own prophets. Women supposing they know what’s best for their souls, marching in the streets to vote.” With a groan, he shifted his hips, then his back. His sweat dripped onto her cheek. “People wanting modern rules, ignoring ways set down for them in the Iron Age.”

  He rationed her air. Just as he rationed everything in her life.

  She breathed shallow, her stomach nauseous. His teeth ground as he went on, and she hoped the grinding would make the teeth shatter like eggshells in his mouth. When he’d finished condemning her, would he kill her yet? Make one final quick hitch?

  She couldn’t risk moving. Not even turning her head away from the bearded cheek and the rancid breath, but her eyes searched the room for help. On the windowsill, the morning sun lit Johnny’s marbles, and she thought of his struggles to protect them against Skeet.

  “Iay atehay ouyay.” A whisper. Slightly stronger. “Iay atehay ouyay.” I hate you.

  His body stiffened. His head tipped further forward, the rope looser. Every muscle was limp with exhaustion, but her mind searched for more words to put into Pig Latin. “Odgay oldshay ouyay veroay hetay itpay of ellhay.” God holds you over the pit of hell.

  He ticked his elbows forward. His voice a whisper, dry and hoarse. “Tongues?”

  She did her best to continue, trying to pick up speed and volume. “Odgay oldhay ouyay veroay hetay itpay of ellhay.” He dropped the rope, letting it fall across her chest. His hands went to the floor at his sides and he groaned, pulling himself up into a better sitting position. He pushed slowly away and rolled to his knees, his face grimacing and his hands groping the wall for support as he stood. For a long minute, he looked down at her.

  She didn’t move as he limped across the room to the table, his backside floured with dust. He grabbed his journal and inkbottle. “I’ll pray on this.” He stepped around and opened the door. “I’ll ask if the tongues mean you’ve been saved.”

  Her windpipe felt crushed, and her lungs still gasped. With the first creak of a buggy wheel, she rolled onto her side, drew her knees up, and hugged herself. She ached for the black cloth on the bed. The distance seemed miles.

  She’d known she didn’t love him, but now she knew she never could. She’d been lying to herself.

  Bridget rushed over and knelt down, her red hair falling onto Effie’s chest. “It’s all right now,” she said. “You can get up, he’s gone.”

  Blood pulsed in Effie’s ears. Hopelessness rent through her. This falling down hut was her home. Her husband had nearly killed her. The next time she angered him he would.

  “Everything is all right now,” Bridget said again.

  Effie’s whole body trembled. “Get away from me!”

  Bridget returned to the sink. She watched Effie still curled and crying on the floor. Not wanting touched or spoken to. But it was more the fright in her eyes, ghosts looking out, that made Bridget back away.

  She lifted a plate, dipped it in water, and wiped its surface with her hand. Rev. Jackdaw was gone now, the fight was over, and she needed to make things okay again. She’d wash the dishes, then tell Jake the news.

  “Why didn’t you help me?” Effie pulled the rope away and worked herself to her knees. “Why didn’t you knock him off me?”

  Bridget had no answer. She’d screamed several times for them to stop fighting, but that hadn’t worked. Now Effie was crawling toward the bed, her eyes on the box where she kept her spoons.

  “If you weren’t here,” Effie sobbed, “he wouldn’t leave me alone. I’d live in Omaha.” She reached the bed, dropped to her stomach, and grabbed the box from beneath. “He promised me a life. Not this!”

  Bridget lifted another plate slower; her gaze going around the rim, searching the chips like scallops on a pie, struggling for distraction. She tried to lower the plate so carefully the surface of the water didn’t move.

  “Thief !” Effie threw the box, making it clatter across the floor. Gasping as though being choked again, she scuffled to her feet. “Where are my spoons?” She ran to the buffalo hide, dragged the fur from its place in the corner and screamed again at finding nothing beneath. “They’re mine!”

  Bridget wanted to tell where the spoons were hidden, even to dig th
em from their muddy graves. But so much red emotion, even with Rev. Jackdaw gone, still spun and howled off the walls. She needed the spoons too. “I’m not a thief !” Because stealing was a different thing than needing to quiet the fish in your stomach; needing to know you could take care of yourself though everyone you loved had left you. “I’m not a thief.”

  Effie rushed close, her hands twisting. “Stop washing those bloody dishes. Stealing my spoons. Lying about some Old Mag. You deserve this place. I don’t!”

  “Old Mag is real.”

  A bloody stripe two inches wide beaded around Effie’s throat, but the wild in her eyes scared Bridget even more. This wasn’t Effie.

  “Don’t lie to me.” Effie’s words burning.

  A plate slammed into the side of Bridget’s face, snapped her head back in an explosion of pain. She stumbled and fell.

  The dish trembled in Effie’s hands, slipped out, and shattered over the floor. “Oh God,” she cried. She sank, swatted away pieces of plaster beside Bridget, and pulled her close. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  Moaning, Bridget pushed at Effie and scooted back against the wall.

  Effie tried to reach for her again. “Bridget, are you all right? Talk to me. I’m sorry.”

  The wild had faded from Effie’s eyes. Sorry and scared of herself. Bridget’s pain still throbbed. “Get away from me.”

  Effie turned and groped, a hand finding the side of the sink. She pulled herself up. Clutching fistfuls of her skirt, she stepped back and muttered between sobs. “I’m no different than him. Worse. I’m losing my mind.”

  Bridget wasn’t sure of all Effie’s whispered and mumbled words. There was more about Granny and asylums and nightmares of black dungeons. She rose as Effie stumbled out the back door. She watched her stagger across the sandy clearing, and her body drift up the stairs of the skinning shed. She disappeared into the place where knives and saw-toothed traps hung on the walls and a scarred table smelled of animal blood.

  The river rushed high and fast. Debris floated, bobbed, and disappeared only to shoot back up to the surface farther down. The rolling water hadn’t yet reached the lodge, but it rippled between the stilts of the skinning shed and wrapped around Wilcox-the-tree, tugging, and trying to bring him down. Bridget imagined the hungry Missouri eating trees all along its course and still it was hungry for Wilcox.