River People

by Margaret Lukas

  “Is it true?” Cora asked. She smelled of flowers and a fast ride on her horse. “Effie has been gone all summer?”

  “Did you have fun on your trip?”

  “Yes, it was wonderful, but if I had known you were left in this dreadful place alone . . .” She looked around at the small copper combs and spoons hanging from the rafters by threads. “I would have returned immediately.”

  “Did Chief tell you? I’ve been working for him.”

  “He might have sent a letter.” She took paper, ink, and a pen from a her satchel. “I came as soon as I heard. Is there someone you can write?”

  “To come and get me?” Queasiness stirred in Bridget’s stomach. “I’m not alone. I eat at Chief ’s, and when I’m in the trees with Jake I’m not alone, either.”

  Cora tapped the half-dozen sheets of paper she’d laid on the table as though she wouldn’t accept excuses. “I hate to think of you moving away. I don’t want you to leave Bleaksville, but that man,” the word hissed, “Rev. Jackdaw is your father for now. And the law will honor that and let him take you. The only way to override that is to find some family. Aunts, uncles, lost third cousins, someone.”

  “He’s not coming back. He’s gone, and I’ll be found.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of; him finding you. We don’t know what he’s thinking. We don’t know he’s never coming back. And Effie,” she shook her head and pursed her lips, “that poor lost girl. I could take you home with me, but in this small town, word would pass in a day, and Rev. Jackdaw would know exactly where to find you.”

  “I don’t have any aunts or uncles.”

  “Is there no one at all you can write? Where in Ireland does your grandmother live? I can’t imagine,” Cora went on fretting, “having to sign those papers. That must have been the hardest thing she was ever forced to do. How does a grandmother let a grandchild go? To strangers.”

  Bridget sank back to her knees. With both hands on the shirtfront she washed, she rubbed it up and down the bumpy washboard. She’d thought of writing Grandma Teegan before, but what if Grandma Teegan hadn’t made it back? She wanted to believe Grandma Teegan had and never hear she hadn’t. “I made her sign the Surrender Papers,” Bridget said. And she had, though she’d been stabbed when Grandma Teegan actually picked up the pen, actually scratched out her signature with her shaking hand. “Then Rev. Jackdaw signed, too. I’m his free girl now.”

  “That scares me. But suppose you aren’t legally his. If we could somehow find your parents—even a more distant relative, an aunt or uncle,” she said again, “I have money for a lawyer. Bridget, maybe by now your grandmother has heard from your parents. You have to write her. When you’re done, I’ll post it. And your parents? What are their names? Where do you suppose they might be?”

  Bridget stared down at her wet shirt in the cold water. The lodge had been too hot and stuffy to think about starting the stove. “They’re West. Pappy’s name is Darcy, Mum’s name is Kathleen.” She’d not spoken their names since Mae walked down the slope. “Mum’s hair matches mine.” Cora hadn’t mentioned Bridget’s braid, as if she’d forgotten Bridget had walked around for months with her head wrapped in rags.

  “And the last name? Where are you from?” She asked questions fast. “Before New York?”

  “Kathleen Wright and Darcy Wright. From Cork.” She stopped. She wanted to add that Mum might be in Omaha, but she didn’t want to say the word “prostitute.” “Pappy worked in the mine.”

  That evening, Bridget stayed by Jake’s side. When he walked, she walked. When he stopped and chewed his cud, she stood at his shoulder. Was Grandma Teegan still alive and wanting a letter? And what could a letter say? Bridget couldn’t admit she was living alone and hadn’t yet found Mum and Pappy. Grandma Teegan would worry. And she couldn’t tell how Rev. Jackdaw put Effie’s hand in a trap.

  But Cora wanted her to write, and Grandma Teegan had loved the letters she received from Mum. Even when she worried over them.

  Dear Grandma Teegan,

  I am fine in America. I hope you are fine. I hope Ogan is fine, too.

  She stopped, Matron’s silver pen in the air and Cora’s pen idle on the table. Grandma Teegan, if she received the letter, would read it sitting alone in the croft. A candle would be sputtering on her table. She’d want to read only nice things and hear she’d done right in signing papers. If Bridget asked if there was word of Mum and Pappy, Grandma Teegan would know they hadn’t found each other. She’d worry more.

  Jake, trees, a river—a happy list said more than all the things on it—roots of trees that hear the dead, trunks of trees that hear me, leaves that hear angels, your braid, curls on Jake’s head, butterflies, selkies, hammers, boxes, Smoke, spots on Smoke, Wire, spots on Wire, Cora, Chief, Pete, Jake.

  Love, Bridget

  Bridget entered the mercantile carrying two boxes she’d finished. She’d spent the morning with Jake, then gathered eggs for Chief, washed and carried them to his cool cellar. They’d eaten strips of beef and fresh creamed cabbage outside under a tree. Sitting in the cooler shade with their plates in their laps, they watched monarchs and hummingbirds flutter over the last orange flowers on milkweeds.

  Mr. Graf stood behind the counter wrapping a woman’s purchases in paper and string. He glanced up when the bell over the door rang. His eyes landed on Bridget, a shadow passed over them, and they dropped. He returned to his wrapping. She’d not seen him all summer long, hadn’t walked into the mercantile since Effie’s leaving. But Cora was back now, almost three weeks, and on her last visit to the lodge she’d bought two of Bridget’s boxes. Did she want to buy two more? But seeing only Mr. Graf and the shade that passed over his eyes, though it hadn’t been anger, made Bridget turn to leave. She’d wait for Cora to visit again.

  “Hang on,” Graf called. He followed the patron with her purchases to the door, nodded good day, and turned the sign to “Closed.” “Cora,” he yelled in the direction of the curtain.

  Bridget clutched her boxes, shifted her weight from foot to foot. She shouldn’t have come. Graf was sweeping now, the broom’s bristles swooshing on the floor. Cora scowled in his direction when she appeared, her brows pinched and her eyes heavy. Her expression fell further when she saw Bridget. “Oh honey, you’re here.” The broom stopped. Dust motes swirled. “Tell her,” Mr. Graf said. Cora gave him a frustrated sigh and turned back to Bridget. “I was baking a pie. I planned to bring it out in the morning.”

  Cora’s baking for her, despite the heat and even though Mr. Graf was home, meant something was wrong. Bridget felt as if she could only see the shape it, before Cora told her, then it wouldn’t be news. When her heart crashed, when the fish in her stomach tried to make her throw up, she’d tell herself: I already knew that.

  The boxes had grown heavy and misshapen. Earlier, they’d looked worthy of selling, but now, with something bad ready to step out, they looked wrong.

  Cora took them, set them on the counter, and grabbed Bridget’s empty hands. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

  “I better go. He turned over the sign.”

  Cora held tighter. A moonstone hung from a dark ribbon at her throat.

  Bridget tried to tug free. It was time to run.

  “Will you bloody tell her?” Graf said.

  “Bridget, the reason I asked so many questions,” Cora’s words sounded practiced, rehearsed through the afternoon. “I needed to know more about your parents so I could place ads in newspapers west of here, Denver—”

  Bridget tried not to listen.

  “—San Francisco, Seattle. A woman wrote who knew your parents.” Her hands pumped Bridget’s as if they worked together to hold on to something.

  “Come,” Cora said, “let’s sit down.” She steered Bridget through the dark curtain in the back of the mercantile. A few steps beyond, they passed through a second curtain the color of winter pines. They entered a fancy room and again Bridget thought to run. Chief ’s house was better. He had fewer t
hings and his rooms felt more like her memories of the croft in Ireland.

  Cora walked her to a sofa, sat her down, and then sat so close their hips touched. She squeezed Bridget’s hands again. “There’s just no easy way to say this. I’m afraid your parents have died.”

  Lying, lying! Bridget vowed never to bring another box, never to eat her cakes and pies again. She wouldn’t listen either. She’d remember all the things in the room so she could tell Mum about them: sofas, plants, pictures, small tables with wood scrolling like tiny labyrinths, chairs with embroidered seats. All things Mum never had.

  “The woman who wrote met your parents in Denver. A group of Irish, mostly from Cork, traveled together to Butte, Montana. They planned to work for The Company. Mining copper and silver.”

  Lying, lying.

  “Many of them took ill the first winter. Your parents too. That spring, they died.”

  The last of the sun’s crown was sinking and orange light streamed in through a window, warming a square on the carpet. Bridget pulled her hands from Cora’s, slid off the sofa, and crawled to the brightness.

  Cora joined her there on the floor. “Stay here tonight. In the morning we’ll talk more.”

  Fish thrashed in Bridget’s stomach, their wide mouths gaping and gasping. “Effie’s probably home now.”

  Cora shook her head. “About Effie—”

  Bridget couldn’t bear hearing any more lies. She jumped up, ran through the first curtain and out the second. Mr. Graf stood at the mercantile door looking through its window. He’d already turned out the lanterns and hearing her, he jerked open the door as if afraid she planned to run straight through the glass.

  She raced down the street, hardly aware of the other shops closing or the people who stared as she ran by sobbing. At the bridge she stopped, winded. Cora would be coming, not letting her be alone. But first, Cora would change and go to the stable and have her horse saddled.

  Bridget swiped at her eyes, tried to clear them enough to see. She thought to hide behind the school and sit under a dark window, but she wasn’t welcome there even when it was disserted. She ran on to Nettle Creek and, falling back on her rump, she slid down the embankment. Only catching herself when her feet hit the water. She hurried under the bridge, crouching, and keeping to the bit of dry bank along the side. She sat, dropping her face onto her drawn-up knees.

  Dusk gathered. Mum and Pappy were never coming for her. She’d never see them again. She picked up a stone, hurled it into the water. Then hurled everything within reach: more stones, sticks, clods, a bottle, all splashing into the brown.

  A horse started across overhead, sending down a thundering of dust. When the noise passed, she peeked around a wooden support beam: Cora’s golden horse, Cora’s skirt billowing over the horse’s rump as she urged it on.

  Bridget sank back into hiding. She’d been stupid to sit on the bank by the lodge and call for Mum. Mum wasn’t a selkie. She was dead. Uncle Rowan had lied. He’d never seen Mum step from land into the sea dragging a sealskin.

  Lightning bugs, first one, then two. Long minutes passed and the air filled with them. Barn swallows swooped and returned to nests along the beams and trusses over Bridget’s head. Just outside the bridge’s span, a raccoon with its mask and striped tail spotted her. It froze a moment and disappeared into the nettles lining the bank. She sobbed into her sleeve, licked her top lip and tasted the salt of her tears. Not Mum’s.

  She couldn’t see overhead, but right and left of her tiny stars began to twinkle then grow fat and bright in the darkness. The slow gait of a horse’s hooves made timbers creak and send down more dust. Cora was returning home.

  Bridget longed for Jake. He’d never just leave her and then die somewhere far away. She’d go home, hug his big furry jowls, and tell him the awful news. He couldn’t make the worst thing not be true, but he’d wish he could.

  Grabbing weeds for handholds, even though they made her hands sting and itch, she crawled up the embankment. She walked without hurry. There were no horses out, only a million cricks and tweets and throaty-sounding night insects. If she did hear Cora coming, there’d be plenty of time to jump into a ditch and hide. She liked Cora, but Cora wasn’t an orphan, or a half orphan, or river people, and she wasn’t alone.

  At the end of the long lane leading to Chief ’s, Bridget stopped. He understood people dying and having to live without them. Was he walking his pasture right now, talking to his dead boy? Looking for that dead boy’s bones? She paced back and forth, searched the sky for a shooting star to tell her which way to go. If a star fell to the right, she’d stay on the road to Jake. If a star fell to the left, she’d go to Chief. He didn’t like her there after supper. When the dishes were done, he always told her it was time to leave and he’d see her again the next day. He never said why he shooed her off, but she knew the nights were his to walk along the river and build coffins.

  The stars weren’t helping her decide. She didn’t need stars, and anyway, she wouldn’t bother Chief. Not even to talk a minute. She’d just go through his yard, hear his hammering, and know he was there. Then she’d cut through his pasture, maybe see Smoke, and go on to Jake.

  The only light came from Chief ’s larger barn. Bridget had only been in the smaller of the two, and even that barn she thought large. Chief milked cows there and in the winter stabled his four-horse team and Smoke, each with a stall of their own.

  Afraid of being seen by Wire—the dog couldn’t keep a secret—she ran wide of the house and on to the lighted barn. There were no windows on the bottom floor and the wide double doors were closed, though light haloed around them.

  From inside came Chief ’s hammering.

  “He’s loco,” Pete had said the freezing afternoon when Bridget rode behind him, her feet bleeding and shrieking with pain. “He builds coffins.” Building all night for dead bodies when coffins were already stacked to the ceiling—could mean loco. But other things were loco, too. Mum and Pappy left her behind in Ireland, ended up in a place called Butte, and now they were dead. That was loco, and so was Rowan’s death and Grandma Teegan being back in Ireland without her. Chief hadn’t been loco the hour they spent sitting under a tree, though that seemed days ago. Night changed everything.

  Low on one side of the barn, a thin stream of light, narrow as the Matron’s pen, caught her attention. The light reached out like a finger beckoning. She went to it, sank down in the dirt, and leaned against the barn.

  A mosquito whined at her bare calf, and she rolled down her pant legs and then her sleeves. Chief had given her the clothes. He’d brought food, given a salve that stopped pain, taught her to build boxes, and saved Effie’s hand. She didn’t care if he was loco, and she wasn’t afraid he would bite her on the neck and suck out her blood. But what if he was angry at her? He didn’t want her sneaking around his place at night, spying on him. He’d think she came to steal vegetables and eggs. He might say he no longer wanted her help with chores, no longer wanted to be her friend. She thought of the wrench she’d put back on his worktable in the shed. He never knew she took it, so she couldn’t tell him she’d put it back.

  She couldn’t go. Mum and Pappy were dead. She slapped a mosquito biting her cheek. Sniffed and slapped another mosquito on her leg.

  Wire barked at her shoulder.

  She nearly yelped with surprise. He was still inside, but he’d heard her or smelled her. “Shhh,” she whispered through the crack. “Go away.” He quit barking, and she pressed herself tighter against the building, trying to decide if she should run or if Wire was obeying and walking away.

  A hand clutched her arm. “What you doing out here?”

  Chief ! She scrambled to her feet. “I’m sorry. I was just going by.”

  “This time of night?”

  She couldn’t move. She wanted to ask about the coffins he was building and tell him Mum and Pappy were dead, but she was anchored in silence.

  “Well,” he took his time, “you’re practically living he
re.” He slapped his neck with a wide, dark hand. “Come on in before the skeeters suck us dry.”

  Goosebumps winged down Bridget’s arms. He wasn’t sending her away. She was welcome to stay and be with him.

  “Cora came looking for you.”

  She followed him around the corner of the barn. “A lady wrote her a letter.”

  “I heard.”

  “How far west is Butte?”

  “I ain’t been there,” he said, “but it’s a good piece.”

  “Maybe the letter was lying.”

  “That’s possible. I expect you know it wasn’t. Same names, same ages, from the same part of Ireland. I know it ain’t easy.” They stood in front of the wide barn doors. His hand on the heavy, metal latch. “It’s time I showed you something.”

  He pulled open the doors and for an instant she blinked against the light. A row of lanterns burned paces apart down the length of the barn. More hung overhead from high in the third-story rafters. She thought of festivals and Beltane fires. When her eyes adjusted to the light, her mouth gaped with surprise. Her breath felt sucked from her throat. The structure filled the barn. Not coffins. “A ship!”

  Its sides swooped up and out and ended in the rafters above her. Ropes strung from hooks in the ceiling supported large, curved arches that reminded her of a cathedral she’d once visited with Grandma Teegan. Reflections from the flickering lantern light all down its side rolled over the new wood like moving water.

  The ship was magic. And on the very day she’d received word of Pappy and Mum’s deaths.

  She tried to steady her emotions enough to choke out words. “It’s so big.” She stepped around stacks of wood, carpenter horses, ladders, clamps, ropes, and tools she could not name. She walked the length of the ship, turned at the end, and walked halfway back up the other side. Chief couldn’t see her now. She pressed both palms against the wood, dropped her head, and cried again.

  She remembered looking out over the water with Mum and Rowan. They’d watched ships. It was Rowan who saved money in a jug for crossing, who most wanted to board a ship and sail across the sea. Not Mum. Pappy insisted he stay, “mind the lasses,” Bridget and Grandma Teegan. “Soon,” Pappy promised. But one day, after Pappy and Mum left, Bridget had stood in the sheep pen beside Grandma Teegan. Wind gusted off the sea, blew Grandma Teegan’s skirt and the ends of the red scarf tied under her chin while she offered ewes a dusting of salt from her palm. Giving one animal a couple of licks, then shaking out a bit more for the next, their wooly heads all crowding.