Once, after standing and watching him a long while, she had said, “Where are you from anyway?”
He had glanced up at her briefly. “East,” he said.
“Hmm,” she said shortly. “Seems like maybe you don’t want to say.”
“That’s right,” he said, without looking up. “I don’t.”
“Seems a little suspicious, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” he said, and began banging needlessly at the thresher with the hammer, the shop filling with the hard clanging of metal against metal. Be damned if he could figure out what he was supposed to do with the thing. After a moment, he ceased clanging and dropped the hammer to the dirt and sighed. The girl still stood in the doorway.
“You know what you’re doing there?” she asked.
“Not really.”
“Didn’t think so,” she said, and sucked on the rhubarb. “I bet you can ride pretty good, though, can’t you?”
“I can ride all right.”
“And I bet you can make a bow and arrow, too.”
He looked up at her. She was gazing at him shrewdly.
“Why would you say that?”
“Millie!” her mother called from across the yard.
And so she just smiled and flashed her eyes at him and said, “Oops. I almost forgot. Dinner,” and skipped off toward the house.
——
Meals were always the same. After Lathias washed his hands and forearms and face at the pump, he removed his hat and ran his wet fingers through his hair and went to the house and sat at the table while the girls bustled around the kitchen, speechless, and only Millie eyeing him from across the table, swinging her bare feet.
Finally, the mother would say, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, girls, sit down and eat once. He won’t bite.” And Millie would bark out a laugh, delighted. “Go ahead, go on and eat,” the mother would say to him. “No need to wait for these gooses. Honestly. You’d think they’d never seen a man before.”
And one of them would say, “Mother,” quietly, and they would sit and smooth their skirts and pass platters and bowls, and cut and chew and drink with their eyes on their plates, and the mother would sit looking at them, baffled, and begin talking of the weather or the seeding or the plans for the following day, and Lathias nodding and eating, thankful when the meal was through and the girls rose to clear the dishes and pack up the food they would deliver to their father in the field.
“Well, Millie,” the mother said one day as they were finishing up, “and how was it at Esther’s? Has Ruth got her garden in yet?”
Millie shrugged and wiped her plate clean with a piece of bread and ate it and reached for another. “She took me and Esther to town,” she said. “We got a licorice.”
“And? What did you learn in town?” the mother said.
“Nothing,” Millie said, buttering her bread thickly.
“You might as well stay home, then.”
“There’s no licorice at home,” Millie said, and grinned at her mother, and one of the older girls said, “Millie,” and then, remembering Lathias, turned her eyes back to her plate and blushed.
“Oh,” Millie said, brightening. “I almost forgot. We were at the grocery, and we had to wait forever and ever for Esther’s mother to get all her things, that’s why she bought us the licorice, so that we wouldn’t stand around bothering her, that’s what Esther’s mother said, and so we were sitting there on the window ledge so Esther wouldn’t get her dress dirty”—she rolled her eyes, shook her head—“you know how her mother is, I would die if I had to live in that house. So we’re just eating our licorice. I was trying to make mine last but Esther just gobbled hers like she always does, it’s no wonder she’s so fat—”
“Millie.”
“—and then wants some of mine which is not fair even if her mother did buy it, like she said. I don’t think that’s one bit fair, do you?” Millie asked the table in general. She did not wait for an answer. “So we were sitting there eating and Mr. Willis, he’s always so miserable and watching to make sure we don’t touch anything, he told Esther’s mother—and he said I should be sure and tell you, and talked so loud and slow he must think I’m retarded—”
“Millie.”
“—and said he was closing the store early so he could take his wife, you know how she suffers from the gout, that is what he said but if you ask me it’s just meanness that’s her problem, so he could take her to see a healer. Well, that made me laugh. You can’t heal ugliness.”
“Millie!”
“Anyway,” she continued, “Mr. Willis said to tell you”—here she raised her voice and spoke very slowly—“Not. To. Bring. The. Eggs. To. Morr. Ow. Be. Cause—”
“That will do, Millie.”
“—he won’t be there and neither will his ug—”
“Honestly,” the mother said, setting her cup down sharply, and shooting a look at Millie.
“Anyway,” Millie said, stuffing the rest of her bread into her mouth. “That’s what he said.”
“I heard about that,” one of the older daughters said, tentatively, glancing quickly to Lathias and back to her plate again. “About that girl. That healer. A saint, that’s what I heard.”
“Oh, Martha told you that,” said one of the others. “I wouldn’t believe a word she says.”
“Martha is so full of sh—” Millie began, and her mother fired her a fierce look, and so she finished quickly, “her eyes are brown.”
“Martha does tell tales,” put in another girl.
“No,” said the first girl. “It wasn’t Martha. I overheard Father Hintz. When I was cleaning the church. And, Mother, I don’t see why I should always be the one—” And, then, remembering Lathias, she bowed her head and cut furiously at her meat.
“Well,” said the other girl, “I heard from Martha. About that girl. I thought it was just one of her stories, but do you know what they’re saying? About that girl?”
“What, dear?”
“She was raised from the dead.”
All the girls stopped eating and lifted their heads.
“Oh, good,” said Millie, “so there is hope for Mrs. Willis after all.”
“Oh, silliness,” the mother said, ignoring Millie.
“No,” the girl said, “it’s true. Die laufenden toten Gestalten. That’s what they say. She was dead, that’s what Martha said. Drowned in the river, fell through the ice while everybody stood there watching and no one could do a thing. She was gone. When they found her body, they took her home and laid her out and held prayers and a vigil and everything and then at the funeral she just sat up, that’s what Martha said. She just sat up and started talking. Resurrected, that’s what everyone said. And now she can heal. She lays on hands—”
“And they will make her a saint,” put in the other girl. “That’s what Father said.”
“Oh, pshaw,” the mother said. “I wish you girls would use your heads sometime. Do you believe everything you hear? What do you say, Lathias? Are they not silly?”
But Lathias had lowered his knife and fork and sat staring at the girl who had been speaking, so hard that she became nervous and put her elbow in her plate, rattling it against the table and tossing food, causing Millie to laugh again.
“Do you,” Lathias said to the girl, “do you know the name?”
The mother cried, “Don’t tell me you believe it, too. I never would have thought.”
“Please,” he said, “did you hear that girl’s name?”
“Why, yes,” the girl said, blushing furiously. “It’s the same as Mother’s. Elisabeth.”
——
It could not be. That is what he told himself. All that afternoon, alone in the shop, he replayed the conversation, trying to make some sense of it.
“Why, don’t tell me you know the girl?” the mother had said.
But Lathias had only wiped his mouth and thanked her for the meal and excused himself abruptly, leaving them all sitting and watching him go. And wh
en the little girl, Millie, had strolled over afterwards, the mother had come to the door of the house and called her back.
“But why can’t I?” he’d heard Millie say, out in the yard, and then the mother speaking in a hushed voice, and the little girl said, “He is not. You don’t know a thing about him.”
And then the girl was ushered inside and the kitchen door shut firmly behind them.
Surely, the rumour could not be true. Gossip, it was. And what a fool he would be to beg time off to ride back and check. A fool here, and a fool there. It made no sense. And then there was the boy to think of, too, who by now must know he was gone. And if he should just turn up again? No, he could not do it, could not do that to the boy. He’d already done enough.
But if it was true? If she was alive?
And back and forth that way with himself, as always, when it came to her, unable to make a decision. But there was no her, he reminded himself. Was there? No. She was dead. She must be dead. She had to be.
FOUR
“What is it?”
“I have good news and bad news, son.”
“What is the bad news?”
“Why the bad news?”
“I won’t enjoy the good news anyway, if I know there’s bad coming behind.”
“Why don’t you take the good news first?”
“What is the good news?”
“But listen—are you listening?—don’t tell your mother I told you. Don’t let on.”
“What is it?”
“You won’t tell her?”
“No.”
“All right, then. It’s … I don’t know even how to say. That Krauss girl, or Brechert or whatever, your friend there …”
“Elisabeth.”
“Elisabeth. She is alive. Did you hear me? The braucha, she rescued her or something, or found her, down at the river. Are you listening?”
“When?”
“That same night, the night she fell in.”
“Did she fall in?”
“Well, yes, I guess she did. I think so. Isn’t that what you said?”
“But we looked for her …”
“Yes, I guess she was already gone. She was already with the braucha by the time we all got there.”
“Alive? All this time?”
“Shh. Yes.”
“Did you see her?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Others have seen her.”
“All this time? At the braucha’s?”
“Yes. The braucha kept her there, at her place. Maybe she was sick, from the river. It was cold that night, she must have … I don’t know. But she was with the braucha there. I know it must be a shock. But it is a good shock, not? She is alive. That is good news. I thought you would be happy. This whole time, she was alive.”
“Is she at the braucha’s now?”
“No, she is at home. At Leo’s.”
“Oh.”
“I thought you would be happy.”
“Can I go see her?”
“No. Not yet. Wait a little. Give it some time.”
“Why?”
“Well, Leo. He can be funny. This is all such a shock. Give it time.”
“Lathias will take me. I said, Lathias will take me. What is it?”
“Well.”
“What?”
“Lathias.”
“What about him?”
“He’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
FIVE
All that evening, after he talked to the boy, Stolanus sat out behind the barn, smoking and worrying at a stalk of grass until it was shredded to nothing and his fingertips stained faintly green. Perhaps Helen was right, perhaps he never should have done it. That look on the boy’s face. He had thought he would be happy. But he was not. Any fool could see that. There was nothing of happiness in him any more. What good to pretend? And so maybe Helen had been right, after all. He should never have been told. They should have packed him up and taken him to Battleford. He would be better off there, not? Away from this place? This place that had taken from him, that had taken from them all.
But, no, he thought, no, it was not right to lie to him. He was suffering, because of the girl. Wasn’t he? And if they could ease his suffering? Hadn’t he suffered enough? By God, hadn’t they all? And wasn’t he sick to death of pretending things were all right? That things would get better? Christ, why was it up to him always to see the good, while Helen allowed herself to sink? Well, if she wanted to sink, so be it. But he would not sink with her. And he would not let the boy sink, either. His son. His son, for Chrissakes. And he dug his heel in the dirt and returned to his thoughts of the previous night. He had lain awake thinking of all that had happened in the past few weeks, of the girl and then Lathias and all of it, and good God when was it all to stop? All this trouble. And when he could not sleep, he had gone outside and sat there on the stoop staring out at the night, no answers there, either. But as he sat looking out at the night and the Krauss place in the distance, the faintest glow of a light there, an idea had come to him, slowly at first and then all at once, so clear. A way to fix things. He could see then, how it was all falling into place. How it was a second chance, for the boy, for all of them. Helen would never have it, would be furious. And so it would have to be done without her. And wasn’t it his right? Was he not the man? And if a man could not make a decision about his family, about his own son, what kind of a man was he at all? And he thought of his own father, Old Pius, who would never have allowed things to go so far. Would have made the hard choice, if it needed to be made. Hadn’t he always? Isn’t that what he had always taught? Everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it? And where had his faith gone? That old faith, the faith that his father and mother had, the faith they needed to do what they had done, to leave everything behind and come to this country. That faith that things would get better. Where had it come from, that faith? Sometimes it drove him nearly crazy, thinking about it. How did one find faith? Where was it?
Everything happens for a reason, that is what his father would have said, and his mother, too. Everything happens for a reason. There is good in every bad thing.
He thought he knew what that was, now, the good in all of this. But he did not trust it, had not the faith to believe it was so. To take the chance. But maybe that’s all faith was, in the end. Just taking a chance. Not really knowing. Was that it?
He rose and crushed his cigarette beneath his heel and he went to the barn and saddled two horses, and when they were ready, he walked to the house, entering quietly. Helen was asleep already, as she always was after supper now, and so he mounted the stairs and entered the boy’s room without knocking. He was sitting there on the bed, rows of rocks and points and shards of coloured glass spread out around him. He looked up in surprise.
“Come with me,” Stolanus said quietly.
“Where?”
“Come.”
And so the boy rose and followed Stolanus down the stairs and out into the yard and across to the barn. He eyed the two horses, but said nothing, only watched as Stolanus pulled himself up into the saddle and sat waiting.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Stolanus said to him.
The boy hesitated, looking confused, fearful. “Where are we going?”
“Get on,” Stolanus said, and pinched his eyes shut a moment. “Just get on,” he said, more gently, looking away, “and come with me before I change my mind.”
——
Helen lay awake on the bed, the curtains drawn tightly on all the windows, the covers up to her chin in spite of the spring warmth. She had heard Stolanus come in and mount the stairs. She had heard them both descend. The quiet closing of the kitchen door. And then the horses, their hooves soft and heavy in the dust, moving past the house, not down the trail and toward the road, but the other way, toward the Sand Hills. And she thought, So he is taking him to Battleford after all. He is going. He wil
l be gone. And she felt her throat tighten and ache. And so instead she thought, Stupid. He should have taken the wagon. Why would he take the horses and not the wagon? But that was like him. And she thought, I will not have said goodbye. And she thought, Horses, where was the sense in that? Why not by wagon? Why not by car? Thinking, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided,” though she did not know why, and she could not place it. Was it from Revelations? Proverbs? But she was tired. And so she did not think long. She closed her eyes and pulled the covers up over her ears and prayed for sleep.
——
The boy rode slightly behind his father, just enough so that his father turned back every so often, to make sure he was there. Neither spoke, though the boy thought that any moment his father would tell him where they were going and why. Once, his father turned and looked as if he would speak, but he did not. Only stared a moment, and then faced forward again and they rode on, across the fields. Before them and to the right, the Hills lay softened with the early evening light. Soon, the boy knew, they would turn violet, as if night came faster in the Hills than on the tableland surrounding them. As if it was always there, just waiting. He wondered if it was to the Sand Hills they were going, if perhaps they were only going to check the cattle they grazed there, as he used to do with Lathias. But he would not think of him, of Lathias, who was gone. He would think instead of Elisabeth, who was alive. Alive, but gone nevertheless. Wasn’t she? But still: alive. Yes, he reminded himself of that. She was alive.
When they rode past the Hills and onward toward Krausses’, the boy slowed his horse, and when they approached the Krauss place he stopped. His father rode on a few yards and then looked back at him, and he stopped, too, and they sat there like that, just looking at each other. And finally Stolanus nodded and said, “Everything happens for a reason. Remember that.” And turned and clucked his horse into motion, and the boy followed at a distance.
They saw Leo before Leo saw them. He sat in a kitchen chair a short way from the barn, or slumped rather, out in the middle of the yard, a flask in one hand, a shotgun across his knees. At the sight of the gun, Stolanus paused, glanced back, and then rode on.
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