The Horseman's Graves

by Jacqueline Baker

  And though the others could not explain the knife, they could not condemn the boy for it, either. And they graciously—one might even say thankfully—gave Helen and Stolanus their space.

  Only, the following morning, the morning after the funeral, they, Helen and Stolanus, woke to find a box of food—baked dishes and roasted meats and pies and fresh bread—on their doorstep, and, tied with a long length of white ribbon, a great bucket of flowers: tulips and buffalo beans and the first lilac plumes still tight in their buds. And Stolanus gathered the food and the flowers and brought them inside and set them on the table and he and Helen sat looking at them, and then, without speaking, they rose and began to pack a few things, and carry them out to the car. When it was time to leave they stood a moment in the yard, just looking around, and the spring air was beautiful.

  “We should stop at Schneiders’,” Stolanus said. “See if they want to get the crop in.”

  She looked out over the greening fields.

  “Leave it,” she said.

  After a minute, Stolanus said, “Seems a waste.”

  “Someone will get it in,” Helen said. And then she added, “They would not let a crop go to waste.”

  “Ach, Helen,” he said. As he always did.

  “Is that it, then?” she said, putting a hand on the car door.

  Stolanus looked around the yard. “What about Lathias’s things?” he said.

  Helen shrugged. “He will come back for them or he will not.”

  Stolanus looked around the yard again, sighed. Thought of his mother and father who had built the place and who lay now at the old cemetery at Johnsborough and of his daughter there, too, little Katerina, that had been his daughter only long enough to be named, and of his son, who had never really been his son, either, or, at least, not in a long time, his son, committed to the earth now, too, at the cemetery at Knochenfeld.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We are leaving so much behind, not?”

  “Yes,” Helen said. “That’s how it is. You cannot go anywhere without leaving something behind.”

  “But, so much?” he said.

  And she looked up at her husband and thought, My God, he has aged. When was the last time I really looked at him? When did we get so old? And she almost reached out to touch the lines around his eyes. Instead, she repeated, “Is that it, then?”

  And he said, “Yes. That’s it.”

  TWELVE

  Mary had sat at the kitchen table all day, and all the previous day, too, and the day before that. Every day since Leo had left. How many days that was, she could not say. Sometimes she stared out the window, stared down the road, as if he might appear there, not knowing for certain whether she hoped he would or she hoped he would not. But he would not. She knew that much now. How could he come back, after what had happened? After what he had done.

  “But how did it happen?” she had asked Elisabeth.

  “He shot him,” the girl had said. “Does it matter how?”

  And the boy was dead. And Leo was gone. Now Elisabeth stood in the doorway with that baby and looked at her and said, “I am leaving. I thought you should know.”

  And Mary nodded and looked away, out the window, past the bottle tree, down the road. What was she to do? Leo had left her nothing. She could not go back home, back to Dakota. Her father would never have her. Would that Leo had taken her with him. She would have gone, God help her. Take me with you, she would have said, if there had been time, if he had given her the opportunity. But why would he? Why would he want her? Why would anyone? By the time the shot woke her and she had dressed and gone outside, Leo was gone and there was only that boy lying already dead in the yard and Elisabeth with the baby kneeling over him, the boy’s head in her lap, stroking his hair. And she was crying, Elisabeth was. Mary had never seen her cry before, not even as a child. And she had looked up at her, at Mary, and said one word: Leo.

  And so he would not be back.

  “Where are you going?” she said now to Elisabeth, without turning from the window.

  “To the braucha’s.”

  “And how will you live?”

  “The same way she did. Why shouldn’t I?”

  “And you think people will come to you? After all that has happened?”

  “People will always come.”

  “And the baby, what about that?”

  Elisabeth did not answer, and Mary turned to her. “What will you do with her?” she repeated.

  “She is not my child to do something with.”

  “Oh, you say that now.”

  “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

  “Because of you.” Though she hadn’t meant to say it.

  “Because of himself.”

  Elisabeth stood in the doorway a moment longer. Then she entered the kitchen and held out the baby. When Mary did not reach to take her, Elisabeth spread the baby’s blanket on the floor and laid her there. Then she reached into her dress and handed Mary some bills.

  “Here. I found this outside. In the yard.”

  “That is Leo’s money,” Mary said.

  “No,” Elisabeth said, fiercely. “It’s mine.” And she put it on the kitchen table and turned to go.

  “Elisabeth,” Mary said, “you must tell me the truth. I have to know. Was it an accident?”

  And Elisabeth stopped and stared back at her. “Nothing is an accident,” she said.

  ——

  Later that afternoon, Mary hitched up the mule to the wagon and took the baby and drove out of the yard and down the road to Weisers’. Then she sat waiting in the wagon, staring up at the stained-glass windows. Finally, Marian came to the door, and then Mike, behind her. They looked at each other.

  “Mary?” Mike said uncertainly. “But how long have you been waiting? Come, come in. Bring the baby.”

  Mary tied up the reins and lumbered down from the wagon, the baby in one arm.

  Marian stepped quickly forward. “May I hold her a little?” she said.

  Mary looked at her as if she were not sure. Marian was the one who had taken Leo’s other children, after all. How would he feel about that? But then she handed the baby to her.

  “Come in,” Mike said, and stood back from the door to let Mary enter.

  “Here,” he said, pulling out a chair from the gleaming table, “sit down.”

  Mary sat, and Mike and Marian stood staring stupidly at her.

  “Can I get you coffee?” Marian said.

  Mary nodded. Marian handed her the baby, and Mike pulled out a chair and sat across the table and cleared his throat and then cleared it again.

  When the coffee was ready, Marian poured it out and joined them and they all drank and waited and drank again.

  After a while, Mary said, so quietly they could hardly hear, “Have you got a little milk?”

  “Milk?” Mike said, surprised. “For the coffee?”

  “No,” Mary said, “for the baby. She needs to eat a little.”

  “Of course,” Mike said, feeling foolish, as Marian rose for the milk, “how stupid. We should have thought.”

  “I have money,” Mary said, “I can pay.”

  “Ach,” Mike said, “don’t insult us. Keep your money.”

  Marian brought the warm milk and Mary fed the baby and Mike and Marian watched, both of them wondering if this was all Mary had come for, but not wanting to ask.

  “So,” Mike said, after a while, “how are you, Mary?”

  “Ach. Death seeks a reason,” she said, shrugging. She wiped the baby’s mouth with her dress.

  “And,” Mike began, glancing at Marian, “and, Elisabeth, how is she?”

  Mary grimaced, took a drink of her coffee. “She has gone,” she said. “Living at the braucha’s.”

  Mike and Marian exchanged looks.

  “What, for good, you mean?”

  “Yah, that’s what she says.” Mary patted at the baby’s back. “If she wants to, should I stop her?”

  “No,” Mike agreed. “S
he’s a big girl. She must do what she wants.”

  Mary shrugged again, and propped the baby up awkwardly against her belly, and the baby slipped forward and Mary propped her up again.

  “And Leo?” Mike said quietly.

  The baby began to fuss and Mary shifted her into the crook of her arm.

  “Gone,” she said.

  “You have heard nothing?” Mike said.

  Mary shook her head. Then they were all quiet again.

  Finally, Mike said, “Who knows what the future brings?” Then, feeling foolish, he rose to fill his coffee cup.

  After a while, Marian said, “And what will you do now, Mary?”

  “About what?”

  “Well,” Marian said, wondering how to put it. “Where do you plan to live? What will you do for, well, for money?”

  Mary nodded. “That is why I came.”

  Mike and Marian exchanged quick looks again.

  “Not for money,” Mary said, catching the looks.

  “Of course not,” Marian said, “we didn’t think—”

  “And not for somewhere to live, either.”

  “No, no, we never thought—”

  “But I don’t want to stay out there, out at the farm there. Not by myself, with this baby. And everything. That was never for me, anyway, that place.”

  “Where, then?” Mike said. “Where do you want to go? Back to Dakota? We will take you in the car if that’s what you want.”

  “No. Never there,” Mary said. She seemed ashamed, then, and dropped her head and fiddled with the baby’s blanket. “Not there,” she said quietly. “Just … there is somewhere. Not so far.” She looked up at them, uncertain. “I’ll tell you. Will you take us?”

  “Yes,” Mike said. “Of course.” And, after only the briefest pause, Marian nodded.

  ——

  It was not a long drive, by car. Mary sat in the back with the baby and a small sack full of her things.

  “You will sell that mule for me, then,” Mary said, “and the wagon, too?”

  “Yah,” Mike said, “I think I can get a good price for them, for the wagon and mule together. I wouldn’t mind it myself. Could use it, oh, around the farm and such. You’ll get a good price for them, I think.”

  Marian shot him a look, but he ignored her.

  When they turned off the road at the edge of town and onto a neat, narrow, tree-lined drive, Mary leaned forward and looked out the window, at the big brick building there, the trimmed lawns and immaculately weeded flowerbeds.

  “Yah, and maybe they will not want me,” she said, mostly to herself.

  Marian turned in her seat and stared at the woman, and at the baby sleeping there on her lap, and for the first time in weeks, and in spite of herself, she softened, smiled a little.

  “They will want you,” she said.

  ——

  The old nun who opened the heavy wooden door looked them up and down.

  “Yes?” she said, sharply, stepping forward a little. “What is it?”

  Mike looked to Mary, but she only stood with her head down, the baby against her belly.

  So he said, “You must have heard”—clearing his throat—“you must know of, well, what happened last week.” He looked meaningfully at the old nun, but she only frowned a little, waiting. “Leo Krauss,” he said awkwardly, hoping there would be no need to recount the previous days.

  “Oh. Yes,” the nun said, waving her hand irritably. “I know about that.”

  “This here,” Mike said, indicating Mary and the baby, “this is Leo’s wife, and his child.”

  “Yes, I am not so old that I cannot see. What is it you want?”

  “Forgive me,” Mike fumbled, “but I had heard, my wife had said—”

  “Will you take them in?” Marian interrupted. “They have nowhere to go.”

  The nun frowned more deeply, looked at Mary again over the rims of her glasses. Then she reached out and pulled the swaddling blanket from across the baby’s face.

  “Krauss, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  She replaced the blanket and looked at them sharply again.

  “You know we have another Krauss here, an older girl. Magdalen.”

  “Yes,” Mike said. “We knew that.”

  “Yes, of course you would,” she said, eyeing them. “I had forgotten. And what is your relationship to Krausses? You seem to have a good deal to do with them.”

  “We are neighbours,” Mike said.

  “Ah,” the nun replied, as if Mike had said something deeper.

  The old nun stared at him a moment, then she lifted the corner of the blanket again. “Boy or girl?” she asked Mary.

  “A girl,” Mary said. “Cecilia.”

  The nun raised her eyebrows. Then she dropped the blanket and nodded. “Well,” she said, “come in, then. You’re letting in an awful draft.”

  “You will take them?” Marian said.

  “I just said so, didn’t I? Do you think we turn people away here? Get their things,” she said to Mike, opening the door wider. “We will have to make some room.”

  THIRTEEN

  When he rode into the yard, he knew at once they were gone. Though everything was as it had been when he left, the whole place somehow carried an air of absolute abandonment. Even the dust in the yard seemed to settle with a heavy finality that belied the lightness of a clear afternoon in late May. Everything—the slow turning of the windmill in the yard, the cooing of the hens beside the barn, the meadowlark on a fencepost, the creak of the front door, his boots on the kitchen floor—everything sounded hollow and lonely. And he realized, only then, that it had always been so. Even when they had all been there, all four of them, the place had already been abandoned, maybe as far back as the death of Old Pius. It was as if there were no heart in it, that place, not anywhere.

  He walked through the house once, surprised, and then again, not surprised, either, at all they had left. Dishes and bedding and pots and pans, brooms, lanterns, furniture and cushions, even old coats and hats and mufflers hanging by the door. A stranger happening upon the place might suppose they had only gone into town for the afternoon or to a neighbour’s visiting or for a day of fishing at the river. He touched the coffee cups that sat unwashed on the table, and the bucket of flowers wilting there, smelled the rotted sweetness of aging lilacs, pressed his hand against the cold coal stove. He did not go up to the boy’s room. Not yet. Not ever, maybe.

  He left the house and crossed the yard to the barn, was up in two steps, smelling that old familiar smell of hay and wood and dust and horses. Here, too, everything remained strangely the same, as if he had just come in from a day in the fields. Only his knife was out of its place in the chest and lay, oddly, in the middle of his bed. He had heard what had happened, of course, or at least several variations on the truth at the towns he stopped in on his travels home. The boy had a knife, that was what everyone had said. His knife, he had known that, too. But it was here now. And he knew, too, who had put it there. And why. She had known he would come back. Had meant for him to. He could have taken it another way, that knife there on his bed. But he knew better. As before, there was no accusation. Only a message. This was his place now, as much as it had ever been anyone’s. That is what she meant to tell him.

  He picked up the knife and handled it a moment. Gripped it in his palm, fiercely. Then he stretched out on his bed and slept.

  ——

  When he woke, he strapped the knife to his belt and descended. He fed and watered the mare he’d left standing in the yard, and went to the kitchen for some food, then sat outside on the porch in the slow silence, eating. Staring out at the smokehouse and the granaries and the chickenshed and the windmill and the pump and the corrals and the barn and the wild rose bushes beyond, tight with dark buds, and the green fields unfurling as far as the Sand Hills in the afternoon light, and the Krauss place there in the distance, as it seemed always to have been, and then the infinite horizon. And he ate and stared and
listened. It all felt so inevitable now. It was as if all those years of silence among them had been travelling toward this, as if he must have, how could he not have, known it would all somehow end this way. Knew the boy could not live. Knew that Helen and Stolanus could not stay. Knew that he would end up there alone one day. Had to.

  After he had eaten, he rose and rinsed his plate at the pump, and then rubbed water against his face and neck and forearms, and drank. Then he walked to the barn and he saddled his mare again and rode straight for the river.

  ——

  She was there, in a chair by the front door, her white dress falling around her and her bare feet in the rough grass, as if she had known he was coming, as if she had been expecting him. Her red hair was all loose in the sunlight. He had to look away from her, down into the valley, but he could not look there, either, and so he studied his own hands against the worn pommel.

  “Where did they go?” he said, after a moment.

  When she did not answer, he looked up at her.

  She was staring at him, her head tilted to one side. She moved her feet in the grass. “I don’t know.”

  He nodded.

  She said, “Do you want something, a drink of water?”

  “No,” he said, and the mare shifted beneath him.

  After a while, she said, “What did you come here for?”

  He squinted at her. “See if it was true. I guess.”

  “What?”

  “All of it.”

  She nodded, smoothed her dress out against her legs. He watched her and she saw him watching and he looked away again, out over the fields.

  “You plan to stay here?” he said.

  She shrugged. “It’s as good as anywhere else.” Then she added, “You?”

  Lathias looked around him. “There’ll be a crop to get in, I guess, come August.”

  “Nice crop this year.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  After a minute more, she said, “You been up to the cemetery yet?”

  “Not yet,” he said.