I gave Mrs. Naismith lots of time to pass by before peeking out and then lifting my head. That’s when I saw Gracie and her mother. They were just emerging from the Prairie Inn across the street.
Raedine had on lipstick the colour of an overripe tomato and a bright blue dress with wide shoulders. She looked like a movie star. Gracie was wearing a yellow dress with short sleeves and a skirt that puffed out near the bottom. A matching yellow ribbon did its best to control a clump of her unruly hair.
They’d crossed to my side of the street before Gracie saw me. The second she did, she began waving frantically, as though I might not have seen her there.
I gave a weak wave in return and wondered if it was too late to go back inside the post office. A feeling of panic had swept over me, which was odd, since I had no reason to avoid her.
Either way, it didn’t matter because while I was thinking on it, Gracie was coming my way, her dress and hair bouncing as she hurried over.
“Luke!” she said. “You didn’t tell me you were going to be in town today!”
Her tone of voice suggested that I should have reported my plans to her. All I said was, “Well, I am.”
“I can see that,” Gracie said. Laughter poured out of her in peals that sounded like a cluster of bells gone wild. And then, all of a sudden, she stepped forward and slugged me as hard as any guy my age could do. It threw my shoulder back, but only because I hadn’t been expecting it.
“Hey!” I yelped, regretting it while it was still leaving my mouth. I sounded like a pup that’d gotten his paw stepped on.
“Now, Gracie, there’s no need of that,” Raedine said. “You’re just too rough sometimes! You tell Luke you’re sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I said quickly. Gracie ignored me.
“I’m awfully sorry if I hurt you, Luke,” she said. Her eyes were still laughing.
“You didn’t hurt me!” I said. I could feel myself shrinking, right there in the middle of Junction. “I was just surprised, is all,” I added, hoping that would explain my outburst to Gracie. And to anyone else who might be watching.
“Oh, then I’m sorry for surprising you, Luke,” Gracie said.
Before I could even think of what to say to that, the door of the post office opened and Mrs. Melchyn emerged. She stopped to fix her hat before descending the stairs with her purse clutched against her. A glance at her face told me she’d won the argument about the tombac nickel.
As Mrs. Melchyn reached the bottom step, Gracie turned to her. “How do, ma’am? My name is Gracie Moor and this is my mother Raedine Moor and we’re new in town.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Melchyn said. She smiled and nodded to Gracie and then shook Raedine’s hand. She introduced herself and said they were very welcome in Junction. Then she asked where they were from and what Raedine’s people did.
“I’m afraid I have no people,” Raedine said. Her smile faltered and fell. I found myself staring at her mouth, sad and trembling, with that bright red lipstick decorating it.
“Now that’s a shame,” Mrs. Melchyn said. I think she was going to say something else but Ma came out of the post office just then.
“Well, aren’t you just full of surprises,” Ma said to me.
I had no idea what she meant.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to this young lady?” she asked. There was a strange smile on her face.
“That’s Gracie,” I said, pointing, “and her mom, Rae … uh, Mrs. Moor.”
Gracie smiled and said, “How do you do, ma’am?” in the most innocent voice you ever heard. You’d never have guessed she’d been slugging me on the arm a minute before.
“Pleased to meet you both,” Ma said. “I’m Alice Haliwell, Luke’s mother. Welcome to Junction.”
“We met your boy Luke the other day,” Raedine told her. “And thank you—we’re glad to be here. It seems like a nice little town.” She paused and took a deep breath, then blurted, “I hope I did the right thing, coming here. I just felt I had to get away from all the memories after my husband died.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” My mother reached a hand out and touched Raedine’s arm. “Are there just the two of you?”
“Yes. Gracie is the only child my husband and I were blessed with.” She cleared her throat and her eyes strayed to the ground.
“My daddy adored my curly hair,” Gracie said.
“I’m sure he did, honey. It’s very pretty.” Ma turned her attention back to Raedine. “Do you have family in these parts?”
“No, nobody,” Raedine said. “I’m afraid it’s just me and Gracie from here on in.”
“Where are you living?”
“Why, right next door to you, if I understand correctly. We’ve rented a house from Mr. Alden Sharpe.”
“Oh, yes. Then we’re neighbours!” Ma said. “How nice!”
“Tell them about your job!” Gracie said, patting the back of her mother’s hand.
Raedine hesitated ever so slightly before smiling and telling us that she’d managed to get a position at the Prairie Inn.
“The Prairie Inn,” Ma echoed. “Well now.” Even only half paying attention, I could see she wasn’t impressed.
“Yes,” Raedine said. “Wasn’t I lucky to find something so quickly, what with jobs being so scarce and all?”
“Yes, of course.” Ma smiled and nodded. “You and Gracie must come for dinner so we can get acquainted. Saturday, if you’re free.”
“Roasted chicken with bread stuffing is my favourite,” Gracie declared.
Raedine told her it wasn’t ladylike to plan the menu for your hostess, and Ma said that was just fine and she was quite sure roasted chicken was the very thing she’d had in mind anyway.
* * *
At dinner that night, Ma told Pa about meeting Raedine and Gracie.
“You say she’s going to be working at the Prairie Inn?” Pa wiped a piece of bread around his plate, sopping up the grey-brown gravy that had remained behind.
He folded the wet bread and bit off a big chunk.
“Yes.” Ma glanced at me and hesitated before saying, “Of course, I didn’t say anything but there was lots I could have.”
Pa raised an eyebrow. “Such as…what?” he asked.
“You know perfectly well what.” Ma stopped speaking and took another look in my direction. A slight frown creased her forehead. “Enough dawdling, Luke. You finish up your dinner.”
The chunks of liver that were still on my plate had turned cold and had taken on a green sheen, making them even less appealing than when they’d been served. I stuck my fork into one and lifted it toward my mouth. Ma’s eyes followed every move I made.
I touched the edge of the meat to my mouth and felt my stomach lurch. With some effort, I forced my lips apart but I just couldn’t seem to make myself take the bite.
“It’s cold,” I said.
“It’s only cold because you let it get cold.”
There was no point in protesting any further. Any minute my father would speak up. Then I’d have no choice but to shove that cold, disgusting lump into my mouth.
And then, a miracle! With a warning that I’d get nothing before breakfast, I was released!
It was too easy, but I was so happy to escape the liver that I didn’t stop to wonder why until later. When I did, I realized that they’d let me off because they wanted to talk about something they didn’t want me to hear.
Something to do with Raedine Moor and her new job.
Chapter Three
The Prairie Inn is a three-storey building in the centre of town. Except for the grain elevators, which are clustered on the west edge of Junction, the inn is the tallest building there. Hank’s Barber Shop, the Post Office, Clive’s General Store, Lidgate’s Farming Supplies, and a few others are just squatting around it along the main street.
Being taller than the stores isn’t the only thing that sets it apart from the buildings around it. For one thing, the inn is made of stone while the other structu
res are all wood. I got some of the history of its construction one afternoon when we were in town.
Pa and I were sitting in the cab of our one-ton pickup truck—a 1939 Dodge TD-21 that we’d bought secondhand the summer before. We had the windows down to let in whatever breeze might happen along, and to clear out the smell of fuel. Pa had filled the tank earlier and had sloshed a little gasoline on his boots.
It was before the Moors came, when you could still mention the Inn without that cold feeling in your core. I made some observation, now long forgotten, about the place.
“You might care to know, Luke, that some of the stone—not the main part, but some—was imported,” Pa said, gesturing toward the inn. “For instance, the red stones—those are Tennessee marble. The original owners had them brought in from the Appalachians.
“It seems they set out with big dreams—bigger’n their purse, as it happened. Made fools of themselves telling everyone hereabouts that the main structure was going to be some kind of fancy stone from Texas. Then, suddenly, it was never mentioned again. I’d say they found out the cost was too high. In the end, they used Tyndall stone from Garson, right here in Manitoba. It’s a fine quality limestone, but all their boasting took away from it.”
Even so, it was easily the most fancy place in Junction. Of course, there wasn’t much competition from the stores, which are all plain and box-like, sporting signs that look as tired and faded as most of the people who run them.
There’s no sign on the Prairie Inn. Instead, its name is carved deep in a huge slab of rock that forms the header over the double doors. That and heavy, blood-red curtains make it look rich and classy. I’d never been in there, but I’d heard my mother say that if the church had the proper support, it could have velvet curtains like the inn has.
Aside from those few details, I’d never given the place much thought before Gracie and her mom came to Junction. That changed almost the minute Raedine got a job there. Then, the whole town took notice. Talk burst into the air like an overripe cattail, exploding and floating about, each bit of it a tiny part of the whole.
It might have gone right by me if the voices hadn’t dropped to a hush whenever the subject of Raedine’s job came up. That could mean only one thing—that, as Ma says, it was none of my business. The second I picked up on that, I became immediately and keenly interested.
I began gathering bits of the talk, putting it together like a puzzle. Only it seemed there were layers and levels to the story that made it harder to figure out than any other town gossip I’d come across.
I was in a good position to gather information on account of we lived next door to the Moors. That gave some of the local ladies the idea that my mother would know all about it.
They started arriving at our door on the flimsiest excuses, each of them grilling Ma in her own way. Some were bold enough to come right out and ask what they wanted to know.
“What in the name of time is that woman thinking, taking a job in a place like that?” my mother’s cousin, Cora Deighton, asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, she rushed on. “Don’t tell me she can’t look around her and see what’s going on!”
“I’m sure she has plenty of other things on her mind,” Ma said.
“She has eyes, doesn’t she?” Cora rolled her own as she asked.
“She’s new in town and a widow,” Ma said. Blotchy red spots were growing on her cheeks. “It seems only fair to give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“Oh, I gave her the benefit of the doubt when I first heard, but she’s been there for going on two weeks now, and if she hasn’t noticed that there’s not a single self-respecting woman working there, then she’s either blind or a fool.”
“Whatever she has or hasn’t noticed,” Ma countered, “I suppose her biggest worry is being able to feed her child.”
“I’d let my child starve right to death before I’d work in a place that’s little better than a…” Here, Cora glanced about and lowered her voice.
I had to strain to hear (from my hiding place behind the wood-box) and at the time I thought she’d said bottle. I spent a good many hours trying to make sense of how anyone could think a big building like that was no better than a bottle, and even if that was true, why it was so terrible for Raedine to be working there.
Of course, I now know she said brothel, but that word hadn’t yet reached my eleven-year-old ears. That was unfortunate, since Cora Deighton was one of the most outspoken women around. I knew that if anyone was likely to clear up the mystery with some blunt remark, it would be her. The confusion over thinking she’d said bottle made it that much harder for me to figure out what was so terrible about Raedine working at the Prairie Inn.
Most of the ladies took a more roundabout route than Cora had, disguising their curiosity as Christian concern.
“Now you know I’m not one to put my nose where it doesn’t belong,” Evelyn Fuller insisted as she shifted her baby from one hip to the other, “but a person feels a kind of obligation in a situation like this.”
“You’re right, of course,” Ma answered. “We should all get together and do what we can to help.”
Our visitor faltered ever so slightly. “You mean, go to talk to her as…uh…a group?”
“Talk to her?” Ma repeated. “I can’t see what help talking would be. I was thinking more of offering to watch Gracie—that’s her daughter—when Raedine has to work, or taking her food and things for the house and such. Like we did for Jimmy Pafford when his wife passed on last year.”
“Well, I didn’t quite mean…” Mrs. Fuller voice trailed off and confusion clouded her face with an uncertainty that she tried to hide with a bright smile. She stammered a little and then told Ma that of course she’d do her part.
Meanwhile, the baby on her hip—a girl, by the look of the bonnet—was leaning over sideways. A long line of drool hung from her mouth and I poked my head out just a tad, in order to watch it break away and hit the floor.
It was a mistake. The baby spied me and a grin spread over her face at the discovery. I frowned at her fiercely, thinking that might discourage her but that effort backfired. She reacted with delight and began to bounce and chortle and wave her fists about.
I ducked down and squeezed back into the corner, even though my mother and Mrs. Fuller weren’t looking in my direction. I stayed very still and tried to breathe quietly, though it sounded loud and rasping as it reached my ears.
Luckily, no one paid her any mind and eventually my heart settled back to normal. Even so, I didn’t relax completely until Mrs Fuller had taken the thread she came to borrow, along with her drooling baby, and gone home.
Chapter Four
Carmella Tait is a large coloured woman—the only coloured person in town. She’s also my friend.
Carmella did a lot of canning and preserving. More often than not, if she was in her kitchen, she’d be peeling something, seated at the scarred wooden table, her ample hips spilling out over the sides of the chair. The blade of her paring knife would be jutting out from the chubby cave of her brown hand, gliding over the surface of some vegetable or other while skins fell away into a slop bucket for the pigs.
Usually, she was singing too. Carmella had a powerful voice, though she couldn’t carry a tune at all, and she loved to sing hymns just as loud as she could manage. I was used to having the off-key sounds of her faith float out to meet me on my way to her door.
When I was small, I had the idea that there was something faintly magical about Carmella’s house. Even though it was one of the poorer homes in town, there was always a certain feeling there, a feeling that could go right through you if you stayed for any time at all. It was a bit like the warmth that soaks into you when you lie out in the sun—a lazy, pleasant sense that things are just fine.
I wondered if other people felt it too, but it wasn’t in my nature to ask. And the idea of sharing my own private thoughts never crossed my mind.
Of course, it wasn’t the house at all.
Gracie met Carmella soon after coming to Junction, and all because of a skunk.
It began the way pretty much every visit to the Taits’ place did, with an errand for my mother. That was a new responsibility for me—being sent to pick up an ingredient for something Ma was cooking, or for one of Carmella’s remedies for a toothache or sick stomach or the like.
I normally enjoyed going, but on this particular occasion I wasn’t so keen when my mother called out for me.
“Luke!”
I knew immediately that she was going to send me on an errand. There was a certain sound in her voice whenever she wanted me to fetch or deliver something. And like I said, under most circumstances, I’d have been glad to go, but this time Gracie was coming over. She’d said so the last time I’d seen her. She’d said it in the way she always did: not as a question or a request, but as an announcement.
In the few short weeks I’d known her, Gracie’s announcements had cast some sort of spell on me. Everything she said came out large and grand. I had the feeling that she was willing things into happening just by saying them. It intrigued me and I found myself thinking about her more than I’d ever thought about anything else.
So when my mother summoned me that morning, I didn’t answer her right away. Instead, I stood very still and silent, hoping that she’d get distracted with something else and forget that she wanted me.
She called a second time, her voice more insistent. At that point I knew I’d better answer, or else. If she had to call me a third time, she’d be angry. She’d know I’d heard her and that my failure to answer had been deliberate.
I called out that I was coming and ran down the stairs and into the kitchen.
“I want you to go over to the Taits’ house and see if Carmella has a dozen eggs she can sell me,” Ma said. “That horrid skunk got into the henhouse again and there’s not a single egg left there.”
“Do I have to go right now?” I asked.
The Glory Wind Page 2