Measure of Katie Calloway, The: A Novel

by Serena B. Miller

  Blackie, at his wife’s prodding, had signed the temperance pledge right before coming out to the lumber camps. A man of his word, he had pocketed his money and caught a train home. Henri and two of his friends from Canada had already left for Ontario, their red sashes still jauntily wrapped around their middles—albeit, much worse for wear.

  Bay City would enjoy several weeks of wild prosperity as hundreds of shanty boys from all over the Saginaw Valley descended on the various entertainments the town offered—throwing their payrolls around in one glorious, ill-conceived splurge. They were young men, most of them. If they survived a few seasons, they would get a little more sense when they came out of the woods.

  It was Katie he was worried about. Where would she go? Would she stay in Bay City? Did he even want her in Bay City? Would he be able to stay away from her if she settled there?

  He hated being in this no-man’s-land of loving her and being unable to do anything about it. A lesser man and a lesser woman would throw morality to the wind—but neither of them was made like that. There were children involved, for one thing. It was either a legal marriage for them, or nothing. For now, it appeared that it would have to be nothing.

  Robert decided it was time to go look up Charlie. He wanted to see the timber-looker’s big discovery. Perhaps it would help take his mind off Katie.

  29

  But now the winter’s ended,

  and homeward we are bound;

  and in this cursed country

  no longer we’ll be found.

  “Michigan I.O.”

  —1800s shanty song

  April 16, 1868

  There was a stir down at the bay that drew Katie’s attention. It appeared that something was being dragged from the water. A knot of people had formed. One man walked away and vomited in the bushes.

  Was it the body of one of the river drivers? She hoped not, even though that seemed to be part of the expected price of bringing the logs to market. She didn’t want to know what the people had found in the water. Shopping to replace Ned’s outgrown clothing was her objective right now.

  She was admiring a pair of shoes in a display window when someone touched her on the shoulder. It was Jigger, but she hardly recognized him. He was all dressed up in a new suit with a high, starched collar. His face was inscrutable.

  “You look wonderful, Jigger,” she teased. “Are you getting married?”

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am.” He pulled a new black derby hat off of his head and turned it around and around in his hands. “I think there’s something you’d better come have a look at.”

  Begging your pardon, ma’am? She had never heard that phrase come out of Jigger’s mouth during the entire seven months she had worked beside him.

  Her day began its slow collapse as he led her toward the small crowd of townspeople down at the bay. When they began to open up a path for her, she knew she was about to see something terrible.

  Yes. Someone had drowned. She stared at the soles of the man’s boots. She didn’t want to look any higher, but her eyes crept upward against her will. The pants were a water-darkened gray. The long coat was decorated with a double row of brass buttons—an eagle was embossed on each one.

  It was the uniform of a Confederate soldier.

  And then her eyes caught the face and blond hair of the man who had made her life a living nightmare for so long. A long wound across his neck explained the reason for his death.

  Slowly, slowly, with Jigger loyally standing beside her, his good arm around her waist to help support her, she realized that Harlan Calloway was no longer a threat to her or anyone. A great, yawning emptiness filled her heart where sorrow should have been.

  “Who’ve we got here?” The sheriff pushed his way through the crowd. “Anyone know this fellow?”

  “It’s my husband, Harlan Calloway,” Katie said. “He’s been missing for several months.”

  The sheriff looked her up and down. “Robert Foster came to talk to me back in January about the husband of his camp cook. Wanted me to be on the lookout for the man. Are you her?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “The day after Christmas, when he left the camp.”

  “Did he have any money on him?”

  “A small sack of silver coins.”

  He gingerly searched Harlan’s pockets and came up empty. “Looks like it was a robbery.” The sheriff, who was known more for his affection for his luxurious handlebar mustache than his enthusiasm for fighting crime, sounded relieved to have an easy answer for Harlan’s death. “Bay City is attracting some seedy characters since the railroad came in. With the water so cold, I can’t even guess how long he’s been dead, but the man who did this is probably long gone by now. What do you want me to do with him, Mrs. Calloway?”

  Those members of Robert’s crew who were still in town swore to the sheriff that no one had left the camp that night except Harlan. They also swore that none of them had murdered the man, although some admitted that they would have liked to—what with him threatening their little cook and all.

  The sheriff, with no eyewitness or any evidence, was relieved to chalk this up to yet another mysterious killing. There was a lot of that going around. Especially when the shanty boys came to town. Unclaimed bodies showed up in the bay on an almost regular basis—usually near the mouth of the tunnels beneath the building known as the Catacombs.

  The death of a Confederate soldier was not something the sheriff had any intention of seriously investigating. Feelings about the war were still too raw. There were at least a hundred veterans in the county who could conceivably be considered suspects.

  The sheriff was the kind of man who didn’t like to rock the boat. He kept law and order as much as possible—without actually upsetting anyone in power—and he left the shanty boys alone when they came into town. A man could get himself killed getting in the way of a wild-eyed logger fresh from the woods bent on having a good time.

  He made certain the death certificate was filled out as “unknown causes.”

  If there was one thing Katie knew, it was how to do her duty.

  Right now her duty was to take her husband’s body back to his home in Georgia. Regardless of his actions toward her, taking him to lie in the cemetery alongside four generations of Calloways was the right thing to do.

  It occurred to her, as she sat with Ned on the train, looking out at the bustling town of Bay City, that this was where her adventure had begun seven months ago as she had crawled off the train, ragged, fearful, and desperate.

  Today, thanks to Robert Foster and his men—and in no small measure thanks to the tender mercies of God—she had money in the bank, new clothes on her back, and a shiny new valise with everything she needed to make the train trip all the way back to Georgia.

  Still, she was disappointed that Robert had left, reportedly checking out the stand of pine that the timber-looker had found. It would have been helpful to discuss Harlan’s mysterious death with him and see if he could help her figure out how this had happened.

  It bothered her that the sheriff had not investigated more thoroughly. It could have been anyone—even someone she cared about. The only person she knew absolutely for certain had not killed Harlan was herself.

  “Hey, Foster!” The sound of a woman’s raucous voice behind him made him jump. “You’re letting her leave without you?”

  It was Delia, looking older and more ravaged than ever.

  “What are you talking about?” He had just arrived back in town after checking out Charlie’s discovery and was dirty, hungry, and bone-tired. All he wanted to do was go home, eat a good meal, take a bath, and see his kids. Then he wanted to find Katie and . . . well, he didn’t know what he wanted to do about Katie. He just wanted to see her. That’s all. He missed her friendship, if nothing else.

  “She’s taking her husband’s body back to Georgia,” Delia said.

  “What?” he exploded. “What are
you talking about, woman?”

  “They found him in the bay. Our overpaid sheriff listed it as death by unknown causes, but I think a knife might have had just a leetle something to do with it.” She held two fingers a quarter-inch apart.

  Robert couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was Delia lying? She enjoyed playing with people. He’d seen her do it before.

  “Is Katie coming back?”

  Delia pouted prettily, which was grotesque on a woman her age. “How should I know?”

  “Who did it?”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Of course I don’t know! I’ve been gone for days!”

  Delia snorted. “Let me buy a stake in that new pinery I hear you just checked out—and I’ll tell you all kinds of things you need to know.”

  “I don’t have time for games, Delia.”

  “Neither do I.” She sobered. “That was a serious offer. I want to get out of the business, Foster, and you’re the only camp owner I trust.”

  “No.”

  “I’m a good businesswoman.” She touched her mouth where a front tooth was newly missing, and he saw that beneath the heavy makeup was the yellowing skin of healing bruises. “But I’m in the wrong business. I have been for a long time.”

  There was something about the tone of her voice, the regret he heard there, that surprised him.

  As she continued to list reasons it would be to his advantage to take her on as his business partner, her voice faded away, and the strangest thought came over him—how Rahab the harlot had been included in Jesus’s lineage.

  He was not a man given to seeing religious signs—but he felt strongly as though God was nudging him to give this broken, sinful woman a chance.

  From a business perspective, Delia had one thing going for her—she definitely knew shanty boys and could be quite the judge of character. And the woman was shrewd, even if he had no respect for the occupation she had chosen.

  “All right.”

  Delia stopped in mid-sentence. “What do you mean—all right?”

  “I could use someone in town who could order quality supplies for me while keeping the costs down. I could take care of the logging camp operation and you could keep an eye on things here in town.”

  He saw hope dawning in her eyes.

  “I’d be good at that,” she said eagerly.

  There was something in the ragged hope he saw in the woman’s face that made him think she was truly serious about wanting to change her life—and actually, he really did need someone watching after his business here in town. Could he trust her? He had no idea—but his instincts told him that he could. He lowered his voice. “That pinery Charlie found is really something, Delia.”

  “How much?”

  “More than I made on this year’s crop. I’d like to buy all of it, but I can only swing a couple sections.”

  “I’ve been saving up.” The eagerness in her voice was genuine. “I been praying for something I could do to get out of the business.”

  Praying? Who would have guessed? Not him. The thought shook him. How many other people had he dismissed as being too far gone to even think about God?

  “I’m meeting with Charlie in a couple hours. You’re welcome to come along if you want.”

  “Oh, I’d like that.”

  He noticed that she stood a little straighter than when they had first begun their conversation, and her voice had lost its perpetual wheedling sound.

  “But first, I have some information you’re going to need.” Delia pulled a piece of paper out of her purse. “That redheaded cook of yours had the decency to treat me like a regular person back in October. I ran into her at the embalmer’s yesterday and she told me what had happened to her husband. I figured you might be interested in where she was going, so I wrote her address down. You’re a fool if you don’t go to Georgia and bring her back.”

  Robert gratefully took the slip of paper. “Why do you care so much?”

  Delia drew herself up. “If I’m going to become a respectable businesswoman, I’ll need a good friend like Katie Calloway in town.”

  30

  With grub hoes, pries, and axes

  we loosed the roots and stumps

  and we filled up all the hollows

  as we leveled down the lumps.

  “Johnny Carroll’s Camp”

  —1800s shanty song

  April 24, 1868

  The one-room church building the Calloways had built on their property felt close and suffocating. Katie had almost forgotten how humid and hot Georgia could be, even in the spring. As the preacher droned on and on about Harlan’s virtues, she kept her eyes straight ahead.

  It was not an easy thing to do when she knew that every eye was focused on her. Not the casket, not the preacher, just her. It felt as though the back of her head was in danger of catching fire from the stares she knew were aimed at her—the Northern woman who had the arrogance to abandon a Calloway. She was the woman who had not had the decency to stay and rebuild the plantation that her husband’s family had labored upon for generations.

  Oh yes, she was an evil one, she was.

  There was nothing she could do about it. If she kept silent, they despised her. If she opened her mouth and tried to explain the kind of person Harlan was, they would despise her even more. The genteel, lost culture of the South, exemplified in the well-manicured plantations, had rested on the shoulders of men like Harlan—boys raised to believe that their needs, their desires, their wants, had more weight than those of other mortals. It was a myth that was perpetuated from parent to son, until most believed it without question—except for the slaves who had labored beneath the misbegotten myth and some of the mistreated wives who had silently endured.

  Now destitute, the people of Harlan’s county still clung to the memory of a chivalrous South and sweet abundance, all the things that Harlan Calloway had once represented. There were so few young men left. So few to start over again and rebuild. So few who could bring back a semblance of the vision that had once been Georgia aristocracy.

  It was all bunk, of course. Harlan was no one to hang one’s hopes on. She had, to her own detriment, done exactly that at one time. The only thing she could do now was endure the stares. And then, her duty done, she could go home.

  Funny, when she thought of home, it was no longer Pennsylvania where she was born and raised. Instead, it was the wild, windswept wilderness of Michigan with its lakes and scent of pine and the raw exuberance and heroism of those rough-and-tumble shanty boys.

  And Robert. If she went back, would he want her?

  The service finally ended. A procession of mourners walked to the private cemetery where generations of Calloways resided. Most of the people in the procession were women. After living in the all-male lumber camp, there seemed to be an astonishing lack of men here.

  She and Ned were at the head of the black-clad assembly, directly behind the preacher. The preacher was yet another soldier—one who walked up the small rise with much effort and a pronounced limp. She knew him. He had fought on the side of slavery—a dedicated Christian man who had felt justified in shooting at other dedicated Christian men—like her father.

  That was the part she would never, ever understand . . . how Christians had believed it to be appropriate to go to war against other Christians—ripping apart the fabric of the nation, destroying entire families and cutting down the leadership of too many fine churches.

  The service at the graveside was interminable. Many women, their grief still fresh over their own sons and husbands, openly sobbed. Katie felt tears fill her own eyes—both for the terrible waste of her husband’s life and the pain and devastation she saw in the ravaged land and in the haunted eyes of the women.

  When she thought she couldn’t bear one more minute, the last amen was said and the mourners began to disperse slowly, almost reluctantly. She guessed that there weren’t many social activities anymore. The days of large parties were over for now.


  She felt almost embarrassed that she was wearing new widow’s weeds purchased back in Michigan. Women who had once been noted for the extravagance of their wardrobe now donned worn and discreetly patched clothing. They watched her with narrowed eyes.

  She had never had a close friend while she lived here. She had not been allowed to leave the plantation alone. Harlan had informed her that women of her standing did not go about the countryside by themselves.

  She soon found out that most plantation wives were as trapped as the slaves who served them. Her only friend while she had lived here was her maid, Violet.

  The quiet animosity with which she was being treated now made her long for a friendly face. She wondered where Mose and Violet were now. Had they moved to Canada as Mose had mentioned? Wherever they were, she wished them well.

  One bright spot was Carrie Sherwood and her fiancé. She and Carrie had never been close, but she liked the woman and was happy she had dodged a lifetime with Harlan—even if she was unaware that had ever been his intent.

  A man she vaguely remembered to be Harlan’s solicitor approached her after the others had left. She stiffened, fearful that there would be something else she was expected to do.

  “My name is Elias Jones.” He bowed with gentlemanly courtliness. “May we talk in private, Mrs. Calloway?”

  At least he spoke to her civilly. The first one so far today who had not had thinly veiled contempt in his voice. She supposed, as an attorney, he was used to hiding his feelings. Still, her heart fell at the seriousness of his voice.

  “Of course.” She glanced at her brother. This sounded like talk intended only for her ears. “Ned, why don’t you go down and play by the creek for a bit.”

  Mr. Jones took her by the elbow and led her to a small bench. It was one that Harlan’s mother had had built so she could be comfortable while visiting her husband’s grave. Katie was certain she would never again need it.