First, let me ask about the newspaper clipping. Georgie, tell me this is not about you! The sketch makes you seem quite transformed. I think you must have gone to Dog Hollow to find me. What have I done? I can barely sleep for worry.
I unfolded the newspaper clipping and saw the headline: “Girl Sharpshooter Brings Down Counterfeiters.” The sketch beneath it was also familiar, but it never ceased to cool my blood. Below perfectly fine pigtails wasn’t a head but a chunk of meat gone bad in the sun. I touched my cheek reflexively.
Aunt Cleo snatched the clipping out of my hands. “You never looked like that.”
We continued to read the letter:
I was upset when Benjamin broke off our engagement, and stubbornly determined to leave at once in order to study at a university. I decided to slip off and to avoid contacting you until I’d started my studies. I thought if my education was well under way that even you, Grandfather, might let me stay.
I made a hasty decision to leave with pigeoners traveling to Prairie du Chien. At the time, I had a vague idea about attending a university in Iowa or Minnesota–too true that my thoughts were scattered. Mostly, I wanted to leave Placid as quickly as possible.
Soon after leaving, however, I began to suspect that the pigeoners I traveled with were untrustworthy. So in order to avoid any trouble, I separated myself from them at my first opportunity.
That opportunity came at Dog Hollow, when the pigeoners met up with a Mr. Garrow. (The same Garrow as in the clipping?) He wanted to conduct his business in private, so I walked into town with his daughter Darlene. As the two of us talked, Darlene revealed she was engaged but had no wedding dress.
Ma, I sold her the ball gown. I am sorry not to have it, but Darlene was thrilled. What better use for such a beautiful dress than as a wedding dress? The color looked so well on her (her hair is the same color as mine). Though I ache over the loss of your handiwork, I am to be a student, and will spend my spare time studying. My heart is broken. I cannot imagine attending balls and assemblies.
Anyway, Darlene promised not to tell the pigeoners where I’d gone. I spent that night in the woods, and the next morning I boarded the first train leaving Dog Hollow. Because I had not traveled as far as I thought I would, it made perfect sense to turn around and go to Madison. I also thought doubling back might throw you off my trail. So here I am in Madison.
Grandfather, you are correct in saying that the University of Wisconsin doesn’t educate women in the way that they should. But I’ve found people here who have promised to help me learn all that I can.
Ma, please show this letter to Mr. Olmstead. Please tell him how sorry I am for my behavior.
All of you—please write. Write that you are alive and well. Tell me what happened. Those newspaper articles scared me nearly to death. You can write to the address below.
All my love (such as it is),
Agatha
“Heedless girl,” said Aunt Cleo.
“She doesn’t know the half of it,” said Ma.
I stood slack-jawed. Then I rammed my knee hard into the counter. “I hate her. She deceived us,” I said.
The store went quiet as a hairpin. I looked up and saw their wide eyes staring at me. I read concern—for me.
Even after all I’d done—leaving and making my family sick with worry.
After all that, Ma, Aunt Cleo, the sheriff, Mr. Olmstead, our neighbors, all of Placid had taken me back in a most unreserved way.
Wouldn’t I do the same for Agatha?
I saw the letter held between Ma’s index finger and thumb. I reached for it. I spread it flat on the counter. Agatha’s handwriting. Those loopy letter e’s. I put my finger on the inked letters and pressed against the lines, feeling every indent as if it were braille.
I wanted my sister. I loved my sister.
I did it then—I forgave her …
… and burst out laughing (confusing Ma and Aunt Cleo to no end). I laughed at the irony: Agatha and I had both started in Placid and ended in Dog Hollow. Yet who would say we’d had the same journey? It was as if I had walked, tilling the earth for troubles, and Agatha had bypassed it all by flying overhead.
Agatha was alive.
Ma reached out for Aunt Cleo and me. With our arms around each other, we smiled until it hurt.
Pause a moment. Feel the air surround that moment. Push against it, and find that it truly exists. Blow on it, and see how the tiny barbs snag the wind and lift. Watch it fly.
Feather by feather, she had made her way.
You’d think 1871 would have finished with me. This was not the case. There are still a few wonders I need to relay before I end my story. The year 1871 seemed determined to remake me, and it did. In the end, 1871 remade all of us.
As letters went back and forth, 1871 established itself firmly as a year we’d never be able to forget. Already we’d experienced the largest pigeon nesting within recorded memory, and now in August talk was all about lack of rain. People complained of low water levels in their wells, and of slogging pails of water to their gardens. When had it last rained? I remembered big drops the day I’d negotiated with Billy McCabe for a horse. But after that, everything went bone-dry.
Of course, everyone in my family (including myself) was happily preoccupied with Agatha. We scribbled out missives and eagerly awaited replies. Ma and the sheriff made plans for a November honeymoon to Madison. At Agatha’s request, they invited Mr. Olmstead to join them.
By September 1871, though, the drought was impossible to ignore. By then, the news was that all of the Middle West was afflicted. In Placid, a smell like burnt toast coated the wind, the air tasted stale, and a brown haze rested on the horizon. A few days later, the haze migrated into town, and people found it cradled in cupboards and washbasins. The Placid Independent reported odd fires in the north (Minnesota, northeastern Wisconsin), which caused people to question the sanity of the editor. Ground so hot it burned holes in people’s shoes? Wisps of fire streaking through the forest like fairies? Without a doubt, though, fire threatened. We kept about our business with pails of water at the ready.
Out of this brown haze came a knock at the door. I heard Ma and Aunt Cleo speaking with a woman in the front hallway. The woman coughed. Ma said something about the smoke.
Then I heard: “I could use a guide.”
“That’s no trouble. I’ll take you,” Ma said.
It sounded like another person had come to see Grandfather Bolte’s grave. All summer we’d been taking people up to Mount Zion Cemetery so they could say their good-byes.
But some quality in that voice made me curious. I cleaned my hands of the bread I kneaded and stepped into the back garden to see who’d come.
What I saw was a boy-sized woman with straight hips and a purposeful walk—a useful woman—striding straight up the hill to Mount Zion Cemetery. That walk brought back a terraced farm on the back of a bluff—Mrs. Garrow. She walked with such quick steps Ma could not keep up.
I remembered that Ma had never met Mrs. Garrow. I grabbed my coat and raced after them.
I caught up as Ma’s hand flitted out in the direction of the marker:
GEORGE LEWIS BOLTE
HUSBAND, FATHER, FRIEND
1789–1871
Mrs. Garrow read the name and frowned. “Where is it?”
I stepped up, startling Ma, and pointed. “The grave bearing my sister’s name is there.”
Mrs. Garrow stepped hastily over to the tombstone. “Agatha Burkhardt?”
I nodded.
Like that, Mrs. Garrow sat down in front of the tombstone. Then she scooted forward to lay her hands on the letters.
A small sound left Ma’s lips. Then she said: “Are you Mrs. Garrow?”
Mrs. Garrow nodded, her eyes never leaving the tombstone. She ran her hands down each side of its curve. Then she leaned her forehead against the tombstone and slammed the ground with a closed fist.
Ma sat down and wrapped her arms around Mrs. Garrow. In the dim li
ght of that smoky September afternoon, Ma and Mrs. Garrow sat for some time.
It was an accident. Three days after she got the dress from Agatha, Darlene met Morgy Harrison up Old Line Road at a wide, grassy spot with purple-gray boulders. From that location, a person saw the Wisconsin River winding its way below, and the rocky bluffs beyond, scruffy with pine, hemlock, and oak. It was a romantic place tucked in the bluffs. Darlene knew it well because this spot hid her father’s cave.
At the sound of Morgy’s horse, Darlene stepped out in the open so the first thing he’d see was her in that ball gown. It did the trick. Morgy gasped. The afternoon sun seemed to set sparks of fire racing through her russet hair. And that dress! It was a living deep blue-green interwoven with hints of color (midnight, robin-egg blue, evergreen, gold) that surfaced and submerged as Darlene twirled and twirled. That day Darlene seemed like some sort of divine being to Morgy. When he met her eyes, she grinned, pleased with his response.
But then Mr. Garrow walked into the clearing with packs full of his “business” (as they called it). Darlene hadn’t expected him.
As soon as he laid eyes on Darlene, Mr. Garrow’s face purpled. He set his rifle down, placed his packs beside it, and began to yell at Darlene. Morgy couldn’t hear it all, but he thought he heard something about “lying about that girl.”
“How do you think that made me look?” Mr. Garrow said several times. He began to circle Darlene.
Darlene could give as good as she got. She yelled back and began to walk. They circled each other.
Morgy hopped off his horse and ran to split the two of them up. Darlene twisted free of his grip and shoved him aside. Morgy decided to let them go at it. He knew they were both hotheaded, but that they loved one another.
It might have all turned out well, except that Mr. Garrow caught hold of that dress. In his grasp, a section of the skirt ripped free.
Darlene became still. She ran her hand slowly over the rip.
“You can repair that,” Mr. Garrow said weakly. He offered up the fabric.
Darlene slapped his hand away. “I am sick to death of you and Ma telling me what I can and cannot do.” Darlene walked over to her father’s packs and reached for the rifle.
And this is an important fact: The packs had shifted. They’d rolled over the rifle. Now the rifle lay barrel out, under the packs. Darlene put her hand on the barrel. “I am leaving with Morgy today. You can’t stop us.”
“It’s loaded …,” Mr. Garrow yelled.
It is unwise to pull a gun by its barrel, but Darlene pulled. When the gun stuck, she wrapped both hands around the barrel and tugged harder.
The gun went off.
In the next moment, Mr. Garrow gathered Darlene up in his arms.
“That’s what Morgy told me. My husband doted on that girl. Called her his darling,” Mrs. Garrow said as she stood.
Ma got up with Mrs. Garrow and gave her a handkerchief. Mrs. Garrow used it and continued: “My husband, Blair, made Morgy leave, told him to write a note to his family saying he’d eloped, and gave Morgy a tidy sum to do it too. I know Blair was scared of telling me. I’m the one thing he is afraid of. That fool! I’d half forgive him for the accident if he had only buried her right off. He panicked—that’s all I can think. Leaving her where animals could get at her!”
“But how did that body come to be on Miller Road?” I said.
Mrs. Garrow shook her head. “How am I to know? I can’t ask. If I go near my husband, I’ll get arrested myself. I’ve got three children.”
“Don’t you have a theory? Anything?” I said.
Mrs. Garrow shrugged. “He might have left her on Miller Road because it’s well traveled. Maybe he figured someone would see the red hair and bring the body back to us—we’re the only family with red hair. It would look like an accident, and I would never know he had anything to do with it. Morgy would be another matter, but Blair knows how to deal with that sort of situation. It’s me he can’t figure out.”
I crossed my arms. “But our sheriff found that body.”
“Coincidence,” she said in a tone that suggested absolute confidence.
Ma said: “I made that dress, though. That’s two coincidences. There’s three if you count the similarity between the girls.”
Mrs. Garrow took this in.
Suddenly her face cracked into a wide grin. “Ha! You think my Blair is that clever? You’ve got a high opinion of the malefactor’s mind!” Mrs. Garrow coughed, and the cough became a scratchy, bone-rattling laugh.
Then Mrs. Garrow met my eyes. “Mrs. Harrison and I got your letters. We figured my visit would be enough of an answer.”
I said it was.
As Mrs. Garrow left, she pressed a wad of banknotes into Ma’s hand for a revised tombstone. We watched her disappear into the brown haze, and then Ma looked down at the bills in her hand. “Do I dare use these?” she said.
The money was counterfeit. Despite this, a new tombstone appeared in the cemetery where Agatha’s used to stand. The inscription was simple:
?–1871
DARLENE GARROW
CALLED DARLING
Ma never said a word, but I’m sure she arranged for the tombstone. Agatha’s tombstone appeared in the root cellar, words to the wall. Waste not, want not, Ma always says.
A story cannot end where there’s smoke, and where there was smoke in 1871, there came Sunday, October 8.
Remember? That was the day an inferno blazed along the shores of Lake Michigan. Every issue of the Placid Independent that fall (and into the winter) brought news of the Great Chicago Fire. Didn’t we all pore over newspaper pages filled with illustrations of swarms of people pushing over bridges, or of fire pluming from sinking ships on Lake Michigan and billowing from tall, tall buildings onshore? I still see the one of two girls with eyes round as plums hovering over a third girl who lay still. The numbers of Chicago homeless crept up with every report, until finally I read somewhere that one hundred thousand people were without a home.
What you didn’t hear about was the second fire. Yes, there were two distinct fires that night—one down in Chicago, and the other up along the shores of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. As it turned out, more people died in the Wisconsin fires. We in Placid knew all about this fire because the survivors appeared at our borders.
And so began the second great migration of 1871. This time the migration was all earthbound. The survivors came, carried by oxen, horses, or wagons, or on their own two feet. They spoke of a fire so hot it split boulders, melted metal, and wrapped trees in glass. They said those that survived had run into Lake Michigan to escape the fire. When they walked out of the lake the next morning, there were no landmarks to guide them. They did not know where they stood. They saw only miles and miles of blackened beach.
For months, our doctor was so busy with the burned that he slept in two-hour increments. Every extra space in Placid, Wisconsin, was filled: parlors became bedrooms, an empty stall became a home. A shed on Main Street that had been used to prepare and barrel pigeons had three people living in it (a small boy, an uncle, a cousin). People slept between the pews at the churches. The town hall became a makeshift one-night hotel for those needing a place to bed down before journeying on. The inns let survivors stay for free as long as the room wasn’t already booked. The Olmstead Hotel donated an entire floor to the cause. Ten people stayed in our home at various times: a girl and her mother, three farmers, two sisters, an elderly woman, a midwife, and a butcher.
For most of these survivors, Placid, Wisconsin, was only a pass-through space, not a settling place. Still, a few survivors decided to stay in Placid. They saw that their skills filled a need. Or they made friends and wanted to continue the conversation. Or they fell in love. Yes, even knee-scuffing, will-you-marry-me love happened. I tell you, near anything can come from ashes.
It’s too true that some survivors never got a chance to think of rebuilding their lives. These people breathed their last in temporary beds. We dug
them graves at Mount Zion Cemetery, put their names (if they’d been able to tell them) on markers, and paid them the respects we were able.
Every once in a while, I rode Long Ears up to the cemetery and laid flowers on those graves. I tried to remember each person’s particulars (a walk, a smile, the way they clung to a photograph). I spoke the names I knew.
“You are not in nowhere,” I told the dead.
The ones that lingered in our town, I befriended—if they’d have me. (A notorious thirteen-year-old thumb shooter isn’t to everyone’s taste.) I listened to their stories. I told my own. Some of them wished they’d passed away with their families. Some of them felt surviving meant God wanted them to do something remarkable. Whatever they thought, I wanted them to know that this small corner of Wisconsin would make a fine home.
As I did this, I thought of Ma, Aunt Cleo, the sheriff, Mr. Olmstead, and our friends and neighbors in Placid. For the most part, they’d let me back into their hearts unconditionally. I tell you, it felt good to give to others what I’d received myself.
I suppose you’re wondering, so I’ll say it: I have laid down my gun. In the end, there is nothing else for it. I speak here metaphorically because, as you know, the Springfield single-shot is in pieces. But I haven’t hunted since all this happened, and I don’t expect to hunt in the future. Truth be told, I do not find taking life—any life—palatable anymore. I’m well aware that it was life I was taking.
Nothing is a “target” anymore. Nothing is “just one bird.”
Nor is there any satisfaction to be had in one less anything—not one less father, not one less grandfather, not one less sister. Not one less cougar (though I wouldn’t mind them keeping their distance). Likewise, not one less Mr. Garrow or Bowler Hat. And not even one less fire survivor, even though they’ve taken over the parlor until all of kingdom come.
I do not even think an animal as abundant as the wild pigeon should be minus one. I say let all the earth be alive and overwhelmingly so. Let the sky be pressed to bursting with wings, beaks, pumping hearts, and driving muscles. Let it be noisy. Let it make a mess. Then let me find my allotted space. Let me feel how I bump up against every other living thing on this earth. Let me learn to spin.
One Came Home Page 17