CHAPTER 2
There really wasn’t anything formal about the Ladies Aid this time of year. Gathering at my house was an excuse to get together and visit. Though there were times when duties needed to be exercised: calling on a sick church member, gathering blankets and used clothing for the holiday bazaar, distributing fruit baskets between Thanksgiving and Christmas, that kind of thing. January was a slow season for everyone. There was little to do but while away the time and hope for an early spring.
“I don’t understand this book thing you do,” Lene said, after finishing her second sandkake. “Ollie said I should talk to you and see if I could take one of them correspondence courses. That way, I could come up with a money-makin’ scheme for the winter, too.”
“What I do is not a scheme,” I snapped. “Indexing is hard work, Lene.” I was quick to anger lately. Small things that never made me mad before, like misplacing my glasses, infuriated me. Poor Shep knew the best thing to do was ignore me. I was angry at Hank for dying, for leaving me, but the thought of such a thing was too much to consider.
Lene recoiled and twisted her lip. “I didn’t mean nothin’ bad, Marjorie. I’m only sayin’ a job like yours would give me something to do in the winter. I’ve mended quilts and linens for a month. At this rate, I’ll be twiddlin’ my thumbs by Valentine’s Day.”
I took an exasperated breath and raised the coffee mug to my lips. I looked inside the mug and caught my reflection in the black liquid mirror. I didn’t like what I saw. “I’m sorry, Lene,” I said, forgoing a drink. “I don’t seem to be myself today.”
“How could you be, Marjorie?” Darlys said, casting a side-glance to Lene that I interpreted as what were you thinking? “When was the last time you were out of the house?”
“I went out to get the paper this morning,” I said.
Darlys rolled her eyes. They were cornflower blue, like Hank’s. She was warm and summery no matter the season. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t know, maybe a week ago. I ran into the grocery store, dropped off a library book, and mailed off an index to New York. There’s no cause to go out in weather like this.”
Darlys leaned down and started to dig for something in her purse. “You need to get out more.”
“I’m sure I’ll have plenty to keep me busy, come spring.”
Darlys raised a pack of cigarettes—Winstons—into the air. “You mind?”
“Ashtray’s in the drawer next to the stove,” I said.
Darlys smiled and headed into the kitchen. The small glass dish was an advertisement trinket for the Kaander’s Tractor Supply store over in Taylor. The ashtray was another one of Hank’s things I wouldn’t dare part with, even though when he was alive I never smoked in the house. I tried to hide my smoking from him, to be honest, but there was no hiding anything from Hank Trumaine.
“I don’t understand this job you have, either,” Anna said.
“The indexing?” I said.
“Yes, that.” Anna squirmed in her seat as if she were about to take a test.
I got up and headed to the spare bedroom that was once reserved for children. I kept my desk, typewriter, and bookshelf in there now. I retrieved a book, Common Plants of the Western Plains: North Dakota, off the shelf. I’d written the index just before Hank died.
I rejoined the group and handed the book to Lene.
She looked at the cover, then turned the book over in her hands as if it were a loaf of bread, checking to see if the bottom had burned. “What’s this?”
“If you had to find something, say a weed on your land, and you wanted to know if your livestock would be poisoned, what would you do?”
“I’d burn that weed, is what I’d do. If the darn thing came back, I’d look for a picture of the stubborn thing in a book like this, or I’d call the extension agent out to see if he could tell me what I was lookin’ at,” Lene said.
Her answer wasn’t what I was hoping for, but I understood. I was still standing up. All eyes were on me. “Okay, let’s say there’s no picture, but you know the weed’s a thistle of some kind. What would you do?”
“I’d look in the back of the book and see where the word thistle was at in the book.”
“At the index?”
“Yes, Marjorie, at the index.” Lene opened the book and looked at the last few pages.
“That’s what I do. I write the index,” I said.
“Doesn’t the author do that?” she said.
“Sometimes, but a lot of publishers hire people like me to write indexes. We’re called indexers. Indexing’s a different skill than writing the book. I read each page of the book and decide what the most important concepts or words are on that page. Usually I make note of people, places, or events; things I think a reader will want to look up. Then I type each of those entries on an index card. When I’ve read the whole book, I type up all of the entries on the index cards into one document and mail the completed index off to the publisher. A few months later they send me a copy of the book.” And hopefully a check, I thought, but didn’t say.
Darlys took a long drag off her Winston and exhaled as she stared up at the ceiling. Anna seemed confused. Lene looked like she was trying to decide if indexing was something she could do.
“You have to like to read, don’t you?” Lene finally said, handing me the book.
“I don’t think you could be an indexer if you didn’t love to read.” I sat back down in my spot. “I get to read so many interesting books this way. Sometimes, I know a little about the topic or theme, and other times I don’t know anything about what I’m reading at all. I’m always amazed that I get paid to do something that I would normally do for free, like reading a book.”
“You always did read a lot, Marjorie,” Anna said. She flashed a smile. Her cheeks were fuller than I remembered. I was sure she’d put on a little weight since I’d seen her last, but she still hadn’t said a word about being pregnant. I was probably wrong. Everyone put on a little weight over the holidays, eating all sorts of sweets and foods they normally left alone. Everyone but me.
“I was going to be a teacher, you know?” I said. “I married Hank instead of finishing college. I decided that I knew more about being a farmer’s wife than teaching. That nearly broke my father’s heart, but he never held a grudge against Hank. He finally had the son he’d wanted but could never have. When Lloyd Gustaffson was our extension agent he brought me a catalog from the USDA loaded with correspondence courses. I looked through the catalog, not interested at first, until it dawned on me that there were things in there I could do, things that would replace my yearning to teach and learn. To be honest, I’d never heard of indexing before I saw the skill described in that catalog, either. I didn’t know you could make money doing something like that. The only way I knew how to make money was to plant seeds and worry. Anyway, I took the correspondence course for indexing, then sent out some letters to publishers, and to my surprise, I got an offer to do some work. I’ve been indexing steadily ever since. The money sure has helped with the bills, but more than that the job’s given me something to occupy my mind ever since . . . well, you know.”
All three women nodded in unison.
“I sure miss Lloyd,” Lene said. “Don’t get me wrong, that new extension agent, Curtis Henderson, is a fine young man, but he comes up short in a lot of ways. He probably wouldn’t know thistle from milkweed if he stepped on the darn thing.”
I agreed, but wouldn’t say so. “Lloyd’s family’s been working this land for as long as any of us can remember. His nephew, Lester, is working over at the Knudsen place with Jaeger these days. The Gustaffsons know the weeds, the birds, and the clouds better’n anybody around. Lloyd had to retire, but this Curtis Henderson fella is fresh out of college. He has some new ideas.”
“I don’t like new ideas,” Lene said.
“Lloyd’s a cousin,” Darlys interjected, as she ground out her cigarette.
“I forget that,” I said. There were
more Gustaffsons in Stark County than Smiths or Jones. I smiled, and saw that Darlys and Lloyd shared a good height and happy eyes.
Darlys shrugged, and continued. “So sad to lose your parents so tragically and so unnecessarily.”
She was talking about Erik and Lida Knudsen, Jaeger’s parents. They’d died less than a year ago—murdered in their bed. Jaeger’s brother, Peter, had joined the Air Force afterward, leaving Jaeger to run the Knudsen farm alone. That was a real dark time for us all. The reverberations of that crime still rippled through our little town of ten thousand people. Folks locked their doors these days, and they didn’t used to. Throwing the deadbolt was still an act I resented.
“Jaeger’s doing fine,” I said. “He calls every few days. We check on each other.”
“Jaeger has been through a lot,” Darlys said. She didn’t need to say anything else.
Quiet filled the room, and it wasn’t long before the women got up to leave. Darkness came on fast, and the wind screamed steadily now that the sun had gone down. Of course, the women left without the box of clothes. They were all nice enough not to mention Hank on their way out the door.
With the weather being so bad, I made Darlys promise to call me once she’d got home. Even so, I jumped when the phone rang. We were on a party line, so I didn’t answer right away. I waited until I knew the call was for me. My ring was two longs and two shorts. I answered the phone on the third ring.
“Trumaine residence,” I said into the black plastic receiver, then strained my ear to hear if anyone else was listening in. My neighbor, Burlene Standish, was notorious for eavesdropping on other peoples’ conversations, but I’d had my say with her recently, so I wasn’t too worried that she was hiding on the line. I was still suspicious of my other neighbors, though. My distrust wasn’t something I was proud of, but I couldn’t help myself.
“It’s Darlys, Marjorie.”
“Oh, you got home all right, then?”
“Yes, I got home fine, thanks.” Darlys paused. I heard her light up a cigarette. “I hope you weren’t put off by Lene today, Marjorie. We like to visit with you, and I hope you’ll join the Ladies Aid.”
“Well, we’ll see. I do keep busy.” I had started indexing a new project for my publisher, H. P. Howard and Sons, in New York. The index was for a book about birds and their migration patterns west of the Mississippi. It was good to have something that I could look out my window and see, instead of a subject like ancient Chinese war strategies that I didn’t know anything about.
“You have a big job to do, Marjorie. I’d go bonkers out there all alone, I really would,” Darlys said. “To be honest, I don’t understand what you do, either. Henrik thinks you’re a dream. He loves books, don’t you know?”
I blushed and didn’t know what to say. “He had a lot of schooling. I guess he had to read a lot.”
“I would imagine that he did.”
I was going to change the subject and ask Darlys if Anna Jacobsen was pregnant, or if my suspicion was merely my imagination at work. I wasn’t envious of Anna. I was worried about her. But Darlys exhaled a puff off her cigarette and continued talking without missing a beat. “We went by the Rinkermans’ on the way home. I stopped to say hello to Duke Parsons, the only deputy there. Duke’s sister, Theda, is in the Ladies Aid, too, so I thought I’d pay my respects. The sheriff was gone.”
“I think I knew that Theda was a member. Any word on the girl?”
“They still haven’t found her. Toren, his boys, a group from South Heart, and the Sheriff’s department are going to continue the search in the morning, weather permitting. They looked until past dark but quit when the snow kicked up. I nearly ended up in the ditch three times. Lene’s knuckles were white as a newborn lamb the whole way home. We’re not in the middle of a blizzard, but the temperature might as well be fifty below if you’re Tina Rinkerman wanderin’ around without a coat or gloves on.”
“Seriously? No coat and gloves?”
“That’s what Duke said. Doesn’t sound right to me. He said her coat and gloves were in the closet where they belonged. She up and disappeared this morning. Walked out of the house when no one was lookin’. I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen that girl make a fuss at the Rexall, throw a real temper tantrum, and stalk off from her mother. Who knows what really happened. Duke wouldn’t say anything more than that.”
“Even a girl like her knows better than to go out in this weather unprepared,” I said.
“That’s what I said to Duke,” Darlys went on, “but he shrugged and said maybe she didn’t know any better. He didn’t look none too happy to be there.”
“He needs some time to get over his sour grapes from losing the election.”
“That’s not going to happen anytime soon.”
“Well, this is awful,” I said. “That girl’s parents must be bereft. I can’t imagine such a thing. I mean, I worried about Hank out on the prairie by himself when he went off hunting, and I was right to be concerned. I don’t like the sound of this, Darlys. That poor girl. What must she have been thinking?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to put a hot dish in the oven tonight, then go over there tomorrow.”
“That’s a good idea. I have some blackberries in the freezer that I didn’t use at Christmas. I’ll put together some pies this evening and take them over, too.”
“There you go,” Darlys said, “You’ll make a fine addition to the Aid, you wait and see. I’ll meet you at the Rinkermans’ at ten, how’s that?”
I forced a smile, agreed on the time, then rang off. I glanced over at the Frigidaire and considered all of the ingredients I’d need for the pies. Instead of preparing the pies, I made my way to the window.
I peered hopefully outside.
The snow and wind had picked up like the weatherman had promised. Night had fallen a little before five o’clock. The days were so short you’d miss sight of the January sun if you blinked. The world was wrapped in a deep white blanket that wouldn’t be pulled off the ground until early May.
A security light burned over the garage door, about twenty-five yards away from the house. Hank had put the light up so he’d have something to guide him home if he had to go out into a blizzard. The light looked like a distant star, cold and untouchable.
A shriek of wind caused me to shiver. With Hank on my mind, I was forced to acknowledge how much colder the house was without him. In years past, he’d banked snow three or four feet high around the foundation to beat back the wind and provide some extra insulation. I’d failed to do that chore this winter. No wonder my toes felt like they were about to fall off.
I looked past the light, longing to see a young girl looking for her way home, looking for somewhere to find warmth and comfort. But I didn’t see anything moving, nothing alive, not even a hungry coyote lurking about. Anything that had an ounce of sense had already hunkered down to ride out the storm. I hoped Tina Rinkerman had, too.
CHAPTER 3
The next morning, the house smelled of lard, sugar, flour, and blackberries.
I had to decide whether there was a need to deliver the three pies at all. I imagined Tina Rinkerman safe and sound in her warm house, even though I had plenty of reason to doubt that the comforting image was true. My gut told me there would be no happy ending for the Rinkermans and their daughter. January weather was an unforgiving devil, unconcerned about love, pride, or disability.
My indexing project sat waiting for me at my desk, but any real work was going to have to sit a little longer. The new book I was working on, The Central Flyway: Audubon’s Journey Revisited, had a reasonable deadline, one month out. Page proofs had arrived a few days ago, and I hadn’t even started breaking down the structure of the book so I could plot out the index. Starting was the hardest part, but I couldn’t seem to find my way to my desk. I’d been sleeping a lot and staring out the window at the blank landscape that surrounded me. The work would take all month, but instead of searching for terms and concepts I’
d dressed to be outside, readying myself to deliver pies to a family in need.
There was no way to know whether the girl had made her way back to her family other than to call. I saw no need to disturb anyone. I was going to deliver the pies anyway. According to Darlys, I needed to get out more, and meeting her at the Rinkermans wasn’t something I could say no to. When Hank had gone missing, half the county showed up to search for him. The other half brought food once word got out about the tragedy that had befallen us. This was my turn to give back, no matter the state of my own grief, the severity of the weather, or the certainty of Tina Rinkerman’s fate.
I collected one of the pies and walked stiffly to the door. Layering clothes was the only way to stay warm and ward off frostbite this time of year. By virtue of putting on two pairs of long johns, two pairs of work pants, a heavy sweater, and Hank’s quilt-lined Carhartt coveralls, I’d gained back the weight I’d lost since he’d died. I was sweating bullets with all the clothes on.
A cold, hard wind slapped my face as soon as I stepped out the door, but I was ready for the assault. I had rushed out a half hour earlier to start the truck, an old Studebaker that we’d owned for longer than I cared to admit. The pickup needed time to warm up. Driving a cold vehicle could crack the engine block, and then I’d have bigger problems than I already had. I would have no transportation and little money to replace the durable truck. I needed to take care of the Studebaker so it would take care of me. That was why I, like most folks around here, had a block heater or kept a burning light bulb anchored to the engine in sub-zero temperatures. Warming up the truck and scraping the ice off the windshield used to be one of Hank’s chores, but that was no more. He’d taught me everything I needed to know to keep the Studebaker operating in the winter.
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