Widow 1881_Flats Junction Series

by Sara Dahmen

  A smile flits its way across the craggy features. “Delicious, Mrs. Weber.”

  “Thank heaven,” I cannot help but murmur. “Then you won’t fire me right off?”

  He sets the mug down hard on the table; it had been halfway to his mouth again. “Why ever would you think that?”

  “You were so displeased with me, I thought, when you first came in?” My voice is quiet and low, but he hears me and gives his unruly head a small shake.

  “Don’t take it so personal, Mrs. Weber, I beg you. I was starvin’ hungry from the late-night birth, and annoyed with Hank, who has no business bein’ a cowboy. He keeps draggin’ me out to handle his horse . . . which has nothin’ wrong with it.”

  “Oh.”

  There is another pause. He sips his coffee again, then mentions off-handed, “But if you wanted the full of it, I was a wee bit amazed you had the food all ready. Did me a bit of a shock.”

  “Ah. I was wondering!” I cannot help but lean toward him, earnest to placate.

  He makes a dismissive noise.

  “The flapjacks I’ll take over what my old auntie would have done: had a cold sandwich on the sideboard for me to pick at whenever I showed back up. I couldn’t complain on her, though. I don’t have the leisure or time to manage the house or yard or make food for myself. But your hot food beats cold any day.”

  I press my lips together, then offer tentatively, “Is there a way, perhaps, to guess at when you might be home so I can manage hot food more often than cold? I can see . . . I mean, if your schedule is never ending, then it could be difficult sometimes, but perhaps you could always send word along? The town doesn’t seem so large that it’d be difficult.”

  He gives me a shrewd look, and I wonder if this conversation had not already happened between him and his aunt. Am I only showing how completely naïve I am about the West?

  “That is not a bad idea, Mrs. Weber.” His voice is thoughtful instead of mocking, so if he has had this notion already, he hides it well. “We can try it out and see how it goes?” He does not condescend to me, so I take a bit of heart. Maybe I will be able to appease him or find a rhythm to his daily work after all.

  He leaves me then, and I hear him rustling in the surgery before he sticks his head around the door, giving me a bit of a lopsided grin.

  “I need to do my rounds, but before I do so, shall I walk you over to Widow Hawks?”

  I glance around the kitchen. Now there are the dirty dishes from lunch as well as the earlier mess. I give him a small smile.

  “Perhaps I had better stay here. Clean up a bit. And if you’d be so kind to let Widow Hawks know to expect me after dinner? Will you be back then?”

  He gives a shrug as he tugs a medical bag from the room. “If I’m not, I’ll try to send word.”

  The door slams, followed by the softer echo of the screen. I gaze around the kitchen, and then do not pause to think further and concentrate entirely on my chores. If I stop, I’ll want to fall asleep. If I look around, I’ll cry at all the work. There are no gaslights, no electricity, and no running water. I’d thought of this when I looked to go West, but I didn’t realize how horrifically primitive it would be, even in a doctor’s house. Part of me is aghast that there has been no time for me to settle in, to even wash my face. How mussed do I look? How disheveled? My dress is dark, but I can smell the old sweat and smoke residue in the creases of my bodice. If I felt more familiar with my employer, I might try to find a washroom and tidy up, but then again, why bother? I will only get dirty again as I clean up his kitchen.

  And thank heaven for the mind-numbing work!

  The kitchen takes up the remainder of my day. Usually I’d be ravenous in the morning, but I’ve gone all day with barely a bite and have hardly noticed. Everything is nearly too much. Besides, should I make myself a meal whenever I am hungry? There must be rules, but I don’t know them yet.

  I find the well in the backyard and am thankful it is not completely frozen over. After hauling water in, I try to clean the floor twice and the benches and tables thrice to remove the grime that has built up all winter. The water and dust make the edges of my nails grey and leave huge wet spots against my skirt.

  Tomorrow I will black the stove and hang up the pots and pans in an order to my liking. The shelves must be restocked with the cutlery, but I want to try to reorganize the pantry. I find I like having a home to tend to again. I muse that by tending to the doctor, I will be helping those who are sick as well, just as I had tended to Henry amid all the conflicting advice from the doctors back East. Maybe I won’t have to do much in terms of real nursing.

  When I clear the bottom of the pantry and shift the bag of flour, a grey shadow sprints out, and the dash and squeak of a mouse shoots by my foot. I scream shortly before slamming a hand over my mouth. What will the neighbors think?

  The mouse has gone toward the stove, but finding it hot, scampers hesitantly toward the table. My fingers are trembling as I reach for the roughly hewn broom. How can the doctor have a mouse in his house? Shouldn’t he be fastidious and careful about such things?

  I inch toward the animal, and the tiny black eyes glare balefully up at me, challenging my speed and my effectiveness. Lunging at once, I miss, and it takes off toward the hallway. No! I can’t let it leave the kitchen. I dash, and the swish of my skirts deters it at the last minute, where it scurries back toward the flour. Launching the broom and missing again, I grab a tin mug and toss it desperately and foolishly. It misses and hits the stove. A short, ridiculously pitiful ping rings through the room and the mug falls to the floor, freezing the mouse and exposing a deep dent in the base of the cup.

  Grabbing the broom tighter, I move toward the animal again, but it jumps behind the flour sacks once more. My breath is fast, and I feel hot and sweaty and frustrated, and more than a little shaky. I’ve never had to chase a mouse before and they’re far faster than I would have bargained.

  But now I’m angry and feeling more like a failure. If I can’t protect the food in the larder from even a mouse, what kind of housekeeper will I be? I take down the heaviest skillet I can see and raise it high before ripping back the flour sack with a fast kick of my foot.

  “Aha!” I yell at the same time I bring the pan down, my hair escaping out of my knot and my knee hitting the edge of the stove as I bend swiftly and crush the mouse with a horrible, meaty crunch. At once, I feel my mouth fill with spit as I realize I now need to clean up the skillet as well as the splatter of the mouse. More wiggling catches my eye and I shift and raise the skillet once more.

  But it’s not another mouse. It’s a nest of baby mice! I close my eyes and inhale, willing my stomach to settle, and a knock pounds on the back door.

  Who—? I push back my hair and try to twist it up with a pin using my free hand as I move to open the door.

  It’s an older woman with a heavy shawl: tall and spindle-framed and sour.

  “Heard a scream. Didn’t know why the doc might have someone screaming over here,” she sniffs, peering into the kitchen suspiciously. “And didn’t know he had a woman here.” She looks me up and down with obvious skepticism.

  “I’m Mrs. Weber, the new housekeeper.”

  “Are you, now?” She eyes my skillet. Too late, I realize I’m still holding it sideways, and the crushed, pulpy remains of the mouse are muddled and oozing on it. “I see you’ve been busy.”

  “Will you come in?” I’m not sure I should be entertaining anyone, especially someone I don’t know. But she says she heard my scream. Likely she is a neighbor, then.

  She hesitates, looking a little nervous, then steps in out of the cold while leaving on her shawl and cocks her head at my cookware.

  “You might want to clean that off.”

  I glance at it and shudder. “I . . . how?”

  “Good heavens.” She impatiently grabs it in her narrow, tough hands and turns to the door. She leans into the snowbank nearby and hits the iron against the ice. Bright red rivers of mouse bl
ood match the bits of fur and are left in the circular imprint against the white. Turning back to me, she hands me the skillet. “You wash it off with lye and water, same as everything else.”

  “Thank you,” I say, trying to muster any dignity I can, but I cannot help but glance at the flour corner.

  She follows my gaze. “More mice?”

  “There’s a nest of little ones,” I admit, thinking of the mouse’s remains and gagging. “What do I do with that?”

  The woman’s neck pulses forward like a chicken’s and she gapes at me. “You’re to be the housekeeper for the doc, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  She sniffs, stalks over to the corner and picks up the pile of baby mice, nest and all, goes to the door, and flings the whole handful out into the cold. Wiping her fingers on her apron, she bobs her head again in that strange forward-backward rock.

  “I’m the neighbor to your north. Emma Molhurst.”

  “It’s . . . nice to meet you. I look forward to getting to know you as the weather warms,” I offer, and she gives an exaggerated sigh.

  “Sure, sure. You’ve got enough money for a ticket back East, have you though?”

  I gape slightly and then nod without speaking.

  She jerks her head to the side. “That’s good then.”

  Without another word, she yanks open the door and disappears into the afternoon. The sun is already setting. I find myself standing at the stove, placidly swirling a thin soup. There were navy beans in the larder, some cured ham, and a few old beets. I am glad there are spices enough to make the soup edible. It is just spring and the snow is still heavy, so there is not much in the garden for eating. I’ll have to find seeds from Kate to plant. Can the doctor afford them?

  Just as I wonder if he will send word that he is to be late, I hear him springing back into the house. He is loud and clattery, even for a man, and I wonder that his patients are not immediately overwhelmed with the racket he makes coming into a place.

  “Smells good, Mrs. Weber!” He strides into the room. I glance up at him, glad he is joining me for another meal. I have so many questions, though I am not sure he will have the interest or the time to answer them.

  “Set yourself down. I have tea ready.”

  He nods absently as he leaves again, and I hear the water splash. Cleanliness does indeed seem to be important to him. Once he is back in the kitchen, I hand him a mug of tea. He sips while staring out the window, where shadows grow long.

  “I sent word to Widow Hawks. She’ll expect us at dusk,” he says without looking at me.

  “I thank you for your thoughtfulness. It sounds like it was a busy day. Would you care to tell me over supper?” I turn to the table to ladle the soup. He catches me mid-movement and swiftly takes the hot ironware out of my hands and deftly places it on the table. I am unsure about his helpfulness. Is this his nature, or is he simply being kind this first day? Henry never helped in the home.

  “You wouldn’t know anyone I speak of,” he says, sitting down on the bench as I bring over the spoons. He is not looking at me now, but his eyes are traveling over the surfaces and along the walls where the newly washed dishes are standing up straight and proud. He glances at me as I sit across from him and ladle out the soup. “Besides, I don’t want to bore you.”

  I smile at him tentatively. “I should learn, somehow, to know my neighbors and the town.”

  His face breaks into the same lined smile, and he gestures for me to fill my plate. I sit across from him and we share the salt before he dives into the day’s rounds.

  “First, of course, there was the check on the Brinkley newborn and Alice. It’s her first, so I knew she’d be nervous to start, and her husband, Mitch, is worse. Her milk hasn’t quite come in yet, so I had her set to suckle the boy they call Pete. The longer he goes, the quicker her milk.”

  I set my spoon down to listen closely to this. It is new for me to hear these earthy matters. I will be a mother soon, and these stories have a bittersweetness I yearn to hear. The doctor continues, stabbing at his stew with vigor.

  “Mitch is set to stay with her though it’s spring plantin’. Most of the family’ll be too busy to care for her much.”

  This need for help is something I understand, and I am quick to jump in. “I could make overlarge portions these days and take the leftovers to them.”

  This makes him look up at me squarely. “They won’t take to charity. None do here, really.”

  “Who does?” I counter rhetorically. “They’d be doing us a favor, taking off leftovers that would soon go to spoil with only two to eat them.”

  He laughs heartily at this reasoning, leaning back from the table. I am pleased with his laughter. It is free and large and fits his size, and it fills the space briefly.

  “Very good, Mrs. Weber. Very good.”

  His hands are immediately busy again with the stew as he outlines his other calls: a crone with arthritis, a few broken bones on the cowboys, a case of infected saddle sores, and one sickly, early spring foal in a rancher’s stables.

  We finish the stew over the story of the foal. I think I should have made a dessert, but there was not much time, and I hadn’t thought so far ahead. He settles this worry for me by standing and looking outside.

  “We’d best get over to Widow Hawks’ soon enough.”

  I stand, too, and stack the cutlery, chiding as I move. “I’ll not go until the dishes are done. You’ve gone too long without a clean place, and I can’t finish my first day with a dirty kitchen.”

  After lighting the lantern on the table, I move quickly to the washbin to wash up the bowls and forks. The sun must set soon, and I do not know if nights are safe outside.

  There is movement next to me; the doctor has taken a rag and is drying dishes as I finish them. This makes me pause. Surely the ease with which he deftly dries and replaces on the shelves comes with practice. Did he help his old aunt with home chores? I find myself voicing this wonderment without thinking, and he nods.

  “Yes. When I’m at home, I like to be involved with the upkeep. It’s a nice change from the daily work.”

  “May I ask . . . were you close with your aunt?”

  He shrugs, but I find myself doubting his lack of feeling. “She was family. Who doesn’t care for their family?”

  “You must miss her.”

  The doctor is quiet. He places another dish on top of the first, carefully and with additional precision, the tin clinking.

  “She was all I had left.”

  I think perhaps I should say he has time to marry and have a family of his own, but these words choke me. I should not be so quick to prescribe marriage as an answer. I thought it was, and I was proven wrong.

  “I am so sorry, Doctor. Truly, I am. I did not know her, but she must have been someone incredibly hardy to handle the work here.”

  He looks down at me. The Irish eyes are not twinkling now, but I sense he is glad to discuss this quietly, even though I am a stranger.

  “She was. Thank you.”

  We stand there for another moment looking at each other, until our hands reclaim the washing, and I finally reach the last pot. The copper gleams in the lantern light, though I see a crack along the cramp seam of the bottom. Will it be my task to have it repaired? I suppose so—just as it was in Boston. As he puts away the last bit of cutlery, the doctor pauses and inspects the mug I’ve dented already, but he says nothing and simply puts it in its place. Relief fills me. I don’t know if I could handle another reprimand today.

  Dusk settles. We put on coats to leave for Widow Hawks’ home just as a horse skitters out of the gloaming from the main street, stopping in front of the doctor’s home. The rider doesn’t even bother to dismount.

  “Doc Kinney! Tate’s leg is swellin’ up something fierce, just like you said it might . . .!”

  He doesn’t finish before the doctor is swinging out of the house and heading for the hitching post out front where his horse waits, patient and calm, munchin
g on its dinner.

  “Infection. Got to watch for gangrene. I must go, Mrs. Weber. Head straight over to Widow Hawks: down Main, across the rail tracks, last house on your left. Be back tomorrow. Seven sharp.”

  I have no wish to walk alone any more than I have to, so I head out immediately with my satchel and trunk. The night sky is navy ink, but there are no stars. A tremor ripples through me as I step into the cold. Tugging the handle of my luggage with a sore arm, I greet the dark with deep trepidation.

  Thankfully, the main street is peppered with homes. A large building, it’s sign swinging with the words The Powdered Rose, blazes with lanterns, rising against the darkness in the south. The general store and a few other buildings—the post office, the Main Inn, and a small hobby farm—huddle against the cold, but still have tin and copper lanterns lit in windows and inside animal shacks. The spaces between the wooden structures are black holes in the night. I pass a huge saloon called The Golden Nail, and the music, laughter, and shouts filtering through the cracks in the planks are rowdy enough that I catch the song.

  He’s a snorter and a snoozer,

  He’s the great trunk line abuser.

  He’s the man who puts the sleeper on the rail.

  I’m the double-jawed hyena from the East!

  I’m the blazing bloody blizzard of the States!

  I’m the celebrated slugger; I’m the Beast!

  I can snatch a man bald-headed while he waits!

  Why isn’t everyone home? It’s so very, very cold! I shudder and drag the trunk past a few more haggard shacks and a couple larger homes, and then the smell of the tannery hits my nose, and I want to lose my supper. My arm is numb with the weight of the trunk, and the back of my shin must be bruised twenty times over as the edge bangs against me. I’ve dragged it clear across town. What did the doctor think, leaving me to fend completely for myself? Perhaps my hope for civility here is nothing but an illusion.

  The main street is long and wide, but the presence of buildings disappears abruptly as the road becomes a track. The chunky, leftover snowdrifts between houses give away to smooth, wind-scoured prairie. It seems few people have a desire to be near the tannery. Where am I supposed to go? The night is darker on the edge of Flats Junction, and the wind snakes across the brittle land. Dark shapes seem to quiver along the far end of my vision, and I start to lose my breath as a freezing panic sets in again. Is it buffalo? Wolves? Oh, dear God!