Widow 1881_Flats Junction Series

by Sara Dahmen

“Tell her it’s not wanted. I don’t want her eating here!” She turns on her heel and marches away. I glance at the people who have overheard. Bern looks bemused and unshakable, as if he has heard this exchange before. Does he agree with Kate? Alice studies the ground, trying not to notice the row, and the doctor is a bit awry, as if the exchange befuddles him. It certainly does me. Even though I only found out last night that Widow Hawks and Kate are mother and daughter, I would have still asked the widow to help. Her simplicity, and how kind she has been to me from the start, weighs more on me than Kate’s fickle temper. I go to Widow Hawks and move aside some of the dishes.

  “Good,” I tell her. “Thank you for bringing this over. It smells wonderful.”

  She gives a nod, and says almost sheepishly, “Well, I’ve never had the chance to do much for the celebrations. I’m happy to help.”

  There is more to this comment, I think. She is always trying to be well-liked, to be included in this town, though I feel that she does not help to break the stigma by wearing native adornments and clothing. Still, I know her cornbread to be delicious, and I thank her profusely.

  Doctor Kinney appears at my side, looking excited.

  “Your cornbread! I haven’t had it in years!” He sneaks a piece out from the wrappings before I can swat his hand away. Widow Hawks laughs with delight.

  Mitch Brinkley arrives, looking for Alice and his son, and his eyes light up at the cornbread, too. “Authentic native food? Let me try it!” He also grabs a piece.

  Before long, a line forms, and we women stand aside so the menfolk can fill their stomachs. I watch Bern go through. He has washed up a bit after the first round of games. I try to tell myself that he is a good man, and I should be lucky to be doted upon. He fills his plate high as the rest, but he deliberately skips the cornbread, just as Kate walks over, steps through the line of people, and deftly pulls the plate off the table, leaving an empty space on the boards.

  “Oh, but—!” I cannot help objecting. Alice quickly places her hand on my arm, tight and careful in warning, so I bite my tongue and stay quiet. The shame of my silence is choking, too.

  Kate carries the remainder of the cornbread into the general store. Gilroy and Horeb let her pass without a single tease, but then again, they are both elbow deep in pig grease as they eat noisily. I can only imagine that Kate will toss it to the birds. I am utterly bewildered at her actions. It seems so unlike her. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Widow Hawks hover on the edge of the celebrations. She watches her daughter with a bowed head, resigned, as if this has happened before. Is she not the strong woman I think she is?

  Chapter 11

  4 July 1881

  The games are charming. Children race in three-legged heats for the prize of a nickel, and the adults laugh over charades. Little ones dodge between legs, tripping many dancers, and babies fall asleep in the drowsy heat of the July afternoon. There is no true rest for many of the ladies, as we all hustle in the background to ensure the evening meal is laid out in plenty, though I do find time to watch some of the charades. Old Henry Brinkley, Mitch’s father, offers a lively impression of a cowboy on a bucking bronco to the delight of the group. Thunder, a grizzled enigma and the oldest cowboy at the Svendsen ranch, manages to mime carrying off a blushing bride. Bern takes his turn as well, and makes everyone laugh with his example of a child who has lost his sweet in the dirt. I think, through my chuckles, that he is not so bad if he is willing to be silly like this.

  “Drink.” I turn to see the doctor holding a glass of sugared rainwater. I detect a bit of ale on him and squint.

  “Have you been at one of the saloons, Doctor?”

  “Ah, no, but it is a celebration after all, and some of the men have brought out their homemade beers and whiskeys. I don’t mind a bit o' samplin’.”

  “Maybe you need that more than I,” I tell him seriously, jerking my head at the water.

  “Nonsense. You’ve a wee—”

  “Hush!” I snap, and he has the grace to look about with guilt. I may have to keep an eye on him. He is Irish, after all, and Irishmen love their whiskey.

  I watch him carefully during supper, and I catch his wink when he helps himself to an overlarge slice of my pie. He does not seem to be in any danger of being drunk, and I decide I may not need to worry about him after all. Bern, I notice, does not touch any liquor, which I find interesting. The rest of the Svendsen ranch hands are certainly enjoying the alcohol.

  As evening falls, Kate lights lanterns around the perimeter of the makeshift dancing space in the middle of Main Street in front of her store. I help clean the tables with the women to the sound of the musicians warming up fiddles, jaw harps, and a banjo. The chords of song snippets echo around corners of buildings. It will be fun to do some dances. I think back to when the doctor spun me around the kitchen, and I cannot decide if I look forward to a dance with him, or Bern, or either of them at all. One is brotherly, the other eager for my attention, but I shouldn’t be overtly partial to either in the case of romance. I think I’ve had my fill of such notions, as the child in my belly can attest.

  I take off my apron and fold it onto the stairs leading up to the general.

  “It went well, Jane. Thank you again,” Kate says, as she passes me to take the last of her crockery up onto a table on the store’s porch. Because I have angered her, I am not sure she will welcome my assistance next year, though I would so like to continue to be included in her plans. Once she had disposed of the cornbread, it seems Kate went back to being amiable for the rest of the afternoon. Widow Hawks has kept to the very peripheral of the festivities. My heart still aches: I did not know there is bad blood between Kate and her mother.

  “My pleasure. I hope to help again,” I say, trying to keep any plead from my voice.

  “Oh, most definitely I’ll use your help,” Kate agrees, as she comes back down the stairs. “I'll be glad for all the help I can get.”

  “Sure she will. So long as she don’t have to talk much to the womenfolk, what with you doin’ that for her,” Horeb ribs, leaning comfortably in his chair, hands folded over his skinny belly. Where did he pack away that heaping mound of food?

  “Sure,” Gilroy agrees.

  “Kitty.”

  I swing around, surprised at the nickname, but not surprised to see the doctor standing next to me, staring up at her.

  “What?”

  “Will you dance with me?” He holds out his hand, and I look at his open face, the lines nearly gone in his anxiety, and then at her, where she stands above us at the top of the steps. As I really look at her, I realize Kate does not look much like her mother. She looks down at him, and I think she seems much pleased with his request.

  “Why, Pat,” she says, almost coy as she takes his hand. “I thought you’d never ask me.”

  They walk, hand in hand, to join the other couples nearby, who are forming circles. I smile as I watch them. Even if I’m not an extremely talented housekeeper, I might be decent at matchmaking. I hope it makes him happy.

  Toot Warren materializes out of the gathering dusk, and peers up at the gloom of the porch. “Gilroy Greenman, you may as well get your body down here to dance with me. I’m old as you, and we both of us might be dead this time next year. No use in waiting.”

  Horeb snorts, but there’s a creak of a chair leg as Gilroy obediently follows Toot into the group of dancers. They bump into Trusty Willy and Elaine, where they tower over the majority of the people. Alan Lampton is cleaning off his pig spit, but his eyes are glued to Harriet Lindsey, who tries very hard to ignore him and maintain her patina of stiff schoolteacher properness. But her high color betrays her, and I’m not surprised when Alan asks her to dance the next song. She agrees, and as they waltz past, Alan’s voice drifts up: “. . . my favorite pig, Mrs. Purty. The blasted Chinese . . .”

  “You know, Toot’s a good woman,” Horeb confides to me, as we watch the couples come together. “Kept the Crow out of the liquor back in the ’74 raid by pu
tting all her cayenne pepper in it. Worked a charm.”

  I cannot help but giggle, forgetting myself, and Horeb looks pleased with my reaction to his gossip.

  “Ah, and have you seen old Shen ride his pig around town yet?”

  I shake my head. “I haven’t. Yet.”

  Bern detaches from the other cowboys and waves, making a beeline toward us. When he reaches the general, he swings me around to the dancing with abandon. He is bursting with joy. Cowboys do not often get a day off like this. We mesh between the townsfolk and the handful of Army men in from Fort Randall. When the band plays the slower tunes, Bern holds me loosely and easily.

  “I saw you at charades,” I tell him.

  He laughs a little. “I hope you don’t think I’m too much of an idiot.”

  “On the contrary. It was quite endearing,” I say truthfully. He gives me a happy grin and holds me a bit tighter.

  “Your hands are fine? I didn’t have a chance to ask you, but Anette and Sadie both said you’d burned yourself with lye water.”

  “An accident,” I agree.

  Looking away from Bern, I see Widow Hawks watching the dance, her dark eyes catching the lamplight and her deep skin glowing. I hesitate, then finally decide I must speak to Bern about her, and my misstep earlier in the evening, if I am to consider any kind of future with him.

  “I have embarrassed myself,” I admit, and he looks down at me inquiringly. “I thought it was appropriate to have Widow Hawks make baked goods too, like all the other women. I didn’t know she and Kate didn’t get on.”

  I look up and see a slight frown on his face. He doesn’t answer right away. At first, I think he will be the type who clams up, instead of discussing a displeasing subject.

  Finally, he speaks. “I know you must stay with her, for proper’s sake, but most of us don’t like that she stays, now that old Davies is gone. She belongs with her people and she’d do right to leave her daughter alone, to give Kate the chance to make a life of her own without fuss.”

  “But she is Kate’s own mother.”

  Bern sighs. “Let’s not harp on this subject on such a fine night, Jane.”

  We finish out the song without more discussion, and I am not sure why I am disappointed.

  The musicians take a break, so everyone finds a drink or refreshes their stomachs with the food still sitting out. I see Kate and the doctor talking animatedly, as if they are reconnecting for the first time, and I smile a bit to myself. Bern leaves to get us cold drinks. I’m so tired, but the night is still young.

  “Jane. Don’t weary yourself.” Widow Hawks is at my elbow, gently steering me to a seat.

  “I am so sorry about the cornbread,” I half-whisper. “I didn’t know!”

  “It is all fine. It is not surprising to me. I did it for you. And to see if anything has changed. It has not. And that is what it is,” she states pragmatically.

  As we speak, I notice Bern standing across the dance floor, holding two cups. He watches us, and hesitates for the longest time, before turning away to talk to someone behind him. I frown, but before I can say anything, Doctor Kinney presents himself.

  “Time for our dance, Mrs. Weber!” he exclaims, and takes my hand. The music players are back in place, grabbing up their instruments with gusto.

  I look up at Widow Hawks, but she just smiles and murmurs in her native language, then English. “Wačhíye! You dance, Jane.”

  The doctor and I join the other couples swaying to the tune. He whirls me into his arms, holding me easily, as he did in the kitchen. I enjoy his embrace a bit more than Bern’s, but I think it is only because I know the doctor better.

  “Are you havin’ a good time?” he asks me, his eyes twinkling with fun and, I suspect by the smell, a bit more whiskey.

  “Well, I am, I suppose. And you are, too, I hope?”

  He glances over my head, where I am sure Kate is waiting. “Aye. It has been good to talk freely with Kate today. We don’t often have the time.”

  “You have a long history with her,” I prompt, and he gives me a surprised look, but the drink seems to have loosened his tongue.

  “I have known her a long time, Mrs. Weber. She was a beautiful girl when I first came here, and she has grown into a fascinatin’ woman.”

  I nod silently to this and change the subject to discuss the day’s activities. We enjoy our chat so much that we take the next dance, too. Bern eventually cuts in, and the doctor graciously relinquishes me halfway through our conversation. He does not look at Bern when he does so, but he gives me a small wink without a glimmer of a smile.

  “The doc’s dancing a lot with Kate,” Bern mentions, nodding his head to them as they join the group again. “That’s something to see.”

  “It is?”

  “Most men don’t dance with Kate, much. She doesn’t encourage it, and besides, she’s . . .” He stops, and then gives me a little grin as the music picks up. “And here we be again!” We are swept away with the dancers.

  But his words have me utterly confused. What is it about Kate that everyone seems to know, but no one wants to say?

  Another break in the music finds me seated next to Alice, who looks wearier than I feel. I suppose she is tired from a long day in the heat, cooking, and minding little Pete. He is tucked into a basket nearby, as are several other infants, sleeping soundly regardless of the revelry around them. She tucks a corner of his blanket absently, and gives me a smile.

  “You’re having fun?” she asks.

  “I am. It is good to be without the daily chores. Gives one time for socializing,” I say.

  “And Kate is too, for once.” Alice nods across the night, where Kate still talks with the doctor. She is aglow with conversation, waving her hands animatedly. Was their friendship so diminished until tonight?

  My own fatigue makes me less careful about my questions, and I fall into the habit of others in Flats Junction by asking almost tactlessly, “What is it about Kate that makes her so difficult?”

  Alice gives a sideways glance. “You’re her close confidant, aren’t you?”

  I shrug. “In a way. But I feel I do not know her at all. I hear of her history from others, really.”

  “I shouldn’t. It’s gossip.”

  “Of course. I don’t mean for you to speak poorly of her. I only wondered. I like to find answers to questions. A bad habit,” I admit.

  I feel Alice give in before I hear her sigh. Relief breaks through the tension in my chest.

  Finally, will another little town riddle be solved?

  “With Kate being an . . . well, she is illegitimate, and a half-breed to go with it. It is not a good combination even out here, even before the war,” Alice says, laying bare the deep double stigma against Kate. She alludes to the heavy skirmishes between the Sioux and the white settlers, fought not even fifteen years ago, and the reference chaffs me. I desperately wish there was a way to learn more of the actual story of the Territories, beyond the snippets I recall from partial stories in the newspapers back East. I’d love to hear from men who fought, and women who lived through the fear.

  Alice continues with Kate’s story instead, lulling me into a smaller version of history.

  “So, she was ignored at the best of times. Ostracized, taunted, and teased. When her brother died so young, she was left utterly alone.”

  “And her parents did nothing?”

  “They . . . had eyes for one another to be sure. And old Davies did what he could to curb what he heard. Nothing was ever really done to her outright, of course, out of respect for him and his station in town. He had a way of . . . bending people to his will. Especially if they owed the bank money. Or if Mr. Davies made a deal with them. You understand? But what Kate endured must have been more than enough. From childhood on, I think she always felt she had to prove her worth, her legitimacy, her intelligence.”

  “So, she bought the general? To force everyone to work with her and respect her?”

  Alice nods and shrugs
at the same time, and looks down at her lap, fiddling with her skirt folds. “My belief is that she was able to overcome her pride and . . . maybe her . . . strong dislike of her father to allow him to help her buy the general. Maybe she felt it was the least he could do. I don’t believe she’d ever really forgiven him.”

  “I still don’t see why she couldn’t forgive her own mother.” As I say the words, I am struck by my own relationships. I get along well enough with my mother, and should she ask for anything I would do my best to oblige. Perhaps my sense of duty toward her is because we now live a country apart. Mayhap I lived down the street from my parents, as Kate does, and there was past anger between us, I might not think so kind-heartedly if they meddled in my life.

  The look Alice gives me is one of incredulousness, as if I am too dense and naive to understand. And she is right. I grew up with restricted lessons, a lack of daily newspapers until I was much older, and nothing in my own experiences compare to the way of life out here. I have had no preconceived notions, by fortune or providence. To have severe prejudice against the natives is not an immediate, nor truthful response. I understand, of course, some in Flats Junction judge Widow Hawks, but she is nearly English in habit, regardless of her past misdeeds with Percival Davies. What is the harm of her? Unless . . . Kate prohibits it, intent on some sort of backlash against her mother? Forcing her mother to . . . what had she said once? That if Widow Hawks lived the rest of her life in vindication, it would not be enough. I see now her point, even if I do not agree with it completely.

  Any further gossiping is cut short. Mitch and Bern present themselves as the music picks up again. Regardless of our tiredness, Alice and I smile at one another, sharing the warmth of womanly understanding, and stand to take the hands of our menfolk.

  Doctor Kinney cuts back into my twirling after the fireworks. This time, he is obviously drunk, and I do not understand where he finds the liquor. I know he does not keep any in the house, so I can only suspect that more alcohol is served elsewhere, though very few other gentlemen are stumbling. I can only see three or four of the cowboys still dancing who are suspect. As I sway with the doctor, I look around, noticing several of the young lads languishing along the edge of the lantern light, hiccupping and red-faced.