Widow 1881_Flats Junction Series

by Sara Dahmen

  And why should that matter? He has cared for Kate for many years. If she is what he wants, he ought to have her. And now, at least, I think I might understand why Widow Hawks and Percy Davies did not intervene on Kate’s behalf in youth. They needed her to grow strong and defiant, half-breed that she is, so she might survive and even thrive.

  Her head comes up at my notion on marriage for Kate, and she gives a rueful smile. I am reminded at how much of a mix she is, both Indian and white, and how beautifully she transitioned between the two worlds for the love of her man. I am still amazed at her strength to do so.

  “You must see that my daughter’s bitterness runs deep. She has no interest in affection, especially for her own family. Do you think that is a good match for the doctor, knowing his character?”

  I look down at the water, pale and tinted a soft pink with my blood. No, Kate might not be a good match for Doctor Kinney. I would be saddened to see him tie to her. Still, it is not my choice, nor my place to give voice to my hesitations. And anything I say would be tainted with my own self-serving emotion.

  I sense Widow Hawks watching me. She is, her eyes dark and opaque in the lamplight. Her hand comes to take mine.

  “You’d suit him, Jane. More so than my daughter, who does not cherish history, and is filled with intolerance of her own race. If you’d let yourself, you might find you could love him.”

  “Me? I’m a soiled woman.” I dismiss this at once, though the idea lodges in my mind as something I wouldn’t mind at all. “And I’m nothing but a housekeeper.”

  “Soiled? How? Do you call me soiled?”

  My head jerks up. “What? No!”

  “But how are we so different? I was not married in the white man’s way when I bore Percy’s children.”

  “But . . . you loved one another. You were wedded to him in your people’s way.”

  She shrugs. “And yet. Do you see the doctor shunning me for this? Do either of us judge you? For being a person, a woman with a desire to feel something? You were unmarried when you found this man—this Theodore—and he was unattached as well. How is this wrong? If you were a Sioux woman, you would not be dismissed.”

  “The doctor is not Sioux.”

  “But he is fair-minded. And he is a good match.”

  It must be the unbalance of the miscarriage making me so emotional, for her words fill my eyes with tears, though I do not know why. Is it because she is so kind, or because she speaks a truth long subdued within me? Or is it because I nearly died, and now, newly awakened, I see my world differently? Am I more apt to take a chance, even though I know it is foolish to allow myself to be myself? I do not know what it is, only that she has landed on something that makes me weep.

  “Oh, Jane.” Her arms caress my shoulders, and I abandon myself to softly crying, as if I were a child and she truly my mother.

  There is a step behind the curtain, and my head comes up with hers.

  “Everythin’ alright?” There is genuine worry in the doctor’s voice. I wonder how much sound carries below, where he works in his laboratory. Has he heard us?

  “Yes, Patrick,” Widow Hawks answers for me. My own voice is still too soaked with tears.

  “Good.” I can tell he is still uncertain, and he does not leave immediately. “Do you need more water? How is the bleedin’?”

  “It’s nearly stopped.” She peers into the water and makes a judgment. “I would say she could go home with me tomorrow.”

  “I—” He pauses. I can imagine him, standing in the greasy glow of light next to the wash bowl. His mind might be churning, his eyes on the floor, his long lips trembling a little as he decides what to say. There is a part of me, newly unbridled, wishing to see him, touch his mouth, tell him that he is fine to speak out to me. I will not mind whatever he says. I think of him tracing my legs and my thigh, of his fingers on my face, and I feel a surge of inexplicable emotion, full and tight. I am overpowered with these feelings, and it does not help when my head continues to pound every moment.

  Perhaps it is all just my rebuilding health, and nothing more.

  “I’d like you to stay on here another few days,” he finally admits, and I know he is talking to Widow Hawks. “It’s best if I can keep an eye on things.”

  He is kind to worry, but his generosity is unnecessary. He can certainly stop into Widow Hawks’ home any time he wishes to check on me. I do not like to be an imposition. For all our candid discussions, I’m uncomfortable and exposed in his presence. He knows me, all of the pieces of my being, and he still looks at me over the dinner table with a clear, frank gaze. It is unnerving, yet it offers such a yawning freedom I don’t know what to do with it.

  It occurs to me that he might like a busy house, with things happening and voices chattering, even if it’s just us womenfolk. He might have liked to have had a child tripping about the floors, regardless of whose it was, or why it was there.

  I find my voice. “Tomorrow is the burial. We can go to Widow Hawks’ house afterwards. I don’t like to outwear my welcome.”

  He does not rejoin this. Instead, he leaves, and I turn to Widow Hawks, who is looking at me with a sad sort of smile. We finish the bath, and later, for the first time in days, I fall into an easy sleep.

  Chapter 22

  13 August 1881

  Kate doesn’t speak about my miscarriage, but she knows. Everybody does. It’s uncanny. Now, I am not only the object of speculation as a greenhorn and a pregnant widow, but I’m a widow who has lost the one piece remaining of a dead husband. I’m not sure what is worse: having undeserved pity because of a lie, or knowing how the truth would brand me.

  It doesn’t matter whether others in Flats Junction might have loose morals. Everyone knows what men visit which girls at Fortuna’s Powdered Rose, and everyone knows Alan Lampton and Miss Lindsey the schoolteacher are sleeping under the same roof, unmarried. And people don’t speak of the fact that for all Fortuna and Dell smack and yell at each other for having similar business names, they’re obviously enamored with one another. They were spotted kissing behind the train depot a few weeks ago, and it’s speculated that neither of them were even liquored up at the time.

  But it’s not my way. I’m supposed to be the proper widow, the doctor’s upstanding housekeeper. I wish for this to continue. If not for me, for him. I don’t want his delicate, still-fragile reputation with half the people in Flats Junction to disintegrate because of me.

  My heart aches when many townsfolk show up at the burial. Anette left her children with her mother, and she stands near me with her solid and amiable Jacob. Sadie and Tom Fawcett are next in line. I am surprised to see the smith, too. Marie is impossible to miss with her wild black hair and singed dress.

  Why are so many here? It is not as though it is uncommon to lose a babe. Is it because I am a widow woman, too? Or do these people actually care for me, for my empty heart and empty arms? The enormity of that notion is more overwhelming than the loss of my child, who is still a phantom in my mind.

  After the words of Father Jonathon, everyone files back quickly to their chores. Life here does not lend itself to leisure, and the light doesn’t keep. As Doctor Kinney ushers Widow Hawks out, I pause at the grave, wondering what kind of identity I should create for myself now. I was a widow and an expectant mother. Now I am only a widow.

  “Jane.”

  I turn and meet Marie’s frank gaze. She is the last person I expect to seek me out, and she glances down at the soft-churned dirt before meeting my eyes again.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” Her voice is heavy. “I have lost two in such a way. If you . . . I know you are alone here. I have been alone before, and if you need to come for a cup of tea, I can make some. To talk. Womanly things.”

  Her offer is awkward, but deeply meant, and I give a whisper of a smile.

  “I’d like that very much.”

  It is one more friendship I want to grow, and one more that I’m glad I am staying for, and I smile a bit wider as I
nod.

  She nods back, twisting scarred hands into her skirts, and moves away down the back of the cemetery’s hill where her husband waits. I watch him link his fingers with hers as they pray at what looks to be a family plot, with over a half-dozen small copper markers staking the ground. I feel as though I am intruding on a private moment of their own mourning now, and turn to leave, where Kate is waiting for me as well.

  Chapter 23

  25 September 1881

  Over thick coffee while a soft September Sunday creeps along, Kate tells me there were whispers of the earliest sort in the weeks following my miscarriage, wondering if perhaps my child was the doctor’s. It started in the Golden Nail when the cowboys, already disinclined toward the doctor for his affinity to the natives, and wary of me because I stay with Widow Hawks, thought such speculation valid.

  The notion, the gossip, the possibility . . . it makes me shiver.

  Thankfully, the doctor’s reputation is just upright enough that the idea didn’t take full hold on the town’s imagination. I have both Kate and the Warren women at the Nail to thank for quenching those rumors from the first, else my time in Flats Junction might have come to an immediate, scandalous halt. It helped that Anette and Sadie alike refused to believe it, and they would also retort against the rumors hotly and loudly.

  Kate tells it so that it sounds as if she was at the center of refuting the tales, that she’s responsible for allowing me to stay without ruin. To lose the friends and life I have built here would have been more crushing than the miscarriage, and I feel indebted to all the women beyond measuring. Kate, as well as the others.

  “So, you don’t mind that you nearly died in childbed, then?” she asks after our coffee, as I buy a bit of precious brown sugar to go on squash. I am getting in the harvest slowly but surely, and while I still tire easily, Doctor Kinney will let me do most of the house chores again without fuss. Soon perhaps he will let me go back to hauling water, as I did before he knew of my condition.

  I shake my head. “I don’t. There is nothing I could do about it anyway. You know that.”

  Kate raises her eyes to the ceiling. “I’m glad I haven’t had to worry about it.”

  “You might, someday,” I tell her.

  “The men here don’t want to marry a half-breed,” she says lightly, but there is weight to her words, and it draws me up. Therein lies the crux of her issue with anyone: herself, her mother, Doctor Kinney, the townsfolk. She must be so aware of her status as a part-Indian that she cannot see past her own skin. I am silent while I reflect on this. These types of revelations are swift and sudden now, as if nearly dying has let me see people clearer.

  I find myself pushing the issue, just to hear her speak on it.

  “I don’t think Doctor Kinney cares much about your heritage. He might embrace it.”

  “Just what I need!” She gives a hard laugh, then stops, giving me a strange look. “Well, what if he does start to court me earnestly? He has not shown much interest.”

  I shrug, but I also wonder if I might repay her kindness about stopping those rumors. She is quiet as she wraps up my packages, perhaps thinking of my notion. I watch her long-fingered, strong-nailed hands tie string, and then she looks up at me. I cannot tell if the look in her eyes is shrewd or honest.

  “Suppose he does want to court and marry me. Should I?”

  He. She means the doctor. I do not know if the question is rhetorical, but I answer a bit sternly, as if she should not even consider saying anything but yes to him.

  “I think he might, though I cannot speak for him.” I think about what she is asking, and finish up decisively. “And if I were in your place, I’d choose him over any man in town.”

  He deserves whatever happiness Kate can bring him. He is kind and earnest, and he has shown depths of a tolerant character. I wonder if he could truly and eventually wear down her hardness. I hope so.

  “What of your own beau?” She is fishing for information about Bern Masson. He walks me home again, though our words are stilted and careful. Our conversation now reminds me very much of my marriage with Henry. Cautious, sterile, ordinary, as if passion is not allowed because it is unseemly. I wonder if it has always been so, and I have never noticed it, or if my fresh views of the world make it hard to have trite conversation easily. How is it I’ve never felt the animosity he holds for Widow Hawks, or grasped the undercurrent of his preferences? Have I been so pleased with his attentions that I have, once again, let a man’s failings slide?

  “What of him?” I run my finger along a soft pink calico, newly arrived. It would look lovely on Kate should she wish to make it up for herself, and I say so, but she is not to be distracted.

  “Bern’s courting you, isn’t he?”

  I glance up at her. “That’s what it’s called, I suppose.”

  “Yes! Damnit, that’s what it’s called!” Horeb yells, looking up briefly from the checkerboard. I’d almost forgotten he and Gilroy were there. They’re very quiet around me now.

  She shrugs. “You’re a widow. You can’t expect much more, and you don’t have a parlor to sit in on Sunday or a father to ask.”

  I frown. It paints a cold picture of love, and an uninspiring prequel to marriage.

  “Well. He hasn’t asked for anything formal yet. I’m not to worry, I should think,” I say evasively. “What about you? What will you do when it’s your turn?”

  “You mean, should Pat ask if he might court me?”

  I shake my head, pushing myself to ask the question. I need to know her mind. “No, Kate. Should he ask you to marry him.”

  “But the doc, he’s poor. And the old sawbones hasn’t done much lately. Not since the Army came through back in ’76 and he tried to fix up those men,” Horeb interjects, taking Kate’s defense. “Do you want such a man, Kitty?”

  She has the grace to blush, and she does it prettily, the high color making her eyes light up. I could not measure to her beauty ever, and I do not expect to, nor ever find the need. Her spirited, fiery personality is captivating. It is why I wish her to be my friend, and why I believe she is tolerated among the townsfolk beyond her running the general, even with her native heritage. It is probably why I believe the doctor has pined for her for so long, even when she is aloof to him and all the other men.

  “I think I might say yes,” she says slowly, almost bashfully. “He is handsome, and kind, and I should be accepted even more to the town.”

  Horeb snorts but makes no further comment.

  “He would take care of your mother, too,” I remind. “Take her the food she needs and manage the house.”

  Her smile shrinks, and she presses her mouth together.

  “He wouldn’t need to, I expect,” she says. “I am sure once I am married, Widow Hawks would be able to get on with living elsewhere. Go back to her people.” The idea is said slowly, thoughtfully, as if she has not realized this before.

  “I should think she’d like to stay and see grandchildren,” I reason.

  Kate’s mouth sours. “Anything else, Jane?”

  I sigh. Her moodiness does not bother me any longer. Since feeling the coldness of death in my arms and legs, I find many things do not unsettle me quite as much as they used to, so I shake my head and leave.

  Walking back to the doctor’s house, I reflect. My pace is slow as I consider the dusty ground. September is dry on the prairie, though the trees on the old buffalo jump still are tall and green. I have actually grown to enjoy the land, and I don’t miss the ocean as much as I had feared. Or maybe I just like the people.

  I make a hearty stew with the early fall produce. It is difficult, because I have to pause often and wipe my eyes on my apron. Doctor Kinney ought to pursue Kate, to have his heart’s desire. He deserves to have the family he wants, for all he hasn’t said so explicitly. I should repay the doctor’s kindness for the burial of my son and saving my life.

  My thoughts turn over, and I start to think in steps. I will help Doctor Kinney see th
at he ought to woo Kate. It is not what I would wish for him, and I know Widow Hawks does not approve. But he softens when he talks of her, or with her, and he has no other prospects. And once I see he is earnest in courting her, I will leave. I need not return home to my elderly parents, worrying their minds about my status and my care. There is freedom in being a widow yet, and I have no child to burden me now. And I know hard work. I can carry on even if I’m not in the West.

  “Smells divine, Mrs. Weber!”

  I have been lost in musings, and I do not hear him come in until his voice is right over my shoulder, peering into the pot. I try to give my expected little response, and he leaves to wash up. The sunlight slants into the room just so, igniting the amber bottle of ointment he’d mixed for me. Warm regards, he’d written. My heart rises and jerks, like a bird when it flees from its perch, only to be shot in flight. When we sit for supper, the same sunlight filters in from the windows, casting shadows in the kitchen and along his face.

  I wish to be his.

  It is a selfish thought, and an improper one. And I have spent too many weeks as his sisterly housekeeper to ever ask him to love me differently than he does. It is not my place to expect or ask it of him, for all his acceptance of me and my flaws and my mistakes.

  God forgive me. I love it here, and I want this to be my home. But I am not brash or outspoken, and I will not chase after a man who does not love me, nor need me to stay.

  “You’re quiet,” he states around a mouth of stew.

  I glance down at my spoon. There is no good time for my words. If I never push him, he may never have happiness. Without looking at him, I say, “You ought to court Kate, Doctor Kinney.”

  He is silent, staring at me strangely, as if my idea is utterly foreign.

  “I think you should. And I think you’d find her very receptive.”