by Sara Dahmen
“Mrs. Weber . . .” He leans back. “You’re a mite involved in our personal lives.”
I cannot tell if he is angry or not. Then he leans forward and searches my face earnestly. “You really want me to do this?”
“I think it . . . wise.” I look back down at the food. I am not much hungry these days. My feelings for him have slowly built in my chest, tightening it so it is hard to breathe sometimes when I think about his large hands and his merry laugh. “A doctor should be married. And she seems fond of you.”
“Hm.” He does not say much more, and instead of helping me with the dishes as usual, he goes to his study. I fear I have unsettled or irritated him.
Or perhaps I have given him hope.
We do not say anything the rest of the night, and Bern is at the door for me at the usual hour. With the fall season, the light turns orange earlier, and the shadows grow blacker, and the wide, flat planks of each business and house look ashy and grey against the boldness of the sky. Tonight, Bern speaks of politics, though he does not ask my opinion. President Garfield was shot in the summer, but only died a week ago from the wounds. The countryside is still mourning and reeling from the news, which flew down the telegraph line as the announcement sped toward Fort Randall. Bern wonders if the new President Arthur will make the Dakotas part of the Union. I keep my eyes down and reflect on the conversations the doctor and I had when the bulletins came through occasionally, discussing President Garfield’s condition. Doctor Kinney was frustrated and passionate about the likelihood of disease and infection. He believes few doctors use carbolic acid for disinfecting, and we had a strong discussion about surgical anesthesia. But Bern won’t care about any of this. I let him speak of his own thoughts, and I hold mine tight and silent.
As we near Widow Hawks’ door, he turns to me to bid me goodnight. I put out my hand.
“You do not need to come around anymore.”
He drops his fingers from his hat. His black eyes are in shadow, but his grim mouth tightens. I cannot tell if I have made another man angry tonight. Bern is still a bit of a mystery to me. I do not understand why he has spent weeks courting me, and why he continued after my pregnancy became obvious, and then even after miscarriage. I’ll likely never know.
We do not speak words of affection. And I know I do not love him.
“What are you saying, Jane?”
“I’m saying that I don’t think we ought to continue on like this when I have no intention of marrying you.”
My words are more confident than I feel, for he is not a laughing man. I suppose he will take my rejection to heart more so than he will let on.
“Do you think you’ll get a better offer?” He is not rancorous, just curious, as if he wonders how someone else could have started to court me without his knowledge.
“No,” I say. That is a truth, indeed.
“Then why not make some sort of a life here?” he wonders, and I put my hand on his arm lightly, to stop him from questioning further. It is the first time we have touched since the Independence Day celebration dance, and it feels odd to put fingers on the worn denim of his shirt.
“Because it would be a sad life, Bern. We would not find much to make our life together interesting, and we would eventually resign ourselves to misery. I have done it once before, and I do not want to do it again.”
“How long have you felt this way?” he asks. He is right to ask, and he deserves an answer.
I sigh. “I don’t know. I know I’ve not ever cared deeply for you, though I thought I might, someday. I tried.” This is not entirely true. “But I don’t. I am sorry.”
He is quiet for a long time, looking at the ground. “I thank you for your honesty.”
Touching his hat to me one last time, he turns around and walks away, a long black shadow in the setting sun. I think I should feel happy, but I am simply exhausted, and go into Widow Hawks’ house, where it is dim and dark.
Mrs. Mary M. H. May
32 Pine Street
Gloucester, Mass.
Dear Aunt Mary,
I deeply apologize to so unexpectedly impose on you, but I find myself in need of introductions in Gloucester. If you’ve heard from Mother, you know I have tried my luck in the Dakota Territories, but find it to be unsuitable. While I hope to return to Massachusetts, I’d like to continue living, as you do, on my own.
However, Henry’s estate has not left me enough to live on, especially after the expenses of travel, and I will need to find a situation to sustain me. My experiences as a wife include nursemaid and cook, and I have furthered my skills in housekeeping, cooking, and gardening since widowhood. I do not plan to trouble your domestic situation, but will need your expertise in finding a suitable cottage for rent.
I look forward to hearing from you as soon as you are able to reply, and I will be on the first train out after receiving your favorable letter. Thank you for your help. I am eager to spend time rekindling our relationship as it was when I was a child, visiting you at the seashore.
Until then, I am your loving niece,
Jane
Chapter 24
30 September 1881
I bring my laundry and a bit of Widow Hawks’ to the doctor’s house to start the washing routine. She has very little I can rinse out. Much of her fall wardrobe consists of buckskin, deer hides, and furs, which I do not dare try to clean myself. The doctor brings up water in the morning after breakfast, and I spend the better part of the day soaking, beating, and wringing out all our clothing, sheets, and blankets. I have decided to have Kate send out for some fabric for new sheets. My bleeding ruined an entire set of the doctor’s. The cloth should arrive soon, and I can replenish his linen closet with a bit of cash I’ve saved from my wages.
The late September breeze is still warm in the afternoon. Everything here is yellow with light after lunch, and yet the evenings are colder every day.
The news in town has turned away from me and my miscarriage to guessing on whether Alan will marry Harriet. If so, the town will need to look for a new schoolteacher come spring. And Robert Brewer, the owner of the Main Inn is ill—Doctor Kinney has been over every day all week—so Elaine Warren is hovering near Tommy Winters’ house, hoping the lawyer can draw up a new deed the minute Robert might pass away. It’s said Joseph Greenman is offering extra prayers and candles at both St. Diana’s and St. Aloysius for Robert to die so Elaine will stop eyeing up his own Prime Inn. It’s also said that Doris Tucker is watching over Elaine, who she fears will try to make a move on Tommy Winters—Doris’s target for matrimony—though anyone with eyes can see Elaine only has interest in making money and she won’t trade her Trusty Willy for anyone. I don’t blame her that. I’ve heard how Trusty Willy was knocked over by Elaine’s apron string from the moment they met, and he’s happily let her run the Golden Nail and anything else she wants to do as long as he can keep buying new inventions.
I will miss these people and their ways. I will miss how nearly anything is possible here. And I’ll miss the doctor.
Doctor Kinney courts Kate most nights. I do not need to make him supper anymore, for he eats with her on the front porch of the general store. Many of the townsfolk stop to say howdy to them, and some evenings it is like they are setting court for all the bodies drawn to their cozy tableau.
I miss him desperately. He has breakfast with me and we are companionable, but I admit I try to hold myself apart, so that I am not pulled into his warmth overmuch. He is his usual lighthearted self, and sometimes I laugh because I cannot help it. And I am so happy during these moments of the day. I gaze at his face, delighting in the slant of his cheeks, the wrinkles around his eyes, and the languid brogue. His words wash over me, and I cannot help but finally be lost in what could be, if the world were different.
I do not admit this to anyone, but seeing the doctor with Kate hurts my heart, my stomach, and my head. It is not for me to choose what matter of a person he marries, or whether a pair will be well suited together in the years to come. It i
s not my place to speak up any further to my employer. He seems to now have a spring in his step, and he whistles when he leaves to see her at supper. His happiness is beautiful, regardless of how I am devastated by it. I’m glad I sent the letter to Aunt Mary. For all I want to stay—had decided to stay—I will not spend my years in Flats Junction watching them marry and build a life together. I am maybe stronger than most women I know back East, but I am not unemotional, and I have means of my own if I must use them. The small bit of leftover money from Henry’s estate burns in my mind, winking and promising. I could go back. I could escape heartache here. I have just enough left for one ticket.
Some nights I lay awake and wonder why I survived, why against all odds I lived through my miscarriage, if only to live a life so alone. Perhaps it is my burden for trying to live a lie.
Listen to me, turning Catholic after attending Mass—another false thing I still do—with these thoughts of penance! The doctor doesn’t say anything when I continue to attend St. Aloysius each Sunday, but I wonder if he has issue with the fact that I go, now that he knows I’m not his faith. How could I ever tell him that I pretend at those Masses? I imagine we are together, and I have turned to his religion for him, and we are pillars of Flats Junction society as Dr. and Mrs. Kinney.
It seems I am still as foolish as ever before.
Henry’s ring twists around one of my soaked skirts. Pulling my hand out of the water, I inspect the band. It is dented with use now, and spins around my finger due to weight I have lost. I slip it off and set it beside me on one of the garden rocks so it won’t come off in the suds.
Standing at the laundry, a secret part of me imagines that we are all family, living happily together. Widow Hawks lives with us at the house, and I pretend my son is alive, and he is not Theodore’s child, but the doctor’s. And all is well.
There is a shout on the street. I glance up, but do not stop my tasks until I hear yet another cry, and then a woman’s scream, and then horses whinny, and I smell it on the breeze.
Smoke.
Wildfire.
Hay-fire.
Something hot and acrid. A fire now on the prairie will raze the town.
It is a death knell.
I spin, thinking to carry water to whatever it is, but then I realize I do not know enough to help, so I pick up my skirts and run, through the backyard, the kitchen, the hallway, and I let the screen door slam as I join the small groups of people sprinting down the streets.
The blaze is high, hot, and fast. Men already try to contain it by shoveling around the fire so that it cannot jump further onto the grasses around it, though there are not any homes nearby that might catch easily. There is far less damage than I had imagined at first, but it is enough for me to stop in the middle of the street in horror.
Once the men finish protecting the town, they stand back while Widow Hawks’ home burns. It is this refusal to douse the house with dirt or sand spurring me into action again, and I run toward the building, and toward the bowed head standing apart from the group.
“Mrs. Weber!” There is a yank on my arm. It is the doctor, looking both aghast and furiously frantic. “Stop runnin’! There is nothin’ you can do now. And you are weak enough as it is.”
He holds my upper arm in a tight grip and marches us hurriedly down Main Street to join Widow Hawks. We are a line, braced against the iron rails of the train track, watching her life turn to black puffs of air, like charred snowflakes wafting toward the sky instead of away.
“Why is no one helping? Why are they not putting it out?” I ask her and the doctor together, appalled and frightened. The fire is lifelike, hungry, angry. The timber of the house, the dried baskets, herbs, and hides do not have a chance.
“They do not wish to do so.” Her voice is resigned, but steady. “And they do not want me here anyway.”
“Who did this?” The doctor leaves us, and paces in front of several of the men. They are bland, their faces streaked with soot, sweat, and dust. They don’t appear to care about the home turning to charcoal. They are likely only satisfied that nothing else catches fire. The heat radiates off of the building. Waves of air are visible, wafting around us.
One of the men gives a crass shrug and spit. “Aww, Doc, we know you’re soft on the Indians, whatever good it does ya. But now maybe there’ll be no need for them to come back to town. No place t’ stay, as it were.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, Tate.”
Of course, none of the townsfolk—and the cowboys here in particular—would care to discover that the last of Widow Hawks’ family is on the reservation for good. That they cannot leave it now, even if they wished to see her.
Had anyone thought to ask, perhaps her life would not be curling in smoke now. Bern knew. I’d told him, hadn’t I? Where is he? These are his friends.
The doctor can’t believe anyone will own up to this assault, this terrible action of anger and intolerance, can he? He can’t expect them to admit and confess to him. Especially given that people are skeptical of his skill, and his affiliation with the natives is a black mark against his character. Even though the settlers have won the battles and the wars, it is as if they do not feel solid with their victory until all of the tribes are gone from sight. Some of the men standing about are mere overgrown boys. They could not possibly have fought in the war, and ought to have no real issue with Indians other than what their parents warned and prodded them to feel. I know prejudice exists everywhere, but where I come from in Massachusetts, it does not feel quite so blatant. It does not include such annihilation. At least, not anymore.
The afternoon grows older, and the flames are peach and orange and gold. The fire starts to roar less, slowly, as time stretches out and then contracts. Before long, it is night. Still I stand next to Widow Hawks, as she stares at it all burning to ruin. There were other things in that home: memories cherished from the man she loved for decades: love letters, a bridal veil, gifts and books. All gone to ash.
Mitch Brinkley arrives, finally, with his father, three brothers, and one brother-in-law. Their wagon is full of sandy dirt, and they throw it on the small flames. The fire hisses, dying further, until the embers themselves are buried in blackness.
They swing their lanterns over us. The other cowboys melt away, assured the town is safe. I cannot think that one of them is responsible for this. Still . . . what if they watched only to be sure their own handiwork did not do more damage than they wished?
How do I recover from such violence? What happens now? Who stands as the lawman?
It is a good thing I am looking to leave Flats Junction. I am not so sturdy as I thought. I cannot handle all of this chaos without feeling as though my world constantly crumbles. If it were my house, I would be sobbing. Instead, Widow Hawks says nothing.
“Will you be alright?” Mitch asks the doctor, who nods, taking one of their spare lights.
“I’ll take the women to stay at Kate’s for a bit while we sort out the mess.”
Mitch glances over to us, and says casually, “We’ll go with you. There’s enough mischief afoot tonight.”
The doctor does not bother to argue. We jump into the wagon bed and I wedge next to George and John Brinkley. I am numb with anger and shock and betrayal. This was hatred, with no purpose other than to cause pain on another. Will the people of Flats Junction even care to track down the perpetrators, to bring this to justice for the sake of an Indian woman? If not for her, at the very least for the memory of her husband, or her daughter?
Kate is standing on the porch. She has had a clear view of the flames this entire time, and I know why she has refused to come to her mother’s side. It is her selfishness. Her fear.
“Kitty,” Doctor Kinney pleads in a low voice. I hear it because I am out of the wagon at once, and on the stairs. “You’ve got some room. Can you make up a bed for Esther and Mrs. Weber?”
“Why? There’s room with you.” Her answer is clipped.
“Because it is your moth
er and she has suffered tonight. I expect she’d like to see her daughter, and you know Mrs. Weber cannot stay with me alone.”
Kate gives a shake of her head, her lovely hair cascading in slight waves. Even in the dark, she is stunning and proud and unyielding.
“My mother should take herself to the reservation.”
“You know she does not want that. Her home is where you are.”
“I’ll not take her in.” Kate’s voice is a whisper, angry and fierce. “I cannot have anyone thinking I am partial to her, that I would put my native birth first.”
“That is not the point here, Kitty.” His voice is soothing, but I cannot see his face in the oily lights from below. “Your mother needs your help.”
“I will not help her. You should know better than to ask this of me. I’m sorry, Pat. I can’t do it.”
They stand there, as if measuring each other’s mettle, and, finally, the doctor gives in.
“Kate is too tied up with goods this time to make room,” he says generally to the Brinkleys in the wagon. “We’ll make do at my place for now, and we can decide tomorrow what is next.”
“We’ll talk, certainly, Doc,” old Henry agrees heavily.
The Brinkleys see us to the doctor’s house. I light a lamp so we can see our way upstairs. It is unspoken, but I will share the bed with Widow Hawks so she does not need to rest her old bones on the floor. We all walk up the stairs in states of shock, and she goes immediately into the spare bedroom, where only weeks ago I nearly died. The doctor comes up the stairs after us, and in the dancing shadows, I notice he is downcast. It’s likely he mourns for his adoptive family, for the loss of Widow Hawks’ home, and for the evil of the arsonists, whoever they may be. I know I do, and I don’t even have half of the history he does with the Davies family.
“Doctor Kinney,” I say softly, laying a hand on his arm as he moves past to his bedroom. He pauses, and glances down at me, but does not meet my eyes. I wish I could touch his forehead and the plane of his cheek, and we could face this tragedy together. Instead, I try to soothe him. “I am sorry you had to quarrel with Kate on our behalf.”