The stench inside the cabin was a fist to my stomach. I backed outside into the fresh air, leaned against the closed door, and gulped in the cold.
The marshal’s bowels had emptied. It was a harbinger of his near death. Women who cared for the dying talked about this in whispers. When the bowels loosened, the end was soon, they said. The body was cleansing itself before meeting God.
He might have an hour. Maybe a little longer. He might be dead when I went back inside.
Cold as it was, I began to sweat. I wanted a man’s death. It could save us. Not that I would say that out loud. But God knew.
The deputies would know, too, if they found the marshal dead and laying in his own filth.
I had to clean him.
Yesterday, I’d bargained with God that I’d take care of the marshal. In turn, someone, a woman I hoped, would take Samuel in if he were in need of help. I hadn’t let myself think that tending the marshal meant more than washing dirt from his face and boiling mint leaves.
I didn’t have to wash him now. I could wait until he died. I could wait until some of the neighbors were here to help.
That could be hours from now. The deputies could get here first.
The marshal was still alive. He was one of God’s children.
Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.
Then I was hearing my mother’s lesson. If ye do not remember to be charitable, ye are as dross, which the refiners cast out.
God was testing me. It was wrong to let the marshal lay in his own filth.
I went back inside. I wrapped my scarf around my mouth and nose to keep out some of the stench, then took off my coat. Sally paced, unsettled. I warmed water on the cookstove and laid out the rags I’d washed last night. I found scissors in a canning jar where Nels kept needles and thread.
“Are you awake?” I said to the marshal, standing over him. He was still partway on his stomach but his left eye showed. I asked him again. His eye opened partway. He shuddered. I understood I was a peculiar sight with the scarf over the lower half of my face.
“This won’t be easy for either of us,” I said. “But I’ve got to tidy you up.” I hesitated, picking my words. “Your trousers.”
His eye closed. His face bunched, deepening the lines on his forehead. “I’ll try not to move you any more than I have to,” I said. “I know it hurts your head.”
His lips moved. I thought he’d formed the word yes.
“I’ll wind your watch,” I said. “It will give us something to listen to.” Fumbling, I found his vest pocket and wound the stem. The ticking matched the beat of my heart. I clicked open the casing and didn’t let myself look at the photograph.
I set the hour and minute hands to half past five. That wasn’t the right time but was a guess. Right or wrong, it would measure the passage of time. I put the watch back into his vest pocket, then pulled the blankets down to the foot of the bed. For Samuel, I thought.
I got the warming stones I’d kept by his feet and put them on the floor. I cleared the bed of the clothing that I’d used to keep him propped on his left side. I laid out one of the horse blankets I’d slept on last night. I took hold of the marshal’s shoulder. I drew in some air and then rolled him onto his back and the horse blanket. He cried out, then fainted.
My hands shook. The top button on his trousers was stuck. Sister Rebecca, who did our nursing, would know how to do this. She would take charge and manage this with ease. I wanted her here but the baby she expected was due soon.
Maybe one of the neighbor women was on her way now. It didn’t matter who, just someone who could help me.
I fumbled with the button. It was too soon for Michael to have told the neighbors about the marshal. It was too soon for a woman to get here. The snow was deep, and some, like Sister Rebecca, were in no condition to manage the trip. No one might come.
Finally, the button slipped through the hole. The other four were easier to unfasten.
I tugged on his trousers. I lowered them inch by inch. Under them, he wore long johns. My stomach churned from the stink. For Samuel, I told myself.
I worked at getting the trousers off. Tears ran from the marshal’s closed eyes. I blinked away my own tears. Heavenly Father, I prayed. Ease his pain. Help me. Help us both.
I pulled harder on the trousers, jostling the marshal. He moaned. I could almost feel the sharp jabs of pain pierce his head.
Two more tugs and the trousers came off.
Next were the long johns. They were one piece and I didn’t have it in me to wrestle the marshal out of his vest and shirt. Using the scissors, I cut the long johns at his waist, moving and turning him to do this. Finally I was able to pull them off. My stomach heaved from the smell and from the sight of a man who was not my husband.
I couldn’t bear the stink. I bunched up the long johns and trousers, took them outside, and dropped them in the snow.
Back inside, I got the basin of warm water and rags. “Are you awake?” I said to the marshal. The only response was his watery breathing. I began to wash him. My stomach heaved, I swallowed the bile. Heavenly Father, do you see what I’m doing for this man? And for the woman who mended his stocking, for the woman and children in the photograph, for the woman the marshal called out for. Mary Louise. Do you see how I’m holding up my end of the bargain? Send Samuel home. Send Samuel home.
The marshal’s eyes were still closed. His raspy breathing was quick. I heard myself say, “My husband’s a wheelwright.” I didn’t know where these words came from or why I said them other than I needed to think about something that was different from what my hands were doing. “He should be home but a rockslide blocked the trail and he’s had to find another way to get here. He’ll be home any time now.”
Using a cloth, I wiped up the filth that spattered the marshal’s privates. “My husband knows the back country, he’s not one for getting lost. He’s a man sure of his way. He always has been.” I washed the marshal’s legs, moving him from side to side, hearing his groans but trying not to. “I was eighteen when I met him, and we courted for a month. Some might say that wasn’t enough time. But I knew and so did he. We married on my nineteenth birthday. Our wedding. . . .” My voice broke.
The marshal’s eyelids twitched. Keep talking, I imagined him thinking. To ease his humiliation. And mine.
I said, “We danced, my husband and I, at the wardhouse after the wedding. My brothers and sisters were there, and their families. Neighbors, too. So many children. All of us danced, my mother and father together, my husband’s family, waltzing. Those are my favorites. The fiddler wouldn’t let us rest but kept us on our feet, all of us circling around the room, some of us bumping into the others. My husband has many fine qualities but keeping time isn’t one. I don’t think he noticed. He and I, we danced. “The Dew-Drop Waltz.” “The Minnesota Waltz.” And round dances from Sweden for my father-in-law and his wife. My father asked the fiddler to play a tune for a longways dance. That was what my mother grew up dancing in England. The fiddler didn’t know any so he made do with a Virginia reel. “Turkey in the Straw.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes. Today was January the thirteenth. By Nels’ calculation, Samuel would get home this week.
It was only Friday. Samuel was close. He’d be home any time.
The marshal’s breathing stopped. I waited, listening hard. It started again.
My hands shaking, I wiped the last of the filth from him. Then I blotted the linens, trying to clean them, doing what I could to keep my end of the bargain. For Samuel.
Finished, I propped the marshal on his left side and covered him with the blankets.
His mouth moved. “What is it?” I said.
His lips twitched. His right eye was open, looking at me, pleading. I strained to hear him. The muscles on the right side of his face quivered and bunched as he tried to speak. The other half of his face was flat. There was something he had to say. I believed it had nothing to do with kno
wing Braden had been in my barn. It was greater than that. It might be a message to his family, a prayer to God, a plea for forgiveness for having done a wrong. He might be forgiving a wrong done to him.
“What?” I said. “What?” These could be his dying words. I waited. He didn’t try again.
His breathing was shallow. I heated water on the stove, then washed my hands over and over again in the dish basin to get rid of any filth on me. I scrubbed my nails, my palms, the backs, between each finger, and my wrists. I was sick with shame. The marshal’s silence could save us. The only reason I was here was to make us look good in the eyes of the deputies. I took care of him for Samuel and for the bargain I’d made. I’d washed him so God and the deputies would think better of me. I hadn’t done it for the marshal.
He was our enemy. That was how I thought of him. Until he tried to speak. Or I thought he was trying. I might have imagined it but that didn’t matter. The notion that death silenced everything that needed to be said made my heart hurt. I hurt for Thomas Fletcher, the person. I hurt for all the words he wanted to say to his wife and children but couldn’t. I hurt for all he’d left undone and would never finish.
All I knew about him was the work he did. I didn’t know what made him laugh or what caused him sorrow. Surely being a lawman was just one side of him. Maybe he whistled tunes or played the fiddle. Or he sang with a clear voice. He might have a knack for predicting the weather. His heart might go soft when he held a baby. He might like to study the night stars. He might draw pictures.
Nels drew. Some of his pictures were tacked on the cabin walls. Only one was framed but he’d done all of them with pencil on sheets of white paper the size of a book page.
One was a peach that hung from the end of a drooping branch with four leaves. The peach was shaded in such a way to show it was ripe and ready to be picked. Another drawing was of three carpenter tools—a flat plane, a spirit level, and a ruler—on a workbench. The one tacked near the door showed two boys on their stomachs on flat dusty ground. Their shirts were wrinkled and one boy had a tear near the hem of his pant leg. Their heads were close together as they watched a trail of what looked to be ants. Their faces couldn’t be seen but the cowlick in the one boy’s hair and the lankiness of the other boy told me they were Samuel and Nels.
A framed portrait of Lydia, Nels’ wife, hung on the back wall over the foot of the bed. It was from her shoulders up and if my memory was true, Nels had drawn her wearing her wedding dress. Her starched lace collar stood up about an inch. The bow at the base of her throat was crisp and the ends of the ribbon hung even. Her dark hair was parted in the center. Her head was turned just enough to show that she had woven her thick hair into a braided knot at the back of her head.
Lydia was beautiful. I had forgotten just how much until seeing the drawing. Her eyes were dark and long-lashed. Her nose was straight and the corners of her lips were turned up in a soft smile.
They had married seven years ago. Nels was thirty-three and she was nine years younger. Samuel and I lived in Parowan then, and Nels lived in Cedar City. Samuel and I traveled to St. George where they were married in the temple. It was the first time we’d met Lydia. She was so shy she couldn’t look either of us in the eye. Lydia didn’t seem to know what to say to us or to any of the guests. She stayed by Nels’ side letting him speak for her. Nels wasn’t a wordy man, and Samuel and I marveled that they had managed a courtship.
She died fourteen months later during childbirth.
A few days after Lydia and the baby’s deaths, Nels gathered his carpentry tools, left their home in Cedar City, and came to the floor of a canyon where Sulphur Creek flowed into the Fremont River. Samuel worried about Nels being on his own. Two months later, we carried our possessions in a wagon and came here. A few other families heard about us and after a while, they made their way to the place we came to call Junction. We built our cabins along the Sulphur. Others settled on the Fremont. None of us platted our homes in a square as Brigham Young said we should. Nobody said anything about building a wardhouse or voting for a bishop. All of us, I believed, were in search of a new start. None of us wanted to be judged by the church. We needed distance from whispers and knowing looks.
Because of Lydia’s death, Nels and the rest of us came to the canyon country. She changed the direction of our lives. Yet, I knew only two things about her. She was pretty, and she was uneasy around people. Surely there was more to her. There always was. The same was true for the marshal. Thomas Fletcher.
Off in the distance, the school bell rang. I stopped scrubbing my hands. The bell rang again. Usually Michael shook the hand-held ringer fast and sharp to summon his pupils. This morning, each ring was slow and measured. The sound ricocheted off the cliffs, muffled some by the snow. It rang again. Then again. My skin crawled. This was our call to the neighbors to gather at the schoolhouse. Trouble, the bell said. Michael was going to tell them about the man Nels had found on the bridge.
I dried my hands. Everything was about to change. The neighbors would come. They would make decisions. The marshal was a stranger to them. He didn’t have a name. This might be the last time I would be alone with him.
I sat down by the marshal. “Mr. Fletcher,” I said. I hadn’t called him by his name before. “Can you hear me?”
The only movement was the slight rise and fall of his chest. “I know your name,” I said. “The others don’t. They can’t. To them, you’re a stranger. But to me, you’re Thomas. . . .” I stopped. Something marked the pillow close to the marshal’s right cheek. I got a lamp. A stain. A red stain.
I felt myself sway. Blood. It came from his ear.
The lamp in my hand rattled. I put it down on the kitchen table. I went lightheaded. My skin turned clammy. I got myself outside. The cold air slapped. I breathed it in. My lungs stinging, I blew out the air.
It was my fault. I’d jostled him when I undressed him and when I moved him onto his back, then onto his side. I’d made him worse. I could have been gentler, maybe I’d moved him more than I had to. I had hastened his death.
The wind tangled my skirt around my ankles. Strands of my hair lifted and blew into my eyes. I shook and wrapped my arms around myself. I wanted the marshal’s death. Now God was showing just what that meant.
Something bumped against my leg. I swatted at my hair, getting it out of my eyes. It was Sally. She pushed against me with her nose. She looked up at me, trust showing in her brown eyes. All at once, a feeling of calmness came over me.
My motives didn’t matter. I had done my best for the marshal. His injury was not my doing. None of this was. Leaving him to die alone, though, would be my doing.
Sally with me, I went back inside. My knees felt unhinged. The red stain on the pillow was bigger.
I got a clean cloth, raised the marshal’s head, and put the cloth under his ear. I sat down by him. Gathering my courage, I said, “Mr. Fletcher. This is a sorrowful thing, you being so far from home and your family. You don’t know me. But I want you to understand that you aren’t alone.”
There was no sign that he heard me. He was dying. The inside of his head was bleeding. It wouldn’t be much longer.
“You asked for Mary Louise. It would comfort you if she were here, but there’s only me.” Tears were on my cheeks. I brushed them away. “Mr. Fletcher, I promise I’ll do my best to find your wife. When I do, I’ll tell her she was uppermost in your mind.” I paused. “Mary Louise Fletcher. That’s her name, isn’t it? Your wife.”
I said that like I expected him to answer but there was nothing. I said, “I’ll do my best to return your pocket watch and your other things to her. You have my word.” I didn’t know how I’d do that but I would sort that out later.
I leaned back in the chair and waited. Sally laid beside me with her head between her front paws. My voice low, I sang a hymn for the marshal. I sang it for me and I sang it for Samuel.
A mighty fortress is our God,
A tower of strength ne’er faili
ng.
A helper mighty is our God,
O’er ills of life prevailing.
Thomas Fletcher stopped breathing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DEBORAH – THE DECISION
January 13, 1888
I said a prayer for Thomas Fletcher. I wasn’t sure what to say since he wasn’t a Saint. Praying the only way I knew, I asked the Heavenly Father to take Thomas Fletcher’s hand and deliver him to the realm in Heaven where family waited for him. I asked that he find peace and that all his worldly woes be lifted from him.
After the prayer, I took the watch from his vest pocket and opened it. The woman in the photograph had to be the marshal’s wife. Mary Louise. Now she was a widow. The children—the boy and girl—were fatherless.
They didn’t know. It could be days, maybe weeks, before they found out. At this moment, for them, he was alive.
That might be true for me, too. Samuel could be dead.
No, I thought. No. I couldn’t think that way. I’d kept my end of the bargain and did my best for the marshal. In turn, Samuel would come home. He was alive. He had to be.
The watch vibrated in my hand as it ticked. Samuel was all right.
Mary Louise Fletcher might be telling herself the same thing about her husband. She didn’t know that a handful of minutes ago, he was alive. Now his face was beginning to take on a waxy color. His mouth had dropped open.
The watch showed it was sixteen minutes after eight. I had guessed the time when I’d set it earlier so this wasn’t right but it was close enough.
I closed the watch and pulled up the stem. The ticking stopped. I put the watch back into the marshal’s vest pocket and placed the blanket up over his face.
The marshal’s walk on earth was over but I had more to face. I left him in Nels’ cabin and made my way to the schoolhouse. The sky was gray but wasn’t as heavy as it had been yesterday. A faint pink glow showed in the east. For the first time in days, the sun might break through.
Each step into the deep snow made me winded. Sally, following behind, panted as she leaped to the places where I’d crushed the snow. I held up my coat and skirt with one hand. With only one arm to steady me, my balance was shaky. I was tired. My mind was tired. I yearned to go home and sleep but I couldn’t. There was much more to do.
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