The Glovemaker

by Ann Weisgarber

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  NELS – THE TRUTH

  February 12, 1888

  Four more days went by. On Sunday morning, I saddled Bob and rode up the trail behind my barn. It was the one Lewis Braden and I took the night I had to hide him when I couldn’t get him to Floral Ranch. Sally came with me. I hadn’t been on it since that night. Now I felt the need to rise above Junction. I couldn’t explain my thinking other than to say I wanted to see something more than the floor of the canyon.

  The tracks Braden and I had made were long gone. The wind and rounds of melting snow and fresh snowfall made it look like we’d never been here.

  At the crest of the cliff, I got off Bob. I looked east toward ­Floral Ranch, then west toward the Wastelands. Rows of snow-­covered cliffs and craggy buttes circled from all directions. If anybody was coming to Junction, I couldn’t see them.

  From where I was, the rooftops of cabins and barns showed. They were Samuel and Deborah’s, Michael and Grace’s, and mine. The roofs were covered with snow making them look low to the ground. Even though I wasn’t able to see it, I picked out the place where the schoolhouse should be. Some of the neighbors were likely there, this being Sunday. Deborah was probably there. More of them might be announcing their intentions to leave Junction when winter lost its hold.

  I shifted my attention away from the schoolhouse. I found the place where the Sulphur and the Fremont converged and flowed south to Arizona Territory. Looking up, I studied the sky. It was clear. No sign of snow clouds. I looked back down at the convergence of the creek and the Fremont. The water churned where the two joined together.

  Almost a full circle. Carson Miller’s words about what he saw in the ravine. I heard him like he was standing here beside me. One made of metal. A wheel.

  It came off of Samuel’s wagon.

  The realization ricocheted against my heart. The rockslide had caught Samuel’s wagon. He might have tried to jump off. But Samuel was in the ravine. Samuel was dead.

  I didn’t want it to be. But like it was happening again, I was back at the ravine and Carson was calling to me. There was a warning in his voice. He’d seen something.

  My chest squeezed up. My eyes weren’t working right. They kept watering. I couldn’t make them stop.

  Samuel. He hadn’t been overly delayed by unexpected work. He wasn’t coming the long way home. He was dead.

  Winded, I bent over with my hands on my knees. Maybe I had known it all along. I just hadn’t wanted to face it.

  Samuel. My stepbrother and most of all, my friend. He’d been that since the day he and I took up together. Our families were on the trail from Missouri to Utah. I was eleven and Samuel was a year older. A stubborn cowlick sprouted from his brown hair and he carried a far-off look in his green eyes. Samuel was always wandering away from the wagon party. I was the one bringing him back. While on the trail to Utah, he’d see a creek or a boulder or any such thing, and off he’d go to have a look. It worried his mother. There were only the two of them. She’d come to my mother and father, say how she’d lost Samuel again, and they’d send me to look for him. Tracking came easy for me even then. Once I found him flat on the ground watching a trail of ants. He made me get down with him to admire them. He appreciated how they could carry loads bigger than themselves.

  Until then, I didn’t care a whit for ants. They were something to step on and get rid of. But not for Samuel. He said they lived in colonies. That meant they weren’t all that different from us. Just because they were smaller didn’t mean ants couldn’t have opinions about the ways of the world. He shamed me into not stepping on an ant again if I could help it.

  By the time the wagon party got to Salt Lake, my mother and Samuel’s were as close as sisters. My mother was the one who had a revelation. An angel told her my father should marry Samuel’s mother. It would keep us together. We were far from home and our mothers were lonesome for the families they’d left behind. The marriage made Samuel and me brothers.

  Samuel and I looked after each other. I kept him from wandering off. He kept me from seeing only the hard side of living. We didn’t talk of it, but I figured that was one of the reasons why he and Deborah followed me to Junction after Lydia and the baby died. He didn’t want me falling into a pit of hard thoughts.

  Samuel was dead.

  Something bumped into my leg. Sally. She looked up into my eyes. It was like she knew. I got down on my knees in the snow. Holding on to Sally, I let myself bawl like a baby.

  When I’d cried myself dry to the bone, I rubbed my face with snow. I got to my feet and looked down at Samuel and Deborah’s cabin. Gray smoke rose from the cookstove chimney pipe. Deborah was there, waiting. She had warned me to stay away. But Samuel would want me to tell her about the wheel. He’d want her to be free to leave with her sister’s family.

  I bent over again, out of air.

  I’d cared about Deborah since the first time I saw her. It was their wedding day. After the ceremony, there was a dance at the wardhouse. She wasn’t the prettiest woman, her cheekbones were too high for that. It was Deborah’s eyes. They were rings of hazel with flecks of blue. Each ring was lighter and clearer than the other. When she smiled or laughed, her eyes gave off a shine. It was hard to look away. I danced with her once. A waltz. Her hand was small in mine and I couldn’t think of a thing to say. She didn’t seem to mind. She hummed as we danced. This filled the gap between us, strangers bound together because of Samuel.

  He’d want me to tell her. He’d expect that of me.

  “All right,” I said. “All right.” I got on Bob and rode down the trail to the floor of the canyon, Sally leading the way.

  At Deborah and Samuel’s cabin, I called through the door saying it was me. Deborah opened the door. “There’s something I have to tell you,” I said.

  If she didn’t like it that I was on her doorstep, it didn’t show. Neither did she look surprised. A kind of flatness had come over her features. She said, “Is this about the marshal?”

  “No.”

  I stood on the threshold. Sally brushed past me and went inside. Deborah’s cheeks had hollowed. She was thinner than she’d been when I saw her two weeks ago. I couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “What is it?” she said.

  My thoughts jammed up. I didn’t know what to say.

  “This is about Samuel. Isn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “Something’s happened,” she said.

  “I believe so. A while back at that rockslide.”

  Alarm flared in her eyes.

  I said, “Can I come in?”

  Deborah stepped away from the door. I went inside. “What’s happened?” she said.

  Sweat ran down my sides. I looked past her and toward the parlor. Sunlight coming through the window lit up one of the black horsehair chairs. An image of Samuel sitting there with his legs stretched out in front of him and his ankles crossed darted through my thoughts. He’d expect me to tell Deborah.

  I said, “Brother Carson, when him and I were at the rockslide, he saw something in the ravine below. I didn’t see anything but Brother Carson thought he did.”

  Deborah wobbled. I caught her arm and steered her to the table in the kitchen. I got her to sit down. I sat across from her. A black rock with white in it was on the table. I figured it was one of Samuel’s. She put her hand on top of it.

  I said, “What he saw were glints of light coming off a circle of iron. In the bottom of the ravine.”

  The fire in the cookstove popped, startling me. Deborah didn’t seem to notice. She sat without moving with her hand on the rock.

  I said, “I think it’s a wheel.”

  “A wheel.” Her voice was flat. Her eyes were blank.

  “Yes.” My voice had taken an odd turn. It felt like it might crumble into pieces. The muscles in my face felt the same.

  Deborah said, “Why are you telling me this?”

  “It grieves me bad. I don’t want to believe it. But I think the wheel came off a
wagon. Samuel’s.”

  Her breathing turned shallow and quick. The little color she’d had in her cheeks was gone. She lowered her head and covered her face with her hands. I expected her to cry. I wanted to press her hurt into me.

  Deborah kept her face covered with her hands. She didn’t move. She didn’t make a sound. I didn’t know what to say or do. After a long while, Deborah lowered her hands. The flecks of blue in her hazel eyes were dark. She said, “Are you telling me Samuel’s in the ravine? That he’s dead?”

  Her flat tone bored into me. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”

  She picked up the rock that was on the table. Her fingers curled around it. Her knuckles were white.

  Her grip on the rock loosened. A kind of dull curiosity showed in her eyes. “You knew,” she said. “All this time. You knew.”

  “I didn’t. Brother Carson wasn’t sure what he’d seen. Not at first.”

  She shook her head like she was trying to make sense of this. “But now he says it’s a wheel. He changed his mind. Somehow. For some reason.”

  “It’s not so much that he changed his mind. He wouldn’t let himself think it was a wheel. Didn’t want it to be. But after a while, he couldn’t talk himself out of it. That’s what he told me. It was a wheel even though he didn’t want it to be. Then when Samuel’s letters came saying how he was delayed, going to out-of-the-way places. . . .” My voice trailed off.

  She pressed her lips together, then gave her head a small shake. She said, “Samuel didn’t say that, not in those words. It was me wanting—” She stopped.

  I stared at her, not knowing what to say to this. Other than she was like me, seeing only what she needed to see.

  Deborah said, “When did Brother Carson tell you he was sure it was a wheel?”

  “Last month. The morning he helped get the marshal out of Junction.”

  “That was weeks ago.” Her hollow tone unnerved me. “You should have told me. You both should have. Even if you weren’t sure.”

  “Yes. I should have.”

  “What you told me about Samuel turning around at the rockslide. What you said about him coming through the Fish Lakes. I believed you.”

  “I believed it, too.”

  “I’ve been waiting. All this time. Day after day. Hour by hour.” Her voice had a far-off sound. It was like she was talking about something that didn’t matter to her. I wanted her to raise her voice, yell at me. Anything would be better than her empty tone.

  She said, “Every time I thought about Samuel being hurt or lost out in this weather, I told myself he’d been forced to take a longer route. Like you told me.”

  “I was wrong.”

  She closed her eyes and pressed her lips. I understood she was doing her best not to give way to tears. I said, “I’m sorry, Sister Deborah. I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t seem to hear. She held herself still. All at once, a shudder ran through her. Her face crumpled, her pain plain to see. She was imagining Samuel dead, I thought. She was thinking how he’d never come home.

  I stood up. “I’ll get your sister.”

  “No.” The word was sharp. Deborah looked up at me. Her eyes had all at once acquired a strange glitter. It was like a quick fever had come over her. She said, “You didn’t go down and look.” Her words came fast, the flatness in her tone now gone. “You saw it from a distance. Isn’t that so?”

  I understood she meant the wheel. I said, “Yes.”

  “It could have come off someone else’s wagon. It could have happened years ago.”

  Standing across from her at the table, I shook my head. Her mind, like mine, wouldn’t let her think the worst.

  I sat back down. My voice low, I said, “I believe it’s Samuel’s.” I paused to think through what needed to be said next. When I found words, I said, “He should be home by now. Even if he did extra work. Even if he had to come through the mountains. Samuel should be home.”

  Deborah stood up, went to the cookstove, and opened the oven door. It slipped from her hand, banging shut. She flinched. Then she turned toward me. Her cheeks were flushed. She said, “I want to see the ravine. I want to go now. Before the next storm sets in.”

  “It’s a three-day journey. It’s February.”

  “I want to see for myself. I’ll know if it’s a wheel. I’ll know if it’s from Samuel’s wagon.”

  “It’s too risky this time of year.”

  “Then I’ll go on my own. I have the map you drew me.”

  “That map’s rough.”

  “I have to see for myself.”

  “You might not be able to see much. Not with the snow and all.”

  “I’ll know if it’s Samuel’s. I’ll feel it.”

  “I’ll take you in the spring.”

  “And keep waiting, not knowing for sure? I can’t bear it. Do you hear me? I can’t bear it another day longer.” She stopped herself. It was like she’d heard something frightening in her voice and needed to tamp it down. She put her hand on her breastbone and pushed against it. She said, “You lost Lydia. You know the hurt. But think how it would be if you didn’t know where she and the baby were.”

  The image of the cemetery in Cedar City took shape in my mind. The soil was newly dug and heaped high on one side of the open grave. At the other side, a coffin that held Lydia and the baby waited to be lowered. Nearly everyone in town was there. No one knew what to say to me. I said nothing to them. The day was hot but I was frozen.

  Deborah said, “I have to see the ravine. I have to see it now. Samuel, if that’s where he is, he won’t be able to rest. He has to know that I’m not worried sick about him, that I’m not looking for him every moment of every day. Once I go, if he’s there, we can both rest.”

  I looked at the rock on the table. Likely Samuel had a story about it that I didn’t know anything about. Probably it meant something to him and Deborah. I looked over at the parlor chair. It was like Samuel was there, watching and waiting for my answer.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll take you.”

  SAMUEL

  Seventy-nine days ago

  November 25, 1887

  Utah Territory

  Dear Wife Deborah,

  I am Home nearly. Just a few Days away. Snort and Wally know it. They gave up their Complaining and are in a hurry. I will give You this Letter myself. The notion of Me writing a Letter so close to Home will surely make You laugh. But last Night I saw a Wonder in the Sky. I have to tell You about it while the Sight is strong in my Mind.

  It was a Waterfall of Shooting Stars. So many I could not count Them. The Stars glowed. They were on Fire. They curved toward Earth. A Waterfall of Them. That is the only way I know how to say what the Stars did. They fell from Heaven. Before my Eyes They fell. Before I could blink the Fire faded out of Them. They went Dark. That quick the Stars were gone.

  It was a Wonder. The Kind that causes a Man to think he dreamed it. I did not. I saw It.

  It will be a Wonder to be Home with You.

  Your Husband,

  Samuel Tyler

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  DEBORAH – HOME

  February 13–15, 1888

  Nels and Carson Miller came for me at dawn the next day. The sky was clear. The last of the stars were dimming but the half-moon still showed. We rode single file into the Wastelands with Nels in front and Carson behind me. Our bedrolls were tied to the backs of our saddles. I rode one of Adam Baker’s horses. I wore Samuel’s Sunday trousers belted tight and the cuffs rolled up a few inches.

  The recent days of sun and spells of warmer afternoons had melted the snow so that it was only calf deep. As day broke, we rode past and around rock formations shaped like cathedrals. Massive pillared walls of rock streaked orange and white sat on top of buttes. Nels steered us away from deep cracks in the earth that appeared without warming. Above us, hawks rode on drafts of air with their wings stretched wide. From time to time, Nels put his right hand up, signaling us to stop. He sat listening
, his gaze taking in the land. He was looking, I believed, for lawmen.

  Other times we stopped so Nels and Carson could study the landmarks to get their bearings.

  This discussion of landmarks was the only talk they did. I had nothing to say. We were going to the place where Samuel might be. It was all I could think about. Even the notion of encountering lawmen didn’t matter much to me.

  Yesterday, Nels made me agree we wouldn’t start out if there were any signs of snow. “And once we’re on the trail, if it clouds up or the air smells like snow, we’re turning back,” he said. “You have to promise me you won’t dispute me on that.”

  “You have my word.”

  He gave me a long look like he was trying to seal me to my promise. I said, “We’ll turn back if the weather looks threatening. Junction doesn’t need any more trouble.”

  “All right then. I’ll talk to Brother Carson about coming with us. I’ll see about getting you a horse.”

  Late afternoon yesterday, I went to Grace and Michael’s to tell them Nels was taking me to the rockslide. Nels wanted to go with me to Grace’s but I’d told him no. The word came out as a snap and settled matters. I couldn’t tell him I wanted to walk through the orchard Samuel and I had planted years back. I couldn’t tell him I wanted the cold to freeze the pain that threatened to crush me.

  When I got to Grace’s and she saw I had something of importance to say, she sent the boys outside. She, Michael, and I sat at the kitchen table. They felt far away from me. I gripped the edge of the table to keep myself steady. I told them what Nels had said about Samuel and the ravine. My words were far-off and dull in my ears.

  Michael said, “We’ve feared the worst with each passing day.”

  Grace got up and put her arms around me. She cried some but my eyes ached with dryness. Then I told them that Nels and Carson Miller were taking me to the ravine.

  I expected them to put up an argument. I was a married woman traveling with men who weren’t family. The weather could turn. The journey would be rough-going and dangerous in places.

  Grace said, “You need to go. If it were me,” she glanced at Michael, “I’d have to.”