Jesse got up abruptly and crossed the room to look into the mirror. LisBeth noticed for the first time that her mother’s hair streamed loosely down her back. Jesse reached up with one hand and began to wind one graying curl through her fingers.
“You think I don’t understand how it feels to be young and in love. Well, perhaps I have forgotten some things. But, just now, do you know what I was thinking?”
Jesse turned to face her daughter. “I was looking in the mirror and wondering, ‘Who is that old woman come to interrupt my talk with LisBeth?’” Jesse searched her daughter’s eyes and found willingness to listen and try to understand.
“You see, LisBeth, when I think of myself, I don’t think of that woman I just saw in the mirror. Sometimes, I am a young child, running out to the well to pump fresh water for my mother. Then another time, I am a young wife, shopping to fill a wagon for a trip across the prairie. I’m scared to death, but I’m doing what I have to do. Sometimes, I am a sad woman, grieving the loss of her husband. But never, LisBeth, never do I think of myself as the old woman you see. It just seems so short a time ago that I was young. Oh, I was never so beautiful as you, and certainly never so impulsive, but I was young. And I am still young—inside. Yes, dear, I do remember what it was like and, yes, I do have strong feelings. I’ve just had lots of practice at covering them up so that others won’t see them.” Jesse hesitated before she added, “So that others won’t see me. LisBeth, dear, don’t always accept what you see, because if you do, then you won’t see me. I know that I’m usually soft-spoken and very private, but I remember quilting a hope chest full of quilts… and waiting… and waiting… and no one came to fulfill my hopes. I remember hurting and then learning to love someone I never chose for myself, and then hurting again, more than I ever thought possible. I learned to trust the Lord in all those things. There’s a Bible verse, LisBeth. ‘He hath made every thing beautiful in his time.’ I’ve learned the truth of that verse, and now,” Jesse’s hands trembled as she parted and loosely braided her thick hair, “now, I think it’s time that you learned about your mama—and yourself. Wipe your tears, and wash your face, and meet me in the kitchen.”
Jesse left and LisBeth splashed her face, went to the kitchen, stirred up the fire, and settled into one of the rockers, her heart pounding.
When Augusta answered the soft knock at her door, Jesse whispered, “Thank the Lord,” and then said quickly, “Augusta, I’m about to do something I may regret, but I’ve got to do it before I lose heart. Will you come to the kitchen with me and just be there while I tell LisBeth something?”
Augusta saw fear in her friend’s eyes. She grabbed her duster and followed Jesse into the kitchen where LisBeth waited.
Jesse cleared her throat, and then courage failed her. “Wait here,” she said, and left again. Augusta and LisBeth exchanged quizzical glances and waited. When Jesse re-entered the room, she was carrying the ragged quilt that had always covered her bed. LisBeth had tried to replace it countless times, but Jesse would not have it. “It suits me,” she would say, “and don’t you ever do anything with this quilt. It’s more than old fabric and thread. These stitches know secrets, the blocks all tell stories, and someday I’ll share them.” The quilt remained on the bed, fading more and more, tearing until it was nearly beyond repair. Still, Jesse clung to it.
Now, she stood trembling before her only child, and she clung to the quilt and said, “LisBeth, I know you’ve wanted me to get rid of this thing for years, and I never would. Well now, you’re going to hear why. I’ve told you that the stitches know secrets, and the blocks can tell stories, and now, I think—” Jesse paused and took a deep breath, “—now, I think, it is time for you to hear the stories.”
Jesse spread the quilt on the floor between them, and LisBeth and Augusta leaned forward in their chairs. The firelight cast a warm glow over the room. No one had lighted a lamp, so the three women sat in the half light. Reaching across the quilt to lay her hand on the center panel, Jesse began.
“It starts, here, LisBeth. The log cabin blocks are for my home place in Illinois. There was Mama and Papa and my sister, Betsy, and me.” Jesse described her home—the trees, the barns, the fields—to LisBeth. She stopped abruptly. “But, LisBeth, your knowing about where I grew up and what it looked like—that doesn’t tell you about me, does it?” Her voice trembled a little as Jesse went on to tell of her own hope chest, the disappointments of her youth, and how she had married Homer King.
“But Mama,” LisBeth interrupted, “all those stories you told me about how much you loved Papa, and how…”
“Hush, LisBeth, or I’ll never get through it,” her mother ordered. “You’ll hear it all, but it’s hard for me to talk about it. Sometimes it hurts to remember.”
Jesse’s hand slid across the quilt to the next row of blocks.
“These are still log cabins, but they’re all cut in half. I made them that way to show that when Homer decided we were leaving Illinois, it seemed to me that my home was all broken up. I felt sort of broken inside too.
“And these,” Jesse said, tracing the wheels that had been quilted into the next border of wide, plain strips of cloth, “these are the wheels that took me away from everyone I knew and everything I loved.”
Jesse’s voice evened out as she recounted the weeks on the trail, the river crossings, the broken axles, and Jacob’s death.
LisBeth gasped, “I had a brother, Mama?! You never told me! What’s the next row mean, Mama? The diamond pieces…” Jesse sent a lightning quick plea to heaven for courage. She cleared her throat and then plunged into the next chapter of her life. “Those are about the part of my life it’s hardest to tell about. I always knew I should. But every time I tried, I just lost courage.”
LisBeth’s eyes grew wide with her imaginings of something horrible.
“LisBeth, the diamonds are sewn together to make a triangle, and the triangles make tepees. Indian tepees—tepees I once feared but came to call home after Homer died, and I was taken in by the Lakota… and met your pa.” Jesse looked up at her daughter. LisBeth abruptly sat back in her chair, mouth agape. A furrow appeared between her eyebrows as she tried to grasp what her mother had just said.
Augusta leaned farther forward in her chair, and it creaked as her weight shifted. Jesse jumped at the sudden sound, and rushed forward with the story, telling all she could, trying to tell years in a few moments, trying to tell it before her courage failed her or LisBeth stopped her or Augusta interrupted. But Augusta had no intention of interrupting, and LisBeth was speechless. Exactly what emotion kept her speechless, Jesse could not tell, for she was afraid to look up.
She directed her attention to the quilt, telling its story. She described Rides the Wind and Old One, Two Mothers, who became Soaring Eagle, and Prairie Flower. Finally, she told about Howling Wolf and his dragging her to Pierre Canard’s cabin.
“That’s the day you were born, LisBeth. That day, in Pierre Canard’s cabin.”
Jesse continued by telling her daughter about the difficulty she had in naming her. She explained that the W. in her name stood for Wind and that she had almost become Daughter of the Wind. And she shared the depression she had battled, the loss, and finally how finding Suzette Canard’s quilt pieces and making the quilt had helped her grief heal. She moved on to the last border.
“And this last border, LisBeth,” Jesse said in a hoarse whisper, “this vine is the True Vine, my Lord Jesus Christ, who has wrapped himself around everything that’s ever happened to me and made it all beautiful, in his time.”
At last she had told every stitch. Jesse was exhausted. Pulling the quilt to herself, she sat on the floor of the kitchen and cuddled it and did not weep.
LisBeth stared in disbelief at the patchwork that spilled from her mother’s lap onto the floor. Her eyes followed its pattern upward to the wrinkled hands that held it. They twitched nervously. Finally, LisBeth looked into the solemn gray eyes of the woman who had borne her.
The silence became too heavy. Jesse broke it. “So, LisBeth, that’s how you came to be.” As she spoke, Jesse’s eyes searched her daughter’s face anxiously.
LisBeth’s expression revealed a storm of questions raging inside. Part of her was angry. She wanted to accuse Jesse of lying. But as she thought back over the memories, she knew that Jesse had never lied. She had always stopped just before the whole truth came out. But she had never lied. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid.”
“You were ashamed!” LisBeth retorted.
Jesse stood firm. “I was never ashamed. I’ve tried to be true to the Lord and true to your father. But I wanted to protect you from what others might say to hurt you.”
A flood of questions began.
“What was he like? What was my father like?”
The aging face shone with love. “Everything I have ever said to you about your father was true. Everything about his kindness, his character, his love. It’s all true. But his name wasn’t Homer King. His name was Rides the Wind. That’s the only thing I didn’t tell right.” Jesse’s voice broke, “And maybe it was the most important thing for you to know.”
“The woman at Fort Kearney—that was Prairie Flower?” Jesse nodded and LisBeth began to understand her mother’s eager conversation that night.
“What happened to Soaring Eagle?”
Jesse told what she knew.
Questions went on and on late into the night until LisBeth’s mind was too full to grasp any more, and Jesse’s voice was nearly gone.
At last, LisBeth looked down at the quilt “Now I understand why you would never let it go.”
Jesse looked up. “Are you angry with me?”
“Oh, Mama, I wanted to be angry, but I can’t be. You said you didn’t tell me because you love me. I know you love me, Mama. How can I be angry with you when all these years you kept the secrets inside? All these years I thought you were just Mama, and there was a whole world of things about you I didn’t know! I can’t be angry, Mama. I have such a little lump of troubles to worry over, and you’ve had such a mountain of them.” LisBeth impulsively knelt by her mother, encircled her in her arms, and wept her first woman’s tears.
Augusta joined in the tears, and when LisBeth and Jesse finally stood up, Jesse smiled sheepishly and said, “Well, Augusta, I told you earlier that I’ve had my moments, and now you know about all of them. You’ve been a dear friend. I thought you deserved to hear this, too. I hope it doesn’t change things… but if it does, I’ll understand.” Jesse steeled herself and prepared to protect LisBeth from whatever hurtful thing might come their way, now that Augusta knew she had taken in a woman of questionable past with a child of questionable heritage.
“Jesse King,” Augusta scolded dabbing away her tears and shaking a dimpled hand in her face, “I’m no idiot, and I figured you had a few secrets to tell. And don’t think I haven’t been able to put two and two together and get four these past few years with all the Indian trouble and seeing your reactions to the news and the talk in the dining room.
“Land sakes, woman! I knew there was more to the Injuns in your story than you let on. I ain’t as equality minded as you, Jesse King, but you’re a fine Christian woman, and you’ve raised your daughter to be a fine Christian girl, and what folks don’t know won’t hurt ’em. And that’s that.”
So LisBeth and Jesse King and Augusta Hathaway went to their rooms to rest for the hour that remained before dawn. Jesse spread the tattered quilt out on her bed and remembered the things that belonged only to her and Rides the Wind.
Augusta sank onto her down comforter and worried over the future.
But LisBeth lay awake, reviewing it all in her mind, and taking up a heavy burden. How can I ever marry MacKenzie, she thought, now that I know? How can I ever marry any respectable man? For LisBeth had heard the dining room talk and had read the newspaper articles. They described “fiends in human form” committing “barbarous treachery” with “no regard for human life.” Mama had described a man who loved his wife and child. It was all so confusing! But, LisBeth reasoned, we live in the world of whites. She had seen how half-breeds were treated, and now she had become one of them. My life is all tatters, just like Mama’s quilt. But Mama did the best she could. LisBeth decided to be brave, like her father, Rides the Wind. She would keep the hurt to herself. And in that moment, LisBeth became a woman, just like her mother.
Twenty-nine
… but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.—Philippians 3:13–14
“That’ll do, Mac… you can close ’er up.” J. W. barked the order so loud that MacKenzie heard him easily, even though J. W. was in the back storeroom and MacKenzie was sweeping the floor near the display window up front. The order had its desired effect. Two young ladies who had been dallying at the candy counter jumped and scurried out. Mrs. Bond decided she’d take six yards of the double pink and forego the California gold—“although Charity would look so lovely in gold at the church social next week.” Mrs. Bond made the latter comment as off-handedly as possible. Still, when she spoke Charity’s name, she watched young MacKenzie carefully for any reaction to the sound of her daughter’s name.
Apparently MacKenzie had something on his mind. Mrs. Bond tried again.
“You are going to the church social, aren’t you, MacKenzie?”
As Mac measured the fabric, J. W. walked to the front of the store, loudly jingling the door keys. Mac cut and folded the fabric, bound it in brown paper, and tied the package with string.
“Shall I put this on your account, Mrs. Bond?”
“Oh, yes, MacKenzie, please,” she sighed and rolled her eyes, “I’m certain Charity will be in for at least one more shopping spree before the social. She’ll need gloves and… oh, I forgot! You’re new in town, aren’t you MacKenzie? I’m certain Charity would be delighted to have you join her and her friends at the social. Charity would be happy to introduce you to the other young people at the church. You haven’t had much chance to meet anyone, have you?”
J. W. rattled the keys again and cleared his throat. “Have a good day, Mrs. Bond. Thank you for coming. My best to the family.” He swung the door wide.
Mrs. Bond was not so easily put off. “So, then, MacKenzie, I’ll be certain to have Charity stop by tomorrow. You two can make arrangements then.”
J. W. raised one eyebrow behind Mrs. Bond’s back and shook his head at MacKenzie, frowning.
“Well, thank you just the same, Mrs. Bond. I will be attending the social, of course, but I’ll probably be late. I have to help close up here, you know, and I wouldn’t want Charity to have to wait for me.” As he spoke, MacKenzie took Mrs. Bond’s arm and politely escorted her toward the front of the store. Agnes Bond suddenly found herself standing on the boardwalk just outside the dry goods store, talking to the closed door.
J. W. had already turned the lock in the door and pulled down the shades. Grasping her package firmly, Agnes launched herself down the boardwalk and across the street. She had not reached the other side before a smile wreathed her dimpled face. How silly of me, she thought. Charity won’t want this double pink. I’m sure she’ll want me to exchange it, but I’ll be much too busy putting up preserves. She’ll just have to do it herself!
When J. W. closed the door to the store, he slapped MacKenzie on the back. “Good work, my boy! Now, let me tell you one thing about the dry goods business. Buy the best merchandise, sell at a reasonable price, and,” he winked broadly, “never, but never let Agnes Bond plan your social life! A mother in search of a husband for her daughter is not a thing to be trifled with.”
MacKenzie grinned back. “Oh, Charity�
��s not so bad, Mr. Miles. She’s just a bit spoiled, that’s all.”
“A bit spoiled! Kindness just drips off your tongue, young man.”
MacKenzie changed the subject. Pulling a book from under the counter, he said, “Oh! I almost forgot… I need to pay for this!”
Miles took it to ring it up and read out loud. “Memoirs of the Savage West, by Francis Day.” He looked up at MacKenzie. “You interested in the Indian Wars, Mac?”
“I read a review in the paper. It said ‘she shows that she understands the great West,’ and I thought it might be interesting reading. I was still pretty young when this all started.”
J. W. didn’t ask any more questions. He took Mac’s money, wrapped up the book, and they left the store together—out the back door and away from Agnes Bond. Mac jogged briskly around the back of the livery stable and into the hotel’s front door. Looking carefully about, he walked quietly through the dining room and into the kitchen where LisBeth was helping her mother prepare supper.
Jesse smiled a welcome. LisBeth didn’t look up until Mac called her name.
“LisBeth.” It was Mac’s turn to feel awkward. Instead of the blushing, trembling girl whom he had seen when he first arrived, here was a calm young woman who seemed—well—downright uninterested in what he might have to say. She’d been acting this way for a couple of weeks now, and he had to admit that it made him feel awkward. It also made LisBeth darned attractive.
Mac held out the package. “This came in over at Miles’s. I know you like to read and thought you might enjoy it”
LisBeth took the gift half-heartedly and unwrapped it. Scanning the title she flushed and turned to Jesse. “It’s that book by Mrs. Day, Mother. Another tale of bloodthirsty Indians and the helpless white folk they’re murdering.” Turning to Mac, she added bitterly, “I wonder, Mr. Baird, does Mrs. Day mention at all that the white people in question had just violated another treaty and taken more of the Indians’ land? Does Mrs. Day mention the defenseless Indian women and children murdered by the infantry?”
Walks the Fire Page 25