The Personal History of Rachel DuPree

by Ann Weisgarber

  “Well, then, help yourself to the well by the barn,” I said, much relieved. “There’s a trough for the oxen.”

  “Appreciate that.” The driver gave the stove one last wipe and stuffed the rag in his back pocket. Then he looked at me and put his hand to the narrow brim of his slouch hat. He tugged it into place and as he did, I imagined that he tipped his head to me.

  As I remembered that day, sitting in my parlor, a strange thought from out of the blue came to me. That driver had it wrong. It wouldn’t be my granddaughter baking biscuits in the cookstove. It’d be some white woman, somebody I didn’t know. I saw it as clear as day: a white woman and her husband in my house picking over our belongings. At first these people would claim they’d come for curiosity’s sake. They’d never want anything that once belonged to Negroes, especially the DuPrees, the Negroes what held themselves out as equal to whites. But after a while the man would note the sturdiness of our bed’s headboard, and his wife would take a notion to run her finger around the circle of ivy on the cookstove’s door. They’d see the potbelly stove; they’d admire its high shine. “It’d be a shame to let such things go to waste,” the woman would say to her husband, just like I had when Isaac bought somebody’s ranch.

  Upset by the thought, I got up, opened the door to the porch, and breathed in the cool air to clear my head. It was still raining. Isaac, Mary, and John were out in this weather, cold, wet, and hungry.

  Isaac would never let strangers have our ranch. Not unless he was dead. I closed the door, slamming it too hard.

  Earlier I’d told myself that if it rained, everything would be all right. I’d said I’d forget about buffalo soldiers and Indian women. Now that it was raining, things would be better between me and Isaac. We’d pull together; we’d get through the coming winter. Supplies might be short, but I’d make them stretch. I’d feed our children. I’d stand up and make the best of things. Like I always had. Like Isaac expected.

  I left one lantern burning in the parlor window. Taking the other one, I went into the bedroom.

  It was raining too hard to use the outhouse, so I used the chamber pot. That was when I saw the blood. Not much, but enough to scare me. I stuffed a rag in my drawers. The baby, I realized with a shock, hadn’t kicked all evening.

  11

  ALAND MINDY MCKEE

  It was still raining the next day, and Isaac, Mary, and John weren’t home. I thought the worst—they were lost, lightning had struck them dead, they had fallen in a wash and drowned in a fast-moving current. As the day wore on, I knew I had to go to Al McKee’s to get help, but I kept putting it off. The McKees were about three miles away, and by horse it didn’t take all that long. But Isaac had the horses and that meant walking. The girls couldn’t do it. The slimy mud pulled like quicksand; they’d never stay upright. I’d have to leave them home, and that wasn’t something I cared to think about.

  I told myself that if Isaac and the older children weren’t home by the time I finished scrubbing the laundry, I’d go then. Once that was all done, I decided to wait until after I had the laundry hung to dry in the kitchen. When that was all done, I said I’d wait until after Emma’s afternoon nap.

  She was still napping when Rounder, looking like someone else’s dog, showed up. His black and white coat dripped with mud the color of long-dead fallen leaves and his fur was so slicked down that his legs looked like knobby sticks. His muzzle was as pointed as a fox’s. Walking up the road were Isaac, Mary, and John. I nearly collapsed with relief.

  If they hadn’t been wet clear through and coated from top to bottom with mud, I would have thrown my arms around the three of them. I met them on the porch with towels and slices of soap. “Lord,” I said, “look at you all.”

  “We’re a sight, aren’t we?” Isaac said.

  “For sore eyes.”

  He had wiped the mud away from around his eyes. His skin there was drawn and bruised looking. Likely Isaac had half carried Mary and John home. All the same, he was smiling. The drought was over. He had been right all along. Things would work out.

  “You two go wait in the dugout,” I said to Isaac and John. “I’ll heat up some water and Mary can wash up on the porch. Then it’ll be your turn. I’ve got fresh clothes for you.”

  “Where’re the horses, Daddy?” Alise said. “And the wagon?”

  “At the McKees’.”

  The McKees’? At best, I had placed Isaac and the children at the deserted Walker place. “Go on, now,” I said, and they did.

  A little later the three of them were as fresh scrubbed and as close to dry as a person could be when it was still raining. Everything had a damp feeling. Even the inside of the house was soggy, with the two rows of wet laundry that hung along the back wall of the kitchen.

  John plunked down at the kitchen table. “I’m hungry, Mama.” Isaac and Mary sat down with him. So did Liz and Alise. Emma, just waking up from her nap, wandered out from the bedroom. Isaac patted his leg and then pulled her up. “What’s this?” he said, looking at her wrapped hand.

  Emma held it up. “Burned it, Daddy. See.”

  Isaac looked at me. “What happened?”

  “It was an accident,” I said. “She touched the cookstove. She’s all right.”

  What else could I say? That my mind had been on the past? That I’d been thinking about Ida B. Wells-Barnett so I wouldn’t have to think about the Indian woman and her half-breed boy?

  “It was an accident,” I said again. I spooned out pinto beans onto three plates.

  Isaac picked up Emma’s bandaged hand and studied it. “Well. That’ll teach you to stay away from hot stoves.”

  I heard the blame in Isaac’s voice. I should have been minding Emma. I was always to blame when something bad happened to the children. Six and a half years ago, I was the reason Isaac Two slipped on the rocks. I should have been watching. Eight years ago, I was the reason Baby Henry lived only an hour. Baby Henry was born too soon, and even though Isaac never said it, I could tell what he thought by the way he looked at me when we buried our baby boy. He thought there was something I could’ve done to stop the bleeding that had started the week before Baby Henry’s birth. Maybe there was some kind of tea I could have drunk, or maybe I should’ve taken to my bed. But if there was such a tea, I didn’t know about it. And a woman didn’t rest for hours on end when she had three little children and no one else to mind them.

  Like now. I was bleeding some—not nearly as much as with Baby Henry—but I couldn’t just take to my bed, not even with Mary to help out. That was why I’d decided to keep still about Jerseybell and how I’d fallen and landed on my belly. Isaac didn’t need to know.

  I said, “You rode out the storm at the McKees’ place?”

  Isaac had a bite of beans, smiled his appreciation, and just like that, I knew he had forgiven me for Emma’s hand. That was Isaac for you. He could, when it suited him, let go of something before it had a chance to turn into a hard grudge. Nothing, I understood, was going to get in the way of him being happy about the rain. I’d do the same. I smiled back at him.

  He said, “It was Rounder that warned us early about the storm. He got skittish long before the wind picked up. Got to barking; he was nervous about getting home. Should have listened, but we still had some cows to move. By the time the clouds rolled in, it was too late. We were halfway between the McKees’ and the Walkers’ so we took a vote. The McKees won fair and square.”

  Mary said, “We got the horses in their barn just when it started to pour.”

  “I thought maybe you were out in that storm.”

  “You weren’t worried, were you?” Isaac said.

  I sat down at the table. “No.”

  “It got real dark, Mama,” John said. “There was lightning everywhere. And thunder. Rained cats and dogs—that’s what Mr. McKee called it.”

  Isaac said, “John and I expected to sleep out in their barn; their house is only the three rooms. But you know how Mindy is. There’s plenty of room,
she said, though I didn’t see where. That is the most crowded house I’ve ever been in.”

  “There’s a piano in the kitchen,” John said. “They just got it.”

  “A piano?”

  “Al won it in a poker game over in Deadwood,” Isaac said. “Mindy cleared a spot the width of a toothpick in front of the stove. That’s where she put me. Mary slept under the kitchen table, Rounder on one side of her, Al’s hound dog on the other. John bunked with their oldest boy.”

  “He’s just a half-pint,” John said, “but at least he’s a boy.”

  “Nothing but boys at that place,” Isaac said. “Good God, they’re a tumble.”

  Mary rolled her eyes in agreement.

  “Yeah,” John said. “And right before bedtime, there was a bunch of loud thunder, and we were all sitting in the kitchen when this ball of fire came down the stovepipe. It was this big.” His cupped hands showed the size of a popcorn ball. “It was shooting sparks clear across the room. You should’ve seen it. It went round and round the cookstove, sizzling and cracking just like this.” He filled up his cheeks and made exploding sounds.

  “Lord, John,” I said.

  “He’s telling the honest truth,” Mary said.

  “You should have heard Rounder and Big Blue howl,” John said. “The fireball went back up the pipe, sizzling and popping, sparks flying everywhere, and then it was gone.”

  “Gone?” Liz said.

  “Gone.”

  Pleased with his story, John sopped up the last of his beans with a piece of bread.

  Isaac said, “When I was in the army I heard about those fireballs. It’s a bolt of lightning that runs down a piece of metal. I’ll tell you what, it took awhile getting the children settled down after that. It was something else.” He ran his fingers up and down one of Emma’s short braids. “Al, Mindy, and I sat up through the biggest part of the storm. Been so long since it’s rained, none of us wanted to miss it. It was a beaut of a storm.”

  “Yes,” I said. I had nearly lost Jerseybell. I was bleeding. I had been worried sick about him and the children. But Isaac was right. The storm was a beaut.

  “Daddy,” Mary said, “you haven’t forgotten, have you? About the letter?”

  A shadow crossed Isaac’s face and suddenly he looked tired again. He scraped his fork over his empty plate like he expected to find something more. He lowered his voice a notch. “There’s a letter for you.” My throat tightened. He said, “Al was in Interior; he picked it up for you. It’s in my knapsack on the porch. John, go get it for your mother.”

  I swallowed past the lump forming in my throat. “Who’s it from?”

  “Looks like your sister’s hand.”

  “Aunt Sue?” Liz said. “But it’s not Christmas.”

  Mama, I thought. Something has happened to Mama. I got up and took Isaac’s and John’s empty dishes. Mary got up too. An unexpected letter, I believed, most likely carried sorrowful news. I put the dishes in a shallow pan of water. When John brought the letter to me, I didn’t look at it. I put it in my apron pocket, ignoring the disappointed looks the children gave me. Isaac and I always read our letters when we were alone. That way we had time to mull over the news. That way we had time to decide what parts to read to the children and what wasn’t meant for their ears.

  Isaac said, “As soon as things dry out, I’ll go back to the Mc-Kees’ and bring home the wagon. Any sooner in this mud and the horses’ll sink to their knees. I’ll get your patch tilled and you can put in your fall garden.” He tightened his arms around Emma for a moment and then put her down on the floor. He got up. There was work to do.

  Isaac stepped close and put his hand on my arm. He whispered, “You all right? You don’t look yourself.”

  My hand went to the letter in my pocket. “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll be in the barn,” he said.

  I nodded.

  The rest of the day I found myself fiddling with the letter in my pocket. It was thick; more than a page or two. From time to time when nobody was looking, I studied the envelope. The handwriting was runny like it had gotten wet, but Isaac was right. It was from Sue.

  That evening it stopped raining long enough for me and Isaac to sit on the porch. It was cool, and I had on my blue shawl. It had gotten dark early, and I couldn’t do my mending. I didn’t mind, though. It felt good to give my eyes a rest.

  Isaac said, “Read Sue’s letter yet?”

  “Haven’t had time.”

  “Maybe it’s good news.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Want me to read it first?”

  “No.” I wasn’t ready to know what was in it. I couldn’t bear any hard news from home. To stop thinking about the letter, I said, “How are the McKees holding up with this drought?”

  “About like us.”

  “You didn’t tell them about Liz, did you?”

  Isaac looked at me.

  “About the well?”

  “No.” Isaac leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “I’ve got some news.” He paused. “Al’s joining the army.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. Can hardly wait to get to the front lines. Figures he’ll show the Germans what Americans are made of.”

  “But why?”

  “He wants to do his part.”

  “But what about those three little boys of his?” I said. “And Mindy? He can’t take off like that; he could be gone most of the winter.”

  “They’ll be all right. She and the boys are going to her folks in Des Moines.”

  I sucked in some air. First Mabel Walker and now Mindy. Until she came back, that left me the only woman out here. I’d have to go five miles to Interior just to see another woman, and I didn’t have anyone there that called me her friend. That left me with nothing but the Indian women what passed by on the road.

  “Surprised me too,” Isaac said. “Told Al I’d see to his cattle until he gets back from France. But he says that after the war he wants to give the Colorado Rockies a try. He’s had it with the Badlands. This drought’s made the decision easy for him.” Isaac shook his head. “Hate to see them go. I’ll miss them.”

  I slumped back in my chair. I hardly knew what to think. I couldn’t imagine the Badlands without Mindy. She was my friend; I didn’t know what I’d do without her. She had stood by me when Isaac Two died, and she had been with me when Alise was born. I had done as much for her. I’d helped her when her boys were born. Once, when her middle boy, Will, had a fever so high that Mindy was sure he’d die, I sat up with her all through that long night. Together we kept cool, wet rags on Will until his fever broke and the glaze left his eyes. Usually every winter, about February, when Mindy didn’t think she could stand her house a minute longer, Al brought her and the boys over for a visit. Me and her’d quilt for the day, the children playing around our feet. Every Independence Day in July we went to their place for a picnic. The Walkers came too. Me, Mindy, and Mabel put food out on a table while the men and the older children played baseball. When it got dark and everybody was filled up with potato salad and roasted chicken and German chocolate cake, the men built a big fire and we’d sit around it, our way of saluting the country’s birth.

  Mindy hadn’t always been in the Badlands. Al had staked his claim during our second summer there. He was a boy then, just turned eighteen, but he was broad shouldered and his beard was thick. With a wink and an extra five dollars, he convinced the man at the land office that he was twenty-one. Isaac helped him build his dugout and then, three years later, his wood house. That was just before Al went home to Des Moines to visit his folks. When he came back to the Badlands in the spring, he brought his redheaded bride, the seventeen-year-old Mindy.

  I took to her right off. I liked the way her green eyes came close to disappearing whenever she smiled, and I liked how she laughed over the least little thing. She didn’t seem to care that me and Isaac were Negroes. The first time I met her she said how grateful she was that Isaac h
ad helped Al build his house. She was happy to have me for her neighbor. Knowing I was nearby, she’d said, was a comfort. Al liked to roam, she said, and that was true. He had a tendency to disappear in the Black Hills for a few weeks at a time, sometimes longer. Al was living the wrong life, Mindy once told me when we were quilting. She laughed over it. He should have been a mountain man, not a rancher.

  Now he wasn’t either. He was going to be an army man. And I’d never see Mindy again.

  “When?” I said to Isaac. “When are they leaving?”

  “Mindy’s going by the end of the week, Al a few days later.”

  So soon. I said, “They’re coming by so I can say good-bye, aren’t they?”

  “Don’t think so. I asked her to, but Mindy said she’s not good with that kind of thing. Said she’ll write as soon as they’re settled in Iowa.”

  It was all I could do to keep from breaking down and crying. There was going to be nothing around me but falling-down ranch houses and miles of empty country. Not that I blamed Mindy; I’d do the same. I pictured how it’d go for her. On her last morning, ready to go, there wouldn’t be anything left to do other than wash and pack the breakfast dishes. That done, she’d close the front door behind her and climb up on the wagon, where Al and the boys waited for her. They’d pull away from the house and Mindy wouldn’t look back; that wasn’t her way. At the depot in Interior, Mindy would kiss Al good-bye and tell him to give those Germans a piece of her mind. She’d board the train on the second call. She and the boys would wave good-bye to Al, their faces pressed flat against the window. After a while, when the boys got to fussing, Mindy would open her hamper and give them slices of buttered bread to quiet them down. They’d watch the countryside smooth out and turn green. Ranches would give way to farms until at last, the conductor would call out “Des Moines,” and Mindy would cry from the gladness of being home again with family.