Then one night at bedtime, the wind gusting from the north-west, Isaac held each child to him and kissed their cheeks. One by one he told them, even Emma, that he was going to the mine, just for the winter, doing what he had to do to keep the ranch. “Remember that,” he said to them, not allowing them to cry. “This land’s worth sacrificing for.”
I listened outside the children’s bedrooms. It took everything I had to hold myself together. Isaac was going to do this thing, but even still, I held on to hope. He could change his mind during the night; he hadn’t left yet.
Without a word between us, we got up the next morning well before first dawn. With a lantern on the counter, I made Isaac’s breakfast while he gathered up his things. When I let Rounder out, I saw that it was snowing. Numb to it all, I packed Isaac a lunch while he ate his biscuits and gravy. When he finished, ready to leave, he didn’t kiss my cheek good-bye. Instead, he put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “I’m counting on you,” he said. “We all are.”
My hand found the counter behind me. “Isaac,” I said. “Please. Don’t—”
“You’re strong,” he said. “More than you know.” At that, a cry rose up inside of me, and all at once, I was in his arms, a place where I hadn’t been in months.
My ear to his chest, I heard his heartbeat. Isaac bent some, just enough to rest his chin on top of my head. He thought I was strong. I pulled in his smell; I put my arms around him, feeling the strength of his back. Isaac was wrong; I wasn’t strong, not anymore. His hands pressed me close; through my heavy nightdress his fingers kneaded my backbone.
I knew what he was doing. He was working me, getting me to go along with what he was about to do. Don’t let him, a voice in my head said. Don’t. But all the same his hands felt so good on my back. I had missed his touch. His hands were broad and strong; they were hands that knew every part of me. Ridges of calluses, I knew, ran across his palms. I wanted to run my finger over them, I wanted to put his hand to my cheek and feel those calluses.
“Yes,” I said, and suddenly I believed that Isaac was right. I was strong; I could run the ranch. But just as fast, I saw the short supplies on the cupboard shelf, I pictured our children’s faces, pinched from the cold, their eyes flat from hunger. I saw my boys’ markers in the cemetery. By winter’s end there could be more. I couldn’t let that happen. And then there was my promise to Mary. There will be dances, I had told her the night Jerseybell died. There will be a dab of sweetness to carry her—to carry all of our children—through the hard times sure to come.
I lifted my head from Isaac’s chest, and pulling in some air, I pushed myself away. He didn’t try to stop me. “That’s right,” I said.
Isaac cocked his head, not seeing my meaning. I said, “I’m stronger than I know.”
“I’ve never doubted that. You’ll be all right.”
“You will be too.”
He gave me a quick smile, his eyes not meeting mine. He took his coat from the wall peg. He worked it into place, shrugging his shoulders, buttoning up. He pulled his hat on low, covering his ears, and tightened his stampede strings. Tears came to me; I could hardly see past them. Isaac picked up his knapsack and then he stopped. “Rachel,” he said.
Hope caught at my heart. I put my hand out to him. Isaac didn’t seem to see it; he looked past me. I waited, wanting him to put his knapsack down, wanting him to say, Why are you crying? I’m just seeing to the cattle. I’ll be back for noon dinner.
Isaac said, “I’m counting on you.”
My hand dropped to my side. He shouldered his knapsack and he left me then, stepping out onto the porch in the snow. I knew that Isaac was walking to Interior to take the westbound train.
I kept the children home from school and we got through the day somehow, all of us burdened by the sad blanket of quiet that settled over the house. Over and over, the children asked, “Why? Why’d Daddy leave?” and all I could say was, “The land. He’s doing it to keep the land.”
The next morning, my eyes gritty from not sleeping, I packed three lunches and gathered my cloth handbag. In our bedroom, I took out Isaac’s gold watch from the top dresser drawer. It had stopped; he must have forgotten to wind it before he left. I held it in my palm. Isaac always took it to town when he had business, but not this time. Likely he thought it might get stolen. I put it back in the drawer.
I told the children that I had business in town and that everybody was to mind Mary. “Mama!” they all said, their voices like howls. “What about school?” Putting on my coat, I told them to hush, I’d be back before dark and I expected all their chores to be done when I got home.
I walked down the rise, knowing my children were calling me, their scared faces pressed against the window. I had to do this, I told myself as I picked my way around the prairie-dog holes. The sun had come out and was melting the snow not caught up in drifts. Thin streams of water ran down the rise; at the bottom, it stood inches deep. Holding my coat high, I walked through the cold melt, my boots turning dark. Come night, I knew, the water would freeze, making a thick layer of ice. I walked up the next rise, slipping some in the wet snow, and then I was at the dugout.
I knocked at the door, calling to Manny Franks, the yellow-haired hired hand. He opened it. His suspenders hung down at his sides. Manny Franks had been eating his breakfast; he held a piece of bread. I stood in the doorway. “That other boy what helped with the cattle drive,” I said. “Do you know if he’s found work?”
“Don’t know,” Manny Franks said. “Last I heard, he was cleaning stalls at the livery. In Interior.”
“All right, then. Let’s find him.”
He grinned, showing a chipped front tooth. Likely the prospect of a friend’s company made him glad. Or maybe he was happy he wouldn’t be the only white boy working the DuPree place. He said, “Want me to hitch up the wagon?”
“Yes.”
Me and him headed to town that sunny morning, both of us sitting on the wagon’s buckboard, a blanket up to my chin. We were hardly on our way when I asked him if he knew the price of a train ticket from Interior to Chicago. His light-colored eyebrows raised, he gave me a surprised look.
“Do you?” I snapped. He told me and then said, “That’s why I hop freight cars.”
After that, neither of us had anything to say. Manny Franks, I supposed, had his own thoughts. As for me, I worked at the price of six tickets, doing the arithmetic in my head, wishing for a piece of paper so I could be sure. Then I thought about Isaac and how I carried hard feelings against him. Yet at the same time, I missed him so bad that it felt like somebody had shot a ragged hole through my heart. Just breathing hurt.
In town, we found Pete Klegberg in the alley behind the livery, drawing hard on a cigarette. He was an easy hire—ranching jobs were hard to come by, and my promise that Isaac would pay him in the spring was good enough.
That settled, there was one more thing to do in town. I told the boys to wait with the wagon, I wouldn’t be long. They nodded, standing in a patch of sun as they leaned against the wagon, short cigarettes hanging from the corners of their mouths.
I left those two white boys, knowing they were watching me as I walked down to the other end of the street. Here and there, horses were hitched to posts and there was a black automobile, mud-splattered, in front of the bank. As curious as that was, I believed there were faces in every window of every building and that it was me they were looking at. I was glad for my hat with its wide brim; it covered most of my face. It covered, I hoped, my shame.
Near the end of the street, close to the train depot, I stopped at the only two-story building in town and pushed open the door to the Interior Saloon.
It was said of Mrs. Clay, the woman what owned it, that she was the richest person in these parts of the Badlands. It was said of her that she had a taste for pretty things. That made her the only person what might buy what I had to sell.
I stood in the doorway of the saloon, letting my eyes settle to the gl
oom. There were a handful of round tables with chairs, and at first I believed the place to be empty of people. Then I heard the clink of dishes. A woman stood behind the high counter that ran along the side wall off to my right. Two dimly lit lanterns hung from the wall behind her. She watched me, her hands in a basin.
I went to her. Her hair was piled high and it was red, too red, and so were her lips, all painted up. She took her hands out of the basin, shook them, and then dried them on a rag. I saw that she wore rings. I told myself that Isaac had left. I made myself think about my children, and that propped up my courage.
“I’m needing to speak to Mrs. Clay,” I said. In my ears, my voice sounded like it was made of tin. I looked at the basin where her hands had been. A gray washrag hung over one side; water dripped onto the counter.
“You’re looking at her,” the woman said.
I cleared my throat. “I have a band.” I made myself raise my eyes, seeing her red lips and her eyes that were black and hard. I said, “A band I’m looking to sell.”
“Didn’t think you were here for a drink,” she said. Her voice was hoarse and deep; it made me think of a man’s voice, a man what smoked. She said, “What kind of band?”
I took off my gloves and stuffed them in my coat pocket. My fingers were like ice, but even so, I had to twist my wedding band back and forth, working it over my knuckle. When it finally came off, I put it in my palm and closed my fingers over it for a moment. Then, opening my hand, I held it out to her.
Mrs. Clay took the ring. “You Isaac DuPree’s woman?” she said without looking at me.
“Yes,” I said, wondering how she knew Isaac.
She held up the ring between two fingers, turning it some to catch the light from the lamps behind her. “You leaving him?”
“No.”
Mrs Clay lowered my band, then threw me a look that showed she didn’t believe me.
“It’s not like that,” I said. “It’s only for the winter.” She raised her eyebrows; they had been drawn on. I said, “It’s my children, they—” I stopped.
Mrs. Clay was sucking at her teeth, making a clicking sound as she eyed my band. “Pure gold?” she said.
“I believe so.”
She put it between her eyeteeth and bit it, looking at me to see how I was taking that. I didn’t look away. A woman like her, I understood, did not need a worn-out wedding band.
She took it from her mouth and held it up to the light. “It’s scratched.”
“It’s gold.”
She smiled at that, and as she did, something changed in her eyes; they softened some, and I believed it was pity that did that. She put the band on the counter, went to the cash register behind her, and opened it, its shrill ring making me jump. She got out money, and just to the side of my wedding band, she spread the dollar bills on the counter like they were playing cards.
Without touching the bills, I counted them. “It’s worth another two dollars,” I said.
The corners of her painted mouth turned down. Without a word, she got the two bills from her register and put them on the counter. My nerves turned jittery then. I wanted out of the saloon before I took to telling her that I wasn’t doing this for me, it was for my children, nothing else could make me part with my wedding band.
“Take it or leave it,” Mrs. Clay said. “Makes me no difference.”
“Yes,” I said, gathering up the money, my fingers all thumbs, nearly spilling some of the bills on the floor. My wedding band, I had sold my wedding band. Somehow I folded the money and got it in my handbag. Not able to meet her eyes, I said, “Obliged, I’m much obliged,” and then I was out of the saloon and on the street, walking toward the hired hands, my eyes straight ahead, wanting to get away, wanting to go home.
Three days later I was back in town, and this time it was bitter cold, the wind blowing sharp from the north. I had the children with me, but not when I went to Johnston’s Dry Goods. I made them wait across the street by the barbershop. Charlie Johnston, the owner, was Louise’s father, Mary’s friend from school. I didn’t want Mary saying anything to him. I didn’t want him knowing our business.
At the store, I put a penny on the wooden counter. “A stamp, please,” I said. It had been years since I’d seen Charlie Johnston, a friendly enough man even if Isaac thought he had gouged ranchers during the drought.
“Cold enough for you?” he said, giving a small smile as he pulled out a drawer from his side of the counter. There were rough patches of flaky skin on his cheeks and the end of his nose was red like he had a head cold. He found a stamp and put it on the counter.
“Yes,” I said.
“Folks say it’s going to be a bad winter.”
A shiver ran through me. Charlie Johnston rang up the one-cent key on his cash register and put the penny in the drawer. I loosened the drawstrings that held my cloth handbag shut. I pulled out a letter. My hands fumbling some, I licked the stamp and put it on the right-hand corner of the envelope. I pressed the stamp into place and then slid the envelope across the counter to Charlie Johnston.
He looked at the address. “I’d heard about this, how Isaac’s working the mine in Lead.”
“Yes.”
“A letter from home. A man always appreciates that.”
“I expect so.” But not this one, I thought. I had written it the night before after the children were in bed. It had taken all evening, each word harder to write than the one before, but I had to do it. It was only right that Isaac knew I’d done what I said I would do. I pictured him opening the letter as he sat in a miner’s tent late at night, holding it close to a lantern, squinting, wishing for his magnifying glass.
Dear Husband,
Me and the Children are going to my Mother’s. In Chicago. I hired on a second Hand. Pete Klegberg. I am Sorry for this. We will be Back in the Spring.
Your Wife
A sudden clutch of fear seized my heart. Get it back, I thought. I put out my hand, but by then Charlie Johnston had dropped the letter into a small canvas bag that hung from a peg. There was black lettering on it—U.S. MAIL—the print a little faded around the edges. I let my hand drop. Isaac left us, I told myself. You had to do this thing.
Charlie Johnston turned to the open cabinet that hung on the back wall behind him. It had narrow rows of pigeonholes, some with mail in them. He said, “It’s the oddest thing about letter writing. Something I’ve noticed. Folks go months, even years sometimes, without getting one. Or writing one, for that matter. Then the letters start flying back and forth. Like with you and Isaac.” I looked at him; I didn’t know his meaning. He pulled out a letter from one of the pigeonholes. “Here’s another one for you folks. Came Monday, I believe it was. Or maybe Tuesday.”
All at once the store was too hot, like the stove along the side wall had fired up a blaze too big for the room. I pulled at my neck scarf, but loosening it didn’t help. When I had written my mother in September, I told her she didn’t have to write back if she agreed to take me and the children. Since then, I’d been uneasy every time Isaac went to town, worried sick there’d be word from her.
Charlie Johnston put the letter on the counter. I couldn’t bring myself to look at it; I fixed my eyes on the cabinet behind him. The letter, I knew, carried bad news. It was from my mother, saying it was wrong to leave the ranch. She was warning me about race riots; she was telling me she didn’t have room for five children and me. Or maybe it was from Sue, my sister, telling me that something had happened to Mama. But it was too late. I’d sold my wedding band. We had to come; my children needed to. It was only for a few months.
“You all right?” Charlie Johnston said.
Not wanting to, I glanced at the letter. It was to Isaac, not me.
“Mrs. DuPree?”
Relieved, I put the letter in my handbag. “Yes,” I said, stepping away from the counter. “Good-bye.”
“That’s it?” he said. “You’ve come clear to town just to post that letter of yours? The weather bei
ng what it is?”
“No,” I said. “There’s this and that,” and then I turned and hurried out of the store before he could say anything.
Outside, the wind gusted, pulling at my coat and skirt. Across the street, the children waited for me, holding hands like I had told them. They stood close to the wall of the barbershop but held themselves tight pressed to each other as if that could break the wind. Mary held Emma, and the carpetbag was at John’s feet. The supper basket was between Liz and Alise. They wore their hats pulled low, and their neck scarves were wound tight across their mouths and knotted under their chins. Their coats were buttoned high. Mary’s and John’s were tight across their chests, though, and I knew their knobby wrists that showed above their gloves were raw from the cold. Their boots were tight, not that either of them complained, but I had seen how they winced when they walked. Nobody in Chicago, I thought, will believe that their father was a rancher. Our children looked like orphans from the poorhouse.
Low snowdrifts lined the south side of the street. Jumping some, I got over the drift and made my way across the dirt street that was mostly blown clear of the snow. Wind, trapped between the two rows of buildings that made Interior, whipped my clothes. I couldn’t imagine who had written Isaac. My coat and skirt caught around my legs, pulling me. I staggered, stumbling, sure that I would fall, the wind bigger than me. Put the letter behind you, I told myself. There were enough worries without taking on another one. I steadied myself and kept going, stepping around the street’s ruts that were covered with ice.
I stepped up onto the plank walk where the children waited. “Mama?” Mary said as I came near. “What’re we doing?”
I ignored her as I took Emma. “Come on,” I said, settling Emma on my hip.
John pulled my arm. “Where’re we going?”
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree Page 25