by Diane Munier
The judge signing this mite over was there to meet them. He was one who had the look of shadiness but then his kind did strike me such as a rule as did preachers. I was suspicioned of any man who held the sacred in his hands. The fear Seth had shared with me of doing such…that I could respect. But it seemed to me too many took their duties lightly or sought to profit. So I was hard on them as they seemed inclined to be on me.
He said, “What am I to do? I ain’t seen that son since the war. Can’t find if he lives or dies and these brought that little gal can’t tell me. But they say it’s his and I feel no kinship.” Well he seemed to want a pardon of some kind.
Gaylin and Rosie did not seem inclined to discuss. They asked for direction in the signing, and they tried to read over, but I knew it would not settle on Gaylin for reading was a difficulty he did not cultivate in himself unless he had to. But Rosie stayed over that paper. I know she wanted full rights.
“It’s curious to me…you know what she is,” he said. “I would not talk you out of it…but there are homes for such. Mose has prevailed on me to let her go to a family, but in truth I said…what family….”
“Do not say such,” Gaylin said.
Rosie barely spared that judge a glance, she was concentrating so hard.
The judge studied Gaylin, but he did stop short.
“I know who she is,” he said then, pointing to Rosie.
Gaylin stared back. I did not sense tension in him. But he was a wall I knew.
Rosie ignored all of it. She did dip the pen and signed then handed such to Gaylin and he did dip and sign.
Once it was done and witnessed and the clerk and the judge looked appeased, the clerk did roll the document and gather his ledgers and he hurried out. But the judge sat back in his chair and worked his soft fingers into his vest pockets. “Traded the trapeze for an apron Missus?” he did say looking at Rosie like she was jam.
Rosie was winding her scarf around her throat. “Judge Henson, I am indebted to you for agreeing to let that child be mine and my husband’s. I am sorry about your son, but know you have done a very good thing today, sir.”
I was flummoxed by her graciousness. But then, it was to secure that child, I knew. Why not lick this old dog’s toenails? It was a small thing for her. I understood, though I did not possess such humility and I was not against slapping his face or even choking him a bit.
Gaylin had his hand on her, the paper the clerk had given him in his other hand. I held the door and we were nearly out.
“You gonna train her for the stage, too? ‘Bout all one like that is fit for,” he said.
Gaylin hesitated then, and Rosie slowly turned. She stood pretty well between us. “She will be fit for more, Judge. I will not hold your blood against her.”
As we went out I heard the judge laugh a bit, then he did call, “I always liked your pluck, Bertha!”
Then, “And your breasts!”
I stopped, for Gaylin had, and he looked longingly at the door, but she pulled on him, then me, and got us turned and walking again. She was shaking with laughter. Shaking with it, and once we were outside, Gaylin picked her up and they turned round and round as he hugged her.
“She’s ours,” Rosie whispered to him. “She’s really ours.”
Gaylin looked at me and smiled. If she was my woman I’d be feeling the judge’s mouth crunching beneath my fist, but he seemed at ease, always at ease with her. Like she was the most important thing, the thing he had won, and nothing anyone could say changed it.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I had a bundle for Jimmy and Allie and this I did leave at the railroad office with request that it be delivered to him. I knew Jimmy traveled west over the winter scouting land for the railroad and Allie did stay in the part of the country outside of town with the woman Jimmy called Aunt.
She and Lenora had lived briefly with this same woman when they launched the great elopement adventure same time as the great Monroe posse adventure. Lord that Jimmy Leidner.
Ma longed for us to bring our sister home, but Allie chose to stay in her home place for those times Jimmy would return. She had written us at Christmas that her road was barely passable and she would not risk travel with Elizabeth.
We were to take heart for we would not see her and the baby mayhap until spring thaw and it was a devilment to be this close and yet so far from fruition.
So next morning we were to turn right around and come home. That was the plan. But we were prevented from doing such by news of the train stuck some back and they would not dig out before some time next day, in the event there was no more foul weather. That meant another night in Springfield. Thankfully we had not yet given up the room so barely procured and so bitterly from Rosie’s aunt the Missus Avery.
“We could try to reach Allie,” I said. And we did look into it but there was not a rig to be found could make that trip. There were horses though, and we were advised not to go as the land there was known for treachery in this deep snow. Then I thought of William coming through Christmas. Well he had no back up in him. Had I grown so soft?
That made me mad. “What is Jimmy thinking to leave her in such circumstance?” I said. “Why not put her by the train at least?”
“The aunt is poorly,” Rosie said. “Allie is there from duty and she has assured Ma she is safe.”
“Let Jimmy Leidner be there from duty and send our sister home,” I said. This was no aunt. He had no family. This was the worst I’d felt toward Jimmy since he’d been wounded. I knew it was in part due to my frustration at being stranded in this city, but to be denied the sight of Allie and Elizabeth when so close was damn infuriating.
Well, I am a stubborn man, so much so that I cannot even talk myself out of some things. I did rent not one horse, but two, them ugly and surefooted, and map sketched by one who knew Jimmy at the station, I put provisions by on the back of one animal along with the pack from home. Gaylin and Rosie were some concerned but I was not worried and Gaylin understood. Rosie wrote a hasty letter for Allie. I warned them I could be out another night and they should not wait if I failed to return on time for I knew my way home, and so I left them.
I followed the path until the outskirts three mile down. There was the river to the left, and my guide had said not to depart its banks until the Sycamore rose up like a big hand from hell half broke off.
Some time in, and I mean three hours of picking my way, I was wishing I had me that wayward guide told me come this way for I saw no copse of pine he told me to come around. I did see scrub oak with a singular count of sickly pine scattered about. If that was his pine grove it was damn arguable for ten trees of no distinction did not a copse make. Once I hit that I let my horse lead. I could not make out the sorry road easy, but I could figure it with my eye though it was tension to believe under every sure step the beasts would hit packed footing and not some open hole to China.
So we went slow and ponderous along it. What felt like miles in, though I knew it was not more than two by distance, a house did show, a dirty white that matched the sky, two stories with a thick covered roof. There was a steady stream of smoke coming from the chimney and that meant life.
Well, praise God I thought for mayhap this was not futility. For I had me a feeling and that’s what brought me and it was hetting me up for all I moved slow and deliberate. When I reached the porch I unloaded my bundles and door opened like a warm mouth, Allie running through, her crashing against me, not able to see more than my eyes with me wrapped against the wind, and her in just a shawl and smaller.
“How you know it’s me?” I said pulling down the scarf and my voice raspy from disuse.
“Who else?” said she looking into my face like Ma would, her warm hands on my cold cheeks.
So in we went, me two trips to pull it all inside, her going to things like she did when little, so eager.
So she did appreciate what I brought but the things from home, the gowns, the missives of love, one
so fresh from Rosie brought her to life and tears.
Elizabeth was a little thing but strong in her movements and pleasing as pretty. I saw Jimmy and Allie wrapped up in this little beauty. So I held her, careful to keep her warm for I had not yet thawed and I kept my eye on Allie so not herself, filled with worry and aged from it.
I cleared my throat. “Come back with me. We leave now we’ll make it before dark. I got that path broke. You can come on home for winter.”
Well, she laughed at that. She was not budging. But she was crying some more. The Auntie had died on her. She had been buried in the snow for days. Allie had dragged her there herself and the horror of it.
“I told myself that snow is prettier than dirt,” she said, looking at me with her big eyes, waiting for me to confirm such I reckoned. “But I loved her…and come dark time…I am so alone,” and she did cling to me, and I had the baby on one arm and her on the other, and Addie had taught me how to do this, so I sat still and let her draw from me what she did lack.
“We’ll lose no time readying this place for abandonment. You can come home with us, or mayhap take refuge in Springfield though I can’t leave you alone here.”
“Lavinia lived here alone as do many other womenfolk since the war. I told Jimmy as much, but he wouldn’t leave me in the heart of it there and this place goes to us now she’s dead.”
“Yet he has left you,” I said meaner than I meant to let her hear for she would always protect that one.
“Don’t judge him harsh in my hearing. He has been through it this year. Losing the election was difficult, especially since he suffered the double loss of being sheriff. He loved being sheriff.”
“He gave it up in anger. He did not love it, Allie.” I was back to the notion that he loved himself mostly.
“It was the way he made for himself,” she said. “But he has important people who favor him and this job pays well. He only took it for a season for his political ambition runs to being alderman now. It’ll lead to something more and we will settle. He has provided for me here. And he’s not due home…well February with God’s blessing. There was no help for poor Eunice as we’re alone here, I did what I could.”
“Come on home with me ‘til February. Ma and Pa…,” I did not want to tell her how he was not the same, our Pa. I did not want to add the urgency to what she already suffered.
She was resisting. “But I would so appreciate it if…well you could see fit to…Eunice?”
“I can’t bury her in frozen ground,” I said.
“But if Jimmy can’t get by…well a man checks on us every week…and he’s past due. I thought you were him. Now I fear he’s also fallen sick.”
“No one has broken that trail here but me,” I said.
“He knows we’re here. His name is Finias Corn. He lives by the river. He looks to our wood and brings milk.”
“I passed no dwelling along that river.”
“He’s past the turn,” she said. “I fear for him now for he’s been faithful.”
“I’ll send help to check on him. I’ll report it to the sheriff when I get back. As for this Eunice, I’ll see the way of it.” I handed her the baby and she told me where the woman was buried. I went out the yard and she directed me from the stoop. There was a well broken trail to the woodshed. It was stocked full. I grabbed me some wood and took it to the stoop and dropped it.
“She’s other side of the shed. I wrapped her and dragged her there and put her against it, then covered her with snow. We’ve had more since so she is deeply in. But there are coyotes and…dogs come round….”
When I went to check I could see the slight mound. I did not think I could improve on this. I would report this to the undertaker when back in Springfield but I had no inclination toward leaving Allie in this place. But I stacked wood over this mound.
We argued some when I was back in the house.
“It’s here Jimmy will come. He’ll come here,” she said. “I feel that if I leave I move that much farther….”
“We’ll leave him a letter at the railroad office and one here. Bundle Elizabeth. I won’t strand you here.”
“You’re not my husband,” she said, her teeth clenched.
“If I were…,” I said.
“You would never be,” she said over me.
I did not push futility.
“I’ll have less provision in Springfield. Here he has provided.”
“You are alone now,” I said figuring to leave Jimmy out of it so she might hear.
“I can get the wood in.”
“It’s more than that,” I said. “You have to think of Elizabeth.”
“You’re a cussed man,” she said.
“We’re wasting the light,” I said cussed.
And that’s how we got bundled to go. While she made a pack of necessities, I secured the foodstuffs, closed shutters, dampered the stove, emptied the chamber pot even. In less than an hour that house was shut down, locked up and she and Elizabeth were bundled on one of the horses.
We went steady then. The baby girl fussed some but she quieted pretty quick. Allie had her against her and tied around. I knew my way and it was relentless going for a spell, and sometimes rough and more than once her horse stumbled enough Allie let out a scream, but she knew how to use her legs to keep her seat. I did not back down. This was the right thing and what Jimmy would have done himself. Well, womenfolk they did try a man ten ways.
Sun was setting by the time we got to the edges of that foul civilization. Closer in the more it came to life, that town, the stark white of the countryside churned to filthy gray here. Another train had made its way in, direction of St. Louis it came from, like us, so now more people were dumped off and the melee felt like the cattle pens.
I took Allie to the boardinghouse and helped her inside and Rosie’s old aunt was none too happy, but I paid her no mind, and Rosie welcomed Allie and the baby. Well when that Elizabeth was unwrapped she was a bit bedraggled, but fine as she could be and Allie looked exhausted.
I said we needed to get Allie a ticket to go home with us, but she did protest again. “I ain’t leaving here. Do not harass me on this.”
Well Gaylin and me went to report the death and the missing Finias Corn to the sheriff. That done my brother and me talked of forcing her home, well I did, but he said we couldn’t do such a thing. And I decided I was telling her how it was with Pa, and Gaylin said she had a right to know, so that’s what we did.
Allie cried, and Rosie tried to be encouraging, but I said, “He ain’t the same and anyone can see he slowly fails.”
I had not allowed myself such a notion until I said it to her and it hung in that crowded room then and we didn’t seem to know what to do with it.
Well, she said she would come for some time then and I said I would bring her back myself if Jimmy returned when he promised.
That settled, things eased some. There was the happy event that brought us here in the first place and the womenfolk discussed such and Allie’s spirits lifted mayhap one notch.
So we men secured food for the women, but the room was too crowded for us all. There was a rooming house just for men that Gaylin and me moved to. There was only floor space in the lobby, but it was warm if not stinking, but we could pitch our rolls and stow our gear behind the desk for twenty five cents and he would watch it good, he said. So me and Gaylin set about the city. I was wore out pretty much from my travels to rescue Allie, for that is how I saw it.
There was an eating establishment we had both taken repast in days gone by. Served the best beefsteak this side of the river but it was in roughneck near the stockyards which made no never mind to us without the women to care for.
I eschewed crowds mostly. Tonight, I saw it fitting we celebrated some.
So we waited our turn and got set in a corner where I could put my back to the wall and see who I shared this room with. What a collection of yappers. I swear I heard the arguments about Lee versus Grant one more time, or about one b
attle or another…. We had us a beer first-off and did clink the glasses and drink it hearty and I tried not to fall asleep or feel the deep pining for Addie.
“You really think that about Pa?” Gaylin said, wiping foam.
“I don’t know,” I said, not ready to claim my own words. “He’s different is all.” Well he wanted me to set it back in a place he could live with.
We soon walked back to that boardinghouse, not too far off from Missus Avery’s inn. Gaylin was turned in to sleep, but me, I was uncommon restless, uncommon since Addie for she steadied me, but cities never did. I stood outside in the cold on the walkway, hands on the rail there looking into the street. Some passed but they did not bother me, nor me them. Snow kicked up again, falling light but steady. So many in my mind, Jimmy gone west, that woman dead in the frozen white and my sister putting her there. That old soldier in Addie’s yard. Addie. Johnny. My ailing Pa. William coming in the house with that mite wrapped around him. Michael losing himself here, death following him home and nearly taking us all.
Well, a woman caught my eye. Easy to spot her, even with the yellow hair tucked under a scarf, the braid showed and I knew her quick. She walked with purpose. I saw her go between two buildings. I almost called out sure she searched for Gaylin, but Rosie knew Springfield, knew where we were. Mayhap Allie needed something. A doctor? I did not know, but my boots were already trailing this one with a frantic step.
She turned out the gangway as I entered other end, and I followed her that way. She moved quick and sure and if some dowager spoke to her, she did not look or turn but she kept on. So I did not reveal myself. It was that way for a while, until we entered a row of houses, dark and still. One ahead but lit and she went for it. There was growth each side of the door and she stood there, next to the snow-filled bush, not wanting to be seen.
Lord, God what would I do if this played out? I stood at one of two big posts near the street. I watched her waiting there and I called her whore inside and it hurt to say it for I had taken her in as sister. And Cleata. My brother. Oh Lord I needed to shut it off.