Little Bird Lands

by Karen McCombie

  “Urgh!” squeals Miss Kitty, as if she has sniffed something more unpleasant than her mud-caked and sweat-stained clothes, perhaps. “I should hate to live in one of those. Like moles in a burrow!”

  “They’re no doubt fine people and we’ll be sure to make their acquaintance another day,” Father says more sensibly, before clicking his tongue to his teeth and urging the horses down the right-hand fork.

  And soon enough, our tired feet and rumbling wagon follow where the wire-and-post fence leads us, which is to a wide wooden gate.

  “‘Campbell’s Place’!” Easter calls out, running to read the small, neatly painted sign tacked to it.

  Father pulls Sultan and Queenie to a stop and Miss Kitty totters over – her once high-heeled boots worn down unevenly – to unhook the rope from the gate and let us pass through. From the front, Miss Kitty’s blonde hair hangs in long, limp strands. But from where I stand, with her battered bonnet bobbing down her back by its faded ribbons, I can clearly see the spiky short hair where it grows again after being burned clean away the night of the party in her old house.

  But I am quite used to the odd sight of Miss Kitty’s mismatched hair by now. What I am not used to is this new view; the land within the fenced claim appears part wild as well as part farmed.

  “Now, this,” says Father, his voice rich with contentment, “will suit us very well I think.”

  “Yes,” Dr Spicer agrees, and I watch as she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath of the very air her own child will draw in a couple of months time.

  My younger brother is too excited to lumber alongside the slow-moving party that the rest of us are. With the gate open, Lachlan urges Pip into a trot and the two of them hurry on towards the small, squat house and stable we can just make out.

  “It’s not fair – if he gets there first, he’s sure to take the best room for himself!” Miss Kitty cries out as she watches him go.

  “Oh, I do not think that he will,” I say, looking over at Easter and giving her a wink.

  Easter knows as well as I do that the house is hardly likely to have much to it. Like all homesteaders, Mr and Mrs Campbell will not have had the funds or the time to build more than one or perhaps two rooms when they first settled on their claim.

  “Shall we see?” says Easter, holding one hand out to me and the other to Miss Kitty.

  And in a raggle-taggle line we girls run till we are quite caught up with my brother. He is – rather strangely – running his hand over the outside wall of our new home.

  We slow to a stop, surveying what is in front of us.

  “Well, if that is a house, then I am a chicken!” says Easter with a startled laugh.

  “It’s earth! Blocks of earth!” Lachlan shouts out in surprise, his fingers rubbing at the dry, crumbly, brown surface of the brick-like outside walls as Pip helps herself to the sweet high grasses that surround the place.

  The wagon grinds to a halt beside us, and Sultan and Queenie’s bursts of breath are like the sound of everyone’s confusion.

  “So it is a sod house?” Father laughs, as well he might, being a fine stonemason by trade. “Well, I have heard of soddies but never seen one. Let’s take a closer look.”

  “Is it … is it actually built in ‘bricks’ made of earth?” I ask him, smiling yet dumbfounded.

  “Cheapest material going,” Father tells me. “No timber to cut and shape, no stone to cut to size. A fellow just slices rectangles straight out of the ground.”

  Lachlan has already pushed open the stiff, ungiving low door, shouting at us to follow him, and we do. The space inside, it is smaller than I expected – one room only with no furniture – but light and homely with a plaster that has been smoothed over the walls and ceiling and limewashed white.

  “The stove I bought will sit there, by the chimney post,” says Father. “And I’ll quickly make us a table and stools since the Campbells took their furniture to town with them at the beginning of last winter.”

  I frown a little at the floor, wondering how we will fit in all our mattresses and bedding.

  “The house will be for you ladies, of course,” says Father, answering that question for me. “Lachlan and I will sleep in the wagon till such a time as I can cart lumber here and build us a bigger home.”

  In that instant I think of a certain “house” that makes this one seem quite the palace.

  “Still, a sod house has to be better than a dugout!” I announce, which has one and all nodding and agreeing very quickly.

  “Well, speaking of homes, today our president must rightly be celebrating in his fine house in the capital,” says Father gazing around at the four walls that are ours, all ours. “But I tell you, if Abraham Lincoln himself came here to visit, he would find no happier man than me…”

  At that we all cheer, with the yaps of the pup Patch as accompaniment.

  And with that happy sound, we are quite settled here in the Campbell’s place.

  Though as soon as Father next goes to town, I will ask him to bring back paint as I need to remake that sign by the gate, don’t I? Because the MacKerries (and friends!) are here to stay…

  Of course, Abraham Lincoln will never visit our humble home.

  And I truly mean never.

  A peddler stopped by the farm yesterday and – as we inspected his pots and pans, candles and cutlery – told us the truly shocking news that President Lincoln had been shot dead, assassinated by a man whose loyalties lay with the Confederates. Tragically, it happened less than two weeks after the war ended.

  “The sky is such a peculiar colour today, don’t you think, girls?” Dr Spicer says to myself and Easter as she stands in the doorway of the sod house.

  She looks from us, as we work in the small vegetable garden, to the receding wagon in the distance. The driver and passengers of the wagon are Father, Lachlan and Miss Kitty, who are trundling away along the track to town. They are already too far away for us to hear the clatter of Sultan and Queenie’s hooves or the excited yelps of the pup in the bed of the wagon with my brother.

  “It looks as if even the weather is in mourning for the president,” I reply, glancing up at the strange grey-green pall of it.

  “Well, I am so sorry, but I have no energy for the vegetable patch today,” says Dr Spicer, resting her hands on her lower back. “If it’s all right with you two young ladies, I might sit inside and read a while.”

  “Of course!” says Easter, standing up straight with a great handful of weeds clutched in her fist. “Get your rest while you can, before things get busy for you!”

  Despite the awful news, Easter sounds as wise and sensible as she always does. “Mr Lincoln would not want us to stop and mourn him when we should still be celebrating the end of the war he helped bring about!” she said today. She’s truly a credit to the pastor and his wife who brought her up.

  As for myself, I still feel very raw and low after hearing of the tragedy. The others are distracting themselves by taking off to town; Father to sign the papers at the Land Office to make the homestead legally ours, Miss Kitty to buy soft cloth from the Campbells’ store to make some things for the soon-to-come baby, and Lachlan to see if he can spot any other lads about his age, I think. He’d hoped to ride there on Pip, but the pony, like me, is a little lame after the weeks and miles of travelling we did.

  “You know, you two girls should take some time to yourselves – why don’t you go for a stroll?” says Dr Spicer, pausing before she goes inside. “We’ve all been so busy putting the place to rights that there’s been no time to explore. Maybe you could go as far as one of our neighbours and say hello?”

  “I’m not sure I am much in the mood to make polite conversation today,” I say with a shrug. “But maybe a walk up the hill would be pleasant…”

  “Yes, let’s!” says Easter, throwing her fistful of weeds at the pile of kindling we’ll later burn them on. “We’ll surely see a view of our neighbours’ places from up there, Dr Spicer, and can come and describ
e them to you!”

  From up on high there’ll be traces of the dugout visible, I suppose; a glint of the tin chimney and a haze of stove smoke. Another neighbour to the south of us is the older man Father called out to in his field. He is apparently married to an Ojibwe woman, who I am curious to meet (I’ll practise the words Jean taught me; “boozhoo” for a greeting, “aaniish ndishnikaaz Bridie” to introduce myself). On the far side of the hill we have heard that two sisters have a homestead. How my heart raced when I first knew, imagining – just for a foolish moment – that some shining, invisible thread had brought my missing sisters close again! But I very quickly – and disappointingly – found out that the sisters are in their thirties and come from Boston.

  After a glance at the curious sky, I pull my shawl around me and am about to set off with Easter when an odd, strangled whinny from Pip stops us both in our tracks. With a quick, questioning glance toward my friend, I go to where Pip is tethered to a post close by, her hooves stomping in the rough grass.

  “Hello, there,” I say, nuzzling Pip’s warm, soft nose in my hand. “Are you restless too? Don’t worry; you’ll soon enough be busy taking the doctor to visit her new patients about the county!”

  There’s a dainty, two-wheeled gig ready and waiting for that day, left here by the Campbells and for which Dr Spicer has paid them. After months left in out in poor weather it’s in need of some repair, but it’ll be a pretty thing when it’s fixed up. Yellow, Dr Spicer wants it painted. And Lachlan has already got Pip used to the feel of pulling it, walking her gently around the claim.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, as Pip’s ears twitch frantically. She backs away, eyes white and rolling.

  And then I hear it – the silence.

  A few minutes ago, I now realise, the air was full of the songs and chirrups of birds and insects. And now; now there is nothing.

  I look around hoping I see something, anything to explain the eerie quiet.

  “What is it?” I hear Easter ask, her voice tight.

  “I don’t know…” I mutter in response, looking around and above me.

  If I was on Tornish, I’d perhaps expect to see a tumult of bruised black storm clouds rushing in on a gathering wind. But there are no fat, bulging storm clouds, and there is no wind; there is not the slightest stirring of air. All there is is the queer grey-green tinge to the hunkering sky and no sounds at all.

  Except for a faint whine.

  I turn my head this way and that, trying to place where it comes from … and I see that Easter is doing the same.

  “Girls?” comes a thin, slightly strangled call. “Bridie… Easter… Oh dear God, I think the baby is coming … and it is much too early!”

  At that moment my head should be turned towards the tiny sod house and the drama that is unfolding within it.

  But the trouble is, something else is coming.

  A great grey wall it is, rising thick and eerie from behind Clarice’s Hill…

  “Please, please, please,” I utter over and over as I flick the reins, urging Pip on along the track from our little farm.

  I am begging for so very many things in this moment.

  I am begging Pip’s sore leg to stand the running I am asking her to do.

  I am begging the swaying, bucking, wooden gig to hold together.

  I am begging the strange wall of the storm to roll away east, to leave us and the town alone. I have never seen the like of it in my life – a great grey wave rising miles in the sky. If I were not so frightened by it, I’d laugh at myself for wondering what the flowers of this region were called when I’d have better spent my time learning the treacherous ways of its weather.

  And lastly and most importantly, I am begging whoever in the universe will listen that Easter can help the barely conscious Dr Spicer and her unborn babe stay alive till I get help.

  “Please!” I cry out, feeling the still air pick up into a spritely, slapping breeze at last, which I can’t help but think is not a good sign.

  But all I need to do is catch up with the wagon so that I might direct Father to urgently seek out the midwife in town whom Mrs Campbell told us of, and very quickly return with her.

  And I should be able to see Father and the others soon; I lost time struggling to back a reluctant Pip into the shafts of the gig, as well as trying to remember which parts of leather straps and collars and traces needed to be fixed where and how. But we two are dashing at some speed now and surely the wagon would not go particularly fast, what with three folk loading it down…

  But as I race towards the fork in the road where I’ll join the riverside track, the gig lurches unnervingly on one side with every rotation and I have to pull Pip up, terrified that one of the wheels will come off altogether. What use would I be to Dr Spicer if I’m lying broken in the road beside it?

  Panic – as well as wind-tangled hair – makes me blind for a moment, till I feel Pip come to a nervous, panting stop, and I push my hair from my face with a shaking hand.

  And then I see my salvation, and Dr Spicer and her baby’s possible best hope – those puffs of grey smoke undulating from the tin chimney in the ground. We are close to the dugout and, more importantly, someone appears to be home.

  Jumping from the gig, I grab Pip by the halter and hurry towards the river. A rough sort of lane appears to lead down towards a wide, flat patch of rough grass and stone, with the river on one side and the tall earthen bank – with the strange house built directly into it – on the other. I don’t know if I dare force Pip and the gig down there, but then again, I daren’t leave her up here with nothing to tie her to; she is so frightened and skittish she’d run off I fear.

  So I do the only thing I can; I tilt my head back and roar.

  “HELP! HELP ME, PLEASE! HELP!” I plead at the top of my screeching, desperate voice, hoping one of the Irish family can hear me, tucked away as they are in their burrow home.

  Using every ounce of strength to shout, I don’t clearly hear the door being dragged open or the first words the concerned-looking woman calls out.

  But as I see her pick up her skirts and run up to me, I gasp and gulp myself quiet and try to settle on the words she is saying to me.

  “What are you doing out when there’s a tornado coming, lassie?” she bellows, her eyes full of kindness and alarm. “Come down here at once, a thasgaid! And why is there blood all over your face?”

  She called me “lassie”.

  She called me “dear” in Gaelic.

  So it seems Mrs Campbell got it wrong – as many do – muddling the sound of an Irish voice and a Scots voice. And as the woman from the dugout understands and uses Gaelic, it means she is most likely from the Highlands and Islands of Scotland…

  And so the Highland Scots woman is up to me now, her hand on my cheek, and I realise the blood she speaks of comes from the cut on my hand where I must have caught my fingers in the rush to harness Pip back in the soddie stable.

  This woman’s face, now close to me … how strange it is, but I’d swear on my mother’s grave that it is so familiar. If my rattled mind would stay still enough to let me place it, I would surely remember who—

  Suddenly I tremble with shock, with relief, with streaming tears when I see who runs up from the dugout to help. Everything now fits into place.

  “Little Bird? Little Bird!” my dear, darling friend from Tornish calls out to me.

  Will is here.

  Here, like a miracle from the past to help me in the present.

  Four years we’ve been apart, Will and I, with stories to tell each other that span thousands of miles and half a world.

  But all we have time for is a hug that cannot last and a few hurried exchanges; the gathering wind seems to buffet and suck us away from each other, as well as the words from our very mouths.

  “How can this be? What in heaven’s name brings you to our door, Bridie MacKerrie?” asks Will’s mother, putting her warm hands on my wet cheeks as if she needs to prove I am a living, breath
ing girl and no trick of her imagination.

  Where and how do I begin? I have not a single moment to spare to tell her of our two years in Glasgow after we fled the island, of our time in New York.

  “We’ve recently come from Michigan – we’ve bought the Campbells’ place over the way, Mistress Beaton,” I say, politely addressing the dear lady the way I always did back in Scotland. But even as I reply to her, my eyes are quickly trying to drink in the sight of Will.

  He is quite different from the boy I once knew; he now towers over me, all gawky limbs, grown tall as my father, if not taller. But in his familiar brush of fair hair and that gap-toothed grin I see my treasured twelve-year-old friend, my boy from Tornish.

  “Are your father and Lachlan at the Campbells’ homestead now?” Will asks as he grabs Pip by the head collar to hold her as steady as he can.

  “They’re gone to town,” I say, hoping all are safe at the Campbells’ store, with Sultan and Queenie unhitched from the wagon and inside some stable or shelter. “But we have a lady in trouble at the house – she is having a baby. It’s coming too early and she is in a great deal of pain. My friend Easter is with her but things aren’t right.”

  “Oh, that poor woman!” mumbles Mistress Beaton, her mind running with outcomes – good and bad – I can tell.

  “My father’s in town too, so we don’t have the wagon,” Will says partly to me, partly to his mother.

  “Do you think the wee cart can take the two of us, Bridie?” Mistress Beaton asks me as she looks dubiously upon the flimsy gig.

  “We can try,” I say, since it is the difference between a few minutes’ ride and a twenty-minute walk to the soddie.

  And sure enough, a very short time later – with creaks and cracks that I felt sure might send the gig splintering from under us – Mistress Beaton and I find ourselves outside the sod-built farmhouse.