She smells fresh earth and spring buds. She feels the soft picnic blanket under her hand, the warm earth under her outstretched legs. She hears the voices of her friends Emily and Lillian—not as close perhaps as female friends should be, but she is grateful for their company. They offer her a sandwich.
“Yes, please, Lillian,” she says, dry lips parting.
Lillian answers with delight: “Our lady speaks! We thought you might be nodding off again. Was the walk too long?”
Emily adds, “We were just talking about the dreaded milestone: turning forty. You’re the youngest—more than a year to go, isn’t that right?”
Eyes still closed, Annie allows the sensation of her body to grow and sharpen, blood flowing, nerves awakening. Even though it’s 1899—of this she has no doubt—she can still feel a bit of her older, hurting body within this younger, healthier sack of self she is temporarily inhabiting. She is aging herself prematurely by traveling to the past. Her hip registers in firm detail the contours of the hard ground. When she inhales deeply, her lungs ache. She has never skipped backward so far or felt so many physical sensations so clearly.
Opening her eyes, Annie looks at her friends, with whom she has shared many jokes about the way they’re all aging. Emily likes to complain about her round stomach and wide rump; Lillian, about her turkey neck and the feathery lines forming above her thin upper lip. They’re blind to their own beauty: the sparkle in their eyes, the blush in their rosy skin—and she was blind to it, too. But now that she’s begun to experiment with time’s slippery properties, mortality seems more real, just around the corner for everyone you know and maybe you as well, should you accidentally skip too far.
“Annie,” says Lillian, seeing her friend’s eyes well up. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. The walk was splendid. I could go twice as far.”
They finish their tea, pack and walk up a grassy hill in search of a hidden century-old burial ground.
“Do you think,” Annie asks her friends, “that the tribes of this area thought much about revenge?”
Lillian says, “Against whom?”
“Against us, of course.”
“For what?”
“For stealing their land.”
Did Annie just say “stealing”? Other times, she has said “taking,” or simply “settling.”
What does that mean, other times? She had the impression earlier that this vivid, embodied visit was a first, but perhaps it isn’t. Another thing she must keep in mind: her progress is neither predictable nor linear.
Lillian laughs with inspired delight. “But ladies, the Indians did have their revenge on white men.” She pauses before delivering the punch line. “Tobacco!”
The hill is steep, but Annie plants her next steps squarely, enjoying the brisk, fresh air, which never fails to infuse her with optimism. Being with Lillian and Emily reminds her of all the times they’ve discussed the plight of women and how best to change the world. Emily favors getting the vote. Lillian prefers quiet philanthropy. Annie herself has found pleasure in teaching women to shoot, for self-protection and to instill a confidence that might spur excellence in all things. But what if she did it on a bigger scale? What if she taught not just a few girls and ladies here and there, but thousands? Maybe that’s the best way to banish this bitter melancholy, the midnight sickness that strikes without warning. Think of what other women do: go on marches, break the law, starve themselves. Maybe it just takes a cause and a focus on the future to obliterate the poisonous past.
But these are not the thoughts of later Annie, revisiting this place. She is losing herself in this picnic-day Annie, becoming her, the line blurring between herself now and herself then, the double-exposure that Annie has seen in falsified photographs, including ones meant to make people believe in ghosts.
Is she a ghost? No. But she does believe in them.
They follow a line of trees past a copse, pausing at the edge of a field. Emily thumbs a booklet purchased from the Buckeye Paranormal Society about local ghosts and graveyards. There is supposed to be a stone wall and some kind of marker.
Lagging behind, Annie says, “Tobacco aside, it’s hard to imagine Indians not wanting revenge.” She feels satisfaction in the very shape of the word, the first syllable preparing the top teeth to graze the bottom lip, the second drawn out, as score-settling often is.
They’ve crested another hill and are just about to turn back when Emily spies in the distance, at the bottom of the grassy slope ahead, a pyramid-shaped pile of stones.
“There is a strong spirit there,” Emily says. “A century has done nothing to diminish the pain.”
“It will be our pain walking all the way back up this hill,” Lillian complains.
But Annie feels it too as they walk down: the pull toward the bottom, toward the stones.
“She’s waiting for us,” Emily says.
Lillian’s eyebrows lift. “Now you’re giving me the shivers.”
“She?” Annie asks. “Not a whole tribe?”
“Just one woman.”
“We’ve come this far,” Annie says. “Let’s finish it.”
At the bottom, they nervously sidle up to the stones, but the silent rocks tell them nothing. Emily pulls out her paranormal tourism guide and begins to narrate. An Indian girl was buried here, captured by white settlers.
“Kept as a slave, for the purpose of the white man’s pleasure. Poor girl. Probably wished they had shot her instead.” Emily closes the booklet and stares at the rocks. “Well, that’s one way to injure a soul. And what more is a ghost than a permanently injured soul?”
Annie hears Lillian’s response as if it were muffled, coming to her through a long tube. She crumples, hand over her chest.
Lillian crouches at her side. “Is it your heart?”
The pictures come all too quickly, too clearly. One woman, an entire fort of men. The futile call for mercy, the responding laughter, the physical degradation, slim legs kicking as they drag her along the inner stockade path, first by her wrists, then by her hair. This young woman, hardly older than a child, huddled in a corner of a dark room, the smell of whiskey pervading, more men entering to watch.
“I can see her,” Annie says.
She remembers her own experience inside the cabin—and worse, inside the woodshed—with the Wolf. The suffering remains undiluted. Pain and trauma make time leap in certain places and stick in others.
Annie thinks: A future of teaching women to shoot—yes, it’s worth doing. But it isn’t enough.
Annie knew how to shoot when she was a child. It didn’t stop the Wolf from taking advantage of her. Neither did it stop her, at times, from blaming herself for not having escaped his clutches sooner.
“Poor girl,” Annie says, but she is no longer talking only of the Indian captive.
She had a gun all those years ago, but she didn’t use it. To purposefully injure another person was beyond the capabilities of her docile child’s mind. But she is a child no longer.
15
Ruth
An old pickup truck rattled down the street. Ruth had already seen it go by twice.
Ruth was expecting visits from both her home inspector and her real-estate agent—a welcome distraction from checking email, as she’d done obsessively all morning. Though she’d followed up last night’s email with several new ones, telling Nieman she’d been too hasty in dismissing the journal’s value, it was too late.
His first reply was terse. Return journal asap. I will compensate you for the postage. Thank you for your effort.
She tried one more time, emphasizing the desire to talk by phone.
He replied: Your job is done, and I have no doubt your initial evaluation was correct. I believe in following one’s instinct. You’ve followed yours.
But I didn’t, not really! She’d only followed the most co
nservative, limiting possibility out of fear.
At the sound of the pickup slowing in front of the house yet again, Ruth put on tennis shoes and a light jacket and went outside. The driver stopped. Ruth saw only a mop of strawberry blonde hair until the woman brought her face closer to the window.
“Is this Pine Street? I couldn’t find a street sign.”
“Yeah. You lost?”
“I’m helping a friend move. You’re not Ruth, are you?”
The word didn’t register for a second. “Move?”
“Well, just a couple boxes. For Scott—Scott Webb. I have a truck, so . . .” She paused to open her door, clambered down and came around the front of the pickup, hand extended. “I’m sorry. Margot.”
“You teach with Scott?”
She tilted her head. “No.”
They both turned toward the sound of the advancing car. Margot’s face, which had been pleasant and pretty even while forcing an awkward half smile, turned radiant at the familiar sight of Scott, swerving fast into the spot behind Margot’s bumper. She dropped Ruth’s hand and trotted over to meet him just as he was shutting his car door.
Together, they walked to the edge of Ruth’s yard, where Scott hurried through introductions. “Margot, Ruth. Ruth, Margot.”
“We met,” Ruth said, forcing a smile. “She has a pickup.”
“Yes! She has a pickup. I could have done it in a couple trips. But then there are my extra tools, the skis . . .”
“Always more than you think,” Margot said.
“That’s true,” Ruth said.
Ruth showed them inside, trying to keep her attention focused on Scott instead of Margot, but she couldn’t help it. She noted the crisp white blouse beneath the barn coat: stylish. She noted a cross pendant dangling at Margot’s neck. Scott was agnostic. She noted the manicured, painted nails: Scott had confessed that long nails didn’t appeal to him. Too dragon-ladyish. But then again, those were the things men said when they talked with women and didn’t admit that a cute ass and a pretty face could make up for a number of mild fashion disagreements, and even some religious ones.
But Ruth wasn’t going to ask. Anytime she caught Scott’s eye, she could see his inward wince. He’d meant to show up first and explain.
Margot glanced around the cluttered margins of Ruth’s living room and box-lined hallway to the seventies-era bathroom. “You are going to be so glad to have this stuff out of here.”
“Yeah, well,” was all Ruth could manage.
When they were in the garage, Scott remembered. “The old television.”
“It’s worthless. I need to drop it at the recycling place.”
“I think there’s a fee.”
“You don’t have to do it.”
“It’s heavy, Ruth. I’ll take care of it.”
Margot leaned in. “Isn’t there a service that will pick it up for you?”
Thankfully, Margot waited in the pickup truck when Scott did his final load.
He had the wide-screen television in his arms when Ruth spotted another small box with Scott’s initials on the side.
“I guess there’s always gonna be one more thing.” Ruth picked it up and heard the contents shift. “Oh.”
Rifle already at his apartment. He had a revolver in a lockbox, too—somewhere. This was the extra ammunition.
Ruth leaned against the inner wall of the garage, feeling a ping in her bad hip and an answering tightness in her chest.
Scott set the television at his feet. “You okay?”
“I can’t believe this. It seems like yesterday we were moving your stuff in.”
“Same time of year.”
“How did this happen?”
“Ruth,” Scott whispered back. “It wasn’t my choice.”
She made an effort to stand up straight and blink her vision clear. “I’m putting the house up for sale again.”
“Good. It’s a lotta work, I know.”
“How are your parents?”
“Dad’s more or less the same. We have him in a facility, finally.”
“And your mom?”
“Adjusting. She doesn’t want to admit her life is easier now. Makes her feel guilty, and guilt’s not healthy.”
“So, what do you say to her?”
“That life throws us challenges. And that she shouldn’t feel bad about thriving just because Dad can’t.”
They continued to take a moment in the damp, dark space, each glancing toward the open garage door to make sure Margot wasn’t within earshot.
“I’m sorry, Ruth. For today.”
“Guilt isn’t healthy, right?”
Scott shook his head. “Feeling guilty and feeling sorry aren’t the same thing. I haven’t done anything wrong. But I’m still sorry that you’re alone.”
Ruth felt a knot in her throat. “You got a haircut.” She knew he would hear the tremble in her voice, but she had to say something. “It looks good. And new glasses, finally.”
“Just this morning, in fact,” he said, sliding them down his nose and back up again.
Ruth couldn’t help but ask. “Is it serious?”
“She’d like it to be.” He started to say more, then checked himself. “I didn’t mean for this to be so awkward. I should’ve emailed you this morning, as soon as I realized I had Margot and her truck to help out, but I didn’t think you’d check email on a Sunday.”
Was he kidding? That was about all she did nowadays.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
Following Scott’s departure, Ruth felt the sharp claw-ends of depression pressing at her skull. She couldn’t let them dig in. It was only 11 a.m., the entire day yawning before her. It would be too easy to spend the entire day revisiting every memory of her relationship with Scott, every mistake and wrong turn.
Ruth wanted to know how Nieman had found her. She wrote a quick email to her most sympathetic contact at one of the two major Annie Oakley foundations—an older woman named Sophie who was a distant cousin of Annie. Ruth asked if she or another foundation board member, Lila—the closest living Annie Oakley descendant, now in her nineties—might have shared Ruth’s contact info.
Then, just for good measure, even though it was a long shot, Ruth phoned her old friend Joe. No answer. She left a message. The truth was, she really just wanted to hear a friendly voice.
She remembered her first date with Joe: the first of two good men in a row she’d walked away from. At least she didn’t attract the bad ones.
They’d met at a history-department mixer. She’d asked a question about his heritage. He offered to show her. The next Friday, he picked her up at the edge of campus and they walked five blocks to a bar called McDougal’s. They went inside, ordered beer, played darts, swapped stories about dissertation advisers. At first, she’d thought he was a little big, a little sloppy, but he kept making her laugh—even when he disagreed with her about some historical or political point—and with every laugh, she saw him differently. His bulk became comforting. His chipped incisor was charming. The mischievous way he narrowed his eyes made her melt. Only at the end, when they were making out against the brick wall near the entrance to her apartment building, did she take a breath and remember to ask. “Your heritage? What was that about?”
“I’m half Irish.”
“Oh, come on.” She punched him on the shoulder. “But what about the other half?”
“Sorry, that part’s not dating at the moment.”
She didn’t understand then, but she got it later. He was sick of all the grad-school women who pursued him for his “exotic” qualities. He refused to be anyone’s guide or guru, and he was certainly no suffering silent type—though he did, on occasion, smoke a peace pipe. So as far as he was concerned tha
t year, he was Irish. Take it or leave it.
Well, on her mother’s side, Ruth was Irish, too.
Now, standing in Gwen’s old kitchen, Ruth reheated a half cup of coffee while staring at the scratches on the cupboards and the peeling edge of laminate on the cheap countertop. This house wouldn’t be easy to sell.
“Okay,” she said, slugging back the acidic coffee, the mess of her romantic past still tugging at her, but not as strongly as the physical mess she couldn’t ignore. “Back to it.”
Ruth gave herself a deadline: all boxes out of the living room by 2 p.m. The bedroom closet was already overstuffed. There were only two places to put them: garage or basement. Easy choice.
Moving boxes slowly wasn’t like actively puzzling over history. Instead of occupying her mind, it freed it to wander, and not in a pleasant way.
Why had she written such a definitive email to Nieman? Why hadn’t she waited? But she knew why. Because the uncertainty in her brain had felt like a cold draft. She’d wanted to slam shut one of the only doors she could.
It wasn’t even lunchtime, but Ruth wiped her dirty hands on her jeans, entered the house, grabbed a bottle of beer and drew herself a bath.
Toes up on the edge of the old tub, beer bottle precariously balanced atop a metal soap dish, she stared down the length of her legs just under the water’s surface. She noted the untrimmed nails and stubble, the fish-belly-white curve of her calves and that one long, jagged scar up her left knee and thigh. At least it was visible. She could point and say, “It hurts there, for obvious reasons.”
Not so with the aching places in her heart.
You decide. Between all that and us, Ruth. The past or the present.
Ruth felt her foot, balanced on the far lip of the tub, suddenly jerk. As if in slow motion, she saw it bump the metal soap dish. The beer bottle, only half full, tipped over and fell with a rich sploosh into the bath.
Surprised, she half-grunted, half-laughed. At least the beer hadn’t spilled onto the floor. The brown bottle was still sinking and settling, nudging her calf. But then her leg jerked again, hard.
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