Annie and the Wolves

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

  Very sincerely,

  As you would prefer to call me,

  Z

  The driver was speaking to her.

  “Lady? Motel 6?”

  Ruth unpinched the screen, and the fuzzy document jumped back to its original size. She was breathing fast and shallow now, disoriented and also thrilled.

  “Yes. Sorry. Here, let me pay you.”

  In the room, locking the door behind her, pulling shut the cheap orange curtains, Ruth was flooded with all the references in the letter, the reading that Lila and Sophie had given it, seeing only what they wanted to see: one tiny doubt about the use of a weapon on a subway, a confessional tone that could be mistaken for romance but wasn’t. And then there were all the parts they had refused to notice, the very point of the letter. The man who had pushed into Annie, the timeless subway pervert, had made her think again of the past, as everything would until the pressure became intolerable.

  Meanwhile, I continue with the practice I described when we met, the practice you gave me permission to continue . . .

  The letter was a key, an undeniable bridge to those who could read it alongside Breuer’s journal, with its focus on the past and even in its particulars: your method . . . interest in dreams . . . we can’t see each other in person . . . you gave me permission. Sophie did not doubt, and neither did Ruth, that this letter had been written in Annie’s hand. Its relationship to the content of the Breuer journal made that document, too, all the more credible.

  Between this and the condolence letter, Ruth had something solid to report to Nieman. And at that same moment, thanks to Reece, Ruth finally knew who Nieman was. Not Nieman at all, but Bert Czolgosz, a man with his own agenda.

  30

  Ruth

  Perched on the scratchy edge of her motel bed, Ruth dialed the number Reece had given her. It was 8:20 p.m. in Minnesota, 9:20 p.m. in Vermont. An older woman answered. It was Bert Czolgosz’s wife.

  “Yes, of course I know who you are,” Hetta said with no hostility in her voice. “He’s mentioned you. But I’m sorry to say that he can’t talk to you.”

  From the background came the unmistakable news-program sound of pundits interrupting each other.

  “He doesn’t want to talk to me?”

  “No, he can’t. They operated on his throat. We’ve tried to get him used to one of those electrolarynx devices, but he refuses to sound like a robot. He won’t talk if he doesn’t have to. But he can listen. Let me go turn down the news.”

  “Wait,” Ruth said. “Before you get Bert, maybe you can help me understand something first.”

  She told Hetta what she knew: that Bert was interested in 1901, that she presumed he was fascinated by his ancestor, Leon Czolgosz.

  “Yes. The black sheep.”

  “I’m sorry to bring it up. I’m guessing he wishes it had never happened.”

  “That’s what all his relatives have always said. ‘If only.’ There are so many stories: the job his great uncle didn’t get, the cousin who was bullied in the army once his buddies found out. Even an engagement broken off. That was Bert’s mother’s story.”

  “It can’t be easy.”

  “Leon got the letter that told him not to do it a few months before the crime, and that may have spooked him, but it didn’t stop him, either. Here, I’ll go see if Bert’s still awake.”

  “Wait, a letter?”

  “Leon laid low for a while on his parents’ farm in Ohio. But he still killed McKinley a few months later. That’s how Bert got pulled into the Annie Oakley business. The Leon-Annie letter. Bert got his hands on it in 1983. I figured you knew that was how his interest in Oakley got started.”

  “I assumed it was because of the fact that Leon was electrocuted on the same day that Annie Oakley had her train accident.”

  “He discovered that later. The letter came first. Bought it from a private dealer. He sent a copy to an Annie Oakley museum, thinking they’d be amazed and grateful. Never got anything, much less a thank-you.”

  “You must still have it, then.”

  “Three years later, we had a fire in the antiques barn, and Bert’s original went up in flames. You can bet he contacted the museum at that point, to at least try to get back the copy. They claimed to have never received anything at all.”

  “That wasn’t nice,” Ruth said, hoping indignation would keep Hetta on a roll.

  “You can imagine how that affected him. He wanted that piece of family history back. So he put out word that he was looking for Annie Oakley letters, especially from 1901, in case she’d ever written Leon again or he’d written back. He started collecting everything from 1901. That’s when he found out about Annie’s train accident. A strange coincidence, but Bert started to think everything about her was strange.”

  Ruth figured there was no better time to ask the question she knew only Hetta could answer. “You don’t think your husband believes he can go back in time and stop the assassination himself, do you?”

  There was a pause and a shuffle, the lowered TV volume growing yet more distant as Hetta closed a door in search of privacy. She whispered, “People wouldn’t understand.”

  “But I do. I think he wants to learn because he’s still wishing he could change Leon’s story. I think your husband wants final proof that Annie Oakley time-traveled, so that he can understand how it all works.”

  “You shouldn’t judge him for it. He’s a smart man, and certainly not crazy.”

  “I don’t think he’s crazy.”

  “But you told him the journal, the letters—all of it—are probably fake. I thought it was good news at first. Bert could save his money and put this business behind him. But then I saw the effect it had. He stopped wanting to scribble his notes or visit all those online auction sites. He lost his appetite. He aged ten years overnight.”

  “I was wrong.”

  “You were wrong?”

  Ruth put on her most confident, energetic voice. “I have more information now.”

  “You were wrong,” Hetta repeated.

  “And I’m very sorry if I took him off the track he was on. I think changing the past may be possible. But we don’t know for sure. Maybe Annie’s other letters will tell us.”

  “Well,” Hetta said again, but she sounded happier. “Let me go let Bert know you’re wanting to talk to him.”

  As she waited, something nagged at Ruth. The premature death of Annie’s Wolf probably would have had no great ripple effect on the world, especially since the farmer was probably halfway to the grave and had few interactions with anyone outside his limited sphere. But Czolgosz? McKinley? Those were bigger stakes. McKinley’s death made Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency possible, and Roosevelt’s policies had long-term effects: a line of dominoes that ran all the way up to World War I and well beyond.

  In any case, it seemed impossible for Bert to interact with Leon. Aside from the lack of geographical overlap, Bert couldn’t have been born until at least several decades after Leon’s execution. He couldn’t temporarily inhabit his own past self and revisit a moment in which he’d been with Leon. Perhaps that wasn’t the only way to time travel, but it was the only way Ruth knew of, based on Annie’s example.

  But maybe there were other ways, Ruth thought. Like some form of bootstrapping that could allow you to revisit a moment in your own life, to talk with an older relative perhaps, if that relative had been alive during an earlier time period and also had a mind to time-travel for the same purpose. In the case of the Czolgosz family, they probably all wanted the same thing: to stop Leon. That level of intergenerational desire must be a rarity.

  But the key ingredient was still missing.

  In the distance, Hetta called out, “He can hear you, honey!”

  Ruth took a breath. She said, “Mr. Czolgosz. First, I need to apologize.”

  No answer, of course. />
  “And second,” she said, “I need to ask again if you’ll share anything else you’ve got—or will get, if we decide to move forward—because I can only help if I know the full story.”

  When Ruth paused, Hetta spoke up. “He’s writing something for you, honey. I’ll read it aloud when he’s done.”

  Ruth waited, but the message was only “Keep going.”

  “Keep going?”

  “That’s all he wrote,” Hetta said. “And he’s nodding.”

  “I believe,” Ruth continued, “that the letter you showed my colleague Joe Grandlouis two years ago is real. I’d very much like to see it in its original handwritten version. I believe the journal is real, too.”

  Ruth then summarized for Bert what she’d learned in the last couple days: the condolence card from Annie to Breuer’s family; another undeniable letter, written in Annie’s own hand, that made mention of an H.D., possibly Herr Doktor; new information about Breuer’s daughter that could shed light on when and where the documents were found.

  “Chain of custody matters if you’re concerned about authenticity. This next part could take months or years.”

  Hetta interrupted. “He’s writing, ‘I don’t have years.’”

  “No, of course not. But you asked for possibilities—let’s call them scenarios—that were strong enough to justify a continued investment, regardless of whether you make the documents public.”

  Hetta said, “He’s writing another note. I’m sorry, hon, but it’s a long one.”

  “Take your time.”

  He was still writing when Hetta said to him, “Honey, she doesn’t need to know more about Leon.”

  “It’s okay. I do want to know. Please.”

  When he was done, Hetta read the note aloud.

  “Leon felt he had no recourse. He was depressed, lost his job, economy was terrible, immigrants were vilified. He was isolated, holed up on a farm in Ohio right before the shooting. I don’t believe most people commit such violence lightly. And I’m not making excuses for him. I just think we should understand. People are pushed to their limits. At the same time, it shouldn’t take much to pull a good man back from that limit. The right person at the right time could give him the nudge in the correct direction.”

  Ruth nodded as she listened, listening for any sign that Bert understood the true mechanisms of Annie’s time travel.

  He meant well, but he didn’t get it.

  Ruth struggled to frame the question. “Hetta, Bert. I’m asking both of you, I guess. I know you want to stop Leon, but aside from that family ‘stain,’ for lack of a better word, would you say you’ve had a good life?”

  There was a pause. Ruth imagined Hetta looking at Bert, and Bert back at his wife. Finally, Hetta spoke up, “He’s had a marvelous life. We’ve been happy. Blessed.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Another silence.

  Ruth wanted Bert to understand that Annie’s fixation on the Wolves was what had sent her skipping and sliding through time. Bert should have understood that already. He’d read the journal and the Sitting Bull letter. He had the same information Ruth did.

  “You’ve had a good life,” Ruth said again, fishing. “No major accidents, stresses or surprises.”

  Hetta said, “His note says, ‘We all have our trials and tribulations. Annie Oakley bore a grudge, as many people do.”

  “A grudge,” Ruth recited back.

  Hetta read aloud, “She went on to lead a good life, regardless.”

  Ruth felt like she was in an old argument with Scott, or back in the office of her editor, Laura Boyd. Some people got it, some people didn’t. And the ones who didn’t were either stubbornly oblivious or simply very, very lucky. Nothing truly damaging had ever happened to them. They’d been spared violence or terror, likely even the deepest kind of remorse or shame. They hadn’t suffered nightmares or radically intrusive thoughts.

  It didn’t matter if Bert Czolgosz knew that time travel was possible. He hadn’t experienced what Annie had.

  Hetta said, “It’s almost a way of honoring his family, to correct this in the time he has left. All his life, Bert’s been the most curious person.”

  Mere curiosity.

  Hetta read more of Bert’s note. “And then there’s the strange coincidence of Leon’s electrocution and Oakley’s accident. I started a list of such paired occurrences: deaths or mishaps that connect people. Lincoln, Kennedy. Don’t get me started. Everything lines up.”

  Lincoln, Kennedy. Conspiracies, coincidences and corrections. Time travel as a way to make a mostly orderly universe even more orderly. But that wasn’t how it worked. Judging from the Annie documents, it wasn’t a clear and conscious desire to control destiny that made change possible. It seemed to stem from being out of control.

  Ruth would waste no time worrying whether Bert might manage to change history.

  “In any case,” Hetta said, “Bert’s smiling here. The moment we hang up, he’ll be contacting the seller. He’s thrilled you’ve given your blessing. You have done that, right, Miss McClintock?”

  “Completely,” she said.

  A half-hour after their phone call ended, Bert emailed the letter he’d already shared, in part, with Joe Grandlouis.

  Dr. McClintock,

  You will understand why I didn’t show you the Sitting Bull letter before, which the seller showed me to tempt me into the larger investment in the entire collection of nine letters. This letter alone makes Annie Oakley’s claims all too plain. My experience with the museum and with your colleague Mr. Grandlouis has shown me what happens when you share something that seems fantastical. They turn on you. I decided at that point to tread more carefully. But it’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it? Make of this what you will. It was good talking to you finally.

  Yours truly,

  Bert

  P.S. I’ll send copies of the rest of the letters as soon as I have them.

  Ruth read the full letter, including new and helpful details she hadn’t yet seen, like the header—Dear H.D. But the most satisfying part was seeing the handwriting, a perfect match to the unmailed letter from Sophie’s tablet.

  As a form of thanks, Ruth forwarded the note Sophie had been keeping under wraps. After drawing Bert’s attention to the matching handwriting, she added a frank postscript: I took this without permission from the same people who probably never returned your Leon-Annie letter. I trust you won’t think less of me.

  At the top of the letter Bert had sent was a light notation: a circled number 4, written in pencil in an unfamiliar hand. Perhaps Breuer’s daughter or the collector from whom Bert was now trying to procure all the letters had put it there to keep the undated letters in order.

  Ruth took it to mean this was letter number four of nine. Near the midpoint of her letters and perhaps her attempts, Annie had not succeeded in fully confronting the past. It was possible she never would. But Ruth doubted that.

  If there was one quality Ruth trusted and admired about Annie Oakley, it was her persistence.

  31

  Ruth

  Talked to Bert. He’s going to buy the rest of the letters. We won him over. Also, Sophie gave me letter that adds evidence. You are amazing.

  Ruth sent the text to Reece. Then she changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt, washed her face, brushed her teeth and stared in the mirror. The lighting was bad, but that wasn’t enough to explain how strange she looked. Her eyebrows and chin were blurry. They didn’t line up. It was like she was tipsy, looking at herself, even though she’d had no more than a sip of wine.

  She’d already read the Z-to-H.D. letter three times. There was no point musing on whether Annie ever found the Wolf until Bert sent the next letters. Ruth had nothing to keep her from turning back to the harder task, an excavation that was both muddier and lonelier.

  The assignment
book.

  Coach V. And more V. And then nothing.

  It hit Ruth anew. Just months before she’d taken her own life, Kennidy had had a relationship with her coach, their neighbor.

  Ruth started a search of Vorst’s name on the Minnesota Public Criminal History search page. She needed his birth date, which required ten minutes of Googling and showed her so much more she didn’t want to know: that he had a LinkedIn profile, that he’d placed in the top three finishers in his age bracket in the local 10K several years in a row, that he had a YouTube channel with public playlists revealing his interest in aviation and building better calf muscles.

  Ruth went to the TV stand, where she had set her book bag, and pulled out her sister’s junior-year assignment book again. She crawled into bed with it, pulling up the thin, rough sheets. The last note about V was in April. Kennidy had killed herself in October of her senior year.

  Ruth did a search online: “Van Vorst coach Horizon High retirement party.” There was an article in their local paper. He’d retired at the end of the 2013 school year, a man in his late fifties in a tight Polo shirt and belted jeans, fit and smiling in the photo, fortunate to have earned such an early retirement—and thus able to afford to sell the house to Gwen’s mom at below-market value. A lucky man. A generous man.

  Ruth remembered the stack of “while you were out” messages she’d found to Gwen from the school, requesting that she come in for meetings about some disciplinary matter: May.

  The drive with Kennidy to the cabin, angry: May.

  The coach’s retirement: early June.

  The house sale date: July.

  Ruth retrieved her bookbag and shook out all its contents on the motel bed: nickels and dimes, old gum wrappers, hairbands, and the three sealed envelopes she still hadn’t opened.