One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow: A Novel

by Olivia Hawker

  “You said I wasn’t ever to go off with Clyde alone, out of your sight.”

  “So you aren’t as slow witted as you seem. You do remember. One must ask oneself, then, why you disobeyed me.”

  “We had to,” Beulah said. “A sheep went missing.”

  Clyde nodded, but he kept his eyes on Beulah while he spoke. “The youngest ewe. I hadn’t thought she’d caught at breeding time, but I guess she had after all. She ran off from the pasture and sought out a place for lambing. When Beulah and I penned the flock for the night, we saw that one was missing, but it was almost dark. We had to go out and find her before the coyotes and wolves did.”

  “A convenient excuse,” Nettie Mae said, “and a rather paltry one. You don’t expect me to believe it.”

  “It’s true, Mother. I would never be false with you.”

  Something passed between Clyde and Beulah in that moment. A look—a silent exchange of understanding. Knowledge and agreement so unified of purpose that they had no need to speak. The familiarity between them, the bond, hurt Nettie Mae’s heart more than the deception ever could have done.

  “You’re lying,” she said at once. “Or you’re keeping the whole truth from me, which is just as bad as lying. God counts it as much a sin, Clyde; don’t be taken in by the Great Deceiver. It is your soul at stake.”

  Clyde drew a long breath, fortifying himself. Then he moved toward the house. “Mother, it has been a very long and difficult night. I need my rest.”

  Nettie Mae stepped in front of him. “I will not be disobeyed. I will not be mocked. I will be heard, Clyde Webber, in my own house.”

  “This is as much my house as yours.” His words were gentle. “My farm, too, with Father gone. If I must make a decision for the sake of the livestock, then you must trust me, Mother. Land sakes, I’m almost seventeen years old, and managing this land on my own, more or less. When will you stop treating me as if I’m a helpless child?”

  “Clyde never touched me, ma’am,” Beulah said, “nor I him. I don’t think I even took his hand when he offered to help me climb over the rocks. That is where we were obliged to go—all the way up into the ravine.”

  “The ravine!”

  “Going after the missing ewe, ma’am. We tracked her all that way. It was her first time lambing, and she was frightened—wanted someplace quiet and protected, I guess. But that was all we did: Looked for the sheep, and found her. Brought her back. Her lamb, too.”

  Again, that knowing glance passed between them, and Nettie Mae felt the trembling certainty of prevarication. A thing left unsaid.

  “You never went to the fold,” she said. “I saw you. I watched you come all the way back from the river trail. You had no sheep with you.”

  “They’re in the barn,” Clyde said shortly. “I carried the ewe back on my shoulders; she was weak from the birth. Beulah carried the lamb. We bedded them down in the barn for the night, like I do with all the new lambs that come after dark. Predators, you know.”

  Nettie Mae squinted into the darkness, but she could see nothing of the barn, could see nothing beyond the circle of the lantern. Everything outside that flickering sphere—the whole of the world, all God’s Creation—might not exist anymore, for all Nettie Mae could perceive.

  “I don’t believe you. The fall lambers never drop their young so late in the season.”

  “This one did.” Clyde moved again toward the house. “I hope there’s a bite to eat. I’m powerful hungry, after all that walking and climbing up in the canyon.”

  Nettie Mae seized Clyde by the arm and he halted, staring back at her with his lips pressed tightly together. She could think of nothing more to say, no way to scold the truth from him, so she only watched his face, quivering with the need to win this fight, to keep her son a boy yet a while longer.

  “Look, Mrs. Webber.”

  Beulah shook out her shawl, spreading it between her arms so it caught the lantern light. The pale-gray wool was smeared and stained with something brown as rust. It took Nettie Mae some moments to realize she was looking at blood, and plenty of it. An upward rush of heat made her cheeks burn, made her dizzy enough that she almost swayed where she stood. Then she calmed herself. It was entirely too much blood for a deflowering. Whatever the stains had come from, they hadn’t come from the girl.

  “What is that?” Nettie Mae said.

  “I wrapped the lamb in my shawl, to keep it warm on the way to the barn. It’s blood from the birthing. Clyde and I found the ewe just in time—she passed the afterbirth minutes before we arrived.”

  “There was a lot of blood,” Clyde said. “A few minutes longer, and the coyotes would have gotten them both, mother and baby. I guess it was an ordeal for the poor ewe. That’s why I’ve got her in the barn, and she’s not to be disturbed.” He drew another long breath. This time there was a tremor in it—fear or awe. “I don’t know whether the ewe will survive. I’ve done what I can for her tonight, and I’ll tend to her more in the morning, but everyone’s to keep well clear till she’s back to full health. I won’t have her upset by too much commotion. Now that’s my final word on the matter.” He moved deliberately around Nettie Mae, starting for the house again. “Come inside, Mother. It’s too cold to linger out here in the dark. Snow’s coming soon.”

  Nettie Mae remained where she was, watching Clyde’s back as he walked away. His shoulders were broadening. She must make some new shirts for him soon. They might be the last shirts she would ever sew for her son. All too soon, Clyde would find himself a wife, and it would be she who stitched and mended for him, not Nettie Mae.

  The light dimmed around Nettie Mae as Clyde crossed the yard with his lantern. But just before the ring of light slipped away, leaving her to darkness, Nettie Mae looked back at the girl. Beulah had folded the shawl over her arm once more. She stroked the blood stain, rapt as a child petting a kitten. And over the broken notes of the autumn’s last crickets, Nettie Mae heard the girl humming, low beneath her breath. The song sounded like a lullaby.

  CORA

  Cora wavered at the edge of a spiral of dreams. Deeper, down where the ease of sleep lured, she could sense Ernest waiting for her, beckoning. He was kneeling in the mud, as he often did in Cora’s dreams—in the gray drift and half mist she remembered, sometimes, upon waking. Kneeling in the mud, reaching up to take her hand, asking Will you be my wife? For you are the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, lovelier than a rose. Ernest was always young when Cora dreamed of him, young and glad of her company, glowing like a candle in the darkness, bright with love for her. She wanted to go to Ernest and drop to her knees beside him, and never mind the mud on her dress. It was a borrowed dress anyway, lent by the president so she would look fine at the spring ball, as fine as all the other girls. What did a little mud matter when Ernest was there to hold her and stroke her hair?

  Cora longed to surrender to the thick, slow exhaustion that never left her now, not since Ernest had fired his rifle and the fragile world had shattered in her hands. Weariness dragged her always toward sleep, and in sleep she found a refuge of dreams. Dreams always tasted sweeter than this life of toil and isolation, even when the dreams were bitter.

  But that night, something restrained Cora, tethering her just beyond the comfort of real sleep. She rolled onto her side and tried to open her eyes, tried to learn what lone, white-glaring anxiety was holding her where she was, neither sleeping nor waking. The boys were safe in their shared bed; she had tucked them in and kissed their brows and heard their murmured prayers. Miranda was warm on her trundle bed. Even mired somewhere on the slow, dragging margin of her dreams, Cora was sharply aware of her youngest daughter’s breathing—smooth and unbroken, recovered from the ordeal of the flood.

  I should write to Ernest and tell him what happened to our daughter. Tell him we almost lost Miranda. I almost lost her, in my carelessness.

  Cora could imagine herself taking up her pen, confessing her inadequacy—as a mother, and as a wife. She could all but feel th
e rapid dash of her hand across paper and smell the half-dried ink. The words she might write, if she were honest and courageous, filled her head—a yawning dark awareness that had opened wide in place of sleep.

  Our child nearly died because of my weakness, because I couldn’t lead myself from the wilderness of my own thoughts. Because I was preoccupied and afraid. And that is also why I betrayed you, my husband. I cannot ask you to forgive me—not for what I have destroyed, nor for what I would have destroyed. I cannot ask forgiveness.

  She might convince herself to write those words, but they would remain sealed in the blank sterility of a folio, girded by wax, and unread in the darkness. Slipped into her apron pocket along with the first letter, the one she had already written but had not sent, detailing her intent to return to Saint Louis. Cora did intend to tell Ernest of her plans. Of course. But if she sent the letter now, would he read it? Or would he hold the folio to a candle flame, unopened? Any word she might send—imploring Ernest to keep his spirits through the long years of his captivity, begging for his pardon, confessing her sins—seemed far more likely to end as smoke than to reach her husband’s heart. What right did she have now to pen his name, let alone call him husband?

  Hinges creaked as someone opened the door—slowly, as quietly as they could manage. The sound, though small, pulled Cora from her miserable stupor into wakefulness. She half sat up, propped on an elbow; the mattress crepitated faintly in the darkness, the dry stuff inside shifting and speaking. No candle burned.

  “Who is it?” Cora whispered.

  Beulah didn’t reply, but Cora knew her daughter from the rhythm of her steps. The careless ease, the light tread even now, far beyond day’s end. Cora listened as Beulah shut the door and found her pine chest by feel. The lid of the chest opened, and a scent of lavender lifted into the confined space, hung for a moment, and vanished. There came a sustained rustle of clothing being removed and a nightdress donned. Then Cora shifted, held back the bedding while Beulah climbed over the trundle bed and lay down at her mother’s side.

  “I asked you not to stay out so terribly late,” Cora whispered.

  “I’m sorry, Ma. We couldn’t help it, Clyde and me.”

  “And I.”

  Beulah paid no heed to the correction, as was her custom. She kept her voice low, so as not to wake Miranda, but Cora could sense the girl’s excitement. Even Beulah’s whisper carried a tremor of awe, and the mattress quivered faintly with her tension. “We tracked the missing sheep all the way up into the canyon. And we found her.”

  “That’s very well. Now you must get some sleep. And the next time I ask you to heed the time, you must heed it, Beulah.”

  A pause. The sound of swallowing, then a sharp inhalation, as if Beulah were considering whether she ought to say something more.

  “What is it?” Cora whispered. “Tell me.”

  Beulah answered so quietly, Cora scarcely heard her, though she was lying by her daughter’s side. “Something miraculous was born tonight, Ma. Something never seen before.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Nettie Mae can’t learn of it, though. She mustn’t know. Clyde didn’t want to tell her. She met us in the yard as we came over from the barn, and she was sore, but Clyde didn’t tell her what happened—what we saw. At least, he didn’t tell Nettie Mae the whole truth. Clyde doesn’t want his mother to know.”

  “Tell me, then.” Cora’s patience was fraying. Ernest was waiting for her in the shelter of dreams—a husband who still loved her, a man whom Cora had not yet betrayed. “What is the whole truth? And then you must go to sleep; it is far too late for chatter.”

  Beulah waited a moment longer. Cora could sense a current of wild joy traveling through her daughter; the girl was savoring the moment, strumming a tight string of waiting. The world would be a different place once she spoke, once she revealed her secret, and Beulah was reveling in her moment of power.

  Clyde has kissed her, Cora thought, or held her hand, and she thinks herself in love. That’s all this is; girlish tomfoolery. She will learn soon enough that kisses mean nothing. But let her find what little joy she may while her innocence still lasts.

  “The runaway ewe,” Beulah said, “gave birth up in the canyon. And the lamb has two heads.”

  Cora lurched up in bed, stripping the blankets from Beulah’s body as she went. Beulah laughed softly and pulled one corner of the quilt back up to her shoulder.

  Cora pressed a hand to her mouth; it was all she could do to hold back a shout of disgust and fear. “Oh! How horrible!”

  “Ma, how can you say such a thing? That lamb is a wonder! Nothing of the sort has ever been seen. At least, not as far as I ever heard.”

  The night was biting, sharp as ice. Even Cora’s legs trembled, though they were still covered by the quilts. Dread racked her, and she longed for a candle or a lamp—anything to light the room, to drive back the fell creatures that now seemed to leer at her from the unseen, unseeable corners.

  “Lay yourself down, Ma,” Beulah whispered. “You’ll wake Miranda with all that tossing and rustling.”

  Cora lay back, pulling the blankets up to her chin. Her heart pounded; she could feel every beat of her pulse heating her cheeks, hear the blood roaring in her ears. What did this mean—what could it mean—an unnatural thing born among them, a horror sent to this farm, this family?

  It is a Judgment. A rebuke from God; a warning.

  Worse things were certain to follow, the nature of which Cora could only imagine, only dread. And she was helpless against the darkness yet to come. Helpless to protect her children—she had always been helpless, battered by fate, powerless to raise a hand in defense. Even if she had known how to defend herself, she had no strength against the evils of this world.

  Beulah sighed happily as she settled on her pillow. Perhaps the girl really was as witless as Nettie Mae seemed to believe. What cause had Beulah to rejoice in such a monstrosity as a two-headed lamb? The girl was either stupid or tainted by evil.

  No. I cannot believe such things about my child—my firstborn. She doesn’t understand; that’s all. She doesn’t see God’s hand at work, and she is still too innocent to read a warning from the Almighty.

  “The poor creature,” Cora said, quiet and fearful. “Surely it cannot live.”

  “It won’t; I’m sure of it.” Why was there such warmth in the girl’s voice, such love?

  “It would be a mercy to kill it, then. Why didn’t Clyde kill the thing?”

  “He wanted to,” Beulah said. “At first. He doesn’t want to now.”

  Cora lay in silence and the roaring abated in her ears. At length, she said, “Why doesn’t he want to end the lamb’s suffering? What is the point in allowing it to live?”

  “Well, it is alive. I guess that’s the point.”

  Cora turned her face on the pillow, staring through the close blackness of the room. She could just make out Beulah’s profile, a faint, deep gray barely visible in the dark. The family killed animals all the time—hens, pigs, sheep. Deer and elk, when they could. How else did one survive, but to take the lives of the living? And wasn’t that the power God had granted to man—dominion over all the earth, over everything that goes upon the earth? Beulah herself had slaughtered fowl for the pot more times than Cora could count. She had helped with the culling of the spring lambs. Why this sudden tenderness for an animal that, above all others, deserved to die?

  Beulah whispered, “There’s no point in killing a thing that’s already so close to death. Let the lamb have its life while it may.” Then she rolled onto her side and slipped easily into sleep.

  Cora stared up at a black void where the ceiling ought to be. The ease with which Beulah had read her thoughts shouldn’t have frightened Cora. After all, Beulah had displayed such uncanny abilities from a tender age. She had always been observant, insightful, and confident in her judgments, unafraid to name whatever she saw, whatever those slow, hooded eyes fell upon and knew. But tonight,
Cora’s transparency only made her feel more vulnerable. There was little hope for sleep now; Cora wanted nothing to do with dreams. She felt certain she wouldn’t find Ernest kneeling in the mud, but a monster: a sheep with two heads, its jaws slavering with hunger, its many eyes red and fiery as embers.

  Little wonder Clyde said nothing to Nettie Mae. She would have killed that abomination at once.

  But Nettie Mae wouldn’t have flinched at the sight of the beast. Cora knew that much was true. Nettie Mae was bitter and hard, but she was also a sensible woman, as fearless as Cora was not.

  I should tell her. First thing in the morning, I’ll take Nettie Mae aside and tell her what has happened, what God has sent to this place. I’ll tell Nettie Mae, and she will end the creature’s cursed life.

  And then, with a pang of misgiving, Cora knew she would say nothing. Nettie Mae would only take it for meddling—Cora begging around behind Clyde’s back, and Clyde was the man of the house now, the head of the farm. Clyde himself wouldn’t take kindly to Cora’s interference, and she couldn’t risk making an enemy of the only strong, able-bodied man to be found for twenty miles in any direction. Miranda owed her life to Clyde; Cora owed all the world to him, for saving her daughter from the flood. In any case, Cora had already inflicted enough damage upon the Webber family. There was no sense in setting Nettie Mae and Clyde at cross purposes.

  I must do it myself, then. Clyde has shut the thing up in the barn, I suppose. I must go out and kill it myself. Then Nettie Mae need never know.

  She tried to imagine it—tried to make it real, this picture of herself as a woman capable and determined. A fearless woman. She would wait until she was certain Beulah was sleeping deeply. Then she would creep from her bed and down the stairs, out into the night. She would cross the cold, black expanse of the farm. Cora felt it—the barn door dry beneath her hand, the weight of it as she pushed it inward. The smell of hay and animals, a sinister sound of movement in the dark. The monstrous creature waiting for her, waiting and knowing, alert, seeing everything Cora could never see.