She said coffee would be welcome.
Knowing what we know, the warden said, we cannot let you room in town. You’ll have to stay here. You understand.
She was silent, looked down at her lap.
But, he continued, we can assure you that you will be safe here, quite unmolested by the men, until we figure out—your situation. Do you have any objection? Then, as if he’d just thought of it: Would you like a lawyer?
She pretended to hesitate.
I don’t have no—any—objections, she said. And I might get a lawyer—later. But—I know what I did. I killed a man. I deserve to be locked away.
The warden stared at her. When he realized she was finished speaking, he told her he would see her the following morning. The guard had then taken her to the jail, in the basement of the courthouse.
After the guard left her alone, she studied the cell. It was more accommodating than she had thought it would be—a cot along the side wall; a basin on a pedestal; a slop jar behind a canvas partition in the corner. A small rectangular window that overlooked a portion of the front lawn. The jail was not in a proper basement, but was only half submerged in the earth. And the cell was relatively large: approximately ten by eleven feet. Packed dirt floor. Brick walls.
There were seven incarcerated men there at the time, and two in the holding cell. They occupied the cells at the front of the jail. The cell across from her was empty.
She went and looked out the window. There was a great cottonwood on the lawn that the wind was upsetting; it nodded like an encephalitic. She went and sat on the cot, touched absently the wool blanket. She would do all right here, she thought.
The men were let in from the yard soon after, and she went to the bars and observed them as they walked down the hallway past her. They looked in at her, startled. Impressed. One or two chuckled, poked their neighbors in the ribs: Look, a woman! They all looked at her but one—Michaelson—who trailed behind the others, shuffling, holding his side. He seemed to be in pain. A guard walked slowly behind him, watching Michaelson’s movements carefully.
Neither the guard nor Michaelson looked at her.
That’s it, murmured the guard, we’re almost there.
Della stepped quietly back from the bars after Michaelson had passed, went to the cot, sat down. Listened to Michaelson’s unsteady progress down the hallway.
That’s it, said the guard.
The sound of a cell door opening, and then metal on metal: a lock slipping into place.
I’ll get the doctor, said the guard.
What’s wrong with that man? Della asked the guard who delivered her breakfast the next morning. It was the same guard—tall, dough-faced—who had followed Michaelson and ushered him into his cell the day before.
The man glanced at her, said: He’s sick. His tone neither friendly nor unfriendly.
How sick?
It seemed the guard would not answer her—was ignoring her—he was sliding the tray through the slot, and she took it—but then he shrugged.
Awful sick, as far as I can tell.
She wanted to ask him, What’s he done? But she thought it was too soon for that, too quick. And so she accepted the food tray, and that was all.
That evening, when the men were let in from their time in the yard, Michaelson wasn’t among them. She came away from the bars again—alert, confused—and sat on the cot. Her heart pounding hard and steadily in her chest.
What happened to that man? The one who was sick?
There was another, younger guard—thin as a stick, nervous, pimply-faced—who served her breakfast. He shot her a startled look.
I just heard he was sick, she said. I saw him. He didn’t look well. I was just wondering what happened him—
The boy opened the slot and shoved the tray in; it made a grating sound. Suddenly he muttered, Needs an operation. But he should last for the trial. That’s all we care about here—
And he glared at her, as if angry for disclosing so much information. But then she realized he was just excited.
She looked away. Said, flatly: Well, he didn’t look well. Glad to hear he’s getting help—
Talmadge had thought, before, that he would just go and see Della directly—he would drive the mule and wagon up there—but the Judge said that since she was incarcerated, there was a procedure to these things. It could be that Talmadge would travel all the way there and not be able to see her, for whatever official or legal reason. And so, with the Judge’s help, Talmadge composed a letter to the warden, asking for permission to come see the prisoner Della Michaelson, who, it had just been verified, was incarcerated in his jail.
Two weeks later, the Judge received a reply. Talmadge was welcome to come visit any time between the hours of ten and four o’clock the following Friday.
The next evening, over a supper of trout and creamed spinach on the porch, Talmadge told Angelene that the Judge had found Della. She was living in Chelan, he said.
Angelene, who had been chewing, slowed, stopped.
He did not tell her Della was in jail. That would come later, he decided, after he had learned more about Della’s situation.
I’m going to go visit her, he said. I’ve thought about it, and think I should go by myself this time. I’ll take the mule. Then: I just think it’s best if I go by myself, this time.
Angelene said nothing at first. She took up her fork again, took a bite of trout. And then said, surprising him: I don’t want to go anyway.
Her voice was soft. He studied her profile momentarily before she turned her head away, pointedly, and looked at the trees. Should he ask her what was wrong? Why she didn’t want to go? He felt himself rise to ask these questions and then, at the last moment, falter. And then it was too late: the moment had passed.
He would not question her now.
He set out in the early morning. Angelene came out onto the porch, a blanket around her shoulders, and watched his last preparations.
He asked her again if she was certain she did not want to stay at Caroline Middey’s. She shook her head.
You said I didn’t have to.
You don’t have to. I just don’t want you to get scared out here all by yourself.
I’m not scared.
Well. It might get lonely.
She shrugged.
Don’t let a bear come and carry you off.
Aren’t no bears around here.
I saw one just the other day.
Didn’t.
But she had smiled, briefly.
You know where the money is. You know where the gun’s at.
Yes, she said. I know where it’s all at. And then she looked askance at the trees, half amused, half annoyed. You going to Chelan or what?
All right, he said, and got up into the wagon and waved at her. When he was halfway across the pasture he turned and looked back at the cabin, but she was no longer on the lawn, or on the porch.
The man, Michaelson—but he was going by De Quincey now, she had heard a guard and a prisoner both call him that—was indeed sickly. What she had first observed in town, when he walked, squinting and disheveled, down the street, was not a passing discomfort but a disease. She did not need to know what it was exactly: only that without an operation, at some point soon, he would die.
He was getting progressively worse. She had been at the jail a month now, and passing outside her bars he was a head hulking against a frame of bones. But even so, hunched over, he was still impressively tall. That old rangy frame. He was not able, because of his sickness, to move freely. When he walked down the hall and passed her cell—holding his arms around his stomach as if holding his insides together—he continued not to see her. But then one day the men were led back in from the exercise yard, and she was at the bars, and he passed her, again behind the other men—the guard had not come in yet, he too lagged behind—and she said his name: Michaelson. He looked over at her, confused, a man coming out of a distant dream. His gaze took a moment to recognize her. But t
hen he continued on, was not impressed, or didn’t care. But it was him, Della thought, coming away from the bars and sitting on her cot. It was him!
Come on, said the dough-faced guard.
She was let out once a day into the yard, before the men. She, being the only female, was led out there by herself. She walked a circle just shy of the perimeter, strolling but not lingering too much in one place lest she draw attention to herself. Every once in a while she would look over her shoulder and seek the whereabouts of the guard. If he was not looking, or dozing—the dough-faced guard was prone to napping—then she would bend and pick up an object from the ground that might be of use later. If he was looking, she would pretend to be tying her bootlaces. Some stick, wedged into her boot. Rocks, the same. A glass bottle she stuck down the front of her pants.
The guards were lax about patting her down: she amassed a collection of objects in her cell, stuck them in a split in her mattress.
The drive was easy, the roads fine. Although, he noted, even an easy trip now was not as easy as it once was. Discomfort roused in his joints and spread. The first day he drove too far without stopping to rest, and he was overly stiff that night as he prepared his fire. After he ate, he got into the back of the wagon to sleep. The smell of the blankets—the outdoor blankets, his mother used to call them, used for overnight trips—made him remember earlier times, times he could no longer recall clearly.
In the morning—tired, disoriented—he went down to the water and washed his face. His head spun slightly. The day was very bright.
As the wheels creaked along in the wagon tracks, his thoughts turned to what lay ahead. The girl in the jail. And what would she be like now? She was a girl when he had last seen her, but now she was a proper woman. She had turned herself in, he remembered: and so maybe she had had a conversion of sorts. Not a religious conversion, but a change of heart and mind: she had done something wrong, she had committed a crime, but she wanted to take responsibility for it. That was something. And, he thought—the wagon shivering and sighing in the tracks—maybe the girl was guilty about an event, an action, that was not her fault.
He would determine what had happened, and help her. Either way—whether she was guilty or not—he would help her.
And then one day the dough-faced guard led her out into the yard when the men were coming back in. There was a sort of construction project going on in the building that prevented her from going out into the yard earlier, at her usual time. Instead of leading the men indoors and seeing they were locked into their cells and then taking her outdoors, the dough-faced guard led her out and then made her stand and wait as the men filed past her.
The next day, when they passed her again, she had a blade fashioned from a stick hidden inside her jacket sleeve. But when the time came, when Michaelson passed by her, a little more than an arm’s length away, she did nothing; she simply watched him. Her heart racing. She wanted him to recognize her, but he did not.
And then she thought, it did not matter if he recognized her or not. The next day, waiting for the men to file inside, when he passed by her, she struck him with the sharpened stick.
But something funny happened. Instead of going for his neck or his face like she should have done and like she meant to, at the last moment she dropped her hand, barely grazed his side. The weapon was short and made for superficial wounding, except if one was going for the neck, where one could press down into the flesh to get at the vein. But at the last moment it was as if she had become bashful, or worse, lost courage. And he grabbed his side and grimaced but did not even so much as look at her. He pushed her aside as if she were a fly. Swatted her away, groaned. And then the other men were on her, trying to get the stick away. Someone hit her in the eye. Her own weapon scraped her knuckles. The guard hurriedly led Michaelson away.
He’s already suffering! somebody shouted. What are you doing?
In Chelan Talmadge inquired of the first passerby who looked at him about the location of the courthouse. He traveled to it, and sat in the wagon looking at the building in which Della was housed. It was smaller than he thought it would be, though it was properly official-looking, and well made of pale granite and stone. A great lawn spread on either side of the wide staircase leading up from the sidewalk. Automobiles lined up along the street before it. There were only two horse-drawn wagons that he could see.
He found stables nearby, and a boardinghouse. Inside his room on the second floor he washed, using a porcelain basin of water the landlady brought him, and combed his hair. He unrolled the suit he had wrapped in paper and twine, and dressed. Looked at his image in the dented mirrorglass above the basin, but could not quite make out his likeness. Downstairs he inquired of the landlady about a place to eat, and she directed him to a nearby café. He walked outside, taking in the air, which was different; full of the great cold expanse of the lake, which he could not see, and another, sharper odor of pine. And behind it all: dust. On the street the women who passed him were dressed in fine dresses; one who passed him now going the opposite direction wore a straw hat on her head, tied beneath her chin with a blue ribbon. She glanced at him openly with pale green eyes and then looked away.
After a meal of steak and eggs and coffee at the café, where he sat at a booth and looked out at the passersby, he walked down the street in the direction of the courthouse, to where he had seen a barber’s. He went in for a haircut and a shave. When the barber was finished, when he was dusting off the back of Talmadge’s neck with a large brush, Talmadge looked at himself in the mirror.
Don’t you like it? said the barber.
I like it fine, said Talmadge. In fact he was moved by his own image. He did not know the last time his face had been so naked. He was not handsome—he had never been that—but the sharp razor had revealed to him his flesh sagging in folds—around his eyes, mouth, under his chin—and there were the smallpox scars, the pitting, from when he was a child. He was, frankly, uncovered. The only thing he recognized in that face were his eyes, which were the old cornflower blue—that had not changed—and looked out at him like some startled animal.
It occurred to him that he was acting like a boy going to call on his sweetheart, going to the barber’s like that. He, who was far too old for such things. He had wondered if he was going too far. But now he saw his reflection and told himself that things were as they should be. He was old, but taking pains. He had been traveling, and she hadn’t seen him in a long time. It was only normal that he should take pains.
She had suffered to be in this position, he reminded himself—but did he ever have to remind himself of this?—walking up the courthouse steps.
The inside of the courthouse smelled faintly of gasoline. The sound of his boots echoed down the long corridor. In an office on one side of a wide staircase, he inquired after the jail warden.
A young man with spectacles who worked behind the counter told him the warden was not there, but was expected in the afternoon. Talmadge could either come back later or wait for him. Talmadge asked how long the warden was going to be. The young man shrugged. An hour, maybe two hours, he said. Talmadge was more than welcome to wait outside on the bench, if he would like.
Talmadge settled on the bench outside the door, took off his hat, and put it on his knee. He waited like that for about an hour and then rose and walked the length of the courthouse, looking at the large portraits of the important men—judges?—on the walls. And then he returned to the bench, sat down again. After another half hour had passed, he stepped again into the office. The young man looked up at him, surprised. Talmadge asked if he thought the warden was still coming. The young man hesitated, said he was most likely coming, because he had business there that afternoon. But then the young man faltered, looked away; and Talmadge knew he had forgotten about him waiting outside.
Talmadge returned to the bench. Not long afterward the young man came out and asked him what it was he was there for exactly. Maybe I can help you, he said.
I’m here
to see Della Michaelson.
The man’s expression changed only slightly, but Talmadge understood that he knew who he was talking about. The young man excused himself, telling Talmadge he would be right back. He was gone for maybe ten minutes, and when he returned, Talmadge stood. The young man said that Della could not receive visitors today. He was not at liberty to discuss the details, but she had been involved in an altercation earlier that week and been put in solitary confinement.
The young man, after he said this, stood silently before Talmadge, trying not to let his embarrassment or awkwardness overcome him.
Talmadge stood still and did not say anything. That word—“altercation”—alarmed him. He wanted to step forward and place his hands on the young man’s shoulders—how old was he? Twenty? Twenty-five?—and make him explain. What do you mean, “altercation”? But he did no such thing. Instead he said:
An altercation, you say? In jail?
Yes, sir.
Can they have altercations in jail?
Oh, yes, sir. The young man, in fact, looked as if he were sorry about it; winced.
Talmadge hesitated. She’s all right, isn’t she?
Yes, said the young man, and paused. I believe she’s all right—
Talmadge waited for him to continue, to elaborate, for it seemed he might go on. But the young man blushed, shook his head once to indicate he was done speaking.
Talmadge said: She’s a good girl, I don’t know why—
But he didn’t continue. His voice even to his ears was unconvincing. He stared at the wall behind the young man, which was covered with gray wallpaper.
She’s a good girl? said Talmadge. This is the first time something like this has happened, here?
The young man hesitated.
I can’t rightly say, sir. You’ll have to speak to the warden about that. It’s all in her file. I’m not at liberty—
The Orchardist Page 21
