by Gary D. Svee
The man was shoved back into the pew.
Standish held Bele’s journal above his head. “I don’t know how many of you knew Klaus Bele. He was dying of tuberculosis when he came here. He befriended the Belshaw family as Christ said we must. One night Arch,” Standish put his hand on Arch’s shoulder, “went to Klaus Bele’s cabin. He found him burning with fever. He did as every Christian should do. He sought help for his neighbor. This woman”—Standish put his hand on Iona’s shoulder—“this good Christian woman answered that call. She made tea of yarrow leaves and while it was boiling on the stove, she ran a wet towel over Bele’s body to cool him.”
Standish shook his head. “Mr. Belshaw came to that cabin ridden with doubt and suspicion. He saw her and Belshaw. He didn’t see the Christianity in what she was doing. He saw an ugly picture painted by his demented mind. He attacked. There was no mercy in his fists that night.”
His hand went back to Arch’s shoulder. “Arch, would you please show them your teeth?”
Arch shook his head.
“Please?”
Arch’s face wrinkled into a map of despair. He opened his mouth, his finger going to the gap in his teeth.
Iona moaned. “His baby teeth.”
Standish shook his head. “Hedrick beat them unconscious. When Iona and Arch lay bleeding on the floor. He turned his fists on his stricken neighbor, beating Bele senseless, and then he ran.”
Standish stared at his feet. “Mr. Kabanov, will you please come forward?”
Kabanov sidled through a pew and walked to the pulpit.
Standish put his hand on Kabanov’s shoulder. “Mr. Kabanov is a good man. He was a friend of Klaus Bele’s. Mr. Kabanov, would you please tell the congregation what happened that terrible night?”
Kabanov sighed. He looked at Iona and Arch and then nodded. “Ja.”
Kabanov stared out the window. “Mr. Belshaw, he get drunk, and Charley, he tells Mr. Belshaw to go home. Mr. Belshaw tells Charley to go to hell. Louie—I don’t know his last name—he says, ‘We’ll all go to hell someday.’ And then another man—I don’t know his name—he said he would rather go to a.…” Pain etched Kabanov’s face. “…to a whorehouse. They were all laughing, and Hedrick stands up and shouts.…”
Kabanov squeezed his eyes shut to dam the flow of tears. He looked at Iona begging forgiveness. She nodded for him to go ahead: “He said ‘You want a whore go see my wife. She would like to see you.’”
Iona sagged, and Standish took her arm to steady her. “Jimson tossed Hedrick a silver dollar. He said, ‘Dis ought to cover it.’”
Sighs drifted through the congregation; some faces marked with shock, others with pain. Kabanov stepped toward his seat, but Standish pulled him back to the pulpit.
“In Proverbs, it is written: Reckless words pierce like a sword. Those words pierced me. They should pierce you, too.”
Standish hesitated, trying to make his words paint a picture. “Klaus Bele, dying of tuberculosis and beaten almost to death, staggered over to help Iona, just as she had tried to help him. The Christianity you talk about Sundays was shining that night at the Belshaw home. It was shining as bright as that star above the stable in Bethlehem.”
Standish’s eyes dropped to the floor. “Those three drunks rode to the farm. She fought them, and they beat her. Then one of them threatened to beat Arch to death with the butt of a shotgun, and she yielded to their bestiality.”
A low moan escaped Iona’s lips, and she and Arch burst into tears. The congregation broke into pieces, men trying hard to hide their emotions, women and children crying openly.
“Since then Mrs. Belshaw has lived a little hell of her own, hiding with her son from the bestiality that runs so deep in this community…in this church.”
He steeled himself. “Mrs. Belshaw might have yielded to hatred. Certainly what her husband had done to her was fodder enough for that, but Mrs. Belshaw is a Christian woman, and she came to him”—Standish pointed at Baunder—“to make arrangements for her husband’s funeral.”
Standish stepped to Baunder. “This man might have offered Mrs. Belshaw understanding. Had he taken time to think, he might have considered those words in Proverbs: ‘Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.’
“Certainly Mrs. Belshaw needed healing that day. Certainly, she was seeking understanding. The Reverend Baunder visited hatred and ignorance on her.”
Standish’s eyes swept the congregation, willing them to understand. He pointed at Baunder as though his hand were a pistol and his words bullets. “He told Mrs. Belshaw that she could not bury her husband in the church’s sacred tract. It was obvious to him, he said, that Hedrick Belshaw had committed suicide because his wife was a whore. He pierced her with those words.”
Baunder’s face twisted into a mask. He turned to Iona. “Please forgive me.” Tears spouted from his face, and he wept openly.
Mrs. E.J. Burkhart came to the front of the church. She stared at Iona, and Iona reached out and touched her face. Tears spouted. “I maligned Mrs. Belshaw with my vicious words. I am sorry I said those things. I am sorry.”
She turned then to the congregation. “I ask all of you for forgiveness. I have been.…” She burst into tears.
The pews emptied then, and the congregation moved forward, telling Iona and Arch how sorry they were. Would she please join the church guild? They had an extra beef half; would she like some fresh beef? The whist club needed another player for Monday night. Harold needed a new shirt. Would she make one for him from the blue material at Kennedy’s store?
Some of the children in the church were asking Arch to show them the gap in his teeth.
Only the creak of the wagon jolting over the prairie road and the occasional song of a meadowlark broke the silence.
Then Arch turned to his mother. “Never thought I’d see that.”
“What, Arch?”
“The Linders were smiling. I didn’t think they knew how to smile.”
Iona reached around his shoulders and pulled him to her. “Maybe we all learned something today.”
Arch nodded. Maybe they had.
Standish stepped from the wagon, offering his hand to Iona.
Arch leaned down from the seat. “What we having for dinner, Ma? I’m hungry enough to gnaw on the barn.”
Iona smiled. “I suspect if you find some eggs we could serve up a dinner fit for a king.”
“And a varlet?” Standish asked.
“And a varlet,” Iona grinned.
Standish sighed. “Tempting, but I’d best be getting home. Hortenzia’s been tied up in that harness for a long time.”
Standish climbed back on the wagon seat. “You better get some sleep.” He stared at the tree line. “Arch, don’t come over tomorrow.”
Arch stiffened. “You’re leaving, ain’t you?”
Standish stared at the grass and the flowers and the sun painting the west with all the colors it washed out in the heat of he day. He shook his head. “Can’t leave a place like this. Most likely I’ll spend the rest of my life here.”
Iona’s moan chased the wagon out of sight.
CHAPTER 14
The rider came through the trees without pausing or watching for ambushes. Either he meant no harm or he had enough vigilantes with him not to worry about one man.
Standish slipped from the back door of the barn and into the trees. Shadows were deep still in the pine. Dark enough that he could slip through the trees without being seen.
He waited near the path that lead to the Belshaws. No other riders, not that he could see, anyway. The stranger climbed down from his horse and stepped to the door, knocking on the rough wood.
Standish stepped from the shadows as a turtle without a shell might climb on a sandbank. “Halloo.”
The rider turned and waved. Young, he was, and a star glinted from his shirt. He leaned against the door, waiting.
“You look like a man who needs a cup of coffee.”
“Clive Jenkins,” he said, extending his hand toward Standish. “Nice to meet a man who can read minds.”
Standish smiled and opened the door, gesturing Jenkins inside.
Jenkins sat at the table, and Standish poured two cups.
“Early.”
Jenkins nodded. “Way early. When I got up this morning, looked like God had forgotten how to turn on the light.”
Standish chuckled. “You must be a fisherman.”
Jenkins shook his head, “You really can read minds,” and both men laughed.
“Got a message for you,” he said, pulling a telegram from his shirt pocket. “I was told to get it out here without delay.”
“What’s it say?”
Jenkins cocked his head. “You figure I read it?”
Standish grinned. “Somebody gets you up in the middle of the night and tells you to hightail it out to a honyocker. Yeah, I think you read it.”
Jenkins chuckled, and then his face grew more serious. “Sheriff Dolby sent it. Not sure we got the whole message. All it says is that Bodmer started the sixteenth. Let’s see, that would be yesterday.”
Standish whispered. “That’s message enough.” He tried to grin, but the gesture fell flat. “You get anything to eat?”
Jenkins ran the brim of his hat through his fingers. “Nice of you to ask, but I figured I’d stop on the way back. Young lady I know. I suspect she’d like to build me a breakfast.”
“You’d best get on your way.”
“Don’t s’pose you could tell me what kind of mood she’d be in?”
Standish grinned, “Me being a mind reader and all, I suspect she’ll be pleased to see you.”
Jenkins beamed.
“Clive, I was hoping someone would try that upper beaver pond. Those cutthroat are threatening to come out and walk on the land. Need someone to put them in their place.”
“Don’t see how I can ignore that,” Jenkins said. “Wouldn’t want one of my voters hurt before the next election for sheriff.” Standish’s laughter followed Jenkins into the morning.
Samuel Bodmer climbed down the steps of the train. Ed Miller walked out of the station to join him.
“What’s this about?”
Miller shook his head. “You ain’t going to believe this.”
“Try me.”
Miller shrugged. “Some rich son of a bitch from back East is headed out to Seattle in his private car to go salmon fishing. Anyhow, he’s out of mushrooms.”
Bodmer cocked his head. “I don’t understand.”
“He’s out of mushrooms. Seems that they have mushrooms, but they don’t have morel mushrooms.”
“So?”
“He owns a place out here, so he wired the foreman to get every cowboy on the place down along the river looking for morel mushrooms.”
Bodmer shook his head incredulously. “So we sit on this siding until he gets here?”
Miller shook his head. “No, we sit on this siding until the son of a bitch gets his mushrooms.”
Samuel Bodmer looked down the street. “Ed, I don’t like this either, but I wish you wouldn’t use that kind of language. We are doing the Lord’s work, and I think we should show proper respect.”
Miller tipped his hat back on his head. “Sorry, boss, it’s just that.…”
Bodmer nodded, “I know, but all things happen in God’s good time. We are doing what is right. We must be patient.”
Miller shook his head. “Been patient for near four years now.”
“So a little longer won’t matter, will it?”
Miller sighed, “No, I guess not.”
“How far to Last Chance?”
“By horse?”
Bodmer nodded.
“About half a day. We’ll have to track him down after we get there.”
“Not much reason to go tonight.”
Miller shook his head.
“This burg got a hotel?”
“Got a sign on it says it’s the grandest hotel for a hundred miles.”
“That bad, huh?”
Miller grinned. “I ’spect so.”
“Well, as long as we’re waiting, see if we can get some horses.… Get me one with an easy gait, okay?”
Miller nodded.
“And get us rooms at the hotel. I need some time to think. I’ll be sitting on that bench in front of the store.”
Bodmer watched Miller walk down the street. Standish was in town. Bodmer had seen his shadow from the train window. Black the shadow was, black as death, and it followed Samuel Bodmer wherever he went.
Jenkins had just disappeared into the trees when Iona and Arch emerged. Arch carried his shotgun. Standish waited by the door for his neighbors. The sun set Arch’s hair on fire, and enhanced the auburn tint in Iona’s. They were a pair to draw to, Standish thought with a twinge he couldn’t explain wrinkling his face.
Arch’s words came without hesitation. “What did he want?”
“Just wondering about fishing.”
Iona’s face tightened. “A deputy gets up in the middle of the night to ride out here to ask if he can fish and then rides back to town?”
Standish looked down at the step. “You have a minute to talk?”
Arch’s eyes squinted. “We come over to help a varlet out, and he don’t even ask us if we want breakfast.”
“Arch!”
“Ma, somebody has to teach him how to treat royalty.”
Standish grinned. “Perhaps if you would explore my wares and choose suitable food items, I could take care of Sally and Hortenzi. I shall return to provide you with a breakfast fit for royalty.”
Iona shook her head. “Good sir, how can you learn to make a breakfast fit for royalty, if royalty does not show you the finer nuances of breakfast.
Standish bowed, his right arm sweeping up in salute. “Madam, I yield to your impeccable judgment,” but a dark cloud descended on Standish three steps toward the barn, scrubbing the smile from his face.
“Dumb, just diddlydee dumb,” Arch groused, carrying a chair from the cabin. “Whoever heard of eating breakfast outside?”
Standish smiled, “Arch can you imagine any castle dining room so grand as this?”
“Can’t imagine no castle dining room,” Arch said.
Iona stepped from the cabin carrying a platter of bacon and eggs, toast and strawberry jam. “We must yield to the varlet on this,” she said. “No dining room can match the beauty of this.”
“Diddlydee, locoweed is catching,” Arch said.
Standish and Iona smiled, but the smiles were guarded.
The three sat, Standish holding Iona’s chair, Arch fidgeted, anxious to get at his favorite business of eating. Standish reach for Iona’s and Arch’s hand. Arch scowled, but he took Standish’s and his mother’s hands in his own.
“Lord, we thank you for the beauty of your creation, for the time you give us to be in it, for all the blessings you bestow upon us, and for good people with whom we can share our lives.”
Muttered amens circled the table.
Iona’s face twisted into a tragic Greek mask. “I feel as though I am sitting at the Last Supper.”
“It’s breakfast,” Standish said.
A tear trickled down Iona’s cheek. “You wanted to talk to us.”
“After we eat,” Standish said. He wanted to absorb the day into his being, into his soul, so that he could carry it with him always. He wanted Iona and Arch to be part of that memory as they had become so much a part of his life.
Standish ate an egg and a piece of bacon and turned his attention to Arch, getting more pleasure from watching the boy eat than in eating. He glanced across the table and found Iona staring at him. “They’re coming, aren’t they?”
Standish sighed. “Yes.”
“That’s the reason the deputy was here?”
Standish nodded.
“How long”
Standish shook his head. “Don’t know.”
“Today?”
“Klaus…,” Standish was surprised that he used Bele’s first name, but he had come to feel that Klaus was one of his best friends. “Klaus wrote something about her.”
Standish stepped into the cabin and returned a moment later, carrying Bele’s journal. He thumbed through the pages, until he came to the page. He read the words, aloud, but not so loudly that they might frighten the doe, not so loudly that they might take Arch’s attention from his breakfast.
Wind whispers scent
of needles bitter to the tongue
Meat eater’s foot to stone
flickering sounds of death
run
Branches slash and tug
Until…
Nothing,
No shadows.
Scents of rose and mint
Of sun on grass and cool water
Life pinned against bright light
Synapses crackle, blood surges
Hooves thump
Through light to shadows
To shadows and safety
Standish leaned across the table. “I’m pinned against the bright light, Iona. I can’t run anymore.”
Iona keened, a plaintive wail deep as the caves of our past, and Arch jerked. “You hurt my, Ma?” he growled, as he came across the table, knife in hand.
Iona stood, “Arch!” She grabbed his arm, and he struggled against the pressure as trout had struggled against his line. “Arch, he didn’t hurt me.”
“Then why you wailing like that?”
“It is necessary occasionally for women to wail.”
“Ain’t ever done it before, ’cept that night.”
Arch’s face dropped toward the table. The words had come before he had time to think about what he was going to say. Now, he had hurt his mother.
“Sorry, Ma.” Arch’s face wrinkled into a tragic mask. He turned to Standish. “I wouldn’t have cut you or nothing, I just.…”
Iona was shaking her head. The past few minutes had jerked her thoughts around, left them torn and bleeding.
“Iona?”
