“Yeah okay, just give me a minute.”
Gina went down the ladder, found her sleeping bag, laid it out on some loose hay. To her, it felt like her eyes were having a foot race with her ability to get safely into bed. Gina didn’t remember ever feeling the urgency to sleep, as much as she did right then. With her eyes barely open and brain functioning only enough to lay the bag out and climb in. Gina, finally inside her bag, stretched her limbs, groaning with pleasure. She’d made it.
When Gina woke, it wasn’t a long process, one minute she was fast asleep the next her eyes were wide open and aware that someone was asleep on either side of her. She looked right, and in the gloom of the building she could make out Sam. Her brain told her the other person had to be Olivia, but she had to look anyhow.
Through the dirty four-paned windows, Gina was able to see the sky, realized that it was lighter outside than in the gloom of the building. She wiggled herself free from between the two people who crowded close. Gina was careful to leave them sleeping.
She didn’t remember removing her boots, but she must have. Gina patted the hay until her hands found them and slid them on. Gina left the building through the small people door and stood breathing in the fresh morning air. The sky was clear, and birds had already started their hunt for food. Gina yawned and knew she had to clean her teeth, her mouth tasted awful.
She remembered seeing a sliver of soap beside the pump and decided the least she could do was to wash her armpits and rinse her mouth. Sailor raised his head and nickered when she went through the gate. At the pump, there was nothing for her to dry off with and she thought about the house. While it had been ransacked, she thought she remembered seeing a linen closet with bedding and towels strung out across the hallway. They’d stepped over them to get to Olivia’s room.
Inside the house, Gina stood to wait for her eyes to adjust. She realized how many things they could still use. If they were ever to set up separate households, they would eventually need more supplies than they had. When dishes got broken, they would need replacements and bedding wore out and became threadbare just like clothes and shoes. She and Olivia had gathered anything they thought the other girls could use, but on further investigation, Gina saw so much more that was irreplaceable. She found a pillowcase and began to load it up. A hairbrush, an unopened package of toothbrushes, a man’s belt; they were the little things that they would miss should the need arise. Gina began to open drawers and sift through the contents. A new package of boxer shorts, size medium, and socks. She found a plethora of socks, ladies panties, and men’s tee shirts which all went into the bag.
She tried to be unbiased in her selections because the guys would need stuff too. Eventually, everything they owned would wear out and probably quicker than the women's things. Before she knew it, Gina had filled four cases full. Her last uninvestigated place was under the bed. On her knees, Gina pulled out a plastic tote. She removed the lid and stared. Reaching in, she lifted out a white dress. It was simple and elegant. She knew it was Oliva’s mother’s wedding dress. As illogical as the idea was, Gina folded it and added it to the last empty pillowcase.
“That’s it. No more! I’m done in here!” Gina topped off the bag with sheets and towels, hiding her whimsical find. She set the bag beside the other four and picked up the towel she had saved out. Passing by the door to the bathroom, Gina looked in. On the wall, screaming out its presence hung a full roll of toilet paper. A luxury item. That couldn’t be considered needless, she decided and went in. As she passed by the mirror, Gina stopped. She almost screamed at the person she saw looking back at her. She leaned forward for a closer inspection. She saw the first teardrop as if coursed down her cheek. Her hair looked foreign. She had always prided herself on her hair. She had thought it was her greatest asset. Now, she saw streaks of gray, and it was a tangled mess. The bandage on her head had leaked through, and she saw it needed to be changed. While tears flowed silently down her cheeks, Gina looked under the sink cabinet and dug around until she found everything but a pair of scissors. She hadn’t remembered seeing any while she had gathered and would have to make do without them.
As she removed the bandage from her head, Gina realized that the mirror was a door and had a cabinet behind it. She pulled it open and grinned. On the top shelf, pill bottles were lined up, and Gina found a half full prescription of Ampicillin and another of Percoset. It looked full, and when she read the label, it read 90. Someone had not used up their prescriptions at all and Gina couldn’t have been happier. She set all of the bottles on the counter. A package with three women's razors sat on the end, and she took them. Gina couldn’t remember the last time she had gotten to shave her armpits or her legs. A glance out the bathroom window told her she was taking way too much time. Under the counter, she’d found a large makeup bag and had discarded it the first time. Now she could see how beneficial it would be. She found it under the counter and dumped the contents onto the floor. A long tube rolled to the wall and Gina reached down for it. Pulling the cap off she twisted the barrel, and rusty red lipstick appeared. Gina almost put some on until she realized how out of place it would look with her present appearance. Her appearance reminded her she had lost track of what she was supposed to be doing in the first place.
With deft hands, Gina changed the bandage after coating the burn in Neosporin that she’d found in the cabinet. With the use of only her hands, Gina finger-combed her hair and wrapped the gauze around her head. Once she had washed, she figured she wouldn’t look half bad. She set the now full makeup bag down beside the pillowcases and hurried to the pump.
At the pump, Gina wet a corner of the towel and using the sliver of soap lathered up her face. She opened her shirt and gave the parts she could reach a scrubbing. She couldn’t do much about her smell, but at least she had tried. She needed a full body, clothing off, bath. She knew there were other things you could use to cover body odor, like lemons and mint leaves, but there were none available to them. She saw that scrubbing with sand might be the cleanser of the future.
“Good morning,” Willy said, closing the gate behind himself. “The last of the souls passed during the night. Glen and I are cleaning them, but we ran out of water.”
“Oh my gosh, Willy. I’ll come and give you a hand. Sam and Olivia are still asleep.”
“It is still early, but Glen thought that you would be up. Don’t ask me why, but it’s what he thought. I can see that he was right.” He chuckled and filled the bucket. He was careful to give Gina privacy to pull herself together.
By the time that Sam and Olivia showed up, the bodies were cleaned and wrapped in fresh sheets. Gina and Willy had carried them outside and placed them in the ground. They were going to wait on the other two before they filled the graves in, so they could give a brief eulogy. Gina had cooked a pot of rolled oats. They were meant for horse feed, but after blowing the chaff away, she thought they would do. Glen had contributed some canned milk, and when Sam and Olivia showed up, they ate.
Willy said a few words as Sam filled in the graves. Olivia sat beside her grandfather talking softly with him. It had been all he could do to walk across the street for the burial. His gray lips stood out against his pale face. Gina knew it wouldn’t be long and she wondered how the man could even stand let alone walk. Jeffery sat beside the two in his own little world. Without someone to lead him around or show him what to do, he did nothing. Gina could only imagine the horrors he had seen or been exposed to, to cause his lethargy. Diabetes wouldn’t take his brain and turn it into nothing. The man couldn’t function alone. She understood why he couldn’t go with them.
“Now,” Willy said, rubbing his hands together, “Let me show you my little exhibit. I’m pretty sure you will be amazed by what I have there, and some of it may benefit us when we leave here.”
Olivia wanted to stay with her Grandfather, but he urged her to go with them. “Go see what’s there, child. I‘ll be sitting right here when you get back.”
Chapter Te
n; Buggies and wagons
The museum was only at the end of the same block, and it only took minutes to reach it. The building at one time may have been a residence. It small colonial style had been adapted well to display Willy’s treasures. A section of the front porch had been glassed in at one time but broken now, featured the buggy that Glen had talked about. The doctor’s buggy that supposedly Doc Holiday had used. Willy admitted that he had no paperwork or certificates of authenticity to back it up, but he didn’t care. He had brought it back to like-new condition. The harness draped across the footrest had been added later, and Willy confessed that he had had it made up to suit the era.
Gina looked at Willy and then Sam, “Are either of you thinking the same as me? Look at this. Willy is it operational. Can we drive it?”
Willy grinned, showing off his white teeth, “Yes ma’am. That’s why I brought you here. I knew you would be surprised.”
“What else do you have inside?” Sam asked. He was finally starting to catch on. He saw the benefits to pulling the buggy instead of the cart that he and Andy had built.
Even though the window had already been broken out, they waited for Willy to insert his skeleton key in the lock on the front door. Hearing the satisfying click, Willy opened it with a flourish and stepped aside for them to enter.
Olivia had been to the museum many times in her life and climbed into the driving seat of the buggy. Sitting in it, she had never done before because it had always been behind the glass wall.
Inside, Sam and Gina stood open-mouthed and looked around. Gina couldn’t believe any of the things were still there, that no one had stolen them until she realized that most people wouldn’t know what they were used for and it was only because she and Journey had a fondness for antiques, that Gina recognized many of them.
“We need all of this!”
“We can’t take it all. There’s no room to carry it.”
“Well Sam, you haven’t seen it all yet. Out in the back garage is my piece de resistance. Come and see.” Willy led the way through the house and out the back door. At the small garage, he unlocked the padlock and opened the door. The smell sawdust and leather oil wafted out as if it had been closed up for a long time.
“I am assuming two of those horses would be capable of pulling this?” Willy stepped aside to expose a buckboard wagon. “I finished it up just before the lights went out. Do you recognize it?”
Gina shook her head as did Sam. “How do you tell one from another?” Gina asked. She walked around it looking for any indication who it could have belonged to, and there was a fancy capital letter C on the board where feet would rest but no name. The bed had obviously been rebuilt, and the wheels looked new. To Gina’s untrained eye it looked authentic right down to the leaf springs. “Little house on the prairie,” She said uncertainly.
“Bonanza!” Sam crowed. “Hoss and little Joe, I can picture them going to town.”
Willy grinned, winked and pointed at Sam. “Yup, I went down and bought it ten years ago. I’ve been restoring it ever since. The question is, will those horses pull them?”
“Both Joe and Sailor pulled the travois with no problem and Sailor pulled the cart here, so I’m sure they would be just fine.” She looked at Sam.
Sam shrugged, “I don’t know if Sham will or not. I’ve never tried, but he pretty much does what I ask of him.”
Stacked against the roll-up door at the back of the garage were some heavy duty containers. Will pointed to them, “Those are all empty. I think we could load up whatever you think we can use and load the buckboard.”
“Willy, where did you find all that stuff? Some of it looks brand new.”
“Old barns, yard sales, and the dump. Some of them are reproductions, but you’d hardly know the difference. Let’s go see what we can use.” He picked up two of the stacked baskets, “Don’t be going inside empty handed.”
They followed him back to the house, each carrying two and began sorting through his treasures. Oliva got bored with driving a buggy that wasn’t going anywhere and came in. Without being told, she began to help. They left anything such as dreamcatchers and pictures hanging on the walls. If it didn’t have some benefit, they wouldn’t take it. Each of the rooms had something to offer, from hand drills to coffee pots. Cast iron cookware of every type. Gina found an old iron, and while she didn’t think they would ever have a use for it, she packed it anyhow for the metal. In a back room that had been set up as a ladies sewing parlor, she found the biggest find yet. It was an old treadle sewing machine made by Singer. Bolts of chintz material were spread out for display purposes, but Gina saw the value of them. A dress form with half a dress pinned to it as if someone was in the process of sewing it was quickly stripped of the material, and the form placed in one of the baskets.
Gina scooped all of the spools of thread, needles, bobbins and ribbon into another. Nothing that had anything to do with sewing or the manufacturing of clothing was ignored. While Gina herself didn’t sew, she thought that Evelyn and possibly Mary would know how and could teach the girls. “Well that was kind of sexist,” she said and laughed to herself. “They can teach the boys too.”
“Teach them what,” Olivia asked, overhearing Gina’s comment. She had carried all of the full baskets to the front porch where Willy and Sam were putting tape labels on them.
“Teach the boys to sew.”
Gina stood straight and massaged her back. It ached from being bent over, and she needed to take a break. Looking around as she walked to the porch told her they were almost finished. The men had packed everything of value.
Standing and looking up and down the street she wondered how everyone could have just left. “I can’t believe there is no one else around.”
“Oh, Glen and I both think there are people here. They just won’t show themselves. They’re afraid someone is going to want to share in whatever they have. When we were pushing the hospital beds down the middle of the road, there were still people here, but did any of them offer to help us? Nope. They walked by like they couldn’t see what we were doing. Then one day we got up and it was like the whole town, or at least the ones left had moved on. But, there were times when both of us felt that we were being watched. Kind of like right now. I feel the eyes watching.”
“Yes. The sooner we get loaded and out of here, the happier I will be. Olivia, will you walk down and check on your Grandfather please.”
Oliva nodded and went off down the street. She had used a length of the ribbon to tie her hair back and almost looked like a happy young girl without a care in the world. Gina knew how far-fetched that was, but the illusion was comforting. Getting the wagons with the supplies and themselves back to their new home would go a long way to making them all happy.
“You don’t worry about that girl walking around alone?”
Sam looked at Willy, “You have never seen that little girl when she decides to go all maniac on you. Trust me; she can defend herself just fine. She’d had it rough up until we found her and no one is going to do anything to her that she doesn’t want.” Sam looked at Gina and tipped his head, “Gina gave Olivia a little pocket gun just in case, and Oliva knows how and isn’t afraid to use it.”
Seeing Willy smile, she was again struck by how happy the man seemed in spite of everything that had gone wrong. He had shown sadness at his mother’s burial, but now it was over. He seemed to have already put it behind himself and was ready to move on.
“And so am I.” In a louder voice she said, “Shall we get the horses and try this out? I’d like to suggest that we put Sham and Joe together on the wagon. Joe is pretty level headed, and he would be a calming influence on Sham.”
Sam nodded in agreement, “Good call. I don’t think we’ll have a problem, and they are closer in size than either of them are with Sailor. He can pull the buggy.”
“Doc Holiday’s buggy,” Gina added. “I’ll go get them while you guys back the wagon out of the shed. Does the alley go all the way to the fee
d store?”
“It does. I was going to suggest you bring the horses back that way, just to give the prying eyes a rest. No sense advertising to those that don’t already know.”
Glen was leaning against the same tree as when they’d left and if Olivia hadn’t been talking she would have thought the old man had passed while they worked. Jeffery was nowhere to be seen, which was strange as he couldn’t go anywhere without help.
“Can I help?” Olivia asked as Gina walked by.
“You can if you want to,” She stopped walking and turned back to Glen. “Can I get you anything or do anything for you?”
He let his head roll from side to side and Gina could see the effort it cost him. Feebly, he waved them away. She hated leaving him sitting on the ground, but he’d said he’d had an aversion to dying inside. He wanted to hear the birds, smell the fresh air and feel the wind on his face.
“I’m sorry about your grandfather. He seems like a good man.”
“He said it was his time and that I wasn’t to get all weepy about it. Besides that, I’ll see him again one day. He did tell me not to do anything to rush it, though. I’m glad I had this time with him. Did you know I was adopted?”
“Wow, where did that come from?”
“Grandpa. He said he wasn’t planning on telling me, but it just came out, so he thought God meant for me to know. He said I should be proud of my heritage and that I am half Sioux Indian. I always thought that I was. I don’t look like either of my parents, so something was wrong. For a while when I was younger, I used to think the babies were swapped at the hospital and that someday, someone would come and tell my folks that I didn’t belong to them, that my real mother was an Indian princess and my father a chief.” Olivia laughed, “Isn't it funny what you think when you’re young?”
“Olivia, you’re fifteen. When did that get to be old?”
Oliva thought for a few seconds as they walked, and sighed,”Four months ago.”
Beyond the New Horizon (Book 3): Living on the Edge Page 13
