B004XR50K6 EBOK

by Kathleen Shoop

  Tommy had grown sullen at the death of his brother, poring over the Bible, muttering and memorizing passages. He sang praises to God, especially upon the reappearance of Summer and Night who had ambled away in the storm, but had been returned by a merchant from Yankton.

  Jeanie never told Tommy, Katherine, or anyone the circumstances of their father and Ruthie. Jeanie couldn’t bare the humiliation of disclosure or the notion she’d poison the kids toward their father, or the failure she’d have to deal with if her children knew she couldn’t keep a man or that the man in question was the cause of James’ death.

  Still, Tommy picked up on something. Perhaps he knew more than Jeanie thought, as James clearly had. But at the sight of his father, droopy-eyed, all sense of his self swept away with opium grains, made Tommy flare with the anger that, inside Jeanie, sat as hard resentment rather than volcanic anger.

  Katherine didn’t show any sense of knowing anything in regard to what part Frank had in James’ death. She wore a neutral expression, talked little, but seemed at peace with the fact some of them had lived. That she was alive and she’d kept Yale alive, too. Katherine was empowered by her ability to care for someone weaker, Jeanie thought and thank God, one of them was.

  Jeanie felt the only glimmer of peace in herself at the sight of Katherine, competent, lucky, whatever was the truth about her surviving and keeping Yale alive, it was good, and Jeanie worried less and less about Katherine as time went by. Katherine’s age made her nearly a woman, but her experience made her fully adult.

  At the bee tree, the Zurchenkos stood in staggered rows, faces hardened, no one touching except for Anna who was draped around her mother’s neck. The Hunts wrapped themselves in each other’s arms, Ruthie stood near Templeton, and the Arthurs felt the cold weight of grief standing with them, between them, inside them, leaving no room for any of them to hold one another in any sense.

  Frank stood behind Jeanie, hiding from Ruthie. Every few minutes Frank would lean on Jeanie or pull her body into his. She would stiffen, shrug or step away as she couldn’t have found any more concern for her husband and his weaknesses if her own life depended upon it. All she wanted was to be dead herself. Jeanie could sense Ruthie staring at her, but she didn’t return the gaze. She didn’t offer an understanding nod for the pain Ruthie must be feeling at the loss of Lutie—Ruthie’s only family member except for aunts and uncles in Canada.

  Jeanie stared at her feet, the scarred black boots that were too big, that curled up like a witch shoes Jeanie’d seen in illustrations of evil women. Though she felt nothing for Frank—she’d have to deal with him for the rest of her life and numbness would be a better state than constant anger—she felt rage against Ruthie.

  She just couldn’t square the notion that a woman like Ruthie would betray Jeanie the way she had. Luckily, James stole most of Jeanie’s thoughts. Like an artesian well that provided a constant swell of water, seeping in from hardened rock many feet below the surface of the earth, from an unseen though consistent source, Jeanie’s pain did the same inside her skin. With its force, Jeanie had decided it would be her life companion, if there was nothing else she could rely on, it would be the constant replenishment of pain at James’ passing.

  They would bury four that day. James, Lutie, Anton, and Art em.

  Jeanie sobbed inside, but no tears fell, no shudders visibly wracked her body, though inside torrents of grief ravaged, punctuated by tremors of shock and disbelief.

  Greta coughed and Jeanie looked at her. She remembered the day they searched for loved ones, stumbling on friends and strangers, standing upright, frozen hard, mid-step, their faces grimaced, so lifelike in their pose, yet so dead that Jeanie and Greta found themselves laughing through tears. It couldn’t be real, these iced humans, people they knew or at least had seen from time to time.

  The sights were utterly impossible, yet there they were, people hard as marble, mid-stride. The storm had turned out to be of historic interest, nothing like the United States had experienced before. The newspapers Frank brought from Yankton delineated the way the atmosphere had shifted—low and high pressure fronts, the kind James always spoke of—with angry force, more characteristic of an explosion than a winter storm—the sound and fury Jeanie and Katherine had heard when the storm tore open the sky.

  The scathing reports showed how the information that could have warned people to stay in their homes on that alluring warm January 12th day had been in the hands of experts, yet there’d been no system in place to warn people of the impending disaster.

  Frank put his arm on Jeanie’s shoulder. She shook it off and leveled him with a death glare before turning back to stare at the caskets then her ugly boots.

  Jeanie was startled as Greta’s sharp wails took to the air. She remembered finding Anton and Artem just behind the Zurchenko’s barn, the brothers’ arms laced, gripping one another, frozen in sibling comfort. Jeanie and Greta dragged the human sculpture into the Zurchenko’s house, then lay it in front of the fire, Anton’s leg oddly to one side, making it impossible for them to stay righted, as they had been leaning against the hay. Jeanie and Greta cried and odd laughter ripped through the tears making the rest of the children and Nikolai recoil at the sound.

  But they couldn’t stop themselves. Insanity had fully gripped them and with insanity there was no room for manners, upholding social expectation and the cackle of their laughter, Jeanie would never forget the sound of it, though she wondered if she’d ever be able to find it odd that they laughed; given the circumstances, anything could have been deemed a normal reaction.

  They’d determined that it would be days before the bodies thawed enough to be buried flat or to dig the graves. Jeanie found it grotesquely comforting that she could visit James’ frosty body in the barn. She knew intellectually that it was gruesome, that she sat beside him, hand over his heart, trying to will his soul into hers, half-hoping it was still present in his chest, free to enter hers, half-hoping there was a God who led James into sweet Heaven to look down upon her for the rest of her life.

  So, it was there at the funeral in the glaring sun that spilled from the sky, then sprung off the diamond-blinding snow, that Jeanie came to understand she felt as frozen inside as the bodies of those left to die on the prairie. Perhaps it was Jeanie herself who recognized in herself, her detachment from the death that lay statuesque on the prairie.

  A minister from Yankton came to perform the service, and Jeanie heard none of it. At unwarned intervals, Jeanie’s numbness would give way and pain like a scalpel over unanesthestitized skin left her mind as loose and wild as a rabid animal. In the wake of that pain, she found a new standard for emotion, one that had risen to unimaginable heights only to maintain its bite until the bite became the norm.

  Before she knew it, the wooden boxes were lowered into the gaping earth and she suddenly was awakened by the last time James’ body would be on topsoil. The silence was thick. Greta finally broke the silence as the sound of dirt hitting wood brought tears over Jeanie’s lids. Katherine gripped her around the waist, squeezing her tight.

  “We’ll be strong, Mama,” Katherine’s voice floated up into Jeanie’s ears. She looked down to see Katherine’s eyes overflowing with silent tears, but her face conveyed all the strength Jeanie wished she felt herself.

  “I’ll take care of you Mama. Yale, Father, Tommy, everyone. I can do it. We are Arthurs. We’re not crying people.”

  Jeanie ran her finger down the path of Katherine’s tears that dried in the cold nearly as fast as they fell. She wanted to tell Katherine she was right, that they weren’t crying people, that they were strong, that she just needed time to think, to heal, to get through the next minute, day, week and they’d be fine. But, all Jeanie could do was stare at Katherine’s falling tears, wishing they were indeed, not crying people.

  Murmurs from the other mourners grew louder as everyone turned their backs from the tree, the thud of dirt hitting wood. Jeanie heard snippets of conversation—plans to tr
ek to the Missouri River for wood in spring, who would take milk to New Holland to have cheese made, recapping all the places they would be able to locate wild grapes, buffalo berries, cherry trees and gooseberry bushes that summer. And the weather. The way the air felt so calm, what that meant, how to tell what was coming next, the ways the government would create a system to warn about the weather.

  Jeanie clasped her ears to shut out the chatter, but she couldn’t shut off her own mind or mouth. “How can you people talk about weather?“ Jeanie stalked over to the group, her voice tightening as it rose. She swung her arms for emphasis. “Weatherweatherweather? I never want to hear the word again! I never want to notice it, to understand it. I don’t care what’s happening in the atmosphere and damn you Templeton for making James give a damn about the blasted weather. Do you understand? Do you understand?”

  Jeanie stalked over to Templeton and beat his chest with her fists. “How am I supposed to live when the weather is central to our existence and every time someone mentions it, I think of James, I feel James, I feel him missing.” Jeanie screeched and pounded on Templeton. “How am I supposed to get over something that is as present as the weather? Howhowhow?” Jeanie wrapped her arms around Templeton and then crumbled to the ground, sliding down his body like it were a pole. She balled up on the ground, her face buried in the snow, hoping it would suffocate her.

  Templeton squatted down, trying to pull Jeanie up, soothing her with quiet reassurances he didn’t mean to hurt James, and that he was sorry, that…it didn’t matter what he said, Jeanie couldn’t hear him. Other hands fell over her, pulling at her.

  “I’m sorry, Jeanie,” Ruthie’s voice infiltrated Jeanie’s ears over all the rest. She looked up from her ball, seeing Ruthie’s face near hers.

  “You. Get. Out. Get out! I’ll never forgive you.”

  “I’m so sorry, Jeanie. Please accept my apology,” Ruthie said.

  Jeanie spit at her, feeling her teeth grind, knowing she looked like a rabid animal. Jeanie watched as Mrs. Hunt pulled Ruthie away, comforting her, telling her that Jeanie’s reaction was typical for a grief-stricken mother, that Jeanie couldn’t have meant what she said.

  Jeanie watched as Frank tried to comfort Ruthie, the way Ruthie told Frank to tend his wife, that there was no place for him near her when his wife hurt so. Frank looked down at Jeanie, his face covered in angst, that Jeanie thought was greater at Ruthie’s rejection than at the death of his son. Jeanie hated them all, every one of them. And no one more than herself.

  How could she have agreed to go to Dakota Territory? How could her shame at her father’s actions been so great, humiliating, that she gave up everything and only got a dead son in return, the destruction of the only thing that mattered. As angry as she was at Frank, Ruthie and unfairly, Templeton, she was utterly destroyed by her own part in James’ death. No one could be blamed beyond herself.

  “This is too utterly, utterly, utterly…“ Jeanie shot to her feet, knocking Templeton back. She took off running for the dugout. She thought momentarily of Yale, that Katherine held her, that she’d need to be fed, then she tore off, knowing Katherine wouldn’t be far behind, that she wouldn’t let anything happen to Yale.

  Jeanie burst through the dugout door. Katherine was ten minutes behind.

  “Mama?” Katherine put her hand on Jeanie’s back. Jeanie’s posture softened at the touch. She turned from the stove.

  “Katherine. I’m sorry. Does Yale need to be fed?” Jeanie ran her hand over Katherine’s bonnet, pulling it off her hair, running her hand down her daughter’s back. Katherine’s face was drawn, sunken with lack of hearty food and sadness for her lost brother and crumbling family.

  “You sit, Katherine.” She kissed Katherine’s forehead and cupped her chin, forcing a smile. “Let me take Yale.” Jeanie pulled some pillows from the other bed and built a nest for Katherine to nestle into while Jeanie settled into the rocker to feed Yale. Katherine’s eyes drooped as she watched her mother. Once Yale latched onto Jeanie, Katherine’s eyes shut fully, falling into a snoring sleep.

  Jeanie drew back some of Yale’s coverings. The storm had taken its toll on her, too. She seemed as slight as she had when she was born two months premature. Jeanie knew that couldn’t be right, that she had to be at least ten pounds by then, but her legs had grown spindly again, her skin sallow. A swell of fear came over Jeanie, but the feelings dissipated when Jeanie remembered James, that he’d never come back. That was all she could experience at the time, his loss. The loss of James.

  “Jeanie?” Frank knelt in front of Jeanie. She shot up straight, she’d fallen asleep while nursing Yale. “Could we make some coffee?”

  Jeanie’s eyes were hot and dry, blurred from the aridness. She stared at Frank, not sure if he was seriously waking her up after weeks of sleeplessness to make him coffee.

  “You want coffee, Frank?” Jeanie said through clenched teeth. He rocked back on his heels and stood, hands spread.

  “I can make it,” he said.

  “Oh, no, My,my,my, no. No thank you.” Jeanie rose and put Yale into her cradle. “Is there anything else you could use?”

  Frank glanced sideways before locking Jeanie’s gaze. “Well, I uh, my pants are split, and the one pocket’s come apart. Um, that might be nice. I know how you like to feel useful and all.”

  Jeanie spilled water into the kettle, dumped in a mix of coffee grinds, herbs and chicory, and lit the stove.

  “Is there something else?”

  “Well, I’d like for us to make a go—”

  “A go? Really? That’s what you’d like?”

  “I mean, I love you and I made a mistake, Ruthie made a mistake. She’s so sorry. It wasn’t her fault.”

  “Don’t you dare apologize for her, smooth things out for her. I hate that woman and she will burn in hell with you.”

  Frank’s eyes drooped at the outer edges.

  “Why don’t you tend the animals, while I do this. That would be fine,” Jeanie said, slamming a spoon into its proper storage place.

  Chapter 20

  Jeanie didn’t hear Frank go out the door, but when she turned he was gone. His absence brought extra air into the dugout and Jeanie realized how much she hated Frank, how much she wanted him dead or just gone. She didn’t know how they’d carry on, together, pretending to craft a life, to carry on with roles and expectations, and hopes and dreams. He was the cause of her baby’s death, he betrayed her in every way imaginable, yet she was tethered to him for life.

  Divorce was not an option. If she divorced him, there would be no way she could support the children. She’d lose everything—everything that the act of homesteading was supposed to save was now in jeopardy because they taken the risk of running away. Her father, his acts put them on this path, but it was Frank who sealed things up.

  Jeanie was enraged again. She paced back and forth. Every so often she stopped pacing to gaze at Katherine or Yale, sleeping peacefully, not aware of the extra layer of pain that sat under the death of James, she tried to find comfort in the sight of them, but couldn’t.

  She grabbed three pairs of Frank’s pants and her sewing basket. She started by mending the pocket of one pair of pants, then hours later had mended anything that even hinted it would be a hole in the next year. Frank entered the house, red-faced from his work in the barn.

  “Take those off. I’m mending everything now.”

  Frank did as he was told then lay next to Katherine. Jeanie sewed in a trance-like state, her hands flying like a machine. Every now and then she’d glance at Katherine and Frank, and the only thing that stopped Jeanie’s sewing was the startling resemblance between Katherine and her father. They could have been twins rather than father and daughter.

  The day bled into night and Katherine and Frank slept right through dinner. Jeanie didn’t disturb them, but when Tommy came back from wandering in the land of the Lord as he put it, Jeanie and he slipped into the children’s bedstead for the night. Jeanie hadn’t re
alized how numb she’d become until they pulled the blanket up over them and the scent of James wafted off the blanket, the smell breaking through the nothingness she’d grown accustomed to, causing her fresh pain she didn’t think possible until it was smothering her.

  At daybreak following the funeral, Frank shook Jeanie awake.

  “Baby’s cryin.'”

  Jeanie oriented herself to where they all were, who was in which bed, and in the midst of the fresh realization that James was dead, Jeanie began her morning chores.

  Frank slipped back into bed and Katherine rose, a half-smile over her face. Jeanie’s raised her eyebrows, questioning.

  “I feel better, Mama, for this one instant, I felt good enough that a smile popped to my lips. It surprised me, but it was there for a second.”

  Jeanie hugged Katherine with one arm and flipped oatcakes over the fire with the other. “Why don’t you brush the horses and then take some of these cakes to the Zurchenko’s,” Jeanie said.

  “Okay. That’s good, that’s good.” Katherine sighed as though she’d been waiting for that exact instruction.

  Tommy rose within minutes of Katherine leaving. Wordlessly, he shoveled down oatcakes and then pushed out the door, never even looking back at Jeanie. She yelled for him but he was gone so fast that Jeanie wasn’t sure if he didn’t hear her or if he was ignoring her on purpose.

  Frank stirred in the bed then reached under it for a small tin of opium that he nibbled on then fell back, his face, ecstatic as far as Jeanie could see. She began to slam her pots and spoons around.

  “Blast-it, Jeanie. Could you keep it down a bit?”

  “I’m sorry,” Jeanie cocked her head to the side. “Am I disturbing your sleep?”