She lived a few days, but not many. She died on a Sunday, on a day when the magnolia leaves were falling from the trees. Though losing her felt very wrong to Jean, having the flowers falling down at the time of her death felt right.
Pappy said that the right thing to do was to bury her and move on ahead. He moved the young slave woman, Jessie, into the house the next day to do the cooking, cleaning, and such, and she took up the place where his mother had slept. That did not seem to be right to Jean’s thinking, but he was only just becoming a man at thirteen, and he wasn’t sure whether it was he or his pappy who was right. So Jean asked his pappy. His pappy said, “Questioning the dos and do nots of my actions is the wrong thing to do.” Not more than a year later, Jean bent that slave girl, Jessie, over a chair for himself one afternoon, and she told his pappy on him, which Jean did not think was right since she had seemed eager to go along with the transaction in the first place and shouted, “Yeah boy! Giddap, boy. Uh, uh,” all throughout. His pappy told him that taking the slave girl, Jessie, for himself, even one time, was the wrong thing to do and sent him packing, saying, “Come back here ever again, and ye will see nothing but your life flash before yer eyes and ruination on a biblical scale.” So Jean had called his dogs, neither of whom came to him as they were as disloyal creatures as any that had ever been born on this earth, and walked off the property, never to see Jessie or his pappy again. But to this very day, when he thought of bending Jessie over that chair, his loins flooded with blood.
Though his loins had not flooded with blood upon the sight of his first wife, In the Trees, nor his second, The Girl with Friend Eyes, the women proved vital to his survival in the great unknown north, where he found himself in the months after his banishment from his father’s house. Beaver Jean had never seen so many different kinds of faces or languages as he discovered near the headwaters of the Mississippi River, which is where the whole world seemed to converge. To his luck, everyone was looking for someone or something, and Beaver Jean was a skilled finder. If a timber man needed a harmonica, Beaver Jean could locate it. If a river pig wanted tobacco wrappers, Beaver Jean could produce them. If an Ojibwe needed a hairbrush, Beaver Jean would remember the one sitting on the mantel of the pioneer family’s fireplace a few hours away. He would recall that the pioneer family had needed meat, and he would thus negotiate a buffalo tongue in exchange for the hair groomer. He’d picked up his wives in such ways, and they were useful women, translators in this Babelic place, with maps of it imprinted on their brains.
He had found Lydian, his third wife, back in 1837 by way of smoke from a chimney. Above the winter trees, Beaver Jean had seen the black plume rising like hell and considered it a good omen. After four days of traipsing through the drifts and sleeping under buffalo-skin tents, he had been aching for four walls and a bed. He adjusted his heavy pack and stepped forward.
The Galtier cabin rested deep in the woods along the Snake River. All winter, the women of the house fended for themselves while their man worked north in the lumbering camps. Beaver Jean couldn’t quit thinking on the little white girl Lydian. Each year he’d make an offer on her—a barrel of wild rice, a shotgun, a couple of heavy beaver pelts, whatever he had, and the mother would always laugh and turn him down as if he was teasing.
“Little Lydian?” she’d say. “Too young to be a wife. Too stupid.”
It was true that her girl Lydian looked spacious behind the eyes. But he had a witless wife already and found her to be the least trouble. No. It wasn’t Lydian’s manner or smarts he wanted. He only wanted a fresh body, a little one. One who smelled different from his own women. One whose hair wasn’t so thick, whose body wasn’t so dense or dark. He wanted one to climb all over him like a squirrel on a tree, rather than rub like a heavy bear against his trunk, as his wives were apt to do. One who offered tender white meat like that of a prairie chicken or grouse, rather than the tough red meat of a buffalo or bear. He wanted a little delicacy.
When the woman of the house finally agreed to give up Lydian for some coffee and a few shoddy pelts, Beaver Jean nearly leapt out of his boots. Negotiating with women was never predictable. They were particular and flighty and enjoyed bantering in a way that men did not. Whereas a man would grow tired of talks after an hour or two, a woman would prefer that the back-and-forth go on for days, weeks, and, in this case, five years before settling the matter. In any event, Beaver Jean was happy to finally have her and determined not to lose her once she was his.
Beaver Jean was a man of the wilderness, a hunter, trapper, liquor runner, and tracker. As a child in the South, he’d been given his first pair of bloodhounds at age eleven, a gift from his pappy to get him started in the lucrative fugitive-slave-tracking business. This work suited Jean well, but the hot weather did not. His skin was highly sensitive, and hours in the sun made it red, sore, bumpy, and itchy. As soon as he was able, Jean worked his way north, where most months were cool or cold, where there was more opportunity and less competition for the skills that Jean possessed.
So when he’d come home and discovered that his only white wife, the only one to ever get big with his child, had up and run away, Beaver Jean didn’t panic. The Indian wives sometimes left too, when they got to missing their mothers or brothers and sisters. He would find Lydian and bring her home.
A little jolt of excitement struck him, in the way that some men get excited over pulling the fish out of the water or the wolf carcass out of the trap. It made him feel useful and alive. He told this plan to his wives, who had gleefully danced around him upon his return and played wholly ignorant about Lydian’s disappearance. If Beaver Jean hadn’t seen his older horse was gone, he would have suspected the pair of a murderous act on Lydian to be sure. He’d have to let his horse and dog rest awhile, but at first light, he’d be off again. There wasn’t a man or boy, criminal or fugitive, who had ever evaded Beaver Jean when he was on the bounty trail. But women, mothers or mothers-to-be, could prove a bit more trouble. Women were craftier than men and boys. Their desperation made them willing to try anything. Once he’d heard of a slave woman who took up shelter in a bear’s den rather than face the catcher. Though the bear did maul her to death, it didn’t touch her little pickaninny, so the catcher shot the bear, skinned it, and got paid for the child and the fur.
Beaver Jean pulled out the document he’d ripped off the Fur Trade Post that afternoon.
$100 Reward. Eliza and child. Ran away from kind and generous Mistress Winston who wants the pair returned safely to her and unharmed if possible. ELIZA, average height. Slim face and body. Comely face with black gums, snaggly teeth, and plaited hair. A very elegant girl who was given too much education and trust and took advantage of the kindness of her owners who only worked her around the kitchen and house and never had her lift a finger to hard labour. About 20 years old. DAVIS, child of close to three years. Very white eyes and small teeth. Has a downcast disposition when spoken to and blinky eyed. The pair ran away from Stillwater last Friday after they were reported at the general stores collecting supplies for the Winstons’ return to Mississippi, a trip which has now been postponed herewith and until further notice. REMINDER slaves of the south are considered property of their masters even if the masters take them to non-slave states or territories. Please contact Wm. Winston, the Westerly Hotel, Stillwater.
A hundred dollars. Jean refolded the paper and put it back into his pocket. He pulled the rocker close to the fire, sat down, and put his bare feet toward the flames to relieve his aching toes, which had been frostbitten when he’d passed out in the snow a couple of weeks before. The things had turned first green, then blue, and were now black and creating a terrible pain up his ankle and calf.
Those toes looked like hell. And it seemed to him that the green color was creeping up his foot. This was a damned problem, he knew. Something that’d have to be taken care of sooner than later. The toes would probably have to go. Who could do it? Could he cut them off himself? He wasn’t sure. He knew he co
uld get drunk enough to dull the pain, but he didn’t know if he could get drunk enough to dull the pain and chop straight.
He thought of his pappy. He wondered what he would’ve done with toes like these. Would he chop them off himself? Or would he get someone else to do it? Would he use a saw? A hatchet? It was hard to know the right way about everything. Beaver Jean thought that when his son came, he’d be careful to teach him the right way and the wrong way to do things too, just as his pappy had taught him. Only he would do it better. And he would take care not to scare him with talk of ruination on a biblical scale.
8
Mother St. John the Sister and Nurse
MOTHER ST. JOHN gathered up the rags and blanket on which the girl had given birth. She’d have to boil and soap them thoroughly. Father Paul had recently told her a story of bears near here waking sporadically from their winter’s sleep to seek food. She looked at the dreaming infants and shivered as she imagined one of those heads in the jaws of a black bear or their bodies being torn by a bear’s long claws. Why did her mind work in such ways? She had no trouble envisioning the most dreadful things: snakes wrapped around a child’s neck, spiders laying eggs in children’s ears, tapeworms sliding out of a child’s bottom. Sometimes she worried that the terrible images were sinful, or a sign that the devil had hold of her mind. But when she confessed the sights to Father Paul, he asked her if those imaginings didn’t heighten her vigilance over all the Lord’s children in her care, and of course, she said they did. And after that, she had felt better about receiving them and began to regard them as a gift from the Holy Spirit and another sign that she was indeed doing what the Lord had called her to do.
Mother St. John glanced at Lydian, who was studying the ends of her hair as Big Waters rubbed her legs, a thing the Indian women always did for each other after birthing. Surely no dreadful dream or complex thought had ever come to that girl. But something about her was quite familiar. Mother St. John sensed that the girl had been to the infirmary before. Mother St. John thought back to her first days in this place and soon her mind became confused over all the years and all the faces she had seen.
“Say,” said Mother St. John. She brought a lantern close to Lydian’s face and sat on the side of the bed. She too stroked Lydian’s thigh. “You look quite familiar to me, now that I see you without so big a belly. Have we met before?”
“No,” said Lydian. “I don’t know a body in the whole world.”
“I suppose I’ve been mistaken,” replied Mother St. John. “There’s just something about you that’s got my memory working.” Big Waters opened the door then and walked to her bed, where she flopped down as though exhausted.
“I can’t keep them,” Lydian said. She spoke to, but didn’t look at, the nun. “You’ll have to keep them.”
Big Waters clucked her tongue.
Mother St. John raised her eyebrows and closed her eyes. She lowered her head a moment, and then raised it to look at Lydian. “Mothers shouldn’t do such a thing,” she said. “You can’t just have children and then abandon them.”
Lydian sealed her lips together.
“It can’t be as bad as you think,” said Mother St. John. “You’ll feel better in a day or two.”
Mother St. John considered the girl who’d just birthed these children. She could see through the eyes and into the pain. What had brought this girl here? Who was she? Where was her husband? Her family? Mother St. John imagined all the possibilities: the young mother couldn’t afford the twins, couldn’t feed them; the father was dead or had run off. Or perhaps these children were illegitimate and the girl had been run out of her house by her angry father. Perhaps even worse. Maybe the children were the product of incest. Perhaps that was why the boy looked so pale and sickly.
“You think on it some more,” said Mother St. John. “If you don’t change your mind, we’ll think of something.”
“Please take them,” said Lydian. “Maybe they could get a good mother who lives on a farm with some animals or in one of those mansions that’s been put up by the river. Or you could keep them here with that Big Waters. She favors this boy babe. I know it.”
Big Waters perked up.
“You can’t be telling him premonitions, though,” said Lydian to the Indian woman. “I don’t like that.”
Big Waters came over and picked up the boy child. She took him back to her own bed and held him as he slept.
“I’ll have to write some papers if you’re sure,” said Mother St. John. “To make it legal, you understand. You’ll have to sign them.”
Lydian nodded. “But I can’t write anything but an L. I can make a nice L, though.”
9
Stillwater Home for Orphans and Infirmed
LYDIAN AWOKE TO HER babies being placed beside her. Through the night, Big Waters had tended the boy babe and Mother St. John the girl babe. Lydian had slept. Now, as she stirred, the two women crept quietly out of the room to leave the mother with the children. Lydian watched their skirts sweep behind the door before it closed. A waft of air ruffled the pages on the table next to her bed. There too sat a quill and ink. Though Lydian couldn’t read, she knew what these things were. And she tried to remember, exactly, which way an L faced. She had learned once and recalled scratching the letter in the dirt.
In the outer room, Mother St. John and Big Waters looked at each other. Then they began preparing breakfast for the rest of the children. Big Waters peeled potatoes, and Mother St. John added bacon fat to a skillet.
“I suppose we’ll find room for the babes,” Mother St. John said. “I know a couple who lost a baby recently, and maybe they’d be interested in the pair.”
Big Waters circled a paring knife around a potato eye and popped it out.
“I was thinking that whenever a baby is born or people move to this territory, papers ought to be drawn up, so that it’s possible to track population growth and such. Someday people will be interested in such things. I have a notion to begin such recording myself.”
The papers she’d left on the table next to Lydian had been created and written based on language she’d read in the Indian treaties, documents that she’d helped translate for the Indian chiefs, and in the papers she’d drawn up to get the Indian mothers to allow their children to come to the white school. Mother St. John had spent so many years learning to read and write that she liked opportunities to use her scripting skills.
“Maybe the girl won’t sign them. Maybe she’ll change her mind and keep the children herself.”
Lydian put the babies in the center of the bed. They tangled together. The boy’s fist clenched a handful of the girl’s hair. The baby girl’s mouth pursed into another wail, so Lydian gently pried his hand open. Lydian looked at the paper. She dipped the quill into the inkwell. She scraped the tip along the rim. She brought the quill to her nose and smelled. Then she closed her eyes and saw the shape of a ropy tornado. She thought that shape to be similar and put the quill to the paper and scratched the ink into her recollection of the tornado. She wondered about this mark. What did it mean exactly? When her stepmother traded with the trapper or traveled to the general store, the mark she made meant that she owed something, that she’d eventually have to give up something to pay for the supplies she’d taken. Is that what this mark meant? Was she now beholden to the nun and the squaw? Would she someday have to repay this favor? How could she ever settle such a debt? The horse, she thought. Though the horse was an old wreck and disagreeable, she’d leave it to the women.
Lydian stood. She was careful with herself. Her body was a mess of pains and seepages. She squeezed her thighs together to keep the blood from dripping. She paused over the bed and considered these children. She told them, “I wish there was a way I could keep you.” It was a simple sentiment, but the words were, for Lydian, hard to come by and harder to say. She leaned over and put the tip of her tongue on each child’s forehead. She had seen how a horse nuzzles its colt, and she did this too. She put her face close to
the girl baby and rubbed her cheek against hers, then did the same for the boy. She walked out the front door of the infirmary. The minute she closed the door behind her, she heaved up a dry sob.
A feeling of such dread came over her that she stumbled in the snow. She turned back, put her hand on the door, and listened for the babies. She told herself that if they cried out, she would return and keep them herself, raise them as best she could. She would find a way. She would even go back to Beaver Jean if she had to, or maybe to her stepmother. Or maybe even go to the woods and look for her father. She waited. The babies did not cry, so she bargained with herself again. I will wait two minutes, and if the babies cry, I will return to them, she promised herself. Lydian waited for five minutes. They did not cry. Lydian turned around, tightened her coat and scarf, and walked into the wild, with no specific route in mind, intending only to go south and stay off the fur-trapping routes so as not to run into Beaver Jean.
In the outer room, Mother St. John heard the front door open and close. She knew it was the young mother leaving. Mother St. John didn’t move to stop her. She thought it probably best, perhaps God’s will. She had a vision of the girl freezing to death in the snow, with her eyes and mouth wide open, but Mother St. John shook it out of her head. Since the girl had made it to the infirmary in winter weather, Mother St. John supposed she’d get to wherever she was going. She pulled her rosary from her belt and crossed herself with it and kissed the crucifix. She offered up a prayer for the girl’s safe journey. Sometimes she wondered why she spent so much time praying if God’s will was already known to Him. Did all that praying point to some lack of trust? Was she praying for Him to change His mind? Did God change His mind? If He did, wouldn’t that mean that things were not preordained and known to Him?
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