Ophelia's War

by Alison L. McLennan

  He was a tall, toothless man who had to wear suspenders or else his pants would fall down. He stood too close and I took a step back.

  “I guess we’re too late. You young’uns must have been up before the crack of dawn to get your pa buried this early.” He knelt down, looked into my eyes, and stroked my hair. “Don’t worry, Ophelia, you won’t be on your own. I’ll always have a place for you at my table.” He looked square at my bosom then. My cheeks burned. I wished I had run off with Zeke toward home.

  Brother Thompson’s first wife, Mary, came over, put her hands on her hips, and glared down at him. “Martin Thompson, we got a big enough brood already.” She stood between us, turned her back to me, and scolded him in a harsh whisper. “You leave that girl alone. She’s too young for you.”

  He stood up and towered over her. “Woman—”

  “In the name of the Lord! Not now, Martin. Have some respect for the dead.”

  He shook his head while walking over to stand with the others who had gathered around my parents’ graves with their heads bowed.

  Sister Mary turned to me and clutched my head to her bosom. It smelled like sweat and curdled milk. I tried not to cry. “Don’t fret, child. You’re gonna be just fine. We brought you some provisions.”

  Bishop Marley cleared his throat and eyed us. “I think it’s time we all bowed our heads and prayed to the Lord.”

  I stood by the others with my head down. The bishop took off his hat and held it in his hands. The other men followed suit. A ring of white hair made the bishop’s baldness a halo. His low solemn voice made the words sound more like a condemnation than a prayer. The Lord and his will had failed me—again.

  After the prayer, the men put their hats back on and the crowd dispersed. Some people went and stood by the graves of their dearly departed—heads bowed and silent. A group of men gathered and discussed their plans to build the schoolhouse.

  The bishop walked over to me with his usual air of purpose and self-importance. He stroked his beard and said, “I don’t suppose a fourteen-year-old girl and an Indian boy ought to run your pa’s place alone. I’ll have to take this issue to the council.”

  I could tell he was thinking about our livestock and how he’d disperse our land and belongings to the community while keeping the lion’s share for himself. “With all due respect, sir, I’m almost sixteen, and my brother, Zeke, and I are perfectly capable of looking after things until our Uncle Luther arrives.”

  The bishop’s snow-white, overgrown brows rose so high they almost touched the brim of his hat. “Uncle who?”

  I licked my dry lips and squinted into the sun, which was rising behind him. “When Ma and Pa first got sick, my ma sent word to her brother back east. My uncle should be arriving here any day, sir. We’ll be in his care.”

  The bishop looked at the horizon, furrowed his brows, and grimaced. “That’s a long way, my girl. We’ll wait a few weeks—see if he makes it. In the meantime, you let me know if you need anything.” He gazed in the direction of our homestead. “Stay out of trouble now, you hear.”

  “Appreciate that, sir. I reckon we’ll be fine though. Pa was sick for a while, and me and Zeke got along just fine.”

  The bishop tipped his hat to me, turned, and walked toward the group of men who were now waving their hands and drawing lines in the dirt where the schoolhouse would stand.

  I tried to make a quick getaway, but Sister May Belle Hopkins spied me and called, “Ophelia, we brought some things that will see you through. Come on over in the shade! Sit for a spell.” She waved me over to a cottonwood tree where four women sat and passed a canteen.

  The shade felt cool, but my blood was hot under Sister May Belle’s stony glare. She would be the schoolmarm come fall when they finally made enough adobe bricks to raise the schoolhouse. She had a sharp nose and a pinched face, but she wouldn’t have been all that unattractive if she’d smiled once in a while. She was known as a prudish shrew who could hear someone cuss from a mile away.

  When she called me, I prepared to hang my head and get a chiding. She put a hand on my shoulder. But her look was different from usual, sweet and full of concern. It almost broke my heart to see a woman so hard look at me so soft. I had to concentrate so I wouldn’t cry again. Who would have thought that May Belle Hopkins had a tender spot in her cold heart? She looped her arm through mine and walked me out of earshot of the other women. She handed me a burlap sack and said, “There’s a fruitcake, some bread, dried elk, a little sugar, and this—” She held up a black book with gold embossed letters. “You be careful with this. I’m going to want it back when you’re done.”

  My spirits lifted. “What is it?” Besides The Bible and The Book of Mormon, we only had a few books at home and I’d read them all more than once.

  “Ophelia, this is Hamlet, by Mr. William Shakespeare. Don’t show it to anyone.” She shook her head and gave me a conspiratorial smile. “The Prophet has not approved it. Before she died, your mother told me she wanted to get a copy of this for you. Did you know she saw Hamlet at Ford’s Theatre, the very same playhouse where Abraham Lincoln was shot? That’s how you come by the name Ophelia. Read this book, child, and know your momma is smiling down on you.” She handed me the book and the burlap sack.

  I held my shovel in one hand and the book and sack in the other. “Thank you, ma’am. I’ll take good care of it.” Ma had told me that same story a hundred times. A suitor had taken her to that playhouse, and I think she always wondered what her life would have been like if she’d married that man. I smiled and turned to go. May Belle grabbed my elbow, pulled me close, and spoke low. “Now tell me, dear, has Aunt Ruby been to see you?”

  “Pardon?” I didn’t know I had an Aunt Ruby or that she was supposed to come. Could she be Uncle Luther’s wife?

  “Your blood, dear.” Her voice was low and she looked around to make sure no one was listening. “Are you a woman yet?”

  “Oh! No,” I lied. “Not yet, ma’am.”

  “Well, you be sure to tell me when it happens. I’ll help you through. And then you can think about marriage.”

  The heat and the talk of marriage made me queasy. I wished I had let the bishop think I was fourteen. I pulled my elbow from May Belle’s clutch. “I got to go now, ma’am—lots of chores to do.” Carrying the goods in one hand with the shovel slung over my other shoulder, I walked through the willows and felt the Saints watching me. I was strung like a bow until I was out of their sight and climbing the hill to our homestead. At least I could look forward to a new book.

  TWO

  It was a dry year. As June turned into July, the days grew hotter. The pink, yellow, orange, and red prickly pear blossoms faded and shriveled under the scorching sun. Swarms of red ants carried the dead blossoms away—to where and for what purpose I did not know. I watered the garden with buckets from the river three times a day. I’d already harvested spinach, lettuce, carrots, beets, and potatoes. The ox, chickens, mules, horses, and cow all needed extra care so they wouldn’t become sickly. Since I didn’t have to tend Pa anymore, I had more time. My mind wandered to Uncle Luther’s arrival. I found myself watching the road near town and the rutted tracks covered with willow grass that led up to our place.

  Some Saints acted kind but were not. Others acted stern, but when it came down to it they were kind. I knew who was trustworthy, not just from my own watching, but also from the hushed conversations of Ma and Pa, spoken low in the evenings when they thought I was asleep. Most information, most stuff worth knowing, I learned from eavesdropping. I’d been whipped once or twice. Pa didn’t want to do it, but he’d had no choice, as I’d been caught listening to men’s talk outside the tent during one of their council meetings. Word got around that I was both prideful and rebellious. They’d said I needed a good hiding to put me in my place. Pa didn’t like that talk. He didn’t like the community interfering with how he ran his family. This and all the fuss about Zeke caused us to withdraw and spend more time at our own plac
e, raising our own livestock and crops, trying to be independent of the settlement. Most of the other Saints had given up on the idea of growing cotton and were just trying to survive. But they had depended on Pa. He was a skilled blacksmith and could fix just about anything that broke.

  I hoped that when Uncle Luther arrived, he’d set Bishop Marley straight about taking over our land and marrying me off to some toothless codger old enough to be my grandpa. Surely Uncle Luther would see to all that. Zeke and I could work the land and take care of the livestock, but we had no experience in what Pa had called “Grafton politics.” Since the Grafton Saints had depended on Pa, his word had carried weight.

  On Sundays when we’d finished all our work, or sometimes even if we hadn’t, Zeke and I would ride out to the waterfalls and cold emerald pools past the big rock cathedrals. Zeke had stopped going to church a long time ago on account of the way the people stared at him. I stopped after Ma died, and I sure didn’t miss it. Surrounded by the giant rock walls in the place north of town we called the Garden of the Gods, I felt the presence of the Lord. Those rock walls were masterpieces carved by the hand of the Lord himself. It was a place of purity, unsullied by the hands of holy men getting too big for their britches, saying that the Lord spoke to them. My pa was as good a man as any other, and he never claimed the Lord spoke to him.

  I missed Pa. I missed his big sunburned hands, his hard arms covered with soft, yellow hair. I missed the way he was always fixing something with his wet, silly tongue hanging out to the side looking like a dog figuring a sum. I knew Zeke missed Pa too, although he never said it. I also knew the sadness Zeke felt because Pa never called him son—not once. Zeke had waited his whole life for a man to call him son. Pa had taught Zeke how to hunt and shoot. He let him use his tools and showed him how to make things. He taught him all kinds of skills. Even though Zeke wasn’t sown from my father’s seed, I believe Pa loved Zeke. But he never did call him son, or Zeke, or Ezekiel—only boy.

  Zeke taught me to hunt, shoot, and fish. He showed me everything he had learned that Pa never bothered to teach me on account of me being a girl. Every time Ma had seen us coming across the field with me wearing Zeke’s old trousers and rifles slung over our shoulders, she would shake her head, try not to smile, and scold Zeke for making me a boy. She loved Zeke fiercely. As he grew, she gazed upon him in such a way that I felt she must have loved his father.

  Even after my parents passed, those Sundays at the emerald pools with Zeke were some of the best times of my life—jumping off rocks into deep black pools of water so cold you’d think your head was going to split open. After swimming, we lay on the warm rocks and felt the heat relax our tired muscles. My breasts were swelling and I had a small tuft of orange hair between my legs, so I kept my bloomers on to cover those embarrassing reminders of my emerging womanhood.

  We’d kill whatever we could: rabbits, grouse, woodcocks, even squirrels, and cook the meat on a metal skewer over an open fire before we headed back. In the evenings back at home, Zeke played his guitar, and I’d sing along, or read Hamlet by candlelight till the moon came up. When the moon was full and the sky clear, I could sometimes read outside. We’d sit on a bench in front of the house, or sometimes we’d just lie back on the ground and watch the stars. Under the sparkling heavens, all our problems were small, and I would think that even if the Lord didn’t have a plan, what did it matter? The splendor and the glory of his creations were enough to sustain me. Soon, Uncle Luther would come. He’d ride into town and all our problems would be solved.

  I never saw Uncle Luther ride into town. One afternoon, he appeared in the doorway, a dark, unfamiliar shape. When I turned around, he scared the living daylights out of me. Zeke was sitting on a bench at the table, chewing on some jerky and trying to untangle some fishing line because we both had a hankering for trout. I let out a high-pitched scream and dropped a bowl of wet onions and potatoes. The potatoes rolled on the dusty floor. I squinted up at the large man. Rays of sun shot into the room from behind him, revealing clouds of dust motes. In the blinding light, I couldn’t see his face at first, but I smelled his sweat and felt heat coming from his body.

  He stepped into the house and shut the door, not soon enough to prevent a large horsefly from entering and buzzing around my head. I’d just killed all the flies inside, and I was disappointed to see another one, especially one so large. Some people claimed flies had spread the disease that killed my parents, so I feared the loathsome insects.

  Uncle Luther shook his head at the shattered clay bowl I’d dropped. He frowned at an escaped potato, which now resembled a ball of mud. He removed his black bowler hat and ran a rough but jeweled hand over his greasy, sweat-drenched salt and pepper hair. I’d never seen such jewels. He looked like a dirty aristocrat. His eyes were hooded by dark brows so bushy and scraggly I couldn’t see the color of his irises. He bore no resemblance to Ma. The yellowed shirt under his brocaded vest showed signs of once being white. He pulled a red bandana from his neck and wiped the sweat from his face. His gun belts crossed in gunslinger style. Yet he was clearly no gunslinger. I tried to suppress a giggle because his potbelly made him look like he was with child.

  He’d been surveying our small log home, but when he heard me giggle, he whipped his head toward me and narrowed his eyes suspiciously. He looked at Zeke, who was sitting at the table staring at him. Then he looked me up and down like you might a prize heifer.

  “Well, if it ain’t beauty and the bastard.” He grimaced at his joke, which felt to me like a blow in the stomach. Zeke closed his eyes, shook his head, and held his tongue.

  “See to my horse, boy.”

  Zeke gathered his fishing line and walked out the door. Heat and light from outside penetrated the room again. Uncle Luther thumped down onto the chair at the head of the table. “Get your uncle a drink, girl. It’s been a long journey.”

  I took a Mason jar from the shelf, cleaned the dust out with a rag made from a torn gingham dress, and poured him a dipper of water from our drinking bucket. I put the water in front of him. He studied it as if it were a specimen of something he’d never seen. “I come two thousand miles and this is what you offer me?” He shook his head, gulped down the water, and slammed the jar on the table. He hollered, “Get me some whiskey, girl.”

  I spoke softly. “Sir, we’re Saints. We frown upon liquor.”

  A dark look crossed his face. He slammed his hand on the table and laughed. “Lord knows I ain’t a Saint. Must be something stashed around here somewhere.” He sighed and narrowed his eyes, searching around for a place Pa might have been hiding spirits. He roamed our small house like it was the mercantile, picked up several things, and put them down. “You hide your valuables someplace safe I hope. Otherwise the Mormons will want a cut. That’s what I hear.”

  “We raise what we need and give the rest to people in need. We’re simple folk anyway, don’t go for anything fancy.” My eyes fell to his jeweled fingers.

  “In most locales a bottle of whiskey is a necessity.” He caught me looking at his rings. “You like these rings?” He twirled his hands in the air.

  I looked over some jars on the shelf and ignored his question. “We have some Valley Tan. But it tastes worse than castor oil.” Then I remembered, on cold winter nights, Ma and Pa would sit at the table and huddle around a bottle. “Wait a minute, we do have something else, sir. But I’m afraid it’s also medicinal spirits—might not be fit for enjoyment either.” I dug through the pots and pans—found both bottles and set them in front of him.

  His spirits lifted. First, he opened the bottle of Valley Tan, smelled it, and took a big swig. He choked, spat, and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “That tastes like it’s made of pig shit!” His eyes watered as he opened the second bottle and took a smaller sip.

  “Medicinal spirits?” He chuckled. “Now that’s whiskey if I ever tasted it.” He snorted, picked up the bottle, and inspected it. “Mighty fine whiskey, too. Is there more of this somewher
e? What else you have hiding around here?”

  “That’s the only bottle. But I can take you to the man who makes it. He lives in Rockville. They say he’s not really right in the head, though he knows his medicinal tonics.”

  “I’ll bet he does.” He took another swig.

  Uncle Luther’s mood seemed to be lightening. My initial fears about him were starting to lift. I decided to be a good hostess and make him as comfortable as I could. He was probably just ornery from the trip.

  “I’m sorry, sir—Uncle. Where are my manners? You might need some repose after your trip.” In one corner of our small log home a curtain hung around Ma and Pa’s old bed. A potbellied stove in the middle kept us warm on cold winter nights. Shelves lined the walls. Grain sacks hung from hooks affixed to the ceiling. One rodent had outsmarted us, and a tiny pile of flour had trickled to the floor. Attached to the house outside, a makeshift lean-to sheltered a cot, tools, and farm equipment.

  I walked over to Ma and Pa’s bed, which was hidden by a curtain. I’d been sleeping there since Pa passed, and Zeke had moved from his cot in the lean-to outside to my old bed. I picked up Dolly and placed her under my arm. I wondered if Uncle Luther knew about the ruby necklace. He seemed to be fishing around for something.

  It was only right to give him the best bed, so I slid the curtain aside and revealed it. “Would you like to lie down, sir? I can shine up your boots and wash your clothes down in the river. If we’re lucky, Zeke will soon be back with fresh chub. I’ll cook it up nice. You’ll feel good as new.”

  Uncle Luther looked at me and rolled a fat tongue over his dry, cracked lips. He smiled, but his smile was sly—not friendly. My optimism leaked out like water in a bucket full of bullet holes. He rose from the table, grabbed the bottle, sauntered over to the bed, and dropped himself down on it so hard I was surprised it didn’t collapse. He was tall and his boots dangled off the end, which was a good thing because they were filthy, and I prided myself on keeping the linens clean. After Ma and Pa had died in that bed, we’d burned the linens and we only had one set left.