Charity

by Paulette Callen

  Doc Moody had mixed something up in a glass of water. “Hold her head up just a bit, Miss Roemer.” Doc Moody’s voice was mellow, a voice practiced in inspiring confidence. “It’s all right, Will, just lie down next to her. She’ll rest better that way. Come on now, Lena. Try to drink this.”

  Lena’s eyes were wild. Her teeth clamped shut, and her lips stretched wide apart in a horrible grimace.

  Will urged. “Drink it up, Duch. Drink it up good now.” Lena obeyed by loosening her jaw and sticking her lips out to receive the rim of the glass. Gustie held it to her lips and tipped it gradually so she wouldn’t choke. Lena drank the whole glassful without a breath, then fell back onto the pillow. So far she had seen no one but Will, but now her eyes fell on Gustie. In a moment of recognition she held up her hand, and Gustie took it swiftly and strongly in her own.

  “Gustie.”

  “Yes.” Lena gripped Gustie’s hand so hard it hurt. Gustie gripped back.

  “My little Tori. My little brother,” Lena cried.

  “I know, Lena. I know.”

  “He’s upstairs...” Her face took on that wild look again.

  “No, he is at rest now, Lena.” Gustie forced her best soothing voice though she felt like crying herself. “He is being taken care of.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Yes, he’s dead.”

  Lena relaxed into the quilt and pillows and her grip on Gustie’s hand eased. Gustie laid Lena’s hand down at her side. Will lay protectively along her other side. He seemed to be trying with his large form to curl around her and shield her and absorb her pain.

  The doctor indicated that Gustie should follow him. In the kitchen he said, “Can you stay with them for awhile, Miss Roemer? I don’t think they should be left alone.”

  “Of course. I’d planned to stay.”

  “I’ll leave you some of this.” He set a blue bottle on the drain board of the sink. “A little in a glass of water. If you think she needs it, give it to her. Give it to Will too if he’ll take it. The best thing for them right now is just to sleep. It’s a terrible thing. What got into the boy? I can’t understand it.”

  “I can’t either.”

  Gustie heard another wagon pull up in front, stop, and pull away. She was surprised to see Mary Kaiser come through the door, looking pretty, cool, and fresh as she always did.

  “Hello, Doctor. Hello, Gustie.” Her voice was soft, breathy.

  “Hello, Mrs. Kaiser,” Doc Moody greeted her. “How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m all right,” she said, smiling again as if to say she was always all right, and it was of very little consequence if she were not.

  “I’ll leave Lena in your good hands, then. I’ll stop by tomorrow.” The doctor nodded at both women and left.

  “How is she?” asked Mary.

  “Not good. She’ll sleep now. Doc Moody just gave her something. Will is with her.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  Gustie did not know Mary Kaiser well. Lena held both her sisters-in-law in disdain. But Mary was here, and she was offering to help.

  “There’s a mess... I’m going to go up and clean it. I don’t want Lena to have to see it again. You could perhaps...”

  “I can help you do that.”

  Gustie could not imagine this flower-like woman doing such a job, but she reserved judgment.

  “She keeps some old newspapers out here.” Mary went to the shanty. “And there’s a bucket and brushes under the sink, I believe.” Mary’s soft, breathy voice belied her rather brisk efficiency as she brought in an armful of folded newspapers and gathered rags and lye soap while Gustie filled the bucket with water. Together they quietly ascended the stairs.

  The mound of excrement had been smeared around somewhat. A piece of rope still hung from the beam where the sheriff’s men left it after they cut the body down.

  Mary put down her papers and cleaning things and looked at the rope and crossed herself. Gustie was surprised. She had not thought Lutherans did that. Without a word between them, the two women cleaned and scrubbed the floor. Gustie looked around the upstairs room, she frowned and said, “I didn’t think Lena used this upstairs for anything,” she said.

  “She doesn’t that I know of. She doesn’t even store things up here. Lena’s not a pack rat.”

  Gustie stepped out of the room and looked at the other half of the upstairs. “Mary, look at this.”

  “What?” Mary came behind her. The rest of the upstairs space was nothing but wood floors covered with a thin layer of dust.

  “I don’t see anything,” said Mary.

  “Look at the floor.”

  “It’s just a floor. A dusty floor.”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  Mary looked behind her. The floor was clean and not just where they had scrubbed. They had only cleaned the area that had been soiled.

  “Where’s the dust?” Mary asked.

  “It doesn’t seem very likely that Tori would mop the floor before hanging himself,” Gustie said dryly.

  “No.”

  “Why is there no dust?”

  The roses in Mary’s cheeks lost their hue. Her voice was barely a whisper in the empty room. “So there would be no foot prints.”

  Gustie said what they were both thinking, “He wasn’t alone up here.”

  “I wonder if the sheriff noticed.”

  “Frankly, I don’t think Dennis noticed anything...he seemed pretty shaken to me. We’ll have to tell him. One of us will have to go to his office. Someone has to stay here.”

  “I can stay till six o’clock. Then I’ve got to be home. Walter doesn’t like it if his supper is late.”

  “Mary, how did you get here?”

  “When Iver delivered my cream, he told me what happened. I knew Ragna and Ella couldn’t come. So I asked him to drive me.”

  “What about Nyla?”

  “Nyla isn’t very good when it comes to troubles of any kind. She won’t come.”

  “All right. I’ll go see the sheriff now and come back and stay here this evening. How will you get home?”

  “I can ride Tom. Will won’t mind. I’ll bring him back tomorrow morning.”

  “Can you ride?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m a good rider,” she said without boast. Mary looked fragile, and she was indisputably sweet, but she was no shrinking violet.

  Before she left, Gustie checked Lena’s cupboards and made a mental note of things to get from O’Grady’s on her way back. She and Mary worked out a schedule to spell each other for as long as it might be necessary, and Gustie rode off to Sheriff Sulley’s office.

  The first to pay a condolence call, Alvinia Torgerson swept into Lena’s kitchen with four children attached by little fists to her skirts.

  “How is the poor thing?” she exhaled as Gustie relieved her of a heavy basket covered over with a clean square of flour sacking. As she placed the basket on the table, Gustie glanced up through the kitchen window and saw more children in the wagon outside.

  Alvinia continued, “Too many trials for one family to bear. Lordy livin’. I brought some of my brood in because Lena just loves these children. Thought we might be able to cheer her up. I heard she is taking this pretty hard.”

  “Yes,” Gustie said. “Doc Moody gave her something. She’s asleep.”

  Alvinia nodded sympathetically at the same time as she grabbed a small hand reaching for the basket which was giving off some very pleasant aromas. “Vernon, don’t touch that!” She smiled at Gustie. “Eldon, that means you, too! There’s just a little something in there. We’ll be going now, then. I’m glad she’s able to rest then, poor thing.”

  “I’ll tell her you were here. She’ll be grateful.”

  “Nothing to it. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll send Kermit over once in awhile
to check.” She nodded toward the wagon outside, indicating a boy of about fourteen holding the reins to the team of horses. “Tell him if you need anything.” Alvinia’s hand rested upon a small towhead. She absently caressed the corn silk hair that nearly matched her own. “Lena loves little ones so. Too bad I can’t give her some of mine.” She laughed heartily and turned to go. “Come on, you chickens.” The children still clinging to her skirts displayed no fear of being given away to the neighbors any time soon. “Just tell her how sorry we are.” She sighed deeply and shook her head. “It sure does make you stop and think.”

  After Alvinia was gone, Gustie pulled back the cloth and saw fresh rolls, a still-warm deep dish of beef, potatoes, and carrots comfortably reposed in a thick gravy, and a rhubarb pie—its crust sparkly with sugar. Gustie could live a hundred years, she sighed, and never learn to cook like any one of these women.

  Except Ma Kaiser, she amended her thoughts later, as she lifted the heavy lid off the iron pot Will’s mother had just left. A thick layer of grease floated over a lumpish liquid in which were suspended some pasty looking dumplings and gray vegetables nearly indistinguishable from fragments of bovine tail.

  “Will’s favorite, oxtail stew,” Ma proclaimed, puffing and perspiring as she lifted the heavy pot onto the stove. In spite of the warm day, she was still draped in black taffeta.

  Frederick, looking dapper as always in a light brown jacket and crisp white shirt, followed Gertrude into the kitchen. “Hello, Gustie. We heard you were here. Glad to see someone taking care of things.”

  Gustie tried to be a good hostess. “Lena is asleep, but Will should be back any minute. He went to Molvik’s. Please, sit down. Can I offer you some coffee? Some rhubarb pie?”

  Gertrude ignored Gustie’s efforts to be hospitable and said again, “Will’s favorite stew. He’s a working man. Got to eat.” Her tone suggested that without her pointing out this fact to Gustie, Will would surely starve to death.

  Gertrude Kaiser seemed out-sized and ill at ease in Lena’s small kitchen. Gustie did not know how to make her comfortable. “Can I get you a cool drink, then? Frederick?”

  Ma Kaiser said, “No. I got to go. Work to do. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

  Frederick shook his head regretfully, “Maybe some other time. Thanks.” He turned back to Gustie after Gertrude was out the door, “Don’t mind Ma too much. She means well, you know.”

  “Oh, I’m certain of that. She’s—you’ve all had a hard time of it lately.”

  “I’ll drop by tomorrow. Is there anything I can pick up for you this evening? O’Grady’s doesn’t close shop till about eight. I could take Ma home and...”

  “No, thank you, Frederick. I stopped there myself this afternoon while Mary was here. And Alvinia brought all this.” Gustie indicated the full basket.

  “That Alvinia,” Frederick smiled again, but this time Gustie was unsure just how to interpret the smile. Perhaps he was not as fond of all those children—his closest neighbors besides his aunt Julia—as Lena was.

  Gustie remained at Lena’s bedside watching her struggle in and out of sleep. She recalled her own illness and her first memory of Dorcas—a walnut-like face hovering over her—a face out of dreams. She thought it was a recurring dream. Drifting in and out of consciousness, there was always that face, a vision of lightning, falling earth, and voices. Such strange dreams. One day, not only the face, but the rough beams of the ceiling came into focus behind it, as well as the army-issue blanket that covered her. She saw the form that went with the face: the long braids, the shirt buttoned up to the neck and down to the wrists, tucked into a dark, shapeless skirt.

  She remembered her first completely lucid moment—being not afraid, simply bewildered. “You are on the Red Sand.” She heard the words but did not see Dorcas’s lips move and thought What red sand? What are they talking about? Who are they? She only saw Dorcas. She went back to sleep.

  The next time she woke up with a clearer head. The ceiling beams, the blanket were just as she remembered them, so she knew she had not dreamed them. So was the woman with the long braids down her back. It came to her also: Red Sand. Yes. She knew that South Dakota was Sioux country. Or at least part of it was. And the big Dakotah Sioux reservation east of the river was called Red Sand. She had wandered onto Indian land. When she realized that, she was terrified over what she had done.

  “Did I do anything wrong?”

  The old woman turned and squinted at her. She would get used to that squint.

  “I buried someone.” Gustie went cold thinking about that grave and what the old woman’s answer might mean.

  “No, you done nothing wrong. Drink.” Dorcas held a tin cup steady to her lips, supporting her with her other arm. The liquid she gave her was warm and tasted like grass and bark—not unpleasant, though it left a tingling sensation on the back of Gustie’s tongue that soon turned to a temporary numbness. She was soon to get used to that, as well. “You sit up? Eat something?” With Dorcas’s help, Gustie did sit up and ate a few mouthfuls of some kind of meat stew.

  Gustie had never awakened to an empty room. Dorcas had been always there or Jordis. Strange that now she knew Jordis had been there, she was having memories of her—holding her up while Dorcas held cups of bitter tea to her lips, brushing her hair, bathing her. The memories came back in small pictures. One came back from the very early days of her illness when she was still wrapped in a cocoon of pain and fevers and splitting headaches. The veils lifted only slowly as she came more and more to consciousness for greater lengths of time. She watched the old woman brewing her tea, carefully steeping it, straining it through a piece of cloth. The old woman brought the warm cup over to her, and as she always did, held her up while Gustie sipped. On this occasion, Gustie began to cry. She cried hard and buried her face in Dorcas’s soft shoulder.

  Dorcas set the cup on the window ledge above Gustie’s head, held her, and crooned some melody that sounded utterly strange and soothing at the same time. Finally, Dorcas asked, “Do you cry for the woman?”

  “No—no one has ever taken care of me before.”

  “You had no mother, no father, no grandmother?”

  “Yes, but they never touched me. I had nannies.”

  “What is nannies?”

  “People you pay to take care of children.”

  “Not family?”

  “No.”

  “The wasichu do not love their children. Ooohooh,” the old woman crooned her strange little song again and Gustie fell asleep. She had forgotten this incident till now.

  Gustie wanted to be there for Lena whenever she woke. The first time Lena woke after her drugged sleep, Gustie gave her some water to drink and Lena said, “Oh, Gustie, I had the most terrible dream. About Tori.”

  “It wasn’t a dream, Lena.”

  “Oh, my, oh, my,” and as Lena cried, Gustie held her hand. “Where is Will?”

  “He’s at Molvik’s.”

  And Lena cried again. “He was such a beautiful little boy. Pa’s favorite of the boys. I was his favorite of the girls, of course. Well, he’s with Pa, now. They’re both happy.” Reassured, she relaxed back into her pillows and drifted back to sleep, muttering, “Pa’s been waiting a long time for one of us.”

  Lena willingly drank the stuff Doc Moody left for her, but Gustie wondered if it was a good thing for her to sleep through these days of planning. Will and Mary had gone to the church to talk to Pastor Erickson about the funeral service. Alvinia and Mary had arranged for a reception to be held in the church following the funeral since it was clear that Lena would not be up to receiving anyone in her own home. Will had still to go to his drill site and finish the well he had started for the Swenson’s. He had committed to drilling wells for several more farmers and had to get them done before the ground froze. So during the day, Gustie sat with Lena, while Mary did most of the housekeeping and entertainin
g of well-wishers who dropped in with food and curiosity.

  Those times she was awake, Lena would sometimes talk. The talking made sense if one knew Lena and got used to the way her mind jumped around under the influence of her medicine. “He was the sweetest little boy. He would suck his finger and smile and smile. And you could give him anything, it didn’t matter. A cookie, a pretty stone. Didn’t matter. He’d be so happy. He’d giggle and play with it, and save it. Always a happy little boy. Ma and Pa didn’t have much time for him. He was no trouble, you see. Not like me. I was always doing something to get a whipping for. And then the twins were born, and they were never well, and Ma really had her hands full then. Ella and Ragna were older and took care of the house and the cooking and so forth. I took care of Tori. It was always Tori and me. When the twins died, Ma lost interest in all of us, so things went on... Ella and Ragna keeping house and Tori and me... Pa started drinking. Ragna’s too blame old to have another baby. That’s why she’s so sick. But she just can’t keep that Pete off her. He’s no better than an old billy goat. Tori had the blondest hair. More white even than yellow. It darkened up when he was about fourteen. My Pa was a good man. Even when he drank, he was quiet and gentle like. None better when he was sober, that’s for sure. So the Lord came for him Himself. When Pa died, I was in his room and he said to me, ‘There He is. He’s come for me. It’s time to go.’ And I looked to the foot of the bed, where Pa was looking, and Jesus was standing there. Smiling. And Pa was smiling. It was no dream. I saw it. I looked back at Pa, and he was gone with that smile still on his face, and then I looked to the foot of his bed and Jesus was gone then too. I felt very happy for Pa that day, though I missed him something awful. I was only sixteen then. The Lord came for my pa Himself. For me, probably just an angel or two. That would be fine. For Tori, I’m sure it was the Lord Himself. The Lord Himself, standing there opening his arms to my little brother like He did for Pa. And whoever did this to my brother will go to the other place. I know that, too. The fires will consume him. It won’t be the Lord with His sweet smiling face, but fire he’ll see.”