Ten Thousand Charms

by Allison Pittman

  “Katherine Celestia MacGregan.” Big Phil read the inscription with a bit of a chuckle. “That’s a big name for a little girl.”

  “Yeah,” John William said, his voice equally amused, “that’s what her mother said.”

  Gloria stopped midstep and turned on her heel. “No she didn’t,” she said, barely unclenching her teeth.

  All four men stopped and stared at her, David Logan holding the shovel aloft.

  “Her mother was dead before that child had a name. I was the one who said she had a big name for a little girl. Remember? It was cold and it was raining and she was starving and you came to me?”

  “Gloria, please.” John William walked to her and put his hand on her arm, but Gloria shrugged him off violently.

  “Don’t touch me. You have no claim to touch me. You have no claim on me at all.”

  Danny was jolted from his dozing reverie and let out a halfhearted wail at Gloria’s raised voice.

  “Phil, would you take Danny inside?” John William said over his shoulder.

  “Sure thing,” Phil said, his voice full of relief. “Why don’t you come with me, Logan?”

  “Right behind you.” David Logan dropped the shovel and fairly trotted behind Big Phil as the two men made their way back to the house.

  Once Danny was out of Gloria’s arms, John William grasped her elbow and no amount of flinching or twisting on her part could release his grip.

  “Shame on you,” he hissed into her ear after pulling her close.

  “Let me go!”

  He jerked her arm again. “What are you thinkin’ makin’ such noise?”

  “I said let me go!” Gloria brought her free hand up, but he easily caught her wrist.

  “Woman, if you ever raise your hand to me again I’ll—”

  The gentle sound of Reverend Fuller clearing his throat brought them both to an uncomfortable silence, and they turned to face him, their hands still clasped together. Reverend Fuller stood calmly, looking first to one and then the other, and after a time the pounding in Gloria’s heart and her head soothed as she looked down and stared hotly at their entwined fingers.

  “We was,” John William shuffled his feet like a child caught in a lie, “we was goin’ to talk to you on Sunday. To see about gettin’ married. You see, my wife, Kate’s mother, she died and—”

  Reverend Fuller held up his hand, and John William lapsed back into silence.

  “This is neither the time nor the place for this discussion.” Reverend Fuller’s voice rang with authority, and the Bible he grasped only added to the weight of his words.

  “I just didn’t want you thinkin’—”

  “Please, Mr. MacGregan. Let us remember the reason we are all gathered here today. Let us respect the solemnity of the occasion.”

  With that, he brushed past them and walked back to the house. Once alone, John William dropped Gloria’s hands and raked his hair off his face in the gesture of frustration and despair Gloria had grown so familiar with.

  “John, I’m sorry,” Gloria said. “It just seemed that these past days you’ve forgotten I’m here. That I was ever here.”

  A bitter laugh escaped John William’s lips, a sound chilling to Gloria’s heart.

  “Forget you?” he said. “I doubt there’s a man out there who could ever forget you.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Do you know why King David’s son died? Ah, look who I’m askin’. Of course you don’t.”

  “I know a little,” Gloria said.

  “David lusted after Bathsheba. Desired her. So much that he forgot the kind of man God wanted him to be.”

  A sudden burst of wind brought a smattering of autumn leaves to rest along the hem of Gloria’s skirt. She folded her arms tight against her chest and bent her head against the chill.

  “God took his child away.” John William brought a finger to Gloria’s chin and forced her to look up at him. “To punish him. Because he lusted for this woman. Because he murdered her husband.”

  “What does that have to do with all of this?” Gloria said, gesturing toward Kate’s open grave.

  John William turned his back to her, casting her into shadow. Gloria felt a tightening in her throat when she saw the defeated stoop of his shoulders; the same man who once frightened her with his physical power now appeared utterly crushed.

  “Reverend Fuller talkin’ about our last days with Kate,” he said without turning around. “Her last hours.”

  His shoulders convulsed once, twice, and then he turned to face her. Gloria braced herself for the sight of tears on his scarred face, but nothing could prepare her for the twisted expression she encountered, and the bitterness in his next words made her flinch.

  “How do I forgive myself for where I was, what I was doin’ while my baby girl was …”

  “What’s to forgive, John? How could you possibly have known?”

  “But if I hadn’t been there with you—”

  “You’d have been out in the field. Or in the barn. Or to Centerville.”

  “But I wasn’t any of those places, was I?” John William turned again and took a few steps farther away. He flung his head back to face heaven straight on as he shouted, fist in the air, “I was with her! Lustin’ after this woman after tryin’ so hard—”

  “How dare you!” Gloria said, grabbing his upraised arm and forcing it back down to his side. “After all you’ve told me about God and his forgiveness? Is this God who is supposed to love me the same God that would kill a child? Out of spite? To teach you a lesson?”

  “That’s not what I’m sayin’.”

  “You think this is my fault?”

  “If you had been here—”

  “What? What could I have done?”

  An endless moment passed as she waited for him to answer. She thought about that summer afternoon on the shores of the Umatilla River when she fought off the swarm of bees. Would Kate have died there, on that afternoon, if a bee had found its way through Gloria’s defenses? If she had, would Gloria be here now? Would she have been a part of this home?

  The late afternoon sun crept behind the small grove of trees, casting shadows across the little white grave marker. The smaller branches waved in the ever-present breeze, creating a pattern of motion across the little girl’s name—Katherine Celestia MacGregan—one moment in sunshine, the next in shadow.

  Still Gloria held onto his arm, until his coiled muscles relaxed and she was drawn into an embrace, his arms encasing her utterly. “I suppose this changes everything,” she said, her face pressed against the rough texture of his woolen shirt. She felt his cheek come to rest on the top of her head, felt his lips move against her hair.

  “Not so. If anythin’, Danny’s more precious to me than ever.” He dislodged her from their embrace and held her at arm’s length, oblivious to the large, cold stone he had just lodged somewhere inside her. “God blessed David with another child. Danny’s the blessin’ given to me.”

  “What about me, John? What about Sunday and Reverend Fuller?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve got to finish some threshin’. Get a load of wheat into Centerville. I planned to be there and back by Sunday, but now …”

  “Are you saying not this Sunday? Or ever?”

  “I don’t know.” He wouldn’t look at her.

  When they walked into Maureen’s parlor, the only sound was Danny’s insistent cry. Gloria made her way past the curious stares of her new neighbors and collected her son to take him into the bedroom to nurse. Nobody said a single word until she was well out of the room, and then all she heard was Adele Fuller’s honey-sweet voice offering John William a piece of her famous chocolate cake.

  24

  John William worked one finger through the twine and unbound the sheaf, sending hundreds of stalks to fan around his feet. He stood on the canvas tarp, unbinding one after another, until the surface of the tarp was covered with about ten inches of ripe wheat. The afternoon was cool and dry with
just enough of a breeze to enable him to sift the grain.

  The flail he used was yet another example of Ed’s extraordinary handiwork. Two and a half inches in diameter, and honed to perfection, the flail rested easily in his hands, the two sections of it connected with a leather strap. He held the handle in his hand and paced the circumference of the wheat, trying to gauge the direction of the wind and decide just where to begin. A movement caught the corner of his eye. In the distance, Gloria and Maureen were heading out to the old cabin, Maureen pushing her little handcart and Gloria following with a broom. He hadn’t seen Gloria since their conversation at Kate’s graveside. She’d taken Danny into the bedroom and refused to come out again, even after the guests had departed.

  This morning as he awoke from a chilly and uncomfortable sleep on his bedroll in the barn, Maureen was standing over him with a steaming cup of coffee and a plate of breakfast that included slices of the ham David and Josephine Logan had brought.

  “We’re going out to the cabin today, Gloria and me,” she said. “Going to get the place cleaned up. There’s no use you sleeping in a barn when there’s a perfectly good home just waiting.”

  “You don’t need to bother with the cleanin’,” he told her. How could he tell her that the layers of dust weren’t the reason for his choice. He had actually walked back there the night Kate died, bedroll and blanket in hand, but the memories of those brief moments with Gloria brought home that the barn was where he belonged.

  “Suit yourself,” Maureen said, stooping to put the plate of food by his side. “But eat up and get your strength. I want you to thresh enough of that wheat to get me some straw to stuff a tick. There’s going to be a nice clean home with a good fresh bed for somebody.”

  Now he stood straight, watching them—watching Gloria—wondering if she would turn around and offer a smile, a wave, any acknowledgment. But even though she was well within earshot, he didn’t call out.

  “Wheat’s not going to thresh itself, you know.”

  The voice of Big Phil came from just behind him. The greeting was accompanied by a hearty clap on John William’s shoulder, and then the big man sat on the ground and reclined against the barn wall.

  “Good mornin’ to you, too, my friend,” John William said, forcing a good-natured tone to his voice. “What are you doin’ here?”

  “Maureen asked Anne to come over this morning and watch the baby. Seems she and Gloria have some work to do. Thought I’d come see what I could do for you.”

  “You’ll be sure to let me know if my labor interferes with your mid-mornin’ nap.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Phil said, pulling the rim of his hat low on his face. “I could sleep next to one of those big steam machines.”

  John William bent at his waist, held the flail above his head, and sent it crashing to the tarp. The highly satisfying thud! sent the grains of wheat flying from their hulls and sifting down through the straw. Without hesitation, he hoisted the flail and brought it down again, repeating the process over and over, taking tiny steps around the circumference of the carpet of wheat. The pure physical exertion of it felt good, reawakening muscles in his back and shoulders he hadn’t accessed since his work in the mines.

  Thud!

  Why would God test his strength with a woman like that?

  Thud!

  A woman who had seemed to be an answer to a prayer to save his daughter’s life.

  Thud!

  And then take his baby girl away the minute he—

  Thud!

  “Remind me never to pick a fight with you, son.” Big Phil’s voice sounded drowsy.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I have a sneaking suspicion you’re picturing some poor fellow’s face hiding underneath all that straw.”

  “Just my own, Phil.” Thud! “I’ve got no quarrel with anybody else.”

  John William continued to work; Big Phil continued to watch.

  “You know,” Phil said after several minutes, “there’s a machine up in Centerville that can do all that. Get the whole crop done in just a few days.”

  John William paused in his labor and stood straight. His hair had worked itself out of the tie at the back of his neck, and he brought his hand up to rake the loose strands off his face.

  “Them machines,” he said, turning to face his friend, “don’t do much more than save some time. They crunch up the straw, make it so it can’t be used for nothin’.”

  “Ah,” Phil said before he disappeared into the barn and came out with a pitchfork. Careful to keep himself clear of the working flail, he dug the fork under the wheat already threshed and lifted it several inches off the ground, shaking it a bit to separate the stalk from the grain. He then dumped the stalks in the soft green grass that grew in the barn’s shadow. “This for a new bed?”

  John William did not reply.

  “Yep,” Phil continued, “nothing makes a sweeter bed than a fresh straw ticking.”

  John William thought of a reply, then thought better of it. Thud!

  “Better than feathers, that’s what Anne and I think. A man doesn’t have a claim to feathers, but when you and the wife settle down in the straw, it’s like falling asleep in the fruits of your labors.”

  Thud!

  “Don’t know if I’m bound to settle down with no woman any time soon.”

  “That so, MacGregan? Reverend Fuller seems to think you two will be showing up on Sunday for a wedding.”

  “That was the plan at one time.” Thud!

  “And plans changed?”

  “Of course plans changed, Phil.” John William continued to circle the wheat, crashing the flail down in an irregular rhythm. “I buried my little girl yesterday. How could I be thinkin’ of—” John William dropped his arm and closed his fingers in a fist around the wooden stick in his hand and turned to Phil. “Why was Fuller talkin’ about any of this?”

  “Now, son—”

  “Are you tellin’ me that while my baby girl was lyin’ in her grave, all of you were inside discussin’ whether or not that woman was my wife?”

  “Of course not.” Phil lowered the pitchfork and eyed the heavy wooden stick in John William’s hand. “Reverend Fuller would never allow that kind of gossip. Not even from the women.”

  “I’ve been honorable to her, Phil,” John William said.

  Big Phil chuckled and scooped up a forkful of straw. “Well, God bless you for that, son. Course I always figured you two had some unfinished business.”

  “We were very happy here, you know,” Maureen said.

  “From what you’ve told me,” Gloria said, “you two would have been happy anywhere.”

  They stood in the middle of the little cabin’s front room, armed with a broom, buckets, and rags. The door stood open, as did the window, filling the house with chilled fresh air.

  “It seems a bit drab now,” Maureen said, smiling warmly at Gloria, “but you’d be amazed at what a good cleaning can do. Then, we’ll get some curtains for the window, a cloth for the table, a bright quilt on the bed—sure as shootin’ this’ll feel like a real home.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Gloria said, tying a square of cloth over the top of her head. “I’ve never had a real home.”

  “Then, missy, it’s high time you did.”

  Maureen positioned herself in one corner of the room and began sweeping with grand strokes across the wooden floor. The clouds of dirt kicked up were enormous, and Gloria was glad to have left the baby back at Maureen’s house under the careful supervision of Big Phil’s wife. How suspiciously convenient it was, Gloria thought, that the elderly couple happened to show up for a visit this morning.

  “Now don’t you just stand there doin’ nothin’,” Maureen said, her voice full of affection. “Go on down to the creek and fill up that bucket. We’ll give this place a good scrubbin’, make it look like new.”

  Gloria continued to stand listlessly in the middle of the room until Maureen took her hand and gave it a qu
ick squeeze. “Come child. There’s nothing like hard work to help a heart to heal.”

  For the entirety of the morning and into the afternoon, Gloria did nothing without Maureen’s explicit instruction. She swept where and how Maureen told her to, shaved as much of the soap into the bucket as instructed, and emptied the wash water only when Maureen deemed it too filthy to be doing any good.

  Slowly, the tiny house took on new life. Cobwebs were cleared from the highest and lowest corners. Every surface was swept, scrubbed, rinsed, and scrubbed again. When the initial layer of grime was removed from the window, Maureen used a mixture of water and vinegar to wash it again, bringing in the sunshine with gorgeous clarity.

  Through it all, Maureen kept up constant chatter about the history of the little cabin. How Ed had made the table and benches a permanent fixture to the walls because he had an irrational fear that the Indians would steal their furniture. How she had lived there three years without any cookstove, preparing all their meals over the fire in the fireplace, just as they had on the trail. How the first roof on the house was the canvas from their wagon and how it kept them just as dry as any shingled roof ever had. How Ed’s desire for privacy led to the construction of the wall dividing the one-windowed cabin, creating a bedroom that was in perpetual darkness.

  “I know,” Gloria said absently.

  Maureen paused midscrub and looked over at her. “You do?”

  Immediately, Gloria blushed—blushed!—and said, “Yes. John showed me the day—the day we came here.”

  “Did he, now?”

  “That’s why he’s so angry with me. He says that’s why Kate—that if we hadn’t been—”

  Maureen dropped her cleaning rag and held her arms out to Gloria, who walked straight into them, bending to rest her head on the little woman’s shoulder.