Esther's Pillow

by Marlin Fitzwater

  The campaign of W.W. McArdle for Congress started on the front steps of the Nickerly County Courthouse with a rousing speech by Buck Lamb in his best auctioneering crescendos, his voice rising and falling with each sentence until the small audience of local citizens and three or four reporters were suitably impressed, as was the candidate.

  W.W. wished he could speak like that.

  W.W.’s summation speech to the tar party jury was the most forceful, pointed, and emotional speech he had ever given, and all the passion of his soul had been engaged in that presentation. How would he ever muster that kind of enthusiasm for a simple political speech in the middle of winter on cold courthouse steps in front of a crowd that mostly hoped he would fall on a patch of ice? Buck had said he had to announce his candidacy at home, at the scene of his legal triumph, even if the crowd didn’t like him. Buck said the rest of the fourth district, which included eight counties, would love him because he was famous. Furthermore, they applauded his prosecution of the men of Nickerly, a group whose circle of supporters had shrunk considerably during the trial. Buck had told him that after this first day, the campaign would get better and easier.

  W.W. felt insecure in his trial victory. He felt some strange new forces in his personality, like the love of attention. He had never considered himself a public figure before. Now, he often saw groups of men congregated along the street and would hear his name mentioned as he passed. People were talking about him, and he liked it. But he also feared that it was false pride. It made him wonder if he could sustain his newfound fame. Or was he just a product of the trial glare, a man left diminished when the spotlight moves on? Putting himself before the people and asking for their support would test his confidence. He would need a lot of help from Buck Lamb, and maybe from Margaret Chambers as well.

  But strangely enough, Buck was right about campaigning. It did get easier. In fact, after a few appearances, W.W. began enjoying it. The endless speeches and meetings were exactly what he had trained for as a lawyer, and he even enjoyed meeting people, to the point that he abandoned dark suits and started wearing buckskin cowboy boots. He joked to his wife that he was becoming a man of the people.

  The letter from the First Presbyterian Church of Nickerly to the Reverend Aaron Langston didn’t have a printed return address or a letterhead on the stationery. When Ivy opened it, as she did all the mail, she noticed that it was written on tablet paper. Her eyes went immediately to the scrawled signature of the head deacon of the church. The two lines above it read: “Dear Reverend Langston” The letter began, “The deacons of the Church must inform you that we will no longer need your services as minister. Thank you for your service.”

  Ivy sat down at the kitchen table and pulled the corners of her shawl tight around her neck. There was still a chill in the house from last night’s sharp wind. Several tree limbs were strewn about the lane, their bright broken ends a testament to the force of the gales. The last of the elm leaves were scattered on the ground. It would take until noon for the sun to soak a little warmth into the ground. Ivy usually liked the fall, but these days were lonely. Nearly every part of the Langstons’ life was suffering. Jay was in jail. Their oldest girl had gone into service with the Watkins family in Ellsworth. She would be well taken care of by the Watkins, with free room and board, and her income would help pay for brooder chicks or repairs for the reaper. Ivy missed her, though.

  At least she knew Ray was going to be a good farmer—he had good hands that could gable a barn as easily as knitting a sweater—but like the rest of them, he would have to live with the shame of Jay. It would probably drive Ray to another part of Kansas. As she gazed across the corn fields with the brown stalks left by a machete harvest, Ivy thought of the sheer work involved in living, in having to always forge ahead with another season. She knew work was God’s way to salvation, but she was tired, and she didn’t want to give Aaron this letter—another piece of bad news, another hill to climb. It was just in her mind, this tiredness from wrestling with forces beyond her control.

  When Aaron opened the door, he let in a blast of cold that had rolled down from the crest of the Rockies, skipped across the western prairie, and settled down like a stray dog waiting to be driven away. Aaron took his sheepskin coat off, slung it over the wooden hook beside the door, and set the bucket of milk on the table. The milk was still warm.

  “Aaron,” Ivy said, as she rose to take the milk from the table to the counter, where she would pour it into a glass pitcher. “We received a letter from the church today. It’s there on the table.”

  Aaron returned from the bedroom with a clean shirt. “I leaned up against that heifer, and she had something on her. It’s all over my shirt. Must have been some tree sap she picked up in the pasture, all sticky.”

  Aaron sat down, put his hand around the glass of warm milk that Ivy had poured, and unfolded the letter.

  “Doesn’t say much,” he muttered, staring down at the writing, trying to detect all the hidden reasons and motivations behind the words.

  “Deacon Sims’ writing sure is hard to read.”

  “His intent is clear enough,” Ivy said. “They don’t want us back.”

  “Now, Ivy,” Aaron said. “We’re all God’s children. There’s other places to preach, and when the weather warms again, I can go back to the river.”

  “Aaron,” Ivy started, “what about Jay? Sitting there in that jail. People talking. How can we preach the Lord’s work when our son is in jail? I still can’t get over what he did to that girl. No wonder the church doesn’t want us.”

  “My ministry is for everyone, even unto the smallest sparrow,” Aaron said. “And certainly to my son.”

  “I just don’t understand him,” Ivy continued, sitting next to Aaron, and gazing out the window at some distant point.

  The sky was as gray as rotting wood. They were both silent, contemplating their son, weighing the conflicting passions of family and religion. Then Ivy began again.

  “I remember once when Jay was here at home, while he was out on bond,” she said. “I noticed him through the window. He was out on the porch watching a big brown spider starting his weave. Jay never moved as that spider dropped down from the roof and started his design. The spider moved up and down his strands of silk and then he moved sideways from one strand to another. His web sparkled in the sun. Jay was fascinated. He just sat there, never moving his eyes, as that spider put out another anchor to the mulberry bush beside the house. And when the spider moved through the air, against the backdrop of the open sky, it was like a painting. A beautiful thing. After almost an hour, Jay got up and walked over to that spider, clapped his hands, wiped them on his trousers, and walked away. He just killed it. How could he do that, Aaron?”

  “It’s the forces of the devil, Ivy. They’re in the boy. Maybe the jail will help him see that.”

  Buck Lamb managed the campaign of W.W. McArdle like a veteran coach with a traveling prizefighter. The two men went from town to town together, calling on farmers and ranchers who had been to Buck’s auction barn, walking down the main street of every town in the district, visiting the dry goods stores and the livery stables where people tended to congregate, and following Buck’s hard and fast rule: Never go in a saloon. If folks saw you coming out of a saloon, you would be branded a drunk in the eyes of the town. No politician could recover from that stigma.

  Buck’s other rules were: Never appear alone with Margaret Chambers; never unbutton your shirt no matter how hot it gets; kiss the babies and pet the dogs but never nuzzle the horses. Buck had elected a lot of politicians with these simple dictates and one other: Only promise people what you know they want. W.W. was having a little trouble with this last rule.

  During Margaret’s trial, Margaret and W.W. had spent a lot of time together, waiting for court to resume or having lunch, and several times he had engaged her in conversation about teaching, just to take her focus off the events at hand. And it got him to thinking about the problems of educat
ion. He was troubled by Margaret’s description of how her one-room school operated, with only one or two students in each grade, and even then with a shortage of books. The children had to listen to their classmates recite lessons of no use to the other grade levels. It struck W.W. that consolidation of schools was the answer, even if it meant the children couldn’t all walk to school. They could be driven by buggy, and it would allow so many efficiencies in terms of books, teaching materials, and shared experiences by children of the same age. He realized there were a lot of complicating factors in this plan, but it seemed they could be worked out if parents realized the value of a better education. His one mistake, however, was in not recognizing the effect consolidation would have on the parents themselves. Simply put, consolidated schools meant more power for some, and a lot less power for those who no longer had a school nearby. As some parents put it, “I’m not turning my kids over to strangers.” But this was just a code for their real fears: that they would no longer have control over their own school. Nevertheless, W.W. believed this was an important issue, and despite Buck’s pleading, he brought it up at every rally.

  He did follow Buck’s advice concerning Margaret, which was to have her appear only at events outside Nickerly County. Buck reasoned that while many local citizens still held Margaret responsible for the tar party, strangers found her fascinating and pretty. Buck arranged for W.W.’s first major speech outside of Nickerly to be held at the auction barn in Salina, and posters for the appearance featured a drawing of Margaret Chambers, advertising a special appearance by the Tar Party Schoolteacher in support of her fearless prosecutor. The barn was packed with political supporters and curious onlookers. Mrs. Lamb ran out of ice cream.

  W.W. climbed into the auction pulpit after a rousing introduction by Buck and began his regular speech, starting with his complete history, his law school training, his love of the state and the country, and finally, the need for better education. As he got to his stemwinder education finish, a number of hisses and boos sounded from the back rows. Consolidation was not popular. Still W.W. forged on, announcing: “Now, my friends and neighbors, I want you to meet one of my greatest supporters, a young lady known far and wide as a great teacher with the courage of a hundred men, a young woman who stood up for herself and for the law, a young woman who showed the people of this state that bullies will not prevail. I give you the Tar Party Schoolteacher, Margaret Chambers.”

  At that point, Buck Lamb pulled open the sliding gate between the cattle pens and the auction arena, and in rode Margaret Chambers on a sidesaddled black stallion that Buck had borrowed just for this appearance. She was sitting perfectly erect in a green velvet dress with brown leather high-top shoes; her waist was made of fine pure linen, with large plaits on either side stitched to her bust line, giving her a graceful fullness, with laundered collar and attached cuffs. But no amount of starch could hide the ample bosom that jarred just slightly with every step of the horse. She kept her eyes on the top row of the pavilion, rode once around the ring, stopped in the middle, and then reached up to remove her famous hat with the white goose feather. She held it high over her head and rode out of the ring. The crowd was stunned. The entry, the horse, and the schoolteacher’s beauty were so unexpected that everyone just gaped. Then as the gate closed behind her, they burst into applause and whistles, with every boy in the barn putting his fingers to his lips and letting go.

  W.W. McArdle stepped to the podium and literally yelled, “Thank you, Margaret, and thank you, good citizens of Salina.” He hoped that at least some of that applause was for him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It had been a long year of campaigning, but with only two weeks left before the election, W.W. McArdle had established himself as a formidable politician. According to Buck Lamb and most of the other party leaders, McArdle held a comfortable lead over his opponent. His reputation as a prosecutor had provided large and enthusiastic audiences for his political messages. W.W.’s opponent, a loyal farmer who had chaired the Republican Party in Ellsworth for decades, was seen as a nice fellow, but hardly in the same league as W.W. McArdle, the nationally known prosecutor with big ideas about education. The election, still months away, looked like a shoo-in.

  W.W. was up early this morning, ready to get started. His wife and the girls were still asleep when he heard horses in the yard and then a knock on the door. He expected Buck to join him for a day of campaigning in Ellsworth, knocking on doors and handing out the flyer that read: “Vote for Winton McArdle, the fighting prosecutor.” But when he pulled the door open, it was Sheriff Graves, standing beside a young girl. The girl was perhaps fifteen or so. She wore a long red flannel dress under her traditional school coat. There was no greeting.

  “Is this the man?” the sheriff said, looking down at the girl’s straight brown hair, not unkempt but not recently washed either.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, looking harshly at W.W. in his stocking feet. “He’s the man who tried to rape me.”

  W.W. staggered back, trying to comprehend what this was all about. His knees weakened as he looked the girl square in the face, trying to recognize her, to put her in some context that made sense. She stood there expressionless, strangely passive, neither fearful nor aggressive, and as the sheriff put his hand on her shoulder, she made no response, no effort to seek reassurance. She simply made the charge and waited.

  “What is this all about?” W.W. asked the sheriff.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. McArdle,” the sheriff said. “Francis has filed charges against you, saying you came to her uncle’s house and forced yourself upon her. Is that true?”

  “True?” W.W. repeated incredulously. “I don’t even know her. I never saw her before in my life.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the sheriff said again. “But I have a warrant for your arrest, based on her statement given to the new county attorney, Mr. Dunfee.”

  W.W. had resigned as county attorney more than six months earlier when it became clear he could not campaign for office and do his job as prosecutor. Since then his life had changed immensely. He was being paid by Buck Lamb out of campaign funds raised by the party, and he started using his first name, Winton, instead of his initials. Ironically, he had always used his initials because they sounded more formal and distinguished in his role as an attorney. Now Buck had coached him to act less formal in order to relate to the voters, and Winton it was. Buck even suggested W.W. shorten the first name to Win, which would fit nicely on window posters. But W.W. had drawn the line at Winton.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me,” the sheriff said, “down to the courthouse.”

  “Can I tell my wife?” W.W. asked.

  “Certainly, sir,” the sheriff said. “We’ll wait right here.”

  W.W. was still reeling from the confrontation at the door when he found his wife sitting on the edge of their bed, trying to hear the conversation with the sheriff. She stood and touched his arm.

  “What is it?” she asked anxiously, knowing only that the sheriff usually means some kind of trouble and that this sheriff was a longtime friend of Ed Garvey Sr. She had never liked or trusted him, remembering his general reluctance to arrest the members of the tar party. And although she couldn’t see who was at the door with him, she had heard a female voice. She searched W.W.’s ashen face, gray as day-old embers. His eyes looked confused. She had rarely seen him like this.

  “There’s a young girl,” W.W. began, stammering. “I don’t know her. She’s making charges against me.”

  “What kind of charges?”

  “I don’t really know,” he said, not quite up to a fuller explanation. “But I have to go see Dunfee with the sheriff.” They had talked about Dunfee often, primarily because he was W.W.’s successor, and also because the governor had appointed him, the same governor who was a buddy of Ed Garvey’s.

  “I shouldn’t be gone long,” W.W. said. “Will you tell Buck when he comes that I’ve gone to the courthouse?”

  She nodded.<
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  “And one other thing,” W.W. said. “Call John Engle and tell him I need his services immediately.”

  “Oh, no, Winton,” she said. “Why? What is this?”

  “I still don’t know,” he said. “But I’ll be back soon.”

  W.W. returned to the kitchen for his shoes. As he started to tie them, he looked back at the bedroom door to see his wife standing under the jamb, staring through the living room at the sheriff.

  Down her cheeks streamed the large, quiet tears of the threatened.

  A week earlier, Ed Garvey, the last of the tar party to be released from jail, had invited some of the boys to stop by for a swig from his father’s jug. The time in county jail had passed quickly, punctuated every two or three months by the release of one or more of the tar party. With thirteen men under sentence, some of them had to go to the Ellsworth County Jail. Nickerly only had eight cells. So it seemed like someone was always being transferred in or out, or being released, and friendships among the group grew even stronger than before. The cells were not comfortable. Each one had only a small cot pushed against the concrete wall. The only bathroom was in the sheriff’s office, and a trip to the toilet required a deputy escort, a task as degrading for the deputy as the inmate because it virtually defined his job. But the conversation between cells was almost like a meeting of the Civic Improvement Association, which incidentally disbanded when the membership dropped to three. Mrs. Club Wilson still met every week with Hettie Woods and Minerva Simpson to sew and talk about their old friends, but their unmitigated bitterness toward the community made even those sessions awkward and joyless. The eight inmates, however, grew closer in the absence of any books or magazines. They discussed their lives and loves over and over and detailed their plans for the future, mostly dreaming of getting far away from Nickerly. For Ed Garvey, the future took him two miles back to the mill, with several scores to settle.