Was_a novel

by Geoff Ryman

  The face was familiar, as if in a dream, and that held a certain terror for Dorothy, too. And then dimly, as if someone had called the woman’s name from across a far field, Dorothy remembered who it was.

  It was Etta Parkerson. She was wearing another black and beautifully made dress, all scallops and ruches, and she walked with a tall, sad-eyed man, old enough to be her father.

  “Etta! Etta Parkerson!” said Aunty Em, her smile somewhat sour, caught as she was between two social worlds.

  “Etta Reynolds, now, Emma.”

  “Oh! Of course!” said Aunty Em, hand on forehead as it shook from side to side. “Everyone. This is Etta Reynolds. She is niece to the Goodnow family, and only this February was married to Mr. Reynolds.”

  Hands were shaken politely. Mr. Reynolds’s hands seemed to be made of stone and looked large enough to have torn his wife in half.

  “I’m glad you could join us, Mr. Reynolds,” the old settlers said, meaning, cordially, what are you doing here?

  “My husband is a follower,” replied Etta. “How are you, Dorothy?”

  Dorothy murmured that she was fine. She had first met Etta in another lifetime. She dimly remembered that Etta had been kind to her; she also seemed to remember that Etta had said something that even now disturbed her, though she could not remember what it was. This time, Dorothy did not warm to Etta.

  Aunty Em launched into another performance of Dorothy as domestic angel, how she cleaned and tidied and helped around the house. Etta listened for a while.

  “Emma,” she said. “Do you think you could look after my husband for a while? It’d like to show Dorothy some of the field flowers.”

  “Why, that would be a great kindness, Etta. Alvin, do you feel safe with us?” Alvin Reynolds grinned and rocked in place and plainly did not feel safe at all. Etta held out her hand toward Dorothy. There was nothing for Dorothy to do but take it. They walked together down the slope of the field, toward the river. Etta’s boots swept the top of the grass, sideways, as if kicking it. What does she want? Dorothy wondered.

  There were flowers, like ground-hugging buttercups, the size of Dorothy’s hand. There were vivid little stars of blue on the tops of long stems, and plain white flowers clustered together. There were echoing cries of children, running to the river, and the shade of the giant trees, showing the silver underside of their leaves in the wind.

  “Drudge, drudge, drudge, eh, Dorothy?” asked Etta.

  Dorothy said nothing. She had a wildflower in her hand and was picking it apart.

  “You can work until you disappear, Dorothy. It won’t be enough. People don’t love a drudge. But sometimes they love selfish people, for doing what they always wanted to do themselves.” There were the sounds of wind in long grass and other children playing together.

  “You look tired,” Etta said. “Tired and scared. I find Emma Gulch scary sometimes.” Etta crouched down and tried to peer up into Dorothy’s face. “They’re never grateful, Dorothy. You can never do enough in someone else’s house. They always think it’s their due. You’re always the poor relation.”

  What is the point, Dorothy thought, of talking to me like this? This is talk for adults. What am I to do? Leave? Where could I go? Fight? How can I fight Aunty Em?

  “I want to go back,” said Dorothy.

  Etta sighed and said, “All right. But promise me, Dorothy. Promise me if things get too bad, you won’t pray to God to change you. You’ll pray to God to change them?”

  What did that mean? Dorothy began to walk on ahead, back up the gentle slope. It was some kind of truth and Dorothy didn’t understand it or need it. There was nothing the truth could do for her expect give her pain. The truth was harsh and for adults. It frightened her. Dorothy needed lies.

  “Did you have a nice talk?” Aunty Em asked as they approached.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” said Dorothy, head down.

  Etta said goodbye. Dorothy did not look up. She heard her boots through the grass. Swish, swish, swish, with a cripple’s gait.

  “What can she be thinking of?” asked the pink lady in a low voice. “Don’t she know about women’s troubles? Poor little thing is only the size of a child herself.”

  “I reckon the Goodnows were surprised,” chuckled one of the men. “I reckon they thought the Parkerson girls would be marrying some nice young men from the college.”

  “They’re moving to Wild Cat. Out of harm’s way, I guess.”

  Dorothy realized that she might not see Etta ever again. Her eyes seemed to swell from something like sorrow, something like anger.

  “She thinks,” said Dorothy, pink-cheeked, looking down, with a child’s voice, “that she’s going to be happy.” That ended the conversation.

  “Which seems a good enough reason to marry,” said Aunty Em. “Shall we go to Meeting, brethren?” She took Dorothy’s hand, and gathered up her skirts to march. The others followed.

  It was hot inside the tent. Sunlight glowed on the white canvas. There were benches set on grass. It was as if there could be buildings with grass floors, grass floors with flowers growing in them, as if people could sit down to breakfast amid flowers.

  They were sitting down to prayer. They passed the prayer books among them. Their voices seemed louder in the tent, men reaching across to shake hands, women calling out across the tent and waving. Aunty Em walked down the center aisle holding up her best black skirt, and she looked leaner, taller, back straighter than ever. When she turned to sit down, her dress whisked smartly around, and she nodded to the people near her and gathered up the dress and sat down slowly. It was as if she were someone else.

  There was a banner across one side of the test. Dorothy couldn’t read it. “What’s that say? Aunty Em? What’s that say?”

  “‘Gather ye unto the Lord,’” said Aunty Em. “And that little part underneath says ‘Revival and reform.’ That means to drive out sin and evil.” Aunty Em’s eyes still gleamed. She was still hungry.

  A young man in black walked quickly across the front of the tent and hopped up onto a wagon. The Meeting quietened at once. Children’s attention was drawn with a pat or a slap; a baby was howling, there was a hissing into silence.

  The young man had wavy blond hair and a blond beard. “Good morning,” he said simply.

  “Mornnn’,” came back a mumbling reply.

  Aunty Em drew back and cast a critical eye. Dorothy turned and watched her. So far it was like an ordinary Sunday. There would be prayers and song, and Dorothy would get bored and have to sit still. Maybe the best part had been outside when they were all talking and being nice.

  “Seems to me we got a lot of fine folk moving into Kansas.”

  No response. People weren’t sure if they agreed with him.

  “They come from all over, North, South. Fine people with some money to spend, or no money to spend, and not all of them see much of a future in working the land. Some of them move out to Abilene, or out to Wichita. I hear Dodge is going to be next, following the quarantine line wherever the money is cheapest and nastiest.”

  The silence was the silence of approval. The people understood now.

  “And in these fine new cities of the new Kansas, where the business is brightest and fastest, these thriving cowtowns that seem so proud, with their money and their banks, there are sights the like of which could strike a righteous man blind, and from which all righteous women would shrink like flowers from a flame.”

  Murmur of agreement. They would shrink away, the poor women of the land.

  “And I have to ask myself: Do these fine people know what Kansas means, and what Kansas stands for? Do they know that this is the free state, the place to which the righteous flocked, to say ‘No more!’?”

  Hally hoo hah, said the Meeting.

  “No more to sin and greed. N
o more to exploitation. No more to the cross of slavery. Or the cross of the Eastern banks and Eastern factories!”

  Hally hoo hah.

  “But lo, brethren, sisters, behold what comes slinking silently in. After the war, after the locusts, after the storms, and the broken hearts, what comes following in, after the people of Kansas have broken open the land, but people whose only god is the almighty dollar, whose only joy is in alcohol or bad women. Pray for them, brethren. But pray for yourselves too.”

  No cries as yet. Too indirect. He wasn’t working them.

  He changed tack. These people were not the farmers near Wichita. Politics did not move them.

  “It could be that I don’t know much. I have seen no blinding light from Heaven, I have seen no angels in the sky. I call the gospel because I love it. I can bear witness, and I will bear witness long as I can, loud as I can, that there is more to God’s children than flesh alone or blood alone . . . or land alone or money alone, either.”

  That was more like it. Meeting made more noise. It wanted to touch the Lord, to feel Him brush past them, as if His robe swept their souls.

  “I don’t see no light of Heaven, it’s not given to me to see it. That is given to prophets to see, and I ain’t no prophet. But I’ll tell you. I see the light of Heaven, just a glint of it, in the eyes of each and every one of you here today. That glimmer there? That’s God shining out through you. And you can damn the bankers! You can damn all the fine folk.”

  There was some sound here of disapproval. He overrode it.

  “They damn themselves!” A roar of agreement. “This is where the word of God shines!”

  There were cries now, shouts. A man stood up, lean, lean under thick clothing, and shouted. Dorothy thought he was angry. She flinched and drew closer to Aunty Em. Were people mad? Why were they shouting? Dorothy thought perhaps she liked church better.

  Aunty Em kept staring ahead, a thin smile on her face. But her eyes were full of yearning. A hand crept up to her breast.

  “So let it shine, brothers, sisters. Let the Word shine in you! Let the Lord Jesus come to you in the Spirit. Open up the gates! Don’t shut Him out. He sings in the wind. He whispers in the breath of every innocent young babe. He is all around us, to heal, to salve, to bring comfort, to warm the heart and bring peace to the mind.”

  Hally hoo hah. Hay men. Oh, he was good, this Preacher, who started out so slow.

  Aunty Em seemed to melt. She listed sideways like a candle, hand still over her heart. The young Preacher prowled about his wagon. He’d started out so slow, and now he was waving his hands, commanding.

  “Why are you so silent? Are you afraid of the Lord? Are you afraid of your speaking sins? Don’t you know the Lord Jesus knows your sins, knows your pain, don’t you know He loves you, and forgives you, leaves you as innocent as the child, the little children, whom He suffered to come unto Him? Go to Him as a child, be a child again in His presence!”

  Aunty Em rose up, arms outstretched, her head shaking from side to side.

  “The Spirit, the Spirit’s on her!” called Harriet.

  The old man with the beard grabbed her arms. Harriet stroked her brow.

  “Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” said Aunty Em, her tongue rattling loose in her mouth. Her hands shook; her lined cheeks flapped loosely.

  Dorothy wailed in terror. “Oh!” she cried, the shadow of the terror of Lawrence still on her.

  “Bulor ep ep ahhh no up shelopa no no no shelopa apa apa no ma!” cried Aunty Em.

  “Oh, the Spirit’s strong, the Spirit’s good!” said Harriet, wrestling.

  “I’ve never seen it like this,” said the old man, looking worried.

  Then the train came, with a whiplash whine along the metal rails nearby and a piercing shriek of steam through a whistle. A bell began to clang over and over. The horses in the corral whinnied and snorted.

  And Dorothy remembered. The train had come once before and taken her away and shown her a world full of reasonable people who did not love her. The train came closer with a sound of steam and smoke, and Dorothy saw her aunty tossing her head back and forth, held down by other people, back and forth as if saying no, no, no. Aunty Em wanted to be hauled away from this world, from the farm, from the past. Dorothy was suddenly afraid.

  “Don’t die, Aunty Em! Don’t die!” Dorothy shouted. The shadow of the train was cast on the white canvas.

  The skinny woman leaned down, all pine-tree smells, breathing into Dorothy’s face. “Your aunty’s not going to die, darling,” she said. Dorothy clung to her aunty’s dress.

  The Preacher had stopped preaching. He fought his way through the other people. Dismayed, he knelt down to look at Aunty Em.

  “If you gentlemen could help me carry her outside,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t have stopped, Preacher,” chuckled Harriet. “It’s what she came for.”

  The men carried Aunty Em out to her wagon. The train was far down the track, leaving a slight haze over the field.

  Broke it up as soon as it got going, said voices, complaining. Dorothy followed, a fist rubbing her eyes to make the point that she was unhappy too.

  “It’s all right, darling, this means your aunty is with Jesus.”

  “Will she want to come back?” Dorothy asked.

  The old man lifted Dorothy up into the wagon. Aunty Em was looking at her dimly. “Hello, Dorothy,” she said gently, warm and soft and kind and far away.

  “Oh, Aunty Em,” said Dorothy, and lay down on the rough boards. “Oh, Aunty Em. I love you, love you, love you, love you.”

  “Why, child!” chuckled Aunty Em, pleased. She hugged Dorothy and kissed the top of her head.

  “I thought you were going to die!” the child said.

  “Oh, no,” said Aunty Em, recalling the impact of Christ’s love. “Not die.”

  A dog tied to a wagon began to bark. Dorothy looked up. “Toto?” she asked.

  Aunty Em’s hand, stroking her hair, froze.

  Toto had lived throughout the winter in the buffalo wallows. The wallows had frozen hard, and the marsh reeds heavy with ice had fallen against each other to make ice shelters.

  All through the winter, Toto would appear as if from nowhere, barking as he ran out of freezing mist that blazed with sunlight. He would bring Dorothy sticks to throw for him. They sparkled with frost. He bounced across crisp frosty ground to bring them back and drop them again at Dorothy’s feet.

  When blizzards fell, making a low grinding sound as if the sky were being milled, Toto would bark as Dorothy passed the barn. She would find him in the hay, and he would whimper and lick her hands. Dorothy left him food in a broken bowl and would return each morning to find it clean.

  Aunty Em’s hens began to disappear. “It’s that dog. He’s gone wild!” Aunty Em exclaimed. Toto unnerved her.

  She would find him in her own yard, crouched and snarling at her, baring his fangs. When Aunty Em tried to grab him, he would scamper just out of reach and growl at her again.

  “Dorothy! Dorothy! Come and call your dog!” Aunty Em would demand.

  In the spring, the thaws began. Dorothy started school. She would walk every morning along the lane, between the ruts filled with muddy water and crusted with patches of ice. Toto would come out of the wallows from under the open arms of the scarecrows to meet Dorothy. He would be filthy, blinking and covered in mud. Dorothy would chuckle and kneel down. “You got that old lady real mad at you.”

  He started to bring her presents. He brought her the Jewells’ chickens, murdered and whole.

  “Dorothy, you must control that dog. The Jewells are good neighbors to us and they can’t afford to lose their livestock any more than we can. Now the next time you see him, you have a rope with you and you catch him and bring him back.”

 
“Yes, Ma’am,” said Dorothy. She somehow always forgot the rope.

  Dorothy wanted to be good. That was why she worked so hard at her chores and her school exercises. She could sense goodness within her, like a pouch in her breast, to be opened. She wanted to love her aunty; it would be good to love her aunty. She loved Toto.

  Toto was not good. He dug up the green shoots in Uncle Henry’s fields. He tore down the washing from the clothesline into the mud. Once in the lane, he bit through the sleeve of Dorothy’s only coat and tried to drag her with him, away.

  “We can’t go back, Toto,” she said, stroking the rough gray hair of his terrier head.

  She began to see him less and less. Sometimes he disappeared for days at a time.

  Then one day, in late afternoon, Dorothy walked back from school hugging her books, head down. Aunty Em was at the stove, slamming pots, loud as she could.

  “Good day, Dorothy?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “What did you study, child?”

  “Sub . . . subtraction.”

  “Hmmm.”

  They heard a bark.

  “That dog. Back again.”

  Aunty Em wiped her hands on her apron and opened the door.

  The earth was soft, muddy, thawed. It was about four-thirty in the afternoon in late March, what had been a nice day, a sunset blur of orange and blue across a flat and featureless sky. Toto the dog sat waiting.

  “We’ll have to try to catch him,” said Aunty Em. She swept her coat on in one motion and put on gloves and took a rope. Dorothy followed, not wanting Toto hurt.

  They opened the door again, and Toto had not run away. He was still there, at the end of the yard, waiting beside one of Aunty Em’s dead flowerbeds. He barked as if to say: Here.

  “What’s he brought with him this time?” said Aunty Em, striding.