The Horseman's Graves

by Jacqueline Baker

  “She doesn’t look dead.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Ghosts don’t walk like that.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.”

  “I don’t.”

  They crouched there, watching as she unlatched the coop door and stepped inside.

  “Was that her?”

  “It was her all right.”

  “The Krauss girl?”

  “I said so, didn’t I?”

  “Come on, then,” Erv said, rising unsteadily.

  “Come on, what? That’s her, isn’t it? What more do you want?”

  “Proof,” said Erv, and he lurched out from the shelterbelt and half ran, half stumbled across the yard to the chicken coop, Ronnie behind him, catching at his sleeve as he crashed through the door in an explosion of hens, a girl standing there in the darkness, alert but unstartled, feathers settling in her hair like ashes.

  ——

  Ronnie claimed later—much later, after all was said and done and he was worried about clearing his own name (though, to his credit, he did not intend to lie about the facts but told it all just as he remembered it, as best he could remember it)—he claimed he kept pulling at Erv, worried the braucha would come any minute, wanting to get home, but Erv, he said Erv just kind of went a little crazy, saying stupid, senseless things to the girl, barring her way out of the coop when she moved to go past them. When she ducked to go under Erv’s outstretched arms, that was when Erv tried to grab her, saying, “Come on, now, how about a little kiss, then,” and the girl’s dress tore—Erv said to Ronnie later that he hadn’t meant to do that, said he hadn’t even wanted to kiss her—why would he?—he had a wife, didn’t he?—just wanted to get a look at her face, make sure it was really her, it was so dark in there after all. But Ronnie told it differently. He said Erv was pretty rough and all those hens flapping around and feathers everywhere and just a bit of violet dusklight from the doorway. Ronnie said it was hard to tell in the dark and confusion but he thought the girl was not really trying to fight Erv off, just turning her face away, letting him grab at her, and she did not cry out for help, she did not make a sound, or he thought she hadn’t, all those hens flapping and squawking. When Ronnie finally caught Erv by the shoulder to pull him away, Erv turned and took a swing at him, and Ronnie said maybe they would have fought each other then, he was mad, too, mad that Erv had taken it all too far, had dragged him into something he wanted no part of, knowing it was his own fault, anyway, that he was the one who had begun it, who had brought Erv in the first place, and so it fell on him, Ronnie, the responsibility for the girl, and that was what really bothered him. So he had Erv by the jacket collar and was about to slam him up against the wall, when suddenly, the braucha appeared in the doorway with a shotgun, fired it straight up into the night sky (others reported later having heard that shot but not thinking much of it at the time, why would they?) and said something to them in Russian. They could not understand what she said, but the shotgun was pretty clear and so they staggered through the dark to the shelterbelt where they’d tethered their horses and Erv, the first there, went to untie his but then he stopped and held his hands up to his face, clenching and unclenching them in the dark, and he said, “What the Christ?” and then looked at Ronnie, his face all pale in the moonlight. “Are you bleeding?” he said. Ronnie wiped at his mouth and nose and said, “No, why?” and Erv said, “Blood, my hands, look at all this blood,” and he stuck his hands right up in Ronnie’s face and Ronnie said later that even in the dark you could see how they glistened. Erv felt all over his own chest, then. “She shot me,” he said, “she shot me.” And Ronnie saying, “Get a hold of yourself,” feeling Erv’s chest too. “You’re not shot,” he said, and Erv growing hysterical, “Where’s it coming from? Christ Almighty,” and wiping his hands on his clothes, lifting his hands again. “You’re just cut somewhere,” Ronnie said, “shut up already, it’s nothing.” But Erv wiping, wiping, “Jesus, they cursed me, goddamn it, they put a curse on me,” and then picking up a rock and hurling it through the darkness toward the old woman’s shack, hollering, “You goddamned, you crazy goddamned—” and Ronnie taking a swing at him then, to shut him up, but missing and falling in the mud at Erv’s feet and then that overpowering stench of urine, and him saying, “Christ Almighty, what’s that smell, what is that, good God, Christ, Erv, did you piss yourself?” and Erv kicking at him then, in the dark, and yelling, “You shut your goddamned mouth, shut it, you goddamned—” and then, before Ronnie could stop him, Erv loosed the rope that tethered both horses and threw himself onto his own, still hollering so loud it spooked Ronnie’s horse, too, that went thundering off after Erv into the night, leaving Ronnie to walk home, covered in mud, drunk but sobering up awful goddamned fast; left him to walk all that way across the black prairie, all that long way, the braucha and the dead girl somewhere behind him in the darkness.

  ——

  By the time Ronnie got home, he was stone-cold sober and mad as hell, stewing and fuming about how Erv had treated him and the dead girl both (I might not know much, he planned to tell Erv, but I know you don’t treat a girl that way, dead or not), and then taken off with his horse to boot. His horse, for Chrissakes. And a dead girl come alive, Jesus, and all that blood, too. He wondered if perhaps Erv had really hurt the girl somehow, that it was her blood. Christ, it was all such a blur. He was spooked, all right. And worried, too, that he would be blamed, should the dead girl or the braucha decide to report them. But, then, what the hell was she doing there anyhow? And how come she wasn’t dead?

  When he got home, he washed and changed his clothes and then sat at the kitchen table and stared bleakly out the dark window all night, waiting for his father to rise for chores.

  When his father finally walked into the kitchen, yawning, suspenders dangling, he saw Ronnie there at the table and said, “Oh, Christ Almighty, now what?”

  “Shh,” Ronnie said, frowning toward the door of the bedroom where his mother, with any luck, still slept. He gestured for his father to take a seat and when he had, Ronnie told his story, trying to sound as clear as he could, given the circumstances.

  His father listened and nodded and when Ronnie was finished, he said, “How much did you drink, son?”

  “I was drinking,” Ronnie said, “but I wasn’t so far gone I wouldn’t know that girl if I saw her. It was her, all right. That Brechert girl. It was dark, but I saw her, close up. It couldn’t have been nobody else.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I didn’t say there was sense in it. But I know what I saw.”

  “And?” his father said. “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know.” Ronnie lifted his own palms, stared into them. “There was all this blood. It must have been from her.”

  “Maybe we should go see Erv.”

  “No,” Ronnie said. “I don’t want nothing to do with him. I shouldn’t ever have took him over there. He’s crazy.”

  “Yah, and what if he tells someone?”

  “He won’t say nothing.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Trust me,” he said. “But the girl. What if she goes to the constable?”

  “What, the dead girl?”

  “What if Erv hurt her? What if she reports it?”

  “The dead girl? You’re worried that the dead girl is going to go to the constable? You see what I’m getting at here, son?”

  Ronnie shook his head in frustration. “It was her, and she wasn’t dead. No more dead than you or me.”

  ——

  So Ronnie and his father drove to Triumph that morning to see McCready, before somebody else did. McCready listened and picked his teeth and rubbed a smudge from the tip of his boot while his wife pretended not to listen from beyond the open door. When Ronnie finished speaking, McCready sat looking at him as if he might be waiting for him to leave.

  When Ronnie didn’t leave, McCready said, “Let me get this stra
ight, make sure I’ve got all the facts here. There’s a dead girl living at that old Rooshian’s place, and she, what, she attacked you or something? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Ronnie glanced through the doorway at McCready’s wife. “Not that, no.”

  “Well, what, then?”

  “It’s—” Ronnie looked to his father and his father dropped his eyes down to his boots. “I think she might be hurt, maybe,” he said to McCready. “Or … I think she might have got hurt.”

  McCready stared a moment. “I thought she was dead.”

  And Ronnie said, “Yes, yes. We all did. But, well …” He shrugged. What else was he to say?

  “Well, what?”

  “She’s there. She’s at the braucha’s.”

  “Not dead.”

  “I don’t …”—Ronnie looked out the doorway again to where McCready’s wife sat, openly staring now—“know.”

  “Maybe there’s a language problem here. Is that it? Maybe we aren’t understanding each other.”

  “No,” Ronnie said, “you got it right.”

  McCready sucked his teeth. “What is it you want from me?”

  When Ronnie did not answer, McCready said, “How old are you?”

  “Sixteen. Almost.”

  “Uh-huh. So you and this Rescher—”

  “Rausch.”

  “You were up to some funny business and now you want to have some fun with me, too, is that it?”

  “No.”

  “You think the law is funny, maybe.”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you something, I didn’t haul my wife out to this dusthole for a goddamned laugh. You people have given me enough trouble this winter. Some kid’s dead in the river, some other kid pushed her maybe, somebody else is out to get the kid who done the pushing, oh, she’s not dead after all, maybe just hurt. Christ. You think you can have some fun with me? Is that what you think? Well, you come on, then. I’ll show you how fun I can be. We’re gonna take a little ride out there and, I’ll tell you here and now, that girl better goddamned well be dead. Do you understand what I’m saying? You get my drift here?”

  ——

  When Ronnie Rausch and Constable McCready pulled into the braucha’s yard, with Ronnie’s father following at a good distance in the wagon, they both sat a minute staring through the specked windshield, and McCready said, “That her?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ronnie said, through his tightened throat, “I think so.”

  But not moving to get out of the car, either one of them, just sitting there looking (as if she, perhaps, could not see them) to where she sat on a little bench by the door, right there in the spring sun, basking, like a cat, with her bare white feet in the greening crabgrass and her hair all brushed out and shining, just sitting there, unmoved, expressionless, as if she had been waiting for them, or waiting for someone, as if she had known they would come. She looked so clean and white it made Ronnie wonder if all that commotion the previous night had even happened, if there had been any roughness, any blood, at all. And it made Ronnie feel downright odd to see her sitting there like that, as if she couldn’t possibly be anywhere else.

  McCready cranked the door handle, heaved himself up and out of the car. Ronnie got out, too, but did not follow McCready toward the house. He stood, instead, waiting beside the car, wondering whether the girl would recognize him, and, in some strange way, half hoping she would.

  “Morning,” McCready said, hitching up his pants. “Spring’s finally here I guess not a moment too soon, do you mind if I ask your name?”

  The girl squinted up at him calmly, almost pleasantly, but made no reply.

  McCready turned to Ronnie. “Doesn’t she speak English or is she a halfwit or what?”

  The door to the hut opened then and the old braucha stepped out, her eyes squinted up so tightly against the light they were all but closed. She wiped at her mouth with a corner of her apron, then spoke to McCready in Russian, which only further annoyed him. He turned to Ronnie for translation, but Ronnie could not speak Russian either. Ronnie stepped forward, though, and, eyes on the girl, spoke to the old woman in German, telling her the constable wanted to have a word. But the old woman—out of spite or perverseness—only answered again in Russian.

  So the four of them stood there, and McCready stamping his foot in the mud like a bull, and firing out questions that no one could or would answer and Ronnie staring at that girl, and finally he took a few steps toward her, the girl, and said, tentatively, in German, “But you are Elisabeth Brechert, not?”

  “What’s that?” McCready said. “What did you say to her?”

  The girl stared back at Ronnie a moment and Ronnie thought that perhaps she would not answer him, either, and maybe she was deaf or dumb or something, or maybe she was a ghost after all, my God, he wanted to reach out a hand to touch her, see if she was real.

  But finally she replied, in German, “I guess you know who I am or why did you come looking for me last night?”

  He lifted his hands helplessly. “I just … wanted to see—”

  “Well,” she said, “here I am, then.”

  “Yes,” he said, feeling hot, ashamed, pinned there by her stare.

  But she said nothing more, just rose and went into the shack and shut the door behind her.

  McCready said, “What’s she doing? Is she coming back out?”

  “No,” Ronnie said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Did she tell you her name?”

  “No,” Ronnie said. “But that’s her. That’s Elisabeth Brechert.”

  McCready stood a minute more, the old braucha peering back at him from beneath her black babushka, and he flung his cigarette into the mud.

  The braucha walked over and picked it up and crushed it in her palm and said, in German this time, “You have no authority here.”

  McCready said, “What’s that? What did she say?”

  “You have no business here,” she said again, in German. “You always come when the trouble is over. Get out of here, now. Leave the girl alone.” And then she added something in Russian and nodded at him and made the sign of the cross.

  “What the hell was that?” McCready said.

  Ronnie shook his head. “She is blessing you, maybe.”

  “Blessing, my ass. I don’t need to speak Russian to see that.” McCready cussed under his breath again. “You’re sure, then?” he said to Ronnie. “That was the dead girl?”

  “Yes, that was her,” Ronnie said.

  “Well, then, get in the car,” McCready ordered. “You can damn well explain this to her folks. If they want her, they can come get her. Get in the goddamned car.”

  And so Ronnie did, he got in the goddamned car and they roared out of the braucha’s yard, leaving the old woman standing there watching them go.

  Ronnie turned and looked back through the rear window.

  “What’s she doing?” McCready said, glancing at the mirror. “Is she still there?”

  Ronnie said, “Yes.”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “She’s just standing there.”

  “Christ,” McCready said, digging another cigarette and matches out of his shirt pocket. He stuck the cigarette in his mouth and struck the match against his denim pants, inhaled deeply. “What is she,” he said, spitting loose tobacco from his lip out the open window, “a witch or something?”

  Ronnie sat thinking a moment and then he said, “No. She’s Catholic.”

  And McCready barked, “A Catholic witch, well, now I’ve heard it all.”

  Ronnie turned forward in his seat just in time to see his father in the wagon.

  “Where are you going now?” his father yelled as they roared past him.

  But McCready did not slow and so Ronnie could only lift his hand in a helpless wave.

  ——

  When they lurched into Krausses’ yard, McCready said, “You do the talking. Seems no one wants to understand a goddamned word I say. Tell t
hem what happened. Or, no, Christ, who knows what the hell happened, just tell them to go see the old woman. Tell them she’s got their girl.”

  McCready slammed on the brakes and the car slid a little in the mud and he heaved himself once more and stood leaning against the hood, smoking.

  Ronnie climbed out, too, looked down the road, trying to calculate how long it would take his father to get there.

  “What’re you waiting for,” McCready said, “the Second Coming?”

  So Ronnie rubbed his hands against his thighs and then walked up the stairs. He stood a minute before knocking on the unpainted door.

  Leo answered so quickly it made Ronnie wonder how long he’d been waiting there on the other side. Ronnie took a step back.

  Leo glared out into the sunlight peevishly, as if he could not believe this outrage called spring.

  “What is it?” Leo finally said.

  Before Ronnie could answer, McCready called, “Is that the father?”

  “No,” Ronnie called back, eyeing Leo nervously, “not really.”

  “Ask where the mother is.”

  Ronnie asked.

  “What for?” Leo said. “What business of yours?”

  McCready reddened. “Tell him,” he ordered.

  “Well,” Leo demanded “what is it? What do you want?”

  Ronnie stood there between them, not looking at either of them, but only down at his muddy boots, there on Krausses’ porch, a house he’d once thrown stones at, when he was younger, when it was just Leo there and he’d heard he was dead, thrown stones to try to rouse the dead man before they—him and his friends—raced back home in the darkness, hearts thudding against their throats. Yes, he thought about Leo and he thought about Old Krauss, Old Gus, Leo’s father, and he thought about all the stories he’d heard over the years about Krausses, and he thought about that girl, the dead girl, thought of her white feet, her hands, that girl drowned beneath the ice of the river, he thought and he thought, and then he turned to McCready and said slowly, “You can do what you want, but I’m not telling him nothing.”

  Then he walked down the steps and past McCready and, when he was halfway down the road, he could not say exactly why, only that it felt like the thing to do, he pulled his hands from his pockets and ran like hell, he ran and ran and ran under that big unsheltering sky, his boots slipping in the mud of the road and McCready standing there hollering after him.