Beneath the Slashings (Divided Decade Collection)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  “Where is your mother?” Loon asked as she worked.

  The bluntness of the question took Grace by surprise. “She died when I was six years old after being thrown from a horse. Pa said something was broken inside her. She never got out of bed again.”

  The Indian’s eyes softened with understanding. “It is very sad for a girl to lose her mother. You must miss her very much.”

  Grace shrugged uncomfortably, unsure what else to do. “Sometimes I do.”

  “You have a brother.”

  “He’s my twin. He and Pa and I became very close after Mama died.”

  “It is good you are all back together,” Loon smiled.

  Grace grimaced. It hadn’t been all that good. “What about your family?” she asked to move the focus off herself. “You said you have grown sons.”

  Darkness crept into the woman’s face, and she did not answer. Instead, she set the saturated skins away from the fire. “These must rest until evening. They will soak overnight. Tomorrow, they must be stretched again and placed near fire to dry. Like these.”

  So saying, the woman ran her gnarled hands over the skins set about the fire. Apparently satisfied, she removed them from their frames and began kneading them into softness. “They need many hours of work. These I will sew.”

  Grace picked up the skin still sitting in her lap. “Have they been smoked like this one?”

  “No. Smoke seals skins. Those I will use for moccasins. These are for a blanket, and I do not sleep in the rain.” Loon smiled at her own joke.

  Her hands never stayed still. It was comfortable sitting beside the fire with Loon. It did not matter that she was of another race or another generation. She was a woman, and living in a land of men, Grace realized she had needed this visit desperately. She wondered if Loon had needed it too.

  The woman interrupted her thoughts. “You asked about my sons.”

  Grace looked up expectantly.

  “They live in Waw-gaw-naw-ke-zee. They are grown men with families of their own. But their spirits grow weak. They no longer act like Ottawa. Instead, they have become slaves to the white man’s firewater.”

  Grace’s heart grew heavy. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

  Loon raised her eyebrows. “Do you make them drink?”

  “No.”

  “They choose unwisely. It is why I must move back. If my grandchildren and great-grandchildren are to learn the way of the Ottawa, I must teach it to them. If I do not, the old ways will be forgotten.”

  Grace looked at the woman with a mixture of pity and amazement. Her culture was dying right before her eyes, like rabbit skins hung on frames with no spirit left in them. “How can you not be angry about all of this?” she asked. “How can you stay so calm?”

  “Would anger help me?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Would it change anything?”

  Grace shook her head.

  “It would not,” Loon agreed. “But sadness, this is an emotion I feel much of.”

  Grace gave the skin in her hands a sharp tug. The old woman made her feel more than a little ashamed for holding onto her own bitterness so tightly.

  Chapter 16

  “Must you cook that dreadful brew in my kitchen?” Ivan flicked a piece of meat off his knife and into the waiting mouth of Bertie.

  Grace glanced coolly at the cook through vapors smelling of lye. “This pot contains seventy-four socks. When I am done darning them, I will be nine dollars and twenty-five cents richer, minus the cost of yarn. Would you have me throw that away?”

  Ivan mumbled something under his breath in a foreign tongue. “First the skipping of vork, now a laundry in my kitchen. Ve all vould have done better if Davison had just hired her.”

  Since Christmas, her sock darning service had earned over ten dollars. Nobody even cared that she used yarn the same shade as pease porridge. Warm feet were color blind.

  The dingle door banged open. “Ivan! I just ordered a crate of canned peaches. I’ll have you know the men are expecting—” The kitchen door swung open and Mr. Bigg peered in, wrinkling his nose. “What is that wretched smell?”

  “Socks!” Sam grinned.

  The scaler pulled himself up to his full height and loomed over Grace. “Young lady, I absolutely forbid you to wash those abominable stockings in here. And in a cooking pot! The very idea turns my stomach!”

  She backed up instinctively but thought better of it. Raising her chin, she stood tall and gave the pot a defiant stir. In the flick of a horse’s tail, Ivan stood bristling at her side. “By whose authority do you speak?” he asked.

  “By my own,” Bigg growled.

  The scaler’s orders didn’t have the least effect on Ivan. “The kitchen is mine, and I think vashing socks in a kettle from vich you eat is a grand fine idea. The child has my permission. She needs not yours.”

  Bigg’s face turned a deep shade of scarlet. “As I was saying, the men will be expecting peach cobbler after the supply wagon comes this week.”

  “Did you clear this vith the boss?”

  Bigg looked as if the veins in his neck might burst. “Saturday will be my birthday, and Nickerson agreed that a small celebration is in order. I have taken the liberty of choosing peach cobbler.”

  “Vill you cook it, too?” Ivan scoffed.

  Bigg ignored the question. Spinning on his heel, he marched from the room. Ivan glared at the door a full minute before turning to Sam and muttering, “Remind me to burn some just for him.”

  Grace balanced the tray on one hand, pushed open the bunkhouse door with the other, and promptly gagged on the smell. Not only was every original odor strongly represented, now the distinct smell of vomit also permeated the air. The stomach flu had struck down five men last week. Now, twelve more were lying listlessly in their bunks. Pa had to rearrange all the work teams to compensate for the vacancies, including re-pairing Silas and Jefferson.

  Reversing his earlier orders, Pa insisted Grace enter the bunkhouse to help care for the men. “Sam and Ivan have their own duties that cannot be neglected. Besides, the disease carries no real danger.”

  So between kitchen chores, Grace had spent the last several days delivering toast and water to those who rotated through the sickroom. Far worse was the task of emptying the slop buckets set up beside those too weak to stagger outside.

  “How are you this morning, Happy?” Grace asked, approaching the first bed.

  The man moaned beneath his blanket. “They tell me I’ll make it through to see tomorrow, but I don’t see it, miss. I just don’t see it.”

  Fiddlesticks chuckled from a bed across the room. “You’d think it was cholera the way he’s been carrying on. I’ve seen men with mortal wounds who had a braver outlook than him.”

  Grace refilled the tin cup sitting on Happy’s bunk. “Think you can manage a piece of bread today?”

  “It won’t stay down no more than the water,” he answered mournfully.

  She smiled and patted his shoulder. “I’ll set it right here anyway, just in case you perk up.”

  Fiddlesticks snorted. “You better perk up right quick, Happy. The boss won’t give you a third day off work.”

  Happy moaned and rolled over, pulling his blanket over his head.

  Grace moved on to the next bed. “And how are you, Doc?”

  “Middlin’, miss. Middlin’. But I’ll be right as rain this evening. Think I could have a cup of tea with this toast? Stomach seems to be coming around.”

  “Certainly. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

  “Ain’t anything like the epidemics that swept through the army.”

  “What was it like in camp, Doc?” Grace asked as she moved on to the next man.

  Doc’s face grew grave. “You don’t want to know, miss.”

  Grace turned back and faced him squarely. “My Pa had a part in it. I do want to know. I want to understand.”

  Doc shook his head. “It was bad. Disease would sweep in from nowhere and w
ipe men out, like a wave erasing footprints from the sand. Smallpox, cholera, typhoid, influenza, measles—they killed more men than bullets did. If you caught one, it was as good as a death sentence.”

  “But you were a doctor. Couldn’t you do anything to help the men get better?”

  “I’m no doctor, miss. Just a clerk with some experience in the medical tents. But not even the doctors could do much. We learned a lot, like the fact that disease runs rampant in close, dirty quarters, but even at the end of the war our understanding was severely lacking.”

  “Close, dirty quarters?” Grace asked, glancing around the filthy bunkhouse. “Could such an epidemic happen here?”

  “Shoot, no, miss,” Doc scoffed. “Disease isn’t spontaneous. It has to be brought in from somewhere, and we’re too isolated for that. The camp is so far from civilization, it’s probably one of the safest places in the state.”

  But Grace thought immediately of the supply wagon that came every week and the visitors who sometimes rode in from town on company business. “We weren’t isolated enough to prevent the stomach flu,” she pointed out.

  Doc shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry your head about it, miss. If that’s all we catch, we’ll all live to see flowers bloom this spring.”

  His words brought little reassurance, but Grace pushed these new fears away willfully, as Sam would surely do. She would not worry about getting sick when she could do nothing to prevent it. She moved to fill the next tin cup.

  The distant sound, not of singing but of shouting, announced the unexpected arrival of men back to camp.

  “Ain’t even one o’clock yet,” Fiddlesticks commented. “Sounds like trouble.”

  He and three others followed Grace to the door.

  Silas Warren, bloody and violently angry, was being escorted by two men who each had firm hold of him. “It was an accident, Nickerson,” he was screaming. “I swear it!”

  Pa followed close behind, supporting Wrong Hand with an arm under his shoulders. “I heard what you said, Warren, but I know what I saw. The axe head may have come off accidentally, or it may not have, but there was no call to beat the sense out of this man with the helve.”

  Grace looked closer and saw Wrong Hand stagger slightly. Pa grabbed him more firmly and guided him to the bunkhouse. “Lock Warren in the van,” he instructed. “And if he destroys anything, I’ll take it out of his skin.”

  Grace held open the door as Pa and Wrong Hand passed through it. Up close, she could see the blood pouring from a gash on the man’s head, and his face looked as puffy as bread dough. She hustled to the kitchen and returned shortly with a pan of warm water and several clean rags.

  One of the men who had restrained Silas was speaking to Pa in a low voice. “...head flew off and lodged itself in Wrong Hand’s handle. I’ve never seen anything like it, boss. The boy should be dead.”

  “Did Jefferson do anything to provoke the attack?”

  Grace sat down beside Jefferson and gently bathed his head.

  “Naw, sir. He was plenty angry. I would be too if I had a partner that neglected his tools so shamefully. They got into a shouting match, but Jones didn’t do nothing that deserved this. Warren rushed him. The boy got in a few good blows, but a fist don’t stand up to wood.”

  “Thank you, Phillips,” Pa sighed. “You and Barker can head back to the woods.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pa moved to Jefferson’s bedside. “My daughter has you looking somewhat human again, son. How are you feeling?”

  Jefferson grinned, his teeth still intact. “Could be better, sir.”

  “A couple of the men told me what happened, and their stories match. I’ll be dealing with Warren directly. Grace, I’ll return with some bandages shortly.”

  Jefferson grabbed Pa’s wrist. “Don’t be too hard on him, boss. It’s plenty difficult to find work these days.”

  Pa’s eyes widened. “You don’t want me to fire him?”

  Jefferson uttered a hoarse chuckle, which quickly degenerated into a groan. “He’s got a woman and two little boys at home. I reckon they live with enough trouble without losing their income.”

  Pa looked into the battered man’s face for several minutes before turning on his heel. Before exiting, he addressed the sick men still out of their beds. “If you men are feeling so well, I expect boots on your feet and an axe in your hand.”

  That prompted a hasty rebedding.

  Grace cleaned Jefferson up as best she could. He was sleeping soundly when the last cup of tea was finally poured and the last sick pail emptied and scoured. Instead of returning to the kitchen immediately, Grace decided on a five-minute break in the stable.

  “Hello, Johansen.” Weariness robbed her greeting of some of its cheer.

  “Good afternoon, young lady.”

  The forge wasn’t lit today. Instead, the blacksmith was shaping wooden pieces with hand tools. On a table beside him sat two axes. “Are those Silas and Jefferson’s?” She need not have asked. She already knew.

  Johansen nodded. “Neat little trick, eh? When Silas’s head flew off, it lodged in the helve of Jefferson’s axe. Knocked it right out of his hands.”

  Grace walked nearer and her lips pursed into a soundless “O.” The force of motion had driven the blade deep into the wooden handle.

  “Lucky son-of-a-gun, wasn’t he?” Johansen smiled. “The thing is, this axe head didn’t come off by chance.”

  Grace looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, look at the gouges in the wood where the helve fit to the head. Someone tampered with this tool. Someone wanted the head to fly off.”

  Grace bent over the table and clearly saw the marks in the wood. “Do you think Silas meant for it to hit Jefferson?”

  “Sure seems someone did. But I don’t think it was Silas this time.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Jefferson’s helve has the same gouges. Someone tampered with both of them.”

  Grace yawned and drew her knees up under her chin. The woodpile didn’t make a comfortable perch, but she didn’t plan to stay outside for long.

  “Is this seat taken?” Gideon stood silhouetted against a luminous purple sky. She slid over to make room, her heart picking up its pace like a horse nudged with a lash. His company felt safe and thrilling at the same time.

  “What are you doing out here all alone?” he asked. “It must be fifteen degrees.”

  She leaned her head against the wall of the kitchen, looking up at the stars. They seemed so close, like moths fluttering just beyond her fingertips. “Just thinking,” she answered. “The stars help me. I mean, they must have seen everything there’s ever been to see. They’re kind of like God’s eyes. Sometimes when I sit under them, I almost feel like they—like He—whispers advice to help me sort things out.”

  “I never saw them that way,” he said with a glance heavenward. “Always just thought of them as stars.” He shifted uncertainly beside her. “Is it okay that I joined you? I can leave if you want to be alone.”

  “No, stay,” she answered quickly, reaching out a hand to touch his. Realizing what she’d done, she pulled it back just as quickly, glad for the darkness to hide her embarrassment. “I—I’d be glad for the company. I mean, it’s been a crazy day.”

  “Your hand is like ice. Here, take one of my mittens.” He settled beside her, his shoulder pressed against hers. “We can tuck in and try to conserve some warmth.”

  Heat was already gushing up from her cloak, but she was grateful for the mitten. She shoved both of her hands inside its warmth and fought to keep her voice steady. “Is Wrong Hand feeling better?”

  “Not yet, but he’ll come around in a day or two. Pretty awful, what happened.”

  She agreed, and they sat together in silence.

  “So, what have your stars been telling you tonight?” he asked after an uncomfortable moment. She saw his grin flash in the starlight.

  “Nothing yet. I was just thinking about hom
e and wondering what’s going to happen when the season is over.”

  “I imagine your Pa will be back next year.”

  “I imagine.”

  “You don’t sound very happy. Would that be so terrible to come back?” he asked.

  “Do you want to come back?”

  He chuckled. “Not really. I think about home quite a bit, too. Ma and my sister and two little brothers.”

  “What are they like, your siblings?” she prompted.

  He shrugged. “They’re kids. I don’t think of them quite so fondly when they’re underfoot and arguing all the time, but I miss them when I’m gone. And Ma, she’s had a rough time of it. I’m glad my brothers are there to help her with the farm.”

  “Is that what you plan to do someday? Be a farmer like your Pa?”

  “I reckon it’s all I know how to do.”

  She nudged him. “Now you don’t sound very happy.”

  “Well, milking cows isn’t exactly the stuff dreams are made of. It’s more in the realm of obligation.”

  “I’ll give you that,” she said. “So, if you could choose any future you wanted, what would it be?”

  He paused and looked up at the stars like he was straining to hear them whisper. “Guess I’d want to sail. At least for a time.”

  “On the Great Lakes?”

  “For starters. But there’s a whole world beyond them, and someday I want to see more of it.”

  He kept peering up at the sky as if he could see right through it and into the future. Then he turned to her. “So what do you hope the future brings?”

  “I want to go home.”

  “I thought your Pa sold your farm.”

  “He did.” She paused, trying to put her thoughts into words, trying to decipher her emotions. “If I can’t have home, I want someplace safe. Somewhere surrounded by people I love, where I know I fit in. A place that won’t shift or change. Someplace that belongs to me.”

  “That doesn’t seem like such a tall order,” he said. “Almost sounds like anywhere can become that place if you choose to make it so.”