One Came Home

by Amy Timberlake

  I sat down on the chair. I missed Grandfather Bolte as well as Agatha. Further, like an echo, I felt an ache for my pa. Everyone was gone. Even those crazy pigeons were gone.

  Nothing left. Nothing to be done. No thing, no one, no …

  I sat for what seemed like two months with those saddlebags at my feet. Then I got up, dumped the bags out on the bed, and began to sort through them.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Georgie?”

  It was Ma. She’d come up despite her guests.

  I looked at the bed and saw my entire journey—everything from inside my bags—spread out on it.

  I opened the door anyway.

  The plate she carried made me smile. Ma had piled that plate sky-high with three-berry pie, a thick slice of ham, a currant bun, two cleaned carrots, and a steaming potato stuffed with whipped butter. She set it on the desk and then reached out and squeezed my hand.

  I found the photograph of Agatha in the midst of the jumble and handed it to her.

  Ma ran her finger around the frame. “I missed seeing her.”

  “I’m sorry, Ma.”

  Ma gave me a slight smile and turned her eyes to the items on the bed. She picked up the metal gun barrel from the Springfield and the charred remains of its buttstock. She set them down again without saying a word.

  But then she saw the split skirt. She lifted it up, put her finger through a bullet hole, and looked at me. The question was plainly written in her eyes.

  “I wasn’t wearing it at the time,” I said weakly.

  Ma’s eyes widened further. “Not wearing your skirt …?”

  I shook my head.

  “Tomorrow I need to hear what happened. Today get some rest.” Ma embraced me again, and then took a step toward the door.

  “Ma?”

  She turned back.

  “Did Agatha write?”

  Ma’s eyes went soft. “No, dearest, she didn’t.”

  The weight of those words: a blanket made of lead.

  “Oh,” I said. I sat down. The ropes under the bed moaned.

  Ma may have said something more, but I do not remember. I do not even remember her leaving the room.

  Sometime later I compared blue-green cloth. One was a ribbon, the other a piece of fabric from Ma’s scrap bag. I placed them next to each other. I looked closely.

  The fabric matched—no question in my mind.

  I lay back on the bed and stitched together a story: Agatha had been separated from the blue-green gown in some manner. She sold it, or traded it, or had it forcibly taken from her. Somehow, the dress ended up with the Garrow family (a family of less-than-sterling reputation). Then the ribbon had been made, and that ribbon (at least eventually) found its way into the little girl’s hair. Since Darlene Garrow was a young lady of Agatha’s age with auburn hair, it followed that Darlene Garrow was the one who got shot. Not my sister. Was Darlene wearing the dress when she was shot? It seemed so. Why she was wearing it? Who knew?

  As for Agatha, if that stationmaster had correctly remembered a young lady traveling by train early in the morning, then that young lady was my sister.

  But my sister had not written.

  Was she alive?

  I did not know.

  What had I accomplished by leaving, then? Not much.

  “That’s a lie,” I said out loud.

  I had experienced a few things. I’d scared a cougar. I’d learned appreciation for a certain mule. I’d survived a shoot-out. I’d proposed marriage to Billy, and felt the stab of his betrayal. I remembered the lonesomeness as I sat beside Billy, waiting for his death and then my own. At that moment I’d been whittled down to a paper-thin ache.

  Lost to all that knew me. Known to none. Prey for bad men.

  The feeling overtook me there and then. (I am haunted by it still at times.)

  But then the tattered ends of sounds drifted up from the mourners gathered below. I heard a wave of laughter as one of our neighbors finished his story. Glasses thunked on tabletops. Someone said she’d better help in the kitchen. Another neighbor said she remembered that day … and what about the day when …? It was a constant stream of conversations, forks scraping over plates, china jostling. I heard one person comforting another, saying, There, there, there …

  This set me to crying into my pillow. I can’t tell you what that cry was about because there were so many parts. But I can tell you this: I heard the sounds of my neighbors. I would be part of them tomorrow.

  Then I thought: I am part of them. They know I am here.

  I was home.

  Much happened (and quickly) during those first weeks back. I will not detail every last thing, but here are the salient points:

  On Saturday, June 17, 1871 (the day of Grandfather Bolte’s funeral), the federal marshal and his posse succeeded in capturing what became known as the Garrow Counterfeiting Gang. That week newspaper headlines across the country told of the arrest. Mrs. Hilda Garrow, “the ringleader’s wife,” was the only member that remained “at large.” The newspapers said she had “slipped off without a trace along with her three red-haired children.”

  I found out later that Mr. Olmstead, the sheriff, and the federal marshal had conspired to keep me out of the newspapers. In the end, it could not be done. “Girl Sharpshooter Brings Down Counterfeiters” read the headline in the Milwaukee newspaper. I found myself described as “a pigtailed hoyden” with a bruise covering “half her head.” In addition, Mr. Garrow called me a “freakishly accurate” sharpshooter who “shot the thumb off a man at two hundred yards.” That wasn’t all: I “lay in wait like the snake from the garden of Eden.” And in case readers were unclear on the matter, Mr. Garrow concluded: “I’ve never met a natural man who can do such things. This was a daughter of Beelzebub.”

  I did not deserve that. The only thing I’d done was practice. If you practice, you expect to acquire a modicum of skill.

  But with all the ballyhoo, I became notorious. Small children came running into our store, and from half-hidden positions (behind display tables, the front door, even the spittoon) they shot at me with pointed fingers, sticks, and broom handles. Grown men sidled up to tell shooting stories, letting me know I wasn’t so much.

  The worst part about being notorious, though, was the newspapermen. They arrived during the last week of June. Varmints—every one of them! I hated their darting eyes, their lead-dirtied fingernails, and the timepieces they checked obsessively, pulling them in and out of vest pockets. Those jittery men wanted to know everything about one Georgina Burkhardt. They cornered neighbors, summer visitors, itinerant farmers. Then they slapped open notebooks, fired off questions, and jabbed the air with tiny, dagger-sharp pencils.

  Ma sent me to my room and told me to stay there. I happily complied. The onslaught of newspapermen lasted for four days, and I survived it without telling my story.

  There was another reason besides the newspapermen’s basic repulsiveness for my being less than forthcoming. See, those newspapermen did not want my story in its entirety. They only wanted exaggerated stories of caves full of money and shoot-outs with a girl who claimed kinship with Satan. And Agatha was the reason I left! Those newspapermen never asked one question about Agatha. That made me mad enough to spit nails.

  Counterfeiters? Shoot-outs? Incidental.

  I did tell my story, though. I told it to the people who would listen to it all and who knew me well. The second night back, Ma urged me to tell. I did. Seated at the kitchen table, I told Ma, the sheriff (who again happened to be there), Mr. Olmstead, and Aunt Cleo. I told them everything I’ve told you.

  I handed them my mementos. They held what remained of the Springfield single-shot and the spine of The Prairie Traveler. They put their fingers through the bullet holes in the split skirt. They carefully unwound the ribbon found in the penny-colored hair of a tiny girl. I pointed out that it matched fabric in Ma’s sewing basket. I told them what the Dog Hollow stationmaster had said. And then I let t
hem draw their own conclusions.

  Apologies were spread around. I said I wished I could apologize to Agatha (for telling) and to Grandfather Bolte (for spiteful behavior).

  “I almost threw him out of the house when I found out what he’d arranged,” said Ma.

  “I heard about that,” said Mr. Olmstead.

  “I thought you’d never talk to me again,” said the sheriff.

  Ma pointed at him. “You are a lucky man.” She broke into a smile, and the sheriff wrapped his hand around her finger.

  Aunt Cleo’s eyebrows shifted the minutest bit upward, and finally, I saw it. Good gravy, they’d been friends for so long that I hadn’t thought …

  “Aren’t you too old for love?” I said.

  Ma grinned, looked at the sheriff, looked at me, and shrugged.

  Turned out, while I’d been gone, they’d decided to get married. They weren’t wasting any time either. They’d asked Reverend Leland to marry them after the sermon the next week.

  I laughed and held up my hands. “Fine. Do as you will,” I said.

  Did I have any hesitations about my ma and the sheriff? Only one—Billy.

  Billy coming home: I dreaded it and wanted it. Mostly, I dreaded it.

  But the week after the newspapermen left (the beginning of July), the sheriff brought Billy home. I watched for him, sure he was around every corner, behind every closed door. But avoidance in Placid is like trying to dodge the wind. Eventually everyone comes upon everyone else.

  Five days later it happened. I was by myself that day. The sheriff had enticed Ma out for a picnic (said it’d do her good), and Aunt Cleo was seeing about getting the store roof reshingled in exchange for eradicating a customer’s debt.

  At that moment, I was searching for something on the shelves under the store counter. I heard the sound of boots and said: “Be right with you.” When I straightened up, I found Billy McCabe standing in front of me.

  Awkwardness abounded. You can read my face like a book, and Billy did. “I’m not here to cause grief. I’ve done enough. I know it.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but found nothing to say.

  “You saved my life. I didn’t deserve it. Thank you,” he said.

  I noticed the dark circles under his eyes, and how he moved tentatively, hunched slightly to the left.

  I mumbled something about everybody deserving to live.

  I meant it. But the way he’d used me pained me still, and I remembered with shame my marriage proposal. I’d had enough of Billy McCabe. Though, oddly, I also desired to have a long talk with him. He was the only person who had experienced everything I had.

  Overcome with warring emotions, I wished he’d leave.

  Billy nodded. “It does you credit that you don’t say what you’re thinking.”

  I wondered what exactly he thought I was thinking. I could barely read my own mind, so he couldn’t be getting the half of it.

  Billy rocked on his feet for a moment. Then he stepped forward and laid his hand down on the counter not far from where my own lay. Without thinking, I jerked my hand away.

  Billy flinched. “I am so sorry, Georgie.”

  “Go. Please,” I said.

  But he didn’t go. Instead, he set his eyes on mine. “I consider this a debt of obligation. I hope you’ll do me the honor of allowing me to pay you back someday. I won’t forget.”

  I managed to nod, and Billy walked out of our store.

  It was the last I saw of Billy McCabe. He kept his own distance, because I was by no means avoiding him (nor seeking him out). That summer Billy married Polly Barfod. I did not attend the ceremony, but I heard all about it. According to Ma, Billy had tears in his eyes when he said his vows. Polly wiped them gently away with her fingertips. (Ma said all that blond hair elaborately braided around her head made her look like an angel giving a blessing.) Billy shook his head (embarrassed), which tickled Polly. She covered her mouth to stop from laughing, but to no avail. Billy found this funny and snorted into a guffaw. And then the entire place, every last witness sitting in those pews, dissolved into chortling, hooting, and doubled-over laugher. People claim Polly said her vows, but no one heard them (except maybe Billy and Reverend Leland). When the reverend pronounced them man and wife and granted them permission to kiss, Billy and Polly drew together with such devotion that everyone—except the very young—looked away.

  They left for Minnesota two days later.

  Then there were the last loose ends. For instance, Aunt Cleo decided to stay permanently, proclaiming she craved adventure. She said moving from New York State to the frontier of Wisconsin certainly fit the bill, explaining that people in New York didn’t know what a “Wisconsin” was. Ma acquiesced on the condition that she take Grandfather Bolte’s room (the biggest in the house).

  And after paying my IOU to the store, I bought Long Ears from the sheriff. I’d kept the Bechtler gold dollars because of my yearnings for my pa. But Pa wasn’t coming back—like Grandfather Bolte—and I was tired of musing about situations that could never be. So I swapped daydreams for a true friend. The sheriff says he’ll never call him Long Ears. But Long Ears knows his name, and so do I.

  Living with uncertainty is like having a rock in your shoe. If you can’t remove the rock, you have to figure out how to walk despite it. There is simply no other choice.

  I kept busy. Busy helped. Every morning I started early in the store—restocking, sweeping off the porch whether it needed it or not, and straightening displays. When the store opened, I took on tasks that used to be done by Agatha and Grandfather Bolte: I advised customers. I completed the sale by taking money and counting back change. At the end of the day, I gathered up the receipts and went upstairs to record them in the account books on Grandfather Bolte’s desk.

  I liked it too. “She’s got a knack,” said Aunt Cleo to Ma repeatedly (and in my hearing). Another time Aunt Cleo said that sales ran in the family, and I’d inherited the tendency. I understood what she meant. I felt almost clairvoyant. Sometimes I knew what people wanted or needed before they knew themselves. I certainly liked devising schemes to sell this or that item: I formulated plans. I tweaked wordings on signs and made sure everything looked like a picture postcard from the plate glass window. And despite the circumstances, I felt a kind of congruity with the world and my place in it when the store thrummed like a beehive with Aunt Cleo, Ma, and me each doing our part.

  Still, we all wondered about Agatha. At different times, Ma, Aunt Cleo, and the sheriff all asked to see the ribbon again. Mr. Olmstead came by to make me repeat what the Dog Hollow stationmaster had said. I did not offer theories, and no one asked. For the first time, I started to understand what it must have been like for Ma as she wondered about Pa all those years.

  I imagine we all came up with ways to deal with the uncertainty. I did two things. First, I wrote letters. I wrote a letter to “The Harrisons, parents of Morgy Harrison, Dog Hollow, Wisconsin.” I wrote a letter to “Mrs. Garrow on the bluff, Dog Hollow, Wisconsin” and enclosed a piece of the blue-green ribbon. Then I wrote a letter to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The address read: “The Department That Educates Young Ladies in the Sciences.” It was an unlikely address, but I had to try. “If you see her, tell her to write us. We are longing for a word.”

  Second, I arose one morning while it was still dark, saddled Long Ears, and rode to the bluffs.

  Agatha had not come home, so I found a wide rock that overlooked the Wisconsin River and spoke about her loudly into the wind. I told her story. I told my story. I apologized.

  Agatha had not come home, so I told the air, the sky, the horizon (and, I suppose, Long Ears) what Agatha looked like when, parasol in hand, she spun under pigeons: spring set free, a dance of heaven and earth, mankind and creation enjoying each other’s company.

  Agatha had not come home, so I stood at the edge of that bluff, pulled up a dandelion gone white with seeds, and blew those seeds into the wind. I watched them sail off, tottering
, turning, and gradually descending to the river below.

  And I swear I saw a single blue feather in the wind.

  I watched it and remembered shooting those gin bottles after Agatha’s funeral. Feathers had flown up with every shattering. I had wondered about the difference between feathers and leaves, and now my thoughts came back to me. It was too true: Agatha had been carried away, beyond my reach, like some sort of feather. Me? I’d had my flight and was back at home. I found I did not mind.

  I could have gone on, but Long Ears nudged in to check my pockets for sugar, found none there, and tipped me over.

  I pushed his muzzle off me, stood up, and noticed the perfection of the day—not a cloud in the sky, not a breeze. And there was that mule with the ears that stuck out like hands on a clock, eyeing me.

  I love it when he waits like that. Long Ears knows it.

  I smiled at him, then looked again out over the edge of the bluff.

  Yes, I’d said what I needed to say.

  Long Ears stamped.

  I turned to him, and laughed for the first time that day. “What about an apple? Would that do?”

  On July 24, 1871, Ma shuffled through the mail (like she did). She squinted at the return address on a letter. A small sound—her tongue clicking—escaped her lips. The letter slipped from her hand.

  I watched it slice through the air like a feather and I knew.

  I knew before it hit the ground and skidded across the pine floor.

  Aunt Cleo hurried to pick it up. I watched Aunt Cleo’s face open up like the letter O.

  Ma set the rest of the mail down and grabbed the letter from Aunt Cleo’s hand. Aunt Cleo shooed a customer out of the store and flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED. Ma ripped the envelope off the letter. A newspaper clipping flapped to the ground. I picked up the clipping, and ran behind Ma to read over her shoulder.

  We read the letter together:

  Dearest Ones,

  Let me tell you that I am fine, since I am sure you are worried. I am in Madison, staying at a reputable boardinghouse for lady students. I’ve got a job as a store clerk. All is well, except for the turmoil in my thoughts and heart.