Rhylander stepped up, holding his horse and hers. Lill clasped her hands. “Thank you, Mr. Osterlund. I do appreciate your escorting me home. It is good to come across a real gentleman.”
When Ry lifted her to her saddle, she sat both legs to one side as I’d never seen her ride before. “Goodbye, Ned. Please tell Avelina she made a beautiful bride.”
I watched Lill and Ry diminish into the huge swath of grassland, wasting in the ocher field until they were no more than gnats. I again imagined shooting Buck but didn’t have near the passion for it. Too quick an end, as well. I prayed he would suffer the way Lill was doing. Justice would turn Reta’s head, her rani eyes would light on another romantic lead, and she would betray Buck the way Buck betrayed Lill. That was for later, however. It was wrong that he should be so happy now, while Lill endured. I watched Buck tossing back whiskeys and slapping backs, waiting for it to stir me to action, but it only made me unfathomably weary.
The door to the house was barred. Of course. I hadn’t made plans where to sleep during Tilfert and Avelina’s connubial extravaganza, but the dude tents were still up, the cots ready. I dragged one toward the tent flap, so that while I lay there I could see the stars and wonder why the intense spangle of night was so beautiful and close in the wilderness, indifferent in the city. I was drifting off to sleep when I heard someone approach and relieve himself in the bushes. I covered my ears against the rude splatter. Still, I could hear someone yell, “Buck! Where’re you off to?”
He shouted from the bushes, “Takin’ a leak. Be there in a minute.”
He’d barely finished buttoning himself when I hit him broadside.
Buck spun about, swearing, and had me by the collar in a second. He swung back and punched me in the nose.
I came to on the cot, my face pulsating around my aching eyes. Buck held a cloth to my nose, which was streaming red.
“Damn it, Ned, what did you do that for? Lucky I didn’t shoot you.”
I grabbed the cloth from him and nursed my own nose. It crackled a bit when I dabbed at it. “Son of a bitch, you broke my nose!”
He put out his hands. “I didn’t know it was you.”
“You knew it was Lill.”
“You don’t know the whole story.”
“I know enough.”
He sighed and sat down beside me. “I’m sorry if I hurt her. I came back, at least. Let her know … how things stood.”
I shook my head at him. He disgusted me.
He eyed me, then demanded, “How do you know she didn’t break my heart first? Why are you so goddamn sure you know everything?”
“Did she?”
“It was coming.” He strode to the tent flap. “I asked her to go with me, Ned. She could’ve done that.”
“So you humiliated her?”
“What I feel for Reta is true. If I could’ve done it different, I would’ve. I care about Lill—I loved Lill—but it just wasn’t going to work out. Believe me, it hurt me too.”
I sneered at him, though it was dark. “You’re an actor, all right.”
“What are you, Lord Turpentine?”
I would have gone after him again, no matter my nose still bleeding like a stuck pig, but there was a terrible scream and the shriek of horses.
We ran out of the tent. The corrals had been opened and horses were stampeding through the revelers. A man on horseback tore past, the moonlight glinting off his bare legs.
Buck swore. “Raiders.”
The commotion was over in a minute, the scream of horses silenced, dust rising bright in the moonlight, the fire showing tables tipped and broken, dishes lying in the dirt. Someone moaned; another called, “Goddamn cow stepped on my leg!”
At daybreak every man available who yet owned a horse mounted to search for the raiders and the livestock. Chin remained unfazed outside the stable, contentedly chewing grass, but she wouldn’t let me or anyone else on her back. She would finally have met her demise at the business end of Captain Ellmore’s pistol, after she pitched him into the dirt and shit on him for good measure, but I interceded and he took a private’s horse instead.
I wanted to go with the men and begged Chin to take me, to allow me to do something useful instead of scuffling dirt, feeling weak and puny. She would not, and instead wandered a few steps toward the Martine homestead.
However ready and willing I was to meet warriors in battle, I quailed to face Lill, though I knew I should go to her. Her misery would only have bred in the night, and I couldn’t bear to witness that pain.
About then, Avelina opened the door to the house and she and Tilfert strode out on the hour like the carved farmer and wife in a Swiss clock. Tilfert grinned as he surveyed the wreckage still strewn on the dirt. “Some party, huh? Where is everybody?”
I rolled my eyes. “Didn’t you hear anything? Raiders stampeded and stole half the horses. It was bedlam.”
Tilfert blushed. “We was kind of busy, Ned.”
I didn’t want to hear it.
* * *
After lunch I managed to marshal my dread. Chin was some ways up the trail to Martines’ as if she were endorsing the direction. I trudged to her and stroked her muzzle. “Fine, I’ll go. Are you taking me?” She stepped away. I put out my arms. “I saved you from the captain this morning. Doesn’t that make us even?”
She waited for me to catch up and blew in my ear, but when I grabbed her mane to mount, she shied. All was not forgiven. If I wanted to see Lill, I’d have to hoof it. It was a long walk, but I didn’t have anything else to do.
I commenced the journey, Chin alongside. It was a pretty day, a bunting cloud cover veiling the oppressive heat, and in spite of my miserable circumstances I felt my spirits rise. If I felt better, perhaps Lill did as well. She might have been telling the truth about being relieved to see Buck as the skunk he was. And she might have been lying when she called me a boy without prospects.
Surprisingly, it was almost faster walking to Martine’s than riding Chin there—owing to the lack of side trips. My legs were strong, the day cool, and sometime before dinner I espied the Martine hold. As we approached I warned Chin. “Don’t expect turnips for this.”
Approaching Martines’, my hopes rose further still. Conversation and laughter floated from inside the house, sounding more like a party than heartbreak. An unfamiliar wagon was tied in front. I eyed it curiously as I stepped onto the porch and knocked.
Mrs. Martine answered. “Why, Ned, come in, come in. You’re just in time to help us celebrate!”
Lill ran to the door in the daffodil dress and put out her hand. Her face was strained, her color up. She looked overly excited, a little wild. I wondered if she wasn’t feverish.
“Ned. Just whom I wished to see.” When she kissed me on the cheek her lips were cold, her hands chill.
I walked with her hand still in mine to the dining room, where Mr. Martine greeted me. I was feeling both oddly concerned yet still hopeful when Ry Osterlund walked in from the kitchen.
“Ry, you met Ned last night?”
“Ja. How are you?”
I shook his hand. What was he doing here? The wagon in front must be his, but last night he had been on horseback. Lill put out her hand again. Again I took it. She shook me off this time, then held out her hand once more. “Ned, silly. Look.”
On her left hand was a thin gold band. I spoke slowly. “Pretty.”
“Ned, Ry gave it to me.”
“No.”
“Yes.” She walked over to Ry and leaned against him. The Ry who swallowed the canary.
“You are engaged?”
“Oh, no.” She turned her hand one way and another to watch the light wink on the gold.
I felt a wash of relief that made my knees go weak and I sat down with a laugh.
Lill looked over the horizon of her hand at me. “We’re married, Ned. We drove to North Platte this morning. I am now Mrs. Rhylander Osterlund.”
CHAPTER 9
The sky, now darkened to c
harcoal and slate, was spitting rain by the time I slid off Chin’s back at the fort. Tennessee came running out of the shack that served as mercantile and post office, waving a piece of paper.
“Turp! You got a letter from that greenhorn wag in Connecticut.”
Chin walked sedately into the stables. I stared at the envelope in my hand. It was from Elias Montgomery, lawyer, buffalo mangler. I ripped open the flap and read the missive, praying for a change in fortune.
Dear Mr. Bayard,
Your artwork hangs in my office, a most felicitous memoir of my Wild Western Adventure, which receives constant compliment.
I wish I could offer as much to you.
I have been in contact with your grandmother’s law office, Alan and Jamieson, a rather threadbare concern, I must say. They hastened to make clear that they were engaged by your grandmother, not by your mother or by you, and therefore have no responsibility to dispense information. I managed to persuade him to give me some vague sense of affairs.
Your mother is without means. At some point your grandmother borrowed money from a Mr. Cornelius Pierce, which necessitated the auction of your family’s estate six months after her death and, I assume, after you had left for Nebraska.
Unfortunately, the proceeds were substantially less than the money owed the debtors, which included the law firm itself. Mr. Jamieson wished me to assure you that the firm not only forgave their portion of the debt but also worked diligently to ensure there would be no attachments against your future earnings. Be comforted that, though you are not wealthy, neither are you in arrears.
It seems that at some time after the settlement your mother journeyed to England with a pickle merchant. How Jamieson knew this he wouldn’t say. The name of the merchant is not known.
I am sorry to send you such poor news. I hope that your mother has since contacted you and your mind is at rest.
Sincerely,
Montgomery Elias
P.S. The firm’s clerk, a rather weasel-faced young man, caught me outside of the building and asked for your address. I, of course, would not give him the information. He gave me this slip of paper and said there was more. I hesitate to pass on the communication, as I did not trust the fellow as far as I could throw him.
I reeled. I was no closer to my mother than before, possibly more confused than ever, and now I didn’t even have a home to return to thanks to the perfidy of Mr. Cornelius Pierce. He owned the estate to the east of us and was supposedly a friend. He and my grandmother would get together to tut-tut over the sad state of society with the focus and frequency with which drunkards enjoy gin.
It occurred to me that Cornelius Pierce had engineered the debt and auction in order to purge my mother and me from Connecticut society. He disapproved, to put it lightly, of mixed marriages such as my father had lowered himself to, he and Grandmother theorizing that my weak constitution was due to my mother’s poisoning my father’s elite blood with her base German heritage.
However, I couldn’t imagine my grandmother borrowing money from anyone, much less enough to sink the estate. She was tight as new shoes. Furthermore, what about the shadowy man who waited on my mother in the parlor? Was he the pickle merchant? Why would he take my mother to England? I could feel the warmth drain from my face; my knees wobbled.
Tennessee took off his hat and fanned it toward the sky. “Gonna be a real goose drowner by the look of things.” When I didn’t respond, he stuck his hat back on his head and muttered, “Think I’ll go check the damned horse.”
I dazedly reread the letter as the paper shriveled around occasional drips of rain. Why hadn’t my mother at least written? Ashamed, perhaps, of her plummet to picklemaker’s wife? I could hardly blame her, for either the shame or her need. A woman without means, without relatives, would end up on the streets. The liaison was a desperate act: a small step, but still a step, above the abasement of homelessness.
I shook the envelope, looking for the scrap of paper the weasel clerk handed Elias. It was half the size of a dollar bill, charred and so smoke blackened I could hardly read it. Printed in what were once sizable blue letters were the letters ORIUM. In handwritten cursive, I read:
yard’s health im
ungs cleared of phlegmat
Was it Bayard’s health the note referred to? It was a stretch. The reference could be to anyone, about almost anything. I folded the letter carefully and slid it back into the envelope, tucked the burnt paper inside and placed it in my pocket. I trudged to Avelina’s house.
Avelina sat in her rocker, asleep. A fire blazed on the hearth, making the room beastly hot. She snorted awake. “Ned. Lookit me, sleepin’ in daylight. Feelin’ better, aren’t ya? A little fresh air’ll lift a man.”
I sat at the table and put my head on my arms.
“Ned?”
I spoke through the angle of my elbows. “Lill’s married Rhylander Osterlund. My mother is in England with a pickle man. I’ve lost the house, the grounds. There is no inheritance. No goodbye.”
Avelina sat beside me. “Aw, Ned. I know you were taken with Lill.”
I waited, and when she didn’t say anything else I raised my head and protested. “Taken with her? I love her and she’s lost, along with my mother, my fortune, and my name.”
Avelina made a rude sound with her lips. “It’s not like Lill’s dead, Ned. Your mother neither. She’s in England. You can visit her, if it comes to that.”
“Maybe we can even pound pickle barrels together en famille.”
“That’s the spirit.”
I groaned again.
“Now, Ned. Don’t forget that bone job. Drawin’ all them pitchers you like to do. That’s something.” She got to her feet with a grave sigh, went to her bureau, pushed things from one side to another, and pulled out a gold disk on a ribbon. “Here. Take this. Sell it and make a start in Connecticut.”
It was the medal she’d hung around Tilfert’s neck for monumental buffalo killing. I took the disk and examined it closely, identifying what it really was: a medal for valorous conduct, engraved Frank O’Hare Junior.
She pointed. “My da.”
“I thought he was in Portsmouth.”
“He deserted me when I was twelve, thirteen. That’s all I have of him.”
I handed it back. “I couldn’t take it.”
She looked cross. “I tol’ you, he deserted me.” She pushed it back. “I want you to have it, Ned. Take this and your notebooks and that ticket money the bone man left you, and go back east.” She collapsed back into the chair. “Make a life for yourself and forget Lill Martine. It don’t matter how much you feel like you love her … you can only really love a body who loves you back.”
I nodded, knowing Lill did love me; that was the pain of it. Avelina struck her hand like a gavel on the table. “Now get yourself somethin’ to eat.”
I felt in my pocket for the charred paper. “There was something else, kind of strange.”
She waved me off. “Later, Turp. I’m not feelin’ so perkish. I think all the wedding folderol took it out of me. Need a proper nap, I guess.”
She did look tired, hands heavy in her lap, eyelids dark and low.
“Where’s Tilfert?”
“Freightin’ to Denver. Won’t be back till a week from Sunday, and that’s only if the weather holds.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “Winter’s comin’ on already.”
Certainly the rain had begun. Fat, then fatter drops slapped the wooden roof as the temperature dropped, making the fire welcome. Avelina got up, pulled the curtain around the bed, and called through it, “Keep the stove goin’, would ya, Ned?”
She slept fitfully, mumbling and exclaiming between strangled snores, and so passed the last hours of afternoon and then into evening without even rising to make dinner. I didn’t feel like eating anyway and chewed on a piece of bread as I thought my dismal thoughts. I took a walk in the rain, telling myself that Avelina was right, there was still the Peabody job and, though it seemed pale recompense,
at least it gave me somewhere to go.
Avelina was still sleeping when I returned and went to my own bunk. I slept poorly myself, dreaming of a bright bird that I had allowed to fly from cat to cage when all it would have taken to save the beautiful thing was the offer of my hand.
In the morning, the fire was cold, no breakfast in sight. I went to Avelina’s curtain and called through, but there was no answer. I called again and she spoke in a hoarse, breathless voice. “Let me sleep.”
I peered through the curtain. I could see the mound that must be Avelina on the bed in the corner. I stepped in. “It’s nine, are you sick?”
She was pasty gray in the face, shivering still in spite of having piled every cloth, quilt, and robe on top of her bed. She moaned when I came close. “Leave. I don’t want comp’ny.”
“You are sick.”
“Enjoyin’ a bit o’ bad health’s all. I’ll sleep it off.”
“You need anything?”
“Find out if Tilfert’s on the way back, will you? And the fire, Ned. Witch’s-tit in here.”
I stoked the fire until the little house was again too warm for my comfort, even as rain poured from the skies and wind gusted.
Of course no one’d heard from Tilfert. By the time night came, Avelina was calling to him as if he were standing there and the day was high. “You bring in the kindlin’ and I’ll be making Mother’s butter cake. I’ve got the butter from Snell, at a dear cost, that’s sure. We should get our own cow. Maybe in the spring. The cow’ll calve. If it would only be a heifer, that’d be a blessing.”
She was no better by the next morning. I called Captain Ellmore’s wife to sit with her, thinking she’d appreciate another woman, but Avelina found the strength to throw a pillow at the poor woman and tell her to get the hell out. She’d have no one but me.
“Ned, Neddy, have you heard from Tilfert?”
“He’s still on the freight job, Avelina.”
“Ask ’im to come home, would ya?” She took hold of my arm. Her grip was weak; her hands looked papery; her eyes, holes burnt in a blanket. “Tilfert should come home.”
Turpentine Page 8
