A Prayer for the Dying (13 page)

At Bjornsons, one hen isn’t dead and tries to fly, its feathers burning. You hit it with your shovel until it stops.

“Sorry,” you say, even though no one’s around, only the Bjornsons laid out by the woodpile, waiting for you to take care of them. Emil was more afraid of the fire.

“I am too,” you say. “Still, better west than east.”

Crazy Jacob.

“Fiddlesticks,” you say, and take up the shovel again, bend your back. Dig them deep enough so the coyotes don’t get them.

At home you learn to make cornbread from a recipe. Marta’s writing goes all over the place.

“Is this salt?” you ask.

What else would it be?

“I don’t know,” you say.

Two teaspoons of salt.

“I’ve never made this before.”

Don’t fret, it’ll be fine. Take a rest while it rises. Come in here and sit with us.

Marta’s on the love seat in the blue dress you like, Amelia in her lap. You bring your whiskey in and sit with them. In the kitchen the stove hisses, a knot pops. You put your arm around her, give her a kiss on her cool, rouged cheek.

“How are you feeling?”

Much better. It must have been the sleep.

“And how about you?” you say, and pick up Amelia, lift her under the arms so her feet dangle. Her blue, blue eyes. You give her a kiss and return her to Marta, get up to check on your cornbread, but at the doorway you turn back to look at them, to admire them sitting there, the ones you love, and count yourself lucky, yes, even blessed, having almost lost them.

6

All morning the quarantine brings town out of their houses. To challenge it, to complain of the decision, dispute its usefulness, its legality. They come to you with questions you can’t answer, though out of politeness—out of duty—you try. Byron Merrill, Bill Tilton—people you haven’t seen in weeks. They crowd into the jail, clog the sidewalk. They’ve already been to Doc, they say; like children polling their parents, they’re hoping you’ll give them a different answer, make an exception to the rule.

“We’re all in the same boat,” you say, knowing it won’t placate them.

How long, they all want to know.

“One week, maybe two.”

“What are we supposed to do till then?” Fenton says. “I’ve got business to tend to.”

“Then tend to it,” you say.

“How am I supposed to do that? I’ve got a shipment of coffee sitting in Shawano I can’t get to.”

“Have them ship it.”

It’ll cost too much to ship.

Mrs. Bagwell’s daughter is stuck in Shawano.

Carl Huebner was off on business, and now he can’t get back in.

And George Peck, down to Rockford buying brick for the mill.

Why can’t they come in if they want to? It’s their risk, no one else’s. Long as no one’s going out, what’s the difference?

“It’s for the good of everyone,” you say, as if logic might satisfy them. You want to say it’s not your fault, yet a week ago you were ready to close the roads. Which is it?

“I see you got Marta and your daughter all nice and locked up,” Mrs. Bagwell accuses. “Taking no chances with them.”

“No,” you say, “and I’d suggest you do the same.”

“That’s no kind of advice,” Fenton says.

You turn on him, shoulders squared, like you mean to fight, then stop yourself. “It’s the right thing and you know it.” Then to everyone: “Two weeks is not a long time.”

Grumbling, an obscenity that—admit it—shocks you. No one believes you. Two weeks is a lifetime.

“Go on,” you say, “I’ve got my own work,” and herd them out, waving your hat around like they’re cattle.

You’re right, you think, it is the right thing. Why do you have to justify it?

Not all of them leave you alone. Emmett Nelligan won’t let go of his sister Esther coming to visit. She came all the way from Ohio just to have Bart stop her at the line. She’s in a boardinghouse in Shawano, terrified; she doesn’t know anyone there.

You try to ignore him, collect everything from your desk before you leave. You need to wire Bart, check the fire line, look in on Doc.

“Every day it’s costing money to put her up,” he says.

You stop and look at him. “You don’t honestly want her in the middle of all this, do you?”

“I’m not sick,” he argues. “I can’t see what harm it would do—”

“Don’t,” you say. “There’s no point in it.”

“I don’t want her to be alone there,” he says, and what can you say but you’re sorry? You understand him completely.

Go over the telegraph office and have Harlow tell Bart that everyone’s unhappy. Phrased that way, it makes sense. They don’t hate you, they’re just frustrated. Deep down, they understand it’s best for everyone. They must.

Bart thinks differently; he expects some of them to make a break for it. He has a deputy posted by the sign, making sure everyone’s on the right side. It’s costing him fifty cents a day, but he knows you don’t have time. You’ve promised to help him as much as you can, and with every minute you spend away from the line, you feel more and more obliged.

Harlow’s swamped. Doc says it’s fine for you to bring mail in, but no outgoing post, so Harlow’s got a mess of wires to send. His bottom lip is black where he’s licked his quill. His hands ride the keys like spiders.

“Get St. Martine back yet?”

“Nope,” he says, concentrating, then relaxes, lifts his hands. “I tried Madison this morning and couldn’t get through. Tried to bypass through Milwaukee and that’s as far as I got. Everything north of here’s dead.”

“How about west?”

“I can get Montello, if that’s what you mean.”

“West of that?”

“Everything’s fine that way, but there’s nothing out there. Montello’s the one you’re worried about.”

“Can’t fool you,” you say.

“Don’t worry, I’ll let you know as soon as she goes.”

“Think she will now?”

“Tell the truth,” he says, “I’m surprised she’s still up.”

Out on the fire line, John Cole has his crew almost to the canal. Their picks fall in rhythm like a railroad gang. You’re not surprised by their bandannas. With the pale dust rising around them, and the long, broad trench, they look like gravediggers after a battle.

“They say it’s headed west again,” you tell John.

“So are we when we’re finished here.”

“Use the river.”

“Hitch it to that stretch of road this side of Cobb’s.” He says it like it’s not his idea, waits for you to suggest a better one, and you know why. The road goes east-west; even if the fire doesn’t jump the line, it can stick to one side and run right into town. There’s nothing but woods out there, a few grassy pastures.

“Not much else you
can
do,” you say.

“Nope,” he agrees glumly, and goes off to show the crew how close to the tracks they can dig.

Hiking back through the thicket, you notice deadfall parceled around the living trees like tinder. Even the jack pine are drying up, tufted with clumps of orange needles. You can afford to ignore the planks laid across low spots; the ground’s hard, the ferns withered. When you get to the road, you search the sky like a farmer. The high blue stretches for Iowa.

Bart’s deputy’s name is Millard—just a boy growing too fast for his clothes. He paces the line, holds a rifle like a soldier, solemn as Jeff Davis himself. Bart’s taught him well. Far off, Cyril rings three.

“All quiet?” you ask, and as Millard says, “Yessir,” the two of you hear the same jingling music and turn to see a procession coming up the road.

It’s the circus—red wagons and pennants flying. An elephant raises dust like a column on the march.

“Oh my gosh,” Millard says, forgetting his charge. “Oh my gosh!”

You’ve never seen one either, and watch it come on, interested in the way its skin moves, the funny trunk, the ridiculous ears, the dainty tail. You see why people called heading into battle Going to See the Elephant. No one could describe this to you, you have to see it for yourself.

A huge orchestrion on its own wagon thumps a tune. The horses’ bits are silvered, their heads plumed. They have big cats in gilded cages, leashed bear cubs tussling, a man handling a snake as thick as your leg. As they approach, you naturally step aside in deference, then remember and go out to meet them, a hand in the air.

The man driving the first wagon wears spectacles and a striped vest, like a chemist. He hauls on the reins and the team stops short. You can smell their horrible breath, their legs wetted against the heat.

“What is it, neighbor?” the driver asks.

“Town’s quarantined. We can’t let you in.”

“What have you got?”

“Diphtheria.”

He thinks on this, as if weighing their chances. “All we want’s to pass on through. We won’t so much as step down, any of us.”

“Can’t let you.”

“We can do it at a trot,” he says. “Won’t take but five minutes.”

You apologize but it’s not possible.

“Well, Goddamn you then,” he says pleasantly, and stands up on the bench to fish in a pocket. He pulls out a five-dollar bill and tries to hand it to you.

You look at it, then at him. The orchestrion goes on. “You’ll have to loop around south. There’s wildfire north of here.”

“Five minutes,” he tries again. “Down south’s going to take us way out of our way. We need to be in Montello—”

“You’re not listening to me,” you say, and find you’ve grabbed his wrist to pull him closer, and you see he’s afraid, that you’re hurting him. You twist his arm and he winces, shifts his body to accommodate it. “If you cross that line I will have to kill you, and I will. People are dying here. If you want to be one of them, then come on. Otherwise, you leave us be.”

He takes his arm back warily, then starts to turn his wagon around, bumping over the lip of the road.

“South,” you call after him, but he doesn’t look back. The other drivers fix you with a glare, which you return expertly, daring them to say a word, spit, anything. None of them do, except the elephant, who leaves a single cannonball of a dropping as he swings around; it raises a puff of dust, then sits there like an insult as the tinny music fades.

Millard gapes at it, amazed. “Why,” he says, “that thing’s as big as my head.”

You laugh at him, but wonder why you threatened the man, what made you do it.

It’s everything, you think. It’s reasonable, considering, but still you ask forgiveness, promise to stay on guard against your temper.

“I would of liked to see it,” Millard says. “The circus.”

“You saw more than most,” you say, and because of who you are, he agrees.

Nobody in, nobody out.

“I don’t want you shooting anyone though,” you tell him. “That’s up to me and Sheriff Cox. If it comes to that, shoot straight in the air.”

“But the sheriff said—”

“I know what he said. I’ll have a talk with him, don’t you worry.”

He seems deflated, and to soothe him you show him the army way to about-face, how to pivot just one heel, use the other toe to bring you clean around. You leave him practicing, counting cadence to himself, walking box-guard around the dropping.

Riding, you shake your head at Bart. Have to talk to him, get someone with a little more hair on his chin.

In town, another crew’s wetting down the roof of the mill with a hose, drenching the mounds of cast-off sapwood. Lumber’s piling up because of the quarantine. The hose is anchored in the river, and two big Swedes are working the water engine like a teeter-totter. The channel’s narrow; on the cracked flats the sun’s baking a stranded sucker. You’ll have to set out barrels of sand at each street corner, find enough buckets. At least there’s no chance of panicking anyone further.

Tomorrow, though. There’s hardly anything left of today. You didn’t even get lunch. Too much to do.

You stop in at Doc’s before closing up shop. He’s got a list of families you need to keep an eye on, and two bodies he wants you to get to before you go home.

“Who?” you ask.

“May Blanton and little Stevie Roy.”

You wish you were still shocked, that you’d search for a reason these two were taken. May’s only a few years older than you, and Stevie’s almost ten, resentful that people still call him “little.” Someone like Elsa Sullivan you expect to die, not these two.

“I’ve got both houses under quarantine,” Doc says. “It’s coming to that, specially west of town. Tomorrow I’d appreciate it if you’d come with me to look in on some folks. They don’t tend to like what I have to tell them. And some are sure to have family that need to be taken care of. I’d like you to bury them on their land, where it’s possible. These two can go in the churchyard if they’ll fit.”

“I’ll fit them,” you say, and it feels good, after so long, to make a promise you know you can keep.

“And don’t bleed them,” he says. “Do I have to tell you that?”

“No,” you say, and this time you mean it.

To make up for it, you do good work on their coffins; don’t skimp, dig their plots deep. It’s good to work, to feel the hurt in your shoulders, your forearms hard. Grunt, blow a drop of sweat off your nose. You almost don’t think of Amelia, the spot in the garden. No, they’re both at home, safe, waiting for you. There’s no way they can get it; you’ve told them not to go out, to lock the door. You’ll protect them, keep them secret.

It’s night by the time you pack the dirt flat with your boots, and when you go to close up the jail, you find someone has smeared your door with dung.

At first you think of the elephant, and Millard, but without sniffing you can tell this is horse. You go inside and find an old
County Record
to swab it off with.

“Fenton,” you say.

Emmett Nelligan.

Strange to admit, it could be anyone. Suddenly Friendship’s a nest of enemies.

Just frustrated.

No, more. You think of the circus driver’s eyes, the way he understood what you were capable of.

You finish daubing it off, but there’s nowhere to throw the paper away. You look up and down the street, then cross and stuff it under Fenton’s sidewalk, rinse your hands in the scummy trough water.

Marta’s waiting for you in the dark with Amelia. You light the lamp and visit with them, then go into the kitchen and make dinner. Beans and fatback tonight, the captain’s favorite.