Charity (20 page)

Gustie’s wrists and chest throbbed with pain. She had not counted on being back at Crow Kills so soon. Would Jordis be there? Gustie looked back again, wondering how Peter Madigan would last the hours it would take to get there.

But, last he did.

“Let her go. She knows the way,” Gustie said to Will, who gave Biddie her head. The mare turned right off the dirt road and pulled them up and over the rise. She stopped in her usual place.

Will and Gustie got down and stretched their legs and arched their backs to get the kinks out. Peter Madigan slid off Tom. His legs were wobbly. Gustie wished he would collapse.

Madigan looked around. His pale face was sun-burned. His nose glowed red.

“There’s nothing out here. This is no graveyard. Where have you brought me to? What are you up to now?”

Gustie had slipped into an exhaustion so deep, she had all she could do to reply, “I’m not up to anything. You wanted to see her grave. There it is.”

Before anyone else, Will saw the form rising up from the lake—a vision out of the not-so-long-ago-past of a dark woman in butter-soft doeskin that clung to her body agreeably. As she approached them, moving up from the lower ground with the stretch of sparkling blue water behind her, it looked to Will, his one eye squinting against a high noon sun, like she rose out of the lake. In the blinding sun, the blue beads glistening across her shoulders and down her sleeves looked like part of Crow Kills come with her. She climbed toward where they stood, the three of them, looking at the subtle rise of earth under the lone-standing cottonwood tree. She came closer. Will Kaiser took off his hat.

When Gustie saw Jordis she felt a jolt in her stomach and a flash of heat rise up her throat. The past dimmed for an instant in the brightness of this moment. “You look beautiful,” Gustie said, finally, softly. The words carried on the wind like the whisper of leaves. Jordis smiled. Peter Madigan was forgotten.

“Happy Fourth of July,” said Jordis. There was irony, humor, and welcome in Jordis’s voice. Gustie laughed.

Madigan would not allow himself to be out of mind for long, however. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

“This is Clare’s brother,” Gustie said. Some of her weariness lifted in Jordis’s presence. “He insisted on seeing her grave. I’ll get him out of here as soon as I can.” With more cordiality, she nodded to Will, “This is Will Kaiser, Lena’s husband. Will, this is my friend, Jordis.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Will nodded and shifted from one foot to the other, grinning like a pup. Jordis returned a silent greeting, then her eyes went back and forth between Gustie and Peter Madigan, reading the trouble in the air between them.

Madigan stared at the first live Indian he had ever laid eyes on. Gustie observed him assess Jordis and dismiss her. She was quite sure Jordis saw the same thing.

“There’s no grave here,” he said to Gustie. The discomfort and strain of the long ride and the heat had eroded his composure. “Where is she?” His voice was strident.

“She’s there.” Gustie inclined her head sadly toward the grave.

“This? What’s this? This is nothing!” The wild swing of his arm included all the land he saw.

The long fringes on her sleeves danced on the wind as Jordis extended her arm and pointed to the exact place beneath the cottonwood, “It is a grave. And this is the woman who dug it.”

“How would you know?” Peter Madigan sneered. Gustie wanted to kill him.

Jordis dropped her arm. “This is my land. I found her just as she was finished.”

“
You
found me?” Gustie had no time to absorb this information for Peter Madigan was murmuring the words
you killed her
. To Gustie, out loud, he said, “Why did you have to drag her off to this god-forsaken place?” The question affected Gustie more than his accusation. As strongly as she hated him, she also pitied him.

“She had been very ill for a long time. I didn’t know how ill, and she didn’t tell me. She knew I wouldn’t have made this journey if I had known.”

“What happened to her? Why out here?” Madigan’s voice broke.

For a moment Gustie understood how alone and small he must feel in this shadowless land that to his eyes looked barren. She saw a little boy and girl playing in a huge house, with a sick mother and a distant father. The same childhood that had made Clare sweet, quiet, and strong, had made Peter bitter, forever grasping and trying to hold onto things no matter how they would slip through his fingers. She saw a man who had a house with too many rooms, a closet full of perfectly tailored suits, and nothing else. The dearest thing in his life he had hurt and driven away. She understood, yes, but she did not care.

“You couldn’t have at least buried her in sanctified ground? Not even a Christian burial. Not a decent headstone?” Tears spilled onto his burned cheeks. He wiped them away quickly with his fingers. Gustie was unmoved. Peter sank to his knees by the grave and wept. Finally, he asked, “How did she die?”

Gustie’s mouth remained set in a taught line. She had never spoken of Clare’s death and would not now give him Clare’s last moments, or her own feelings about it. Peter cried again, “How did she die?”

Gustie was rigid.

Jordis said, “Tell
me
.”

Gustie looked at her, uncomprehending.

Jordis said, “Give me your story, Gustie.”

“He—” Gustie indicated Madigan.

“He does not matter. Tell me.”

Gustie trembled all over.

“Tell me.” Jordis’s voice drew Gustie into a world as private as Crow Kills at night, with the moon shimmering across their bodies and the surface of the water.

Gustie told her story:

“We traveled for such a long time—days and days without seeing a town, a house—nothing. I didn’t know where we were any more. Clare was so tired. In Apple Creek—where we got off the train—I made her see a doctor there. She told me he’d said it was nothing serious. All she needed was rest. If she’d told me the truth then, I’d have turned around and taken her back. But she knew that. She didn’t want to go back. The night before she died she said she didn’t ever want to go back. That she wanted to die out here. I thought—I wanted to think—she was talking about her old age.

“We had to make some kind of permanent camp. She needed rest and I had to get my bearings. I had no idea we were as close to Wheat Lake as we were. We smelled the water and cut over the hill, and here was Crow Kills. The most beautiful lake we had ever seen.”

Gustie did not weep. Her voice did not waver. She spoke only to Jordis. “I made her as comfortable as I could. I took everything out of the wagon and made her a bed in there. She was happy. She loved this prairie. She loved the lake and the sky. Everything. She’d have been very happy out here. I was clumsy with cooking over a fire. It took me a long time to do the simplest things. I was making us some tea. She was propped up on the blankets and bags I used as pillows for her. She was reading. Tennyson. I came back with her cup of tea and she was gone. The book was open to “The Lady of Shalott.” She looked so peaceful and happy. I sat by her, drinking tea, as if I were expecting her to wake up. I knew she was dead, but I sat with her like that for a long time. All night. In the morning, I knew I had to bury her here. I couldn’t cart her around looking for a strange town and strange people to bury her. It had to be right here. This
is
holy ground. I felt it then. I still feel it.

“I had a shovel and I started to dig. I was very stupid. I didn’t think at all. I started digging over there.” Gustie pointed down the hill, toward the lake. “I dug down until I was worn out. I had to rest. When I came back to it, the grave was full of water. I screamed at the lake. I threw rocks and mud into it. I threw the shovel and had to wade in after it. So I looked around and saw this little knoll away from the lake. I started to dig again. I carried water up from the lake. I washed her body. I dressed her in white. I wrapped her in a blanket and laid her in the grave.” Gustie paused. “I filled it up. And lay down. I never thought I’d get up again.”

Gustie’s thoughts traveled back over her long recovery period.

“Yours was the second voice I heard, wasn’t it?”

Jordis nodded.

“You looked after Biddie?”

Jordis nodded again.

Gustie looked down toward Crow Kills. “You filled the first grave.”

“Dorcas and I were visiting Little Bull and Winnie. When we came back, I saw Biddie down by the lake. I found the wagon, and you lying face down on the grave. I helped Dorcas take care of you until you started to come around. Then I left to go help Little Bull.”

Madigan was on his feet again, picking grass off the knees of his trousers, his face and manner having already reformed themselves into their usual arrogance, and stone-cold-sober, Will wanted very badly to punch him. Instead, he strode over to Gustie and put his arms around her and held her in a bear hug.

“You’re a grand girl, Gus.”

“Will, you’re a good man. You have to stop drinking so much, you know.” Gustie gave his arm a rough but affectionate pat. He let her go.

“I know, Gus. I know.”

No matter how they tried to forget him, Peter Madigan intruded himself back into their consciousness like a buzzing insect. “There is still the money. It belongs to me. That’s what I came for.”

Gustie faced him, stunned for a moment that he could speak of money standing over his sister’s grave. Then she remembered more of him. “That money was Clare’s. Her rightful inheritance.”

“She stole it out of Father’s safe and ran off without his blessing. She had no right to inherit anything!”

“I don’t think your father looked at it that way, or he would have sent you, or someone, after us right away. But he didn’t. Isn’t that right? He wouldn’t let you come. I assume he is recently dead.” Madigan’s silence confirmed it. “I imagine his body isn’t cold yet.”

“It’s MY money!” Peter’s voice was rising in pitch.

“The money was Clare’s!” Gustie’s was getting lower.

“And Clare is dead!” Peter affirmed what he only recently had accepted as true.

“Yes.” replied Gustie evenly. “So now it’s mine. You know, Peter, for a long time after she was gone, I considered returning the money to your father. I never touched a penny of it. But when I heard you were looking for her, I knew why, and I remembered why she left home. It wasn’t simply to be with me, but to get away from you. It became a matter of principle with me to not let you have it. You can threaten me. Do anything you want. You won’t find the money. You will never get it back, nor anything that was hers. Not a scrap of her clothing, not a photograph. Nothing. Clare and I had an understanding. What we had, we had in common, like husband and wife.”

Madigan brayed, “Let’s hear you talk like that in front of a judge and before a courtroom of decent people!”

Gustie continued, almost casually. “Anyway, the money’s gone. I spent it.”

He was incredulous. “What could you possibly spend that much money on in a few days out here?”

“Let’s see. I bought a rocking chair and two beds for Mrs. Many Roads, Jordis’s grandmother.” She turned to Jordis. “The beds I had to special order. She should have them any day. Don’t tell her. It’s a surprise.”

Gustie turned back to Madigan. “I got enough supplies to get them through till her next annuities are due. Some clothes—”

Madigan was sputtering. “That’s ridiculous. You can’t have spent all that money on an old squaw.” He made a move toward Gustie.

“You watch yourself, Buster, or I’ll knock your block off.” Will’s hands were twitching. “No, she didn’t spend it all on Mrs. Many Roads. She spent it on me. Sorry, Gus. Denny told me. He just figured it out. Pard didn’t say nothing. So there’s no blame there. Didn’t know the how or wherefore of it, but we knew it had to be you because it couldn’t be anybody else.”

“I will get it back. You—” The malice on Madigan’s face caused Will to take a step toward him, when around the southern curve of Crow Kills appeared a lengthening line of trotting ponies, bedecked with feathers and bright cloth. Upon the back of each pony rode a Dakotah warrior in full regalia. Heading the procession rode an old man, the feathers of his war bonnet cascading down his back. Beside him was Little Bull bearing a long feathered lance. Behind him rode a boy wearing the buckskin shirt Gustie had seen in Dorcas’s cabin. Will squinted to see them better with his one eye, then climbed onto the wagon to get a better look.

Little Bull trotted out ahead of his father. When he saw Jordis and Gustie and the man in the gray suit he picked up the pace and the others followed him up the hill. To the amazement of Peter Madigan, the Indians formed a circle around them and sat, silent, looking fierce and bloodthirsty. The only sounds were the ponies, shifting from leg to leg, blowing through their nostrils, and the chittering of birds and insects. Madigan turned white and a line of sweat broke out upon his upper lip, more began to trickle down his temples. He swatted angrily at mosquitoes that did not seem to be attacking anyone else.

“You’ve found your place all right,” he snarled at Gustie. “Among these filthy savages.” But he faltered as Little Bull heeled Swallow in his left flank and the horse stepped forward out of the circle with a prancing step. There seemed to be a lot of pent-up energy in that horse, and it was shared by the Indian on his back. A long knife hung from Little Bull’s belt. His hand moved toward it but stopped, resting so lightly upon his thigh it seemed to hover there. Will Kaiser remained seated in the wagon. His hands covered his face.

Little Bull looked at Jordis and made another movement toward his knife. She shook her head slightly. None of these movements were lost on Peter Madigan who was now as gray as his suit. A dark stain appeared on the inside left leg of his trousers. “Will, you’re a white man. You aren’t going to let them...my god, man!”

Will took his hands away from his face. He looked very pained. Slowly he climbed down from the wagon and approached Little Bull. He spoke in low tones to the Indian who sat back up on his horse and said, “Hmmmp!” with a loud grunt.

Will rubbed his face hard and turned toward Peter Madigan. “Well, Madigan, it seems to me you’ve got one chance. The chief here looks upon Augusta as a friend. You see, the Indians are funny about their friends. He wouldn’t like to see her harmed or threatened, you know. You’re on Indian land, so their law is what goes around here. They can do pretty much what they want. Whatever they’d do would take a long time and wouldn’t be something I’d want to watch, I’ll tell you. I would say you can leave now while I’ve got the chief calmed down.” Will pulled his watch out of his pocket. “Don’t you worry. There’s a train leaving in an hour or so from Wheat Lake. You can get back on Ole Tom there and ride to the station. Leave him with the station manager—he’s a pal of mine—and I’ll pick him up later. That’s just my idea. You know these Indians. They’d never let you be. But you do what you want.” Will looked down at his feet and then not at anyone in particular. The stain had grown on the inside of Madigan’s pants. He lurched stiff-legged over to Tom and pulled himself up into the saddle. “How do I get to Wheat Lake?” he choked.