The Homesman (3 page)

Notwithstanding, he worried as his nag whuffled up the rise toward her. She had to be on the shady side of thirty by now. He had hoped, as everyone had, that she and Andy Giffen might make a match, but Andy had gone back east for a wife. In good weather a lone lady might be busy, visit and be visited, but how had she survived a winter like this, eating solitary food, talking to knife and fork, going to bed at night with the wind? If others fell by the wayside, dear women and strong, loved by men, how had she, single and unloved, kept her sanity? He wished he bore her glad tidings now, but he had none. He wondered how to tell her about Theoline Belknap.

Dowd reached her. He dropped reins, hopped out of his saddle, she came to him, and they clasped hands, both hands. Hers were bigger than his, and she was much taller than he.

“Spring!” she said.

“Spring!” said Alfred Dowd.

They grinned at each other while a wind blew over them, a warm wind. She let go and took his reins and asked him to guess what they'd be having for dinner, he couldn't, and she said antelope. Yesterday afternoon she'd spotted one below the house being chased by wolves. Running for her rifle, she shot the lead wolf, which was closing in, and dropped the buck with a clean shoulder shot at three hundred yards—some shooting, eh? She dragged it in, dressed it out, and they'd have antelope steak for their main course, she'd started dinner as soon as she saw him coming. Did he approve?

Dowd smiled approval, then put on a serious face. “I have bad news. Do you want it now or later?”

“Now.”

He told her about Theoline Belknap. In the telling she turned away from him, slowly.

“Dear God,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Was it a boy or a girl?”

“A girl.”

“How is Vester taking it?”

“As you'd expect. He blames Theoline.”

“As you'd expect. Why, oh, why didn't he send the girls to me?”

“He claims he can't be alone with her.”

Mary Bee stood a moment more, then led his horse toward her stable. “You have a wash,” she said, “and go on in. I'll be along.” She wanted to be by herself.

Dowd brought basin, soap, and a towel outside the house, washed, emptied the basin, went inside, inspected the antelope frying, had a sniff, and a second sniff, then removed his coat and sat down at the table. Mary Bee came in and set the table and worked at the big Premium stove, and words passed between them only once.

“Guess what I'm ordering,” she said.

“I couldn't.”

“A melodeon.”

He knew she loved music. “You aren't.”

“Yup. I don't trust freighting a piano, so as soon as I can get into Loup I'll order a Mason & Hamlin.” She spoke almost defiantly. “Back home I used to play the piano by the hour. I can't live without real music much longer.”

“You'll have the first melodeon in the Territory,” said the minister.

Waiting, hungry, he admired her home again. For the time and place it was grand. The floor was laid of cottonwood planks, and on it were several rag rugs. Her sod walls were plastered and whitewashed, which thwarted the bedbugs. She had real chairs, including a Boston rocker, and a table and a chest of drawers over which were hung two tintypes, framed, one of her father, he assumed, a glum, bearded man, and one of her sister Dorothy perhaps. On another wall was a large, colorful print of what appeared to be Niagara Falls. Her bedroom, which he had never seen, was in back, divided by an interior wall from this room, and he had heard she slept on a feather bed. From this living-dining-room-kitchen a carpentered ladder ran up to a loft, used for storage but also as a spare bedroom for guests. Everything was neat as a pin.

Then she served them a feast—antelope steaks, fried potatoes, corn bread and molasses, dried-apple pie, and Arbuckle's Ariosa coffee, which his wife had informed him went for thirty-five cents the pound. When she sat down, he bowed his head. Mary Bee bowed hers.

“Lord,” he improvised, “bless this lady and her table. Let me dine here as long as I'm able. Amen.”

When he looked up his eyes twinkled, and she thanked him with the stoutest smile she could muster. They ate and talked about the weather and winter and neighbors and lack of mail and spring and coming summer, but no matter their effort to be cheery, to enjoy the meal and each other and their privacy, Theoline Belknap ate with them, and there were silences.

“She's not the worst of it,” said Dowd after one such.

“No?”

“No. There are two others. One up north of Loup named Petzke, and one west named Svendsen. Both in the same sad state. I don't know the circumstances yet.”

A silence.

“Then there are four,” said Mary Bee.

“Four?”

“The last thaw, Harriet Linens came by and told me. There's a family near them named Sours, both of them very young, with small children. The wife, just a girl, has lost her mind. How and why, Harriet didn't know. She said it was pitiful, though.”

Licking molasses from his lips, the minister thought. “Sours. Sours. I know them. They're in one of my congregations.” He sighed. “Four. What a shame. We'll have to have a homesman.”

“What's that?”

He put down his cutlery. “That's what I call him.” Last year, Dowd said, there were three demented women, wives, on his circuit, and by spring something had to be done with them. Two were actually dangerous, homicidal, and the other one kept running away. “Well, I got the three husbands together—they're responsible, after all—and had them draw lots. The one who lost was the homesman. The other two chipped in and supplied the rig and team and supplies—the entire matter kept as secret as possible. The homesman gathered the three women and took them back across the river to Hebron, Iowa. Last year the man who lost turned out to be a fine fellow named McAllister, a good Christian. He had them in Hebron in five weeks, and without much difficulty as I recall.” In Hebron, the minister continued, the Ladies Aid Society of the Methodist Church was run by a sterling woman named Altha Carter, wife of the Reverend Carter there. She had raised funds by appeals to congregations back east, and when the unfortunate women arrived with McAllister, they were passed into the care of three volunteer members of the Society, who in turn escorted them by railroad eastward, home, which was wherever they had family or close relatives. He paused, and pulled his dried-apple pie closer. “I presume they do something like this other places out here. It's not much of a system, I admit, but show me an alternative.”

Mary Bee had listened. “Three, last year. I never heard a word of it.”

“Things like that aren't talked about. They're just done.”

She brought the pot from the stove and refilled their cups. “Bless you,” she said.

“Bosh. Necessity the mother of invention, you know. Oh, I suppose someday we'll have all the trappings of civilization, insane asylums and so on. But we've been a Territory less than a year, and building an asylum is one of the last things a legislature gets around to. For now, this is the best we can do. I must say, though, it asks a lot of one man.”

“Eat your pie.”

He was glad to, and soon applauded the banquet by sitting back in his chair and groaning. “Best dinner I've had in a month of Sundays. Bless you.”

“I dine like this every day.”

Neither smiled. They sat through another silence looking at each other. Each surprised the other. His hair was a bright, startling red, and salted. She had a woman's eyes, but her big, square face was based on a man's square jaw.

“Where will you head now?” she asked.

“I'd better go see Sours, the poor boy.”

“I'll go over to the Belknaps in the morning. I'll take a hindquarter of the antelope.”

Dowd thought. “Tell Vester to be at Kettle Church a week from today. In the afternoon. We'll hold the drawing then. I'll tell young Sours today, and I'll see that Petzke and Svendsen know. A week from today.”

“Vester won't do it.”

“He must.”

“If he loses the drawing, he won't,” said Mary Bee. “He's lazy. He's ignorant. He's a whiner. Theoline's the one. She's been his backbone.”

The minister frowned, pushed back his chair, rose, and began to wrestle into his coat. “He must. He's responsible for her, just like the others. I could say several things about him myself, but I will not be uncharitable. The Lord wouldn't like it.” He tied his coat closed with twine. “Do what you can with him tomorrow,” he appealed. “I'll appreciate it.” Winding his muffler, this day around his neck, he stepped to the door. “I'll go get my gallant steed.”

After a minute or two, Mary Bee put on her coat and went out into the warm wind. Dowd was just leading his nag from the stable. “I'm full as a tick,” he said. “I doubt Rocinante will carry me.”

They smiled, and once again clasped hands. “I'm so glad to find you hale and hearty,” he said.

“And I you,” she said. “My love to Mrs. Dowd, if you please.”

“Surely. I'm sorry to bring such sad news. If you please, don't dwell on it.”

“How can I not?”

“Because it happens out here. It just happens. Every winter. Last year three, this year four. I'm surprised there aren't more, conditions being what they are. I don't know how any of the women bear it.” He took up the reins and hopped aboard and looked down at her soberly. “I don't know how you do it, my dear. Honestly. Living alone, I mean.”

“I can do anything,” she said.

“I believe you,” he said. “Well, let us lift up our hearts. A melodeon. Spring,” he reminded.

“Yes, spring.”

Alfred Dowd rode away in the direction opposite his coming. After half a mile he stopped and turned in his saddle to see if Mary Bee Cuddy was watching him go. She was. She waved, and he did. His wave was a salute.

•   •   •

She saddled Dorothy, her trusty mare, the next morning and rode the two miles to the Belknaps, the antelope haunch, wrapped in sacking, tied on behind her cantle. Vester came out to meet her. She gave him the meat and advised him to hang it high in his stable or the wolves would have it. Then she said she'd just heard yesterday, from Reverend Dowd, about Theoline, and wanted him to know how shocked she was, and how terribly sorry. Vester said so was he. She inquired as to Theoline's condition, and he said the same, crazy. He still had to hand-feed her and carry her to the outhouse and mind the girls and do the cooking and whatnot until he was tuckered most of the time. Mary Bee dismounted. What in the world had caused it? Vester shifted the haunch to a shoulder and said he had no idea, but he'd been troubled about Line as far back as last fall. She complained about the weather and losing their crops. She talked little and ate less. And she got the notion God was angry with them, so the baby coming would be crippled or have a harelip or something bad. Oh, and she had headaches and was cranky. Mary Bee shook her head and started for the door of the house. Vester said no, she wasn't to go in, he didn't want anyone gawping at his wife in such a state. Mary Bee swung round, vexed, and said she was the dearest friend Theoline had, and she would see her no matter what. Vester cursed. She told him to hush up and take care of that meat, and opened the door and went in.

The three girls, Junia, Aggie, and Vernelle, were waiting. They leaped at her like little animals full of fear, hugging her waist so hard they almost threw her into the stove; and they were crying, and it was all she could do to keep from crying with them. She wouldn't allow herself to look yet at the bed. After a time, taking their shoulders, she told them to go into the back room, she wanted to talk with their mother, now, please, girls, go, and snuffling, they obeyed. They were good girls.

Mary Bee looked round. The place was a shambles. Then she went to the bed.

Theoline Belknap lay on her back. Her eyes were fixed on a corner of the roof. Her hair was a rat's nest. Her wampus was food-stained. Her feet were bare and filthy. Each of her wrists was tied by a picket rope to an upper bedpost. Mary Bee untied the near rope, then leaned over her and untied the far. She sat down on the side of the bed and rubbed both wrists, raw and swollen.

“Theoline,” she said, “this is Mary Bee.”

“Undo,” responded Theoline.

“Undo your arms? I have, dear.”

“Undo, undo.”

“Do you know me, Theoline?”

“Undo, undo, undo, undo.”

Mary Bee bent and turned the woman's face toward her. Theoline's eyes remained fixed on the roof.

“Line, dear, I'm Mary Bee, your friend.”

“Tha.”

“Don't you know me?”

“Tha,” Theoline said. “Tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha.”

Mary Bee looked away and sat a spell. Inside, she went void. At length something flared in the void like the strike of a match in pitch-dark. It was anger.

She rose, pulled the hung quilt aside, and went behind it to the girls. She knelt. She opened wide her arms and swept the sisters into them, close. There were still some sniffles. “Now listen, girls,” she said. “Your mother's very sick, but she loves you just the same, as she always has. You must love her, too, and help her as much as you can. Here are some things you can do for her. I've untied her arms. I want you to undress her, heat some water, and give her a nice bath, with soap, face to feet.”

“Right on the bed?” Junia asked.

“Right on the bed. Wash and dry her hair, too, then brush and comb it. Then find clean clothes for her, and underwear—they're probably in her trunk—and dress her again. And while you're doing this, smile at her and say kind things. Do you know a little song you can sing?”

“We know ‘Away in the Manger,' ” offered Vernelle.

“That would be fine,” said Mary Bee. “And when you've finished all that, do some chores for your father, too. You are now the ladies of the house. Sweep it out. Wash the dirty dishes. Take the bedding outdoors and air it. Show him how grown-up you are. Will you do that? For him? For me?”