Bittersweet (22 page)

“I’m expecting a parcel from Philadelphia,” she said to the clerk. “Books.” Tired of waiting the many months it often took for books to arrive after ordering, Imogene had taken to sending William Utterback lists of materials she needed. He bought them for her in Philadelphia and sent them out. If Kate felt that the school could use them, Imogene was reimbursed; if not, she paid for them out of her own pocket.

The books had arrived in two big boxes. Imogene pulled one over the counter and cut it open with a single-bladed jackknife she took from her purse. There was a letter from Mr. Utterback inside; she took it out, then tied up the box again and lifted it experimentally. “I can’t carry both by myself. Is there someone here who can help me?” she asked the clerk on duty.

“It’s an off time; I’m the only one here. I can’t leave or I’d do it myself.” The clerk leaned on the counter and sucked his teeth thoughtfully. “Might try over to the Wells Fargo. Judge Curler’s got an errand boy over there not good for much.”

Imogene thanked him and sat down to read her letter before walking the short distance to the Wells Fargo office.

Imogene folded the letter and put it in her purse. “I’ll be back for my parcels,” she informed the clerk.

She proceeded to the Wells Fargo office. Judge Curler sat at an oversized desk behind a railing, steel-rimmed glasses pinched on the end of his nose, poring over a pile of receipts. By the woodstove lounged an ungainly fellow in his early twenties, his pimpled cheeks covered with fine, sparse hair. He was thick without any evidence of strength, the flesh heavy and slack. A second desk in the back was empty but for a sign reading
R. JENSEN. DIZABLE
&
DENNING
. In one corner stood a telegraph apparatus.

The judge looked up as Imogene opened the door. “What can I do for you?” He removed his glasses and laid them carefully beside the book he was working on.

“The clerk at the railroad station said you had a boy here who might be able to carry some parcels home for me. It’s not far.”

“Harland!”

The young man toasting his feet swung his chair around.

“This is Harland Maydley, ma’am. He’ll get your things home for you. Harland, make yourself useful for a change; give this lady a hand with her boxes.”

Harland pushed himself laboriously from his chair and pulled on his coat with a lethargy that bordered on insolence.

Imogene walked quickly, with long clean strides, and Harland Maydley, with his shorter legs, had to skip every few steps to keep up.

“You’re Miss Grelznik, ain’t you? Teacher up to the school?”

“I’m Miss Grelznik.”

“Mac McMurphy told me when I pointed you out once. That girl your daughter?”

“No.” Imogene closed her mouth behind the word with a finality that would have daunted even an only slightly more sensitive individual.

“She’s a looker, in a hoity-toity kind of way,” Harland went on.

“The young lady is married.”

“Yeah? I seen her out riding today with Nate Weldrick and that half-breed kid of his.” The sneering insinuation brought Imogene up short, and he stumbled to avoid bumping into her. They were several hundred feet from Addie’s house.

“Thank you, Mr. Maydley, that will be all.” She dug in her purse, took out a nickel, and tipped him. “Just set the boxes down. I can take them the rest of the way without your assistance.”

He looked her up and down impertinently in an attempt to regain face, but she was too tall, too unbending. He dropped the boxes in the dirt.

“You tell that
married
lady that Harland Maydley said hello.” And with the air of an unanswerable wit, he turned and sauntered down the street.

Imogene watched him go, her lips compressed, two white dents on either side of her nose appearing and disappearing as she breathed. “I so detest little men,” she muttered, and without taking her eyes from Maydley’s back, she bent down to grasp the twine of the boxes, clenched her teeth against the bite of it, and carried them the rest of the way home.

The smell of cornbread baking and beans simmering on the stove met her at the door. She shouldered her way in and set down her burden.

“That you?” Sarah called from the kitchen.

“It’s me.” Taking the chair by the stove, Imogene pulled off her gloves. Dark red creases marked the places where the twine had bitten into her fingers. Across one palm, the scar from the burn
she’d received in her confrontation with Sam Ebbitt showed ridged and redder than usual. Imogene made a fist and then slowly spread her fingers; the hand no longer opened completely. She turned her hands palms down so she needn’t look at them, and held them near the stove.

Sarah came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. The heat from the stove pinked her cheeks prettily. “Look what Wolf and I did,” she said, pointing to a small feathery wreath over the bookcase. It was of pine, and the long needles thrust out in all directions, making it far from round. Nestled in the needles were bright scraps of fabric sewn into fat butterfly bows.

“You’ve had quite a busy day, haven’t you?”

Sarah ignored the edge in Imogene’s voice. “I asked Mrs. Glass, and she said that big old pine would never know me and Wolf had taken anything.”

“Wolf and I.”

Sarah looked dubious. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Anyway, do you like it?”

“It’s lovely,” Imogene said without much enthusiasm.

“You don’t like it.”

The schoolteacher heaved a sigh. “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m just tired, I suppose. I like it.”

Sarah walked to the window, rubbing her already dry hands with the towel. The sky was the clear gray of winter twilight, the bare elms etching it with black. Through the dark branches an early star twinkled. The yard had already gone into night, and Addie’s Victorian home loomed up out of the darkness like a lighthouse on the shore of a dark sea.

“It gets dark so early now.”

Imogene didn’t reply.

“Nate Weldrick came by to see Wolf today.”

“Ah. How paternal. Where is Wolf now?”

“Napping.” Sarah came over to perch on one of the boxes beside Imogene. “We went out for a ride with him. He gave me those.”

Imogene glanced at the bowl of dried apricots on the table. “Did you have a nice time?”

“I’m scared of horses, I didn’t want to ride it. It was one of those big ones that rolls its eyes at you.” Sarah stared out the window as she talked.

“Do you like Mr. Weldrick?”

Sarah pulled her thoughts back from the riverbank to look at her companion. The teacher’s face was carefully composed and gave no clue to her thoughts. Sarah picked up Imogene’s hand and pressed the scarred palm to her cheek.

“You’re so cool. It feels good.”

“Are you feverish?” Imogene asked in alarm.

“No, it’s from the stove. I don’t think I like Mr. Weldrick,” she went on, to answer Imogene’s original question. “He was nice, though. Not to Wolf. If I didn’t know already, I’d never guess he was Wolf’s pa by the way they act around each other. But maybe I like him okay. He’s a man.” Sarah waved her hand as if this explained all.

“Your brother and Mac are men; Lutie’s Fred is a man too,” Imogene reminded her. “If Mr. Weldrick is boorish, his sex is no excuse.”

“I don’t know.” Sarah played with Imogene’s fingers, arranging them, crablike, on her knee. “He said it was unnatural, two women alone with nobody to talk to—you know.”

“Yes. I do know. No man to talk to. How empty our lives must be without the intellectual stimulation that the likes of Mr. Weldrick could provide. I suppose his sparkling wit and fascinating manner kept you spellbound?” Imogene had risen to stalk about the room; she snapped a picture book shut and turned to Sarah.

“No-o,” Sarah said carefully, choosing her words, “but I know what he meant. We’re just women.”

Imogene said nothing.

“It’s unnatural.”

Imogene forced herself to be still and returned to the chair beside Sarah. “Do you like him?” she asked gently. “Being with him, does it make you happy?”

“No,” Sarah said.

“Then there’s an end to it.”

Sarah bit her lip and gazed out through the dying light to the river.

SNOW WAS FALLING IN TINY DRY FLAKES, A DUSTING OF WHITE
already on the ground. The wind swooped down from the mountain slopes in sudden gusts, sending the snow into white whorls and pushing wavelets of white across the frozen lawn. Slate-colored clouds hid the mountain peaks, and the Truckee River ran gray in sympathy.

Sarah watched out the window, the snow quietly cloaking the brown grass and leaving a white tracery on the tree branches.

Wolf pushed up beside her, nudging under her arm. “Can we play at Mrs. Whitaker’s today?”

She stroked the coarse black hair. “Not today, today is for staying indoors. Home.” She looked around, eyes soft with contentment. The bare makeshift look of the rooms was gone, and homely touches warmed the house: a rag rug on the floor, crocheted doilies on the chair arms, white-and-blue sprigged curtains in the windows. “I like being inside when it snows; I always have, even when I was a little girl. I could be warm and snug and look out the window and watch the snow come down.”

“Can I go outside?”

“A little later. Imogene has half-day on Saturdays, maybe she’ll take you out when she gets home. If the snow gets deep enough, maybe we’ll make a snowman.”

The snow was ankle-deep by the time Imogene, red-nosed and smiling at an all-white world, came home from school. She and Sarah bundled Wolf in sweaters, coats, and scarves until he could scarcely move, took him out near the banks of the Truckee, where the drifts were deepest, and taught him to make angels in the snow.

Nate’s clayback stallion was tethered in the drive when they got home. Around the horse’s hooves the snow had been churned black, and a blanket was thrown over him. Wisps of smoke came from the stove pipe, rising straight up until they were as high as the main house, then feathering off sharply to the east.

Imogene shifted Wolf to her other hip; he’d been too tired to walk. “Evidently Mr. Weldrick is here. He’s been to call on Wolf a half-dozen times since the new year. Fatherhood seems to have hit him hard, if rather late.”

Sarah looked confused and depressed, an expression she often wore when Nate Weldrick came to call. “He’s not on the porch.”

“It seems he’s invited himself in and built a fire,” Imogene said sourly. She strode to the front door and jerked it open, banging it against the side of the house. Nate, who was crouched before the stove, poking kindling into a growing fire, started at the crash.

“Mr. Weldrick. What a surprise.” Imogene stood in the doorway without coming in.

“How do, Miss Grelznik.” He reached to take his hat off but it wasn’t there; he snatched it from the chair beside him. “Come in, come on in.”

“Thank you.” She was painfully polite.

“I nearly froze to death riding over from Carson. Just got here maybe a quarter of an hour ago. You gals were out, so I just kind of let myself in.”

“So I see.”

“Didn’t figure you’d mind, what with it snowing and all.”

“You’re here, it seems, so it would certainly be a waste of time to mind. If you’ll excuse me, Wolf is wet and tired. We all are.” Imogene carried the boy into the room he shared with Sarah, and closed the door.

Quietly, Sarah shut the front door and lit the lamps. A lamp flared, brightening her cheeks and eyes for a moment before she turned down the wick.

“You look real pretty. That’s a pretty coat,” Nate said.

“Imogene made it for me.”

“You look pretty in it. You ought to wear it more often.”

“I wear it when I go outside.” Sarah fingered the fur on the collar, then, at a loss for anything else to do, took it off, though the room hadn’t taken any warmth from the fledgling fire.

“That blue looks good, better than all the drab gray stuff she’s got you in most of the time. You ought to get yourself some bright-colored things.”

Sarah hung up the coat and smoothed the sleeves of her charcoal-colored gown self-consciously. It was another of Imogene’s dresses cut down and resewn to fit Sarah’s slight frame.

“Get yourself something pretty.” Nate dug into his pocket and took out a small leather purse.

“Please, Mr. Weldrick.” Sarah glanced anxiously toward the bedroom door.

“You’re afraid of her, ain’t you?”

Sarah laughed, a light surprised sound.

“She don’t like me much, does she?”

“I don’t know. We never talk about you.”

Her answer seemed to annoy him.

It was late when he finally left. Imogene stood in front of the stove, heating sausage cakes in the skillet. At the kitchen table, perched on a stool, Sarah peeled and sliced boiled potatoes. Neither had suggested supper while Nate Weldrick was there.

“Wolf never got his supper,” Sarah said. “Should I wake him, do you think?”

Imogene pushed at the sausages with a wooden spatula. “I think not.”

Sarah dropped the potatoes into the hot grease and watched them brown. A companionable silence flowed around them, warmed by the sizzling.

“Mr. Weldrick thinks you don’t like him. Do you?” Sarah asked.

Imogene spooned their dinner onto the waiting plates. “I don’t think he’s a good father,” she replied carefully. “But mostly I suppose I don’t care for him because he makes you so unhappy.”

“Mr. Weldrick’s nice to me,” Sarah protested.

“Yes and no.”

Sarah waited.

“He’s pleasant and complimentary,” Imogene continued, “and he seems to care for you, after his fashion. But since we’ve moved to this house you have come so far. I remember those first months
at the Broken Promise—you are so much stronger now, more sure of yourself. Mr. Weldrick takes that away from you.”

“I don’t know,” Sarah said, suddenly tired. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

Imogene looked up at the hollow sound of her voice—the confusion, the depression. “
Demonstratum est
,” she said.

Before Sarah could reply there came a sound of bells, of pots and pans crashing together in the icy air, of shouting and the beating of makeshift drums. Faint at first, a long way off, then growing louder, the din swelled as the noisemakers came up Virginia Street to the river. Hooting and wild laughter cut through the winter night.

Grabbing wraps, the two women stepped outside, leaving their supper to grow cold. Addie Glass was on her back porch, a heavy dressing gown thrown over her bed clothes. She was carrying a lantern.

“Miss Grelznik, Mrs. Ebbitt—I was just coming to fetch you,” she called excitedly, waving them over. “I thought, being so new to the West, you maybe hadn’t seen a charivari.” The lantern cast ample light and they hurried over the snow.

Addie led them through the dim corridors of her house and into the front parlor. “It’s better if it’s dark,” Addie said when they reached the bay window overlooking the street, and blew out the lantern. In its last light her weathered face looked as rosy as a young girl’s, and her eyes shone. “They’ll be by in a few minutes. I remember my charivari like it was yesterday. Rupert was the drunkest of all.” She laughed at her memories. “My Rupert was the sweetest drunk in the state. He loved everybody. If I’d come late, he would’ve married the best man.”

Across the water, the first dancing lights came into view, and individual voices could sometimes be distinguished from the general tumult.

“They’re grander here than anywhere,” the old lady said. “The Chinese sell fireworks beforehand.”

The parade of torches and lanterns snaked like a dragon along the road following the river. Snatches of song floated out across the water. Addie Glass leaned forward and opened the window. “Never mind the cold,” she said. “Look, there’s the bride and groom.”

Pushed along at the dragon’s head, a buckboard covered in homemade decorations carried the newlyweds. Running alongside the groom were the loudest merrymakers, whistling and banging
spoons and pails against the wagon. The bride, all in white, her veil falling off, clung to the seat, radiant even across the width of the Truckee. The buckboard was pulled by a mass of men in lieu of horses. Those too tired or too drunk would stagger away to be replaced by fresh pullers.

“Look at them!” Addie said. “Just look at them! That’s the way it ought to be.”

Entranced, Sarah watched the torches weaving and dipping through the night like winter fireflies, mirrored by running reflections on the river’s surface.

“Like it should be,” she murmured.

Throughout the spring and summer, Nate came to call on Sarah, and though she showed little pleasure at his attentions, she always received him. For Wolf’s sake, she said.

Imogene would sniff and purse her lips and say nothing.