Carla Kelly (46 page)

“I want to see Iris again,” she whispered. “I must be part of the family … later on. But I have to know why.”

He hugged her, his eyes so serious. His expression turned gentle then. “When you find out just how true all this is, you'll understand. You need to find out for yourself, honey. No one can do it for you.”

They left at dawn from the Salt Lake depot. Unequal to the task of seeing her off at the depot, Mama had said goodbye at home. She had hugged Mr. Otto for good measure too and had him write down the Rudigers’ address in Fort Collins.

“Just Karl Rudiger, General Delivery,” Mr. Otto said, handing her the scrap of paper. “You're doing a kind thing, Mrs. Darling, even though I think it must be hard.”

Leaving from the depot was no easier, not with Papa trying so hard not to cry. He shook hands with Mr. Otto. “Take good care of the cook,” he said.

“I promise,” Mr. Otto assured him. His arm went around Papa then. “Anything you can find out about my mother's family will mean a lot to me.”

“Family matters, son,” Papa said. He looked at Julia. “Now, and in the eternities.”

When they got on the Union Pacific in Ogden, Mr. Otto got a sleeping car in the open section. Maybe it was more for him than her, Julia decided. Mr. Otto looked so tired. It was as though his few days of bolstering her parents had worn him out. They sat together, silent. In a few minutes, he was breathing evenly, asleep.

She watched his face. His mustache needed trimming, and he hadn't shaved as closely as he usually did, for all that he had been hugely impressed with her home's indoor lavatory and hot water almost on demand.
We are different,
she thought, and closed her eyes too.

When she woke, they were on the high plains of Wyoming. She glanced at Mr. Otto, who was awake and looking out the window.

Mr. Otto was silent for several miles. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him open and close his mouth several times, wanting to talk. She had a feeling again, and this one was different. It was time, and she acted on it without question.

“Paul, please talk to me,” she said, trying out his name. “Tell me what happened in Chicago.”

“It's awfully personal.”

“And you think my visit home wasn't? What happened, Mr. Otto?” she repeated.

“I went to a funeral too.” He paused. “My wife's.”

She hadn't expected that.

“Maybe I shouldn't—no, I want you to know. Maybe I'm the one who needs to talk about it. Maybe that's why I came to escort you home.”

She didn't hesitate. “Tell me what happened,” she said quietly. The conductor walked through the car, checking his roster, chatting with the salesman slapping down solitaire cards on the sample case on his lap, and then leaving out the far end.

“Darling, after years of trying, she finally succeeded in killing herself.”

Julia couldn't help the gasp that escaped her. The woman across the aisle glanced at her and moved slightly closer to her own window.

“Your wife? Mr. Otto, I'm so sorry,” she said, thinking of the photographs with the gouged eyes. A chill ran down her arms, and she rubbed them.

“Well, my former wife, to be correct,” he amended. “After the annulment—it's been eight years, Julia, and there was no divorce—I asked her family to keep me informed. They didn't, at first, and I never pressed the issue.”

He sighed and waited for a long time to speak. She knew better than to rush him. The conversation was obviously painful. “Lately, though, her parents had both been writing me, urging me to visit her. Julia, I just couldn't. Call me a coward.”

“You're no coward,” she assured him. He sat on the seat across from her. She moved to his side, sitting close to him. “This is a private conversation. The whole train doesn't need to hear it.”

He nodded, his face deadly serious as he put his arm around her to pull her closer to him. “Apparently she had become more and more withdrawn.” He closed his eyes. “This is hard.”

“You can wait, if it pains you,” she assured him. “I think I understand grief now.”

“It's more than that.”

His arm was tight around her shoulders, as though he couldn't speak without holding on to something. “I met my wife—my former wife—when I took a trainload of beeves to Chicago in ’ 96. I was twenty, and it was my first time without Pa.”

“I thought he died when you were fifteen.”

“He did. Another old rancher—Charlie McLemore's dad, actually—saw our cattle to the yards until I felt confident enough to do it myself.” He glanced at her, reading her expression perfectly. “Darling, I wasn't always a longtime rancher.”

Julia smiled. “And we know I am not mature.”

Mr. Otto took her hand and stretched her free arm across his chest. He sighed. “That's better. Call me a cad some other time.”

“You're no cad, either.”

“I was as green as a spring willow. As I think about it, that was part of the problem.” He shook his head again. “Where was I? Oh, yes. She was the daughter of my new cattle buyer, Frank Moss.”

“What was her name?”

“Katherine.” He stood up suddenly, as if even the name caused him great unease. “I'll be back.”

He was gone almost an hour. All she could do was pray for him and look out the window at the bleakness that was peculiarly Wyoming in the winter. When he returned, he had a pillow for her, which she tucked against the window to keep out the draft. His arm went around her again.

“I made the trip every fall for three years. She started writing to me. I thought it was a bit forward of her, but everyone likes to get mail.” Mr. Otto took off his overcoat and tossed it on the empty seat facing them. “Mr. Moss brought Katherine along on several buying trips.” He managed a rueful smile. “When she wasn't there, he talked about her all the time. He paraded her good qualities. You'd have thought Katherine was a show pony and not his daughter. She was pretty.”

“Did … did you fall in love with her?” Julia asked when he seemed disinclined to continue.

“I thought I did, especially when Mr. Moss told me she liked me a lot. But…”

“ … you didn't see her very much,” Julia offered.

“Not enough to know her well.” He made a sound of disgust. “I found out later she hadn't written those letters.” Mr. Otto touched her head with his briefly, as if to reassure himself that he wasn't alone. “I don't even know how I proposed, but I must have.” He seemed to drag out his words. “It was a June wedding. I was twenty-three, and I was dumb.”

Julia felt her face grow warm, wondering how her mother would react to such an intimate conversation.
Listen to him,
she thought.
He needs to talk. You might be the first person he has ever shared this awful burden with.

“I shouldn't say any more,” he told her finally. “It's too personal.”

“Tell me,” was all she said.

Her permission unleashed a flood. “We went to the family's vacation cabin on a lake for our honeymoon. If there was a worse honeymoon in the history of the universe, I can't imagine it. Darling, Katherine had no idea what was expected of her. It was torment.”

“Oh, Mr. Otto,” she whispered, responding to the pain in his voice. “And … and when you took her to the Double Tipi?”

“Worse. She cried when I even looked at her.”

Julia winced at his flat tone and the disgust he aimed at himself. “What did you do?”

“I left her alone and continued my former wild ways in Gun Barrel.” He didn't look at her. “When her father came on his cattle buying trip that summer, I pretended that everything was fine.” He made another snort of disgust, but he didn't seem to direct it at himself this time. “Mr. Moss was quite happy to play along, I later learned.”

Julia began to sense the enormity of the lie foisted on her employer. “They knew all along something was wrong with her! Mr. Otto, did they
trick
you?”

He leaned back as though the marrow had leached out of his spine. “You're a lot quicker than I was.” He grasped her hand gently. “We suffered through another winter, but then Katherine started wandering off just before spring, nine years ago.”

“Dear God,” Julia breathed.

“I'd bring her back, and she'd be all remorseful, and then she'd wander off again.” He turned bleak eyes on her. “God forgive me, but I had to tie her down when I left the ranch for any appreciable time. I … I suppose that's how rumors started.”

Julia thought about Iris and Spencer, how much in love they had been, and how they were cheated of a long marriage. She dug around in her purse for a handkerchief, but he beat her to it with his own.

“You poor man,” she said when she could talk.

“Poor, stupid man,” he amended. “She'd have wild episodes, and then she would be calm, almost normal. She liked the parlor. Or I thought she did, except when I went in there once after she was asleep, I saw she had smashed the Victrola records and stuck them in pots, after she had uprooted the plants. It was grotesque. Sick.”

Julia remembered that bizarre sight. “I noticed one pot, when I fixed up the parlor.”

“I'm sorry you had to see that. I thought I had found all of them.”

He stared straight ahead for a long time. “I thought I could turn her loose. It lasted for several days, until she stabbed me under my armpit one night with one of those record shards. Just scraped it down my ribs like a razor on a washboard.” He grimaced at the memory. “I've never seen so much blood.”

“Wha-what on earth did you do?” Julia asked, voice hushed.

“I'd be dead, if it weren't for Blue Corn. It was a weekend, and the trail was good, so I'd let my hired hands go into Gun Barrel for a little hoorah. Little River was away too, visiting on the reservation.” Mr. Otto shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the memory. “I staggered to the tack shed, and Blue Corn stopped the bleeding. He stitched me together and then went into the house and watched Katherine.”

He focused his attention out the window again. “I think I understand why you're so good to Blue Corn,” Julia said.

“I owe him my life.”

Mr. Otto leaned forward then and stared at the floor. Julia listened to the rhythmic clack of the wheels on the track, unable to speak.

“She was insane,” he said finally, his voice low. “I put a flannel shirt backwards on her and wrapped the arms tight so she couldn't touch anyone. When I was able, I sent a long letter to Mr. Moss.” He looked at her. “Julia, it was terrible. When—when I could travel, I took her back to Chicago and I got myself a good lawyer. We had her committed, and I was granted an annulment, since it was pretty obvious she had been married to me under false pretenses.”

“Why did the Mosses do that to you? And to her?” Julia asked.

“I asked them that, when my lawyer was arranging Katherine's commitment. Frank just shrugged. Mrs. Moss cried and carried on until a doctor had to sedate her.” He chuckled humorlessly. “I guess the apple didn't fall too far from that particular tree.”

He was silent then, and Julia had nothing to say that wouldn't sound stupid in the face of such horror. She wanted to take his hand but paused, thinking of the time she had put her hand on his shoulder and how he had flinched, as though another's touch—even a light touch meant only in friendship—had the capacity to startle him. Now that
was
understandable.

“Paul, may I hold your hand?” she asked suddenly.

He glanced at her and then looked away. “You're sure you want to?”

She took his hand in hers, noticing the split-second flinch. Not sure if what she was doing would bring him some measure of comfort, she gently increased the pressure of her hand in his. To her relief, he turned his hand until their fingers were twined together. He closed his eyes. In a moment, his hand opened as he relaxed and slept, exhausted.