Charity (31 page)

Gertrude returned to the house. A few minutes later Nyla came out. They waited huddled behind Julia’s barn for forty-five minutes until the entire Kaiser family—Ma, Oscar, Nyla, Frederick, and, finally, Julia had been to the outhouse.

After another half hour, Gertrude came out the back again and emptied her slop pail into the frozen weeds.

The door opened again. This time it was Frederick dressed in a long coat as if he were going out, but he went only to Julia’s.

Oscar emerged and came directly toward them. Gustie and Jordis held their breaths. He went into the barn. He led the horses out, harnessed them to the buggy and went back inside the house. There was the sound of his loud, angry voice. Nyla was apparently too slow for his pleasure. Fifteen minutes passed before she came out with Oscar and they climbed into the buggy and pulled away.

Jordis and Gustie waited another half hour. Frederick still had not come out again from Julia’s.

Jordis said, “I’m going in.”

“Shouldn’t you wait till Frederick leaves—or at least goes back to Gertrude’s?”

“He may have already gone out Julia’s front door. I want to get in and out of here before Oscar comes back. He’s the one we have to worry about, I think.”

Jordis lit one of the candles that were placed randomly about the place. The morning had lightened so that no one would now be able to see a candle flickering inside the small shed. Yesterday, there had been only candle drippings. Julia had left the candles behind her. Maybe that meant she had been here only searching. Or maybe it meant she was becoming more careless.

Jordis stood for a moment and looked around at everything carefully. Some ice blocks were pushed up against the back wall and another row was in front of them, but not flush against them. Yesterday, the straw had been tightly packed into that space between the two rows. Now, the straw appeared loose, as if it had been dug out and tossed back in without being tamped down. That is the place she went to. She shoved the candle into a chink in the wall and pulled out the hay. Then she slid ice blocks aside so she had room to get on her knees in that space. She pushed aside the straw on the earthen floor only to find that the floor was not earth, but wood. By feeling along the floor carefully, she realized it was not all wood, but that the wood was a rectangular shape, fitted into the earth. She pulled on it. It came up easily. Someone must have recently worked it out of the frozen ground. It surely could not have been Julia. The little old lady would not have had the strength to do it, nor could she have moved even one block of ice. In the dim light Jordis thought she saw colors...yellow, blue, pink...she rose, removed the candle and brought it low over the cavity she had just opened.

A little sound of pity and sorrow escaped her. She thought
Ah, these wasichu.
She knew why Gustie had wept.

“Did you find anything?”

Jordis suddenly felt the cold of the long night as she had not before. “Yes,” was all she could say.

“Worth killing for?” Gustie’s eyes were large and fearful.

“Oh, yes.” Jordis felt very tired.

“Tell me.”

She could say nothing at first. Gustie urged again, “Tell me!”

“I can only tell it once. We must get to Lena’s.”

“What if they see us?”

“It doesn’t matter now.” Jordis grabbed Gustie’s hand and pulled her into a long stride that turned into a sprint. She dropped Gustie’s hand and ran like a horse. Gustie was bewildered and could not keep up with her. Jordis slowed to keep a pace Gustie could match.

I am filled with fear.

The eagle is far away.

Lena rode home on Millie, enjoying the fine, cold day. She had been out early to do her shopping. Her few purchases from O’Grady’s were tucked in the saddle bags. It was exhilarating to be on a horse again. She hadn’t ridden so much since she was a girl. Tom was so tall and cantankerous, she didn’t feel secure on his back, and they could not afford another horse for Lena just now. She would be sorry when she had to return the sweet mare to Ragna and Pete. She doubted that Pete was as good to his horses as he should be.

When she left O’Grady’s, she rode out to check on Gustie. Lena was deeply worried about her. But she wasn’t there. It was a funny thing, but it had looked to Lena like she and Jordis hadn’t been there. Did they go straight back to Crow Kills? That was not likely. They would have given their horses a rest first. Gustie was sure good to Biddie. Jordis looked like she would know how to take care of a horse, too.

Now there was a strange one, that Indian, and what Gustie wanted to hang around those people for, she didn’t know. But Jordis seemed clean enough, and she was educated. That made a difference, no doubt—a decent, Christian education. Jordis might even be a pretty girl if she would do something with her hair. Maybe she had lice and had to shave her head. Lena had heard that the Indians all had lice. She shuddered.

Lena wanted to tell Gustie that she would be going back to Wheat Lake this afternoon to take her place with Ragna and relieve Ella, whose patience, and that of her husband and children, was wearing thin. She had come all this way back and not discovered anything at all. An ice house full of candle drippings. What in the world did that mean?

Yesterday, when she asked Ma about it, the old thing got all huffy puffy and said the ice house should be torn down along with the barn. Julia’s reaction was pure fright, especially when Lena confided in her that Tori’s death was not suicide, but murder. Dennis didn’t let it get out that it was murder. He thought it would help him in his inquiries if everybody still thought Tori’s death was a suicide. So much for his inquiries. That sheriff didn’t know beans about anything. Lena could understand Julia’s fear...to think that there might be strangers lurking around the place...camping out in the ice house for heaven’s sake! What if it was the same as had killed Pa? Maybe Ma was right. The ice house should come down. Electricity was all anybody talked about now. When the lines were strung, people would start getting those electrical ice boxes and nobody would need ice houses anymore.

In appreciation of Will’s meeting her at their kitchen door yesterday, clean and sober, Lena planned to fix him a good dinner before she left, with lots of extras that he could nibble on for a few days before he had to start eating at Olna’s. Or he could eat at his mother’s.
That’ll make her happy. She’ll probably want him to move back in with her!
Lena snorted. Well, he could do as he pleased. Mary might fix him a meal or two as well...now
that
was a surprise... Mary turning out to be a brick.

Will and Lena’s barn was big enough for a couple of horses and feed storage. Will also kept some equipment and tools in there. The door was ajar. That meant Will was home.

Lena slid down off Millie and led her to the barn. She opened the door wider so they could get through. Tom wasn’t there. Will must have come home and left again.

Lena left the barn door half way open so she could see what she was doing without lighting the lanterns. “Okay, old girl,” she crooned, “I’ll fill your water bucket in a minute. Let’s just get you comfortable here.”

Lena untied her head-scarf and draped it over the side of the stall. As she did so, her eyes took in a shape, straight ahead, denser in its darkness than the surrounding shadows. She stopped to focus on it and as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and the barn door creaked open another few inches with a gust of wind, she saw a pale smiling face materialize out of the gloom. She sucked in a breath and uttered a cry of alarm, then she brought her hand to her heart. “Oh, for goodness sakes, you scared the life out of me! What are you doing out here? We looked for you yesterday. Where’d you disappear to? What are you doing out here? Why didn’t you go inside? Will’ll be back pretty quick, I expect.”

The smile grew. “No, he won’t,” said Frederick, who was seated on an upside-down cream can.

Lena felt queasy. “Has something happened to Will?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Frederick beamed. “I left him about a half an hour ago at Leroy’s.”

Her stomach settled when she remembered what they still owed Leroy’s Tavern. He wouldn’t extend any more credit to Will Kaiser. “All he’s going to get there is water to drink.”

“Oh, no,” Frederick disagreed pleasantly. “I gave him some money. He’ll be there for awhile.” Her brother-in-law chuckled.

Lena felt a certain dread creep over her. And a dead calm. “Why would you do that, Frederick?”

“So I could have some time with you.” Frederick’s voice sounded flat. So far he hadn’t moved, or even shifted his position. His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of Pa Kaiser’s old great coat. Lena had never seen Frederick wear that coat before. He seemed small inside it.

“Why don’t we go into the house then, where it’s warmer,” suggested Lena, although the barn suddenly felt plenty warm to her.

“No. I’m comfortable.”

Lena licked her lips. “What do you want to talk to me about?”

“Mother. She says I have to go away.”

Well, it’s about time.
Lena never thought Ma Kaiser would have the gumption to throw him out.
Good for her.
“Frederick, you’re thirty years old. You should be out on your own. Don’t you want to be out making your own way?”

“No.” He was sullen now, withdrawn. He rubbed the knuckles of his right hand hard. “Where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do?” He looked Lena squarely in the eye. “You really balled things up.”

As much as Lena had always thought that Frederick should be shown the door of Ma Kaiser’s house, she had never discussed it with anyone. “Why is it my fault? I haven’t even talked to Ma about you. How could I have anything to do with her throwing you out?”

Frederick shook his head and pursed his lips together tightly, and continued to massage his knuckles. “You come snooping around, my snoopy nosy bitch sister-in-law. Just like your stoopy snupi—snoopy stupid whiney boy brother.” In his agitation he was mispronouncing words. Lena was ready to laugh until she heard ‘brother.’

“Tori?”

“Toritoritori?” He mimicked her in a high falsetto voice, then added in his own, “Whiney boy sissy pants Tori.”

The dead calm deepened in Lena. She was beginning to see the picture, though she didn’t understand it. She could figure it out later. Right now, she wanted to get out of the barn. She had to maneuver around or under the horse just to get out of the stall before she could make a run for it. Frederick saw her eyes flit to the door and read her mind as she calculated time and distance.

He reached into the deep pocket of the coat. “You know Pa’s gun he always kept in the cabinet in the dining room?”

Lena nodded.

“It still works.” Frederick produced the gun. I tried it out yesterday. It’s fun to kill gophers. I think I’ll take it up. It settled my nerves. We can’t have a garden out back because they tear everything up. Now I’ll kill them.”

“You killed Tori.”

Frederick shrugged and smiled crookedly.

“Why?” She asked him very gently. Lena saw madness before her, and she did not want to provoke it.

“I made him promise not to tell you until Will’s trial was over, and you didn’t have so much on your mind. I thought that by then he’d forget about it. But he didn’t.” He was the Frederick she knew speaking now, almost pleasantly, reasonably, a serious, concerned expression replacing the crooked smile. “He came in to tell you. And because he was such a good boy, he told me first.” The eerie smile returned.

“What was he going to tell me?” Lena kept her voice steady, reasonable. “What he saw in the ice house?”

Frederick lapsed into a mimicking voice again that gave Lena a chill. “OOOOH... I saw something soooo bad in the ice house. It made my widdle tummy sickums.’ The drooling little shit. I said I’d come home with him so he wouldn’t have to tell you alone. We went upstairs. The stupid dummy waited for me while I came down to the barn to get the rope! He watched me make a noose and throw it over the beam. He thought it was a game, I guess. I put it over his head and yanked. He wasn’t heavy at all. Just flopped around a little bit.” Frederick made a waggling motion with his fingers in the air. “I added the chair later,” he added, almost modestly.

Lena felt the barn turning around. She grabbed the top of the stall and hung on.

“What did he see in the ice-house?” Lena’s own voice sounded strange to her, speaking in an even tone while inside her head she was screaming.

Frederick’s eyes rolled. “What did
you
see?”

“A rocking chair. A mess of candle wax.”

“What did Gustie see?”

“The same thing I did.”

His sing-song falsetto began again. “Toritoritori lifted out a hunk of ice...and what he saw, it wasn’t nice, and it made him sick to his tummins.”

Lena slid her foot a short distance to her right and eased her body after it, hoping Frederick would see that she was just shifting her weight and not moving closer to the edge of the stall.

“Actually, it was that fucking cat. Once we stirred things up in there, that cat couldn’t leave it alone. The smell I suppose. Tori tried to get the cat out of the ice house when it followed him in there. That’s when he found them. I wanted to get rid of the cat. She threw a fit. I wanted to get rid of
them
—she threw another fit. Said now she had them again, she would keep them close to her.”