Girl Waits with Gun (32 page)

Yes. I could do that.

I pulled some carrots out of a box of sand we kept in the root cellar and took them inside. I was standing at the kitchen sink, scrubbing them and looking out the window at the barn and the barren vegetable patch we'd soon have to replant, when the crunch of wheels on gravel announced that someone was in our drive. I leaned around and saw Francis's wagon pulling up to the door, a load of baskets under an oilcloth in the back.

He jumped down and went to talk to Norma. I scrubbed my carrots a little longer than I needed to. When they were skinned bare and bright orange, I dropped them in the sink and looked around the kitchen. There was the battered old table that had survived decades of dough being pounded on it, noodles being rolled out and sliced, coffee spills, dribbles of jam and preserves, and the arguments of three girls who rarely agreed on anything but sat down together nonetheless. The black iron wood-burning stove had no place in a modern kitchen, but when we moved in, there was no source of gas or electricity, and we learned to live without it. Mother's old scalloped dishes with their pattern of moss roses sat in the cupboard, as familiar as the backs of our hands. There was nothing new in this kitchen but Fleurette's pale blue curtains, stitched all the way around in yellow piping.

I had very little love for kitchens, but I couldn't see us giving this one up.

Francis waved at me through the window as he came up to the door. He had a newspaper in his hand. He'd grown a beard over the winter and there were little flecks of gray in it. Our father used to wear a beard like that. I realized with a start that Francis was almost the same age our father was the last time I saw him.

He pounded his feet on the threshold as he came through the door. “Kopp Black Hand Gang?” he said, tossing the newspaper on the table. “What happened?”

He set his hat on the table and dropped into a chair in front of it. “I thought this was all taken care of. What's been going on out here?”

I dried my hands and sat down across from him. “I told you they were getting ready to arrest Henry Kaufman, and they did.”

“Oh, I know. I read about that one in the papers, too. It's how I keep up with my sisters these days. Why didn't you tell me another man was threatening you?”

I leaned back in my chair to get a look out the window. Norma was staying very busy with her pigeons. I wasn't going to get any help from her. Fleurette had put on a recording of a Parisian ballet and I could hear her heel hit the ground each time she made a pirouette.

“What would you have done? I really do think it's over now. This man George Ewing, he was working for Mr. Kaufman. He's back in prison and—”

“But think about it, Constance,” Francis said. “Whether they convict him or not doesn't matter. There will be another one after this, and another one. Don't you see? You're easy marks out here. Three girls, living all alone, wealthy as far as anyone can tell.”

Rich, lonely women in the countryside. Is that how we looked to those men? I got a little queasy when I tried to see us through their eyes. “And I suppose you think we'd be safer with you.”

“Of course! That's what I've been telling you all along. Move in with us and you're living in a neighborhood, not out on some dark road. We have a police officer living down the street from us, and a firefighter. Besides, I'll be there.”

“Oh, you're going to protect us? I don't think Henry Kaufman and his gang would be afraid of you,” I said.

“They only go after people who provoke them. And I won't.”

Through the window I could see Norma strapping a basket of pigeons to Dolley's backside. She was going to ride away and leave me to handle this on my own. Fleurette's record skipped and she started it again.

He pushed his chair back and stood to leave. “You can't afford to keep this place without an income. You know I'm right about that.”

He was. We'd spent hardly anything all winter, but our savings were dwindling.

“At least send Fleurette to us,” Francis said. “She's the one they're after.”

“Fleurette stays with me.”

He bent over and said in a whisper, “Shouldn't mothers be more concerned with keeping their children safe?”

I leaned back and stared at him. “What do you think I've been doing?”

He went to the door, and I looked at the seam along the back of his coat, freshly restitched in Bessie's hand. He already had the slight stoop of a man who bore too many burdens. “Do you remember how Mother used to be when something happened on the street?” I said.

He paused and turned back to me, still aggravated.

“One time you and I were out with her,” I said, “and a boy was running past. He tripped and spilled a bag of onions all over the sidewalk. Do you remember that?”

He shook his head.

“I stopped to pick one up, but Mother yanked my arm and told me not to touch it, like it could be some kind of trick.”

“She was like that,” Francis said, leaning against the door. “She didn't trust anybody.”

“That's right,” I said. “And for years it never occurred to me that other people would stop if you dropped something, and hand it back to you. Some people—like the men who pulled our wrecked buggy off Fleurette—would run straight toward a disaster, not because they were heedless of the danger, but because they were prepared to do something about it.”

Francis shrugged. “Mother had her reasons. It was a different time.”

“That's exactly right,” I said. “It was a different time. We don't have to hide anymore, and we don't have to run away.”

Francis raised his hands in surrender. “Then don't. But you know you can always—”

“I know we can turn up on your doorstep,” I said. “I thank you and Bessie for offering. But we've done just fine standing up for ourselves, and I'm glad we did.”

He nodded and left. I sat in the kitchen with my eyes closed and listened to the churning of that distant French orchestra on the Victrola, and the sweep of Fleurette's slippers across our uneven parlor floor.

What I didn't say to Francis was that when Lucy grabbed me on the street in Paterson that day, I couldn't understand how anyone would take hold of a stranger and pour out their troubles. But now I realized that people did it all the time. They called for help. And some people would answer, out of a sense of duty and a sense of belonging to the world around them. That's what Sheriff Heath and his men did, lying in wait in our freezing barn, their guns drawn, to get the man who was trying to get us.

If I could give something to Fleurette—if I could give her one silent gift from a mother she didn't know she had—it would be this: the realization that we have to be a part of the world in which we live. We don't scurry away when we're in trouble, or when someone else is. We don't run and hide.

She watched Mother and learned her ways just like I did. But I hoped she would watch me too, and learn something different.

A WEEK LATER
, just after dinner, a knock came at the door. I opened it to find Sheriff Heath and Deputy Morris, dripping wet on my front porch. They'd removed their overcoats and stood shivering in their vests and shirtsleeves, the fabric stuck to them like a coat of paint.

They both spoke at once. “We're so sorry to bother you, Miss Kopp,” Deputy Morris said.

“Please forgive us, but could we—” Sheriff Heath began, as I opened the door wide and ushered them in.

“We realize we're barging in late,” Deputy Morris began again.

“It's all right,” I said. “What happened?”

Norma and Fleurette came in from the kitchen, and Norma went off to find towels and blankets for them without waiting for an explanation. Fleurette fussed over both of them, insisting that they kick off their wet shoes and stand by the fire. They crowded around the hearth. The smell of moss and river mud rose off them as their clothes warmed.

Norma returned with a stack of towels and disappeared again to heat the coffee. Fleurette added a log to the fire and settled down in front of them as if anticipating a dramatic recitation. “Do tell us everything,” she said. “Were you chasing our Mr. Kaufman out of the creek? Shall we get our guns?”

Deputy Morris shook his head. “No, miss. We were after another crook tonight. A house thief. He stole some jewelry and money and gave the lady of the house a terrible fright. We rounded up some men in the neighborhood, and we've been out chasing him all afternoon, but we lost him when it got dark.”

“And then you went for a swim?” Fleurette said.

“Not much of a night for a swim. The fellow we were chasing shot at the sheriff here, and we both fell backward into a creek. We were going to go straight home, but the road—”

“You've been shot?” I said around the hard thing that had leapt into my throat and lodged there.

Sheriff Heath had been looking at the fire while Deputy Morris spoke. He turned to me and said, “No. It just put a hole in my overcoat. He surprised us, that's all.”

Fleurette looked up at me and frowned. “There's a tear in his vest.”

“Let me see that.” I moved toward him but he pulled away. I grabbed him roughly by the arms and turned him to face me. He blinked at me in surprise. “Miss Kopp, I—”

“Stop that,” I said. “I think you're in shock.” I picked at the tear in his vest and came away with a hand covered in blood.

“You've been shot,” I said quietly, pulling him closer to get a look at the wound. “It's too dark in here. Fleurette, get some bandages and soap and things. See if we have anything that will fit a man. The sheriff's going to need another shirt.”

He tried to protest. “No, we only stopped because the road—”

“Never mind about that. We're going to get a look at your shoulder right now.”

Norma was coming out with coffee as I led the two men to the kitchen. She saw the blood seeping through his vest as we moved into the circle of light cast by the lamp.

“Let them have their drink,” I said, “and put on some more water. Light the other side of the stove so Deputy Morris can get warm.”

She did as I asked, and I pushed a protesting Sheriff Heath into a chair. Fleurette returned with the bandages and a bundle of Francis's old clothes. She helped me ease the vest off his shoulder. He groaned when we raised his arm to remove it.

“Bend over the table so we can see it in the light,” I said. “We're not going to touch it. We're just going to look.”

His shirt was soaked in blood across the shoulder and down the back. I lifted it carefully off his skin and Fleurette cut it away with scissors. Underneath was a wide and shallow wound obscured by half-congealed blood.

“I think you're all right,” I said under my breath. “It looks like the bullet just grazed you. We'll clean it so we can see better.”

He nodded but didn't look up at us. He was gripping the edge of the table with his hands, his knuckles pale.

Norma brought a towel and a bowl of hot water, and Fleurette supplied the soap. I washed the edges of the wound as carefully as I could without actually touching it. The bullet went deep enough to strip away the skin but didn't seem to expose any bone. As I cleaned it, the natural color of his skin returned, pink and white from the hot water. On his shoulder were a string of brown freckles, five of them in all.

He was breathing long, noisy breaths like a captive animal.

“Now we need to wash the wound itself,” I said. “Lean back so we don't make a mess.”

Without loosening his grip on the table, he eased back toward Fleurette and me. I looked down at him but he didn't meet my eyes. The hair on the top of his head had just begun to dry. Two locks lifted away from the rest.

I squeezed a trickle of water over his shoulder and Fleurette pressed a towel against him to catch it. The water ran bright red, but the wound looked clean. I peered at it closely, breathing in the metallic smell of fresh blood.

“This will have to be sewn up. It won't close on its own.”

He pulled away from us and tried to cover himself with the torn remnants of his shirt. “I don't need a doctor,” he said.

“Sir, I think the ladies are right,” Deputy Morris said. “Shouldn't someone take a look at you tonight?”

He shook his head and tried to stand up. “I'm not going to get a doctor out of bed for this.”

“Then sit down,” I said, with a tone of authority in my voice that surprised him. “You're not leaving without a bandage and a clean shirt.” He sat down wearily and Fleurette and I set about wrapping his shoulder. It was a difficult spot to cover properly and impossible to pin in place. Fleurette sewed a few stitches through the bandage to hold it. Then she produced our brother's old nightshirt. Sheriff Heath removed himself to the washing room to exchange his ruined shirt for Francis's. When he returned, he nodded at me.

“I need to speak to Miss Kopp for a minute.”

I opened the kitchen door and he followed me down the hall to the parlor. The fire we had fed a few minutes earlier was now blazing brightly. I encouraged Sheriff Heath to sit but instead he stood in front of it.

“I'm not quite dry,” he said, leaning over the hearth. I took my seat and waited for him to speak. The room was dark except for the fire, but I didn't want to go to the bother of lighting any lamps.

“I can't get Ewing to budge,” he said. “He's still claiming responsibility for all the letters and the shots fired and everything.”

“All of it?”

The sheriff attempted a nod and then grimaced and laid a hand on his bandage. Behind him the flames hissed and threw sparks on the hearth. He stepped aside and the orange glow illuminated him from below. He looked like an apparition in the flickering light.

“I'm afraid so. If we can't get him to change his story, the prosecutor's going to drop all the charges against Henry Kaufman.”