Sisters (26 page)

"Esther, what's
happened? Where are you hurt?"

The girl didn't answer, but
she made a gesture with her hand, an unclear motioning. Some instinct
told Sophie the girl meant for her to look up. She raised her eyes to
the telephone pole and saw a rope hanging from a hook and a
black-and-white shape hanging from the rope, a small furry shape she
refused to recognize at first, though she saw it with shocking
clarity.

She stood and looked at the
protruding eyes, glazed over now with death. Tom. She touched the
silky fur and felt that the dog's body was still warm, and though she
knew he was dead, she was impelled to frantic activity. She tried to
reach the hook, jumping and jumping again, but it was no use, and so
she struggled until she had loosened the noose around his neck. She
stood with the small body in her arms, trying to think what to do.

"Esther?"

The girl was gone.

"Esther!" Sophie
had to find her, comfort her. She limped back toward the house,
through the gate, and laid the small body in the shade of a lilac
bush. She entered the house.

"Esther?" There
was no one on the first floor, so she walked up to the second, where
she heard sounds from still higher. She climbed the back stairs to
the third floor and saw Sally standing in the doorway of her room.
Her eyes wide, the child started explaining even before Sophie asked
a question.

"Esther came running
in making a funny noise like she was going to be sick. She's up in
the tank room now. Mrs. Syms too."

The housekeeper might be in
the tank room. Sophie thought, as she climbed the ladder stairs, but
Esther wasn't. She knew now, knew for certain, where Esther was, and
it wasn't in the tank room.

Esther was on the ledge
outside the tank-room window. When Sophie emerged from the tank room,
she saw Esther on the ledge, saw her rock forward, balance at the
point of equilibrium, then fall back, then rock forward again. Mrs.
Syms, who was kneeling beside the open window, turned a despairing
face to Sophie. "What'll I do?" she mouthed.

Sophie knelt beside her and
looked at Esther. The girl seemed locked in a trance as she rocked
back and forth. Perhaps that was the purpose of her motion, to
anesthetize the mind, to block out pain by rocking back and forth.
But it was so dangerous. Sophie shuddered as she looked down at the
ground, three floors away. She spoke softly to the girl on the ledge.
"Esther, it's sad and awful what happened to Tom, but it doesn't
help for you to be out there. It doesn't make it any better. And if
you should be hurt, it will make it so much worse for all the people
who love you."

There was no reaction, and
so Sophie tried more words, keeping her voice soft and calm. But the
child seemed dead to what she was saying. She rocked forward,
balanced, then fell backward; forward and back.

Sophie could almost, but
not quite, touch the girl from where she was kneeling. She leaned out
the window. "Esther?" When there was no response, she put a
tentative hand on the girl's shoulder, and though her touch was
light, the rocking stopped. Esther was still looking straight ahead
as if it made no difference whether she was moving or not, as if she
didn't even know she had stopped rocking. "Esther, I'm going to
help you in now." Sophie put her hands under the girl's arms and
pulled her toward the window. "Mrs. Syms, help me, please."
Together the two of them got her into the tank room.

Once inside, she was
compliant and cooperative, though she did not respond to words and
had to be gently prodded along. The two women got her down the ladder
stairs, took her to her room, and not knowing what to do, put her in
bed. She closed her eyes immediately and seemed to fall into a deep,
dreamless sleep.

"What happened to
upset her like this?" Mrs. Syms asked.

Sophie realized the
housekeeper didn't know about Tom, and she told her how Esther had
found him.

"Who'd do such a
thing?" Mrs. Syms gasped. "Why would anybody do that?"

"It's a warning to me,
I'm certain. A way of telling me that inquiries I've been making
aren't appreciated."

"So they hanged the
poor little dog? And right where the child would find it? It reminded
her of when she found her mother. I know it did." Mrs. Syms
nervously adjusted her spectacles. "Do you think I should call a
doctor?"

"I don't know what a
doctor could do. Let her sleep." Sophie looked down at the face
on the pillow. It was so pale, with dark smudges under the eyes, and
it was oh, so still, like a figure carved in stone, remote and
unperturbable."

"Poor little thing,"
said Mrs. Syms as Sophie smoothed and tucked the coverlet.

The two women left the room
together, Sophie limping noticeably. "You've done too much on
your ankle," said Mrs. Syms. "You ought to get off it. I'll
get you some warm water to soak it in."

"First I must take
care of Tom."

"No, no, let me have
one of the boys do it."

"Send someone to help
if you like, but I have to be there."

"Can I help?" It
was Sally.

"Of course you can."
Sophie took her hand, and the two of them started downstairs.

"Here, take this,"
Mrs. Syms said. She handed Sophie a pillow cover. "To wrap him
in," the housekeeper said.

Outside, while Sally
watched, Sophie shrouded Tom's body in the pillow cover. Had he been
heavy enough to strangle himself at the end of the rope? Sophie
wondered. Or had they put the noose around his neck when he had come
running to sniff at them, and then had they drawn it tight, tighter
until he was head? She hoped that was how it had happened, because it
would have been a better death than if they had strung him from the
hook live. And she couldn't bear to think of him dying slowly, filled
with dim wonder that human beings, whom he had always known to be
kindly, would do this dreadful thing to him."

The boy who had driven
Sophie to the Clarion office dug the grave behind the carriage house.
Sophie put the shrouded bundle into it, then stood back with Sally as
the boy filled the grave and tamped the earth.

"Could we put some
flowers on it?" Sally asked.

"That's a nice idea."

Sally gathered a few pink
petunias from the sunny side of the carriage house and put them on
the freshly turned earth. Then she stood very still beside the grave,
and Sophie realized she was trying not to cry. Of course. Just
because she was the kind of child who wasn't given to tears didn't
mean she never felt sad. And she'd loved Tom. Of course his death
affected her. Sophie put a hand on her shoulder, thinking the gesture
might release the tears, but the child help them back, fighting them
until she won. Something about her stubborn resistance moved Sophie
deeply, and she drew the child close.

"Mrs. Dymond..."
It was a man's voice.

Sophie jumped, startled.

"Mrs. Dymond..."
The voice again, coming from a shadowed alcove of the carriage house.
"I'll be right back," she said to Sally. She approached the
carriage house carefully and saw it was Virgil, the young reporter
from the Clarion.

"Mrs. Dymond, I'm
really so sorry about your dog. I didn't know they'd... they'd do
this. I would never have had you talk to Mr. Coover if I'd had any
idea."

"Why did you have me
talk to him?"

"You were asking about
Rodman, and I didn't know what you knew or what I should say to you.
Rodman's heading up a lynching party this afternoon."

"A lynching party?"

"It's something to do
with the spring roundup. The stock growers' counts were all way low,
and they found too many calves with homesteaders' brands. There's
been even more thieving going on than they thought, so they want to
make an example of somebody. It'll maybe put a lid on the thieving
for a while, but they don't want you writing about it in your
magazine, at least not in the way they're sure you would write about
it."

"And they hanged Tom
to let me know that?"

The young man nodded, his
eyes refusing to meet hers.

Suddenly a horrifying
thought occurred to Sophie. "Virgil, where are they going this
afternoon?"

"Pardon me?"

"Where are they going?
Whom are they going to hang?"

"Somebody named
Wilson, I think they said."

"When are they
leaving?"

"They left already.
About an hour ago. They must of stopped by here and... taken care of
your dog on the way outta town."

Sophie turned and hobbled
toward the house as fast as her ankle would permit. Sally watched her
wide-eyed. "I have to hurry," Sophie shouted over her
shoulder to the child. "It's an emergency!" Sophie didn't
care in the least what happened to Zack Wilson, but what would a
lynching party do to Baby? Not let her sit and watch, very likely.
They thought her a thief, too, but would they dare string her up? A
woman? "Mrs. Syms! Mrs. Syms!"

"Yes? Yes?"

"Is there a split
skirt around here anywhere?"

"No, I don't believe
so."

"Then please get me a
pair of Mr. Stevenson's trousers. A shirt, too. Hurry, please. And
I'll need boots, too. Are there any of Helen's? And have one of the
boys saddle a horse for me. A fast one."

"There's a sidesaddle
you could use--"

"I don't have time for
that! Please, Mrs. Syms!"

The housekeeper brought the
trousers and shirt. "Here's a belt, too. I know the waist'll be
way too big for you." She helped Sophie roll up the trouser legs
and shirt sleeves, then stood back and looked at her. "Do you
think you ought to put a skirt over the top of those trousers?"

"There's no time,"
said Sophie, struggling to pull a boot on over her swollen ankle.
"I'll worry about my reputation later."

Sophie headed for the
stable, limping, but moving fast enough so that Mrs. Syms had to
scurry to kleep up. The stable boy had saddled a buckskin, and Sophie
checked the cinch and let the boy help her mount.

"Better take this with
you," said Mrs. Syms, handing up Sophie's cane, which she had
been carrying. "Here, and this too." She handed up a
broad-brimmed hat. Sophie tucked the cane in the saddle, put on the
hat, and dug her heels in the horse's sides. She headed first for
Paul Bellavance's house. She didn't want to ride out to the Wilsons'
by herself unless she had to. Paul was the one person she could think
of she would trust to help.

But he wasn't home. The
maid who answered the door showed her into the parlor, where Anna May
was sitting with Lydia Swerdlow.

"Whatever is it,
Sophie? What's wrong? Your hair's all flying, and those clothes! My
word!"

"There's a lynching
party headed for the Wilsons'."

The women sat silent,
looking stunned.

"Baby has to have
help, don't you see? No telling what they'll do to her? Where did
Paul go?"

Anna May sprang to her
feet. "I don't know where, exactly. Looking for that Rodman
fellow's all I know. I'll get the wagon hitched, and we'll pick up
Amy and get out there right away."

Sophie started to dissuade
them, thinking they wouldn't be of any use. Then she thought about
going out there by herself--and doing what? Bearing witness so the
lynching party wouldn't dare hang Baby? If that were her purpose,
then it would help to have the women along. Four witnesses were
better than one. The idea of Amy Travers' coming troubled her, but
she wouldn't argue. For now the thing was to save Baby. "I'm
riding on ahead," she told Anna May and Lydia. Come as quickly
as you can."

As Sophie turned to leave
the parlor, she almost bumped into the Widow Bellavance. As always,
the black-gowned old woman was staring at her, but not in quite the
same way as usual. This time there was a mingling of fear and
disbelief in her eyes. It reminded Sophie of the way that Joe had
looked at her the one time she had seen him awake--as though she were
a ghost, a specter come to haunt him.

She brushed past the old
woman and opened the front door, and as she did so, the widow said
something Sophie didn't quite catch. "Emile?" Is that what
she had said? Sophie kept going. There was no time to worry about it
now.

She galloped the buckskin
across the prairie. The only sounds were the thudding hoofs and the
creaking saddle, and the quiet gave her a chance to reflect on what
she was doing. Her response had been almost automatic when she had
heard Baby was threatened. Had she reacted so immediately because of
Helen, because she knew this was what her sister would have wanted?
Partly perhaps, but there was something else too: this was what she
wanted. For reasons she didn't quite understand, it was very
important to her that Baby not come to harm.

She saw the shapes on the
horizon, made out tiny figures near the cottonwoods on the far side
of the creek--figures mounted on horseback, she saw as she rode
nearer. There was a spot of red--Baby's dress. But it was up off the
ground, alongside another dangling... My God, they had hanged her!
They had done it, they had hanged her! She felt bile rising in her
throat, and she reined the buckskin in as she started to retch.

When she straightened, she
saw that two figures on horseback had broken away from the group and
were riding across the creek toward her. She sat there stupidly,
watching them come. One rode a powerful-looking black horse and had a
bandanna pulled up over his face. The other was Jake Rodman.

"You can't do this,"
she said to them as they approached. Her voice caught in her throat
as she spoke, and she thought she would be sick again.

"It's done," said
Rodman flatly.

Sophie looked at the other
man. All she could see were his eyes, but they looked familiar. Black
and shiny like marbles. Was it Huber, the man from the Cheyenne Club
who'd been so angry with her? "I won't write about this,"
she said to him, trying to sound firm, in control of herself. "I'll
see you go to jail for it." The man didn't respond, so she
shifted her gaze back to Rodman.