The Last Letter (25 page)

The women cackled with delighted agreement. Except for Lutie who clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes. Silence draped over them and they stared at Lutie.

“Now Lutie,” Ruthie said, “you know Jeanie will have designed the perfect dress for you, too. Why, how could she go wrong with all the strengths you possess?”

“Well, I suppose I could take a look.” Lutie stuck her chin in the air and stalked behind Jeanie to the bundle from where Ruthie’s dress came.

Jeanie cleared her throat searching for something diplomatic to say as all the things that filled her mind were either corrective or downright peevish in nature. None of which suited Jeanie’s relationship to Lutie.

Greta nearly growled at Lutie. Ruthie allowed her face to soften and with a single disapproving expression, she told Greta and Jeanie she understood that Lutie’s behavior was atrocious.

It struck Jeanie then, how much dealing with Lutie was like dealing with Frank. Their natures were such that they required gentle treading when moods were disagreeable. From afar, this type of gentle treatment would appear indulgent and unnecessary. But as Jeanie understood and clearly Ruthie must have too, the quiet handling of moods would ensure smooth movement forward in life rather than the tripping and falling through what could have been avoided if one were more facile in human relations. The environment of the prairie itself was hard enough to deal with without personalities coming into play.

The only thing Jeanie couldn’t understand was what Lutie offered to Ruthie to make her want to keep Lutie around. Frank offered Jeanie love and support on his good days; beautiful craftsmanship, big ideas, enthusiasm, so much that was often so good. So far, Jeanie hadn’t seen one thing that Lutie offered to her sister or anyone else on the prairie. Except for her good looks. That was clearly appreciated by all the men, even the reverent Mr. Hunt couldn’t help but steal a glance or thirteen when in her presence. Perhaps that was her role—living art or something of the sort.

Jeanie held up Lutie’s dress and handed it to her, awaiting approval.

Lutie pulled her dress against her body, its lilac wool—the counterpart to the silk material that was simply too fragile for the prairie. Though Jeanie went with the sturdier material, the design she selected was a bit impractical, an empire-waist that when bending and stretching over a fire would be more unwieldy than a tight-fitted type for it was the kind of dress Lutie favored.

Lutie smoothed the front of her dress, fingered the glass buttons with pasque flowers reaching out from inside the orbs. “The paperweight buttons.” Lutie shook her head and her tense face seemed to be fighting back emotion. The women were silent, forcing Lutie to respond to the work Jeanie had done.

Lutie repeatedly ran her hand down the front of the dress then along the velvet ribbon that circled the waist. “It is spectacular,” she barely said above a whisper.

“I’m glad it suits you, Lutie. I thought you would be partial to the paperweights. Appreciate them.” Jeanie said.

“It does suit me. It does.” Lutie hugged the dress to her, bowing her head into it as though there was a reason she couldn’t make eye contact with Jeanie, as though there was something shameful that kept her from doing so. Perhaps the gift of a new dress shined a too bright a light on the degree to which she entertained her laziness?

A gust of hot wind struck the group of women like a two-by-four in the face and they scrambled to move the clothing inside. But, before they could gather any of the clothing up, the wind fell away as quickly as it rose.

“That’s odd,” Jeanie said.

“Odd is normal around here,” Greta said.

“That much, I’ve learned in nearly four months. I suppose we enjoy the sunlight all the better for having a few shadows first.” Jeanie said. She always liked when she could employ her favorite phrase, making her feel secure.

“Agreed.” Greta held her dress up and petted it, grinning. “This is the finest dress I’ve ever seen. Even when we stopped in New York City and had a few days between trains, and the women seemed to spill through the streets in fine, nearly picture-perfect dress, I didn’t see anything as well made or beautiful as these.”

Jeanie looked at her feet, her face warming, so honored by such lavish praise from such a simple woman as Greta. The women began yammering over one another, clamoring for details regarding Jeanie’s choices for each one of them.

Lutie cocked her head, squished up her face in phony disbelief and crossed her arms over her chest. “So, with all your talents, why’re you here, on this prairie, fighting fire and dirt and—well, you never have really explained. Your dearest Frank has filled us in on a bit of it all, but you know men, they’re always short on words when we need them most—”

“Because it’s the way circumstances went, Lutie,” Jeanie said.

Jeanie bent down and began sorting the already sorted clothing, hiding tears that welled in her eyes. Because, with the fall of her father’s bank and his stealing of his customers’ money, went the purses of three of the biggest designers in New York City. Jeanie was sure her likeness was posted far and near in New York, announcing a reward for the apprehension of her for doing nothing more than being the daughter of the man who destroyed the lives of many.

“Well, that doesn’t explain anything,” Lutie said.

“Well, we don’t really—”

Jeanie’s words were interrupted by the sound of a train roaring from the west. But the last of the railroad ended east of Darlington Township in Yankton. They covered their ears and spun around trying to match the sound with a sight of something, anything that could create such an auditory disturbance. At first, they saw nothing. Their voices rose over the escalating din.

A dark cloud appeared in the west, the rising drone accompanying the sight of dark storm clouds. Not storm clouds that developed slowly, darkening over the course of an hour or day, but instead, like the snapping shut of a window, the darkness was there, above, filling their ears, though dropping no rain or driving no wind. They all stood there gaping at the unnatural sight.

And, once the clouds blotted out the sun to a large degree, the black plumes began to descend upon the group. Jeanie instinctively covered her ears while running to the soddie to check on Katherine, to get her inside the house for cover. Katherine wasn’t there.

Jeanie spun around, searched for the site of Katherine’s homespun flowered dress and white apron. Jeanie stood under the lip of the front of the soddie and in her mind it made sense that she wasn’t getting wet. What didn’t make sense was the sight of her friends, nearly running in circles, yelling for children and husbands over the storm, the perfectly dry storm.

Jeanie’s chest heaved and she looked up into the sky. It was then she saw what was happening and what she saw was so unlikely that she was taken by laughter as chaotic as everyone else’s panicked screams and flailing motions. What was happening?

Jeanie held her shaking hand out into the air waiting for rain to drench her skin, but instead of water, enormous insects landed there. What was she seeing? She let six of them sit there until they nibbled her skin. Grasshoppers! She’d heard about infestations over the years. The thought of the destruction that swarms of these miniature beasts could inflict took her from her laughter.

Still choking on laughter—that nervous laughter that always came at the wrong time, but somehow felt great when it did, she couldn’t stop it, its inappropriateness, she choked on it as she spun around looking for Katherine. She stood with the others, hands moving across her face, covering her eyes, then mouth then ears as though she couldn’t decide which orifice was best shrouded from the beasts.

Jeanie saw the world slow to nearly half motions as her mind watched the three-inch creatures, so large she could see their jaws work as they chomped on grasses. The freshly sprouted green that had seemed like such a miracle after the fire was consumed in front of her eyes.

She finally was able to stifle her laughter enough to run to the clump of women and Anton and begin pulling them into the soddie. She tried to step over the grasshoppers but every time she lifted her foot, the space below was filled with insects, piled three deep, fighting for anything remotely green. They crunched under her boot igniting chills in her body, nausea tore at her insides at the thought that she was killing living things. Except that stepping on them didn’t actually kill anything, they merely readjusted themselves and began munching away.

“Everyone into the soddie!” Jeanie said. “We’ll be safe in there!” She groped at Katherine and Lutie, pulling each by a dainty arm. Both of them crying, hid their faces with their free hands as they followed Jeanie to the home. She shoved them into the soddie and turned to pull the rest of them in, but Ruthie, Greta and Anton were still at the wagon. They were kicking and swatting at grasshoppers while they attempted to drag the clothing toward the house.

“Leave that stuff!” Jeanie stomped toward them. “They’re looking for grass and vegetables! Come inside.” None of them seemed to hear what Jeanie had said as they continued to hit and stomp and drag the clothing.

Jeanie pulled Ruthie’s arm. “Come inside. They won’t bother the clothes. It’s greens they want.”

Ruthie tore her arm from Jeanie’s hand and bent down. When she stood up, holding the beautiful green dress to her chest, Jeanie gasped. She covered her mouth when she saw. She pulled the dress closer so she could touch it. Jagged holes covered the dress, as though they’d been cut into the design.

“What
is
that?” Jeanie said, not believing her eyes or the feel of the ransacked material. Another swarm of grasshoppers dropped and covered the dress, nearly eating it right out of Ruthie’s hands. Finally Jeanie understood what was happening.

“Move! We’ll lose everything!” Jeanie said. She was taken by insidious laughter as she bent down and scooped up the grasshopper-covered bundles of clothing. Greta and Anton were already half-way into the soddie, arms laden with all they could carry. Ruthie stood, statue-stiff, head bowed.

Jeanie threw her bundle into the soddie and turned back to Ruthie. “Ruthie! Come, now. You must come!”

Ruthie remained, her shoulders jumping with cries into the din of munching insects.

Jeanie ran to her, wrapped her up against her body and pulled her toward the soddie. Jeanie shoved her inside and slammed the door behind her, shutting out a bit of the drone of ravenous insects.

Katherine squealed, pointed to Ruthie and then buried her head into Lutie’s breast. Jeanie turned and nearly fell over at the sight of clusters of grasshoppers, sitting on the flowered fabric of Ruthie’s dress, jawing at it, too stupid to realize its lifelessness.

Jeanie and Greta batted at the insects, while Ruthie sobbed, face in her hands. Jeanie and Greta stomped them once the grasshoppers fell on the floor and then Anton swept them out of the soddie. Once this process was complete, the only grasshoppers they could hear were outside, gnawing away at anything they could. With the buzzing of the grasshoppers beginning to sound like silence itself, the soddie became heavy with quiet.

They picked through the clothing Jeanie had so lovingly made, assessing the damage. Jeanie would intermittently rupture the silence with raspy cackles, laughter no one else seemed to be taken by.

The grasshoppers stayed for hours, twelve at least. Though no one could say how long they ravaged the land for sure, because even with all the worry about where the rest of their cooperative members were, even with the chilling sound of millions of insects eating the house that protected them, at some point, their bodies won the battle and each of them fell asleep. Except for Jeanie. She guarded the home against the occasional rodent seeking refuge. This allowed her to hover, watching over the rest of them.

She listened to their breath, holding the oil lamp over them, noticing the slack calm of their faces interrupted by a grimace here and a grunt there. She wondered if they dreamed of prairie horrors. When Jeanie finally grew so heavy with fatigue that she thought she could sleep, she lay down with Katherine. She closed her eyes and an oppressive fear settled inside her, shocking her with what felt like tangible weight, like she could have touched the black mass if she’d been able to open herself up and locate it.

Though she’d been met with fears like never before over the last few months, nothing had ever been as real as this, and she hoped her children felt nothing of the sort. She wasn’t sure how she would protect them, not when things like grasshoppers descended like rain, but she knew she had to. And, somehow she would.

After the day of the grasshoppers Jeanie woke first. Katherine was folded into her body, both barely clinging to the edge of the bedstead as they shared it with Ruthie who slept like an irritated bull.

Jeanie stretched and crawled over Katherine. Upright, she crept into the bathroom and recoiled at the smell of six people having nearly overflowed two chamber pots.

She stifled her gag and even though scared of what she might see outside, she lumbered toward the front door, hand over mouth and barely made it outside before vomiting on the freshly shorn ground. She dry-heaved, feeling as though her insides might have been turning inside out, emptying its lining as much as anything else that had been in there. Her eyes watered and her head filled with fizz leaving her unbalanced. She steadied herself on the side of the soddie, her fingers digging into the earthen bricks, while her eyes squeezed shut, watered so forcefully that even though closed, tears soaked her cheeks.