The Last Letter (39 page)

Tommy was ordered into the wagon by Jeanie. She didn’t care a whit that Frank suggested Tommy stay to help Ruthie with her chores, that she might need human companionship while she awaited news of her sister. Ruthie buckled at her door as she watched the wagon leave and Jeanie, who couldn’t take her eyes from the sight of Ruthie sobbing there, puddled onto the floor, couldn’t decide whether the nausea she felt at that moment was because she hated Ruthie so much she could have killed her or because of the happiness she’d felt, the power that surged at the sight of Ruthie’s world coming unraveled. The pride and hate tasted good to Jeanie and she knew that with such feelings came the end of who she’d been for the first 27 years of her life.

Chapter 18

1905
Des Moines, Iowa

Katherine stood in the doorway to the guestroom. She listened to Yale and Jeanie’s breathing, a rhythmic match, each of their breaths paralleling the other, as Katherine imagined it had been for seventeen years. She waited for anger and resentment to come on the heels of jealousy that someone other than she shared that relationship with her mother. But nothing came. Nothing. Indifference sat there in her heart feeling as though it was approaching contentment, that maybe she’d gotten past her mother’s horrid decisions.

Katherine crept to the bed and scooped the envelopes from Yale’s belly and set them on the bedside table. Howard Templeton. Katherine vaguely remembered her mother mentioning Howard’s continued correspondence, but what she remembered most about Mr. Templeton was an argument he had with Jeanie at the dugout and then again once they’d left the prairie. She stretched her memory back to those days. What had they been arguing about?

Templeton had been a big part of their life on the prairie and there had been a lot stress for all the families. But now, looking back, Katherine recalled her discomfort in overhearing snatches of heated words. What could there have been for them to argue about? Katherine lifted the triangle flap open and pulled out the letter.

She opened it and though her gaze fell over the words, her mind didn’t see any of them. She was too preoccupied with the letters in the attic. She folded it again and slipped it back into the envelope. She looked at the ceiling. The letters from her mother to her father.
Those
she wanted to read—those she needed to read.

Katherine folded the flap back over and the sharp paper sliced her skin. She stuck her bleeding finger into her mouth. The sudden pain pushed her back in time. A flash of her parents arguing came to her then was pushed aside by more images of pained arguments between Jeanie and Templeton. That’s it. The argument. The last time she saw Templeton. That day at the hotel was the beginning of the end of everything Katherine had loved about her life.

Katherine turned toward the bed and saw her mother’s eyes open, staring at her. She jumped and dropped the letter back onto the bed.

“Go ahead. They’re yours as much as mine.”

Katherine’s mouth fell open at the sound of her mother’s voice, her suddenly coherent words. She felt a rush of excitement at the prospect that perhaps her mother wasn’t dying. That she could… well, she didn’t know what she wanted from her mother, but she had to sit there.

She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t feel forgiveness inside her, she wanted to, but couldn’t and so she sat there and after a bit, finally reached across the bed and held her mother’s hand, tracing each crevice and bump in it, remembering the hands that used to flash over fabric like lightning, used to soothe, used to create heavenly everything out of nothing. Those hands. She did remember those and in looking at them she could feel what she used to— utter and complete love.

Chapter 19

1888
Dakota Territory

Of all the days Jeanie spent on the prairie so far, that morning, Friday, January 13
^th
was the most beautiful of all. The blinding blue sky draped deep azure and cloudless over the snow, so stark was the contrast that if she’d seen a painting depicting it, she’d have thought the artist left his senses at the door of his studio and created from only his imagination. The yolk rising in the east cast such bright light that she had to squint when looking at the snow itself. The deep-freeze had crystallized the top layer of white so perfectly that it lost its whiteness to diamond clarity and reminded Jeanie of her grandmother’s blue velvet jewelry box that burst with diamonds and sapphires.

Jeanie choked on the goodness that the scene brought to her because until each child was within six feet of her, Jeanie would not further appreciate God’s work. Not far from the point where Jeanie decided to put aside the beauty at the end of her nose, Jeanie glimpsed black lumpy splotches about fifty yards to the east, but fifty yards that would take them off course to their home. They squinted at it. Was it merely a bush that somehow escaped the snow?

“We have to check to see what that is,” Jeanie said.

“It can’t be nothing. Someone lost a mitten is all,” Frank said.

“That would be a lot of mittens. Go, it could be…just go, go, go,” Jeanie rose from her seat in the wagon and gripped Nikolai’s shoulders so hard he actually grunted and pulled away.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t just…”

Nikolai nodded and guided the horses off course.

They arrived at the black spot and saw it was nothing more than a woolen coat. They dug under it and around it and it yielded nothing but sore fingers for the men. The body heat they generated in such action wasn’t even enough to melt the snow when it touched their bodies.

While the men were climbing back into the wagon, Jeanie looked from one end of the prairie to the next. As far as her eyes could see there were people, like black ants against the white, moving over the snow, plodding, bending, and wailing into the thin air, cries of discoveries that none of them wanted to make.

“It can’t be that bad,” Jeanie said. “It can’t.” Her companions didn’t respond.

The horses lost their footing a few times, but scrambled back to right themselves before tossing anyone from the wagon. And after some time, much longer than it would normally take, Jeanie saw the stick where she had intended to tie the red cloth when she first set out the day before.

“We’re close. There’s the bee tree. Stop here or you’ll take the horses off the end of the dugout.” Jeanie hopped from the wagon. She held up the coat and wouldn’t let the thought that there was no smoke rising from the stack dampen her excitement at seeing her children. She slid down the side of the dugout like an otter down the bank of a stream. The cold air shrunk her lungs as she forced them to work hard as she moved like an ox.

She banged on the door while Frank and Nikolai began digging snow from below. Once enough snow was cleared, they shoved the door three times before it gave way. At least the trunk had held tight, Jeanie thought.

Three more pushes and the door opened far enough for them to enter. The sun filled the space and Jeanie pushed by the men. Jeanie tripped over a large mass before her eyes had a chance to adjust. When they did, she found herself draped over the side of a cow. The dugout was warmer than outside, but there was no noise or movement.

“Katherine!” Jeanie shrieked as though there were miles for her voice to carry. The men behind her shifted and let more sun inside and the picture of what had happened over the course of time became clear. There was not only one cow, but two inside lying side by side. Between them was a brown woolen blanket. Poking out of the top of it was a hand, grayish, unmoving. Katherine’s.

Jeanie ripped back the blanket. Underneath lay Katherine and Aleksey, facing one another, each with an arm over the other’s midsection, their feet intertwined. Yale? Jeanie spun around looking for a sign of her.

She bent down and shook Katherine and Aleksey. They stirred then sat up, eyes squinting at the sunlight. Jeanie took Katherine by her shoulders kissed her all over her cheeks and forehead then realized that Yale had been there all along. Katherine had tucked her into her dress and there she was, just as pink as she’d been when Jeanie left her.

Jeanie gasped, hugged them both then tore off the coat, unbuttoned her dress and let Yale eat. They all cried and hung onto each other—Aleksey, Katherine, and Jeanie. When the dugout door closed, Jeanie turned to see Frank and Nikolai standing there, watching all of them.

Nikolai’s lips quivered and provided the only evidence other than a single tear down his cheek that he was crying. Aleksey struggled to his feet and shuffled slowly past Frank who helped him move to his father where he fell into his arms and cried the sobs his father didn’t.

Frank took the spot that Aleksey had abandoned near Katherine and rocked her as though a baby.

“I’m going to finish with Yale and then we have to set out for James,” Jeanie said.

“He’s not with you? Father?” Katherine pulled away and crinkled her nose at Frank.

“He wanted to hang the flag, the blizzard flag—”

“No,
after
that,” Katherine said. “He and Templeton did that much. And then they stopped here, but refused to stay, said they needed to find you, Father.” Katherine lifted her hand and pointed at Frank. “That you were making a mistake of some kind. He needed to find Mama, to warn her. I told him Mama didn’t need a warning, that was very clear on the weather dangers! I told him to stay, but he said he had to do something before Father…“

Jeanie felt her face freeze with fear as she patted Katherine and turned her mind from her husband’s stupidity. There was no time for that. Where was her James?

As though taking a cue to cover up the weight of what Katherine had reported, Nikolai set Aleksey on the lounge then went to the wagon for buffalo chips. Jeanie shook her head. If she hadn’t been feeding Yale she would not have been able to capsize the urge to strangle Frank’s thin neck. She knew what Katherine meant by James wanting to warn Jeanie, even if her daughter didn’t. James
knew.
He’d known that Frank was having an affair and when he found her not in the dugout, thought it more important to save Frank’s reputation than his own life.

“We have to hurry,” Jeanie said. “Katherine, are you okay to care for Yale, just a bit longer?”

Katherine’s face paled and she shook her head. Jeanie pulled her into her chest. “There’s no wind, no clouds in the sky, no sign of anything to change the weather—”

“But there wasn’t yesterday, either,” Katherine cried into Jeanie’s shoulder.

“That can’t happen again. Ever. That’s not normal, even here in this wicked, weathered place.”

Aleksey squatted near them and took Katherine’s hand that lay across her mother’s back. “Katherine. Your hand was exposed while you slept. Let me tend you. We can care for Yale until they bring back James. It won’t be long. He’s probably in the haystack by the Moores. He’s not dumb.”

Jeanie nodded and kissed Katherine’s hand. The gentle pressure of a kiss made Katherine yelp as the frozen limb had begun to thaw. Jeanie knew it would be an excruciating time while the blood began to snake its way through Katherine’s hand again. She shouldn’t leave her.

Jeanie looked at Aleksey, then at the cows that were barely alive themselves. Aleksey recounted the pure luck that had occurred when the errant cows appeared at the door, bumping it with their heads, making Aleksey and Katherine finally pull them into their space. They had felt bad for the freezing cows and couldn’t turn them out and didn’t realize until Nikolai told them that in saving the cows, the cows saved their lives by sharing their considerable warmth. Jeanie listened, gulped back a cry then peeled a contented Yale from her breast.
Pure dumb luck,
Jeanie thought.

“There’s plenty of fuel now,” Jeanie said. “Tommy will stay with both of you and I won’t stay longer than a few hours no matter what the status of our rescue expedition.” Jeanie pulled from Katherine and stood. Frank did too and Aleksey sat where Jeanie had been and took over caring for Katherine.

Back in the wagon with Nikolai on one side of her and Frank on the other, Jeanie was sure her anger and fear were all she needed to fuel her body. Though the sun raged hard, none of its rays could be felt, as though it weren’t working at all, but just part of their memories, sparked by the idea that the sun should be there, that it should produce heat.

They crunched across the prairie, headed, in their best estimation, in the direction James would have taken. No one seemed to know if Templeton had made the trip with him or gone toward his own house. And they just repeated the facts as they knew them, over and again to one another as though mechanical representations of themselves rather than fleshy humans.

Their gazes scanned the prairie for odd shoots of color in the crystal-encrusted white. And they wound up back at Ruthie’s house, heading toward the haystack that stood fifty feet from the house.

In daylight, they could see a distinct hole had been cut into it, that there was movement.