Tisha (33 page)

“For quite some time.”

“Quite some time,” Mr. Vaughn mimicked. “Jesus Christ.” He got up without another word, took his parka from the wall and walked out. He’d be headed for the roadhouse to tell everybody. The others stayed put.

“I’d suggest, madam, that you bring those two children here tonight.”

“I’ve pretty well made up my mind.”

“I would be doing you a service if I were to go over to your quarters right now and take them forcibly.”

“And I’ll help you out,” Harry Dowles said.

“I don’t think you’d do something like that, Mr. Strong,” I said. I was pretty upset by now, scared he’d do it. He shook his head a little and his mouth tightened up. “Goodnight, madam,” he said finally.

I walked out shaking. I’d wanted to stop at the roadhouse and see Maggie’s granddaughter, but with Mr. Vaughn inside spreading the good news about Chuck and Ethel, I wasn’t about to.

Nancy asked me right away how it had gone and I told her what Mr. Strong had said.

“Well, if he did come over for ’em he’d have plenty of help. You want me to stay?”

“No. You go on and have a good time. I’m not worried,” I lied. I didn’t mention the news about Fred.

After she left I played tic-tac-toe with Chuck for a while, then after he and Ethel were in bed I sat down to write to Mr. Henderson. I told him that if he could manage it I’d prefer to teach in Eagle, but that if he couldn’t I’d take another school. I also wrote him about Chuck and Ethel, explaining who they were. “I’ll be keeping them with me at least until June,” I wrote, “and I have the feeling you’ll be getting some letters about them from people.” I tried to kid about it to take the edge off a little.

While I was addressing the envelope there were quick footsteps on the porch and the door was flung open. I was scared out of my wits, thinking it was a bunch from the roadhouse come to take the kids, but it was Nancy. She had tears in her eyes and a big red welt on her cheek. Maggie Carew was right in back of her, fuming mad. She hadn’t even bothered to put on a shawl. “Just what the hell are you up to now!” she yelled before I had a chance to say anything.

“What happened?”

“What does it look like?” Maggie said. “She nearly got her head knocked off on account a you.”

“The kids are asleep, Mrs. Carew.”

I brought the lamp into the schoolroom and we closed the door behind us. “Are you crazy?” Maggie hissed at me.

“What happened?”

“She sassed Angela and Angela walloped her one and it’s all your goddamned fault.”

“It isn’t her fault,” Nancy said. “Nobody asked Angela to hit me and if you’d of just let me alone—”

“She’d of really given it to ya, so shut up.” She turned to me. “Are you keepin’ those kids?”

“Yes, Mrs. Carew—”

“I don’t want to hear any blabber. All I wanna hear is that those kids are goin’ outta here. Otherwise there’s gonna be hell to pay.”

“Mrs. Carew—”

She wouldn’t let me talk. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? You got half the people in this place thinkin’ you’re nuts and the other half ready to lynch ya.”

This time she let me talk. “Mrs. Carew, I’m doing what I think is right. If those two kids were white nobody would think twice about my keeping them here.”

“If they were white they wouldn’t
be
here! Look, I’m try’na tell you somethin’ for your own good. You keep those kids and you’re askin’ for it. Goin’ daffy over that half-breed was bad enough, but this takes the cake. Do you realize you’re lousin’ up your whole future?”

“I’m not worried about it.”

“Well you better. You better worry about a lot of things from here on in. There’s talk over to the roadhouse about some a them comin’ over here and takin’ those kids whether you like it or not.”

That did it. I saw red. I was so mad that if I’d had a lightning bolt I’d have thrown it at that roadhouse and everybody in it. “I’ll be right back,” I said.

I went into the cache and put a box by the wall. Getting up on it, I felt around for the nickel-plated revolver, my hand finally closing around the holster. It was freezing cold, and if I hadn’t been so mad I’d have realized I was in for a shock.

“What are you gonna do with that?” Maggie said when I marched back into the schoolroom.

“If I have to I’m going to use it.” I took the revolver out of its holster. “I’m going to keep this out until I go to sleep tonight, and when I go to sleep I’m going to put it under my pillow. Please do me a favor. You tell anybody at that roadhouse who has a mind to
set foot in here and take those children from me that if they try to, so help me God I’ll shoot ’em. I will shoot them dead.”

“You’d be crazy enough, wouldn’t you”?

“You are absolutely right.”

“I’ll tell ’em. But I’ll tell you one thing too. Maybe you don’t know it, but I been stickin’ my neck out for you. Come spring I’m leavin’ here for Eagle as you well know and buyin’ the Adkins’s roadhouse there. That Adkins woman is on the school board and she wrote me to find out if you were as crazy as she’s been hearin’. Well, I wrote her back, sayin’ you were just a cheechako and didn’t know the ropes, but that you were a damn good teacher and if she could swing it, to see that the school board didn’t turn you down. She came back to me and said she’d do it. Well, I’m gonna tell you here and now that I’m about to change my mind and tell her you’re as crazy as a bedbug and that compared to you that Mrs. Rooney is a patron saint. Now are those kids leavin’ here tomorrow or ain’t they?”

“They’re staying with me.”

“Then that’s the blow that killed Father. I wash my hands of the whole thing. I’ll tell you one more thing, young lady. This ain’t over yet—not by a long shot. As for you, dummox,” she said to Nancy before she left, “you stay out of Angela’s way.”

As soon as she was out the door I let out the yelp I’d been holding in and rushed over to the stove. Throwing open the door, I shoved the revolver in as far as I could without burning my hand.

Nancy was wide-eyed. “What’s wrong!”

“It’s stuck to my hand.”

I kept hopping around in front of that stove as if I had to go to the outhouse. A few seconds later the metal warmed up enough. I dropped the revolver on the table with a sigh of relief and started blowing on my hand.

“What’d you hold onto it for?” Nancy said.

“Just to make a point.”

My hand was all right. A couple of blisters, that
was all. I asked Nancy what happened between her and Angela.

“Aah,” she sneered, “Angela was saying things about you, about how you and Fred carried on and that he’d probably lived with you a couple of times. She said she had a good mind to come over here and wipe the floor with you and feed Chuck and Ethel to her dogs. I told ’er she oughtta mind her own business and she walloped me.”

“We better stay out of her way.”

“I’m not afraid of ’er.

“I am.”

“You heard about Fred bein’ back, I guess,” Nancy said a little later.

“Yeah.”

“I guess they musta given him a real bad time.”

“I’ll bet they did.”

We didn’t sleep too well that night. Every time I heard somebody go by I expected them to come charging in. But nobody bothered us.

“Cargo,” I said to the children I was giving a spelling test to the next morning. “The riverboat carried a cargo of provisions and supplies.”

“Willard’s licking the window again, Teacher,” Joan Simpson said.

“Willard,” I called, “I’ve told you for the last time to cut that out.” Yesterday under his expert guidance Ethel had finally left part of her tongue on the window. She’d literally gushed blood for a while and it had frightened her into a screaming fit. It almost did the same for me.

“If you were busy doing your own work,” I snapped at Joan, “you wouldn’t care what Willard was doing.” Joan gave me a hurt look and went back to doing the simple sums I’d given her. I shouldn’t have snapped at her but I was nervous. I could hear Mr. Strong swinging open the doors to his stable across the road. He’d be leaving in a few minutes, and even though I didn’t think he’d try to take Chuck and Ethel by force I was still a little worried. I hadn’t slept much last night. I’d kept having weird dreams that I was a little girl again, sleeping on a cot in the kitchen, and I’d kept waking up all night, thinking that any minute Angela and the other vigilantes might come charging in.

Rebekah was aggravating me too. For some reason she was in a bad mood when she came in this morning, especially with Chuck and Ethel. Ethel had sidled up to her while she and Lily were copying letters together out of the alphabet book. Putting her finger on the open page Ethel said, “Book?” Rebekah shoved her away. She gave her such a hard push that Ethel started crying and Nancy had had to take her into my quarters. A little later when I asked Rebekah to let Chuck work with her and Lily at their table she said there was no room for him. I let it go and sat him alongside of Joan, but it had irritated me.

“Through,” I went on. “The train went through the tunnel.”

“That’s a hard one,” Isabelle said.

“Nah, it’s easy,” Jimmy Carew said happily. He started to write and Evelyn Vaughn tried to peek at what he was doing, but he cupped a hand around his work.

“Yah!” I heard Mr. Strong yell to the horses. Everybody looked up as the jangle of bells sounded outside and the sled was on its way. I sat back and relaxed. I looked at my watch. It was 10:30. Nancy was taking the test also, so I asked Rebekah to take the littles ones out for recess.

When the test was over nobody else wanted to go out, so I left Nancy in charge and went outside myself. Chuck and Willard were busy terrorizing the girls by throwing snowballs at them and Rebekah was shouting
at Chuck in Indian.
“Awnee!”
she yelled to him: Come over here!

He didn’t listen. Instead he threw some snow at Joan. Rebekah stalked over to him, grabbed a handful of his parka and shook him viciously.

“Rebekah!”

She let him go and he fell on his behind. He got up and was about to kick her when I grabbed him. “Stop it!”

“She hurt me. I not like her one goddamn bit,” he said. “Sumbitch dirty black Injun!”

“You will not use that kind of language!”

“She call me same, say me dirty black Injun I say same her.”

“Go inside. I’ll talk with you later.”

He stomped in, slamming the door behind him. The other kids were watching and I told them to go ahead and play, we’d be going inside in a few minutes. “Rebekah, why are you picking on him?” I asked her.

“He one dirty mean kid, that kid. Him and sister. Dirty and ugly them both.”

“They’re not dirty and they’re certainly not ugly.”

“You not tell me!” she huffed. “I see lotsa Indian kids and I tell you you make one big mistake not send Indian village. Chuck, he no damn good and Ethel same thing.”

“You still haven’t told me why you’re picking on them.”

“I
tell
you, no? Kids no damn good. Both ugly like Uncle Arthur.”

“From now on keep your hands off them.”

I walked away from her and started the kids playing
Ring Around the Rosie.
Ethel didn’t know what it was all about, but she joined in anyway and they had a good time. Rebekah came up behind me.

“Tisha …”

“What is it?” I didn’t bother to turn around.

“I no like you be
sahnik
me,” she said.

I’d heard Chuck use the word, so I knew that it meant angry.”I’m not
sahnik
with you,” I lied.

“You sahnik.”

“All right, I’m mad,” I said, turning. “It just seems to me that you’re going out of your way to be nasty to Chuck and Ethel and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

She looked so contrite I felt bad.

“You A-number-one fine lady, Tisha, I have good feel in my heart for you. Like you too much. Want you be happy.”

“What has that got to do with Chuck and Ethel?”

“You no savvy lotsa things in No’th country. You catch big troubles you keep this kids. Everybody hate—not like see Tisha-no-husband be motha for dirty Injun kids. I try help you. Be mean. Tell you kids no good, maybe you send Indian village. You see?”

“Yes.”

“You not be
sahnik
no more?”

“No, but try to be nice to them, will you? They need it badly.”

“You keep for sure?”

“For sure.”

“You no worry.” She patted me on the shoulder. “I treat nice.”

Before we went back in she said, “I make one big lie, Tisha. They good little children. Smart. Ethel, she pretty like Mary. Chuck, he pretty like Joe Temple. I tell you truth now.”

“Thanks, Rebekah.”

“You welcome.”

After lunch the weather turned so cold I had to put the little children in my bed again, and at dismissal time I kept Isabelle and Joan in. They were both too young to let them go home alone in this cold.

Joan’s mother picked her up a few minutes after school was over, but no one came for Isabelle until a half hour later. Somehow I had a feeling it was going to be Fred, and sure enough, it was. I’d kept preparing myself for when I’d be seeing him again, and I’d made up my mind to be level-headed and poised. The last thing I was going to do, I’d said to myself, was act as if the world had come to an end just because things had worked out the way they had. As soon as he walked in, though, I felt the kind of lurch you get when you walk
downstairs in the dark and think there’s one more step where there isn’t. He came in, bringing the sharp tang of cold air with him, and any poise I thought I’d have turned to mush.

Not that he did much better. No sooner did he say hello to me and Nancy than he let Chuck buttonhole him and show him a couple of things he’d made in school. He looked through the book of minerals Chuck had made as if every page had a special message for him. Finally Nancy took the kids into the schoolroom so we could talk by ourselves, and at first we just sat there like two blocks of ice.