Together Apart (11 page)

In the time it took for Isaac to return, I had, by turns, shoved and tugged the mattress out of the wagon and onto the stable floor. "I must wash the stain from this," I said in answer to the question in Isaacs eyes.

"Nobody expects you to."

"Nobody but me. I must do something, and this is the only thing I know to do. The Tinkas shouldn't have to look at this again, especially if Carlos does not..."

"I'll fetch water," Isaac said.

I looked around, thinking I'd use a burlap sack for a scrub rag, and there on the floor was a heap of brown cloth. I held the fabric between my teeth and ripped away one strip and then another. When Isaac returned with the bucketful of water, I asked him to pour it on the center of the stain. The stain spread like ink spilled on a blotter. I dropped to my knees and began scrubbing. I scrubbed and scrubbed, using all the strength in my shoulders and arms. Scrubbed and scrubbed, calling for Isaac to bring more water. Scrubbed and scrubbed until the cornhusk stuffing was little more than mush. Scrubbed until I'd worn holes in the ticking. And still I scrubbed, the cobblestones cutting into my knees. Scrubbed and scrubbed until Isaac took hold of my arms and pulled me to my feet.

"It's no good," he said, turning me around. "Let go of it, Hannah."

"I can't let go, not ever," I shrieked. "My brothers are dead. I should have fought harder to get back to the school."

Isaac threw his arms around me then, pulling me tight against his bare chest. I felt safe there, like coming home to a warm house.

Isaac pressed his cheek against mine. "Stop blaming yourself. You did fight hard, Hannah. You fought hard for me, pulling me along even when I'd all but given up. You saved my life, Hannah, though I wasn't worth the saving."

I was about to scold him for saying such an awful thing when we again heard hoof beats on the drive. Isaac unwrapped his arms from about me, backed toward the door leading to the print shop, grinned, and then ducked inside.

"Where's the boy?" a man's voice asked. I spun around. Doctor Forbes was familiar to me. He'd been called to our soddie to treat my and Papa's frostbite in the days after the blizzard. But the man standing next to Dru was young and kindly faced, not elderly and gruff.

"Up there," I said, pointing, and the doctor took the steps two at a time.

Dru stepped around the ruined mattress and asked, "What happened? You look like you've been wrung through the wringer of Elizas washing machine. And your hands. They're bleeding."

"It's a long story."

"And it's a story you're going to tell me, once you've gotten out of those soiled clothes and we've taken care of your hands."

***

Later, after I'd changed behind the three-paneled dressing screen in my room, Dru insisted that she dab salve on my scrapes and cuts. Our feet dangling over the edge of the bed, Dru said, "Now you must tell me the story of what happened in the stable. I can't wait a minute longer."

"There's a girl. Her name is Rosa, the sister of the boy who was shot. She's blaming herself, and my heart just broke for her."

"As you are blaming yourself for the loss of your own brothers?"

If it had been an ordinary day, I might have tried to change the subject or made up a reason for excusing myself, but it hadn't been an ordinary day. Like the Tinka mattress, my will had worn to mush. "How much has Isaac told you?"

"Most all, but please don't be angry with him. You know how I am. I hounded him mercilessly."

"Then you know that I wasn't with my brothers as I should have been, know that I shamed myself by spending the night in a haystack with Isaac."

"Nonsense," Dru said, setting the jar of salve aside. "If there is any shame to be handed out, it belongs to those of us who whined that the streets might not be cleared in time for the next evening's entertainment at the opera house. And your father, might not the blame fall squarely on his shoulders? I've heard tell that many a father fetched their children safely home with horse and sleigh."

"He thought we were safe at the school, had no way of knowing the roof had collapsed. And he did go out when he saw that the storm wasn't letting up, but he had to turn back. His feet were nearly as frostbitten as mine."

"But you didn't give up, did you, Hannah? You went on, pulling Isaac along behind you. You're the one who found shelter in the haystack. You're the one who saved another's life."

"Isaac exaggerates. I didn't find the haystack; the wind blew me to it. Isaac's the hero, not me. He kept me warm, and I owe him my life."

"Are you sure you know your own heart, Hannah? Are you sure you feel only friendship for Isaac, like you always say?"

I looked down at my hands as if they could tell me how to answer, tell me how to trust, then raised my eyes to Dru's. "You're right, Dru. I do care for Isaac in a way that's more than friendship, but he deserves a girl who is free to care for him in return, and that's never going to happen. My papa will never approve."

"Your papa and my mother! If she even suspected that I was interested in a country boy, not Isaac, of course, but another country boy, she'd have me packed and on a train headed east to one of those finishing schools she is forever threatening me with, quicker than you can say purple periwinkle."

"Purple periwinkle?"

"It was the first thing that came to mind. But tell me, what might your papa think if you brought Rusty Farley home for Sunday dinner?"

"Dru!"

"Okay, I'll button my lip." And she did button it, for about five seconds. "Oh, did you get a look at the new doctor, the one who just last week hung out his shingle here in town? His office is three blocks closer than the one of old Doc Forbes, so I asked him to come instead. He's so handsome, and young, near the same age as Eliza. Do you suppose he and Eliza might hit it off?"

"Dru, you've been reading too many novels."

Eliza came in my room just then, carrying an armload of Isaac's things. "Good news. Doctor Goodman believes Carlos, if his wound is kept clean and he's given at least a month's rest, will recover. With the Tinkas in the room above the stable, Isaac will have to bunk in one of the empty rooms up here. You don't mind, do you, Hannah?"

"Wouldn't the Tinkas be more comfortable up here, with beds enough to go around? I ... I could sleep on the cot in the resting room."

"Their ways are different from ours. That's why I didn't have them bring Carlos up here when they first arrived. In the stable they'll have their privacy, and their wagon home will be close by."

Then Eliza turned to Dru. "I can't thank you enough, Dru, for fetching Doctor Goodman. He used the most modern of medical methods and was a model of efficiency."

"And handsome?" Dru asked.

"Is he? I didn't notice."

I tugged Dru into the hall.

"And a bachelor, quite eligible," Dru said over her shoulder.

I jabbed my elbow into her ribs and, like schoolgirls, we broke out in giggles. Dru, who could turn around the most horrid of days. Dru, who could turn despair into giggles. Dru, my bosom friend.

***

I began work on the play later that evening. Not writing it, just jotting words and phrases on my paper. I propped myself against the headboard of my bed, stuffed a pillow at the small of my back, and drained my mind, which wasn't hard—the happenings of the day had made me like a leaky bucket. One word that didn't drain was "wind" so I wrote it down, and the second was "evil." Evil wind?
Yes,
I thought, the blizzard wind had been evil. Then, through the wall separating Isaac's room from mine, came a quiet cough, and I wrote "good wind." Good and evil—could the wind be both? Thinking to save that question for another time when I wasn't worn so thin, I wrote "school," which led to "teacher," which led to "students," which led to "recess," which led to "Fox and Geese," which led to "crafty like a fox," which led back to "wind." Evil wind, crafty wind, good wind?

It went on like that, one word leading to another. Some word strings even made me laugh, like "snow—drift—shoes—wet socks—Isaac." Others caused shivers, like "haystack—hide—safety—secret—shame." Sometimes the appearance of a word at the end of my pencil jolted me. "Anger" was one of these words. And sometimes I crossed out a word as soon as I'd written it, like "Papa." When I finally laid my pencil aside, leaned back, and squinted, the paper looked like tracks a confused and dizzy chicken had traced across snow. It wasn't much, but it was a beginning, like collecting ingredients for a cake or setting type for the gazette and skipping nine letters out of every ten. In the weeks to come, I'd stir those words up, fill in the empty spaces.

I
'D BEEN LIVING HIGH ON THE HOG, SLEEPING IN A SLEIGH BED.
Built of the finest mahogany, the bed's headboard and footboard topped off in a curlicue. Eliza had offered the bed to Hannah when she'd first come to live in the house. Hannah had picked a different room, and I knew why. For Hannah the sleigh bed had been too hard a reminder of the blizzard. But
I
'd managed just fine. August had been sweltering hot, so thoughts of snow were almost welcome.

Hannah's room was next to mine. The heads of our beds shared the same wall, so our pillows were only a lathe and plaster width apart. Sometimes at night I'd be lying there, trying to catch Hannah's thoughts. I don't know if I ever did catch a real thought, but I did have some mighty sweet dreams.

The Tinkas were still on board, and Carlos was on the mend. They weren't overly talkative types, so the story of how Carlos had been shot dribbled out only in bits and pieces. Pasted together, the pieces added up to this: The Tinkas had camped for the night on the banks of Lincoln Creek, three miles to the north of Prairie Hill. In the morning, Mr. Tinka had gone off to hunt jackrabbits. Mrs. Tinka, having asked Rosa to keep an eye on the young ones, was doing up the wash down by the creek. Rosa was sitting near the morning fire, braiding her sister's hair, when a shot rang out from inside the wagon. When Carlos recovered enough to tell his side of the story, he said that he'd been mad at his pa for not asking him to tag along on the hunt and had taken the key to his pa's pistol case from its hiding place. He hadn't remembered much after that, only that he'd been turning the gun over and over in his hands.

Rosa blamed herself, but not for long. Her pa helped her see that it wasn't her fault. I'd been there in the stable that night. I couldn't make out a one of Mr. Tinka's foreign words, but his meaning was spelled out as if in bolded printer's type. He stood in front of Rosa, his finger jabbing at his own chest, not hers. Rosa's eyes were as wide as tomorrow. When Mr. Tinka was done jabbing, he threw his arms around Rosa and held her for longer than I stayed to watch. One man ought not have another fellow watch him cry. Hannah, who'd been standing beside me, didn't budge. It was like she was frozen there.

Some fewer visitors had come to the resting room after the Tinkas set up housekeeping in the stable, one member of the Advisory Council among them, a Mrs. Hadley. After hearing the news, which spread about as fast as a prairie wildfire, she'd shown herself one last time. The way Eliza told it, Mrs. Hadley, nostrils flaring, had demanded, "Those dirty people must be asked to leave at once." Eliza didn't argue, only walked over to the list of "courtesies" that was posted on the wall and pointed to the first—"Every woman, regardless of family circumstance, nationality, or creed, will be welcomed and shown the highest and equal regard."

The Tinkas were anything but dirty. They took great pains when washing up their dishes and clothes. Spoons and plates, one for each Tinka, weren't washed together in the same tub of water, but separately. They did the same thing when they washed their clothes. Where my ma had always divided her wash by color—whites first, in the hottest and cleanest of water—the Tinka women divided their wash by who wore it or what it was used for. Mr. Tinka's drawers never went into the same wash water as his wife's underthings—the tea towels never into the same water as the drawers. And, instead of pegging one wet thing to the other like a mouthful of good teeth, the Tinka women left big gaps on the line when they hung their wash out to dry, which made it look like some of the teeth had fallen out.

Mrs. Hadley hadn't been the only one to hurl rocks at the Tinkas' character. The Reverend Cobb had paid Eliza one of his not-so-social calls. Eliza and I were in the print shop, printing up the latest edition of the gazette when Dru came in saying that the Reverend Cobb wanted a word with Eliza. Eliza rolled her eyes, wiped her inky hands on her apron, and marched out.

I carried a chair to the door, stood on it, and peeked through the transom Mr. Tinka had helped me build into the wall above the door. This transom didn't have frosted window glass like the transoms above all the doors in the main house. Instead it was inset with finely woven black netting that allowed me to see out without easily being seen. The transom was to be my window on the working girls' play, but I'd begun to use it as my window on the world.

The Reverend Cobb tugged at his white-banded collar like it was choking his words. He kept his voice low, likely so as not to be heard by the women in the resting room or, when I lip-read the word "heathens," by God himself. Eliza, chewing her bottom lip, held her tongue until the reverend ran out of word-rocks to throw. Then she let go of her lip and let loose a rock of her own: "And you preach of Christian charity." She nearly knocked me off my chair in her rush to get back into the print shop.

The Reverend Cobb's wife showed up not an hour after the Reverend left. Again Eliza rolled her eyes. Again I climbed on my chair and spied. But there wasn't anything to hear, nothing to see, except for Mrs. Cobb leaning into Eliza's ear and Eliza shaking her head.

Eliza was still shaking her head when she returned to the print shop. "What did she want?" I asked.

"Mrs. Cobb wrongly assumed that Mrs. Tinka was a fortuneteller, wanted her future read, though I wasn't to breathe a word of it to the reverend. So I asked her, 'Does every blind person carry a tin cup?'"