Bittersweet Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #5): A Novel (17 page)

“Well, I gotta go, Mum.” Ellie picked up her basket and turned toward the door, happy as a Saskatchewan lark, doing the thing she enjoyed most—caring for someone sick or afflicted or weak, needy in some way.

“Your badge, Ellie. I haven’t seen you wearing it for a while. After all that effort to make it—”

“I have to share it with the girls, so we take turns. Vonnie has it now and she doesn’t want to give it up. Ta ta, Mum!”

The Beam homestead was about three miles away, if one went by the road. But people made paths across their property; there were paths going in all directions, paths cutting down the distance and the length of time it took to get to a neighbor, either to get help or to give it. Ellie cut through the woods and across
corners of homesteads, traveling well-marked trails, making the distance less than a mile. Vonnie and the other girls did the same, converging on the small cabin and ready to make the life of old Aunt Tilda Beam a little more bearable: chop wood or fill the wood box, wash the elderly woman’s wrinkled face or read to her, fill the lamps, sweep the floor—whatever needed doing, they would do, working as true busy bees should do. (There were no drones in this hive, Ellie often reminded them.)

Trotting into the Beam yard, the few remaining chickens—those that hadn’t died or disappeared into the bush for lack of care—scattered at her approach, going off somewhere to scrabble a living for themselves. Before she went into the house, Ellie threw out some grain for them and filled their water pail.

There was no greeting from a friendly dog; the old Beam dog was long gone, perhaps along with the Beam son, Clayton. He had filed on the homestead, stayed a few seasons, established his aged parents, and taken off. Everyone assumed he’d be back, come spring and time for field work, but he hadn’t been seen or heard from in two years or more. The old father had died, and Tilda, called “Aunt” in the habit of the bush, had slowly grown more feeble, more senile, less capable of caring for herself. The pastor of the small church, alert to the problem, was attempting to organize the ladies of the church so that Tilda was never alone too long and so that there was a supply of food and water, wood and kerosene at all times.

The Busy Bees, ever on the alert for something constructive to do, came as often as time and mothers allowed. Ellie, with her mother’s help and the aid of the catalog, had gathered together a few simple remedies to take with her on her “rounds,” and she usually found herself rubbing the old woman’s back, or feet, or temples with one of her salves or potions. Whether or not they did any good, both Aunt Tilda and Ellie felt the better for her efforts, Aunt Tilda moaning with pain and pleasure, Ellie swelling with a sense of satisfaction known at no other time.

A half-wild cat scooted from the house as soon as Ellie opened the door, and she held her nose. Obviously the last person to leave
had failed to put the animal out, and it had been inside too long. Grimacing, Ellie knew immediately there would be cleanup, a task she hated above all.

“Hello, Aunt Tilda! It’s me, Ellie Bonney,” she called into the shadows of the small room. Shadowed because there were only two windows, and they were small.

In response to her greeting there came a grunt and a rustle of bedclothes. Ellie wisely left the door ajar, both to give light and to alleviate the noxious cat odor.

Although there were two rooms to the log house, one had been abandoned when it came to looking after the elderly woman. Her bed and belongings had been brought into the room where the living was done and where the stove was located, the table, and all the kitchen items; here it was much easier to care for her. And here—while she was still able to get up—she had managed to do a few things for herself.

Ellie laid aside her basket and approached the bed. It too was odorous, and Ellie’s nostrils flared again. Staunchly, like a true Bee, she stood her ground.

“How are you today, Aunt Tilda?” she asked loudly, and a claw-like hand appeared at the edge of a quilt, followed by a sticklike arm, pushing aside the bedding until Aunt Tilda’s shrunken face appeared.

Today, Ellie realized, was one of Aunt Tilda’s bad days. Her eyes didn’t focus, her toothless jaws worked as though she were masticating something toothsome, and the words she uttered were meaningless jabber.

Aunt Tilda’s arms flailed, and Ellie helped pull her up from the tangle of bedclothes, fluffing the pillow and leaning the emaciated form against it.

The fire was out, of course, and there was no warm water. Ellie knew how to light a fire and soon had paper and kindling flickering, adding pieces of wood as needed. It was then smoke had begun billowing into the room, puffing from the stove in great gusts, rising in waves to the already blackened ceiling. No wonder it had been allowed to go out! Coughing, she fought her way
through the smoke to the stovepipe and the damper; to her surprise, it was open.

Ellie was enough acquainted with stoves to conclude almost immediately that there was some blockage in the stovepipe. But what to do about it? She went outside and looked up; sure enough, very little smoke lifted from the pipe; perhaps a bird had built a nest in it. Helplessly she watched, knowing she had neither the ability nor the tools to clean it out, even if she were able to locate a ladder and climb the roof.

There was nothing to do but wait it out. Slowly the fire burned down, died away, went out. During that time and while the stove top was somewhat warm, she put the soup she had brought into a pan and attempted to warm it a little. Then, when the air was clearing, she tucked a towel under Aunt Tilda’s chin and spooned the soup into her flaccid mouth.

“Swallow, Aunt Tilda,” she said cheerfully time and again, murmuring encouragingly and wiping the chin when necessary, skillfully avoiding the mindlessly waving hands.

When the fire was out and the room cleared of smoke, Ellie set about washing the old lady, brushing her hair, rubbing olive oil into her dry and skinny arms and legs, crooning to her, talking to her even though no understandable answer was forthcoming. Finally it was time to locate the cat’s mess and, loathing every minute of it, clean it up and scrub down the floor in that spot. When that was accomplished, inspired, she poured a few drops of her precious Peppermint Oil on the spot, breathing in its fragrance gladly.

At the last, in answer to a plaintive cry for “light,” she lit the lamp and set it by the bed. Aunt Tilda could blow it out later.

“There, Aunt Tilda,” she shouted, and she was rewarded by a toothless grin and a watering of the rheumy eyes.

“Here’s fresh water if you want a drink. Is there anything else you would like me to do before I leave?”

Just a mumble and a restless picking of the quilt.

Patting the frail shoulder and giving the quilt one last tug into place, Ellie turned to go. But first she reached into the basket, removed the pencil and tablet, and wrote a message in large letters:

DO NOT LIGHT A FIRE IN THE STOVE! THE STOVEPIPE IS PLUGGED UP! ELIZABETH BONNEY.

Propping the paper in plain sight on the table, Ellie proceeded to pick up her basket and back out of the cabin, calling, “I have to go now, Aunt Tilda. I’ll see you soon. Sweet dreams!”

Lest the miserable cat be tempted to sneak in once again, Ellie pulled the door tightly shut behind her, glad, in some ways, to escape the sickness and smells but having a happy sense of accomplishment.

Home again, weary but happy, Ellie put the basket away, set the empty mason jar aside to be washed with the supper dishes, and reported on her day to her mother.

“Aunt Tilda didn’t even know me, Mum. It’s awfully sad. I hope I don’t end up that way!”

“No one wants to, Ellie. Hopefully you’ll always be where family and loved ones are around to care what happens to you. Now, rest for a moment, then wash your hands and help me prepare the vegetables.”

The family was at supper when a horse pounded up the driveway. The rider, a neighbor, leaped from its back, knocked once loudly, thrust his head in the door, and hollered, “Fire! There’s a fire somewhere over yonder, Bran! I’m on my way; thought maybe you might be able to come help.”

Even as the face disappeared, Brandon Bonney was getting to his feet, turning to the door.

“I’ll ride, I guess, but I won’t take time to saddle.”

Ellie and Serena followed Bran out onto the stoop to see in the distance a black cloud of smoke rising over the bush and shot through from time to time with flickers of flame.

“Oh, my gracious! My gracious!” Serena put her hands over her mouth in dismay, her eyes large in her thin face.

“I’m going, Mum!”

“No! No, Ellie—”

But Ellie was off and running. Running the same path she had taken earlier. Running, straight as an arrow, toward the Beam cabin and the fire.

Gasping, almost staggering, she joined the silent, grim-faced men and women gathered in the Beam yard. No chickens now, no cat.

No cabin.

The fire had not been discovered until it had all but consumed the small structure. Built of the same wood folks burned in their heaters and stoves, and well-aged, it had been a tinder box. Even as the onlookers watched, the blaze slowed, having done its worst. The roof was long gone; soon the entire structure was nothing but a heap of blackened beams with a bent stovepipe protruding at a rakish angle from the rubble. And starkly outlined against the setting sun—the iron bed frame that had held the helpless form of the old woman. On the bed—a heap of ashes.

Men were wandering around the shell of a building, raking, clearing the ground from any possible spread of the dying embers, helpless to do more.

“Who got here first?” someone asked.

“One of the Nikolai boys,” someone answered.

“It was in flames when I got here,” the boy stuttered, white-faced. “I couldn’t get anywhere near it. The flames were shooting out the windows even then.”

“Did you hear any calls for help?”

“Nothing. It was silent as the... as the tomb,” he finished lamely.

Finally—very soon, it seemed, when one realized an entire life’s accumulation of goods had just disappeared—someone began drawing water from the well while others dashed it on the smoldering heap until all danger of the flames springing to life again had disappeared. Soon only a few thin wisps of smoke lifted from the ashes.

Still the neighbors lingered, unable to grasp the totality of the destruction, the rapidity with which it had happened, the finality of the life snuffed out—Aunt Tilda’s, not of much importance to anybody, but certainly not deserving of this.

“Who,” someone asked, voice loud in the silence, “who was here last? Who was the last one to see her?”

Face looked at face, heads shook, eyebrows raised.

“Ellie.”

Vonnie, half hidden by the form of her mother, said again, “Ellie Bonney. Ellie was here.... She was the last one here.”

Ellie. A dozen and more pairs of eyes swung to peer down at her.

Stung into responding, Ellie blurted, “It was out; the fire was out when I left!” And with a sob, “I’m sure it was out!”

The crowd shifted uneasily; there were a few murmurs, a few indrawn breaths, a muted “Ellie Bonney! Ellie... responsible.”

Standing beside her father in the evening’s shadows, Ellie looked—for the first time but not the last—into a ring of shocked faces.

And heard—for the first time but not the last—the whisper,
“The child... a murderer
.”

T
he Mounties arrived in due time. Questioning various people, walking around the burned-out cabin, they did their best to bring some conclusion to the matter and to determine how and why Mrs. Beam had perished. The Mounties, after all, were the law of the land. They had brought order and sanity to the territories when it seemed chaos would surely prevail; they did a superior job of keeping the peace. Folks rested in their beds more easily because they were on the job.

No matter where the Mounties went, fascinated people stopped what they were doing and turned their eyes to the Red Coats as they rode by, admiring and honoring them, hearts swelling with pride in such a police force.

When two of these men, resplendent in their distinctive uniforms, entered the Bonney residence to question the last person to see the deceased woman alive, Ellie thought her heart would burst with feelings of favor. For hadn’t she, along with the rest of the school’s children, rushed to the windows or to the fence whenever a Mountie rode by?

Sitting down after introductions and explanations, turning their attention to the child before them, the men invited, “Tell us about your visit with Mrs. Beam, Elizabeth. Why you went.”

Ellie explained about the Busy Bees and their devotion to serving others, Mrs. Beam among them.

“And what did you do for Mrs. Beam the day of the fire?” one Mountie asked kindly.

“Well—” Ellie’s eyes sought her mother’s. Serena nodded encouragement, her thin face wanner than usual.

“I cleaned up... the cat’s mess,” Ellie confided faintly. Surely that was a flicker of humor on the square-jawed face. At any rate, Ellie took heart and continued.

“I washed Aunt Tilda—”