Fervent Charity (29 page)

Jack Frye hadn’t been to Charity in a long time. It was too high brow for him. But this was the place to go to collect a payment for something he figured would be important enough for a certain somebody to pay for.

So he’d just strolled down to the last boxcar of the west-bound train and as it started up, when nobody, especially Joe Gruba, was looking, he grabbed onto the moving train and swung himself on board. At the curve that headed into Charity, the train slowed down. He jumped off into a weedy patch at the side of the tracks before the tail of the train got in seeing distance of the depot. He brushed himself off, picked up his hat, and nonchalantly walked into town.

He asked the first person he met where the saloon was. That was the place to go for information. He was directed to Leroy’s Tavern. Even Charity’s saloon was high brow. It didn’t smell of anything but beer.

“Where might I find a fella named Walter Kaiser?”

“Today you’ll find him either at the church or the graveyard.”

“What’d he die?”

“No, his mother died. If you have business with him, you might want to wait till another day.”

“Uh huh. Thank you.”

Jack couldn’t wait another day. He needed money now. He nodded to Leroy and left the saloon.

Out on the street again, Jack asked a tall thin man in black with a broad black hat. “Where is the church?”

“Now which church would you be looking for?”

“How many churches you got?”

“We’ve got a Lutheran church, a Catholic church, the Methodists and the Episcopalians. And I think there is some church down over the hill there and I don’t know what they call themselves. I and my family are Methodists. You’re always welcome…”

“There’s a funeral today for Walter Kaiser’s mother.”

“That would be the Lutheran Church then. You go right up Main Street. It’s the white church with the steeple at the far end. Can’t miss it.”

Jack thrust his hands deep in his empty pockets and walked north. He passed Olna’s Kitchen. The smells coming from there were delicious and made his stomach rumble. He’d only had a can of beans while he waited for the train back in Wheat Lake. His last can of beans. After he got his money, he’d come back and have hot roast beef and potatoes and gravy. And all the black coffee he could drink. His mouth watered. He’d throw in some biscuits and apple pie.

But when he got to the church, he wasn’t sure how to go about what he was there to do. A few people were going in. He couldn’t tell if they were late or early. Either way, Walter Kaiser was most likely already in there. Jack was pondering whether or not to go in when he saw someone familiar. It wasn’t that he recognized the face as much as the missing left arm and the bear-like walk.

Oscar Kaiser stopped when he saw Jack Frye. Jack took a step forward. “I’m looking for your brother.”

“Which brother?”

“The one you said his wife was in Philadelphia. That one.”

“Walter. What are you looking for him for?”

The left sleeve of Oscar’s black suit was folded and pinned to his shoulder. He wore a white shirt buttoned to the neck and no tie. He gazed at Jack with an intensity that sucked all the cockiness out of him. He tried to gather his purpose together again. “I got some information for him.”

“Like what?”

“Well, it is news he might find valuable.”

“Valuable?”

“Well, if I could speak to him he might...”

“You want money?”

“Well, a man goes out on a limb, you know. Puts himself at a certain risk to his own wellbeing and I just thought that might be worth something to your brother. Maybe not.”

“What would be worth money to my brother?”

Oscar’s ghost of a smile was so demeaning it got Jack’s back up. He said, “It’s about that wife of his. He might be interested to know she ain’t in Philly delphia. That’s what.”

There was some alteration in the atmosphere. Jack suddenly wished he were someplace else. He forgot why he had come here. To tell a man—yes, for the money. He needed money. Yes, but now...

Oscar readily reached into his pocket and took out a five dollar bill. Jack took it.

Yes, money was what he’d come for. But now he was unsure. He felt confused and didn’t know why.

Oscar misunderstood Jack’s hesitation and dropped another dollar into his hand.

Jack swallowed. “She never was in Philly delphia. She’s been layin’ up there on the rez with them Indians.”
Don’t spill it all at once. “
That ain’t all.”

Oscar read the sly look on Jack’s face and handed over three more dollars.

“She’s got a bun in the oven!”

“What?”

“Big as a house. I guess she let some buck get on her when she was out on the rez when they all was sick that time.”

Oscar looked skeptical.

Jack was afraid he’d take the money back. “Why else would she be layin’ up at the reservation with that old maid with a bun in the oven and ready to pop? You tell your brother that.”

“I will.”

“But there’s one more thing.”

The look on Oscar’s face told him he shouldn’t push it.

Jack said, “You can tell him he don’t have to go to Wheat Lake for her either. She’s comin’ here.”

“When?”

“Today. Right now. Well, I don’t know how long it’ll take to get here. They all piled into a wagon night before last and headed this way. He could just ride out on the road east and he’d sure run into them.”

“How do you know so much about my brother’s wife’s business?”

Jack had his story ready. “Well, I go down there fishing every now and again. I was down there day before yesterday, and thinkin’ the cabin was empty I just set my line a little closer to it than I usually do. The fish weren’t biting so I just kept moving over to see if I could get a bite and pretty soon I heard voices. I’ve had some trouble with the Indians, so I just stay down, see, till they go on by and hope nobody sees me. But then I hear women’s voices—they sound like white women so I peeks through the underbrush and I see em. The school teacher, a young one—you said something about a kid being with em, right? And the one in the family way. I can’t hear em but I see em all right. Then I fall asleep and when I wake up they’re getting in their wagon and I followed em and see them take the road to Charity.”

“How do you know they’re coming here?”

“Don’t think they’ll head cross country. Not with a woman in a family way bouncing around in the wagon. No place else to go on that road between there and here but here.”

Oscar put two more dollar bills in Jack Frye’s hands. “This is for keeping it to yourself. You know, Walter would like his business between his wife and himself to stay there.”

“You betcha. Nobody’ll hear it from me.”

Jack had his pocket full of money. He spun around and headed back to Olna’s to take care of his empty stomach.

Gertrude Kaiser’s funeral was at eleven o’clock. At five minutes after, Gustie with Mary beside her, pulled up in back of Mary’s house. Both women were veiled. There was no one on the street that they could see.

Gustie climbed down first and helped Mary out of the wagon. Saying she knew right where her things were—she would go upstairs, get them out of her dresser drawer, come right back out—Mary disappeared into her house.

Gustie leaned against the wagon wheel to wait for her and keep an eye on the street. Most people in Charity, she imagined, were at the funeral. They’d go out of respect for one of the earliest homesteaders in Stone County rather than fondness for the woman herself. Gustie also imagined the scene this morning when Betty appeared on Alvinia’s doorstep. Her homecoming must have gone all right since the girl hadn’t come back seeking sanctuary. Gustie smiled. Alvinia would have had her back up, like Lena had, but like Lena, she would have gotten over it quickly. Betty planned to go with her family to the funeral. She promised Mary she would say a special prayer for the old lady. Jordis had agreed to go as well. Jordis didn’t care much for churches but Mary felt better knowing that there would be at least a couple of genuinely sympathetic people there. Jordis wanted to make Mary happy.

A minute passed. Not yet noon and it was warm enough so that the black dress Gustie wore was too hot and her hat and veil were stifling. She puffed the veil out away from her face with a sharp exhalation and tried to endure it for a minute more. Through the black netting, Gustie saw Lena and Jordis running toward her. Lena was waving her hands. Gustie waved back.

“Where’s Mary?” Jordis’s voice carried down the block. So much for keeping this a secret.

“She’s inside. Why?” She saw Alvinia coming behind them in her wagon.

Lena panted as she called, “Oscar isn’t at the funeral. I asked Nyla where he was and she didn’t know.”

Alvinia reined in her team and hit the ground running as Gustie tore off her hat and ran for the door. Right behind her, Alvinia said, “I sent Betty for the sheriff just to be on the safe side.”

No longer caring about quiet or secrecy, Gustie banged open the door and yelled, “Mary, Mary, we have to go. Now!” They ran through the kitchen and entering the living room they saw her. Mary lay at the foot of the stairs, on her side. One arm was twisted underneath her and the other lay across her face.

Gustie almost stopped, but Alvinia kept moving and Gustie was carried in her wake, dropping to her knees beside Alvinia who took Mary’s wrist, seeking a pulse as she lifted Mary’s arm away from her face.

Mary’s eyes were closed. There was blood on her lips. She was already going gray. Alvinia concentrated on finding a pulse as Jordis knelt beside her and Lena knelt on the other side of Gustie. Lena grabbed for Gustie’s hand but no one said a word.

They heard the front door open and Dennis and Betty rushed into the room at the same time as Oscar Kaiser appeared on the landing at the top of the stairs.

Betty knelt with them, closing the circle. They all looked up. The question in each of their minds never made it to anyone’s lips, because a sly smile crept over his thick features. He covered it with a look of feigned surprise, but not soon enough. They all saw it and knew what he had done.

With deliberation, Dennis drew his gun out of its holster, aimed and fired, shooting Oscar in the heart. Oscar crumpled where he stood, in a heap on the landing, the look of real surprise, the last look he had in life, became his mask in death.

The gunshot left a hush in the house. Nothing was heard outside. Alvinia said, “Dennis, you better go.”

Dennis gazed at Mary, pain chiseled deeply across his face.

Gustie at last found her voice. “Go on, Dennis. You weren’t here. We’ll take care of her.”

Dennis Sully’s eyes finally left Mary and took in the faces of the five women looking up at him. He didn’t see one tear. He holstered his pistol. He took a last look at the form on the floor, turned and walked out of the house.

“She’s dying,” said Alvinia.

Jordis unsheathed the knife from her boot and held it out to Alvinia who hesitated only a second. As Mary’s heart fluttered its last, Alvinia cut through her dress.

Chapter 17: August 1901

O
scar Kaiser didn’t have a
funeral, just a graveside service poorly attended. Pastor Erickson said a few words over the coffin before it was lowered into the ground. Shorty Larson and his wife were there, and Will and Nyla. No tears fell. Shorty was now going to work for Walter Kaiser, at increased wages, so those who thought of it at all imagined that Shorty was not mourning so much as giving thanks. Oscar was laid to rest next to his mother in the Kaiser family plot. Pa Kaiser had thought ahead, purchasing enough ground to bury himself, his wife, his sons and their wives. There would be one plot left over because Mary was to be buried at Crow Kills, where she had been happy.

Mary’s funeral was held under the sky. Alvinia had insisted that it not be held in the Catholic church in Charity. “Mary was always afraid of that priest, why would we let him have a final say over her?” Lena and Gustie agreed and Walter went along with it. They spoke to Father Gregory. He agreed to have a Catholic funeral for her with one stipulation, that she be buried in consecrated ground. That meant that he had to come out and consecrate the spot where she was to be buried next to Clare and Dorcas. Jordis didn’t mind but asked Little Bull for his permission. He gave it.

The service was attended by most of the people of the Red Sand as well as Owen Braaten, Lena and Will and Gracia, Alvinia and Carl and all their children. Pauly Wirkus came out of respect for Betty and also out of curiosity to see where his sweetheart had spent most of the winter, in secret. He was having a hard time getting used to the idea. Clark Llewellyn held Alice’s hand during the Mass. Joe Gruba and his wife Minnie were there, and, to Lena’s surprise, so was Nyla. She had taken the train to Wheat Lake and ridden out with Joe and Minnie. Her face had changed since Oscar’s death. She no longer had that pinched, sullen look. She said to Lena, “I’m going to miss her. She was always so nice to me.”

“Me too, Nyla. Me too.”

A number of people had ridden that train to attend Mary’s funeral: Doc Moody and Lester Evenson and their wives, Kenneth and Morgan O’Grady, Axel and Harriet Kranhold, Hank and Orville Ackerman. Olna had closed her café for the afternoon to attend. Lena never expected them to make the trip out here to the Indian reservation to attend the funeral of a quiet woman no one had paid much attention to, but there they were. And Walter, who seemed more bewildered than grief stricken.

As the service began, Betty, Lena, and Alvinia subtly eased themselves away from their men and joined Gustie and Jordis at the front, forming a crescent around the coffin and, unaccountably to all who noticed, holding hands. Jordis, at the far right, held Mary’s child. Gustie grasped her free hand.

Even when the five women weren’t holding hands, which they never did again, it seemed as though they formed a wall around Mary’s life and death. Mathilda Langager was the only one to try to breach the wall and she tried it with Betty, thinking perhaps as the youngest, Betty would be the weakest. Mathilda had stopped her on the street coming out of O’Grady’s the day before the funeral. She asked, her mouth smiling, but her eyes hard, “How was Philadelphia, Betty?”

“It’s a beautiful city,” Betty smiled back. Then she said with a seriousness that took the smile off Mathilda’s face. “They call it the City of Brotherly Love, did you know that?”

Mathilda shut up and no one ever asked Betty another thing about Philadelphia.

No one had been told exactly what happened that day in Mary’s house, but people talked, and because the stories they told each other were vague, they had to color in the details themselves. Folks added a bit here, embellished there, and surmises soon became undisputed facts. The thing took shape and solidified into a story that was not quite right and not altogether wrong. They had put one and two together and come up with about four and a half. The story went something like this: Gustie had taken Mary in when it was discovered she was expecting. A Christian thing to do, no matter how you looked at it. Before Gustie sent her off to Philadelphia, Mary wanted one more visit with her lover and had arranged to meet him in her house. They had been confronted by Oscar Kaiser, and there had been violence. The unknown man had left before Gustie and Alvinia discovered the bodies.

There were as many theories as to how and why Oscar Kaiser had come to be in Mary’s house that day as there were storytellers. That was one part of the story that had never jelled. And how Betty played in all of this, nobody could figure out. She had to have gone to Philadelphia. How else could you account for the fancy belt buckles and hair ribbons being sported by her brothers and sisters?

People also remembered a stranger in town asking questions and eating his dinner at Olna’s Kitchen. Could he have been the father of Mary’s baby?
That little geezer?
others scoffed. No, it had to be the tall dark fella that some folks remembered seeing ride out of town at a gallop on a big black horse. Had to be him, that’s for sure.

Whenever Walter Kaiser’s name came up, which it had to, people stopped talking and sucked their teeth and shook their heads.
Poor Walter.
What else could be said? In his presence they talked about the weather and the price of feed and seed.

Walter himself hadn’t changed much. He was quieter perhaps, but he still went to work—work was going to pick up for both Walter and Will now that their elder brother was no longer a competitor—he still did his shopping at O’Grady’s and had dinner from time to time at Olna’s. People wondered what he was going to do and it appeared he wasn’t going to do anything.

After the story of Mary’s death was told, tongues more or less stopped wagging. The birth of an out-of-wedlock child would have caused considerably more comment if Mary were alive and well. But she had paid the ultimate price for her indiscretion, and most people had the decency to let it go at that.

Folks wondered about the fate of the child, but no one stepped forward to offer a home, assuming that Alvinia or Lena would take the child in.

People worried about Sheriff Sully who had become withdrawn, almost sullen, frustrated perhaps by not being able to apprehend the killer. Just a year ago, he hadn’t solved the murder of old man Kaiser either. No one blamed him, but the sheriff was apparently taking it to heart. There was talk that he had mentioned going west.

Gustie and Jordis, Lena, Alvinia and Betty never discussed that day among themselves. They didn’t have to. They knew that they had, each one of them, fired that gun. Dennis had only happened to be holding it at the time.

Under a cloudless sky with a breeze fluttering the cassocks and vestments of the priests and mitigating the heat of the August sun, Father Flagstad said a few words about Mary, how she had come to the Red Sand to help in their time of need, Little Bull added a few words of his own, and Father Gregory said a Mass. Then, Alvinia stepped out of the crescent of women and faced the assembly. Alvinia wasn’t used to speaking up in front of gatherings of people but “somebody besides a priest has to say something,” she had said. “Mary wanted someone to say a sincere word over Gertrude and she deserves nothing less from us. One of us has to do it.” Lena answered for them all, “Well, looks like it’s you then, Alvinia.”

She stood before them all, her voluminous blue striped dress billowing around her, her hands clasped tightly before her. “Alive or dead, you are in the hand of God.” She relaxed her hands somewhat. “I never knew anyone who seemed to be more in His hand than Mary.” She brushed a stray wisp of yellow hair off her forehead. “I’m going to speak plainly. I’ve delivered more babies in and around this town than Doc Moody.” She looked at him with a no-offense-meant-but-it’s-the-truth kind of look. He nodded back in acknowledgement. “I’ve delivered the deformed who in God’s mercy flew to the arms of Jesus in a few hours of drawing their first troubled breaths; I’ve taken the still-born from their sorrowing mothers’ wombs directly to their tiny graves. Every time I think I’ve done it all, I learn you’ve never done it all till you’re dead and past doing anything.” Her eyes rested on Rose, sleeping in Jordis’s arms.

“Mary was a child in a woman’s body. I don’t mean she was not smart, or that she was mentally off in the way, like…say… Lena’s poor brother Tori, who fell off a wagon when he was four and knocked his head and was never all there for the rest of his too short life, God bless him.” Lena nodded as well, a blessing on her brother Tori. “No, Mary was childlike in the way little ones are before they learn any kind of meanness, before they learn to pass judgments on things—what Jesus meant when he said you have to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a child, and that is why I know that no matter what—Mary is in heaven now because she entered it as a child. And I know that when we are born, God shifts us from His right hand to His left. And when we die, we just go back to His good right hand. That’s all.”

The day after Mary’s funeral, Nyla surprised Will by giving him Oscar’s well machine and his team of horses.

Will’s machine was, as he had often said, a pile of junk being held together by spit and good intentions. His work horses were getting old and hadn’t been prime stock to begin with. He had never even had room to stable them in his own barn. But now with the new rig, and the new team, and selling off his old machine for parts, he was going to enlarge his barn. Old Tom would now have regular stable mates.

Jordis saw him coming, riding Old Tom and leading four brown, heavy footed draft horses. He dismounted and she walked out to meet him. “Hello, Will. What have you got here?” She’d never been to one of his drill sites so she had never seen his team.

“Well, these are my old team. They’re just about ready for slaughter, but Lena won’t have it. She threw a fit, by golly, so I was just wondering.” He took off his hat, smoothed his hair and replaced the hat. “I was just thinking, maybe you could turn em loose with those others.” He indicated Biddy and Moon and Whisper grazing in the pasture. “They’re easy keepers. I’ll bring you out some oats and a little sour mash now and then. I’ll help you add on to your barn.”

“What are their names?”

“Sonny. He’s the oldest. Dan, here—you gotta watch his front left leg. He gets kinda stiff in the winter. I just rub it at night with liniment. It does the trick.

“Bonnie’s a good old girl. Never gives any trouble at all. Jumper likes a cookie now and then. She has a real sweet tooth.”

Jordis just pointed with her chin to the pasture and smiled. He led them to the gate, opened it and unhooked their lead ropes. He patted them on the rumps as they went through. They stood for a moment to assess their new situation, then ambled toward the water trough. Biddie, Moon, and Whisper gazed at them with interest, without welcome or hostility. “They’ll be fine here,” Jordis assured him, fastening the gate.

“I know they will. They’ll be fine with you. Lena will be mighty glad.”

“You can come and see them any time, Will. Any time at all.”

Never before had such wedding preparations been seen in Charity, South Dakota. Alvinia had swallowed all her objections to Betty marrying a Catholic boy in a Catholic church, because she had promised Betty she would. And she was so relieved to have her girl back home, her converting to Catholicism no longer seemed like such a terrible thing.

Alvinia’s mother had sent her own wedding dress made of yards of heavy satin and lace she had brought from Norway. “This is what I should have given you, now it should go to Betty,” she had written. “Do what you will to make it wearable for her, if she wants it.”

Betty wanted it, with alterations, which Alvinia did not know how to accomplish, so she went to Lena with her problem and the dress.

“Well, now isn’t this a beautiful mess of stuff?” Lena’s eyes shone as she let the satin flow over her hands. Alvinia produced a picture that Betty had cut out of a magazine of an elegant gown, lace and satin, but without the Old Country look of the one Lena was holding.

“I don’t know what to do,” moaned Alvinia.

“It’s the simplest thing in the world,” Lena assured her. “I’ve been doctoring patterns and making things up and fixing things up my whole life. Sewed my first dress when I was nine. Now...let’s see what we’ve got here.” Lena spread a sheet on her living room floor and laid the dress on it. She knelt and examined it front and back, comparing it to the dress in the picture. Then she looked to see what seam width she had. Gracia toddled into the middle of the dress in her stocking feet and sat down among its multitudinous folds and frills. The mothers smiled at her indulgently. Lena said, “Well, it won’t come out exactly, but, I can get it pretty close.” She looked up at Alvinia. “You say Betty likes this material all right?”