The House Near the River (24 page)

Much as she loved Clemmie and the kids, she didn’t want to start her married life in this crowded household. And she was sure Tobe and Matthew
, two strong-minded men,
would have trouble trying to exist on the same
piece of earth
.

Matthew grinned at the mention of his modest home. “I’m not intending for you to live out there, Ange. That’s no circumstance for a woman.” He turned then to address himself to his sister, as though to persuade her that he was capable of taking care of Ange.

Angie didn’t even bristle at the thought. During the war, women had been forced to look after themselves and keep life humming at home while their men fought. Look at Clemmie, she’d had no choice but to keep the farm going without either her brother or her husband.

But now they were back and ready to take
up
where they’d left off. They couldn’t face the fact that the world they’d battled to save had changed while their backs were turned, changed because of their own experiences and those of the women left behind.

She would be helping Matthew build their new life and she felt sure that in the long run, he would be glad. Providing for them wouldn’t be a burden he would have to bear alone, but he was used to that.  His sister, his mother, his grandmother, all the women in his life had shared the work of the farm with their husbands. He would expect his wife to be a full partner.

Then she realized what he’d said. “Where are we going to live?”

He grinned. “With your approval, I’ve made arrangements to rent the cottage I lived in when I was foreman for the Hendersons. It’s a nice little two bedroom house with a bathroom, gas heat and electric lights. All the necessities.”

He’d told her about his time of working as a foreman for the Henderson farms and of his friendship with father and daughter. She started to protest their financial situation. Basically they had less than a hundred dollars and a mortgage on the farm, but she looked at his face and knew he wouldn’t appreciate her bringing that up in front of his sister’s family.

She didn’t have to say it. “John Henderson will let me have the cottage as payment for helping manage his workers.”

“But your farm . . .” She didn’t get a chance to say it was twenty miles away and he could hardly manage both jobs.

“It’s just until we get started. Within a couple of years we’ll build out on our farm.”

“But, Matthew,” Clemmie protested.

“We’ll miss you, Uncle Matthew,” Sharon said, looking as though she were about to cry. “You and Ange,” she corrected, smiling shyly at her about to be aunt.

“We’ll see a lot of each other,” he promised. “Christmas this year at my house. Next time out here.”

He’d really thought this through, Angie thought with surprise. He was trying to plan a workable life for all of them. And he was right, she felt sure, they couldn’t all make a living from this farm. And there would be more opportunities for her to find her own way in north Texas. Angie was fairly sure she didn’t personally want a career in farming, no matter how much Matthew loved that lifestyle.

She closed her eyes, thinking she was getting ahead of herself, but she supposed most newlyweds—that was what she and Matthew would be tomorrow—dreamed of their future.

She had one big stumbling block ahead though and that was finding out why she and then Matthew had disappeared, and apparently not at the same time or together. He’d vanished, Clemmie said, because he’d given up hope of finding her. She couldn’t imagine Matthew giving up on her.

That was a disaster she had to prevent.

“Ange,” Sharon’s soft voice reached through her thoughts, pulling her back to reality. “Are you all right?”

She opened her eyes to find them all looking her.

“She’s only tired,” Clemmie said. “We’ve had some busy days getting ready for the wedding.”

Angie used that as an excuse to retire early, leaving as soon as the dishes were cleared to go back to her room. On a winter night like this, darkness came early. Back in her cold, unlighted room it felt more like the middle of the night.

She slipped on the night dress Clemmie had given her and crawled between cold blankets, drawing her feet up so that she was tucked in a ball under the deep covers and soon became to grow warmer.

The pastor of the little church the family attended was due  out early in the morning. The dress Clemmie had worn for her own wedding hung in the closet, waiting for her wedding day. The black jersey with white
braid
trim didn’t fit any ideas Angie had of a wedding dress
, but it was plain yet elegant and becoming to her slender form.

From what Clemmie told her, formal white wedding gowns and elaborate weddings played almost no part in wedding celebrations for farm girls and women through pioneer days, the hard years of the thirties, or even during the war and this first year after. They didn’t expect that kind of wedding.

They married in their own homes or by dropping by the parsonage and were pleased to have this much normalcy.

She fell asleep thinking of Matthew and of tomorrow and sank into dreamless slumber that carried her deep into the night. When she awakened with a start, it was to find the house still and quiet, the only sound within that of the old clock in the dining room. The ticking was like footsteps walking through the house, coming closer to her with each tick.

Her pulse raced as a sense
of apprehension grew within her, her heart seeming to beat with each
sound made by the clock
.

Finally, realizing she was close to having a panic attack, she threw back the covers and climbed from the bed, switching on the bare overhead light. The light bulb cast too bright a light in the room, glaring around her.

She felt the walls pushing in on her and then the tightening of her skin. Cold winter night or not, she had to get out of the house. Hurriedly she pulled on her underclothes and stockings, got into the dress she’d worn during the day, then put on the warm winter coat Matthew had bought for her.

Just a few minutes out breathing the cold air, free from the encompassing house and she would be all right again.

She unlatched the door out of the kitchen, stepped outside and almost screamed to find a man standing there.

“Ange?” the questioning voice relieved her fears.

“Matthew.” She went into his arms. He smelled of smoke. She would have to help him get rid of that habit, but of course his generation didn’t know how dangerous cigarettes would prove to be. “What are you doing out here?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” She felt snug within his arm. “Guess we’ve got pre-wedding jitters.”

“No such thing. At least not for me. I’ve not got a single doubt.”

She laughed softly. “Then why are you out here in the dark in the middle of the night?”

“Too excited and happy to sleep. I just keep thinking about tomorrow. What about you?”

She hated to confess the truth that she was terrified that something was going to go wrong. She had no right to dampen his enthusiasm. “About the same, I guess. Thought a little walk might help me sleep.”

“Let’s walk then.” Still protected by his arm, she strolled with him down the porch steps and out on to the ground. No grassy lawns here, just a packed dirt yard. They walked past the barnyard where a sleepy cow mooed reproachfully at the disturbance.

Angie made a back of the brain observance that she wasn’t seeing opening and closing portals tonight. The darkness was disturbed by no lightning flashes and only the dim moon cast light on them.

They walked past the barn and out to the pasture beyond. She saw the white-painted wooden fence that edged Luiza Barry’s grave and shivered. If this house and property was as tainted by past and future as she thought, then somehow that woman’s grave was the very center of it all.

She wanted to protest, wanted to refuse to take a step forward, but Matthew hummed a little tune she didn’t recognize as he led her forward and she seemed unable to exert any control over either her body or her voice.

She stumbled and looked down at the ground and just at that moment when her gaze was averted, she heard his low cry of surprise.

She looked up to find the figure of a woman
silhouetted
in the open gate that led to the grave.

The logical thought that it had to be Clemmie, the only other woman on the place, only rested for an instant in
Matthew’s
thoughts. Even in the darkness, this woman looked nothing like
his
sister.

She seemed unaware of their  presence, lost in thought as she looked down at the grave. “Rest well,” she said
into the air
.

Matthew
coughed slightly to announce their intrusion. “Hello,” he said gently.

The woman turned. In the moonlight,
he
could see the high cheekbones, the dark eyes of
an Indian woman. She was dressed in skins and moccasins, her long hair in braids. She was not young, but seemed almost ageless.

Her eyes rested on his face, seemed to take in all she saw, and then she turned to Ange.

“Greetings, granddaughter of my heart.”

Ange seemed mesmerized. “You know who I am?”

The woman gave the slightest of nods and as she did so the world shimmered around them, edged with silent lightning, and for the first time in his life, Matthew had some idea of what it was to be Ange
as they
shifted in time.

Instead of standing beside the grave out in the pasture, they stood on a bluff above a river. It was not his river, the
north fork
of the Red. He knew every bend and turn of that branch of the river that ran close to his home.

And though it was still winter, it was a much harsher winter for a foot of snow lay on the ground and falling flakes swirled around them, obscuring their view, but not
quite
rendering him unable to see the village of teepees that lay a little east of them.

The village was silent in sleep except that the sound of voices drifted from one of the teepees, though not loud enough for the words to be distinguishable.

He had a feeling of time suspended as though something of great significance was being decided here. He saw the woman’s face as she gazed over the village
with an expression of deep sorrow.

He wanted to speak, wanted even more to put his arm back around Ange, but something inside him told him that he was here only as witness. A million questions passed through his mind, but he knew this was between Ange and the Indian woman.

“We have little time,” the woman said. “The decision has been made and I have spoken in opposition. I, Medicine Woman of the Cheyenne have told my husband, that we should not wait until morning, that we should have moved our village long
since.
“But the men say it is late and cold and the children will suffer if we move them now. And so we stay and await the disaster that will come at dawn.”

The name of the woman pierced Matthew’s heart. Any child of this part of western Oklahoma could guess at her story even from the small amount of information she had imparted.

Black Kettle and his village. Medicine Woman was his wife. And like Cassandra in the old myths, she had delivered the warning of disaster that was not believed.

He supposed Ange might not be familiar with the story. She had left to move with her family to Texas at a young enough age to miss out on some of the local history. She might not know the story of what had happened a county north of his native county on a November morning in 1868.

He realized that he stood now just hours before that fatal dawn, drawn here not by any ability of his own, but by the two women who stood beside him.

“We have met before,” Ange finally spoke
,
“Medicine Woman of the Cheyenne. You have been in my dreams.”

“We have,” the low voice agreed.

“You sent me to save Matthew.”

He was greatly puzzled by this statement. Was this something else, like his engagement, that hadn’t happened yet?

“You found your way yourself. You had only to persist in the path set before you.”

Matthew could smell wood smoke drifting from the camp into the snow laden air. He hoped Ange’s new coat provided enough warmth against the cold.

“You called yourself my grandmother?” Ange said.

“Not by blood. You are born this night to a daughter of our camps, half in one world and half
in
another, but though you are not yet arrived on this birthday night, I have met you on future trails and know that you are the inheritor of my knowledge. You are truly my granddaughter.”

“But I’m not Cheyenne. And the name of my mother on my birth certificate is Luiza Barry.”

“The name is real. She has the name of her white father, but the gifts of her Cheyenne mother. And t is on this night that your mother meets her end.”

“She dies?”