Thing With Feathers (9781616634704) (12 page)

Chapter 26

October, 1929

Cloverdale, Oregon

T
rouble had been just around the next bend, less than six months following the wedding of Rebecca and Elrod Tjaden, only they called it by other names: the Wall Street Crash, Black Wednesday, the Great Depression. For the Marshalls, it meant saying good-bye to Henry and Johnny, since they could no longer afford the cost of hourly wages on top of feeding the two extra hands. Much of the homestead’s grazing acreage sat useless while Mavis and Blair worked hard at tripling the size of the vegetable garden. Sometimes a basket full of money wasn’t enough to buy two loaves of bread, so Will and Sean put together a small gristmill for the family to grind their own grains and set about planting the untended portion of their grazing land with wheat and oats.

The Tjadens were hardest hit by the financial distress of the country. Their bath houses depended upon a constant supply of affluent customers who could afford excursions to Oregon’s coast for the purpose of being pampered in the Tjaden’s wellness camp. The majority of Angus’s customers, if they weren’t jumping to their deaths from high-rise windows, were flat broke. The tourist industry was moot. What paltry supply of customers remained were discouraged by the inconvenience of having the stage drop at Hebo removed. The closest drop was in the town of Dolph, which had been moved yet again, ever farther up the Little Nestucca River.

On top of that, Angus was being sued. Three different suits were filed against him for fraud. The truth of the matter was, Tjaden’s wellness camp did heal people. Many folks came to Angus with complaints of muscle pain, fatigue, head pains, and joint troubles, and Angus cured them. He would feed his patients three highly nutritional square meals each day. He put the folks through a regular daily exercise program. He soaked them in steaming tubs of sulfur water, and he saw to it that each and every guest turned in early, guaranteeing a minimum of eight hours of sleep, and rose early to fill their lungs with fresh sea air. The problem was, Angus’s cures worked too well. His patients showered him with praise, and somewhere along the line, someone started referring to him as Doctor Tjaden. Will Rogers once said that a man’s greatest downfall would come from believing his own advertising, or something along those lines. It was sure true enough Angus Tjaden’s failing.

On a late afternoon in February of 1930, Sean was turning over soil with back-breaking speed and daydreaming about the new talked-about phenomenon, technocracy. It was a term used by those who believed that fast-developing technology would soon dominate the world. Sean believed it. He had just heard of a man who invented a photoflash bulb so that photography could take place no matter what the lighting conditions. Radios and teleprinters were already in danger of becoming old hat. Europe was experimenting with telepictures. Sean had a keen interest in radios and their workings. He decided that he would like to study in that area of engineering instead of surveying when he got together enough money to enroll at the Linfield college, if he ever got the money together. Times were tough, and money was too tight to mention. He sighed, leaned on his shovel for a moment’s rest, and wiped the sweat from his brow.

When Sean looked up, he could see smoke on Tjaden Hill, a lot of smoke. Then he squinted and thought he could make out some licks of fire beyond the rise, the side of the hill where all the wellness camp cottages and bath houses lay. Sean pitched his shovel and ran for the house, ringing the dinner bell on the front porch in hopes that his brother, Will, who was out milking, would hear the racket and come running.

There was no danger of the fire moving toward the Marshall property. The wind was blowing the other way, and besides, the land was too wet from all the winter storms. Sean and Will rode to the Tjaden’s house first. They found Signey “Sig” Tjaden on the front porch, surrounded by the younger children, wringing her hands nervously. As the Marshall boys approached, she lifted her hand and pointed west toward the flames that were clearly visible and hollered one word, taut with worry, before the men could dismount their horses.

“Angus!” she had screamed.

The boys took off in the direction of the fire, searching for the good-humored neighbor they had known and loved since they were both knee-high to a fly.

Chapter 27

February, 1932

Cloverdale, Oregon

H
ad it really been almost two years since they’d buried Angus? Where did the time go? Sean was thinking he was happy to have all that nastiness with the lawsuits and the fire investigation surrounding Angus Tjaden’s death dealt with and discharged. The family kept their homestead and that was Sean’s interest in the matter. He’d been beside himself when it looked he might lose Elrod and Rebecca. But here it was, 1932, a promising new year, and the fine February day was perfect for a road trip. Sean glanced sideways at his young son sitting up in the seat beside him. The boy’s hair was thick and curly, and his lashes as long and dark as a beautiful maiden’s. But Victor was all boy. Much as Blair tried to coddle the little boy and keep him close to her, Victor couldn’t be stilled for long. There was always a garter snake or tiny green tree frog that vied for his attention, and nature almost always won over his mother’s lap. It would be hard for the lad to sit still the entire ride to McMinnville. Sean kept having to bribe him with reminders of why they were going.

“Is mine gonna be red too, Daddy?” The boy looked up at his father, squinting because the sun was in his eyes.

“Yessiree, Victor. Red and bright as an apple.”

They’d seen a picture of the tricycle in Mr. Wendt’s drugstore in town. It had to be ordered by catalog from Sears and Roebuck, and only the store in McMinnville received the catalog orders. Victor had been waiting since his birthday on Christmas Eve until then, when the weather was finally accommodating, for them to go and pick up his present.

“Four years old, Victor.” Sean shook his head. “I just can’t believe you’re getting that big.”

The little boy smiled up at him. He was a happy child. They were all happy, considering. Life hadn’t been too fair to the boy’s mother, Lord knew. And it seemed like one tragedy after another had assaulted the Marshall household. But 1932, they hoped, was a bright new year, and Sean and Blair had decided, in spite of economic difficulties all over the world, that they would splurge that once on the coveted tricycle; thus, the trip to the valley. They would be staying overnight at a hotel, which would have been the closest thing to a vacation for he and Blair since their honeymoon. But Sean’s mother wasn’t in good enough health for the trip, having caught another winter cold that settled in her prone and vulnerable lungs, and Blair said that she should stay and watch over Mavis.

Sean frowned at the sight of a hand-painted sign on the side of a barn up ahead. It read, “Fascism Lives. Death to Stalin.” It seemed like a lot of folks were upset about the unrest in central Europe. The papers reported on the terror Stalin used to rule the Soviet Union and on the atrocities committed by Mussolini in Italy, and Sean doubted that it would end there. The world was entering an age of dictators. Unrest usually meant an opportunity for men seeking power, and countries could begin falling like timbers. Rumor had it some young upstart in Germany was going to run Hindenburg out as chancellor. World upheaval was frightening to a young America, and it was to Britain and France too. Free democracies did not hanker to go to war again, what with the devastation of the Great War still fresh in the minds of many.

The barn was suddenly covered in shade by a large cloud passing overhead. The way the sign darkened just as he read it; Sean did not usually put much stake in premonition, but he did find that somewhat foreboding. Sean worried there would be no escaping troubled times ahead for his country.

Of greater calamity would be the trouble heading straight for Sean’s own family, trouble that started about the same time Preacher Bowman noticed the Marshall’s Model-T was loaded up and heading out of town with only Sean and the boy inside it.

Chapter 28

I
t was time to get the strawberry plants they’d dug up before the first frost and get them planted in the ground for spring harvests. Blair had spent most of the morning making certain her rows were straight and far enough apart from each other. Her back was giving her pains, but she kept at it, hoping to have all two hundred plants in place when Sean and Victor arrived home the next afternoon. She reached into the wheel barrel for another plant. Her mind wandered, and she thought of her little boy’s glee when he finally laid hands on his treasured trike. She loved that boy intensely and delighted in spoiling him. Whoever would have believed she could be that happy? Despite the cause for its induction, her marriage was a solid one. She adored her husband, and he seemed truly content with her. And the child; Victor showered her with total, unconditional love. She patted the earth solidly but not too packed around the base of the plant and reached for another. A cloud must have just passed overhead because the wheel barrel was suddenly bathed in cool shadow.
No-no…
A chill skipped down Blair’s spine, and she realized even before he spoke that he was near.

“Your husband has left you alone, wayward child.”

Blair turned her head slowly to see the preacher looming over her. He wore the wide-brimmed hat that blocked out the sun and obscured his face. She put a hand over her eyes to see him better and rose quickly to her feet, backing away from him as she did so.

“You have no business here, Preacher. You’re not welcome.” She would never again refer to him as her father. She would not dirty the name she had used for calling Wyatt Marshall.

The preacher studied her. He hadn’t opportunity to look at his daughter close up, because she had not visited him or the church in nearly four years. She was the image of her mother, the beautiful Jennie, even more so than before. Her youth had traded itself for more prominent, mature bone structure. Her lips were fuller, her cheekbones more pronounced. If anything, Blair had only grown more beautiful. She was twenty years old now, a woman,
his
woman. He took a step toward her and reached out to touch her cheek. Blair slapped his hand away.

“You leave me be, you hear? I want nothing from you and nothing to do with you.”

“You are still my wife!” the preacher thundered.

Blair looked around quickly to see if anyone was near enough to hear the obscenity. There was no other person in sight. Will was working at the grist mill since dawn. “You are
drunk
you, you philistine!” she hissed. “I was never your wife. I was your child. I was only a child, and you—the terrible things you did to your own flesh and blood! I was never a demon, old man. The demon is inside of you!” She turned to run for the house, where Mavis was resting.

The preacher grabbed hold of her arm and spun her back around. With the other hand, he slapped her hard enough to send her sprawling.

“How dare you say such filth to your father? I have watched you go about your days with that Sean Marshall.” He nearly spat the words out. “I stood by while he raised my son! I have imagined the things he does to you in your marriage bed, deeds which are, by right,
my
privilege! Oh, you are surely a demon, Blair. Be on your knees demon child!”

Her eyes grew wide with fear and shock. She had thought that she was safe from him, so safe that she never even gave thought to him anymore. She hadn’t needed her inner-voice in a very long time, had succeeded in making it go away, but she needed it now.

Please!
Her mind screamed.
Help me!
She was running. Somehow, she had found her feet and began running for the house, for safety. But he caught up with her, and they struggled.

The day was already growing nigh. Blair had been laying on the back breezeway for what must have been a very long while. The voice penetrated Blair’s cloudy thoughts It told her she was an unclean, pathetic creature again.

Gone was Sean’s devoted wife. Gone was Victor’s loving mother. Cindy picked her battered body off the ground and made her way through the back door to the main house. She bathed herself with mechanical quality. She dressed and then began packing Blair’s belongings. The trunk closed and ready, she sat at the small vanity and began writing Sean a letter. She couldn’t just leave. She had to tell Sean what had happened to Blair. She wouldn’t want him to think that her leaving was due in any part to something he had done. He was too fine a man for that. Cindy loved Sean too. She signed the letter and tucked it into a pretty pink envelope. She didn’t want anyone else to find it and read the letter, so she looked around for a private place to leave it. Her eyes found the box Sean kept under the bed, where he stowed the money he was saving for college. She took the key from the vanity drawer and unlocked the box. She withdrew the money and put the envelope in its place. She wished she did not have to take Sean’s savings, but Sean would understand. She locked the box but left it sitting on the vanity so that he might think to look inside when he found her gone. She looked around the room and said good-bye to the only joyous times Blair had ever known. Then, her stare hardened and her fingers snapped her small handbag full of money crisply shut, signaling the closure of Blair Bowman Marshall’s existence.