Nahoonkara Page 3

  The next coach west wasn’t leaving until the following morning, and Bertram would have his men out looking for her once he calmed down. “I want a new name,” she’d told him. “And I’m leaving to go look for it.” He’d been puffing on his midday cigar, she said, and when he saw my hatboxes he put his cigar out.

  We found a hotel on the edge of town and stayed there. I booked two rooms, but after I dropped her off at her door, she followed me to mine. I didn’t say anything, and neither did she. This time I did not hesitate. I took her hand in mine, careful to hold it as one might hold a bird.

  As sediments pile up, their pressure squeezes the water out and packs the particles together. Sometimes, the minerals laid down between grains cement to create one magnificent mass of rock. I’d studied every kind of rock at Harvard, but I didn’t know anything could be as beautiful as the fusing of one’s layers with another, the shifting and packing, the reorientation of grains. All through the night, I held her close, hoping the pressure would solidify her, that the friction would smooth the rough edges, reshape the pieces that had not been abraded, but I was new to the ways of love, and I did not know that just because one soul wills something that intention cannot always cross the vast gulf to another. Even if it could, sometimes a body is not porous enough to let it in, sometimes the result of the process of sedimentation is to squeeze everything out.

  ANGELS

  Eli | Wisconsin

  I look out through the frost on the living room window each morning before school. I spend hours staring through the fog of crystals until Uncle Frank and Uncle Robert look like shapeless beasts as they shovel the snow out front and Killian becomes a dark shade as he plays with Henry and Catherine beneath the line of elms. I trace patterns in the frost, but I never look through the cleared glass. That would ruin the illusion. Mother says I draw the most beautiful manger she’s ever seen. She says she wishes she could take it right off the window and place it under our Christmas tree.

  What she doesn’t know is that after I trace the baby Jesus lying there amongst all the animals, his mother Mary and Joseph looking on, I trace the devil in the background. I make the devil and Jesus fight for the souls of the animals. Jesus almost always wins.

  I trace my manger in the darkness of early morning and wait for the rising sun, the ticking of the grandfather clock behind me creeping across my scalp, breathing its way into my head until the battle begins.

  Late at night, when everyone is asleep, I walk through the house, laying my hand upon each clock. Mother loves clocks, and Father sometimes brings her one when he returns from his trips. The others are smaller: there’s a Willard Banjo clock on the mantle, a shelf clock on top of the pantry in the kitchen, a Hatch Wall clock in the entryway, and, of course, the big grandfather in the living room—Mother says it’s a Brokaw and worth a lot of money. She even kissed Father the day he brought it home. When I lay my hands upon them, it’s like the tick tock of the clocks is the breathing of the house. Sometimes I feel like I could bring them to life, like Jesus. But sometimes I try to silence them. Then, when I get tired of that, I lie completely still on the living room sofa and wait. “Eli, what are you doing sitting there?” Mother asks one night when Father’s gone, and she can’t sleep. She pulls the star quilt out of the trunk and wraps it around me. I let her do it, but as soon as she sits down, I shirk it off.

  “I’m listening to the breath of the Holy Spirit,” I say.

  She says nothing then, but picks up the quilt and puts it on my shoulders again. It slides off because I wish it to.

  “Does the holy spirit breathe through the clocks?” she asks, looking out the window as if she is afraid to look at me.

  “Yes,” I whisper. I want to tell her about the frost on the windows too, tell her I create it with my breath, that the breath of the Holy Spirit works through me, and I can touch it, use it any way I like. But at that moment, there’s another sound, the soft crunching of snow outside, and Mother’s attention turns from me. She heads toward the door.

  I trace my manger scene upon the window, peering through the frosted pane at Mother and the darker figure talking outside. The tick tocking of the clock marking the eternal struggle. She holds him close before she turns to come back in. I am determined to make sure Jesus wins, so I make Jesus strong so he can throw the devil back into the pit, even though he’s just a baby.

  A moment later, she stands beside me, offering her hand to take me to bed. The devil creeps behind the roof of my manger. I can feel him there. I try to warn the baby Jesus that he’s coming. I hope he can hear my thoughts. Then Mother takes my hand and we ascend the stairs.

  The next morning when I wake, I slip quietly down through the darkness, taking my accustomed place upon the sofa.

  As the first peelings of light break on the horizon, I notice that my manger scene has frosted over, but you can still make out the pattern. The crystals that formed in the night are different from those of the previous day, blurred, as if the two distinct designs are sewn together.

  The sun peers forcefully over the horizon, its orange fire crackling through the frost. It’s then it happens. The patchwork frost breaks the light into shimmering figures made of yellows, greens, blues, purples, and reds. And in the images that dance upon the wood floor, I see them there, the angels of light. Creatures born from that frosty breath, from my breath. I know those angels will protect me, and they will protect my mother. Nothing that beautiful could ever be bad.

  THE SCHOOLMARM

  Elizabeth | Colorado

  Henry said I’d make an excellent teacher, and who was I to doubt such a man? And so, when September rolled around, I put on my schoolmarm hat, a pink-knotted straw accented by flowers, and marched down Main Street to the schoolhouse. The town of Seven Falls was still in its infancy, and in the short walk between my house at the west end of town and the school at the east, I passed by all that yet existed in the patch of land we’d carved out under the three mountains. Each morning, I would nod to J.D., who watched the sunrise from the entryway of his hotel, then pass on to Carl’s cabin and the Dancehall behind it—the silence of which in the early morning always seemed haunted by the revelry of the night before—then the supply house, Martin Watson’s smithy, Pete Myer’s general store—Pete liked to stack his fruits and vegetables on the boardwalk outside his store, never realizing that the dogs would pee on them as soon as he stepped back inside. Finally, the two saloons, Tom Guller’s and Percy Hart’s. There had been three saloons until the month before, when Henry made Ike Prestrud sell his so that the town could turn it into a schoolhouse. At first, Ike wasn’t too happy, but then he saw the money Henry offered, laid down in pure silver, and he packed his horse and headed for Denver.

  It would take the entire year for the smell of whiskey to vanish from the schoolhouse, and in early September the vapors were so strong you nearly got drunk on them. The five kids that started the school year sat on old whiskey barrels. For the first few months, the bar served as my desk, until Henry got me a proper one. Henry thought my misgivings about being a schoolteacher, my despondency on the slow walk back from the schoolhouse, were the results of the fact that the school still looked like a saloon. And so he did his best to change out the trappings of the miner’s nightlife as quickly as possible, importing real desks from the east coast. He thought it was an exterior problem, a problem of form, as he sees so much of his world.

  Each morning, I asked the students to open McGuffey’s Reader, and we would read a passage from the Bible, Shakespeare, Defoe, Tennyson, or Byron. We would cover punctuation and articulation, and parse the grammar. Carl’s oldest girl, Ruby, was quite adept at spelling and defining the words, and she helped guide the littler ones. She even corrected me the times I became stuck, confused in my new role. No wonder. I have played so many: minister’s daughter, banker’s mistress, now devoted wife and schoolmarm. There will be more yet to play.

  So, when Carl arranged the first dance in his hall (the town could now boast of
four women and so a celebration was considered in order), I wore the pink and gray silk dress and matching hat that Henry had bought me as a wedding present. The whole ensemble was like a breath of fine, French perfume.

  Carl’s Dancehall had originally been his barn, but early that first year both his cows had died and Carl said it wasn’t worth the bother to get new ones if he couldn’t rely on them to last through the harsh winter. So, he converted his barn into a dancehall. He said if he charged a quarter to get in, he’d make more money that way than off of cattle. Besides, he figured, people always wanted to dance.

  Considering the surroundings, Henry and I made a grand entrance. The town’s three other women, Lulu Giberson, Ellen Cluskey, and Mary Demings, were already there, wearing their wedding dresses, as they were the nicest dresses they owned. At first it was strange to see them sitting on the hay bales that lined the sides of the hall and served as benches, but soon we all got used to it. The stranger sight was that some of the men came dressed as women, wearing horsehair wigs and skirts sewn hastily together out of potato sacks. They figured they’d be able to dance more this way, as the men refused to dance with other men, unless they were so dressed.

  As soon as we arrived, Frank Foote started up his fiddle and J.D. began strumming his guitar. People didn’t take to dancing right away, though. First, the men and women separated, lining up on each side of the barn. The liquor had already been pouring profusely, but as soon as they lined up, each side passed the bottles of whiskey around. I’m not sure who drank more, the men dressed as women, thinking they needed to be inebriated if they were going to get through their role, or the men, thinking they needed every last drop if they were going to have to spend the night looking at their unshaven and grimy partners.

  Once the dancing commenced, I couldn’t stop laughing. The site of Tom Guller and Martin Watson carrying on—Tom acting the lady—was enough to put everyone in a fine mood. I danced with Pete Myers, Percy Hart, and Big Jim Leek, while Henry smoked a cigar and talked with the men in the corner. I worked up such a sweat that I took off my hat.

  “You hold this, Henry,” I said. “I won’t be needing it anymore this evening.”

  Henry put out his cigar and stared, perhaps trying to decipher what new role I’d adopted. “You are a vision of elegance tonight, Elizabeth,” he said. Then, when I thought he might say more, he took my hat and placed it upon Silas Cordley’s head. “You see,” Henry went on. “It’s not the hat that makes the person, it’s the person that gives beauty to the hat, and Silas here has no beauty to spare!”

  “Why don’t you dance with your wife,” Silas replied, still wearing the hat, “unless you want to dance with me?” And with that Silas curtsied and stuck out his hand.

  Henry pulled the handkerchief from his breast pocket, laying it on his own hand before taking mine. “Will you do me the honor, my dear?”

  I nodded my head in answer, and we walked to the dance floor, careful to avoid the bodies leaping and twirling about us. Once in the center of the room, we stopped and turned to face each other. Henry kept the handkerchief in his hand as he placed his arm around me.

  “What are you going to do with your other hand?” I asked, smiling as if I were joking. “Do you have another handkerchief in your pocket for that one?”

  Henry smiled uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, dear,” he said. “I’m not sure what to do.”

  “You take my hand in your own,” I replied.

  “Yes, of course.” Carefully, he reached for my hand.

  “And then you move to the music.”

  “But, I don’t know how,” he replied, attempting to pull me closer.

  “Then, I’ll show you.”

  Frank and J.D. started up the next tune, and I kicked up my heels, Henry trying his best to follow along. At first, I didn’t mind teaching him how to dance. He was so like a boy set in a room full of grownups and told to mind himself. So we danced, and I gazed smilingly into his eyes. We were husband and wife. What did it matter if we couldn’t dance together? The important thing was to try. I let Henry lead, and he pushed and pulled me along, all the while remaining in the center of the room. All around us bodies spinning and jumping. I focused on Henry’s eyes, thinking that would give me the illusion of movement. But the more I looked into them, the more we seemed to slow, until I was sure we’d come to a full stop right there in the center of the room. It was then I felt his handkerchief upon my back, absorbing the sweat so that it wouldn’t touch his hand, and it was then I realized how light his touch was upon my other hand, as if he were afraid of squeezing me too hard, afraid I might break.

  That night, Henry and I made love, though I was never sure why or how it happened. It was not like the first time. Rather, it seemed as if he needed to reach out, to explain himself after the dance, and lying on top of me, pushing into me, seemed like the best kind of explanation.

  I have heard that when some people murmur through the dark grammar of their lives, they actually believe they understand. That hope is what led me to the schoolhouse, the hope that by parsing the grammar of others, I could unravel my own life and perhaps follow the signs.

  But instead of a lesson from that night, I was left with a child. My first, but not my last. Who knows, maybe this next role will prove to be my greatest. At least I will not have to worry about keeping myself whole, about finding out what’s inside. I will have all I can handle to keep my children from unraveling themselves.

  THE SONG OF HIS PRESENCE

  Killian | Wisconsin

  In the frail light of deep winter, I hold Catherine close, two bears beneath the blankets. She tells me she has nightmares, and I kick them away with my feet, slap at them with my hands.

  Eli and Henry share the other bed. Henry’s either stolen the covers or Eli’s kicked free of them. I think he kicks away nightmares, too. Only they are his own, and if you sleep in the bed with him, he’ll kick you as well. That’s why Catherine won’t sleep with them. She says Henry sweats and Eli kicks. That’s why she sleeps with me.

  There are only two rooms atop the tavern, the children in one, the adults in the other, Mother and Father sharing one bed, Uncle Robert and Uncle Frank the other. Mother tells me the only time they didn’t share that room was on her wedding night. I ask her why my uncles slept in the hayloft that night, and she laughs. She laughs every time I ask it. I think most nights they’re all so tired from working the tavern it doesn’t matter where they sleep. But on Sundays the tavern is closed. So, we gather in front of the fireplace in the living room built behind the tavern.

  Father is not back from his trip north, so Uncle Robert plays his accordion alone. He gets sweaty, too, sweatier it seems when he plays without Father. And while Uncle Robert plays, Uncle Frank sits thinking about the story he’s going to tell, as if he might actually tell a new one. The snow falls heavy, which always makes it seem like the world is being erased.

  Mother sits in the chair closest to the fireplace, and I sit at her feet while Catherine sits at mine. I like sitting close to the fire, the way the burning spreads across my back. But mostly I like listening to the crackling of the pine logs. Henry and Eli dance with each other round and round until they exhaust themselves and collapse on the floor.

  Just as the pools of sweat under Uncle Robert’s arms threaten to spread around to the front and join behind his accordion, Uncle Frank rises from his rocking chair, scratches his head and steps before the fireplace. He searches the ceiling for characters, looks out the window for plots, though it doesn’t matter which one, really. I love them all, and he ends them all the same. Whether he starts out in the South Pacific or deep in the woods of the north or adrift in the Aegean Sea, he is soon swallowed up and has to find his way out.

  “It happened when I was sailing just off the coast of Typee,” Uncle Frank begins, the cowlick sticking from his head as if his hair has never been combed. He always starts this way, using the deep pause after the first line to pull him down into the depths of the stor
y. He stares into a space somewhere above us, as we wait eagerly for the next line. “I was a boy who thought he was a man,” he says. “But I didn’t know a thing. In order to learn I had to be swallowed whole.”

  “Frank, you son- of-a- bitch,” Uncle Robert says. “You were never a sailor, and you certainly never spent any time in the belly of a whale.” Even though he’s heard each story a hundred times, Uncle Robert always gets riled up. As if on cue, Uncle Frank sits back in his chair, looking like a two-year-old that’s been told off. He sits silently until we scream for him to finish his story. He seems so hurt that I wonder whether he really is telling the truth. Then, he begins again.

  “There’s never been a whale as big as this one,” Uncle Frank whispers from the rocking chair, his face aglow with the magic of his own story. “Swallowed the ship in one gulp.”

  Uncle Robert rises abruptly, making a lot of noise as he puts his accordion back in its case, then, after pacing the room a few times, settles back in his chair to hear the rest of the story. It happens the same way every Sunday.

  I rise from bed and stand at the window, looking for Mother. Monday is washing day. She’s tracking through snow to the well. The sound of each flake as it lands upon the window, a tinkling, like a miniature bell made of glass, surprises me.

  I dress quickly and quietly, not wanting to wake the others. Catherine curls in a ball now to stay warm, the blanket clenched about her. Henry scratches himself, a sign that he will soon be up. And then there’s the hard sound of Eli’s breathing, as if he must fight for each breath and yet can never get enough.