The Last Crossing (10 page)

Then to find out the property really belonged to Abner’s younger brother Wisdom, who lived three mile down the road, that we were the tenants of a man who people said could skin a rat and sell it for beaver. It was hard to learn my husband was a liar and, worse, a lazy liar.

My, but didn’t Wisdom love to lord it over his older brother, bully him and hand out orders. Still, orders couldn’t get a lick of work from Abner. He didn’t have any more interest in ploughing or planting, in
chopping weeds, in fixing fences, in putting up hay, in shucking corn than a hog who gets his rations fed to him regular would. Abner believed God had a purpose for him, and that purpose was to fool with fice dogs, ride a pacing horse, hunt, and drink whisky. With two healthy gals on the place to toil for him, why strain his delicate constitution? And pull our weight we did, pulled like a pair of mules.

You’d think the soft life we provided him would have eased some gratefulness out of Abner. But no, he’s always been a moody man. And Wisdom made him worse, brought his meanness to a boil. I used to dread the sight of Wisdom’s green-topped buggy coming down the road to check on his property. Abner knew better than to sass his little brother because Wisdom owned a hotter temper even than his own. Knocked Abner down in the yard with a trace chain once for back-talking him.

And after every one of Wisdom’s visits, didn’t Madge and me know we were going to catch it, that there’d be the very devil to pay for Abner’s treatment at his brother’s hands? Abner ranting on, the spit flying. “There’s my little brother wearing white moleskin gentry pants, and me as naked as Father Adam under a pair of old overhauls. It ain’t right, him so high and me so low. Giving me a scolding like I was a schoolboy.” Putting on a mincing voice. “ ‘Them calves got the scours, Abner. They been getting their hot bran mash like I said?’ ” Abner coming at me then, fist doubled up. “Goddamn it, woman, why ain’t you been boiling feed up for the cattle!” And when I told him he had never passed on word to me that Wisdom had ordered hot mash, he’d roar all the louder. “By the flaming Jesus, I ordered one or the other of you to see to it! Where’s that sister of yours! You won’t own up to shying off what I tell you to do, I’ll switch the truth out of her.”

And he would, lay into Madge with a willow, cross-hatch her legs with stripes because this was his almighty power to bend me. I’d do whatever he asked to spare Madge hurt and harm.

Every slice of bread that man ate was seasoned with the sweat of our brows. I ploughed; Madge sowed seed. I bucked stove wood; Madge stacked it. I milked; Madge churned. The butter went to town for sale, and the buttermilk down Abner’s gullet. Him riding off most
days at noon, Lord knows where, coming home late for supper, full of whisky, slopping about from side to side in the saddle.

The farm was sinking beneath our feet while me and Madge bailed to keep it afloat. Weeds creeping into the fields, rats scampering in the corn bins, cows limping with hoof rot. Too much work, and too little money, and what cash did come in went riding out again in Abner’s pockets for a spree.

And in the end, Wisdom saw the pleasure of an upper hand wasn’t worth the losses. He wanted Abner out of his hair so almighty bad he handed him stake money to journey to Washington by the ocean.

But Washington is still hundreds of miles off and none of my sacrifice did a smidgen of good; I couldn’t save my baby sister after Abner dropped us in this Sodom and Gomorrah. He put us down among the wolves and the wolves tore Madge. Now I’ve got nothing left to do but to bare my angry teeth and bite, and when I sink them, they’ll feel the grip of my grieving jaw.

I won’t be used again. I know what Custis Straw’s playing at. I’m not blind. Nobody could miss those moony looks he sends me. You can see through men like a pane of glass, once you learn the trick. Straw’s trying to work on me just like Abner did, use Madge to get in my good graces. But I can play him one better.

Titus and Joel Kelso are more than Straw’s hired hands. I heard tell they’re some description of shirt-tail relations. They’re kin to Straw and kin knows kin, how it thinks, what it’s apt to do. I can inch what I need to know out of Straw and him not even cotton on to it. If the Kelsos have scampered for home, Straw’ll know where home is. If they took themselves off someplace else, he’ll have the best guess where that might be. Young fellows talk their plans.

But now I got to lose my anger until I’m done washing Madge, so that when I put my hands on her for the last time, they’ll be gentle.

CUSTIS
I was about to offer Lucy Stoveall my condolences, but she left so abrupt I didn’t have time to finish rallying the words in my
mind. They needed to be stately and comforting ones. A man can’t spur such words out on short notice. From the look of her, worn down so by sorrow, the wrong words would have ripped her apart like thin cloth.

The door banged shut behind her, Daniels got to his feet, paced the room. “That red-hair bitch is a liar. Maybe Straw’s been poking her too. Maybe she’s glad to have the sister out of the way,” he said to Hinckey.

He had more foul opinions to vent, but there came a click of the door latch, a slab of bright light, and Dr. Bengough stepped into the jail and gave me a quick nod of his head. “Dooley,” is all he said, meaning Aloysius had heard talk in the saloon I’d been arrested and rousted Bengough to look into it.

I was surely glad to see that stooped old man come edging over the floor like it was ice he was crossing. He shuffled himself over square in front of Daniels, took two snorts from his snuff box, sneezed, wiped his eyes, and said, “Well, Daniels, this is a damnable mess you got yourself into.”

“Straw’s in the mess, not me. He’s the one diddled a little girl, choked the life out of her.”

Bengough kept his voice reasonable, even-tempered. “Nonsense. What evidence do you have to support such a charge?”

“I’m getting my evidence.”

“Not good enough, Mr. Daniels. You can’t lock a man up on a guess or a whim. You must charge him or release him.”

“The law ain’t your trade, Doctor,” Daniels said.

One of Dr. Bengough’s hands came up and smoothed his twitch of white beard with a kid glove. I’ve seen him do that when he loses at cards and wants to disguise his irritation. “No, sir, it is not my trade. The trade I practise is ruled by one maxim, ‘Do no harm.’ You might adopt it for your own. Now release that man.”

The doctor is a man with a spine. The Democratic Party in Fort Benton might be run by Southerners and Fenian Irish, but despite being neither, he’s a power to reckon with. During the war, he fought Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus like a demon, and that gives
him standing with the party faithful. You don’t want to get Bengough started on tyrant Lincoln, enemy of the rights and liberties of free men. Bengough didn’t keep his opinions to himself during the war and he paid the price for it – muck thrown at him in the streets of Illinois, and one or two spells in jail. Which makes him a hero to the Democrats hereabouts. It’s a point of pride for those rascals to number one man of principle amongst their sorry tribe.

It was no mystery what Daniels was thinking faced with the doctor. Willard Daniels had fished his job out of the pork barrel, and it doesn’t do to forget that Bengough has influence with the men who lift the lid on that barrel. If Justice Daniels wants to keep earning fifty cents for every paper he signs as notary public, and two dollars for each court session, he best not defy the good doctor.

Still, you could see Daniels struggling with the bitterness of his choice. Which was bigger, his love for his pocketbook or his hate for me? In the end, he motioned to Hinckey and said grudgingly, “Let Mr. Straw go.”

There was a rattling of keys, the rusty door screeched open, and I was sprung. “You’ll be back, Bible Reader,” Daniels said.

I laughed in his face. Bengough gave a yank on my arm, tugged me towards the door. “Behave yourself,” he said.

I wasn’t finished with Daniels yet. “I’m going to send some men to bring that poor girl to the Stubhorn. Be sure somebody’s here when they come.”

“Good Lord, don’t you beat all. You aim to have the pleasure of washing your little Madge?” Daniels said.

I took a step towards him, but Bengough held me tight. “Leave him be, Custis. Walk away.”

There was no profit in it, so I went along with Bengough, docile. The din and glare of the street was a blow to my senses; I leaned up against a hitching post while the wagon traffic grumbled by.

“You think it wise to have her taken to the Stubhorn on your say so? People will talk,” Bengough suggested mildly.

I was tired of questions; I’d had my fill of them. And sunshine was thumping my head, causing me to lose my bearings. Bengough put a
glove to my shoulder. “You’re bound on going to perdition, aren’t you, Custis? Why not try to explain yourself?”

“I don’t want to be understood. It’s no concern of mine to be understood.”

“If a man won’t be understood, people think the worst of him. The worst is what happened to Madge Dray.” I just stood blinking, feeling sick. Bengough shook his head. “A little philosophy might broaden your outlook. As Epictetus says, In walking about, as you take care not to step on a nail or to sprain your foot, so take care not to damage your ruling faculty. The situation calls for you to exercise common sense.”

“Maybe,” was all I said. Though he’s often right, he puts too much store in book education. It’s irksome for a grown man to be expected to sit at his feet and polish him an apple, just because forty years ago he could read Latin and Greek. I was in no mood to yield. What I was willing to do was give him my hand. “I’m obliged for your help,” I said. “It was timely and welcome.”

Bengough gave my fingers a thoughtful squeeze and threw a tag from some scholar at me, all signs that I was forgiven. “ ‘Anyone can stop a man’s life, but no one his death; a thousand doors open on to it.’ ”

“Doctor, that doesn’t apply.”

“No, Custis, I speak to myself, not you. Seneca corrects the vanity of doctors. I must remind myself there is nothing I can do for Dutchie Hertog, his kidneys are failing, but he insists on a house call. I had better go and leave you to your own devices.”

Bengough drew himself up as straight as he is able and departed. Watching him go, I had a sneaking feeling his last words were a chastisement no matter how he denied it.

There was a large serving of disruption in my mind as soon as he left me. All at once, I felt the murderer’s belt around my waist, realized I’d never taken it off, had walked out of the jail still wearing it. For a second, it felt as if a girdle of fire circled my belly. I turned to go back, intending to hand it over to Daniels. But then I stopped myself. It was plain if Daniels and Hinckey couldn’t pin this on me, they had
no interest in pinning it on anybody. Whoever killed little Madge was most likely long gone, and the law was only too happy to wash their hands of it. Some things are easy to overlook. And a poor stranger girl doesn’t warrant taking any pains to find her some justice.

I pulled that burning belt off me, rolled it, and shoved it in my pocket. I had a right to it. This wasn’t the common sense Bengough urged on me, but I couldn’t do otherwise. I wasn’t about to forget Madge Dray as soon as Daniels and Hinckey would – in an hour’s time, a day at most. If they want the belt back, they’ll have to ask for it. I’m its keeper now.

Then I headed off for the Stubhorn. I had my room to get ready. Arrangements to make for a wagon to bring Madge Dray’s body from the jail. Lucy Stoveall to summon to lay her sister out. My friend Aloysius to soothe. I knew he would not be happy to learn I was about to turn his establishment into a funeral parlour.

And I was correct. So now I hide in my room from Dooley’s ire, wait for Lucy Stoveall, wait for her sister’s body.

F
ort Benton was not a godly town, it had no church, counted no ordained clergy among its citizenry. Due to these circumstances, Custis Straw improvised a burial service for the murdered girl, persuading Aloysius Dooley to volunteer his saloon for the obsequies, and asking the Methodist lay preacher Chauncey Clumb to conduct them. Lucy Stoveall did not approve nor object to these arrangements, and she certainly did not show any gratitude to Straw for making them. She seemed determined to stand remote and distant from the proceedings. Straw took her aloofness in stride, telling himself grief runs hot or cold, and every temperature in between. It wasn’t for him to judge.