Olivia, Mourning (32 page)

He won’t be there, he won’t be there
, she chanted and forced herself to walk.
Go home. Fast. Filmore won’t be there. Not yet. Hurry. Not until tomorrow. Iola said he would come tomorrow.

A few minutes later she heard breaking branches and stopped again.

Stop being ridiculous, you can’t let every raccoon and squirrel terrify you.

But she listened closely. That was not the rustle of small animals. Those were human footsteps crashing through the woods and they weren’t far away. She hid behind another tree, shaking. Whoever it was, he was walking fast. But he wasn’t coming after Olivia; the sounds were receding in the opposite direction. She stepped back on the trail and rushed toward her cabin.

Where did I leave the shotgun? Where it always is, leaning against the wall behind the door. Please let it be there. Mourning, where are you? What did he do to you? Please be home. Please be safe. I am going to get through this. I have to think. Plan. Keep walking. Get home.

Shame and guilt brought back the dark thoughts and slowed her down. Why had she gone to Iola’s? Why hadn’t she refused to drink that tea? Why hadn’t she fought harder? What had she done to deserve this? What made them think they could treat her that way? Was she what they said, a dirty little whore?

It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. They are evil. They are evil. They are evil. They will be punished. They will be punished. They will be punished.

She soon regretted that she hadn’t eaten and hadn’t taken the skin of water. She felt faint and the trail stretched endlessly. She wanted desperately to arrive home, to find Mourning standing outside, waving his floppy hat at her. Would she tell him what they’d done to her? How could such a thing be said in words? Would she ever be able to put those sentences together? And if she did, would he believe her? Would anyone?

Feeling dizzy, she stopped under a tree. The long grass around its roots was soft and dry, and she lay down and curled up in it for a few minutes. Her hands clutched her belly. Could a woman feel it? Know? All Olivia felt was torn up. She forced herself to her feet and continued stumbling toward home. When she’d walked this trail a week ago had there been so many branches and roots grabbing at her ankles? Clumsy, she fell several more times before she at last came to the clearing and then the stream. She gratefully threw herself down on its bank and lay in the mud, scooping water into her mouth and over her head, before getting to her feet and continuing around the bend. She let out a cry when the squat little cabin came into sight, but even from a distance it looked deserted. The door was standing open, creaking on its hinges.

Olivia began shouting hysterically. “Mourning! Mourning! Are you here? Where are you?”

She could see the handle of his precious hoe sticking up out in the field. Something had made him leave it; he would never have gone off and abandoned a precious iron tool to the rain. She ran to the barn, shouting his name. The oxen were in there. The trough was full of water and a small pile of hay stood next to it. Dixby and Dougan turned stupid, indifferent eyes toward her.

She went back out to the yard and shouted Mourning’s name a few more times, but there was no response. There was no sound at all, other than birds twittering in the trees. She entered the cabin and looked around. Everything seemed to be as she had left it, except there was no shotgun behind the door. Who had taken it, Filmore or Mourning? What about the pistol? What would she do without a weapon? She frantically kicked aside the rug, opened the trapdoor, and scrambled down the ladder.

She hadn’t taken the time to light a lantern and the cellar was dark and foul smelling. She heard the scurry of mice and impatiently clapped her hands and yelled “Shoo!” before groping her way to the crate that stood against the far wall.

Relief flooded over her. The pistol was where she’d hidden it, behind the crate. So was her possibles bag. Mourning must have taken it down there. Let Filmore come now. She’d be waiting for him. Then her hand touched something else metallic. She wrapped her fingers around it and lifted. Thank God, it was the muzzle of the shotgun. Olivia pulled it out and cradled it in her lap. The fact that Mourning had hidden these things meant he was all right, didn’t it? Filmore couldn’t have just ridden up and shot him. She could imagine no scenario in which Filmore would have hidden the shotgun in the cellar. So Mourning must be alive.

Olivia couldn’t manage the ladder while carrying both the pistol and shotgun, so she made two trips. Then she took the shotgun outside and sat on a stump chair while she cleaned and oiled it, measured black powder down both barrels, rammed a wad and shot down each, and raised it to her shoulder. She squinted into its sights and imagined Filmore coming up the path, as he was sure to do tomorrow. Nothing would be easier than squeezing off two loads of buckshot. Splat in his face. She aimed at one of the trees and fired one barrel and then the other, taking comfort in the loud explosions. She’d always hated the smell of black powder, but today its scent was sweet. She was safe. She could protect herself. She was never going to be helpless again.

Now she could begin her search for Mourning. With the reloaded shotgun over her shoulder, she spent the rest of the day methodically walking around the cabin, in increasingly wider circles, and periodically calling his name.

“Mourning! Mourning, it’s all right. It’s me, Olivia. I’m alone. I’m going to be real quiet now. Make any kind of noise that you can. Just move your foot in the leaves. I’ll come and find you.”

It was dusk before she gave up, hoarse and exhausted. Mourning was gone.

She dragged her feet back to the desolate cabin, where she numbly lit lanterns, removed her clothing, and threw it in a heap on the floor. The scent of Filmore seemed to be oozing out of her pores and she felt as if she might be sick. She wrapped herself in a towel and took the shotgun with her down to the riverbank, where she immersed herself in the cold water, oblivious to the sharp stones on her bare feet. A week ago she had worried about water moccasins slithering past her; now there seemed to be nothing left that could frighten her. She crouched in the deepest part, letting the swift current wash Filmore downstream with the other waste. She splashed gallons of water over her head and then faced upstream and lay back to let the river run through her hair. There she remained until she was nearly frozen and her teeth were chattering so hard they hurt. She climbed out and wrapped the towel around her, then returned to the cabin and slipped naked under the covers, keeping one hand on the gun.

What am I going to do?
She answered herself:
Go back to Five Rocks. There’s nothing else you can do
.

It was not a solution. What would she do in Five Rocks, in all likelihood pregnant and not knowing what color the baby would be? But she couldn’t think about that now. Right now all that mattered was getting away from here. And isn’t that where Mourning would have gone? Back to the place he felt safe, where Mr. Carmichael looked out for him and everyone knew him?

While cleansing herself in the river her mind had settled into a decision: she was never going to tell anyone what they’d done to her. Not Mourning, not Tobey, not some sheriff, not anyone. Not ever. She couldn’t say it out loud. Saying it out loud would only make it real, harder to forget. No one would believe her anyway. It wouldn’t do any good.

All right. I’m going back to Five Rocks and I’m not going to tell anyone what happened. But then what? I can go home for a while, but if I am carrying a child I’ll have to go to one of those places for wayward girls.
It sounded simple when she spelled it out like that. She clung to the comfort of knowing she still had enough money to live on for a while.

The money!
She had forgotten to check if her gold coins were still there. She jumped up, pulled on a shirt and trousers, took a lantern, and scrambled back down to the cellar. She crawled to the far corner and felt for the loose earth, digging frantically with her bare hands, until her fingers touched the burlap she had wrapped around the red velvet bag. She took it back upstairs, poured the coins on the table, and counted them. There should have been $380; there were $300. She counted again and stared at the coins for a long while, thinking. Then she smiled.
If a band of thieves or the Stubblefields had found the bag, they would have taken it all. It could only be Mourning. He had needed some money to get away. That was sure proof he was alive.

Remembering her emergency money, she lifted the mattress and ripped open the seam that she had loosely sewn back together. The fifty dollars that she’d kept hidden, even from Mourning, were still there. She stooped to pull one of her wicker baskets from under the bed, retrieved the money belt she had sewn for the trip, poured all the coins into it, and tied it around her waist. She filled a skin with water and set it by the door. Then she tucked the loaded shotgun and pistol and her possibles bag under the covers. No one was going to surprise her in the night, and she was ready to leave in an instant, if she had to.

She picked up the lantern and started out to the barn to check on the oxen. Halfway there she turned back for the shotgun. She wasn’t going anywhere without it, ever again. She stroked Dixby’s neck and added another bucket of water to the trough. It felt good to do something normal. If only she could get up in the morning and blister her hands splitting firewood. Make Mourning’s dinner. Try to catch a fish for supper. Complain about the way the laundry soap burned.

She knew she wouldn’t sleep and so stacked kindling and wood in the fire pit and lit them with one of the precious matches. No point in saving them any more; scavengers would soon take whatever she left behind. She waited anxiously for the flames to take the logs, part of her still hoping that Mourning was hiding in the woods and would see or smell the fire and come to see who it was. She went inside, picked the dress she had been wearing and Iola’s drawers off the floor, and fed them into the flames. She watched the clothing go up in smoke, her only physical tie to that barn. Then she went to look for something to eat and sat on a stump chair with some jerky and two apples. She kept the gun by her feet and peered at the blackness that surrounded her.

She had stopped asking herself what she had done to deserve this, for she at last believed her answer to that question:
Nothing
. She had also found the frighteningly simple answer to the question, what had made them decide to do it to her?
Because they believed they could.
It was a horrible realization. Was the world filled with people who wouldn’t hesitate to do evil, as long as they thought they could get away with it?

That’s what religion is supposed to be for
, she thought.
It’s a brilliant attempt to make us think we can’t get away with anything. God is up there watching. But it doesn’t seem to work very well. The Stubblefields consider themselves good Christians. They simply convinced themselves they were saving my soul. And plenty of devout Christians own slaves. First they decide they need some slaves, then they come up with the excuses
. Olivia had never given much thought to what it would feel like to be a slave. Now she knew. Like being locked in that barn from the day you’re born until the day you die.

She stared in the direction of the Stubblefield cabin, knowing they were over there going about their lives. Laughing. Planning. Having their supper. Filmore greedily licking grease from his fingers. Iola probably couldn’t stop yapping about their baby. They were pleased with themselves. Everything had gone as planned. They would sleep well tonight.

Olivia set her face hard.
All right. That goes both ways. You thought it was all right for you to do whatever you did to Mourning and to steal my life away, just because you could? Well, I can do things too. I have more than one weapon and I’m a great shot. I could walk back over there right now and blow your ugly heads off. Bam. First barrel for Filmore. Bam. Right in Iola’s face. Who’s going to suspect me? Why on earth would I kill the nice neighbors who bring me milk and butter? So that’s what I’m going to do. I will go home to Five Rocks. But first I’m going to shoot them dead.

Olivia didn’t worry that God, if one existed, would know she had shot the Stubblefields. It was the right thing to do. She was going to hold her gun on them and threaten to shoot them dead, unless they told her what they’d done to Mourning. And after they told her, she was going to shoot them dead anyway. It wouldn’t make things right – nothing would ever do that – but at least she would know they no longer breathed the same air she did.

She wistfully surveyed her little homestead, thinking that perhaps once the Stubblefields were gone she could stay there. She could take a boat back to Five Rocks, find Mourning working at the Feed & Grain, and bring him back. If she wasn’t pregnant. And if she didn’t get arrested for killing Iola and Filmore.

Only then did it occur to her – Mourning is the one most likely to be blamed for that. If a sheriff finds two white people murdered at about the same time that a stranger – a black man – disappears, who’s he going to go after? Well, if it comes to that, I’ll just have to confess. Then she frowned. If Mourning is arrested in Michigan, there’s no way I’ll ever hear about it in Five Rocks. No one is going to be writing me letters. No one in Fae’s Landing even knows where we came from, except our wonderful neighbors, the Stubblefields. Did I ever mention the name of the town to Jeremy? I don’t think so, but even if I did, small chance that he’d been paying any attention.

Jeremy. She was never going to see him again. She paused for a moment, noting how totally indifferent she was to that fact. But she should call on him. Stopping to say good-bye was the natural thing to do and she didn’t want him or anyone else to think she had run off in a panic.

She would tell Jeremy that Mourning had left, but when? When was the last time Jeremy had seen him? Probably three weeks ago. She would say that Mourning had left a few days after that. Left to go where? Back home. Why? They’d decided they weren’t cut out for farming, that’s all. She was just stopping by to wish Jeremy well. She’d say she’d just come from bidding her farewells to the Stubblefields, providing testimony that they’d still been alive and well weeks after Mourning left.

She picked up a stick and poked at the fire, searching for inconsistencies in her story. A wry smile crossed her face as she thought,
Jeremy not believing what I’m going to tell him about when Mourning left isn’t the problem. Jeremy not hearing a word I say is more like it. I’ll have to think of a way to say it that will grab his attention. If the Law comes asking about Mourning, Jeremy has to remember that he left Fae’s Landing weeks before the murders.

I can think about that later,
she thought.
What I have to do now is pack up and get out of here before the sun comes up. Way before Filmore gets here. Then I have to figure out how I’m going to take him and his she-devil wife by surprise.

It wouldn’t be easy, the way their cabin stood in that large clearing. The front of it was a good forty paces from the woods and plowed fields spread out from the other three sides. They were sure to see her coming with her shotgun. She could be on the trail before sun-up tomorrow, lying in wait for Filmore, but if she shot him close to their place, Iola would hear it and come running with that pistol of hers. And if he was found near Olivia’s cabin, folks would be even more likely to put it on Mourning. She’d have to drag the body off the trail and bury it. She sighed and stirred the fire. It was all too complicated. She wanted to shoot them and walk away. The last thing she wanted to do was touch Filmore’s stinking carcass.

If only she knew of some time they’d be gone and arrive home together, then she wouldn’t have to sneak up on them. She could be waiting for them inside their cabin. They’d open the door and find her sitting in Iola’s rocker, both barrels trained on them. The shotgun would bring one of them down; she’d have the pistol to finish off the other. Then Olivia’s eyes opened wide, and she sat up straight. Didn’t they pride themselves on being steady churchgoers? That meant their cabin must stand empty for a few hours every Sunday morning. Anyone could walk in.

What day of the week was it? Olivia had no idea. What day had it been the morning she’d walked into their trap? She couldn’t remember. Wait, hadn’t Iola said something about today being Friday? No, tomorrow. Tomorrow was Friday, Filmore’s day to take eggs and butter to the store. So Sunday was the day after tomorrow. She could wait that long. Not in the cabin. Not with Filmore supposed to come tomorrow.

I’ll spend what is left of this night and the next camped in the woods. Some time tomorrow I’ll go say my goodbyes to Jeremy. I’ll ask him what day it is, just to be sure. And then maybe Jeremy will remember that I left for Detroit on Saturday, a whole day before they were killed on Sunday. Except who’s going to know what day they were killed? It might be weeks before anyone finds them. How on earth will they know it happened on Sunday morning? Because they’ll be wearing their church clothes, that’s how. And they’ll have been seen in church, alive, the day after Jeremy will say I left for Detroit. Weeks after he’ll say Mourning left the area.

She picked up the lantern and walked through the cabin and barn, making a mental list of what she would take with her to Detroit. She set aside those things that she needed to keep handy, in order to survive a day and a half in the woods. There wasn’t much food in the cabin. She mixed up bread dough and left it to rise, before setting a pot of rice at the edge of the fire. There was strawberry jam, the pickled venison, some dried-out apples, and two more jars of peaches.
We should be grateful for our bodily needs
, she thought.
Seeing to them is sometimes all that keeps us from losing our minds
.

Then she noticed the pile of clothing lying on the bed. She walked over and picked up a few items, fingering the cloth. Who had put this here? Then she remembered. That morning, before she’d left for the Stubblefields, she’d hung up laundry. This brown work dress had been on the line. Filmore must have taken them down when he’d come over to feed and water the oxen. She shuddered and was enraged at the thought of him touching her things.

Should she pack up Mourning’s things and take them back to Five Rocks? What if he came back to the cabin looking for them? He’d just have to manage without. She had to take them away. If he’d left three weeks ago, why would his things still be here? Should she leave a note for him on the table? No. If he had left before she did, there was no logic in her leaving a note. Maybe she could leave a note for him down in the cellar; no one else was likely to find it there. No, she couldn’t take the chance.

Then she remembered the Hawken rifle, hidden it that tree. That was where they were supposed to meet in an emergency, and this was a bigger emergency than either of them had ever imagined. She would leave the rifle in the tree, but put a note for Mourning in it. She looked for a scrap of paper, but had to tear a page out of her journal. What could she say? It had to be something no one else would understand. In the end she wrote only “Gone to 5R.” She carefully rolled it up and put it in her pocket with another scrap of paper.

It took her a while to find the tree in the dark. She cleared a space on the ground to set the lantern, hoisted herself onto the lowest branch, and began climbing like Mourning had. When the Hawken was at eye level, she steadied her right foot on a thick branch and hugged the trunk with her knees while she rolled up the note and slipped it into the barrel of the rifle. Then she crumpled up the other scrap of paper and shoved it in, like a stopper. Her message should be safe in there, even from the rain.

Back at the cabin, she looked at her wicker baskets, doubtful that she could manage to hoist them onto the wagon alone. She emptied their contents into piles on the bed and lifted the empty baskets into the bed of the wagon. Then she made endless trips back and forth to repack them. When she went into the barn to look for a piece of rope, she tripped over Mourning’s toolbox. She intended to take the shovel, rake, and plow – and the hoe that was still out in the farm – to Detroit to sell, but what would she do with Mourning’s collection of hand tools?

She stood and stared at the box for a long time, unable to decide. Selling it and its contents in Detroit made the most sense, but she knew how proud Mourning was of those tools. He’d been accumulating them since he was nine years old. What if he came back looking for them? Penniless in Michigan, he would need those tools, which he referred to as his Most Precious Belongings. But if she just left them sitting there they would be stolen in no time. She decided to hide them. She opened the box and smiled sadly at how clean and neatly arranged everything was. Then she removed one item – Mourning’s compass. She might need it.

A small haystack stood in the back corner of the barn. She cleared part of it aside and dug a hole just deep enough to hold the box. She wrapped it in canvas, lowered it into the ground, smoothed the dirt over it, and covered it with hay. She returned to the cabin and wrote a second note – “Your MPBs are deep in D&D’s house under their food” – and hurried back to the rifle tree. She retrieved her first note and rolled the second up with it, before reinserting the paper stopper in the barrel.

Then she resumed packing the wagon, trying to create a level surface on which she would be able to lay her mattress. As she gathered up miscellaneous utensils and wares, she began to understand why they had gotten everything so cheaply in Detroit. The seller must have been someone like her – too worn out and despairing to care about a few dollars more or less. Just looking at the big sacks of feed and seed in the barn made her want to sit down and cry. There were some empty sacks, so she could have done as she had with the baskets – put an empty sack in the wagon and fill it up bucket by bucket – but she shook her head and turned away. She needed her strength for things more important than trying to salvage a few dollars. She would take only enough feed to get her to Detroit; the raccoons were welcome to the rest.

More wearing than the physical exertion was the fatigue of being alone, a tiny figure under an ink-black sky, huddling in a halo of lantern light, no one to talk to, no one to care what happened to her, no one to pour her a cup of coffee. With each hour that passed her conviction grew. There was no choice. She had to go back to Five Rocks. Let the biddies cluck their tongues. She craved familiar faces. Tobey. Mrs. Hardaway. She even missed Avis and Mabel Mears. Mr. Carmichael’s long white features. Maybe something as simple as a smile would help her feel human again.

She punched down the bread dough, put it in the bake kettle, and set it at the edge of the fire. After she burned her tongue eating some rice straight out of the pot, she put the lid back on, and stuck the pot in the back of the wagon, the spoon still inside. Then she went to the river to wash again. After she combed her hair and tied it back, she stared at her dim reflection in the broken piece of mirror that still hung on the wall. It seemed impossible, but a face that looked just like Olivia Killion stared back at her. How could she look the same?

She hitched up the team and hung the lantern on the wagon post, the way Mourning had done on their way out. Then she pulled the bake kettle out of the fire, doused the flames, filled all the skins with water, and took a last look at the pathetic little hovel she was abandoning. She left the door standing open – her silent protest at being forced to leave – climbed onto the wagon, and said “Giddap.” Before she had gone a hundred paces she reined the team in, jumped down, and ran back to the cabin to pull the door shut and put the latch on. It had been her home, after all.

About three miles down the road she saw an opening into the woods. It was big enough for her to take the wagon off the road and be completely hidden among the trees. Would Filmore come looking for her tomorrow when he discovered her gone? Good thing he wasn’t a hunter. What was it Iola had said? He couldn’t follow a blood trail in the snow.

She unyoked the oxen and gave them feed and water. She was too tired to bother hobbling them and patted each of their noses, asking them to please not run off and leave her. Then she lifted the lid off the pot and mechanically ladled a few spoonfuls of cold rice into her mouth. Exhausted, she climbed onto her lumpy mattress – still in her clothes and work shoes – put the lantern out, and fell into dreamless sleep, hugging the shotgun.