Ten Thousand Charms (21 page)

After allowing a few more minutes of playful splashing, Gloria brought Danny to shore and dressed him in a clean, sun-warmed shirt. She laid him down on the outspread blanket. She draped the waist of her discarded skirt over the lip of the basket and extended the material out, creating a makeshift tent to protect the babies’ sensitive skin from the sun. The pleasure of the bath met the warmth of the afternoon, and by the time she finished taking Kate through the same process, Danny was fast asleep. Kate, too, succumbed to the ritual, and soon Gloria found herself looking at her son and daughter—no,
his
daughter— sleeping like angels.

She thought about the Logan children—clean, combed, ribboned—and wondered if she would ever see these two so groomed and proper. Quite the little family. Gloria sat on a river rock, her hands folded demurely in her lap.

“Children, time for church,” she said out loud, trying to
capture the soft sweet cadence of Josephine Logan's voice. “Come, Kate, let mother comb your hair. Why, Danny, how handsome you look!”

Gloria pictured the stark comb marks in the Logan children's hair. Such discipline. Such cleanliness. So prim and pure. The product of a lovely perfect mother.

She waded to the depths of the river one more time and plunged beneath the surface, then emerged to claw a handful of soap, work it to a lather, and attack her scalp. She grabbed still more, and soon red tracks marked the passage of her nails across lavender-scented skin. She threw herself backward, allowing her hair to rinse as it dangled in the water.

Gloria wondered what would happen if she fell asleep right now Would she roll over and drown? Maybe the river's current would just take her away, far from Danny and Kate. She pondered, for a second, which would be worse. She realized she really had no idea how long John William and the Logans would be gone. What if that happy little wagon pulled up right now? What a sight she was, the naked water nymph floating on the surface of the sacred Umatilla River. She pictured John William's face, shocked and ashamed. She heard Josephine Logan's voice, softly surprised yet kind.

The thoughts poured through her head as she poured rivulets of water across her stomach, once again flat and firm, all traces of having carried a child lost. Forever.

Gloria righted herself and walked to shore, wringing her sodden hair over her shoulder. She stood on the bank and wrung until no more droplets fell, then ran a wide-toothed wooden comb through the wet tresses before wrapping her head in the towel she'd used to dry the babies. Although the sun felt glorious on her clean dry skin, a nagging bit of propriety insisted that she don her loose-fitting cotton sleeping gown, sleeveless and cut to just below her knees.

Suddenly a nap on the rivers bank seemed irresistible. She stretched herself out on the blanket, her head just parallel to the
triangle of shade she'd created for the babies. She took one last look at their sleeping forms—Danny on his tummy with his little face half-smashed against the quilt, and Kate on her back with her arms flung open to the world. Gloria curled on her side, facing them, and closed her eyes.

She was just making her way to the edges of sleep when she heard the buzzing. She brought her hand up to send halfhearted slaps toward the sound, but it wasn't until one of her fingers made contact with something that she actually sat up, fully awake and aware.

Bees.

At least a dozen of them swarmed around her, landing lightly on her skin. She leapt to her feet crying, “Shoo! Go away!" slapping her hands together, successfully crushing two of them between her palms.

She swept the towel off her head and whirled it through the air, feeling little fuzzy bodies make contact. When the bees refused to leave, she grabbed the towel by its corners and furled it into a tight coil which she snapped, whip-like, killing two or three more in midflight.

She had no idea how long she waged battle, but at some point she stopped to catch her breath and realized that the air was clear. The bees were gone, and she was full of an exhilaration she had never felt before. This instinct to protect, this animal-like passion to drive the wolves from the nest made Gloria feel alive and proud. So proud, in fact, that her only regret was that nobody had been there to witness the feat. The very lives she was protecting napped through the valiant display.

Then she saw it. A tiny red welt just beginning to swell on Danny's left cheek.

“Oh God,” she said, calling out a plea that surprised her. She fell to her knees and gathered her son into her arms, bringing him close to put her lips on the red, hot flesh. “Danny Danny, I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry.”

Still holding Danny close, she scanned every exposed inch of
Kate's sleeping body and was relieved to see that her flesh was milky white and unmarked.

“1 could never let any harm come to you, Kate,” she whispered as she gently ran a finger down Kate's soft cheek. “If I did…he wouldn't need me any more.”

The voice of Reverend Thomas Fuller filled the tiny church. True, any voice would fill the space—barely four hundred square feet—but Reverend Fuller seemed to attempt to reach every corner without overwhelming the congregation.

John William sat on a bench at the back of the church. The wood was smooth and varnished to a gleam. Maureen Brewster sat next to him.

Early in the service, Reverend Fuller led them in songs of worship. Adele had been right about the sparse number of hymnals: there were exactly five. But the reverend led them through songs the congregation knew by heart, and John William felt months of spiritual reserve chipping away as he raised his strong baritone to join the others. Maureen's voice, as diminutive as her body, quavered somewhere around his elbow, and often during a song he looked down and she looked up as they shared both a note and a smile.

Now the sermon was in full swing, and John William was thrilled to hear God's Word spoken by a man who'd studied it and knew its full meaning.

“We are all newcomers here,” he was saying, his hands gesturing to encompass both the congregation and the outlying countryside. “We are all strangers in a strange land, and we will determine whether or not this will be a land for God.”

John William thought about the places he'd lived, places he'd seen. Wild towns built on gold and promises, fueled by whiskey. Men driven by a quest for fortune. Women…

“So we must commit our lives to this land just as we commit our lives to our God. We must take root and grow a society
that will be pleasing to His nature.”

Living in fancy hotels or tents. Or four-walled shacks that let the winter snows blow right in. No place for a family. No place for a daughter. Or a son.

“And so 1 have decided to make Middleton my permanent home.”

A unanimous gasp went up from the congregation followed by whispered joy.

“I will be sharing my itinerant duties with a minister in Centerville, and will hold church services here the first and third Sunday of every month.”

The elation of the people expanded into applause. The excitement of Maureen beside him made John William feel comfortable to join in the celebration of these strangers. It wasn't until the ruckus died down that he noticed the intent gaze of Adele Fuller, turned fully around in her front seat, fixed on him. He returned a polite smile, but was so startled by the boldness of her expression that he didn't hear what Maureen said.

“What was that?” he asked, bending his large frame to better hear her.

“I said, if we're going to have a proper church, maybe I'll stay after all.”

John William wanted to inquire further, but Reverend Fuller was leading them in a prayer of dismissal.

The sky was full of horses and pantaloons. At least that's what the clouds looked like. Gloria sat on the little campstool gazing at them, having gathered the children up and brought them back to the wagon site to finish their nap. Now awake, Danny and Kate inched their way around the blanket spread on the ground at her feet, periodically being scooped up and brought back to safety when they came to near the blanket's edge.

She had dabbed Danny's face with cool river water, and the swelling was down considerably, but the area was still red with a
tight raised bump at its center. She held him now, and he rooted against her, hungrily searching out her breast.

“You know, son, I haven't eaten anything today yet, either,” she said. “Guess it's beans, beans, beans.”

Gloria, still in her nightgown, set Danny back on the blanket, stood up, and wallowed in a luxurious stretch and gratifying scratch before wandering over to the wagon's larder. One bowl of beans. Cold. She knew John William would be able to do wonders with these, given just a slice of salt pork and half an onion, but neither of those was available now. Not that she would know what to do with them. She knew even the smallest fire would return them to a more palatable temperature, but the thoughts of gathering wood and assembling kindling and striking a match seemed a bit overwhelming on such a warm, lazy summer day. So she took the bowl, grabbed a fork, and returned to the blanket.

“Now this," she said out loud, gesturing with the fork, “is what that Sabbath commandment is all about.” She stretched one leg out to caress Kate's soft cheek with a toe. “Who needs church?” She allowed a bean to linger in her mouth, warm up a little, before sending it to join the others.

“And I'm saying that because I know,” she continued, giving her heavy, damp hair a shake off her shoulders. “I've been to church before.”

What she didn't say out loud was that the minute she'd walked through the doors, the minister pointed at her and shouted that a whore such as this had no place in the house of God.

“I even talked with the minister once.” The previous evening when she'd refused to perform the favors he demanded. “So I know what we're missing,” she said to the babies, who were now each propped up on their little elbows, staring at her intently. “And we're not missing much.”

Because the church met so infrequently, the better part of the day was devoted to worship, fellowship, and teaching. After the ini-tial
time of song and sermon, the congregation split into Sunday schools. The children were grouped together for classes: the girls led by Adele Fuller and the boys by Reverend Fuller. The women gathered to discuss the focal passage among themselves, as did the men. John William soon learned, though, that the Middleton men's Sunday school class would not be a great source of Bible study. Almost immediately the conversation turned to crops, weather, and farming.

“I'm telling you, MacGregan,” David Logan said, “you've never seen land like this for growing things. Looks like I'll be harvesting near twice what I did last year.”

“Yep," said another Middleton neighbor, Phil Jasper. John William learned that everybody called him Big Phil, and his imposing girth gave the obvious explanation why “I got a quarter section of corn coming in, wheat looks good. This is God's country for sure.”

“I can see that,” John William said. “And a town startin’ and a church. I think we can make a life here.”

“You might want to talk to Maureen Brewster,” David said. “Her husband died last spring, just after getting the crop in. She's been wanting to sell and move back East.”

“Now why would he want to do that?” Big Phil said. “He can get himself his acres from the government for free.” He turned to face John William. “One square mile, six hundred forty acres, and the same for your wife if you don't mind havin’ it in her name.”

“Well, yeah,” David said, “but the Brewsters was one of the first families to settle these parts. If he buys her place, he gets land that's been cleared, house built. Buying the Brewster place'd be like buying ten years worth of labor.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen please,” John William said, laughing and laying a hand on each shoulder. “Let me have some say in the matter. Besides, just during church she said she might not leave at all.”

“I wouldn't wait too long to make a decision if I were you,” Big Phil said. “Mrs. Brewster's a land-owning single woman. If
she don't leave, shell be married.off before the wheat sprouts.”

John William looked over at the crowd of women gathered in earnest conversation. Maureen Brewster was one of the oldest there, her gray frizzled hair hardly the markings of an object of desire.

“You sure about that?” John William said.

“Listen here,” David said, “women here are scarce. Men can't be too particular about age and beauty and such.”

Just then Adele Fuller turned slightly and gave the men a stunning smile before returning to her conversation.

“Then how come that Adele Fuller ain't married yet?” John William asked.

“Aw, she can afford to be particular.” This from a slick-looking young hand named Lonnie. “She could have herself any man she wants. And she don't want a farmer.”

“Judging by the way she's looking at you,” Big Phil said to John William, “you'd better get yourself
&
farm as soon as you can.”

“I'll talk with Mrs. Brewster when I get a chance.”

“No better time than now,” David said. “It's time for the dinner.”

There was a bustle of activity as boxes and baskets were unloaded from the wagons parked around the church building. It was a tradition of the congregation to share a generous potluck dinner, each family contributing what it could. The fresh doughnuts brought by the Logans were just the tip of their contribution. Mrs. Logan also had two-dozen corn muffins, sausage links, ajar of pickled beets, and cold potato cakes.

Planks were laid across the wagons creating long tables loaded with dishes, bowls, pots, and plates. The bachelors of the congregation brought kegs of fresh water and cider. There were kettles of baked beans, cooked overnight and wrapped in towels to keep warm. One family brought a smoked ham from a pig that had to be slaughtered early another a huge pot of venison stew. There were jars of pickles, cans of oysters, loaves of bread, dozens of biscuits. Apple, cream, and fresh berry pies were lined up and guarded closely. But the greatest treasure of all was isolated and revered: Adele Fuller's chocolate cake.

John William stared, openmouthed. He'd never seen such bounty in his life. He felt a plate being placed in his hand and looked down to see the now familiar face of Maureen Brewster.