Mrs. Mike by Benedict Freedman

  I thought about the Indian girl and wished George Bailey would fight for her and get killed. I thought about Mike too. He

  kept looking at me in a worried way. I know he didn't like my being out in this downpour. Oh, yes, he was fond of me. There was no doubt about that, but he was fond of his horse too.

  Once we had passed the broken-down fence that marked Uncle's property, the horses took heart and began to gallop.

  "Ride right up on the porch," Mike shouted. "I want to get you out of the rain." So I rode Rosie under the shelter of the eaves and got off.

  "I'll take them around to the barn," Mike said. "You go to bed."

  "I've had a very nice evening," I said.

  "Katherine Mary, get in the house and out of those wet clothes." I went into the house, but I gave the door a good slam. And there was Uncle John sitting up.

  "It's a quarter to one," said my uncle.

  "It's a wonder we ever got here in this rain. The horses almost got mired."

  "Where's Mike? Didn't he come in with you?"

  "He's seeing to the horses."

  "We can't let him go on a night like this. He'll sleep in the bunkhouse."

  There was a long pause. I waited there, miserable and shivering, because I wanted Mike to come in and see that I hadn't done what he told me.

  At last my uncle said, "Did you have a good time, Kathy?" I went over and kissed the top of his head.

  The door opened and slammed, and Mike strode across the room, leaving puddles of water behind him. He nodded to Uncle. "I told Kathy to get into some dry clothes."

  I faced him. "I was just saying good night to my uncle. Any objections?"

  Mike was looking grim, and Uncle interrupted. "He's right, Kathy. You're wet to the skin."

  What were the two of them—a couple of grandmas? I flounced out of the room.

  "You can say good night in the morning," Mike called after me. I didn't even turn around.

  I dried all over with a rough towel. It felt good. Then I got into my nightgown. I was still chilly, so I put on my robe too. Then I got into bed and pulled up the covers. I didn't feel sleepy, and my behavior troubled me. After all, Mike had taken me out, and I'd had a wonderful time. And poor Uncle John waiting up till all hours. Then I'd acted like that.

  I got out of bed and opened the door to the living room. Uncle was still there by the fire, and I could see a section of Mike, a section of kitchen, and about an inch of stove. I came out and walked to the fireplace. Mike stuck his head around the corner of the kitchen door.

  "I'm cold," I said, and held out my hands to the fire. I wanted to say, "I'm sorry," too, but Mike started yelling because I didn't have any slippers on, and when he got through I didn't feel like saying it any more.

  "What are you doing in there anyway?" I asked him. "I thought you were supposed to be in the bunkhouse."

  "Well," said Mike, "I was warming up some water for a hot bath. But as long as you're still up, you're the one who's going to get it." I simply laughed.

  Mike said nothing more, but poured the heated water from the kettle into a large washtub. Uncle John watched with interest. I pretended to be staring dreamily into the fire.

  Mike came to the door. "It's all ready," he said.

  "Uncle John, can you make out any salamanders in the flames?" I punctuated that sentence, with a shriek, for Mike lifted me off my feet, carried me to the chair, set me down in it, rolled back nightgown and robe till they reached my knees, then stuck my feet into that tub of water.

  "It's too hot!" I yelled.

  "It's good for you."

  "Uncle, Uncle!"

  Uncle was shocked into movement, not much, but a little. He

  stood up. "Mike, I think this has gone too far." I think he meant Mike pulling my clothes around my knees.

  "It has, John," Mike agreed, "and I want to talk to you about it right now." He looked down at me. "You stay where you are." He walked out of the kitchen and shut the door behind him.

  I stepped quietly out of the tub, dried my feet with a dish towel, walked without one creak of the floor to the door, and stood listening, hoping to hear Uncle John bawl Mike out. But it was Mike who was doing the talking. I listened to one sentence, then another, and then I realized what he was leading up to, and then I heard him say it. At least I think I did because Mike pushed the door open.

  "I thought I told you to stay in that tub." He scooped me up and set me down again with my feet in the hot water. I had my arms around his neck, and I didn't let go.

  "Mike, do you?—do you?—"

  "Yes," he said, and put my hands back in my lap. He walked over to Uncle John, who was shaking his head and talking to himself. Mike stopped in front of him. "Well, John?"

  "I can't give my consent, Mike. The girl's too young, only sixteen. And she's not well. She was sent here because of her pleurisy, and her lungs aren't too strong."

  "I'll look after her, John." And we both knew he would.

  "You'll be going back to your wild North, and you can't take a delicate girl like Katherine Mary into a country like that. You know you can't."

  Mike looked from me to my uncle. "There's two ways of thinking, when it comes to that. To my mind, the country would harden her, make a strong woman of her."

  There was silence between the men.

  Finally Uncle said, "There's no man I'd rather give her to than you, Mike Flannigan, and you know it well. But she was put in my charge by her mother. And her mother would not approve. She's too young yet, and she has no strength. I'm thinking she could go back to Boston."

  I stamped my foot, forgetting it was in the tub, and the water

  splashed all over. "Have I nothing to say about this?" I asked the two of them.

  Mike looked at me reproachfully. "Your uncle's too good a friend for me to be talking a matter like this behind his back."

  "And what am I? I hope at least you think as much of me as of my uncle."

  "Kathy, of course I do."

  "Well, then, you just say it. If you love me, you tell me right here and now. And if you want me to marry you, you ask me, and then maybe I will and maybe I won't."

  Mike came over to me and crouched down by my chair so he could see my face. He spoke low so my uncle couldn't hear. "I love you, Kathy. I always have, and I think you've always known it."

  I couldn't stand the look in his eyes, the earnest almost pleading look. I turned away from it. I, a sixteen-year-old, had demanded that this sergeant of the Northwest Mounted humble himself, and he had.

  "I'll make you happy, girl. I'll give my life to it. I want you for my wife." He didn't touch me. Didn't even take my hand. But I felt and knew only Mike.

  "I'm going to marry you. I'm going to marry him," I said to my uncle. But my uncle was no longer there. Mike stood up, drawing me with him. We held to each other, and I had never had him so close.

  I SHUT MYSELF in my room. All night long I went over it and over it with Mother, and sometimes she cried and sometimes she laughed and sometimes she didn't do anything at all. And that's what I was most afraid of. I could see her opening my letter. She would read it twice, because the first time she wouldn't believe it. Then she'd know I wasn't coming home, that I was going to marry someone named Sergeant Michael Flannigan and go up to those "wild north places" with him. I had to stop her worry and her fear by telling about Mike. "He's a man," I wrote, "twenty-seven years old, responsible, who'll look after me." To know he

  was kind and good and capable—that would help her. And she would hear the same thing from Uncle John, who had promised to write also. Maybe I could make her know about Mike; but about the country he was taking me to—never.

  And when would I see her? I knew Mother hadn't the money to come for the wedding—and Mike already had his orders; we would leave immediately for Hudson's Hope. The pain of a separation that would be for years, and maybe forever, must run between us the length of the Saskatchewan.

/>   Things would be different between my mother and me. I would be Katherine Mary Flannigan, a woman, and my mother would be Margaret O'Fallon, another woman. The mother and the child were somehow gone. But these things couldn't go in a letter. We must tell each other the good things and the things we hoped would be good. I looked down at the words I had just written . . . "We will be married here at the ranch on October 20, that's this Sunday. Uncle will give me away, and Johnny will be best man. I have a beautiful dress, all white with lace at the throat and on the sleeves."

  I couldn't put it off any more. I began a new paragraph, writing the words that had to be written. "Then we are going to Hudson's Hope, where Mike is stationed. We'll take the train from here to Edmonton. From Edmonton we must travel seven hundred miles by dog sled. Mike says the trip will take two or three months."

  I looked over what I had written and crossed out the part about seven hundred miles and the words "two or three months." Then I crossed the whole thing out and started over.

  "Hudson's Hope is quite a way from the nearest city, Edmonton, but we will make the trip in easy stages."

  Then I told her that my pleurisy didn't bother me any more, and that I was much stronger. I thought writing it down like this would help make it true. Because I really was a little worried that I would fold up on Mike somewhere along those seven hundred miles to Hudson's Hope.

  I put that thought away, along with worries about what to take with me, what kind of punch to serve at the wedding, and what

  if Johnny didn't stay sober long enough to stand up with us when the time came.

  I returned to my letter. It was slow work, choosing the words to hurt my mother. If only I could have written about Mike's hair, and eyes—and his straight nose, and how tall he was. Well, I had, a little, but I knew she was interested in other things about him. So I told her how the Canadian Government supported us, gave us house, clothes, horses, food, and a little money. I thought it better not to tell her what Mike said about money not being much good up there.

  "Everything is trading," he had said. "Food you can eat, horses you can ride, skins you can keep warm with. But what can you do with a paper dollar?" Yes, I knew my mother better than to speak disrespectfully of money.

  "I want for you to be here so much," I told her, "but I know you can't leave the house, and that anyway the trip would be too expensive. And we have to leave right afterward because those are Mike's orders."

  I felt important, writing about orders. It was all new and strange. "But you'll come and see me when we're up there." I continued. "And then we'll come to Boston to see you."

  While I was writing it, I thought it was true. But then I looked at it and knew it wasn't. It was far, across a continent. I felt afraid. No one would know that, not Mother and not Mike. I'd keep the fear pushed down inside of me, and no one would know it was there.

  "I'm awfully happy," I wrote.

  I was. Awfully happy and awfully in love, and tomorrow I was marrying Mike.

  Five

  We had to leave Juno. He was too civilized to live on the trail. The sled dogs would tear him to pieces, Mike warned me. "I'll get you another Juno when we get to Hudson's Hope," he said, and I left Juno with Mildred. He was the last tie with Boston and home. From now on the Northwest was home.

  We took the train from Calgary to Edmonton and set out for Lesser Slave Lake as part of a dog-sled caravan. There were thirty-six sleds of traders, trappers, and Hudson's Bay Company men.

  Two nuns were riding on the sled of a trapper named Baldy Red. They were bound for the Mission at Peace River Crossing and had no visible money or supplies. The older one had come to the camp where the caravan was assembling and asked if there was room for herself and the other sister. The men talked it over for a while, but no one seemed able to spare the space. Each sled was heavily laden with equipment and goods.

  At this point Baldy Red walked into the meeting. He was a short, stocky man with a fringe of bright red hair circling his bald spot. His neck was red, his face was red, and his nose was bright red. He wore his shirt open at the throat, and no cap was on his head or mittens on his hands. He pushed his way through the group of men and walked, or rather lurched, over to the nun. Mike said he was drunk, but he didn't speak like a drunk, and I thought what he said was nice, and nicely put.

  "Sister," Baldy Red addressed the nun, "my friends here say there's no room. That's a true word. But I will make room. It's women like yourself this country needs. To bring the word of God to the heathen, and the hand of mercy to the sick. And God bless you for the good work you're doing, and, God damn me—I

  mean God help me—I'll make a place for you and the other holy sister on my sled."

  And the Sister said, "Thank you." She looked him over carefully and then asked, "Are you Catholic?"

  "Sister," Baldy said, "I don't know. My parents never told me. I've never gone to a Catholic church. But," he added appeasingly, "neither have I gone to any other church."

  The nun smiled a little. "My friend and myself will be glad to ride with you. God reward you for your courtesy."

  Baldy Red with a very gallant air led the nun to his cutter, and they drove in for Sister Magdalena.

  "Well, I'm glad of that," I told Mike. "I was getting ready to ask you if we could take them."

  "We're loaded to the brim," Mike laughed. "If we had another passenger, I'd have to harness you with the team."

  "He's a very nice man," I said. Mike said nothing, but he smiled, I thought, queerly.

  The next day we started. Baldy Red made a seat out of two packing cases and up-ended three more to make a back rest. He covered the cases with buffalo robes and seated Sisters Margaret and Magdalena on their improvised throne.

  The day was cold, fifty below zero, and no amount of covers could keep me warm sitting on the sled. So I'd get off and run until I was warm and tired, and then get on and ride until I was rested and cold.

  Baldy watched over the nuns as if they had been truly his sisters. He found them extra robes and made ear muffs for them out of a pair of old mittens.

  "Something's up," Mike told me. "That old rascal never spoke to a nun in his life."

  "You don't like him," I said.

  "Sure I like him," Mike said, "but I don't trust him. That old Baldy has never made a straight move in his life. Even if he blows his nose, there's something crooked about it."

  "I don't believe it." I said.

  "There was the time he sold a Dutch farmer his horse," Mike

  said thoughtfully. "The farmer, Humbert his name was, paid Baldy eighty dollars for the horse; for, while it didn't look any too handsome, being sort of mottled brown with white spots, it was sound in wind, fast, and well trained. Humbert bought the horse, and he says for a day or so he watched that horse with fear in his heart, waiting for its teeth to fall out, or for it to go lame, or get vicious or come down with the glanders—because, you see, he knew Baldy.

  "The third day he went in to brush the horse, and the horse was gone. He rode to town, and Baldy was gone. Humbert didn't waste any time, but came to the barracks and swore out a complaint, charging Baldy Red with the theft of one six-year-old horse, brown with white spots.

  "A week later we caught up with Baldy. He had two horses. We brought them both back. One was a ten-year-old gray mare. One was a six- or seven-year-old brown horse, brown but with no spots. Farmer Humbert stood a long time looking at his horse, and then he started to swear. Claimed Baldy Red had stolen the horse and covered up the white spots somehow. Baldy just laughed and said the old guy was crazy, this was a different horse. Humbert opened the horse's mouth and said he recognized the teeth. Baldy sneered and asked him did he see any spots before his eyes. Well, we were stuck. Humbert had identified the horse as brown and white, and this horse was brown all over. We washed and scrubbed him with soap and turpentine and naphtha, but brown he was and brown he stayed. Humbert nearly went crazy. He said he recognized the teeth, the
ankles, the eyes, and the gait of that animal. But, as Baldy pointed out, that's not much good as evidence from a guy that can't tell the difference between brown and white. So we had to let Baldy go."

  "Well, then Baldy was innocent, and you were just picking on him," I said. Mike looked at me, and at the glee in his eyes a doubt grew in my mind. "Where did the other horse go, the brown and white one?" I asked.

  "There was only one. The brown part went with Baldy," Mike said, "and the white part went with a little paint remover."

  The first village we came to was Athabaska. The weather was changing; there was a tension in the air, and heavy clouds piled in the east. The sun was already low when a circle of pale, silvery light sprang up around it. A little later, within this giant loop, four smaller shining circles appeared. In each circle a small unreal but gleaming image of the sun shone. Looking up at the five tangent suns gave me a weird and alien feeling. I seemed to be on the plains of a distant planet, gazing into a dream landscape. The silver circles became hazy, the mock suns flashed evilly, the daylight seemed to flicker, and then the vision vanished, and the true sun sank into a mountain of dark clouds. Even the dogs seemed upset, and we rushed on at a furious pace until we whirled into Athabaska, and I tumbled off the sled, my face stiff and my eyes dull with staring.

  "Sun dogs, they're called," Mike told me. "I've seen as many as sixteen surrounding the sun, like puppies around a bitch, and shining every bit as bright as the big one. Sun dogs. The Indians are scared of them. They think they are evil stars trying to kill the sun, and they beat pans and raise an awful racket to scare the sun dogs away. It generally works. The whole illusion is in the atmosphere, and I guess the noise shakes it. Anyway, when you see those things, ten to one there's a blizzard by the morning."

  There was. We were stuck in Athabaska two days. In that time I saw a lot of Baldy Red.

  The cabin we occupied was long and rambling, with two stoves and twelve beds. The one assigned to Mike and myself was at one end, and Mike hung a blanket as a sort of curtain because, he explained to me gravely, we were newlyweds. The nuns slept next to us. As a mark of respect. Baldy Red had dragged in three of his heavy chests and improvised a table where the nuns took their meals, away from the men. When I saw Baldy, face purple and sweating in the sub-zero cold, lug those six-foot packing cases into the cabin, half break his back propping them up so that the three cases would make a level surface, and then cover it all with a gaudy cloth he'd dug up somewhere, my heart went out to him, and I turned to Mike and said: