Wintstead Farm1
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She had poisoned his dog. He knew it.3
Horace looked at his wife, Eva, and then looked down at the pile of fur that was once his dear, old friend. He bent down to feel for a pulse and smelled the chemical odor that exuded from the corpse; he looked up at her again in disbelief. She held his gaze with a defiance that sent a chill down his spine.4
“Do you hate me that much?” he asked. Sobbing, he stroked the dog‘s head gently. “Mr. Brown,” he whispered. He had named the dog after Mr. Brown, the man who had given him his first hound puppy when he was just a boy. Best pick of the litter free of charge because the old man had taken a liking to him (or maybe just taken pity on a child with such a misshapen back.) Since that time, Horace had always had a hound at his side and this one looked very much like that first little hound dog from Mr. Brown.5
Why would she do something so cruel? he thought. To take away his only friend in such a hideous way made her worthy of every awful thought he‘d had for her lately. It was one thing to turn away from him so completely, sleeping by herself in the back bedroom of the big old Victorian house that they shared and eating in silence at every meal. It was one thing to treat him as if he had the black plague as she had for the past good many years but to kill the one thing left that brought him happiness. What kind of a woman was she? And just how deep did her hatred go?6
“He ate the spoilt meat that was in the bin. Twernt my fault, Old Man,” she spat.7
Suddenly his anger took hold of him, moving his limbs as if by some supernatural force. He lunged toward her and stopped less than an inch away, penning her to the kitchen wall; his face was deep red and the purple veins in his forehead protruded out, visibly pulsating. He was so close that she could feel the tip of his nose lightly brushing her cheek and smell the putrid odor of rotting teeth on his hot breath. She tried to turn away.8
“You are pure evil,” he said in a low, deliberate voice that told her just how angry he was, “and make no mistake, you spiteful hag, you will pay for this.”9
“How will I ‘pay’, Horace? How will I pay any more than I already do?” she shouted and then she faced him nose to nose and began to laugh. She was missing two of her front teeth and Horace could feel her warm spit spray through the gaps and across his face as her rising, high pitched cackle filled his head. He backed away from her and looked down at the dead dog; the glossy eyes stared blankly into space. Mr. Brown had been the only one that loved him. 10
It happened before he knew it. All at once, he felt his fist meet the sharp bone of her cheek, slamming her face against the wall with a crunch. She slid down the wall and crumpled into a heap on the kitchen floor holding her face. She didn’t cry but instead let out low primal groans as she rocked back and forth.11
Horace stood, stunned at what he had done. As angry as she’d made him in the past he had never struck her. Long ago, he promised himself that he would never resort to striking another person and he had kept that promise all these years. In the face of conflicts, he had simply given in, even when he knew he was right, just to keep the peace. He knew that some thought him a coward but that didn’t bother him because he knew that there was a deeper reason for his aversion towards violence. 12
Kneeling before her, he tried to evaluate the injury but she turned to the wall, blood streaming from between her fingers. Visions of his father’s white knuckled fist coming at him flashed before him and he covered his face with his hands. “Oh God, Eva, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it,” he bellowed and put his hand on her shoulder. She jerked away as if his touch was acid.13
“Leave me be,” she said in a muffled voice. “Go bury your hound and leave me be.”14
He stood up and backed away. Looking down at her there holding her bloodied face his shame began to fade into disgust. A strange numbness towards her washed over him. “You shouldn’t of oughta killed my dog, Woman,” he blabbered. Looking down at the dog lying stiff on the warped, wooden floor, he realized that he felt more sorrow for the loss of his canine friend than he did over his wife’s battered face. 15
He lifted the dog’s body in his arms reverently. That old hound had only wanted to be near him. Nothing more. Rather he was out doing the hard, endless farm work, hunting coons or sitting on the front porch on cool summer evenings after supper they had been constant companions. For the last twelve years, Mr. Brown had been his only real company on the desolate prairie farm and now he was gone. He carried the body out to the wagon that he used to haul firewood in from the shed and he grabbed the shovel. It was nearly dusk but there was still enough of the afternoon left to bury his friend. He could not stand the thought of leaving the remains to smell up the barn or lie out in the open and risk the wild dogs getting at it. Abandoned or runaway farm dogs ran in packs in the prairies, bred and pilfered the farms for food, often killing chickens if they were not put in coops securely after sunset. 16
Horace pulled the wagon several yards past the pig shack, near the cornfield, and began to dig. His humped back ached from the day’s work as he flung heavy shovels full of dirt over his shoulder. The hump had caused him great embarrassment as a child but he had become used to it and now it was not the disfigurement but the frequent pain it caused him that he cursed.17
The grief swept over him in a drowning wave as he looked at Mr. Brown, still and cold. Had he suffered? he wondered. He was not a man given to tears but now, alone and hidden by the corn stalks that were nearly to full height, he let them flow until there was none left. 18
The dog’s body was beginning to smell which made him dig faster. He knew that the grave had to be deep enough so that the pack would not catch the scent and dig it up. He kept going down and down. 19
Nearly five feet down he saw something white and round protruding out of the earth. The light was dimming but he could make out that it was smooth and not the usual color of the rocks commonly found in the prairies of Colorado. He bent down and pulled at it; it did not budge. He took the tip of his shovel and pried it loose. It was a skull. A human skull; he knew it as soon as he saw it. He took it in his hands and wiped the dirt away. Horace sat on the edge of the grave and studied the delicate bone. It was not large and the cheekbones were set high. A woman, he thought. The back of the skull was caved in in one spot as if it had been hit with something sharp and heavy. He ran his fingers over the hole and felt the fear and confusion churning in his gut. 20
Soon shock gave way to curiosity and, setting the skull aside, he resumed digging, carefully looking through each shovel full. 21
Below where he found the skull were the skeletal remains of two bodies lying side by side. They were mostly decayed but there were still bits of flesh attached to the bone and strips of clothing clung here and there. The soles of the black leather shoes were in tact. A dainty floral pattern on the shreds of skirt that adorned the headless body was sickly familiar to him. Horace scraped the dirt away gently and discovered a third body. That of a tiny baby nestled in the center of the two. Sally and Stella, he thought. His mind was spinning as he climbed out of the hole and sat, dumbfounded, looking down at the skeletons lying closely together, as if they had laid down to sleep and simply never awakened. Long hidden memories blew around him like a hurricane; he felt nauseous and dizzy. The story that began to take form in his mind seemed like that of a stranger’s instead of his own forgotten past and he squeezed his eyes shut hard to ward off the images but they burst, in vivid detail, on the insides of his lids. The blizzard, Sally and Stella, big with child, heading out amidst his father‘s booming reprimands, and then Clara’s hushed conversations with his brother Stanley and his meek, muffled sobs. 22
Finally, he shook his head and eased himself back into the grave. Placing the skull at the top of the body, he stood and whispered a small prayer. Then he shoveled all the dirt back into hole and, set two large rocks on top to mark the spot. He moved away several feet and dug Mr. Brown’s grave. His movements were mechanical and disconnected as if a force beyond himself willed action. By the time he was done the sun had gone down and only the moon‘s faint light lit his way back to the house where he collapsed into the big rocker on the front porch. He was beat and his mind ached with questions. Looking down at his swollen hands, he saw that they were covered with strands of skin and dried blood from the frantic digging.23
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Clara stroked the new coon coat that her father had given her with satisfaction. He’d had it made from his own kills and she wore it with pride. The soft fur assured her of his affections though she knew that she was his favorite and always had been. Still, she delighted in the gifts and pampering that he lavished on her. Even as the other children did without some necessities like paper for school, she was given sparkling trinkets and fancy toiletries. 25
She looked out from her upstairs bedroom window of the rambling, two story farm house and saw her sister, Sally, bathing their little brother, Horace, in the big, galvanized tub out back. It was a warm day and she smiled as she watched him splash Sally and laugh with glee.26
He had been born with a bent back and leaned to one side when he walked. The doctors said had that there was nothing they could do and no money would have been spared for any remedy even if there had been one. However, Horace did not let that stop him from running and playing or trying to help the other children with their chores. He was only five and his bent back could take nothing away from those big blue eyes that glowed like sapphire gems. Even Clara had to admit to a fondness for him with his happy songs and bright smile.27
“Make sure you rinse him good this time,” she called down to Sally. “Last time you left soap on his legs.” 28
Sally looked up and frowned but said nothing. It would only put her in Clara’s line of fire and she did not want that. She was not as pretty as Clara was but her features were handsome and gentle with soft, brown eyes, tiny freckles on her finely shaped nose and sandy blond hair that hung down to her waist in tight braids. 29
She shook her head and went back to washing Horace in the now lukewarm water. He splashed her again, drenching her with soapy water, and his laughter boomed across the prairie in high, happy bursts. “You little Monster!” she said and wiped the suds from her face with a smile. Sally had taken over the job of bathing him after their mother died less than a year ago and she tried to make it a game so he would not be overwhelmed with her memory. Sometimes it worked and he played in a delighted sudsy spin but other times her presence was felt, thick and pure, like the moisture in the air right before a hard rain and he seemed to sit quietly in his own world of grief.30
Clara saw the carriage coming up the road in the distance and strained to see her father’s big frame at the reigns. His familiar, round brimmed, black hat tilted down over his face to shield his eyes from the sun. “It’s Papa!” she shouted down to Sally who heaved a worried sigh. Nathan was returning from a weeklong trip to Limon for supplies and Clara had missed his booming presence even though much of the time he was away working the farm or turning an angry word (or strap) to one of the other children. However, there were gentle moments too and on cool evenings they would sit together on the back porch listening to the sound of the crickets and drinking cold lemonade. Usually they sat silently but once and awhile a soft or content look would pass between them. 31
As the carriage approached, Clara was surprised to see another figure sitting beside her father. It was a small, slumped silhouette and she thought perhaps that it was a new farmhand until the wagon got close enough to make out a woman’s outline. As she walked out to meet her father (and whoever his riding companion might be) she felt her stomach flutter.32
A young girl sat slumped beside Nathan staring blankly straight ahead and clutching her shawl tightly around her shoulders even though the late afternoon released its final blast of heat before surrendering to the evening breeze. “Get the bags,” Nathan snapped at Sally, “and tell that brother of yours to get his ass down from the field early today. I want you all to show this here girl the kitchen chores and such.” He jumped down and went inside and the haggard looking girl followed behind meekly.33
“Who is she, Papa, a housekeeper?” Clara stammered, afraid to hear the answer.34
“That there is your new Ma,” he said coldly. She stood frozen staring at him. An evil grin appeared across his face and he gave her a wink. How could he do it? she thought. Weren’t they happy just as they were? It had been nearly a year since their mother had died and Clara had been the happiest she had ever been. Her father’s attention was hers alone without the nagging pull of her mother’s beauty. 35
Clara resembled her mother who had been a truly lovely woman with long, silken, dark hair and murky green eyes. Though her mother was able to command her father’s gaze it was Clara’s youthful beauty and devotion that had always won out. Any competition was a pain to her and there had been no grief over the passing of the woman who’d nursed and cared for her all her life.36
Clara’s eyes filled with tears and she turned away from his cold smirk. “Oh come on, girl. She’s a homely little thing and I brought her to help with the cleaning as much as anything,” he said softening at the sound of her low sobs. “Her Ma says she’s a hard worker and they couldn’t afford to feed her. Besides, we needed us a helper with the little ones.” He put his hand on her shoulder and patted. “Now stop this silliness and get me some supper.” She jerked away from him and hurried to the kitchen in silence but inside her anger began to burn, slowly at first like a hot, constant ember beneath her chest. 37
It was true; the girl was shy and mousy. However, her body was budding into womanhood with lovely curves and long legs her face was not attractive and most might consider her homely. She was barely 14, with narrow features that appeared to be in a permanent scowl. Her nose was hooked and large with a bump at the center of the slope and her eyes bulged with milky whites that surrounded a drab gray colored iris. 38
The children sat stiffly at the dinner table awaiting the nod from their father to begin. Hunger pressed at their stomachs and they leaned over their plates in anticipation. Stanley rocked softly and wrung his white, bony hands together. 39
Sally placed the last of the corn muffins down and wiped her hands on her apron. “This here girl says her name is Stella,” she said. “Her and Papa are married and so I guess that makes her our new Ma.” 40
Nathan looked at Clara who sat rigid, glaring at him and then at Stella. “Naw, she ain’t nobody’s ma,” he muttered. “A man’s gotta have him a wife, don’t he?” He looked at Clara but she turned away, blinking back tears, her full, red lips pursed into a pout.41
“Well, don’t that make her our Ma?” asked Sally. She wished she could take the words back as soon as they had left her mouth. 42
Nathan rose from his chair and with one heavy swing, he backhanded her across the jaw, flinging her to the floor where she laid stunned and bleeding. He stood over her, his huge, menacing frame looming as he held up his fist and shook it at her. “I done told you, girl, she ain’t nobody’s ma.” he growled. He stared down at her, letting his anger spill over her for several seconds. He looked older than his forty-six years, tired and aged, but was still strong, a large, muscular man. His face was rugged, with chiseled features that were not unattractive but hard and deeply lined.43
Stella went to Sally’s aid and helped her to her feet, dabbing at her bloodied mouth. The other children stared at their father, frozen to their seats, each one expecting to be his next target. All except Horace who ran to Sally and threw himself into her arms. “Sally, Sally,” she cried.44
She pushed him away and choked, “I’m ok, Horace. Go with Stella for a spell.” Her jaw was throbbing and she could already feel it swelling. Then she noticed it; two lower front teeth had been knocked loose and laid like large pebbles on her tongue. She spit them into her palm as the other children stared in horror. Hot tears spilled down her face as she saw Clara quickly covering her smile beneath her napkin. 45
When Horace awoke the next morning, his head was pounding and his normally tough, calloused hands were raw and sore. He sat up in bed and all at once the events of the day before spun before him. The death of his beloved dog, the fight with Eva and finally, the discovery of the long secret grave site of his sister, Sally, and step mother, Stella.46
He smelled the strong aroma of coffee brewing and heard the clang of dishes in the kitchen as he made his way downstairs. Suddenly he felt the hard stab of guilt at the thought of facing Eva after he had struck her so brutally the previous afternoon. He peeked through the doorway and saw her standing with her back to him at the stove stirring a skillet full of scrambled eggs. 47
“About yesterday,” he stammered, “I….I didn’t mean to…”48
“Don’t matter, Old Man,” she said turning around to face him. The side of her face was swollen and purple with a split that ran across her cheekbone. “You was right, I did poison the hound….I reckon I had it comin’”49
“Why would you do it, Ev?” his voice cracked.50
“You loved that old, lame dog better than anything,” she said, “and I knowed you loved him better than anything and that was why I killed him. I’m alone here, Horace, in this old, falling down house. Workin’ all day long on the this good fer nothing’ farm; don’t have one good dress to my name. And you get a few cents in your pocket and you go off with that dog for the day without a word. You talked to that dog more ‘en to me. Not that I need yer talkin’. I don’t. And I reckon I ain’t smart enough to talk with you anyway, but I can only take so much of feelin’ less important than a gull dern dog.”51
“You haven’t shown me a lick of interest for years; the dog just wanted my company, that was all.” He knew he should have felt more sympathy for her but a cold indifference began to swell and replaced the guilt.52
“I shouldna oughta done it though, and I’m sorry,” she choked, looking straight into his hard eyes.53
“Sorry don’t bring back Mr. Brown,” he said coldly, “but there’s nothing to be done about it now.” 54
He sat down at the table and Eva placed a plate full of eggs and biscuits in front of him. “Look, Old Woman, I found something last night and I’ve got to tell someone. Don’t know what to make of it,” he began carefully. “When I was digging the hound’s grave out by the cornfield I found….well…” He stopped and pushed the plate aside, “I found some…bodies.” 55
Eva looked up at him in disbelief and asked, “What do you mean you found bodies? What kind of bodies? You mean people?”56
“Yes, I mean people…. and not just any people,” he said. “My sister Sally and my step ma….and her baby.” Horace felt sick as he finished saying the words but it was out, out in the open.57
“My Lord, Horace!” Eva sat in shock and confusion, letting his story sink in. “I thought Sally and Stella had been lost in the blizzard rounding up the horses.” 58
Horace put his head in his hands and said, “That’s what was told to me as a boy, but it wasn’t true because their bodies are buried right there by the cornfield, not even in a box, just thrown into the hole and covered with dirt. Someone did this and buried them out there like that. Someone or someones. 59
“We have to get into Clara’s room and see what we can find. She had something to do with it, I just know she did.”60
“But your Pa always said to stay out of that room,” Eva said looking up at him in surprise. Horace had always held strictly to his father‘s wishes and kept Clara‘s old room intact and locked. To his father it had been a shrine; to Horace it was a dark memory of a cold person.61
“The old man is dead and gone; has been for per near twenty years,” he said in an icy voice. “I need some answers, Eva, and I’m going into that room.”62
“Why do you want open a can a worms, Horace?” she whispered. “What can it help? Ain’t we got enough to worry on without digging up the dead?”63
He slid the plate across the table with a shove, nearly flinging it onto the floor and said, “I ain’t asking for your help or your blessing. I need answers, Old Woman. Oh, why’d I tell you anything anyway?” he mumbled.64
He stood at the kitchen sink and splashed cold water on his face. Looking out the small window above the faucet, he stared at the flat, patchy farmland that he had lived on ever since he could remember. Suddenly it seemed eerie and strange. Bodies hidden beneath his everyday footsteps, secrets locked away in abandoned bedrooms and Eva’s hatred for him constantly boiling around him in hot, raspy breaths. He wondered, If she loathed him so much that she could kill his dog, then what would she do next. 65
“One of the skulls was crushed like melon,” he blurted out. “I can’t leave it be.”66
Eva’s once pretty face fell deadly somber. She had never been beautiful like Horace’s mother and sister, Clara, but she was once a lovely girl when he’d wed her and brought her home to work on the farm and help care for his ailing father. She was sixteen then and after twenty years of marriage, endless hard labor and a barren womb she had grown to rue the day she’d laid eyes on Horace Wintstead. Her hair was still a soft wheat color and beneath the premature lines caused from worry and sun there was still a handsome woman. She dreamed of city streets with high buildings. Bustling shops and brunches by day; then ballets, and plays beneath a sea of blazing lights at night. Horace had given her nothing and she had given him everything, everything except for the one thing that he wanted most: A son. Eva felt his deep disappointment and in turn pulled away into fantasies of a life far from the prairie farm. The distance between them grew into resentment and resentment into hate. 67
Horace went out back and returned with a heavy axe. Heading up the stairs he heard Eva shouting behind him, “You might find the devil behind that door, Horace Wintstead. Leave it be and let us live in peace!”68
Clara watched Stella closely and ordered her about like a servant. Stella was given a workmen's cot on the enclosed back porch as her quarters. It was cooler there in the heat of the summer but in the harsh winters the small room got little heat from the fires that warmed the rest of the big house. Nathan seemed undisturbed by his young wife’s misery and had little to do with her except for the nights when he summoned her to his room for brief stays, always banishing her before morning so that Clara did not know of the visits. 69
The farm flourished and Nathan added several hands to the crew. It was Stanley’s job to oversee their work; a job that he was quite unsuited for. His thin, fragile frame bowed beneath the heavy work and his meek manner made it easy for the rough, ill-tempered and overworked hired hands to disobey him and make light of his delicate demeanor behind his back. However, he tried to do as his father said and though he hated the long, hard work and would much rather have been reading or writing poetry he had no choice but to do as he was told or face the belt. 70
The hot summer nights smoldered into July and everyone was worn and cranky from the hard work and relentless heat. Stella’s room on the back porch caught a breeze (when there was one) and she had come to find solace from Clara’s sharp glare that bore down on her as she worked. She tried to win Clara’s approval by doing all she asked quickly and well but to no avail. Clara’s hatred was as thick and suffocating as the August nights’ heat. 71
It was on one such night that Stella’s restless slumber was interrupted by Nathan’s heavy hand on her shoulder and she was summoned to his room. Dutifully, she relented, as always, to his advances and crawled into the sweat soaked sheets of his bed.72
Clara sat staring out the window of her upstairs room at the moon that blazed fierce, amber light, unable to sleep and racked with a pulsing headache from the heat. She leaned out of her window in search of even the slightest of breezes but the night air was still, dry and dusty. She felt dizziness come over her and she leaned against the window frame. She thought of Stella and her sniveling attempts to win her over. The more she tried the more Clara hated her. 73
Then beneath the bright moonlight, coming over the horizon, she saw the pack moving toward the farm like a fleet of ships closing in for battle. The dogs varied in size and their tattered coats were patchy with scars and mats. The burly alpha dog, who led the rest, moved in low quick strides and Clara knew that they had come to pilfered for food. Frantically, she looked around the farm saw that the door to the chicken shed had been left open, only a crack but enough for the dogs to work their way in. She ran to Stanley’s room and pounded on the door.74
“The pack is coming,” she shouted.75
Stanley opened the door a crack. Fumbling with his glasses, he asked in confusion, “What? What are you going on about?”76
“The dog pack, you idiot!” she said in disgust. “They’re coming! Get your gun and come chase them off.”77
Stanley pulled his trousers on over his nightclothes and grabbed his rifle. 78
“Go get Papa,” he called as he ran down the stairs. 79
Clara hurried down the hall and, without hesitation, burst into her father’s room in a panic. The sight that met her left her frozen with shock. Her father’s huge, naked body moved up and down with hard, jerky thrusts that rattled the brass-framed bed. Beneath his hulking, sweaty mass laid a limp and silent Stella, her lower face consumed by the suction of Nathan’s gaping mouth. Then her father turned and looked her dead in the eyes. To Clara’s horror, he did not stop his pounding motion but, instead, continued, bearing down even harder. Stella let out a small cry but remained still as he brutally bore into her, ripping her insides apart with every thrust. He stared intently at Clara who stood, transfixed, as if a wall of bars surrounded her. Nathan kept his breathless pace until, with one loud, bellow he slammed into Stella with all his might then he lay, spent, crushing his young wife beneath him.80
Clara finally found her wits and backed slowly out of the doorway and into the hall. In her room she laid weeping on her bed, filled with confusion and repulsion. Suddenly a wave of nausea came over her and the dizziness that she felt earlier intensified. The room began to spin and the vision of her father’s crimson face with sweat running in streams from his brow swirled before her. Then blackness. 81
Horace swung the axe into the door and the old wood splintered. Then he gave a running shove against it and the lock gave way. The room was hazy as years of dust twirled in the air to the opening of the door and danced on tiny beams of sunlight that spilled through the cracks in the shutters, closed tightly since Clara‘s death. 82
Horace looked around. It was like stepping back into time. Everything was just as Clara had left it. His father had been the only person who had come here since the day it happened years ago. Nathan’s visits to the cold, empty room were never long but Horace could hear the low, cries of sorrow from behind the locked door. It had always upset him to hear his father weeping. Until Clara’s passing, he had never seen the huge, lumbering man shed a tear, not even at his mother’s death.83
“It’s like a ghost lives here, Horace,” Eva said slowly walking in behind him. “Can’t you feel her? Let her rest.” She moved to the window and peeked through a crack, a shiver went through her as the floorboard sunk in beneath her feet.84
“This ghost needs to tell me a few things, then she can rest,” he said with a bitter edge. 85
Eva bent down and pulled on the loose board; it came up easy enough and there, slid beneath the floor, was a faded, flowered box with a dingy red ribbon tied around it. She lifted it out of the hole gingerly and looked up at Horace. 86
When Clara awoke in the early morning hours, her head was still throbbing and the sunlight burned her eyes. She clenched them closed and shook head, hoping it had all been a horrible dream. The images of the night before were seared onto the inside of her lids. She thought of Stella lying limp beneath the full force of her father’s desires and the jealousy that she had fostered before now turned into rage. Was that what he wanted, she thought, a whore to slobber over? The anger and disgust boiled over and she locked herself into her room, not answering when Nathan came knocking on the door. She spent the day writing in her journals and crying. 87
It was weeks before Clara would look Nathan in the eyes and when he came into the room, she quickly bid her exit. He did not mention that night or offer any word of regret but his adoration for her seemed more constant. His gestures of kindness and lavish gifts were received with a bowed head and solemn expression of gratitude. She was polite and responded to his questions but left her answers short and cold.88
It was Stella who bore the full extent of her anger and with every chance; Clara prodded her with endless commands and venomous comments. She had taken to giving Stella swift, hard kicks when the mood struck her, often leaving purple bruises blotched up and down her legs. And she had dubbed her ‘the little Whore’. Stella went about her duties in silence and tried to stay clear of Clara but it was no use. What had been a full hatred before was now a loathing so deep that she could not make a move without being pounced on.89
Sally had become Stella’s only friend and stayed by her side as much as possible to ward off Clara’s spiteful attacks. The two women took on most of the kitchen duties and care of Horace while Clara was left to her embroidery and the few odd chores that she had chosen for herself, such as serving her father at dinner and running his bath before bed.90
As summer passed into fall and fall into winter, the farm settled to a calmer pace. Nathan tried to stay clear of Stella in Clara’s presence and was more careful on the nights when he took her to his bed. 91
The porch room grew cold and bitter as February arrived with temperatures that dipped below zero but the kitchen dinner fire seeped in and made it bearable in the evenings. Its embers glowed into the night and Stella tried to pile blankets against the window and door to hold in the heat. 92
As that snowy month came to a close Clara began to notice that Stella was putting on weight. She was growing larger around the middle and suddenly it dawned on her that her young stepmother was with child. The realization hit her like a hard slap across the face. Now Stella would have a new and unquestionable link to Nathan. The thought of a child between the two brought flashes to her mind of that hot, summer night and the horrid scene in her father’s dim, stale room. It was then that Clara’s anger and jealousy became unbearable and she decided to confront Nathan with an ultimatum. Either he got rid of the homely little whore or she would leave the farm and never return.93
When she presented her threat to her father, he fell silent. He sat in the parlor smoking his cigar and mulling over her words. He was not unprepared as he had known of his wife’s condition but tried to keep it hushed for as long as possible, fearing the look of hurt and hatred in Clara’s eyes at the news. He felt nothing for Stella and never had. But he could not bear the thought of his beautiful daughter’s departure.94
“I cannot stand to look at her!” Clara cried, putting her hands to her face. “And now she will bear your child!” she collapsed onto the velvet sofa in sobs. “I will not stay, I tell you. I’ll pack my belongings and leave!”95
Nathan went to her and stroked her dark hair. “Don’t be silly, girl,” he said softly, “you can’t leave here; this is your home.” He leaned down and brushed the tears from her face. “You know I don’t love anybody in this house like I do you. I’ll do something to get rid of the girl; don’t bother about it no more.”96
Clara sat up and looked into his eyes. Did she see tears? “You will turn her out? Folks will have plenty to say about that,” she said.97
“No, I can’t turn her out. I take care of my own.”98
“Then what will you do?” she asked as excitement and curiosity rose up within her. 99
“I’ll do it my way and no one will have cause to talk.” He pulled her to him and she rested against his chest feeling pleased and, above all, loved. She stayed wrapped in his arms for some time until Sally brought the evening’s tea tray in. When she saw Clara in her father’s arms she stopped, feeling that she had interrupted something a bit too intimate between the two. They pulled apart and Clara smoothed her hair back and wiped at her face. 100
“Here’s tea, Papa,” Sally said. “Would you like some biscuits too?”101
“No, leave the tea and be on your way.”102
“The biscuits are…” Sally began but was interrupted by Clara’s shrill orders.103
“Did you hear Papa?” she shrieked. 104
Sally set the tray in front of them and hurried from the room. 105
Horace slumped down next to Eva and rested his humped back against the old, carved mahogany footboard. Taking the box, he looked into her reddened eyes. For a split second, he thought he might have felt a pang of affection; but if it was affection that he felt then it was slight and worn. Worn out like an old shoe with a sole too tattered to ever be repaired properly. 106
The task pressed down on now and did not want company. “You best go on now and leave me in peace,” he said coldly.107
Her voice was weary and heavy with disappointment. “Ok, Horace. If that’s what you want, I’ll go.”108
Alone in the silence of the past, Horace opened the box and there inside he found four bound volumes. The pages were yellowed and smelled of age and dust. He leafed through the first journal and recognized his sister’s elegant handwriting. Blowing away cobwebs, he settled in to read. 109
Nathan hatched his plan methodically. He had to get rid of the girl and her child or lose his beloved daughter for good. The thought was unthinkable. There was something aside from Clara’s beauty that pulled him to her, something more than the fact that she was his first daughter (for fatherhood had not bred devotion in him but only duty, drudgery and hope for his old age). But there was something more about Clara and he had grown a fierce need for her that surpassed any of those things. She was like him. Deep down, she was his twin, his soul mate and he could no more do with out her than he do without his own heart.110
And so, the planning started, secretly, in his mind. He spoke of it to no one but then he did not need to speak of it with Clara. She seemed to know and the excitement in her eyes spurred him on. It had become not so much a necessary action now but an adventure that the two of them silently shared.111
It was late February and the snow outside blew across the prairie in sheets of icy white. It was not a blizzard yet but the drifts were rising and the winds howled. Stella huddled beneath the deer hides and old clothes in her tiny back room. Sally tapped at the door gently and peeked in. “Papa wants you to go out and check the horses,” she said, “I told him I would go alone but he insisted that you go. I’ll get my coat and we can go together.”112
Stella looked out the window and nodded. She could not see the barn in the distance like she could on a clear day, or even the chicken shed which was only a few yards away from the house; all she could see was a bright, white, winter curtain that fell across the world outside. “I‘ll get ready,” she said hoarsely. Slipping into her worn boots, she felt a thump from the inside and then a turning. It was the baby tossing and she put her hand to her stomach waiting for the next kick. 113
Sally and Stella trudged through the high drifts, nearly blinded by the blowing storm. By the time they reached the barn and were safely inside their faces were red and frozen. Stella held her stomach and leaned against the loft ladder to steady herself.114
“Are you ok?” Sally asked. Her worry for her friend was overshadowed by concern for the baby.115
“Yes, I’ll be ok,” Stella answered but continued to lean on the ladder, breathing heavy. They looked around and saw that the horses were each covered and the doors were secured. 116
Sally sat in the pile of hay and wrapped herself with a horse blanket. “Let’s rest a little before we head back,” she said. Her breath billowed up in a misty cloud. “Not too long though or we won’t be able to see out there at all. It’s going to be a white out soon.”117
Stella sat beside her and burrowed underneath the blanket. “It’s almost warmer in here than in my room.” Her voice shook and Sally could feel her icy fingers entwine with her own. 118
Suddenly, they heard a thud from the upper loft and jumped to their feet. Bits of hay floated down and the two girls slowly looked up the ladder. There stood Nathan in his coon collared, black hide coat holding a sickle in one huge, gloved hand. He climbed down the ladder with heavy deliberate footsteps and, once at the bottom, glared at them silently.119
“Papa, I didn’t know you were coming out,” said Sally as fear swelled up inside her. Something didn’t feel quite right. 120
Nathan did not say a word. He rose the sickle up in mid air and brought it down onto Stella’s head with one swift blow. She fell to the ground, unconscious without ever having let out a sound. Sally was silent for a moment, held in shock. Then she let out a horrified scream and knelt over Stella, patting her face. She looked up at her father. “Why would you do this?” she moaned.121
Nathan looked at her as if she were a chicken that he was ready to behead. “Now we have a question here, girl,” he said in a singsong tone that sent chills down Sally’s back. “We need to talk about whether you’re going to say anything about this or just leave it be. I don’t rightly want to do away with you. But I will if I have to.”122
“You’re a monster!” Sally screamed and screamed and then fell into a madness that seemed to have no return. Stella’s bloodied face swirled before her.123
Nathan lifted the sickle once more and swung it full force, striking Sally in the back. She collapsed on top of Stella’s dead body and just before he brought the pick down for its final blow she felt the baby moving beneath her. 124
The day faded away into evening as Horace sat on the dirty floor of his sister’s bedroom and read through her long hidden journals. He was torn at times between repulsion and shock and a deep sorrow for the suffering that his sister’s twisted desires had wrought. The last journal’s pages spun a tale of cold murder on that snowy, February day. The realization that his father was more monster than man left him nauseous and weak. He replaced the journals and sat on Clara’s bed in the evening light, stunned and ill. He ran his bony hand across the brittle, straw mattress that still bore dark, crimson stains.125
The next day Clara watched from her bedroom window as Nathan stuffed the bodies of the two dead girls into the unused barrels behind the pig shack and covered them with a pile of chopped wood. When mid March came and the ground thawed out he dug a wide grave near the cornfield and flung them in side by side. 126
Nathan explained that the two women had been lost in the blinding blizzard and wondered out into the prairies where they had frozen to death, perhaps being eaten by the wild dog pack. He had even gone out in search of them, taking his rifle and returning with one of the pack in tow behind him. From then on, it was not spoken of and the house was quieter, beneath the weight of a secret evil. 127
Stanley saw to his little brother’s needs as best he could but he had to work in the fields and Horace was left on his own much of the time. He missed Sally terribly and even Stella who had read him stories and cooked him griddlecakes. 128
Clara took to her room, satisfied with being the only object of her father’s attentions. She insisted that a housekeeper be hired for the heavy cleaning and cooking for the hard labor of housework was too much for her. She became fragile and weak and her complexion became pale as milk within the confines of the huge old house.129
Spring came early and the farm work began. The weather warmed and the house was opened up and aired out. Nights were breezy and cool and the prairie came to life with wild flowers and sage.130
Clara slept the sleep of a baby, uninterrupted by pangs of guilt or grief. She wrote everything in her journals as if she were writing of dances or silly spats with school friends instead of unsavory bedroom scenes and murders.131
On the evening of her sixteenth birthday, Clara sat at her bedroom window watching her father’s wagon pull up with her gift, a large box wrapped in yellow paper and a silk red ribbon. It was a pleasant night, with mutton stew for dinner and raspberry cakes and cream for desert. Then she lifted the lid off her gift and squealed with excitement. It was the rose, lace dress that she had admired in the boutique shop window the last time they’d went to town together. He had remembered. She held the dress to her and spun around the room. His eyes followed her in adoration. Giving him a long hug, she said her good nights and retired, happy and content. 132
She began to doze to the symphony of prairie night sounds that drifted through her window. Suddenly, she felt a hand on her bare shoulder and she turned to see her father standing over her, his breathing was heavy and his nightshirt was wet with sweat. He bent down and caressed the side of her face.133
“What is it, Father?” she whispered.134
“Shush,” he said in a husky voice. His large hand moved down to her arm and he gripped it tightly.135
“No, please don’t do that.”136
“I’ve waited a long time for this,” he said. 137
She pulled away and leaped out of bed. “Get out,” she screamed. “Get out now!” 138
Her refusal was like a hard kick in his stomach and he backed slowly out of the door. It was not guilt but the sting of rejection that burned within his gut as he lay, wide-awake, tangled in the wet sheets of his bed. Had he lost her love? That would surely be the death of him.139
Clara buried her face in her pillow and sobbed. The image of her father’s flushed; sweaty body pounding at Stella reeled before her. She was not like Stella. She would rather die. Before she knew it, the vomit rose up and sprayed across the bedroom floor.140
The next morning Nathan stood outside of her door, dreading the look of hatred in her cold, green eyes, and tapped softly. 141
“Clara, forgive me,” he begged. “I wasn’t myself.” But no one answered. He put his ear to the door but heard nothing. He knocked again, this time louder and then pounded with all his might, nothing. With one final shove, he flung his whole weight against it, breaking the lock and bursting into the room. In the unnatural morning light, he saw her, still and pale. Clara lay on her blood soaked bed, her wrists sliced deeply. Nathan went to her and listened for a heartbeat. Nothing. He knew that she was gone and it was his doing. He held her tightly to him and rocked back and forth crying, softly at first and then his cry turned into a deep, primal groan that shook the old farmhouse, filling every room.142
143
Horace descended the stairs slowly, as if in a nightmarish trance. Eva stood on the bottom step with a look of stark uncertainty and dread on her face. 144
“The old man was a monster,” he whispered, looking into her eyes. They were soft and glistened with tears. 145
She touched his hand and for the first time in years he did not pull away from her. “Horace, are you ok?” she asked and a tone of genuine concern spilled from her voice.146
“I have my answers now and they paint a hideous picture.” He sat down on a step and buried his face in his hands. Eva sat beside him and slipped a bony arm around his humped back.147
From the time of Clara’s death Stanley had cared for Horace as best he could until the day of the riding accident. Stanley’s horse had been spooked; it jumped the fence, sending Stanley onto the ground in a twisted heap. His neck had been broken. He’d lain in bed, in and out of consciousness, slowly dying and unable to feel the lower half of his body for weeks. Horace had stayed by his bedside, watching him suffer, in tears. When death finally came, it was a relief.148
Nathan fell into a dark abyss of grief and drink and never returned. Horace stayed and ran the farm and it prospered for a time until the depression set in. When he married Eva, they worked it together, caring for his father until his death. 149
That night Horace gave the journals to Eva to read and by mornings light a new hope had been born between the two. The old farm creaked and moaned as they laid side by side, fingers entwined.150
Author notes
Homework Assignment- ADULT
8554 word count
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