Horrible Harvest

It was two hours ‘fore I found Charles’ homestead. It was a small two-story house with a tiny barn nearby. The front faced a pile of mountains and the rear was nothing but flatlands. I fount a tree some hundred yards away and watched for any signs of life. I heard the distant sounds of a child screaming from the backside of the barn. A young’un appeared from behind a stack of wood and run as fast as his little legs could carry him. A lurching, growling man chased after him on all fours until he caught up with the boy and tackled him to the ground. The little one howled with delight. They was playing. Even at the distance stood ‘tween us, I seen that the man was Charles.

A noise from the house caught my attention, and I seen a woman emerge from the backdoor and fling water from a basin onto the ground. She give a look in the direction of Charles and the boy and then went back inside the house.

I steered my horse and Douglas’ mount away from the tree and crossed the prairie to the house. I didn’t make no attempt to hide myself, but Charles didn’t see me, nonetheless. It was as if he hadn’t a goddamn care in the world and that pissed me off double.

At the backdoor, I dismounted, tied off my horse and entered the house. There weren’t a soul in the kitchen. Everything was in order and neat. It was in a state of bliss that I didn’t understand. Shoulda been turnt to shit. That’s what Charles did. He turnt things to shit.

“Who are you?” I heard a woman from behind me ask.

I turnt to see a woman a few years younger than me pointing a pepperbox pistol at me. She narrowed her emerald eyes at me and brushed a stray strand of her chocolate-colored hair from her forehead.

“I ain’t nothing but a traveler, ma’am.”

“And why has a traveler traveled into my kitchen?”

“Door was open.”

“That’s not an answer. That’s a fact that bears no useful information.”

I give her a smile. “I reckon that’s true.”

“Who are you, and why are you in my kitchen?”

“I know your man.” I pointed to a nearby chair at the kitchen table. “You mind?”

She give a nod.

I set down. “I know that gun, too.”

She shifted her eyes from me to the pistol and then back to me.

“Come from a place called Galtville – Not so much a place as a trash heap full of shithead crackers and pop skull.”

“You’re him, aren’t you?”

“I reckon I am.”

“Charles said you’d come one day.”

“Today is that day.”

A tear rolled down her left cheek. “You aim to kill him?”

“That is my aim, yes, ma’am.”

She wiped the tear away with the back of her hand. “I’m not going to say you don’t have a right. I know what he did.”

I raised an eyebrow. “He told you?”

“He’s told me everything – Confessed it all to me.”

“He was boastful about it, no doubt.”

“No – Not at all. He carries remorse for many of the things he’s done.”

“He’s acting contrite – For your benefit.”

“I’m not a fool. He’s not acting. His regret is real.”

“Where do you come from? You’re – You seem out of place.”

“I seem a bit too refined for this place. Is that what you mean to say?”

“You’re just not – You’re unexpected.”

“I was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut – My father was a professor of geography. He moved us to these plains so he could conduct some research.”

“And you met my brother where – how?”

“I was gifted to Charles by my Sioux family.”

I furrowed my brow. “You’ve left out a chunk of your story, Mrs. Tennyson. I assume it is Mrs. Tennyson. You’ve married him?”

“I have. In a manner of speaking – My father violated sacred ground to the North of here. He didn’t mean to. He was just single-minded and careless in his research.”

“So, the Sioux kilt your family – ”

“The Chippewa. He’d violated their sacred land. They massacred my family – Father, mother – My four siblings. I was spared. I don’t know why.”

“You was the warning. You was meant to scare off future settlers – You was the message.”

“You talk as if you know the strategy.”

“I’ve received and sent a few like messages in my life.”

“Yes, well, I don’t know if that was the intent. All I know is that I was found by a woman – Sioux – Three days later – Wondering the shoreline of a lake. Her people took me in. I was fifteen. Three years later a white man – Your brother showed up in the village accompanied by a boy named Mahkah – The third son of the wakan witshasha – the tribe physician of sorts – a mystery man thought to hold supernatural powers. Mahkah had come upon some trappers. French men. He was just traveling through the woods, and they attacked the boy. Beat him. Severely. Would have killed him if your brother had not happened upon them and intervened. Your brother took pity on Mahkah, but he showed none to the French trappers.

“It was a gesture that won Charles’s favor by the boy’s father and the elders. Six months later, I was handed over to your brother as an offering – Not willingly. I didn’t want to leave my Sioux family, but nonetheless, here we are.”

“You liked living among the Sioux?”

“I did.” She pult back a chair and sat at the table, still with the pepperbox trained on me. “It is a – Purposeful existence. One serves nature as a member of the Sioux nation – As opposed to attempting to rule nature as a white man – The civilized – As it turns out ‘civilized’ means to reshape a world against its natural state.”

“So, my brother owns you. He is your master.”

“No. In fact, he took me to Sioux City with the intention of putting me on a train back to Connecticut where I would be reunited with my grandparents.”

“And yet, you are here.”

“And yet, I am here.”

“Why?”

“I fell in love with your brother. What else? And he, with me.”

I give her a nod. “And when did you realize you’d fallen in love with a tyrant?”

“Your brother is not a tyrant – Not in the least.”

I slapped the table and pointed a finger at her as if I were scolding her. “Don’t lie. I know how he was raised. I know who raised him. I saw the tyrant in Charles come up out of him over the years. I know who he was when last I seen him.”

“You know who he was. You don’t know who he is.”

“He’s a devil who’s done a lot of killing – He kilt a friend of mine.”

“He killed Kenneth,” she said. “You can speak his name. You can say what he was to you – What he is to you.”

I give her a hard look, not knowing if I was angry or sorrowful.

“Shall I tell you what love is, Augustus?”

I couldn’t find the gumption to answer.

“It is this kitchen – Before you arrived, that is. My family gathers here. For meals. For conversation. For laughter. Tears, too. Peace, Augustus. That is this kitchen. That is love, sir. I have found it. Your brother, he brought it to me. Just as Kenneth brought it to you.”

I leaned in closer to her. “Then you know what Charles took from me.”

“I do, and I don’t blame you for hating that Charles, but that Charles, sir, he is dead.”

“Then folks die differently ‘round here ‘cause I just seen him with my own eyes – playing with a boy back of the barn.”

“Little Gus.”

I give her a narrowed-eye glare.

“Augustus K. Tennyson. Shall I tell you what the K stands for?”

I felt every muscle in my body bunch up.

“I hope you don’t take offense.”

“That your husband – My brother – That he mocks me and my – That he mocks us by naming his son after us – Two lives he turnt to dust.”

“No – Respectfully, that is not his intent. It is meant to honor you and to give you pause, yes.”

“Pause? Explain.”

“As I said, he knew you would come, and he, like you, expected the Augustus he knew as a boy to arrive. He’s seen you commit your worst. He thinks you capable of not only killing him, but his wife and child, too.”

I leaned back. “He’s right to think that.”

“I don’t think so. At any rate, he felt that if you knew he’d named his son after you and Kenneth – He felt you would spare him.”

“He felt wrong, and your thinking on me is polluted ‘cause I’m capable of burning this whole goddamn world to the ground ‘for what Charles done.”

“You are the one who is wrong.” She stood and placed the pepperbox on the table. “Wait here.”

‘Fore I could answer she was out the kitchen and marching to the front of the house. In a lickety-split she was back with a tri-folded piece of paper. She set it next to the pepperbox.

“These belong to you – The gun, and the letter.”

My heart come to a stop. I looked to the paper and then back to her.

“It wasn’t lost in the fire. Charles was in possession of it the whole time. He’s held onto it all these years. The day your brother read that letter to me is the day I knew he loved me. He shared your heart with me, his shame, his anger, his sorrow – Of his own making, all of it. I truly knew him on that day. He was reborn. Forever changed.”

I grabbed holt the letter and nearly crumbled away from the weight of it. I stood, scooping up the pepperbox as I did. “Can’t say I’m glad for him, but you should know this about me. I ain’t changed. Maybe I will once I kill Charles.”

I walked to the door without her mumbling a word after me.

“Ain’t you gonna try and stop me?”

“No.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you said it yourself. You haven’t changed.”

“And I thought we’ve established that ain’t good for Charles.”

“The boy who wrote that letter – That boy doesn’t have it in him to kill my husband.”

I looked to the paper and then stomped out the kitchen.