Turpentine Read online

  “That’s Martine’s load?”

  Tennessee nodded. I was crazy to see Lill again, more intrigued than nervous over her dangerous past, and would likely have ridden a wolverine if that’s what it took. But my experience with horses had taught me that getting on in no way ensured getting to. I looked again at the Percheron, who’d hardly moved a muscle. She had a smile, the way some dogs had grins, that didn’t mean anything except more of a letdown when they bit. “You sure the horse is all right?”

  “All right? You could sell ’er for sausage and make a pretty penny.” He put the hat back on his head. “Look, the horse is a wind-up toy, moves like molasses. Tell the truth, I can’t handle watchin’ a big horse like that waste my time.”

  For two miles, at a satisfyingly decelerated pace, I decided Tennessee wasn’t so bad, while anticipating ball-hawking social interaction with Lill. The horse, Chin, walked with a low easy stride along the crushed grass trail leading to the Martine homestead.

  About the time I was polishing highlights of droll conversation, however, Chin strayed from the path. I jerked on the reins, to no effect. I pulled with all my might to turn her head, but Chin shook her head free of the pressure, burning the leather along my palms. I levered back and shouted “Whoa!” until my voice was gone. I jumped out of the wagon and stood in front of her, wind-milling my arms. Had I not leapt aside, she would have run me over. Chin was an engine chugging on an invisible track, a hungry engine. She stopped at one of the little creeks that ran to the Republican River to eat the water-tender grass that grew there.

  I climbed into the wagon and waited, but Chin ate as slowly as she walked. After watching her big jaw rise and fall for some time, I exited the wagon and meandered along the little creek.

  Had I not had the worries of my own lunch, the specter of Tennessee’s Indians on my shoulder, and a clamorous anticipation of seeing Lill, I would have been happy in the pretty place. Wildflowers dappled the grass, and birdcalls wove through the whisper breeze.

  At a soft bank, where a raft of sand had fallen away, my heart commenced pumping so that my very vision wavered with the cadence. I put out my hand and caressed the raw cut of earth where the ancient remains of a turtle jutted. Its great beaked capitulum agape, the ridge of fore shell thick as my wrist, it would best me in height had we stood carapace to spine. My agitation was not only of discovery. The sight of the giant past was sobering.

  One expects small things to die away, to be weak and unable to fight. But this primeval king of turtles—what could have happened that it and all its giant progeny had shrunk to the plate-sized modicums that now existed? If only Brill were there to discuss the beautiful monstrosity.

  I took my notebook from the wagon and painstakingly drew the orbital brow of the fossilized turtle, feeling a confusion of proportion I partially ascribed to having spent the morning staring at Chin’s oversized hind. When I finished the drawing, I stepped back and searched for the horse. Chin was back on the trail.

  How I wished for a train, some engined conveyance for reliable safe transportation, rather than being tethered to the fractious nature of horses. Instead, I rode spindleshanks, and by the time I caught up with Chin I was gasping, drenched in perspiration, and the three canvas tents of the Martine homestead were in sight. I hurriedly picked a bouquet: lamb’s quarters, lupine, chamomile, and anemone. The stink had not dried on me before we were there, my blouse marked with dark moons under each arm, my hair yet plastered to my head. Chin gave a long-winded sigh and stopped neatly at Lill Martine’s side.

  Lill was once again dressed for high society, though her hair was loose and tumbled as if she’d been riding in wind. She waved as I rode up and, to my chagrin, didn’t remember me, putting out her hand and introducing herself as I presented her with the prairie flowers.

  I took her hand and gave a stately if aromatic bow. “Edward Turrentine—” I began.

  She interrupted, delighted. “My Lord Turpentine! Sleeping on the horse!”

  I made the best of it. “Call me Ned.”

  Lill’s father ambled out of one of the tents, a man of bully chest, gat legs, and the furuncular nose of the habitual drinker. We unloaded the lumber and nails until Mr. Martine waved me off. “Take a rest.”

  I crouched, mopped my face, and, breathing hard, thanked him.

  Lill hooked her arm in mine and drew me upright. “Now, the palisade.”

  Her tent was on the crest of the hill. A triangle of red fluttered from the pinnacle of the white canvas, looking suspiciously like the fabric of the dress in which I first espied her. Lill pulled aside the flap and I peered in. The smooth floor was covered with a striped rug. Buffalo robes piled into a couch reclined on one side, her rifle and pistol hung from one of the tent posts, and some rough shelves fashioned from a wood box held about two dozen books.

  “Rude, but of no little romance, don’t you think? A story cannot be writ without … grit.” She smiled and took a leather-bound book from the shelf while I stammered agreement over grit. She sat on the robes, patted the spot beside her. “I have had some success in the world of words.” When I was seated she fanned her hand and pointed at the gold ring on her finger; it was inscribed POETICA. “This was an award for my entire body of work, but I could read a mere selection if you’d like.”

  I would happily have listened to a shipping roster if she had read it. “A selection … your entire body … either one,” I blushed and added, “Body of work, I mean.”

  Lill raised an eyebrow. “Of course.”

  She read me a poem that I hardly followed for the music of her voice; her perfect rose lips freed gossamer words into prairie air. Her dark lashes fluttered on pale cheeks that dappled with a diamond tear at a particularly moving passage. Everything about Lill Martine was fine. With every sigh she breathed, every word spoken, every graceful kick of her tiny feet, I was further enraptured.

  Lill closed the book.

  “Beautiful,” I murmured.

  “It was published in the Georgia Mercury. I did poetry readings around the state and into Louisiana to full houses: sitting rooms filled with ladies in feathered hats, gentlemen in white gloves.” She sighed. “I fear my career as a poet has been upended, but eventually, I imagine, an audience will grow even here.” She gave me a sidelong look. “Does my calling shock you? Is a female auteur distasteful?”

  “Not at all.” I cleared my throat. “Women are the civilizers of mankind. Let the laws be purged of every barbarous impediment to women! Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

  “Impressive.” Lill slowly placed the book back on the shelf, then spun around. “Enough of me, I hear you are ever writing in a book. Are you a poet, an essayist … a spy?”

  I laughed, pleased she could think me capable of espionage. “I do scientific studies.” I proudly showed her my sketches of grass varietals, a diagram of a grasshopper’s jointed craw, and my examinations of handwriting styles with which, I tried to explain, I had once solved a minor household crime by identifying a maid’s false signature. But Lill pointed to a page on which a giraffe was drawn.

  “Lamarck.” The great French scientist was a hero and gave me faith in my improvement. I would be as the giraffe, stretching my neck to survive. I thought perhaps Lill might share my hopes. As beautiful as she was, as an exterminator of fiancés, temperament would be a point she’d hope to improve on.

  She merely nodded and turned to the page on which the turtle was drawn.

  I was thrilled to share the discovery with her. “The monster was enormous.”

  She laughed. “Perhaps not. Perhaps it is we who are small.” Before I could comment, she shut my book and demanded, “Tell me your story. I hear you’ve been abandoned.”

  “I wouldn’t say abandoned.” I didn’t want to seem like an unwanted puppy, no matter how often I felt so, and therefore skirted misery and told her about my luxurious past. The house in Cornwall, Connecticut, with an acre of cutting gardens around. Linen sheets, a private physician, a voluminous libra
ry, and a string of tutors.

  She nodded. “And how did you get here … and to these circumstances?”

  Without lying, I could not hedge about that. And so I described my journey west to convalesce in what proved to be a wild outpost. I paused, then admitted that I did seem to have been, if not abandoned, then marooned in Nebraska. I hadn’t heard from my doctor, my solicitor, or my mother in months.

  She took my hand. “I felt there was something special about you, Ned.”

  I blushed, intensely aware of the pulse in her fingertips. “Nothing special about me.”

  “There is. You are … pure. Unsullied. You have lived your formative years free of the corrupting influences of men: their desires, their weaknesses.” She hastened to assure me. “I know it is hardship to be lonely and, worse, to be forsaken—yet, lucky you.” She laughed at my shocked face. “Look at you, Ned. Unique, and while not exactly hale and hearty, no consumptive either. At this rate, the Lilliputian will be a giant at year’s end.”

  Mr. Martine interrupted our tête-à-tête, shouting from outside, “Lill! Company!”

  Lill jumped up and peeked out the tent. “Joe and Jim!”

  My heart sank at the announcement of what I thought must be suitors. Lill spun from the tent flap and reached for her pistol. “Do you shoot?”

  I replied I had never held a gun in my life.

  “Pshaw. You cannot be giant, much less Western, without knowing how to shoot.” She flourished a hand. “Come meet my friends.”

  I followed Lill out of the tent, wondering not only about her visitors but also about the wisdom keeping company with her and a firearm, yet unable to marshal my feet in any direction but hers.

  Outside, two Indian men stood staring at Chin, who dwarfed their stocky ponies. Lill waved. “How! How!”

  I was confused. “Joe and Jim?”

  Lill whispered. “I cannot fathom their real names.” She motioned toward me and announced, “This is Ned.”

  I waved at the men; they nodded back. Lill sang out, “Good!” patting a young mule deer carcass slung over the back of one of the Indian ponies as Mr. Martine arrived with a two-pound bag of coffee. Mr. Martine handed over the coffee, hoisted the venison onto his shoulder, and tipped his hat.

  As Mr. Martine departed, one of the Indians pointed to Lill’s firearm.

  Lill grinned, whispered again. “I think this is why they really come.” We wandered a ways out to the prairie, the Indians following close behind. Lill loaded shells into her pistol as she walked with as much attention as one would give to scratching an itch. She stopped, pried rectangles of dried mud from the earth, and threw them into the air, shooting them as they began their descent with so little concentration and such great success it was as if her glance itself obliterated them. Dirt rattled onto our heads as I whooped in thrilled admiration. The Indians roared with laughter, then returned to solemnity as Lill smiled and curtsied.

  The show over, the Indians mounted and rode away. I brushed my hair clear. “You are marvelous!”

  “Thank you. I do love an appreciative audience.”

  “How could there be any audience other than appreciative?”

  Lill gave a sharp laugh and snapped her fingers. “Enough of me. Your turn.”

  Ignoring my protests, she showed me how to grasp the gun and sight down the bead on the barrel. I forgot my fears, inhaling the scent of violets from her hair. She put her hand over mine and I could hardly think. Could hardly discern the words in her soft voice as she instructed me not to pull but embrace the trigger. I took a faltering breath, let it half out as instructed, and, drawing my attention finally to the endeavor, envisaging the bullet’s parabolic journey, I fired.

  Magic! I hit the target! I fired again. Wood splintered. This was what power felt like. The charge expanded my gangly frame. Gun muscle masked my feebleness. Lilliputian, indeed. I had only to work a small steel lever for the bullet to speed to remote and thrilling destruction. Gun in hand, I equaled any man. I would shoot forever. Lill herself faded from my consciousness as I fired over and over, reloading with haste, hitting the face of the stump face until it was punky with holes.

  Lill finally took the gun from me. “You are a surprising marksman, Lord Turpentine.”

  I took a few breaths and regained my composure. “I am nothing in comparison to you and your many talents.”

  She waved her hand. “My talents are generally regarded as hindrances, to put it mildly, the writing perhaps the greatest drawback of all. Turns my head, you see.” She regarded the pistol in her hand. “At least this is useful.” She glanced at me. “Pot hunting.”

  I hurried to draw the conversation to a safer arena. “What good is feeding the body if the spirit cannot find sustenance? The work you do is important.”

  Lill tilted her head to the side. “I believe you truly see it that way, and I cannot tell you what a relief it is to be appreciated.” Lill made a face. “It is an anomaly of late. Perhaps entirely of the past.”

  “Not as long as I am by your side.” When she smiled again I asked, “I’ve told you my sad tale; what is your story, Miss Martine?”

  She arched one perfect eyebrow and gave me a long measuring look. “Suffice to say abandonment is not unfamiliar to me either, Lord Turpentine.” She gazed down the barrel of her gun. “My past is not a pleasant one, I regret to say, and before we progress further, I must insist you, as I do myself, leave history to ashes. If that cannot be, we must terminate our friendship now.” She returned her gaze to me. “It is the one request I cannot have any but full agreement on.”

  If I doubted the rumors of murder before, I did no longer. Nor did I care, however, and hastened to assure her in my most aureate speech. “The present and the future render yesterday superfluous in all our lives. We must leave fresh footprints and ignore chasms cut by the roiling past.”

  Though she smiled and nodded agreement, she looked a bit rattled—pained, even—still suffering, I imagined, the betrayal of her betrothed. Did she pine for him, regret her action?

  We wandered back toward the tents. Lill shot three heads of prairie flowers from their stems and announced, “I am thinking we two lost souls should band together. You are a natural marksman but not yet a crack shot. Some practice, however, and we could offer shooting exhibitions, poetry readings, and scientific rumination for the cultivation and entertainment of the western pioneer. The world is passing by our doors, Ned. Emptiness, such a draw, is perpetually killing itself. In its wake, a hunger for spectacle!”

  The savor with which she spoke intimated the abandonment she’d spoken of was not only by the surgeon but by the crowd. Lill pined for the public gaze. She sighted on a pine tree. “What fun we should have. You practice, Ned, and we will perform as … India and Omar, the shooting twins.” She shot and bounced three cones from their high perches to the earth. She looked at me, my disappointment at being cast a sibling certainly on my face. “No one will cluck over your hand on my arm.”

  Lill grinned luminously at me, then shot once more. The fourth cone recoiled in a long arc onto the canvas side of Mrs. Martine’s tent.

  Mrs. Martine appeared at the tent’s flap, a cuttlebone woman with prominent teeth behind tight lips, which tightened further still when she saw Lill with the pistol. She took a breath as if she would speak, felt the bare finger on her left hand that, I surmised, a ring had adorned in better times, then turned abruptly away.

  I imagine all mothers harbor seeds of enmity for their children. Understandably. Children ruin their parents from the moment of conception. Ruin their romance, their health, their composure, their figure and freedom. Children are weeds in the garden of Eden. Yet mothers opened the Pandora’s box of baby, and so it is their duty to keep the resentment buried, to make the child believe in a pure love, when there is nothing untainted about it.

  My first inkling of this came at eight years of age, when Father had been dead a year. My room reeked of menthol and mustard as I wheezed painfully through the
night. I shammed sleep against my mother and grandmother’s worried scrutiny. Mother cried, “I cannot stand this suffering!” Grandmother snapped, “You’ve made your bed, and because of it that poor child must bear this misery and you will do the same.”

  I couldn’t fathom then what it meant, but in the months after my grandmother’s death I came to understand I stood between my mother and a shadowy gentleman who waited for her nightly in the parlor. I wondered now if it was to this shadow’s arms that she’d fled, having cut herself free from me and my illness. Yet, when I took leave of her at the station, I felt her sorrow like a knife.

  Dr. Bateman had taken special care that morning to bleed the toxins from my body and administer tincture of arsenic and opium in the hopes it would keep me until I arrived in Nebraska. He lifted me from my chair and into the red train seat, admonishing the ancient attendant to contact him immediately if there was any trouble. He trickled a rejuvenating nostrum into my mouth and tucked the blanket around me as I wheezed and shivered, clutching Brill’s Saturday Evening Post. I stared desperately out the window and saw my mother wave her handkerchief. I could not discern her face. But I could feel my mother’s fear and met it with my own, thinking we would never see each other again. Not because I ever imagined she would flee, but because I thought I would die; indeed, I felt so badly I wished I would.

  Did the dark man comfort her when the train departed? I felt a shade of forgiveness. If she loved him the way I already loved Lill, she’d been heroic to tarry so long.

  The strip of prairie circling the tents was weightless in comparison to the arena of blue sky overhead. I stood a moment with my hands at my brow, then turned and looked at Lill. She’d holstered the gun and now turned slowly, her hands out as if it were raining sunshine. She smiled, caught me in her circle, and sang:

  “Who will catch and who is caught?

  Who is head and who is heart?

  Who can stop and who will start?

  Will you love or will you not?”

  She laughed. “We are too old for kissing games.” She pecked me on the cheek and spoke, so close I could feel her breath on my skin. “It is hard to have lost so much, isn’t it? Come again, soon. I’ve been long from a kindred spirit. How I need a destination to aim for.”