The Year We Sailed the Sun Page 21

  And then I woke up; I jerked awake; I sunk my teeth into the hand on my left shoulder and kicked the nearest knee and then my right foot touched the ground, the snow on the ground anyhow, and twisted under me and oh it hurt, it hurt, but it woke me up even wider now and my legs stopped being sticks and I was running, half running-hopping-running like Jimmy with his crutch, only I didn’t have a crutch, just the doll, just Harriet, I had her at least and they couldn’t catch us, Betty; the Rats couldn’t catch us, they were old and fat and I was fast as a fox but I couldn’t see which way to run in the white, the air was all white and I couldn’t see, I couldn’t see anything, and all I could hear was the sound of the Rats coming after me, thump-thump through the snow, and cussing “hells” and “damns” and “Catch the damn kid, you big dope; never mind me, I’m all right, holy shite, she bit me, the little brat,” “Oh dear, you’re bleeding, Mr. Egan,” “Never mind, it’s nothing, just get her, get her now, do you hear? Don’t let her get to the river, for God’s sake,” and what did he mean the river? I couldn’t see any river; I thought I was going toward the trolley tracks—oh God, what’s that sound behind me? Is it the trolley, did they get the car working, is that it? But I can’t see, I can’t go back, I can’t turn that way now; the Rats are there—thump-thump—Don’t be afraid, Harriet, don’t worry, Betty, I’m coming, I’ve got your doll now, you’ll be all right, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know, you know I didn’t understand, oh somebody please, oh help, God help me, what’s the matter with you anyhow? Are you deaf in both your ears? Did they give you the drink with the powder? Please God, help me help Betty help Bill help Mickey too, ah, sweet Mary and Joseph is that the bridge? It couldn’t be, could it?

  And still the white blew and shook from the sky like feathers from a featherbed, wing feathers, angel feathers, but then it came apart partway like a great curtain opening and I could see it looming over me again, the monster, the river dragon, the great gray bridge after all, after all, oh God, it was the bridge for sure and then I was on the river, the froze-up river, and there were the sharp bits all around me like that time with Bill, the great broken china bits, and still the Rats were coming; I could hear them breathing hard and thumping and cussing and there was that other sound, too, that trolley sound only not a trolley but a great wheezing and clattering and all the time that high-up ringing in my head like the ice was singing again, and I looked for Papa like before but I couldn’t see him now, only white and white and more white and the great gray bridge—oh dear God, what was that noise?—that other noise, that God-awful roaring in my ears, all mixed in with the hollering, someone was hollering, more than one voice now; it must be the Rats yelling, “Stop! Stop! For God’s sake, stop, Julia Delaney! You’re going the wrong way; it’s too thin in the middle, the ice won’t hold! Come back, Julia! Stop, do you hear?”

  And so I stopped then, I turned around, and it wasn’t just the Rats behind me, and it wasn’t the trolley, neither; it was Hyacinth—oh God, it was Hyacinth—and the orphan buggy with Miss Downey at the reins and one of the nuns standing up beside her with her veil flying black in the wind like a great crow’s wing—not Sister Maclovius! Oh no, it looked like her, but it couldn’t be, could it? Yes, it could, and it was, great jumping Jehosaphat, Sister Maclovius and the hat lady with her feathers flying, too, and Hyacinth coming toward me like hell on wheels through the terrible chopped-up river-ice, bumping and clattering but still coming and coming, and the Rats had stopped dead in their tracks, watching ’em—they shouldn’t be out here; we shouldn’t be out here—and there was a terrible cracking and booming all around us in the white now and I saw it then, oh God, I saw it, the crack in the river-ice just beyond me, just under the bridge, splitting wider and wider—bloody hell, couldn’t they see? It couldn’t hold a whole horse and a buggy besides, for God’s sake, but still Hyacinth was clattering toward me like Dan Patch smellin’ the barn and the Rats were froze-up stiff as the ice, stiffer than the ice now; they must have seen the break in it as well as I did; they didn’t know which way to turn, but still the horse and the nun and the lady kept coming and now I was running again, only back now, back toward the buggy, away from the bridge, not spittin’ distance from the Rats but they never tried to stop me, only stood there gaping—I guess they were the ones with the stick legs now—they were paralyzed entirely and the great split in the ice was moving faster and faster, coming right at the two of ’em but breaking on either side so they didn’t know where to go, what to do, and then Fat Eddie’s face changed and he started to slip; the ice was opening under him and he slipped and lurched and tried to grab hold of me as I ran past but there was nothing to grab hold of because I was quick, too quick, jerking away jumping flying before the river got me, too, and all the time he was falling down, down, sliding into the water itself—oh God, oh God—and his hand reached out and grabbed me by the boot but when I kicked, it came off in his hand, and now it’s too late for Eddie, the river has him, and I don’t want to look but I can’t help it, I have to look, and he’s waving at me and yelling, “Go on, go on, get out before it gets you, girl, don’t you see what I’m sayin’?” and then he’s gone and I’m backing up, I’m turning around, I jump clear of the crack before it takes me down, too, and now I’m flying, I’m hobbling one-shoed but I’m flying all the same, I’m fast as a fox and I still have the doll and they can’t stop us, no one can stop us, here’s the horse and the buggy and the lady and the nun with their arms out, pulling us in with ’em and we’re safe, we’re safe, we’re in the buggy, Harriet, the ice is still cracking and booming all around us but Sister Maclovius has me fast in her iron grip and Miss Downey is turning the horse around and the bridge is behind us now and there’s good hard ice ahead and Sister keeps saying, “You’re all right, you’re all right, don’t look back, child, you’re all right. . . .”

  Only then the buggy bumps and lurches and jerks around again and we’re stopping—why are we stopping? And when I crane my neck to see past the flapping black of her habit, there’s Tom Egan standing by the horse’s head; he’s got Hyacinth by the cheek strap and he looks all wild-eyed and lunatic, like he’ll keep us there forever; he’ll never let go. . . .

  But Hyacinth won’t stand for it. Miss Downey jerks the reins, but the poor horse has had enough. He tosses his head and rears up both his front legs and Egan can’t hold on; he loses his balance and falls on his knees to the ice itself, and his hat goes flying, and there he is looking at us with the black smudge of ashes on his forehead clear as day, the Ash Wednesday ashes, just above his thick black eyebrows.

  And Sister Maclovius sees ’em just as clear as I do. I see her seein’ ’em. She’s still got me tight in her left arm, but she lifts her right and straightens her back and stands even taller, like a great craggy mountain, and points at the mark on his head with her terrible, gnarled finger: “Remember, man, that thou art DUST!”

  And he doesn’t say a word—can’t say a word—his mouth gapes open like a great gasping fish and works as if he wants to speak, but nothing comes out, only a wheedling “But, Sister . . .”

  “Don’t you but-Sister me, ye scoundrel!”

  And Miss Downey gives the reins a good, hard shake, and Hyacinth takes us home.

  Chapter 29

  I thought we’d never get there. The world had stopped turning again. The blizzard was still blowing and the snow was still snowing and the buggy was still bumping along in it, creaking, lurching, jerking along, until there was no beginning and no end to anything anymore, only snow and snow and more snow. My eyes were blind with it and my brain was thick with it and I was tired, so tired, too tired to think straight. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to see the pictures I couldn’t stop seeing: the Rats running and the ice breaking and the river swallowing Eddie—I couldn’t think about Eddie now—

  Hurry hurry oh please hurry. . . .

  “Is Betty all right? Did she wake up?” I kept asking, but my mouth was still numb with cold and I was half smothere
d under Sister Maclovius’s flapping cloak and near crushed in her steely arms. She wouldn’t let loose of me for a second and when she finally heard me croaking she only said, “Hush, child, hush, we know of no change.” And Miss Downey didn’t say anything—if she heard me at all. I couldn’t tell if she did, what with the wind still whining and the buggy clattering so. But her back was board-straight and her head was high and I guess she’d forgot her gloves because her hands gripping the reins were all white-knuckled and blue-veined, and she wouldn’t say a word—except to the horse, the poor old horse, who was on his last legs, by this time. I opened my mouth once to ask couldn’t he go any faster oh please but then I shut it because—dear Lord, just look at him—he could hardly lift a hoof now, could he? He’d just stepped into a hole of some sort and now his front knees were buckling and his head was drooping and Miss Downey was handing the reins to Sister and climbing out of the buggy and pulling him up by his harness. “Easy, old boy. Easy, that’s the way. . . . You’re all right now; I’ve got you. . . . Come on, just a few blocks more, love. . . . We’re almost there. . . .”

  And I wondered was I dreaming again, because who in the world was this Miss Downey, hauling a horse out of a hole in the middle of a blizzard, tugging him through the muck in her dainty little shoes? But my head was too thick to figure it out, so I just sat there holding tight to Harriet while Sister Maclovius held tight to me, and the lady held tight to Hyacinth, shoes or no shoes, and kept towing him along with her, block after block, till I saw it up ahead, finally—it was almost dark now, but I could just make it out—the old gray House looming through the shadows ahead of us, and the oil lamp flickering in the parlor window. . . .

  And the doctor’s horse and buggy, waiting out front again.

  Oh God. Please, God . . .

  I’d have jumped up and gone tearing inside that second, but Sister’s grip was still like iron; I couldn’t budge at all. “Wait,” she said. “Not yet,” she said. “Let me talk to the doctor first. I’ll send word if . . .” She trailed off there and hauled herself to her feet—you could all but hear her bones creak—and turned to the lady. “If he’s allowing visitors,” she finished. “I’ll leave Julia to you, Miss Downey.”

  “But the doll!” I began, getting to my feet too. “Couldn’t I just— Oh, please—”

  “Not yet,” said Sister.

  I might as well have argued with the Rock of Gibraltar. So I didn’t, though it just about killed me. I shut my mouth and held my tongue and told myself that it was all right, it was all right, she said she’d send word, so she would, sure she would. Nuns couldn’t tell lies. They weren’t allowed, were they? And it shouldn’t take long. What was another ten minutes or so? It wasn’t as if . . . as if . . .

  I tried not to let myself finish the thought, but it was there already, sapping the string out of my legs again, sinking in my gut like a stone: as if somebody was dying.

  But Betty wasn’t dying. Of course she wasn’t. I would put the doll in her arms and she would open her eyes and look at me and smile and smile, and this damn day would be over finally, for once and for all and for—

  TAP . . . thump, TAP . . .

  Miss Downey had helped Sister out of the buggy already, and handed her her cane, and now she was helping the old nun make her way through the snow on the sidewalk and up the steps to the front door: TAP . . . thump, TAP . . . I’d never seen Sister Maclovius move so slowly. She’d always been old, but now she was ancient all of a sudden—bent in the shoulders and shaky in her cane hand. She looked as if she’d aged fifty years on the buggy ride home. But Miss Downey got her there eventually, all the way up and in, and then she came back to me and the horse. I’d climbed out of the buggy by now and was standing there with him, petting his poor old trembling neck, not knowing what else to do. “We should see to him first,” she said, taking hold of his halter, “if you’re up to it. Are you up to it?”

  And I said I was, so we led him to the buggy barn, and I found the lantern and lit it and put on the rubber barn boots Sister Bridget kept by the door (they were big as boats on me, but better than one wet shoe). And then I did whatever the lady told me to do, still hanging on to Harriet, while Sister went about getting Hyacinth unhitched and settled in. She was still the other Miss Downey now, not the elegant millionairess but the sure-handed stranger who’d lugged us home, the one who looked as if she’d done this sort of thing a thousand times—mucked out stalls and watered horses and rubbed down their shaky old haunches, as if there was nothing to it at all. She didn’t say much, or look at me much. She was more tight-lipped and businesslike than I’d ever seen her. And when she was tending to a bloody patch on the old boy’s left cheek, where his throatlatch had rubbed him raw, and he jerked at her touch and tossed his head, I saw a muscle jump in her own jaw, and heard the sound of her breathing in sharp and hard, as if she felt the sting too. “Easy, dear, easy. . . . I’m sorry, I know, it hurts like the devil, doesn’t it?” And he calmed right down, and let her do her work, and shivered with pleasure while she brushed him—that horse kind of shiver that was like goose bumps—like a wave of ripples under the hide. And I was glad to see him so happy, the poor old thing, but God in heaven, we must have been in here a good hour now—it felt like an hour anyhow—and still no word from the sickroom. So I got up from the hay bale where I’d been sitting for a while, watching Miss Downey work, and asked if it would be all right to leave her now, since she was doing so well and all, and seemed to have everything she needed.

  “Not yet,” she said quietly. “We’re not quite done here.”

  I was already halfway to the door. “But I thought I could just go check inside, you see, in case they’ve forgotten—if it’s all right with you—”

  “It is not all right,” said Miss Downey—this other Miss Downey, the stranger holding the horse brush. She was still brushing the old boy down with it in sure, hard strokes—getting harder now, though he didn’t seem to mind at all—and speaking in that odd, quiet voice, so as not to frighten him, I guess. But quiet or not, there was a sound in it I’d never heard, and a look on her face I’d never seen, and tears—were those tears?—streaming down her cheeks all of a sudden, while I stood there, stopped in my tracks, listening to her: “It is not all right, Julia. None of this is all right. We’re here and you’re safe, by some miracle; you’re alive and standing in this barn with me, but you must never do anything like that again. Never again, do you hear me?”

  I just stood there, gaping at her.

  “Do you hear me, Julia?”

  “Yes, miss, I—I hear you,” I stammered, but it didn’t do any good. She was wound up so tight now, there was no stopping her.

  “You might have been killed out there today. A man was killed; I don’t know what sort of a man he was, but he’d be alive right now if you hadn’t left this house without permission this morning, as usual—if you hadn’t run away again, Julia—how many times is it now? You can’t take it into your head to leave whenever you like and then just leave, free as a bird. You might not always understand the rules but you have to follow them; we all have to follow them, whether we like it or not. They’re there to protect us, don’t you see? You might have died a hundred ways today, a thousand ways—”

  “But—but I—”

  “And not only you, Julia, not only you. Did you see what it took out of Sister? She’d have died ten times over to keep you safe, but she’s an old woman, a sick old woman at that. Think what you will of her—I know she’s not well-liked among the girls—but she’d give her life for any one you, if that’s what it took to protect you; she’d take on every gang of thugs in St. Louis before she’d let them harm a hair on your heads. Though she might save herself the trouble, for all the thanks she gets. Not that she’s doing it for that, mind you, but she’d do it all the same. And when I think of those men out there today on the ice—when I think what might have happened—”

  “But it didn’t happen,” I tried to tell her. She was crying so har
d now—brushing and brushing and crying and crying—that even Hyacinth was starting to look alarmed, rolling a worried eye at her, and I couldn’t stand it anymore; I had to go over and pat her shoulder and try to comfort her as best I could. “It didn’t happen, Miss Downey—”

  “But it might have, Julia! It might have, don’t you see? I know we all have an allotted time on this earth; I know we know not the day nor the hour, but that doesn’t mean you have to hurry the clock along!” She put the brush down and took tight hold of my shoulders. “You have to promise me, right now—no more foolishness, do you hear? No more running off. There are people trying to keep you safe, but how can they do it if you won’t let them, if you push us all away? You’re eleven years old; you don’t always know best. I know you were trying to help your friend today, but how would it have helped her if you’d died, Julia? You have to look before you leap, child! You have to promise; you have to swear to me that you’ll never do any such fool thing ever again. Do you swear it?”