The Jewels of Nebraska, 16 -A Lovely Imbecile

Sleep came to Ruby with surprising ease. Though she was still trussed in the old-fashioned correction corset and her hands tied to the top of the bed frame to prevent her from loosening the stays, the mere dizzy effort of breathing had exhausted her more than a day of harvest back on the farm. She was asleep minutes after they tied the last knot.

She was walking in a forest. She came to a clearing and recognized the house at the other end. When she got closer she heard the sound of an ax hitting logs. She rounded the corner of the house to see a man splitting wood. His shirt was drapped over a fence post and his broad back was bare but for his suspenders. It glistened with sweat. She stepped closer. The man kept on putting logs on the block and raising the ax to them. He hit them with such force the halves flew in different directions. She was close now. She could smell the sweat of his labor.

Then he turned. It was Ben, the kind young man who had taken them in in Colorado. He stopped his log splitting and turned to the girl. She noticed then she was only wearing her night dress. She cross her arms over her chest and felt her cheeks burn with his gaze.

“Where you been Ruby? He said with a gentle voice that felt like silk in her ears. “I been lookin' for you.”

She felt like running to him and throwing her arms around him. She looked down to see a huge snake coiled between them. No sooner had she seen it when it shot towards her and wrapped itself around her and pulled her to the ground. It squeezed her tightly, crushing her.

“Ben, help me!” she gasped.

Ben approached. He looked concerned, but only looked on her predicament.

“I been lookin' for you Ruby,” he said. “Where are you?”

“Ben, Ben, help me, please help me Ben.”

The snake's head came round close to Ruby. It's tongue starting lapping her face.

Gentle slaps on the cheek awoke her.

“Who's Ben?” whispered the girl sitting by Ruby's cot?

“What?... nobody.”

The corset still squeezed Ruby, her hands still bound overhead. She fought to catch her breath from the dream. Her head was light and spinning.

“You gotta keep quiet or we all gunna be in trouble.”

“I didn't...”

“Ssssh! Ben, you were callin' for Ben. What's he, yer boyfriend?”

“He's not my...”

Ruby looked up at her hands and gave them a fruitless tug.

“The first time they put me in that thing I had some sinful dreams too.” The girl said. She looked off at nothing.

“I didn't do no sinnin' there was this snake see...”

“Hey there, You don't gotta tell me, mine had bunch a growin' vines,” the girl paused and smiled. “Mmm, that was a good one.”

“Why are you here?” Ruby said.

“Me and some of the other girls thought it was pretty okay how you gave salt to old Brother Rickenbacher today.”

“Then untie me.”

“You're new, you still don't quite get it.”

“Get what?”

“This, this whole thing is about us and those dirty pictures they make us pose for.” The girl casually stroked Ruby's arm. “We're slaves see, just slaves. Every couple of weeks that pervert from California comes and makes some movies.”

“Movies? California”

“Yeah, sometimes he takes a girl or two back with him.”

“Really? To California.”

“I ain't never been, but from what I heard, you really don't want to be one of those he takes.”

Helen gave Ruby a pat on the head. “Listen, I can't get you free, but I'll loosen that corset a mite. Roll up on your side.”

Ruby fell back to the cot and took in the closest thing to a full breath in hours. “That's a lot better. Thank you...”

“Shallana. But my real name is Helen.”

“I'm Ruby.”

“Well Ruby, don't thank me too much. They're going to lace you up tighter in the morning. The cotton gives a bit after a spell, so they say.”

“Thanks all the same,”

“Don't mention it,” Helen said as she slipped back to her cot. “Really, don't!”

The house was small and ramshackle, just two rooms it looked like. It was at the end of a dead-end street on the southern side of the Omaha, I could smell the banks of the river. A fence around the overgrown property was made from bits of shipping crates and discarded chicken wire. A lantern glowed inside.

“What do you see?”

“Sssh!” I tried to say as urgently as I could without sounding unkind.

Though I was still in a euphoric bliss over being with Charlotte, having her cling to my arm everywhere we went, there were a few things I hadn't counted on. Before now she had existed only in a silk cocoon. Servants took care of every trivial detail rendering her, well, to be right plain, somewhat of an imbecile in the the regular world I lived in.

It was quite novel to her to walk down the street in the plain clothes we had borrow from my mother, who had to dress her essentially. Her head was on a swivel, like a child. Had she not been on my arm, I believe she would have walked right in front of a moving automobile or carriage on more than one occasion.

Sneaking around in the dark next to house where we hoped to find her stolen baby, she seemed oblivious to the fact that it was important to move quietly. No amount of pleading would get her to wait at the fence for me though. It may have been best that she was close at hand actually, where I could keep an eye on her.

“I am going to look in the window first, you stay low and don't move or speak, understand?”

“Ye...” she cut her word short and nodded fervently.

I raised my head up slow to see in the room. A man sat in a chair with a pipe in his mouth and half a glass of a whiskey ready to fall from his hand. No smoke came from the pipe. He was asleep or close to it. Not far away, sat a woman darning a sock that had once been somewhat white. The infant was nowhere in to be seen.

“I don't see the baby.” I said.

“Oh no! This isn't the house.”

“No, I reckon it is, the baby's just asleep in the other room.”

“I suppose you are correct.”

“What I don't reckon is how we're going to get the baby out of there with out them upon us.”

“One of us will distract them, at the door for some reason.”

“Good idea, then I can sneak in and get the baby.”

“No my darling, it must be me.”

“I know how you feel about your baby, but...”

She put a finger softly to my lips.

“First, my feelings for you I hope you realize, but my dear, dear man, you will never truly know how I feel about my baby...”

“Of course, of course, but...”

“On a more practical level, a woman alone at this time of night? They'd be suspicious of any woman of my age to begin with. They may even recognize my resemblance to my child. It is remarkable, you will agree when you see her. It has to be you. I'll get the baby.”

“You're right, I know you are, but... breaking into a window and climbing inside, moving quietly in a strange dark room then climbing out with a babe in arms? Forgive me my dear, but you had trouble crossing the street earlier.”

“You will fix the window so it will open then go and cause your distraction. As for climbing in and out and sneaking about, I am a mother, and this is my baby. I assure you, there is no task...”

I put my hands around hers and held them firmly.

“Yes, I never should have doubted you Charlotte. I forgot that the second time I ever saw you you were charging off into a blizzard to find her.”

“Until you saved my life at the expense of your job.”

I gingerly lifted the catch on the bedroom window with my knife and swung it open for her.

“Wait till you hear me sneeze, I'll do it real loud. That's how you'll know I have their attention at the front door.” I told her.

My heart was pounding after I knocked on the door. I heard foot steps, then, from inside, a rather loud sneeze! Charlotte would think it mine and begin her action too soon!

“Yeah,” said the said man at the door.

He held a shotgun in one hand. I tried not to look at it.

“Kohn sent me, there's trouble. He wants you to meet him.”

“Who?” he said with narrowed eyes. I felt panic but I managed to keep my demeanor.

“Big guy, thimbles on his, you know.” I motioned to my fingertips feigning annoyance at having to educate him.

“Him? What's he want?”

'He wants you, and I think you know better than to keep him waiting.”

“Yeah, okay.” the man reached for his jacket on a nail near the door and propped the shotgun just below it.

He was about to shut the door and follow me, when a noise came from the bedroom. He stopped. I could see that the woman had looked up from her darning and had turned towards the bedroom door. The man reached out and grabbed for my collar with one hand and the shotgun with the other. He dragged me into the house and opened the bedroom door. Charlotte and the baby were no where to be seen. With me still in tow the man grabbed one of the lanterns and ran outside. He was looking up and down the dark street.

“I got your partner here,” shouted the man. "Just bring back the baby and he won't get hurt.”

Silence, except for a few barking dogs.

Good! I knew Charlotte wouldn't give up her child. Then, the sound of a baby crying back inside the house.

“Under the crib,” the woman said when we passed her in the bedroom. The man dragged Charlotte out by her ankle. The woman pried the baby from her. I was shoved me across the room towards Charlotte and he raised the shotgun. I took Charlotte in my arms, our first embrace. Charlotte held me back but extended one arm towards the crying baby back in the crib.

“Get you away from there,” the man said waving the shotgun. “Go fetch some rope,” he said to the woman.

Continued in Episode 17 here