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

The Jewels of Nebraska Episode 13 -Think like a maid

Being that it's been a spell since my last post (I'm starting to talk like my characters) maybe a refresher may be in order in the way of re-reading Episode 12 No? Okay then, carry on...

It was just four hours ago that William was tossing and turning is his bedroll, one side towards the fire then the other all night long. Half of him was always freezing and the other baking. Now it was only half past nine and the sun was already hot as an oven with no way to relieve it. He looked at the horse beneath him.

“I'm sure glad I don't have to carry someone on my back in this heat.”

“You don't weigh nuthin' to that horse. He's strong, you're just a fly to him,” said Ben.

“Even a fly might be too much.”

Kohn's horse was out front, occasionally he would stop and hold up a fist. Ben and William would pull on their reins and be silent while Kohn sniffed the air, or got down off his horse, examined the dirt and brush, then he'd get back on his horse and scan the horizon. They had been in the desert for two days and no sign of Ruby or the Huettes, at least none that Kohn had mentioned, he hadn't said a word in almost a day.

“Hey Kohn, what makes you think they weren't on the road in their car? We're nowhere near a road,” said Ben. “I'm no tracker but...”

Kohn Nodded. “No tracker.”

In the afternoon they stopped under the shady wall of a canyon to rest the horses.

“Do you think we'll get attacked by Indians?” William asked Ben.

“No, it's 1922, it's not like in the pictures. I don't think it ever was to be honest.”

“There are still Injuns, and we're out here on horseback sleeping by our fire at night, it's just like the pictures, cept I didn't know it was gunna be so hot.”

“Indians live on reservations now and they don't go attacking anyone.”

“So who are they?” William pointed up to the top of the canyon. A dozen or more Indian silhouettes on horseback stood watching them.

It had been months since I'd seen Charlotte face-to-face, it was safer that way. This good news couldn't wait though. I made the bold move of going straight to the Millard Mansion to speak to her myself. She had been breathtaking even when she was in the depths of sorrow, I wanted to see with my own eyes when she learned I had found her baby. I'd be a dirty liar if I claimed I hadn't imagined her perhaps hugging my neck in her joy and gratitude.

Olaf, the milk boy who had delivered my letters, had told me her quarters were the right two dormers of the third floor. Growing up in Nebraska never gave me a lot of opportunities to learn climb real good, and it was plain daylight, but that didn't matter to me none, knowin' what I know'd.

A drain pipe got me to the first and second floor roofs before I had a chance to look down, which, when I did, I realized was a big mistake. The tiled roof was steep and slippery, but I managed to overcome my fear and maneuver myself next to a dormer window. With quaking hands my pocket knife, I popped the window open and climbed inside.

I had just, for the first time in my life, committed a crime.

I found myself in a dressing room with fancy wall paper, oriental rugs, walnut furniture and finely crocheted lace on every surface. Like most houses of that stature, the top floor was reserved for servant's quarters, but her area had been converted and adorned to match her class; a finely appointed tower for Rapunzel.

I panicked for a place to hide when I heard the door latch turn, but there was no where to go, no time. A young maid walked into the room with a basket stacked high with white linens. The high load kept her from seeing me right away. I realized in my enthusiasm I had not thought out any sort of plan, I just started climbing drain pipes and opening windows, assuming Charlotte would be waiting for me at the top with open arms. My mind raced for what to do. It would be a matter of seconds before the poor girl had the fright of her life.

I had nothing.

An unfamiliar silhouette in the edge of her eye cause her to look my way. She made a meek little squeel and the basket flew up in the air. The air was a storm of white sheets and pillow cases. She made her escape on the other side of it. I ran and caught her at the door. I planted my foot against it. I grabbed her wrist and prepared to place my hand over her mouth to prevent the inevitable scream, but there was none. She fell to the ground and curled up like a potato bug with her knees to her chest and her head between them.

I let go of her arm.

“Miss, its okay,” I began unsteadily. “You see, I'm a friend of Charlotte's, of Miss Charlotte's.” The lump of maid on the floor only quivered and whimpered. “I didn't mean to frighten you, I think we frightened each other hehe. But the um, laundry seems to have taken the worst fright hehe.. Awe, get up will ya miss, I'm not going to hurt you or nothin, promise.”

I touched her back gently but she only whimpered and tightened her little cocoon.

This was a girl who had been mistreated.

What do I do now? Nothing was working. It was only a matter of time before one of the staff went to see what was taking her so long. The laundry laying about the room was clean. Some of it was still somewhat folded after it's flight.

If I was going to get out of this without wearing handcuffs I was going to have to think like a maid.

I left her by the door. She could slip out, but I had to take the risk. I picked up the nearest sheet off the floor and carefully folded it, turned the basket right-side-up and placed the sheet square in the bottom. I did another sheet, and another. I could see the maid looking up at me, her head cocked in perplexity. I pretended to pay no attention.

“I'm in service myself you know” I said, “waiter at the Country Club, even worked a party here last Christmas. Folded a few thousand tablecloths in my day, yessir.”

“You're doing it wrong.” She said.

“It's right for a table cloth.”

“wrong for bed linens.”

“Show me.” I held out a sheet in her direction.

She got up and cautiously picked up a nearby pillow case. With a couple deft moves it was a tight perfect rectangle and in the basket. A sheet took her not much longer. Between the two of us the basket was soon full and the floor empty.

“I should really launder them all over again.” She looked at the basket with heartbreak.

“The floor is spotless, no harm done. I won't tell... if you won't”

“Yeah, okay I guess. Well, just what are you doin' here mister?”

“Looking for Charlotte.”

“Miss Charlotte's a lady, you're no friend of hers creepin' in upstairs windows an such.”

“What's your name girl?”

“Opal.”

“That's a pretty name. Opal, I'm sorta workin' for miss Charlotte, helping her find something she'd lost, something she's plenty sad over. The thing is see, I think I found it.”

“You're the fella that writes them letters, and you've found her baby!”

“Um, yeah actually, how'd you know, did she tell you?” I said.

“She never says nothin'.”

“How then?”

“I thought you said you were in service?”

“Ah, of course.” I laughed, “Where is Miss Charlotte now Opal? I have to see her.”

“Oh sweet heavens, You don't know what's happened, do ya?”

Bishop Clarkson Hospital was a brand new large five story brick building with a cross standing proudly on the roof above the front entrance. Modern sun porches on either end at every floor that could conceivably be scaled, but I was done with high places! The service entrance in the back seemed my best bet. The kitchen wasn't hard to find and from there a white smock and cap hanging by a door.

“Say fella, I'm supposed to bring this dinner to Miss Millard, a lady who's here for hysteria and melancholy but they messed up the room number and I'm new so I don't know where to go.”

“You might be new, the man said, but you don't work in no kitchen.”

“Well sure I do.”

“Not with white skin you don't.”

Before I knew it I was out behind the hospital again and brushing the dirt off my shoulders. Now they knew me and had orders to keep me out.

Two nuns glided silently by me. They had come from a small convent by the hospital for the sisters who served there.

I got an idea just then. A horrible, horrible idea.

Continued in episode 14

The Jewels of Nebraska #12 -Unfair Fight

To start this series from the beginning.
“I don't know.” The man looked skeptical. “I don't really need a truck, it's kinda beat up.”

He walked around Ben's vehicle for the umpteenth time and kicked the tires again. “Tell you what, I'm feeling generous. The gelding and a pony for the old Model-T.”

Kohn looked at the horses in the paddock. They were eating a discarded sandwich off the ground.

“Threes horses, we need ja,” said Kohn, holding up three thimbles.

A buxom woman in a lavender dress walked up the other end of the alley with a basket swinging in rhythm to her hips. The stableman's eyes were glued to her approach.

“Mmm MM! Would you look at that. Well, fella with the silver fingers, that is my final offer. If you don't like it, then good day to you.” His eyes never left the woman.

“Delilah, my darling, what brings you here?”

“Just thought you might like a little lunch, honey bunch.”

“I'm starvin, in fact, just like yesterday, and same as tomorrow I hope, you gorgeous thing!”

“What are we going to do?” said William.

“Well, I can probably get some work here in Grand Junction, “Ben said, “but it will take a while before we have enough. Have to take a room.”

“No, is to long,” Kohn said.

“Now Kohn, no stealin' or shenanigans, that was the deal, If we can't get those horses in a straight deal, we have to do something else.”

The thimbles clicked together in a regular rhythm.

“Boy, boy,” Kohn said quietly, “take peek-chure ja.” He pointed first at the ever-present camera around William's neck, then at the stable keeper and the giggling woman presenting him with his lunch.

“Awe, I've only got one shot left.”

“What'r you up to Kohn?” said Ben.

“Something else. Go William, take ja.”

William walked up to the flirting couple. He looked down into the view finder, waited til they noticed him and clicked the shutter.

“Hey, what's the big idea boy. What'dya think you're doin'? Why'd you take that photo? Gimme that!”

Kohn strode up behind the boy.

“New deal is, three horses for truck... and camera film.”

“Why of all the dirty... alright, alight it's a deal.”

As they led their new horses away William looked up at Kohn. “Why'd that man change his mind?”

“Two women make lunch. One lunch goes horses. Wife would not be happy if know she feeds horses and fat girl feeds husband.”

“What do we do?”

“We wait,” the girl said.

She was about Ruby's age, maybe younger but taller and heavier.

“Wait for what?”

The girl smiled. “You can read if you like.” There were several books on a table in front of the chairs and lounges that lined the locked and sweltering upstairs room.

The books all had the same author: Ernest J. Tobias.

The other girl was reclined in a rocking chair with her feet up on an ottoman. The two looked like they came from and belonged in different homes. She rocked and fanned herself incessantly with a small heart-shaped fan woven from reeds.

Ruby got up and went to the window. It seemed like everyone in the community was out doing something. Hauling rocks from a new field, carrying buckets of water from the well, hammering on the skeleton of yet another ramshackle house made from used lumber and old windows.

When she looked close she could see Ester and Caleb toiling over a field of some green but scant crop.

She felt a little sorry for Ester, she couldn't help but feel pleased about Caleb's dilemma. As a new and unproven member of the community he had lost most of his possessions, Ruby included.

She had been spared having to wed the cruel old man, even though she was now the 'property' of Brother Tobias it would seem. Ruby and dozen or so others from about thirteen to thirty years of age. Most of them slept in a dorm room of the main house together. Every night before the lamps were blown out, a church elder would pick a girl or two.

They returned to their cots in the dark after a couple of hours.

In the morning after prayers and breakfast most of the girls went off with several elders. Ruby was locked in the room with the chairs, just like yesterday. Today she had company, Meerah was her name maybe.

Some of the girls were mean, most ignored her. They all wore plain blue ill-fitting dresses. Ruby's was too big for her. Her own clothes were ripped up for rags. One of the older girls had used one to replace another blood stained rag from under her dress.

Unless there was a foot of snow on the ground, there was always ten things to be done back on the farm. With her mama in her state and her papa dead as I am, Ruby had to do nine of 'em yessir. She wasn't about to complain about being shut inside while others toiled in the sun. She just couldn't shake the feelin—outside of being kidnapped and lost from her brother—that she was in some sort of trouble.

“Ain't we supposed to do chores or something?” Ruby said.

“No, they wanna keep us pretty, plump and pale. Sometimes we do mending, peel potatoes maybe, but no work in the sun, no dirt under our nails. They gunna fatten you up I reckon. They got me on a diet. That's why I'm stuck back here with you, not off with the others, little too fat Brother Erlick said.

“Where are the others?”

The girl rolled her head in Ruby's direction with a minimum of effort and smiled.

“Hey new girl, if you're that bored, You could always come over here and rub on my feet... or wherever.”

“This look familiar?”

“It's a thimble,” said the man behind the counter.

“Of course it's a thimble wise guy. Do you sell any like this one?” My head was still pounding and I had very little patience.

“No, don't think so. Lemme have a look.” He brought it close to his eye and turned the thing over seeing the tar coating the inside. He sniffed. “Aha!” he said. “I don't sell this particular item, this is one of them the fancy ladies put in glass cases, ladies who don't sew or mend. I think I have heard of this though. This thimble doesn't even belong to a lady if I'm correct.”

He wrote down an address on a receipt and handed it to me.

“Show your thimble to the man at this shop. He'll be able to tell you more.”

The bar was more crowded than I expected. It was still mid afternoon. He wasn't hard to spot, a tall man at the bar with his large black hat still on his head. I took a deep breath and walked up to the bar. I slapped the thimble on the table. Time seemed to freeze as I waited for what he would do. He picked up the thimble and placed it on a blackened pointer finger on his Left hand and pressed hard till the tar inside the thimble set to his fingertip. Every other finger was so adorned.

“Tak.” he said.

He took a drink.

“Listen mister. I got a beef with you. I gotta goose egg on my head cuz a you.”

No reaction.

I'm not a fight'n man. Never thrown a punch cept what was in good fun or sport, but thinking of Charlotte and her daughter, all her tears and anguish, thinking of the cowardly lump this guy had given me; something just kind-of gave way inside of me.

My fist flew fast, but twice as fast came a steel grip around my wrist. The guy didn't even look up. Without letting go, he got up from the bar, dragging me with him, and threw me into the street amongst jeers and cheers from inside.

“Tak, thank,” he said holding up the hand with the newly recovered thimble. “Home go ja.”

He disappeared back inside.

A sane man would have simply walked away, but his action only infuriated me more. When I ran at him inside he lifted me off the ground with my own speed like he was swatting at a fly. I landed behind the bar.

My next attack was met with his fist. I saw stars. Through my blurred vision I could see he was still sitting at the bar, sure that the annoying fly had gotten the message.

I had not.

The chair I broke over his back got his attention. He was engaged now. I danced in front of him, fisticuffs at the ready. His reach impossibly longer than mine, I couldn't hope to land a blow. I dodged his first couple throws. The next landed square on my nose. There was a crunch. I could taste the salt of my blood as it ran past my lips.

Still I danced before him, ready to take any opening he might allow. The next punch was to my jaw. It took me off my feet, but I was soon back up.

The crowd had taken to the sport and had formed a noisy ring around us.

He knocked me down again with his thimble tipped wrecking ball fists. Each time though, I got to my feet and raised my own fists; fists that had not yet hit a thing. He gave me an odd look of exasperation.

I had gotten the swing of his blows by this time and dodged the next one. I grabbed it as it went past. I sunk my teeth into his arm just before it disappeared into his black jacket. I don't know if his scream was of pain or rage, but after all my failed attempts to cause any sort of harm, I found it euphorically satisfying.

That was not my plan though.

The fist of the arm I was biting opened instinctually. I could see the objects of my attack. Before he started bludgeoning me with his free hand I reached up and started popping thimbles off his fingers.

It sounded a bit like popcorn.

The tall man fell to the floor and began grasping at the scattering thimbles like a blind beggar who's tin cup had been overturned.

I stood over him, bleeding, soaked in the delusion that I had won. Until he had replaced the last thimble I and the room of rapt spectators ceased to exist to him. As he rose from the floor I figured it may have been wiser to use that time to get my carcass out of that bar and as far down the street as my legs could carry me.

I had saved him the trouble of the chase, yet he seemed ungrateful.

He held me aloft from my lapels and he ran me backwards across the room. I wondered at that moment what I my poor back would encounter first, a wall, the piano, God forbid, the antlers of the mounted buck.

It was the wall.

I crumbled to the floor trying to fill my lungs with air again. He picked up the rag doll—me—and set me in a chair. He had a bottle and glasses in his hand when he returned from the bar. He poured two whiskeys and slid one across to me. It stung like hell in the cuts in my mouth. Pain began reporting in from various parts of my body, some I didn't even remember him striking or throwing me on.

I thought this was as good a time as any to deliver my message.

“Where's her baby you sonofabitch!”

“What ja?” he said.

“I know you're on the take for those baby stealers.”

“You no with Steinberger Brothers?”

“Never heard of em.”

He turned the new information around in his head. I sipped my whiskey and mopped blood with my handkerchief. I guess it ain't unreasonable to consider he may have had more than one client.

“I think you from someone else. You take heap beating, like badger, keep coming back.” Kohn gave what may have been a smile. “We talk about your baby now ja.”

Continued in episode 13