“Callie,” he said in a loud whisper. He ducked his head and looked from left to right and then at her as if he knew a marvelous secret that no one else must hear. Seeing her eyes open wide, he knew the trick had worked.
“What?” she whispered, and he felt her face turn up to his.
“You hear those dogs? Those barkers down the road a bit?”
She nodded her head, enthralled.
“You know what’s making ’em go on and on like that?”
She shook her head, lips parted and eyes unblinking, all past traumas forgotten. William had no idea what was coming next, but he had learned to improvise like never before in the last few weeks.
“Well,” he said, and looking up to the sky, it came to him. He turned Callie outward and lifted her face toward the stars.
“You see that star up there,” he asked, and aimed her head toward the North Star. At that moment the barking grew to a fever pitch and William imagined that he heard a man shout. But it was all around him now, every dog on every homestead alerted to something in the night, and William, in the cacophony, could hardly be sure of what he heard. He looked back down when he felt Callie tugging on his sleeve.
“I see it,” she said, slightly piqued, and William knew he was in danger of losing ground if he didn’t hurry on.
“That’s the North Star,” he said. “But it’s part of something else too. That star makes up part of a bear up there in the sky. That’s what my daddy, your granddaddy, told me when I was little like you and that’s what’s got those dogs all keyed up. They’re barking after that bear up yonder and there’s nothing more they can do than bark.”
“I don’t see any bear,” Callie said, and stood up, stepping to the left and to the right and all the while squinting upward. “I don’t see a bear,” she said again, her voice smaller this time and closer to tears. William pulled her back on his lap.
“It’s a dipper too,” he added in desperation, and ran his finger along the trail of stars that made up the Little Dipper. “See there?” he said, trying to cover her with his coat. Her bare feet were ice, even through his trouser leg.
“Where?” she shouted, and William ran his finger along the sky trail again, pulling his coat closer around her when she threatened to burst out of it.
Please let her see it, he implored, and finally she saw something, because her head started banging against his chest in an enthusiastic nod.
At that moment the barking stopped, as suddenly and inexplicably as it had begun.
William looked away from the sky, stared into the darkness, and wondered at the oddness of it. Callie began pulling on one of his shirt buttons.
“What’s his name?” she asked, giving all her attention to the button, twisting and turning it and plucking it with her fingers.
“Stop that, Callie,” William said, sharper than he meant to because he’d be more likely to traipse across the moon than be able to sew a button back onto a shirt.
“It pushes,” she said in a high-pitched whine, and William opened his shirt where the button was digging into her head and felt a rush of pleasure at the brush of her soft hair against his bare chest. For now, at least, he still had her and her little sister and he would move heaven and earth and hell to keep them alive. Thinking that perhaps the night air was not the best thing for Callie, he decided to begin the process of putting her back to bed. He savored the touch of her for another moment and then hugged her and set her on her feet.
“What’s his name?” she insisted, stomping one ice foot into the earth and pointing toward the sky.
“Virgil,” William said, thinking of his father’s name and then thinking faster still. “And he has ordered most of these dogs down here to hush up and go to sleep. You hear how those closer ones have gone quiet?”
Dogs were still barking in the distance all around them, but William was hoping that for once Callie would not examine the statement for absolute truth.
“They’ve gone quiet as church mice, haven’t they?” he hurried on, taking her hand. “Most of them, anyway. They know it’s bedtime for dogs and children. And old Virgil up there, he’d like to see them all go to sleep, all dogs and children as well. Think you can oblige him?”
Some miracle of five-year-old logic stepped in, and Callie nodded. William smiled and counted it as a victory. It was one of the precious few he’d had since being thrust into the uncharted mystery land of children, with scant provisions and no map. He was making his way, but slowly.
They had turned to go into the cabin when he heard it.
A pair of riders were coming down the road, pushing their horses until the sound of hooves hitting dirt filled the night. He heard them coming, heard the desperate clomping pass his property, and heard the sound echo off the trees as the riders pressed on into the distance. Any minute he expected an abrupt end to the sound, as pushing a horse like that in the dark was a fool’s game, asking for a misstep that meant death for horse and rider.
In another moment it was as if the sound had never existed. The hoofbeats that had dominated the dark had faded and then were gone as quickly as they had come, returning the night to the barking dogs.
William felt Callie’s arms tighten around him and looked down to find her sobbing quietly onto his breeches. When he tried to kneel down, she pressed her face even harder against his thighs.
“What is it, Callie?” he asked, stroking her hair and wondering if he’d ever be any better at this, at the whys and hows of tending children.
She mumbled something but it was garbled by sobs. He bent his head closer and asked her to repeat it.
“Reaper,” she whispered, and he knew in an instant what was in her mind. Like a thief in the night, the preacher had spoken over her mother’s coffin, the Grim Reaper comes and takes what he will and then is gone, but our Heavenly Father... William had shut his mind to the rest, having no patience for a justification of Hannah’s death.
“No, Callie,” he said down to her. “That’s just a couple of men on horses, riding down the road in a hurry. That wasn’t the Grim Reaper. That was just men like Papa. There is no Grim Reaper.” Just as there is no Heavenly Father, his mind continued.
They’re lying about all of it, but another corner of his mind recoiled in fear at that and still another corner mocked him and said, Speak it aloud and see for yourself.
“There is no Grim Reaper,” he repeated. “Now let’s fix your hair and then maybe I’ll tell you a story.” She moved her head, which he took for a nod. Lifting her up into his arms, he walked back to the stoop.
No Grim Reaper, the mocker in his head screamed, and William thought back to the mocker, That’s right. Even so, he shuddered when he saw the cabin door standing slightly ajar, even while knowing that was surely the way he and Callie had left it.
Drying tears he had quickly become adept at, through lots of practice. In order for them to survive, he had also learned to put something like a meal on the table twice a day, on dishes that had at least been scraped clean of the previous meal. Every garment they owned had been washed at least once since Hannah had died, and he was able to keep the girls at least a stage away from filthy. Hair, it seemed, would be his undoing.
He had started the hair-washing ordeal on the next afternoon, suffering through tears at each stage, from the wetting down to the scrubbing with soap, through the futile attempt at combing out the pair of ravaged birds’ nests. Louisa, who shed silent tears in the company of her thumb, had been bad enough. But when Callie had shrieked at every slight pull of the comb, he had given up and placed them both in front of the fire with their dolls until their hair was completely dry. In this decision, even shrieks were powerless against him. He would not risk them getting chilled and then fevered or worse.