In Absence

Chapter 2

Henry Coalridge did not have, what most would consider, neither the disposition nor the character of what one would call a “good man.” He was fine by most standards. There was a little lyin’, a little gamblin’, a lotta cussin’, a little touchin’, and on occasion as necessary, a little stealin’. All things considered, for a man of Henry’s time, he really wasn’t bad enough to be particularly contemptuous. Especially considering the history of bad luck poor Henry had stepped himself into, losing too many years as a young man to the California Gold Rush, then failing in his new career as a ranch hand. Now he aimed at keeping himself out of the drums of war by moving deep into ungovernable territory.

Which is how he found himself walking in the middle of nowhere Nebraska. He’d passed freshly harvested and deserted fields and a few outcroppings, but little else. Unfamiliar with his whereabouts, he didn’t know there was a little nameless town a couple of miles away. He kept walking, contemplating whether it’d be better to find a good place to set up camp when he saw it. A friendly little structure with a pen outside and a kitchen garden. The little chimney in the home was blowing enough smoke that Henry hoped someone was available and cooking, and that maybe he could bargain a little of his labor for a warm meal and a nice place to sleep.

The Widow Ruth Hollow was not one to suffer much company. She found that most people tended to grate on her nerves, and she mostly kept to herself, finding she was her own best amusement. Something she’d become accustomed to, especially since the sudden and tragic disappearance of her husband. The quiet of living out on the homestead miles from town was good to her. She woke early to do what needed to be done and went to sleep as soft as a babe. Every once in a while, she would look over at her husband’s old chair and there would stir a feeling akin to loneliness, but that feeling would move into a memory, and soon after, that lonely feeling would dissipate like smoke.

The deceased Charles Hollow was a man who had liked his tobacco, though he would never permit a lady to partake in such a vice, especially not one he was married to. It was all fine and dandy that before they had wed, Ruth had her own little tobacco tradition. But when they became legal in the eyes of God and the state, Charles, as the man concerned for the morality of his woman, forbade it. He would smoke an old pipe, weathered in use and appearance, in the evenings. If he was planning on coaxing his bride to her bedroom duties, he would have himself a half-glass of whiskey with it instead of his usual full glass. Charles had learned the hard way that too much whiskey had an adverse effect on his manhood in his philandering youth. Ruth hated the nights he asked her a finger"s worth of the drink, because it meant a night of him rutting around like a foul pig up top of her.

She didn’t think back on those times much, not since he was dead and well into the ground. Sometimes she smelled his distinct tobacco, giving her a craving to smoke. She would sit in his chair and pull out his old, well-worn pipe and light up on still nights. She’d think of the weather, on the movement of the coyotes and mountain lions. She’d think of her wild youth. Once in a while, she would think of him and on the few times he made her laugh. That was the extent of it.

It was a still, early evening where Ruth was setting ready to have herself a smoke when there came a knock upon her door. Now, as mentioned, The Widow was not a woman of many interactions, of entertainment, nor of genial hospitality. Whatever visitations she had were in broad daylight and concerned items like correspondence or business. This was certainly an unwelcome visitation. If it were bandits or some such nonsense, they were about to be in for a surprise, because The Widow Ruth was no stranger to a pistol or a rifle, and she regularly kept her eye keen, her aim sharp and her barrel loaded. She took the shotgun from its place on the kitchen table, checked the barrel, and trained it on the door. She thrust it open, revealing a man who was now faced with the hot end of a long gun. “Don’t shoot!” he cried, quickly raising his hands.

Henry didn’t really know what to expect when that door popped open, his knuckles sore from banging on the roughhewn wood. For a home that size, he expected maybe a young couple in a settlement that he could charm with tales from California. Or perhaps a full family that could use someone with some rigor to help abouts the house. Or, if luck was ever going to be on his side, a nice, young, scared waif looking for some protection from all the wild beasts. Perhaps looking for a man with a little more experience in the world to be a protector out here on the plains.

Maybe protect her and her well-endowed sister on these cold Nebraska nights.

What Henry did not predict was a downright mean-looking old wench with a steady hold on a shotgun ready to blow his head clean off. She had her hair loose in a set of greasy tangles and wore a long nightshirt and pants. She looked rough and smelled like work, certainly not a woman of the type Henry would be too fond of. But he still had his charms, and above her strong odor, he could smell the remnants of a meal and the warmth of a hearth. He would make do with what he could, and he’d surely worked with less when needed in the past. Unless, hopefully, a man of civility was home.

He smiled, hand on his heart, “Evening, madam.” He tilted his hat. “Might your husband be home?”

The Widow Ruth narrowed her eyes at the stranger. He wouldn’t have been such a sore vision maybe ten years ago. He had the sunken build and composure of a man who had once been passably good looking and had gotten too used to using that for his advantage. In fact, he smiled at her in a way that suggested an overuse of that facial countenance. Too bad one of his visible teeth was rotting. “Husband’s dead,” she finally replied, flatly.

“Well then, ma’am, I suppose you are the chief resident of this lovely home?”

“What’s it to you?” Ruth trained the gun a bit higher.

“Nothin’, ma’am, so far as I’m lookin’ for a place to stay the night. See, I been travelin’ and it’s been a right cold journey. And the coyotes been sniffing me outs. I even saw a wolf this very morning! Wherein you see a wolf, you’re bound to see more, an’ I suspect that you could use a little help around this home with a little strength. I can offer that for a warm meal an’ a hearth if you’ll be willin’ to aid a poor Christian soul in his hour of need.” He put on his most beguiling and innocent-appearing smile.

On any other ordinary day, The Widow Ruth would normally have told the vagrant to be on his way, but as it happened, she was actually going to hire one of them young boys from town to do a bit of work for her. Usually she paid a youngin’ handsomely at fifty cents a day for the grunt work. This hungry stranger, sniffing at the vestiges of her stew like a starving pup, would be even cheaper. Not that she needed to be cheap, she’d inherited handsomely when Charles had gone missing and then declared dead by absentia, as all that was found of him was his left hand with his solid gold wedding ring. Nor did she fear this half-starved man; she certainly knew how to defend herself, as she’d had to before.

Ruth lowered the gun by degrees. “Roof needs re-tarring. And the coop needs a full muck. There’s a few more chores for the time. There’s stew. No funny business and we get to work in the morning.”

“You are much too gracious, madam. I see the lord shines his light—”

“And none too much talkin’,” Ruth interrupted, lifting the rifle again before moving to let him inside the house.

Henry ate gleefully at the drudges and slept warm on the floor in front of the hearth. The Widow Ruth forewent smoking her pipe, hiding it instead at the drawer of her bureau, a long knife at her pillow.

In the distance, a butcherbird picked at the remains of a right-handed pinky finger it had brought to its nest.

It was three days of back breaking work before the two new housemates had any sort of substantive conversation. That was preferable for The Widow Ruth, who hated reckless chatter. In her opinion, why talk when you could shut the hell up? This succinctness was torturous for Henry Coalridge, a man who liked the sound of his own voice such that, were he alone, he would talk to himself. He reckoned his voice held such a tremendous charm that it would be sinful not to share it with others. Therefore, he could not comprehend his host’s need or desire for silence, especially when he had such great tales to regale others of his travels and (unjustly) lost fortunes.

On the first day, his humming could not be heard from the roof as he re-tarred and sealed it. But he could hear the squeal of the pig as The Widow Ruth butchered it. His mouth watered as its cries of death cut short: fresh pork. That night, they dined on pig tongue, and The Widow Ruth was curt with Henry when he tried to run his.

The second day, Henry resorted to not speaking as he cleaned and mucked out the coop, preferring not to accidentally breathe in through his mouth and taste the foul stench. Some baby chicks had gotten trapped in a c***k in the floorboards and died, their little bodies in the middle stages of decay, the scent being impossibly large in a small place. Their mother pecked at him as he bare-handedly peeled them away. That night he imagined those maggot-riddled chicks chirping at him before he was awakened by The Widow Ruth’s snoring in the other room.

By the third day, with all the grueling work, Henry Coalridge was becoming delirious with the continued silence. A delirium of such where he began to entertain the foolish notion that he could live like this forever. He was a man who had become too well traveled. The world held few new surprises. Surely, the war would not reach the outskirts of such territories such as this lonesome homestead. He liked having a steady roof and something to eat at night, and if insofar as The Widow Ruth was willing, he could close his eyes. Her ruddy complexion was not terrible enough as to be offensive. No, a home and land as wild and free as this needed a man of some knowledge to really make something of it. A king was missing in this small kingdom.

He thought on this as he fixed some fencing on the pen. With all this land, a man might make himself a hell of a rancher. Though he’d been unsuccessful as a hired cowhand himself, it did not mean that with the right resources, he would not do well managing that venture. He stood and wiped his brow, surveying her land as she had laid out where he could go and for what. The Widow Ruth owned many acres, including a hunting shed out on the horizon that Henry would be cleaning and fixing soon. There was a long, flat, sparse field. Out in the center was an eyesore of a dried-up well. When he was in charge, he would remove the rocky and collapsing relic. All it did was attract errant birds that knew nothing except to coat it in their s**t.

It was the fourth day when Henry Coalridge got his first opportunity to woo, through the blessing or curse of a rainstorm. It was no simple shower; it came in early, blotting out of what was left of first light. The rain came down like death, its own tempest on the flat land. The homestead was positioned on a very slight slope, but the water rushed by to the ankle within an hour.

At the first of clouds on the horizon, The Widow Ruth had almost gleefully run out and opened her rain barrel, something she’d had to invest in after the well had been ruined some time ago. Fresh water this early meant she could have herself a real bath, a luxuriously long soak for her tired bones and drying skin. These days when she bathed, she reminisced back on her times skinny dipping as a child in a shallow lake. She would think of the mud as it caked between her toes or how she would spit water at her sister. The scent of the only gift she adored from the former Charles Hollow would linger in the air and lure her into a stupor. A full rain was the key to peace and the past.

But she would have to wait until that Coalridge was out of her house. As soon as the rains let up, she would kick him out. Though on a night like this, where the rain poured into the crevices of the earth, it brought out fresh eating. The Widow Ruth had spent her youth hunting frogs and basting their legs on a fire. She could be back before the next hour and catch them out in the downpour with what was left of the light. That would save some of that tender pork for her to have to herself once Henry was gone.

The Widow Ruth grabbed a fishing spear, net, bag, and a lit rusted lantern. She took an old hat and with a quick word to her house guest, left out into the storm, looking to make her way to the low creek where the frogs would hop. The rain came down in long strands, but she knew her way in the oncoming darkness.

Henry Coalridge took a peek out of the dusty window to see her disappear into the pelting water. He had no doubts that a woman like that would not be undone by the rain, even in a heavy downpour such as this. There was something out there worth spearing or shooting, and he would leave her to it, as it left him to his own devices.

He’d spotted the large, copper tub not too long after he’d given himself some time to do some roaming around the house. It was an exorbitant expense, and Henry had deduced correctly that many of the finer touches of her home had been due to The Widow Ruth’s late husband. That did not mean that she had not learned to appreciate those luxuries, but Henry Coalridge was not one to consider women as people who might evolve or adapt, thus it did not cross his mind that she might take issue with him bathing in that ornate tub.

He did not know how long he had, but he knew if he made himself presentable, he might have a swinging chance at seducing her and becoming the rightful head of this homestead. At the very least, he hoped to tempt her into some conversation, a thing he had been starving for since he’d headed out of the last settlement.

The pump couldn’t bring water fast enough for him to begin heating it up, but pressed for time, he settled on a lukewarm bath. It was anointed with some fancy bath oils he’d found stowed nearby. It smelled rather nice and knowing he had several layers of travel to cover up, he poured in an entire bottle. He left the water as it was after he’d scrubbed and soaked. Then, in his used clothing, he brushed at his hair with his fingers, and shaved with the old bent razor he kept with him. Henry Coalridge looked at his reflection in the darkened window and knew there would be no resisting a man such as him. For how could the dowdy widow find a man half as handsome to pay attention to her? She was lucky he was not very discerning or picky.

knewIt did occur to him that he could simply kill her and take on this homestead all his own, but he did not know what other relations she might have that may come calling at any point. It didn’t help that he had no idea where she had hidden that damn shotgun, though he’d looked all over for it. His own gun blew out on him outside of Denver some weeks back. It hurt his ego terribly to admit this to himself, he was not so sure he could take a woman such as that hand to hand, or hand to pistol as the situation may have been.

Finally, though it may not have seemed it, Henry Coalridge was a peaceful man. And despite her rough exterior, the Widow Ruth had her charms, though you had to squint to see them. For all his posturing, Henry was a lover, not a fighter.

As Ruth was finishing up her amphibian hunt, Henry crept down to the cellar, located an old bottle of whiskey, and nipped at some drying jerky and a softened apple. He came out and set the scene as best he could. He polished two glasses with his sleeve, then took a drag of the whiskey, noting that it wasn’t rancid. It never occurred to him that he would be trying to seduce The Widow Ruth with her own property.

Just then, the good Widow was trudging up to the house in a surprisingly better mood. She’d easily caught a couple of big ones, with thighs the size of several fingers. Despite the fact that she had planned to have Henry leave in the morning, they would still be eating some fine frog legs tonight, cooked in bacon grease. Appearances be damned, she did like good food, and she did like sharing it.

The minute she opened the door, everything began to go terribly wrong.

It was the smell. When Ruth and her late husband had been close to matrimony, Charles had ordered some very fine and fancy bathing oils all the way from some store in New York. It wasn’t that there was any sentimental value in them, some loving symbolism, it was that she had no idea where to get oils like that. And on nights where she felt decadent, she would pour a bit in for her bath, knowing it was not to last. They soothed her and helped her mind wander.

Those were her perfumed oils, nonetheless.

Henry Coalridge reeked of it. She dropped her quarry and scarcely noted that Henry had taken some of her glasses and put them out. Nor that he had poured the remainder of that old whiskey into them. She only smelled the expense.

“What did you—?”

“My dear Missus Hollow! You must be shivering. Why don’t you have yourself a seat? Or better yet, why not get yourself warm? Here, I’ll get a blanket.”

Ruth determinedly bypassed him to the bathtub. It was full of filthy water. Of him. Next to it, dumped unceremoniously on the floor, was a bottle of that fancy oil, empty of its contents. Henry stood behind her with a blanket and a pleading face. For all his charms, he was sometimes a very oblivious man. Despite the Widow Ruth’s seemingly cold and inexpressive countenance, even he understood that she was, to him, unreasonably upset. She kept clenching and unclenching her fists, looking from the tub to the empty bottle, to the recently freshened-up Henry, not saying a thing.

himIt occurred to Henry that this seduction was going terribly, terribly, wrong. It made him mighty nervous, and when he got nervous, he talked. “Now, ma’am, it occurs to me that you must be cold and that is doin’ nothin’ to mollify your temperament. If you’ll allow me, we can get you nice and warmed up in by the fire, you won’t be concernin’ yourself with whatever happened in that bathtub, exceptin’ that I have come to expect a bit of, uh, hospitality after stayin’ here so long and taken’ care of your good home. It is all a reasonable, neighborly, nay, Christian of you to have allowed me the use of your fine bath bein’ that it’s general hospitality, and this humble traveler, the man you see before you, has been too covered in filth as to seem civil—”

The Widow Ruth turned to him, eyes blazing like an iron poker. “Will you shut it!”

As expected, Henry Coalridge did not shut it. “Now, ma’am! That is no language for a lady! Especially one of your age and stature—”

He droned on and on after that, but after that scold about her language, Ruth did not hear Henry Coalridge, this bath stealin’ ne’er-do-well, but Charles Hollow. Because that was always Charles’ problem. He talked too much. And of all his talkin’, a good amount was to scold Ruth. But she got rid of that problem.

Before she had the time to think past her anger, Ruth’s hand reached into her leather bag, c****d her pistol, and pulled the trigger. She’d helped her father hunt since before she could bleed. Though Henry was pantomiming with the blanket in his arms, her aim was true enough. The bullet passed through his throat and lodged into the wooden door post.

Henry Coalridge collapsed on the floor. Not dead, not yet, but dying. The Widow Ruth did not have long to think, as she was still buoyed by her anger. Though Henry Coalridge could not speak or move, he could faintly see her as she pulled him by the collar out into the fading rain. She hunched over and pulled him down the familiar slope, familiar enough that she needed no light but the stars, out into that well burned in her memory.

The Widow Ruth pulled the dying Henry Coalridge, unable to beg for mercy, onto the ruined rocky wall. Without a second thought, she pushed him into the well. With a pause in the storm, she wiped her hands on her coat and trudged back, ready to cook her frog legs.

Henry Coalridge lay collapsed at the bottom of a drying and ruined well, only recently wetted by that heavy rain. His companion in the dark, watery stone enclosure was already bony, missing a hand with his teeth on display. Henry Coalridge would die a few minutes after sunrise, after a gray butcher bird swooped in to look for more insects among the remains of Charles Hollow.

If Charles could have spoken, he might have mentioned he bought that oil from a traveling salesman at a fair. It was supposed to have foxglove, opium, the likes to relax a lady. He might have mentioned that he bought five bottles that day: two for his young, soon-to-be wife, and three for his mistress. It seemed that Charles could never hold his tongue long enough to put a woman at ease, something he failed to learn up until the day it killed him.

In the sunken remnant of a mostly ruined well, in the middle of no-man’s-land Nebraska, Henry Coalridge watched with spotted vision as a gray bird hopped its way towards him to dine on whatever miniscule creature was hiding in his hair.

The Widow Ruth, after long scrubbing the tub and dining on frog legs, prepared her own bath. Perhaps it was out of spite, perhaps it was a sudden recklessness that comes after doing a deed that did not need doing, but she decided to use the rest of that oil in the bath. She relaxed into the water and dreamed of her bare feet treading a creek.

A legless frog carcass sizzled in the morning sunlight.