The Broken Statue

Three

ThreeBridget woke the following morning with the sun not yet risen, but her window more charcoal than black. Her room frigid. She hesitated before leaving the warmth of her bed, then rushed to touch the stovepipe running up from the kitchen, through her floor, and venting out her ceiling. Cold. Mornings normally called Papa Henry, and he went down in the predawn to build up the fires. As the stove warmed the kitchen, the rising heat warmed her room. But not today.

She pulled on britches—a pair with only a single patched knee—and two flannel shirts. The now-empty hangers swung beside her only skirt. She’d need a few more for attending classes in the fall. Pants might be seen as unseemly attire for a female student and threaten her probationary status.

Before stepping into the hall, she stopped at her dresser and ran her hand down the sleeve of hanging red calico. Grandma Teegan’s braid was tucked carefully inside, and touching the talisman a morning ritual. She gave her own hair a couple of brushstrokes, twisted it into a sloppy braid, and pinned that to cover the narrow scar running over the crown of her head.

From her end of the hall, she couldn’t see inside Papa Henry’s room, only that his door was open, proving he still slept. Given his late-night tramp to the barn and his age, he’d earned a morning of sleeping in. She headed downstairs.

They had a system for conserving heat in the house. At night, they both left their bedroom doors open, Papa Henry to receive warmth rising from the living room hearth, and she to share the warmth from the stovepipe in her room. During the day, Papa Henry kept his door closed to keep as much warmth as possible from being drawn into his north-facing room and out the old windows. Of the three upstairs bedrooms, his was the coldest. Still, he preferred that room. From there, with the soft glow of the moon lighting the yard, he could peer out over the paddock, checking periodically for the yellow eyes of circling wolves.

Alone in the dark kitchen, Bridget shivered again, struck a match, touched it to the cord wick of a lantern, and replaced the glass shade. She couldn’t see more than a couple of feet past the window, but she knew yesterday’s snowdrifts still whorled across the yard and the country roads. Too high for buggy passage. For the second day, Dr. Potter would remain in town. Only an emergency would make him saddle his horse, use a stool, hoist himself into that saddle, and ride out to give assistance. Thankfully, no women were scheduled to deliver for a few weeks and no old men wheezed alone and needed a tonic or the touch of a supportive hand. However, illnesses and accidents—even so-called accidents like Mrs. Fester’s—didn’t stay away because of snow.

Kindling filled a box by the back door. A second box held the short logs Papa Henry had measured and cut to fit the stove’s firebox. Using the iron poker, she lifted the metal plate, added sticks, laying them crosshatched to allow for draw, then logs.

With the fire burning, she pumped water for the kettle and set it on the heat. Rubbing her chilly hands together, she eyed the eggs sitting on the counter. When Papa Henry walked into the kitchen, felt the stove’s warmth, saw eggs cooking, and smelled coffee boiling, his kind eyes would twinkle and a smile would spread across his wizened face.

Folks in town likely thought them an odd family—elderly Papa Henry with his dark skin, white hair, and half-Indian blood, and she with her poppy-colored hair, pale skin, and Irish blood. But a twelve-year-old girl with no one else, and a kind man with no one else also constituted a family. A judge believed so too, and put his signature on adoption papers. Henry Leonard became her legal father, though for the year previous, he’d already been the father by every measure. She’d always call him Papa Henry, not just Papa, the single word too close to Pappy, the man who’d abandoned her to Grandma Teegan in Ireland and taken away Mum.

Lifting eggs from the basket, Bridget hesitated at how cold and heavy they felt. She didn’t usually handle them first thing in the morning and never in a kitchen so cold. She shuddered suddenly, remembering the deer she’d seen the previous morning.

“Don’t be silly,” she whispered to herself. “Those deer didn’t mean a thing.”

From a can of lard, mostly bacon drippings, she spooned out a small dollop and dropped it into her frying pan. When the grease popped, she cracked in two eggs, the whites bubbling around the edges and turning golden. Tipping the pan to pool the hot grease in the lower curve, she spooned it over the tops of the yolks. The skin whitened just the way Papa Henry liked.

She took a long look through the door into the living room and to the stairs she’d used half an hour earlier. Though she tried to deny her growing unease, the knot tightened in her stomach. She slid the eggs onto a plate and dropped two slices of bread into the pan for grilling.

With everything done and the morning light brighter, she listened. No sound came from overhead, no weight creaked boards there or strained the stairs. She approached the barn-facing window, this time looking over the backyard. Only muffled tracks. Footprints half erased by the night’s wind and a dusting of new snow. Papa Henry had not risen before her and gone to the barn.

Her heart kicked. Wire? Even if the cold and a late night caused Papa Henry to sleep in, where was Wire? He ought to be sitting at her feet, his tail rapping the floor, his eyes begging for food.

She forced herself to walk, not run, through the sitting room and past the cold ashes in the fireplace. The absence of a single red ember meant Papa Henry had not woken even once in the night to add logs.

The staircase, full of a new day’s promise when she’d come down, looked shadowed. “Papa Henry? Wire?”

The blankets on his bed were thrown back. His shoes gone. Wire too. Trying to wrestle her mind around what it might mean, she half stumbled back down the stairs. Her coat hung by the kitchen door; the hook where he hung his empty. She forced herself to slow and take deep breaths. Papa Henry would laugh at her fright, or possibly be saddened by the fact that even after six years under his roof, she still felt so insecure. For how many months after moving into his house had he needed to come into her room at night, wake her from the same sobbing nightmare, dry her tears, and assure her she was no longer alone?

“I’m here,” he said night after night. “Right down the hall.”

She stepped out, winter’s cold grabbing her. The barn looked half a mile away, not just across the yard. She followed the tracks she’d help carve deeper the night before. Crossing the windswept hoof prints of four deer, she nearly cried out remembering how they’d come to her.

She went on, running now. Just because she couldn’t think why Papa Henry might have spent the night in the barn didn’t mean there weren’t a dozen reasons. Had a skunk or coyote wedged its nose in somewhere, gained entrance to the barn, and upset the horses? The night had been so cold, Papa Henry would have come to the house periodically to warm himself, leaving evidence that he’d been there: melted snow inside the door from his galoshes, a cold coffee cup, and the fires built up.

Meeting a set of horse tracks made Bridget stop and look carefully. They’d been made hours earlier. One horse coming down the lane to the barn and two leaving. She breathed easier; someone must have come for Papa Henry, an emergency requiring his help. Though why would he not leave a note on the table or wake her to say he was going? And Wire?

The sight of the broken barn door, the gaping maw of it hanging on one hinge, and the lumber buttress on the ground, threatened to sink her to her knees. No emergency would cause Papa Henry to leave the door so carelessly open to wolves and winter.

Wire bounded out of the building’s shadows and jumped at Bridget’s chest. She caught him in a momentary flood of relief, but he squirmed away, whining and scuttling back inside. She followed at a slower pace. “Papa Henry?” In the dim light, they passed Smoke’s stall, the gate open and the horse gone. Farther on, Papa Henry’s hat lay on the floor. Bridget’s heart hammered. Wire whined for her to hurry.

Deeper still, the four-horse team huddled, their ears high, their tails tight against their rumps. She patted flanks, coaxed them to separate and let her through. Papa Henry lay facedown on the floor, two blood-soaked patches soiling the back of his coat. The hilt of his own knife sticking up from one.

Wire howled.

She dropped to the floor at Papa Henry’s side, leaned over him, disbelief and shock wracking her with uncertainty, her lips an inch from his cheek. Barely visible puffs of his breath lifted in the cold air. She thought to run for Dr. Potter but couldn’t make herself stand again. She needed to think, do the right thing, and do it immediately. Ought she pull out the knife, end the horror of seeing the blade in his back? Or would that open the wound more, cause more bleeding? Indecision screamed through her. Going for Dr. Potter and returning would take at least a half hour. Maybe twice as long by the time he dressed and saddled his horse. Suppose he wasn’t home but called off to treat a patient? For all those long minutes, she’d be away while Papa Henry needed her.

“I have to go for help.” Yes, she had to. “I’m going for Dr. Potter. Please, please don’t die.” She gripped his hand and cried out in anguish.

At the sound, Wire pushed into her lap, stood on his back leg, braced his front paws on her chest, and forced his head under her chin.

Papa Henry’s hand, which only the night before had lovingly grasped her shoulder, was ice cold.

She lowered the dead weight onto the floor and let Wire push her over. Lying beside her father’s body, she knew she’d not seen his breath. She’d seen her own breath bounce off his frozen cheek.

Papa Henry was gone.