The sheriff himself had never personally squared off against the Kid. But he assured us that when they finally met, that villain’s days of riding roughshod over the laws of the Dakotas would be over.
Susie’s daddy and some of the other men in town told stories about outlaws to scare their children. But Sheriff Branch never aimed to terrify us; he always promised that while he was the law in Fairchild, no outlaw or anyone else would harm a hair on our heads.
“As long as you mind your mama,” he’d add, winking. “If I hear you’ve been giving her a moment’s trouble, I’ll drag you down to the courthouse to stand trial.”
I had always loved Sheriff Branch and his visits. He rode a quiet horse named Maudie, and when he came to call he let us pet her mane and feed her lumps of sugar or carrots from the garden. But this time I remembered Lucy McGarry, and I was afraid. I knew I was right to worry when the sheriff refused coffee and Mama’s spice cake.
“I can’t stay long,” he said. “Maybe the three of us grown-ups could talk?”
Mama told Janie and Jessamine to take Bee upstairs, and only then did Sheriff Branch accept a seat at our table. He took off the white hat he always wore when he was working, stared at the brim of it, and made as though to brush some dirt away although there was no dirt there. Despite his work, Sheriff Branch was a shy man.
“I heard there’s been trouble in your marriage,” he said finally.
Mama didn’t wait for me to answer.
“It’s Claudine,” she said. “She never liked Ada. She made that house a hell for her. Stress isn’t good for conceiving children, Sheriff. You know that.”
Sheriff Branch had just one child, a daughter. He would have had no children and maybe no wife if not for Mama. The sheriff was friends with Dr. Carlisle, and had asked him to attend the birth of his first baby. But Dr. Carlisle had little experience with births, and when Liza Branch’s labor stalled, the baby’s head halfway down the birth canal, he began to panic, pacing around the house and muttering to himself while Liza howled in pain. Finally he called Mama, who was able to turn the baby’s head from front to back so Liza could push her into the world. Sophia was born blue and barely breathing, but Mama revived her; another half hour stuck inside Liza, Mama said, and the baby would have been beyond help.
Since the birth, Liza had been unable to conceive again. Mama had visited many times to give tonics and massages, but nothing had worked—finally, she had told the Branches that perhaps they were not meant to have more children. Sheriff Branch became distant from his wife after that, but doted on his daughter as if she were five children.
“Claudine can be a handful,” the sheriff said. “But I’ve started hearing complaints. Greta Thorsdottir says she saw Ada walking the fields at night carrying a dead hare. Agatha Dupuy says she and her daughters have all come down with womanly ailments in the last month.”
Mama shook her head. She looked completely calm.
“Sheriff,” she said, “you’ve known Ada since she was a child. How could you possibly suspect her of what those women are suggesting? You know Aggie and her daughters are always coming down with something, usually imaginary.”
The sheriff nodded. His brows were knit. He kept twisting his wedding ring around on his finger.
“True enough,” he said. “Ada, you’ve always been a good girl. As long as you stay with your mama, and stay out of trouble, you won’t hear any more from me.”
He turned back to Mama.
“Of course, she can’t attend births anymore,” he said. “She’ll have to find something else to do.”
Bee came down the stairs as Mama was seeing him off.
“That’s ridiculous,” Mama said, “but all right. She’ll help me at home with the herbs and tinctures.”
The sheriff stood, taking his hat in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to make this call.”
“So why did you make it?” Mama asked. She kept her voice even but I could see how angry she was.
“Evelyn, you know what I always say is the most important part of my job.”
“Protecting children,” Mama said. “But my daughter hasn’t harmed anyone. She’s barely out of childhood herself.”
The sheriff nodded. “And hopefully she never will harm anyone. But if there’s even a chance that she’ll hurt a baby, or keep a baby from being born—I couldn’t live with myself.”
His voice was cracking.
“You understand, don’t you, Evelyn? Of all people?”
“We’ll do what you ask, Sheriff,” Mama said, standing up and moving toward the door. “That’s all I can promise.”
For weeks I lived under a kind of house arrest. In the mornings I woke, made breakfast for my sisters, then sat and read in my bedroom while Mama went out on calls. Sometimes in the afternoons I’d bake corn muffins so that the house would smell good when my family came home. It was not an unpleasant life, especially after my husband’s house, and I might have lived a long time that way, except that at the beginning of March, the town had an outbreak of German measles. In one week, three pregnant women lost their babies. One was Lisbeth, the mayor’s niece; one was Mrs. Covell, who taught the lower forms at the school; and one was Rebecca, the new wife of Albert Camp, who worked in the bank, and who had been widowed the year before.
School was canceled; my sisters stayed home. Janie and Jessamine plaited each other’s hair and told increasingly outlandish stories about what they would do once they were allowed outside. Bee sat by the window and watched the empty street. Mama still made her rounds, but when she came home at night she was troubled, and circled the house doing small tasks as though trying to outrun her mind.
“The general store is closed,” she said, “and the bank. The church is empty—Father Simon visits once a day to light candles for the babies. Even the saloon is deserted.”
She didn’t say it, but I knew what she was afraid of: too many lost babies at once, and people would start looking for the witch. I was not the only barren woman in town. Maisie Carter was still alive, still young even; if she’d been fertile she would still be having children. But no one saw her, she came into town only rarely and bothered no one. I was the one whose expulsion from my husband’s home was a fresh scandal, whose barrenness was news.
After a week, though, the sick began to improve. None of them died; the measles that had been so deadly for babies in the womb turned out mild for those already on the earth. The saloon started serving again, the congregants returned to church. The general store and the bank reopened for business. Then Mama came home ashen-faced: Ulla had lost her baby.
“I didn’t even know she was pregnant,” I said.
Mama ignored me. “They sent me away,” she said, shaking her head. “They had Dr. Carlisle attending her. If she bleeds out, it will serve her stupid mother right.”
“Why did they send you away?” I asked.
Mama looked at me with weariness and sorrow in her eyes and I saw the answer before I heard it.
“Ulla is saying you put a curse on her. She’s saying you made her lose the baby.”
“I haven’t seen Ulla in months,” I said.