Effigy Read online

  Dorrie could replace the pebbles—pry them loose from their sockets, chip out the hard putty and push in fresh, set in a shiny pair of number nine browns—but it’s an idea she’s never seriously considered. It would render the old bird more lifelike, more like all the rest. Something he is not.

  Mr. Cruikshank came out of nowhere that day—or rather everywhere, the wide world beyond the farmyard she’d called home since she was seven years old. His long legs carried him down the Burrs’ dirt track, a fat carrying case hampering his stride. Mama took off her apron, told Dorrie to go into the kitchen and walked down to meet him at the gate.

  Dorrie slid down in her chair when her mother led the stranger in through the kitchen door.

  “Dorrie, this is Mr. Cruikshank. He’s come to speak to your father about some work. Sit down, Mr. Cruikshank.” Mama crossed to the cupboard and took down a glass.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Burr.”

  Dorrie said nothing. She was thirteen years old but built like a riding quirt. His tone showed he’d taken her to be the age she looked.

  The three of them sat in silence for a time, the visitor sipping the plum juice he’d been given, Mama seating herself before a pail of potatoes, turning one after another against her knife. The spotty ones she passed to Dorrie, who dug in her knifepoint to twist out bruises and sprouting eyes.

  Mr. Cruikshank held his tongue until they’d peeled close to half the pail, then reached down to the case at his feet. “Do you mind, Mrs. Burr?”

  Mama glanced up. “Go right ahead.”

  A leather tongue held the two halves closed. When he thumbed its brassy hasp, the case sprang wide, a hairless creature that had been holding its breath. Reaching into the nearest half, he withdrew a glossy wooden box. Its dimensions were those of a modest jewellery case. Its contents proved infinitely more precious than any locket or brooch.

  The bird would have fit snugly in the cup of her hand. It was neat-headed, chubby, perfectly preserved. Heavenly blue marked with a cirrus waft of white. Mama smiled. Dorrie felt herself stand and draw close to the stranger and his prize.

  “Budgerigar,” he said softly.

  “Budge-eri—”

  “Or just plain budgie.”

  “Budgie.” Her mind was racing. “How—”

  He grinned, patting the open case at his feet. Dorrie knelt for a better look. Glint of bottles, gleam of blades. Mama set her potato aside and peered over the table’s edge. “Why, Mr. Cruikshank, what on earth?”

  It turned out that what appeared to be magic was in fact the result of a series of physical acts. Once Dorrie had secured Mama’s permission, she led Mr. Cruikshank around back of the barn, finding to her delight that the crow Papa had stoned that morning had yet to be carried off in the mouth of a fox. She stooped for it, and Mr. Cruikshank, comprehending, laughed.

  “Very well. Have you a table where we can work?”

  The butcher block in the shed would do nicely. He was a generous teacher, talking her through the process step by step, letting her learn with her hands. They began by loosening the wings.

  “Bend them back until you feel the shoulders touch. Gently now, you don’t want to break any bones.”

  She obeyed, easing the feathered limbs together across the crow’s back.

  “You can mount a bird with broken wing bones, but it’s sloppy work. A professional takes every precaution to avoid mutilating his specimen. Remember that.”

  The initial cut taught her much—how to slide the knife like a finger’s feeling tip, deep enough to sunder skin while leaving the flesh beneath it intact. Mr. Cruikshank kept up a steady stream of instructions, sprinkling handfuls of cornmeal over the crow’s body from time to time. “You can always clean the feathers later if you must, but it’s better not to spoil them in the first place.”

  She smiled at the ease with which the skinny legs pushed up out of their skin. Mr. Cruikshank handed her the heavy scissors, and she snapped through each of them at the knee. After stripping the toothpick bones clean, she thrust them back inside their leathery socks.

  Next he talked her thumb and forefinger down either side of the ribs until they met at the small of the back. “Sever the tail at its root. Use the scissors. Careful you don’t cut into the quills—your tail feathers will drop out if you do.”

  The skin could be peeled back now. The crow became a raw hand emerging from a glossy glove, its skull the final joint of the middle finger. Dorrie cut through both shoulders cleanly, releasing the black fans of the wings. Which left the delicate work of the head.

  “Never pull,” her teacher said quietly. “Use your thumbnail. Push the skin gently from the bone.”

  Dorrie felt her way. The folds that were tucked into the ear holes came out with a combination of prod and pluck. Mr. Cruikshank took over to work around the eyelids but allowed her the satisfaction of skinning down to the crow’s black bill. Stooping to his case, he retrieved a heavier knife, with which he sliced deftly through the back of the bared skull, separating it from neck and tongue. The body adhered nowhere now. The skull, like the wings and leg bones, would remain with the hollow skin. Mr. Cruikshank laid the stumpy torso aside.

  Dorrie was surprised when he told her to guide the tip of the fine knife around the socket of an eye. Her hand shook a little, and she was grateful when, for the first time, he reached in over her shoulder to steady it with his own. Together they loosened the dark brown balls, scooping one, then the other, out whole.

  “Never, ever burst an orb, Miss Burr. Treat your specimen with respect.”

  After the eyes, there remained the small matter of the brain. Three secret, judicious cuts and out it came.

  He taught her a great deal in those few short hours—how to poison skin and bones with a coat of creamy soap, rendering them resistant to both insects and rot. “Take extra care about the wing bones, Miss Burr.”

  She learned how to ease the skull back inside the skin, to tease the face and head feathers flat with the tip of a pin. Mounting the black bird then became an exercise in restoration—all they had removed, they now constructed anew. A brain of wadded cotton, a trunk of tow wound firmly with thread. Wires anchored in the new body gave shape to the neck, wings and legs. A fourth curved out beneath the tail, this last to be snipped off at its base in a week or so, once the skin had dried, allowing the tail feathers to set.

  Threading a needle’s narrow eye, Mr. Cruikshank showed her where to sink the four small stitches that would hold the crow’s breast closed. When the last of these was tied, she bent its neck and limbs into a modest roosting pose.

  “Be sure the flight feathers overlap one another cleanly.” He folded the wings, pinning each to the body at the wrist joint, then shoving a further two pins in either flank for support. Withdrawing a pair of pointed tweezers from his breast pocket, he handed them to her. “Neaten him up. Whatever state he dries in, that’s how he’ll remain.” She nodded and began picking over the crow, teasing every stray quill into place. Together they wound thread in complicated patterns about the pins that held the wings closed, further assurance against any hint of disarray.

  It was then that he sent her to look for the eyes. She was only gone for a few minutes, but by the time she returned, both sockets were lined with moist putty, and Papa had come in from the fields. His moustaches were wet with labour, lank. He sucked at them, his eyes blazing. Mr. Cruikshank stepped away from her side to meet him.

  Her memory of what followed is incomplete—she was so intent upon the crow, the final, unsupervised step of setting its ersatz gaze. Fragments of heated discussion filtered through.

  “I don’t understand you, sir.”

  “Don’t come the innocent with me. You Gentiles are forever sniffing around our women—”

  The crow was black, yes, but not only. A shimmer of green about its shoulders, blue along its cawing throat.

  “You think—my God, man, she’s a child!”

  What more there was to it, Dorrie nev
er knew. In truth, after doing the decent thing and naming the crow after him, she seldom spared her teacher a thought. His departure signified little, as he’d already set her on the path. Her mind was alight. So many creatures in the world, and all of them going to die.

  Saddling Ink for the thirty-odd-mile ride to Salt Lake City, Erastus keeps his back to his first-born son. Can’t help hearing, though, the overeager rattle of him rigging up that blasted horse. Erastus bought the pretty, difficult gelding in a moment’s soft-headedness, made a first anniversary gift of it to Thankful. She kept the red sash he’d tied around its neck—turned it into a surprising set of drawers, in fact—but refused to go near the horse.

  He never actually gave the palomino to Lal. Just left it festering in its stall, let it grow desperate for the field while the boy got up the guts to ask.

  “Can I ride him?” Voice cracking over a few short words.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Can I name him? I picked out a name.”

  Erastus left this last unanswered. Days later, he heard the boy whispering his choice in the gelding’s ear. Bull. Not many could’ve gotten it that far wrong.

  Erastus feels his upper lip contract. He plays with the notion of changing his mind. I believe I’ll go on my own, is all he’d offer, let Lal’s face fall as it may. And wouldn’t it be fine, riding out for the city alone. Fine, yes. If only he could make out the terrain that lay more than a few yards beyond Ink’s nose.

  He tried spectacles, some four or five years ago now. It was a bit of a trick getting his hands on a pair. The nearby town of Tooele was out of the question—a crack hunter could scarcely wander through the front door at Brother Rowberry’s and declare to all and sundry gathered there that he was getting on for blind. He knew of an apothecary’s in the city, though, tucked away down a side street, quiet in the late stretch of day. There were no other customers in the place, but he locked the door behind him all the same, dragging down the blind. The man behind the counter stood steady. There were reasons besides robbery why a man might visit an apothecary on the sly.

  Erastus tried on pair after pair, drawing them from the straw nest of their crate, settling them straight-armed and precarious across the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t see far enough within the shop’s walls for a proper test, so he opened a gap at the blind and peered down the dusty lane.

  One pair did it, a bit slithery around the edges but the centre crystal clear. He could think of nothing but dropping his first quarry—something tricky, an antelope maybe, or a bighorn. That and the look on the Tracker’s face when Erastus told him to hold his fire.

  The thrill lasted until the city fell away behind him—houses thinning out, yards expanding to become farms. At the first unpopulated stretch, he tried the spectacles on. They stayed put while he kept Ink to a careful walk, but threatened to fly off at any kind of speed. Closer to home, he cut across country, dismounting when he was well into his own land but still a good distance from the house.

  The damn things made a fool of him then and there. Without them he couldn’t discern the target. With them he couldn’t line up his sights. He hurled them down as a child might and crushed them beneath his heel. Once mounted, he grinned bitterly to hear Ink follow in his footsteps, grinding the lenses beneath her hoof.

  His vision is much deteriorated since that day—back then he could still trust himself to make a journey alone. He might take the Tracker with him to auction, if only the mulish devil would ride. There’s no way in hell he’s drawing up to that crowd with an Indian sharing his saddle, hugging his back. Besides, being Paiute, the Tracker doesn’t know the first thing about handling horses. Lal tends to come down on the nasty side of things, but at least he can keep a string of colts and fillies under control.

  On the up side, the pair of them will turn heads together. Erastus is a man of reputation, mounted on the finest-looking horse in any crowd. Bull makes a good contrast to Ink, an eyeful in his own right, so long as he chooses to behave. And there’s no denying Lal’s the sort both women and men watch. His mother’s son. It’s as close as Erastus will come to parading Ursula around Temple Square—the city no lure to her, even if it is the City of the Saints.

  Truth be told, Erastus would just as soon not go himself. It’ll be a day spent feigning interest in gaits and bloodlines, followed by a short night in a shared hotel room and the chore of the return ride. Hard to believe he used to have trouble sleeping the night before an auction. He can recall lying awake in a kind of fever, wondering how much his best colt would fetch, or whether a promising mare or even a stallion would catch his eye. It’s been five years since he felt moved to buy a new horse. Last night he slept like a stone.

  Ink stands waiting, kitted out. Mounting up, Erastus feels a familiar rush at assuming her height, a pride that encompasses both the horse and the springing strength extant in his fifty-twoyear-old thighs. Once seated, he nudges out a stately, long-legged walk with his knees.

  At his back, Lal opens the corral gate, cursing as he organizes the young horses in their string. When he finally takes his seat, grunting, the palomino paws and blows. Erastus gnaws at his lip, keeping himself in check. Ink trots up at his signal, the track disappearing before him as they leave the waking ranch behind. They’ll do fine today, just fine. Lal manages well enough in town—it’s in the wild that he’s no earthly use.

  Erastus used to let him tag along on hunts or roundups from time to time, telling himself the boy would harden into something worthwhile. It must be three years now since he last spun himself that particular line—yes, three, because Eudora had lately come to stay. In that case Lal would’ve been sixteen, old enough that Erastus should’ve been able to count on him. He shakes his head, recalling how his eldest son blanched at the sight of blood on that stark morning.

  Erastus had heard talk of horse thieves at work in the region. Twin brothers, once good Saints, now apostates, were headed out the back door of the Territory, grabbing what horseflesh they could on the way. It was the Tracker who brought word that they were cutting favourites from the herd on the far pasture.

  Erastus rode out at a gallop with the Indian clinging to his waist, while the boy floundered along behind them, kicking the palomino’s ribs in to keep up. He drove Ink hard, but running was a joy to her, and before long the herd hove into view. Or what he understood to be the herd. What he saw was a particoloured, shifting copse. As they drew closer, he could make out a pair of forms that jutted above the canopy, wheeling to and fro.

  The brothers fancied their odds. They held their ground and started shooting. Erastus turned loose on their wavering forms, his revolver bucking in his hand. The brown arm that swung up from behind him worked its weapon like an extra digit. Gesturing with muscular precision, it picked one twin, then the other, out of the panicking herd.

  If the boy got off a single shot, Erastus didn’t hear it. Chances are he had both hands around the saddle horn, hanging on like a slip of a girl.

  The twins’ own two horses were full-blood trotters, a chestnut gelding and an iron-grey mare, both welcome additions to the herd. The brother who fell first had a set of saddlebags tooled all over with a western vista—jagged peaks, trees clustered along a riverbank—the neatest bit of leatherwork Erastus had ever seen. The bags were wet with blood, enough so it ran in the many licks and hollows that made up the scene. To let the colour sink and stain would’ve been a shameful waste. Having quieted the spooked horse, Erastus worked the buckle loose and hailed his son.

  There were dirtier jobs going than rinsing a pair of saddlebags in the nearby creek. Dragging a pair of matching bodies to a single grave, for instance—the Tracker didn’t need telling, he was already breaking ground with his pick. You wouldn’t know it, though, to see the look in Lal’s eyes. It wasn’t like Erastus to justify his actions—especially not to one of his own issue—and yet he found himself muttering something about sins beyond saving, apostasy being at the top of the list. Had the boy never heard of blo
od atonement? Didn’t he know there was only one substance that could wash those brothers’ souls clean? Brother Brigham himself had asked the question—Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood?

  In the end the boy did as he was told, but he handled the bags as though they were a pair of lungs still breathing. After that he helped the Tracker cover the twins with dirt and gathered brush to build a fire on the spot—thereby throwing animals off the scent and hiding any change in the earth. The whole time dropping things, stumbling over his own two feet.

  Since then any outing that included Lal commenced and ended with the wheel-cut trail they follow now, known hereabouts as the Hammer Track. Ink knows the road and wants to run it. After a mile or so Erastus lets her.

  “Hold up,” Lal cries, already falling behind.

  Dorrie’s rhythm is all off. It’s mid-afternoon and she ought to be sleeping—or if not sleeping, then working on the wolves. Instead, she paces from the small window at the back of her barn to the smaller one beside the door. The back view sprawls southwest down the greening valley. The front looks northeast into the circle of yard. On perhaps the twentieth pass, she halts to watch Sister Ruth exit the main house and cross to her stunted trees.

  The swelling under Ruth’s apron troubles Dorrie. How will the second wife carry on with her work next year? Can she possibly pick leaves and bear them to her worms with a baby dragging at her breast? True, she can look forward to Mother Hammer taking over once the thing is weaned, but by then she will have lost an entire season.

  Babies are a deal of trouble, but at least they can be laid down and left to cry. Ruth’s older children are dutiful—Mother Hammer has made them so—but they still require tending. Someone must feed and wash them, teach them to be virtuous, to warble out songs, to read. Endless trouble. Endless need.

  Once, in the dead of Dorrie’s first winter on the ranch, the eldest daughter made the mistake of bringing that need to her. Hammer had dropped off a frost-stiffened snowshoe hare only an hour before. Dorrie was just getting to work on the thing when she felt a sudden blast of cold and looked up to find Josephine standing mutely in the crack of the door. The stove threw its heat her way. Stupid child, holding a door ajar in January. Telling her to close it would be risky, though. She might take it as an invitation to step inside.