mckinleymontana.com

by Mary Scriver

The little village of Twenty Mile is about twenty miles from McKinley, or it used to be before McKinley grew out that way.  Twenty miles was about as far as a team and wagon can travel in a day, at least comfortably, so there was a little mercantile store there, not much more than a provisioner but also a post office, more by evolution than by design.  The post office is gone now.  Caused a major fuss when it was closed because people hate to lose evidence of their pasts even when they’re over and done with.

My aunt Tildy was the clerk for a very long time, which wouldn’t have been remarkable except that she was blind.  It was the neatest little trading post you ever saw, because otherwise she couldn’t find anything.  Of course, the mail was a bit of a problem, because you have to read the addresses on the envelopes, and regular postmasters sort them into alphabetical pigeon holes, according to the names of the people.  But Tildy had just two big pigeon holes: IN and OUT.  People could pick out their own in-coming letters.  Or sometimes they’d see something that belonged to a neighbor and deliver it on the way back home.  It’s not as though there were very many.

Of course, everyone read the postcards — well, them as could read.  Tildy had sensitive enough fingertips to feel whether there were stamps on the envelopes.  She had to be a little careful about it because otherwise she might have to buy a stamp herself, and though they were only pennies, she didn’t have pennies to spare.

In fact, her clothes were always a little startling.  She was neat and clean and the patterns were pretty standard, but women made their own clothes in those days and she would use up the material left on the bolt after most of it was sold.  Sometimes the color combinations were pretty bold.  Not that she needed to dress very special anyway.  About the only place she ever went was to the church four miles away.  She had an old mule who was remarkably gentle and she could saddle him up by feel.  The mule knew the way.

The church was a good one and they had hired an eloquent and handsome preacher.  He was a single man and that kept everyone’s attention, in order to see who could catch him.  Tildy loved him.  Once they had a big shindig, a wedding for a rancher, and everyone came from miles around.  They stayed dancing and  — truth be told — doing a little drinking until way into the night.  When it was nearly dawn, they laid out all the food again and finished it off.

The teenagers looked sly on the way home but no one realized why until their wagons pulled into their yards.  The babies had all been put to sleep in the backs of the wagons while the grownups had their fun.  The teenagers, who weren’t even called teenagers then, had quietly undressed all the babies and re-dressed them in other baby’s clothes, switching them to different wagons, so gently that not one baby woke up or cried out.  It wasn’t until the mothers took a good look by daylight that they realized what had happened and faced the rather grim fact that they would have to turn right around and go back, losing another day’s work and tiring the horses further.  There were no telephones.  It was years before the ringleaders confessed.

Neither the minister nor Aunt Tildy had to attend that second meeting to exchange babies so no one saw them at the little store that day, talking so intently.  No one saw them embrace.  The minister had decided to resign in order to go back to school for a higher degree and he proposed to Aunt Tildy.  He said that if she could wait for him a year, then after he had gotten his advanced degree and a better church somewhere, he would write for her to come to him.  He’d send train fare.

Of course, he wrote back to Tildy while he was at that advanced school and, of course, the letters had to be read to Tildy since she was blind.  People were willing to do it and, anyway, curious to know what their minister said.  The truth was that they had NOT wanted him to leave.  They loved him and were used to him and were really quite angry that he deserted them for such a foolish pursuit as a higher degree.  What use WAS such a thing, anyway?  But they helped Tildy write back.

Then it dawned on them that as the year completed its circle they would lose Tildy as well.  Much discussion about the situation resulted.  Some of the single women were jealous and wanted to write to tell Tildy’s minister that she was marrying someone else.  The older women said that Tildy, being blind, might never get another offer and should have such a chance to better herself as this one was.  The younger women retorted that the handsome minister was just wasted on a woman who couldn’t even see him and anyway, she didn’t dress properly.  She would embarrass a minister, who had to keep standards.

The men didn’t quite know what to think but they felt there was nothing anyone could do about it.  The teenagers hearing that could not resist the temptation to interfere.  It was the same ones who had mixed-up the babies.  Of course, they knew when the letter with the train ticket in it was likely to come and they managed to intercept it.  They burned the letter and gave the train ticket to an abused boy  so he could run away, good and far away.

Once someone caught Tildy smelling the letters, hoping to find one that smelled like the minister.  He sent more letters, which were a nuisance to spot and remove, but gradually he stopped.  Of course, they made sure none of Tildy’s letters got out, though a couple of soft-hearted girls cried when they read them.  Then came a postcard from Europe.  Then nothing more.

One day the old mule died.  Not long afterward Tildy died, too.  The boy who had used the train ticket intended for her had managed to get back east to a small city where he found a job and a sweetheart. When his mother wrote to tell him about Tildy, his conscience got to him. He sent a letter with the whole story to the newspaper. At his new church, the minister subscribed in order to keep up with old friends. When he read the story and told his wife, they both wept, he for grief and she for secret gratitude. Then they prayed together.

Then the minister’s daughter was born, he wanted to call her Tildy but his wife refused. Finally, he named his beloved dog Tildy.

by Mary Scriver

(Dedicated to Josephine, who loved cats, and who told me part of this story herself– she was the sheriff’s daughter.
Also dedicated to Richard Wheeler and his cat, “Doc.”)

The old sheriff sat in his office looking grumpy.  His old gray striped cat, Doc Holliday, lay in a box behind the stove, probably close to death, which is why the sheriff was grumpy.  His deputy had offered to take the cat out on the prairie and shoot it, put it out of its misery, and was unable to understand why the sheriff flew into a rage.  The young man had only been trying to help.  If it hurt so much, best to end it quick.  Anyway, it was only a cat.

The kid didn’t know that the cat was given to the sheriff as a kitten by Angeline.  No one in this little town even know Angeline.  She was from the life before this one and that’s probably about all he should let himself remember about it.  The motherly woman who served him his hash at the boarding house knew about Doc being sick — he’d asked for advice about nursing the cat.  She’d said (looking around to make sure no one was listening) that it probably wouldn’t hurt to put a little whiskey of a good quality in Duke’s milk.  He didn’t tell her that he’d been doing that for years.

“You better get another cat as soon as you can,” she suggested.  “Otherwise, that old office will be overrun with mice.”  Her look said to him,  “Get a new cat… and maybe later you’d like a woman, eh?”  He wouldn’t, but he didn’t tell her that either.

So now, having sent that stupid deputy off on some errand, he sat in his office and considered putting some milk in his whiskey, just to keep Doc company.

The door banged open and hung there swinging, but at first he couldn’t focus on who came through.  Then he realized it was a little girl.  Only the top of her face and a mop of curls showed above his desk.  “Are you the sheriff?”  the girl asked.

“Yup.”

“A strange man is wrestling with my mom in the bedroom and neither one of them has any clothes on.  I’d get my dad but except he’s in the saloon and they won’t let me in there.”  Her voice piped like a little bird.

He realized who she was, who the lovers were, and most of all, who the killer would be if dad left the saloon earlier than usual.  He knew which house the “happy family” lived in.  He reached for his gun, thought better of it, and reached for his hat.  “You stay here, girlie,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because you see that cat in the box?  Well, he’s dying and I don’t want to leave him alone.”

“Is he your friend?”

“Sometimes my only friend.”

“Okay.  I’ll stay.”  She went over to squat curiously beside the cat, looking with open eyes, unafraid of death.  She’d seen it before.

When the old sheriff got to the little board house, he didn’t bother to knock.  He strode into the house, dragged the woman out of bed and wrapped a sheet around her.  Then he threw her over his shoulder and toted her out to the front room, which was both sitting room and kitchen, where he shifted her so she lay over his knees.  “Roy,” he roared at the man scrambling around in the bedroom,  “Get the hell out of this house, out of this town, out of this county, and if the day don’t end too soon, get clear on out of this territory.  Or I swear I’ll do something terrible to you!”   Roy went out the door, panicked but not too scared to check the street before he bolted out and down the street, part of his clothing on and part of it in his hands.

“Sheriff, you let me up!” squawled the little girl’s mother.

“Your little tiny daughter has more sense than you do!  You ought to be horsewhipped, but this will have to do instead.”  He pulled the sheet off her round bottom and rendered it plumb rosy with his big hard hand.  Then she really DID make some sounds, quite aside from the regular smacking of calluses hitting tender flesh.

“Stop!  Stop!”  Now she was dissolving in tears.  “I won’t ever do it again.”

“Do what?” demanded a big swaying shape in the doorway.

“Well, there’s the man of the house,” remarked the rather winded and slightly aroused sheriff, setting the woman of the house on her feet.  “I’ve had a complaint about you folks not bein’ a proper family.  You booze too much and she flirts too much, and it’s contributing to the moral rot of this town.  Therefore, I promised that I’d put you both on probation for six months.  If you don’t shape up, I’ll throw you outta town.”

“You can’t do that,” wavered the man, dubiously.

“Try me,” said the old sheriff as he got up and stalked out.

When he got to his office, the cat was dead and the little girl was rocking it in her arms, sitting with her back against the old board wall and singing a lullaby.  He was grateful the cat didn’t die alone and that it had soft sweet arms around it at the time.  More than many men had had when the door opened to the other side.

“He’s gone but it’s all right,” said the child and carefully put the limp fur into the old man’s worn arms.  “Did you make them stop wrestling?”

“Don’t think they’ll do that for a while.  If it starts up again, come back and tell me.”

“Okay,” she said, no questions asked, and went on her way.

The old sheriff had a little more whiskey, no milk, before he took the cat out of town to a quiet burial place.

At the end of six months, on an exceptionally bright day, he made it his business to drop by the little house of the girl whose mama he’d spanked.  He’d heard that the papa had finally gotten a job and seemed to be keeping it — so far.  When he walked up to the house, the little mother was sweeping off her porch steps.   She was pregnant and seemed happy about it.  Smiling at him, she called through the screen door,  “Angie, your friend is here.”

“What’s that little girl’s name?” demanded the sheriff, shaken.

“Angie.  You like it?”  She put her arm up to shade her face so she could see him a little more clearly since his voice sounded a bit strange.

“Is it short for anything?”

“Naw, just Angie.  I read it in a story.”

Angie came out on the porch, glowing with happiness to see him.  “Come on in,” she said.  “You’ve gotta see!”  She wrapped her hand around his hard, gnarled old trigger finger and towed him into the house.

“Over here,” she directed and as his eyes gradually adjusted to the indoor shadows, he saw a box of kittens with their mother.  Angie lifted out one — gray striped, white bib and socks — and held it up to him. He didn’t take it. He figured he didn’t want more cats. She put it, mewing, on his chest — which was actually belly — and it took a grip on his shirt with its tiny claws. He couldn’t help cupping his hand over it to keep it from falling. Feeling the warmth, it stopped mewing and purred.

“It’s too small for you to take home yet,” directed Angie, but I’ll bring it to you when it’s ready.” She never asked about whether HE was ready.

But when she brought to the kitten to his office, he had prepared both a bed and a cat box.