The Virgin of Small Plains

Chapter Ten

May 31, 2004

On the Memorial Day after Nadine Newquist died, Verna Shellenberger went out early to visit the Virgin’s grave.

Nadine had been dead four months by then, but that wasn’t what drew Rex’s mother to the cemetery. At that hour of the morning, just before 6:00 A.M., mist lay on the prairie like a beautiful, graceful, dangerous gift that the chilly night had left behind for the morning. In the low places, the mist thickened to fog that swirled in her headlights like smoke from the pipes of a Pawnee ghost. Or Shawnee. Or Potawatomi. Verna could never remember which tribes had roamed these hunting grounds. Over the years of their childhood, her boys had collected a couple dozen arrowheads from high points in pastures, where warriors had lost them. But history wasn’t Verna’s strong suit, as she was the first to confess when watching the television show, Jeopardy! Her subjects were cooking, cleaning, raising boys, and putting up with husbands. Or, rather, husband. “I majored in family,” she liked to say when she felt inferior for her lack of a college degree. “You don’t need a fancy degree to get dinner on the table every night for forty years.”

Privately, she wished she had somehow managed to take a few college courses.

Just because she didn’t know any history didn’t mean she couldn’t learn it, she thought.

Or repeat it, she also thought, with a kind of gloomy optimism.

She had to drive with great care to remain safely on her side of the highway, which only added to her rising anxiety. It was worry that had pulled her out of a restless sleep and put her in her car so early in the morning.

There were long stretches where her headlights blinded her in the fog, and it was only the presence of the yellow line that pulled her along to the cemetery. She prayed no crazy rancher was trying to cross the highway with his cows in this weather. She’d known a few that crazy, but most of them had gone out of business-or died-by now. Still, cows and the men who herded them were unpredictable. She knew something about that, too, if she did say so. If a cowboy on a horse suddenly loomed in front of her in the fog, she wouldn’t be surprised. She’d be horrified, because she’d be bound to hit them with her van, but not all that surprised.

With a feeling of relief for having survived the ride, Verna eventually pulled through the cemetery gate.

Normally, she would never have come on a Memorial Day when half the county would show up with their bouquets of real or plastic flowers. Verna lived close enough so that if she wanted to visit graves, she could drop by anytime. It was only because she was feeling desperate that she was here on this day, out of all the days in the year. She had come early, for privacy, and hoped nobody saw her.

Verna threaded her car halfway up the road that led to the top of the hill. There, she pulled over to the side, parked, and got out. She felt a little shaky and out of breath, and had to pause a moment, with her hand on the side of the car, to steady herself before going on.

If she were a kid, she thought, as she started walking onto the grass, she’d feel spooked at being in a cemetery in a fog like this, where she couldn’t see three rows of tombstones ahead of her. But she figured she was too old to be scared by mere death. She had seen too much of it, between the animals and the friends.

The grass smelled newly mown; the air was damp against her skin.

Verna paused by a neat gravestone to say hello to one of them, her old friend Margie Reynolds.

“Hi, Margie.” She cleared her throat and folded her hands together at her waist. “You’ll be pleased to hear that Ellen is doing her usual great job as mayor. That girl is going to be governor some day, I swear. Quentin’s okay, I guess, but we hardly see him anymore. He seems to keep busy with his medicine, and not much else, as far as I can tell. I wish I could tell you that Abby has fallen sensibly in love with my Rex, and that they are going to get married, and that they’re planning to have grandbabies for you and me, but you’d never believe me, if I tried to put that one over on you.” Verna sighed. Neither of her sons, not Patrick nor Rex, had married yet. “By the time I get grandchildren, Margie, I’ll be so old they’ll think I’m already dead.” She purposely avoided telling her late friend about certain recent activities between her older son and Margie’s younger daughter, not wishing Margie to roll uncomfortably in her grave.

“Have you seen Nadine yet?” she inquired. “You know she’s here, right?”

Verna looked around, aware that she’d sound like a nut to anybody who heard her.

If the fog had ears, or there was anybody over the hill, she couldn’t see them.

“Well, I’ll see you later, honey,” she told Margie Reynolds. She started to walk away, but then turned back, and said, in a voice that suddenly trembled, “I still miss you. You oughtn’t to have gone so soon.”

Ellen and Abby’s mom had been only fifty-eight when the cancer took her.

Next, Verna paid her respects to the more recently buried Nadine Newquist.

“I hope you’re back in your right mind again, Nadine,” she said, rather more sharply than she had intended to speak. She told herself it was only because she was trying to pull herself together and get the shakiness out of her voice. “I’m glad you’re out of your suffering, but I’m sorry you had to go that way.” Reluctantly, she dredged up an insincere sentiment, just so she wouldn’t hurt anybody’s feelings. “I miss you, too.” Like hell, she thought, giving up all pretense of feeling the same about Nadine as she had felt about Margie. It was almost shocking what a relief it was not to have to endure Nadine’s barbed wit anymore. If anybody in the world missed that, then Verna was a monkey’s uncle. “Tom seemed kind of lost for a while without you,” she lied. The judge seemed like a man with a heavy burden lifted, as did many relatives of Alzheimer’s victims after their loved ones died. She and Nathan had Tom over for dinner once a week, and it was good to hear the big man laugh again.

“It’s a good thing that he’s got Jeff to take care of.”

As if he ever does, Verna thought, but also didn’t say. No use worrying dead people.

Briskly enough to be almost rude, Verna walked on toward the real goal of her morning.

On this day, with the snow long gone, the simple gravestone stood fully revealed: Peace Be Unto You, 1987. While Verna was in the hospital in Emporia, Nadine and Margie had led the community drive to raise money for the girl’s burial and stone. Then Nadine had topped off the donations with enough extra funds to give her bragging rights to the available virtue. But it was a nice stone, with a hint of pink in its color. The McLaughlins, who owned the funeral parlor and the cemetery, had donated one of the very last plots in the picturesque old part, so there could be a real headstone, and not just a nondescript marker. That’s what everybody had wanted-something that stood tall and substantial, as if to verify that even an unidentified girl had once been real. Everybody had cared, was how Verna remembered it. Everybody had felt awful about what had happened to the girl, and even worse about the idea that nobody had claimed her. The girl had died a stranger among strangers, and so the kindhearted strangers had buried her. That’s how Verna was determined to remember it. History wasn’t her strong suit, which meant she could write it any way she chose.

“Good morning,” she said, formally, to the gravestone.

“I’m Verna Shellenberger, in case you don’t remember me.” Verna had made a few previous trips to the grave, in years past. “It was my husband and boys who found you. I’m awfully sorry about what happened to you, though I expect that’s long gone from your mind by now. Probably even forgiven, too,” she added, hopefully.

“The reason I’m here is to ask you to help my Nathan. I know he doesn’t deserve it. I know all about that. But he’s in constant pain now, from the arthritis. It’s got him so crippled up he can barely leave his bed some days, and it just kills me to see him like that. The only pleasure he ever gets is when he goes to town to have lunch with Quentin and Tom. I know that Harmony Watson said you cured her baby’s colic, and Frank Allison is convinced you made his shingles go away. He was in awful pain, too. And now he’s just fine.”

Verna wondered if she should kneel and fold her hands, as in prayer.

She decided that wasn’t necessary, and besides, the ground was damp.

“If you can find it in your heart to help Nathan, I’d be so grateful. I know this probably doesn’t work tit for tat. Nobody’s ever said you require payment of any kind.” Too late, Verna realized she probably should have brought flowers, just out of respect. “But I’d be glad to help out somebody else, if you let me know if there’s anything you want me to do. Not as payment. I don’t mean to insult you. Just as, well, a kindness in return for what you might do.”

Tears sprang to Verna’s eyes. Her husband was only sixty-five, but he moved like a ninety-year-old man. It wasn’t only that she felt sorry for him, but also that it was hard to live with somebody who was in as much pain as Nathan was, and who was as bad-tempered as he could get when the pain got the worst. The doctors had said he could live a normal life span with this misery, which meant that she could live another thirty years of keeping company with his miserable self, too. The thought of it made her envy her departed friends.

The night before Nathan had actually cried from pain, and she had cried with him.

It had frightened Verna, and sent her out early on this morning to beg.

“Please,” she said to the silent grave. Please, please, please.

Maybe it was just the fact of saying it out loud to somebody, or maybe it was something else, but Verna was suddenly swept by a wave of peace such as she hadn’t felt in years. Her muscles, her internal organs, her very bones relaxed. It was wonderful, a feeling Verna wished she could keep forever. Even if her wish for Nathan never came true, at least she’d had this moment of unexpected, blissful peace of mind and heart.

“Thank you,” she whispered to the Virgin.

When Verna turned to leave, she discovered that while she had been concentrating on her errand, the mist had lifted, revealing a bit of sunshine, stretches of green grass, rows of gravestones…and the fact that she wasn’t alone, after all.

“Oh!” Verna exclaimed as a young woman in blue jeans and a green T-shirt stepped out of the fog. Her hands went to her heart, in shock. “Abby!”

“Verna, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“What are you doing here so early?”

“Memorial Day,” Abby explained. Her T-shirt had white letters above her left breast: Abby’s Lawn & Landscape. “Gotta have it looking its best. What are you doing here so early?”

“Paying my respects,” Verna hedged, without admitting to whom. “I didn’t see your truck.”

“I parked behind the maintenance shed.”

It was only then that Verna noticed there were clippers dangling from Abby’s gloved hands, and now the fog also revealed a black plastic yard waste bag behind her. “How long have you been here? Did you hear me talking to myself like an idiot?”

“I’ve been here awhile.” Abby gave her an apologetic smile. “I came to get some last-minute work done, but then I couldn’t see a damned thing in the fog. So I was just sitting on a gravestone, waiting for the fog to go away, when you came up. I couldn’t see it was you, and I didn’t want to scare whoever it was, so I just kept quiet. By the time I realized it was you it was too late to say anything.” She made an embarrassed grimace and laughed a little. “I was kind of hoping you’d leave and never know I was here.”

“What did you hear me say?”

“Oh, nothing! Really. Not much. But…I’m so sorry that Nathan is having such a hard time.” Abby had taken to calling her parents’ friends by their first names when they encouraged it, which Verna Shellenberger did. Quickly, as if she just wanted to be tactful and change the subject, Abby said, “Verna, who do you think she is?”

It was impossible for Verna to pretend that she didn’t know who Abby was talking about. Abby had pointed the tips of her grass clippers straight at the tombstone.

Verna shook her head, afraid to say anything.

“What was it like, that night they found her, Verna?”

“What was it like?” The older woman looked at the grave rather than into Abby’s frank blue eyes. She had always loved Abby like a daughter, but at this moment she wished the earth would open up and swallow one of them so she didn’t have to answer questions like that from a girl she didn’t want to lie to. “What do you mean, what was it like?”

“I mean…what do you remember about that night? Did Nathan tell you about finding her, or did Rex? Was it awful for Rex? I mean, he was so young…”

“It was pretty bad,” Verna admitted. “I was sick that night…you wouldn’t remember this, but I had pneumonia and even went to the hospital the next day…and Rex came in and sat on the edge of my bed and told me they’d found…a girl’s body in the snow.”

“I thought I heard you tell…her…just now that your ‘boys’ found her.”

Verna’s breath stopped when she heard those words come out of Abby’s mouth.

“No, not both of them. Patrick wasn’t even home,” she stammered. “It was just the one of them, it was just Rex and his dad, that was enough, believe me.”

“Why did you say that Nathan doesn’t deserve her help?”

A chill of fear swept through Verna, so that when she breathed again, her body shivered.

It was obvious that Abby had heard every word she’d said, and now the girl was unnervingly curious about it. Just like her mother, Verna thought. Margie Reynolds had been bright and curious about the world, and so were her daughters. The Reynolds women liked to collect facts, even from people who were chary with them.

She fought to keep eye contact with Abby, to let nothing of the sick dread she was feeling on the inside show on her face. “Just that he’s an ornery old cuss,” Verna said, with a laugh that she hoped didn’t sound as forced as it felt coming up from inside of her. “You know Nathan, Abby. If he even knew I had come out here to ask for help from a ghost, he’d disown me. That’s all I meant, that he wouldn’t even be grateful if she helped him.”

Abby smiled and seemed to accept it. They were both quiet for a moment, and then Abby said, “Do you really think she cures people?”

Verna felt suddenly exhausted. “I don’t know.”

“I guess it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

“No,” Verna said, in a near-whisper. “I hope it doesn’t.”

“I wonder if I knew her.”

Verna’s head jerked up and she stared at Abby. “What?”

Abby wasn’t looking at her, but was frowning toward the grave. “I wasn’t paying attention, Verna. I was all swept up in Mitch leaving. But I’ve been thinking about that night, and how she…” Abby nodded toward the grave. “…was in my house that night.” She shivered visibly enough for Verna to see it. “My own father saw her all beat up like that. It must have been terrible for Dad, too, but we’ve never even talked about it.”

“Abby, I don’t think you ought to talk to your dad about that.”

Abby looked up at her, with a puzzled expression. “Why not? Verna, sometimes it seems like everything in the world changed that night, or at least everything in my world. It wasn’t just that Mitch left the next day. It was that my dad was never the same, either. It was like he withdrew and never came back to us again.”

“Well, it was…upsetting, Abby. Why would you want to make him remember?”

“But I’ve never even asked him about it. I’ve never told him I care about how it affected him. Maybe if I did, he’d open up and…”

“People don’t need to open up,” Verna said, with a feeling of desperation that went even deeper than what she’d felt in coming to the grave. “That’s just psychology stuff. People need to get over things and go on with their lives…”

Abby smiled at her, a sweet smile that told Verna that she was being humored.

“Okay,” Abby said in a pacifying kind of way. “Maybe I’d better get on with trimming around the headstones.”

“And I’ve got to get back to fix breakfast for Nathan.” Verna paused before turning to go. After a moment’s hesitation, a moment in which she told herself it would probably be better if she didn’t say anything else, she said, “Why are you so interested in the Virgin now, Abby? I’ve never heard you ask about her before. What’s different now from any time during the past seventeen years?”

She watched Abby take a deep breath and let it out like a sigh.

“When Rex and I found Nadine? It was like something inside of me woke up, Verna. It’s like I’ve been asleep all these years, not even realizing how much other people were affected by…her death. It just seems like it’s way past time for me to think about somebody besides myself. I never even thought much about her.” Abby nodded toward the Virgin’s grave. “She was young. She could have been somebody I’d seen, or maybe I’d even met her. And I never even thought much about her, I was so wrapped up in myself.”

“I’m sure you didn’t know her. Nobody around here knew her.”

“How can you be sure, Verna, if we don’t know who she was?”

Verna thought Abby Reynolds was one of the least selfish girls she’d ever known, so she didn’t understand at all what Abby meant about thinking of people other than herself. Verna only understood that if Abby was waking up to that crime, the way she had just said she was, then Verna needed to persuade her to go right back to sleep.

“The best thing you can do for her is to let her rest in peace.”

Abby gave her a funny look. “But nobody lets her rest in peace, Verna. Not even you. Everybody wants something from her. And it just seems to me that it’s about time we all gave something back to her.”

“What?” Verna’s heart was pounding. “We gave her a funeral, Abby. And this grave, and that headstone. People cared, they really did. We still do. But what can we possibly give her now?”

“We can give her her name back,” Abby said, in a firm voice that frightened Verna more than any specter walking out of the fog ever could. When either of the Reynolds sisters made up their minds to do something, it tended to get done, come hell or high water. Ellen had wanted to become mayor, and it happened. Abby had decided to run a landscaping business, and she did it. Verna forced herself to pay attention to Abby’s next words, over the deafening pounding of her own blood in her ears. “We can find out who she was, or at least we can try again. There’s new technology. Rex will know. There have to be things he can do now that Nathan couldn’t do back then.”

“Abby, don’t…”

But Abby had bent down to clip a handful of grass that her mowers had missed. She didn’t give any indication of having heard Verna’s words, or of recognizing them as the warning they were. Suddenly the smell of the new-mown grass threatened to rise up and suffocate Verna; her chest felt tight, as if she was having an allergic reaction, or even a heart attack. She grabbed the front of her dress with her right hand, but dropped it hastily when Abby stood back up and looked at her again.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t…” Desperately, Verna searched her mind for a substitute to what she was really thinking. “…forget to come by soon. I’m making blueberry pie today.”

Abby grinned. “I would never forget such a thing.”

After a few moments, Verna slipped away with a quiet “Bye,” and a repeat of her invitation to drop by soon. When she reached her car, she turned to look back and saw that Abby was staring at her.

Abby waved. After a moment’s hesitation Verna waved back.

Abby knelt on the damp grass, clippers in hand, as her old friend’s mother, and her current boyfriend’s mother, drove away. People could be so resistant to change, she thought with both fondness and irritation, even to good changes. What possible harm could it do to finally put a name on a grave? She looked up in time to see Verna turn onto the highway. Rex’s mom looked small behind the wheel of her car, and plump in a way that reminded Abby of a dozen other local women. On this morning, Verna was wearing one of the A-line, cotton shirtwaists she favored, a short-sleeved, print dress belted at her waist that made her plumpness blossom below the belt and above it. It was a style that made her upper arms look full and fleshy, and gave her a pale appearance that belied her actual physical strength. Abby knew that Verna Shellenberger could lift a calf or toss a hay bale across a fence, if she wanted to.

When Abby couldn’t see Verna’s car anymore, she stood up and scanned the horizon.

She could never look out over such a span of prairie without thinking about the Indians who used to live there. Her mother, who had loved facts and dates and history, had made her aware of them from the time she was old enough to look for arrowheads in the dirt. And now Abby found herself thinking about another time and another crime that nobody talked about, just like Verna Shellenberger didn’t seem to want to talk to her about the murder of the Virgin.

Once, the Osage and Kansa tribes had roamed forty-five million acres, including the patch of ground on which she stood. They had shared it with thirty to seventy-five million bison. If she used her imagination, she could almost hear the pounding hooves and see the dark flood of animals pouring over the fields. But the Indians had been chased and cheated down to Oklahoma, including a forced exodus in 1873. The bison had been killed. Abby had friends who owned a bison ranch, and she had toured it, had stared into the fierce eyes of an old bison bull. In search of native grasses to plant and sell, she had also walked onto the land of Potawatomi, Iowa, and Kickapoo reservations that remained in the state. She had a natural affinity for underdogs, and she thought she had at least some small sense of what it must be like to feel helpless in the path of history. She couldn’t solve those million crimes, but she thought that maybe she could help solve one crime.

On her way out of the cemetery, Abby whispered a few words to her mother, and then she touched the Virgin’s gravestone.

“If you’ll tell me who you are,” she promised the dead girl, “I’ll make sure that everybody knows your name.”