Frontier

Frontier

Sunday September 18

I have buried my husband without a prayer. God is not listening. This place is beyond Gods reach.

It is equally futile to hope.

The baby fights but she is weak. The sweats will win. Just as they did with my husband. She is too small to win this battle.

I regret I didn’t have time to name her.

I regret I never asked my husband why.

Why did he think this land could be tamed?

Why did he bring me here promising a good life.

This place eats life.

I regret the fever hasn’t taken me too.

Monday September 19

The baby has succumbed.

Tuesday September 20

I dressed the baby in the white lace christening gown I made over months of close stitching and embroidery.

At least it had more practical use in the end.

During the day there is much to keep me busy. The cow must be milked. The chickens fed, eggs collected.The pig and her piglets thrive. I tend to the garden and marvel at how the crops flourish despite the cloud of death that hangs overhead.

I bake bread for tomorrow.

I will take one of the horses and make the two day trip to our nearest neighbors. They are good people. Swedes, I think. The parents have little English but the oldest children have a good enough understanding. I will let them know what has happened. Perhaps I will tell the Swede to take the farm for their oldest boy in exchange for help getting to the next outpost.

Grief subsides now I have a plan. It is important in these most adverse of circumstances to form a plan.

My husband was weak in that respect.

If nothing else has come out of this, I have learned to only trust my own keen instinct.

Friday September 23

I return to the farm today. I will not call it home because it has never been a home of mine. Less so now.

The Swedes are dead.

Seven children’s corpses. Oldest to youngest laid out on the floor.

I am sorry the parents did not go first. Their anguish still echos through the house. They lie together holding hands.

I do not wish to write anymore tonight

I do not wish to think.

Monday September 26

I have brought back what provisions I could carry from the Swede’s and any livestock that remained. A fence had been trampled and the horses were missing. But the the stupidest of the chickens, a cow and calf and a servile carthorse waited patiently for their owners to be revived.

The dog was more cautious and stalked us over the journey and is now outside my door. It is more trusting now I have fed and watered it. I suppose we have formed an understanding. He lies outside assuming a pose that suggests he is providing protection.

Against what? The dog cannot fight the pox, the epidemic that has swept through.

I will not resign myself to a life here. It is not so much a life as a lingering death.

Trader Stan will come through again in a few weeks. His cycle is irregular but I gather he frequently returns to this area to hawk his skins, dried meat and jerky to the settlers littering these plains.

He will be able to guide me back to a civilized world.

The travelling preacher may also pass through. I am less inclined to expect help from him.

Every so often the dog lifts his head as the wind blows through as if there is something out there to catch his attention.

I have my husband’s shotgun. I pillaged the Swedish woman’s kitchen knives.

I think the dog is mistaken. There is nothing out there. It is a world of nothing. The dog and I are at its epicenter.

Wednesday September 27

The wind never ceases. During the day it whips up dust, leaves, feathers and perhaps dead souls. The chickens are perturbed and cluck worriedly. The dull Alderney cow is oblivious. My other cow is jittery as the leaves fly about us while I try to milk her. She kicks out at shadows. The dog paces around us in anxious circles.

I am inside the house now and the light is poor as I write. Somehow the wind finds the cracks under the floorboards and the door and the room is chilled cold.

At night Wind raises its voice to a ceaseless howl. The dog lays its head in my lap and I cover its ears.

I have named the dog but I’m not sure the name will stick. He looks straight through me without any hint of self recognition when I say his name. “Zachariah”.

September 30

Trader Stan is overdue.

The wind's shriek has been joined by something else at night.

Whispers.

The whispers of the dead this land has claimed, I fancy.

The dog whines unhappily.

He sleeps on my bed now.

Although I don’t think he sleeps any more than I do.

The whispers hiss from outside

October

Something bangs at the window. As I write.

Zac barks frantically. It stops for a short time. Then starts again. I pace the room with the shotgun ready, then resign myself to the knowledge what is out there will not bleed.

Outside the wind howls. The moon is full and bright. The washing I forgot to bring in dances in the bright moonlight. White shirts linking arms. Whirling like dancers unable to stop

The whispers almost form a word.

ALONE. ALONE. ALONE.

Trader Stan has not been through yet.

Late October

I rode to the highest point to see if there was any sign of life other than my own.

The human world has been wiped away, like an unanswered sum on a blackboard.

I watched as a flock of small birds took flight as a hawk circled in on them, picking off the weak.

I felt I had witnessed truth.

I returned to the Swedes. I had considered moving there to escape the sounds that haunt the homestead.

The wind did not follow me.

Instead I lay awake listening to the chattering gossip of girls working on embroidery. I smelled the aroma of baking from an oven that remained stone cold. Outside at dawn there was the sound of boys shouting to one another as they undertook their chores.

In the morning as I saddled the horse, I thought I heard the sound of a violin.

I followed the melody as Zachariah chewed at my sleeve trying to pull me the other way.

At the stream behind the house a naked man stood in the water. He played notes I had never heard of before. It felt like crystals entering my brain. The sound peirced my good sense as I walked towards the musician. He smiled, long yellowed teeth in a hideous grin, yet still I was compelled to walk closer to the music.

Zachariah howled, intertwining his canine lament with the notes, lassoing them and flinging them aside.

I turned and ran back to the horse. When I looked back at the stream there was nothing there but dappled sunlight, sprinkling diamonds on the water.

I will not spend another night in this house.

Another Night

I took books from the Swede’s. Mainly childrens books.

Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales.

Brothers Grimm.

Not very comforting.

I read a story to Zachariah, then pause to write in this journal. Zachariah wags his tail. I have lit the fire and the warmth seems to dull the sounds of the whispers that normally wrap around the house.

The next story I read was about a King who feeds a flea to the size of a sheep. Then promises the hand of his daughter to anyone who can guess where the pelt came from. He feeds the suiters flea stew.

It seems like a poor trade but I can relate. My father put my marriage contract together and here I am.

In the story the princess is rescued by half giants. They have miraculous skills. One creates a field full of razor blades.

A crop of razor blades might be a prudent move.

November or December?

I find Zachariah bleeding and weak.

He is in pain.

His eyes tell me he wants an end from this.

You and me both, puppy.

I use the 22 rifle that belonged to the oldest Swedish boy. Before the light goes out I see gratitude in the dog’s eyes.

Laughter, high pitched giggling surrounds me after the deed.

I shout to the wind, “Goddamn you.”

Then I think God who?

The voices have taken form. They are thin transparent whisps of creatures who travel in the wind. They see me too. They laugh at my predicament and sometimes mock me, imitating the whines of the dog that I miss so badly. I burn sage to hold them at bay but they outnumber me. The whispering has changed. It's become a melody. A soprano, an alto, weaving harmonics. They sing to the accompaniment of a violin. They sing the same song over and over.

Alone. Alone. Alone.

Godless solitude.

This is oblivian. The edge of nothing.