Chapter One #2
“Attention-seeker?” Kate exclaimed, her hot temper flaring. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Louisa?”
“Girls! That’s enough,” Mrs. Kerwyn said tiredly.
“Kate, we’ve already told you all we know.
After the kids brought you home, we got you cleaned up and fed and then called the sheriff.
He came out, asked us a bunch of questions,” she recited, obviously not for the first time.
“By the look of you, he thought you might be one of the Sauk tribe up near Prairie du Chien. Asked around, but no luck. Put out a national wire, but—”
“No one claimed me,” Kate finished, able to repeat the old story word for word. But if something had happened to her parents, wouldn’t some relative have claimed her? It seemed odd . . .
“Yes, that’s all we know. Sheriff Norris suggested taking you to Madison or Milwaukee to one of the orphanages there, but, well, by then, we couldn’t bear to part with you. Wanted to keep you.”
Like a pet, Kate sometimes thought on restless nights. She knew this was unfair, but now that she was on the cusp of womanhood, she simply couldn’t rid herself of this burning desire to know more.
“I guess I just want to know what happened to my real family,” Kate muttered.
“I thought we were your real family, Kate,” Mrs. Kerwyn said sadly, wiping her hands on her apron again, a nervous habit.
“I know, Mom. You are. But I . . . I want to know who I really am. Wouldn’t you?”
“Can’t say that I would, Kate.” Her mother retreated to the icebox and began rummaging.
“You’re upsetting Mom!” Louisa snipped. “Stop asking her about it! If you really want to find something out, why don’t you go talk to the sheriff? Seems he’d have more information than us.”
Kate considered. Why hadn’t she ever thought of this before?
“The thing I’ve never understood about that story is that there isn’t a Sauk tribe up near Prairie du Chien.” Edmund bit into another biscuit. “Not anymore, anyway.”
Kate looked at him sharply. “What do you mean? There is! I’ve read about them!”
“Well, there might have been once upon a time, but there isn’t now.
There haven’t been any Indians in southwest Wisconsin for about a hundred years.
I was telling the story to Uncle Bill the other day for some reason, and he said that story’s all hogwash.
Upper Wisconsin, maybe, but not lower. So, I don’t know what Sheriff Norris was talking about.
Maybe he didn’t really inquire up there.
” He took a sip of coffee. “Who knows? You might not be an Indian at all.”
Not an Indian? Kate just stared at him. She had spent her entire life thinking she was an Indian, so much so that she had insisted on wearing her thick black hair in braids until she was nearly fifteen to match what the kids had taken to calling her at school, thanks to Ray.
Indian Kate. And yet, this was the second person to suggest otherwise.
The first had been Frank Churchill, who guessed she was perhaps Slavic—an idea she had quickly dismissed at the time.
“You and your mother going to the potluck this year, Ed?” Mrs. Kerwyn asked as she set butter and milk on the counter.
“I am, I reckon,” he said, glancing over at Kate, who was frowning absently at the wall opposite, her thoughts whirling. “Don’t know about Mom. She don’t like to go out much anymore. ‘Specially in the cold.”
“Well, I don’t blame her.” Mrs. Kerwyn reached for her mixing bowl.
“I’ve a mind not to go myself. Won’t be the same without Lou Merriweather, will it?
Still can’t believe he’s gone.” She opened the flour canister and scooped some into the bowl.
“Poor Leola, what a blow. To lose your husband so young.”
“But we’re still going to go, aren’t we?” Louisa begged. “I told Vernon we’d be there!”
“Yes, I suppose.” Mrs. Kerwyn let out a weary sigh.
“Can I go, too?” Kate asked suddenly.
Mrs. Kerwyn looked up from her mixing, her brow furrowed. “Oh, Kate, I don’t know. You’re not strong enough, I don’t think. Normally, you’re the one begging to stay home.”
“But I missed the funeral,” Kate urged. “I don’t want to miss this, too.
” While it was true that she did not like crowds, nor did she enjoy making small talk, this might, she quickly realized, be her one and only chance to question the sheriff.
From what she remembered, he was usually there with his wife, as was Chief Meyers, the mayor, and all the city council members.
Besides the Harvest Fest and the Independence Day celebrations, the annual potluck was the biggest event in town, and a most welcome one during the long, dark days of winter.
And while Kate was not overly sentimental, there was a part of her that wanted to express her condolences to Melody upon the loss of her father.
It was she, after all, who had given her the chance to sell her baskets and make some extra money when she was trying to survive in the badger hole.
“Might be a chance to talk to Sheriff Norris,” Edmund suggested with a tiny wink. Kate looked at him quickly, a smile creeping across her face. Typical Edmund. He had ever been able to tell what she was thinking and feeling—sometimes before she was even aware of it herself.
“Oh, Kate, don’t go bothering people.” Mrs. Kerwyn began beating flour and milk together with a whisk. “Just let well enough alone.”
A surge of irritation erupted in Kate’s chest. How often had she heard this as a child?
Even when she had finally worked up the courage to tell her mother what Ray had done to her in a closet when she was ten, not long after Eula and Fern died.
Ray had teased and harassed Kate from the moment she came to live with the Kerwyns, but that day he had taken his torment a step farther.
He had trapped her, unawares, like a wild animal and had, well .
. . he had had his way with her. Months afterward, when she had finally told her mother what had happened, Mrs. Kerwyn had been disbelieving and dismissive, telling her to “let well enough alone,” which Kate found to be almost more devastating than the crime itself.
Thankfully, “the incident,” as Kate began to call it in her mind, only happened the once, though not for the lack of trying on Ray’s part.
Still, it had changed Kate as profoundly as the death of the girls had changed Mrs. Kerwyn.
Kate became ever more alert and wary, unable to be completely at ease unless she was alone.
Or with Edmund. Large crowds were therefore a nightmare, which is why she retreated so often to her attic garret and why the badger hole had been so inviting.
“Are you sure you’re feeling up to it?” Mrs. Kerwyn’s voice was tentative.
“Of course I am,” Kate said firmly, though in truth she suddenly felt a bit lightheaded.
But it was not due to her weakened state.
It was the realization that she might not be who she thought she was.
The thought filled her with unnamed dread.
Many a time, Mr. Kerwyn had opined that Kate’s dark looks and stubborn demeanor were her Indian blood coming out.
He did not say it meanly, but proudly, as if pleased to have an exotic bird among his surviving flock of blond, blue-eyed children.
But if she wasn’t a Sauk Indian, who was she?