chapters 3+4
Chapter 3: 1893
Jebediah had a promising future at one point in his early life. He was a shrewd and merciless businessman. His first job in Dennis Mercantile was the proof in the pudding. His boss, Mr. Dennis had seen a great future for the young upstart. He had not yet earned the reputation for a cruelty that exceeded his reputation for a keen business acumen. Or an infamy that would haunt him throughout his adult life.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Dennis had been so fond of young Jeb, that he had introduced him to his oldest daughter Gloria. Much to everyone’s surprise, the couple could be seen everywhere. Gloria, although she came from good breeding, seemed the unexpected companion of Jeb. Her shyness was in direct opposition to his outgoing disposition.
In his youth, Jeb was a handsome man. All the women could agree on that much about him. He was also creating a comfortable life for himself. He could have had his pick of a wife. Some of the other eligible women looked on Gloria with green eyes. So it came as no surprise when the gossip had started.
Gloria wasn’t what anyone would call attractive. She was plain, with a simple but lovely face. Not much of a figure. And, some would say, a bit slow. It was widely agreed she lacked a certain nuance for common sense. She wasn’t at such a disadvantage that people felt bad for her. She came from money and was on her way to marrying well.
Her younger sister Abigail, on the other hand, was the polar opposite of Gloria. Five years younger, with the face of an angel and the blossoming body of a woman, she was already the talk of Providence’s local society. The social coterie all marveled at her prospects.
A year into the relationship and people were expecting to hear of marriage plans. Instead, a heavy shadow grew and cloaked a once shiny future.
Mr. Dennis had demanded Jeb no longer see Gloria. He was also fired immediately. Let go, bag and baggage, never to even speak to the Dennis family again. The suddenness of this change had sent a wave of shock so devastating, that it kick started the gossip mill to spin again, sewing a daisy chain of tittle-tattle that could have circled the earth.
The younger sister’s social speculation also took a dark turn. Abigail was sent away suddenly and with little detail. It was rumored that she went to live with relatives in New York where there would be more opportunity for her future. It was rumored… but other seedier stories seeped into the public ear. Whispers of attentions far too amorous. Whispers of gifts far too lavish for such a young girl. Whispers of a man who shouldn’t be so close to a child.
Jeb was ostracized by the local business community. His fate and fortune started to dwindle. The only way Jeb could maintain his lifestyle was to get involved in less reputable means of income. Only those with more sordid reputations would give him work.
Jeb found himself in the employ of a local hood called Alfredo “The Shark” Ferrante. The Shark had gotten his name for two reasons. The first was that you didn’t want to be a smaller fish in his sights. He was known for taking over the ventures of those who lacked the means to stave him off. The second was Alfredo had hyperdontia. A crooked second row of teeth poked out along the roof of his mouth.
“Everybody’s gotta eat,” he would tell Jeb. “You just gotta eat first.”
That wisdom was the most important lesson of his low vocation.
So Jeb’s spiral began. He found himself in the illicit world of bare knuckle fighting, gambling parlors and whore houses. It turned out he had a knack for that type of business too. So much so that it garnered him a fitting repute in the Providence underbelly. Among the crowd who trolled back allies and dive bars it was very well understood that it wasn’t wise to owe Jebediah McKaw money.
He made a quick transition from john to pimp. For a short period he managed a small brothel owned by the Shark. But his cruelty toward the women kept him from getting the endeavor to pick up momentum. When one of his stable found herself in the family way he would force turpentine down her throat. If that remedy didn’t work he would perform abortions in a basement room of the whore house. More often than not, neither mother nor baby survived. The women would also often be seen with bruises and cuts. “You gotta lay off with those hands,” The Shark would tell him. “No guy wants to put it to some dame that’s all marked up. I mean, nobody buys the bruised fruit. Capisci?”
***
The next big event in Jeb’s life came in the person of Jerry Smith. Jerry was a man with deep pockets and shallow luck. After too many losses at the fights and the tables he was in deep to Jeb. Jerry drained his accounts and sold his market but still couldn’t come up with enough.
“Jerry,” Jeb sat across from him. His face shadowed in red light. “Jerry, Jerry what are we goin’ to do here?”
“I know I’ve been having a spell of bad luck but I’m good for it. You know I’m good for it Jeb.”
“A spell? I have never seen a man so out of luck as you.”
“You know I’m good for it. I just need more time.”
“Yeah, Jerry I know you’re good for it. But, it’s not up to me. The Shark, he wants his money and he wants it today. It’s either come back with the money or come back with your head. My hands are tied.”
“There has to be something we can do here? Can’t you talk to the Shark? I’d be willing to do anything. I’ll make payments. Work it off.”
“It’s too late for payments Jerry. Of course, if the deal was right I could see my way to giving you the money. Seeing as were old pals.”
“You’d do that for me? You wouldn’t regret it. I’d pay you back every cent.”
“Well, I wasn’t thinkin’ of a loan. I was more interested in a sale.”
“Jeb I don’t have anything left to sell. It’s all gone.”
In an attempt to settle the debt, his fifteen year old daughter Rose, was promised to the now thirty year old Jeb. Because of who he was, the exceptionally young age of his bride, and the Abigail incident that no one ever really forgot, he wasn’t allowed to live in any respectable areas of Providence. Jeb decided on a more rural life. His plan was to go legitimate. In an attempt to give Rose a “respectable” life he bought a piece of property in Ashland. There he built the most comfortable house he could. It stood two stories, a gleaming bright white construction with strong black shutters, majestic in the sunshine. The property ran along Devil’s Pike, a main route into Providence, making it one of the only homes in Ashland to have electricity.
***
“What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?”
The freshly married Rose McKaw stood shyly in the parlor of her new home. Her world was very different now. Until a month ago she was going to school with her friends, learning to sew with her mother and dreaming of the boy she wanted to marry. Until a month ago, she had never heard of Jebediah McKaw. Today, she was his wife and had no idea what to expect next. Her mother had tried to talk to her about it but every time she began it would end in tears.
“Rose, you been quiet all day. Why don’t you say somethin’ to me?” Jeb took her by the arms.
“I like it just fine. It’s a nice home.”
“You like it just fine?” Jeb’s voice was no longer gentle. He had been drinking all day and his good nature was in short supply. “Do you know what I put into this house? It’s got the best of everything. And it’s all for you. All of this is for you.”
“Thank you,” Rose eked. She was getting scared and couldn’t bring herself to look him in the face.
“Thank you? Well, you’re goddamn welcome. Any other woman would be thrilled to have a place like this. But you ain’t even moved.”
“I–I…”
“Any other woman,” Jeb continued. “You know, that’s your problem. You ain’t no woman. You’re just some gangly little girl. You don’t know how to appreciate a man.
But, by god you will.”
In her dreams, Rose had always imagined being carried over the threshold on her wedding day and brought gently to the bridal bed. Not having her innocence roughly taken on a cold hard kitchen floor.
***
Life had seemed to be turning around for Jeb. A year after his marriage to Rose, The couple was expecting their first child and only child. Complications during the pregnancy had left Rose unable to conceive again. It was difficult news for the young couple but at that time, baby Eleanor was all the McKaw family needed.
Jeb’s hand for farming hadn’t the same Midas touch as his mind did for illicit enterprise. He couldn’t get the land to supply much more crops than what he needed to feed his family. The chickens laid few eggs. The cows gave little milk. It was a failed experiment into the straight and narrow. With all the money spent on the house, supplies, animals and equipment needed to set up a working farm, Jeb couldn’t afford to hire the extra hands to get the land to pay off. Rose’s inability to bear children put the idea of a family farm out of reach. And with his dwindling fortune it was a lot of pressure on the new family.
Ugliness wasn’t far behind.
It didn’t take long for Jeb to go back to his old ways. Now it was Rose who would show up with marks about her body. He could be seen drunk and cavorting with the town undesirables. Soon after that Jeb was back to running around with the local whores.
But Jeb was still shrewd and not short on ideas. With the influx of immigrants and the expansion of Providence he knew a need for land would be forthcoming. His neighbor, Harold Sweet, ran a successful dairy farm across the road. It made Jeb envious everyday that Harold could prosper so easily where he continued to fail. What irked him even more was the large and fruitful land Harold had owned. With that much acreage Jeb could easily rent some out to smaller scale farming or sell off pieces for the growing house market.
The problem with that idea was Harold had no reason to sell. Life was good on the Sweet Farm. So Jeb had taken the liberty of poisoning the cows’ food supply. Thus, killing off a large enough portion of the herd to force Harold to sell.
Even with the acquisition of the Sweet’s booming dairy farm Jeb still failed. He couldn’t manage to maintain the prosperity of the land. He had to let most of the workers go because he couldn’t afford the payroll. The few remaining cows were older and at the end of their lucrative cycle. He sold those off to the local slaughterhouse for a piddling sum. Like all other good things in his life it wilted before his eyes.
A short time later, his wife died…
Chapter 4: 1900
Rose lay limp in the dirt of the barn floor. Blood soaking the ground to the edge of Jeb‘s shoes. He looked down on her. Chills ran across his skin. A cloak had been thrown over the night. An imperceptible shadow cast to the verge of gloom. A whisper on the wind. The world had changed. Not the entire world but his small part of it. His small part in it. He proceeded to flop Rose into a wheelbarrow and fill the rest with the dark muck that encircled her body. What he couldn’t fit in the wheelbarrow he mixed around with clean dirt until the red mire was covered.
In the early morning sun, Jeb pushed his load across the creaky planks that spanned the rocky stream and up to a small clearing at the top of a hill in the back half of his acreage. It was a peaceful spot. A secluded spot. He had first come upon the clearing chasing down a stray calf. After that day he would sometimes take his lunch and some beer and sit in the shade of a big willow. From here, the view went on forever. Green. Blue. A place where a man could reason out his mind.
The swelling heat of the morning made the trek more difficult. By the time he’d reached the clearing he was wishing he had brought some of that beer. His tongue was like sandpaper rubbing on the roof of his mouth. He was being strafed by the flies that had started to gather around Rose. He had almost lost his grip on the wooden handles trying to shoo them away. Spilling his load was something he couldn’t afford. Jeb couldn’t dally. The Smiths would be dropping Ellie back home soon.
“Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,” Jeb murmured to himself. Words he recalled from some half obscured Catholic past. A time of stiff collars, self righteous speeches and ruthless beatings. Almost an hour later he had a decent sized hole then tilted the wheelbarrow pouring the damp load into it. Looking down at his deceased wife, her body twisted and covered in splatter, he only felt pause for the fact that he couldn’t think of any words to say. No remembrances he wanted to share. No kind words he wished to speak. Not even a tear to be summoned up from the darkest depths.
He had always known she would bring him to this.
Jeb recited the well worn prayer of “Our Father,” the only litany he remembered in full, over the grave because there was no reason Rose should burn in hell for him. Then began to bury his Rose
***
Sheriff Jason Radcliffe, a graying and burly man, arrived several days later at the behest of the Smith‘s. They were worried they hadn‘t heard from their daughter and had gotten little to no help from Jeb.
Jeb spoke to the Sheriff outside in the yard between the house and the barn so that Ellie wouldn’t overhear. The sun was a bright orange half ball on the horizon. The clouds were purple and blue in a pink sky. A colony of bats flew above the trees on the small hill to the north.
“You say she ran away?” Sheriff Radcliffe queried more to himself than to Jeb.
“Yup, she just up‘n left.”
“Why was she out in the barn that late at night?”
“Life on a farm never stops. There are always somethin’ that needs doin’.”
“You were out here with her?”
“No. Yes. I was comin’ in and out to check on her.”
“Okay. Where was your daughter when this was going on?”
“Ellie was in her room. She was sleepin’ .”
“Can I talk to her?”
“I’d rather you’d wait if you could. She’s still awful upset about her Ma bein‘ missin‘.”
“I guess I can hold off for now. Did your wife ever give you any kind of indication that she was thinking of leaving?”
“Nope. I thought things was good. We was gettin’ along real fine. I mean money’s been tight but we was survivin‘ .”
“And you weren’t having any problems?”
“Well, to tell the truth–is this all confidential?”
“Yes,” Sheriff Radcliffe reassured. “Anything said to me stays with me unless it becomes an official investigation.”
“Okay. To tell the truth, Rose wasn’t actin’ herself lately. I think she had gotten a touch sick in the head. She started tellin’ our daughter that I was some kind of monster. She’d straight out call me a demon. Said she could see my other face.
“I begged her to get help but she wouldn’t go.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Like I said, she wasn’t getting’ any help. And there’s only the two of us out here.”
“Why haven’t you reported it?”
“Well, if I’m bein‘ honest this isn‘t the first time she’s tooken off. There were a couple of other times but she‘d always come back a few days later.”
“Do the her parents know about her wanderings?”
“Nope. I didn’t want to burden them. I guess maybe I should’ve. This is the longest she‘s been gone. Frankly, I’m worried to death.”
“Where did she usually go?”
“She couldn’t ever remember. So I never pushed. I didn’t want to do more damage.”
“I’m sure. But when someone just disappears it arouses suspicions you see. I’m going to take your story at face value but I’m going to put in a few phone calls to some colleagues and see if I can’t shake something up. You know, like if she’s been seen anywhere locally or if there are other stories going around. You have no objections?”
“No. Whatever you think is best.”
“I’ll be back in a few days to give you an official report.”
“I’d be much obliged. Thank you for lookin’ into this for me.”
Jeb went back to the house cursing under his breath.
At least he was safe for now. Without anyone to dispute his story he should be safe from prosecution.
plan d 