Lone Women

Four weeks pass, and the weather becomes terribly cold, even though it is only October. One day, someone knocks on Adelaide’s door and she is so surprised that she remains frozen in her chair, unable to answer. Eventually a young boy peeks through her window, and Adelaide hears his mother chastising him. Adelaide tells the contents of her steamer trunk to “keep quiet” before eventually opening the door. She meets her new neighbors, Grace and Sam Price, who live in a cabin nine miles away. They knew that Adelaide had moved in because they could see the light from her cabin.

Immediately upon entering Adelaide’s cabin, Grace begins to offer pointed suggestions about how to improve the interior. Adelaide is initially put off by Grace’s attitude, but after Grace offers to help her assemble a shutter for her window, Adelaide decides to accept the woman’s friendship. She cryptically reflects that without Grace, it is likely that “neither” of them would have any friends at all.

Adelaide is also curious about Grace’s son, Sam, who does not hesitate to explore Adelaide’s cabin. She notes that he is drawn to the steamer trunk and assures him that any noises he hears inside are just the sounds of the wind. Grace occupies Sam by pulling a folder of newspaper cutouts out of her dress, which he eagerly reads aloud. Grace explains that she taught Sam to read; she is a teacher, though Sam is currently her only student. She tells Adelaide that the townspeople in Big Sandy won’t allow her to teach their children because they don’t want them interacting with Sam. Adelaide recognizes that the Prices are kindred spirits in their social isolation and ostracization.

Several days after the visit from Grace and Sam, Adelaide is visited by two cowboys, Matthew and Finn Kirby. When she hears the knock on her door, she assumes that Grace has returned and is startled to find two rugged-looking white men standing on the other side. They explain that they heard about her from Grace Price and wanted to meet her. The younger of the two, Matthew, invites Adelaide for a ride on his horse, and she accepts. During their ride across the plains, Adelaide learns that they are not cowboys; instead, they work on a threshing crew. She shares some of her own personal history with Matthew. Over the next few weeks, many other working men visit Adelaide, from shepherds to actual cowboys. Although she enjoys their company, she still feels a slight loneliness, as she longs for the company of other Black women. She remarks that up until this point in her life, she had never spent time with so many white men.

Matthew and Finn Kirby invite Adelaide and Grace to a dance, and Adelaide readily accepts. She has grown very fond of Matthew’s company. The dance is held on a farm several hours ride away, so the group plans to spend the night on the premises. Upon their arrival, they change out of their riding clothes, and Adelaide spends much of the night sharing dancing with Matthew. However, whenever she is not on the dance floor, she sticks close to Grace, who introduces her to many of the other women homesteaders, or “lone women,” who are also in attendance. Adelaide is frequently mistaken for the other Black woman on the Montana prairie, Bertie Brown. Eventually, Graces introduces Adelaide to a woman named Mrs. Rose Morrison. Adelaide is shocked to see that the woman is really Mrs. Mudge. When she addresses the woman as Mrs. Mudge, Grace is quick to correct her. Adelaide continues to press the woman, asking about her boys, but receives no answer and finally states that she must have mistaken this woman for someone else. Grace is mortified by Adelaide’s behavior.

Adelaide, Grace, and the other women and children pass the night in the main house on the ranch property. Adelaide notices that Sam chooses to sleep close to his mother rather than in the room designated for all the other young boys. Adelaide spends the first part of the night anxiously scanning the house and property for Mrs. Mudge before finally falling asleep. Matthew awakens her the next day, and although she is very drawn to him physically, she admits to herself that she does not want to become romantically involved because of his young age (he is only 23) and because of the family burden that she must carry alone. The two join Grace, Sam, and Finn outside with the horses. Grace is very cold to Adelaide, and Adelaide is disheartened. The women realize that although they arrived at the ranch on four horses, they have saddled the women on two. Matthew explains that during the night, four boys stole their other two horses, along with two belonging to the ranch owners.

During the ride home, Adelaide shares a horse with Matthew and relates to him the story of Mrs. Mudge and her four sons. Although he is initially skeptical, the information does cause him to feel defensive of Adelaide. When they arrive at her cabin, he inspects the interior and makes it clear to Adelaide that he wants to stay. Despite her previous reservations, she realizes that she would like his company, especially after the unsettling events of the preceding night. She invites him to stay the night at her cabin.

Adelaide prepares dinner for herself and Matthew Kirby, using the dwindling resources from her root cellar. Matthew asks her what she will do after the winter, during her first planting season. She plans to start with just a garden and then plant sugar beets, which Grace suggested. Matthew approves of the choice because beets will survive even in a drought. He continually refers to Adelaide as “Mrs. Henry,” and she tells him that if he is spending the night, he should call her Adelaide. They awkwardly but passionately make love in Adelaide’s bed.

Adelaide awakens later that night and realizes that Matthew has been violently attacked. Her cabin has been torn apart, and the steamer trunk is open. The contents of the steamer trunk are revealed to be a demon-like monster, which is looming over Matthew, attempting to mutilate him further. Adelaide jumps from her bed and onto the creature, referring to it as a “curse,” as she wrestles it to the ground. She reflects on the fact that ever since she was a child, she has been the only person able to physically best the creature because she is not as greatly affected by the sharp, blade-like scales that cover its body. She forces the creature’s head against the ground and overpowers it, leading it back toward the open steamer trunk. The creature resists being imprisoned again, but Adelaide coaxes it inside by singing a lullaby. It slowly but willingly reenters the trunk, and Adelaide shuts the lid.

Having secured the creature, Adelaide realizes that its padlock was unlocked and that her key is no longer hanging on the nail by the door. She turns around to confront Matthew Kirby, who is still alive and is now aiming his gun at the trunk. Instead of stepping aside, Adelaide accuses him of opening her trunk, and he admits that he did because it is the “only thing in here that’s all locked up” (85). Adelaide finds that she is unable to be angry at Matthew and brings him to her bed to tend to his wounds. As he slips into unconsciousness, she relates the history of the creature to him, not knowing if he can even hear her. She explains that the creature arrived at her home in the very same instant that she was born and that her family had considered it to be their burden ever since. She always wondered why they were “cursed” to be the keepers of this creature. Because of the connection to her birth, she wonders if it was somehow her fault.

Matthew spends the next several days recovering in Adelaide’s cabin. She considers killing him to prevent him from revealing her secret but ultimately decides against it. As he recuperates, Adelaide tidies up her cabin from aftermath of the attack and drags the heavy steamer trunk and its contents down into the root cellar. Adelaide finds the tin of photos that belonged to the Mudges and decides to show them to law enforcement in town so they can identify the family. However, when she inspects the photos, she realizes that the photos are not of the Mudges, but of various other people. When Matthew is finally strong enough to fully regain consciousness, Adelaide attempts to convince him that she found him outside the door to her cabin after he had been attacked by a wild animal. Matthew is suspicious of her version of events. He saddles his horse to leave, and before he departs, she offers him 20 dollars. Adelaide admits to herself that she is paying Matthew for his silence, and Matthew accepts the payment before riding away.

While Matthew was recovering at Adelaide’s cabin, the snow and cold of the changing Montana seasons finally set in. Adelaide’s resources are now running low, including the wood and “brown coal” that she has been burning in her stove for heat. She goes down to the cellar to inspect her dwindling provisions and to check on the steamer trunk. Wondering if the creature is still alive, she knocks on the side of the trunk, and hears a hard thump and a loud grunt in response. She returns to the main floor of her cabin and realizes that without wood, she will soon perish. Even though death is a way out of her predicament, she worries that someone like Grace and Sam will come to check on her and stumble upon the creature in the trunk. She decides to go to Grace’s cabin to get more wood and supplies the next day.

Adelaide fights against the intense cold and biting wind to make her way to Grace’s cabin. During her trek, she is visited by a ghost or a vision of her dead mother, Eleanor. Her mother is dressed in only her nightgown, as she was when Adelaide burned her body, and she has deep, bloody wounds on the front of her body. Adelaide tells her mother that on that fateful day, she heard her parents screaming and attempted to stop the attack. Eleanor scoffs in disbelief at Adelaide’s assertion, insinuating that Adelaide had no real intention of stopping the carnage. Adelaide asks her mother why she and her father went into the barn that day at all. Her mother replies that they were “tired of keeping secrets” (95). Adelaide’s mother vanishes, and Adelaide runs directly into the exterior wall of Grace’s home.

There are two cabins on Grace’s claim, as well as a horse shed. Adelaide notices that there are no horses in the corral and assumes that Grace has gone out. She decides to let herself in out of the cold and finds Grace on the floor, covered in blood. Adelaide fears that the creature got out during her trek to the cabin and attacked Grace and Sam. She checks on Grace, who is conscious, but has lost a great deal of blood from a wound to her hand. Grace tells Adelaide to locate Sam, whom a group of intruders threw into the cellar. Adelaide quickly finds him, freeing his bound hands and removing the pillowcase from his head. Adelaide initially apologizes to Sam for the state he and his mother are in, before realizing that Grace said the culprits were a group of intruders, not a lone monster.

Grace explains that the Mudges attacked her and Sam and stole their horses. Grace willingly let Mrs. Mudge into her home, still believing her to be Mrs. Rose Morrison, but Sam alerted her that the boys were stealing their horses. Mrs. Mudge then pulled a gun on Grace, and the youngest Mudge boy shot her. Adelaide registers her surprise that a blind boy would be able to shoot someone. Grace is puzzled, since the boys seemed to be able to see just fine. Grace apologizes to Adelaide for being angry at her after the dance. She was upset at how Adelaide had treated the woman she believed to be Mrs. Morrison, but she now knows that Adelaide was right all along. She promises Adelaide that she will trust her from now on.

Adelaide stays the night with Grace and Sam. She asks Sam about the other cabin on the property, and he explains that it is occupied by his father, who is now “behind the corral”(102). Sam says that he never knew his father, and Adelaide does not press him for more details. That morning, they hear the sound of a horse approaching and are fearful of who the rider might be. It turns out to be Bertie Brown, the other Black “lone woman,” who came to check on Grace when she saw her candle burning throughout the night. She brings Grace provisions and tells her that she will give her a ride into Big Sandy so that she can receive treatment for her wound. Bertie asks Adelaide to stay behind and look after Sam.

Bertie returns from town with a horse that she purchased on Adelaide’s behalf. Adelaide names him Obadiah and is thrilled to have a horse to ride back to her cabin. As she is leaving, Adelaide stops to peer into the other cabin on Grace’s property and discovers that it’s a schoolhouse. She wonders why the townspeople are so wary of Sam that they would forbid their children from attending Grace’s school. She catches a glimpse of her reflection in the schoolhouse window and sees the reflection of a man standing right next to her. She spins around to confront him but finds that she is alone.

When Adelaide arrives back at her cabin, she is dismayed to see that the door of the root cellar has been ripped off and that someone has broken down the door to her cabin. She enters the cabin to see that it has been torn apart again. The creature has flipped her bed over and is now hiding beneath it. Adelaide crouches to confront it face-to-face and threatens to kill herself, wondering if that would break the bond between the two of them. The creature reacts negatively to her threat, and Adelaide wonders if it broke out because it was jealous of her and was tired of being confined. She agrees to let it remain in its hiding place and passes the night watching it before she finally drifts to sleep.

Adelaide dreams that she can hear her father’s voice reading to her from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She is then awakened by actual voices from outside her cabin. She hears a young boy’s voice telling someone that it appears that she is not at home. Adelaide realizes that the Mudges are outside. Mrs. Mudge calls to her, announcing that they take back their possessions and kill her. Adelaide moves to grab her gun, and in that moment, the creature crawls out from its hiding place under the bed. Adelaide marvels at its sheer size. Mrs. Mudge kicks in the door, gun in hand, and the creature attacks her, ripping off her arm. Her sons look on in fear as the creature kills their mother. Finally, the oldest boys take off for their horses and run for their lives. The creature takes flight after them, and those at the cabin can hear the cries of the horses and the screams of young men in the distance. The younger of two rides away from Adelaide’s cabin, with the youngest, Joab, assuring Adelaide that they will not forget this moment. Adelaide wonders where the creature has flown off to. For the first time, she dares to hope that she might be free of her burden.