—
I knew James was right, of course. It had been a long time since it was about the money, though I kept telling myself that was all there was to the “enterprise.” Perhaps it had been so when the fear of starvation was still chasing me through life, but now it was a different hunger that haunted me in the nights. It scared me, this rage I had just discovered. I wondered if it had been there all along, hidden beneath the hams and sausages, cheeses and spreads in my pantry. If it had disguised itself as my desire for riches, my need to always have more.
Maybe it had been my anger all along. Maybe I still survived out of spite, just as I swore to do after the lake. Maybe I got rich and fat just to spite—had my children out of spite—and killed my husbands too, out of that angry sense of spite.
Maybe I was still kicking at a dead man’s corpse, daring him to come at me again.
I looked at myself in the mirror in my room and saw a stranger. A woman haunted and never free, plagued with an aching jaw. I felt ashamed that he still had such a hold over me. That all the things I did came back to him. I had killed him, after all, and it ought to be enough to keep him at bay, but no—he was still there, dwelling deep inside me. I wanted to kill him again and again, and that was what I did.
This is how curses are made: someone does something to another, and traps that person in a web with threads so fine they can hardly be seen. There is no escaping that web.
I could not escape that lake.
But even if I had found the name and shape of what haunted me, it did not make much difference. My days were too busy to dwell. I had children to care for, cows to milk, chickens to pluck and bread to bake. It was better that I felt strong, I thought, able to take down the biggest of men, than feeling like that ruined girl bleeding on the ground.
I tried not to think of her—and stayed busy.
The earth at Brookside was soft and hungry; it did not mind the dead at all. Just as the house embraced me and held me, the dirt kept my secrets safe in the dark. My neighbor, Mr. Christoffersen, told me that a doctor who used to live there kept his own graveyard, so the soil had eaten the dead before. It was miraculous to me, the way the dirt would swallow up the remains—just as the ground in Selbu had taken my little girl. When I flattened the topsoil with my shovel, the smooth surface gave nothing away. It was my house and my land and it would not betray me. It was a part of who I was.
If I had no ready grave or the ground was frozen, I sometimes rowed my suitors out on Fishtrap Lake. The water was a fine friend too, closing over the crates. It was hard work, though, as the makeshift coffins had to be weighted down—and dangerous too, as the lake was used by others. I had no control of the crates and their loads after they had slipped into the water. If they rotted and spat out their contents, there was no way I would know before the law was at my door.
I preferred the earth.
The area by the lake was fine for that purpose too, the soil around its edges soft and yielding. I could dig a proper hole myself; it was not much trouble at all. Once a neighbor caught me, though, just as I finished up.
“My God,” said he. “What is that smell?”
I leaned on the shovel and gave him my best smile. “Oh, a man passed by this morning. His dog had just died and he offered me five dollars to bury it on my land. It was a stinky thing so I brought it out here. I just didn’t want it in my yard. I’m sure the smell will be gone soon.”
He believed me, of course; why would he not? I was always sweet to those people. I lent them equipment and labor if I could, and pinched their children’s rosy cheeks at church. No one cared if I had guests at the farm; if anything they found it endearing. All of La Porte knew it by then, that Belle Gunness was looking for a husband. I swear they made bets at the bar whenever a new suitor came with the train. They gossiped about it at kitchen tables over heaps of food and mending. Maybe they sighed and shook their heads when the newest suitor just up and left, often leaving me in a pinch. Such a horrid thing to do, they would say, leaving a woman to fend for herself in midseason to go with some horse trader or return to Norway.
Belle Gunness sure was in bad luck when it came to finding a man who could fill Peter’s shoes.
It was a glorious enterprise, and they never saw me coming.
I always cared well for my guests, was ever attentive and listened to their woes. I offered my assurances that life would be better from now on. Now that they had found me. I wrote them long letters urging them to sell whatever they had and bring the money to invest in our future together. They like that, men: comfort and prospects. I offered them oranges too, juicy and sweet, to take their minds of all life’s troubles.
Some men I liked more than others, those who were not lewd or fallen to drink. Those who could provide me with much-needed labor. I kept them with me longer. In the end, there was always something, though, a brazenness or a wrong word. None of them lasted very long, and certainly not to marriage.
Every time it was different. If I was in a quarrelsome mood, I gave them chloral. They did not die from that; they just slept. Sometimes the poison did not take as I wanted, and the men woke up and fought me before the cleaver showed them mercy. Sometimes it took a few strong whacks to have them die, as tendons and flesh can be thick and hard. Other times, I made a mess of things, leaving blood all over the floor.
If I did not feel like fighting, I gave them my trusted cyanide. They died on their own then—no bother at all. Just some sickness and convulsions, and they were gone. The taste and the smell were strong but could easily be masked with food. The orange was ever my favorite; so easy to tap into with a syringe.
When the men were good and dead, I hauled them down in the cellar.
I was a thriving enterprise and my money box filled up.
I felt safe then, safe in my castle, until Nellie came to call and everything went wrong.
38.
La Porte, 1906
My sister seemed nervous when she arrived; her hands fluttered between her chest and her lap, and she cleared her voice several times before speaking during our first conversation. She had come to borrow silverware for Olga’s upcoming wedding, and she and Nora would stay with us for two nights.
Her nervousness made me uneasy in turn—I knew there was something bothering her, something she was not saying.
The visit started out pleasant enough. Nellie and I browsed the silver—of which I had plenty—while Nora and Jennie brought the girls out in the pony cart. Little Philip was nearly three by then, and played with his wooden horses around our feet as we sat side by side by the dining room table, looking at spoons and forks.