A Time for Everything (14 page)

Every strained
muscle
in Beau’s body paid testament to
the grueling day he had endured. Especially his right shoulder. He
massaged the old wound, feeling the dips and ridges of skin and
muscle fibers that had never quite knitted together properly. It
hurt. Constantly. And he really didn’t want to be cleaning a stall,
but he forced his body into submission. Somehow, the pain kept him
grounded in reality, kept him focused on the here and now, at least
during his waking hours. Sleep only served to plague him with
broken images of pleading eyes, bloodied hands, and Claire lying in
a coffin. He’d claw himself out of bed, covered in sweat, and could
swear he smelled smoke. Working kept him sane and awake — hurting,
but awake.

Hours of trial and error had finally
gotten Crazy Girl to trot and stop bolting at every noise. For a
few minutes at a time anyway. She was going to take some patience,
just like Portia. He laughed to himself. Pa hadn’t hired him a
potential wife — that much he was certain of now — he’d hired an
opponent. A combative little spitfire that had no qualms about
speaking her mind.

He wasn’t used to such spirit from a
woman. Fillies, yes, but not women. Claire had been no push-over,
but her methods were more subtle. She had been the queen of
emotional bribery: teary eyes, sweet kisses, and batting eyelashes.
She had never failed to melt him into submission to get what she
wanted.

But Portia… he wasn’t sure about her
yet, whether that spirit of hers would prove to be endearing or
excruciating.

By the time he finished ruminating
over it, he’d cleaned the stall and didn’t even remember most of
the work. A horse whinnied outside — not one of theirs, so he
stepped out of the stall to investigate — and almost collided with
a horse slowing from a gallop right there in the barn. He had to
grab the stall’s door facing to keep from falling.

“
What the—?”

“
Ain’t she a beaut?” Harry
said in a drawling shout. “Told ya I’d do right by this
one.”

Harry slid out of the saddle and
stumbled when his feet hit the ground. Beau righted himself from
the near miss and threw a nasty scowl at him. He couldn’t waste
time preaching to that fool. Instead, he decided to pay mind to the
more important business at hand.

“
Easy girl,” he said,
rubbing her neck and holding her head steady.

She
was
a nice one at first glance,
looked to be a Morgan, with a glossy black-brown coat. Even in the
subdued light of the stable, he could see her fit muscle tone and
ribcage expanding with steady breaths. Already, she had lowered her
head to a relaxed, level angle. Though aware of him and her
unfamiliar surroundings, she didn’t act overly
concerned.

Getting a feel of her withers, he
asked, “How much?”

“
Fifty.”

“
Got the bill of
sale?”

Harry pulled out a half-crumpled piece
of paper from inside his vest. “Want me to record it?”

Beau snatched it from him.
“You’re in no state to record anything. How much did you
take
this
time?”

“
Oh come on, Beau, see?”
Harry started hopping up and down, rather unsteadily, on his bad
leg. “It helps.”

Something fell from his vest to the
ground. Both of them dove for it, but Beau reached it first. It was
a green velvet box, oblong like an eyeglass case, and rubbed bare
near the opening. Harry grabbed at it as Beau stood back up, but he
missed and fell to his knees. Beau opened the box — and sure enough
— there lay the syringe, all broken down and tucked into grooves
that fit each piece perfectly. He’d seen the evidence on Harry’s
arms, but had never actually seen the device in question until
now.

“
This shit is going to
kill you,” Beau said, closing the case with a snap.

Harry sat up on the ground, hugging
his knees and laughing. “Kill me? Hell, it’s the only thing keeping
me alive.”

Beau jutted the case at him. “I didn’t
drag your wounded ass out of Allatoona for you to come back home
and kill yourself.”

“
I bring you a filly, and
a fine one I might add, and this is the thanks I get?”

“
Yes, you’re right. Why
not down a shot or two of whiskey for your bonus?”

“
Not a bad
idea!”

Clenching his mouth shut before he
said things he would regret, Beau took the reins and led the filly
toward the door.

“
You know,” Harry hollered
after him, “a little morph might keep those nightmares of yours at
bay.”

Beau paused; he didn’t look back, but
his fist gripped the reins so tight it hurt.

“
I hear you sometimes,”
Harry said as he got to his feet. “I hear you thrashing around,
calling Claire’s name. The dreams are coming more often, aren’t
they? How long has it been since you’ve had a good night’s
sleep?”

“
It’s none of your damn
business,” Beau growled and strode out of the stable with the filly
trotting along behind him.

“
You better get some
rest,” Harry yelled. “How you gonna bed Lydia Clemons if you’re too
tired to get it up?”

Beau silently appealed to God and any
other deities that might be listening to help him refrain from
beating the shit out of Harry. He wasn’t sure what was worse —
sleepless nights, Harry’s drug-induced stupidity, or knowing
Claire’s not-so-little cousin would arrive within the
week.

~~~~

Portia unfastened
the
clothespins on a pair of work pants.
For laundry, it couldn’t have been a better day. The warm spring
breeze made the clothes dance on the line and carried the smell of
crisp linens and fresh-cut grass. She dropped the pins in a flour
sack pouch that hung between her and Bessie.

The two of them had worked in pleasant
silence for the last half hour, until Portia felt Bessie’s eyes on
her. “What is it?”

“
How old was she? Your
daughter?”

The mere mention of Abby
sent a shiver down Portia’s spine. For a split second, it was
Christmas all over again. She lay crumpled on the frozen ground
between Jake’s and Abby’s gravestones, numb from cold and praying
that God would take her now, please…
And
then Frank and Ellen were there, standing over her while she thawed
by their hearth. They’d saved her from freezing to death. But what
they hadn’t known — or rather, never brought up — is that she
hadn’t wanted to be saved.

She finally extracted the answer from
the shallow grave of her memory. Her voice shook like her body had
on that frozen ground. “She was two.”

“
I’m sorry. It ain’t
right, children dyin’ before we do.”

Portia tilted her head back, eyes
closed, letting the sun return her to the perfection of a warm
spring afternoon.

“
Are you all right?”
Bessie asked.

“
I’m fine,” Portia said,
trying to cover her lie with a smile. “Is this all the
laundry?”

Though her face bore worried wrinkles,
Bessie looked down at the full laundry basket and nodded. “Didn’t
take long with both of us tending to it.”

“
Many hands make light
work.”

“
Mm-hmm. If you can go put
those away, I’ll start supper early. I know them men’s gotta be
hungry. The things on top are Beau’s, the ones on the bottom are
Jonny’s. Just put ’em on their beds, and they’ll put ‘em
away.”

“
All right.”

Portia, with the basket on her hip,
started toward the house with Bessie beside her.

They were about to go inside when
Bessie stopped, hand on the door latch. “The Lord blessed us with
two healthy sons, Curtis and Virgil, but our first boy was born
dead. If you ever need to talk…”

“
Thank you.” Tears stung
Portia’s eyes. Bessie’s unexpected compassion warmed her heart like
the sun warmed the garden’s earth, promising new growth. She hoped
the seedlings of their friendship would keep growing.

Upstairs, the quiet solitude proved
soothing, so Portia took her time. She started with Jonathan’s
room, though his clothes were on the bottom of the basket.
Thankfully, his grandfather had fetched him to ride into town for
supplies. She wanted to get a glimpse of the boy’s personal space
while he wasn’t occupying it.

He hadn’t made his bed, so
she set the basket down and did the job herself. Typical of a boy’s
room, blocks and toy soldiers — facing off in pretend battle — were
strewn across the floor. A book lay upside down and open just
beneath the edge of the bed. Portia picked it up, impressed with
the boy’s reading choice of
The
Deerslayer
.

She closed the book, being careful to
mark the page with a scrap piece of paper. Smiling, she set it on
his bedside table. A lesson on how to properly care for a book’s
spine was in order for tomorrow.

After she tidied Jonathan’s room, she
headed to Mr. Stanford’s quarters at the end of the hall. A large
four-post bed took up a good bit of the room. Like Jonathan’s, the
bed was unmade — with a crumpled quilt and sheet thrown to one side
and two pillows lying at odd angles as though someone had blindly
thrown them across the mattress.

Portia set the basket on the floor and
made the bed. She admired the handiwork of the blue and white
star-patterned quilt. Her fingers traced along the perfect
stitching on one of the white stars. Had Mrs. Stanford made
it?

Starting back around the bed, she
noticed a chest at its foot. It was a large, heavy thing, wide as
the bed itself. The rounded wooden top yawned open against the
footboard. She bent to close it, but the gleam of a brass button
caught her eye. She couldn’t help herself, and ignoring all good
sense, peered into the chest. A dark blue Federal jacket stared
back. They were the “enemy,” according to Jake — all those who wore
this color.

Now on her knees, her fingers lifted
the heavy garment out of the chest. It didn’t look like an enemy
she should fear. Not in this condition, with a ragged hole in the
shoulder and a blood stain surrounding it. On the sleeve, a bloody
hand had left its mark — she counted four fingers, a thumb, and
part of a palm.

Her teeth chattered while a full body
shiver ran through her from head to toe. This jacket belonged to a
wounded soldier, like so many from both sides she had fed and
stitched up when they sought help at her house while the war had
raged on. But this jacket didn’t belong to just any soldier — it
belonged to Mr. Stanford.

And it was
his
voice that brought
her scrambling back to her feet. “What the hell do you think you’re
doing?”

Portia dropped the
jacket. It fell into the chest with a whoosh.
“I-I’m sorry.”

The pain on his face — like he’d just
heard the news of his wife’s death all over again — cut her to the
bone. He averted his eyes as though he couldn’t bear to gaze at the
contents of the chest.

“
You have no business
prying into my things.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his cold,
deliberate tone speared her heart with guilt.

Scooting away from the chest, she
planted her hands on a solid piece of furniture behind her and
pushed herself to her feet. “I didn’t mean to look, I—”

“
Give me the
key.”

“
The… key?”

“
Are you deaf as well as a
thief?” Anger climbed the rungs of every word he spoke. “I said,
give me the key!”

“
I don’t have a key,” she
yelled back, her own anger rising to meet his. “It was open when I
came in to deliver your laundry. I started to close it, but I saw
the jacket, and — I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked inside. But I
did
not
open
it.”

“
Just go.” He threw his
command at her and stepped aside, holding the door open.

She hurried out with her empty clothes
basket banging against the door frame. He didn’t look at her. She
reached the stairs, and his door slammed shut. The floor itself
rattled as did the pictures on the stairwell wall. Her insides felt
like they’d been taken out and thrown back in no particular
order.

Dear God, what have I
done?

~~~~

Supper preparations
weren’t
going well. Portia burned her
fingers when she tried to take the cornbread from the oven with no
mitt. She knocked over an open jar of green beans, filling the
kitchen with the sharp smell of vinegar.

Hands and knees on the
floor cleaning up the mess, Bessie joined her and asked, “Are you
all right? I know you ain’t worked in
this
kitchen for long, but I’d have
thought you’d got cookin’ down pat.”

“
It’s not
that.”

“
You tired?”

“
Yes. Well, no, not
exactly.”

“
Sick?” Bessie picked up
the last stray bean, staring at Portia like she had seen something
hideous.