Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 01] (10 page)

Berry came back to the present with a start. The people were singing “Rock of Ages,” and the men were shoveling dirt in on the box. Rachel tugged at her arm and they turned away. She thanked the parson, thanked Mr. Benson, thanked the men filling the grave.

Back at the wagons, Berry took off her sunbonnet. A frisky breeze from the river loosened a lock of hair and whipped it across her temple. She had reached to tuck it back with her fingers when Mr. Benson and Mr. Hollis appeared.

Mr. Hollis was a widower with five children ranging in age from a toddler to a boy old enough to drive a wagon. His wife had died during the preparation for the trip west. He was a small man with a hawk nose and thin hair on top. His pants bagged in back and his wooden-soled boots looked many sizes too large for his feet.

Mr. Benson cleared his throat noisily. “Is Mrs. Warfield a-holdin’ up?”

“Rachel’s holdin’ up fine. She’s restin’ in the wagon.”

“It’s what she should be doin’.” He shifted his feet restlessly and looked away from her and back.

“Mr. Benson? Do you know where the land is that my pa filed on?”

“I don’t know, miss. He never rightly said if’n he filed on any. If he did, he’d have a map in his pack ’n’ it’d be marked.” He paused, glanced at the man beside him, then said hurriedly, “Mr. Hollis here offered ta take ya along with him. He’s needin’ a woman, ’n’ ya need a man ta stand by ya.”

Somehow the words were not a surprise to Berry. She’d known almost from the first and had steeled herself to be civil. Now the eyes she turned on the man who fidgeted beside the wagonmaster were as cold as ice. Mealymouthed bastard, can’t even do his own askin’! she thought. “Are you askin’ for me or my stepmother, Mr. Hollis?” she asked with haughty dignity.

“Why . . . you, Miss Berry,” he squeaked.

“And Mrs. Warfield?”

“She’d be . . . welcome. . . .” He looked down at his feet.

“What about our slave, our two wagons, and our stock?”

“Well . . . I reckon you’d bring ’em with ya.” There was a new note of eagerness in his voice.

“That’s
so
kind of you, Mr. Hollis!” Her voice was heavy with sarcasm, her face red with anger. The farmer smiled victoriously. He’d heard her words but not the meaning behind them. However, the smile left his face when Berry let loose with a torrent of angry words. “You lily-livered, belly-crawlin’ worm! My pa ain’t cold yet ’n’ you come here offerin’ to take us in! You saw a chance to get your hands on two wagons, two mules, an ox, and three sets of hands to work for ya while you ride, nice ’n’ easy, on Pa’s mare!” Her nostrils flared and angry lights flashed in her green eyes. She continued through tight lips, “You worked one woman to death a-havin’ your kids and a-plowin’ your fields. Ya ain’t no man to stay by a woman! Behind ’er is where you’d stand!” Berry had to stop and catch her breath.

“Now . . . see here . . .”

“You see here, ya vulture! Get the hell outta my camp!” She was so angry she was almost sick. “I ain’t takin’ no man such as the likes of you. You come ’round here again, ya struttin’ rooster, ’n’ I’ll . . . get my knife ’n’ make a hen outta you!”

The man’s mouth hung open. He stood in shock until the wagonmaster nudged him, then he turned on his heel and scampered away.

“Ya ain’t oughtta talked like that,” Mr. Benson said curtly as if he were talking to an unruly child. “There ain’t no other man on this train without a woman.”

Berry’s eyes swung to him. “I don’t give a . . . damn! I’ll not take a scrawny, grabby little weasel like him! How could you think I would? It woulda been just dandy for
him.
He’d been set up good with me ’n’ Rachel takin’ care of his younguns and Israel to do his work. What woulda been in it for us? Rachel and me aren’t goin’ to jump out of the fryin’ pan and into the fire!”

“Wal, what’re ya goin’ to do then?” He jerked the words out impatiently. “We can’t wait on ya. It’s gettin’ on, ’n’ crops has gotta be put in.”

Berry took a deep breath to calm herself. “We don’t know yet if we have land to go to. We haven’t had time to talk.”

The wagonmaster took his hat off and wiped his brow with his sleeve. “Women can’t take up a tract o’ land,” he said with heavy disgust in his voice.

“Why not?”

“Wal, ’cause . . .”

“I’ll go to a land man ’n’ find out.”

“We’re leavin’ in a hour’s time, miss,” he said sternly.

“Then go! We can’t tag along if we don’t know where we’re goin’,” she said stubbornly.

Indecision was written on the man’s face. He rubbed his whiskers while he pondered. When he spoke, it was as if a great burden had been placed on his shoulders. “I reckon I c’n take ya in. It’ll be a bunch, what with my woman’s ma ’n’ sister, ’n’ our younguns.” He scratched his head with work-worn, knurled fingers. “I just can’t bring myself ta leave ya behind.”

Berry’s mind was made up in a flash. “We’re not goin’, Mr. Benson. We’re figurin’ on stayin’ here, gettin’ us a place ’n’ startin’ us a business.”

“It ain’t fittin’!” he stammered. “Your pa’d . . .”

“You don’t know what my pa would think fittin’. He liked his drink. He never did a day’s work if he could get me ’n’ Rachel to do it. Him bein’ dead don’t change that!”

“By the Lord Henry, gal!”

“Goodbye, Mr. Benson. Thanks for helpin’ to bury Pa.”

“A hour, miss,” he said sternly. “If’n ya want to come, pull in behind.” He stalked off.

Berry watched him leave. Law! What had she done? She’d thrown his help back in his face. Well, it couldn’t be helped now. She wouldn’t take that Hollis for her man and they wouldn’t follow along behind Benson and his family. She stepped up on the box and climbed into the wagon. Rachel lay on the pallet, her eyes open, staring. Berry unbuttoned her good dress and pulled it off over her head. She folded it carefully and put it in the trunk.

“Did ya ever think it’d come to this, Rachel?” she asked tiredly. “Pa’s gone. I didn’t think I felt sad, but I guess I do, in a way. I just wish he’d been a better man.”

Rachel lay on her side, her arm folded beneath her head. She had been unusually quiet since learning that Asa was dead. “Asa should’ve stayed in Ohio. He didn’t last very long out here where men are meaner ’n’ wilder than him. I wonder who killed him.”

“Somebody that wanted his money. He had money from the farm. If he was carryin’ it, it’s gone now.” Berry slipped her everyday brown linsey dress over her head and tied her apron in place. “Did you hear what I told Mr. Benson?”

Rachel nodded. “And what you told Mr. Hollis, too.” She smiled, showing small, perfect teeth. The smile took years from her face.

“That mule’s ass! Just the thought of havin’ that short-brained lout touchin’ me gives me the shivers!” Berry poked stray hair up into her braid with angry, short jabs of her fingers. “He stood there, eyes bulgin’ and his mouth hangin’ open like a fish about to take bait, all the time a-thinkin’ he’d get his hands on Israel and these wagons.”

“That’s not all he was wantin’ to get his hands on.” Rachel laughed softly, then her face sobered. “For the first time in our lives we don’t have somebody tellin’ us what to do. I’ve been thinkin’ about it since we heard about Asa.” She pushed herself up from the pallet and painfully stretched her legs out in front of her. “Where’s the guns, Berry? We’ve got a musket and Asa had a rifle and two more muskets. I’ll clean ’em and load ’em. If any of that river trash comes around here with notions on their mind, we’ll be waitin’ for them.”

Berry watched her while she talked. The woebegone look was gone from her face and her voice held a positive ring. “With three muskets and a rifle, we’d have four shots. It’d be enough to cause ’em to think a minute.”

Rachel got to her feet. “Help me down, honey. Then you go through Asa’s things and find the papers on Israel. We can’t let those be stole away from us, or somebody’d come in ’n’ take him away from us.”

“That’s right! I hadn’t thought of that.” Berry got out of the wagon, then guided Rachel’s foot to the box so she could get down. There was a world of difference between the Rachel of today and the Rachel who had cowered behind her yesterday. Instead of feeling resentment, Berry felt a surge of pity for the man who had so wasted his life and so dominated them that they were actually happier now that he was gone.

Berry and Rachel stood by their wagon and watched the train of settlers from Ohio move past them and down the trail to Saint Louis, where they would spread out and head for their new homes. The women called out to them and waved. Mr. Hollis drove by them without a glance in their direction. Mr. Benson paused. Berry shook her head. She could see his lips move as he swore. She couldn’t curb an insolent grin. He cracked the whip over the backs of his mules and didn’t look back.

When the dust had cleared, theirs were the only two wagons left in the long, flat meadow. Berry’s throat clogged with wonder. So much had happened. She and Rachel were alone in a hard, unwelcome wilderness. Whatever was to happen to them now, there was no turning back.

Berry found herself thinking about Simon and gave herself a mental shake. She had to work to keep her thoughts from straying to him. Somehow she had expected him to come when he heard her pa was dead. If he’d been serious about courting her he’d have come. He knew the train was moving out today. But maybe he thought Asa would stay here and start a tavern. In a secret little compartment of her mind she admitted to herself that Simon was the reason she hadn’t searched Asa’s trunk for a land map. If she’d found one and the land was near Mr. Benson’s land, they’d not have had an excuse to stay behind.

The best thing about their new situation, she decided, was the change in Rachel. Just twenty-four hours ago she had been a quiet, brooding woman whose spirit appeared completely broken. Now it seemed as if the dark depression that had gripped her had been washed away. She spoke in a gentle but positive way, and occasionally she laughed. Her eyes had lost their dull, passive look and were now bright with interest and excitement.

“Berry, are you sorry we didn’t go with them?”

“No!” Berry brought her attention back to the present. “They didn’t really care about us. They cared about our wagons ’n’ that good plow tied to the side. And . . . the stock. They only saw us ’n’ Israel as hands to work for them, not as people who had dreams ’n’ wanted to be happy.”

“They’re gone. Let’s forget them and plan on what we’re goin’ to do.” Rachel sat down on the box at the end of the wagon. “Get Israel. We need to know if we can depend on him or if he’ll run off the first chance he gets now that there’s not a man to watch him.”

“Do you think Fain and Simon will come to see about us?”

“I don’t know, honey. We can’t depend on it. They may have gone upriver by now.” Rachel didn’t want Berry to know that she too had nurtured that hope. “I know that musket is heavy to carry around, but keep it with you. Now if you’ll get Israel we can find out if he’s stickin’ with us. Although I doubt he’d tell us if he wasn’t. I saw him walkin’ out to where he tethered the mules.”

Berry returned with the slave. She took the musket from the belt of her apron and sat down. The heavy gun rubbed against her breast and she wondered how Simon and Fain could move about so easily with guns tucked in their belts. “Sit down, Israel. I’ll break my neck lookin’ up at ya.”

The black man sank to the ground at their feet.

“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” Berry asked.

“No, ma’am. Ah never . . .”

“Can ya load one?”

“Yass’m.”

“That’ll help. I know you’re good at bashin’ in heads.” Berry smiled into the big man’s eyes and was rewarded with an awareness in his and then a broad smile. “Are you goin’ to stay with us or run off the first chance ya get?” The question took the smile off his face.

“Naw, missy . . .”

“I didn’t think you would, but I had to ask. From now on we’ve got to look out for each other. Do ya understand? You’ll eat the same food we eat, you’ll sleep in the wagon when it rains ’n’ other times if ya want to. Take what clothes Pa had that ya can wear, and Israel . . . you’ll never feel the whip on your back again.”

“Lawsey me!”

He looked at her in wonder, a slow, warm smile spreading across his face.

“Rachel has your papers. If you stay ’n’ help us now, someday you’ll be free.”

“Lawsey me, missy. I dunno free!” The broad shoulders sagged and the Negro hung his head.

“We won’t think about it now. Bring the stock in close so some thief can’t make off with them. And gather in enough firewood to light up this camp tonight. I’m thinkin’ that river trash knows Pa’s gone ’n’ they’ll come callin’. We can’t depend on anyone to help us. We got to help ourselves.”

“Yass’m. Yass’m, ah do dat, ’n’ ah’ll fill up the barrel wid water, too. Yass’m.” He got to his feet. “Yass’m.” He bobbed his head up and down.

Berry looked directly into his eyes, something she’s always been told not to do. White folks were not to look into a slave’s eyes any more than they’d look into the eyes of a dog or a mule. “I knew I could depend on you.”

It seemed to Berry that Israel walked taller and prouder when he left them. She turned to see Rachel’s eyes following him. “I told you he wasn’t as dumb as he let on,” she bragged. “Treat a man like a dumb beast ’n’ he’ll act like one. Treat him human ’n’ he’ll act human.”

Rachel’s eyes were filled with love and admiration. “You know a lot of things you never told me before.”

Berry looked away, hugging her secret thoughts. I’ve not told you the most important of all: Simon kissed me ’n’ I’ll never be the same again. My eyes are lookin’ for him all the time. I want him to want me, not because I’m a woman and can ease the ache most men take a woman for. I want it to be like you said . . . him wanting to touch me, laugh with me, play with me. . . . Aloud she said brightly, “Well, that’s done. Let’s go see what Pa had in the trunk.”

Asa had filed on land! Berry found the contract and the crude map in the bottom of the trunk along with a small bag of coins. She and Rachel hugged each other.

“We’ll go there and homestead. We won’t say nothin’ about Pa bein’ killed. We’ll live in the wagons until we can get a cabin built. How many coins, Rachel?”