Authors: Abbie Williams
I was clutching my hands so tightly in my lap that my fingernails, short though they were, cut into my flesh.
“Look, Lorie!” Malcolm cried then, and Sawyer blinked, looking back at the fire.
I swallowed hard and tried without luck to fill my lungs, upset that he could affect me so much. I would just have to muster up the resolve not to let him. Malcolm fell to his knees and grinned at me, both hands behind his back.
“Choose,” he insisted, and I remembered doing the same thing to my brothers.
I tipped my head to the side and pretended to deeply consider, as Boyd and Angus rejoined us.
“Oh, I’d pick the right,” Boyd said, nodding at the goods he could see in Malcolm’s hands.
I bowed to this advice and pointed wordlessly. Malcolm’s dark eyes danced with pleasure as, with a showman’s timing, he produced a handful of caramels wrapped in waxed paper and tied on either end with twine.
“Lookee!” he said gaily, as I clasped my hands and brought them under my chin, delighted at this gift. “We got ’em for you today!”
“How wonderful,” I said sincerely. “Though all of these can’t be for only me.”
“Here,” Malcolm said, moving as though to deposit them onto my lap. I made a sound and cupped my palms, catching them all. They were warm from his hand. He nudged my elbow and then tilted his head to indicate the hand still behind his back.
“The left,” I said solemnly.
Malcolm bit his lip in concentration, before drawing forth a hair ribbon as a magician on a theater stage might, inch by inch, until all of its glossy turquoise length was dangling from his left hand. After everything that had been purchased for me today, I could scarce believe these additional gifts; it was too much. Malcolm, noting my full hands, draped the ribbon around my neck and then sat back on his heels.
“Do you like it, do you?” he demanded. “I picked one to match your eyes!”
“I do,” I said, the sudden jagged-edged lump in my throat distorting the words.
Malcolm’s dark eyebrows lifted instantly in concern, but Angus said, his voice as comforting as always, “Son, you’ve almost rendered her speechless.”
From across the fire, Boyd pronounced, “Well, it’s so much fun to spoil a lady, I have to say I picked out something for you as well, Miss Blake.”
I looked at him in amazement as, with a flourish similar to Malcolm, he produced a small package wrapped in brown paper, tied with twine. He passed it to Angus and I set the caramels on the hammock of the skirt across my lap, accepting it from Angus as tears spilled over my face. I was so touched and so self-conscious of my emotions, overwhelmed by their kindness. I fumbled with the twine, carefully opening the present to reveal a small piece of soapstone, carved to resemble a bear on its hind legs.
“To keep away them bad dreams,” Boyd explained, giving me a wink before getting to his feet and stretching.
“Thank you so very much,” I whispered, wiping stray tears on my right shoulder, awkwardly, as my hands were full. I remembered my manners then, and said, “All of you must have a caramel.”
“I will, thank you kindly!” Malcolm said, scooping them from my lap.
Angus leaned and helped me to my feet, taking my elbows in his hands to do so, his gray eyes studying my face. He was every inch a gentleman, his one night with me the only apparent exception to this state of being. I clutched the little carving of a bear and remembered how Deirdre would lay with me that first month, her slim white arms locked about my waist. Deirdre, who had been my only friend – and suddenly my stomach was cold and horrified, despite all of the tender sweetness just bestowed upon me.
“G’night, all of you!” Malcolm sang as he followed Boyd to their tent.
Sawyer had scarce moved a muscle.
Angus put his hand on my back, gently, and led me to my tent. How quickly I came to feel possessive of the space, though I had no right. I held my gifts as he untied the entrance and let me duck within first.
“I’ll bring the lantern,” he said.
I turned to set my new things on my bedding, hearing Sawyer back at the fire, as he spoke in a hushed and yet somehow intent voice, “Gus, a word?”
My stomach went colder yet. I watched the candle flame bounce erratically as Angus lifted the lantern from its hook and walked back to leave it with me. I met him at the entrance to collect it. He said, “We’ll be close by, Lorie.”
It took all of my effort to manage a smile for him, but I did.
- 9 -
I did not dream; I attributed it to Boyd’s gift, the little bear that I set on the grass near my pillow, keeping watch as I slept. I woke in the very early morning; sunrise was perhaps a half an hour away. I let my senses stretch outside and into the camp, listening for any telltale sounds of stirring. Upon hearing none, I reached for my new shawl, draping it around my shift in the chilly air. Cautiously I made my way out into the dew-wet morning, my gaze skimming to the other tents, then the remains of the fire. The sky was deep indigo, the eastern horizon just streaked with a slim band of yellow. Clouds blotted out the stars directly above me as I walked a distance away for privacy’s sake, wondering just when I may be in the vicinity of an actual outhouse again. No matter; I would make do like the thousands of others who’d journeyed northwest before me.
The horses lifted their heads as I passed them and I studied Whistler with a sense of longing, but I didn’t dare repeat last evening’s actions. Angus was up and crouching beside the fire when I returned, and I wanted to kneel beside him and beg him to tell me what Sawyer had said; clearly
he
wished to leave me behind at first possible opportunity. Did Angus agree? Would he choose to listen to this advice? What in the world could I do if Angus decided Sawyer was correct in his assessment of my presence? My heart ached with concern, but Angus only smiled at me with his usual kindness and said in a soft voice, “Good morning, Lorie. I’ll have the coffee on directly.”
I decided then and there that I must no longer allow them to continuously wait upon me, and walked over to him, my toes bare and dirty, holding the shawl tightly around my body. I said, “Good morning. May I help with anything?” I admitted, “I feel as spoiled as a little girl. I must be able to help you.”
Angus continued working on the fire, leaning low to contribute his breath to the slowly-growing flames. After a time he said, “Well, I won’t say that it doesn’t feel fine to have a woman to spoil a bit. We’ve all missed that tremendously, even the boy.” He looked up and smiled at me then, his dark curly hair unkempt in the morning’s faint light. My heart hitched a little, looking down at him, and I found myself wondering, just an inch or so from outright desperation, what I would be willing to do in order to stay with them. I would offer my body to him, if I thought that would help – and then I cursed myself for being no better than a whore, even still.
Angus, unaware of my thoughts, continued, “We won’t visit a town until we’re into Iowa. We’ll divide up some of the duties, that’s a good idea. Tell me, have you driven a team? What do you know about skinning a rabbit? Or building a fire?” He asked these things matter-of-factly, as a teacher assessing a new pupil.
I said honestly, “I’m able to drive a team, but know very little about the others.”
“What about wielding a knife or shooting a gun?”
I shook my head.
“Well, we’ll start slowly then.” He smiled at me; his smile transformed his face, making him appear younger. I found myself thinking of his wife, Grace, of whom he’d spoken so tenderly. Clearly he still missed her and my heart tightened in sympathy for him; theirs had obviously been a match bonded by deep love.
I heard myself ask, my voice trembling, “Angus, what do you plan to do with me?”
My heart throbbed like a new bruise as I awaited his reply, but I couldn’t keep wondering. I must know either way.
“Lorie,” he said solemnly. “I told you that I would care for you, did I not?”
“Yes, but…”
“You leave other concerns to me,” he said firmly.
I nodded, allowing myself to feel a whisper of relief.
“Now, get yourself dressed,” he said kindly. “We’ll head out within the hour.”
I nodded again, overcome, and hurried to do as he bade.
After a quiet breakfast of coffee and day-old biscuits, the men moved to tear down the camp. Sawyer was watering the horses, Angus and Boyd loading gear, while Malcolm drew me aside and offered cheerily, “Lorie, let me show you,” and so saying, proceeded to move through the steps of dismantling the poles and collapsing the tent.
“The boys used wall tents like these in the War, that’s what,” Malcolm explained as we worked under the rising sun. “Boyd told me most times there wasn’t enough tents and they’d have to sleep ten or more men in one this size. Can you just imagine?”
“It would be a tight fit,” I agreed.
“Here, you use this side of the stake hammer,” Malcolm explained, neatly flipping the tool and dislodging the small metal object from the ground. “Smooth as churned butter, huh?”
I smiled at that as he passed the hammer to me. I used it with much less ease, but managed to raise the last three stakes. Malcolm and I worked together to roll up the canvas, neat as a jellyroll in a pan. The boy hauled it to the wagon bed and then said, “Now let’s do ours,” nodding to the tent he shared with Boyd.
“Best slip into your rain clothes,” Angus said as he passed us working, nodding at the sky. “Appears we may get a soaking.”
Malcolm patted his hat more securely over his head as he climbed to join me on the wagon seat. I bundled in the poncho and new hat Angus had purchased for me yesterday.
“We’ll be in Iowa within a fortnight or so, Gus said,” Malcolm told me, sliding closer to me on the seat, and I was grateful for his warmth; the air was chill as a front moved on the back of a brisk wind, clouds hustling across the sky in agitation. Malcolm cried, “Lookee there!”
I turned my gaze in the direction of his extended finger, towards the western horizon, and shivered as another dazzling bolt of lightning bisected the sky, glad it was miles upon miles away from us. The wind made my hat brim flap. Seconds later thunder grumbled menacingly, causing Juniper to whinny and shy; Malcolm kept him in line with practiced motions. He said, “See there, the other horses been in battle, but not Juney. Nor Aces, neither, I guess. They ain’t used to the loud noises.”
Malcolm and I brought up the tail end, the men ranging far ahead and back again in endless loops. I snuggled against Malcolm as best I could without being in his way, as together we watched a thunderhead form on the far horizon. It was a spectacular sight, the distant sky becoming more fearsome with each lightning flash, as the towering, flat-bellied cloud grew and seemed to pulsate. We observed as lightning danced on jagged legs, far across the miles but still stunning in its intensity. Thunder growled and Juniper’s ears twitched in discomfort. For whatever reason I found myself continuously searching for sights of Whistler in the distance, feeling inexplicable comfort each time I caught a glimpse of her familiar red-and-cream hide.
“Lucky we ain’t up there!” Malcolm said, pointing unnecessarily, as I was already staring that direction, as the thunderhead let loose its burden of rain, long blue-gray streaks meeting the earth perhaps five miles ahead. The air smelled sharply of rain.
“It’s kind-of a pretty sight, ain’t it?” he observed.
“It is,” I agreed. “As long as we stay dry!”
The words had scarce left my lips when droplets began to scatter over us. Malcolm hunched closer to me. The men slowed their pace, circling around and drawing nearer the wagon as the rain increased to a steady downpour. Fortunately it only lasted a quarter hour or so before blowing over, though the sky remained overcast. The giant thunderhead to our north had also rolled along, shedding its burden of rain and lightning as it went. We pushed on through the day, eating on the move, Malcolm passing me a biscuit and a strip of jerky for lunch, once more keeping me more than entertained with his endless stories.
“My daddy grew flax and corn in the holler. Mama loved the sight of the flax blooming, I remember. So blue, almost like the sky had done caved in over the field. Daddy sold most of the corn, but he always kept a bushel or two for distillin’. Whiskey, you know. Daddy’s whiskey was the best on the ridge. I even had me a taste now an’ then. You know what, Lorie?” He shifted topics with frequency, and his voice now took on a hint of excitement. “When Mama was carrying me, in her belly that is, before I was birthed, a big hoop snake rolled into her path and my granny Rose, she was still living then—”
“Malcolm,” I chastised, chewing on a piece of jerky but unable to let this whopper slide. I’d shed my poncho now that the rain had stopped, and was only slightly damp. “You know that hoop snakes are just an old wives’ tale.”
“They ain’t!” he insisted. “Granny Rose had to kill it with the rake she were holding, an’ she yelled at Mama not to look at it since she was carrying me, and that if Mama looked I’d be marked with a hoop, sure thing. Evil things, they eat their own tails and then roll after you!”
I giggled, letting the hat hang down my back. I had even gone so far as to slip out of my walking boots; my heels were so blistered and raw that just the thought of wearing the shoes made me cringe. Malcolm’s toes were also bare, alongside mine on the footboard.
“They do!” he insisted. “Only place to get away from one is to climb a tree!”
“My brother Jesse thought he saw one once, too,” I allowed. “But Mama didn’t believe him. We did spend a fair amount of that summer looking for it, I recall. I wasn’t but six or seven.”
He nodded in all seriousness.
“Beaumont used to play tricks on Mama all the time,” Malcolm said. “He was a right trickster, same as Daddy.”
“I’d say all of you were tricksters,” I teased him.
“But Beau was the best. I miss him so, Lorie. You think when we meet our kin in heaven, they’ll look the way we remember them?”
His question gave me pause; after all of the light-hearted topics we’d covered as the wagon rolled north through the long afternoon, this was a profound question, and one I had given thought to in the past. I studied the sky for a piece, shivering as images of my brothers seemed to dance, unbidden and ghostlike, at the corners of my consciousness. The tin-colored clouds against a flat white background made it difficult to discern a particular time throughout the day, as was possible when the sun was visible. The air was chill, though the wind had slackened. Far to the west the clouds allowed for a scrap of blue, triangle-shaped. Finally I said softly, “I think they’ll look the way we recall.”
“You don’t think folks get older, in heaven?” he asked, straightening up to stretch his back.
“No, I don’t think age is the same there, truly.”
“What if they don’t recognize me?” He sounded concerned, and I looked from the sky and into his dark eyes. I hooked my arm through his and hugged it to my side. He added, “I mean, since I’ll be a piece older’n they remember by the time I get there.”
Tears again in my eyes. I said, softly, “Don’t you think they watch over you and Boyd, from up there someplace?”
“Yeeeeeees,” he said slowly, drawing out the word. “That’s what Reverend Wheeler used to say about folks who done passed. I hate to think that Mama wouldn’t recognize me when I get to be an old man.”
“Oh, Malcolm,” I said then, hugging his slim little arm tighter to me. “Your mama will know you.”
“What do you think they’s doing up there, right at this moment?” His voice was curious, though slightly husky, as though there was a tightness in his throat too.
“I think…” I didn’t want to give him a patronizing answer and so paused to gather my words, picturing my brothers, my mama and daddy. They were angelic in my imagination, adorned with haloes and flowing robes of ethereal blue. Then I dismissed those images and tried to visualize them as they had been once upon a time, hale and healthy. I finally allowed, “I think that maybe it isn’t so different than it was here. Just without all of the fears of this world, or the sadness. I like to think of Dalty and Jesse together, causing mischief.”
“In heaven?” Malcolm sounded slightly scandalized.
I giggled a little at the surprise in his eyes and asked honestly, “You don’t believe there’s any place for fun in heaven?”
The usual twinkle, the one I doted upon, glinted almost at once in his eyes and he said gaily, “I didn’t afore, but now I think maybe so.” He leaned close and kissed my left temple, with a loud smacking sound. He said with sincerity, “I do love you so, Lorie, I must tell you.”
Tears fell over my face though I was laughing, too. It seemed all of the emotions I had so long restrained at Ginny’s wanted simultaneous release. I said through a choked throat, “I love you too, Malcolm, I really do.”
“Maybe you’d be willin’ to wait ’til I growed up, an’ maybe we could be married.”
Deeply touched, I asked him, “Is this my first proposal?”
Malcolm said sincerely, “Well, I would marry you if I was growed up already. But I think Gus will marry you first. He’d be right lucky to have you for a wife.”
This pronouncement startled me, but I didn’t let him see this. I teased, “Now you’re just talking nonsense.”
“I mean it,” he insisted, but his words were interrupted by a gunshot in the distance ahead. Boyd and Sawyer weren’t in sight, and likely one of them was taking aim at a rabbit. My heart stuttered a little, my eyes instantly ranging the horizon for a glimpse of Whistler, though I could see that even from a distance Angus did not appear concerned, and so my shoulders relaxed.
“In’juns!” piped Malcolm, with enthusiasm. “You know, my uncle Jacob done married an In’jun woman in Minnesota. Mama could never believe that for truth.”
“He did?” I asked, interested. “The Jacob we’re traveling to meet?”
“Yep, an’ they have a pack of kids. I ain’t even met any of ’em yet, but I’ve read all Uncle Jacob’s letters. He’s Mama’s youngest brother.”
Angus circled around and cantered back to the wagon; upon nearing, he called, “Boyd shot us a deer!”
“Aw, venison,” Malcolm enthused. “Good ol’ Boyd!”
By the time that wagon lumbered up, Boyd had bled and gutted the creature, which he then tied neatly to wagon.
“Think that’ll attract wolves?” Malcolm wondered, looking at the carcass.
Boyd laughed at that. “Coyotes, most like. Why, you scairt?”
“No!” Malcolm hollered, insulted. He’d drawn the horses to a halt, and Boyd and Angus took a moment to dismount and stretch, though Sawyer remained on Whistler, drinking long from his canteen. He seemed aloof, even for him, and I wondered uncomfortably if he and Angus had exchanged words, had argued over me. The very thought made my stomach crawl.