Home to Stavewood (Stavewood Saga Book 3) (3 page)

Chapter Six

    
 R
ebecca ran her hand over Timothy’s shoulder and massaged in the liniment gently. His long healed gunshot wound still seemed to ache in the winter. Although it was still late fall, the season had brought several feet of snow and a dreary dampness seemed to hang in the air.

      He hung his head, deep in thought, in the big chair in the bedroom, but she noticed that he looked as if it weren’t just his shoulder that pained him.

     
      “Tell me your thoughts,” she prodded gently.

      “I’m alright,” he replied. He held his head up and looked at her over his shoulder.

      “It takes more than a few cloudy days to make this act up so badly,” she rubbed slowly. “What’s on your mind?”

      “It makes no difference.” He took her hand and held it gently.

      “Timothy Elgerson,” she began. “When I see trouble on your face it makes all the difference to me.”

      She sat on the bed and faced him, her expression kind and full of concern.

      “I just can’t seem to stop worrying. All day, every day, he’s just on my mind all the time.”

      He stood up and slipped his arm back into his shirt sleeve. “I know I have plenty of other things to think about, to do. Poor Loo is so depressed since he left and I can’t even cheer her up because I’m not much better myself. I can’t stop thinking I shouldn’t have let him go. I know all of the reasons he wanted to leave but I just should have said ‘no’.” He paced the room slowly.

      “Timothy,” she said. “He wanted this. He was so serious about it. I wondered myself if it wasn’t a good idea for him to get away. How could we force him to stay?”

      “I know, I know.” He surrendered to her argument.

      “You can’t keep punishing yourself.”

      “Then why am I?” He turned to her, his face drawn with worry. “I just can’t seem to stop.”

      “He’s been writing every week like he promised.” Rebecca wondered which one of them she was trying to convince.

      “The postcards say so little. ‘Miss you, doing fine, all okay.’ Do you think they are saying that he’s happy?”

      “No,” she admitted. “Maybe he’s just not over everything yet. Maybe he just needs more time.” She looked down at her hands in her lap and realized that she had wrung her handkerchief into a tight twist.

      “I don’t know what to do.” Timothy sunk down into the chair. “I don’t know what is in his mind. When he was a kid he’d mope sometimes. When Corissa died he moped for years. I couldn’t find a way with him. I’d just ask him to tell me what he was thinking and he’d get this long face and he wouldn’t spit it out.

      “I don’t think he was all that crazy over that girl. I don’t think he was in love with her. I figured once the truth was out it would be all resolved. I thought he’d just get over it.

      “Like when we moved back here after he found you at the cabin,” he continued. “He was so much happier. Was it you? What worked then?”

      Rebecca scowled and put her fingers to her face.

      Timothy looked at her questioningly. “What are you thinking?”

      “I was remembering the day he climbed into the trunk,” she admitted and looked into his eyes, tears welling in her own.

      Timothy’s mind rushed back to the hours of torture when the boy had found the big chest in the attic and climbed inside, wanting to be with his dead mother. The whole town had searched everywhere for him before Rebecca finally found him there. It was more horrible than Timothy Elgerson wanted to imagine. “I don’t see how or why that changed anything,” he grumbled.

      “You’re right,” she sighed. “Let me finish rubbing this into that shoulder.” She stood up behind the chair.

      “I’m alright,” he sighed. “Just a few more months. I’ll get him to come back in the spring either way. Once he’s home then we’ll figure it out. We’ll just have to wait until then.”

      Rebecca coaxed him out of his shirt again and reapplied the ointment.

      “Cousin Emma,” Louisa rolled a tiny ball under her hand along the kitchen table at the Vancouver house where she was helping with the younger boys. “Do you think that Mark went away because of me?”

      “Because of you?” Emma turned from doing her dishes and looked at the girl in surprise. “Of course not! Why on earth would you think that?” She dried her hands on the nearby towel and sat at the table facing the child.

      “He said he wanted to get away. What did he want to get away from?” Louisa scowled.

      “It was nothing you did, Loo. Mark loves you with his whole heart.”

      “I know that Bernadette told bad lies about him and he was very, very angry with her, but I don’t understand why that would make him want to get away from me.” She sighed and sniffled.

      “Oh honey!” Emma pulled the child to her and hugged her close.

      “Christmas is going to come and he won’t even come home,” Louisa sobbed. “I asked Grandmother ‘Bel and she told me.”

      “Then we are just going to have to save all his presents until he comes home and have a very special celebration then, that’s all.”

      Roland stood in the doorway and Emma noticed him over the child’s shoulder.

      He nodded to her and frowned.

      “That stuff outside is making some of the best snowballs I have ever seen.” He spoke up. “I just can’t seem to make them fast enough for those boys all by myself.”

      Louisa looked up and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’ll help you,” she volunteered.

      Emma sighed as she watched Roland walk with the child towards the back door.

      “A girl might be nice,” she thought, placing her hand on her belly. She knew that it didn’t matter as long as the childbirth went well this time.

Chapter Seven

     
M
ark eyed Buck suspiciously as he stood along the tracks outside of the office.

      “When I couldn’t find you boys I was just full of worry. I had to return your money and your gun too.” He kicked the dirt with the curled toe of his boot.

      “I know it was that girl that probably took it all. As soon as Sam told me you were missing things I went right to her. She doesn’t mean anything by it. I’ll keep an eye on her this time and it won’t happen again,” he assured.

      Mark watched him suspiciously. His memory of the evening at the still was foggy, but he was sure he could not recall a girl at all.

      “She says she wants to make it up to you. You boys come up for a while. You don’t even have to have a drink if you don’t want.” His comment was clearly directed to Mark.

      Mark had thought about that night a hundred times over the last week. He remembered how relaxed he had been, how he felt as if he could just forget everything and his mind would rest easy. He had decided that if he had not drunk down the moonshine so quickly he might be able to handle it better. He thought he’d try again, but not bring any money with him this time, and suggest to Sam that he did the same.

      “Alright,” he agreed. “We’ll come up tomorrow after work.”

      Buck nodded and grinned.

      “I saw you talking to that McHerlong boy.” The woman at the boarding house was sitting on the crumbling porch, haphazardly rolling a cigarette.

      Mark was waiting for Samuel to finish dressing and he nodded to the woman. “I don’t know him very well,” he admitted.

      “You’d do well to keep it that way,” the woman cleared her throat. “That McHerlong family has been feuding with those Catslips as long as I can recall.” She began to cough and surrendered to a long fit.

      “When I was a girl,” she recalled. “Old Man McHerlong was young then, like you boys. He was seeing that Catslip girl, I don’t recall her name. Someone shot her out in those woods and her family just couldn’t accept that it might have been an accident. They were certain that McHerlong had killed her. There was talk that she was expecting his child, but no one knows for sure. That whole bunch is trouble.” She shook her head and walked into the house.

      Mark scowled, stepped off the porch and paced in the dirt. He’d left home over just this kind of thing, he thought. He hadn’t come here to have any of this follow him. “Old Man” she had said. It was ancient history, he thought. It didn’t concern him. One day he’d be able to forget about Bernadette, and he hoped everyone in all of Billington City would forget as well. No one needed some old woman remembering something that had happened long ago and then telling everyone about it. Maybe if Old Man McHerlong had left for a while no one would be talking about it now.

      “Are you ready?” Mark asked Sam as he emerged from the house.

      “Plenty ready!” Sam jumped down the battered stairs and the two headed for the stables.

      The boys paid for the horses up front and the stableman watched then rambling out of town on the horses. He shook his head.

      “Fool kids,” he muttered under his breath.

      Mark laughed hard as Buck tried to balance on the log they had propped up between the stumps.

      “Let me try,” Samuel jumped up. “You can’t balance. You probably need another drink,” he laughed.

      “That must be it!” Buck swayed slowly. “Just to get my balance back.”

      Mark shook his head as Buck offered him a refill.

      “What are you boys doing out here?” a voice bellowed from the woodland.

      “Ah, Lem,” Buck called out. “Get out here and see if you can walk on this!”

      A lanky, young man emerged from the woods. His hair was thin and tangled. Mark took notice that it was the first man he had seen in the area who had not cut his hair very short.

      “Lem McHerlong,” he said, offering his hand to Mark and then to Samuel. Sam tried to focus on Lem’s face. “Buck’s brother.”

      Mark scooted to one side and Lem sat down next to him, picked up the jug and took a long pull.

      A skinny girl appeared from the edge of the forest and stood wringing her dress in her hands. She was pitifully thin, her eyes deep set and she wore an anxious look on her face. Her clothing was oversized and tattered and her thin legs stood in a pair of battered shoes that were clearly much too large for her feet. Mark decided that she had to be much younger than any of them.

      “You told me that I could have a drink when we were done,” she mumbled quietly.

      “Come here,” Lem poured a generous amount of the liquor into a cup and held it out towards the girl.

      She shuffled towards him and eyed Mark suspiciously before taking the cup and sitting on the ground beside Lem.

      “You can sit here,” Mark stood up and offered his seat on the log.

      “This is Swallow,” Lem volunteered. “She lives on the other side of the creek.”

      The girl shook her head to Mark slowly and remained in the dirt. She tilted her head to one side and studied him openly and he gave up and sat back down on the log carefully, taking a deep breath and trying to clear his head a bit. He stole a look at her and began to wonder if perhaps there was something wrong with her. He had never seen a girl so dirty and pathetic looking and he watched her hold out her cup and beg Lem for another drink.

      “Swallow will do just about anything for a bit of shine. Won’t you, honey?” He smiled at her knowingly.

      She nodded vigorously as he filled her cup.

      Mark looked down at the ground and scowled.

      “Maybe she can walk on the log,” Sam laughed. “I sure can’t.” He flopped down onto the ground laughing.

      The moonlight streamed through the trees and Mark sat up and shook his head. He looked around and saw that everyone in the group was sprawled in one way or another around the clearing, with the exception of Swallow who sat cross legged, watching him closely.

      He sat up slowly and rubbed his temple to try to ease the throbbing.

      “What’s your name?” Her voice was low and soft.

      “Mark,” he replied and looked at her sidelong.

      “Do you like me?” she asked.

      He looked at her curiously. “I guess,” he responded.

      “Can I touch your hair?”

      “My hair?” He frowned.

      “It’s so shiny and all. Is it soft?”

      “I suppose.” He sat still and she reached up timidly and touched his hair lightly.

      “It is,” she smiled and sighed. “Where are you from?”

      “Minnesota,” he responded, curious about the girl.

      “Is that far?” She studied his face.

      “Pretty far I guess.”

      “I never traveled far. I was born right here, right on the other side of the creek. I have to get back pretty soon before my Pa knows I’m gone. When he wakes up I have to be there, but he won’t be up for a little while. He got a big jug of that yesterday,” she giggled.

      Mark realized that although she was very poorly dressed she might not be as simple as he had thought earlier. He had seen her drink a good amount of the moonshine and perhaps that had affected her. He had never seen a female drink that much before.

      She stood up and moved to sit beside him on the log and she smiled sweetly. “So you like me alright?”

      He looked at her oddly. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

      “I want you to like me.” She leaned over and kissed him full on the lips.

      Mark stood up suddenly and backed away from the girl.

      “What’s wrong?” She stood up and faced him.

      “Why did you do that?” He looked around the clearing at the others sleeping soundly.

      “I like you,” she explained, “and I thought you liked me.” She put her hands on his chest and smiled up to him.

      “I-I don’t know you very well,” he stammered.

      “I could make you really happy,” she smiled provocatively. “I know exactly how.” She reached down and placed her hand boldly against his trousers.

      “No,” he blurted out. “Don’t.”

      “Ah, come on,” she tried again.

      “Sam.” Mark kicked his companion with his boot. “Let’s go.”

      Sam sat up suddenly and blinked his eyes.

      “What?” he choked.

      “We’re leaving.” Mark turned from the girl and headed for his horse.

      “Alright.” Sam stood up and brushed himself off.

      Lem turned over and cursed under his breath as he watched the two head into the woodland.

      “She was worse than Bernadette, Sam,” Mark spoke to his friend angrily.

      “Maybe she was just trying to be friendly.” Samuel tried to shake the cobwebs from his head and cleared his throat.

      “She was far beyond friendly,” Mark scowled.

      “Well, maybe it’s time we started finding out more about girls,” Sam suggested.

      “Not with that kind of girl, thanks anyway,” Mark shook his head.