Mary Connealy (81 page)

“There’s half a dozen or so of the older ones married and living around Sour Springs, and that many again scattered to the wind.” Harold grabbed his heavy coat off the nail where he’d tossed it a few short seconds earlier. Hannah’s whole life had changed in less time than it took the snow on Harold’s coat to melt. “I’d say he’s only got five or six out there.”

“Four, I think,” Mabel said with an unfocused look that made Hannah wonder if Mabel could read and cipher herself. Of course, Mabel wasn’t the new schoolteacher. “Until today. Now he’s up to six.”

“Twenty or twenty-five?” Hannah exclaimed.
“Twenty-five children?”

At his very worst, Parrish had kept six. All crammed into one room while he had a nice bedroom all his own. The children were stacked into one set of bunk beds, three on the bottom, three on top, with no more regard than if he’d been stacking cordwood.

“All together, give or take,” Harold said, satisfied with the estimate. “Not all at one time. Lordy, that’d be a passel of mouths to feed, eh, Mabel?”

Hannah pictured a hovel filled with underfed children gnawing on raw pumpkin while they were forced to work from dawn until dusk to make money for the man with no last name. She also realized that the town accepted this wretched state of affairs and she’d get no help—at least not from these two.

She should have enlisted the parson’s help. It didn’t matter. The parson had to know and had done nothing to stop it. If they wouldn’t help her save those children, she’d do it herself. “Someone has to put a stop to this. Why, the man is no better than a slave master.”

Mabel didn’t seem capable of being riled. “Now, Miss Cartwright, it’s not that’a way with Grant. Don’t go getting your feathers all in a ruffle. Just let us explain how things work here in Sour Springs, and you’ll see that you just need to be reasonable.”

Hannah balled up her fists. “I have no intention of being reasonable!”

Mabel blinked.

That’d come out wrong. Hannah heard the door open and close and glanced back to see the other shopper leave without buying anything.

She looked back. From the set looks on Mabel’s and Harold’s faces, they were supportive of the miserable way Grant treated his children. Well, maybe some people could live their lives like this, but she wasn’t one of them.

Rather than waste another second arguing with these two, she decided to handle this situation herself. She had a few meager pennies left. She’d see where she could hire a carriage, ask directions, and take care of Mr…. Grant herself.

S
he turned to Harold. “I’d appreciate it very much if you could direct me to my room.”

“I’ll guide you over, miss. It’s the room over the diner.”

Hannah sniffed in disgust as she turned to walk out. As she left the store, she heard Mabel say to herself, “Steals children…Grant? Imagine.” Then Mabel started laughing all over again.

Pulling on his coat as he walked, Harold led Hannah through the cutting snow, down the wooden sidewalk, toward the town’s only diner. Harold led her down an alley that seemed to catch all the wind and shove it through at top speed. He rounded the back of the diner, went through a door and up a narrow flight of creaking steps.

Hannah clutched her satchel and followed.

It was exactly what she expected, but at the same time she was dismayed at the cramped space. A single room not more than ten-feet-by-ten-feet, with a sloped roof that made the place even smaller. A narrow cot, a row of nails on which to hang her clothes, and a rickety stand with a chipped white pottery washbasin and pitcher. The only heat radiated off a stovepipe that came up through the floor from the diner below. “Do all the teachers stay in this room?”

“The last four have. We’ve had a sight of trouble keeping a teacher in this town though. The women tend to up and get married or run off for one reason or another. I remember one that got kidnapped, I think. Or no, maybe she ran off with a tinker. Or was that two different teachers? It’s hard to keep track.”

Kidnapped? Who got kidnapped?
Hannah thought of Grace, teaching in a small town in far west Texas. Could she have met such a fate? That would explain why the letters quit coming. Hannah wondered if she’d ever see her sister again.

Harold crossed his arms and screwed up his face as if thinking were painful. “Or did she get kidnapped by a tinker then marry him? I can’t rightly remember. And I think we had one once that turned to horse thievin’. Bad business that one was. They all kinda fuzz together in my head.” Harold shrugged as if willing to make up a story if he couldn’t remember the truth.

“Mabel and I have seven boys, but they’re all grown now, so even though I’m on the school board, we don’t have much to do with the school. We’ve been known to run through three or four teachers a year.”

This town obviously chewed teachers up and spit them out. It occurred to Hannah that she could be the next in a long line.

Afraid more thinking might make Harold’s brain explode, Hannah said, “We can discuss the other teachers later.” She moved to the door, thinking to shoo him and his body lice out.

“Oh, little advice, miss. Think long and hard a’fore you go walin’ on any of the kids. Some of the town folk don’t take kindly to it.”

Hannah stiffened. “I don’t intend to
wale
on any child, for heaven’s sake. I’d never strike a child.”

“Now don’t go making promises you can’t keep. The Brewsters’ve moved on, but their like’ve come through town before ’n more’n likely’ll come again. Need a good thrashin’ real regular, those young’uns did.”

“No youngster needs a
thrashing
. Children need love and understanding. Now really, I must ask you to leave. I’ve got things to do.”

Harold must have been long on mouth and short on ears because he apparently didn’t hear her and kept talking. “No figurin’ people near as I kin figure. But the likes of the Brewsters’ll be back. Two boys and a girl. The lot of them Brewsters could stand a good thrashin’ to my way of thinkin’.”

Hannah bristled up until she could have shot porcupine quills at Harold.
Thrash a child indeed
. Why, she’d be no better than Parrish.

She had to get Harold out of here so she could go save Libby.

Swamped with stubbornness she didn’t know she was capable of, Hannah decided then and there she’d neither thrash a child, nor steal a horse, nor let herself be kidnapped, nor marry any man. She’d had her fill of men, first Parrish and now that awful child-stealing Mr…. Grant. She planned to have no man in her life ever. In fact, squaring her shoulders, she vowed right then and there she’d start a new tradition and stay at the school forever—unless she had to steal Libby away from her new father and save the other children out there and run. She tried to imagine twenty-five children stowed away on a train. Or was it six or four? She’d heard several numbers. Hannah got a headache just thinking of all she had to do.

As Harold finally ran out of chatter and turned to leave, Hannah, now sworn to her job for the rest of her life, asked, “Who do I talk to about the school? I want to know all of my pupils’ names, and I hope to visit them in their homes before the start of the winter school term.” Grace had written that a teacher must visit, and Grace was the best teacher Hannah had ever known. Although, honesty forced Hannah to admit that Grace was the only teacher Hannah had ever known.

“No time for that. School starts Monday.”

Already she was failing. “Well then, I’ll visit after school starts.”

“Try asking Louellen downstairs. Running the diner the way she does, I reckon she knows about everything that goes on around here. I know there are a dozen children in town and maybe that many again in the surrounding ranches. Oh, and Grant’s young’uns? That’s another dozen.” Harold broke down and laughed until he had to wipe his eyes.

Hannah’s jaw clenched as she waited the man out.

Tucking his handkerchief back in his pocket, Harold shook his head. “He doesn’t usually send ’em in ’cuz he hasn’t liked the teachers we have. So don’t count them. They’ll be here for a few days most likely, and then he’ll just take ’em home and school ’em hisself like always. Were I you I wouldn’t even let ’em sit at a desk. They’ll be gone afore you need to bother.”

“He don’t…” Hannah stumbled then corrected her grammar. Honestly, she’d only been here an hour and she already sounded like Harold. “He doesn’t send his children to school? Well, we’ll see about that. Could you direct me to his ranch?”

That question seemed to amuse Harold because he began chuckling and shaking his head. Of course Hannah was beginning to believe that a rabid wolf would amuse Harold so she didn’t put much stock in what struck him as funny.

“Gonna get after Grant, miss?”

Hannah crossed her arms while she waited for directions.

“That I’d like to see.”

“Directions?” Hannah tapped her toe.

“You can hire a horse at the livery stable or the blacksmith shop. But Ian O’Reilly is the blacksmith, and I think he’s gone for the day, so don’t waste your time goin’ there. He wouldn’t like you scolding Grant anyway, because he’s one of Grant’s kids.”

“The blacksmith? How old is he?”

Harold shrugged. “About Grant’s age, I ’spect.”

“Mr…. Grant adopted children
his own age?
”

“To get to the Rocking C, go straight out’a town west for about five miles. The woods clear out for a spell, then there’s a thicket of bright red sumac and huckleberries that’s been cut back so’s a trail’ll go through it. Take that trail and go south a spell. The woods’ll start up again and the bluffs’ll rise up on both sides. Gets might rugged. Grant has an old wagon wheel by his place, with a piece of bent iron hooked on it in the shape of a C. Turn east and that trail’ll take you right up to the cabin.”

Hannah tried desperately to remember everything he’d said. West five miles. Trail through a thicket. South between some bluffs. Wagon wheel. East.

Harold gave her a jaunty wave and went out. He was back the next second. “There’s a shorter way, but it’s kinda confusing.”

Hannah shuddered at the thought of directions more confusing than the ones she’d already been given. “No, thank you.”

He said good-bye and exited her room. He came back in. “Turnin’ into a mighty mean day, miss. Not fit for a ride by my way’a reckonin’. If you can wait till tomorrow, Grant’ll be in to Sunday services so you could ride back out with him.”

When Harold said Grant would bring the children to church, Hannah doubted herself for the first time. That spoke well of the man. Parrish had certainly never let her or the other children attend church. But she couldn’t overcome her first impression of Libby and Charlie being taken off into a dangerous situation. And if her instincts were right, she didn’t think it could wait until tomorrow.

“I believe I’ll go on out myself.” How well she remembered her first night in Parrish’s clutches. She wanted to save those children before Grant had time to frighten them into submission.

Harold shrugged.

Hannah had heard this was the way things worked in the West. People minded their own business. Indignantly she thought that was the very reason Grant had been allowed to abscond with so many children.

Harold went out, then he came right back. “If’n you get lost just start heading south. You’ll run into the spring. Sour Springs we call it. Named the town for it. Stinks like a herd of polecats. Can’t miss it. Upstream’ll lead you right smack into town.” He tipped his hat and left.

Hannah sighed in relief to have the bad news bearer gone.

He popped his head back around the corner. “Oh, and don’t touch the sumac. It’s poisonous.” He left again.

Hannah stared dolefully at the empty doorway where the man bobbed in and out like a sneaky prairie dog.

He rounded her door again. “But the sumac’ll be buried by snow more’n likely, so forget about it.”

He’d told her to turn at the sumac. If it was buried, how was she supposed to use it as a landmark? She waited for the voice of doom to return so she could ask him. He appeared to have given it all to her at last. She pulled her worn-out coat tight around her and headed for the stable before she could second guess herself.

A mountain of a man forked hay into feed bunks for a half dozen horses. He introduced himself as Zeb Morris. He was as hairy as his horses, nearly as big, and he smelled none too much better. Hannah knew that even though she stayed well away.

“Hey, missy. Heard you’re the new schoolmarm.” Zeb grinned, showing more teeth missing than present.

Word did get around in this town.

“Welcome to Sour Springs. My pappy founded this settlement.”

Sour Springs was named after a spring? Or the way his father smelled? Then she thought of a town that would ignore the plight of orphans and wanted to sneer at his pride. Instead she said politely, “I’d like to rent a carriage for the rest of the afternoon.”

The man looked doubtfully out the wide open door. “No day for pleasure ridin’, miss. I wouldn’t stray six feet from town if’n I didn’t have to.”

“Well, I have to. So, if you’ll please do as I ask?”

The man hesitated. Then, just as Harold had done, he let her go about her own business. “Don’t rent carriages, only saddle horses.”

That wasn’t what Hannah wanted at all, but her fear for the children overruled her fear for her own safety. “That will be fine.”

She rented a horse that seemed as unhappy to go to work as it was swaybacked, but Hannah had grown up in the Wild West, or the next thing to it—Chicago. So she’d ridden a horse a time or two. Actually she thought carefully and decided exactly a time, not two. Well, there was no help for it. The children needed her.

She was tempted to ask for directions again from the man who rented her the horse, but she thought she had Harold’s advice memorized and didn’t want to muddy the waters.

Zeb saddled the horse. He—Zeb, not the horse—got far too close for her nose’s comfort when he boosted her on its back. Then he led her out the door.

Taking up the reins, she kicked the horse and the horse kicked back. Since she sat on top of the beast, it didn’t hurt her but it bounced her around some. Finally, with a slap on the backside from the hostler, she got the beast moving at a snail’s pace in the right direction.