Romancing Olive (3 page)

“No need to go in the house,” he said.

She shook off his hand with a huff and turned a determined face his way.

Mr. Butler looked skyward and dropped his hold.

Olive walked slowly to the doorway. She heard buzzing from within and stepped into the dark interior, unable to see, but overwhelmed by a powerful stench. When her vision adjusted she found the source of the noise. Thousands of flies and maggots swarmed over a dark blotch on the dirt floor. The sight and smell was so horrid she turned and ran outside.

“The bugs? Why are there so many bugs in the house, Mr. Butler?” Olive asked through pale lips. He barely met her eye yet Olive could see the pity on his face and felt the blood drain from hers.

“Miss Wilkins, why don’t we head back to . . .”

“Tell me Mr. Butler.”

”Look, there’s nothing to be done.”

“Tell me,” Olive screamed.

“Sophie was cut up pretty bad and by the time I got her buried, she had pretty much bled out all over the dirt,” he said.

“And?”

“When I lifted Sophie the bugs and maggots were already nesting in her face,” Mr. Butler said, his voice rising. “That’s what happens when there’s blood spilled.”

Olive straightened; horrified with the picture he painted yet certain he told the grim truth. She found herself at the side of the house emptying her stomach on the bare earth.

“It’s clean,” Mr. Butler said.

“Thank you.” Olive replied as she accepted the folded bandana from his hand.

“Like I said before, let’s go back to my place and try and sort this out.”

Olive did not understand any of what she had seen or heard. She desperately needed to know the whole story. She held the hanky to her nose, walked back to the house and inside.

Piles of rags were heaped in a corner, near an unswept fireplace. The table was piled with filth, its’ chairs over turned. Olive saw scurrying movement under a blanket covering straw. She picked up a pair of glasses from the mantel with a shaking hand. Olive closed her eyes and held her brother’s spectacles to her breast.

“As if killing their parents wasn’t enough,” she whispered as Jacob Butler came through the doorway.

“Pardon?” he asked.

Olive swept her hand around the squalid room. “Wasn’t it enough that this outlaw killed Mary and John’s parents? What possessed him to destroy their home as well?”

“You think the man that killed Sophie did this to the house?” Mr. Butler asked.

“So vicious,” Olive hissed, staring wide-eyed around the room.

Jacob Butler closed the gap between them in two strides. He turned her roughly to face him. “For the love of God, woman. Don’t you get it? Your brother was a cheating, lazy gambler and his wife a drunk.”

Olive’s mouth opened in shock. “It can not be. James married a woman who drank alcohol?” Mr. Butler’s hands fell away from her shoulders.

“Drank alcohol? She could drink most men under the table and when she did,” Mr. Butler replied, “she spread her legs for any man in the room.”

Olive’s hand flew to her mouth and she whispered, “Poor James.”

“Poor James?” he shouted. “He knew what she was. He didn’t care. He gambled with the money she made and drank the whiskey that was left when she passed out.”

“She made money? James couldn’t provide for his family?”

“She was a whore, Miss Wilkins,” Jacob Butler said quietly. “It kept food on the table. Jimmy never could figure out why his crops wouldn’t grow, while he spent his days in the saloon at the poker table.”

“So you are saying that Sophie and James’s home always looked like this?” Olive asked.

Jacob Butler nodded his reply.

Olive’s eyes rounded in horror. “John and Mary lived like this.”

“Let’s go,” Jacob Butler said and reached to cup her elbow in his hand.

Olive pulled away and turned to the rough wooden trough overflowing with dishes and dirt and looked out the solitary window to an elm tree. There, standing clean and pure, were two white crosses in the ground. An involuntary gasp escaped her and tears threatened again. Outside, Olive knelt on the hard earth, between the graves and picked up wilted wild flowers.

“You buried them,” Olive said without turning.

Jacob Butler knelt down on his haunches, hat in hand. “It gives me comfort to go to my wife Margaret’s grave. I knew the children would want to know where their parents were buried.”

Oddly, tears would not come as Olive stared at the hard earth. Her shoulders shook, but not a single drop escaped. Sordid visions flew through her head and countless questions begged an answer but she could do nothing but softly ask, “Why?”

* * *

Jacob watched the woman’s tall, slight form shake and he regretted his anticipation of seeing her surprise. Her complete and utter shock was so genuine and heartfelt that he could feel nothing but guilt for letting her see her brother’s dismal existence. Jacob knew what it was like when your world began to crumble before your eyes and he knew this woman, right now, was watching all that she believed and held dear, filter through her hand like so much August dirt. Jacob watched her rise, stumble over a root and right herself, before he had time to reach out.  She climbed into the wagon and folded her hands in front of her.

Jacob pulled himself into the wagon and clucked the horse to turn. He regarded Olive Wilkins in a new light.  Clearly shaken, but not broken. To this sheltered woman’s credit she had held her head high and demanded to understand the ugliness surrounding her brother’s demise.

“Thank you, Mr. Butler,” she said.

“Miss Wilkins, I should have never brought you out here.”

“No, Mr. Butler, I would have never believed you if you had merely tried to tell me. I needed . . . I needed to see it for myself,” she said.

He nodded and they bumped along towards the morning sun.

“My God, Mr. Butler. What did Mary see go on inside those four walls? How will she ever get over it?”

“Children are stronger than we give them credit for. I don’t think Jimmy ever let one of Sophie’s ah . . . friends near Mary. Not that I’m sure they didn’t try.”

“Is that why Mary shrinks away from you when you reach to her?”

Jacob nodded. “I think so. I was pretty surprised she stood as close to me today when you were talking about moving back to Philadelphia. She doesn’t usually get within ten feet of me.”

“There must not be a soul on this earth she trusts,” Miss Wilkins whispered.

“No, I don’t think there is.”

The long ride home was quiet. Jacob stole glances at Olive Wilkins and watched her swallow and purse her lips.

“Mr. Butler? When you asked me to . . . when you mentioned my staying on . . . were you, are you still . . .?”

“You’re welcome to stay, Miss Wilkins. I’ll bunk in the barn.”

* * *

His quick response brought Olive to tears faster than the horrid sights she had just seen. She buried her face in her hands and wept. The tears poured, unheeded for her brother and his wife and for John and Mary. For herself and her shattered daydreams.

Mr. Butler’s arm crept around her and she turned and clung to him. His flannel shirt was soft and warm and caught Olive’s tears. She was sobbing uncontrollably on the chest of man she had met that morning but it felt right, was right. As if there were no other humanity left on the earth but this man. Two strangers, stranded in a tragedy they had not written. Olive sniffed, righted herself and focused on the unwilling victims of this play. Convention be damned, she thought. If she must live on Jacob Butler’s farm until John and Mary could be coaxed back to civilization, then so be it.

“Don’t let the children see your tears, Miss Wilkins,” he said.

Olive realized they were pulling up in front of the Butler house. She quickly dried her face and stood up in the wagon. This weathered house, with its’ patterns of crops, looked clean and new and righteous. What she had dismissed as shabby, earlier in the day was in a dire need of scrubbing, yes, but held a family, and held it with love. No wonder Mary did not want to leave. This was a castle and this man, Jacob Butler, a prince, compared to what Mary had known.

Chapter Two

Olive followed Jacob Butler into the house and children came running from all directions.

“Daddy,” Peg and Luke screeched as John jumped up and down. Mr. Butler kissed every head but Mary’s. He nodded in her direction and she looked away.

“Children,” Mr. Butler said. They silenced immediately and turned to face him. “Miss Wilkins, John and Mary’s aunt, is going to stay here with us on the farm for awhile.”

Luke and Peg took a step closer to Olive. Luke grinned a toothless smile and Peg held her hands together at her chest. John seemed confused and turned his questioning gaze to his sister. Mary’s mouth was a grim line and Olive could feel her anger from across the room.

“I’ll sleep in the barn with Luke and John,” Mr. Butler said.

The two boys looked at each other and exchanged questions without words. “Why do we have to sleep in the barn, Daddy?” Luke asked.

“Well,” Mr. Butler said as he crouched down, “ladies need some privacy. We men will be fine in the barn.”

Luke and John stood tall and John nodded as Luke repeated, “The ladies need some privacy.”

“Mary, you and Peg can share and give your Aunt my bed. Mark will stay in his crib. Have you thought about what we’ll be eating for supper, Mary?” Mr. Butler said.

“What am I? Your slave?” Mary shouted and ran out the door.

“I’m sorry about Mary’s outburst. It was uncalled for,” Olive said.

“No need to apologize, Miss Wilkins. Mary’s mad at everybody,” he replied.

“Mr. Butler, may I use your wagon to go to town?” Olive asked surprising even herself.

Olive would not be beholden to this man for more than she already was and intended to stock the larder. Her head swam with her decision to stay, living with a strange man, as well as the deplorable state the children were in. She would see the banker in town, go to the general store, fetch her bags and purchase fabric for clothes for the children. All the change, all the agony and uncertainty of the day rebounded through her head and the only thing she was completely positive of was her ability to make clothing for her niece and nephew. It was a small surety, but of that skill she was confident and she clung to it.

“Sure. Ever drive a wagon?” he asked.

John, Peg and Luke screamed and scrambled for shoes. “Hurry up, Peg, we’re going to town,” Luke said.

“Now children,” Olive began. Three excited, smiling faces looked up to her as she

said, “I’ll take you another day, children. I have many things to do.”

Luke blew air where his teeth should have been and lost his smile. Peg’s lip trembled and John’s face was a symphony of disappointment. Olive tied her bonnet, picked up her purse and tried not to look at the three faces. She climbed into the wagon and Mr. Butler explained where the break was while she picked up the reins. As she thanked him, she couldn’t miss the three broken hearts lined up in the doorway. Maybe company wouldn’t be so bad on her solo expedition behind a horse. Peg lifted her hand to wave and Olive gave in.

“Alright children, you may . . .” she started but was not heard over the roars and whoops.

They climbed in the wagon, still shrieking when Jacob Butler gave them a look. The air was thankfully quiet.

“Mr. Butler, I’ll be getting some things from town. Is there anything you . . .we need?” Olive asked.

“Bacon, Daddy,” Luke whispered. “You said next time we go to town, we could get bacon.”

“When I finish that plowing job, we’ll get bacon,” Mr. Butler said.

“We don’t have no pigs,” little Peg said quietly to Olive.

“Any pigs, Peg,” Olive corrected.

“Without no pigs, we don’t get no bacon,” the little girl said as she swung her head side to side.

Olive’s eye twitched with the double negative. She climbed down from the wagon and headed back to the house.

“What’s she doing, Daddy?” Luke asked and squirmed in his seat.

“Not a clue, son,” Jacob Butler replied.

Olive walked out of the house and climbed up into the wagon, muttering as she went. Shaking her head, she fixed Jacob Butler with a taut smile and slapped the horse into motion.

“Ya forget something?’” Luke asked finally as the wagon rumbled down the road.

“No, but your father certainly did,” Olive huffed.

Olive would have enjoyed the nearly one hour ride if the children had not jumped and shouted as if they were on the greatest adventure of their lives. Thankfully the lane was straight and dry and the horse needed little encouragement. When they arrived in town, the children were near giddy with excitement.

“Now, I have some business to conduct in the bank and I expect you all to be mindful of your manners,” Olive said to the children as they climbed down from the wagon. They stood straight like little soldiers and marched behind her as she opened the heavy door.

“Good afternoon, sir. I need to have monies transferred from my bank in Philadelphia. Can you accommodate me?” Olive asked at the barred window.

“Yes, ma’am, certainly,” the clerk replied.

Olive looked down at the children as she conducted her business and found Luke and Peg fascinated with the shoe string ties on the next customer. But John was hiding in her volumes of skirts.

“Luke, Peg, stand up beside me, please. Yes, that’s better,” Olive said as Peg reached up to hold her hand.

Olive uncovered John’s face and found him staring wide-eyed at a man at the next window. The cowboy was dirty and his shirt, sweat stained as he peered around Olive to John’s face.

“Hey, ain’t you Sophie’s kid?” the cowboy asked.

John turned into Olive’s skirts and Luke and Peg inched back to her.

“Hey, I’m talking to ya. Ain’t you Sophie’s boy?” he asked again.

John quivered and Olive laid her hand on his shoulder. “This young man is my brother James and his wife Sophie’s child. I am his Aunt.”

“Well,” the cowboy said and hooked his thumbs in his suspenders. “I knows it’s Sophie’s boy but folk wondered if Jimmy was his Pa.”