What Once We Loved (26 page)

She did indeed have milk and dairy to sell. She just didn't like the idea of having to deal weekly with Charles Wilson.

“I'll tell you what,” he said, moving in closer to her so that she could smell the tobacco on his breath. “Let's not talk about it as a cash commodity. Let's consider what you might take in trade.” He grinned at her, and she felt the spiders crawl again.

“Books of cloth,” she said and stepped backward, pacing and counting on her fingers as though making up a list. She needed to do something to keep him from traveling farther along the deranged trail his voice suggested. “And leather shoes. Several pairs of different sizes. Wool blankets. And fruit. Lemons, oranges, or citric acid if you can't get those fresh. The children need them to prevent scurvy.”

“Well, well. And I'd be happy to deliver them for you here,” Charles told her. “And pick up the milk and butter each day. That would save you time and labor, now wouldn't it, Mazy?” He had a gravelly voice
that might have been intriguing in another man, but with Charles it just grated further on her nerves.

“Mrs. Bacon to you,” she corrected.

Marvel bellowed from his pen, and a new idea shot through her. “I could use your help. With a delivery.”

“Anything to be of assistance to you,
Mrs. Bacon”
he said. “Anything at all.”

She might pay a price for this later, but for now, she could rid herself of two difficult males with one remittance.

Zane
Randolph felt strong enough to try the shay. If O'Malley had done what he was told to, the side boards would be cut down so Zane could lift himself into it more easily. If he didn't try soon to head over the mountains, it would be spring before he could. He wanted Ruth to know that he had plans for their divorce, plans to intervene. He smiled. It would all work out so well. A divorce in California was a treasure, pure and simple. Especially with an industrious mate. Ruth surely was that.

The jehu becoming frazzled told him he could take on whomever he must, despite The Stub, as he'd taken to calling his leg. Zane grinned. And see how getting rattled spoiled a thing? Ruths solicitor would have to tell him where she was. Zane could make him. More importantly, Zane could see how easily he, too, could allow emotion to overcome him. That was what had happened before, when he'd threatened the doctor; when he'd taken Jessie while wanting to see Ruth's face in agony. He must calm himself, not allow the moment to unsettle him.

He looked out the window. O'Malley should be back. It was December, and still they'd had no snow to speak of, just some drizzles— enough to replenish a few of the smaller streams. If he were lucky, he'd head on into Oregon Territory by Christmas. What a lovely gift to give himself.

Zane reread the letter. It shouldn't have surprised him, not after all that time, and yet he'd felt a fury burst like a lantern lobbed against a wall. How dare she be the one to claim the need to be set free. He was the one held hostage—by her betrayals, her escaping west, his now mangled body. Yet she wanted out, wrote despicable things about him. The marriage, dissolving away like whiskey into sand.

He'd tossed the papers into the dirt, stomped on them with the crutch, and then the wooden peg of his leg until the stump ached from the pain of it.

That wretched O'Malley arrived to lift him up, and Zane saw the pity in the man's eyes. The same look that David Taylor gave him when he'd first seen him, before Zane had managed to rattle that kid's thinking.

“Sure now and you've gotten yourself into a state,” O'Malley said, hauling him to his feet.

“Just leave me,” Zane told him.

“Would these be yours then?” the man continued, picking up the papers, pocked now with the peg's impressions, brushing off the dirt.

Zane ripped the papers from the man's hands. “Help me outside,” he'd hissed, his breath coming in raspy beats. “I'm heading north.”

“I doubt that,” O'Malley told him, and Zane had struck out at him with his crutch, flailing about. O'Malley had lifted him and carried him to the cot like a child.

The humiliation still burned at Zane's face. He must not lose control. He must stick with a plan; adjust it slowly, only as needed.

Today the plan was to see if he could indeed get himself into the shay and then attempt to drive it. Up and down the street for now. He looked out the window. Good, O'Malley had hitched the horse.

He strapped the contraption onto The Stub. It still hurt, more than he thought it should. The crutch beneath his armpit rubbed too. O'Malley had suggested Zane wait until he was stronger with his chest and arms. “Your legs'll be working, but it's your arms that'll be lifting you. And you're weakened by the healing.”

Zane scoffed. Today he would hoist himself into the shay and drive it.

He made his way to the door, the crutch helping him balance. He thump-walked to the side of the shay.

The horse turned and wiggled its ears back and forward, snorted. She didn't like what she saw. Even Zane could tell that.

“Put your crutch inside then,” O'Malley told him, coming up from behind him.

“I need no help from you,” Zane said.

Zane stood in front of the opening to the carriage, leaned the crutch against the side, turned around. He would sit in the box at the cutaway, push back, then pull himself up to the seat, reach over the side for the crutch, lift the reins, and be off. That was his plan.

But when he turned and pushed against the shay, he knocked the crutch. It slid away, the sound causing the startled horse to lurch forward, rolling the buggy. The movement pitched Zane onto his knee and jammed the pegged one.

“Hey, hey! Hold that blasted animal!” Zane shouted.

But it did no good. The horse remained tied to the post, and Zane slid as though in slow motion to the ground beside it.

“Here then—”

“Get away from me! Away!” Zane gulped huge mouthfuls of air.

“Let me be helping you up then—”

“Leave me!”

And there he sat, struggling and pulling, grabbing the crutch, trying to get his good leg out from under him while the pegged one pointed in accusation. By the time he'd pulled himself up, hanging on to the footstep of the shay, twisting himself to grab the crutch, he was exhausted. Sweating. His leg throbbed as though his heart beat within it.

“Enough for today,” Zane said. He'd begin working on his arm and chest strength in the morning.

“He's gone!” Sterling Powder shouted.

“Who's gone? The boys?” Suzanne asked, standing quickly.

“No, no. The dog. Your Pig. He's simply taken off.” Suzanne thought he sounded genuinely sorry.

“Was there a cat about?” Esther asked. “He never liked cats. He chased them back in Shasta.”

“We were simply out for a walk. My cats are caged, Mrs. Maeves, and I did not see any on the streets. He just bolted and ran. I'm so sorry.” He spoke rapidly, upset.

“Did you call for him?”

“Oh, yes. Even your Clayton did.”

“Clayton called the dog?”

“He repeated me. I was quite impressed.”

Suzanne felt as though she'd stepped into a puddle of disappointment surrounded by a pool of joy. “Clayton talked. Did you hear that, Esther? What did he say? Exactly?”

“He said, ‘Come back you…dog.' Of course I repeated his name and called to him despite the wary looks of others wondering why I should be calling a pig, but nothing. He leaped over a picket fence, ran through a yard, and was gone.”

“The leash. Did he have it on? Will it tangle him?”

“He had only his collar. I am sorry, Mrs. Cullver. Perhaps it was all the commotion, all the changes brought on by your…activities.”

“Yes, perhaps,” she said. “Well, Clayton, Son, come here. You, too, Sason. So you can talk! That's wonderful.” She felt for her son's head, patted his eyes and face, then brought her hand around his small shoulders. She felt something strange just at the back of his head.

“He has a nick here. A little scab?” she asked.

“While I was cutting his hair. He wiggled a bit.”

“I don't remember asking you to cut his hair,” she said.

“It is part of a…tutor's duty. I just assumed. I took the liberty of cutting Sason's hair as well.”

“Sason's little curls? You cut his curls off? I loved wrapping them in my fingers.”

“He was mistaken for a girl, Mrs. Cullver. More than once when we walked about.”

“Perhaps they need less walking about,” Suzanne said. She heard a quiver in her voice, swallowed. “Without their mother and now without Pig.” She must think clearly about just what influence Sterling Powder had in her life, her boys' lives. Was it all good?

Ruth had agreed to let Matthew and Lura and Mariah stay. Lura had been happy enough to keep going, to find “their place.” And Ruth would have been happy with them all moving off, with her and her family at last alone, making or breaking by what they could do together as one.

“You've committed yourself to making a rope with a whole bunch of strands,” Matthew told her. “It's foolish to tell anyone who could help to just walk on.”

“But don't you want to get your land grant?”

“I will. We will. But that doesn't mean we can't stay on here and help you through the winter before we do.”

“I don't need help. I told you that before we left. Escorting me up here was fine. But now—”

“I know, I know. All right then. You'd be helping me and mine. That's the truth of it. I wouldn't be worrying over what was happening to you and the kids here, that's true enough. But there's talk of the Takelmas and Rogues acting warlike, and we'd be safer in a cluster here than all spread out. If they're peaceful, we can get work done to your place. And Mariah would have playmates and Ma a woman friend. It's selfish, I know. I'm making the offer from pure self-interest.”

She glared at him. “Pure self-interest.”

“Yes ma am. You already got a roof. Needs some work, but its shelter. Wont be any way we can build us one other than a lean-to in the woods before snow flies full. Be doing us a neighborly favor to let us stay and help get things buttonhooked before winter. You've got a pistol or two if we have to defend ourselves. There's strength in numbers. Come spring, we'll be on our way.”

“ ‘Give Mariah a playmate and your ma a woman friend,' “ Lura said while Ruth eavesdropped later outside the wagon. “Since when have I needed you to find me friends? And your sister's way past playmate time. Have you looked at her lately? She's a young woman.”

“She's only thirteen, Ma.”

“That's the sorriest suitor argument I ever heard,” Lura said. “You've got some other motive under your hat, is my guess. The way you've been lookin at Ruth.” She wasn't sure how she wanted him to answer, smiled at his sputtering.

“I'm not her suitor, Ma. I'm her friend. That's all. Nothing more.”

“Her friend.” Lura scoffed. “What do you take me for? A seven by nine:

And so they'd set to work. They assessed the cabin first. While Matthew checked the chimney that failed to draw, Jason shimmied up a tree and dropped onto the roof at the chimney, broke free a bird's nest settled there. Moss grew on the shake shingles, and he called down to Matthew with estimates of how many they'd need to replace to keep the snow and rain out.