Anita Mills (18 page)

“I’m sorry—I know how much you wanted to go,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, well, it looks like I’m here for the winter.”

“Here?” Momentarily nonplussed, she looked up at him with widening eyes.

“Yeah. I’ll probably try to get room and board at the fort, if it’s not against army regulations.”

“Oh.”

“So—what’s all this?” he wondered, gesturing to the sagging clothesline.

“Washing.” As his eyebrow lifted, she explained, “I’ve got myself a business now. Once a week, the men in camp send their dirty clothes up, and I wash, dry, and iron everything.” Pushing back her hair, she added, “I’m making a living at it,”

“It’s a damned hard living, I’d say.”

“At least I’m surviving.”

“Why didn’t you keep the money?” he asked abruptly.

“I guess you must’ve found it, she replied.

“That’s not an answer.”

“You already know why—it wasn’t mine to keep.” Stepping back, she looked toward the cabin. “I…uh…I don’t suppose you’ve got time for a cup of coffee, do you?”

“I’ve got about six months of it, he answered dryly.

“Well, then come on in. I’ve got real coffee now—and I’ve always got bread and jam.”

“Anything sounds good—I haven’t eaten since Laramie,” he said, falling in beside her.

“If you came from Laramie today, you sure made good time.”

“I left last night.”

“And you haven’t eaten anything in ail that time? I didn’t think a man could go that long without food,” At the threshold of her door, she stopped to turn back to him. “Maybe you’d better stay for supper.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“You won’t be—I’ve got to eat, too.” Holding the knob, she threw her shoulder into the door. “I don’t know how many times I’ve planed this down, but it still sticks,” she explained as it opened. ‘Tm afraid to take too much off—I don’t want cold air coming in around it this winter.”

The place didn’t look much like it had when he’d left nearly a month before. “I see you’ve done some fixing up, he murmured.

“I had to. There’s glass in the windows now, and I covered the walls with newspaper before I whitewashed them, so maybe it’ll be a little warmer in here when a norther’s blowing outside.”

“You make this rug yourself?”

“Well, it’s just rags I braided together, but at least I can walk around with my shoes off without getting my feet full of splinters,” she said, pleased he’d noticed. “Those curtains used to be my petticoat.” As he looked around, she sighed. “I know—there’s a little too much furniture, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw anything out.”

“No, it looks nice—real nice. I don’t know how you managed to do all this.”

Moving to the cupboard, she took out two heavy cups, the breadbox, and the jam pot. “I didn’t want to sit around feeling sorry for myself, so I just kept busy.” Turning around in the corner she called her kitchen, she asked, “Do you still want cream and sugar in your coffee?”

“Not if it’s real coffee.”

“It is, but I’ve got to go outside to fetch it. I didn’t see any sense to making two fires, and I was boiling water for the wash out there.”

While she stepped out, he continued to study the one room, thinking she’d made it pretty homey, considering what she’d had to work with. There was even a framed square of embroidered white cotton hanging on the wall. Looking closer, he could see the tiny stitches that proclaimed, “Laura Lane and Jesse Taylor, united in matrimony October 18, 1859.” Exactly six years ago day after tomorrow.

She came in with the enamelware coffeepot and stopped when she noticed him reading the embroidered words. “It seems like that was a whole lifetime ago,” she said softly. “I thought it’d be like that forever,”

“I guess we all believe that way.” He turned around, his face sober. “But some of us are just plain fools.”

“I loved Jesse, Dr. Hardin. That was the happiest day of my life.”

“I wasn’t talking about you—I was thinking of me.”

“It was a bad time to get married, right before the war like that, but we didn’t know then Lincoln would win, and North Carolina would secede. The Jesse I knew back then was the best man I ever met.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess war changes men sometimes,” she added sadly. ‘They seem to come back harder than they went in.”

“Yeah.”

Recovering, she carried the pot to the table and filled both cups before she sat down. “Your coffee’s ready.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, taking a seat across from her. For a moment, he stared into the rich, brown liquid pensively, then recovered. “It wasn’t me who changed.”

“You sound like Jesse. He always said he came back to a different woman than the one he’d left behind. Maybe that was true, but I don’t know. Maybe being alone all that time, sitting at home, waiting for both of them to come home, I got used to doing for myself like he said, but I don’t think so. I mean, I’d always had to look after things as far back as I can remember. No, it was him that changed,” she said positively. “Before the war, we’d always dreamed together.”

“And after?”

“He’d been dreaming alone all that time he was gone, and he had it set in his mind what I wanted.” She took a sip from the steaming cup, then set it down. “And he was going to give it to me, no matter how many times I tried to set him straight.”

There was a wistfulness in her voice that touched him more than her words. “Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s in someone else’s mind.”

“Yes.” Her chin came up. “Yes, it is. I thought I could read Jesse’s like it was a book. When he came back, I couldn’t do that anymore, and it hurt. I liked what I had, Dr. Hardin—I didn’t want to come out here.”

“I sort of figured that out.”

“But I
am
here, so I’ve got to make the best of what I’ve got. Otherwise, I’d just drive myself crazy wanting what I can’t have.”

“Which is?”

“My home back. Danny. Jesse the way he was before the war. They’re all gone now. All that’s left is me and this baby.” Recovering, she leaned back in her chair. “I guess I sound pretty sorry for myself, but I’m not. Mama always used to say the Lord doesn’t give us anything He knows we can’t handle.” Forcing a smile, she looked him in the eye. “She also liked to say life’s what you make of it, not what you’re given. If she was right about that, then I’m going to do all right. I never was one to complain about anything I thought I could change.”

“I’d” change a lot of things if I could.”

“Maybe you just think you would,” she murmured, sipping her coffee again.

“Well, I won’t let another woman make a fool of me, that’s for damned sure. Once burned, twice shy, as they say.”

She eyed him curiously, wondering how a man like him had become so soured on his life. “Well, I wasn’t exactly burned, but I don’t think I’ll ever want another husband. Not that anybody out here wants to believe that. They all seem to think that widowhood is an unnatural condition, you know.”

“You’ve got admirers, I take it?”

“I’ve got a lot of idiots who ought to know better,” she retorted. “I’d like to get a mirror for all of them, too. I don’t know what there is about a man that makes him think a flea-bitten, louse-infested fellow who doesn’t even know what a bathtub’s for is a prime catch for a woman. And they aren’t particular the other way, either—I could be cross-eyed, bucktoothed, stringy-haired, knock-kneed, and nigh to ninety, and it wouldn’t make much difference to any of them, as long as I was interested in marrying. You’ve got no notion of how it is out here, Dr. Hardin,” she declared with feeling. had to quit offering haircuts, because the money wasn’t worth the importunity.”

“You’re a pretty woman.”

“In this condition? I doubt that very much.”

“You are.”

“Well, I don’t feel it, and I don’t want to be, anyway. If I had two wishes in this world, it’d be a healthy baby and a chance to raise him in peace. If I had ten choices, none of them would be a man right now.”

“I never met a woman who didn’t want to live off a man.”

“I’m not a leech.”

“No, you’re not. You’re a remarkable woman.”

“No.” Leaning across the table, she refilled his cup, then stood up. “You’re welcome to sit a while, but I’ve got washing to finish.” For a moment, she allowed her expression to soften. “I must sound like a real harridan, I know, but I’ve let myself get behind. I
am
glad to see you, Dr. Hardin. I’m not too blind to know I owe you a lot”

“I’ll make do with supper,” he murmured.

“Well, to tide you over, you’d better eat some of that bread and jam you haven’t touched yet.”

When she came back nearly two hours later, he was asleep in her daddy’s old rocker, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his head resting on the broad back of the chair. Tiptoeing closer, she reached to touch the thick black hair.

“Dr. Hardin…?” she said softly.

Asleep, he’d lost his harshness, making him look years younger, more like the twenty-eight years he claimed. There was no question that he was a handsome man. This time, she shook him gently. “Dr. Hardin, you’ll get a crick in your neck like that,” she told him.

It was no use—he was dead to the world. Feeling sorry for him, she rolled up a towel and eased it beneath his head, then went to the kitchen corner to’ peel potatoes for supper.

He was just plain exhausted, she decided. It .made her wonder how far he’d actually gotten before the snow stopped him. What a bitter pill that surely must have been for him to swallow. How terribly hard to turn back. He’d wanted to find that little boy so much, and now he had a long winter to wait before he could try again. It just wasn’t right.

She still didn’t know what his wife had done, but whatever it was, it’d left him a bitter, disillusioned man. As her knife circled the potato, making a ribbon of the peel, she knew his wounds were as deep as hers. And it was going to take more than a winter to heal them.

He awoke to find the room almost dark, and the smell of onions in the air. Sitting up, he twisted his head, trying to ease his stiff neck, and he saw that she had a fire going in the hearth. A big black kettle hung from a hook above the flames, and a heavy Dutch oven rested on a flat rock at the corner of the fire pit Passing a hand over his eyes, he asked, “What time is it?”

“Good—you’re awake. It’s six-thirty, and I was beginning to be afraid the cornbread would burn waiting for you.”

“I didn’t mean to nod off,”

“Well, if you hadn’t needed to, you wouldn’t have.”

“You’ve got an answer for just about everything, don’t you?”

“I thought you might wake up cranky,” she murmured, taking the Dutch oven from the hearth.

“I’m not cranky,” he muttered.

“No? Then I guess I’m just mistaken. Anyway, if you want to wash up before you eat, the water bucket’s right outside the door.”

“Thanks. I thought I smelled onions.”

“I made potato soup.”

“Potato soup and cornbread. I ate a lot of that back in Missouri, and I always liked it.”

“Oh? I thought you were Georgia born and bred.” “No. We moved there when I was nine. My stepfather was the Georgian.”

“And he was the preacher.”

“Yeah.” With an effort, he forced his tired body from the rocking chair and headed outside.

“The privy’s around back,” she told him from the door. “Mr. Hawthorne sent some Chinese up to dig it for me.”

When he came back in, he looked as if he’d poured the bucket over his head, she decided as she dipped the soup from the kettle into the bowls. Carrying them, she met him at the table. “Go ahead—I forgot the butter.”

“Do you mind if I crumble the cornbread into my soup?” he asked. “I know it’s not mannerly, but I like it that way.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, setting the butter plate m front of him.

He ate with gusto, wolfing down three bowls of exceptionally good potato soup, while she toyed with hers, and he realized she was watching him. “Sorry,” he apologized sheepishly. “I’ve been living on hard tack and jerky most of the month since I left.”

“I figured you liked the food.”

“Ummm—very much.”

“I’m not going to clear the dishes yet. I’ve still got clothes to take down before the dew makes them damp again.”

“Need any help?”

“Well, it d be nice—I mean, I could use the company.”

The whole sky was ablaze in hues of orange, pink, and a hazy purple as he looked across the rocky yard. It was the sort of sunset that took one’s breath away just to look at it. Laura Taylor stopped walking to follow his rapt gaze. “Yes, it is beautiful, isn’t it?” she said softly. “God’s paintbrush, Mama used to call a sky like this.”

“Yeah,”

There was a crisp chill in the air now, and the smoke from the chimney wafted overhead, adding the warm smell of burning wood to the world. Down the hill, the white canvas tents took on a surreal look under that awesome sky. Spence took a deep breath, drawing in the autumn air, savoring it. A full stomach, a night like this—that was the way a man was supposed to live. Then he caught himself.

“Which end do you want to take?” he asked her, looking toward the long clothesline.

“You don’t have to help—it’s too pretty an evening to spend taking down laundry if you don’t have to.”

He spied the big woven baskets. “Tell you what—you just sit down, and I’ll get the clothes. I need to work off some of that supper, or I’ll be too full to sleep. Go on, he said, turning her back toward the house.

The sweet smell of cloth dried in the sun brought back memories of another time, when he’d lived in Missouri with his mother after his father died. It’d been a hard time for her until Bingham came along, but he could remember following her down that old gray clothesline, holding the basket while she put the clean clothes in it. It hadn’t been the same in Georgia, where he’d watched the slaves do the task.

Hefting the heavy basket, he headed back toward the cabin. Laura’d brought two chairs from the house outside, and she sat facing the camp, looking out into the beautiful, darkening sky. Overhead, the moon gazed down benevolently, barely veiled by floating skiffs of clouds. Silhouetted against that sky, she was a picture to carry in the mind, her face mirroring the beauty of the place, her hands placidly resting on the mound that held her child. And he couldn’t help admiring her, thinking she was truly an extraordinary woman.