Deborah Camp (8 page)

“On what?”

“Mowing the alfalfa,” she answered, then frowned right back at him. “You wanted to work outdoors, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, drawing out the word as if it stuck in his throat. “But I was thinking about cutting cattle.”

“I’ve got that well in hand,” she said. “I need a farmer.”

“I’m not one,” he said, almost growling at her.

“You will be,” she shot back, then smiled at bowlegged,
shaggy-haired Donny. “Let’s hitch up Sarge and Captain.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Donny said, giving a quick nod in Grandy’s direction. “Those two are better behaved, but that ain’t saying much.”

Zanna and Grandy watched Donny wrestle the mules. A good half hour later, the mules were finally bridled and ready to hitch to a sickle mower. That took another half an hour. The sun was well up by the time they left the stables and went to the twenty acres of alfalfa.

A nude twenty stretched to the horizon and Grandy hated to think what Zanna might have in mind for those acres. Cotton? Shuddering, he remembered the weight of a nine-foot cotton sack pulling against his shoulders and the sting of sweat in his eyes.

Zanna stood out of the way with Grandy as Donny prepared to mow the first row of alfalfa. The short-tempered wrangler shouted and cussed and screamed at the nervous mules. Several times he whipped off his hat and flung it to the ground in a spurt of fury. Captain and Sarge balked and stomped and tried to gallop. It was just short of a catastrophe.

After one row was mowed, Donny tried to turn the mules in a tight circle, but they wouldn’t budge. He swore viciously and grabbed the lines to use them as a whip. Donny cocked his arm. Zanna cringed, shutting her eyes. Grandy stepped forward quickly, urgently.

“That’s enough! I’ll take them from here.”

Zanna opened her eyes, grateful for Grandy’s interference. She hated it when Donny lashed the mules. Just because the animals were stupid didn’t mean they should be mistreated.

“Think you’ve got the hang of it?” Donny asked, wiping sweat from his round face with the back of his sleeves. “These beasts are as dumb as stumps.”

“I can handle them.” Grandy took the mower handles, stepping neatly into Donny’s place behind the mules.
Donny gave him the lines and Grandy looped them around the wood handles.

“Better keep a grip on those,” Donny warned. “Them beasts will run with you.”

“Thanks for the advice.” Grandy smiled briefly, adjusted his ill-fitting hat, then turned his full attention on the twitching mules. Their ears were laid back. Their hides quivered. They were spooked and totally confused.

Grandy’s training came back to him as if it had been only yesterday when he’d faced the rumps of a couple of farm mules. The pungent smell of freshly mowed alfalfa took him back to Tennessee. The soft soil beneath his boots, the fragrant breeze, the hot push of the sun, all combined to nudge his memory. It was as if he’d never been away from the land. The good times back then had been when he was alone in the field with only the mules as company.

Sarge whipped his head around to look at the new man behind the plow. Captain’s tail lifted to shoo flies. Grandy cleared his throat and began talking in the language understood by most Southern plow mules.

“Hiyup! Hiyup, Sarge and Cap!”

The mules’ heads came up and their ears stood stiffly at attention.

“Whoa-haw, haw, haw!”

The mules executed a sharp left at the end of the row, turning in a semicircle and positioning the sickle for the next row.

“That’s good,” Grandy said in a soft voice that barely carried, but was loud enough for the animals’ sensitive ears. “Hiyup.” The mules moved forward, but Sarge listed to the left. “Gee, Sarge. Gee, gee.” Sarge edged right. “Good. Steady now. Steady,” Grandy said in a singsong voice, and the mules stepped off the row in perfect unison, their big heads moving up and down with each stride, their tails switching with contentment. The alfalfa fell with a sigh around them, releasing a cloying perfume.

Zanna laughed with delight. She clasped her hands and brought them up under her chin as she continued to witness the miracle Grandy had wrought. Sarge and Captain marched prettily while Grandy spoke to them in a peculiar string of nonsense words.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Donny said, removing his hat to scratch at his white, shaggy hair. “Can you beat that? That boy’s got some kind of way with animals, don’t he?”

“So it seems, Donny,” Zanna agreed with another laugh of pure happiness. She’d done well, she thought as she admired Grandy’s progress through the sunlit field. Surely divine guidance had played a part in her selection. She’d seen some of the vermin housed in the Scyene jail—vile creatures who knew nothing beyond whoring and pistol whipping—but her claiming of Grandville Quincy Adams had to be more than luck.

Watching him handle the mules without even touching the lines filled her with pride and then pummeled her with shame for having treated him so badly since his arrival.

His hat was too big, his shirt too small, his trousers too short, his boots too broken. The only good meals he’d had were the ones he’d prepared for himself and the only kind words he’d heard were those spoken to himself.

No wonder he felt like a slave, she thought, no longer smiling or laughing. Donny whacked his hat against his leg and chuckled warmly as Grandy called the mules into another perfect turn at row’s end.

“Way to handle ’em, boy,” Donny sang out. “You’re first-rate! How’d you get them to mind so pretty?”

“One thing I learned on the farm,” Grandy called as he moved abreast of Donny and Zanna. “Fear breeds hate.”

“Guess so,” Donny said, then moved off to complete his chores.

Zanna stood for a while longer, watching Grandy and thinking about what he’d said. She had glimpsed something unexpected in Grandville Adams and it had her bewitched.

The man had a heart. Maybe even a big one. Certainly one that he kept well hidden.

He had, after all, stepped in when Donny had started to whip the mules. That showed heart. And he knew about kindness and its rewards. Only a sensitive man could learn that lesson, and learn it so well. She was heartened by his actions and bolstered by his experience at farming.

She’d be nice to him, she thought, but experienced a flicker of apprehension. Give him an inch, he’ll take a mile, a darker voice warned within her. She closed her ears to the inner debate. She’d be nice to him. Nice to him. Nice.

When Grandy and the mules had stepped off more than a dozen rows, Zanna left them and went to the well. She brought back a bucket of cool water and a dipper.

“Grandy, would you like a drink?” she asked, calling out to him across the mowed hay.

“Whoa, boys,” he said to the mules. Only after they’d answered his request did he look toward Zanna. His movements, were sharp and precise. Beneath the brim of his hat, his face was in shadow, but Zanna could see enough to know that he wasn’t moved by her offer.

“What do I have to do for it?” he asked, his low voice colored with resentment.

“Why, nothing.” She held up the bucket. “You’re working hard and deserve a cool drink.”

“Leave the bucket there. I’ll share it with the other animals once we’ve cut a few more rows.” He made a clicking noise and the mules took up their steady pace again.

Justly chastised, Zanna whirled and returned to the house, her fists balled at her sides and her arms swinging. She tore off her bonnet and threw it onto her four-poster bed, then stared blindly for a moment at her reflection in the warped bureau mirror. Her anger subsided and her vision cleared to reveal the undulating image of a young
woman huffing and puffing like a bull ready to charge. She sat down on the edge of the bed, drained and repentant.

She’d treated him abominably, she told herself. True, he wasn’t an upstanding citizen, but he was human, and in a strange way, he was her savior. She’d brought him here not only to farm and make himself useful, but as a sign to any who might think of trespassing on her private life. Grandy’s presence at Primrose said to all that Suzanna Hathaway was spoken for, no longer fair game for men looking to marry.

If you don’t treat him better, he’ll leave you for sure, an inner voice cautioned, and Zanna took heed. She stood and paced her bedroom as she considered her options. She recalled a period in her childhood when she had dearly loved a stray dog which she’d named Sugar. She’d been so afraid the dog would leave Primrose that she’d tied him to a stake and kept him there most of the time. The poor hound had cried and whined and dug holes as if he thought he could dig deep enough to reach someplace where there were no stakes or tethers.

Zanna’s father had taken her aside and explained that she was mistreating the animal.

“If you want the dog to stay with you, then be good to him. Feed him, love him, praise him, and let him loose.”

“No, Papa!” Zanna had been frantic, so frightened that the dog would never stay if he were free.

“Yes, Zanna. He’ll hate you if you keep him leashed to that peg in the ground. Don’t you hear him crying even this minute?”

The hound’s pitiful wail had brought tears to young Zanna’s eyes. She had rushed to the animal she so loved and freed him. From that moment on, Sugar had never strayed any farther than the stock pond for a swim each morning. He had been a devoted companion to Zanna until his death only a few years back.

“But I can’t set Grandville completely free,” Zanna
said aloud as she continued pacing. “He’s not as trustworthy as Sugar.”

A sense of freedom, she thought with a bright smile. That’s what Grandy needed. The
sensation
of being free. She’d begin tomorrow by taking him into town and letting him select a modest wardrobe. Being out among other people would make him feel like a free man. The next morning they would go to church, giving him another opportunity to visit with others. But she would watch him and not let him get too far away from her, because he had to understand that it was by the grace of Zanna he was allowed such outings.

In her mind’s eye, she saw him in his cast-off clothing and laughed softly. Poor man, she thought, but cautioned herself not to pity him too much. After all, he was a convicted horse thief and card cheat. He’d chosen to live on the wrong side of the law and he had finally been asked to pay for it.

He’s no man of honor, she thought, but he isn’t really a hardened criminal either. He’s something in between, she decided as she looked out the window where spring had spread a blanket of green. Like the land before her, Grandville Adams was a man of many colors and subtle shadings.

She recalled his gentleness with the mules, his burst of temper the previous night, and his cutting remark only minutes ago when he’d implied that Zanna was treating him like another plow mule.

“You’re not an animal,” Zanna said, closing her eyes to let the sunshine warm her eyelids. “But neither are you a free man. I paid for you, Grandville Adams. I paid
dearly
for you.”

Zanna felt as if she were on display. Her imagination ran rampant, making her think that every living soul in Scyene was staring at her and her new husband. She sat straight as an arrow in the buggy, her color heightened, her gaze fixed on a spot between the horse’s ears. She heard snatches of laughter and knew it was directed at her.

She’s gone around the bend now
, she imagined they were saying.
Fayne Hathaway’s turning over in his grave! Isn’t it a shame, a woman like her lowering herself to marry a common criminal? Poor thing. She must be crazy. Always was kind of strange acting, wasn’t she?

“Where to first?” Grandy asked beside her.

“Burnett’s General Store. Mr. Burnett has a selection of men’s and ladies’ clothing. We’ll find something there for you.”

“Burnett’s …” He scanned the street ahead. “Across from the saloon, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She pursed her lips in disapproval. “Naturally, you’d know the precise location of every beer hall in town.”

“Do you have a low opinion of every male, or is it just me?” He reined Milkmaid at the hitching post, tied off the lines, and pulled the brake, then hopped down and lifted a helping hand to Zanna. When she hesitated, he released a growl of impatience. “Come on! Don’t be so head-shy.”

“So what?”

“Head-shy.” He took her hand and supported her as she stepped down to the street. “A head-shy horse shies away every time you try to touch or bridle her.”

“I’m not head-shy nor am I a horse!” She lifted her nose into the air and he laughed. “Keep laughing at me and you’ll continue to wear those filthy clothes instead of getting clean, fresh ones.”

“Oooh!” He widened his eyes with feigned fright and shivered. “I’m shaking in my boots!”

Zanna turned away and entered the store. Mr. Burnett, a round-faced man in his sixties, stood behind the long counter near the door.

“Mrs. Hathaway,” he said, wiping his hands down the front of his bib apron. He looked past her, saw Grandy, and stuttered, “I mean … well, I heard around town … Is this …?”

Grandy stepped around Zanna and offered his hand. “Grandy Adams, Mr. Burnett. Pleased to meet you.” He glanced at the stacks of goods and the jars of pickles, candies, and tobacco. “Nice place you’ve got here, sir.”

“Why … uh … thanks.”

As Mr. Burnett shook Grandy’s hand, something in Grandy’s direct, but friendly eyes made the other man visibly relax. Zanna observed the change quietly, wondering what the shopkeeper had seen or sensed in Grandville that had put him at ease.

“What can I get for you folks today?” Mr. Burnett asked.

“We’re shopping for clothes for Mr. Adams,” Zanna said, looking toward the back where the ready-mades were stacked on tables. “Work clothes, mostly, but he does need something for Sunday as well.”

“I think we can outfit him,” Mr. Burnett said, slipping his thumbs behind the apron bib and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I’m sure we’ve got his size.”

“Hats and shoes, too.” In a near whisper, she added, “And personal items. Nothing extravagant,” as she glanced sharply at Grandy. “We’re on a budget.”