Dorothy Garlock (17 page)

Annie Lash had no time to prepare herself for meeting Jeff, who came through the back door while she was setting the table.

“Mornin’.” He carried a bucket of water to the work counter. “Will’s coming with the milk pail. How Callie ever got to him to do that chore is beyond me.”

A rosy flush had come up to flood Annie Lash’s face, and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Callie’s return to the room covered her confusion.

“I never asked him to do it, Jefferson. He said he had milked back home in Virginia and he didn’t mind a’tall.”

Jeff gave her a puzzled look, but Callie had turned away.

“We’re going to burn the brush off that patch Henry and Jute cleared last fall,” he said as he hooked the bench out with his foot and sat down. “That is, if the wind stays out of the south to blow the flames toward the river.”

“Will Light be around for a while?”

“Long enough to help Will put up some buildings on the land to the west of here.”

Callie turned in stunned surprise. “I didn’t know Will had filed on any land.”

“I took out the papers for him on my way to Saint Louis. Will figures, same as me, that it’s time to squat on a piece of land and hold on to it.”

Annie Lash saw the radiant look on Callie’s face. Her flushed cheeks made her blue eyes seem all the brighter and clearer as they traveled from her to Jeff before she turned back to the cook-fire and the big iron spider she had set on the grate.

Jeff’s sharp eyes caught the blush on Callie’s cheeks and his dark, somber eyes caught and held Annie Lash’s. Her mind groped like a bat in bright daylight for something to say. She didn’t understand Callie’s sudden elation or Jeff’s look of concern.

The voice from the doorway saved her from trying to erase the sudden silence.

“I got a pailful, Callie. I set it in the cellar and brought up yesterday’s milkin’. Looks like a good dab of cream on top. Ya’ll be able to make butter, after all.”

“Did you put the cloth over it, Will?”

“No. I left it so spiders ’n bugs could fall in.”

“Will!” Callie stood with hands on her hips trying to look cross.

He set the bucket on the workbench and went to the washstand. He grinned over his shoulder at Jeff, who sat resting his elbows on the table.

“I don’t know why she gets all up in the air over a few bugs in the milk. They got to eat, same as us.”

“If you want to eat, Will Murdock, you’d better get yourself out to the smokehouse and get the meat or you’ll get nothin’ but fried mush.”

“Hold yore taters, Callie gal. Light’s fetchin’ the meat.” Will splashed water on his face and wiped it with the towel.

Three men and two women sat down to breakfast. As the men talked about the work they planned for the day, Annie Lash was painfully aware that Jeff looked at her often, but didn’t address one word to her. She was relieved and grateful that she didn’t have to talk. What had happened between them the night before was too new for her to exchange casual remarks with him in the company of these people.

“There are four hundred acres on the other side of Will’s, Light. Why don’t you go file on it?” Jeff dipped his spoon into the edge of his mush, tested it for hotness, then put it into his mouth and swallowed. “Tastes good,” he said in the general direction of the women sitting at the end of the table.

“Not me,
mon ami.
I’ve not the patience to wait and see corn sprout up from the ground. There’s wild new country upriver waiting for me.” His face creased with a smile. “It’s a good way to live. I’ll not swap it.”

“I’ve been over the mountain ’n down the Trace,” Will said soberly. “I’ve had my fill of solitary winterin’ around a campfire.”

Light laughed and Annie Lash suddenly realized he was much younger than she had at first thought he was. He was probably no older than she was, she mused. He would have been a boy in his teens when his wife and family were killed. Her gaze was caught by Jeff’s. His face was expressionless, giving her no clue as to what he was thinking. When his eyes left hers they went to Callie, and a vague uneasiness began to stir within her, an intuitive sense told her he was bothered by something connected with his sister-in-law.

“How big a cabin do you plan to build, Will?” When he spoke his voice held nothing but calm interest, and Annie Lash wondered if she was wrong in thinking there was an undercurrent of tension.

“I figure ’bout eight axe handles long ’n five wide, for a start.”

“For a start? Ho,
mon ami
plans to add more room for the
enfant
to come!” Light’s eyes sparkled mischievously and his teeth flashed briefly in his dark face.

Watching them, Annie Lash realized how deep the friendship between them must be to allow them to talk this way to each other.

“And for my friends who come crawlin’ in the dead of winter with their tails a’tween their legs lookin’ for somethin’ to fill their bellies and a fire to warm their backsides,” Will retorted grinning.

“Ah . . . ha!” The Frenchman put a world of meaning in the words. “If you wish the use of my axe,
mon ami,
we should not linger here.” He got to his feet, bowed his head respectfully toward the women, and backed away from the table. Will and Jeff followed. The bench made a scraping sound on the stone floor as they pushed it from the table.

“Don’t look for us till night, Callie. Fire the gun if you need us. It’s loaded. I checked it last night.” Jeff’s eyes rested for a moment on Annie Lash’s face. “This will give you women a day to get to know each other without us men underfoot.”

Annie Lash felt oddly exhilarated by his look and was only able to nod her head before he turned and followed Will and Light from the room.

When Amos woke and came to breakfast, he was upset because the men had left the house without him.

“Oh! Poot!” he said, and stood glaring at his mother as if it was her fault.

“Amos Pickett! I won’t stand for such talk!”

“Will says more’n that.”

“Will’s a man. You’re a little boy.” Callie was carefully skimming the cream from the milk Will brought from the cellar.

“But he said—”

“I don’t want to hear what he said. Sit down and eat your breakfast before you wake Abe. Annie Lash, put just a dab of syrup on his mush. If he does it, there’ll be just a dab of mush with his syrup,” she said in a soft, exasperated tone. “The men are going to burn off the patch near the river today,” she said to her son. “They don’t need your help, but I do. You can work the dasher on the churn.”

“But, ma, that’s women’s work! Will
said—”

“No buts, Amos.”

“Oh, poo—”

“Don’t you dare say that word again. What will Annie Lash think of you?”

Annie Lash couldn’t keep a smile from her lips, but she turned her face away so Amos couldn’t see it.

Working in a leisurely manner, the two women tidied the kitchen, all the while keeping up a steady stream of chatter. Callie told Annie Lash about the garden, the foodstuffs in the cellar and the smokehouse, and about the pigs to be butchered in the fall. She never mentioned her husband or her ordeal while living here alone after he left her. It was only later than Annie Lash realized that.

Annie Lash told Callie about her life on the Bank in Saint Louis and about Zan, the people they met on the raft and about how frightened she had been when she realized there was a man under the canvas on the mule.

“Jefferson said you’ve got spunk. He said you saved his life.”

“I didn’t even stop to think about it. I just did it.”

“Thank God you did,” Callie murmured.

“It sits hard on me. I never thought I’d take a life, especially without giving it any thought.”

“By doin’ it, you saved Jefferson. He’s a good man. Him and Will are the best I’ve ever known,” she said wistfully.

Annie Lash waited, hoping Callie would tell her more about Jeff and Will, but she changed the subject to canning and preserving.

*  *  *

Callie, with the baby on her hip, and Amos followed Annie Lash to the room across the dogtrot. Amos had finished the churning and carried the pail of buttermilk to the cellar after Callie removed the butter. He had decided it was rather nice to sit quietly and listen to the women talk. Even the things his mother said took on a new meaning when she told them to the pretty woman.

Callie spread a blanket on the floor for Abe and put a beanbag in his hands.

“Whose room was this?” Annie Lash moved her trunk out from the wall so she could open it.

“Jefferson uses it when he’s here. He built this side for . . . us. But it’s handier for me to have the other room, so when I was here by myself I moved me and Amos into it and shut up this side.” She picked up the picture Annie Lash laid on the bed. “Is this your mother?”

“Yes. Pa said it was painted by a traveling artist when she was sixteen.”

Callie looked from the picture to Annie Lash and back again. “You favor her, but you’re prettier. I guess you’re about the prettiest woman I ever saw.”

“Why, thank you. But I feel so big and . . . gawky beside you!”

Callie’s laugh rang out. “Ain’t we somethin’? Standin’ here braggin’ about each other!”

“You don’t mind me being here?”

“Well, at first. But not after I talked to Jefferson. Now I’m glad.” Her smile disappeared. “It’s been so lonesome.”

“I know what it’s like to be lonesome. I was. You don’t have to be by yourself to be lonesome.”

Callie looked around the room. “Where are you going to hang the picture?”

“Oh, I’m not going to hang it.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll only be here for a while. I can’t put my things out. It would seem like I’m taking over this room, permanent like.”

“Jefferson wants you to stay.”

“I want you to stay, too.” Amos spoke from beside the trunk where his busy eyes were taking in all the treasures inside.

“Thank you, Amos. Would you like to look at my picture book?”

‘Oh, my goodness!” Callie exclaimed. “Are you sure you want him to hold it?”

“Of course, I am. I can tell by looking at him that he’s a very careful boy.”

“You can?” The boy’s green eyes became round with wonderment and a broad smile spread across his freckled face. He sat down on the floor and Annie Lash placed the book in his lap.

“My mother put together this book of pictures. They were sketched by the artist who painted her portrait. He spent the winter with the family, and this was his way of paying for his keep. If you take the top corner of each page between your thumb and forefinger, like this,” she turned the page to show him how it was done, “you won’t tear the pages. Now, you try it.” She watched the boy’s stubby fingers carefully turn the page. “I knew you could do it. I’ll not worry one bit about my book as long as you’re in charge of it.”

Callie stood watching, holding the portrait hugged to her breast. Her eyes lingered tenderly on her son, then moved to Annie Lash with admiration and gratitude in their depths.

Annie Lash hung her dresses on the pegs beside her shawl and sunbonnet, then laid out her brush, comb, and small mirror. She placed her soap on the washstand and looped a towel over the bar alongside it, then closed the trunk and pushed it against the wall.

“There. That’s done.” She glanced around to make sure she hadn’t taken more liberties than a guest should take in making the room her own.

“You don’t plan to stay?” Callie asked quietly and placed the portrait on the bed.

“I don’t know. I need time to figure out what’s best for me. Zan . . . asked Jefferson to look after me, and he feels obligated to do it because Zan befriended him a long time ago, but—”

“Jefferson wouldn’t do it if he didn’t want to,” Callie said. “He and Will are like that.”

“Has he known Will for a long time?”

“Since they were boys. They’re like what brothers ought to be like, what I hope my boys will be.” She turned her face away, but not before Annie Lash saw the shadow of something like fear on her face.

“Jefferson said he had been gone for a long time. Was Will with him?” Annie Lash was sorry she asked the question. It wasn’t her way to pry into someone else’s affairs.

“Some men came here and asked Jefferson and Will to do somethin’. Jefferson wanted to stay here and work on the land, but whatever they had to do was awful important, so they left Henry and Jute here and went away. They came back about a month ago.” She picked Abe up off the floor and sat him astride her hip. “Jason left a few months after Jefferson and Will. We were alone here for most of a year, except for the two black men.”

“You must have been terribly afraid.”

“Of Henry and Jute? Oh, my, no! We would’ve died but for them. They saw to it that we had food, and fuel to keep us warm. When Abe was coming, Jute went for Biedy in a raging blizzard and Henry stayed right beside me until she got here. I feel closer to those two black men than I ever did to my pa and brothers.” She went to the door. “I’d better get the turnips ready to go in with the meat we’re boilin’. Oh, but I’ll be glad to have new potatoes and cabbage and turnip greens.”

Annie Lash stood for a long moment looking down on the top of Amos’s head. Callie and she were not so different, she thought. They were both dependent upon the charity of Jefferson Merrick.

Will stood with a rake and a gunnysack in his hand to beat back the flames should they jump across the break they had made at the edge of the field. The wind was gently pushing the fire toward the river where it would burn itself out. He wiped his grimy face with the sleeve of his shirt and leaned on the handle of the rake, his eyes sweeping the long grassy patch, alert for a sudden burst of flames that would need his attention.

He didn’t know exactly when he had decided he wanted to homestead a piece of land for himself. Certainly not when Jeff filed on this place, or during the backbreaking labor of putting up the double cabin. It was while they were on the mission for Tom Jefferson, when each day that they lived to see sunset was a miracle, that he first started to think about a place of his own.

Jeff came toward him from the direction of the river. He had washed the soot from his face and it was a dull red from the heat of the fire. Will watched him approach. More than once his life had depended on this man, and he had great respect and affection for him.