Dorothy Garlock (24 page)

The two women worked in silence, each occupied with her own thoughts. Each knew she would confide in the other before the day was out about the happiness that had come to her.

Breakfast was almost ready when Jeff came to the house and went into the room beside the kitchen. Annie Lash longed for, yet dreaded, the moment when he would come in the door. She didn’t know how she should act, didn’t know what he expected her to do. She smoothed her best apron down over her skirt and moved the hair from her forehead with the back of her hand.

Will came in with the milk. “Here ya are, Miss Callie, ma’am.”

Annie Lash didn’t hear Callie’s reply. Jeff stood in the doorway. He had changed into dry clothes and his hair was already rebelling against the brush that he had used trying to smooth it. He looked tired, but relaxed and happy, too. She met his eyes and her pulses leaped in excitement. Her slightly flushed cheeks made her light blue eyes seem all the brighter, clearer. Her mind groped for something to say, but all thought left her.

“Mornin’.”

“Mornin’.” She stood as if mesmerized.

He came to her, put his arms around her, and kissed her on the lips. “Mornin’,” he whispered just to her this time.

“Mornin’,” she whispered back and her heart took wings. He kissed her again, his big body shielding her from the others in the room.

“What’s Uncle Jeff bitin’ Annie Lash for?” Amos came from the bedroom, holding his nightshirt up so he could walk.

Jeff lifted his head and laughed. Callie hurried toward her son, but he slipped past her and ran to Will, who scooped him up in his arms.

“He wasn’t bitin’ her. He was kissin’ her,” Will explained laughingly.

“Why’d he do that for?”

“’Cause I wanted to,” Jeff answered. With an arm across her shoulders, he hugged Annie Lash to him, “I like kissing her.”

Annie Lash looked up. Will was watching with a wide smile and twinkling eyes. Jeff’s eyes on her face brought even more color to her cheeks. The smile he gave her spread a warm light into his eyes and she found herself beaming with pleasure.

“Will don’t kiss,” Amos announced proudly.

“Now, just hold on there, cottontop,” Will said sternly. “There’s a lot to be said for kissin’.” He planted a loud smack on the boy’s cheek.

Amos shrieked. “It tickles!”

“’Course it does. Shall we see if it’ll tickle yore ma?”

“Yeah!” Amos yelled. “Tickle ’er, Will.”

“Will! Behave yourself!” Callie scolded and scooted around to the other side of the table, her cheeks a rosy pink.

Will sat down at the table and sat Amos on the bench beside him. “We’ll let her get away this time, if’n she feeds us.” He put his arm around the giggling child.

Jeff reluctantly let Annie Lash leave his side. He pulled out the bench and sat down opposite Will.

“When’s the marryin’ gonna be?” Will asked with a wide grin, his eyes going from Jeff to Annie Lash.

“Soon. It’ll take a while to let folks know,” Jeff said, his dark eyes glowing with heady brightness.

“Did ya tell ’er ya snore like a razorback hog, an’ did ya tell ’er ’bout that time we was holed up in a river shack and that gal what weighed a good three hundred pounds took a shine to ya? Did ya tell er—”

“Will! Stop teasin’, now,” Callie scolded.

“Ah, Callie.”

Annie Lash listened to the joshing. She wasn’t concerned about anything that had happened in Jeff’s life up to now. It was enough that he loved her and she loved him, and that he really was a tender, caring man and not the arrogant, demanding person she had thought he was. This smiling, gentle, woolly-haired giant who watched her with such tenderness in his eyes was her man, and she was going to spend the rest of her life with him right here on this homestead. A wonderful, warm feeling of permanency, of really belonging, wrapped its arms around her as happiness filled her heart and shone in her eyes.

Her shyness gone, she went to where Callie was turning the meat in the spider skillet and put her arm around her.

“I’ve always wanted a sister, Callie. Now, I’ll have one. Don’t go away from here, ever,” she whispered with a world of feeling in her voice.

Callie didn’t say anything, but Annie Lash could see her lips tremble and a tear appear at the corner of her downcast eyes.

From the other side of the room, Jeff saw the gesture with a gigantic surge of pride. There was depth to Annie Lash and a quickness of mind that he liked and it surprised him constantly. She was like no other woman he’d ever known. He wondered again about Zan’s connection to her family. The pack containing all the old man’s worldly belongings was still hanging in the shed. Annie Lash hadn’t asked for it, and he had waited until she had become comfortable being here without Zan before mentioning it to her.

They sat longer than usual at the breakfast table. Their laughter mingled and the atmosphere was charged with excitement; everything was new and wonderful. Not only was there a special understanding between Jeff and Annie Lash, which they proclaimed with clasped hands and clinging eyes, the tension of the last few weeks between Will and Callie had eased and in its place there was something special and unspoken. Will teased, Callie scolded, one’s eyes continually seeking the other’s.

*  *  *

It was mid-morning.

Annie Lash and Callie set up the washtubs on a bench under a shade tree near the creek. They were getting a late start with the washing, but it was a good drying day. The sky was sunny, the breeze warm. Callie spread a quilt on the grass and put Abe in the middle of it. Amos, provoked because Jeff and Will had left on some business of their own and had refused to take him, played along the graveled edge of the creek. Callie cautioned him to stay away from the iron wash pot that bubbled over a small blaze and not to throw stones at the wet clothes hanging on the bushes.

“He needs something to keep him busy,” Annie Lash said, smiling at the tow-headed child who stomped down to the creek to throw pebbles in the water. “This winter we can spend a couple of hours every day on lessons. I’ll teach him to read and to cipher and to write his name.”

“Oh, Annie Lash,” Callie’s mouth curved in involuntary delight at the suggestion, “I’d hoped that somehow my boys’d learn. Would it be all right if I tried my hand, too? I always wished I could read. Do you think I’m too old?”

“Of course you’re not too old! We’ll set aside regular hours this winter and I’ll ask Jefferson if we can send word to Saint Louis for a slate and a book or two.”

An hour slipped by while they worked and talked about the reading and writing lessons.

“I hope there’s enough soap to last the summer.” Callie poked at the clothes in the boiling pot, selected a shirt, and wrapped the stick around it so she could transfer it to the rinse tub. “There won’t be any more grease until we butcher the hogs.”

“When do you do that?” Annie Lash spread a sheet on the rail fence to dry.

“Not until after Thanksgiving. The weather’s got to be good and cold or the meat’ll spoil.”

“Ma! Abe’s eatin’ rolly pollies.”

“Lordy mercy, Amos! Take ’em away from ’im!” Callie ran to the quilt, wiping her hands on her apron.

“He likes ’em.”

“Landsakes!” She poked her finger in the baby’s mouth and pulled out several small bugs that had rolled themselves into a tight ball. “Ah, Abe!” She continued to poke into the small slobbering mouth until she was sure it was empty. The baby smiled up at her with spittle running down his chin. “I swan to goodness, you’d eat anything,” she scolded. “How did he get them, Amos?”

“I was showin’ him how they roll up in a ball an’ he ate ’em.”

“Well, for cryin’ out loud! I never! You know better than to give him something he’ll put in his mouth.”

“I don’t like ’im anyhow. He stinks!” Amos walked away, his mouth set stubbornly and his back straight.

“You’re due for a switchin’, young man,” Callie called after him. She laid Abe down on the quilt, took a sugar tit out of her pocket, and put it in his mouth. “Now go to sleep so I can get on with the washin’.”

“Callie, we’ve got a caller,” Annie Lash said softly and nodded toward the yard. At first she had thought it was a young boy, and then she saw the black hair cascading down and recognized the girl from the raft.

“Who is it?”

“It’s the girl I was telling you about. The one called Maggie.”

“I never saw a woman in breeches before. And where’s she going?” Maggie was walking across the yard toward the shed, completely ignoring their presence.

“Don’t go near the dog,” Callie called.

The girl looked over her shoulder at the two women and went directly to the dog, patted its head and let it lick her hand, then poked her head inside the shed door, leisurely looking around as if she were at home.

“Don’t that beat all? What’s got into that ol’ dog? He’s usually as touchy as a cow with her tit caught in the fence.” The astonished Callie stood with her hands on her hips and gawked. “The only time I was ever near him he acted like he wanted to chew my leg off.”

On her way to the house, Maggie merely glanced at the women beside the washtubs. She disappeared into the dogtrot.

“Well, I never!” Annie Lash exclaimed and started toward the house. “She doesn’t have any manners at all,” she said over her shoulder to Callie, who had gone to pick up Abe so she could follow.

Maggie stood just inside the kitchen door. Her eyes were taking in everything from one end of the room to the other.

“Are you looking for something?” Annie Lash tried to keep the irritation out of her voice.

“No.” The girl moved past Annie Lash and went out into the dogtrot. “What’s o’er here?” She pushed open the door to where Annie Lash slept. “This be where Will and Jeff sleep?”

“No. It’s where I sleep.” Slow anger at the girl’s rudeness burned in Annie Lash.

“Where do they sleep?” Maggie’s large hazel eyes turned to Annie Lash. They were as unpretentious as a child’s. The girl was so utterly lovely that Annie Lash was awed into silence for a moment as she stared at the perfectly formed features and milk-white skin framed with dark, shiny curls. Her almond-shaped green eyes were large and her lashes were so long they almost reached the curved brows above her eyes. Her soft red mouth was slightly parted and she tilted her head to one side as she stared back.

“Jefferson sleeps in there,” Annie Lash gestured toward the other door. “Will stays at his own place . . . some of the time.”

“Who’s that?” Maggie looked beyond her to Callie, who had come into the dogtrot with Abe in her arms and Amos behind her.

“Callie Pickett and her sons, Abe and Amos. Callie, this is Maggie. Her folks are homesteading on the other side of the Cornicks.”

Callie nodded. Maggie studied her, letting her eyes go from the baby to Amos.

“Why’d yore man go off ’n leave ya here?”

Callie was so startled by the question she couldn’t reply. Maggie waited for an answer and when one didn’t come she shrugged her shoulders.

“I’d a killed ’im,” she said simply. Then, dismissing the subject, she said, “I been here at night. I wanted a see it in the daytime.”

Callie came forward. “What do you mean?”

“I come at night and look.”

“I don’t believe you,” Callie gasped.

“Ask the wolf-dog. He knows me. Ask Will.” She frowned, as if provoked because she wasn’t believed.

“Why do you come? How do you get here?” Annie Lash asked. “Why didn’t you let us know you were here?”

Again the girl’s thin shoulders lifted. “Sometimes I come with Light. Last night I come ta see Will.”

Callie’s face went white. “You’re lying!”

The girl’s features seemed to freeze. “I don’t lie. How did Will and Jeff know the men was comin’ upriver to kill them? I come to tell ’em.” She gave Callie a scathing look and stalked past her into the yard.

“What men are you talking about?” Callie called anxiously.

Maggie didn’t answer. She tilted her head haughtily, her face mutinous. Annie Lash went to her.

“We’re not questioning your honesty, Maggie. Callie and I find it hard to believe that you came through the woods alone.” Still Maggie didn’t answer. “Would you like a cup of cold buttermilk?”

Annie Lash turned anxious eyes from the silent girl to Callie, who was looking toward the river. Jeff and Light were coming toward the house.

“I don’t like buttermilk,” Maggie said absently, her eyes on the men.

Amos sped down the path. “Uncle Jeff! We got a caller. Her name’s Maggie and she’s purty.” He stopped suddenly and began to hop along on one foot. “Oh, shitfire! Oh, poot! I got a burr!”

Jeff reached down and scooped him up with one arm and sat him astraddle his hip, never even breaking stride.

“Your ma said you’d get a hiding if she heard you say those words again.”

“Don’t tell ’er, Uncle Jeff.”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If she didn’t hear it, I won’t tell this time. How’s that?”

Annie Lash couldn’t take her eyes off the big man and the small boy riding so easily on his hip. His long stride ate up the distance between them and she suddenly remembered her apron, wet from leaning over the washtub, her damp forehead, and her windblown hair. She longed to escape to her room and tidy herself, but remained where she was beside Callie and called out a greeting to the scout that walked beside him.

“Hello, Light. We haven’t seen you for a spell.”

“Ah,
mademoiselles,
it’s good to see the both of you.” He smiled at them, his dark eyes shining. “You’ve met my fairy of the woods, no?” His smile deepened when he looked at Maggie. She moved to his side and took his hand.

“Fairy? Is that good?”

“It is not bad,
cherie,
” he said and laughed.

“We’ve been visiting with Maggie.” Annie Lash hardly knew what she was saying. Jeff had come up beside her.

“This youngun’s got a burr in his foot, sweetheart. Can you get it out so I can set him down?”

Annie Lash bent her head over the small dirty foot and took out the sharp spine with her fingernails. Happiness sang in her heart like a bird.
Sweetheart.
Would she ever get used to hearing him say it?