Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (27 page)

“I’ll get on outside.” Daniel’s hand lingered on her arm.

Dora’s eyes followed Daniel out the door. “Lordy, Hester. Ya got yourself a real eye-buster. He’s about the most man I’ve clapped my eyes on fer a spell. Ha! Wyatt thinks he’s the best-lookin’ thin’ in these parts. He’ll be mad enough to kick a stump when he sees yore man.”

“Daniel is handsome and . . . kind, and very dear to me.”

“Love ’em, do ya?”

Mercy looked into the girl’s open, smiling face, and decided she liked her very much. “Yes,” she said simply.

“Now, ain’t that nice? Maw loved Paw Baxter somethin’ fierce. It tore her up when he was took.” Dora looked over her shoulder when Martha came in with the baby on her hip. “I got the greens, Martha. I washed ’em down at the creek.”

“Wyatt ’n’ the boys workin’ on the barrels?”

“No. Hod put ’em ta pullin’ stumps. How’d Maw take ta seein’ Hester?”

“Took it good. Go in ’n’ set with her, Hester. I’ll put this youngun down and clean them chickens Lenny killed.”

The floorboards under Mercy’s feet suddenly shook, a dog growled menacingly, followed by more heavy thuds beneath the floor. Martha picked up a piece of firewood and thumped the floor. The growling stopped.

“Hogs root under the house,” Dora explained. “Sometimes they get to fightin’ with the dogs ’n’ make a racket enough to wake the dead.”

“Best way ta keep snakes outa the house, to my way of thinkin’,” Martha said.

“Do you have a lot of . . . snakes?”

“I ain’t seen many lately. Hogs keep ’em cleaned out.”

“I’d better see if Maw’s woke up.” Dora went into the other room.

Mercy followed Dora and stood at the end of the bed while the small, dark-haired woman went to the side and leaned over.

“Ye’ve waked up,” she crooned as if to a baby. “Now, ain’t ya glad ya let me brush yore hair this mornin’? If I’da minded ya, ya woulda looked like a burr head ’n’ scared Hester silly.”

Mercy watched Dora smile fondly at her mother-in-law and thought that she must be a special woman to command so much love from her sons and their wives.

“Yer jist talkin’ to hear yore head rattle, gal.”

“’Course. Didn’t Wyatt say he brung me home ’cause ya needed sunshine ’n’ foolishness?”

The sky-blue eyes looked pointedly at Dora’s bulging belly, then to Mercy.

“That ain’t why he brung her.”

“There ya go, tellin’ tales on Wyatt,” Dora said, teasing. “Is there something ya want, Maw? If there ain’t, Hester’ll sit with ya ’n’ I’ll give Martha a hand after I go see about my youngun.”

“Is your Sister here?”

“Wyatt fetched her to stay a spell. Ya want the shutters pushed back so ya can see the trees?”

Dora adjusted the shutters and left the room. Mercy drew the hickory rocker up close to the bed and sat down. Now that she was alone with her mother, she didn’t know what to say.

“Ya feelin’ kinda at odds, Hester?”

Mercy smiled. “How did you know?”

“Ya got a pucker to yore brow like Will had.”

“Tell me about him.”

“He fetched me here when I warn’t more’n fourteen. This here was the purtiest, wildest place ya ever saw. Turkeys come right up to the door, deer, elk, and possum aplenty. Big, Will was. Me ’n’ him . . . built this . . . place.” Her breath left her, and she had to rest.

“The land is flat back in Illinois where I’ve been living,” Mercy said to fill the void.

“It pert nigh kilt Will when he went to fetch ya home, ’n’ the folks was all dead ’n’ no sign of ya.” Mrs. Baxter rolled her head on the pillow and looked out the window. He was powerful cut up over it ’n’ grieved ’n’ grieved. It was a bad time.”

Mercy leaned over and took her hand. “I was found in the cellar by a man named Farrway Quill. They had put me there to keep me safe. He said they were killed by river pirates for the oxen and the horses. He didn’t know what to do with me. He thought my folks had been killed, so he took me home with him.”

“They was good to ya?”

“Very good. They raised me as if I were their own.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Her lids drooped, and Mercy thought she had fallen asleep. Soon she opened her eyes and said, “I’ve got yore Paw’s death crown. I knowed he’d have one. He was a strong-willed man. It was in the pillow he died on. I want ya to have it.”

Mercy looked puzzled. “What is it? You found something in his pillow?”

“Ain’t ya never heard of a death crown?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Landsakes! Get in the bottom drawer in the chest ’n’ get out that wood box on this end.”

Mercy found the small, square box and took it to the bed. It was made from thin sheets of wood smoothed to a satiny finish. A rose was carved on the top. A faded ribbon was wrapped around it and tied with a bow.

Mrs. Baxter ran her fingers over the top of the box. “Hod made this here box. He done good. Open it up, Hester.”

Mercy untied the ribbon and lifted up the lid. Inside was a group of feathers formed in a knot about the size and the shape of a clenched fist set on end. The white-and-gray feathers were swirled in the same direction, even on the top.

“Any loose ones in the bottom?”

Mercy tilted the box and looked closely. “No. They’re all stuck in this . . . knot.”

“There is feathers in the bottom of the box sometimes. Other times they’re all put back where they ort ta be ’n’ not a loose one a-tall. Pick it up. Ya can hold it.”

Mercy’s fingers closed around it. She lifted it out of the box and placed it on the palm of her hand. It was a
solid
ball of feathers. Each of the gray-and-white goose feathers was firmly in place. She stroked the smooth top of the knot with her fingertip. Never had she seen anything or heard of anything like it.

“There’s times when I hold it, I can feel Will’s heart a beatin’, beatin’, beatin’.” The eyes that looked into Mercy’s were clear, or she would have thought her mother’s mind was wandering. “Will fought the black hand a-pullin’ him. He warn’t wantin’ to leave me behind. He knowed how I’d take on.”

“What do you think it means?” Mercy asked.

“Why . . . it means dyin’ ain’t the end. What was put in graveyard warn’t nothin’ but Will’s shell. He’s here.” She lifted her hand and moved her fingers as if she were caressing something. “Times is . . . I can see him sittin’ in . . . his chair, or feel him on the bed a-huggin’ me. He’s in the . . . boys. In you, Hester. Ya was his seed, ’n’ I growed ya for him. Ah . . . Will, Will . . .” Her voice trailed away, but her mouth made movements as if she were still speaking.

When her mother’s mouth stilled, Mercy placed the ball of feathers back in the box and tied the lid in place. She returned it to the drawer and sat back down in the chair. Her mother’s eyes were closed. She was sleeping.

D
aniel wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, placed his foot up on the stump, and leaned on the ax handle. He had split wood for the past hour. He welcomed the labor. It was not in him to sit idle. Hod had been polite but had not invited him to go along when he left the homestead and disappeared in the timber along the creek. Daniel suspected that was where the still was located.

The homestead was well laid out. Daniel slowly and methodically surveyed the area. North of the house, a good piece of flat land was planted in corn. Hod had told him that there was another patch of corn beyond the screen of cedars to the west, and that his cabin was there. Wyatt had a cabin in the hills across the creek. A well-tended garden spot, over which hung strings of cloth fluttering in the breeze to scare away the birds, was between the house and the fast-moving creek that flowed from north to south between the homestead and the hills. Old Man Baxter had placed his home so that it was shielded from the north wind by the hills, had plenty of water, and judging from the looks of the thickly timbered hills, game.

Daniel watched the two Baxter women working at the outdoor cook fire. Martha had set a flat iron pan in the oven. The oven was like the ones he had seen used in the Arkansas Territory.

A stump had been hewn perfectly flat on the top with a slab hewn out and laid upon it. On this was spread a thick layer of clay. A wooden frame of hickory was made in the shape of an oven and filled with wood. It was placed on the clay slab. The frame, except for a small opening at one end, was covered with a thick layer of clay and set out to dry. After it had stood several days, the wood inside was set on fire and burned out. The clay oven was then used over a slow fire or placed among hot coals.

Daniel carried several armloads of split wood to the well-used, three-sided stone-and-mortar fireplace and stacked it nearby.

“Thanky.” Martha looked up and then away.

“There’s sweet potatoes, raisins, sorghum syrup, and a few other things in the box on the porch,” Daniel said. “They should be used, or they’ll spoil if left in that hot box.”

Martha nodded but didn’t say anything. Daniel went back to work on the woodpile. An hour passed, and she hadn’t gone near the box on the porch.

“Poor and proud,” Daniel murmured to himself. He chose a piece of pine and swung the ax down. He let the feel of the pine splitting run up his arm. It was a good feeling: something done, something completed. He selected another chunk of wood and set it upright on the wood block. Work was what he needed right now, work to keep his thoughts at bay.

Later, when Mercy came out onto the porch, he stopped and leaned on the ax handle again. He could not describe how he felt when they were apart and he could stand back and look at her. He had not wanted this to happen to him. The gut-wrenching feeling that came over him now was pure misery. Her brothers had forced him upon her. At the moment when they were united in marriage, he had lost the thing he wanted most, her love. He remembered his heart-stopping fear when Bernie pulled the snake out of the bag, and the look of terror in Mercy’s eyes. Just thinking about it made him cold with fear. His fear now summoned up his anger, and he vowed to beat Bernie and Lenny to within an inch of their lives before he left this place.

Daniel watched Mercy move across the yard to where Martha stood at the cook fire. He felt that he knew Mercy as well as he knew himself, yet he had never felt the weight of her breasts in his hands, or stroked the satiny skin of her thighs. Hunger for her had gnawed at him for weeks. The desire to touch her had been overwhelming the night they’d camped out under the stars. His hand, as if acting independently of his brain, had burrowed beneath the blanket to hold her warm, slim ankle. His touch had not awakened her, and he had lain awake thinking of what it would be like to have her move down into his arms: naked; sweet-smelling; her soft arms around him; his aching flesh buried in the sweet, dark cavern of her body.

Mercy looked his way and waved.

It had not occurred to him that she would suggest that they be divorced. His mind skittered away from the thought as if it would bite him. They were wed, and it was now up to him to see that she wanted to stay wed to him. At times he thought he glimpsed something in her eyes that made him think she returned his love. At other times he was sure that what she felt for him was the fondness a Sister had for an older brother because she was not nearly as shy with him as he was with her.

The kiss they had shared after the wedding had jarred him to the center of his being. Every inch of his skin had come alive, and wild tremors of passion surged through him, sending a primitive need to feel himself enclosed within her warmth. His muscles had knotted with strain as reasoning took control. He had forced himself away from her before she felt the insistence of that part of him that had leapt to life and begged for release. Thinking about it, Daniel felt his body tighten, his breath quicken, and his male member come alive. He was hopelessly, desperately in love with her, and wondered if he had the strength to endure the time it would take for her to become used to the fact that they were husband and wife before he declared his love.

*   *   *

Two hours after the sun had reached its zenith, the Baxter brothers came back to the homestead. They lined up at the wash trough. The trough, hollowed out of a poplar log, sat on a shelf attached to the back of the house. They washed, smoothed down their wiry straw-colored hair, and tiptoed into the room where their mother lay.

The women had carried the kitchen table to the yard. It was set and ready for the meal. Martha brought to the table the iron pot of cooked chicken with fat bread dumplings floating in the broth. Dora followed with a platter heaped with slabs of fried ham. There was red-eye gravy, hominy, boiled beans, greens, and corn bread with plenty of butter, and honey in the comb. Martha had made a juicy cobbler from dried apples and a sauce flavored with whiskey to go over it. She explained to Mercy that the reason for the late meal was that the men were taking the rest of the day off from their work to celebrate her homecoming.

Mercy was surprised to see Hob carry his mother, snugly wrapped in the quilt, out of the house and into the yard. He walked slowly along the table so she could view the repast. She looked like a small child, except for her thick gray hair. Martha and Dora stood by, as if awaiting her approval. She was quick to give praise.