Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (5 page)

The import of Bernie’s words sank into Mercy’s mind slowly. When it did, she realized that fourteen sets of ears had heard them, and the words would be repeated to eight different farm and town families that night. Tomorrow her reputation would be in shreds.

“I must spend this time with my students. Please leave.” She felt cold and hot by turns, and she was not sure her legs would hold her. “I’ll speak to you tonight . . . after school.”

“We ain’t got time ta be pussyfootin’ ’round til ya can jaw with us. Maw’s ailin’ ’n’ we got ter be gettin’ back ta Mud Creek.” Lenny stared at her with hard, bitter eyes.

“I’m sorry about your mother—”

“Ya can’t’ve done forgot Maw, Hester!” Bernie spat out. Sparks of anger danced in his eyes.

“Why are you calling her Hester?” The voice that came from behind Mercy was Mary Knibee’s.

“Hush up, Mary. This isn’t any of your business.”

“It would be my pa’s business if you’re calling yourself Mercy and your name is Hester.” There was unconcealed pleasure in her voice.

“Shut your mouth, Mary,” Arabella said sharply. “Or I’ll shut it for you.”

“You just try!”

The children began to talk excitedly to each other, and Mercy smothered the urge to scream.

“Go on out,” she said to Lenny and Bernie, her voice as calm as she could make it. “I’ll talk to you outside.”

Somehow she managed to move the feet that seemed glued to the floor, and holding her hand, palm out, in front of her and making little pushing movements, she followed them out the door and closed it behind her. Through the door Mercy heard the shrill voice of her students discussing the disruption. Her face burning and her knees quivering with humiliation, Mercy pressed her back against the door. Bernie and Lenny stood in front of her as if they were afraid she would run. “Hold your head up,” Daniel had said. She lifted her chin and looked first Bernie, and then Lenny square in the eye.

“You had no right to come to my school and speak to me about a private matter in front of my students. It was an ill-mannered thing to do.”

“Ill mannered! Hell! Did ya hear that, Lenny?”

“I heared. Ya’ve got uppity livin’ with the high mucks, ain’t ya? Air ya thinkin’ ye’re too good ta be a Baxter?” Lenny sneered.

“It’s what she’s thinkin’,” Bernie said nastily. “She ain’t fit ta be no Baxter nohow, but a Baxter she be as sure as shootin’.”

“All right. It may very well be that I’m . . . your Sister. If what you say about the . . . Baxter brown spot is true.” Mercy almost choked on the words, but she spoke evenly, without a sign of what the words cost her to say.

“I ain’t no liar!” Bernie’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “If’n I’d had my rathers, ya wouldn’t be Hester. Not a cold bitch what don’t care ’bout folks.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Mercy said patiently. “My first memories are of being here with the Quills. As soon as I was old enough to understand, they explained that I was not their child and how I came to be with them. I love them. They are my family. I don’t feel kinship with any of . . . you. Can’t you understand that?”

“Quills ain’t yore folks. Yore folks, what’s left of ’em, is down in Kaintuck on Mud Creek. Yore paw met his maker a time back when a tree fell on him. He be buried alongside four young-uns Maw lost afore they was knee-high. Yore Maw’s flat on her back a-waitin’ fer the dark angel ’n’ grievin’ ta see her little lost girl young-un.”

“But surely she has other children.” Mercy tensed her body as she tried to stop trembling.

“Three boys aside us. Ain’t no more girl young-uns,” Bernie said through tight lips and then spit a stream of brown tobacco juice into the dirt at his feet. “Gid, the youngest boy, ain’t dry behind the ears yet.”

“I’m sorry. Go back and tell her you didn’t find . . . Hester. I can’t—”

“I said I ain’t no liar!” Bernie’s hand shot out and gripped her wrist so viciously that she could scarcely keep from crying out. The bitterness of his stare made the color rise to flood her face, but her lips were white, compressed.

“What do you want of me?” Mercy’s voice was raw.

She looked from one to the other for her answer, but Lenny and Bernie were staring past her up the road. She heard the sound of a running horse and turned to see Daniel on his big buckskin galloping toward the school. Daniel’s hard-boned face was taut with rage. At once her mind jerked awake.
Daniel was angry enough to kill them!

Bernie dropped Mercy’s wrist, and the Baxter brothers moved apart, ready for the attack from the man whose anger rode high in his face. Daniel saw Mercy’s fear, and it was enough. He jumped from the horse and smashed his fist into Bernie’s face. One moment Bernie was on his feet, and the next he was flying through the air and landing with a thud on the bare ground. Lenny backed away, shaking his head, his hands held out in front of him.

“We ain’t wantin’ no fight. You ain’t got no right steppin’ inta a family conflab!” He moved over to Bernie, his eyes never leaving Daniel’s face, and extended a hand to help his brother get to his feet. “You ain’t got no right!” His voice echoed shrilly.

Mercy held tightly to Daniel’s arm, scarcely aware that the door had been flung open and that her students were trooping out into the yard.

“Get back in there and shut the door. Right now!” Daniel roared over Mercy’s head. His voice was as harsh and powerful as the jaw that jutted in angry determination and the mouth that was straight and very hard. The children never questioned the order. They scurried back inside.

Mercy hesitated as if to follow them. Then she looked up and met Daniel’s piercing brown eyes. When his hand covered hers, she felt calm and reassured. Together Mercy and Daniel faced the Baxter brothers.

“When I gave you your muskets, I told you to stay away from her. Go on back to Kentucky and leave her alone.” Daniel’s powerful body was tense, ready to fight again.

“Air ya a-lettin’ him do yore talkin’?” Lenny’s angry eyes stared into Mercy’s. “We ain’t goin’.” He shook his head slowly. “We ain’t goin’ till ya come with us ta see Maw.”

“You’re just about this far from getting yourselves killed.” Daniel held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

“Ya ain’t Hester’s kin, mister. ’Nother thing, down on Mud Creek no decent woman’d be spendin’ the night with a feller if’n they ain’t wedded or blood kin. You’d be horsewhipped if’n brothers Wyatt and Hod heard of it. Me ’n’ Bernie done thought on it. We ain’t sayin’ nothin’ ’bout it to Maw or nobody, or it’ll get out ’n’ the Baxters will be looked down on.”

“You’d better get the hell out of here while you can walk because I’m about to shoot your legs out from under you.”

The raw violence in Daniel’s voice made Mercy tremble. She glanced up and saw the muscles in his jaws jerk nervously as he fought to contain his anger. His whole body was like a tight coil, ready to spring; his fists clenched and unclenched. His face was twisted with smoldering rage. In all the years she had known him, she had never seen him so angry. She was suddenly afraid he would lose control and kill the two men who faced him. Her hands gripped his arm tightly.

“We’ll go, fer now.” Anger and resentment blazed in Lenny’s eyes when he looked at Mercy. “Ya ain’t fit to be no Baxter nohow. Ain’t no Baxter I heared of what wouldn’t go ’n’ ease the pain of a dyin’ maw what went down in the valley a death to birth ’em. Ya’ve done been ruint, sure as sin.”

Mercy stood close to Daniel’s tall, powerful body, her two hands clasped about his arm. They watched the Baxters until they disappeared into the woods. When she looked up at the tall man beside her, her blue eyes were strained and overbright.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

“About them? Leave them to me.”

“No. I keep wondering if I should . . . go see her.”

“Is that what you want to do?” he asked gently.

“I don’t know what I want to do.”

“I could take you to Vandalia. Tennessee can take over the school.”

“No! I couldn’t do that. They’d follow me. I know they would, and I . . . couldn’t bear to have Mamma and Papa mixed up in this.”

“You don’t have to decide anything now. We’ll talk about it tonight. Do you want to dismiss school for the day?”

“No. I’ve got to face my students sooner or later. It may as well be now. Things won’t be any different tomorrow.”

“I’ll come in with you if you want me to.”

“No. But make sure
they
don’t come back.” Mercy cast a fearful look over her shoulder.

“I’ll make sure of it. Go on in.” He squeezed the hand on his arm and opened the door.

*   *   *

Daniel mounted his horse, his eyes searching along the road for a sign of the Baxters. Neither was in sight, but that didn’t mean they were not lurking in the woods. He walked his horse along the road, his eyes scanning the edge of the forest for any movement. From up ahead he heard a dog bark, and then another chimed in. He urged his horse into a trot, and when he rounded the bend in the road, he could see two riders ahead. The Baxters were heading south. Old man Gordon’s dogs were nipping at the heels of the mules they were riding.

Daniel pulled his mount to a stop. As he watched them, one turned and looked back.
They want me to think they’re leaving,
Daniel thought. He wished to hell they would, but there was only a small chance of it. He had seen the determination in Lenny Baxter’s eyes. He might be able to buy or scare off the younger Baxter, but not Lenny.

He turned his horse and rode toward the mill, trying to figure out what to do about the men who claimed kin to Mercy. The only wrong they had done so far was to burst into the house and manhandle her. Although that made Danny want to kill them, it was not enough reason to call in the law. Besides, Mercy would hate the fuss that would stir up. Daniel decided that whatever was to be done, he would have to do it himself.

The wind was coming up and driving rain clouds toward him from the northwest. Daniel pulled up the collar of his coat and wondered how Mercy was going to hold up under the pressure of dealing with her
real
brothers. He and Mercy had not been as close the last few years as when they were children. He had spent a couple of years in Arkansas; she had lived for a year with the Colby Carrolls in Carrolltown. He had been busy with the mill and the farm; she with the school. They had been together only for occasional Sunday dinners and on holidays.

All these years he had been as fiercely protective of Mercy as any brother would be of a Sister, but he had not touched her for years, not until last night. What a lovely, soft woman she had grown up to be. It had been such a jolt to his senses to feel her small, firm breasts against his chest, her soft arms about his neck, that he had remained awake the better part of the night thinking about it.

Daniel thought about the women he had held and had kissed. Belinda Martin, for one. She was a pretty woman and would have fallen in bed with him in a minute if he had made the right moves. He had thought about it. At times he wanted a woman so badly that he got out of bed and walked the floor. But bedding Belinda would mean marriage, and he wanted to feel that the woman he married was something more to him than a vessel to ease his aching loins. Whores were available to do that.

It suddenly occurred to Daniel, as he rode up to the mill and dismounted, why casual kisses and New Orleans whores had been so disappointing. He wanted to love his woman as Farrway Quill loved his, and he wanted her to love him back equally as much.

Nothing he had experienced before had been like holding the long, soft length of Mercy against him, feeling her heartbeat against his chest, her warm breath on his neck, and smelling the sweet scent of her body.

The secret that had been wrapped up and hidden away in the back of his mind for as long as he could remember suddenly came forth and unfolded.
Mercy was his woman, his alone, to love and cherish, as it was meant to be.

*   *   *

It was the most miserable day of Mercy’s life. The children were too excited and curious about what had happened to settle down and concentrate on anything. Mary Knibbe was delighted with what had taken place. She watched Mercy with a smug smile on her face and made numerous remarks about “teacher” and Mr. Phelps. One time she called her Miss Hester, then corrected it quickly to Miss Quill. Mercy tried to ignore her, but it was hard to do. She was sure that Mary was counting the minutes until she could leave the school and spread the news about Daniel’s spending the night at the Quill house.

The day dragged slowly by. The sky darkened with rain clouds, and Mercy had to light the lamp. She gathered her younger children, three boys and one girl, around her and held up the cards with the alphabet on them.

“Charles, what is this letter?”

“
W
for . . . warthog!” The boy laughed and looked over his shoulder at the older students to see if they appreciated his answer.

Mercy ignored him and flashed another card. “Jason?”

“
P
for . . . poot, what Pa does after supper.”

Mercy closed her eyes tightly, then slammed them open when she heard the loud snickering.

“That’s enough!” She snapped out another card. “Agnes?”

“
B
for baby, what Ma says a girl’ll get if she don’t keep her legs together.”

Mercy looked at Agnes’s sweet little face in stunned, openmouthed silence, before panic set in. The child gave her an impish grin. The room was deathly quiet as the students waited to see what teacher would do. Mercy quickly flipped another card.

“Robert?”

“
T
for . . . turd, horse turd, cow turd . . .”

Gales of laughter erupted. Mercy slammed her hand down on the desk.

“Quiet!” she shouted. She was losing control of the class. For the first time in three years she was losing control. “Go stand in the corner, all four of you. No, not the
same
corner, Robert. This room has four corners for four naughty children.”

By the time the afternoon ended and it came time to dismiss school, Mercy’s nerves were at the breaking point and she had a throbbing headache. Nevertheless, she pasted a smile on her face and stood beside the door while the children put on their wraps before going out into the light rain, pushed by a cold March wind.