Olivia, Mourning (13 page)

“I ain’t tryin’ to get at look at them monsters over there, hidin’ behind all them trees,” he teased. “All I gotta worry about is where these animals gonna put their foot down next. I got plenty a light for that. You gotta stop worryin’ five steps ahead, Livia. All we gotta do is stay on this road till we get to the turn to this Fae’s Landing place. I figure that take us four, five hours. That where we gonna set us down to sleep. Come morning, there be light to see the trail and they ain’t gonna be no more bogeymen out there. We gonna find our way all right.”

“Sleep on the trail? We can’t just lie down on the ground.”

“Say who? Course we can.”

“What if there are snakes?”

“They don’t bother us, we don’t bother them. You wanna be ’fraid in the dark, they plenty a things scarier than a poor old snake. ’Sides, what you think you gonna sleep on tomorrow night at your uncle’s place? Ain’t gonna be no one waitin’ to turn down no bed for you.”

She sighed in concession. Of course he was right. She turned in her seat to check that the loaded Hawken rifle and her possibles bag were still there, right behind her. They rode in silence for a while longer and then, bored, Olivia asked if she couldn’t drive for a while.

“What for? I ain’t tired.”

“I’ve got to learn sometime, so it might as well be now. In all the known world, there can’t be a flatter road than this one. It doesn’t look to me like there’s a hill in the whole entire state of Michigan.”

“This wagon be almost brand new. I gotta break it in.”

“That’s a tub of eyewash, Mourning Free.”

“What you know ’bout wagons? You ever work at the livery? Spoke a wheel? Set an axle?”

“You just don’t want me to drive, do you? Ever. You think this is
your
wagon.”

“Someone come round that bend on a wild horse, you ain’t gonna know what to do.”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot about all the wild horses we’ve been passing every five minutes.”

Olivia let the argument dissipate into the dark, not having been all that eager to drive. In low places they bounced over logs that someone had placed across the road. In some spots the logs lay lengthwise and Olivia worried the wagon wheels would get stuck between them, but Dixby and Dougan kept plodding right along.

They had been riding in silence for a long while when she reluctantly said, “Mourning, you’ve got to stop for me.” She had been holding it in for longer than seemed possible.

He said a gentle “Whoa” and sat ramrod, looking straight ahead. She wasn’t about to venture into those dark woods to lift her skirt and so walked about fifty paces back down the road, past the last bend they had rounded. She had foreseen this necessity and was wearing no drawers. All she had to do was plant her feet wide apart and lift her skirts above her knees. The stream of urine hitting the ground made the loudest noise she had ever heard and her cheeks grew hot with embarrassment.
You’d better get used to this too
, she scolded.

When she retraced her steps around the bend Mourning was having a conversation with Dixby and Dougan, while they took turns drinking from a bucket. Olivia climbed back onto the wagon and Mourning joined her. After he settled himself he handed her the reins.

“These animals been trained real good. All you gotta do is talk to them,” he said.

They drove on in silence and nearly missed the wooden sign in the dark. Mourning shouted “Whoa” and climbed down to read it by the lantern light. An arrow was carved into it, beside the words “Fae’s Landing 3 Miles.”

“Oh that’s grand, we’re almost there,” Olivia said.

“We best stop here, lay them mattresses down in that clearing. We never gonna find old Lorenzo’s cabin in the dark.” He took hold of the team’s harness and led them off the road.

“But it’s only three miles.”

“To the town, not your farm. To your farm we gotta follow a trail, not a road. And ’ccordin’ to your map we gotta cross some water. I ain’t doin’ that in the dark.”

He unyoked and hobbled the oxen and gave them feed and more water. Olivia untied the ropes Mourning had wound over their belongings and began moving things around in the bed of the wagon.

“What you doin’?” Mourning asked.

“Making it so I can lay my mattress up here, on top of all this stuff,” she said. “I can’t sleep down there on the ground. It’s too dark. Too many things creeping around. Don’t worry, I’ll put it back like it was.”

“Pioneer lady.” He shook his head, but at least he was smiling indulgently, not smirking.

He disappeared between the trees and came back carrying an armload of dry kindling. “This …” He raised it a bit higher, “gonna be your job from now on,” he said amiably and tossed it to the ground. Olivia used their new hoe to clear a patch of dirt in the middle of the road, arranged the kindling, and struck one of their precious matches.

Mourning watched her and said, “Once we settled, we ain’t gonna use up our lucifers like that. I show you how to find some good punk wood and use a flint.”

She nodded and stood up. “I’ll go look for some thicker branches,” she said, but hesitated at the tree line.

Mourning strode over to her and touched her elbow. “You go pick some a that lemon grass I seen growing back there by the sign, make us some tea. I get the wood. Them bogeymen in there be ascared of colored boys. Can’t see us in the dark. Gonna think I be a ghost.” He made a low wooooing sound as he went into the woods.

Olivia smiled after him and retrieved their bag of food from the wagon. By the time Mourning returned with the wood she had broken some green branches from a tree and peeled enough bark away to make a clean fork to toast bread on.

“Cheese, jerky, or jam?” she asked.

“That blackberry jam sit good with me.”

“Would you care for some sugar in your tea, Sir?” she asked. “We happen to have a fresh loaf, and I’d be happy to nip some off for you.”

The food and tea tasted delicious and she was pleased to find herself comfortable with Mourning, no need to talk all the time. He had lowered himself to the ground and rested his back against one of the wagon wheels. Olivia perched on an overturned bucket. She kept her eyes on the ground as she ate, feeling him study her face in the firelight. She didn’t mind, but would have loved to know what he was thinking. She hoped it was something like: “This white girl ain’t so bad to be with.” She stood, brushed the crumbs from her hands, and announced that she was ready to go to sleep. She climbed into the back of the wagon and stretched out on her lopsided mattress.

“I hear Michigan snakes win all the wagon climbin’ contests.” Mourning made slithering motions with his hands.

“Hush.”

“They weave their way through them spokes, slither right up the side. Lookin’ for something soft to curl up on.”

“Be quiet, Mourning. Are you going to put the fire out?”

“Nah,” he said as he tossed his mattress to the ground next to the wagon. “Ain’t no wind and you been smart, puttin’ it smack in the middle of the road so we ain’t gonna start no forest fire.”

She lay in the dark and cursed herself for not having gone to answer nature’s call before climbing up there. She dreaded the thought of putting her feet over the side of the wagon to get down in the dark. When Olivia was a little girl Avis had tormented her with tales of the scaly old man who lived under her bed and, every night when the lantern was extinguished, slithered out from between the floorboards. “You watch out when you get in bed, Olivia,” Avis would say. “He’ll grab you by the ankle, pull you under there with him.” Even now that she was grown-up, she had to resist the impulse to take a running leap to her bed.

She peeked over the side of the wagon and saw Mourning sprawled on his mattress, already dead to the world. She leaned farther out and squinted at him, feeling like a thief for stealing his privacy, but unable to resist the opportunity to study his face, shiny in the moonlight. He looked so peaceful.

“Hullo neighbors,” a man’s voice called out.

Startled and heart thumping, Olivia almost fell over the side of the wagon as she scrambled for the Hawken. Clutching it, she peered into the dark.

“Hullo,” the voice said again.

She could see the outline of a man, standing in the middle of the road, about twenty paces away. He had both hands raised shoulder-high, one of them holding a rifle by its butt, with the barrel pointing at the ground.

Chapter Thirteen

“Hullo,” Olivia answered. She glanced at Mourning, expecting him to spark back to life, but he emitted a soft snore.

“My name’s Jeremy Kincaid. I live not far from here. I’m going to come a little closer,” he said.

He took a few steps and she could see that he was tall and thin and wore baggy gray pants. A few more steps showed him to be unshaven and scruffy, with a floppy hat shoved back on the crown of his head.

He halted and she said, “I’m Olivia. Olivia Killion. Pleasure to meet you. If you live near here, I guess we’re going to be neighbors.”

“Oh? Where are you headed?” Jeremy asked.

“A farm west of Fae’s Landing. It used to belong to my uncle, but it’s been abandoned for quite a few years.”

“The Scruggs place?”

“Yes.” She brightened. “Did you know my Uncle Lorenzo?”

“No, he’s from way before my time, but I know the cabin. Trappers and hunters use it to grab a kip. Leave it right manky, sorry to tell you. It’s about seven-eight miles from my place. So it does look like we will be neighbors.”

The cloud that had been veiling the moon drifted away and silvery light washed over Jeremy Kincaid’s features. Though somewhat pale and not particularly striking, it was a pleasant enough face, nicely proportioned. He had what Olivia thought of as a snooty-type nose, long and flaring at the end into a soft wide V, the nostrils forming a pair of butterfly wings. Bits of what she thought could only be plant matter clung to his hat and shoulders, as if he had been rolling in the undergrowth. Olivia smiled and set her rifle down, resisting the impulse to smooth her hair.

“Does your husband plan to farm?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m not married. But I’ve got a hired man who’s going to farm my land for me.”

She pulled on her work shoes, slid over the mattress to the ladder on the side of the wagon, and climbed down. “That’s him right there.” She nodded at Mourning’s sleeping figure.

“Mourning,” she said, bending down toward him. He emitted a grumpy noise and rolled over, away from her voice. She lightly nudged his foot with hers. “Mourning, don’t you want to get up and meet our new neighbor?”

“Do you think it will be easier to rouse him if you tell him it’s morning?” Jeremy asked as he rested his rifle against the wagon and removed the water skin and possibles bag he wore strapped to his back.

It took her a moment to understand the question. “Oh, no, that’s his name. Mourning.”

“And does he have siblings named Afternoon and Night?”

“It’s m-o-u – like grieving. It’s a long story.” She nudged Mourning’s foot again.

“Perhaps we’d best leave him to his kip,” Jeremy said.

“Oh, I’m sure he’d be sorry not to make your acquaintance.”

“What?” Mourning stirred and blinked himself awake.

“I apologize for disturbing you, but I wanted you to meet our new neighbor,” Olivia said.

Mourning got to his feet and shook himself.

“Mourning Free this is Jeremy … Kincaid was it?”

Jeremy nodded and offered his hand to Mourning. Olivia was happy to note that he did so more naturally than most white men took the hand of a colored.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Kincaid.”

“Pleasure is mine. It will be good to have someone living in the old Scruggs place.”

“Jeremy lives close by,” Olivia said. “He can tell us how to get there.”

“That be a help.” Mourning stretched and lit the lantern. “I’m a get the fire stirred up. Heat us a pot a coffee.”

“Sounds good to me,” Jeremy said as he walked past the wagon to inspect the hobbled oxen. “Looks like a good strong team you’ve got.”

“Indeed,” Mourning said. He turned over a bucket and nodded at it. “You can set yourself on that.”

Jeremy stooped to pick up a long stick, then sat on the bucket and scratched lines in the dirt. Olivia watched him, feeling blessed by their good luck: the uneventful trip on the steamer, the ease with which Mourning had found the wagon and team, and now this new friend miraculously appearing to help them find their way. Their meeting in the woods was providential. A sign. This was right. This was what she was supposed to do. People were allowed to change their fate; they were even rewarded for doing so. Jeremy felt like a gift.

“You’re here,” Jeremy pronounced, tapping the stick on the ground. Olivia and Mourning stepped to either side of him to study the little map he had drawn. “Turn the way the sign points and go about two-three miles until you come to a river. Fae’s Landing is on the other side of it. You need to go into town for anything?”

“Nah,” Mourning replied. “Miz Killion here know how to shop like nobody else. Thanks to her, we got ever thing anyone ever thought a wantin’ right there in that wagon. Farming don’t work out, she can open herself a general store. Directions the only thing we need, and if you be givin’ us them, we can go straight to Miz Killion’s land.”

Olivia’s eyes darted to Mourning on the second “Miz Killion,” but she detected no rancor in his voice. He was doing as they had agreed – playing the part of hired man.

Jeremy gave them detailed directions for reaching the cabin. “That’s the easiest way to get there with a wagon,” he said, “even though it means crossing water twice.”

Olivia took a few steps to where she could study Jeremy’s features in the firelight, but couldn’t guess how old he was. She did notice the glints of orange-red in his hair and how straight and white his teeth were.

“You be a trapper?” Mourning asked. The fire had come back to life and Mourning found the coffee pot and filled it with water.

“No.”

“Farmer?”

“No, never have liked digging in the dirt.” Jeremy rose and motioned with his hand. “Never mind the coffee. I should leave you to your night’s sleep.” He put his hat back on and reached for his water skin. “I’ll stop by in a few days time, see how you’re settling in. You have other neighbors a few miles southeast of you – Filmore and Iola Stubblefield. Good, church-going folk. Farmers. I’m sure they’ll be glad to help you out in whatever way they can.”

“Any colored folk ’round here?” Mourning asked.

Jeremy shook his head. “Quite a few in Detroit. More across the river in Windsor. But there aren’t any colored families in Fae’s Landing. Aren’t all that many white ones. It’s not much of a town.” He slipped the straps of the water pouch and possibles bag over his shoulders and picked up his rifle.

“Why is it called Fae’s Landing?” Olivia asked, knowing it was a stupid thing to ask in the middle of the night, but reluctant to let him go.

Jeremy set the butt of his rifle on the ground and leaned on it. “It’s named for a little baby called Fae. Her mamma birthed her right there on the raft they use to ferry folks ’cross the river. Then a few months later Baby Fae died of the pox and the town they were building – where that raft is tied up – got named after her.” He picked up his rifle. “You have a good night. Mind yourself.”

“We’ll be glad to have you come visit,” Olivia said.

“I’ll do that.”

“We’ll be looking to rent out the oxen, if you’re interested.”

“Got no use for them, but I appreciate the offer.” He took a few more steps, turned to wave a hand, and disappeared into the dark.

Mourning waited a moment before letting out a loud snort. “All you hadda do was aks, Livia, I’da tied him to the wagon wheel for you,” he said.

She felt her face turn red. “I suppose I’m not allowed to be friendly. Or try to find out anything about this place we’re going to.”

“You want I should call him back so you can aks what the Sunday sermon been about last week? You forgot to ask him that.”

“You can be a trying person, Mourning Free. A most trying person. Anyway, you were the one who started asking questions,” she said as she scrambled back onto her mattress. “Good night.”