Carla Kelly (19 page)

It was obvious from his expression that he hadn't the remotest idea what she was saying, but he put down his hand and waited. She folded her arms. “You can do that too, James,” she suggested, and waited until his arms were folded. “Close your eyes too, my dear,” she told him. “We're going to thank the Lord for this.”

“Why?”

Such a simple question,
she thought, and then realized that the question was new to her in a way she wouldn't have credited, only a week ago. “Well, everything we have comes from Heavenly Father,” she told him after a moment. “We want to express our appreciation.” She bowed her head. “We thank thee, Father, for this food. It is simple, and I promise it will get better. But we're grateful. And please keep the men of the Double Tipi safe from any harm or accident. Oh, dear, and keep Mr. Otto safe from me. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.” She looked up. “You can say amen too, James.”

He did, his voice soft. “Amen. Can I eat now?”

“You certainly may, my dear. It's been blessed.” She leaned against the door frame, weary right down to her soul, but feeling a measure of contentment all out of proportion to her situation.
I meant every word of that blessing,
she thought.
I don't believe that except for Thanksgiving I really listen to blessings on the food, even when I say them.

She smiled as James leaned against her. She thought to wave him off because she was so dirty but decided against it, gathering him close against her. James sighed and closed his eyes.

“You're softer than Mr. Otto,” he said.

“Ladies usually are.”

“I don't know why we never had a lady here before,” he said, and then turned his attention to the pears.

Because no lady in her right mind would ever stay here, or at least stay for long, apparently,
she thought.
But I must, and the Double Tipi has to improve.
She leaned back and admired the fiery way the sun began its descent behind the rim of hills. No need to improve the sunset.

“Do you know, James, I believe we can light the Queen Atlantic and heat some water for a bath for you. Mr. Otto said something about a tub in the barn.”

“Well, maybe,” James replied, his voice wary.

He sounded so uncertain. “It's a luxury you deserve, after catching all those mice,” she told him. “
Especially
after catching all those mice! Eat that last slice of cheese and we'll find the tub.”

They found it leaning next to the grain bin, cob-webbed and housing a mouse nest. Amazed at her agility, even after a day with a chisel at the cookstove, Julia quickly perched on the grain bin while James chased away the mice and righted the tub. Bottle flies droned in the last patch of sunlight next to a roll of tar paper. She wrinkled her nose at the mingled odors of tar, grain, and manure, even as she decided that barn smells were superior to old grease from a cookstove.

They carried the tub to the kitchen. While James wiped out the tub, Julia arranged wood in the firebox, laying each stick just so. “This moment begs for a little ceremony,” she told the boy as she lit the fire. In a minute's time she had reattached the reservoir and began pumping water to fill it.

“What do we do now?” James asked.

Julia hid her smile at the suspicion in his voice. “We wait until the water is hot, dip some into the tub, and add cool water until it's just right. Then you may wash yourself.”

James pulled up a stool and sat by the Queen Atlantic. She watched him sitting so still, patient for whatever lay ahead, and his trust touched her heart. She took a jar of maraschino cherries from the storeroom, opened it, and handed James the jar and a fork.

He speared a cherry, and his eyes widened. “I never ate anything this good,” he assured her, as he speared another, his attention distracted from the reservoir.

She laughed and added more wood to the firebox. “I can make a cake that has cherries and chocolate.”

He stared at her, a cherry poised at his lips. “Does Mr. Otto know you can do that?”

“He doesn't think I can whistle and walk at the same time,” she assured him.

James made no objection to the bath. After she declared the water ready, he obediently stripped off his clothes and stepped in the tub. “You can sit down,” she said, when he just stood there.

He did as she said, cautious at first. The warmth of the water seemed to mystify him. He sat down, and in another moment was leaning back against the raised lip of the tub, his eyes closed. “I could like this,” he said without opening his eyes.

“Then you can make bathing at least a weekly habit,” she told him as she reached for the soft soap she had retrieved from her trunk. “I'll wash your hair, but then you're on your own.”

Three different applications of soap finally satisfied her, and James offered no complaint. While he finished, she found his nightshirt, a cut-down shirt of Mr. Otto's, she was certain.
I could hem these sleeves,
she thought, as she held it away from her sooty apron.
I could even sew him a regular nightshirt.

His eyelids drooping, James was asleep before she even finished one page of the tattered book that he handed her before he crawled into bed. She kept reading aloud anyway, not for the story, but for the sound of her own voice.
How quiet it is here,
she thought as she left his room.

In the parlor, she pulled the rocking chair away from the wall and sat down, not bothering to brush the dust from the seat.
Mr. Otto, this is a lady's chair,
she thought as she rocked and rested, gratified to be seated in a chair just the right distance from the floor. The room was not unpleasant, she decided, and the furniture—what she could see of it in the gloom—newer than she had first judged.
If I moved that jumble of harnesses off the settee and took the feed bucket from the wing chair…
She stopped rocking. Why would a man put a whole roll of building paper in a parlor and just leave it there?

The parlor was too sad, and she was too dirty. Just enough water remained in the reservoir to wash the grease off her face and arms. She refilled the reservoir. When she was certain that James slept, she found a towel and washcloth and picked up the lavender soap she had brought from home. The moon was large and the stars so brilliant. She stood a long time on the front step, picking out constellations and soaking in the serenity around her.

She walked to the river toward the spot Mr. Otto had pointed out to her that morning, where the overhang of cot-tonwoods was the greatest. She looked back at the house, wondering why Mr. Otto's father built it so far from the river.

She was reluctant to undress, even in the shelter of the trees, and chided herself. “There is no one to see you, Julia,” she said as she removed her apron. She stood a moment longer and undressed. She knew she would only be able to do this when the men were off the property.

The water was so cold that she nearly changed her mind about the virtue of cleanliness. “Resolve, Julia,” she declared, and then waded in farther, gritting her teeth. She washed quickly while minnows nibbled at her legs.
When I can't feel the minnows, then it is time to get out,
she decided. The gentler fragrance of the lavender was quickly subdued by the odor of sagebrush. She breathed deep and felt the weight of the day wash from her.
I suppose no prospect is so dismal that soap and water will not help,
she considered, and waded in deeper until the water came almost to her chest.

She noticed that watercress grew in the shallower protection of the cut bank, and she waded over to pluck a handful of the peppery green, relishing the taste of something fresh, after crackers and tinny pears.
I wonder if a garden wouldgrow here.

She thought about a garden again before she slept that night, thinking of the Rudiger cabin with its can-patched siding and skinny row of zinnias, all blasted and leaning almost completely over, scoured by the wind.
I don't honestly know if I would have enough faith to plant anything in this land,
she thought.

The reminder of faith compelled her out of her blankets to kneel beside the bed. She folded her hands together and then rested her head on them, weary with her day. She thought of her father, never at a loss before the Lord, and Mama's serenity when it was her turn to pray.
I can say all the words I usually say,
she thought,
or I can ask the Lord to forgive me when I complain. Do I doubt which He would prefer?
She closed her eyes and stayed on her knees a long minute. “I'm sorry for all the trouble I was today, Heavenly Father,” she prayed finally. “I think that maybe I understand repentance and restitution a little better too, even if my lesson came from a Gentile. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

In the morning, after more cheese and crackers, she set James to carrying the clutter from what she was already calling the parlor into the barn. “It will never be a parlor if we do not start calling it one,” she told him. “Expect the best, my father would say.”

While James hauled out what looked like years of debris, stopping now and then with cries of delight to ultimately add to his mouse-tail jar, Julia finished the resurrection of the Queen Atlantic. By the middle of the afternoon, she stood back against the far wall to admire the stovetop, blacked and buffed to a state of newness she'd not have believed had she not participated in its exhumation.

She built a proper fire and considered supper. A long moment in the smokehouse contemplating a ham swayed her opinion to ham chowder. “This won't be sufficiently impressive for Mr. Otto's return,” she announced, slicing off a chunk of ham and setting it in the graniteware basin James carried. “But it will do for us. You don't mind eating strange for a day or two?” she asked.

While the chowder simmered on the back of the stove, Julia mixed up corn bread in a frying pan and put it in the oven. The corn bread was done slightly beyond her expectations, but it was impressive because it was the first offering of the Queen Atlantic in her recovered state. “Think how we will astound Mr. Otto,” she told James, deftly sliding the golden mass to a plate and dividing it into pie wedges.

“He'll like this,” James said. He rested his chin on his hands, watching her split the wedges and butter them.

“I'll make something much grander than mere corn bread,” she said. She sat down and asked James if he wanted to ask the blessing this time. “Just thank the Lord for the food,” she suggested when he frowned.

“Suppose I do it wrong?” he asked. “Will He be angry?”

“No. I think He just gets sad when we don't appreciate what we have.”

He carefully laced his fingers together and bowed his head. “It smells so good, Lord,” he said, after considerable thought. “Supper is a great idea,” he concluded and then picked up his spoon.

It certainly is,
she agreed after saying “amen.” Ezra Quayle might quibble over that blessing, but she didn't intend to. “Thank you, James,” she said.

James ate his chowder in appreciative silence, opening up the corn bread hunk once or twice to watch the progress of more butter as it melted.

After supper, James helped refill the Queen Atlantic's ample reservoir.

“Do I have to take another bath so soon?” he asked.

“Two days in a row?” she teased. “I wouldn't dream of such torture. I want to wash clothes in the morning, not you!”

James smiled at her little joke. He poured in the last bucket of water and set the cover carefully on top of the reservoir. “Mr. Otto will be surprised, I think.”

“He doesn't usually wash his clothes?” she asked, looking out the door at the mound of clothing in the yard with renewed suspicion.

“He takes them to a man in Gun Barrel with a pigtail. He bows a lot.” James demonstrated with a series of quick bows.

Julia laughed. “There's a Chinese laundry in Gun Barrel?” she asked.

“His name is Mr. Yee,” James told her. “I watched him iron once. He spits on the clothes to get out wrinkles. Do you do that when you iron?”

Julia suppressed a shudder. “No! I usually blot them with a little sponge. Dear me.” She went into the pantry and came out with a washtub, which she set outside the door near the dirty clothes.

To catch the last of the sun before it dipped behind the mountains, Julia perched herself on the overturned washtub and picked out the loose stitches in the flour sack. “I will wash this too and make curtains for the kitchen,” she told James, who was leaning against her now and holding quite still. “James?” No answer. With a smile, she leaned over and kissed the top of his head. “And then maybe I will look around and see if there is some more sacking for a nightshirt for you,” she whispered.

There were no protests when she woke him gently and led him to his bed. Wordlessly, he handed her the tattered pages from the book but closed his eyes before she even had time to read. “And they probably all lived happily ever after,” she said, and took up the kerosene lamp. “But we'll never know because we don't have the ending.”