Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (31 page)

The grimmest task of all was left to Hod and Daniel. They went to the shed behind the house. Hod pulled wide, sawed boards from the rafters where they had been stored for just this purpose and wiped the dust and chicken droppings off them. From the box in the wagon Daniel brought a handful of square, iron nails, a saw, and a hammer. Nails were a scarce commodity in the hills, and Hod at first refused them, saying he would use pegs. Later he accepted them after Daniel remarked that the coffin they were building was for his wife’s mother.

After her mother was washed, dressed, and laid out on the bed to wait for Hod and Daniel to finish the box, Mercy brought her soft white shawl, folded it, and placed it beneath her mother’s head. Candles were lit when darkness fell. The older children were put to bed in the loft, the younger ones in the bed in the kitchen.

The family sat with their mother’s body all through the night. Bernie and Gideon returned. Wyatt wasn’t expected back until morning. Hod and Daniel had spent most of the night making the coffin by the light of a fire in the yard. After it was finished, the women lined it with their best quilts and gently placed their mother’s body inside, her head resting on Mercy’s white shawl.

At dawn Daniel went with Hod and Lenny to the burial ground to dig the grave. When they returned, the Baxter brothers began to dress for the funeral. One after the other, they sat on the stump by the woodpile and Dora cut their hair. Then, wordless, they went to the creek to bathe and to the loft to dress. Hod was the only one who wore a coat, which was much too small for his broad shoulders. The faces of the brothers were nicked where they had scraped off their whiskers, and their wild blond hair was slicked down with grease.

Dora and Martha wore loose, dark dresses that looked to Mercy like granny gowns worn by the older women at Vincennes and Louisville. The dresses were not trimmed with collars, cuffs, or pockets and hung from the shoulders with nothing to indicate a waistline. Dora’s hair was puffed and coiled and held in place with a wooden comb. Martha’s dark hair was as slick and tight as the day Mercy first met her.

Wagonload after wagonload of neighbors began to arrive an hour after sunup. They brought food hastily gathered from their storehouses: hams, venison, hominy, dried beans, and freshly baked bread. The women took over the cooking and the feeding of the more than seventy people that gathered at the homestead. Quilts were spread beneath the trees for the little ones, and the older children were cautioned to be quiet out of respect for the dead. The children, all dressed in their best, obeyed and tried to conceal their excitement.

A wedding, a burial, or a house-raising was almost the only occasion to bring neighbors together. It was a chance to visit and to exchange news. All were curious about Mercy and Daniel. All had heard the story about little Hester, who had been lost so many years ago. Mercy left it to the Baxters to tell the story of how she had been found at Quill’s Station.

Wyatt returned with Cousin Farley, the deaf old man who had married Daniel and Mercy. He wore the same oversize black coat and carried his Bible clutched to this thin chest. He looked over the crowd and then headed straight for Daniel.

“Do I know you?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel growled impatiently. “Do you?”

“Huh? What’d ya say.”

“I said, you don’t
know
me!” Daniel raised his voice.

“Caroliny! I thought that’s where I met ya. Long time ago, warn’t it? Air ya from there?”

Daniel shook his head. Hod came to take the old man’s arm and lead him to a seat at the table. The noon meal was served, after which Cousin Farley stood on the porch and preached a sermon.

“They ain’t one among us what someday won’t meet our maker and atone fer our sins,” he shouted. “Repent, all ye sinners! God begins life; he ends life. Ye must repent yore sins or be cast into everlasting hell . . .”

In her good dark dress, now devoid of collar and braid, Mercy stood beside Daniel while the preacher’s voice droned on. She looked at the lines of the homely, weathered faces around her. They were arranged somberly to fit the occasion. A few tears squeezed from the eyes of some of the women, but they blinked them away.

After the sermon they all filed past the box for one last look at their mother. When the last neighbor had walked past the coffin, Hod nodded to Daniel. He stepped forward, placed the lid on the box, took nails from his pocket, and nailed it firmly in place.

The five Baxter brothers then lifted their mother’s coffin to their shoulders and carried it out the door. The mourners followed them up the hill to the final resting place of the Baxters who had gone before. There were the graves of two children, both girls, who had been stillborn, and the graves of two more, a boy and a girl, who had not yet reached the age of three years when they died. William Baxter, who had sired them all, rested there. His name was carved on the wooden slab that marked his grave. It was a sweet plot of ground with honeysuckle and wild roses running over it, and tall trees shading it.

After the coffin was lowered into the ground, Mercy stood beside her brothers with her eyes lifted to the hills while Cousin Farley consigned her mother’s body to the earth.

“Dear God, here’s yore servant, Mary Len Baxter. Take her to yore kingdom so that she may walk the streets o’ gold and know no pain or sorrow.” The old man’s voice boomed in the quiet of the hillside. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .”

The ceremony was brief. As soon as the first clods of dirt tapped a knocking on the wooden box, Dora cried out and leaned heavily on Wyatt’s arm. Martha stood beside Hod, dry-eyed, her baby nestled in her arms. Mercy knew Martha felt the loss even more than she did, for she had been with her, tending her. It was strange to think of it now, but she had known her own mother for only two short days. Tears filled Mercy’s eyes as the mourners raised their voices in song.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee:

Let the water and the blood,

From Thy wounded side which flow’d,

Be of sin and double cure,

Save from wrath and make me pure.

Mercy lifted her eyes beyond the open hole in the earth and closed her ears against the sound of the earth spilling onto the wooden box. As the mourners continued to sing, occasionally a sob from one of the women could be heard. When it was over and the fresh earth was rounded over the new grave, Mercy stepped forward and scattered a handful of roses she had picked from the bush that clambered up the stone chimney of the cabin where Mary Len Baxter had spent most of her life.

Mercy and Daniel lingered at the burial site until everyone had gone back down the hill to the homestead. Then they went to stand at each of the graves in the small plot and read the inscriptions on the boards. At her father’s grave she read the crudely printed words.

WILLIAM LUTHER BAXTER

1780–1828

Beloved husband and father

Each of the children had a marker. Some of the boards were so weathered that Mercy had to kneel down and trace the letters with her fingers. Gladys, 1809. Maude, 1811. Myrtle, 1812–1815, Robert, 1814–1816. Mercy realized that it was when Maude was born that her father had taken her to relatives on the Green River to stay until her mother recovered from the birth.

Daniel stood quietly by until Mercy was ready to leave the burial plot, then he took her hand and they walked back down the hill to the homestead.

*   *   *

Mercy came out of the house and sat down on the edge of the porch beside Daniel. The night was clear and cool, the stars bright. She could see the Big Dipper tipping its empty cup over the trees. She was homesick, terribly homesick, for Quill’s Station, for Mamma and Papa, for Mary Elizabeth and Zack.

Not long after the last wagonload of neighbors departed, Hod had taken his family and gone to the cabin beyond the pines. Wyatt and Dora also had gone home. Cousin Farley, tired from the long ride, had gone to bed. The younger brothers had not shown themselves since their mother’s funeral.

As soon as Mercy sat down, Daniel put his arm around her and pulled her close to his side.

“When can we go home, Daniel?”

“As soon as you want to.”

“Let’s go tomorrow. There’s nothing to keep us here now.” She leaned her head against his shoulder.

“We’ll leave in the morning. Don’t you want to go to bed? You’re worn-out,” he whispered, his lips against her forehead.

“I am tired,” she said wearily. Then, “We got here just in time, didn’t we?”

“Yes, we did. I understand now why Lennie and Bernie were in such a hurry to get back. It was quite an undertaking for them to go all the way to Quill’s Station just on the rumor that they might find their long-lost Sister there.”

“Daniel, I don’t want to be mad at them anymore for forcing me to come here.”

“Think about it, honey. They didn’t force you.”

“They made me feel guilty. That’s why I came. It wasn’t out of love for my mother. I couldn’t even think of anyone except Liberty as Mother. I’m glad I came. I’m no longer ashamed of being a Baxter. They’re good, honest, hardworking people.”

“Yes they are that. Their ways are not our ways, but that doesn’t necessarily make them wrong.”

“Now we’ve got to think about our other problem,” Mercy murmured.

“Is it really a problem?” he asked softly.

She raised her head so that she could look at him, and his heartbeat picked up speed. Looking into her face, he marveled that she was so beautiful. His eyes feasted on her face, surrounded by its golden aureole of hair. Her eyes were like stars, the curve of her lips perfect.

“I think it is, don’t you?”

“Why is it such a problem? No, don’t answer,” he said quickly, not wanting to hear what she would say. “We promised we wouldn’t talk about it until we were on the way home.” With his hands at her waist he put her from him and they got to their feet. “Go on, honey. Get ready for bed.”

“You . . . kissed me last night.”

He looked down at her for a long moment. “Then maybe you’d better kiss me tonight,” he whispered.

Mercy’s hands moved up his chest to his face. She held her palms against his cheeks, stood on tiptoes, and gently placed her mouth against his. He increased the pressure, and his hungry mouth drank in the sweetness of hers. She made no effort to move away from him. His hands tightened around her waist; his breathing and heartbeat were all mixed up. With utmost tenderness she moved her lips against his. He thought surely she would feel the evidence of his desire that throbbed so hurtfully between them, and be frightened of it.

Her arms slid down to wrap tightly around his waist. She pressed the full length of her body against him and was made instantly aware of the elongated hardness pressing against her stomach. She felt him tremble when she moved against it, and wild, sweet enchantment rippled through her. His lips had moved against hers urgently when she kissed him. His pulse was racing as wildly as hers, his virile body reacting to hers. Daniel was no longer thinking of her as his Sister but as a lover!

Stirred by the incredible discovery of his hard male sex pressing against her, she kissed him again with intimate sensuousness and parted her lips to run the tip of her tongue across his mouth.

Finally, reluctantly, he put her from him. “Go to bed, sweet one.” The words seemed to be wrenched from him.

Disappointment knocked at her heart. She raised her eyes to look into his, but he bent his head and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“You’ll come in . . . soon?”

“In a while.”

*   *   *

Daniel did not come to their bed. It seemed to Mercy that hours passed while she lay waiting hopefully for him. Finally she got out of bed and went to look out the door. He was clearly visible in the moonlight, sitting on the stump beside the woodpile. He was not coming to bed until he was sure that she was asleep. The thought ran wildly through her mind as she watched him. On the heels of that disappointing thought there was another brighter one—the next night they would be alone.

Daniel saw the blur of white in the doorway. Mercy was waiting for him to come in. She had clung to him the last few days as she had when she was a child—moving close to him, taking his hand when she was confused or unsure. He understood that. They had grown up together—he was familiar, safe. She had been thrust among strangers who expected her to feel as if she belonged here. They and their ways were as foreign to her as hers had been to Lenny and Bernie when they came to Quill’s Station.

Dear Lord! How he wanted to go to her! But he could not endure the torture of another night like the one before. It had taken all of his willpower to keep from blurting out his love for her, and taking all her sweet woman’s body had to give. There wasn’t the slightest doubt in his mind that she would have surrendered to him. But he was certain that all it would have been for her would have been a painful taking of her maidenhead; and for him, a quick, temporary relief.

If it should happen, a small voice whispered in a corner of his mind, there would be no possibility of a divorce. If he got her with child, she would be his forever. Daniel firmly shoved the thought aside. He wanted her desperately, but not that way! He thought of her trusting acceptance of him the previous night. She had curled in his arms with only her thin nightdress and his britches between them. In the night she had taken his hand and placed it on her breast, totally unaware that the feeling of her soft breast in his palm sent shock waves to his already painful loins. Early that morning she had turned to him and slept with her face against his neck, her thigh over his, her arm across his chest.

Daniel looked at the moon riding high in the sky and wished for its swift passage. He looked forward to the dawn of a new day. It couldn’t come quickly enough to suit him. He and Mercy would leave this place, and he would have her all to himself. He would tell her of his love for her and that he wanted nothing more than for her to spend the rest of her life as his wife. If she wanted a wedding to remember, they could be married again by a minister in Evansville. He was determined that they would spend their first night as husband and wife with a complete understanding between them.