Heartland Courtship (15 page)

Still Jacque said nothing. They walked in silence till they reached a meadow, a natural clearing in the forest. A doe and her fawns glimpsed them and then the three bolted for the trees.

He watched them flee, wishing he could, too. Pepin had been bad luck for him since the get-go. Then he thought of Miss Rachel and saw her lips curve into one of her smiles. Her smile made her shine so pretty.

Brennan barricaded his mind against Miss Rachel and bent to look for yellow wild mustard plants that Jacque said he could recognize. The meadow should have been thick with them. But it was dry and burned up. Just like he felt.

Bending hurt his side, so he sat down, futilely moving his hand through the dry, lifeless grass searching for any green shoot. Time passed; the hot sun rose higher. They moved closer to the edge of the clearing where some green hid in the shade. They kept searching. Waves of heat wafted into the shade, nearly suffocating them.

“Why’d you do it? Go agin everybody?” the boy finally asked, not looking at him.

Brennan nearly drew in a deep breath but stopped himself. Instead he took several shallow breaths, minimizing the rib pain.

The words came easily, as if they had been waiting to be spoken. “When I was only a few years older than you, my pa and I went downriver to New Orleans. My pa had been savin’ up and had enough money to buy a slave to work the land with him. I was real excited ’cause I’d never been all the way to New Orleans before. It was a big city with boats from the ocean.” Brennan recalled that trip downriver, the last truly uncomplicated time of his life.

“Yeah,” Jacque prompted.

“We went to the slave auction down by the docks. And that was what changed me.” He recalled the gagging revulsion he’d instantly felt. “It was the worst place I’d ever been.” He reached over and grasped Jacque’s chin, turning his face to him. “It was the look in their eyes, the black slaves’ eyes.”

Jacque stared at him, looking confused.

“I’d been to horse sales. Pa acted like it was just like that. It wasn’t. I never seen a horse being sold look that way. They were suffering. They were people and they were being treated like horses, worse than horses. No lady ever went to see the auctions. It was too...”

Words failed him. He couldn’t speak what he’d seen that day even though the sights and sounds had been burned into his heart. He dropped the boy’s chin and then stared at the dried, cracked ground.

The shadow of an eagle soaring on the hot winds passed over them. A cicada shrieked and shrieked again.

“That’s why you wouldn’t fight for the South?” the boy muttered finally, the heat gone out of his tone.

“Yes, I couldn’t fight for slavery after that.”

“Did your pa buy a slave?”

“No, the bidding went too high for him.”
I was glad.

Jacque kept running his hands through the dried grass though there was nothing green to pick.

Brennan had done his best to explain. But the boy had been turned against him since the day he was born. This hurt as much as the jab he felt with each breath.

“I want you to know one thing, though,” Brennan continued, taking advantage of this rare, private time. “After the war, I came home even though I knew nobody wanted me back. I had to make sure your ma was all right.”

Jacque’s hands stilled.

“Even if she didn’t want me no more, I was still her husband and I would have supported her till the day she died. But nobody told me anything except that she was dead. Nobody told me about you. I wouldn’t have left you there with Jean Pierre if I’d known you had been born. But I couldn’t stay to find out anything. They run me out of town at gunpoint—a second time.” He hadn’t meant to add that.

Jacque looked up then. “You didn’t leave me on purpose?”

“No, I never knew you’d been born. Nobody told me.”

Jacque only nodded in reply.

Brennan surveyed the cloudless blue sky overhead. “We might as well go home. Maybe there’s some wild mustard near the creek.”

Jacque rose and walked with him, but said nothing.

So much for honesty. And Brennan didn’t like it at all when he realized that he was calling Miss Rachel’s place “home.”

When they arrived at Miss Rachel’s clearing, he heard another familiar feminine voice. He didn’t want to talk to anybody save Miss Rachel or Levi. Certainly not Posey Brown.

Jacque halted and looked up.

“Let’s mosey down by the river,” Brennan mumbled. “We’ll try to catch Miss Rachel a few catfish for supper.”

“Good idea.” Jacque nodded and the two headed toward town.

* * *

Posey had come to Rachel’s to apologize to Mr. Merriday for blurting out his private business in town. Listening, Rachel had just slid the last of her molasses cookies onto the racks to cool when the new school bell rang wildly. Now both of them looked toward the door.

“What? Why are they ringing the bell? School’s out for the summer,” Rachel asked.

Posey rushed to the open door. “Smoke! Toward town! We’ve got to go! They’ll need us for the bucket brigade!”

“Here.” Rachel thrust a spare bucket into Posey’s hands.

The girl raced ahead of Rachel, who shut and latched the door behind her and snatched up her own water bucket as she ran.

The smell of smoke billowed, intensified, filling Rachel with gut-wrenching panic. The drought and the fear of wildfire had hung over them all. Had it come true?

The two of them burst through the forest onto the river flat of town. Orange flames danced with the wind like little wisps, dangerous wisps, catching every blade of dried grass on the dirt street and river flat, leaping onto anything dry.

“It’s heading to the grass behind Ashford’s!” Posey shrieked.

Rachel shuddered. The wind whipped the fire with every gust, driving it toward the trees. A forest in flame! Death and destruction.
God, help us! Now!

Already a bucket brigade had formed across the main street from the river to the fire. The two of them joined the line, filling in wider gaps. Their toil began—passing heavy buckets forward and empty ones back.

Rachel saw Brennan run toward the front of the brigade.

“If it gets to the trees, we’ll never stop it!” Brennan shouted in a strangled voice, pointing toward the forest. “Follow me, men! Grab shovels! Anything! We’ll try to smother the flames as they leap toward the trees! The rest of you, keep the water comin’!”

These urgent orders from a man who never showed excitement and rarely talked magnified their effect. Men raced to join him. Frantic activity suspended every thought except—
fire, fire!
Rachel was aware only of the wet bucket handles passing through her hands. Terror raced through her like the wind, water splashing, worry mounting.

“We finished it!” Gunther Lang shouted in his distinctive voice. “It’s out!”

Having trouble catching her breath, Rachel straightened to see for herself that he spoke the truth. Then the bucket brigade members staggered forward to view the effects of the fire.

The path of the fire was plain from the river’s edge to patches of dry grass on Main Street, scorching the front of Ashford’s store to the open clearing behind the stores.

“How did this happen?” Rachel asked.

“Merriday saw it first,” the blacksmith said, panting, swiping his forehead with his sleeve. “Sparks from the riverboat smokestack caught dry grass on shore. The wind—you’d a-thought it would blow out the fire— instead it just spread it faster than Merriday and I could keep up with it.”

Rachel’s gaze sought out Brennan. He’d slipped to the rear with Jacque. He held his arm against his side. Her thoughts went immediately to his painful rib.
The poor man.

“I saw...them trying to put out the fire,” Gunther joined in, motioning toward the blacksmith and Brennan, “and ran to...the school to ring the bell.” The young man spoke between gasps for air, leaning forward with his hands on his soaked knees. “Then I came back to help.”

Everyone stared at the few feet separating the blackened grass from the surrounding forest. Rachel had a hard time believing they’d caught it in time.
Thank Thee, Father
.

“A close call,” Mr. Ashford said, wiping his sooty brow with a handkerchief. “What’s bothering you, Merriday?”

Nearly doubled over, Brennan was holding his side.

Rachel went to him and gently probed, seeing if he’d done more harm to himself.

“I got so excited I forgot I was hurt,” he murmured.

She realized then that everyone had stopped talking and was staring at her touching Brennan’s chest in public. Heat suffused her face, which she kept lowered.

She dropped her hand and turned to face the town. “Mr. Merriday cracked or sprained a rib yesterday. I don’t feel any further injury.” Rachel wished her face would cool and return to normal.

“Well, looks like we need to thank you again, Merriday,” Mr. Ashford said. “First you run off thieves and now this.”

Everyone began to agree. Brennan’s expression darkened and he edged farther away. “Just did what everybody else did.”

His gruff tone warned everybody—not only her—away, the last thing she wanted him to do.

She decided to ease matters by deflecting attention. “Jacque, is thee all right? No burns?”

“I’m fine, Miss Rachel,” the boy said, staying close to Brennan. “We couldn’t find any wild mustard. Too dry.”

“Indeed it is.”

“We were gonna catch some catfish for supper,” Jacque went on.

Rachel wondered what had caused the boy to be so chatty. He appeared to have lost the chip on his shoulder. Had Brennan’s side of the story changed how Jacque felt? Or perhaps the excitement or exhilaration of fighting a fire and winning?

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” Rachel said. “I have a taste for catfish.”

Then a loud groan interrupted. Everyone looked over.

Posey’s grandmother was clutching her chest, uttering short gasps. As Rachel watched, she crumpled to the ground.

“Grandmother!” Posey called and ran toward her.

Rachel and Brennan reached her first; both dropped to their knees, one on either side.

“What is it?” Rachel asked in a clear, firm voice.

The woman tried to answer but could not.

“Maybe her heart,” Brennan muttered.

Rachel looked at him. Moments before he was backing away. But he’d come forward to help now as he had in the fire. What conflicted inside the man? He responded to any who needed help, but wanted no help or anything from anybody else.

“All the excitement,” Mrs. Ashford said, sounding distracted, “must have brought on a spasm.”

Or heart failure,
Rachel said silently.

Rising also, Brennan met her eyes and she glimpsed that he too realized this was more than just a fainting spell.

“Will someone help Ned carry her upstairs?” Mrs. Ashford asked.

Soon the blacksmith and Gunther were carrying the plump woman on a makeshift stretcher. Mr. Ashford went ahead and held open the door.

Posey’s eyes ran with tears. Rachel slipped an arm around her as they followed. Mrs. Ashford hurried past her husband to turn down the bed. “We’ll take good care of her,” Mrs. Ashford said over her shoulder to Posey. “Don’t you worry.”

The girl broke free of whatever held her in place and rushed toward the store.

Rachel wished the woman hadn’t said those words, “Don’t worry.” They always seemed to ignite more anxiety.

At the sound of a strange voice, she glanced around.

A boatman who’d helped fight the fire was coming toward her. “Somebody say you are the lady, Miss Rachel, who sells sweets?”

Rachel looked at him and nodded, observing Brennan and Jacque heading toward the blacksmith shop. She saw them leave the shop with fishing gear.

“Do you have any sweets for sale?” the boatman asked.

“Molasses cookies.” She began to hurry toward home, not willing to lose any business. “I’ll be back in five minutes!”

“The captain say we wait!” he called after her. “We’ll buy all you bring!”

And after she sold her cookies, she’d keep busy till Brennan brought catfish for supper.

She wanted to know what had transpired between Brennan and the boy. But would he tell her? Oh, the man was maddening. Admirable, but maddening.

Chapter Ten

I
n town selling her cookies, Rachel simmered with the frustration that stemmed from not knowing what had happened between Jacque and Brennan and more from the fact that she couldn’t pursue the answer right now. She didn’t see them at the riverside. How far downriver had they gone to fish?

After the cookies had been bought, she trundled home the cart, all the while wondering what had changed Jacque and Brennan’s relationship. In the morning, they’d left with Jacque hostile to Brennan, whom the boy considered a turncoat to the South. And later they ended up going fishing together along the river—as if yesterday and Jacque’s running away had never happened. Why? How?

The orange sun lowered and she kept herself busy with chores, churning butter for tomorrow’s recipe and milking the cow in the late afternoon. Waiting to see the man and the boy bring home their catch, she paced in front of the door.

Restless, she baked a large cake of cornbread and with a pop, opened a jar of piccalilli Sunny had given her. And waited. What was keeping the two?

As the red melting sun finally dipped behind the treetops, the two males wandered up the trail. Brennan carried a stringer with three huge catfish on it, held out in front of him, the end hooked over his index finger.

Since she had nothing else ready to serve, Rachel was relieved to see the fish. Yet she noted that Brennan was holding the fish with the hand opposite his compromised rib and was walking slightly bent over. That meant he was still aching.

She hurried forward to relieve him of the catfish. “Well done!”

The shocked expressions on the two males’ faces halted her in her tracks. “What’s wrong?”

“You don’t look in the mirror enough, Miss Rachel,” Brennan drawled.

“You look funny,” Jacque said, pointing at her face, grinning.

She whirled around and ran inside to the small mirror on the wall. When she saw her reflection, she gasped. Smoke from the fire had blackened her face with grimy soot. “Oh, dear!”

She hung the fish stringer on a peg by the door and hurried outside to wash her face in the basin there.

When she was done, she looked up and Jacque handed her a linen towel. “How mortifying. I went into town and sold cookies looking like this!”

Brennan held his side as he tried not to laugh.

Jacque grinned at her. “We swam in the river to cool off and get rid of the smoke smell.”

“And soot,” Brennan added.

Rachel contemplated how good it would feel to be a girl again and go swimming in the nearby river. “I’m afraid I would scandalize the town if I did that.”

“I’m glad I was born a boy,” Jacque said, going inside.

“How is thy rib?” she asked, drying her hands.

Brennan rubbed his side. “Not much better.”

“Putting out a fire probably aggravated everything. Thee must rest tomorrow. Just fish or nap in the shade.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not? I’m thy employer and that’s what I want thee to do.” She looked at him more closely. “Where is the bandage I bound thee with?” she asked though she noted the bulge around his waist.

He tugged up the hem of his shirt and showed her that the bandage had slipped to his belt. “It got wet when we swam.”

She swallowed a sigh of irritation. “Come. I need to bind that again.” She waved him to the bench beside the door.

He shrugged out of his shirt and she bent to untie and then to rewrap the stout muslin around his chest. Again this brought her so close to him. Only a breath separated their cheeks as she worked wrapping and pulling the cloth tight.

For just a moment she was tempted to rest her cheek against his. The thought of this released such an explosion of feeling that she braced herself physically and mentally against it. She finished the last loop around him and then tied the bandage and stepped back. She turned away so he wouldn’t note how her cheeks had warmed. This attraction to Mr. Merriday was so...lowering to her sense of self control. Where had her good sense gone?

Rachel hurried inside, running away from him. “I have to see to the fish.”

Brennan followed her more slowly. Once inside he sank onto the rocking chair, leaning against its high back for support, and sighed with audible relief.

Ignoring him as best she could, Rachel quickly breaded the cleaned fish and laid one and then the next into a large cast-iron skillet to deep fry.

“We didn’t find any wild mustard. It’s too dry for anything to grow,” Jacque reminded her, continuing his grumbling from the bench, elbows propped on the table.

Rachel sighed. “No doubt. And I was hoping for wild mustard and for wild berries to put up for next year. It is good that my business is taking, for it will be a long winter.”

When she thought of the coming months, she wondered what winter all alone in this cabin would be like. An empty, hollow feeling tried to lower her spirits. Brushing this aside, she quickly eased the catfish onto its other side in the bubbling oil.

She looked over at Brennan, wondering if he would tell her what he’d done or said to cause this change in Jacque. She hesitated even to broach the subject for fear she would tip the delicate balance between the two of them and regret it.

“Hello the house!” a friendly voice called.

“Jacque,” Brennan said, nodding toward the door, “welcome Levi in.”

Though Rachel concentrated on the catfish sizzling in the pan, she too welcomed the blacksmith. Though why he had come? He never had before. “Just in time for supper,” she said, smiling over her shoulder at him.

“I didn’t come expecting to be fed, miss,” he said, his hat in his hands.

“You loaned us your fishin’ poles and hooks and stringer,” Jacque said.

“We have plenty, Mr. Comstock.” Rachel waved him toward the table and set another place there. She had an inkling what he’d come about and wished he hadn’t.

Before long they were eating the golden catfish, buttery cornbread and spicy piccalilli. Then for dessert, Rachel set out the last dozen of her molasses cookies she’d saved and they vanished.

“Mighty good supper, miss.” Levi looked at her shyly.

She noted that Brennan sent him a suspicious look and she wondered what that was about.

“Jacque, make sure the chickens are safe in their coop,” Rachel said, feeling what Levi had come to say might be something Jacque didn’t need to hear. She didn’t want to hear it herself.

As soon as the boy moved outside of earshot, Levi appeared to gather himself. “Miss Rachel, I come to ask a favor.”

She looked at him, unable to stop the flow of where this conversation was headed. “I see.”

“I’ve taken a shine to Miss Posey Brown and I think she is not averse to me.” The big man blushed.

“I had noticed,” Rachel said without any encouragement. She noticed that Brennan Merriday had relaxed, now sitting at ease again in the rocking chair.
Odd.

Levi looked everywhere but at her. “I was wondering if you could find out why Miss Posey’s grandmother doesn’t want me to court her.”

This was what Rachel had expected, but was it her place to reveal Posey’s confidences? “I don’t know what I can do,” she said in earnest.

“I don’t either, but I don’t have a sister or mother here to...to ask. I asked Mr. Ashford and he said it wasn’t his business to say.”

Rachel wanted to say the same. Even ill, Almeria would daunt anybody.

“I’m concerned for Miss Brown,” Levi continued. “I mean, what if her grandmother doesn’t recover from this spell? She’ll be alone.”

Rachel doubted the Ashfords would put Posey out on the street but understood Levi’s awkward situation. After all, she had allowed herself to begin to care for a man with whom she had no possible future. This alone prompted her to say, “I’ll see what I can find out, Mr. Comstock. But I have no influence over events here.”

“I know that.” Still the man looked relieved.

She wished she felt the same. The visit ended soon.

Jacque finished helping her wash and dry the supper dishes. Then he reminded her about her needing a bath. Rachel could have crawled under the cabin in embarrassment but when Brennan lifted her water bucket, she intervened. After the afternoon’s exertion, Brennan couldn’t haul water. Then over both Rachel’s and Brennan’s protestations, Levi insisted on helping Jacque fill a tub for her. Then the three males went off together, leaving her to wash away the lingering scent of smoke on her person.

Alone, she barred the door and prepared to bathe with her one indulgence, lilac-scented soap.

As she relaxed in the cool, refreshing water, she couldn’t fight the flashes of Brennan’s face—his sadness this morning, the flush from the urgency amidst fighting the fire, his evident fatigue and pain at supper. How did a person stop caring about someone?

* * *

The next day Rachel had her cinnamon rolls rising the second time before her two “hired hands” arrived for breakfast. She steeled herself to welcome Mr. Merriday without feeling anything beyond courtesy. She failed miserably.

As soon as she could after breakfast, she sent them outside. Brennan to rest and Jacque to gather fallen wood for winter. She needed the wood and she needed Brennan away from her.

As if on cue, just as she finished slathering buttercream frosting over the cinnamon rolls, a boat whistle summoned her. She peered outside and saw that Mr. Merriday was sleeping under his tree. A relief.

She reached town within minutes, rolling her cart toward the boat. Passengers and boatmen clustered around her, buying cinnamon rolls, bagged or wrapped individually in wax paper. Levi stepped outside his forge and sent her a pointed look. She concentrated on business, trying to come up with a plan to help Levi.

The cook bought what remained on her tray. “You probably don’t ’member me but I’m from that first boat you gave samples to of those fast-somethings.”

“My fastnachts?”

“Yeah, that’s it. We gone down to New Orleans and back twice since then. The captain tell all the other captains about you and how good your stuff is. You don’t got any fastnachts today?”

“No, but when will you be back?”

“We gone on up to Minneapolis. Be back by in three days.”

“Tell your captain I’ll have a couple dozen ready for him.”

The man beamed at her and nodded twice.

Flushed with pleasure, Rachel sighed and then turned to face the storefront. Her promise to Levi couldn’t wait. She pushed her cart into the shade and went into the General Store.

Mr. Ashford was alone. When he saw her, he brightened. “I see you sold out again. Your business is doing well.”

Rachel felt herself expand with his praise and chastised herself. God was blessing her, prospering her—no need for vain pride. “I came to see if I could visit Posey’s grandmother. Is she receiving visitors?”

“Oh, please come up,” Posey said from the rear staircase. “She is not well enough to get up yet, but...”

Rachel nodded, taking polite leave of Mr. Ashford, and headed toward the woebegone-looking young woman. “I understand. It is hard to be idle, especially in this late-summer heat.” When she reached Posey, the girl leaned close and pressed a folded paper into her hands.

“This is the letter,” Posey whispered, “where my father mentions Mr. Merriday. I want him to see it. But I didn’t know...”

Rachel wondered how she had become everybody’s confidant or go-between, roles she hadn’t wished for. Yet what could she do but accept the letter? Nodding, she slipped it into her pocket and followed Posey upstairs.

She had gained access. Now all she had to do was come up with a way to introduce the topic of Levi Comstock to Mrs. Brown. A touchy subject, no doubt. No touchier, however, than the letter in her pocket for Mr. Merriday.

Mrs. Ashford greeted her with evident gratitude. “Oh, Miss Woolsey, would you sit with my cousin for a while? Amanda is helping Mrs. Whitmore today. Posey and I must get busy with laundry and we didn’t want to leave Almeria alone.”

“Of course, I have time. Perhaps I could read scripture to her?”

“An excellent idea.” Mrs. Ashford handed Rachel the family Bible. “There is sweet iced coffee in the icebox. Help yourself.” And the two of them disappeared down the rear staircase.

Before Rachel went into the guest room, she stopped in the kitchen to look over the Ashfords’ icebox. She’d heard that in winter men cut ice from the frozen Mississippi. Mr. Ashford had built a commodious ice house and sold blocks of ice. She liked the new, metal-lined box with shelves and a thick door with a tight latch. She saw immediately that when she could afford it, she wanted one for herself.

Bidding farewell to enjoyment, she went down the short hall to the guest room. She halted at the doorway and looked in. “Good day, Mrs. Brown.”

The older woman turned toward her. “Oh, it’s the Quakeress.”

Ignoring the listlessness of the welcome, Rachel responded, “Yes, it is. I have come to keep thee company. Would thee like me to read? Perhaps the Psalms?”

The woman shook her head. “Just talk to me. I’m afraid I’m not in good spirits.”

Rachel thought secretly that hearing the Psalms would lift the woman’s spirits more than anything Rachel could think to say, but she kept that to herself.

“I’m sorry thee isn’t feeling well.” Rachel thought about a topic that might interest the woman. “I just received a letter from my family. My stepmother is expecting another child later this year.”

“You lost your mother?”

“Yes, when I was just about to finish eighth grade.”

“I’ve lost everyone but my Posey.” The woman blinked away sudden tears.

Rachel had attempted to begin a happy conversation and here they were talking about death. She tried again. “I think my father may hope for a son at last. He has just me and my four young stepsisters.”

“Your mother only had one child?” Almeria asked.

“Yes, just me.”

“What do you think of the blacksmith?” Almeria sent her a penetrating look.

This abrupt turn startled Rachel. “He seems honest and hardworking.”

“Humph. Everyone says so. Katharine and Ned can’t understand why I oppose him courting my granddaughter.”

Should she feign ignorance? No, of course not. “Posey confided that thee preferred she marry a man with property.”