Pamela Morsi (17 page)

Judith spoke up, her words softening the cruelty of her husband’s.

“Minnie has already found out that life can be different elsewhere,” she said “Now she feels left out among you. She’s a different temperament than the rest of you children, she hasn’t been through as much, she doesn’t have so many memories. She’s accustomed to us now. She is happy at our home. She hardly has a place in your family and she would be the very center of ours.”

“Minnie
has
a place in our family,” Eulie insisted forcefully. “She’s the baby. She’s always been the baby. And she always will be the baby.”

Judith’s answer was without condemnation and matter-of-fact.

“She’s been the baby, a spoiled baby.”

Eulie blanched at the truth. She struck back.

“I don’t think that’s such a great thing that you’ve done, giving her manners and airs that are above her raising.”

“But if she’s raised with us,” Pierce countered, “there will be nothing above her. Judith is teaching her to read and cipher, as well as the genteel arts. She’s very bright and clever. We can send her to school in Jarl. When she’s older we might even move to Jonesboro so she can attend the Female Seminary if she is of a mind to go there.”

“Minnie doesn’t need such foolishness,” Eulie told them. “All she needs is to be with her family. We’re her family. She needs to be with us.”

She turned to Moss.

“Tell them,” she demanded.

Moss stared at his bride. His silence spoke volumes.

The Pierces could easily give Minnie the kind of life and care that hardscrabble farming could never offer her. Eulie should be happy for her sister, eager for her to move up in the world. But she was not. Her dream was coming true. They were all going to be together at last. She couldn’t just let them take Minnie away.

“The children are in Eulie’s care,” the husband-man said to them. “If she believes Minnie would be best with her, then that is the way it has to be.”

“Minnie loves us,” Judith protested. “She wants to be with us.”

“She’s just a child,” Eulie discounted with certainty. “She’ll get over that.”

In her heart she wasn’t so sure.

Rans wanted to spit nails, again. He didn’t know how much more of this ill treatment and disrespect he could
put up with. Last night had been such a pleasure, sitting on the porch with Mr. Leight for hours as they’d talked about crops and fishing and even the making of cedar shakes. His opinions and observations had been offered, one man to another. Leight had been willing to hear him out, discuss his own take on the subject, even occasionally disagree. It had been a heady experience.

Now, this morning, he was back to the low opinions and low expectations of Eulie’s husband. Moss Collier was putting the shingles on the shed roof, the rhythmic sounds of hammer falls ringing across the ridge. Rans should have been right up there beside him, striking blow for blow with him.

“This roof is too steep and dangerous,” Collier had told him. “You’ll fall and hurt yourself.”

Rans puffed up furiously in indignation. He was not about to fall off a roof unless it started kicking or bucking. And even if he did, a fellow was not likely to hurt himself from a ten-foot drop.

Rans despised the way Collier treated him like a child, as if he were eight instead of thirteen. Instead of being up on the roof, he was relegated to moving the heavy sacks of leftover grain, feed, and milled flour and corn from the cabin to the shed. He loaded the sacks three or four at a time into the wheelbarrow and rolled them down to the shed to carry inside. It was not a fit job for a man, Rans thought. If the sacks had not been quite so heavy, even Minnie could have handled the task.

Of course, Minnie wasn’t one much for tasking. This morning even less so than usual. The Pierces apparently wanted her to come and live with them permanently. It sounded like a pretty good idea to Rans.
She’d get plenty of good food and nice clothes and be treated like the princess that she thought she was. Eulie was against the idea and told Minnie to just put the notion completely out of her mind.

The little whiner had bawled and sobbed and carried on for half the night. At least it hadn’t just been the rest of them to suffer. Eulie had come back to sleep in the cabin last night. From her floor pallet she couldn’t have missed one tearful hiccup.

Rans latched the screen open and pulled the wheelbarrow right up into the threshold of the cabin doorway. He would have brought it all the way into the extra room if the entrance had been just a hand’s width wider. The sacks were not only heavy but unwieldy. Rans was forced to squat down and hoist the bulky bags up on his knees. Then, half bent over, he carried them out. It was a strain on young arms and a growing back. A full-grown man could have toted them upon his shoulder. But sapling-height and skinny, Rans was far from full-grown.

He was certain, in his distrustful and suspicious knowledge of Moss Collier, that he had been given the job just to remind him that he was not as muscular as other men. Rans intended to show the man that he could do the job quickly and without complaint. But it was hard, thankless work with not one speck of glory or potential for pride. It was little more than house-cleaning.

It might have been better if he’d at least have had Uncle Jeptha to converse with. But Eulie had commandeered the man into doing gardening with her. With Old Hound pulling his cart and the twins on either side, he was planting turnips.

Somehow, seeing the older man doing women’s work didn’t lessen him in Ransom’s eyes. Uncle Jeptha was just Uncle Jeptha, and anything and everything he did seemed manly enough. Rans didn’t quite understand that. Maybe it was because he was a war hero. He’d lost both of his legs in battle. What more would a man have to prove?

Rans had a lot to prove. Every day of his life he had half a mind to. just run off and never be seen or heard from again. But he’d left home so many times now, nobody even looked up anymore. They knew that he couldn’t get far; they knew that he’d be back.

With three bushel sacks loaded, each easily tallying in at better than fifty pounds, Rans grasped the handles on the wheelbarrow and began making his way perilously off the pouch, to the path, around the cabin and down the steep slope to the shed. It was a struggle. At any minute he could overbalance and have the entire haul spilled out on the ground. He was determined not to do that.

The cessation of hammer blows indicated that Collier was watching him. It was extremely difficult to appear unburdened and unconcerned while hefting a load that weighed more than he did.

He reached the shed entrance without incident and gratefully set the wheelbarrow down on its back legs. The morning was still cool, but his small, sturdy body was slick with sweat. He managed, just barely, not to sigh with relief. But he did take a deep breath before attempting to carry the sacks into the shed.

Moss Collier called out to him from the roof. “If that’s too much for you,” he said, “get Clara or Eulie to help you, or wait until I’m finished here.”

Rans didn’t even dignify the suggestion with a response. He would not wait and he would never ask for help. With his jaw set tightly and anger pulsing through his veins, he half lifted, half slid the first sack onto the shed’s dirt floor, then dragged it across the room into place. He hated the insufferable clod that was Eulie’s husband. He completely hated him, Rans decided. He wasn’t about to be treated this way much longer.

His fury made the work go faster. In just a couple of minutes he’d stacked the grain in the far corner and was headed back up the slope to the cabin.

Someday, he swore to himself, someday he’d run away for good. Someday he’d run away and never, ever look back. That’s what he wanted, he decided. He wanted to go to a place so far away that no one would know his name or his father’s. Someplace where they would have never heard of the Sweetwood. Somewhere he could be the man that he knew he could be, that he must be. Moss Collier didn’t believe he could be a man. Moss Collier didn’t respect him. Well, he’d be dad-blasted if he was going to respect Moss Collier.

Why was he even working for the man? There was no law that said he had to. He could leave today. Mr. Leight would take him in. Mr. Leight would give him work and treat him with respect. And Moss Collier wouldn’t even care. Of course, Eulie would. But he was practically grown. It was past the time for him to take his orders from his older sister.

That thought was in his mind as he entered the cabin for another load. His eyes were drawn to the strongbox beneath the corner of the bed on the far side of the room.

Rans glanced back guiltily toward the doorway. He was only looking. There could hardly be any harm in looking.

He dropped to his knees and pulled the box out from its hiding place. The name carved into the top of the box declared without question that it was someone’s personal property. He undid the latch and carefully opened the lid.

On top lay a frayed, yellowed pamphlet that he pushed aside with unconcern. Beneath it, shiny and well oiled, was the blued nickel .44 Frontier Colt. The sight of it alone was enough to take a boy’s breath away.

Reverently he picked up the heavy gun, the cold metal a sharp contrast to his sweaty palm. He had never held a handgun before. He hunted with his father’s old Spencer. And he’d fired a Winchester a time or two. But before this moment, no revolver or pistol had ever crossed his path. He snapped open the loading gate and spun the cylinder, assuring himself that it was not loaded. Closing it up once more, he held it in his right hand and balanced it on his left arm as he squeezed one eye shut and aimed the piece at the fireplace, lining up a particular chipped hearthstone in the sights. With his thumb he pulled back the hammer until it cocked. He curled his forefinger around the trigger and slowly pulled it tight. The hammer snapped with a loud click.

“Bam!”
Rans said aloud.

It was, in its own way, a very satisfying sound.

Rans held the gun admiringly, stroking the shiny finish and imagining himself carrying the same. He glanced down into the strongbox once more. There
was a small blue and white box. Rans lifted it out, knowing what it was. He wasn’t much for reading, but he recognized the name Winchester on the top and the number 1873. Inside, one hundred cartridges waited to be loaded into the six chambers in the cylinder. He fished one out, opened the loading gate again and slid it into place. He snapped the cylinder back and aimed at the hearth once more. This time, however, he neither cocked nor fired. The knowledge that he could seemed powerful enough.

“Bam! Bam! Bamham! Bam!”

He pointed at different objects and pretended to be firing around the room. He was gleeful and almost giddy. When he finally got out of this place, he decided, the first thing he would get for himself was a gun just like this one.

He glanced guiltily at the doorway once more. It sure wouldn’t do to be caught. Momentarily, he imagined Moss Collier, his dreaded enemy, stepping into the cabin. Rans would turn, aim straight for his chest, and put a bullet right through his black heart.

The thought was a sobering one. He didn’t like Collier, but he was Eulie’s husband His thoughts were wicked But he didn’t mean them, of course, he reminded himself. He would never hurt anybody. He’d never use a gun against a man unless it was self-defense.

More subdued, he removed the cartridge from the gun and returned it to the box. Reluctantly, he put the Frontier .44 inside as well.

It clinked against the contents of a small canvas bag. Curious, Rans reached for the sack. It was a money pouch and very heavy. He set it upon his lap and undid the drawstrings to open it up.

Rans glanced inside and gave a long whistle. There was more money in there than he’d ever seen in his life. He dug his hand inside, running his fingers through the coins as if they were cool water. Moss Collier was rich! The thought was both thrilling and disconcerting. Why would anyone need so much cash money? How could a farmer ever accumulate such a sum?

It was a puzzle, for certain, but not one he need spend time ruminating about. Rans was tempted to pour it out on the floor and examine it, but he was afraid that a stray coin might roll under the bed and get away from him. There was so much money that one would think that a coin or two wouldn’t matter, but Rans was pretty sure that a man like Moss Collier would know the count of it to the penny.

Rans put the money sack back into the box and pushed it back under the bed.

He rose to his feet. The day suddenly seemed brighter and work more of an adventure. Dutifully, he began loading the grain sacks upon the wheelbarrow once more.

E
ULIE
deliberately put a spring in her step and a smile on her face. Her life was perfect, wonderful, everything she’d always wanted. She was determined to enjoy it, no matter how miserable she was.

Now that the shed had a new roof and the grain and feed were stored down there, she had moved every stick, stone, and whatisit in the cabin out into the yard. Her sleeves rolled up and her hair wild, she was scrubbing down the old place from ceiling beams to floor joists.

The past three weeks in the new home had been trying, to say the least. She had, for so very long, tried to reunite her brother and sisters. Now it had finally happened, and her ungrateful siblings no longer cared. It was like trying to keep a family together with boss ball thread.

Clara was so calf-eyed and stupid over that ugly Bug that she was hardly even tolerable as a companion. He showed up now nearly every night, and the two would sit together on the porch, rarely speaking, while they mooned over each other and Rans talked their ears off. She had always been such a good worker. Now she forgot nearly everything she was told. That very
morning she’d scorched the husband-man’s good shirt so badly he’d never be able to take his jacket off in public again.

Eulie clipped her brush in the bucket of lye water and continued her scrubbing. She suspected that the last time the corners were cleaned out of this house was when Moss’s mother had done the job. Ten years of bachelor living really showed—and smelled.

So Clara wanted to marry. She wanted to up and leave the home that Eulie had finally gotten for her. And she wasn’t the only one. The twins were so excited about working with Miz Patch again, it was almost as if they were trying to wish the summer away so that it would be fall. The way those two were talking, as soon as the garden was in and the grain shocked they’d be going over to the widow’s place to weave until spring.

Eulie shook her head. Learning the loom and patterns from Miz Patch was an honor. Having a fine weaver was a great asset to a family, even to a community. Although most women could work the loom in some form of fashion, most of it plain-weave tabby. The secrets, shortcuts, and superior skills of weaving were lessons usually passed from mother to daughter. Therefore, the finest weavers, those most prized and respected, tended to run in families. To have the Toby family acquire such knowledge would be a boon today as well as a dozen generations down the line. But not having the twins underfoot every day would make it feel like the family was not together anymore.

Eulie was scrubbing down the corner where Uncle Jeptha’s bed usually sat. She sniffed the air and frowned. Even with all the furniture and bedding gone from the room, she could still smell the man. The
stench of his unwashed body had apparently permeated the very walls of the cabin. Eulie tutted to herself. That just couldn’t go on indefinitely.

With Clara gone and married and the twins working with Miz Patch, the winter would be a long one for her and Rans and Minnie.

The thought of Minnie gave her a long pause and a pang of frustration. What had that foolish Judith Pierce been thinking? Eulie wasn’t so upset about her wanting Minnie. For all that the little girl was laggard and lazy, she was sweet and cute and lovable. Of course a childless woman would be eager to have her. Eulie didn’t fault her for that. But telling her the plans before she was certain that they would not go awry was more than foolish, it was cruel. Little Minnie got set upon the idea and now her girlish heart was near-broken.

“She’ll get over it,” Eulie told herself aloud, hoping for the hundredth time that it was true. Living was full of disappointments, even tragedies, and the youngest always seemed to adapt to them easiest. But Eulie knew from her own life that adapting was not the same as dismissing. Hurts could mark a child, often more strongly and permanently than her elders. No one wanted to see Little Minnie hurt.

The crying and whining didn’t bother Eulie much. She was accustomed to her sister using both tactics to get her way. But watching the child as she played or worked or talked, Eulie could see that the sparkle had unmistakably gone out of her eyes and a near-melancholy had settled about her like a cloak.

Eulie had no idea how to change that At long last the Toby family was able to offer security. But to keep it
would require constant vigilance, hard work, and a share of good luck. The daughter of Enoch Pierce would never want for anything in life and would have no care from whence her good fortune sprang. Eulie couldn’t give her the pretty dresses and dolls that the Pierces could. She couldn’t offer an acquaintance with town or an education of any kind Minnie would not grow up with two parents devoted to her. Eulie was only her sister, and she couldn’t in all honesty say that she’d done such a fine job of raising Minnie so far. Once Moss went west, they would be on their own again. And any resemblance to a typical family would disappear. She couldn’t even make Minnie the center of attention. In a large household the focus was always shifting.

In every way that people would normally judge such things, the Pierces offered a better life for Minnie than she would get on Barnes Ridge. But she wouldn’t be with her family. And that was the most important thing.

At least, it was the most important thing to Eulie.

She was thoughtful as she continued scrubbing down the walls, stripping years of grime and chimney smoke from the weathered wood.

Not everybody thought the way Eulie did about things. That was not a completely new idea for her. She’d always tried to see the best in the world. Rans was always expecting the worse. Eulie realized that he looked at things differently than she did, but she’d just always believed that he was wrong.

That’s what she’d thought of Moss Collier as well. Because he had wanted to leave, he had planned not to marry. Eulie had simply thought that his being alone was wrong, and she had forced him into wedlock.

But she was beginning to change her way of thinking about things now. It was like Moss talking about his Texas, flat plains of grass and shrub as far as the eye could see. It was so unlike the coves and balds of the mountains around her. But it wasn’t that the other land should be seen as good or not good. It was just different.

When Eulie looked at this farm on Barnes Ridge, she saw home and hearth, a place where she could be safe and fed and warm with those she loved. Moss Collier saw hardscrabble, poor soil and a life of drudgery he wanted to get away from. He’d called it a prison.

When Eulie looked at the people of the Sweetwood, she saw friends and neighbors and folks who cared about her. Her brother, Rans, saw gossips and backbiters and a herd of his betters set upon putting him in his place at every opportunity. There was as much truth in her brother’s outlook on the world as there was in her own.

If Moss could think different and not be wrong, and Rans could think different and not be wrong, then, what Minnie thought about her life and her family might not be wrong either.

It was not a comforting realization.

“She’ll grow out of it,” Eulie told herself once more, but her conviction in the statement was definitely shaken.

Eulie stepped back from the wall and wiped the sweat from her brow as she surveyed her work. It looked much better than it had, but for all the effort she was putting in, it would have been easier to whitewash. Of course, whitewash would never have taken the smell out.

It was going to look a whole lot better and be a whole lot better. She’d get the cabin and the kitchen and the garden in shape. The husband-man was turning his hand to every other task on the place. It seemed that now that he’d decided to go, he wanted to take care of all the chores that would be difficult for her after he left. He worked in the field all day long and then at sundown he barely paused for dinner before coming up with some other job to be done. He was fence-mending, porch-patching, table-making and ditch-digging pretty much all the time. He never seemed to rest, not day or night. He must be very anxious indeed to get out West. But then again, he was not.

“I’m going to stay until we get the crop in,” he told her one evening as they watched from a trustful distance as Bug and Clara sat on the porch together.

Moss was repairing a lug strap on the mule harness, his heavily gloved hands pushing the four-inch needle in and out of the dark, worn leather.

Eulie had looked at him, surprised. “Wouldn’t it be easier for you to do your traveling when the weather is good?” she asked.

He’d shrugged. “A couple of months won’t make any difference for me,” he told her. “There is a lot of hard, tough work on this farm that Jeptha just ain’t able to do. And that brother of yours is no bigger than a minute, though I have to admit he’s a sturdy little fellow and you can’t never fault him for not trying. I swear he’d attempt to throw an anvil across the river if I suggested that it ought to be done.”

Eulie chuckled at the truth of his words.

“He curries your good favor,” Eulie told him. “He wants you to think well of him.”

“I do,” Moss admitted. “But I don’t think your brother cares all that much. Did you know he asked Bug if he could come back and work for him?”

“What?”

“I heard him myself offering, almost begging, to go back,” Moss said.

“Well, I’ll soon put a stop to that,” Eulie declared.

“There is nothing to stop,” he said.

She looked at her husband-man gratefully. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m beholden to you for taking things in hand.”

“Not me,” Moss told her. “I didn’t say a word.” He gestured toward the porch. “It was Bug that set the boy straight. Told him that his first duty was to family. And that his family was here on Barnes Ridge.”

Eulie glanced over at the young couple on the porch. As usual, they sat in comfortable silence together. Those two would never be described as big talkers. Clara was so pretty, like her mother before hard work and a bad marriage faded all her bloom. Bug was … Bug was not anyone Eulie would have chosen for her sister. Her sister deserved a finer, more handsome, more fun-loving fellow with lots of heart and a giving nature. Eulie would have chosen someone … someone like Moss.

She turned to the man beside her.

“Thank you for being so good to my family,” she said. “I know it ain’t been that easy to care for us, especially my brother.”

Moss chuckled and shook his head.

“You Tobys aren’t so bad,” he assured her. “Even Rans is fairly tolerable, except for shooting off his mouth and being so dadblamed belligerent.”

“Don’t curse,” Eulie scolded.

The husband-man rolled his eyes and shook his head before grinning at her. “That’s the one thing I’m not going to miss about you, Mrs. Collier. When I get out West, I’m going to cuss a blue streak every morning, just so I don’t forget what to say.”

Eulie’s heart gave a little flutter unexpectedly.

“You’re going to miss me?” she asked him.

Moss became suddenly flushed and jittery. He accidentally jabbed himself in the thumb with the leather needle. He cursed again, this time so loudly the lovebirds on the porch even looked over.

Eulie smiled now, remembering it. The warm, fluttery feeling inside was back again. She reveled in it. Despite all that she had done to him, the husband-man obviously liked her. He’d liked her when he’d kissed her that day by the falls. And he liked her now that she was his wedded wife.

He liked her now that he was leaving.

That thought did not cheer her. Just a few weeks ago she’d hardly known the man. Now she had grown so accustomed to having him around, to talking with him, to laughing together. She was going to miss him when he was gone. It was as if he had become family. But then, that was what marriages did, she reminded herself. They added people to families.

The rattle of wheels against the porch boards caught her attention and she turned to the doorway. Uncle Jeptha sat there, his brow furrowed, a worn, yellowed pamphlet in his hand.

“What’s this doing among my things?” he asked her.

“I found it on the floor,” she answered. “It was so
old and faded, but kept so nice I thought it must be some of your war papers.”

He shook his head.

“No, it belongs to Moss,” he told her.

“Oh, I didn’t know,” Eulie said.

“Any of you Toby children read?” he asked.

“No,” Eulie told him, shaking her head. “Judith Pierce says that Minnie can, but I never seen it.”

Uncle Jeptha continued to look at the mysterious paper thoughtfully.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

He was quiet for a moment and then shook his head.

“No, no, it’s nothing,” he said. “Moss keeps it in his strongbox. I’ll put it back there.”

He turned around and wheeled himself back off the porch and among the household goods that were spread everywhere around the yard.

Eulie followed him, chatting aimlessly about the cabin and the cleaning. Jeptha found the carved hardwood strongbox. As he opened it, he looked up at Eulie.

“Did you know that Moss keeps a gun and his money in here?” he asked.

Eulie was surprised, but not particularly curious. She had other things upon her mind.

“You should keep this under the edge of the bed,” Jeptha continued. “And not let those children play in it or nothing.”

She nodded, vaguely listening. Her youngers were not prone to rifle through other people’s private property.

“There ain’t nothing in here that’s of interest to children,” he continued.

“Uncle Jeptha,” she interrupted, “I have a favor to ask of you.”

The man looked up at her, puzzled.

“What is it?” he asked.

Eulie hesitated, screwing up her courage. It was not the kind of thing that a person generally asked of another.

“Uncle Jeptha,” she said, “would you please take a bath?”

The kitchen was closed, warm, private. But that didn’t make him any less jittery. It wasn’t everyday that a man got buck-naked in front of two other people. Especially a man that had only ugly useless stumps where his legs were supposed to be.

The big pine washtub sat steaming with hot water, more of the same was heating on the hearth.