Song of Oestend (8 page)

He thought again of what Deacon had said about it—that it was haunted. It seemed

absurd. He couldn’t help but think it really had been a prank. And yet, why else would it be sitting here vacant while the inhabitants of the BarChi crowded themselves into the other buildings?

The main house was off-limits to Aren. He was reluctant to intrude on Deacon’s privacy in the barn. He thought about having to go back to the barracks, where boisterous boys played their ridiculous games. Why should he sleep with them when there was a perfectly good house available?

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It took some searching, but he finally located Jeremiah mucking out stalls in the barn.

“Don’t you have hands to do that?” Aren asked.

Jeremiah didn’t stop what he was doing. “Lots of chores to be done,” he said. “Since I’m the boss, I get first choice.”

“And
this
is your first choice?”

“Today, it is.” Jeremiah shrugged. “Simple. Something I’ve done a thousand times in

my life. Lets me think of other things.” He tossed another pitchfork full of soiled straw out of the door. “What’s on your mind?”

“I’d like your permission to move into the empty house.”

Jeremiah finally stopped what he was doing. He planted the tines of his pitchfork in the floor and turned to look at Aren, leaning on the handle. “Deacon tell you why it’s vacant?”

“He said it’s haunted.”

“But you want to live there?”

Aren did his best not to squirm under Jeremiah’s scrutiny. “I thought maybe I could

rent it? We could negotiate a fee from my salary—”

“Not mine to rent,” Jeremiah said, yanking his pitchfork free and turning back to his task.

“It’s not?” Aren asked. “Whose is it?”

“Deacon’s.”

Nothing could have surprised Aren more than that. “But he said he didn’t own any part of the BarChi,” he said. “He told me—”

“Look, son, what he told you ain’t none of my business. Up to him what he wants you

to know and what he don’t. All I’m saying is, that house ain’t mine to rent. You get his permission, that’s good enough for me.”

It wasn’t hard to find Deacon. He and some of the other hands were branding cattle,

and Aren could hear him yelling out orders from the other side of the courtyard. One glance at the men going about their task told him it wasn’t a good time to ask Deacon for anything, and he decided supper—the late day meal Aren still thought of as dinner—would be soon enough.

He arrived at the kitchen as the hands were leaving. Deacon was nowhere in sight.

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“Sit!” Olsa commanded him. “Those damn boys ate all the ham, but there’s still beans

and cornbread, and I saved you a bit of cheese.”

Cheese was something of a treat. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to warrant special

treatment from Olsa, but he wasn’t about to complain. “Thank you,” he said as she put the food in front of him.

“I hear you don’t want to go to town with Brighton and Garrett,” she said.

“No need to,” he told her.

“Those women at the McAllen Ranch aren’t motivation enough for you?” she asked.

He ducked his head and ate more beans. If there was one thing he’d learnt from Deacon and Olsa, it was to keep his mouth shut and eat while she was still happy, because there was no telling when she’d snatch the food away. He glanced at the doorway, hoping Deacon would arrive soon.

“He’s coming,” she said. Her blank white eyes seemed to give her an uncanny ability to see through walls and into minds. He wondered if he’d ever get used to it. “You be careful what you say,” she said. “It’s a touchy subject.”

“How do you know—?”

But Deacon arrived at that moment, cutting off Aren’s question. “What’s a touchy

subject?” he asked as he sat down next to Aren.

“Aren has something to ask you.” She stood and shuffled to the other side of the room to get Deacon’s supper.

Aren felt his cheeks turning red. He turned to look at Deacon, who was watching him

with his eyebrows up and laughter in his eyes. “You change your mind about going to

town?” he asked.

“No,” Aren said. “It’s not that. It’s about the house.”

“What about it?”

“Well, I hate the barracks. I’d really prefer to not sleep with the hands, and—”

“I don’t know why you’re talking to me,” Deacon said as Olsa put his plate down in

front of him. “Hey!” he said to her. “How come Aren gets cheese and I don’t?”

“I’m not wasting my cheese on you. Not tonight.”

“What’d I do?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Yet.”

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He sighed and turned back to Aren. “Look, you want to stay in the house, you got to

prove to Jeremiah you’ll keep your hands off the wives. It’s of no matter to me—”

“Not this house,” Aren said, interrupting him. “I mean the other house. Your house.”

Deacon froze, his eyes on his plate. There was a stiffness to his posture that hinted at danger, and Aren found himself wishing he was sitting farther away. “Who told it was my house?” he asked, looking up at Olsa with obvious suspicion.

“Don’t go blaming me,” she said.

“It was Jeremiah,” Aren said. “I asked if I could rent it and he said—”

“I don’t care what he said.” Deacon’s strange stillness was gone, although he didn’t

turn to face Aren. He picked up his spoon. “It ain’t my house,” he said.

Olsa moved fast, faster than Aren ever would have believed of somebody her age. She

had a long, wooden spoon in her hand and she brought it down hard on the back of Deacon’s hand, knocking his own spoon onto the floor.

“Ow! Saints, Olsa, what you have to go and do that for?”

“‘Same reason I took my spoon to you when you was a boy,” she said, shaking it in his direction. “You lie—”

“It’s not a lie!”

“You shame your family—”

“Don’t start!”

“Everything I taught you—”

“I never asked you for none of it!”

“You refuse to accept—”

“
Enough!
” Deacon’s voice cut through her accusations with a thunderous finality, and she fell silent. Deacon took a deep breath, obviously trying to calm himself. He turned to Aren, and when he spoke his voice was quieter, but still tight with suppressed anger. “Even if it were my house, it ain’t fit to live in. I told you that.”

“You told me it was haunted—”

“I wasn’t lying.”

“With your permission,” Aren said, “I’d like to try. I’ll pay you—”

“Aren!” Deacon snapped. “Listen to me—it ain’t safe!”

“It could be made safe enough,” Olsa said. “You know the song.”

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The song?

Deacon turned on her, his body rigid, almost vibrating with rage. “Don’t start—”

She smacked him again with the spoon, not as hard this time but hard enough to get his attention. Then she opened her mouth and started to…sing?

It took Aren a minute to figure out what was happening. Her voice rose and fell. It was melodious and yet harsh. Not quite music. It had stops and starts, strange hitches in the middle of extended vowel sounds.

She was talking! It was a language, although no language Aren had ever heard. She

finished with a flourish, her long wooden spoon pointed at Deacon’s face.

And Deacon answered her.

It sounded different when it came from him—less like a song, more like chant—and

Aren stared back and forth between them in stunned silence. He could make out no distinct words, only sounds, but there was no mistaking the anger in Deacon’s face.

Back and forth they went, faster and louder, until Deacon suddenly lapsed back into the common tongue. “No!” he yelled, slamming his hand down on the table for emphasis.

Olsa stared at him for moment, then she jumped forwards, snatching his plate from in

front of him. “Ungrateful brat!” She pointed towards the door. “Get out!”

It was proof of his anger that Deacon didn’t try to argue. He swept his hat off the table and stalked out of the room without a backwards glance.

Aren sat very still, wondering what in the world he’d just witnessed. He wondered how long Deacon would be angry and if there was any chance of changing his mind. He looked over at Olsa, wondering if she’d offer some kind of explanation.

“Well,” she said, as she sat down again across from him, “that went better than I

expected.”

Deacon didn’t come to breakfast the next day, and Aren sat there with only Olsa for

company, eating lukewarm porridge. Olsa hummed absent-mindedly and didn’t say a word.

Afterwards, Aren took his sketchpad and his penknife and pencils, and he walked. He

went past the empty house with its sagging boards and vacant eyes. He walked out into the SONG OF OESTEND

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long grass of the prairie until he found a place where he could sit. He had a view of the cattle grazing in the field, lazy and stupid and yet serene at the same time. A big bull stood near the fence, staring at absolutely nothing.

Aren sharpened his pencil and he started to draw.

His art took him away, as it so often did. He lost all sense of space and time. He barely noticed the soreness in his backside from sitting on the ground, or the pain in his shoulder from his hunched position. He knew only shapes and lines, reflections and light. It was a calm place inside him that occupied him, yet left some remote corner of his mind free and clear to think of other things. Today, he thought only of the sun and the grass and how surprisingly good it felt to be there. He had worried he wouldn’t fit in here, and maybe he didn’t, but he found it suited him all the same.

He didn’t see or hear Deacon approaching. It wasn’t until he sat down next to Aren in the grass that he noticed him at all. Aren looked over at him in surprise.

Deacon didn’t look at him. He didn’t say anything, either. He sat there, his knees up and his forearms draped over them, staring out into the field, and Aren waited, wondering what in the world was on the man’s mind.

Deacon finally looked over at him and he seemed startled to find Aren watching him.

“Am I bothering you?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Aren said. “I missed you at breakfast.”

Deacon shrugged uncomfortably, obviously disconcerted by such a frank statement. He

looked down at Aren’s sketchpad. “What’re you drawing?”

Aren hesitated, afraid Deacon would make fun of him for his art as he had the first day they’d met, back in Milton, but he saw no mockery in his eyes. Only friendly curiosity.

He held his sketchbook out and Deacon took it.

He didn’t say anything for the longest time. He looked at the drawing, then up at the bull in the field, then down again at the drawing. He seemed puzzled. “I don’t get it,” he said at last. “I can see it’s the bull, but it’s not the same at all.”

Aren’s heart fell at the words. “I guess it’s not very good,” he said, reaching to take the pad back.

Deacon pulled it out of his reach, still looking at it. “That ain’t what I said. It’s just…” he looked up at the bull again, then down at the sketchpad, his brows furrowed as he tried to SONG OF OESTEND

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find the words. “When I look at your picture, he looks… Well, I guess he looks strong. And proud. He looks special, like he’s something way more than all the other cattle.” He looked back up at the bull standing in the grass, lazily chewing his cud. “But he’s just a bull,” he said, pointing out at him. “Nothing special at all.”

It was such awkward praise, and yet Aren found himself smiling. He felt something

inside him swell with pride. “That means I did it right,” he said.

He reached for the pad again, and this time Deacon let him take it. The big cowboy sat staring at the ground, nervously tugging at the grass. “I don’t want you to be mad at me about the house,” he said at last, his voice quieter than before.

That surprised Aren. It hadn’t occurred to him Deacon would care how he felt. “I’m not mad. But I do wish you’d reconsider.”

“It ain’t safe.”

“Olsa said it could be made safe…”

Deacon was already shaking his head, and Aren let his words trail away. “Folk tales,”

Deacon said. “Nothing more than that. Olsa’s stories won’t do nothing against the dark.”

Aren looked back out over the field, and the cattle grazing there. He wasn’t sure what else to say. He was glad Deacon wanted to make peace, but he wished there was some chance of changing his mind.

“Is it so bad out there with the men?” Deacon asked.

“Yes and no.” Aren looked over at the big cowboy. “You’ve lived out there,” he said.

“You know how it is.”

“That’s different,” Deacon said, still not looking up at him. “I’m their boss. I have to set myself apart.”

Aren thought about that. It
was
different for Deacon. And in some ways, living with the men wasn’t so bad. They didn’t see him as one of them, which meant he was mostly excluded from most of their petty games. It was the fact that it reminded him too much of his past, all those years in boarding school. It made him forget he was an adult. It made him lose his confidence.

And the distinct lack of privacy was getting old, too.

“I’d like to have my own space,” he said, and although that wasn’t the whole truth, it wasn’t a lie either. “I miss being able to paint.”

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Deacon frowned, but he nodded. “Guess I can understand that. Thing is, I’d hate for

something to happen to you. You move into that house and something goes wrong, it’ll be my fault.”

“How would it be your fault?”

“It’s my job to take care of the men,” Deacon said. “I’m the one responsible—”

“Deacon,” Aren interrupted him, “I’m not one of the hands.” Deacon turned to him,

looking both confused and surprised. “I know you take responsibility for those boys in the barracks, but I’m not one of them. Jeremiah’s my boss, not you. And the only person responsible for me is me.”