Everyone turned toward me, even Papa.
“He came out of the woods while I was washing clothes.”
Mama’s gaze shifted over to Papa, her eyes round with worry. He tapped the table, debating what to do with the information. With a trace of a smile, I imagined Papa grabbing the gun from over the mantel and storming down to the stream. We’d see how long the stranger could avoid answering simple questions with the length of a rifle trained on him.
“I told him where the property line was. He never crossed it,” I added, to be fair.
Papa reached for the bowl of hard-boiled eggs and spooned two onto his plate. “What’d he look like?”
I started to say “handsome,” but caught myself before the treacherous word fell. “Tall. About my age, I think. He had on boots.”
Papa nodded. “Probably a trapper. Jean Garreau passed last winter. I expect we’ll be seeing a few new faces around the Falls this autumn, wanting to stake a claim on his territory.”
“Should we tell him about the monsters?” Sadie asked, straining her neck to see over the windowsill to catch a glimpse of the trapper.
“We might ought to,” Papa said, still considering. “Trappers usually keep to themselves till they’ve got pelts to sell. But if he’s out in those woods, he needs to take care.” He glanced at me. “You see any weapons on him?”
I frowned, trying to remember details. I hadn’t seen a gun, but if he was a trapper, he’d surely have a set of knives. And there was that large rucksack, chockful of something.
“I don’t think so. But he had a big pack.”
Papa’s eyebrows furrowed together. “After lunch, show me where he was? He’s probably gone by now, but just in case.”
“Want me to go with you, Papa?” Samuel asked. It was the first day he’d ventured downstairs, carefully aided by Merry and Sadie.
“We’ll be fine,” Papa said, stabbing at a potato. “But I need you out at the hives this afternoon. Think you can hold the smoker?”
My heart sank. I’d hoped, with Sam laid up, I’d get another chance with the bees. I hid my red palm beneath the table as if that could take back the last three days or my foolish vote.
Samuel frowned, his eyes darting to the crutches propped against the wall. “I…I can try, but…”
“Just take Ellerie,” Mama said. “This contention between you two has gone on long enough. She cast her vote, as she’s allowed. Let it lie, Gideon.”
The words behind Papa’s lips piled up like water in a dam. Just as I was sure they were about to break through, drowning us all, he swallowed them back and released a long sigh instead. “You done with all your chores today, Ellerie?”
“There’s one last basket of clothes.”
He let out a noncommittal grunt, then asked for the biscuits. Mama picked up the plate but wouldn’t release it until he met her stare.
“After the wash is done…why don’t you help me with the hives?” His teeth gritted together so hard, I feared they’d crumble to powder.
I looked down meekly, but inside I was a mess of nerves. I so badly wanted the chance to show him I was just as capable as Samuel, but not like this. Not when he would rather anyone else but me beside him. Things could go so horribly wrong. He’d be tense, and the bees would sense it. They’d attack, and we’d lose half a hive before the afternoon was over. And it would all be my fault.
A warm hand landed on my knee and squeezed it. Mama offered me a small smile. She looked so full of encouragement that I dared to wonder if I might be able to fix the mess I’d made. Perhaps I could use our forced togetherness to explain why I’d done it, why I’d voted against him.
And at least within the beekeeper’s suit, my hands would look exactly the same as his.
“Aren’t you taking the rifle?” I called after Papa as he slipped through the doorway. I’d just dunked the last plate into the rinse water and was handing it off to Sadie to dry and put away.
Through the kitchen window, I saw him pause on the steps leading to the side yard, back to the house. I couldn’t read his expression, but his shoulders seemed to soften as he considered the question.
“You think we really ought to?”
I wrung out the washcloth before joining him on the porch. “Maybe. Just to be safe?”
Papa turned. “He say anything that makes you think we need it?”
I remembered the stranger’s tone of voice, the way he’d always seemed just on the verge of mocking me, and how badly I’d wanted the rifle in my hands. Looking back, I could clearly recall the feeling, but not what inspired its urgency. After a moment’s reflection, I shook my head. “I guess not.”
Papa glanced up at the sun. “It is an awfully warm day. Why don’t you go get it for me anyway? There could be snakes.”
The prickly ball of worry that was lodged in my stomach eased, like a porcupine lowering its guard. Papa would be able to get all the information he needed from that boy.
If he was even still around.
* * *
We spotted him as we wove through the lines of clothes. Still laid out on the rock, feet still in the water. He’d covered his face with a dark wool hat and was so utterly motionless that I assumed he’d fallen asleep.
“You might want to be careful dipping your toes in that creek there,” Papa called out, warning our approach. “Water snakes liable to think your toes are salamanders. They’re not poisonous, but that won’t make a bite hurt any less.”
The boy removed the hat and used it as a sun block to peer at us. With a languid stretch of his back, he sat up, keeping his legs resolutely in the creek. “Water snakes, you say?”
Papa nodded.
After a moment of wary silence, he eased his feet out of the creek. “All pins and needles anyway.”
“I’m Gideon Downing,” Papa said. He’d stopped a few yards from the waterline, making no attempt to hide the rifle from the stranger’s view.
“The beekeeper,” the stranger said.
Papa leaned against the butt of the rifle. Though his stance seemed casual, there was a wiry energy racing through him that set my teeth on edge and made every word of their banter feel weighted with tension. “Passing through, or are you aiming to stick around?”
“Making the rounds,” the boy answered noncommittally.
“With your folks?”
“Just me…and my partners,” he allowed.
“That so?”
The ambling speed of their conversation was maddening. My fingers itched to grab the rifle, shoot a warning shot into the sky, and demand that actual answers be given.
“We’ve got a little campsite up a ways.” He pointed toward the mountain farthest west. “I was following the creek when I stumbled across…” He drew his sentence out as if he’d already forgotten my name. I was surprised at how much that stung my pride.
“Ellerie,” Papa supplied.
“Ellerie,” he agreed. “Didn’t mean to scare anyone. She set me straight on your property line. I’ll make sure to stay far from it. Don’t want to be stepping toes onto anyone’s claim by mistake. Man could get himself shot over less in these parts.”
“You shouldn’t run into trouble with anyone in the Falls,” Papa said, his stance relaxing, degree by nearly imperceptible degree. “We keep clear of the forest unless we’re heading out of the pass.”
The stranger rubbed his chin thoughtfully, looking pleased.
“It’s actually why I wanted to speak with you. There’ve been some sightings of…wolves recently. They overtook our supply train last week. Six men died.”
The boy whistled through his teeth. “That a fact?”
Papa hummed an affirmation, the set of his lips grim.
“Awful sorry to hear that. Haven’t seen any traces of wolves, but I’ll certainly keep my eyes out. Appreciate you warnin
g me.”
Papa scratched at the back of his neck, his gaze falling on the stranger, as sharp as a razor. “I don’t believe I caught your name, son.” The last word rang out, flat and atonal, an unspoken threat, and I wanted to cheer, knowing he hadn’t fallen for the boy’s tactics.
“You wouldn’t have; I never said it.” There was an uneasy beat before he let out a laugh, breaking the tension. After brushing off his pants, the boy waded across the creek, reaching out a friendly hand. “The name is Price.”
It wasn’t.
In Amity Falls, every name seemed to have a pragmatic purpose. Names were weighty, seared to the identity of the person or place as if with a branding iron. Tall dark mountains? Blackspire. A lake choked verdigris with blooms of algae? Greenswold. The rightness of a name was woven into the very essence of the thing itself.
Whoever this person was, he wasn’t Price. The name “Price” rested atop his elongated frame like an ill-fitting coat, puckered and gaping.
If Papa noticed the lie, he didn’t comment. He shook the boy’s hand, and they fell into an easy discussion about God’s Grasp. Price, as he called himself, hadn’t been raised in these parts and said he’d be grateful for any tips Papa could impart. When Papa asked about his home, Price glanced my way with a chuckle.
“Out west,” he said, skirting around another answer.
“Where?” I interrupted. “Out west where?”
“Ellerie,” Papa scolded. “He’ll tell us if he wants.”
Price laughed once more, but it sounded strained. “Along the coast.”
“But where?” I pressed. “It’s a big country. There’s an awful lot of coast out west.”
“Curiosity has always been one of Ellerie’s strong suits,” Papa apologized.
The stranger looked me over with fresh eyes. He was finally close enough for me to make out their color. They sparkled, clear and light, like the creek behind us. Soft gray one moment and amber the next. Hints of green crept in as they squinted into a smile, pleased at whatever they saw in me. “Tenacity too, I reckon.”
Papa gave him a knowing look in agreement. “Will you be near the Falls long?”
“Thinking of it. My first tour has been promising.” His eyes drifted back toward the pines. “Quite promising. Could be my best season yet.”
“If you do, you ought to join us for supper sometime. Cooking over a campfire for too long can be rough on a young man. There’s also a tavern in town—run by Calvin Buhrman—good food, good company. Stop in one night. I guarantee you’ll have customers if your pelts are good quality and your prices are right.”
“I do love cutting a deal,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll make sure to stop by the tavern. And I appreciate your kind offer. I certainly hope honey cake will be on the menu? I truly have heard talk of them up and down the mountainsides.”
“I’m sure my wife could be persuaded,” Papa said, and offered his hand once more, putting an end to their conversation. “Welcome to the Falls, Price.”
“Thank you, sir,” he said, shaking Papa’s hand with a firm grasp.
“Ellerie? You’ve got laundry to finish?”
He knew I did.
“Why don’t I help pull the sheets off the lines? Get you home earlier.”
It was a strange offer for him to make. He never helped with the wash, always leaving it to us girls. Price took his cue from it, though, and waded across the river to put his boots back on.
“See you around, Downings,” he said, raising a hand in farewell before throwing on his pack and slipping back into the pines.
We paused in silence, watching until it was impossible to discern him from the trees. Only then did I turn to the scrubbing tub, its bubbles long gone. It felt strange to have Papa here, watching me work, and I think he felt it too. His hands hung awkwardly at his side, clearly wanting a task to fill them.
“I’ll rebuild the fire,” he offered, kneeling next to the circle. The flames had died to ash in my absence. Papa picked up a piece of flint but made no motion to strike it. He tapped his thumb against it instead, the yellow stain on his skin as bright as the day he’d pressed it into the Deciding book. His face was cloudy and unreadable. I couldn’t begin to guess at the words he was measuring out in his mind.
“Back out east, when my grandfather was not much older than you are now, his father decided to harvest a few extra bottles. It had been a tough year. The spring rains had swollen the river near their cabin, and it rose up, overwhelming everything. They lost so much in that flood. Great-Grandpa saw the harvest as a chance to recoup their losses. He took an extra frame, then another. There’d been an early spring that year; it was expected the next would be too. But it wasn’t. Snow plagued the plains well into May. The hive didn’t have enough honey to survive on their own and the bees starved. They lost every single bee that winter. All so Great-Grandpa could sell those bottles.”
“What happened next?” I’d never heard this story before and was horrified to be so enthralled by it.
He shrugged. “Great-Grandpa knew that the only way they could ever hope to dig themselves out of the mess was to start over. They’d heard tales of free land up in the north and joined a wagon train heading west. Grandpa met Granny in that caravan, and when she wanted to stay put in Amity Falls, he did too.” He rubbed at his mouth. “They settled the land, started the town, and built up our hives. Grandpa repeated that story to my pa every year at harvest. When I wanted to pull out an extra frame one year, Pa told it to me….Sometimes we have to overlook our own desires for the betterment of the hive as a whole.” His eyes fell to my hidden hand.
I could see what Papa meant. We were all striving to build our town from the wilderness. If one area failed, it could jeopardize everything else. Every individual action had a direct effect on the community at large. My hand felt hot with shame.
“We’ll be okay for just this winter, won’t we, Papa?” My voice quavered, and I felt as though I were all of five years old again, creeping into my parents’ room during a storm, scared of the dark and seeking comfort. Protection. A story to hold back the terrors of the night.
“We might be,” he said, sounding unconvinced. I supposed if I was old enough to cast my voice at Decidings, I was old enough to not be coddled with wishful thinking. “With the late summer there’ll be a rush to get the harvest in—for everyone. If we can set aside enough food and ration out every bit of it, we’ll be just fine.”
I leaned in, resting against his shoulder.
Papa pointed to the basket of dirty clothes. “Is any of that absolutely necessary to clean today?”
“I…I don’t guess so.” I ran my eyes down the lines. “Just some of Sam’s wool socks, but he’s not been wearing them with the splint.”
Papa waved off my worry and pushed himself up. “What say we get Merry and Sadie to come down and fold up all these lines while you and I check the hives?”
“Truly?”
He offered out his right hand, the one stained yellow, and I placed mine in it. The sunlight painted the world in such rich bronze highlights that when I glanced at my empty hand, I couldn’t even see the red.
“Have you heard about the strangers?” Prudence Latheton asked, snipping off a length of thread. Without skipping a beat, she had it through the eye of her needle.
Mama had marched us to the parsonage bright and early that morning, where Letitia Briard was hosting a sewing bee in honor of Alice Hazelman’s impending nuptials to Gran Fowler.
Alice had taught at Amity Falls’s schoolhouse for twenty-eight years. Well past forty, everyone had assumed she’d never marry, but one Sunday morning—just as Parson Briard had asked for joys or concerns to pray over—the chicken farmer had stood up and declared his undying devotion to Alice. Their wedding was set for the end of the month, and all the women in the Falls were scrambling to help fill the school
marm’s hope chest.
For the first time in my life, my stitches had been deemed worthy enough for me to work with the older women, taking up a small section of the brightly colored log cabin quilt. But after listening to a litany of Old Widow Mullins’s ailments and a slew of marital advice for Alice that made my cheeks burn, I found myself watching my sisters’ group of girls with envy. They were pressed together on a long bench, hunched over sets of pillowcases, and stifling fits of giggles as Wilhelmina Jenkins told a story in hushed whispers.
“Strangers?” Letitia Briard repeated from her position of honor at the head of the quilt. Despite the warmth of the parlor, her calico dress was still crisp and neat, its pleats pressed with a precise care I couldn’t ever seem to muster with mine. I’d never seen the parson’s wife with so much as a hair out of place.
“A pair of men stopped in at the store yesterday, wanting to see if my Edmund could take a look at a busted wagon wheel. I’ve never seen a cart worn so hard. It near split at the seams, rolling up to the shop.”
“Strangers in Amity Falls?” Charlotte Dodson asked. “Matthias never mentioned anything about it. Pass the scissors, won’t you?”
Prudence handed her a pair. “New trappers, apparently. Wanting to try their hand at Jean Garreau’s territory.”
Letitia sniffed with disapproval. The Briards’ contempt of the Frenchman was well known throughout Amity Falls. He’d never been seen sober, and had strung together phrases so colorful that even hardened ranch hands had blushed.
“Did they say anything else?” I dared to ask.
My cheeks felt as warm as baked apples as thoughts of the stranger who called himself Price danced into my mind. The memories were filtered through a sun-dappled haze as though it had been months, not days, since I’d met him. Logically I knew I probably misremembered the golden hue of his skin, the sootiness of his thick eyelashes, and the sharpness of his wit. I painted him with far more charm than he deserved.
Still, part of me hoped he somehow might have mentioned me.
Small Favors Page 7
