“We’re having a guest at dinner tonight,” I announced, bursting into the kitchen through the back door.
Mama looked up from Sadie’s birthday cake. As promised, she’d modified her recipe to create a truly spectacular tiered masterpiece. I’d never seen such thin cakes, perfectly balanced by the same amount of custard cream. There was a large base and a smaller middle. At the top of the tiniest tier were eight pink candles no bigger than matchsticks. I knew Papa must have dipped them especially for Sadie. We usually never bothered to dye our candles. The natural amber tone from the beeswax created a warm and happy glow all on its own. It didn’t need altering.
But Sadie loved pink. And Papa loved Sadie.
“A visitor?” Mama asked. She set down the sifter of cake crumbs to give me her full attention.
“That new trapper. Papa wanted to invite him over for supper sometime, and—”
“On Sadie’s birthday?” she interrupted, a frown marring her expression.
“Well, no. I ran into him while I was out getting flowers for her crown. I invited him, not Papa. I knew you were making a lot of food, and it seemed like the kind thing to do. He’s been at a campsite all this time.”
She picked up the sifter with a knowing look and continued dusting the cake. “And is this lonely, friendless trapper also masquerading as a handsome young man?”
I pressed my lips together, trying to hide my smile. “Maybe. Though I’m sure he’s also an excellent trapper.”
Mama’s gaze flickered over the chain of clover blossoms still tangled in my hair. “Looks like it.”
“Where’s Merry?” I asked, glancing about the empty kitchen.
“Oh, out there…again,” Mama said, gesturing to the flower fields.
I peered out the window.
Merry stood in the middle of the fields, her arms outstretched wide to the sky. Her face was pointed toward the sun, like a morning glory seeking warmth. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved with fervent repetition.
“Is she…singing?”
“Praying.”
“Praying? For the flowers?”
“Maybe. Or a boy,” she reasoned, amusement coloring her voice.
Mama wiped her hands on her apron and joined me at the window. For a moment, we leaned against one another in companionable silence, watching Merry. “That girl feels things with every ounce of her soul. All my children do,” she added, tweaking my nose.
There was a rustle behind us as Sadie twirled into the kitchen.
Mama turned, smiling. “Well, what do you think of the cake? I looked over that picture in the book for inspiration—I think it turned out rather well, don’t you?”
“Oh, Mama, it’s so pretty!” she said, swooping in to plant a kiss on Mama’s cheek. “Even better than my first cake!”
“First?” I glanced at the counters, but only pans and bowls lay scattered across them.
“You’ve got something on your face, Sadie-Bird,” Mama said, returning the kiss. “A smudge of dirt or something….” She licked her thumb and wiped at the offending blemish. “That’s…not dirt.” Mama pulled her closer, sniffing. She rubbed Sadie’s skin once more before tentatively bringing her finger to her lips. “Sadie Elizabeth Downing,” she chastised. “What have you been eating?”
“A birthday present,” she said, visibly bewildered by Mama’s outburst.
“What present?” I asked, kneeling next to her. The corners of her lips were brown and her cheeks smudged. “You weren’t making mud pies, were you? You know better than to eat those.”
“I’m not a baby anymore!” Sadie exclaimed, and a sweet aroma wafted from her as she glowered at me.
“What is it?”
“It’s chocolate,” Mama said, rubbing the residue between her fingers. “Where on earth did you find it?”
Sadie’s small face scrunched into an ugly mask as tears began to fall. “Why is everyone being mean to me? It’s my birthday. All I did was eat my cake!”
Mama frowned. “Chocolate cake? You found chocolate cake?”
Sadie let out a shrill sob.
“Where is the cake now, Sadie?” I asked, trying to stop her panic. She stared pointedly at me. “You ate it? All of it?”
“It was small! Only this big.” She pantomimed something the size of a muffin.
“Where was it at?”
“On my milk stool—in the barn!”
“Was anything else on the stool?” Mama asked. “A note or card, maybe?”
“Just this,” she said, pulling a small bundle from her apron pocket.
It was a little rag doll, dressed in checked blue with a matching bonnet. Its yarn hair was every bit as fair as Sadie’s, nearly a perfect match. But its face gave me pause. Most of Sadie’s dolls were blank—tiny figures made from corn husks or scraps from Mama’s quilting basket.
But this rag doll was different.
Its creamy muslin surface was marred by two red Xs stitched across where eyes should have been. The unseeing face was ghastly in its simplicity, horrifying me the longer I looked at it.
“Where on earth did you get this?” I asked, grabbing it from her.
“Abigail made it for me. For my birthday.”
“Mama, did you make this doll?” I asked. Relief flooded through me as she took the awful visage away.
“Of course not. What ghoulish eyes.” She ran her thumb over the scarlet thread with a shudder.
“I like them,” Sadie said, unconcerned.
“Where did it come from?” Mama asked.
“I told you—Abigail.”
Mama pressed her lips together, her patience waning. “Did you borrow it from one of your friends? Trinity? Or Betty Neally, maybe?”
“Abigail made it,” she insisted.
“There is no Abigail,” Mama snapped. “Tell me where you got this!”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Sadie cried, bursting into a fresh set of tears.
Mama softened instantly, pulling her into a hug. “I’m sure you didn’t….I just wonder where the cake came from.” She pushed back the hair plastered against Sadie’s forehead. “Was it very good?”
Her eyes lit. “It was!”
“Better than my honey cakes?”
“Just…different,” Sadie said, as diplomatic as she was ever likely to be.
“And there truly is nothing left of it?”
She shook her head, then brightened. “There was a little pink candle with it! One of Papa’s. It’s still in the barn.”
How had one of Papa’s pink candles ended up on a chocolate cake? Mama looked as confused as I felt. “Can you get it, Ellerie? I need to start on the green beans if we’re ever going to have supper tonight.”
Once outside, I ran headfirst into a dark shape hurtling up the path to our house.
“I’ll kill him, I swear I will!” Cyrus Danforth growled and grabbed at my shoulders. “Where is he?”
The air in my lungs froze. He must have discovered Rebecca’s secret.
“I don’t know—let go of me!” His nails were long and unevenly cut, digging into my sleeves like jagged razors. I tried to squirm from his clutch, but his fingers, riddled with arthritis, hooked into my arms like talons. I could feel the bruises already beginning to form.
“I’m certain he’s off hiding somewhere like the vile snake he is,” Cyrus snarled, spittle flying from his lips. There was a burst of red dotting his left eye—a blood vessel had ruptured—making him look half-crazed.
“What is the meaning of this?” Papa roared, running up behind me. He had a canvas bag slung across his chest and was wearing his widest brimmed hat. He’d been out in the fields, harvesting the flower seeds.
“Let go of my daughter!” he snarled, casting aside the bag. His hat knocked off and rolled under the porch.
Cyrus’s grip tightened, digging into the already tender underside of my arm. I struggled to slip free, biting my lip to stifle tears. With a cry of utter rage, Papa ripped Cyrus from me and hurled him into the side yard.
Cyrus stumbled backward, swinging his arms in wild circles before landing hard on the sunbaked earth. His head slammed into the ground, and for a moment he appeared cross-eyed, pupils swaying off-kilter. With a grunt, he pulled himself up. Charging at Papa, he let loose a string of words I’d never heard issued from a gentleman before.
Papa pushed me toward the house before ducking out of the way.
“Get inside, Ellerie,” he ordered, his hands up and fingers splayed, ready to defend himself. “Now!”
I was edging toward the back porch—it was the closet entrance by far—when Cyrus regained his balance and ran at Papa again, fist drawn for the blow. Papa darted to the side, missing the first punch, but he wasn’t fast enough to counter, and Cyrus fell on him, his left hook catching Papa hard in the stomach.
“Papa!”
“Enough!” a voice bellowed, and then a gunshot cracked the air in two. We froze and turned to see Mama standing on the porch, holding the rifle out, pointing it skyward. “Step away from my family, Cyrus Danforth.”
“I will not.”
Mama adjusted the aim of the rifle and peered down the length of the barrel. “Get off my husband,” she said, warning enunciated in every weighted word.
After an uneasy moment, Cyrus shifted away, brushing his pants as if he’d been sitting in the grass at a church picnic. “Have it your way, Sarah. I’ll let the Elders deal with him—and that worthless scrap of flesh you call a son.”
Papa sat up, wavering from side to side.
“Elders?” he repeated, and began to laugh—giant and wild laughs that heaved from the depths of his belly. Blood filled his mouth, reddening his teeth. “You show up on my land, attack my daughter, and you’re going to the Elders? On what grounds? Sam has done nothing to you.”
A sharp bark of laughter burst from Cyrus. “Nothing? My daughter’s heart is broken, and my winter stores have been wiped out. And you call it nothing.” Cyrus wrinkled his nose into a sneer and spat, aiming the phlegm at Papa’s feet.
My father’s face grew grave as he listened. “What the devil are you talking about, Danforth?”
“My storeroom—as if you didn’t already know. Completely ransacked. Canisters of flour and sugar, scattered to the wind. Broken jars of molasses and beans, a giant stinking mess.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Cyrus. But you know us. You know me. We’d never—”
“I thought I knew you, Downing.” He shook his head as if disgusted by the sight of us. His eyes couldn’t seem to find a spot to focus on, drifting back and forth like puffs of dandelions dancing in the wind. “I assumed it was your boy at first, working alone, but now I wonder….If you think destroying my stock will get me to vote for that damned supply run, you’re sadly mistaken. I’ve got money—lots of money—and I’d sooner buy out the whole of McCleary’s and watch the town starve than ever agree with the likes of you.”
Mama let out a slow hiss, shaking her head. “You’re the one mistaken. No one in my family would ever do such a thing. You’re wrong.”
Cyrus’s lips pulled into a grimace. “I’m not wrong about your boy. It’s a damn shame she was, though.”
Papa frowned, clearly puzzled. “She? Who’s she?”
“My Rebecca.”
“Why would Samuel do anything to harm Rebecca? He’s been courting her half the summer.”
“You call that courting? Sneaking out of the house, shirking her chores so she can fool around in the hayloft with your boy? And now he says he never wants to see her again. Says he never wanted her for a wife. So that’s the end of that. She’ll never find herself a man with the stink of your boy all around her.” He looked to Papa, eyes glassy and vague. “I bet that gave you a great laugh, didn’t it? First your son destroys my daughter, her good name, her future, and then you go and try to wreck mine. You’ve been plotting this for years.”
“Gideon has been in the fields all day,” Mama said, her finger twitching on the trigger. “I think you ought to reevaluate your story.”
Cyrus held up his hands, palms open and questioning. “But I don’t see your boy here. Where is he? You can’t deny the part he’s played in this. Soon everyone will see evidence of his sins—my daughter won’t be able to keep them hidden forever.”
Mama gasped. “She’s not…Surely you don’t mean…”
“She’s in the family way, there is no question of it.”
“But we don’t know that Sam—” Papa stopped as Mama glared daggers at him.
“Cyrus, I don’t know what we can say to ease any of this, but Rebecca will not go through this alone. Of course they will be married—Samuel will do his part and—”
“He’s already done his share. That boy will bring us all down.”
“Now, look you here,” Papa said, standing over Cyrus and pushing his pointer finger into his chest. His face was red, and I saw his hands trembling with rage. “It’s a terrible thing that has happened, but your daughter played just as big a part in it.”
Cyrus scoffed. “I should never have let that good-for-nothing into my home. I knew he was trouble from the moment I saw him toddling about the yard, hanging on to his mother’s apron straps. He was always weak. Weak, spineless, without an ounce of character in him. But I don’t suppose it’s all his fault. You can’t blame the apple for the tree’s worms.”
Papa narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw. “Samuel has committed some very grave mistakes—but as God is my witness, he was not in your storeroom.”
“Don’t waste your breath. There’s only one way to be certain. He will go before the Elders, look them in the eyes, and speak his truth. Then they’ll see. Then they’ll judge. You can try to secret away all sorts of sins in the dead of night, but you can’t hide a guilty conscience. Not from the Elders, not from the Falls. Now…for the last time, where is he?”
Papa stared at him, hardening his face. But after a long moment, he glanced to Mama, giving away his uncertainty.
“Ha!” Cyrus pounced. “You don’t know either! The Elders can decide for themselves. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a hanging….Isn’t it funny how the wheels of history turn?”
Glaring at us with contentious triumph, Cyrus veered toward town, and ran straight into Samuel’s fist. He’d appeared suddenly, running up from the side yard when no one was watching. A spray of blood and teeth burst through the air, and the late afternoon sun turned the droplets to shimmering rubies.
Recovering with remarkable efficiency, Cyrus whirled around and swung at my brother, bringing him to the ground as they traded blows.
“Sam!” Papa rushed over to pull him off Cyrus but was struck across the face by an errant fist. Papa persisted, grabbing Samuel by the waist and hoisting him free of the brawl. “We never settle anger with violence.”
“I didn’t do a thing to that storeroom, and that baby is not mine,” Sam protested, squirming free. “It’s lies! All lies! You want to let him lie to the Elders?”
On exhausted, wobbling legs, Papa swayed between the two men, keeping them apart as Samuel circled about, trying to find his next opening. Cyrus clutched his jaw, stooping in the grass for his teeth.
Samuel wiped away a bit of blood from his cheek. A diagonal cut, undoubtedly from Cyrus’s unkempt nails, slashed his face, weeping and red.
Cyrus pushed himself up, waving off Papa’s offer of assistance. “If I see any of your family on my property again—ever again!—I’ll fire without question. You understand me, Downing? Keep away from my family and off my land!” With another curse, Cyrus Danforth stormed off, his faltering footsteps taking him directly into town.
* * *
“Are you sure you don’t want to have the doctor look at that?” Whitaker asked once again, wincing as he studied Papa’s battered face. “I could ride into town and be back in no time at all. I think you might have broken your nose.”
“And I’m certain of it,” Papa said, touching his nose gingerly even as he waved Whitaker’s offers aside.
“Papa, let me go,” Sam said, trailing after him into the sitting room. “I’ll find Dr. Ambrose and—”
“I said it’s fine.” He gestured toward one of the chairs, indicating that Whitaker should join him. “Sam, don’t you think you ought to help your mother in the kitchen?”
His eyes darted to me. “Ellerie can.”
I’d been leaning against the doorframe, trying to not get caught staring at our guest, and doing a poor job of it. He’d already winked at me twice.
But at the mention of my name, I startled into motion. Mama did need help.
“Ellerie may stay. She’s been here all week, hauling frames and bringing in the harvest. It’s your turn to lend a helping hand, don’t you think?”
Sam watched on for a moment, a low anger kindling in his eyes.
As he slunk back into the kitchen, I heard Mama light into him, her ire spitting out in whispered hisses.
“Samuel Elazar Downing, what on earth were you thinking? Bedding Rebecca Danforth? And abandoning her? Mark my words, we’re setting this right.”
“Mama, I—”
Merry entered the sitting room, carrying a tray of glasses and a pitcher of sun tea. She almost tripped over the threshold, peering back to watch the turmoil. She winced, seeing whatever Mama had done to stop Sam’s protest.
Sadie skipped into the room, twirling about in her best pinafore before stopping short. “Oh, Papa, your face! Does it hurt? Did Mr. Danforth do all that?” She stole a quick glance toward the kitchen. “Did Sam?” She froze, suddenly noticing the stranger in the room. “Who are you?”
Small Favors Page 11
