Medicine Bundle

by Patrick E. Andrews

  “Yes, Ma,” Rebecca said. “As soon as I have this chicken packed.”

  “Now!” Fionna insisted. “Please!”

  “Yes, Ma,” Rebecca said, continuing the chore.

  “Take a drink of that well water too,” Fionna said. “But not too much or too fast. It comes up that pipe perty cold.”

  “As soon as I finish here, Ma.”

  Anna listened to the conversation between mother and daughter. The young Swedish woman had reddish-blond hair and freckled features with bright blue eyes. Round-faced and sturdy, she had a muscularity inherited from peasant ancestors who had lived for generations in harsh environs. When she spoke, she had a lilting combination of the accents of Sweden and the American upper Midwest. “You listen to your mot’er, Mrs. Hollings. I pack da boxes.” She peered closely at the other woman. “Ack! Look how red your face is. Go on now.”

  “I am not a delicate flower!” Rebecca protested.

  “But you are blooming like a flower,” Anna pointed out. “Now take care of yourself. Don’t you t’ink it vould be good for you to cool down a little?”

  “Oh, all right,” Rebecca said. “I am uncommonly warm.” She wiped her face with her apron. “But I’m not getting a cushion from the sofa.” She walked from the house as the other women continued packing lunch for the harvest crew’s mid-day meal. As usual, Luther and Grant had combined their operations and hired on several men to help with the reaping. Anna’s husband Ingvar was a member of the work crew. The young couple had only lately arrived in the area, and rented a small house in Medicine Bundle.

  Fionna finished wrapping the freshly baked bread and carried it over to put in the box with the rest of the food. “There! We’ll get that out to the men.” She laughed. “Then we can start supper as soon as we get back.”

  “I tell you vhat, Mrs. McCracken,” Anna said. “I drive da vagon out to da fields. Maybe you should stay vit’ Mrs. Hollings for avhile.”

  “Anna, why cain’t you call us by our first names?”

  “Oh, nei, Mrs. McCracken,” Anna said. “Not vhile I’m vorking for you.”

  “You even call Rebecca Mrs. Hollings,” Fionna said. “You and her is the same age.”

  “Vhen da harvest is over and Ingvar and I don’t vork for you no more, den ve’ll be equals again.”

  “I’ll look forward to that,” Fionna said. “It will be nice if both families become good friends. Maybe you would like to join our church.”

  “Are you Lut’erans?” Anna asked.

  “Presbyterians,” Fionna answered.

  “T’ank you yust da same,” Anna said. “Ingvar and me, ve got to vait for a Lut’eran church. But ve can’t find one around here.”

  “My goodness, I don’t think I’ve even heard of that denomination,” Fionna said. “But I’m sure it’s a fine church.”

  “Oh, ja,” Anna said. “Ve’re Christians, y’know.”

  “So are Presbyterians.”

  Anna looked at her in surprise. “Now Pastor Stromberg back home told us to stay avay from dem ot’er churches and said dey vas heat’ens.”

  “I’ve never heard that before,” Fionna said. “Even Catholics are Christians.”

  “But bad ones,” Anna pronounced solemnly. “Martin Lut’er taught us dat, you betcha!”

  Fionna shrugged. “At any rate, thank you for offering to take the food out to the men. I’ll clean up here and maybe visit with Rebecca for a spell. I ain’t had the chance to talk with her much this past week.” Anna swung the box to her shoulder and carried it outside to the wagon with Fionna following her. After hefting the load over the side, the young Swedish woman pulled herself up into the seat. “Here,” Fionna said, handing her a wide-brimmed straw hat. “This will keep the sun off’n your face.”

  “T’ank you, Mrs. McCracken,” Anna said. “I’m not used to dis much heat.”

  “If it’s any comfort, this is about as hot as it can get.”

  Anna set the hat on her head and laughed. “Ain’t I a beauty den?” She snapped the reins with a loud pop and, with one foot up on the footboard, drove out of the yard toward the fields.

  Fionna walked over to the side of the house toward the tree where Rebecca sat in the shade sipping a glass of cold well water. Fionna settled down beside her on the bench. “Anna was right. Your face is red. You shouldn’t get overheated.”

  “Oh, Ma!” Rebecca said. “Anna is from way up north. She thinks any temperature that’ll melt snow is hot.”

  “That don’t matter,” Fionna said. “I ain’t from up north, and I say it’s hot. Hot!”

  “No argument from me on that.”

  Fionna leaned back. “I am tuckered, I don’t mind saying so.”

  A cloud crossed in front of the sun, providing a temporary shadow to drift across the farmyard. Fionna watched it slowly recede until once again the dry, bright heat enveloped the scene with its incessant intensity. Harvest time meant long hours for everyone. The women had to be up while it was still dark to begin preparing breakfast. After the food was eaten and the men were out in the fields, there were three more meals to fix. A mid-morning, a mid-afternoon, and finally a supper. And all were big meals meant to be consumed by hardworking men. To take off some of the pressure, they hired one of the older daughters of a neighboring farmer to watch Sammy. Since the girl’s family was a large one, they could spare her. She moved in with Grant and Rebecca to stay until the work was done.

  Fionna took deep breaths. “I don’t think we need an oven for the bread. We could just set the dough out in that hot kitchen and it would bake just fine.”

  “Ma, you’re funny sometimes,” Rebecca said. She laid her hands on her protruding belly. “My dear Lord! It’s uncomfortable to be pregnant in the summer.”

  “Why that’s surprising news to me,” Fionna remarked with a laugh. “I can remember a time when I thought I’d be pregnant every summer for the rest of my life.”

  “This is my second and you had six,” Rebecca said. “I can’t believe you’ve been this way that many more times than me.” She sank into a reflective mood for a bit before speaking again. “Ma, do you and Pa ever talk about Silsby?”

  “Not a lot,” Fionna said. “About a year ago, we got into a discussion on him. They wasn’t much we could say ’cept that he can come back any time he has a mind to.”

  “Do you think he hates us?”

  Fionna didn’t answer for a moment, then spoke softly. “I pray that he don’t.”

  “Grant talked to some fellow that had seen him over at Kensaw a few times,” Rebecca said.

  “That’s almost twenty miles away and no railroad.”

  “The fellow said Silsby floats in and out of that town.”

  “I’m sure Silsby knows we’re here at Medicine Bundle,” Fionna said. “When he decides to come see us, he’ll do it. I feel it in my bones. My faith tells me to hold on.”

  “Has Pa ever thought of going over there to look him up?”

  “Your pa don’t think it’s the right thing to do,” Fionna said. “I have to agree, even if I hate it worser than anything.”

  “I understand how you feel.”

  “Silsby needs healing time,” Fionna said. “When he gets older and some of that pain sort of eases away, he’ll think on us. I suppose he’ll just knock on the door someday and we’ll all sit down and put things right.”

  “If only Pa hadn’t hit him so much.”

  “And if only I’d stood up to Luther sooner,” Fionna said. She was silent for a short time. “Rebecca, darling, your pa hasn’t always had it easy. We had plenty of trouble in Missouri.”

  “I remember.”

  “Did you know your pa was almost lynched once?”

  “I didn’t know about that!”

  “It happened before you or Silsby was borned,” Fionna said. “The older kids was around then. Anyhow, a lot of those folks who were for the Confederates during the war was real bitter about the way things turned out.”

  “Well! T
hey lost!”

  “Maybe it’d’ve been better for us if they’d won,” Fionna said. “Your pa had to leave a place where his pa and grandpa and great-grandpa had farmed. He loved that old property in Missouri, Rebecca.”

  “He never acted like it.”

  “He didn’t want you and Silsby to know,” Fionna said. “But it tore his heart in two on the day we rolled out of there. He was bad hurt and bitter about it, let me tell you true. That’s why this farm means so much to him. It’s a place he can call his own ‘til the day he dies.”

  “I supposed he felt the same way about leaving Missouri as Grant did about leaving the Army.”

  “Maybe.”

  Fionna thought about the similarities she had noticed between Silsby and Grant. The boy used to spend a lot of time leaning against the wagon and staring out over the countryside for no apparent reason. She noticed Grant doing the same thing now and then. On Sundays, after church when they gathered for dinner, he would go outside by himself and gaze out into the distance. Fionna spoke aloud to herself, saying, “It’s like they was looking for something better to come down the road.”

  “What?”

  “How is Grant doing?” Fionna asked, ignoring the question.

  Now Rebecca ignored her mother’s question. “What did you mean by something better coming down the road?”

  “I was just thinking out loud.”

  “You know, Ma, I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

  “This is a good time,” Fionna said. “Anna won’t be back for a while. When she does, we have to start cooking again.”

  “Grant’s been drinking a lot,” Rebecca said. “It wasn’t much before, but now almost every night he has a bottle out at the kitchen table. He doesn’t say much, just sits and drinks.” She wiped at a tear. “I know he’s not happy.”

  “There, there,” Fionna said. She put her arm around her daughter. “Grant loves you, darling. Anybody with a lick of sense can see that.”

  “I don’t know what to say to him,” Rebecca said. “He’s sweet as he can be to me. But deep in my heart, I know Grant’s not where he’s really happy. It makes me so miserable, Ma!”

  “Have you and him talked about it?”

  “No,” Rebecca answered. “I try to get him to say something, but when I start pressing him, he just says that things are fine. They’re not though. I know that for sure.”

  “Well, now,” Fionna said, “let’s not make the same mistakes with Grant that we made with Silsby. Instead of just sitting back and feeling bad, let’s do something.”

  “What can we do?”

  “He don’t like farming, does he?”

  “Once, when he came home drunk from town, he said he hated the farm.”

  “That’s where we start then, darling,” Fionna said. “But it’s going to be up to you to make him face up to it and say the things he really feels out loud to you. Even when he says he don’t want to talk about it.”

  “How do I do that? Sit down and say, ‘Grant, darling, tell me why you’re so unhappy?’”

  “That sounds like the perfect way to get things rolling.”

  “But what else is he going to do besides farm?” Rebecca asked, beginning to sob. “He can’t get back in the Army as an officer. He could return as a sergeant, but from what he tells me how the soldiers live, it’d be ten times worse than what we’re going through now. He doesn’t know anything else but farming and coal mining. He hates both of them.”

  “Just get talking about it and let’s see where it goes from there,” Fionna counseled. “The main thing is to talk. That’s what I should have done with your pa about Silsby. I should have made him sit down and talk about it.”

  “You’re right, Ma.”

  Fionna stood up. “I think I’ll get a jump on things and get the next meal started.”

  “I’ll help you, Ma.”

  “You rest a bit more, darling,” Fionna said. “At least stay out here ‘til Anna comes back. Will you do that for me?”

  “Yes, Ma. And I’ll do a little thinking while I’m waiting.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Silsby McCracken felt a trifle awkward on the buckboard seat. This was the first time in his life that he was driving a vehicle other than a heavy farm wagon pulled by a plodding mule. The light buggy bounced and jerked with every rut and dip in the country road. After one particularly rough bump, he pulled back on the reins to slow the horse down to a more manageable speed.

  Silsby had rented the buckboard from the Kensaw livery. Since the oldster who owned the business could no longer sit a horse well, he used the buggy for getting around. The wheels were well greased, the seats patched, and the harness oiled and pliable. The vehicle also sported a reflective lantern that was firmly mounted on the dashboard. It was already late afternoon and Silsby knew he would soon need the illumination. The device threw out enough light to enable driver and horse to stay on any path or road if they traveled slowly and carefully.

  When Silsby reached the track he was looking for, he noted it was no more than ruts that intersected the road. He slowed down and worked the reins to guide the horse. But the animal balked and swung his head. “Go on, damn you!” Silsby hissed angrily, shaking the reins.

  The animal responded to the clumsy attempts of the driver, and started up the path. Now the ride was rougher and Silsby was tempted to get off and walk beside the vehicle, but he didn’t want to get dust all over his boots. He stuck to the seat until he reached the end of the primitive path and rolled into the farmyard.

  Silsby was dressed as if for church. He wore a borrowed derby hat, a brand new suit, and a boiled shirt complete with a stiff celluloid collar. A cravat sporting an imitation pearl tiepin set off the outfit. His boots were polished, his hair slicked down, and his moustache waxed and turned up at the ends. He brought the buckboard to a halt, then stepped down and walked toward the house in time to see Sefton Duncan come out the door.

  “You might just as well turn around right now and git,” Duncan said. He was a small, slim man with a weathered face where a long, thin gray beard hung.

  “What?” Silsby blurted surprised.

  “I said git!”

  Silsby glanced at the nearest window and saw Mildred’s older sister Stella looking out at him with a smirk on her face.

  “Mildred ain’t going to no dance with you, McCracken,” Duncan said. “Fact of the matter, she ain’t going to no more dances a’tall. So you can forget all about her.”

  Dealing with the angry man was a painful reminder of his father, but Silsby clamped down on his temper. However, he knew that if Duncan laid a hand on him, he’d lose all self-control. Out of consideration for Mildred, that was the last thing he wanted to happen. “I was just gonna take her over to the dance,” he protested. “It’s close by. I won’t keep her out late, Mr. Duncan.”

  “Are you deef? Get the hell off my property!”

  Silsby’s face reddened when he noticed Stella laughing from the window. He turned back to the father. “I’m sorry you feel —”

  “I ain’t telling you again,” Duncan said. “Mildred ain’t never gonna see you no more so drive that damn buckboard the hell out of here.”

  “Is this what Mildred wants?” Silsby asked as he inwardly debated whether to stand his ground or not.

  “I don’t want no trouble with you, McCracken, but I’ll take care of my own. I’m warning you. Clear out!”

  “All right,” Silsby said. He decided his cause would be better served by a polite withdrawal. He swallowed his anger and pride, forcing himself to say, “I didn’t mean to rile you, Mr. Duncan. Honest, I didn’t. Maybe we can talk about this later.”

  “We already talked about it, godamn you!” Duncan snarled. “Now get the hell out of here and stay the hell out of here!”

  Silsby knew he could beat the diminutive Duncan into a piece of whimpering raw meat. For one furious moment he almost leaped on the man, but once more Mildred entered his mind. He feared if he hurt h
er father, the girl would end up hating him.

  Silsby climbed back up on the buckboard, controlling the angry shaking in his hands. He whistled and flipped the reins across the horse’s back as he turned around to retrace his route off the place. After bouncing down the track to the road, he turned toward Kensaw and viciously lashed the horse with the buggy whip. “Get going, you son of a bitch!”

  The horse broke into a trot, and Silsby fought to keep his seat. The physical effort cooled his flaming temper until the passion had subsided to irate irritation and embarrassment. He eased the reins back and once more the horse settled into a steady pace.

  ~*~

  The old man stepped out from his cubbyhole of an office when Silsby drove the buggy up to the livery barn. “Did you forget something, boy?”

  “I didn’t forget shit!” Silsby snapped. “I ain’t gonna be using the buckboard after all.”

  The oldster cracked a toothless grin. “Did your plans for sparking fall through?”

  “What makes you think I was going sparking?” Silsby asked. A sudden, hurtful feeling that perhaps Mildred herself didn’t care to see him again leapt painfully into his consciousness.

  “Well, boy, you’re all dressed up, and church ain’t ‘til tomorry morning,” the elderly liveryman said. “Women is fickle, ain’t they? Why I can recollect when I was near a growed man back in Tennessee. They was this girl by the name of Clara who —”

  “You can keep the money,” Silsby interrupted.

  “Are you sure?” the old man asked, hopefully.

  “I’m positive,” Silsby replied. He stalked over to the stall where he boarded his horse, and set about putting on blanket, saddle, and bridle.

  ~*~

  The dance had not quite started when Silsby arrived. The whiskey and beer were set out, and Charlie Ainsley and Dennis Nettles were already taking their first drinks of the evening. Charlie watched Silsby dismount, and he studied the expression on his friend’s face for a moment as he joined them. “Her ol’ man wouldn’t let her go with you, would he?”