by Maren Smith
Kylie and Robert exchanged looks.
“Come on, buddy,” Robert patted his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Braden shook his head and kept right on rocking.
“How about you come home with us for a while?” Kylie suggested, ignoring the slightly startled look that crossed Robert’s face. “Just until your mom gets out of the hospital. I’ve got a lot of baking to do, and I could sure use someone strong to help me.”
Braden rocked a few more times, then slowed and finally stopped. He raised his head, blinking once as he focused on her. “Are you baking pies?”
“I am baking tons and tons of pies,” she affirmed, and held out her hand to take his. “And not just pies, I’ve got a million pounds of fruit in my living room just begging to be canned. I don’t know how I’m going to manage it all by myself.”
Wasn’t that the truth! She tried hard not to think about it.
Braden held himself still for a very long time, before hesitantly reaching up to take her hand. “I can taste test,” he finally offered. “I’m pretty good at that.”
“See? You’re being a help already. That’s one less job for me to do.”
With Robert on one side of him and Kylie on the other, they left the hospital, sometimes leading and sometimes prodding Braden to follow whenever he paused to look behind him. Kylie sat sideways on the front seat, her arm hanging over the back so she could continue holding onto Braden’s hand while he waved goodbye to the building.
“We’re coming back tomorrow, right?” he asked, fat tears rolling down his square face. The mind of a child in the body of a grown man; it was still disconcerting to see him cry.
“Every day,” Robert promised without hesitation. “Until we bring her home again.”
He was such a good man, Kylie thought again as she watched him drive. She squeezed Braden’s hand and sighed, not quite regretting the rash impulse that had spurred her to invite the disabled man to come live them—now of all times, when she had so much to do—but certainly wondering where she was supposed to find the time, strength and energy to take care of him now on top of everything else. She’d better find it somewhere, she told herself. Because the last thing she wanted to do later on tonight, when the house grew dark and still, was to confront that ugly little part of herself that would inevitably wonder which had been the bigger mistake: the job they had committed themselves to with the Diner and all the other townsfolk, who had go generous donated fruit, equipment and time, or Braden, who truly needed help from somebody and who once more sat in the backseat of the truck, hugging himself, rocking and crying.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Every window in the house as well as both front and back doors had been thrown open wide to let in as much cooling breeze as possible, and still Kylie was dripping with sweat. She wasn’t the only one either. Maybelle looked just as frazzled, just as miserable, and just as determined to enjoy this brief moment of respite as they collapsed side-by-side on the sofa to rest.
Both the stove and oven had been running all day and the dining room table was heavily laden with the end result of their labors: row upon rainbow-colored row of pint and quart jars, each one gradually sealing as they cooled. They had over one hundred bottles of assorted strawberry, raspberry, gooseberry and blueberry jams; plum, apple and peach jellies; thick peach slices, dark red cherries and pale sweet pears, each preserved in syrups of their own juices. There were eleven pies and seven cobblers, thirty-six giant cinnamon rolls with raisons and twenty without, and enough frosting drizzled fruit pastries to feed a small army. She’d even tried her hand at making coffee cake and fruit bars that were rolled in a chewy oatmeal cookie-type exterior. She didn’t know how successful those would be, but Maybelle’s kids sure seemed to like them.
Out on the front porch, Braden was supervising the four younger ones in the fine arts of peeling, washing and pitting the various fruits that Kylie would need to can tomorrow. And standing knee deep in sticky pots, pans and cookie sheets, Maybelle’s oldest daughter, Sarah, was studiously scrubbing the dishes clean under the ebb and flow of the yard pump.
“Is that the last of it?” Robert asked, poking his head in through the front doorway to look at them. He looked every bit as tired as Kylie felt, and she didn’t blame him. Not only had he slung fruit with the best of them, hauling crates and buckets from porch to living room and living room to kitchen sink, but it had taken over an hour just to load their first delivery for Billy’s Diner into the back of the Woody wagon. He must have a knot in his back at least as big as the one Kylie was nursing beneath her own gently massaging fingers.
She hoped all this was worth it.
Groaning as she stood, she went back to check the table one last time. Everything that had sealed had been neatly labeled and sent out to the truck already, and she nodded. “That’s it.”
“All right.” Robert tapped his hand against the threshold. “Braden and I will be back in about an hour.” He waved at Maybelle. “Thanks a bunch, May. By all means, take as much of this home with you as you want.”
The kids on the porch cheered, and so then did Braden, although it was clear by his expression that, while he was excited that everyone else seemed so happy, he had no idea what he was cheering for.
“Come on, buddy,” Robert called, and like a well-heeled puppy, Braden put down what he was doing and trotted after him.
“Thanks, Bobby,” Maybelle chuckled for his benefit, but waited until his footsteps had retreated off the porch and they heard the rumble of the truck as it headed for the road. Then she leaned sideways toward Kylie and asked, “Is he serious?”
“He’s a man,” Kylie excused. They had sampled every pot of jam and taste-tested each batch of pastries as they came out of the oven; she didn’t think either one of them would ever eat another sweet for as long as they lived. Or at the very least, for as long as this venture lasted.
Sinking down to rest at the table, she looked over the array of bottles again, growing thoughtful as she considered her favorite jam, one of the few flavors they hadn’t canned today. “Do you know where Mac Granger lives?”
Maybelle started slightly, looking at her out of the corner of her eyes as she said, rather guardedly, “Yes. Why?”
“Could I walk there from here?”
“You don’t want to go there,” she said flatly. “Nobody wants to go there. The postman won’t go—the door-to-door salesmen won’t even go there! The man’s a lunatic.”
“Robert says he’s got more blackberries than anyplace else and later on he might have pumpkins. We’ll be coming up on Thanksgiving soon. Imagine the sales we could do in pumpkin pies.”
“Did Bobby happen to mention he’s got a Winchester rifle and really good aim?” Maybelle emphasized her statement with a serious nod and a wave of one hand. “There’s other places you can go for blackberries. There’s bushes here and there all right on the roadside so you won’t have to ask anyone’s permission, and nobody needs pumpkin pie that badly. The best fishing hole in the county lies out behind Granger’s place, and every one of my boys know I’ll take a layer off their hides if they even think about taking their poles out that way. I guarantee, you set one foot on that ol’ coot’s property and you’ll be ducking buckshot all the way back to the car!”
Having a hard time imagining anyone that irrational, Kylie almost laughed. “Everybody around here stands to make a little money off of this venture. We’ve talked to the owners of every orchard, berry bush and nut tree within fifteen miles in every direction, except for him. Blackberries won’t be in season forever. The more time we waste running from place to place, picking half a bucket here and half there, is less time spent pouring jam into bottles. Now, I don’t want to do anything dangerous…”
The other woman laughed sharply. “Then don’t go out there!”
“But,” Kylie stubbornly continued, “I’m going out there. You don’t have to come with me, just tell me where it is so I’m not wandering the countryside aimless fro
m now until midnight. My feet hurt enough as it is.”
Maybelle caught her breath, holding it as she stared at Kylie, as if trying to gauge her determination. In the end, her mouth tightened and she blew the breath out in a huff of annoyance. “Oh, all right. I’ll take you. But I think Bobby’s going to have a thing or two to say to us both when he finds out.”
“I can take care of myself,” Kylie breezed, disregarding that with a wave of her hand. “Robert knows that.”
Maybelle snorted again.
Once the clean pans were put away and the fruit was put up, the kids piled into the back of Maybelle’s old car and Kylie climbed into the front. Back into town they went, with Kylie looking for Robert’s old Woody wagon in every other vehicle they encountered all the way to the stop sign.
Once in town, instead of turning right toward the Diner, they headed left and drove until the very last building on the outskirts of Buckeye was well behind them. Orchards gave way to fields, and those eventually gave way to real trees, growing in a line along both sides of the road, a stretch of green surrounded by waves of tall, golden grass. The road became a bridge crossing over a wide stream. Mac Granger’s driveway was just beyond that and to the right. Maybelle did not turn into it but pulled the car to a stop alongside the road and looked at Kylie.
“I’ll wait here,” she said reluctantly, and by way of farewell added, “Keep your head down and try not to look too much like a target.”
“I’ll be fine,” Kylie said, smiling as she got out of the car. Nobody that she left behind seemed convinced. Not one of the kids piled into the back so much as cracked a smile, although two grimly waved farewell as she started walking down the dirt and rock-strewn driveway.
Past rainfall had washed deep ruts into the hard-packed earth, and she almost twisted her ankle when she stepped sideways in one because she was paying more attention to spotting Mac Granger’s house through the trees (hopefully before he spotted her) than she was to where she was walking. More of a shack than a house, as she rounded a small hill it rose up out of the grass, squat and weathered, a dull brown that matched the craggy trunks of the surrounding trees and no larger than a single room required, maybe two.
The old man himself was on the front porch in his rocking chair, his rifle leaned up against the screen door and within an easy arm’s reach. His hands were folded over his stomach, his head was tipped against the back of the chair, and he was snoring. Loudly. Kylie’s courage faltered then, and she stopped in the driveway roughly fifty yards from him. As she listened to his snores, she found herself debating the pros and cons of hailing him from here or perhaps daring to leave the potential shelter of that short hill where she might find just enough shelter to duck behind should he come up out of his nap with an itchy trigger finger.
This was silly. She hadn’t been this nervous about meeting anyone else.
Kylie crept toward him, her footsteps making only the softest whisper of sound as she left the hard-packed dirt of the driveway to walk in the grass. Step by step, the distance between them grew smaller until she found herself standing at the base of the porch. All she had to do was reach out her hand, take the toe of his crossed boots between two fingers and shake him awake. She didn’t. After a moment of uncertain contemplation, she tiptoed up onto the porch, sneaking right up beside the rocking chair as she reached for that rifle instead.
Exactly what she was going to do with it, she didn’t have any clear idea. To get it out of his easy reach, certainly. She might be able to figure out how to unload it. At the very least, she ought to throw it out into the grass so, if he proved less interested in listening to her proposal than in simply opening fire, she could make a run for Maybelle’s car while he was left firing nothing more dangerous than curses and searching the overgrowth for his rifle.
However, no sooner had her fingers closed around the business tip of the rifle than did his long, rattling snores abruptly cease. Kylie jumped when his eyes snapped open, the blue rheumy pupils fixed and focused on her. His jaw dropped and for a moment they stared at one another. For the span of three incredibly long and yet so very brief seconds, they were utterly immobile. Then they both erupted into motion: he jumping up from his chair and she leaping backwards, her hand still clutching the rifle’s muzzle, drawing it up against her chest as if it were a shield instead of a weapon.
“Oh shit!” she gasped.
He startled and then sat down again, leaning tensely forward, clearing his throat with a snarling roar before barking, “Where’d you come from?”
Her heart was racing, beating at her ribs with bruising intensity, and when she opened her mouth to introduce herself, as she had done at every neighboring farm that bordered Buckeye’s jurisdiction, what came tumbling out of her was nothing less than pure babble. “I’m so terribly sorry to bother—It’s just that I—Everybody—My name—”
A flash of irritation cut across his face, abruptly displacing his sleepy confusion. “I know who you are. The Appleby girl. You only been talkin’ to everybody in the county. What, you think I don’t have ears? Who cares what your name is, and that’s not what I asked you anyway! Where’d you come from, girl? How’d you get here?”
Kylie pointed back down the driveway the way she’d come. “That way. I walked.”
His craggy eyes followed the direction of her slightly trembling finger, and then traced back across her to settle on her other hand, still clutching the tip of his rifle muzzle. His wrinkles deepened with even more irritation and he reached back to snatch his rifle out of her grip. “What the hell’s wrong with you! Layin’ hand on a man’s guns.”
Run, her brain screamed as he yanked the weapon out of her reach, but her feet remained rooted to the porch.
He switched the rifle to his other hand and, still glaring fiercely, lay it on the floor on the opposite side of his chair. Gradually, his hands returned his lap, and Kylie could breathe again.
“Well?” he grumbled. “Spit it out, then. You been talkin’ sales and profits to everybody else around, so say what you come to already. What’s the deal?”
Kylie had given this spiel a dozen times, and yet with him staring at her with that irritated frown and the rifle lying at his feet, suddenly she couldn’t think of one word to say. She swallowed twice. “I, uh…was wondering…”
“You want to pick the blackberries off my back lot,” he prodded, either taking pity on her or suspecting if he didn’t help her get through this they might well be out here all day. Probably the latter, considering he rolled his eyes as he impatiently gestured for her to hurry up and talk already.
“Yes, blackberries.” Kylie latched onto the word, giving herself a stern mental shake in the process. “We, uh…” Determined not to even think about the rifle, she fixed her eyes on his face and didn’t so much as blink. “We’ve started up a new venture, Mr. Granger. And, uh, we were wondering if you’d like to be a, uh, part of it. See, we, um…don’t know if we’ll be successful or how much we might make doing it, but we can pay twenty cents a bucket…”
“Twenty cents, ha!” the old man spat, his eyes narrowing shrewdly. “I’ll let ‘em rot for that. A dollar.”
“Don’t be absurd!” The words were out before Kylie quite registered the shock of his price. As his frown deepened, one hand drifted over the arm of his rocking chair, not reaching for as much as moving closer to the rifle. In a much softer and more respectful tone, she added, “We can’t afford a dollar. We’d be paying you more than we make selling the jam.”
“Your problem, not mine.” But his eyes narrowed still more, speculative as he looked her over. “Ninety cents, then.”
“Twenty-five,” she countered. She’d never had to barter before. Robert had set what he said was a fair price and everyone else they had spoken had seemed grateful to get it.
Granger, on the other hand, was neither pleased nor grateful, and he wasn’t backing down. “Eighty-five, or you can get the hell off my land.”
Kylie stared at him, a b
rief fury of a debate raging silently in her head. She could make blackberry pie and cobbler, jam and syrup, but one bucket didn’t go far enough for them to recoup the loss of having to pay one cantankerous old man eighty-five cents per. She turned to go, descending the front porch steps in defeat. She should have waited until Friday and let Robert talk the old man down. Maybe he would have taken twenty cents if it were only a man doing the offering. Surely a dollar for a bucket of blackberries was way too much. He had to be taking advantage of her, maybe because he didn’t think she’d know any better.
The thought of that actually made her mad enough to stop just two steps off the porch. She faced him again, and although he had the rifle lying across his lap now, this time the tremor in her voice had nothing to do with intimidation.
“My price is twenty-five cents a bucket,” she told him flatly. “You can either take it and make a little money or gain nothing and, fine, we’ll just let the damn things rot!”
His eyebrows flashed upward at the curse, but then a corner of his mouth grudgingly curled into a smile. “Guess there’s some fight in you after all, eh? Fine. Fifty cents a bucket.”
Kylie snapped around without a word and started walking back down the long and winding driveway. Hopefully, Maybelle was still waiting in her car.
On the porch behind her, the old man started laughing. “All right, all right. Twenty-five cents a pound.”
“A bucket!” she snapped back and kept right on walking. She was nearly completely behind the short, grassy hill and out of sight of the house when he finally relented.
“You win, Appleby!” He called after her. At that point, she was mad enough that she didn’t bother stopping, not even to acknowledge his capitulation. He didn’t seem to mind that she just kept going; he simply raised his voice and shouted even louder, “You come back when you’re ready to do some pickin’. I’ll show you where the best bunch grow!”
