by E A Lake
I started mending again. “No, I hope to get there this summer yet. Might you be going that way?”
A frown covered his formerly happy face. “I’ll never go to Rigby again. Ain’t no Amish person been there recently or going anytime soon. Probably never.”
“Everyone claims it’s a ghost town now. Is that what you’ve heard?”
He shrugged and searched his pockets for a match to relight his pipe.
“Don’t really know,” he answered, drawing a series of pulls from the pipe; a thick plume of blue smoke from his mouth showed his success. “Don’t have no one to ask. No one I trust, at least. Rumors are easy to come by, Mrs. Turner. If Brady went there for a trade, chances are someone is still around Rigby.”
“Do not ask me again!” Sunshine shouted. At me, no less. “I told you I don’t know. But you keep asking and asking, and I keep giving you the same answer. I. Do. Not. Know!”
I understood her frustration, but she needed to understand mine. Somewhere, there was a reason Mr. Lasky had plans for me the next day. I needed to find out what those plans were.
“You must have a guess,” I continued. “You’ve been so tight lipped. Just tell me what you’re thinking.”
She turned to face me. “He’s gonna take advantage of you. He’s gonna do you a favor, and then you two are gonna go wrestle in the brush.” She huffed once. “There, you happy?”
I’m sure my look of surprise wasn’t new to her. “We both know that’s not what it is. He doesn’t need me. He has other women; I’m sure of it.”
She waggled a bent finger in my face. “Need is one thing. Desire… Now that’s a whole different kind of horse. He wants you. I can see it in his eyes. The question is, are you gonna give in?”
I waved her off, returning to the porch. “I should have known better than to ask you.”
I heard her chase after me. “So that’s why for the last two days you been asking and asking? Could have fooled me you didn’t want to know. But come tomorrow, you’re gonna find out, that’s for sure.”
She was right about that at least. One more afternoon and night, and my questions would be answered.
I slept in fits that night, awake almost as much as I slept. But when I slept, I dreamt.
Jeremy Lasky approached me with a bouquet of flowers, bending to one knee. All he wanted in this world was me, he claimed. Only that would make his life complete.
Another dream found us both naked, rolling in a bed in some expensive hotel from the former days. The satin sheets slid beneath us as we made love. And oh, how wonderful it felt to be loved. He was a gentle, kind soul, interested only in my happiness and pleasure.
“Wake up,” I heard from the world outside my dream. “Wake up, Abby.”
In the darkness, I found Sunshine stroking my sweaty cheeks.
“You were dreaming and moaning. Was something bad happening?”
I let out a caught breath, rolling away from her. “I don’t think so, but I really don’t remember.”
If only she knew.
Chapter 31
I was awake shortly after dawn. By the time the water was warm enough for washing, the first rays of morning sun had shot across the horizon. It was going to be a long day. The anticipation of what was to come, especially after my dreams, was killing me.
Sunshine was still asleep as I dressed and prepared for my day. It had struck me that I had no idea what I’d be doing with Mr. Lasky, yet that didn’t matter for my clothing choice. Putting on the cleanest pair of pants I had and a thin faded red-checkered cotton shirt, I made a mental note to ask Mr. Frederickson about getting more of his wife’s homemade laundry soap. My cleanest clothes smelled fairly ripe.
I dug in the dresser for the best pair of socks I could find. That just meant they had the smallest number of holes. Maybe if I used a bit of my newfound credit at the store, I could get Sunshine and myself a couple of new pairs each.
Sitting quietly on the front porch, I waved at an Amish buggy going by, probably headed towards their meeting. I didn’t really understand their religion, their faith in God, or their customs, but I appreciated them almost more than anyone else I’d met here.
Closing my eyes, I said a silent prayer. It made me uncomfortable, praying to a God that I sometimes doubted even existed. But the weight of the day before me, the fear of the unknown, needed to be addressed.
Please protect me. Please keep me alive and unharmed. Please bring my children back to me.
When I opened my eyes, I didn’t feel any better, as if some heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders. But at least the sun was fully up. Just a little while longer, and my fate would come.
Whatever that meant.
Sunshine woke before Mr. Lasky arrived. And she was in one of her moods.
She claimed, wrongly, that I had let her sleep in so that I could sneak off with the man and she wouldn’t see our departure. She also claimed that I had let the fire go out in the kitchen stove so that she’d have to fiddle with it if she wanted any hot water. All unfounded.
She stared at me, tight eyed and tight lipped. “So you’re gonna wear that for your date.”
I shook my head at her. “First off, it’s not a date.” That caused her to grin. “Besides that, you know I don’t have many options for clothes.”
She nodded as if she’d been testing me.
“You nervous?” she asked, studying me with her hand on her chin.
“Terribly.” If nothing, I was honest.
“You gonna do it with him if that’s what he’s after?”
My mouth dropped open. “I highly doubt—”
She cut me off. “Yes or no, Abby. You gonna do it with him?”
I held my tongue for as long as I could. “That depends. If he has news on Sasha and Brady or perhaps a way to shorten Walker’s sentence… I suppose I might.”
Her head tipped slightly right. “And if he wants to do it just for fun?”
“Absolutely not,” I replied sternly. “I’m a married woman—”
“You’re a committed woman,” she retorted. “As far as I know, you and Brady never said no vows in some church somewhere.”
“We consider ourselves husband and wife. That’s good enough for me, Sunshine.”
We stared at one another for several long moments. I noticed her eyes flash toward the back door. “Just saw him ride up. Now’s your time, Abby. Get what you want before he gets what he wants.”
Hugging her tightly, I felt her kiss my cheek. “Just be careful, whatever you do.”
“Sunshine, Mr. Lasky is a gentleman. You know that.”
She straightened the front of my shirt. “Yeah, sure. But most importantly, he’s a man. You remember that.”
We walked hand in hand to the rear porch. When my eyes found him, I gasped.
Chapter 32
“What in the name of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…” Sunshine muttered as we descended the back steps.
I gave Mr. Lasky a shy smile. “What’s this?”
He patted his horse’s neck, rubbing it with his leather-gloved hands. “It’s a horse. Wouldn’t think I’d have to explain that to you.”
I raised my arm and pointed next to him. “No, what’s that?”
Rolling his eyes first, Mr. Lasky shook his head. “That’s a horse, too. I think you need to learn the names of all the animals around here.”
I inched closer. “What’s it for?”
From high above, his eyes bore into mine. “Riding.” His firm answer made sense, just not a lot.
I turned and stared at the riderless pale-brown horse, a little smaller than his, I noticed.
“And where are we going?” I had a right to ask. All of Sunshine’s work up to the event caught up with me in the moment. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.
He leaned forward in his saddle, closer to me. “The same place you bitch about all the time—Rigby.”
For a moment, I didn’t believe what I had heard. “Rigby?” I replied in the form of a stupid question. H
e had said the name plain as day.
He glanced at Sunshine—she was as wide-eyed as me—and then back at me. “Yeah, Rigby.”
Skeptically, trying to quell any enthusiasm I might have, I went back to give Sunshine one last hug. “I’m going to Rigby,” I whispered, fighting back tears.
“About damn time,” she replied, loud enough to bring a smile to Mr. Lasky’s face.
Breaking my embrace, I mounted my horse—with help from Mr. Lasky. “Does Mr. Hulton know what we’re doing today?”
His face held his secrets. “We’ll talk about that along the way. Let’s get going while there’s plenty of sunlight.”
Giving Sunshine a final wave, he and I turned for the road. I was going to Rigby.
I tried to hold my questions in, sensing Mr. Lasky didn’t want to chat all that much. But the first one slipped out while we weren’t even out of sight of the end of my driveway.
“Why?” I asked.
He snorted once before answering. “Because Hulton told me to take you to Rigby. That’s why. Whatever the boss tells me to do, I do.”
His answer shocked me somewhat. But the obvious came from my lips next.
“And how much is this going to cost me?” I asked in a deflated way. “A month per man-hour, still?”
His expression didn’t change. It was as if he hadn’t heard the question.
“Nothing,” he replied plainly.
“But Mr. Hulton said—”
His glare warned me I might be pushing the topic too far.
“Well, Mrs. Hulton told Mr. Hulton that it was the right thing to do.” I had expected his tone to be harsh, brusque. Instead it was more placid, like casual conversation.
“Somehow, he brought it up with her,” he continued, “and she scolded him something good.” He laughed at that part. “Ain’t a man alive that can tell Rickard Hulton what to do. But I know of one woman who don’t have no problem doing so.”
I didn’t understand. I had only met the woman twice, and neither time did I address her directly. Mr. Lasky must have noticed my confusion.
“She ain’t like him—Mrs. Hulton, that is. She’s got a heart the size of a big boulder. Once she hears of someone in need, she usually jumps right in, trying to help that person. She claims it’s the Christian thing to do. I don’t think the boss is much of a Christian, but he’s good at doing what his wife tells him to do.”
“I should thank her personally,” I replied, watching my horse peek at Mr. Lasky’s every few seconds. “It would be the right thing for me to do.”
Next to me, little higher in his saddle, Mr. Lasky chuckled. “In case you never noticed, she’s kind of a shy one. Hell, she never speaks to me directly, hardly looks me in the eye. But I’ll tell the boss to tell her you appreciated her generosity.”
I fidgeted in the saddle. “So I’m not being charged anything for this excursion? All because of the kindness of Mrs. Hulton?”
He nodded several times, turning us left onto a gravel road. The road that led to Rigby.
“Consider it a gift horse,” he replied casually. “And you know what they say about a gift horse.”
Yes, yes I did. And I wasn’t about start looking in this one’s mouth.
Chapter 33
The sun was to our backs. Sweat covered mine, as it did my riding mate’s, I’m sure. An occasional dust devil popped up, spraying dirt and grit into our faces. Aside from the crunching of the gravel beneath the horses’ feet, the only sound I heard was the beating of my heart against my eardrums.
“I noticed your corn still looks like shit,” Mr. Lasky commented, bringing me out of my doldrums.
I sighed before I could catch myself. He looked sideways at me.
“You don’t want to talk?” he asked. “I figured you’d talk nonstop all the way to Rigby.”
“Not about crops,” I begged. “Let’s not talk about farming today. Is that all right with you, Mr. Lasky?”
He nodded slightly. “Jeremy,” he drawled. “Call me Jeremy today. When we’re back in Hulton land and I’m chewing your ass out for whatever reason, you can call me Lasky again.”
That seemed fair. “All right, and you can call me Abby.”
He glanced at me as if that might be a bad idea. Finally, I saw him shrug. “Okay, Abby.”
Progress! I’d made real progress. Not only was I on my way to Rigby—at no charge—but I had also befriended a man I’d only viewed as my adversary before then.
A few more strides from our horses, and I contemplated where to start with the man.
“So, tell me about yourself, Mr.—I mean, Jeremy. Are you from the area originally?”
He looked unhappy about something. My question? No, it was benign.
“I’m almost forty-five years old. I grew up about twenty miles north of here. A little place called Tyler.” He peeked my direction. “Ever hear of it?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m afraid I haven’t. Before here, I lived over south of Saint James. I grew up in—”
“Mankato,” he answered for me. “You grew up in Mankato, and you never heard of Tyler?”
I smiled, hoping he wasn’t as angry with me as he sounded. “I was young when the old world ended. I wasn’t even a teenager yet.”
“Most people call it The Darkness,” he replied in a less angry tone. “I was about to start my last year of college up in Brookings at South Dakota State.”
Now, Brookings I had heard of. “What did you study back then? Do you remember?”
For a moment, he almost looked embarrassed. “It’s not important anymore. Not to me.”
“Come on,” I urged. “We have a long ride together. Let’s be open and honest with one another.”
He glanced at me sideways. I could see him giving in little. “Poetry,” he answered in a whisper.
I’m sure my face looked as though I’d just sucked a lemon. He had to have said something—anything—other than the word I thought he’d said.
“You don’t like poetry?” he asked in a grizzly voice. “I minored in farm studies if that helps.”
I gave him my full attention and my best smile. “I love poetry. I just never thought that’s how you would answer.”
He huffed or fought back a laugh. I couldn’t tell. “We all got secrets, Abby. Some are just more shocking than others.”
I nodded. Truer words were never spoken.
He recited Whitman, Frost, and Dickinson. As far as I knew, he did them well. But as quickly as he began, he stopped. Perhaps he was embarrassed.
We rode for a while longer before I dared another question.
“Why do you work for Mr. Hulton?” I asked, trying to make it sound as if I’d asked if he liked raspberries or not.
“Constant work, well taken care of, good food, decent man,” he answered without much thought. “I know he seemed like a real hard-ass, but he’s a decent fellow, once you get to know him.”
Decent wasn’t a word that I would have used to describe a man who offered me help in return for a two-year contract enslaving my son. Maybe manipulative or opportunistic were more apt words.
“You didn’t have to agree to his terms with your boy,” he added as if able to read my thoughts.
“We would have starved,” I answered bluntly. “I had no choice.”
He chuckled. “You always have choices. Just sometimes, there’s not a good one to be had. Luke is well taken care of at the ranch… Walker, as you call him.”
“I’m not sure I relish the thought of him being involved in some of the activity over there.” I glanced sideways to see if he was listening or grinning. “I know for a fact Mr. Hulton brings in women to entertain some of the single men. I don’t appreciate that.”
When I glanced a second time, he was grinning, broadly. “Luke’s too young to take part in any of that. Mr. Hulton makes sure the younger lads don’t necessarily see what’s going on.”
That was good to know if it was the truth. “Do you?” I asked. “Take part in the women
.”
He simply nodded, his eyes boring a hole in the road beneath him.
“Can I ask you something?” I wasn’t sure I had the courage for the next question, but I wanted the topic out in the open.
He nodded once.
“Are you expecting something from me when this is over, Mr. Lasky? Are there favors to be had, in your mind?”
He sighed first and then shook his head. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn I just hurt his feelings.
“I ain’t like that,” he muttered. “I don’t take advantage of people like that. Hulton don’t even do things like that.”
He sounded upset. Time for backtracking.
“I wasn’t insinuating—”
“Oh yes you were,” he grumbled.
My face fell, and I stared at the horse’s mane. I was, wasn’t I?
“I got a few questions for you,” he stated. From his voice, I knew he was looking at me. I wondered what he wanted to know… or perhaps already knew.
Chapter 34
We rode a few more strides before I peeked in his direction and nodded.
“About six, seven, maybe eight years ago, you and your first husband were attacked, right?”
My heart sank. He knew my past.
“Broad daylight, the story goes,” he added. “They killed your husband, took you right in the driveway like a bunch of wild animals. Made Luke watch.”
Breaths came hard and shallow. “Something like that.”
“Threw you on the road all battered and beat up, gave you just enough clothing to cover up and nothing more.”
I nodded slowly. “And you know this how?” I asked quietly.
“Hulton knows everything,” he replied, sounding more civil than I had expected. “If Hulton knows, I know. Let me ask you, do you worry about that happening again?”
The most stupid question I’d ever heard was set upon me. How could two women living alone not worry about such a thing?
