Softly Falling

by Carla Kelly

  “I asked Mr. Buxton to let Luella stay with you during the week.” He leaned closer to whisper, “It’s not good there at the Buxtons.”

  Lily nodded, her eyes on her students.

  “It’s not good for you to be alone, either. Stuff can fester if there’s only you.”

  She turned to look at him then, and her lips were so close to his that they both backed up. Chantal giggled, and he felt his face turn into a flame. He took her farther into the corner of the small front room.

  “I’m not doing this right, but I never should have done what I did a few nights ago.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself about that, Jack,” she whispered, back. “Please don’t.” She chuckled. “Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on or maybe a lap. Go on, now, it’s time for class.”

  She followed him out the door and closed it behind her. The sky was so blue and crackling cold and the snow so bright that he winced, thinking of the frigid day ahead.

  He stood there, wanting to say more, but unsure of what would be right. And while he wondered, Lily kissed his cheek and hurried back inside.

  CHAPTER 38

  Thanksgiving was going to be just another day on the calendar, even though Lily’s children introduced her to pilgrims and turkey and starving times. In turn, she told them about Harvest Home festivals in England, and sugar cane harvests in Barbados. Trouble was, this turned everyone’s thoughts to food, so the day before Thanksgiving was not a profitable one in the Temple of Education as snow flew outside.

  “Rolls with butter,” Luella said, and Chantal sighed.

  “Turkey, for sure,” Nick said.

  “Pumpkin pie with rum sauce,” Amelie added. “What about you, Miss Carteret?”

  What about me? Lily thought. I crave trifle and three kinds of cake and marzipan. “I have enough right now,” she said, and correctly interpreted the skeptical looks from four children. “I do!”

  Strangely, she did, and so she told Jack that night when he came over to sit with her, as he did every night, now that Luella was here. She didn’t question his presence any more, understanding that he felt comfortable to be with her as long as they weren’t alone. Son of a tenant farmer, he had remarked to her more than once that he was no gentleman, except that he was. Sometimes he said very little while she helped Luella with her more advanced studies, and then shooed the child off to bed with a trusty iron pig wrapped in a towel that was getting singed in the middle.

  “Miss Carteret does this so when she comes to bed, there will be a warm spot for her,” Luella solemnly announced one night, which made Jack smile.

  He didn’t laugh any more. Sometimes Lily thought he only smiled because she expected it of him. When the door was closed, she sat beside him and continued reading Ivanhoe out loud, stopping now and then to make him read a few stumbling sentences. Hard to imagine that someone could break into a sweat in such a cold room, all from reading, but he did.

  She noticed how it relaxed him when she read, so she read more and more each night. She read to everyone during dinner each night in the dining room, then read the same chapters again with Jack alone. She had suggested that they start another book, but he shook his head at that.

  “I think we need to ration our books,” he told her. “It’s going to be a long winter.”

  She wasn’t even sure he heard anything when she read, because his eyes were either closed, or they were open as he stared at the wall, miles away in his mind. His eyes were closed tonight, so she stopped reading, set the book aside, and just rested her head on his shoulder.

  He started and opened his eyes, then slowly put his arm around her. After an hour, he got up, went through the process of piling on two shapeless sweaters, his coat, mittens, muffler, and hat, and then left without a word. It took the cold to finally drive her to bed that night, long after she should have been asleep.

  Thanksgiving Day blew in with snow. As Lily stood at the obscured window and shivered, she wondered at her foolishness in thinking the snow beautiful. The days when she had enjoyed the sight of it softly falling seemed to belong to another century.

  Everyone had already agreed to wait until noon to eat their usual roast and beans, so Lily and Luella munched on crackers at the house and Luella drew turkeys and pilgrims on a strip of building tape.

  “I’ll run it down the center of the table,” she said. “That will make the roast special.”

  There had been no word from the Buxtons that Luella was to join them in their house for Thanksgiving, and the child never mentioned it. Lily sat close and watched Luella draw, remembering her own loneliness. There hadn’t been a Miss Carteret for her.

  “Might I draw too?” she asked, and Luella handed her a pencil. Together they finished the runner, rolled it up, and were bundled up when Jack knocked on the door for them.

  “Hang tight onto the rope,” he shouted over the roar of the wind.

  Slowly, hand over hand on the rope, they made their way to the cookshack, each step harder than the last until Lily, exhausted from the effort, wanted to turn around and crawl back in her bed. She could pull up the covers and wait for spring.

  When she thought she couldn’t manage another step, the door opened and welcoming hands pulled them inside.

  Lily let Chantal and Amelie unwind her muffler and help her from her coat. As she grew accustomed to the relative warmth, she sniffed the air. Oh, it couldn’t be. She sniffed again, then looked around in amazement.

  Madeleine had scrounged up a tablecloth from some dark recess. It covered the longer table that was set with the usual steel utensils and thick china plates. A great slab of pork rested on her largest platter, flanked on each side by the usual beans, and applesauce made from dried apples and spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg.

  Lily stared and came closer. She knew her eyes had to be playing tricks, but there it was, pork with crackling bits of fat. She looked at the men of the Bar Dot, who were all smiles. “Where in the world did this come from?” she asked.

  “The Lord giveth,” Preacher said.

  “Come now,” she said, and he gave her a wounded look. “Pigs just don’t drop out of the sky!”

  Even Jack had to laugh. “We came across this pig last week, trudging along with some cattle.”

  “Whose cattle?” she asked.

  “Someone’s,” Pierre said vaguely. “And wouldn’t you know, Monsieur le Cochon stopped right in front of my horse. What was I to do?”

  “Ask around, I hope,” Lily said as she came closer and breathed in the fragrance. Steam rose from the mound of pork. But don’t ask too hard, she thought, delighted.

  “I did ask around,” Pierre insisted. He took her arm and guided her to the bench.

  “Really?”

  “He did,” Jack assured her with a straight face. “I was there and heard it all. Pierre stood in the middle of the pasture, looked around, cupped his hand to his mouth, and whispered, ‘Anyone belong to this pig?’ We didn’t hear a thing.” He drew in a deep lungful of fragrance. “We couldn’t just leave it there all friendless. Happy Thanksgiving, Lily. Let’s have a better one next year.”

  Lily tried unsuccessfully to wipe the corner of her mouth without being noticed. She dabbed at her eyes with even less success. Madeleine beamed at her from the doorway to the kitchen. Lily looked around at her friends and her students, feeling more blessed than at any time in her life.

  “Wait.” Luella held up her hand and unrolled the Thanksgiving table runner she and Lily had made. She stepped back, pleased.

  “I really think someone should ask a blessing,” Lily said.

  Jack gestured to Preacher. Touched, Lily noticed that Jack wore a white shirt, instead of the two wool shirts she had seen him in for the last month since the first blizzard. In fact everyone had put on clean shirts.

  Preacher stepped forward until he stood right in front of the pork. His eyes grew serious, and he took him time looking at each one of them. “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly
thankful. Amen. I never meant anything more,” he concluded simply.

  With a scraping of benches, they all sat down except Madeleine, who darted into the kitchen and returned with nine biscuits, small, to be sure, but biscuits. Lily watched the Sansever children eye the fluffy bits of goodness with their light brown tops. She knew there wasn’t any butter, but there suddenly Madeleine whipped out a little lump of yellow heaven from behind her back.

  “I’ve been saving it.” She handed the plate with the biscuits to Chantal. “Take one, mon cherie.”

  Chantal shook her head and passed on the plate. Amelie did the same, and then Luella, even though her eyes lingered on the biscuits. Jack held up his hand.

  “That’s enough,” he said, his voice firm. “There are nine biscuits and each of you is eating one. Start over, Chantal.”

  She did, gave him a grin, and sent the plate around until it was empty. The beans went around next and then the pork, luscious slabs of pork, heavenly and greasy.

  “Shouldn’t we save some of it?” Luella asked, doubtful.

  “Not today,” Jack said. “I sent Will over to the Buxtons with a nice share for their table. Madeleine saved the bones and marrow to flavor our beans this week. We’re going to stuff ourselves until it’s gone, and I won’t have an argument.”

  It was quietly said. Lily wondered if he ever raised his voice and decided it wasn’t necessary. Leaders were like that, she decided as she took her tiny share of the butter, doled it onto the little biscuit, and then turned her attention to the pork. She ate the fat first, hungry for it, aware that the beef they had been eating, while plentiful, had been lean with no fat. She hadn’t realized how much she craved fat until it was there before her on her plate. The others did the same thing, then, in near silence, they demolished the pig that had appeared from nowhere.

  When everyone sat there, stunned, Madeleine handed around the applesauce, which vanished too, settling inside on top of Thanksgiving pork.

  “I told Preacher he could have a minute with a little Holy Writ,” Jack said. “Preacher?”

  The young man from Alabama took out his Bible. “There are lots of verses about Thanksgiving, but this is the one we need.” He cleared his throat, and spoke with some command, maybe remembering an earlier pulpit. “It’s from Thessalonians, one of Paul’s letters. ‘Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks.’ ” He shut the Bible and looked at Jack. “Sir, I thought maybe each of us could go around the table and mention one thing we’re thankful for.”

  “Good idea. You start, Wally.”

  Preacher grinned at him. “You haven’t used my name in a long time.”

  “It’s your name.”

  Preacher nodded. He started to speak, but the wind picked up suddenly, as if trying to remind them that all wasn’t well, not by a long shot. “Christ could calm the wind,” he said wistfully. He looked at the table, every bowl and plate clean. “I was going to say I’m thankful for food, but I’m mostly thankful for all of you.”

  Lily swallowed the lump in her throat. She thought of the fancy dinners at her uncle’s manor, the ones she had been invited to attend, and all the courses picked over, a bite here and there, and then returned to the kitchen. She had never wondered where that leftover food had ended up, but now she did. One of those fancy dinners would have fed them for a week.

  She felt the lump grow as she remembered crackers and dried cheese with her father, and wondered if he thought of her this day. Her heart went to the Little Man of the Prairie and his bits of seed and grass. She glanced at Francis, who had eaten his own pork and sat in the doorway between kitchen and dining room, cleaning his face.

  “I’m thankful for friends too,” Pierre was saying now. He fingered the medicine bag around his neck. “Are we all going to be boring and say the same thing?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “I have something else,” Luella said, blushing a little when everyone turned to look at her. Lily had brushed her hair into soft pigtails, the tight braids a thing of the past. “I am thankful for the Temple of Education.”

  “Oh,” Lily said, swallowing a bigger lump than pork.

  “And Ivanhoe,” Jack chimed in, which made her suddenly feel the need to examine her fingernails.

  “My children,” from Madeleine as she reached for them.

  “Plans,” Lily said, which made Jack smile and give her a slow wink.

  The door banged open, and Will Buxton stood there. He shut the door and leaned against it, as though trying to barricade them from the world outside.

  “I . . . we thought you’d be at the Buxtons’ all afternoon,” Jack said. “I hope you ate.”

  “I did, but I’d rather be here. Is there room?”

  Preacher moved closer to Pierre. “Here you are, friend.”

  Will looked up at that, gratified. He sat right in the middle of the bench, not on the edge or the outside. He breathed a long sigh of something that sounded like relief, and Lily was thankful she had not been invited to the Buxtons’ for dinner.

  Chantal cleared her throat and looked at Lily. “Now?” she asked.

  Lily nodded. The children got up and stood close together. Lily looked into each dear face: Nick so reluctant at first, but Nick, her hero at the woodpile. Luella, probably bearing more burdens than any of them, but stalwart. Chantal, so sweet and lively, but who drew a gravestone on her March winter count. Amelie, so quiet, but with heart, depth, and grit that Lily was only beginning to understand. They were her students, her children, her comrades in the classroom. Somewhere deep in her heart she knew that they would never learn as much from her as she had learned from them. She nodded again and gave them a note.

  “ ‘Come, ye thankful people, come. Raise the song of harvest home,’ ” they sang, each line centuries old and cherished, but never sung with more meaning than right now, on this isolated ranch in the middle of something that could yet prove greater than them all. “ ‘All is safely gathered in, e’er the winter storms begin.’ ”

  The wind roared and slammed against the building and their voices rose to meet the challenge. “ ‘God, our maker, doth provide, for our wants to be supplied.’ ” Pierre’s pork, Madeleine’s little bit of hidden butter. “ ‘Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.’ ”

  CHAPTER 39

  The pattern of riding and hunting for lost cattle did not take the holiday season into account, but Jack had known it would not. As he shivered and swore and forced himself to endure endless days in the saddle, he thought of earlier years when he was learning his trade and was cut loose to ride the humiliating grubline. As bad as this was, he wasn’t begging at ranch houses for food in exchange for chores or wondering if his horse could hold out too.

  Besides, there was Lily to ride home to, even if she didn’t know it. The night he had dropped to his knees and cried out his heart with his head in her lap hadn’t furnished sufficient humiliation for him to stop seeing her. He couldn’t stop. There was something about her serenity, even in this terrible time, that drew him like a filing to a magnet.

  He knew roughly when Luella went to bed. He tried to show up a little before, because Luella always gave him a hearty greeting. In her bossy way, she would take his hand and make him sit beside her on the bench in his former front room, the room that had now become the Temple of Education. She’d put one of her books in front of him and demand that he read to her.

  “Just a sentence or two” became “just a paragraph now,” and then as December neared its middle, “Just this one page.” His halting efforts became fewer as he came to understand words and sentences. He finally reached the night when the story itself began to make infinite sense. Everything started to string together, and he discovered the fun of reading.

  “Say, Lily,” he had said, looking over Luella’s head to the lovely brown lady who usually sat on his sprung sofa, her feet tucked under her, because she was always cold, this daughter of Barbados. “I think I like this.”
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  “Of course you do. Luella has graciously let us borrow more of her books. Tomorrow we will begin Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with the Circus.”

  Once Luella was in bed, tucked in with a prayer, a hug, and then another hug—something he doubted that her own mother ever provided—Lily came back to his sofa, picked up Ivanhoe, and began where they had left off.

  She tried to get him to read, now that she knew he could, but he refused. They nearly had an argument over that, and he knew what she looked like when displeased: lips twisted to one side and eyes small. He explained to her why she was to read Ivanhoe, and the look disappeared.

  “That’s it,” he concluded with a touch—just a touch—of his foreman’s voice. “Your English accent is the best part of my day. I want to hear it. I sound like a Georgia cracker. You sound like a queen of England. Trust me; it’s better.”

  She had glared at him but succumbed. “It’s just the way I talk.”

  “I know, I know. That’s what I want.” He folded his arms and waited for her to capitulate, which she did, after tapping him on the head with the book.

  She could always tell when the day had been so bad that not even her voice as she read could take away his pain. Then she would stop reading, put in the bookmark, and set the book aside. “Tell me what happened,” she said, and he did, usually in fits and starts, and then with an outpouring of his exhaustion, sorrow, and true pain, about watching animals suffer and having no way to prevent it.

  He told her about watching cattle wander and die against the drift fences that were supposed to contain the majority of the district’s cattle. “We ride the fence on a normal winter, and chivvy them back,” he said, taking a running jump before leaping into the horrors of the day. “Different ranches send different hands. We usually ride with the LC, since they’re closest.”