by Mysti Parker
“What the—?”
“Ain’t she a beaut?” Harry said in a drawling shout. “Told ya I’d do right by this one.”
Harry slid out of the saddle and stumbled when his feet hit the ground. Beau righted himself from the near miss and threw a nasty scowl at him. He couldn’t waste time preaching to that fool. Instead, he decided to pay mind to the more important business at hand.
“Easy girl,” he said, rubbing her neck and holding her head steady.
She was a nice one at first glance, looked to be a Morgan, with a glossy black-brown coat. Even in the subdued light of the stable, he could see her fit muscle tone and ribcage expanding with steady breaths. Already, she had lowered her head to a relaxed, level angle. Though aware of him and her unfamiliar surroundings, she didn’t act overly concerned.
Getting a feel of her withers, he asked, “How much?”
“Fifty.”
“Got the bill of sale?”
Harry pulled out a half-crumpled piece of paper from inside his vest. “Want me to record it?”
Beau snatched it from him. “You’re in no state to record anything. How much did you take this time?”
“Oh come on, Beau, see?” Harry started hopping up and down, rather unsteadily, on his bad leg. “It helps.”
Something fell from his vest to the ground. Both of them dove for it, but Beau reached it first. It was a green velvet box, oblong like an eyeglass case, and rubbed bare near the opening. Harry grabbed at it as Beau stood back up, but he missed and fell to his knees. Beau opened the box — and sure enough — there lay the syringe, all broken down and tucked into grooves that fit each piece perfectly. He’d seen the evidence on Harry’s arms, but had never actually seen the device in question until now.
“This shit is going to kill you,” Beau said, closing the case with a snap.
Harry sat up on the ground, hugging his knees and laughing. “Kill me? Hell, it’s the only thing keeping me alive.”
Beau jutted the case at him. “I didn’t drag your wounded ass out of Allatoona for you to come back home and kill yourself.”
“I bring you a filly, and a fine one I might add, and this is the thanks I get?”
“Yes, you’re right. Why not down a shot or two of whiskey for your bonus?”
“Not a bad idea!”
Clenching his mouth shut before he said things he would regret, Beau took the reins and led the filly toward the door.
“You know,” Harry hollered after him, “a little morph might keep those nightmares of yours at bay.”
Beau paused; he didn’t look back, but his fist gripped the reins so tight it hurt.
“I hear you sometimes,” Harry said as he got to his feet. “I hear you thrashing around, calling Claire’s name. The dreams are coming more often, aren’t they? How long has it been since you’ve had a good night’s sleep?”
“It’s none of your damn business,” Beau growled and strode out of the stable with the filly trotting along behind him.
“You better get some rest,” Harry yelled. “How you gonna bed Lydia Clemons if you’re too tired to get it up?”
Beau silently appealed to God and any other deities that might be listening to help him refrain from beating the shit out of Harry. He wasn’t sure what was worse — sleepless nights, Harry’s drug-induced stupidity, or knowing Claire’s not-so-little cousin would arrive within the week.
~~~~
Portia unfastened the clothespins on a pair of work pants. For laundry, it couldn’t have been a better day. The warm spring breeze made the clothes dance on the line and carried the smell of crisp linens and fresh-cut grass. She dropped the pins in a flour sack pouch that hung between her and Bessie.
The two of them had worked in pleasant silence for the last half hour, until Portia felt Bessie’s eyes on her. “What is it?”
“How old was she? Your daughter?”
The mere mention of Abby sent a shiver down Portia’s spine. For a split second, it was Christmas all over again. She lay crumpled on the frozen ground between Jake’s and Abby’s gravestones, numb from cold and praying that God would take her now, please… And then Frank and Ellen were there, standing over her while she thawed by their hearth. They’d saved her from freezing to death. But what they hadn’t known — or rather, never brought up — is that she hadn’t wanted to be saved.
She finally extracted the answer from the shallow grave of her memory. Her voice shook like her body had on that frozen ground. “She was two.”
“I’m sorry. It ain’t right, children dyin’ before we do.”
Portia tilted her head back, eyes closed, letting the sun return her to the perfection of a warm spring afternoon.
“Are you all right?” Bessie asked.
“I’m fine,” Portia said, trying to cover her lie with a smile. “Is this all the laundry?”
Though her face bore worried wrinkles, Bessie looked down at the full laundry basket and nodded. “Didn’t take long with both of us tending to it.”
“Many hands make light work.”
“Mm-hmm. If you can go put those away, I’ll start supper early. I know them men’s gotta be hungry. The things on top are Beau’s, the ones on the bottom are Jonny’s. Just put ’em on their beds, and they’ll put ‘em away.”
“All right.”
Portia, with the basket on her hip, started toward the house with Bessie beside her.
They were about to go inside when Bessie stopped, hand on the door latch. “The Lord blessed us with two healthy sons, Curtis and Virgil, but our first boy was born dead. If you ever need to talk…”
“Thank you.” Tears stung Portia’s eyes. Bessie’s unexpected compassion warmed her heart like the sun warmed the garden’s earth, promising new growth. She hoped the seedlings of their friendship would keep growing.
Upstairs, the quiet solitude proved soothing, so Portia took her time. She started with Jonathan’s room, though his clothes were on the bottom of the basket. Thankfully, his grandfather had fetched him to ride into town for supplies. She wanted to get a glimpse of the boy’s personal space while he wasn’t occupying it.
He hadn’t made his bed, so she set the basket down and did the job herself. Typical of a boy’s room, blocks and toy soldiers — facing off in pretend battle — were strewn across the floor. A book lay upside down and open just beneath the edge of the bed. Portia picked it up, impressed with the boy’s reading choice of The Deerslayer.
She closed the book, being careful to mark the page with a scrap piece of paper. Smiling, she set it on his bedside table. A lesson on how to properly care for a book’s spine was in order for tomorrow.
After she tidied Jonathan’s room, she headed to Mr. Stanford’s quarters at the end of the hall. A large four-post bed took up a good bit of the room. Like Jonathan’s, the bed was unmade — with a crumpled quilt and sheet thrown to one side and two pillows lying at odd angles as though someone had blindly thrown them across the mattress.
Portia set the basket on the floor and made the bed. She admired the handiwork of the blue and white star-patterned quilt. Her fingers traced along the perfect stitching on one of the white stars. Had Mrs. Stanford made it?
Starting back around the bed, she noticed a chest at its foot. It was a large, heavy thing, wide as the bed itself. The rounded wooden top yawned open against the footboard. She bent to close it, but the gleam of a brass button caught her eye. She couldn’t help herself, and ignoring all good sense, peered into the chest. A dark blue Federal jacket stared back. They were the “enemy,” according to Jake — all those who wore this color.
Now on her knees, her fingers lifted the heavy garment out of the chest. It didn’t look like an enemy she should fear. Not in this condition, with a ragged hole in the shoulder and a blood stain surrounding it. On the sleeve, a bloody hand had left its mark — she counted four fingers, a thumb, and part of a palm.
Her teeth chattered while a full body shiver ran through her from head to toe. This jacket be
longed to a wounded soldier, like so many from both sides she had fed and stitched up when they sought help at her house while the war had raged on. But this jacket didn’t belong to just any soldier — it belonged to Mr. Stanford.
And it was his voice that brought her scrambling back to her feet. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Chapter Ten
Portia dropped the jacket. It fell into the chest with a whoosh. “I-I’m sorry.”
The pain on his face — like he’d just heard the news of his wife’s death all over again — cut her to the bone. He averted his eyes as though he couldn’t bear to gaze at the contents of the chest.
“You have no business prying into my things.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his cold, deliberate tone speared her heart with guilt.
Scooting away from the chest, she planted her hands on a solid piece of furniture behind her and pushed herself to her feet. “I didn’t mean to look, I—”
“Give me the key.”
“The… key?”
“Are you deaf as well as a thief?” Anger climbed the rungs of every word he spoke. “I said, give me the key!”
“I don’t have a key,” she yelled back, her own anger rising to meet his. “It was open when I came in to deliver your laundry. I started to close it, but I saw the jacket, and — I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked inside. But I did not open it.”
“Just go.” He threw his command at her and stepped aside, holding the door open.
She hurried out with her empty clothes basket banging against the door frame. He didn’t look at her. She reached the stairs, and his door slammed shut. The floor itself rattled as did the pictures on the stairwell wall. Her insides felt like they’d been taken out and thrown back in no particular order.
Dear God, what have I done?
~~~~
Supper preparations weren’t going well. Portia burned her fingers when she tried to take the cornbread from the oven with no mitt. She knocked over an open jar of green beans, filling the kitchen with the sharp smell of vinegar.
Hands and knees on the floor cleaning up the mess, Bessie joined her and asked, “Are you all right? I know you ain’t worked in this kitchen for long, but I’d have thought you’d got cookin’ down pat.”
“It’s not that.”
“You tired?”
“Yes. Well, no, not exactly.”
“Sick?” Bessie picked up the last stray bean, staring at Portia like she had seen something hideous.
Portia stood and wiped her brow with her sleeve. “No… I… saw something I shouldn’t have.”
“What did you see?” Bessie held to the countertop to pull herself up.
“I saw Mr. Stanford’s army jacket.”
“Oh, dear Lord — how’d you see that? Ain’t nobody seen it since he came home.”
“I put the laundry in his room like you asked and decided to make his bed. When I came around the footboard, the chest was open… and there it was.”
“But you didn’t—”
“I did.”
“And?” Bessie stood still as a pointer hound who’d found a flock of quail.
“He caught me.”
“Sweet Jesus.” She dabbed her forehead with the corner of her apron. “What did he say?”
Replaying their brief but tense encounter brought tears to Portia’s eyes. “He said I had no business prying into his business and accused me of taking a key and told me to leave his room. So I apologized and came down here.”
Bessie retrieved the cornbread from the oven before it burned. She plunked the pan on the work table and jabbed a knife into it. “Did you take the key?”
“What key?”
“The one to the chest. When Beau came home from the war, we thought he might have to be sent off to one of them places for lunatics. He raved and cussed and carried on so much, it scared us. I know he was just grievin’ for his wife, but it was bad. Real bad. One day, he locked himself up in that room and didn’t come out for a week. We was all scared he was gonna do somethin’ to himself, but I kept putting food outside the door every mornin’ and it would be gone by evenin’. He finally came out, and he’d calmed down. More like the Beau we all knew before, but he warned all of us to never touch that chest. I reckon he put all his war memories in there and some of Claire’s things too and locked ’em out of sight so he could go on with his life.”
The weight of this revelation hit Portia hard. Tears dripped from her eyes. She had trespassed into his most painful memories. He could have dismissed her easily. Probably should have.
“I should leave,” she said. “I should pack my things and go… somewhere.”
Bessie handed her a kitchen towel. “No, you dry them eyes and get a hold of yourself. If he really thought you was guilty, he’d have thrown you out then and there. Both of you’s got a lot of pain to work through. It’ll just take time. Now, let’s get supper done.”
When they finished preparing the meal, Portia helped Bessie set the table and serve the food. Mr. Stanford never made eye contact, and everyone but Ezra stayed quiet. Harry winked at her and patted the empty chair beside him, but she pretended not to notice. She couldn’t bear to join them in the dining room, so she took her meal with Bessie and Isaac in the kitchen.
Later, after dishes were cleaned and put away, Portia retreated to her room. Thankful to have a pillow to muffle the sound, she wept until exhaustion took over. She woke to a pretty pink sunrise brightening her window and a rooster announcing the new day. Though tempted to run away and never show her face there again, she had a job to do. Reluctantly, she got up and dressed, determined to soldier on.
How could she ever face him again without feeling like she had trampled on his heart?
~~~~
Portia took her breakfast in the study with the excuse of needing to prepare the day’s lessons early. Mr. Stanford wasn’t in the dining room when she passed through, but she didn’t want to take any chances. A little distance might help emotions settle enough so everyone could be comfortable in the same room again.
Jonathan came in at ten till eight, nodding to her with a muffled, “Good morning.”
He took his seat, licked his pencil lead, and wrote his name on the blank sheet of paper on the desk. Blinking those long eyelashes of his, he looked at her and patiently waited. The thought she had been pondering all morning stopped ricocheting from bad idea to good idea now that she had a more willing student.
“Jonny, I want to indulge your interest in the horse business,” she said, deciding to call him by his nickname.
His face brightened momentarily but quickly turned fearful. “Won’t Pa be mad?”
“Not if we don’t get in his way. There’s more than one way to learn about something, so let’s be clever about it.”
They reviewed some of the horse journals from their prior lessons. Portia assigned him an essay on native forage suitable for horses. Jonny grumbled about it, having had his heart set on a full day outdoors. Though she was adamant he finish before they ventured out, she sat at the large desk, smiling, watching his tongue poking from the side of his mouth in concentration while his pencil scratched across the paper. She’d never been so thankful for a grumbling student before.
After lunch, carefully avoiding the barn, they spent a half hour observing the horses in the pasture.
Jonny pointed at one of them. “See that Morgan? That’s Pa’s horse, Scout.”
“He’s a fine horse.”
The boy nodded and added, “And that’s a new filly Pa just bought.”
“I wonder if they get along.”
Face scrunched in thought, Jonny put his feet on the bottom fence slat and draped his elbows over the top. “Well, see how he’s bobbing his head up and down. I think that’s how they say hello to each other.”
“Oh, and she just did the same. I suppose she’s saying hello back. So, now they’re touching noses. Is that like kissing?”
Jonny smiled. “Maybe. At least they li
ke each other. They’d have to like each other to make babies.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a necessary factor.” Portia stifled a laugh, hoping a detailed lesson on reproduction wouldn’t be requested.
“He’s a good ridin’ horse, too.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Looking rather incredulously at her, he asked, “Don’t you know how to ride?”
“Not that well. My daddy had a work horse I used to ride when I was little, but he got drunk one day and traded it for an old drippy milk cow. Jake and I never had any horses either, just some mules. The first time I tried to ride one, a snake spooked it, and I fell off. I hurt my backside and my pride too much to try again.”
He laughed, but his smiling face soon turned solemn. “I haven’t ridden for a while, either. Pa won’t let me go out by myself, and everyone’s too busy to ride with me.”
Portia watched the horses graze happily beside each other and contemplated her next move. If only his father could hear him right now. With Jonny confiding in her like this, she had to keep him interested. That really meant only one thing, and the thought made her stomach do a somersault. She’d have to take up riding.
It’s worth it. It’ll do Jonny good, but… She had to seal her fate with a verbal promise before she could change her mind. “Tell you what. If you concentrate on your lessons and mind your manners for the next couple of days, and if your father approves, I’ll go riding with you this weekend.”
If his jaw had been unhinged, it would have fallen right off. “Promise?”
“Yes, that is, if you can find me a gentle horse to ride.”
“The geldings are real gentle. You’ll be fine on one of those.”
She scrunched her face in mock seriousness. “Good, because I’m putting my life in your hands.”
“I’ll keep you safe. Promise.”
~~~~
That afternoon, Portia caught Isaac at lunch and asked him to hitch up a horse and cart. She had decided to go into town with Jonny to see if they could trade a few eggs for art supplies. With the weather growing warmer by the day, she wanted to take advantage of it and have a few drawing lessons outside.
