My Father's World

by Michael Phillips

  “It seems apparent to me that they’ve had it up to their eyeballs with me, just as much as I’ve had it with them!”

  I heard the sound of horses hooves and a jingling harness.

  “And so you intend—” Mrs. Parrish began, but whatever she meant to say was lost in the sound of clopping hooves.

  In a moment she returned alone. Pa was gone on his horse. Mrs. Parrish looked sad for our sakes, but inside I could tell she was boiling mad at the same time. She seemed used to having her way with how things went.

  I felt awful. And it didn’t help when Zack lit into me.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” he said. “Yellin’ at him and driving him away like that.”

  “Don’t blame your sister,” said Mrs. Parrish. “Whatever blame there is to be dished out belongs to your father and no one else.” She was infuriated with him. “Well . . .” she added, “and some to me, I suppose. I should have guarded my words more carefully.”

  Tears ran down my cheeks. Deep down I couldn’t help but think Zack was right, that it was my fault Pa had run off. Mad as I had just been with him, part of me still wanted to believe in him. Part of me kept thinking that if only I had kept still like a proper, obedient child, things would have been okay. We would survive somehow without the horses. But we needed our Pa and I hoped he needed us a little too. Having to grow up so fast was awfully confusing at times!

  “Come now,” said Mrs. Parrish after a moment. “You children can stay with me.”

  The stable was silent a minute, with only the soft shuffling of the horses in their stalls. Then all of a sudden I found myself speaking up boldly again.

  “Thank you kindly, Mrs. Parrish,” I said, “but we best be gettin’ home.”

  “I doubt your father will return there tonight.”

  “I know, Ma’am, but that’s where we belong now. It’s our home. We’ll manage. I can take care of the young’uns, and Zack can handle a rifle if need be.”

  She let out an exasperated, yet not unfriendly sigh. “It seems determination runs in your family.”

  I couldn’t help smiling a little. More than once I heard Ma observe that the stubborn streak was most strong on my father’s side.

  “I’m afraid that’s probably true, Ma’am.”

  “But you don’t even have horses to get you there now,” she added.

  Now it was my turn to sigh. I had completely forgotten the cause of this hubbub in the first place. Jinx and Snowball were gone. Mrs. Parrish walked quickly outside to find Mr. Weber. When they returned she was talking to him. “Marcus,” she said, “will you hitch up a couple of our horses to the children’s rig and drive them home?”

  “Yes’m! Be most glad to!” He jumped up, obviously eager to make amends for his part in the misunderstanding.

  Mrs. Parrish went over and conferred quietly with him while we stood glumly about. In about ten minutes the wagon was ready and we were off, saying good-bye to Mrs. Parrish, who promised to come up to see us the next day.

  Chapter 17

  Alone at the Cabin

  We’d never been alone in the cabin at night.

  In fact, I can’t remember us five kids being alone at night anywhere before. I recalled my conversation with Zack when we first got to California about fending for ourselves. It seemed pretty silly. I felt like a little girl, not a woman.

  I could hardly sleep. Every little sound jerked me wide awake.

  Luckily, the little ones slept. But I heard Zack tossing and turning in his bunk over Tad’s.

  I thought I should just get up and go into the other room and light a lamp so I could read or write in my journal or something. I’d been wanting to make a drawing of the cabin. But then I was afraid the light might attract attention. And when I thought of that, I began to think of Indians, and pretty soon I was imagining that all the sounds outside were the padded noises of moccasin-clad feet!

  Then I started to think about what it would be like to be massacred. If something like that happened, Pa would sure feel awful then. But that thought didn’t make me feel any better. I wasn’t angry at him anymore, especially now that I realized more than ever how much we needed him here with us.

  But now he was gone.

  Would he ever come back? Especially after my outburst made him think we didn’t want him?

  No, he had to come back. He was our pa, after all, and I could never stop trying to believe in him.

  Suddenly a sharp explosive sound shook the quiet night.

  Crack! Crack!

  Twice it came, and I knew it was gunfire!

  It echoed deafeningly through the night, then all was still once more. The silence seemed even deeper than before, though it lasted only a second or two, for we were all wide awake now.

  “What was that?” said Zack in a tremulous whisper.

  “Gunshots,” I whispered back.

  “Ma . . . Ma . . . !” came three smaller voices.

  Shaking all over, I folded back the blanket and crept out of bed. I tiptoed over to a window. Zack was at my shoulder a second later.

  “What do you see?” he said.

  Peering out, I could see nothing but darkness. I found myself wishing for those small night sounds I had been listening to before; it was dead still outside now.

  All at once I heard a sound at the front door. My blood froze. I glanced at Zack, hoping it had been my imagination. But the look of terror on his pale face told me the sound had been real enough.

  Clasping one another by the hand, we crept into the other room. As quietly as I could I took down Pa’s rifle that hung over the hearth and handed it to Zack. He would have been happy to know that at that moment he looked more a man than I had ever seen him before. Though he was only thirteen, I was sure glad to have him beside me! But I was too distracted to say anything just then.

  Now someone was pounding on the door! My heart was in my throat.

  “Who’s there?” I said finally, in a voice barely more than a squeak. Behind me Zack cocked the rifle and held it steady.

  “It’s me . . . you chil’ens all right?”

  The voice sounded familiar, but wasn’t the one I expected. It was Marcus Weber.

  “W-we’re safe, Mr. Weber,” I said in a voice of tremendous relief. “Let me unbolt the door.”

  The big Negro blacksmith was indeed a welcome sight when I swung open the big wooden door. But his usual congenial look was replaced with serious concern. He came in quickly, shut the door, and told me to bolt it right away, which I lost no time doing. Then I lit the lantern.

  “What’s going on out there?” asked Zack, lowering the rifle, relieved he hadn’t had to use it.

  “There was prowlers about,” said Mr. Weber.

  “Indians?” exclaimed Becky and Tad together. Emily was still too frightened to speak.

  The black man’s brow creased into deep furrows. “No, siree . . . them weren’t no Indian tracks I seen out dere—an’ if they’s one thing I knows, it’s tracks. Someone else be prowlin’ ’roun’ yo uncle’s mine.”

  But who could have been out there, nosing around so close to the cabin?

  “Was it them that fired the shots?” I asked.

  “No, that was me, Missy,” answered Mr. Weber, patting the pistol now tucked securely in the holster at his side. “I seen ’em creepin’ roun’ suspicious like, an’ so I fired in de air to scare ’em off. I was afeared they might be Indians too, but a close look at their tracks showed it had to be white men. But thank the good Lawd, they didn’t put up no fight.”

  “But what brought you here, Mr. Weber?”

  Now the worried look on his face turned into a sheepish grin. “Well . . .” He hesitated a moment before plunging ahead, “Miz Parrish, she done asked me to stick aroun’ after I brung you kids home. She didn’t want to say nuthin’ ’cause . . . well, she figured yo might not take to the idee too well.”

  I had been acting a bit contrary this afternoon. I don’t know what got into me. Ma would have said
I was being too ornery for my own good, and she would have been right. If Mrs. Parrish hadn’t been so wise, I don’t know what would have become of us tonight. So now it was my turn to look sheepish as I spoke.

  “I sure am glad you turned up, Mr. Weber. And I thank you kindly for putting yourself out like that to protect us.”

  “Aw, it’s my pleasure, Missy, an’ that’s a fact!” The blacksmith’s worried creases softened into one of his warm smiles.

  “You’re welcome to stay in here the rest of the night,” I said.

  “Please stay, Mr. Weber,” added Becky in a sleepy, innocent voice. He laughed, and it helped clear away the last of the fear to hear his merry voice echo through the cabin.

  He knelt down on one knee, took Becky’s tiny, soft white hand in his huge, rough black one, and said, “I’m much obliged fo’ yo’ kindness, Missy. But iffen it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll jest bunk down in that tool shed out dere by the mine. That way, I’ll hear any unusualness right off.”

  “Okay, but come in for breakfast in the morning,” I said.

  “That I’ll do right gladly, Missy!” he said to me, rising.

  So we all got settled down into our beds again. I tucked the little ones in and tried to pray a prayer with each of them like Ma might have done. Then I crawled back under my own blanket.

  I slept a lot easier after that, knowing I wasn’t the oldest person around anymore, and feeling the safety of Marcus Weber keeping watch over us.

  As I snuggled down into my bed, with the words of the prayer I had just prayed with Tad still in my mind, I realized that Someone greater than the blacksmith was looking over us kids too, just like Ma’d told me. I guess I’d been forgetting that lately. Sure, things had been confusing, and weren’t going so smoothly. But it could have been much worse! We had food and a place to sleep. And we’d already met people who were kind to us. I decided to start counting my blessings, starting with Marcus Weber’s presence out in the tool shed—even including our pa, because down inside, I still had the feeling he might turn out to be a blessing in the end.

  Chapter 18

  Breakfast with Marcus Weber

  The events of the next morning muddled my notions all over again about Pa being a blessing.

  We were all eating breakfast and having a good time. Marcus Weber was there with us. I fixed a special meal in appreciation for what he had done last night—fluffy buttermilk biscuits, heaps of scrambled eggs and sausages that Mrs. Parrish had sent back with us, and gravy from the drippings sprinkled over everything. Mr. Weber said that biscuits and gravy were his favorite southern meal and he missed them. I probably didn’t make them just like he remembered, but I did my best, and he seemed real appreciative. He made his own coffee on the stove, and the fragrance from the fresh-brewed pot, mixed with the sizzling sausages in the skillet, filled the cabin and made it seem cheerful and homey. We were laughing and talking together, and Mr. Weber was doing his best to entertain the younger kids with stories. I suppose we looked a pretty contented lot for the first time since we got to Miracle.

  “Why, Miz Corrie,” said Mr. Weber, “you is one fine cook! You’s gwine t’ make some feller a right fine missus one day.”

  I blushed and giggled. “Not me, Mr. Weber. I figure I’ll just be a schoolteacher.”

  “Ma says Corrie’s too interested in books to get a husband,” chimed in Becky impudently.

  “Stuff an’ nonsense!” exclaimed the blacksmith. “Meanin’ no disrespec’ to the dead, that is. Why look at Miz Parrish! She’s one of de smartest people I knows, an’ she got hersel’ a right fine husban’—I knowed him person’ly. An’ they is plenty o’ fellers like him, eben in dese parts—jist you wait an’ see.”

  “Are you going to get married, Corrie?” asked Tad.

  “No, Tad, don’t be ridiculous,” I said, but the others had a good laugh over his question. It felt so good to see everyone laughing that I didn’t mind that it was at my expense.

  Then without warning the door opened and in walked Pa.

  His clothes were all dusty as if he’d been riding a great distance. His beard was scruffy and his hat had dirt caked on it. He strode in as though he’d only been gone an hour, took off his coat, unstrapped his gun belt and hung it up on its peg, then came over and sat down in the chair at the head of the table where he usually sat.

  “I’m starved,” he said just as normally as you please, “what’s for breakfast?”

  I got him a plate and he helped himself freely to several biscuits. There were still plenty left.

  “Well, Marcus,” he said after taking several large bites, “what brings you out our way?”

  “Miz Parrish, she sent me up t’ keep an eye out fer the kids while . . . while yo was gone, Mr. Drum.”

  “Oh, she did?”

  His eyes narrowed some, but then he seemed to change his mind about what he wanted to say. “Well, that was right neighborly of her,” he said. “I’ll have to thank her next time I see her. And thank you, too, Marcus.”

  “Much obliged, sir.” Marcus looked down at his plate as if he wasn’t sure about something. Then he lifted his head and looked straight at Pa, “I scared off some prowlers here las’ night,” he said.

  “Oh?” For a moment, the easy-going nonchalance Pa had been demonstrating seemed to slip, revealing a flicker of real concern. “You kids okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered simply.

  There was so much I wanted to say to my pa. But I could find no words. Yet when were there ever words to say what I was feeling? When was it ever easy to say things straight from the heart? Maybe never. Seems we were all trying so hard to protect ourselves from facing any more hurt, that we just couldn’t let ourselves be honest with each other. I wanted so much for Pa to like us and accept us. And maybe he was suffering hurts I didn’t know about. More than anything, I wanted us to be able to get to know one another. That’s the way families were. Yet that was the one thing we didn’t seem to be doing—getting to know each other. It was a reminder all over again that we weren’t really a family.

  Pa finished his breakfast, then he and Marcus Weber went out to take a look at the footprints and horse tracks from last night.

  Nothing was ever said about what happened at Mrs. Parrish’s; not about what I had said to him, not about the horses, not about Pa’s leaving. Maybe it was better that way. What good would a lot of talk have done anyway?

  Pa didn’t act angry toward any of us. He was just the same as always. Things just went on as if nothing had happened.

  Emily kept mostly to herself for a few days. I could tell she was heartbroken over Snowball. I tried to interest her in other diversions, and a time or two I thought I caught Pa making a special effort to talk to her. But she was pretty silent. What he’d done had really hurt her and it wasn’t going to be easy for him to win back her friendship.

  Chapter 19

  An Unexpected Visitor

  The next few days went by uneventfully.

  Pa didn’t say much, kind of stayed out of our way, and spent most of his time up by the mine. Although I think he was embarrassed by what he’d done, he never brought it up, and neither did we. Zack was real sullen.

  About three days later, when we were sitting around in the evening, the next big change came in our lives. It was pretty quiet, I had just finished putting Tad to bed and was coming back out into the main room of the cabin, when all of a sudden the door burst open and in walked a man we’d never seen before.

  It didn’t take longer than a second or two before we knew who it was.

  “Nick!” Pa exclaimed, jumping up from his chair. “Where in tarnation you been?”

  “Down t’ Yankee Jim’s,” replied our uncle, flipping his hat onto the vacant peg by the door, and walking over toward the stove to see what he smelled in the pot.

  “I went down there looking for you after you left,” Pa said. “I scoured the countryside from Auburn to Shingle Springs, but no one had seen hide nor hair
of you.”

  “I hid out down at Grizzly Flats for a spell. I didn’t get to Jim’s ’til after you was gone, but—”

  He stopped and glanced around at the open mouths and wide eyes all staring at him.

  “Hey, Drum,” he finally said after he’d eyed us all, “who’re all these kids?”

  “Let me just ask you one thing first,” said Pa, eyeing him intently. “Did you see a feller from back home some time last year?”

  “Last year? How am I supposed to remember that?”

  “You don’t remember?” Pa returned sharply. “After all we done to hide who we are, you don’t recall if you seen someone who can identify us? I always knew you was dim-witted, but this takes the cake. You just can’t keep from gettin’ us into a peck of trouble!”

  “Come on, Drum, I don’t see what—”

  “Well, I don’t suppose there’s an easy way to tell you other than just saying it.”

  “Telling me what?”

  “Aggie didn’t make it,” said Pa slowly. “Your sister’s dead, Nick.”

  The men just looked at each other a second or two. The cabin was silent.

  “These are your nieces and nephews, Nick,” said Pa finally. “Me and Aggie’s kids. They was all on their way out here when Aggie took a fever. But the kids made it—got here two, three weeks back. Kids,” he said, turning to us, “say hello to your Uncle Nick.”

  I stood up and curtsied. Zack went over and silently shook Nick’s hand. The younger ones just stared. Tad had gotten out of bed and stood watching in the doorway.

  Uncle Nick just glanced around, first at one of us, then the other, all around, and finally back at Pa, without saying a word. Finally he slumped down into one of the two rocking chairs in the room and let out a long deep breath.

  As I watched, I wondered what he was thinking. His face, beneath the scraggly several-day’s growth of brownish whiskers, showed no apparent emotion. He stared vacantly ahead. Were his thoughts ones of sorrow about Ma? Or annoyance that we kids where there in his place? Or was he thinking about his own trouble with the sheriff and what he should do?