Dorothy Garlock (14 page)

Ana moved down the dim corridor looking into the stalls. A sorrel horse nickered softly. She caressed its velvety nose. At the far end of the barn a pen housed a huge sow that lay on her side. The back door of the barn was open and a wire fence stretched across it.

“We have to keep her in the pen or the other hogs would eat her younguns as soon as they’re born.” Gus had come to lean on the rail beside Ana.

“How terrible! I didn’t know they would do that.”

“It’s the nature of the beast. That sorrel mare back there should foal before long.”

“She isn’t a work horse, is she?”

Gus grinned around the pipe stem in his mouth. “Far from it. Owen hopes to get a champion trotter out of her. He went to the harness races a time or two down at Prairie Du Chien and got the bug.”

“He wants to race?”

“I don’t think he’s got it in mind to race himself, but to breed and sell the horses.”

“She’s a beautiful horse.” Ana paused at the stall on the way back and patted the horse again.

“He took her to a stud in Wisconsin last summer and went back for her in the fall. He paid a pretty penny to get her bred.”

“Mr. Jamison was quite busy last fall,” Ana said coolly when they came out into the sunlight again. She looked straight into Gus’s eyes so that there would be no mistaking her meaning.

“I don’t know nothin’ ’bout that. Didn’t figure it none of my business. But I do be knowin’ that Owen’s as good a man as there is.”

Ana blinked her eyes rapidly to hold back tears. “You’re his kin and you’ve a right to your opinion. But I’ll never forgive him for seducing a young, innocent girl and destroying her life.”

Harriet had been the only person she could claim as kin and now she was gone. Ana moved away from Gus before he could see the tears in her eyes. When the big white goose came to peck at her shoe, she impatiently shooed her away.

On the way back to the house, Ana paused at the tub and jabbed at the diapers with the legs on the washboard, then went across the porch and into the kitchen. Esther was not there. At first Ana felt nothing but blessed relief. She took a long drink of water and hung the dipper back on the nail above the waterbucket. The house was as quiet as a tomb.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a chill of apprehension quivered along her spine.

“Oh, dear God! The baby!”

Near-panic moved Ana’s feet swiftly through the kitchen and down the hall to the bedroom at the front of the house. By the time she reached it and burst into the room, her heart was beating like a hammer in her chest, strangling the cry that rose in her throat.

Esther was bent over the cradle!

“Get away from him!” Ana cried and darted across the room.

Esther straightened. The eyes that turned to Ana were mocking, her lips drawn back over her teeth in a malicious smile. The expression on her face sent a quiver of fear to Ana’s heart. In anguish, she snatched the baby up in her arms, noting with relief that his eyes were open and he was sucking contentedly on his fist.

“Get out!”

Esther’s dark eyes held hers. She looked like a silent black vulture ready to swoop down upon her.

“I said . . . get out!” Ana shouted so loud the babe in her arms was startled and began to whimper.

Esther stared unblinkingly at her for a moment longer, then turned and walked from the room.

Ana placed the baby on the bed, quickly unwrapped him and lifted the gown. She had no idea what she was looking for. The belly-band was still in place. He was wet, but otherwise he appeared to be all right. Ana changed him, coating his little bottom with the oil Mrs. Larson had given her. Her mind was in a turmoil. Was Esther’s hatred of her and Harriet so deep that she would hurt this tiny baby? Fright kept Ana’s heart thumping painfully.

Holding the baby, she sat on the bed and let tears roll down her cheeks. When Harry became restless, she gave him some of the milk in the bottle, burped him, and carried him back to the cradle. She bent to lay the child down, then froze. Her breath caught and held. Snug against the side of the crib was a small pillow that hadn’t been there before! A horrifying thought sprang into her mind.

Esther was going to smother the baby with the pillow!

“Dear Lord!” The words burst from Ana as the breath went out of her. She grabbed the soft feather pillow, threw it across the room and carried the infant back to the bed. With her hands cupping her cold cheeks, she stood looking down at him for a long time while the silence pounded in her ears.

Owen Jamison would never believe that his sister meant to kill his son, but Ana knew beyond a doubt that that was exactly what Esther had in mind to do. The baby was not safe here in his own father’s house. The woman was mad! She had to be to even consider snuffing out the life of this tiny being. Ana tried to shove her terrible suspicion to the back of her mind while she planned, but over and over again it rolled like the turning of a wheel in her brain.

Whom did she know who would help her? Desperation brought Ana to a quick decision. She would go to Mrs. Larson in White Oak and ask to stay there until she could arrange for someone to take her and Harry to Lansing where they could board a boat back to Dubuque.

The decision made, Ana packed her small traveling bag with the baby’s belongings, a nightdress, stockings, and a shawl for herself. She was already wearing her most comfortable walking shoes. After putting everything that was hers in the trunk, she locked it and put the key and her money in the travel bag. Within fifteen minutes she was ready to leave.

Carrying the baby and the bag, Ana passed swiftly through the kitchen where Esther was peeling potatoes at the table, and out into the May sunlight. A flock of blackbirds rose in flight and fanned out across the sky as she hurried down the lane toward the road. By the time she reached it, she realized she had to slow down or she would wear herself out. It couldn’t be more than two or three miles to White Oak, she reasoned. She had walked such a distance many times, but never carrying so heavy a load.

Relieved to be away from the Jamison house, Ana trudged on down the two-lane track, confident that if the Larson’s didn’t have room for her and Harry, they would know someone in the village who did. She stopped beneath a giant walnut tree and switched the baby to her other arm. Before she picked up the bag to go on, she took one of the blankets from around the infant, wiped the moisture from his face with the end of it and looped it through the handles of the bag.

A half-mile down the road Ana began to pant. She stopped again and sat for a while on a downed log.

“I never thought it would be easy,” she said to the sleeping babe. “But we’ll make it. We couldn’t spend one more day in that house.”

The baby seemed to weigh a ton by the time Ana came to another place to sit down. Her face was covered with moisture, her shirtwaist clung to her back, and her feet hurt, but she could see the top of the church steeple over the hill.

*   *   *

His booted feet spread to keep his balance as he rode on the iron drag, Soren pulled the mules to a halt and jumped off. He loped across the plowed field to where Owen worked with the corn planter, shoving the end into the ground, squeezing the two handles to release three seeds, taking a measured step and repeating the process.

“Hey, Owen!”

Owen pushed the planter into the ground to mark his place before he looked up. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt and waited for his cousin to reach him.

“What’s wrong now? Did that damned chain break again?”

“It’s all right. While I was at the top of that hill yonder,”—he indicated a crest covered with oak trees,—“I stopped for a breather and saw a woman walking down the road toward White Oak.”

“There’s nothing strange about that. Lily walks to town sometimes. By Jupiter! It’s hot for this time a year. I’d give a nickel for a drink of cold well water.”

“It wasn’t Lily unless she got light-haired all of a sudden,” Soren said irritably. “This woman had blond hair—real blond. She was carrying a bundle in her arms and a bag. I’d bet my bottom dollar it was Ana.”

“Ana?”

“Unless I miss my guess.”

“What in the world would she be walking to town for? I told her to make out a list of what she needed and Uncle Gus would get it for her.”

“Shitfire, Owen! She’s not going to the store.” Soren took off his straw hat and wiped the sweat from his face with his shirt sleeve. “She’s leavin’ as sure as shootin’. She was loaded with a bundle and a travel bag.”

“She’d not leave the boy with Esther! She’s determined to have that boy.” Owen dropped the corn planter. “Gawdamighty, Soren! Do you think she’s taking the boy and leaving for good?”

“Esther is enough to try the patience of an angel. I think you’d better go find out. Leave the planter and the seed corn. I’ll bring them in when—”

Owen had already taken off across the field. Soren watched him run, limp, and stumble over the broken ground as he hurried toward the farm buildings. Wasn’t anything ever going to turn out right for Owen? He was stuck here on this farm with that crazy sister. He needed someone. Someone of his own.

Soren went back to the team. Owen had always seemed more like a brother than a cousin. For years Soren had hated the hold Esther had on him. He had asked himself a hundred times why Owen let her run roughshod over him. When he asked his Pa why Owen put up with his sister, he had said that he believed something had happened to Esther a long time ago that had warped her mind, something that was making Owen’s life miserable too.

Soren climbed back upon the iron drag and slapped the mule’s rumps with the end of the reins. He hadn’t been surprised when Owen had said he hadn’t loved his wife. Last night and again this morning he had caught his cousin looking at Ana with an expression of hunger and longing on his face.

“Be careful, cousin,” he muttered. “It wouldn’t take much for you to fall in love with that pretty woman.”

O
wen
was breathing as hard as if an iron band were squeezing his chest. Why had Ana left without a word to him? Had she waited until he was in the field to sneak away? He found it a bleak and frightening thought, leaving him with a feeling of . . . emptiness.

Esther’s horse and buggy had been moved to the shade beneath the oak tree—Uncle Gus’s doing, no doubt. The animal stood there patiently swishing its tail. Owen hurried across the yard, stomped upon the porch and threw back the screen door so hard the spring broke and the door hit the side of the house and flopped back.

Esther was seated at the end of the table working the dasher up and down in the churn.

“Where’s Ana?”

“You mean Mrs. Fairfax?” she asked calmly.

“You know damn well who I mean?”

She shrugged. “How do I know?”

Owen went through the house to the front bedroom, his boots trailing mud on the clean floor. He needed only one glance into the room to tell him that Ana and the baby were gone. Nothing of hers was in sight except her trunk.

“Esther!” he roared on his way back to the kitchen. “What did you do to make her leave?”

“I didn’t tell her to leave. Land sakes! It’s not my fault if she ran back to the city. Good riddance, I say! She ain’t fit for this life no better than the other one.”

Owen looked down at his sister as if seeing her for the first time.

“I’m going to bring her back. I want you to be gone by the time I get here. Dammit to hell, Esther! I’m tired of living in this bedlam.”

“Let her go! Let her take that slut’s brat and go back where she belongs!”

“I meant what I said,” Owen shouted.

“I’m your sister and this is our house.”

“This is not your house, it’s
my
house, and I intend to live here in peace! Go home to your husband.”

“It’s my mama’s house! These are my mama’s things! You’ll not give them to some prissy-tailed, sweet-smelling, blond-headed whore!” Esther screeched, her face rigid with anger.

“My God! Can’t you see what you’re doing? You’re making life hell for all of us!”

“She’s worse than that slut you married! She knows this is a rich farm, and she’s set out to turn you against me. All my life I’ve sacrificed for you, Owen. I went down into hell for you and Paul!”

“I know what you’ve done for me. It’s like a millstone around my neck! Go home and leave me in peace!” Owen slammed out of the house.

Esther followed him to the door. “Dinner will be ready at noon, Owen,” she called as if nothing unusual had happened. “Will you be back in time?”

Gus was hitching the horse to the buggy when Owen entered the shed. One glance told Gus that Owen was in a state of rage.

“Have a breakdown?” Gus asked calmly. With his fists clenched tightly at his sides, Owen turned his back and didn’t answer. “I’m thinkin’ that sow ain’t goin’ to farrow ’til night,” Gus continued. “I might just as well go to town and get that chore over with. Did Mrs. Fairfax make up a list a what she wants?”

“She’s gone!” Owen blurted as he turned to face his uncle. “She took the boy with her. Soren saw her walking to town. I’m going to get her.”