Dorothy Garlock (32 page)

“Oh, Jesus! Oh, my Lord! You’ve not got the brains of a tree stump. Give me that towel.”

“I do too have brains of a tree stump! I’m pretty. You said I was. So there, Foster Reed.”

“Owen! Owen, friend,” Foster said with a grimace, as he took a step forward that jarred his head. He held out his hand and Owen grasped it. “Soren and this feather-headed woman are trying to kill me.”

“Hello, Foster. You look like you’ve been dragged behind a wagon for five miles.”

“You’d look like hell, too, if you’d had your clothes stolen while you were helpless and attacked with lye soap and a horse brush.” Naked as a young jaybird, Foster glared first at Soren and then at Hettie.

“You pee-peed on yourself and had doo-doo in your britches,” Hettie said scathingly, and stared unblinking into the one eye glaring into hers. “That ain’t being very nice, Foster.”

Foster raised his eyes to the roof of the barn. “Gawdamighty! What have I done to deserve this? I thought you were my friends. Where’s my clothes?”

“We burned them.”

“But . . . I’m naked and I’m freezing to death, and by damn, I want a drink!”

“A drink of water? I’ll get you one—”

“Water? Are you daft, woman?”

“That’s not what he means, Hettie.” Soren leaned on the stall rails and grinned. “Got a headache, Foster?”

“Shitfire! You lame-brained mule’s ass. My head’s bustin’ right in half. Do somethin’, dammit!”

“What do you think we should do, Owen?”

“Damned if I know. We ought to put him in a side show and charge to see him.”

“Hell!” Soren laughed. “He’d not win any prizes naked, that’s sure.”

“You’re right about that. He looks more like that bone skeleton hanging in Doc Shelton’s office in Lansing than a live man.”

“You’re makin’ fun.” Hettie’s large brown eyes, full of indignation, went from Soren to Owen and back again. She snatched up the clean shirt and overalls and thrust them in Foster’s hands. “Put these on. I’ll get you a drink of cold buttermilk.”

Foster gagged, then winced.

“Hellfire and brimstone!” He snatched the clothes and looked at Hettie as if he would strike her. With the clothes covering the front of him, he reeled down the alley between the stalls until he found an empty one.

“Why’s he mad, Soren? I like cold buttermilk.”

With his hand in the middle of Hettie’s back, Soren urged her out of the barn. Owen and Gus followed.

“I don’t think his stomach is in the best of shape, Hettie. He’ll be all right in a day or two.”

“Nothin’ll help his head but a meal in his belly and a good, sound sleep.” Gus noticed Owen looking toward the orchard. “The lass was troubled.”

“It’s no wonder,” Owen said dejectedly.

Hearing the screen door slam, he turned toward the house. Lily and Esther, hands clasped and swinging between them, came toward them.

“We’re going,” Lily called.

“We’re going to get my baby,” Esther called cheerfully. “We’ll be back.”

“Oh, Lord. What am I going to do, Uncle Gus?” Owen asked.

“She ain’t got no baby,” Hettie said, a puzzled look on her pleasant face. “What’s she mean, Owen? She ain’t got no baby.”

“I’ll tell you what, Hettie.” Soren took Hettie’s arm and they went toward the wagon. “Let’s play like it’s true. What do you say?”

“Play like Esther’s got a baby?”

“It’ll make her happy.”

“All right. I like for Esther to be happy.”

“Good girl. I’ll drive them home, Owen,” Soren said over his shoulder to his cousin.

Gus moved out to the wagon where Lily and Esther were climbing up on the seat. Soren helped Hettie into the back.

“Don’t get into any trouble with Procter, son.”

“I won’t, unless I’m pushed.”

Gus and Owen watched the wagon leave the yard. Esther waved gaily and Owen waved back.

“I don’t understand it, Uncle Gus. How could she have gone downhill so fast?”

“It hasn’t been as fast as you think,” Gus said pulling his pipe out of the bib of his overalls. “I caught on a year or more ago that she was actin’ strange and gettin’ all up in the air over nothing. It’s just got worse is all.”

“Just now, upstairs, she thought I was the old man.” It hurt Owen to say the words, but if he couldn’t say them to the man who had been more like a father to him than his real one, he couldn’t say them to anyone.

Gus lit his pipe. He understood Owen’s feelings about his father. It wasn’t until after Eustace was gored by the bull that young Owen had learned what hell his sister had lived in. Gus was the only one who knew. He was quite sure that Owen had not even told Soren and Paul the shocking Jamison family secret.

“I’m afraid Jens will have Esther committed to the crazy house. Lord, Uncle Gus, that’s a terrible place. I’ll bring her here before I let that happen. It’ll mean that Ana will insist on taking the boy and going back to Dubuque.” Just saying the words caused Owen’s heart to tremble.

“Maybe it’ll not come to that. We’ll figure something out.”

The little glimmer of hope his uncle held out made his insides hot and shaky.

“Go bring Ana home,” Gus said. “I’ll keep an eye on Foster. He’s probably searching the barn for a drink. He knows he’ll not find one, but that won’t keep him from lookin’.”

*   *   *

Ana heard the wagon arrive and Soren’s shouted greeting. Without looking back, she walked steadily on through the trees until she came to the far end of the orchard. She stood for a moment looking at the planted field, and beyond to the clump of green that bordered the creek where she and Owen had their talk the day she walked to town. Above her head the little apples were the size of walnuts, and beneath her feet the yellow dandelions bloomed along with white butter-cups, violets and daisies. From a distance she heard the call of a mourning dove. A robin sang nearby and a tiny wren called to his mate. She heard the rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker as he bored a hole in a tree trunk and the squeal of an eagle as it soared overhead, its sharp eyes searching for a careless field mouse.

She loved it here.

Ana thought that because she was so attuned to the land, she must have been born in a setting such as this. She would
hate
to leave the peace and tranquility of the country and go back to town, and it would
break her heart
to leave Owen . . . now.

She moved back under the shade of a tree. After searching the ground and the tree trunk for ants, she sat down. Pulling her knees up so that her feet were flat on the ground, she propped baby Harry on her thighs and folded back the light blanket. The baby was sweating. She shielded him from the breeze with a corner of the blanket so that he wouldn’t cool off too fast.

“What are we going to do, little man?” she murmured and wiggled her little finger into the baby’s tiny fist. “It looks like it’s going to be just the two of us.”

Ana sat there in the quiet morning, reliving every second of the night before. Each word that Owen had whispered was etched in her memory. He was not the baby’s father. He hadn’t told her earlier because he wanted her to stay here . . . with him. Now she wondered why she hadn’t seen it clearly before. Not by the longest stretch of imagination, could Owen be described as a laughing, dancing man.
Bless him.
He had been a haven in the storm for Harriet. He had tied himself to her for life so that her baby wouldn’t be born a bastard.

Ana wanted to think that Owen had strong feelings for
her,
feelings that went beyond wanting to sleep with her and make children with her. She thought of his body, warm, hard and big. She had never felt so safe, so cosseted in her life as when he had held her in his arms. He had held her with a gentleness that even now brought tears to her eyes. His sex had been large, firm and throbbing when pressed to her belly, yet she hadn’t felt threatened by it. She had been in awe then, as she was now, that this giant of a man trembled beneath her touch, yet demanded nothing she was not willing to give.

What would happen now? Ana was certain that Esther in her demented state was dangerous. She and the baby were both in danger. Ana wasn’t sure that she could live with that fear hanging over her head. It was evident that Owen didn’t realize or else didn’t want to admit the seriousness of his sister’s condition.

Time under the apple tree seemed to stand still, yet it passed, and baby Harry began to fuss. He was wet through and through. He finished what was left in the bottle she had picked up and protested because it wasn’t enough. She moved her legs in a swaying movement in an effort to lull him to sleep. She knew she had to go back to the house, but not yet. She needed just a little more time.

Before she realized that he was near, Owen had come quite close to her, his steps deadened by the grass. She turned her head to look up at him. His blue eyes were sad and empty.

“Ana . . . come home—”

“Is Esther still here?”

“No. She’s gone.”

Owen dropped down on one knee beside her and brushed the baby’s cheek with the back of his forefinger. He wanted to fling himself down on the grass beside her, gather her and the babe in his arms, and let the world roll away. His heart was beating high in his throat.

It will kill me to let you go!

“It’s peaceful here,” Ana murmured.

Baby Harry’s eyes, as blue as Owen’s, opened wide and looked straight into his. The little face puckered like a prune and he began to cry.

“Has he got colic again?”

“He’s wet and hungry.” Ana lifted the baby to her shoulder.

“Let me have him.” Owen slid one hand beneath the baby’s bottom, reached around Ana, cupped his head with the other hand, and lifted him out of her arms. “He’s wet all right.”

His eyes never left Ana’s face. He stood and stepped back. As she got stiffly to her feet, she smoothed out her skirt with its telltale wet spot down the front and poked back the strands of her hair that had been pulled loose by the rough bark of the apple tree.

“Turn his face from the wind, Owen. I hope he hasn’t swallowed enough wind to give him another colic.”

“We’ll get you home boy.” With clumsy tenderness Owen nuzzled the baby’s cheek with his nose, while being careful not to scratch the little face with his whiskers. “You’ll soon be dry and having your dinner.”

“I had Indian pudding in the oven. It’s probably ruined by now.”

“It was sitting on the table. Lily must have taken it out.”

“Then it was Lily who came in the wagon to get Esther.”

“Lily and Hettie brought Foster over, not knowing Esther was here.” As they walked toward the house he told her how Foster had arrived at the Knutson farm and how Hettie, Soren, and Uncle Gus had worked to sober him up. “Soren thinks the world of Foster and doesn’t want him to appear so despicable when you meet him.”

“Does Foster appreciate his good friends?”

“He does, but not at the moment. He’s sick and got a splitting headache. You’ll be a surprise to Foster.”

There was no mistaking the note of pride in his voice. Ana drew courage from it.

“We’ve got to talk about your sister, Owen.”

“I want to talk about her . . . today, after you get Harry settled.”

Ana had never walked beside a man for any distance. She noticed that Owen matched his stride to her shorter one. How nice it would be if she felt free to slip her hand into the crook of his arm. She studied him covertly, noting the muscle twitch in his jaw, noting the tension keeping his shoulders stiff. She was looking at his mouth when he tilted his head down to look at her. A smile curled his lips. Glory be! It was a sin what a smile did to his face even if it didn’t reach his eyes. He said nothing, but his eyes spoke for him. They held the look of a man walking to the gallows.

*   *   *

The noon meal was the breakfast Ana had prepared so happily that morning. Gus came in to say that Foster was asleep in the barn, the new foal was getting stronger by the hour, and Catherine, the nanny goat, had climbed up over the hay wagon and was standing on the roof of Owen’s shop.

“She’s the most cantankerous female I ever knew,” Gus sputtered.

“She’ll come down when she gets hungry,” Ana said.

Gus, his excuse being that he had to see to the new foal, went back to the barn as soon as he finished eating. Ana suspected he sensed the tension between her and Owen. She left a meal on the back of the stove for Soren and tidied up the kitchen while Owen rocked baby Harry to sleep. After he settled the sleeping baby in the cradle, he stood in the kitchen doorway and waited for Ana to finish. Then, wordlessly, he took her hand and led her to his room. He closed the door leading to the hall and opened the one to the connecting room where the baby lay sleeping.

Ana stood in the middle of the room. She didn’t think his insides could possibly be acting like hers. She felt as if her heart was going to jump right out of her chest. He seemed so calm, as if a decision had been reached, and all that was left was to tell her about it.

“Sit down, Ana. I shut the door in case Soren or Uncle Gus came in.”

Ana sat down on the edge of the bed and clasped her hands in her lap. Owen walked back and forth. Finally he came to stand in front of her. She had to tilt her head way back to see his face. Without thinking about it, she took his hand and tugged.

“Sit down. If I keep looking up at you, I’ll have a crick in my neck.” She continued to hold onto his hand after he sat down beside her. “I can imagine how hard this is for you. I never had a brother or a sister. I don’t remember my mother or father. My grandmother and Harriet were all the family I’ve had . . . until now. If something like what’s happened to Esther had happened to one of them, I would have been sick to the bottom of my soul.” In her golden eyes there was a brilliant glow of compassion.

“I never knew there was a woman in the world like you.” It seemed natural to slip his arm around her and draw her head to his shoulder. “I have to tell you about Esther and why I can’t let Jens send her to the crazy house.”

“And I want to know.” Her lips moved against the flesh of his neck. The smell of him was in her nostrils. The arm around her tightened, drawing her closer to his side.