Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (4 page)

When Daniel smiled down into her eyes, the creases in his cheeks appeared. She had forgotten them and his even white teeth. Daniel was a handsome man. It was no wonder he was invited to so many get-togethers.

“I know how to point and pull the trigger.”

“That would be enough most of the time.”

Daniel moved away from her as if it were important to take the long iron from the holder and poke at the fire. He added a stout log from the wood box and glanced at the cat that came to sit on the hearth and clean his paws.

“Is that old Blackbird, Mary Elizabeth’s cat?”

“It’s Blackbird. He came scratching at the door tonight. I let him in and forgot to put the bar across. That’s how
they
got in.”

“He’s making himself at home. I was thinking about bringing my old wolf dog down here to stay with you at night. He’d let you know if anyone was prowling about. If I do, the cat will have to go. Andy would tear the house up to get to him.”

“I thought you were going to stay with me till Tennessee gets back,” Mercy said quickly.

His eyes twinkled at her. “I
am
staying until Tennessee gets back. We might as well give Granny Halpen something to really talk about.”

“I’m glad. I mean I’m glad you’re staying, not glad we’ll be giving Granny something to talk about.” They stood for a moment, smiling at each other. “Being here like this is like it was when we were kids, isn’t it?”

“Not quite,” he said with a shake of his head.

Mercy lifted her shoulders. “I’ll fix a pan of warm vinegar water,” she said when she saw him flex his fingers. “Then I’ll cook supper while you sit at the table and soak your hands. It’ll take the soreness out.”

They ate in companionable silence at the same table where they had eaten as children. Mercy looked at Daniel across the table and realized how much she had missed being with him the last few years. She wondered if he had missed looking out for her or if he was glad to be away from the family and on his own.

Daniel had spent a few years down in Arkansas with Rain and Amy Tallman. When he came back, Gavin McCourtney and his wife Eleanor came with him. Gavin bought the sawmill from Farrway, and Daniel took over much of the business of running the gristmill when friends began to pressure Farrway Quill to run for state office.

A couple of years ago Daniel had purchased the old Luscomb place, a mile down the road from the Quills, rebuilt the house, and moved in. He had acres and acres he put into wheat. It was ground at the mill, and sacks of flour were shipped down the river to places like Memphis and New Orleans. He employed three families of freed Negroes to work his farm. Each family had their own house and a patch of ground for a garden, besides the yearly wage he paid them. Daniel was known as a man who was fair, generous, and hardworking, but not a man to be pushed. He was a listening man who spoke his views only when someone asked him for his opinion.

Mercy remembered hearing Liberty ask Farr if Daniel was planning to take a wife. He had smiled at her and told her that he was sure Daniel would wed when the time was right. Mercy had never heard of Daniel seriously courting a woman unless it was Belinda Martin, a widow who lived with her elderly mother and father. He had danced with her at the Humphrey barn dance, and she had seen him going into the store with her little boy perched on his shoulder. The thought of Daniel and Belinda together made Mercy’s heart plunge. She wasn’t half good enough for him.

“Daniel, have you ever been sorry Mamma and Papa didn’t move to Arkansas Territory with Aunt Amy and Rain?” she asked to get her mind off Daniel with Belinda.

“No, and I think Papa is glad, too, now. Mary Elizabeth was too sick to move, and besides that, Colby Carroll couldn’t come to take over here. It put a quick stop to moving plans. As Farr says, sometimes fate steps in and takes decisions out of a man’s hands. He came here when he was just a stripling, with old Juicy Deverell. They knew men like Tecumseh and Zachary Taylor, and they inspired him to want to do something for this country now. Illinois is his home, and he wants to keep it from becoming a slave state.”

“Is Arkansas going to adopt slavery?”

“It’s anyone’s guess right now. In the southeastern part of the territory there are cotton plantations, and where there are cotton plantations there are slaves. It will be sometime before Arkansas is admitted to the union. The western part is still such a wild and dangerous country with its mountains and fast streams. The land seems to suit Rain and Amy, though. And, in a way, I liked it too.”

“If you liked living there, why did you come back?” Mercy asked quietly.

“I guess I got homesick,” he said with an unashamed grin on his face.

“M
orning.”

Daniel called a greeting to Granny Halpen the following day as he and Mercy passed the rooming house on their way to the school. Granny’s thin, black-draped figure looked fragile, but she declared she was strong as a horse. She had come out onto the porch to sweep the steps as Mercy and Daniel came down the road. Daniel’s hand was firmly attached to Mercy’s elbow, something Granny’s sharp eyes noted immediately.

“Mornin’ to ya. How be ya, Mercy? I’m a thinkin’ yore missing yore ma.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I ’spect ya’ll be leavin’ soon.”

“As soon as school is out.” Mercy called, then murmured to Daniel, “We’re in trouble now. Before mid-morning everyone in town will know you walked me to the school and that you spent the night at the house.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Yes, in a way. I’d hate it if scandal reflected on Mamma and Papa.”

“Our schoolteacher is a fallen woman! She spent the night alone with a man.” He grinned down at her cheerfully.

“Be serious, Daniel!” Mercy looked up at the tall man beside her with worried eyes. “Not all the people here wanted to be represented by Papa. The ones who voted against him, like Glenn Knibee for instance, will be quick to put a bad light on anything that we do.”

“We can’t spend our entire lives worrying about what other folk think of us. Papa would be the first to tell us to do what we thought was right, and to hell with what people think.”

“Yes. He would say that, and Mamma would agree. She would have wanted you to stay with me. Do you think the Baxters have gone?”

“No. They’re still here. I’ve still got their muskets. They’ll not leave without them. Don’t worry about it. As soon as I get you to the school, I’ll go hunt them up and send them on their way.”

Mercy loosened her elbow from his grasp and hugged his arm with both hands. She could feel the muscles ripple under the cloth of his coat. For an instant she pressed her cheek to his upper arm.

“It was comforting to know you were downstairs last night. Thank you for staying with me.”

Daniel moved his hand over the one on his arm and patted it gently. “Since when have you started being so polite, Miss Quill? You know there’s no need for thanks between us.”

They had reached the school. Several students were standing beside the door.

“’Lo, Mr. Phelps.” The girl who spoke to Daniel was Mary Knibee, a brazen fourteen-year-old who was too pretty for her own good. Her hair was black, her skin a clear white. She had enormous blue eyes and long silky lashes she used with great effect. The dress she wore showed off her small waist and well-rounded bosom.

“Hello, Mary.”

Encouraged, Mary sidled over close to Daniel while he waited for Mercy to open the door.

“I’m comin’ to the mill to wait for Pa tonight. Will I see you there?” She tossed her curls back from her face and smiled what she considered her most fetching smile.

“No, I’ll not be there.”

“Ah . . . shoot! I thought
you’d
be there. I don’t like to wait around by myself.” She licked her red lips, then stuck the lower one out in a pout.

“You won’t be by yourself. George and Turley Blaine will be there. Turley might even make you a reed whistle or some other pretty thing to play with while you’re waiting.”

“A whistle?”

“Would you rather have a doll? He made a doll for the little Kelsey girl. She’s made clothes for it and plays with it when she comes to the mill to wait for her pa.”

“I ain’t wantin’ no doll or no whistle to play with! And I ain’t waitin’ around with no nigger and no old fool like Turley Blaine.” Mary flounced into the school, her back straight and her face red.

Mercy could almost feel sorry for Mary but not quite. The girl could speak correctly when she wanted to, but when she was angry, she reverted to her parents’ way of speaking. Mercy kept her head turned so that the other girls didn’t see the smile she couldn’t suppress. She heard a muffled giggle come from one of them. Mary’s flirtatious ways had not earned her many friends among the female students. It was not going to be a pleasant day. Mary would find fault with everything and everybody, and use any excuse to disrupt the class.

“Go on in, girls.” Mercy swung open the door. “Arabella, you may write the morning Bible verse on the slate.” After the girls filed into the schoolroom, she smiled up at Daniel. “You’ve just made sure that Mary will not learn anything today. She’ll be as cross as a bear with a sore tail.”

“She needs her bottom spanked. Glen Knibee better watch that one, or she’ll drop a babe on his doorstep before he knows it,” Daniel said with a boyish grin that made him suddenly very handsome.

Mercy laughed. “Why, Daniel! I didn’t know men talked of such things.”

Daniel’s heart lightened at the sound of her laughter. It was like the song of a meadow lark, and he had heard it far too seldom of late. Mercy was an extremely pretty woman. He had heard comments about her beauty from the men who loafed at the mill. None had been disrespectful. It was a well-known fact that Daniel was protective of his foster Sister.

“Granny Halpen doesn’t have an exclusive on gossip. Men gossip too.”

“Even you?” She laughed again.

“I don’t gossip, but I listen. You wouldn’t expect me to close my ears to all the interesting tidbits I hear at the mill, would you? Here’s your dinner.” He handed her the small, cloth-wrapped bundle he’d been carrying for her. “Send one of the boys to the well for water when you need it. I’ll be here when school is out.”

“I hope the Baxters are discouraged enough to leave. I don’t know if I can bear the shame if they go around telling people that I’m their . . . Sister.”

“There’ll be shame only if you let it be,” he said quickly and sharply. “You’ve nothing to be ashamed of. Hold your head up. You’ll be stepped on if you’re lying down but not if you’re standing up looking folks in the eye.”

“You’re right as always, Danny. I’ll make out as long as you’re here with me.” More students arrived, and Mercy asked one of the boys to build a fire in the hearth to take the chill off the room. As she stood at the door waiting for him and the other boys to pass into the schoolroom, she worried aloud. “The Baxters wouldn’t come here to the school, would they?”

“Not if I find them first. Calm down.”

“You’ll be back?”

“I’ll be back before school is out.”

Mercy watched him leave. She had a strong desire to run after him, to take his hand as she had when she was a small, barefoot girl. It had been a happy time with Daniel, Mamma, Papa, Amy, Rain, Grandpa Juicy, and, of course, Colby Carroll and Willa. The family was scattered now. She and Daniel were the only ones left at Quill’s Station. Even Grandpa Elija and Grandma Maude were gone; they had died last year after eating tainted meat.

Mercy heard a commotion in the schoolroom. A bench had been turned over, a girl screeched, and there was a babble of excited voices. Without supervision her pupils were a rowdy group. It was time to bring the class to order, and she went inside, grateful for the work that would keep her mind occupied.

*   *   *

In the middle of the morning the reader was passed around to the older students so that each could read a passage aloud. Mercy was standing behind one of the boys who was having trouble with the words when the door behind her opened and the room suddenly became quiet.

She turned slowly, almost knowing what she would see. Her hand went to her throat, and the blood flowed from her face, leaving it deathly white. Lenny and Bernie Baxter crowded through the doorway and stood at the back of the room.

The men were even rougher looking in the daylight. Their faces and hands were filthy with ground-in dirt and soot. Their ill-fitting, bedraggled clothes were blackened with smoke and grease stains.

“Get out!” The words exploded from a throat tight with fear.

“We gotter talk ta ya, Hester.” Lenny’s nose was swollen and his lips cut, making his face lopsided.

“You’ve no right to come here. Get out!” she croaked.

“We ain’t goin’. If’n ya want ta talk in front a the young-uns, so be it!”

“No! I’ll talk to you . . . later.”

“That big fellow what stayed the night with ya ain’t goin’ ta let us get in spittin’ range of ya, and that’s gospel.” The silly grin Bernie had had on his face the night before was gone, and in its place was an expression of intense dislike.