Katie and the Mustang #1 (7 page)

“Katieeeeee!”

Mrs. Stevens was shouting from the house, and I felt anger rise in my heart like a flock of startled crows. I stopped and set down the heavy bucket. I wanted to scream at her to leave me alone, just for once, just for a little while. But I knew it would do no good to make her angry with me.

I had learned that the first week I had lived here. Mrs. Stevens had made me stand in the corner nearly a full day, until I had apologized for saying her fried chicken was not as good as my own mother’s. I had only been six, and it was true—and saying it had made me cry, missing Mama. But she punished me anyway.

“Kaaaatie!”

I clenched my fists and wondered what it would feel like not to have anyone shout at me for a whole day. My parents had been strict, but they had smiled
and laughed a lot, too. My sister had been one of the silliest, cutest little girls; her giggles had made everyone else laugh. . . .

Mrs. Stevens yelled again. I fumbled for the bucket bale and started to walk, my eyes stinging with tears. I heard a whicker, and I put out one hand to touch Midnight’s forehead as I passed. But hot tears blurred my vision, and I doubled over.

My stomach muscles were jerking and my shoulders shook, and there was nothing I could do about any of it. I wanted my family. It could not be true that they were gone. It just could
not
have happened, not all of them, all at once.

The pain inside me swelled to fill my skin. I sobbed, setting down the bucket blindly, then backed away from it, barely feeling the stall rails against my back.

I braced myself, leaning hard, and the crying just took me over; I had no choice
but
to cry this time. I was so sad and so tired of living where no one loved me. They didn’t even act like they liked me most of the time.

I covered my mouth with one shaky hand, afraid I would throw up. It felt more like I was vomiting
than like I was crying—I had felt so bad for so long. I knew Mrs. Stevens was probably still shouting my name, but I couldn’t hear her. I couldn’t hear anything but the ragged little sounds coming out of my own mouth. The stall rails dug into my back, and it hurt. It hurt to cry.
Everything
hurt.

A light, warm touch on my shoulder made me turn, eyes still closed. Poor Midnight, I thought, I had scared her. She was warm and calm as always, and I reached up to hug her, leaning on her, crying against her neck, grateful that at least the animals here were my friends.

Then my fingers crossed a matted clump of mane, and my heart skipped a beat. I knew I should step back, that if I scared the Mustang, he might rear and hurt me. But I couldn’t stop crying, and the Mustang stood with me another full minute, until I had fought the sobs to a standstill. Then I felt him lift his head as he drew back.

I released my hold on his neck instantly, opening my eyes. I knew he didn’t want to be leaned on, clutched at. He had done it for me.

“What in the world are you doing up there, Katie?”

Mrs. Stevens was really shouting now; her harsh voice made me pull in a quick breath. Was she coming up the path? She sounded closer, but I couldn’t tell
how
close. I wiped at my face with my dress sleeve, trying to think.

The milk bucket was upright. There were no bits of straw floating in it. I wouldn’t be in trouble if I hurried. I picked up the bucket and then turned back to the Mustang.

“Thank you,” I whispered. The words weren’t nearly enough, and I knew it. But I meant them with all my heart.

The little one was so frightened, so sad. I was careful not to hurt her. The sage scent came again after she had gone, fainter this time. I had to lift my head and breathe deep. I want to follow it, chase it through the wind all the way home
.

M
r. Barrett came back to the house twice in the next two weeks. Hiram sat and listened the second time—and two neighbors showed up, as well. Mr. Themble and Mr. Dulin sat with their jaws set hard, taking in every word.

Mr. Barrett spent a long time talking about what people ought to take, what they ought to leave behind. Then Mr. Stevens asked questions about the provisions, the grass along the trails, the lay of the land in Oregon.

I listened intently. Mr. Themble wanted to know
about cattle ranching more than farming. Mr. Dulin asked twice about the timber, if there were sawmills or at least deep enough rivers to run the water-wheels so they could be built if a man cared to invest his time and effort.

“You have good maps?” Hiram asked quietly. That brought them back around to talking about the route, the journey, the hardships of the trail.

Through all this, I sat near the kitchen stove on the floor, silent as a mouse, barely moving. The men finally talked themselves to a standstill, and there was a half minute of silence.

“How are farmers doing who have been out west a few years?” Mrs. Stevens asked. All the men turned to look at her. I was sure they had forgotten she was there, just as they had forgotten me. She had to know that Mr. Stevens would be upset with her for interrupting the men. Her voice was shaking a little. So were her hands.

Mr. Stevens looked stunned when she pulled out a chair and sat at the table across from Mr. Barrett.

He smiled uneasily. “They do well enough, by all accounts.”

Mrs. Stevens pulled in a breath. “That’s what they say when you ask them?”

He shrugged. “Not directly.”

She waited, studying his face. Mr. Stevens looked as though someone had punched him in the stomach. I had never once seen Mrs. Stevens defy his wishes like this. His face was dark as a storm sky. Her hands were knotted in her lap.

Mr. Barrett readjusted his hat. “I’ve guided two parties west, ma’am. One to Oregon and one to California.”

Mrs. Stevens looked ill. “Only two? So you haven’t been back to either place to ask how people do?”

He smiled. “The settlements are growing like weeds, ma’am.”

She cleared her throat. “Davenport has had a courthouse for six years now. We have bakeries, a forge, a dry goods store. Is the land so much better out west?”

Mr. Barrett smiled again, his easy, wide smile. “More go every year, ma’am, so it must be as good as they say. A few come back, but—”

“Why?” Mrs. Stevens’s eyes were hard as stone. “Why would they—”

Mr. Stevens slapped the table, open-handed, cutting her off. “I apologize for my wife, sir,” he said, then turned to look at her. “Hush, Martha. Not another word.”

Mrs. Stevens sat stock-still. She stared at the tabletop, her face perfectly blank as the silence swelled up and filled the room, pressing against the walls.

“There’s no fever or other sickness in Oregon, is there?” Hiram asked after an awkward minute had ticked past. I looked past Mrs. Stevens at Mr. Barrett.

“No,” he said. “No cholera, no cankers, nothing to speak of. There are no swamps or marshes, and the air isn’t heavy.”

Mrs. Stevens stood abruptly, excusing herself. She boiled more coffee for the men, standing near the stove, her back toward them.

I moved out of her way, finding another spot on the floor—a much chillier one, but I didn’t want to go to bed until I had to.

After the men left and Mr. Stevens came back in from walking them out, he told her it was time to retire for the night. She made her shooing motion
at me. I went down the hall without complaint, grateful she hadn’t noticed me sooner.

I could hear Mr. Stevens scolding her, his voice tight and angry. Later, the sound of her weeping in the parlor was the only sound in the house. I am not sure when she went back to bed. Finally, I fell asleep.

Mr. Barrett came three more times. Mrs. Stevens made supper, and he ate with relish, complimenting the food. She nodded politely and said no more than she had to.

I listened as long as I was allowed, each time. Once I had to go to bed, I left the pantry door open a crack so that I could still hear bits and pieces of what they were saying as I fell asleep. Some of it scared me. But I still longed to go.

As the days passed, the weather turned milder, but the snow stuck and the path to the barn was slippery when I went out to the barn. On the mornings after Mr. Barrett’s visits, I told the Mustang what I had heard. He stood close, sniffing at my hair and hands, his eyes wide and alert. Sometimes I thought he almost understood me. I wished that he could talk. He probably knew the country out west better than Mr. Barrett ever would.

Hiram was gone most the time now. He was shoveling hard snow off walks and roofs on what he called the widow farms. The fever had taken a lot of grown men along with my pa.

I knew it wouldn’t be too much longer before the weather softened. I wondered how many would be on their way west instead of plowing this year. I hoped we would.

“There’s a quilting party next Friday,” Mr. Stevens announced one morning at breakfast. He smiled broadly at his wife, then at me.

I couldn’t help but stare at him. Since when had he cared about quilting parties or anything the women of Scott County did together?

Mrs. Stevens tipped her head to one side. “Yes, I know. Violet Dulin stopped by the other day. I was out clearing off the garden beds. I told her I wouldn’t be coming.”

“Why?” Mr. Stevens asked sharply.

“Your cousin should be here about then,” Mrs. Stevens said mildly. “I thought it best if I stayed home and kept up my housework.”

He frowned. “I think you should go.”

Mrs. Stevens opened her mouth, then closed it
and nodded when his face hardened. That evening I saw her bring her patch bag out, and she began stitching squares together the moment supper was over. She would need something started so she could work on it while she chatted with the other women at the party.

My endless circle of chores went on. Betsy didn’t care at all how fast I milked her or how little attention I paid to her afterward—not so long as she got her corn and hay. So I milked fast, then I talked to the Mustang. Delia and Midnight would sometimes whicker at me, and I could tell they were jealous.

Mr. Stevens still got up early and had Hiram hitch up the buggy team by lantern light. But he wasn’t drinking coffee in other people’s kitchens and talking about the weather all day now. He was off to talk to men who were going west. He came back with lists of supplies and drawings and maps. Mrs. Stevens was tight-lipped and quiet in the evening as he pored over his papers.

Since the morning I had cried, the Mustang had changed his opinion of me. “You’ve probably decided I’m just too pitiful to be dangerous,” I told him one morning, dragging my fingers through
his mane. I had gotten a lot of the tangles out. He still wouldn’t tolerate a currycomb.

The stallion shook his mane, and the motion went down his whole body, like a shiver he couldn’t control. He stamped one forehoof, then the other. Then he turned and walked around the stall, forced into a tight circle by the planks and rails.

He had been cooped up in the stall so long, it was making him nervous and restless. Sometimes his pacing upset Delia and Midnight. Once or twice even the staid old plow team had whinnied and pawed at the dirt floors of their stalls when he was circling his own, tossing his head and squealing and switching his tail.

“Take it easy,” I whispered to him one morning. He stopped for me to rub his forehead, then walked another circle. It was awful to watch his pacing. It was a big stall, but the stallion hadn’t been out of it once since he had been brought to the farm.

I knew why. Mr. Stevens was still afraid to try to lead him out to pasture. So was Hiram; he had admitted it. He had also patted the top of my head one day and told me I was doing the Mustang real good by calming him down. He said I had a way with horses
and would make a good trainer. I had laughed and so had he. Girls weren’t horse trainers.

“I wish Hiram were here,” I told the stallion. “I could use his advice.” I rubbed his forehead. He shook his mane and raised his head high. He had heard some little sound, a mouse in the straw, most likely. He heard things the other horses never noticed.

“The weather will soon be warmer,” I told him. “Midnight and Delia will get put out in the pastures.” I rubbed the stallion’s ears, and he closed his eyes as I got the mosquito bites he couldn’t reach by rubbing against the stall planks.

“Would you let me put a halter and lead rope on you?”

He tossed his head and then let me pat his neck for a moment before he turned and paced again.

“If you would, I could probably talk Mr. Stevens into letting you run in the pasture at least sometimes,” I told him as he came back around.

I rubbed his forehead as he swayed back and forth. Then he paced the circle again. It hurt me to watch him; it was wrong to keep him penned in like this.

I ran to the barn door and looked back down the path to the house. Mrs. Stevens was out in the
vegetable patch by the road. I was supposed to join her when I was done with milking and emptying the night buckets into the privy.

I stared at her, working the half-thawed ground. Would she notice if I took a few extra minutes? Even if she did, she would shout at me from the garden a few times before she walked up to the barn. I would have time to pretend I had been cleaning the tack room or something.