Outcast (4 page)

“It suits me.”

Kennedy shrugged. No accounting for taste and the stranger seemed to be well enough heeled. He took Standish's money, gave him a receipt for the supplies and followed him out to the boardwalk.

“I didn't want to say anything in there, in front of the missus,” Kennedy said, but.…” The storekeeper hesitated. “I.…”

Standish cocked his head and waited.

The shopkeeper scratched his chin. “I don't want to say anything, but.…”

“Say it.”

“Your neighbor, Mrs. Belshaw, she.…”

“Haven't met her.”

Kennedy nodded, “Well, I.…” Kennedy sighed, “I don't think what they say about her is true. I don't believe a bit of it, anyhow, I don't know what you've heard, but.…”

“Haven't heard anything.”

“Good. Anyhow, thanks for your business, mister.…”

“My friends call me M.J.,” Standish said. “That's what I would like you to call me.”

Kennedy smiled. “I'll do just that.”

CHAPTER 2

Hortenzia sensed they were nearing the cabin. She stepped faster as they left the main road. The mare seemed to know that safety lay in that little cabin in the forest. Standish nodded. No one had recognized him in Last Chance. He was sure of that. If they had.… Standish shook the thought from his mind.

They were in the trees, now, the coolness of the shadows welcoming. Sally whickered from behind the wagon. She had followed all the way from Last Chance. She wanted the freedom of the meadow and the soft sun and the ice-cold water from the creek.

Standish smiled. Sally had a mind of her own, and her instincts had saved him more than once. They pulled into the clearing, and Standish backed the wagon to the door of the cabin. He would have to store his goods there until he had built a root cellar. He set the wagon brake and untied Sally.

“Go get yourself a drink, Sally girl. Hortenzia will be along in a few minutes.” Sally tossed her head, snatched at a clump of bunch grass and danced away in her new shoes.

Standish took a bucket from the wagon, stepped inside to the spigot and filled it with cold, clean water. He carried the bucket out to Hortenzia, balancing the load with his left arm, the bucket's bail cutting into his fingers of his right hand. He set the bucket on the ground and patted the horse's neck. “You did a good job, Hortenzia. You and Sally and I will get along just fine. Now, you have a drink, and I'll unload the wagon as quickly as I can. Is that alright with you, girl?”

Hortenzia dropped her head to the bucket. Apparently she had been taught not to talk to strangers. Standish stood with his hands on his hips. He would unload the wagon first and then put his new bed together. The bed pricked Standish's conscience. Sleeping in a bed, on a mattress with sheets and covers seemed too grand for him. Still, a man should allow a little luxury into his life. Standish continued the argument with himself as he carried boxes of canned foods into the cabin.

He was unloading a box when he came on the ham. He had thought that he would save the ham for a special occasion, but the thought of honey-smoked ham triggered an irresistible impulse. He would have the ham tonight. Tonight was a special occasion wasn't it? He had a home. He would be sleeping in a bed with a roof over his head. That was special wasn't it? Ham tonight with some of those potatoes. He would start the stove, put the potatoes in now and the ham a little later. He had things to do, and once the ham started to cook, well.…

Standish sat at his table, his back to the west wall. He had opened the door, the heat from the stove making the cabin too cozy for his taste. He shrugged. There was a time when he might have killed for the warmth.

He had put the horses to bed earlier. They seemed as eager for the oats as he was for the ham. He sat in the kitchen trying to ignore the scents rising from the oven, but his belly was rubbing against his backbone. Tomorrow, luxury of luxuries, he would have ham and eggs and some baking powder biscuits. Maybe he would have some hash browns, too, if he didn't devour all the potatoes roasting in the oven. The earthy scent of the potatoes was seasoning the ham in his mind, making it irresistible.

Standish was leaning over the stove when he heard a stick crack outside. He stiffened, and then forced himself to relax. Could be nothing. Could be a coyote drawn to the scent of roasting ham. A coyote didn't pose any danger to him.

Another snap! Whatever was moving out there was larger and harder shod than a coyote. Natural hard-footed animals, elk and deer and horses and cows, wouldn't be pulled to the scent of roasting meat. Human. It had to be human, and whoever it was stood outside in the dark, watching Standish in the full light of the cabin.

The oven door screeched as he opened it, and Standish felt as though the point of a sharp knife had run down his back. He reached into the oven, towels wrapped around his hands, and pulled the roaster out. Just as he was setting the roaster on the table, he heard the scuff of boots on the step outside. Not much he could do. Someone had the drop on him. He had to be good to get this close, too good for Standish to try anything fancy.

“Might as well come in,” he called to the darkness.

No movement. Standish didn't blame the visitor. He had the advantage. Why should he give it up?

Standish opened the lid of the roaster and a cloud of steam rose into the cooling air. He heard a gasp outside, the noise a man might make if he had been punched in the gut. He lifted the ham from the roaster, and placed it on one of the plates he had bought in the Last Chance Emporium. He picked up a long, ugly knife and began slicing the meat into thin slices. Let the stranger come through the door pistol in hand. He will find a knife in his gut for his trouble.

Standish reached again into the roaster, pulling potatoes browned in the juice from the ham to his plate. He heard a step and turned toward it, his body hiding the knife from the stranger's view.

Standish blinked. A boy, seven or eight at the most, stepped across the floor. He stood beside the table for a moment, staring at the ham as a miner might stare at the mother lode. The boy squeezed into Standish's chair, and carved a bite of ham. His hand quivered as the fork's burden reached his lips. His mouth settled around the ham, and he chewed. His face glowed with rapture. He cut another bite of ham and chewed it. Standish stood spellbound with the ritual. The boy served himself a potato, gently as a mother bathing a newborn.

“Water,” the boy said, just that, nothing more.

Standish brought the boy a blue-enamel cup of water from the spigot. The youngster drank it in one gulp.

“More,” he said.

Standish stepped again to the spigot and filled the cup.

The boy ate until Standish saw a decided swelling in the child's belly. The boy rose from the table. He picked up the ham remaining in the roaster, jumping back and shaking his hand at the sting of the hot grease. He reached again, and Standish said, “Not yet.”

The boy looked up. “Ma.”

The word stung like the shortest verse in the Bible—“Jesus wept.”—but when the boy reached for the meat, Standish reached across the table and stopped the boy's arm. “Just a minute. Okay?”

The boy nodded.

Standish pulled a clean dishtowel hanging from a nail beside the stove. He cut some of the ham and loaded the remainder, along with some of the potatoes, into a pouch he created from the towel. “I'd like this back.”

The boy's face wrinkled into a question.

“The towel.”

The boy took the pouch and walked to the door. He stopped for a moment, turning to face Standish.

“Thanks,” he said.

“What's your name?”

The words followed the boy into the darkness of the night.

Standish rose bleary-eyed from the bed, scratching his head and trying to get his thoughts in order. He would have to start on the root cellar. The sooner he could get the food underground the safer it would be.

The thought of ham and baked potatoes poked into his consciousness and then the memory of the boy. Maybe the lad was a figment of his imagination. Maybe the scent of roasting ham had swooped Standish into a land of whimsy. He stretched, willing the bones of his body to find their proper nooks and crannies. A shiver ran through him. It was cold in the cabin, but not cold enough to wake him. That was a blessing. How many nights had he spent trying to fold his bedroll around himself to ward off the icy air?

He pulled his pants from a nail on the wall. That had to be the nail where Bele had hung his pants. It was too convenient for chance. The shirt came next. A shiver ran through Standish. He bent over, picking up a new pair of socks. The old pair, sole protection for his feet longer than Standish liked to remember, had gone into the stove last night. For a moment, he was afraid that the fire might recoil from the socks, as he had.

Bath, he needed a bath. He needed a bath more than he needed breakfast, and his need for breakfast was rubbing his belly raw. He needed to fuel himself for the day's work. Tonight he would soak in the Last Chance Emporium's largest bathtub. He needed to free himself of the dirt permeating his being.

Standish pulled on his boots and dropped a cloth into a washbasin on the stove. He scrubbed his face and neck, shivers following each drop of water down his back. Still, the cold water woke him up. It had served its purpose.

Cold outside, colder even than the cabin, and when Standish first stepped into a patch of sunshine, he felt as though he had been kissed by God. He stretched again, opening his pores to the rays of the sun.

Standish stepped into the outhouse, reminding himself to add quicklime to the malodorous mess down the hole. The spring-loaded door slammed behind him as he walked to the barn. Both horses
chuffed
as the door opened.

“Good morning, Sally. I hope you slept well last night. Don't worry, Hortenzia, I'll be with you in just a minute.”

Standish gave the horses oats, and then carried a bucket of water for each of them from the spigot. “Not good to have breakfast without something to drink,” Standish said, thinking again about the boy who came to dinner the night before. Not much to him, a shock of red hair about the color of spring willows. Mostly the boy was skinny and hungry, hungry for a long time. Only the gnawing need to eat could have pulled him through the cabin's door.

What was it that the shopkeeper had said…something about a neighbor, a Mrs. Belshaw. No, he hadn't said anything, but he had said nothing in such a way as to set a mind to wondering. The shopkeeper had spoken as though something about Mrs. Belshaw was too terrible to talk about.

Standish shook his head. It didn't make any sense. He shifted through the images of the boy last night. Hungry, no doubt about that. Certainly, the child wasn't well dressed. His shirt was two sizes too small and dirty and torn. Shoes, what about the shoes? Yes, when he stepped out of the cabin, Standish had seen the holes in the bottom of the boy's shoes. No socks. What else? No bruises, no marks indicating the boy had been beaten. What was it, then, about Mrs. Belshaw and her boy that so discombobulated the shopkeeper?

That didn't matter, Standish decided. What did matter was digging a hole for a root cellar. The easiest way to do that was with the slip he had seen behind the barn. A slip is like a large scoop shovel with a handle on both sides. A horse pulls the apparatus, the driver holding the two handles. The horse's power pulls the front edge of the shovel into the earth, when it is full of dirt, the driver pushes down on the handles and the shovel slips free to slide to the dumping place. The driver then lifts the handles, and the power of the horse pulls the slip over, dumping the load. Hard work, Standish thought, but not as hard as digging the hole with a shovel.

He opened the gate to Sally's stall. “Go have a good time today, Sally. You soak up some sun and get some of that good, green grass.” Sally
chuffed
and walked through the door, turning toward the meadow.

“Hortenzia, you and I aren't that well acquainted, but you look like a fine horse to me, so I'll let you go until I get that root cellar laid out. Then, I'll call you, and you come to me. Okay, Hortenzia?”

Hortenzia nickered.

“Good, you go now and enjoy that meadow grass.”

Standish slapped Hortenzia's rump, and she trotted out of the barn, turning to follow Sally's tracks to the meadow. Standish stood in the shadows for a moment, studying the trees. The gesture was instinctive, a habit ingrained in him for longer than he could remember. No one there. Nothing. Good.

He walked then to the cabin, listening to crows calling from nearby trees. Fascinating, those birds. They ganged up on predators, running them away from their prey. They talked to each other, and sometimes Standish thought he understood what they were saying. Standish shook his head. He had spent too much time in the mountains with only Sally and the crows for company.

Standish stiffened. The door to the cabin was open, not much, just a crack. Someone was inside, or had been inside. Standish didn't like either possibility. He rapped at the door. No response. The cabin was empty or a trap. Standish rapped again. Still no answer. He stepped through the door and dropped into the shadow beside it. The room was empty.

Standish sifted through the possibilities. Anyone might have been in the cabin. That person could be waiting outside almost anywhere, but.… But it was more likely that the visitor had been the boy from last night. He had come into the cabin as though he knew he would be welcome.

Probably it was the boy. Probably he had come to take some more food, but the groceries stacked against the east wall of the cabin didn't seem to have been disturbed. The boxes were full of cans, no open spaces except for the ham he had taken the night before, so what.… Something glowed white from the table. The dishcloth he had given the boy to carry the ham had been washed and returned, and lying on it were five, no six eggs. The boy had brought him some eggs in exchange for the ham.