Outcast

by Gary D. Svee

  There, the two-track road that led to the cabin. Standish clicked Hortenzia to the road, but the reminder wasn’t needed. The mare knew she was going home, and she picked up the pace to a trot. He had thought about adding Hortenzia to his entourage the next time Bodmer set him to running but that wouldn’t be fair. She had a home, and it was best that she stay there.

  Sally whickered from the meadow, and Hortenzia’s ears flicked toward her.

  “Only a minute, now, Hortenzia. We’ll pull the wagon up beside the root cellar, and then I’ll take you into the barn. We’ll get this harness off, and then you can go out and see Sally. I’ll give you your oats tonight. You are a good girl, Hortenzia.”

  Standish pulled the wagon to a halt beside the gaping hole. He loosened the tugs, and walked with Hortenzia to the barn. “Your work day is done, girl. You go out and talk to Sally. I suspect she’s been lonesome.”

  Hortenzia trotted through the barn. She nickered, and Sally returned the summons. Apparently they had a lot to talk about.

  Iona bent over the sink, wrist deep in the soapy water. She was scrubbing the remains of the picnic from the dishes. She held a plate up to the light from the window. Clean, no vestiges of potato salad or chicken. Nothing left over from the picnic. She plunged the plate into steaming clear water, leaving it to soak as she scrubbed another dish.

  Arch pried the dish from the water with a wooden spoon and scrubbed it dry with a towel. “Did you have a good time today, Ma?”

  “Yes, the best time I’ve had in a long time. I watched my son catch a beautiful fish that will feed both of us. I ate my dinner on the banks of a very pretty beaver pond in the midst of a stand of quaking aspen. I had a very good time.”

  “Do you like him, Ma?”

  “Who?”

  “Ma,” Arch said, exasperation creeping from his words.

  “He seems to be a very nice man.”

  “But he keeps prying, doesn’t he?”

  “I don’t think he meant to pry. I think he was just trying to make conversation.”

  Arch shook his head as he pried the next plate from the water. “Make conversation? You figure he’s too dumb to talk natural?”

  Iona smiled. “No.”

  Arch had stopped drying dishes. He wanted his question answered.

  Iona twisted her neck, trying to free it from the ache that had settled into it, and then she returned her attention to Arch. “The thing is, people don’t like to open the doors to our lives until we know who’s standing on the other side.”

  “So what did we learn today?”

  “Well, we know that Mr. Standish.…”

  “Miles, Ma. His name is Miles.”

  “Yes, well we learned that Miles is well educated.”

  “Well educated?” Arch shook his head. “He’s dumb as a post.”

  A smile teased the corners of Iona’s mouth. “Well, maybe, compared to you.”

  Arch nodded. That was the way he figured it. “So you reckon he was just wondering if we are axe murderers or something?”

  Iona grinned. “Something like that. Now, let’s finish up these dishes. We’ve had more excitement today than for a long time.”

  Pain Edged over Arch’s face, and Iona wished that she could take those words back. She wished she could block that day from her mind and Arch’s, too.

  CHAPTER 8

  Standish stepped shivering from the outhouse. He peered at the stars. Not so bright, now. The sun was preparing to poke over the horizon. He walked toward the barn, his eyes seeking the faint path.

  The barn door opened without a sound, and Sally nickered. Standish smiled. “I know I haven’t been giving you the attention you deserve old girl. Maybe we can go for a ride this afternoon.”

  Sally nodded. She would like to go for a ride. He gave each horse a bucket of oats and walked out, leaving the door open. He walked back to the cabin, feeling good about the morning, about the good breakfast he would have.

  Standish stopped fifty feet from his cabin door and shook his head. He must be hungrier than he thought. He imagined the scent of frying bacon. He ran this tongue across his teeth to see if his sense of taste as well as scent was teased. He took two more steps and stopped. It wasn’t his imagination. It was Arch. It had to be Arch. Who else would be in his cabin so early?

  Standish slipped through the morning air to a window. The window was dusty. He hadn’t cleaned it because he thought it might reduce the chances of a flash of light that would reflect the presence of his cabin to a stranger. Someone was sitting at his table. Thoughts dark as the night ran through Standish’s head. If one of them was waiting in the cabin, the others could be hiding in the darkness.

  He stepped back to the window. The intruder’s head barely reached the top of the chair. Arch. It had to be Arch, but they might have caught Arch. Maybe they were using him for bait, a yellow-bellied grasshopper to catch Miles Standish. But why would Arch be eating if he were being held prisoner? Stupid question. If the cabin were on fire, Arch would still take time to finish his breakfast.

  Standish shivered. Cold this morning, and it wouldn’t be long before the sun cracked the horizon. Better to step into the cabin than to be caught outside in daylight. He stopped at the door, took a breath and plunged in. He stood in the middle of the floor, eyes darting about the room.

  Arch looked up from the table. “If you’re so diddlydee hungry, why didn’t you come earlier? I fixed you breakfast but you dawdled so, and I couldn’t see any reason to waste good food, so I.…”

  Standish growled, “Arch, what the…he…helter…are you doing here?”

  Arch’s face curled into conjecture. He nodded. “Helter. That’s a good word.”

  Standish’s teeth gritted, the sound carrying to Arch. “You got a toothache or something? Ma keeps prairie cone flower root. That’ll take the hurt away. Helter of a remedy for toothache.” Arch turned back to his breakfast.

  Standish’s words rumbled from deep in his core. “What the…helter are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

  Arch shook his head. “Ain’t night. Day’s a’burnin’ out there,” Arch cast a speculative look at Standish. “S’pose you were going to lay in that bed ’til noon. Well we can’t make it to town if you’re laying slugabed.”

  “Make it to town?”

  “Yeah.”

  Standish sighed. He had two mysteries to probe. “Any of that bacon left?”

  Arch shook his head. “Told you. Made this bacon just for you, but when you dawdled wasn’t anything I could do but eat it.”

  Standish nodded. The slab of bacon was still out of the cooler. He could cut a couple of slices, and have breakfast. He reached for the bacon, but Arch caught his arm. “Don’t see how you have time for breakfast, now, what with you dawdling the way you do.”

  “I can’t have breakfast?” The words hissed between Standish’s teeth.

  Arch shoved away from the table, reaching into his mouth with his finger to work at a bit of bacon that had lodged in his teeth. When he was finished, he said, “No reason to make Hortenzia pull those rocks to town is there?”

  One of Standish’s eyes closed, and he shook his head. “Can’t see any reason why.”

  “Well, we better get at it, then?”

  “What, Arch?”

  “Unloading the wagon.”

  “So we can go to town?”

  Arch nodded. Standish might be slow, but he was catching on.

  “What if I don’t want to go to town?”

  Arch’s tongue was moving around his mouth, exploring for misplaced bacon. Meanwhile he explored the reasons why Standish might not want to go to town. “Don’t know,” he concluded.

  “Don’t know what?”

  “Don’t know why you wouldn’t want to go to town.”

  “Do you want to go to town, Arch?”

  “Kinda.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Mr. Kennedy will let me try out some of his licorice and some of
his cheese. He lets me do that so he can be sure it’s good enough for his other customers.”

  Standish nodded. “So that’s why you want to go to town, to test Mr. Kennedy’s licorice and cheese?”

  Arch shrugged.

  Standish sighed. “Well, I’m not very eager to go to town, either, so let’s forget it. I’ll fix me some breakfast, and then we’ll start putting the rock walls on the root cellar.”

  “What about Ma?”

  “What about her?”

  “S’pose you’ll just leave her to walk to town.” Arch said, revulsion crawling over his face. “It would take a helter of a man to make my Ma walk to town while he dawdles about. Diddlydee!”

  “No need to talk like that, Arch. I didn’t know your mother needed a ride to town.”

  “Well, you could of asked.”

  “Do we have time to unload the wagon?”

  “If you quit dawdling.”

  “Let’s quit dawdling, Arch.”

  Arch nodded. Standish was finally making a little diddlydee sense.

  Standish didn’t know much about women. He didn’t know anyone who did, but the current puzzle had rendered him speechless. Mrs. Belshaw, Iona, met him this morning dressed in what appeared to be a burlap sack.

  Iona was pretty. The banter at the picnic yesterday had proved that. She had fine features and long dark hair, and a smile that could stop talk mid-sentence. But she hid her attractiveness behind drab clothing and a rock-hard façade. Standish had been a little surprised yesterday when she had come to the picnic spiffed up.

  Today she looked like a vagrant in a burlap dress topped by a garden hat. Women didn’t wear garden hats to town. At least Standish didn’t think they did. He tried to remember his mother. Had she ever worn a garden hat in public? He shook his head. Never. She wouldn’t do it, and as far as he knew no woman would—except Mrs. Belshaw, Iona.

  “Is there something wrong, Mr. Standish?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Iona.”

  “Sorry, Iona, I don’t know what you mean?”

  This led to some violent headshaking by Arch. “What the helter do you know?”

  “Helter?”

  Even in the shade of the garden hat, Standish could see the perplexed look on Iona’s face.

  “It’s a Bavarian term,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Helter,” Arch hissed.

  They rode in silence for a full five minutes, and then Standish said, “You asked me if anything was wrong. I was wondering why you asked me that.”

  Iona sat on the wagon seat, her mind threading its way through the conversation to its beginning. “I saw you shaking your head, and I was wondering why?”

  “Must have been a fly.”

  “Oh.”

  “Helter,” Arch said.

  “What does helter mean, Mr. Standish?”

  “Miles, Ma’am.”

  “Iona.”

  “Arch,” Arch said.

  Standish’s mind flitted through the lexicon of odd words he had accumulated. “It’s like the Norwegian uff da.”

  “What does uff da mean?”

  Standish swallowed. “Well it doesn’t mean anything. It kind of means everything.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, I got this all secondhand, but…well, if they spill their coffee, they say, ‘Uff da.’”

  “So uff da means they’ve spilled their coffee?”

  “No, they say the same thing if they forget something, or they stumble or something unexpected happens.”

  “So it means oops.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty close.”

  “Helter,” Arch said, rolling his eyes.

  They were nearing town, and as the wagon’s wheels clattered over the bridge, Iona touched Standish’s arm. “Could you please stop here?”

  “Whoa, Hortenzia.”

  Iona climbed from the wagon seat. Arch handed her a package and climbed down to stand beside her.

  “We will walk in from here,” Mister…Miles.”

  “Why…?”

  Iona interrupted. “Do you have any idea when you’ll be leaving?”

  Standish shook his head.

  “Perhaps you could meet us here in an hour and a half?”

  Standish pulled his watch from his pocket. “I suppose I can, but.…”

  “Thank you.”

  Iona and Arch turned their backs to him and stepped into the brush and trees that ran along the river. Standish watched them until they disappeared. They stepped through the brush as a deer does, placing each foot carefully, eyes alert for any movement. The rough dress blended easily into the shadows along the river. Standish was tempted to follow, but.… He pulled his wide-brimmed hat down until it hid his face in shadow.

  Maybe Mr. Kabanov would know what was going on. Certainly Hortenzia would appreciate a moment to chat with the man.

  The streets were vacant but for a few shopkeepers sweeping the boardwalks or scrubbing windows. Myron Kennedy looked up as Standish passed. He cocked his head for a moment, his mind sifting through recollections until he came back to M.J., the customer who paid in cash. He waved, and Standish waved back.

  The scent of burning coal issued from Kabanov’s shop as Standish approached, and Standish could hear the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of the bellows, stoking up heat for the day’s work. Kabanov looked up as Standish entered. He smiled and then frowned.

  “There is something wrong with your horse Sally? Are the shoes not working?”

  Standish grinned. “Yes, there is a problem. Sally dances morning and night. I can’t ride her anymore.”

  Kabanov grinned. “I knew that Sally was a dancing horse. What can I do for you, today?”

  “I was wondering if I might leave Hortenzia with you—only about an hour or so.”

  Kabanov nodded. “Ja, I would like to see her, anyway. See what she has to say about you.”

  “Say about me?”

  “Ja, horses talk about their masters. They tell me if they’ve had enough food and enough attention to keep them happy. Sometime I expect a horse to write a book.”

  Both men laughed, but then Standish turned serious. “Maybe there’s something else you can tell me about?”

  “Maybe.”

  “My neighbors, Iona and Arch Belshaw.”

  Kabanov busied himself with the forge. His arms bulged as he pumped air on the burning coal. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. When Standish could feel the heat on his face, Kabanov dropped a piece of metal on the fire. He stepped to Standish and peered into his eyes, as Standish had seen him fathom Sally’s eyes.

  “You are a good man, but there is something dark in you.” He stepped back to the forge, pumping it again. “If you were a horse, I would say that your master beat you, but you are not a horse so I don’t know what is hiding in you.”

  Silence stretched. Standish sighed. “I’ll unharness Hortenzia.” He turned toward the door.

  “Wait.” Kabanov was standing beside the stove, hands on hips. “Why do you want to know this?”

  Standish took his hat off and scratched the back of his head. “They’re my neighbors and Arch.… Well, him and me have been working together, and.… I guess.…”

  “You haf heard something about Mrs. Belshaw, and you want to know if it is true, so you can…take advantage of her?”

  Standish bristled. “I have no intention of…taking advantage of her. I.…” He turned and stormed toward the door.

  Klaus’s voice was soft, insistent. “Come with me.”

  Standish turned. “Why the hell should I go anywhere with you?”

  “Mrs. Belshaw, she is not the dark spot I saw in your eyes. I had to know. Come with me, please. I have coffee I would share with you.”

  Standish sighed and followed Kabanov into a small room between the forge and the corral outside. A cot, with blankets stretched tight across its top, reclined against one wall. A table even smaller than Standish’s was shoved under the room’
s single window framed by rose patterned curtains. The corral shown through the window. Kabanov could watch his horses day and night to see if they had any dark spots in the eyes.

  Kabanov nodded toward the table, and Standish sat down. Kabanov returned a moment later with a pot of coffee and two cups. The coffee was strong and black and it had a slight hint of brandy in it.

  “Good,” Standish said.

  Kabanov nodded. He stared at Standish for a moment, and then spoke, “So how did you come to know the Belshaws?”

  Standish felt as though he were pleading his case before Saint Peter. He told Kabanov about Arch’s first visit to the cabin, about his first impression that Arch was wild, left alone to fend for himself in the woods. But then Arch had talked about taking food to his “Ma.” The image of two orphans had stuck in his head.

  Standish scratched his forehead. “I just couldn’t look at him. I know what it is when hunger carves a bigger hole in your belly every day.”

  Standish’s face twisted into agony as he looked at Kabanov. “I…told Arch I needed help. I offered him money for work, but he said money meant nothing to him because he couldn’t come to town to spend it. He said he would trade work for food…for him and his Ma.

  “He helped me with my root cellar. Then I helped them plant their garden. Yesterday, we had a picnic, and Arch caught this hog of a fish.…” Standish’s grinned faded, leaving a dark shadow over his face.

  “They have become part of my life, and I can’t let anybody…I can’t have any roots, but.… This morning Arch asked—no he never really asks—for a ride to town. His mother was waiting at her place. She had some kind of a package, and she was wearing.…”

  Standish stared at Kabanov. “She was dressed like a hobo. They had me drop them off outside of town and they walked into the trees, carrying that package. I don’t know what I’ve gotten into. I should just cut it off. I can get by without them. I haven’t counted on anyone for more years than I would care to remember, but…I.…”

  Standish shook his head, “There is something dark in their eyes. If they were horses, I would say they had been beaten by their owner.”