by E A Lake
“Come on,” he groused. “Mr. Hulton would like to have a word with you. It’ll be quick, he said.”
“Oh goody,” Sunshine moaned. “Another date with the devil.”
Taking her hand, I urged her to follow me inside. Though I kind of did agree with her comment.
Chapter 24
We met our host in his usual spot, the living room. The afternoon sun streamed in through the southwest windows, framing him as he smoked a small cigar by the fireplace. He appeared, in a word, confident.
“Ladies,” he greeted us from across the room. “Please come in and take a spot on the couch.”
His tone was happy, almost playful. I wondered what he was up to now. What was I about to lose?
As we sat, Sunshine took my hand. That was fine with me; perhaps her shakiness would hide mine. I realized I was the polar opposite of Rickard Hulton. The worst part was he knew it as well.
He was wealthy—in land, people, and crops. He was handsome; the apocalypse hadn’t taken a toll on him as it had most people. Powerful was another word anyone would use to describe him, whether they’d just met or were lifelong friends.
I was none of what he was. And I was ashamed to again be in front of him, reminded of all of my weaknesses.
“You wanted a word with us, Mr. Hulton?” I asked, sounding nowhere near as brave as I was trying.
He smiled and nodded, taking his place across from us in a plush maroon high-backed chair.
“I have some news for you,” he began. “News that should please you, Mrs. Turner.”
For a moment, I allowed my heart to come out from its dark place. Perhaps he had heard of Brady and Sasha. Maybe he knew their whereabouts and had sent someone to fetch them for me.
“After a long discussion with my wife,” he continued, “I’ve decided to reduce the extra penalty I applied to Luke’s contract.”
Disappointment struck first, followed by a brief tinge of hope.
“Rena, Mrs. Hulton, said I was perhaps too severe and hasty in my decision to add six weeks to the contract.” He paused, staring at his folded hands.
“Five weeks,” I corrected. That sounded braver, for a change.
He nodded. “Yes, five weeks it was. But after my discussion with Rena, I’ve decided only two weeks need to be added on. It would seem that Lask could have dispensed with the attack with a single shot. So two weeks it is.”
It wasn’t much, but it was something. A small ray of sunshine in my otherwise gray existence. Coming from a man who took so much and gave so little—because he could—I should have seen it as a great victory.
“Thank you, Mr. Hulton,” I replied, watching him wave away my words as if he’d done nothing. “If it’s possible I’d like to thank your wife as well.”
I wouldn’t say his expression went dark, but there was something he chose to hide in his look.
“She’s not available at this time, I’m afraid,” he said in a softer voice. “You see, we just adopted an orphan, and it seems the child is having a difficult time adjusting to family life. I think she’s having a hard time trusting anyone right now, given the fact she was left on her own for a period of time.”
“Adopted or stole,” Sunshine muttered. I shot her a quieting look; hopefully, our host hadn’t heard her rude comment.
“I don’t have to steal anything, Miss Jones,” he replied, sounding as if he took no offense to the comment. “I’m a wealthy man, whatever that means nowadays. I can purchase anything or anyone I desire.” His eyes softened.
“But I assure you this was an adoption,” he continued. “We even spoke with some townsfolk that seemed to be in charge. They’re the ones who alerted us to this poor child.”
I felt sympathy for the man. Here, he and his wife had graciously opened their home to a needy being, and most people would view it as a rich man taking what he wanted.
“How old is she?” I asked. “I have some experience with young children, you know. I might be able to help.”
His sad smile and eyes focused on me as if I were the only person in the room. “We don’t really know. She hasn’t divulged much information yet. But my wife feels she’s somewhere between seven and ten.”
For a moment, I had held hope that perhaps it was Sasha. But given her small stature, most people would guess her age closer to four.
“But I appreciate your offer, Mrs. Turner. I’ll be sure to tell my wife of your generous offer.”
I slid forward on the couch, my dress fabric making a zipping sound. “Is there anything else, Mr. Hulton?”
His head shook, and he went to rise.
“If I might,” I quickly added; he sat and stared at me, hands opened my direction.
“Not a good idea, Abby,” Sunshine whispered. “Leave it be.”
But I couldn’t. I had to ask.
Chapter 25
He stared at me for a long while, tapping the ends of his fingers together. I could see that his mind was hard at work, dreaming up a way to add months—if not years—to Walker’s contract.
Beside me, Sunshine squirmed. I’d shushed her concerns, but now I wondered if I shouldn’t have kept my thoughts to myself as well.
“A horse, you say,” he stated as if he were considering the request. “I suppose you’d be needing a saddle as well?”
I didn’t understand what he meant, and I’m certain my face showed it.
“Unless you’re an accomplished bareback rider,” he continued, “you’d need a saddle for the horse. To go that far, at least.”
I nodded with a tight-lipped smile. “I suppose. I haven’t been on a horse in over twenty years.”
His eyes flashed open as he gazed out a window. “A horse and a saddle,” he repeated. “Those are mighty valuable assets these days. Almost a month’s worth of food.”
His pause made me nervous. Was I supposed to beg? I would if it would help.
“If it’s too much trouble,” I inserted, “or too costly, we can just forget I ever asked.”
He leaned forward in his chair, drawing me closer. “If I could, I would do it for you gratis. But it’s too risky.”
“In what way?” Sunshine asked, joining the conversation she advised against.
“If Mrs. Turner were to be stolen, God forbid, I’d lose a friend, a horse, and a saddle. Luke would have to stay until you returned and until we could settle the debt.” His head shook slightly. “If you weren’t to return…”
I had to press the subject; I could tell he was close to capitulating. “You could send someone with me.” It sounded as desperate as I was, but I didn’t care.
His face screwed up as he leaned back and crossed his legs. “That would be expensive. Probably in the range of a month per man-hour of aid.”
There it was, the price laid crisply on the table before me. “How long of a ride is it to Rigby? Do you know?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I haven’t been there in years. Not since they had two straight years of the fever.” He looked past me. “Lask, do you know?”
I had forgotten that Mr. Lasky was still in the room. Craning my neck to see behind, I saw him on a firm chair by the door.
“I suppose three hours there, three back,” he replied. “Spend an hour or two digging around, it’d be about eight to ten hours total.”
Whistling his surprise, Mr. Hulton grinned. “Eight to ten more months of your boy in my service, Mrs. Turner. That would get him back home two winters from now. Is it worth it to you?”
Yes, it was, but no, it wasn’t. If I went searching for Brady and Sasha and came back empty-handed, the price would be soul crushing.
“I hear Rigby’s a ghost town,” Mr. Lasky added. I heard his chair creak before his footsteps came closer. “I don’t think you’d want to go searching for ghosts in a place like that.”
My eyes found Mr. Hulton’s. “It can’t be a ghost town,” I stated. “Brady would have known better. He would have never taken Sasha to a place like that unless he knew there were peo
ple to trade with.”
He sat quietly before he shrugged. “Makes sense, I suppose,” Mr. Hulton replied. “Your choice, though. You know the price, and my offer stands. Your horse and saddle are free. Mr. Lasky’s time is not.”
Short of breath, I nodded several times. “I’ll have to think about it. But as long as I know the offer is open, that gives me peace of mind.”
“That was about the stupidest thing you done to date,” Sunshine said as we walked back to our home. She was upset with me though she didn’t understand my feelings.
“I had to ask,” I insisted. “The time was right; he was in a generous mood. I couldn’t let it go by.”
She laughed at me. “Well, I guess you found out just how generous that man really is. Asking him for a favor is like dealing with the devil, maybe worse. GeeMah warned me about people like him. That kind of man takes advantage of dumb folks like you.” She ended her diatribe with a snort.
“GeeMah didn’t know how desperate people like me would become,” I replied, picking up the pace so she had to trot to keep up. “I’m going to find out where Brady and Sasha are—this summer. I’m not waiting through another gut-wrenching winter for him to show up.”
“He’s gone!” Sunshine cried. “And he took your little girl with him. There’s lots of lost souls nowadays, Abby. Don’t do this to yourself.”
I stopped and spun, jabbing a finger at her. “I will try. I have to try.”
“Old man Frederickson already told you about Rigby. They ain’t there.”
Yes, we’d heard the story several times. Once the fever came, the Amish quit trading with Rigby. Self-preservation, they said. How smug they acted when it lasted for two full years.
“That doesn’t mean everyone’s gone,” I replied. “Even Mr. Frederickson admitted that. They haven’t been there in almost four years. It could be booming again.”
Sunshine took hold of my shoulders, her bony fingers digging in. “They could be dead, Abby. Just let it be.”
I tore myself away from her grip, striding homeward again. “I have to find out for myself. I just have to.”
Chapter 26
The new week brought the return of our same dull life. Up with the sun, water and weed, lazy afternoons on the porch, in bed before sunset. It was predictable and completely unsatisfying.
Occasional visits from Mr. Frederickson offered small breaks in the boredom. He gave us news from the area, brought us baskets of goodies, and generally treated us like friends. We relished his visits each time.
One visit, he stared at our garden with us. We had asked for any advice he might have. The corn looked stressed or weak or something. All I knew was it didn’t look like last year’s crop.
“Can’t say mine looks much different,” he stated, kneeling in a row of head-height green plants. “The roots look fine. It just seems to be a little stunted this year.”
The long silence that followed made me nervous. A good crop meant a good harvest. A good harvest meant more supplies provided by Mr. Hulton. Most importantly, a good crop got us credit at the Amish store for our other necessities.
It was well known in the region that the Amish worked and traded well with most of the English. That’s what they called us; as far as I knew, no one took offense to the nickname.
But there was one man they despised… and feared.
“I suppose your overlord has seen this,” he continued, referring to Mr. Lasky. “What did he say?”
“Lotta help he was,” Sunshine snorted. “He told us to watch it, maybe get some natural fertilizer on it. Like we can come by that somehow.”
“Are you adding all your compost?”
I nodded to his question. “As much as we can. There isn’t a whole lot, but we try.”
“Corn sucks the life out of soil,” he replied. “Gotta try to get as many nutrients back in the ground as possible. I think that’s what’s happened to mine as well.”
Not good news, but not something that couldn’t be remedied, I hoped.
We all strolled out of the enclosure and back to the yard. I figured Mr. Frederickson preferred it that way. So his wife couldn’t see him chatting with the two of us.
“How much credit you have left down at the store?” he asked. His expression told me they had fertilizer. Perhaps plenty.
For a moment, I thought about our last visit there, some three weeks back. I knew there wasn’t much remaining open on our account. And more wouldn’t be coming until after the weighing of the harvest.
“Not a lot,” I admitted, feeling a blush cover my otherwise pale cheeks. “Without Brady here—”
He raised a hand to stop me. “You go down there and ask for Mrs. Miller, Sarah Miller. You tell her whatever you can’t cover, I will. Get yourselves at least ten bags of organic fertilizer—the good stuff. It needs to have plenty of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. High in nitrogen, for sure.”
He was helpful and confusing at the same time. I knew little of that kind of stuff.
“How will I know which one to grab?” I hastily asked. “And how much? And how are we supposed to get it back here?”
“I ain’t lugging bags of shit back and forth for the next week,” Sunshine added in her usual seminasty way. “That corn can all die for what I care.”
His face went soft. He understood, and he raised his hands to slow down our fears.
“You ask Joel Freiburg in the back what’s best for weak corn,” Mr. Frederickson answered with the patience of a man with years of experience. “You’ll need about ten bags, maybe a few more. That should cover you. As far as getting it back, you tell Joel I said he needs to bring the fertilizer and you both back in his wagon. He’ll do what I say. If you have any trouble, come and fetch me. But this should be fine, ladies.”
He certainly sounded confident about it all. I wasn’t sure I held that same optimism. But we had to try. That much I knew.
The walk was slow and easy. The area’s mainly level terrain made it that way. Our exhausted bodies were what made it slow.
“They move that damned store on us?” Sunshine asked. “Seems like it gets further away every time we go there.”
I understood her frustration. But it was us, not the store.
For years, food had been hard to come by. There was a point after Bradley’s death, before I met Brady, that I was sure that Walker and I would die of starvation. But the help here and there of a kind neighbor, Walker’s adeptness at snaring rabbits, and growing just enough helped us survive… barely.
We were weak from malnourishment. Our bodies were broken down and mere former shells of what we had once been. A good harvest this year—and perhaps some much-needed protein—would see us through the winter.
I had read somewhere once upon a time that a person can survive three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, and three weeks without food. Air and water we had plenty; it was the food that we were missing.
That wasn’t to say that there weren’t times of plenty. Typically, after the fall harvest, we had more than enough. For two weeks, we would eat three nearly full meals a day. Soon after, we’d return to our normal of two, and as the days moved forward, the meals became smaller and smaller.
Sunshine and I were almost out of food. What we had left wouldn’t have fed a family of four for a week in the old days. The time when people had everything they wanted and more. Like when I was still at home and living with my parents.
Those were my food fantasies, waking up to a full pantry and refrigerator, pushing perfectly fine food aside, searching for something better. Oh, how foolish we all were back then.
“I wonder if old man Frederickson can shoot us a deer?” Sunshine asked, bringing me back to the present. “His kid has a bow and some arrows. Maybe they’d shoot us one.”
Maybe but probably not. “I’m not sure Mrs. Frederickson would approve of that. You know, her being a little stubborn.”
“That stuck-up bitch has everything she needs over there,” Sunshine ra
nted. “So her husband saw your titties one time. Ain’t like you’re trying to sleep with the man.”
“Please, be respectful,” I admonished. “She’s generous enough to send over what she does. We need to be thankful for that.”
“That old bat needs to get off her high horse,” she continued. “When was the last time you spoke to her?”
It had been a while… before the incident. But that wasn’t the point. I didn’t want to ruffle the woman’s pride or prudishness any further.
“I see the store up ahead,” I called back. “Come on, let’s get this done.”
Sunshine’s skepticism would be proven true. I just didn’t know it at that point.
Chapter 27
I was always amazed at how busy the store was. As we approached, I counted no fewer than 10 horses hitched to posts, all with wagons behind. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought the world was whole again.
Stepping inside, I paused for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the dark interior. Even with many windows dotting the building, it always was like twilight inside.
Though everyone in the area knew us, or of us, the store came to its usual silence when outsiders arrived. Were we ever going to be welcomed as one of them? Or would they continue to stare and whisper each time we arrived?
A small gray-haired woman approached, dressed in a plain blue dress. The only flash of light in the woman was her bold white apron. I recognized her instantly.
“Good afternoon, Grandma Miller,” I said in a cheery tone. “How nice to see you again.”
She smiled and nodded, her white teeth on full display. “Well hello, Mrs. Turner.” She paused for a moment and stared at my companion. “And Sunshine. How nice to see you again.”
I inched closer and kept my voice low. “Is your daughter available? I’d like to speak with her.”