She recalled they considered Peggy the sweetest of the girls. Her gentle and friendly ways mended squabbles between the younger siblings. She felt thankful the girl sat beside her.
Peggy nudged her in the ribs. “Jim likes to be the center of attention,” she whispered. Dark auburn lashes lined her eyes, emphasizing their deep-brown color, but strangely contrasting her bright red-tinged hair. “Did you eat all the candy we left with you?”
Unable to stop a giggle, she nodded and whispered, “It was good.” She hated to admit how soon she ate it all.
Samuel interrupted Jim’s wild account of their day by leaning forward to speak to Grace on the other side of Peggy. “Looks like Peggy and Ella Dessa are sharing secrets.”
“What secrets?” Grace raised her perfectly-arched eyebrows.
Before anyone could reply, the door burst open. Ella’s pa stood within the dark framework. Ephraim tried to jump to his feet but fell sideways, his bad knee giving out. He caught hold of the table edge, groaned, and sank to his chair.
“Jacob!” Inez rose from her end of the table, one hand over her heart.
“What are you doing busting into our house?” Jim stumbled around the crowded table and stopped in front of the taller man. He held his clenched fists chest high.
“I came fer my gurl child. I heard she were brought here. You were seen. Ella Dessa, git outside.” He thumbed over his shoulder. “Now!”
She hurried to obey by lifting her right foot over the bench, but she kicked Peggy’s leg in the process. “Sorry, Peggy.”
Peggy’s expressive eyes filled with tears, but Ella knew it wasn’t from having her leg bumped.
Inez stood with her back ramrod straight. “Jacob, we must talk—”
“You’re askin’ to be shot.” Ephraim interrupted his wife. “Jim, get my gun from the fireboard.”
“No guns!” Inez told Grace to hold Phillip and she went to her husband’s side. The tips of her fingers turned white when she squeezed his thick shoulder. “Jim, move away—back up. Your father and I will handle this. Ella Dessa, remain where you are.”
Pa’s narrowed eyes watched Jim.
“Mother, no man has a right to force his way in here.” Jim gritted his teeth and held his ground. A vein throbbed at his left temple.
“No man has a right to steal my gurl.” Her pa issued a line of filthy cuss words.
Inez left Ephraim’s side and grabbed a broom from the wall. “Jacob Huskey, you will not use that language in my house or in front of your child or my children. Jim, do as I say. Step back.”
Ephraim rubbed his knee and raised his voice once more. “Jim, mind your mother. Jacob, if I could stand right this instant, I’d knock you out that door and off my porch. As it is, I’m askin’ Jim to fetch my gun. I’m gonna kill you.”
Cowering, Ella thought about sinking below the tabletop. She hadn’t expected the appearance of her pa. She felt Peggy clinging to her right hand and pulling, trying to make her sit.
Jim reached for a long-barreled gun on the mantel and passed it to Ephraim, butt first.
“Pa! I’m comin’.” She made a quick decision. She couldn’t let him be shot.
“Then git out the door.” His words hissed between his discolored, broken teeth. Unreadable eyes locked on her face. “Move.”
“No!” Inez walked straight to him and stepped close enough to smack him with the broom handle. “Ella Dessa, your father’s leaving. Stay where you are.”
“Mother, get out of the way.” Jim got closer and tugged at her arm. “Papa’s got him covered with the gun. He better leave!”
Almost blind with horror, Ella gasped. Her pa’s right hand convulsed and the tremor shot up the whole arm. She ducked past Inez and sandwiched her body between Pa and Ephraim’s long gun.
“Let’s go, Pa.” She gazed upward and eyed his rigid, half-crazed expression. “I wanna go with you. Please?” She hadn’t thought it’d come to this.
She winced as his left hand clamped on her shoulder and propelled her forward. She tripped over the raised wooden threshold. A frantic look over her shoulder gave her a peek of Jim’s clenched jaw and flushed face. She heard Ephraim’s heavy breathing and saw the barrel of the gun drop.
Inez followed with the broom clutched in her white-knuckled hands. A stiff autumn breeze wafted through the covered connection between the two shadowed buildings. Ella didn’t resist as her pa yanked her to the right—in the direction of the wide steps.
“Ella Dessa!” Samuel pushed past Jim. His hands held her mama’s Bible.
She silently shook her head in warning. Her last backward glimpse met with Samuel’s green-eyed look of compassion. Her lips trembled as her mama’s long dress tripped her on the steps. She shrank away from Pa’s outstretched hand.
“Git on the horse.” He clutched the reins and held the pitiful horse still.
“Wait!” Inez handed Jim the broom and ran down the wooden steps. “Jacob, please—let’s talk. You and I. I know you’ll be sensible.”
“Sure, ‘bout what? How yer ole man’s goin’ to blow my head off?” His eyes raked down the length of her slender form, and his thin lips curled in distain. “He sends out a woman to bargain?”
“Please. We’d like your daughter to stay with us.” Her warm hand rested on the top of Ella’s head. Gently, her fingers smoothed loose strands of hair. “Please?”
Ella trembled under the brave woman’s reassuring touch.
“No.” He shook his head. “She’s under my heed.”
“But you want to be free of that care. Right?”
“I found someone she can work for.” With one swift movement, Pa wrenched Ella away from Inez’s touch and shoved her against the horse’s solid chest and neck. “Stay put. Don’t give me any sass,” he warned.
“Not sassin’.” She held her breath. Her shaking hands calmed the startled old horse. She didn’t want to witness how her pa would treat Inez.
“Woman, if you think I’d let—”
“Pa! I want to stay. Let me stay with ‘em.” She shoved herself between him and Inez. She didn’t want the woman to take her punishment, so she dared to make the unthinkable request—to counter her pa’s anger and bring the focus back on herself. “It wasn’t their fault. I begged to stay. It were lonely up on the ridge. Honest, Pa.”
His fingers were swift to bite into her shoulder and make her whimper. The pain caused her to twist sideways. Without wishing to do so, she reacted and silently appealed to Inez for help.
The woman’s hazel eyes darkened and flashed. Her facial muscles stiffened. “You will remove your hand from that child’s shoulder, or I’ll yell for my oldest son to bring the gun. You don’t want that, because I’ll shoot you myself.” Her voice turned icy, but her stern eyes were backlit with fire. “It’s your decision.”
Pa’s fingers loosened. His right arm convulsed, and he grabbed at it with his left hand. “I’ve attained a job fer her. An’ she’s goin’ to earn her keep. I’ll not be beholden to anyone, an’ I won’t have her livin’ under the same roof as yer red-headed, no-good son.” A sneer distorted his wide mouth and showed his yellow teeth.
Ella inched toward the horse, but Pa followed her.
“Who are you going to bond her out to?” She stepped closer. “Are you so low? Is that what you’ve sunk to? You’ve desecrated your wife’s memory. Now, you’re willing to sell a child? Make her work for someone in the settlement?”
“It’s my business.” Pa’s dark eyes shied away from Inez. He tried to present the impression he wasn’t disturbed by the woman standing in front of him.
“Who is it?”
Ella trembled and felt invisible. The horse’s warm breath tickled the side of her neck and smelled of chewed straw.
“I won’t say.”
“Where’s your decency, Jacob Huskey? You’re abandoning this child. At least place her where she’ll be cared for and not abused. Then go your own way.”
Her pa shifted his weight as if considering his next mo
ve.
Ella studied the dusty tips of her new boots protruding from under the ragged hem of her mama’s dress. She felt the delicate unbelievable dream of the whole morning dissolving into a nightmare. She wouldn’t be living with the McKnapp family.
Pa let an unintelligible curse pass his lips before answering the persistent woman. “Gust Clanders needs hired help ta stay with his wife this winter—whilst he’s gone.”
The quivering in Ella’s legs immediately subsided at the sound of Velma’s name. Velma? I’m bein’ sent to help Velma Clanders? Why? Pa dislikes Gust Clanders. She chanced a brief peek at Inez’s face.
A gleam of relief lit the woman’s troubled eyes. Inez lifted her chin, presenting stubborn disbelief. “Gust can’t pay for help. He owes people in the cove. That’s why he’s gone to dig for a fool’s dream.”
“Ella’s pay will be a place to sleep.” Pa forcefully closed and opened the fingers of his right hand, trying to conceal how badly his hand shook. His breath reeked of liquor. A new felt hat covered his thick curly hair, and he wore a store-bought shirt of stiff white material.
Bought with stolen gold, Ella thought. Her eyes searched his rough face.
“When did he speak to you?” Inez’s voice softened.
“Days back as he left fer the mines.”
“And when do you leave town?”
His defiant, unsettling eyes flashed from under the brim of the new hat, but he answered her. “Daybreak. Me an’ my woman are headin’ fer Richmond to be married.”
His woman? Ella’s arms jerked downward to tighten on her midsection. They’re leavin’? It felt as if the horse had kicked her stomach. She wanted to gag, but comforting hands once again rested on her shoulders.
Inez drew her against her willowy frame. “Perhaps, Ella Dessa should remain here for the night, since the day is more than half past. My girls hope to visit with Ella. I’ll personally take her to Velma’s in the morning. I need to carry her a cured ham.”
Ella wanted to fling herself into Inez’s arms. She longed to bury her face against the woman’s flat chest and cry away the pain in her heart. But she couldn’t move an inch as long as her pa remained indecisive—standing before them.
“I don’t like the way ya think of me.” Her pa glared into the distance. His nostrils flared, and he gritted his broken teeth. “I’ve done my best by her—her bein’ forced on me an’ all. I gave her my name.”
She felt Inez’s body tense against her back. She didn’t understand what her pa meant. Was he talking about her? She squinted in the bright fall sunlight. I were forced on him?
“I don’t think I’ve voiced my opinion of you.” Inez spoke quietly. “And I fail to understand what you’re talking about. My only question is—will you agree Ella Dessa may stay the night and will you state it out loud, so all may hear?”
With another vile curse, he crammed his hat on tighter and jerked the horse’s reins. “See to it that she gits to the Clanders’ homestead by mornin’.”
Without a word of good-bye, he mounted the horse. Ella watched him ride away. The dust of the rutted road kicked into small clouds under the mare’s hooves, and the shade of the pines wrapped themselves along her pa’s slumped shoulders.
Inez gave a soft, delightful laugh and opened her arms. “Let me hug you. He’s gone.” Her lips brushed Ella’s forehead. “You see, it just took a woman’s persistence. Now, let’s go soothe the ruffled feathers in the kitchen. Tomorrow we’ll walk to Velma’s.”
Chapter 15
Ella stretched under the weight of the heavy padded quilt and wiggled her toes, which were cozy inside borrowed woolen socks. She could feel Peggy’s body warmth, combined with hers, under the covers. Her eyelids flew open, and sleepiness fled.
She awakened to a room hushed and cloaked in unfamiliar shadows. She smiled, rolled to her right side, and pillowed her head on her arm. The soft timbre of breathing and an occasional sleepy murmur said she wasn’t alone. It was a heartwarming fact. Little pings of joy sang through her veins and made her want to burst into uncontrolled giggles. She felt bubbly.
Content, she observed the growing daylight tiptoe through the narrow window and glide across the quilt-hidden forms of the sleeping girls. It brightened their sleep-tousled hair.
This is like havin’ sisters of my own. She hugged herself and wished she could capture the feeling forever. Oh, how she wanted to stay with the McKnapps.
She recalled the astonishing evening with the big family. She had laughed, played games with the girls, and listened to Ephraim read from their family Bible. It seemed like one magnificent dream. She’d never forget the precious gift she had been given. She felt accepted into their private family circle, if only for a short night. No one yelled at her, and not one person belittled her. She even forgot about her scarred neck for a short time.
Ella sighed with contentment. The detailed and differing patterns of the numerous beautiful quilts became visible. She never saw so many colors, except in wild flowers.
“You awake?”
“Yes.” She rolled over and smiled.
“It’s a little chilly this morning.” Peggy sat up. Her curly hair had frizzed. A tiny beam of sunlight touched it and made it flame with sizzling color. She shivered.
“I’m comfy,” Ella replied.
Peggy burrowed back under the quilt, until just her round brown eyes and wild hair showed. The quilt muffled her voice. “I wish you didn’t have to go to Velma’s. We’d love to have you as an extra sister.”
Giggling, she slipped closer to her new friend, with whom she shared a pallet on the wood floor. Her bent knees bumped Peggy’s legs. “I’d love to be your sister, but your family ain’t needin’ extras. Will Phillip be upset when he learns he was moved whilst he slept?”
“Ah, he loves playing with his big brothers, especially Samuel.”
“Samuel must love one and all. He’s so nice.”
“He can be,” Peggy whispered back. “Hey, Duncan sure wasn’t happy when he saw you yesterday.”
Ella flipped to her back and contemplated the dark rafters. “It’s my pa he don’t like, I s’pose.” She wrinkled her nose and considered Duncan’s previous actions. “I think he treated me fine when he returned from Velma’s.”
“Yes, after Papa gave him the evil eye. Mother says Duncan will someday realize what a big horse’s butt he’s been.”
“Your mama said that?” She jerked her head sideways and raised her eyebrows.
Peggy popped her head further out from under the quilt and rolled her pretty eyes. “Well, Mother didn’t use those words.”
While sputtering with amusement, she pulled the quilt over her head. Together, the two girls huddled under the covers and giggled. “Shh, we’ll wake your sisters.” But she laughed all the harder.
“Thanks, you two,” a sleepy voice muttered.
Peggy and Ella flipped the quilt edge back. “Good morning, Grace,” Peggy whispered.
The young woman rolled to a sitting position, pushed her hair out of her face, and yawned. “Hmm. I’d think you’d both be too exhausted to wake me up early.” Her loose dark hair flowed in heavy waves over her shoulders and contrasted with her white nightgown.
“Sorry, Grace.” Ella felt ashamed. “It’s my fault.”
“No it isn’t.” Peggy slapped at her arm. “I started it.”
“Stop arguing.” Grace stood and stretched. “Mother’s probably setting out breakfast, anyways. So, you two get up and go help her. I’ll check on Phillip.”
“Be quiet.” Anna grumbled the words and jerked her quilt over her head.
Josie crawled out of the bed she shared with Anna. Hunching her thin shoulders against the coolness of the room, she turned to her oldest sister. “Does Ella hav’ta leave today? I want her to stay. I love her, already.”
“Yes, she has to go help Velma.” Grace shivered, stripped off her long nightgown, and reached for a folded dress at the end of the bed. “Anna, you might as well get out of
bed. It’s light enough to see in here, so it must be late. Hurry, so you can get in by the fireplace. You were sick last week, and we can’t have you taking a chill again.”
“You act like our mother.” Anna still had her blond head buried.
“Well, I’ll soon be married. Then you’ll be free of me. Get up.”
Ella watched Peggy stand and step over their rumpled quilt. She didn’t relish the idea of crawling out of the bed. It was nice under the quilt. Peggy had elected to give up sleeping in bed with Grace—to keep her company on the floor, which was where Phillip normally slept.
Peggy shucked off her nightshift. She tossed it sideways into the air as she grabbed her dress. “I’m not using the pot. So I don’t have to empty it! Come, Ella, hurry. We have to beat the boys to the necessary.”
“Necessary?” She sat upright and reached for her mama’s wrinkled dress.
“Yes. Ah, the outhouse? Privy? Don’t you have one at home?”
“Oh, of course.” She pulled off the borrowed nightdress and shrugged into her dress. “Wait for me.”
The girls raced each other to the cold outhouse, giggling and ducking in and out as fast as they could. Their cheeks and noses were pink from the cold when they entered the kitchen’s warmth and breathed in the welcoming scent of bacon and fried potatoes.
Self-conscious about her unbrushed hair, Ella quickly twisted it into a knob on the back of her head and tucked the ends in. She joined the line of girls at the washbasin and splashed cold water on her face and rinsed her hands.
Peggy handed her a towel. “Here, use mine to dry. Brrr, winter is coming.”
Ephraim was the last one to come to the breakfast table. He limped in, favored his knee, and used a knobby homemade cane. After he said the blessing, he kept his hands folded and studied each face at the full table—as if assessing their strengths and weaknesses. “Jim, lettin you and the boys know I won’t be helping today. Pain’s too bad. You three must do the chores, and you’ll do book lessons after dark. Your mother’s taking Ella to Velma’s crowded cabin. Grace will handle the house chores and the girls’ schoolin’.”
The Girl Called Ella Dessa: Will she ever be cherished for the inner beauty beneath her scars? Page 15