Out of Innocence

by Adelaide McLeod

  Belle caught her breath on that one, and swallowed a giggle. “Well, Beufer, how far did you go in school?”

  “Second grade.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twelve, I think. But I’m not sure, maybe fourteen.” His voice was beginning to change.

  “Do you know your numbers? Can you count?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Can you read?"

  “Nope,” he said, wolfing down the food.

  “Beufer, if you go to school you can learn to read. It’s important to get your brothers in school, too.” Belle scooted down the table away from him.

  “They won't go."

  Belle moved a little farther. “Don't they like school?”

  “Nope.”

  Belle found herself as far away from him as she could get and still be at the table. “Beufer,” Belle finally said, “Beufer, ye stink! How long has it been since ye’ve had a bath?”

  “Golly, I d’know. I go swimming sometimes,” he answered.

  “Beufer, ye need a bath. Ye can’t neglect your body like this, it’s offensive. There’s not a girl in Boise County who would look twice at ye, smelling like that.”

  Belle plugged the zinc-lined tub that Harlow had made for Etta and filled it partway with hot water from the Majestic and had Buefer in the tub room before he knew what happened to him. “Now, off with your clothes and scrub yourself. Here’s some lye soap.” Her hand went through the crack in the door. “Your hair, too,” she said, “wash your hair. Should I come in and help ye with it?” she shouted from the kitchen.

  “No, dang it, I can do it.”

  Belle smiled. That would get him moving. She put his clothes on the stove to boil with a bar of lye soap and scrubbed them on the washboard. When the water got too hot and her hands turned pink, she stirred the clothes with a big wooden stake. Rinsing them in the creek, she wrung them out by hand and hung them on the wire clothesline that stretched from the outhouse to a locust tree. While she was finishing, she spotted Ada Prichard and Beatrice Fox coming up the road in a buggy.

  “Good day to ye.” Belle waved to them.

  “Such a nice day,” Beatrice said, “we decided to come to call.” She tied the reins to the fence and they walked together into the parlor.

  “That’s nice. Bring yourselves on in. I’ll make a spot of tea.” She took the apple bread that she was saving for Harlow out of the tin bread box.

  “I can’t believe how good you’ve made this ranch look, Belle. You’ve fixed things up so nice,” Beatrice said.

  It was no secret that the canyon women were still skeptical of Belle’s abilities where housekeeping was concerned. After all, she had been a dance hall girl.

  “Is Harlow up at his mines?"

  “Yes. He’s been gone all week.”

  “That’s quite a herd of Black Angus cattle. I heard you inherited them,” Beatrice said.

  Ada looked a little fussed. Ah-ha! She’d listened in when Belle and Colleen were talking about them on the telephone, Belle thought. So that’s why they’d come--to find out about the cattle.

  “Where did you hear that?” Belle threw Ada a look as she decided to make her squirm a little.

  ‘‘A little bird told me,” Beatrice twittered.

  Belle stood up. “Excuse me for a minute. It sounds like Tommy and Hannah are awake.” Belle came back carrying the babies like cordwood under each arm.

  “They’re beautiful children, Belle,” Beatrice said.

  Belle smiled. “They’re good babies.”

  “About the cattle . . ." Beatrice urged.

  Ada jumped up and looked out the window. “How’s your garden, Belle?” Ada interjected. Belle figured she was trying to change the subject.

  The garden. Oh, good grief, the garden. Beufer was still in the tub room soaking. She’d better tell these woman about him.

  “Belle! Hey, Belle!” Beufer bellowed, sounding for the world like a man. “What did you do with my clothes? Belle, I want my clothes.”

  The canyon women’s eyebrows raised as they traded knowing looks. They had been right about Belle all along. Jumping to their feet, they flew out the door, bustled down the path, huffed into their waiting buggy, and tore off down the road without as much as a goodbye, a thank you or kiss my foot. Belle figured Ada Prichard couldn’t wait to get home and on the hoop and holler line to tell anyone who would listen that Belle had a naked man in her kitchen, in the middle of the afternoon, and with Harlow off at the mine! Now what do you make of that?

  Belle watched the buggy disappear down the road. She laughed until tears came to her eyes. She’d learned to play the game. She’d get Harlow to drop a casual word to Cal Riemers about Beufer, and how Ada and Beatrice had stormed away and see who looked foolish. It would give Harlow a good laugh. Somehow, the way things “appeared” didn’t seem to matter much anymore.

  Beufer’s clothes weren’t dry, so, she gave him some old things of Harlow’s. She almost didn’t recognize him when he came out of the tub room. He’d even combed his hair. She thought of Ada and Beatrice and laughed again. She’d given the whole canyon an afternoon of entertainment. Just whose husband would they suspect of this outrageous indiscretion?

  “What’s so darn funny?” Beufer asked.

  “Women, Buefer, the canyon women are deliciously funny.”

  Beufer and Belle went back to the vegetable garden just in time to see Lightning finish off a row of turnips. They tried to coax him out of the garden, but his feet were set and he wouldn’t move. Beufer grabbed his two-by-four and whacked him dead between the eyes. That got that mule’s attention.

  Harlow swaggered into the kitchen. “I hit pay dirt--I knew it was there." His arms were around Belle, lifting her off the ground and swinging her around.

  “I’m happy for ye, Harlow. That’s wonderful news.”

  “Gold. Beautiful shiny gold.” He rolled a handful of nuggets from his pocket onto the table. “Now if I can just take this lode and figure out how to build it into a fortune.” That was like Harlow, Belle realized. Harlow had a way of keeping his goals a little out of reach.

  “Look how pink this gold is. I’ll have a wedding ring, the one you never got, made out of these.” He scooped up the nuggets and admired them again. “Would you like that?”

  “Ye know I would.” Belle watched as Harlow got out the bottle to celebrate. A funny thing, he drank because he was happy and then he drank when he wasn’t. Maybe now he’d found his gold he’d feel better and quit drinking, she told herself. She wanted to believe that.

  Harlow came into the kitchen for dinner. He ignored T.J. playing on the floor and stepped over him like he was a little piece of furniture.

  “You haven’t made me pie for a long time,” he said to Belle.

  “I’ll do it tomorrow. It’s hard to get anything done with the little ones underfoot.”

  “Lots of women do it, Belle.” He slurred his words; he was drunk.

  Two babies in less than a year had taken its toll. She felt tired most of the time. Harlow didn’t seem to understand what she was going through. He picked at his food, got up from the table and went into the parlor to smoke his pipe.

  “Can’t you make those kids be quiet? I can’t hear myself think,” Harlow yelled.

  “They’re children, Harlow.” Belle stood at the door, a baby in each arm. “Would ye hold Hannah while I get T. J. ready for bed?”

  “That’s women’s work. Put her in her bed. I’ve got things to do.”

  Belle sighed. She was exhausted. Her energy was spent before her working day was half through. She stood in front of him as hot tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “For God’s sake, Belle, what’s wrong with you?” Harlow grumbled.

  What could she say? She wanted to tell him how it made her feel that he didn’t seem to care about the child they’d made together. He was killing her spirit. She had reached a point of desperation and was as sick as he was. He was no longer the man she had marri
ed.

  “I’m tired,” she said.

  “Well, so am I. I’ve put backbreaking months into that mine, so don’t tell me about tired. I know what’s wrong with you. You’re mooning over that drover of yours. You can’t get him out of your mind, can you?”

  “Harlow, Stop it. Ben’s dead and I’m here with you. That was my choice.”

  “And you regretted it ever since.”

  “That’s not fair. How do you know what’s going on in my mind?”

  “I call it like I see it and I see you clearly. You don’t really love me. You’re like Etta.”

  “Enough, Harlow,” Belle barked. She turned on her heel, went into the bedroom and slammed the door. She put the babies to bed, and cried into her pillow. Had she ever really loved him or was it just gratitude she mistook for love? After all, she’d had his baby.

  She remembered that he’d told her how his father had nothing to do with his offspring. Maybe Harlow didn’t know how. Was she just his work horse, his brood mare?

  He wasn’t the same man who had taken her fishing up the Payette and had so carefully eased her beyond her fear. He’d been different since the war or maybe he changed after she inherited Ben’s cattle.

  The next morning, once the chores were done, Belle packed the children in the hack and headed for Horseshoe Bend. She needed to see about her livestock. She needed to get away from the ranch. Samuel Thompson at the sales yard was friendly and seemed happy to talk to her.

  “I’m Belle Pruett. Our place is a few miles up the canyon on Dry Buck. I’d like to talk to you about my herd of Black Angus. Would ye come and look them over? “

  “You’ve got a herd of Angus up on Dry Buck?” He looked puzzled.

  “Yes, I haven’t had them long and to be honest I don’t know much about cattle. She smiled at him. He was a nice-looking man with the weathered face of a cowboy. Even his blistered lips showed the signs of the harsh sun. His eyes, flint black and direct, convinced her, more than his words, that she could trust him.

  “Oh, you’re the one who brought that herd in on the freight train.” Belle nodded. She’d decided not to explain about Ben.

  “How’s tomorrow? I’ll come in the morning before it gets hot,” he said.

  Belle smiled at him. She liked his eagerness to get right at it.

  The canyon road wound with the river as the hack bounced from one rut to the next on its way back home. She knew that Samuel Thompson had found her attractive, not that it mattered. But talking to him had made her feel better. There was no harm in that.

  Belle relaxed, letting the reins go limp on her lap as Baldy trudged up the hot dusty road. In late August, the hills reminded her of a gigantic elephant resting on his side, his loose, pink-gray skin folding and falling away from his body forming valleys and gullies.

  Pushing out of the ground, where not even the wild grasses grew, rocky crags told of the land’s harshness. The gray-green rabbit brush blending into the dry grass bleakness seemed more at home with the day than Belle was.

  She crossed a creek where willows bent in a hot breeze, exposing their gray side. Brittle cheat grass crunched under the iron buggy wheels. A far cry from the way this land appeared in spring, Belle thought. If it wasn’t for the groves of cottonwoods growing along the river, foreshadowing the lush oasis of the ranch upstream, who would want to continue up the road?

  Her thoughts went back to that April day Harlow had brought her here. The hills were green velvet and in her excitement, Belle picked wild flowers that grew along the way. The landscape reminded her of Scotland. But she had learned there was a difference. The green here was gone early in July and only the land that got water survived the scorching sun. Scotland was always green.

  Harlow Pruett, when she married him, took a drink now and then. But now, once the bottle was open, he seldom quit until it was empty.

  Worse yet, there was a devil in that drink that changed him into someone she didn’t know. Thoughts of leaving him hovered in her mind but with two babies, where could she go? There had never been a divorce in her family, how could she be the first? “I cannot change him,” she mumbled. Baldy picked up his pace. They were almost home.

  Samuel Thompson showed up the next morning and spent hours looking over the cattle and visiting with Belle. He smiled and laughed a lot and Belle enjoyed the levity as she realized how the fun had disappeared out of her life. “We’ll have to bring some hay in for winter. There’s plenty of room in the barn. They’re likely to start calving about the time it gets miserably cold.”

  “You’ll need to tell me what to do.” Belle smiled. “I’m eager to learn. “

  “I’ll be glad to help you,” Sam said as his arm encircled Belle’s waist. “You can count on me,” he said as he winked at her. Belle pulled away.

  “There’s something you need to know, Sam. I’m a married woman."

  “If you’ve got a man, why isn’t he looking after this herd?” he asked.

  “It’s a long story.” Before Belle could explain, Harlow was trudging down the hill toward them. “Oh, there’s my husband now,”

  “What’s going on down here?” Harlow growled.

  “Harlow, this is Sam Thompson. He’s from the stockyard in Horseshoe Bend,” Belle said.

  Sam offered his hand and Harlow took it. “I’d better be on my way,” Sam said. “I’ve got a lot to do.” He mounted his horse and was gone.

  ‘‘Are you fooling around with that kid, Belle?” Harlow asked.

  “Of course not. How could you say such a thing?”

  “I don’t like the way he was looking at you.”

  “Well, Harlow, if you would help me with the cattle, I wouldn’t need Sam.”

  “I think that fella’s got more on his mind than cattle.” Harlow ignored what Belle said and walked away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Summer eased into fall, the cattle stood knee-high in dry grass, stiff as broom straw. Snorting death from its nostrils, a storm stalked the canyon leaving the orchard and the garden limp and lifeless. With it came long days of amusing the babies, gathering eggs, feeding and watering the cattle in the frigid winds and staying out of Harlow’s way.

  Belle stood at the kitchen window. Looking through icicles hanging from the eaves, like the spikes on an ancient castle’s drawbridge, she was stifled by a feeling of being trapped. In the snow-covered mountains beyond, long blue shadows crouched in the gullies. Time was a clock with no hands.

  A strangling cold settled inside the house as well, the bitter residue of all that was unsaid between them. It filled every corner, in the shadows where light from the coal oil lamp failed to reach. A chilling distance separated Belle and Harlow though they still sat across the table from each other. His steel-grey eyes didn’t settle on her like they used to. His broad shoulders slumped over the table like an old man’s as he moved his food around his plate with his fork. Liquor had taken his appetite; it had taken his mind, too.

  “You’re thinking I’m old and ugly, aren’t you?” Harlow said.

  “I’m worried about you. What I’m thinking is you’re drinking too much.”

  “It’s none of your damn business, woman.”

  Her feelings for him had shriveled, until, in horror, she realized they lay dead within her. The thought of spending the rest of her life with him was more than she could bear.

  If it hadn’t been for T.J. and Hannah, who returned her smiles, who listened to her songs, who needed her, she would have dissolved into the shadows. “I’m blessed,” she told them and she meant it. But she was so tired. Life with Harlow was slowly killing her.

  He confined his efforts to chopping wood, working in his shop and caring for his Clydesdales and Horse. He didn’t help with the cattle or Blue. Belle knew it was a matter of principle with him; he’d not forgotten where they came from.

  Belle wondered if she would make it through the winter with her livestock intact. It was no small job. Her back throbbed from pitching hay. January arrived
and the time of calf-birthing came with it. “Will ye help with the calving, Harlow? It’s more than I can do alone,” Belle said.

  “Me pull calves? I’ll be go to hell, if I will. It’s your doing, not mine. Sell the damn critters off. We could use the money. I’m no cattle rancher and neither are you,” Harlow said.

  “Then, I’ll get Sam Thompson. He said he’d come.” Belle said.

  “You just do that,” Harlow said, stomping out of the room.

  Sam came and spent most of January in the bunkhouse and took his meals with Belle and Harlow. Belle was glad to have his company and Sam worked hard at making conversation with Harlow.