by Judith Pella
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Ellie loves him.” Ada said that because it was finally dawning upon her.
“Probably not anymore,” Calvin replied.
But Ada knew a woman’s mind better than her husband did, and she didn’t think a woman could turn her love on and off like one of those electric lights she’d seen once when visiting Portland.
TWENTY - NINE
Ellie knew that what she was doing was foolishness. Mama had hinted at it, though she had still offered to help. As she sat on the porch with the damaged “welcome quilt” spread over her knees, Ellie tried to define why she wanted to repair it. The answer was not clear to her, but when Georgie had dragged it down from his room one day asking if he should take it to the barn to use for the animals, Ellie had been compelled to rescue it.
“No, Georgie, maybe it can be fixed,” she’d said.
Mama had raised a brow. “Some things can’t be fixed, Ellie.”
Ellie knew her mother’s words referred to more than a quilt.
But Mama had helped Ellie wash the quilt in a bath of white soap, shaved and dissolved in boiling water, to which was also added ammonia. That had cleaned away the soil the quilt had picked up after the fire when it had been dragged through the dirt, and it also removed some of the minor scorching. But there were still several stubborn marks remaining that Mama said to leave until the frayed, burned places were patched, at which time the quilt could stand a more vigorous washing. When the quilt was dry, Ellie had begun the tedious task of patching. Some small holes burned by hot embers she had been able to darn, but the larger holes needed patching. Mama still had some of the backing material that could be used to patch holes in the back, but for the blocks on the front, Ellie had gone to the individual makers to get scraps. She hadn’t told them what she was doing. She thought some of the ladies might be adverse to the idea of repairing the quilt most of them regretted making in the first place.
Strangely, one of the worst damaged blocks was Jane Don-nelly’s. I t had been in the corner used to beat out flames.I t was almost beyond repair, and Ellie thought she might just remake the whole block. I t was a fairly simple pattern called Shoofly. With some trepidation Ellie paid Mrs. Donnelly a visit.
“Oh yes,I have some scraps left,” Mrs. Donnelly told Ellie after inviting her into the house. They were seated at the kitchen table. “Do you plan to make another blue quilt?” When Ellie hesitated, Mrs. Donnelly smiled. “Are you trying to fix the welcome quilt?”
No one had thus far asked her so directly. She suspected no one wanted to talk about the quilt. But now she was forced to answer honestly.
“Yes, Mrs. Donnelly.Is that all right with you?”
“You don’t need my permission to do so.”
“Your blessing, then?” Ellie implored. “You, more than anyone, have a right to protest, to want the quilt and the memory of . . . well, of why we made it, buried forever.”
“Do you think I hate our erstwhile minister?” Pausing only a moment, she answered her own question. “I don’t.I don’t blame him for anything that happened to my family.”
“But maybe if he’d been a real minister, he would have given better advice and restrained his violence. And things might not have happened as they did.” Ellie didn’t know why she was changing her defensive stance regarding Zack. She was mostly trying to sort through everything and understand her own oft conflicting reactions.
“In an odd way I believe he took his duties as minister rather seriously,” Mrs. Donnelly said.
Ellie gasped at the surprising comment.
Mrs. Donnelly smiled, adding, “He didn’t have to talk to Tommy as I requested. He didn’t have to do a lot of things he did, like helpL ouise or sit up for hours with Mrs. Cook.
He could have found excuses not to do those things just as he found an excuse not to marry Claudia Briggs. He probably would have been safer to avoid us as much as possible. But I think he liked us and wanted to help us. The real William Locklin was young and inexperienced and might have made mistakes, as well. But I am not convinced that the way our William dealt with Tom and Tommy was wrong. He helped my Tommy be strong. He gave him courage not to take his father’s abuse, something I was never able to do. That needed to happen. If it brought about the unfortunate events in the woods, then . . .I don’t know.”
Ellie had the feeling Mrs. Donnelly might have said, “Then so be it.” Could she be glad that the elder Tom was gone? That was a question that should never be asked or, for that matter, answered.
Mrs. Donnelly rose from her chair, went to her scrap box in a corner of the kitchen, and dug through it until she found some large pieces of the fabrics she had used in her block.
“Take these and fix that quilt,” she said.
“Thank you. I’m afraid I may have to remake most of your block, as it was damaged pretty badly.”
“Do that, then. I think the quilt should be preserved. I know your mother has a good stain remover made of soap and alcohol and rosemary, but I have always had very good results by rubbing a paste of cream of tartar on stains. It may work on the scorch marks.”
“I’ll definitely try it.”
Ellie left still feeling confused yet also somewhat vindicated. If Mrs. Donnelly, who had been hurt the most since Zack came to town, could feel benevolent toward him, then perhaps Ellie was not as far off in her perception of the man as she sometimes felt. Some further confirmation had come from another area. Dad had gone to Portland and corroborated much of Zack’s story. Without implicating Zack, Dad had learned a man named Sinclair had indeed been killed shortly before Zack showed up in Maintown. He also learned there was a crime boss named Cutter. The police had never heard of Zack, at least beyond the Maintown flyer they had posted on their Wanted board.
Ellie fixed her attention back to the quilt and the patch of muslin she was appliquéing to a hole on the back. The afternoon light was fading and casting the corner of the porch where she worked into shadow, but her stitches were small and even nonetheless. She wanted to finish this patch, for then the back would be finished and she could concentrate on the front. She had already repaired some of the front, but Mama had suggested completing the back in order to give better support for the more exacting work on the front. She had been impatient to get the front looking nice but took her mother’s advice nevertheless.
About half the blocks on the front would need some repair or at the least some concentrated stain removal. Her own block had a big burned patch right in the middle of the sky. Maggie’s fans had been lower, opposite from the edge used to beat out flames, and therefore unharmed.
Ellie still couldn’t believe that Maggie had proposed marriage to William. Then after rejecting her, he had immediately left Maintown, though not before Ellie had also thrown herself at him. No wonder he had decided to run! Could that truly have been his reason? Or rather than doing the honorable thing, was he merely fleeing the entanglements of matrimony? Perhaps it was a bit of both. But she was still convinced that his conscience had begun to be seared by his charade.
Ellie finished the last stitch on the muslin patch. Was she working on this quilt because she hoped he would return for it? No. He would never return. The quilt could be fixed, but the wounds of what he had done in the community were too deep for any needle and thread to repair.
At the sound of approaching horses she lifted her eyes.
Three strangers were riding into the yard. A chill ran up her back. They were rough-looking sorts.
“Mama!” she called in alarm. Somehow she sensed these men were not on a friendly visit. She and Mama were alone in the house. Dad was at the sawmill. Maggie and Georgie were off somewhere.
Ada heard her daughter’s call and came out to the porch, a bit perturbed because she had work to be done and didn’t want to waste any more of her time fixing that quilt. She hadn’t protested her daughter’s determination to repair the quilt because she had thought it might help E
llie put recent events behind her. But she had forgotten that once Ellie put her mind to something, she had a tendency to become rather mulish about it.
Immediately, however, Ada saw why her daughter had called her. Three strangers had ridden into the yard, and they looked like roughnecks. Certainly some rough sorts came to Maintown, especially when the lumber camps opened for the season, but these men did not appear to be lumberjacks. For one thing they wore revolvers strapped to their waists, a sight seldom seen in these parts. Farmers and lumberjacks did not wear such weapons. These men were also dressed differently, in expensive-looking boots and hats with traveling dusters over nice trousers. They looked like lawmen or gunfighters.
Ellie came and stood by her mother. Ada resisted the urge to take her daughter’s hand. She didn’t want Ellie to see that she was trembling a little.
“Hello, ma’am,” one of the men said.
He lifted his hat, revealing pale hair. He was a handsome man but hard-edged like a good knife.
“Good afternoon,” Ada said stiffly, mostly to hide her nerves. “What can I do for you?”
“We’re looking for a fellow,” the pale-haired man replied. Staying mounted, he rode close to the porch, took a paper from his coat pocket, and reached it down to Ada.
Ada opened the paper and saw a pen drawing of Zack, as she had recently learned to call him. She remembered him telling Calvin that hoodlums from Portland were looking for him.
“You seen him?” the stranger asked.
Ada had the almost overwhelming urge to lie, to protect Zack from these men. But she was not accustomed to lying. “Yes, he was here for a time, but he left more than a week ago.”
“You know where he went?”
“He never said. He more or less just disappeared.”
“You don’t know what direction he went?”
“If he was smart, he would have hightailed it as far from here as possible. He didn’t leave any friends here, that’s for sure.I expect he went to Astoria where he could get passage on a boat.”
“He never gave any indication of where he might go?”
“Why do you want to know? Are you the law?” A moment after asking it she realized the question was a mistake. But her curiosity had gotten the better of her.
“We just have some business with him.” The man scowled. “But whether we’re the law or not, you better be telling me the truth. He’s a scoundrel that don’t deserve protecting.”
“Ha!” Ada barked gamely. “The last thing I want to do is protect that no-good charlatan.If I could help you, I would. You are welcome to him.”
The man studied her for a long, uncomfortable moment. Maybe she had overdone it, but then, what she said was true, wasn’t it? She didn’t care what happened to that fraud.
Without even a word of thanks, the three riders wheeled around their mounts and rode away.
Ada’s knees suddenly felt weak, and she swayed on her feet. Ellie put a steadying arm around her.
“Are you all right, Mama?”
“Those are bad men,” Ada breathed.
“And they are looking for Zack,” Ellie said tremulously.
Ada wanted to comfort her daughter, but perhaps it was best for Ellie to see what kind of man this Zack was, to be involved with that sort of men. She had always told her children, “You are judged by the company you keep.” Then again, those men certainly were not friends of Zack’s.If they were his enemies, what did that say about him?
Beau Cutter didn’t know if he should believe the woman or not. Yet after what he’d heard about Hartley from some fellows in St. Helens, he could see no reason why she would protect him. Then again, women were strange creatures.
“Let’s go into town and ask around,” he told his companions.
“Town? You mean back to St. Helens?” asked one.
“No. This town, or what there is of it.” Someone in St. Helens had directed him to the Newcomb place as the best place to get information on Hartley, so Cutter had gone directly there. Now he rode back to the town, which consisted of a post office and a few houses.
There was no one in the post office, so Cutter went to the adjacent store where a woman was working behind the counter and two men were looking at a display of hunting knives.
Cutter tipped his hat at the female clerk. He knew that in these small villages you caught more flies with honey than with vinegar.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” he said congenially.
“What can I do for you?” asked the woman, a middle-aged farmwife who probably kept the store for her husband.
“I’m looking for this man.” Cutter took another handbill from his pocket. He’d left the last one with the Newcomb woman.
The woman nodded. “Yeah, he was here. L eft over a week ago.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
Cutter could tell he wouldn’t get more from the woman and was about to fold up the handbill and replace it in his pocket when one of the customers spoke up.
“Hey, I think I seen that fellow.” He turned to his companion. “Bill, didn’t we meet him up at Samuel’s camp?”
Bill moved closer and peered at the handbill. “Sure, that was him.”
“When was that?” Cutter asked.
“Well,” said the first man, “we first saw him six, seven days ago, worked with him a few days, then me and Bill quit. You ever work a lumber camp?It’s blistering work, that is!”
“We figured there ought to be an easier way to make money,” put in Bill.
Cutter frowned. What would Hartley be doing in a lumber camp? Was he foolish enough to have stuck around these parts after what he did to the folks here? Could be these lumberjacks were mistaken. But thus far Hartley had never done the expected, so why should he start now?
THIRTY
Zack had not traveled more than twenty miles from Main-town. After making his confession to Calvin, he had headed toward Astoria. There he could get a boat and fairly quickly be long gone from Maintown, the Newcombs, and everyone else. Though his situation had not improved from when he had first left Portland, except that now he had a better horse and a little money from his pay at the sawmill, he knew going any other direction was foolish.
But he had ridden less than a mile from the Newcomb farm when he realized he couldn’t leave this place, not forever. Only as he was forced to flee town did he know just how much the last couple of months had meant to him. Maybe if he faced everyone and confessed his misdeeds, they would forgive him and accept him back, not as their minister, of course, but just as a neighbor. For the first time in his life he could see himself settled down in one place, perhaps working a small farm, raising children with a wife.
The appeal of this dream made him rein in his horse and head north instead of west. He could get work for a while in a lumber camp—not the one Boyd worked at but one he’d heard of near Veronia, where he wouldn’t know anyone. He’d give the folks in Maintown time to cool off and then he could return. Why shouldn’t they accept him back? He hadn’t done too badly toward them. He’d given some of them good counsel. He’d gotten the Baxter brothers back to church; he’d consoled the Cook family.
Yet he knew he didn’t deserve to be accepted by them, that any good he had done had been thoroughly offset by his lies. If he returned, it would have to be in utter humility. He would have no problem with that, either. And even if they rejected him, he still knew he had to face these folks. He had to look each one in the eye and apologize for what he had done. Slithering away like the snake he was did not sit well with him. Maybe living in William Locklin’s boots had done him some good. The old Zack would have had no qualms about hightailing it out of town one step ahead of the law.
But this new fellow wanted to be a better man.
Nevertheless, practicality told him he best wait until the folks simmered down and he could return without fear of being strung up by his toes. Two days later he rode into Thomas Samuel’s lumber camp and g
ot hired. And it wasn’t long afterward that he began to lose his resolve. For one thing he remembered the missing money. They might forgive him for the lies, but one hundred and fifty dollars was a small fortune. They could not forgive that. If he returned, he would doubtless be prosecuted and jailed.
Zack was put to work with a crew building a skid road, which would be used to move cut logs from the forest to the river. Oxen would haul the logs on the skid road to the water, where they would await the first big rain of the year, usually in November, to be carried by water to the nearest seaport.
At the end of his first day of work he went to the mess hall for supper. Among the fifty men gathered who worked the camp at various jobs, Zack saw a familiar face.
“Hey, Reverend!” called Tommy Donnelly.
For a brief moment Zack considered ignoring the call. But the last thing he wanted was for attention to be drawn to him, and it certainly would be if the men thought he was a minister. Tommy was about to call out again, so Zack waved back and hurried over to the boy.
“Hi, Tommy,” Zack said.
“What you doing here, Rev—”
Zack cut in, “Tommy,I ’d appreciate it if you not call me”— he pitched his voice lower—“Reverend.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll explain it to you later, okay?”
“What’ll I call you, then?”
“Zack.”
“But ain’t your name—?”
“I’ll tell you later.”I n the din of fifty men hunkering down for a meal, Zack could have conversed easily enough without being heard, but he was suddenly nervous. Maybe there were more men here who knew him. Some lumberjacks had come to his services, now that he thought about it. He looked all around but didn’t see any other familiar faces.
After supper he and Tommy went outside to talk. The August night was warm, lit by a full moon, the fragrance of cut wood strong in the air. They hitched themselves up on the edge of the wood retaining wall that bordered a slope of wooded land at the back of the bunkhouse.