The Hired Man

by Lynna Banning

  “Yeah, like giving a speech.”

  Eleanor sat back down on the step and again started shelling peas. Cord made a good deal of sense at times.

  And then her hired man opened his mouth and spoiled it. “Believe me,” Cord called from the chicken house, “you’re gonna find ridin’ a horse easy after makin’ a speech in public.”

  Her son’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Cord said.

  “No,” Eleanor countered. “No horse-riding. Not yet.”

  Cord pounded another nail into the chicken roost, tossed the hammer to Danny and strode across the yard toward her. But instead of starting an argument with her, he asked about her daughter. “Where’s Molly?”

  “She’s in the barn, playing with those kittens.”

  “She’s not near the horse stalls, is she? Or up in the loft?”

  “She is not allowed up in the loft, Cord. I don’t want her falling off that narrow little ladder. And she’s scared to death of horses.”

  “But you trust her, right? She’s sensible enough not to get hurt.”

  “Well, yes. But...”

  “Ma,” Danny called, his voice plaintive. “Do I really have to go to School Night?”

  “Yes,” both she and Cord said together. “You really do. Now, go find Molly and both of you wash up for supper.”

  Thankfully, Cord kept his mouth shut about horses and riding all through her supper of creamed peas on biscuits. When she shooed the children upstairs to put on clean clothes, Cord went out to the barn to hitch up the wagon.

  Upstairs in her bedroom, Eleanor quickly sponged off her face and neck and donned her blue gingham day dress. She was the last to descend the front porch steps.

  She felt as nervous as Danny. All her life she had disliked public gatherings. Her mother had criticized her for being shy, but Eleanor knew better. She was not just shy; she was frightened of people, especially crowds of people. Somehow she felt she never “measured up,” in her mother’s words.

  Cord took one look at her, jumped down from the driver’s seat and lifted her onto the wagon bench beside him. Before he picked up the reins he leaned sideways and spoke near her ear.

  “You all right, Eleanor? You look white as milk.”

  “I’m fine,” she said shortly. “Just a little scared.”

  “Scared about what?”

  She twisted her hands in her lap and looked everywhere but at him, but she didn’t answer. Finally he laid down the reins and turned to face her. “Scared about what?”

  “About all those people,” she admitted. “About... I guess I’m worried about Danny. It’s so hard to be on display.”

  “Yeah.” He raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Instead he picked up the traces and they started off.

  Danny clambered down to shut the gate behind them, then climbed back into the back. He looked so preoccupied Cord had to chuckle. Probably rehearsing his speech in his head.

  The schoolhouse was lit up like a Christmas tree with kerosene lamps and candle sconces along the walls. Children milled about in the schoolyard, and as Cord maneuvered the wagon into an available space he heard Danny let out a groan.

  “I don’t wanna do this!” he moaned.

  “I don’t want to do this, either!” Eleanor murmured.

  Molly stood up in the wagon, propped her hands at the waist of her starched pinafore, and at the top of her voice screeched, “Well, I do! I do wanna do this!”

  All the way into the schoolhouse Cord chuckled about Fearless Molly in a family of Nervous Nellies. Danny disappeared into the cloakroom, and he followed Eleanor to an uncomfortable-looking wooden bench near the back. He lifted Molly onto his lap, careful not to squash the ruffles on her clean pinafore, and then looked around.

  He recognized Carl Ness, the mercantile owner, with a thin-faced woman he took to be Carl’s wife, flanked by two young girls. He recognized Edith, the girl who had painted the mercantile front pink; the other girl looked exactly like her so that must be Edith’s twin sister.

  Ike Bruhn, the owner of the sawmill, sat with two women, one with a baby in her arms and the other tying a bow on a young girl’s braids. Then a very beautiful young woman with a bun of dark hair caught at her neck with a ribbon stepped to the front of the room and clapped her hands.

  That must be Danny’s teacher. At the clapped signal, a humming sound began at the door behind him, and all at once he heard singing.

  Twenty or so students, ranging in age from about six or seven to a strapping blond boy of maybe fourteen, marched in two by two, singing “My Country ’tis of Thee.” A chill went up Cord’s spine.

  Danny was the seventh in the line, walking next to a small blonde girl in a pink gingham dress. The boy looked like he wanted to sink through the floor.

  The teacher, Mrs. Christina Panovsky, arranged them in rows against the front wall and turned to the audience. “Welcome, everyone. This is an extraordinary class of extraordinary young people—your sons and daughters. We want to share with you what we have been learning this school year.”

  What followed was impressive. Four students acted out a scene from a play about Robin Hood they had written themselves. Then a small choir sang “Comin’ Through the Rye” in three-part harmony and a larger choir presented a “spoken word” song, a clever recitation of geographical names chanted in complicated rhythms. “Ar-gen-tin-a. Smoke Riv-er. Clacka-mas Coun-ty. Mex-i-co Ci-ty.”

  Molly loved it; she bounced up and down on his lap in time with the words.

  Finally Danny stepped forward to deliver his speech.

  Molly sat up straight and craned her neck to see. Eleanor clutched Cord’s arm. He felt a tightening in his chest.

  “Ladies and gentlemen...” The boy’s voice shook slightly, but as he progressed through his speech it grew stronger, and when he finished with, “We are one people, one nation... We are Americans,” his words rang with assurance. He stepped back to spirited applause.

  Eleanor still clutched his arm, and now she was crying. Cord pried her fingers off his bicep and pressed his handkerchief into her hand.

  “Th-thank you,” she wept.

  It made him chuckle deep down inside. Molly twisted around and flung her small arms about his neck. “Wasn’t Danny wunnerful? I wanna go to school, too!”

  Following Danny’s speech there were more songs and recitations, ending with the little blonde girl in the pink dress, who sang a haunting folk song, first in French and then in English. Something about yellow daisies in a meadow.

  “That’s Manette Nicolet,” Eleanor whispered. “Her mother is French, from New Orleans. Her father is Colonel Wash Halliday, over there.” She tipped her head to the right, where a small, very attractive woman sat holding the hand of a well-muscled gent with a bushy gray-peppered mustache. His eyes were so shiny Cord could see the moisture from here.

  “Colonel, huh?” he murmured. “Blue or gray?”

  “Blue, I think. Union. His full name is George Washington Halliday. It’s her second marriage. Her first husband was killed in the War.”

  “The daughter, Manette, doesn’t look much older than Molly. Looks like she does well in, uh, school.”

  Eleanor let the remark lie.

  When the presentations and recitations drew to a close, Mrs. Panovsky invited them all to stay for cookies and lemonade.

  “Oh, boy, lemonade!” Molly sang. She scooted off Cord’s lap and bobbed excitedly at her mother’s side until Eleanor rose and moved toward the refreshment table in the far corner. Cord was about to follow when a feminine voice called his name.

  “Why, Cordell Winterman, is that really you?” A ruffle-bedecked Fanny Moreland made a beeline across the room toward him. “Y’all remember me, don’t you? Carl Ness introduced us at the mercantile? You were buying
coffee and lemon drops and—”

  “Chicken mash,” Eleanor said from beside him.

  “Oh, hello, Mrs. Malloy. I haven’t seen you in town for such a long time I thought you might be...well...you know, expecting. Are you?”

  “Expecting what?” Eleanor inquired with a perfectly straight face.

  “Um...well, you know,” Fanny said, lowering her voice. “Expecting a...baby.” She whispered the last word.

  “I am not, thank you,” Eleanor replied, her voice cool. “My husband, you may recall, has been away for some years.”

  Fanny looked nonplussed for just an instant. “Oh, that’s right, I remember now. Why, you’re practically a widow!”

  Molly reached up and gave Fanny’s flounced skirt a sharp tug. “That’s not very nice! My mama is not a widow.”

  Cord lifted Molly into his arms and started to move away, but Fanny wasn’t finished yet.

  “Oh, Cordell, I am so terribly thirsty. Would you be so kind as to fetch me some lemonade?”

  Cord gave her a level look. “Sorry, Miss Moreland. As you can see, I have my hands full.” He shifted Molly’s weight to emphasize his point.

  “Why, who is this darling little girl?” Fanny gushed. “Surely you are not the father? You’re not married, are you, Cordell?”

  “No, he’s not!” Molly blurted out. “I’m Molly, and he’s not married. He lives with us!”

  Fanny’s expression changed. “Oh, you mean with Mrs. Malloy?”

  Molly nodded. “Yes, with my mama.”

  Cord cleared his throat. “I work for Mrs. Malloy. I’m her hired man.”

  “Well, isn’t that interesting! I was just about to pay a call on Mrs.—”

  “No, you weren’t,” Cord interjected.

  “Well, why ever not? I only want to extend a friendly gesture.”

  “You want a helluva lot more than that, Miss Moreland. And I’m not interested.”

  The smile on the young woman’s face never wavered. “Oh, come now. I’m sure you don’t really mean that, do you, Cordell?”

  Molly squirmed. “Oh, yes he does!” she shouted.

  Cord could have kissed her. He spotted Danny across the room. “Excuse us, Miss Moreland.”

  He met the boy halfway across the room. “Didja see me, Cord? Was I all right?”

  Cord dipped to extend his hand to Danny without dislodging Molly. “You were very all right, Dan. Congratulations.”

  He took the boy’s small hand in his and gave him a firm, manly handshake. Danny grinned up at him and Cord thought the boy was going to float up off the floor.

  After cups of watery lemonade and too many chocolate cookies, Cord herded his little entourage out the door and across the schoolyard to their waiting wagon. He tightened the cinch on the gray horse, lifted Molly into the back and watched Danny climb in beside her. Then he walked around to the other side, where Eleanor stood.

  He didn’t even ask, just slipped both hands around her waist and lifted her onto the wooden seat. She said nothing until he drove out of the schoolyard and started on the road out of town.

  Chapter Seven

  “It must be wonderful to be young and pretty,” Eleanor said at last. She kept her voice down so Molly and Danny in the back of the wagon couldn’t hear.

  “It’s wonderful to be young, for sure,” Cord said. “Don’t know about being ‘pretty.’”

  “Men don’t worry about ‘pretty.’ Women do.”

  “Are you jealous of Fanny Moreland?”

  Eleanor jerked. Oh, Cord could be so maddeningly blunt! No, she wasn’t jealous of Fanny. She did envy her boldness, though. She was jealous of Fanny’s youth. She acknowledged that she had squandered her own, trying to be a good mother to Danny and Molly and struggling to keep her farm going through winter storms and scorching summers that left vegetable seedlings dried up as soon as they sprouted. Now she was thin and tired and...not young anymore.

  And she envied Fanny Moreland’s health.

  “Cord, do you ever wish you could be young again?”

  He surprised her with a harsh laugh. “Young and what, handsome? Rich? Smart?” He thought for a moment. “Yeah, I wish I was young enough to live some parts of my life over again.”

  “What parts?”

  He didn’t answer. She regretted her question the instant she uttered it; it was none of her business. Then after a tense minute or two of silence he surprised her by answering.

  “Maybe getting married. Getting shot during the War.” He let out a long breath. “Killing a man.”

  She gasped. “You killed a man?”

  “I killed more than one in the War, Eleanor.”

  The tone of his voice made her wish she had never asked.

  Cord glanced quickly into the back of the wagon, where both Eleanor’s children were asleep. “Tell me about Fanny Moreland,” he said. He held his breath. It was obvious Eleanor didn’t like her. But he didn’t want to talk about his wife.

  “Oh, Fanny.” Eleanor shifted on the bench next to him. “I guess it’s sad, really. Fanny is from the South. New Orleans, I think. She lives with her aunt, Ike Bruhn’s wife, Ernestine. And Ike, of course.”

  “Why is that sad?”

  “Well, Fanny has pots of money she inherited from her father. About three years ago she was jilted, left at the altar by a man Ernestine said was just after her fortune. Her father sent her out West to get her away from the city.”

  Cord laughed. “Smoke River’s about as far from ‘a city’ as one can get.”

  “Fanny has no use for small towns, and she is desperately looking for some man to spirit her away from here to a big city. Any big city.”

  Cord made a noncommittal noise in his throat.

  “Why?” Eleanor asked. “Are you interested in Fanny?”

  “Not much. She doesn’t look like the type who’d be too interested in panning for gold in a California mining camp.”

  “How do you know?”

  He chuckled. “Too many expensive ruffles.”

  Eleanor laughed out loud, and Cord shot her a look.

  “You feeling better now that this school shindig is over?”

  She nodded, but he noticed she was still twisting her hands together in her lap. He flapped the reins over the gray’s back and picked up the pace. After a moment he slowed the horse down again. Something had been crawling at the back of his mind for the last few days.

  “You said that Mrs. Halliday’s first husband was killed in the War. Are you sure that’s what happened to Mr. Malloy?”

  She didn’t answer for a long time, and before she did she checked to make sure Molly and Danny were asleep. “I—I don’t honestly know what happened to Tom. If he had been killed, you would think they would notify the next of kin.”

  “Maybe. Maybe they didn’t know where to find you.”

  “How could they not know? I’ve lived on this farm since before the War.”

  “Or maybe,” he said with studied calm, “he’s not dead.” He shot a look at her. Her face changed, but not in the way he expected. Her mouth thinned into a straight line, and she stared down at her clenched hands.

  He couldn’t blame her. “I guess you don’t want to talk about your husband.”

  “And you don’t want to talk about your wife,” she replied.

  “Ex-wife. She divorced me after I—did something I lived to regret.”

  He sucked in a breath and let it out in an uneven sigh.

  “Oh, Cord,” she breathed. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, Eleanor. I’m not.”

  In silence he drove up to the gate, climbed down to unlatch it, then guided the rattling wooden wagon up to the front porch. Molly popped up behind them. “
Are we home?”

  “Yes, we’re home,” Eleanor said. “Wake up Danny.”

  Cord lifted both sleepy children out of the wagon bed and carried them up the front steps. Then he returned and reached up for Eleanor. He half expected her to stiffen up and brush past him and climb down by herself, but she let him circle her waist with his hands and swing her down to the ground.

  “I’ll drive the wagon around in back of the barn, so I’ll say good-night now. It’s been an...interesting evening.”

  Again he glimpsed that half-amused expression on her pale face. “Good night, Cord. I’m making French toast for breakfast tomorrow, so don’t be late.”

  French toast? What in blazes is that?

  She herded the kids through the front door screen and he heard them clatter up the staircase. He waited, but he didn’t hear the click of the lock on the front door. Was she crazy? Way out here with two kids and a revolver she didn’t know how to fire and she didn’t lock her front door at night?

  He shook his head and climbed back onto the wagon bench. He’d argue it over with her tomorrow morning while eating her “French toast.”

  * * *

  Somehow Eleanor guessed Cord wouldn’t know what to make of French toast. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing a man like Cordell Winterman would eat, and she was certain sure it would never have been served on trail drives in Kansas. If, she thought with a dart of unease, that’s how he’d spent his time after the War. He’d never really said.

  Molly and Danny waited patiently while she dipped the slices of day-old bread in the milk-and-egg mixture and plopped them onto the hot iron griddle. Before the first slice was ready to turn, she heard Cord tramp up the front steps.

  But when he stepped into the kitchen she could tell something was wrong.

  Chapter Eight

  “Good morning,” Eleanor said.

  “Morning,” Cord grumbled.

  Well! That wasn’t like Cord at all! Usually he grinned at Molly and ruffled Danny’s shaggy hair.

  “Morning, Cord,” her children sang in unison. “Hurry up,” Danny added. “We’re about to starve.”