The Hired Man

by Lynna Banning

  When Cord rode through the gate, Eleanor was in the yard, her hands on her hips and her “assessing expression” on her face.

  “You deciding whether you want the barn square or round?”

  “I’m deciding whether to add a special stall for the...” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “For the pony I’m getting Danny for his birthday next week.”

  “Pony, huh?” he said in an undertone. “I’d say yes. I’ll make a separate stall for it.”

  “Wash Halliday is coming this evening. Maybe you could help me decide on the pony?”

  He dismounted and walked toward her. “Brought some lemon drops for Molly. Where is she?”

  “Under the porch with the kittens. As usual.” Eleanor opened her mouth to call her, but Cord stepped forward and put a finger against her lips.

  “Not yet. I...uh...brought you something from town, too. Not sure you’re gonna like it.”

  “Oh? Why not? Does it bite or talk back or taste funny?”

  He laughed, as she’d meant him to. “Doesn’t taste funny unless you lick it.” He rummaged in his saddlebag and brought out the smallest gun she’d ever seen and slipped it into her apron pocket.

  “Cord! I’ll shoot off one of my toes!”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Why do I need this?”

  “Because the revolver is too heavy for you.”

  “And?”

  “I think you should be armed, in case of...uh...you know, snakes.”

  “And?”

  He studied the tips of his leather boots. “Danny has the revolver.”

  A sinking sensation bloomed in the pit of her stomach. “He’s too little for that revolver. I can scarcely lift it myself.”

  “Exactly. He’ll have to think three times if he ever wants to aim it at anything.”

  “Oh, good heavens, my son is growing up right under my nose!”

  “He’s going to be ten years old, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Old enough to have a pony of his own?”

  “Ye-es.”

  “Then he’s old enough to carry the revolver in his saddlebag.”

  She looked at him askance. “Cord, what is it you are not telling me?” He looked everywhere but at her, so she knew he was keeping something from her. Finally he cleared his throat.

  “Your son needs to have a way to protect himself.”

  “From what?”

  “From...” Again he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “From Tom.”

  “Tom! But Tom is his fath—” Suddenly she understood. She wouldn’t have dreamed such a thing in a lifetime of Sundays, but Cord had a point. She hated it, but he did. In fact, her hired man had the only point: Tom could be violent.

  Since her husband had returned after his unexplained seven-year absence, he had been short-tempered and downright mean. And now Cord thought her son needed her revolver? And that she needed a weapon, as well? “For snakes,” he said. She didn’t believe that for a single minute.

  It was Tom who set the barn on fire. That man was not the man she had married.

  A funny prickle went up her spine. What was happening to her life? Along with that question another thudded into her consciousness. What was happening to her? Part of her felt happier than she had in years; but another part of her sensed a menacing gray cloud thickening around her. She couldn’t bear to think too far ahead.

  That night after supper, after she read Molly and Danny a story and they climbed the stairs to their bedroom, a pregnant silence fell in the kitchen. Ever since the night of the fire, when Cord had come to her bed, he had slept in the attic room as he had before. Tonight, however, he seemed restless, and he had the oddest look on his face.

  She looked at him questioningly, and he reached across the table and took both her hands in his. Very quietly he said, “I’m leaving it up to you.”

  She knew what he meant by “it.” He knew she wanted him. At night she ached to be with him, to be close to him. But she also knew he wouldn’t be staying much longer.

  She sucked in a shaky breath. She had to protect her heart. When Cord left she would have to go on living.

  He stood, pulled her to her feet and kissed her, his lips gentle. “You go on up to bed, Eleanor. I’ll wash up the supper dishes. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He waited, and when she nodded, he turned her toward the stairs and gave her a little push.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The next afternoon Eleanor stepped out the back door to take the clean clothes off the clothesline to find a familiar figure sitting under the cherry tree.

  “Tom!”

  “H’lo, Ellie.” He made no attempt to get up, just took his cigarette from his mouth and looked up at her.

  “Tom, where have you been?” She took a step toward him, then thought better of it and set the wicker laundry basket between them.

  “Oh, I’ve been around, here and there. Didja miss me?”

  She stared at him. “Of course I didn’t miss you. You haven’t been here since the night my barn burned down.”

  “I had business elsewhere.”

  “Where elsewhere?” she demanded.

  He didn’t answer, just pointed at Cord’s shirts on the clothesline. “I see your hired man’s still around.”

  “He most certainly is. He’s rebuilding the barn.”

  “He is, is he? Mighty handy havin’ him around, I’d say.”

  “Tom, did you know about the barn?”

  “Yeah. Heard about it in town.”

  “Then why aren’t you helping to rebuild it?”

  “Been busy, like I said.”

  Eleanor eyed him with suspicion. “Someone set that fire on purpose. Did you know that?”

  He continued to puff on his cigarette, but his shrug told her that he knew, all right. She began unpinning dry clothes from the line. “Actually, I’m surprised to see you at all, considering that I believe you set that fire.”

  The sound of hammering carried on the still air, and Tom cocked his head. “New barn’s almost finished, I guess.”

  “Yes, almost. Danny has been helping. He’s learning a lot about carpentry.”

  “Is he, now? Maybe the lad’s got smarts, like his father.”

  Eleanor gritted her teeth. “You should have been teaching him these things, Tom.”

  “Why should I? It’s plain the kid doesn’t like me.”

  She refused to argue with him. He knew very well the farm now belonged to her. And he wasn’t getting it back.

  “Tom, what are you doing here? What do you want?”

  “Well, to start off with, Ellie, I want my wife.”

  She propped her hands at her waist. “Since you rode in the gate all those weeks ago you have done nothing to earn my regard or my trust. You don’t deserve me, Tom. I am no longer your wife.”

  He rose unsteadily to his feet. “You can’t just chuck me out, Ellie. After all, those two kids are mine.”

  Her stomach turned over, but she managed to keep her voice calm. “It takes more than biology to make a father.”

  He lurched toward her. “Mebbe I want more than bein’ a father. I want to sleep in your bed, Ellie. Our bed.”

  She cringed inside. She was afraid to order him off the property, afraid of what he might do if she angered him. Would it be smarter to keep him here, where she could keep an eye on him?

  He sent her a sour look, then tipped his head back and puffed a smoke ring into the air.

  For a long moment, Eleanor studied the man who lounged before her, every nerve in her body humming with anxiety. “I want to make something clear, Tom,” she said slowly. “You are not welcome in my bed.”

  Hurriedly she snatched the rest
of the washing off the line and stuffed it in the wicker laundry basket. She didn’t wait to unhook the rope and wind it back into its metal housing; she just started toward the back door.

  Tom stepped into her path. She thrust the laundry basket at him. “Take this around to the front porch and leave it next to the swing.” She gave him no chance to refuse, and she had done it on purpose. She wanted Cord to know that Tom was back so he could keep an eye on him.

  Without looking back, she went into the house and set the teakettle on the stove. When the water boiled, she brewed a cup of tea, took it into the parlor and sank onto the settee. Through the open front door she now heard the staccato sound of three hammers, and she had to smile. Somehow Cord had intimidated the cause of the fire into rebuilding her barn.

  * * *

  Supper that night was unusually quiet. When Cord entered the kitchen he gave her a long, searching look, filled his plate with fried chicken and potato salad and took it out to the front porch. Danny and Molly did not utter a single peep, and they didn’t look up even when she dished up the apple crisp.

  Tom shoveled in his food hunched over his plate as usual. When Molly accidentally spilled her milk, Tom yelled at her, but he shut right up when Eleanor glared at him. She could not recall a more glum gathering around her kitchen table. It made her want to cry. Or scream. Or both. Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth.

  Finally the children bolted out the door to the front porch, and the next minute she heard Cord’s low voice and Molly’s happy giggle. She guessed they were playing with the kittens, and oh, how she longed to join them!

  Tom’s voice at her back startled her. “Barn’s not finished yet, so I assume I’m sleepin’ in the house.”

  “No,” Eleanor said deliberately. “You can sleep outside in the orchard or in town.” She began gathering up the supper plates.

  He lumbered to his feet. “Hell if I will,” he grumbled. He slammed out the back door and Eleanor began washing up the dishes. She dried them and stacked them in the china cabinet and then walked out to the front porch swing.

  She was drained, worn-out to the point of numbness. Her brain felt as if it was made of limp string and thick porridge.

  Cord motioned for her to sit down, but despite her fatigue she felt too tense to settle in one spot for more than sixty seconds.

  “Eleanor, for God’s sake, stop pacing and sit down.”

  “Where is Tom?” she asked.

  “Haven’t seen him.” He hadn’t seen him ride out, either, but he figured she didn’t need to know that.

  She sent the children inside and sank onto the swing beside him, but she didn’t say a word. Maybe she didn’t have to. It was plain this business with Tom was turning into a bargain no one who wasn’t God could win. Something had to stretch or break.

  “Eleanor.”

  “I know,” she said, her voice quiet. “When the barn is finished you’re going to leave.”

  “Do you want me to go?”

  “No, I don’t. You know I don’t.”

  He wanted to pull her into his arms so bad they trembled. “You know I don’t want to leave you. Or Molly and Danny. But I can’t stay, not with Tom here. Sooner or later I’ll end up killing him, and that’d send me straight back to prison for murder.”

  “I know,” she murmured. “I can’t see any way to make it work, the three of us in the same square mile of space. But...”

  “Yeah,” he said softly.

  “Oh, Cord, my heart is breaking into little tiny pieces with sharp edges, and every time I take a breath I feel them slicing into me.”

  “Eleanor, barn or no barn, I won’t leave until it’s clear that Tom has either pulled himself together or he’s left for good. Either way I’ve got to be sure you and the kids are gonna be safe.”

  She was quiet for a long time. He couldn’t look at her. He knew if he did he’d kiss her, and maybe he wouldn’t be able to stop until it was too late. “This is worse than being in a cell behind a forty-foot brick wall.”

  Tears glistened under her eyelashes.

  “You know, my pa said something to me once, the only thing he ever said that made any sense. He sat me down on a hay bale one night and said, ‘Don’t fall in love, son. It’ll ruin your life.’”

  “He was right, wasn’t he, Cord?”

  “No. Hell no. One corner of my life is a bit tattered, but I’m not giving up without a fight.”

  “You could be happy in California,” she said.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. It’d take some work, though.”

  “Don’t tell me about it,” she said quickly.

  Molly tumbled through the screen door, a kitten stuffed into her ruffled pinafore pocket. “You gonna read us another story tonight, Mama?”

  Eleanor stared at her daughter and gave a tiny groan.

  Cord bent toward the girl. “I’ll read your story tonight, Molly. You go find Danny and tell him to get ready for bed.”

  Molly scampered off to the unfinished barn and in a moment she emerged with Danny at her heels. “Tell us a story, will ya, Cord? ’Bout when you was a boy, like me?”

  “I thought I was gonna read you a story.”

  “No!” both children chorused. “Make one up, about you!”

  He looked down at the two eager faces, their eyes pleading, and felt his resolve crumble. “All right, here goes. Once upon a time, way down south in Virginia, when I was a boy about your age, Danny, I got a fancy idea in my head about the beehive behind my daddy’s barn.”

  Molly glommed onto his arm. “What kind of idea?”

  “I’ll tell you what kind in the next chapter, upstairs in your bedroom, okay? When you’re under the covers with your faces washed and your pajamas on.”

  “I don’t wear ’jamas,” Molly said with a tug on his shirtsleeve. “I wear a nightie, like Mama. A pink one.”

  “Well,” Cord said, “girls in pink nighties get to hear the story. And boys...” He gave Danny a raised eyebrow. “Maybe boys, too, but they have to have their night duds on.”

  Both children raced through the front door and up the stairs. Cord watched them, but he didn’t move until Eleanor touched his arm. “I want to hear another story, Cord. About what you said to Tom when he came back this afternoon.”

  “Not much of a story, really. I let him know that I knew the fire was set on purpose and that I’d found the burned-out matches to prove it. He didn’t say much after that.”

  “Cord, do you...do you think Tom could ever turn over a new leaf?”

  “I wouldn’t count on it, Eleanor. People don’t change overnight. It took some time for him to become what he is now, destructive and violent. And,” he said, lowering his voice even more, “not being a father to Molly and Danny. I think it will take him a long time to be any different.”

  When she said nothing he shot a glance at her face and went on. “A lot’s gonna depend on what you want. A partner? A husband? Or a boarder.”

  She wrapped her arms across her midriff. “Right now what I want is none of those. I want my hired man.”

  He couldn’t resist a probing question. “Anything else?”

  “Don’t tease me, Cord. What else could I possibly want?”

  Suddenly a man’s voice boomed out of the dark. “Ellie, I wanna talk to you.” Tom stomped out of the unfinished barn and started for the porch. “You, too, hired man.”

  “Eleanor,” Cord said under his breath, “go in the house and lock the door.”

  Without a second’s hesitation she stood up and moved through the screen door. A moment later Cord heard the click of the dead bolt, and then Tom tramped up the porch steps.

  “Where’s Ellie?”

  “She’s tired. She went up to bed.”

  Tom glared at the front door. “How come I’
m sleepin’ in the orchard and the hired man’s sleepin’ in the house? My house?”

  “I don’t think it is your house, Tom.”

  “Well...I’m still sleepin’ outside. How come I can’t sleep in the house?”

  “I believe Eleanor has made that clear. She doesn’t want you inside the house at night.”

  “Hell and damn, that’s not fair! I used to live here.”

  “But you don’t live here now,” Cord said carefully. “This is Eleanor’s house. She can decide anything she wants.”

  Tom stomped off the porch, then spun around and came back up the steps, propped his hands on his hips and leaned close to Cord. “I bet she’s not so unfriendly with her hired man. Maybe you’re sleepin’ in her room, huh?”

  “Nope,” Cord said calmly. “I sleep in the attic.”

  “Nah. I don’t believe that for one minute.”

  Cord sat very still, then looked straight into the man’s bleary eyes. “You calling me a liar, Tom?”

  “Uh, well, not ’xactly. Just wonderin’...”

  “Let’s call a spade a spade,” Cord said evenly. “You’re not welcome in Eleanor’s house because you don’t treat Molly or Daniel like a father should. Eleanor is protecting the children, and herself.”

  “Protecting herself from me? She’s my wife! You got that, hired man? My wife. I’m her damn husband!”

  “Not anymore,” Cord said.

  “Well,” Tom blustered, “I’m the children’s father.”

  “You sure don’t act like it. No father treats his kids the way you treat Molly and Daniel.”

  “Yeah, well.” Tom’s beefy shoulders drooped. “Mebbe I don’t know much about bein’ a father, seein’ as how the boy was no more’n a baby when I left and the girl...hell, I never even seen the girl before.”

  “You’re gonna have to earn the right to return to this family, Tom. If I were you, I’d hurry it up.”

  “Well, if that don’t beat all,” Tom muttered. “Shoulda stayed in Mexico, where they know how to treat a man right.”

  Cord send him a quick look. “That where you’ve been all these years since the War?”