“You were five.” He stood and held out a hand. “David was eight. He knew better than to do what he did that day. Pa had spanked him twice the week before for the same thing.”
“Oh.” I grabbed his hand and let him help me up. “Why didn't anyone tell me about it?”
Adam corked the canteen and shoved it into a saddlebag. He mounted and pulled his boot out of the stirrup.
“Stick your foot in the stirrup and grab my hand,” he said.
After I did, he pulled me up behind him. Adam turned Blaze and nudged him with his boot heels. We rode in silence for a while.
“You almost died from your injury,” Adam said as our ranch came into sight. “Uncle Andy stayed beside you for a month, even sleeping in a chair, until your fever broke. When you woke up, you didn't remember a thing. Ma, Pa, and Uncle Andy decided to leave it like that. They said you didn't need the guilt.”
“What about the others?” I asked, afraid to say their names again.
“It took a week.” He stopped outside the corral. We dismounted and took care of Blaze. “Don't ask me about the details. It's a horrible way to die. That's all I'll ever tell you.”
I let Blaze into the corral. “I'll miss him when you take him to the Pony Express.”
Now I was doing it, not telling everything I felt. No one would ever know how hard it was to give up Blaze after I had grown so close to him.
I just can't keep a horse I love so much when I couldn't stop David and Grace.
“Pa'll let you keep him.” Adam held my hand while we walked toward the house. “You and Blaze have a connection.”
“I promised Blaze he could deliver mail for The Pony.”
I went inside, mechanically cleared the table, checked the broth, and set a pot of water to boil.
“Don't even think about doing those dishes,” Mark said. “You'll sit outside while I take care of them.”
He pointed at the door. Reluctantly, I went back outside and leaned against the railing. The sun had begun to set, bathing the desert in vibrant reds and golds. Cackling drew me off the porch. I had only taken a few cautious steps when a figure skulking near the barn caught my attention. Thinking Pa had wandered outside, I moved closer.
“Pa, is that you?” I yelled.
“What's up, short stuff?” Adam asked from behind me.
I had to restrain myself from jumping over the roof.
Holy heck! He might have announced himself easier.
Even worse, Bart and Charles were beside Adam. My brothers moved with more stealth than a tribe of Indians.
“I saw someone near the barn,” I said.
“Stay here,” Adam said. “Bart, you're with me. Charles, load the rifles.”
Charles hurried back inside. Adam pointed me toward the kitchen, and then he and Bart bolted in the direction of the barn. A few minutes later, they returned with several chickens hanging limply from their hands.
Everyone not sick stood in shock at the sight. I didn't even grumble when some feathers dropped to the floor.
“Someone strangled some the chickens,” Charles said. “We'll need to set a guard.”
“I'll help,” Uncle Andy said.
“I need you with the sick,” Ma said.
For the next three days, I stuck close to the house as my bruises flared to brilliant shades of purple and yellow. Everyone's tempers shortened, owing to the long nights we sat awake watching the barn and corral. Just when I believed I might never be able to move without pain again, I awoke one morning and stretched without a cramp.
Humming, I made it to the kitchen without waking anyone. A fire crackled in the stove before I remembered we had no eggs in the house. Taking a basket, I walked to the coop. The sun had begun to rise, and the hens cackled quietly. A rooster announced the beginning of a new day when I released the gate latch.
“Thought you'd never come out,” Gabriel said.
Startled, I dropped the basket. I closed the gate, to put something between him and me.
“Go home,” I said. “I'll call for help if you don't.”
“I heard someone hurt you. Did the Paiute hit you with an arrow?” An evil, greedy grin illuminated his face. He snickered. “A course, you might just get hurt agin iffen your family don't tell Russell, Waddel, & Majors you cain't help them no more.”
Would his family go that far to take The Pony Express contract? Yes. They'll do whatever they have to so they can have the contract.
“Go home, Gabriel.”
A hinge creaking scared me stiff. Had his pa and brothers come with him?
“Abby, go inside,” Adam called from the barn. “Gabriel, get off of our property.”
The quiet rage in his voice released my fear. I turned around and discovered him holding a rifle on Gabriel.
“I need eggs for breakfast,” I said.
“I'll get them,” he said. “Run for the house. Mark!” Adam raised his voice. “Take Abby inside.”
Mark hurtled around the barn and leapt the fence. He escorted me to the kitchen and assisted me with a breakfast of biscuits and ham. Coffee brewed in the iron pot when Adam returned from wherever he had chased Gabriel to. He settled at the table and held up a tin cup.
“Don't mention anything to Ma about this,” he said while I poured coffee. “I'll deal with the Johnsons until Pa's well.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
Ma and Uncle Andy entered the kitchen.
“Andy says you boys can go back to the bunkhouse today.” She looked at Adam. “What are you doing with a loaded rifle in my kitchen?”
At her outraged screech, I ducked my head. What would she say about Gabriel's visit? I prayed she never learned about it.
“Getting rid of a varmint pestering the chickens,” he said.
He opened his mouth to say more, but snapped his lips together when Peter and Paul stumbled to the table. They made jokes about how Charles had teased them into eating. Ma poured them each a bowl of broth and hovered over them until they lapped up every drop. When they finished, Peter grinned at me with an evil gleam in his eye.
“Heard tell you got throwed,” he commented.
“At least I didn't spend a week in bed,” I retorted.
“Enough,” Adam said. “Mark, we need to hunt up some mustangs. Charles and Bart can keep an eye on the house today. Peter, Paul, don't tease Abigail.”
I poked my tongue at my brothers retreating forms. That earned me a smack on the back of my head.
“Don't think I'll let you back on a horse anytime soon,” Ma said. “Your pa will just have to figure out how to break them without you.”
She had just signed my death sentence. For that was how I felt if I didn't have a chance to get on a horse again.
Chapter Fourteen
A couple of days after I remembered the accident, Ma had me pull up the rug in her and Pa's room and beat it with a long stick until no more dust flew out of it. Before I had a chance to take a breath, she handed me the broom, a bucket of steaming water, and a rag.
“Clean up the walls and floors.” She pulled the curtains off the windows. “I'll take care of the bedding.”
She'd never said a kind word to me since the day Adam brought me home. I wondered if she hated me for what I'd done.
“Is this because I yelled at you and ran off?” I asked.
She stared at me for a long moment, and then shook her head.
“The contract work kept me from doing this earlier,” she said. “Andy says we can move your pa out of the bunkhouse. I don't want to disturb him by moving him twice so we can do a thorough cleaning.”
Ma bustled out the door with her arms full of the curtains she'd made last winter. For a couple of seconds, I stared at the bare windows, remembering back when the snow fell for days on end how she took several of my old dresses and cut them up. Then she sat patiently every night for a week and sewed the tiniest stitches I'd ever seen until she had four curtains for the two windows.
Best quit daydreaming and get t
o work. Ma'll swat my backside if she comes back, and I'm staring out the window.
I swept the floor and began to wash soot and grime off the walls that had built up since last fall. The chore was one of the most difficult I had ever done, since I had to climb on and off a chair to reach the ceiling. She returned for the bedding as I started on the floor.
“Do you want me to empty the mattress ticking and refill it with straw?” I asked.
“Andy will watch over Peter and Paul while they do it.” She hurried out with the bedding dragging behind her.
The Ma I knew now was very different from the one in my recently restored memories. Then she had laughed and spent hours teaching me to read and sew. Now, it felt like she wanted nothing to do with me. The pain of her rejection hurt far worse than anything else I had ever experienced.
She hates me. I know it. I should have kept on running and never come back.
My tears spotted the floor. I scrubbed them away and tried to harden my heart, but nothing worked. When several people walked into the room, I peeked over my shoulder.
“Aw, look.” Peter nudged his twin. “The runt's crying.”
“Guess Ma spanked her for running off.” Paul grinned.
Their gleeful expressions faded when Uncle Andy smacked the back of their heads.
“I'll light up your backsides if you tease your sister ever again,” he said. “Take that ticking outside and empty it into a neat pile behind the barn. Then ask your ma what she wants you to do with it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Their surly responses earned them another scolding. But their antics no longer amused me. They got to have all the fun in the world, and I was sentenced to Ma hating me and having awful chores from sunup to sundown every day.
I never slowed as I scrubbed the floorboards with more energy than needed. After Peter and Paul wrestled the mattress outside, Uncle Andy knelt beside me.
“What's bothering you?” he asked.
“Nothing.” I started on the last patch of floor, scrubbing even harder and making my fingers ache. “Absolutely nothing.”
When I finished, he pulled me to my feet.
“I have to put the carpet down and move the furniture back into place,” I said. “Ma will want to make sure everything's perfect before she lets Pa come in here.”
“Peter and Paul will help me do it.” He dragged me outside, stopping in front of the wash shed. “Don't move an inch.”
I'd learned long ago never to disobey an adult. Even though I wanted to take off, I stood still. It really wasn't all that hard. My whole body felt limp, as if I expended any more energy, I'd crumple up and float away.
He walked over to where Ma rubbed a sheet against the washboard so hard I thought she would tear it to shreds.
“Don't shut out Abby,” he said. “She's alive and in so much pain that she cried.”
“I know how to take care of my daughter.” She dumped the sheet into the rinse bucket and picked up another. “I have to finish this.” Ma used her arm to shove a strand of hair out of her face. “Michael will want a clean bed when we move him.”
“Look at her, Louisa.” Uncle Andy held her hands. “Abby blames herself. She hasn't said a word, but I can see her withdrawing a little more every day.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Abby understands.”
Her words confused me. How could I understand when no one would explain more than they already had? Why had she called me Abby when she had always used Abigail in the past?
“Does she?” He gripped her hands tightly. “Why does she still cry herself to sleep at night? Why did Abby refuse a horse when she lives and breathes for them? Hold her. Tell her that you don't blame her for David, Grace, and Mattie dying. Abby needs to hear you say it.”
Tears rolled out of my eyes when Ma looked at me. She dropped the sheet to run over and hug me.
“I don't blame you,” she whispered. “Oh, Abby. I couldn't ever do that.”
“I thought you hated me,” I cried. “You wouldn't talk to me.”
“Well.” She glanced back at the wash shed. “There's plenty of time to talk now.”
As we sat on the top step, I caught sight of Uncle Andy washing the sheets. I smiled at his antics.
“Ten years on my own taught me a few things,” he said.
Ma slid an arm around my waist. I leaned against her and remembered doing the very same thing before the accident.
“I was never so frightened as I was the day Andy carried you out of the corral,” she said. “He told me he'd save you even though I saw his grief for Mattie and Grace, but he never cried.” Ma sniffled. “Until he had to lance your wound to clean out the infection, and then he sobbed like a baby when you screamed.”
“I thought you didn't want me around,” I said.
“No, never.” She hugged me closer.
It felt so good, just sitting beside Ma. We stayed that way, our hands clasped tight, for a good long time.
“I've been thinking. Maybe it's time to stop grieving and spend time with our neighbors.”
“Do you mean the Johnsons?” I couldn't keep the horror out of my voice.
“Our other neighbors.” She smiled. “The Hadley's will put up a new barn next month. You and I can go over there for the dance with Adam and Mark.”
“What about the others?” I asked.
“They'll have to stay with your pa,” she said. “He's still ill, but I know he'll want you to meet more folks, to get to know young men who might interest you.”
“Ma!” Embarrassed heat bathed my cheeks.
“You'll be sixteen in October,” she said. “Girls your age make up their hope chests and look for the man they'll pick for their husband.”
“I don't want a husband.” I buried my face against her chest. “I want to stay here forever.”
“You'll change your mind one day.” She pried me loose. “I put on some peaches to sweeten this morning. Would you like to help me with a new cake recipe my ma sent me?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“An upside down cake.” She giggled as we stood. “Can you imagine that? You put the fruit on the bottom and turn it out after it bakes.”
I had never imagined anything so silly in my life. Ma and I went into the kitchen and had more fun than I ever remembered the rest of the day. We talked, giggled, and laughed through what I had always thought of as dull, boring work. After we finished the dishes, I approached a subject she had declared closed.
“Can I work with the horses again?”
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I know how much you love it, but it's not right.”
I have to find a way to change her mind. I'll just die if I can't ever ride a horse again—especially Blaze. He's leaving as soon as Adam makes up his mind they have enough ponies ready.
* * * *
A few days later, I watched the corral from the porch. No matter how much I begged, Ma wouldn't let me break horses.
“Watch what you're doing, Mark,” Adam shouted. “That horse will toss you faster than it did Abby if you don't tighten up on those reins.”
As I bit my lip to keep from telling him what they were doing wrong, Uncle Andy leaned against the railing.
“Louisa tells me you inherited Grandfather's gift,” he commented.
I turned a little so I didn't have to look at him. He might have helped Ma and me past our troubles, but he still had a lot to explain.
“Still a might upset?” he asked.
“You could have said something.”
“I promised your ma I wouldn't until I got my life together. I hope you'll forgive me.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “Maybe not. Don't know right now.”
As if I would ever tell him anything, he was the most mysterious person I had ever come across. His actions since Pa, Peter, and Paul fell sick only made things worse.
I'll never let him help me. Never! Not even if he gets me back on a horse.
The last bit of my vow hurt. I yearned
to feel warm horseflesh beneath me so much that my teeth ached.
Well ... I could maybe ... no! I'll never trust him.
Uncle Andy put an arm around my shoulder. I shifted away from him.
“Those bruises still paining you?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“All healed, are they?”
I wouldn't tell. Not for a chance to break the horses, not even if he offered me a place with The Pony Express. No way would I say anything about how my back still hurt on occasion. Like right now, turning quick as I had brought out a painful twitch. It almost felt like a bee sting.
“I won't tell your ma. I just want to know if you need my help.”
Hoping he would forget about pestering me, I pointed at the corral.
“They're gonna spoil that horse for riding. Adam's good, but he doesn't know how to settle a mustang so it's only half-broke.”
Uncle Andy focused the corral.
“Explain how you do it,” he coaxed.
“You have to whisper in his ear for a good long time,” I said. “Then you let him tell you when it's time to crawl on his back.”
I lost myself in the explanation of how I worked with the ponies. Soon, I whispered like I did with the horses. While watching the animal Adam was currently trying to mount, I directed my magic in that direction. It would do us no good if he got hurt.
“Do you want to help?”
Uncle Andy's question startled me. I nodded before remembering I was mad at him.
“I'll take care of it,” he said. “Go on inside, you can't wear a dress.”
Keeping an eye on the corral, I went inside. What did Uncle Andy mean when he said I couldn't wear a dress? Girls always wore dresses. Pants were for men. That's what Ma told me on my last birthday, when she said I had to act like a lady.
I ran into the kitchen, where she rolled piecrust into a perfect circle. Dried peaches and pears bubbled in the same pan on the stove.
“There you are,” she said. “Wash up, I need help.”
“Michael won't be ready to work with the mustangs for a long time, if ever.” Uncle Andy lounged against the wall. “Adam's not getting the job done because he doesn't have Abby's magic. Let her ride, Louisa.”
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