by Lucy Evanson
“I picked this up for you too,” Bill said as he returned to the wagon and reached into the bed. He handed Maddie a small tin box. “They said they just got this in, all the way from New York City. Must be pretty fancy.”
She turned the box over to read the label. “Horniman’s Pure Assam Tea,” she said. “Never heard of it.” She peered closer at the small print, then her eyes widened. “This tea is from India! How much did this cost?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Bill said. “I just wanted you to have a little something nice.”
“Well, this is too nice,” she said. “I never had tea from India before. I don’t know what to say. Thank you, I guess.”
“You’re welcome.” He brought in the rest of the sacks and boxes, then climbed back aboard the wagon and released the brake. “All right, then. Time to go to work.” He turned the wagon toward the south pens and started ahead, though when he turned and looked back, Maddie hadn’t moved an inch. When she met his eyes, it was with an expression he’d never seen on her before. She looks almost happy. How weird.
Bill turned his attention back to where he was going, but for the rest of the morning that look on her face lingered in his memory. Something strange is going on today, he thought. While Gus was cutting up the hog, Bill repaired the snapped fence wire and then arranged the things they would need for processing the chickens: he filled the scald pot and started a fire beneath it, he set up rough tables with sawbucks and planks, and he arranged a base layer of straw in his wagon bed. He had done this same routine countless times, such that he barely needed to think about what he was doing, which was convenient since he couldn’t get Maddie out of his mind.
In fact, during the rest of the morning he went through his motions like an automaton. His knees bent and his hands grabbed for the chickens; his arm swung the hatchet and his fingers grasped the feathers as he plucked the birds. His mind, however, was somewhere else entirely.
He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something seemed to have changed. Something subtle and deep. She seemed…softer somehow? Warmer, perhaps? Maybe she’s getting used to things. It’s been a couple of days now, after all, he thought. Yeah, that must be it. Just time going by. It was the only thing that made any sense. He hadn’t performed any grand romantic gestures nor done anything else that could have possibly affected her like that.
Unless it was killing the pig, he thought, and let out a long sigh. Man, if I’m going to have to sacrifice a hog every time I want her to warm up a bit, this is going to be a long process. Still, even if it came to that, it would be worth it. After a few days of married life, he was certain that he’d made the right decision in asking for Maddie’s hand. Tess seemed to be taking to him nicely, and he could imagine a time when she would look at him as kind of like a father. His friends approved—not that he needed their approval, but it was nice to have. The loneliness that had filled his house some nights seemed to be a thing of the past. Yep, definitely the right decision. The only thing left is to convince my wife of that.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. Maddie was there, with a wisp of hair pulled loose by the breeze and an expectant look on her face, as if she were waiting for a response. Speak of the devil.
“Did you say something?” he asked.
“I said you two have a real operation going on here. You’ve got things all arranged just so,” she said as she looked up and down the line, from the scald pot over the fire to the wagon at the far end, where ice and cleaned chickens glistened in the sun.
Bill nodded and wiped his brow, sending a spray of red-tinged sweat onto the ground. “Gus and I have been doing this for a couple of years now,” he said. “Like they say, practice makes perfect. We can get a bird from flappin’ to iced in under five minutes.”
Maddie snorted. “Five minutes? That’s impossible,” she said. “It takes longer than that to kill and clean a bird.”
“Gus, I think that sounds like a challenge,” Bill called. “You want to show her what we can do?”
Gus said nothing, but nodded as he used the edge of the knife to clear his table, sweeping a tide of blood, fat and innards into a box at his feet.
“Watch this,” Bill said as he walked toward the stump and grabbed up a chicken that had made the mistake of strolling by. He held it by the legs and picked up the hatchet as he laid the bird across the wood, then he stroked its neck with the edge of the blade, like he was petting it. The chicken relaxed immediately and stretched out its neck, which Bill severed with a quick, strong stroke that left the hatchet buried in the stump.
Bill walked over to the scald pot while holding the chicken well off to the side; it was still flapping and spurting blood, but calmed as soon as he thrust it into the steaming water. He dunked it several times, working the carcass like he was working a butter churn. Water splashed everywhere before he pulled the bird out and tossed it onto his table.
“This is the part I don’t like,” he said as he started pulling the feathers free in great handfuls. “Wet feathers stink to high heaven.”
“They smell better than wet dog,” Maddie said.
“That’s why I don’t have a dog, either,” Bill said, grinning as he continued plucking. He was fast but accurate, and in only a few seconds he had finished and passed the bird to Gus.
“That’s two minutes,” Bill said. “Plenty of time left.”
Gus, with his beady eyes nearly hidden under his hat and his thick mustache nearly obscuring his mouth, may have seemed a bit creepy to Tess—or, frankly, to Maddie. He wasn’t any more endearing with a long knife in his hand.
He quickly sliced off the tail, then bent lower and scraped away a few bits. When Maddie had cleaned chickens herself, she had always carefully cut the bird open entirely, but Gus had another technique. Once a small incision had been made, he simply took hold and broke it open with his bare hands, then quickly scooped out the innards. He checked inside to make sure that he hadn’t left any guts within, then gave it a quick rinse in his water bucket and tossed the chicken up onto the ice pile with its cousins.
“What’d I tell you? Under five minutes.”
“I have to say, you keep surprising me,” Maddie said. “I’m impressed. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you two to come up and eat. I’ll have things ready in just a few minutes.”
“We’ll be right there,” Bill said. They covered the ice with straw to shield it from the sun and set a fresh scald pot to boil before washing up and heading up to the house. Now that the pantry had been restocked, Maddie had prepared a nice lunch for them—boiled ham and potatoes, with cornbread still warm from the oven—though it appeared that neither man paid much attention to her cooking. Both of them raced through the meal, well aware of how much work remained to fill the wagon with chicken, and Maddie had to argue with them to get them to relax for five minutes.
“I swear, I think you’d have eaten standing up if you had your way,” she said, placing enameled cups in front of each of them and filling them with coffee.
Bill leaned over his cup and blew the steam from the surface. “We just have a lot to do,” he said. “Lunch was good, though. Thanks.”
“Yum,” Tess said from her seat at the end of the table. She had stabbed a large piece of ham with her fork and was working through it in tiny bites.
“See, Tess agrees,” Bill said, getting to his feet. “But we’ve got to get back to it.” He took his cup and walked with Gus down to the south pen, then stood drinking his coffee for a moment while he surveyed things. The fire under the scald pot was high and hot; he could see wisps of steam already rising from the water. The wagon was partially filled already, showing the work they’d done and the work that remained. Several chickens had taken refuge in the shade under Bill’s plucking table, seeming unaware that they’d soon be visiting the top of the table as well. The coffee was hot and very strong, just the way he liked it, and his belly was full. Things could be a lot worse.
He left his coffee cup on a fencepost,
well out of the way, then snatched up a chicken and carried it to the stump. He had just sunk the hatchet into the wood when a high-pitched scream pierced the afternoon air, sending a chill all the way through him. Criminy, that’s not something you want to hear when you cut off a bird’s head.
He spun around, the chicken still in hand and spewing blood, and saw Tess atop the rise behind him. There was a look he had never seen on her before. It was pure horror, and it made his gut ache just to see it. Before he could speak a single word, however, she turned and ran back to the house, crying all the way.
“Gus, finish this one, would you?”
Gus shrugged and took the bird to the scald pot while Bill headed up the hill. He wiped his hands on his pants as he went, though his pants were so bloodied that it was hard to tell whether it did any good.
Maddie met him at the door. “She came in screaming chicken no,” she said. “Sorry. I guess she followed you down there while I was cleaning up.”
“Well, I suppose she was going to see something like that sooner or later. Where is she?”
“In our room. Under the bed.”
“Let me go talk to her,” Bill said. He went down the hall and found their door wide open. One little bare foot was visible, sticking out from where the comforter draped to the floor.
“Tess, it’s me. Can you come out?”
The foot withdrew under the bed.
“Come on, honey.” He went to the side of the bed and got down on his hands and knees. When he lifted the covers, he could see that she had moved all the way to the wall, as far from him as possible. “Tess, come out.”
She covered her eyes and began to wail again.
He waited there, simply watching her, offering a smile every time she stopped crying long enough to look his way. When she finally calmed down, he reached for her hand and she let herself be pulled out from under the bed.
“Honey, I know that was scary,” he said, getting to one knee as he sat her on the bed. “But people are waiting to eat those chickens, and I have to bring them up to Omaha. Do you know what Omaha is?”
She considered the question, then shook her head. “Maha?”
“Omaha,” he repeated. “It’s a big city with a lot of hungry people, so they need those chickens. But you know what I’m going to bring back home?”
Tess shook her head again.
“A present,” Bill said, wiping away the tears that lingered on her cheeks. “For you. How does that sound?”
She looked doubtful at first, but then nodded.
“That’s a good girl. I need you to stay up here while I finish my work, all right? Maybe you can go feed the chickens in the north pen. How does that sound?”
Tess nodded again and turned to go to her mother, then spun on her heel and returned to Bill. Silently, she hugged him and put her head on his shoulder for a moment, then went on her way.
“That’s sweet of her,” he said as he got to his feet.
“I’ve never seen her do that before,” Maddie replied as she walked with him outside. Bill got a tin cup of feed for Tess and they let her into the pen, where the chickens swarmed around her while she scattered the feed.
When he was satisfied that Tess was occupied with her birds, he headed back to the south pen, giving Maddie a nod as he went. She had that smile again and a faraway look in her eyes, as if Bill weren’t quite the same man she had married and she was trying to recognize who he had become.
~
It was late afternoon when they finally finished loading things up. The wagon bed looked for all the world like it was full of straw; if Maddie hadn’t been watching the progress all along, she never would have guessed that it was insulating a pile of chickens, ice and one recently butchered hog beneath.
Maddie watched as Bill saw Gus off, helping him to load the boxes of chicken guts into his wagon. “I appreciate it, Gus,” Bill said as he handed him some money as well. “Next time won’t be until spring. Stay warm if I don’t see you.”
Gus nodded, and as his wagon rolled forward he glanced over at Maddie, again touching the brim of his hat briefly.
“He doesn’t talk much, does he?” Maddie asked once Gus was beyond earshot.
Bill laughed. “No, he doesn’t, but I kind of prefer that sometimes. Some guys talk too much, in fact,” he said. “Anyway, he does a good job, which is all I care about.”
“I guess that’s the main thing. But what on earth did he take those innards for? They were sitting in the sun all day. I hope he’s not going to eat them.”
“No, he’s going to feed them to his pigs,” Bill said. “He apparently has a lot of them.”
Maddie took a moment to consider what daily life must have been like over at Gus’s place, and a shiver ran through her. See, it could have been a lot worse than marrying a chicken farmer, she thought. Thank God it was Bill at the town hall that day and not Gus.
“Anyway, I should be back on Friday evening, like I said. Day and a half on the way, day and a half there, and one long day back.”
“You’re almost ready to go?”
“I’m ready now,” he said. “I just need to grab a few things inside and then I’m leaving.”
“You’re not seriously going like that, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you want to wash up first?”
Bill eyed the thin stream of meltwater that was dribbling out of the wagon bed. “I’d really better get going,” he said. “Nobody’s going to buy spoiled chicken.”
“Five minutes aren’t going to make a difference one way or another,” Maddie said. “Go over to the pump and get undressed. I was going to make some soup anyway, so I already have hot water ready to go.”
“Maddie—”
“No arguments,” she called over her shoulder, just before she went into the house. She ladled hot water into a pail, then collected soap, a washrag and some clean clothes before wrapping everything in a towel and returning outside.
Bill stood there at the pump nearly naked, stripped down to his underwear, but it was impossible to look at him as she had in the morning. The man who stood before her now was a mass of grime and muck, with dried blood coating his hands and arms. Dust and dirt had formed a nearly flawless mask for him, marred only by trails of sweat. The clothing that was crumpled at his feet was a collage of blood and chicken fat, and she briefly considered burning the pile instead of putting it to wash.
“And you didn’t want to clean up,” she murmured. “Stand still.” She dunked the cloth in the hot water and rubbed it with the soap, then began to scrub him all over. The dried filth that covered Bill’s body refused to surrender until she lathered the cloth repeatedly and put her weight behind it, scrubbing away like he was a frying pan covered in bits of sticky egg.
“Maddie, not so hard,” he said. “I’m going to need some skin left.”
“Don’t be a baby,” Maddie said as she lifted the foamy cloth toward her face and inhaled. “By the way, I like your soap,” she said. “What’s that smell?”
“It’s, uh…pine wood.”
“No, it’s not.” She took another whiff. “Smells like…is that lavender?”
“Hmm…I’m pretty sure when I bought it, they said it was pine,” Bill said.
“It’s not pine at all. It’s flowers.”
“What?! They gave me the wrong soap?”
“Sure, halfway gone and you just noticed,” she murmured as she resumed scrubbing his shoulders. “I never met a man who used lavender soap before,”
He laughed. “What was I supposed to do? That’s all they had when I bought it,” he said. “It was either that or nothing.”
“Well, it’s better than nothing, for sure. I guess I shouldn’t complain. Bend over, I’m going to rinse you off.” She poured the rest of the water over him, washing away the suds. When he stood, the grimy chicken-killer was gone, replaced by the same Bill she had seen emerge from the fog this morning. He looked clean and bright, with rivulets of wa
ter going down his chest, like a sculpture that had been restored by rain.
“Now that’s better,” she said, perhaps a bit breathier than she’d intended. “Here’s a towel.”
Bill dried off and got dressed quickly. “All right, I’ve got to get going now. Taking care of that hog really slowed me down,” he said. “I just need to grab some things from the house.”
She waited as he went inside and returned with his rifle and a small traveling bag, stowing both beneath the seat. “I was going to say, my list is getting longer,” Maddie said. “So now I have gold miner, dog fighter and pig hunter. And, of course, chicken farmer.” She was smiling as she spoke, but Bill responded with a frown.
“You know, you keep going on about me being a chicken farmer,” he said. “Maybe that’s all you see in me so far, but I hope that’ll change someday,” he said. He cocked his head to the side slightly, as if he were trying to figure her out.
“I was just teasing, Bill.” He was close enough that she could see his skin yet glistening from the bath, and he was still radiating the heat of the day’s hard work.
“It’s just my job. That’s not who I am as a person.”
She reached for him then, grasping first his shoulders and then letting her hands slide down his arms. Even relaxed like he was, she could feel nothing but wiry muscle beneath his shirt. “I know that’s not all you are,” she said. “I honestly didn’t mean anything by it.”
“And that’s not who I am as a man.”
“I know that too.”
He took her hands then, and her stomach did a funny little flip. His skin was warm against hers—hot, almost—and she realized that her breathing had become shallow in her chest. He’s going to kiss me, she also realized. I hope.
Bill leaned in slowly—not like a man who was shy or timid, but rather like a man who felt no need to rush. A man who was entirely sure of himself. A man who was simply taking what was his already.
Her eyes closed as his mouth found hers. Maddie felt her pulse race, and she trembled as his tongue lightly brushed against her lips. Bill let go of her hands and slipped his arms around her, pulling her against him. Her trembling stopped. Being there pressed against him, his arms warm and strong around her, his kiss setting every nerve alight within her, Maddie felt a wave of emotion building inside of her. It wasn’t just that the first kiss she’d ever had was so unexpectedly arousing, although it was; it was that it felt so right.