Mrs. Johnson hesitated at first, seemingly reluctant to leave without having concluded her business to her satisfaction. Minnie’s cries grew louder, and Dolores quickly disappeared to see to the baby’s needs. Amanda made her way to the kitchen door and opened it for the widow with stiff politeness. She should thank her for coming. Good manners dictated as much, but the words stuck in her throat. Bonita bounded into the house through the open door, nearly knocking the unwanted visitor over in her haste to reach the crying baby in the other room. Rex darted into the corridor after the dog, casting a scathing glance at Mrs. Johnson as he did so.
"Well, I never!" the woman exclaimed, hurrying outside. Pausing on the porch, she said, "That wretched dog! How long has the boy had it? I think I’ve seen it somewhere before."
Amanda felt a clutch of fear. She couldn’t bear it if someone came looking for the scraggly, red dog. Especially now. Rex loved Bonita with all his young and wounded heart. "Rex and Bonita are like peas in pod," she replied, careful to avoid answering the woman’s question. "You’ve probably seen them together in town or in the school yard."
Beulah Johnson gave a snort as she mounted her horse from the top step. "Good night, Amanda Dale," she said. "We’ll postpone our discussion until another day. I’m guessing it won’t be too many more weeks when you’ll be seeking me out. In these hard times, you’ll be lucky to find another buyer. It’s not prime farmland, don’t you know?"
"Good night, Mrs. Johnson," Amanda said in a dismissive tone. She was not sad to see her go.
"Is she gone yet?" Rex asked when she joined him in the bedroom where Bonita stood guard over the whimpering baby. With a smile, Dolores excused herself to check on Ella in the next room.
"You’re a good dog," Amanda said, patting Bonita on the head. The dog wagged her crooked tail. "Yes, Mrs. Johnson is gone."
"Maybe I’ll run down the road after her. I’ll throw rocks or eggs or something at her and her ugly old horse."
"You’ll do no such thing, Rex Stewart!" Amanda chastised. "Go say hello to your mama. We’ll eat soon, but I need to feed Minnie first." Picking up the baby in the pan, she returned with her to the toasty kitchen. An open can of milk was already warming in a pan of water on the stove.
"Won’t you stay for supper, Dolores?" she asked, when she noticed her donning her jacket and hat. The woman shook her head and said her husband was expecting her. Amanda stepped forward to give her kind neighbor a warm embrace. "Thank you so much for coming today. I can’t tell you how grateful I am."
Smiling, Dolores shrugged off Amanda’s gratitude. "It was worth it to see you return home with the roses in your cheeks, querida. But tell me, is your sister, the poor mamacita, is she having money troubles?"
"I don’t know," Amanda admitted as she tied on her apron. "There has been a letter from the bank, but I didn’t read it carefully, and I don’t know much about my late brother-in-law’s business affairs. I’ve been so busy with Ella and the baby and…"
With a ragged sigh, she let her statement trail away, unfinished. Sometimes she felt she would suffocate with the overwhelming responsibilities that had been thrust upon her following Randall Stewart’s accidental death. She tried not to think about the situation too long at any one moment for fear she would burst into tears and never stop crying.
"I am sorry," Dolores said. "I will pray for you." She wrapped her arms around Amanda again and held her close. Amanda hugged her back, silently thanking God for this good, kind, and thoughtful neighbor.
After Dolores had gone, Amanda fed Minnie with the medicine dropper at the kitchen table. She was amazed at the infant’s physical perfection. Everything from her tiny pink feet to her small curling fingers appeared just as they should be — only in miniature. She rolled the baby over on her side and patted her back gently until Minnie burped. As she studied the baby’s features, Amanda felt certain Minnie resembled Rex more every day. Something about the mouth and eyes and the little chin. She could hear Rex in his mother’s room, talking to Ella. She guessed he was regaling her with an account of the day’s adventure at the old Indian ruins. Wiping her hands on her apron, Amanda stepped quietly into the hall and stood outside the bedroom door, listening.
"I know the secret money jar is empty," Rex was saying. "But if that’s why you’re sick, then it’s okay. You can get better now. I’m going to refill the jar. Mr. Gladney has a friend, an archeologist, who’s going to come to town to dig up the old ruins. He’ll have to hire men, and I’m going to be one of them. I can work in the mornings before school and after school too and on Saturdays. So the money jar will be filled again," he boasted, "and all you have to do is get well. Aunt Mandy is taking care of Minnie, and Bonita is taking care of me, and I’m taking care of the chickens, so there’s nothing to worry about any more, Mama. All right? Mama? Please."
Amanda choked back a sob and returned to the kitchen, dabbing her eyes with the hem of her apron.
****
Gil had been reluctant to leave Amanda Dale to face her unwelcome visitor alone. He’d heard the hostility in young Rex’s tone and seen how Amanda had straightened her shoulders with resolve before entering the house. But what could he do? He had to return Jerry and Sammy and the Schwarzkopf sisters to their homes and thank Mr. Schwarzkopf for the use of the buckboard.
He’d recognized the old swayback roan as the one belonging to Beulah Johnson. She was a rude, scrappy woman who had exasperated three husbands into early graves. The last one — Ezra Johnson — had been buried just six months before. Johnson had been on the school board that hired him a year ago, and Gil remembered what a short, skinny man he’d been, with a thin voice as dry and brittle as the pages of an old book.
Of course, Johnson hadn’t talked much — Beulah didn’t give him much of a chance. Everyone knew she’d ridden roughshod over her husband. Gil just hoped the annoying widow wasn’t doing the same now to Amanda Dale. Why had she come calling, he wondered? To buy eggs? To be neighborly? Perhaps she wanted to gawk at the tiny infant Amanda so resourcefully kept tucked into a large roasting pan for safekeeping?
"Mr. Gladney, can we come back to the ruins sometime and draw pictures of it?" Greta asked, interrupting his troubled reverie.
"It’s may we come back," he corrected her, "and yes, it’s a good idea, Greta."
"Can we… I mean… may we come back on a school day next time?" Sammy asked hopefully. He stood in the back of the wagon, pressing forward against Gil’s shoulder, eager for a response.
Gil laughed. "Why not? We’ll need to plan the outing before the weather turns."
And he certainly planned to ask Amanda Dale if she would join them again. He wished he could help the young woman in her time of trouble. But what could he do? "Lord in Heaven, if there is something I can do to relieve her burden, show me what it is," he prayed silently, giving the reins another flick.
After dropping Sammy off at his family’s small farm and Jerry too, Gil made his way to the village and the Schwarzkopf’s general store. The girls’ mother greeted them warmly, clucking like a hen over her returning chicks. She also invited Gil to stay for supper.
"I make schweinshaxe, weinkraut, and potato dumplings. Is goot!" she assured him with a wide smile. "You stay. Eat." Greta and Gertrude looked at him with bright, hopeful faces.
Gil didn’t know what weinkraut was or schweinshaxe, but the potato dumplings sounded promising, and he was hungry. Besides, the German housewives in the village had a reputation for being fine cooks.
"Thank you, Mrs. Schwarzkopf. I’d like to. But first I need to send a telegram. I’ll come right back and take care of the horse and wagon."
"You go, then you come to eat," she said, shooing him away. "Karl will do horse and wagon. Girls, come. You set table."
Gil touched the brim of his hat and made his way to the telegraph office. He arrived just before closing. "You’re the last customer of the day, Mr. Gladney," Hiram Lister told him with a hint of disapproval. His thick, drooping red mustache ga
ve him a stern demeanor.
"I’ll make it quick, Mr. Lister," Gil promised. He reached for the form and began scribbling his message to Nate. He needed to be brief. Telegrams were pricey. Even if he used only ten words or less, it was going to cost him about fifty or sixty cents to send a telegram to Indianapolis. A letter would have been sufficient, Gil supposed, but the sooner Nate came out and saw the ruins for himself, the sooner he’d start excavating. And the sooner the excavations got underway, the sooner he could start earning more money to put toward the ranch he was saving for.
There would be no shortage of cash-strapped farmers willing to hire on and help with the digging. Gil wished he could think of some way Amanda Dale could benefit from the excavation too. He guessed she could use some extra money to help with doctor bills and other expenses.
After writing out his message, he gave Lister the form and fished out two quarters and a nickel from his pocket. He hoped Nate Phillips was at home and not on foreign soil in the middle of another excavation. "Thanks, Mr. Lister, and good evening to you," Gil said as he took his leave. He paused in the open doorway and said, "By the way, your granddaughter is a fine student. She’s likely to win the school spelling bee next month. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit."
Lister beamed. Even his moustache seemed to perk up. "That’s our Caroline — bright as a new penny," he replied.
"Indeed, she is," Gil agreed and took his leave, satisfied knowing he’d smoothed some ruffled feathers. He strode down the wooden sidewalk, admiring the sun’s final blaze before it set for the evening. A short man with a hat pushed low over his face leaned against the post in front of the butcher’s shop. He spit out a stream of tobacco juice, barely missing the toe of Gil’s dusty boot.
"Gladney, I want to talk to you about my boy," the man drawled as he straightened and pushed his hat back.
Oz Lancaster. Gil recognized him at once. He stood there before him, his thick neck and shoulders making him appear shorter than he actually was. "This is not the time or place, Mr. Lancaster," Gil informed him. "Come by the school house on Monday after school is out. We can talk at that time." He kept walking, determined not to keep Mrs. Schwarzkopf waiting.
"I’m thinking you’ve been mighty hard on Ozzie," the man said, falling into step beside him. He had to be quick to keep up with Gil’s long strides.
"There are some who would say I haven’t been hard enough," Gil replied. "If Ozzie spent as much time on his school work as he does trying to earn a reputation as class clown, he’d be a scholar we could all be proud of."
Glancing sidelong at the angry father, Gil knew Lancaster had taken his criticism of young Ozzie as a personal affront. Pausing briefly in front of the general store where Mrs. Schwarzkopf had supper waiting upstairs, Gil said, "I’ll see you Monday afternoon. The Schwarzkopfs are expecting me."
The man fixed him with a hard stare. His small, pig-eyes glinted with anger. Gil noticed too the slow, ugly scowl which swept across the man’s sunburned face. In an instant, Gil knew he had made an enemy.
Chapter Three
"Aunt Mandy, here’s another one." Rex pointed to the dead hen in the corner of the fenced chicken yard. "It’s the second one in a week’s time."
Amanda regarded the dead chicken. It was headless, just like the one they’d discovered previously. Some predator, perhaps a rat, a raccoon or maybe even a coyote, was somehow snagging the chickens that ventured too near the chicken wire fence. It would bite off the hen’s head unable, Amanda reckoned, to get the rest of the carcass through the bottom of the fence. "This is a riddle," she admitted. "We’ll have to solve it soon. We can’t afford to keep losing chickens."
"Especially the white leghorns," Rex said. "They’re the best layers."
"I didn’t realize," Amanda confessed. "Perhaps we should keep Bonita outdoors at night, so she can scare away whatever animal is preying on the hens." The dog wagged her tail at the mention of her name. Amanda gave her a pat on the head.
"Maybe it’s a skunk," Rex ventured, "or a rat. Pa was always careful not to let trash and old lumber pile up by the fence near the coop. He said junk made good breeding grounds for mice and rats and other vermin." A shadow seemed to cross his face when he mentioned his father.
Amanda said nothing as she followed him into the large chicken house. The hens greeted them with a loud, clucking chorus, eager for more mash. But first Rex removed the leftover feed from the troughs and shoveled out the wet and soiled bedding. While he did so, she searched for dead chicks inside the hen house and refilled the water pans. She also gathered the eggs — hundreds of them. Some were cracked and dirty. Others appeared green or pale blue. Some even felt bumpy. Once, she’d even found a slippery egg with a thin shell. Rex had told her to throw it away.
This morning, she found two that had been pecked open. "Rex, look at these eggs," she said. "They’re cracked and no good now."
"I think one of the hens did that," he said with a frown. "You know, chickens peck at everything. Pa warned me that sometimes they’ll eat their own eggs."
"But how do we keep it from happening?" Amanda asked.
Rex shrugged. "We’ll have to cull the egg-eaters from the flock, but if we do, there will be fewer laying hens."
"Too bad," Amanda said, shaking her head.
"But chicken and dumplings are good," Rex reminded her with a grin. "Mama always makes chicken and dumplings when Pa culls a hen. She used to, anyway." The smile slipped from his face.
Amanda cleared her throat before saying, "You know more about this chicken business than I do, so just tell me what needs to be done, and I’ll do it."
"Would you walk around the fence and see where a predator might be trying to get in at?" he asked. "You know, if the chickens get scared too often, they’ll quit laying. I think that’s one reason we aren’t getting as many eggs as usual."
Amanda raised her eyebrows. Everyday, even on Sundays, she or Rex, and sometimes the two of them together, collected dozens and dozens of eggs. She’d never seen so many eggs in her life. They packed them carefully in wooden crates and kept the crates in the root cellar until Mr. Schwarzkopf came for them. "How many dozen are you supposed to be collecting?" she asked.
Rex shrugged. "I don’t know. Pa wrote it all down. But it doesn’t seem like we’re getting as many as we used to."
While Rex sprinkled corn in the yard, Amanda walked each length of chicken wire surrounding the huge coop. "Over here, Rex," she called. She pointed to a small opening near the bottom of the fence. "Maybe we should fix this."
"I can do it," Rex insisted. "I need to get something from the barn first." He took off at a run, Bonita bounding after him.
In his absence, Amanda carried basket after basket filled with eggs into the root cellar. She and Rex would wash and sort them more carefully later on. But not today, it was Sunday. She wished she could go to church to visit with folks and to listen to a Bible sermon, but it wasn’t possible.
Talking with Gil Gladney yesterday had stirred a longing in her for what she considered "meaty discourse." She was weary of chickens, diapers, and whispered sickroom conversation. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d read a newspaper. What were President Teddy Roosevelt and his brood of happy youngsters doing in the White House these days? Had the members of the territorial legislature established a mounted police force to track down horse thieves and bank robbers? Were the Russians still at war with the Japanese on the other side of the world?
Amanda wanted to talk about these and other important things. She longed to have time to read the Ben-Hur book Gil had told her about and then discuss it afterward. She wondered if God was mindful of her circumstances at all. Why had all the nursing fallen to her over the years? She’d spent her youth caring for an ailing mother. Ella had married Randall Stewart at age sixteen and moved away from Las Cruces. When their father became sick later on, the responsibility of caring for him had naturally fallen upon Amanda’s shoulders. Now, she was again confined to hearth and hom
e, caring for her sister and her sister’s youngsters. Would she ever have a life of her own? Would she ever find a husband to love and be loved in return? And what of children? She nurtured these secret longings in her heart. Did God care?
She wondered briefly if Gil attended church services on Sunday. Did he do his own cooking in the little room at the back of the schoolhouse or did he eat with families in the village most of the time? She couldn’t get his handsome face out of her mind this morning. Amanda recalled the rush of excitement she had experienced each time he’d fixed his intense, blue-eyed gaze upon her yesterday during the picnic. She smothered a sigh. Tall and well-muscled, Gil was not like any schoolteacher she’d ever known. Why, his smile could melt butter!
Feeling half-ashamed, Amanda resolved not to think any more about Gil Gladney’s manly charms. She plucked a fist full of tender grass from under the shade of the cottonwood tree and tossed it into the chicken yard. The hungry hens attacked it greedily. Rex returned with a couple of old boards and a hammer. When he was finished with his task, he stood back with his hands on his hips to admire his work.
"I think it’ll do, Aunt Mandy."
Her heart flipped over as she watched him. Rex was so like Ella in this moment, Amanda thought she might cry. She spun around at the sound of a wagon’s rumble, swallowing back the lump in her throat. Mr. Snow and his son Jerry had arrived to take Rex to Sunday school. Amanda quickly smoothed her hair in place and straightened her shoulders.
"Rex, go wash your hands. Be quick. I’ll finish up here," she promised. The boy darted toward the house, waving at Jerry as he did so. Forcing a cheerful smile, Amanda called out, "Good morning, Mr. Snow."
The tall man had a beard as red as Jerry’s hair. His weathered face was speckled with freckles. He raised a hand in greeting as he jumped down from the wagon seat.
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