But Ella wouldn’t let the matter drop. "Now you’ve roused my curiosity," she said. "Why do you want to know? Are you in love with someone, Mandy? Has somebody asked you to marry him?"
"No," Amanda replied truthfully. Sometimes, in her darkest, most fearful moments, she doubted any man would find an opportunity to propose marriage to her. If one did, she doubted she would be able to accept because of her family situation. "I just want to be ready when and if anything should happen."
Unnerved slightly by Ella’s penetrating stare, she hovered over the cradle, and bent down to smooth the blankets covering the sleeping baby girl.
"I hope you don’t fancy that archeologist fellow," Ella said blandly.
"Why not?" Amanda asked, snapping her head around. She felt rather astonished her sister should have an opinion about a man she hadn’t even met.
"Because I can’t imagine you traveling around the world, living in a tent or some little mud hut in foreign parts while your husband digs for old pots," Ella told her. "You’re a homebody like me, Mandy."
Miffed, Amanda replied, "I don’t know if I’m a homebody or not. I’ve never had the opportunity to be anything else. I’m always taking care of sick people — first Mother, then Papa, now you."
Noticing Ella’s crestfallen expression, Amanda clutched her sister’s frail hand and apologized with haste. "I’m sorry, Ella. I didn’t mean for it to come out sounding so harsh. I’m glad I can be helpful to you and Rex and Minnie in your time of need. Truly. I’m not bitter or anything. Sometimes life is so complicated, with more burdens than joy. It’s just that…" She let the statement trail away. She didn’t feel like baring her soul to sister. She was emotionally too raw these days.
"You want a life and a family of your own," Ella finished for her.
Amanda jerked her head in a quick affirming nod, swallowing back the sour lump in her throat.
"Perfectly understandable," Ella soothed, giving her sister’s hand a squeeze. "Sit down. Tell me what’s been going on since I’ve been confined to my bed. Not the everyday sort of things, but things with you. Things a woman only tells another woman."
"There’s nothing to tell," Amanda replied with a somewhat ragged sigh. Part of her wanted to confide in her sister about her feelings for Gil Gladney and her attraction to Nate Phillips. One was so amiable, the other extremely handsome. How could a woman know for certain — if given a choice — which man to marry?
"Sit down anyway, " Ella demanded.
Amanda did as she was told, sinking onto the wooden strait-backed chair near the bed. As she did so, she took quick mental note of chores she needed to get done and those she’d already taken care of. A pot of chunky vegetable soup bubbled on the back of the wood stove in the kitchen. She’d already baked a batch of salt-rising biscuits. Rex was outside with Bonita cutting firewood and feeding warm mash to the chickens. Bathed and fed, Minnie was asleep in her cradle. With her quick assessment complete, Amanda gave herself permission to take a minute to breathe. To simply sit and be.
She was a human being, she reminded herself, not a human doing.
Ella peered over the edge of the bed to look at the sleeping baby. "Isn’t she a dolly? I can’t thank you enough for taking such good care of her. Doctor Morgan said you had to feed her with a medicine dropper at first. You’ve been an angel through all this, Mandy." Her kind words fell in soft, pleasing folds.
Amanda blushed with pleasure at her sister’s praise. "What are you going to do about her name?"
"Why should I do anything?" Ella asked. "I reckon we’ll just leave things as they are. I wouldn’t want to hurt Rex’s feelings."
"Tell him," Amanda coaxed. "He’ll be pleased as punch."
"How does Minnie Beth Stewart sound?" Ella asked, with a lopsided grin.
"Beth is my middle name," Amanda blurted out.
"I know," Ella said, shrugging a thin shoulder. "I think Minnie should be named after her only aunt. If it hadn’t been for your loving kindness, she might have… died." The last word came in a hard, fractured gulp.
"Maybe you should name her Minnie Sarah, after Mother," Amanda suggested.
"Her name is Minnie Beth," Ella insisted. "I’m not going to have any argument about it, you hear me? I’ll tell Rex to write it in the Bible."
Wriggling slightly on the chair, Amanda was more pleased than she cared to admit. She and Minnie would share a middle name. This was something special. Gazing down at the sleeping baby, Amanda marveled at her physical perfection — such a tiny nose and rosebud lips. God sure knew what he was doing when he made babies.
"I wish you’d take that money to the bank tomorrow — the cash Mr. Phillips paid you for the use of the old chicken shed. I can look after Minnie until you get back — if you don’t dawdle," Ella went on. "I’m feeling stronger every day."
"Are you sure?" Amanda asked. "I could do it first thing. It won’t take long, but I don’t want you to tax your strength. I’d like to put the cash toward your mortgage before Mr. Phillips decides he wants some of it back." She gave her sister a crooked grin.
"Are you sure you’re not sweet on that archeologist man?" Ella asked.
Amanda replied promptly, "No." Noticing the intensity of her sister’s searching gaze, she added, "Well, maybe a little. I don’t know. He’s charming and handsome and so full of life — and full of himself too, I must admit." She recalled the way Nate had regarded her the other day in the kitchen. She’d felt his eyes on her face, almost like a physical touch — warm and intimate. Shyly, she said to Ella, "He told me the other day he liked me."
Her sister’s blue eyes widened, but she said nothing. Amanda went on, encouraged by Ella’s apparent patient interest. "He even said I reminded him of one of his sisters, but he said it in such a way I don’t think he wanted to rouse sisterly feelings in me at all. But don’t worry, Ella. I’m not getting my hopes up. Beulah Johnson warned me about doing so only today," Amanda said with a hint of a smile. "She told me the handsome and dashing Nate Phillips wouldn’t marry a woman like me."
Ella sat up with a jerk. "She said what? What an old crow."
Amanda went on. "She told me Mr. Phillips would marry a sophisticated heiress — if he married at all. And there’s a lot of truth in what she says. There’s something too worldly about him. You’d laugh to see how fond he is of his silly old car. It’s so fancy and impractical."
"I still can’t believe Mrs. Johnson would say such a thing to your face," Ella said. "She hardly knows you or Mr. Phillips. Oh, that woman." She propped herself up on her elbow and reached for Amanda’s hand to give it a comforting pat.
Chuckling, Amanda added, "Now, now. Don’t take on so, Ella. She was just trying to be helpful. She even went to the trouble of pointing out some eligible men I should consider as suitable husband material."
"At the spelling bee this afternoon?" Ella choked out the words with disgust and disbelief. Amanda nodded, her eyes sparkling with amusement. Frowning, Ella asked, "Who’d she suggest, might I ask?"
"I don’t remember their names," Amanda confessed. "I’m afraid I wasn’t paying much attention. I sat there mortified someone might overhear our conversation. She went on to discourage me from making eyes at Rex’s teacher too. She told me right up front he didn’t have a penny to his name and couldn’t take a wife, so I shouldn’t set my cap for him either."
"Gil Gladney? Now, he’s a handsome man," Ella admitted. "I like him. Randall did too, and Rex looks up to him, I know. We met Mr. Gladney when the school board first hired him. Randall invited him out for supper once or twice. It was then Rex made up his mind to go to college and be a teacher too. I thought Randall might resent it, but he didn’t. He was proud to think his son wanted to be a scholar rather than a chicken farmer." Ella’s eyes misted. She blinked several times and added, "Mr. Gladney is saving up to buy a ranch. He’s going to put down roots here. At least, he said so at the time."
"Yes, he told me he wants to breed horses," Amanda said.
"
He did?" Ella arched a pale eyebrow.
Amanda nodded and gave a little shrug.
Ella waited for Amanda to go on. When she didn’t, Ella said, "Mandy, about getting married. Just be sure you love the man with all your heart. Don’t tell yourself, ‘This one will do.’ That kind of thinking and feeling won’t last. During the tough times, it’ll wear off in a hurry. Do you understand what I’m saying?"
Again, Amanda only nodded, slightly amazed by her little sister’s wisdom and experience.
"And another thing," Ella went on. "Be sure you share the same feelings about the important matters in life — like saving money, pursuing dreams, and having children and knowing God. Mother told me that. She said if you don’t share the important things, you’ll soon discover you’re just as lonely as you were before you got married — maybe even lonelier. Marriage vows are holy, and you can’t make a vow in a half-hearted way. It’s wrong. Does this make any sense to you at all?"
"It does," Amanda admitted. "Were you and Randall that way… together?"
Ella nodded. A flame of color burned on each pale cheek. She winced a little as though feeling a stab of pain. Clearing her throat, she said, "He was the other half of me, of my soul. I don’t guess I’ll ever be completely whole again. I think that’s why I just fell apart when he died. I got so sick and run down. Part of me died too when Randall fell off that roof."
The two of them sat in companionable silence for a short while. Finally, Ella said, "You’ll know, Mandy. You’ll know. A man will say something — maybe even in passing — and you’ll know right off he’s the one you have to marry, or he’ll say something which makes you shudder on the inside, and you’ll know you couldn’t be happy with him, no matter how charming and handsome he might be."
Amanda rose from her chair. Her fingers plucked at a loose thread on her apron. "Ella, thanks for being so open and frank." She touched her sister’s long, fair braid and patted her on the shoulder. "Now you get some rest. You’ve had a long day. I’ll send Rex in after supper, and you can tell him about Minnie’s name."
"Listen Mandy, about Rex," Ella said grasping her lightly by the wrist. "What are we going to do about his dog?" Her eyes burned with anguish.
"I don’t know," Amanda admitted. "I guess I should have put the dog down as soon as I realized what had happened, but I couldn’t. It nearly broke my heart just thinking about it. What should we do?"
"Have any more chickens been killed?" Ella asked.
"I don’t know, and Rex hasn’t said anything about finding more dead ones." Was it possible he’d found one or more mutilated corpses and not confided in her? Had Bonita satisfied her taste for blood temporarily and not felt the urge to attack? And if so, when would the urge return? "Maybe we should keep Bonita tied up in the yard?" Amanda suggested.
"We’d have to tell Rex why," Ella pointed out.
Amanda chewed her lip. She blamed herself for not resolving the problem already, but with all young Rex had been through in the past several months, she didn’t want to destroy his beloved pet too.
"You know, Mandy, I’ve been thinking maybe the dog didn’t mean to kill the chickens. She didn’t go into the hen house, did she, and start attacking them?"
"No," Amanda replied, frowning.
"Maybe she just went after the ones running away — she had the urge to hunt them as prey." Ella paused and frowned. "You didn’t actually see her attack and kill any of the hens, did you?"
"No, I didn’t."
"We can’t know for sure Bonita killed them." Ella’s expression was hopeful. "Can we?"
"You’re forgetting the time I caught her with one in her mouth," Amanda pointed out.
"Couldn’t some other animal have killed it, and Bonita just picked it up to bring to you?" Ella asked.
Amanda gave a slow shrug. "Perhaps."
"Let’s not say anything about it just yet — not to Rex, I mean," Ella said.
"If you say so," Amanda replied. Her glance slid downward to rest upon the baby girl sleeping peacefully in the cradle. Maybe Bonita had only been acting on normal instincts. Even so, she made up her mind to keep the dog away from the baby as much as possible.
Ella nodded, her eyes already drooping. Amanda returned to the kitchen and stared out the window over the sink. It would be dark in another hour or so. She marveled at how often in a day she gazed out this same window, sometimes peering to the left toward the old chicken shed and barn or to the right, past the old cottonwood tree and the new chicken yard.
She always seemed to be staring out at the world beyond herself, staring through a window at life rather than participating in it. If only God would show her clearly what she should do — about the dog, concerning Nate and Gil. She felt so uncertain, even where her own feelings were concerned, not to mention Gil’s feelings toward her, and Nate’s too. When she was near Gil, she usually felt slightly giddy with something akin to joy. Nate’s attention toward her was flattering and exciting, even if it was sometimes a little humiliating as well.
Embarrassed suddenly by her own self-centeredness, Amanda’s cheeks grew hot with shame. What was she thinking? Reaching for the long wooden spoon, she gave the soup a vicious stir. There was so much to be thankful for, and she’d better be mindful of the fact. Her family loved her and they’d never gone hungry. Amanda had her health and more than her share of good looks. Neither man had made a declaration of love, so why was she even contemplating marriage with either of them? Nate had told her he liked her — not loved her. Gil said friends should call each other by their first names. He’d used the word friends, not lovers. She was nothing more than a desperate spinster toying with decisions she was not compelled to make. At least, not yet.
"Make me patient, Lord," Amanda prayed aloud, her eyes closed. She gripped the edge of the sink. "I’ve waited so long. Help me wait a bit longer, and in the meantime, keep me busy."
Business was the best remedy for melancholy she could think of.
****
The next morning, after feeding Minnie, getting Rex off to school, and assuring herself that Ella would indeed be all right in her absence, Amanda slipped on her corduroy riding skirt and a short-waisted wool jacket. She saddled old Toby and rode into the village with Nate’s money tucked inside the envelope with the letter from Las Cruces, which she had securely folded into the pocket of her thick jacket.
It was one of those perfect, crisp autumn days, the sort Amanda wished she could preserve in a jar to save for another time. Then, when the dreary, wind-chilled January days became unbearable, she could open the jar and release the perfect day with all its sparkling splendor. A sweet day, fizzing with sunshine, as delectable as a bottle of cold sarsaparilla.
Her heart beat a little faster as she rode by the schoolhouse. It was silly to imagine she’d see Gil standing outside. It was much too early for lunch recess. But as the windows were open a little, she could hear young voices inside droning in recitation. State capitals, perhaps, or even memorizing the Preamble to the Constitution. She was not close enough to distinguish the exact words. Amanda recalled Gil’s obvious pride in his students’ performances at the spelling bee and how he had some kind word for each of his pupils, not just Rex and Jerry, but even the surly Lancaster boy. Gil Gladney was such a good and caring teacher. The memory of the tender merriment in his eyes yesterday as he spoke with her filled Amanda with a comforting warmth. Such laughing eyes. Nate Phillips had merry eyes too. But Gil enjoyed laughing with her, while Nate was more likely to laugh at her. There was a difference.
Grateful she did not run into the nosey Beulah Johnson this time as she had done on her previous visit to the bank, Amanda conducted her sister’s business with quick efficiency. She even made inquiries about the attorney’s letter regarding her father’s blacksmith business. The banker’s helpful response provided her with much food for thought on her return trip back home.
As she neared Ella’s house, she noted the spiral of smoke coming from the chimney. She also noticed a
n unfamiliar buckboard in front of the old shed. Bonita paced back and forth outside like a sentry. The dog acknowledged her arrival with a slow swish of her twisted tail.
"Hello, girl," Amanda greeted as she dismounted. No telltale blood and feathers around the animal’s mouth, thank the Lord. "Who’s in here today?" She guessed one or more of the workers from the excavation site had stopped by to stow more artifacts into the shed. The door was open, so Amanda stepped inside, pausing on the threshold to allow her eyes to adjust to the gentle gloom of the shed’s interior.
"Ah, it’s you, my dear Miss Dale. Good morning!" Nate’s greeting reminded her of a warm caress. With his tousled, dark-gold hair and self-assured stance, he reminded Amanda of a storybook prince. So tall and handsome. He stretched out his hand, an inviting gesture. She remained where she was.
"Did you bring in another skeleton?" she asked, turning her attention to the canvas-covered relics resting on makeshift tables of planks and wooden sawhorses.
Nate allowed his hand to drop to his side. His boyish grin caused her heart to leap just a little. He took a step toward her, asking, "You’re not going to squeak and swoon, are you?"
"Of course not," Amanda stated, indignant.
"Of course not," Nate repeated. "You’re a good, sensible, young woman, aren’t you?" His eyes twinkled.
Amanda didn’t reply at first, uncertain if he was complimenting her or poking fun. With a thrust of her chin, she finally said, "I try to be." Her eyes were drawn to an open toolbox with a whiskbroom, paintbrush, and a trowel. She also noticed several bushel baskets filled with potsherds — all clean and sorted. Rex had been busy.
Nate followed her gaze. "Your nephew has been doing a fine job." He let his gaze rest upon her. Amanda experienced a tiny thrill of anticipation. What exactly she anticipated, she wasn’t sure.
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