The Reaper's Song

by Lauraine Snelling

  “Or your horse.”

  “That neither.” She swung down and marched up to stand in front of him, her fists planted on her hips. “If’n you’re such a hot shot, you go hunt. And you can take your own rifle and gimme mine back.”

  “Not until I know you’re not going to shoot me and throw me in the stewpot.”

  The look she gave him would have fried a rabbit had he already bagged one.

  When he returned some time later with a brace of prairie chickens tied to his belt, he could see the smoke rising from a chimney that blended into the hillside so well he’d missed it before. The dog set up a ruckus again, but this time its tail wagged and the whine low in the throat welcomed Zeb back.

  “If that young lady in there was as smart as you, we coulda eaten long time ago.” He lopped the heads off the birds and threw them to the skinny cur. They were gone before he could blink. He skinned and gutted the birds, tossing the entrails to the dog, who waited with chops quivering. “At least one of us has a full belly.”

  He knocked at the door, glancing to the side to see that more of the corral had been chopped away. At least they’d had something to burn to keep them warm. “Don’t go get all fired up, I brought some supper.” He pushed the door open with the toe of his boot, waited, then entered.

  A fire crackled in the cast-iron stove, and a pot bubbled, sending the welcome fragrance of cooking beans that helped cover the stench of the dugout. The two chairs had been righted and a candle found. Manda sat on the edge of the bed, spooning gruel into Deborah’s mouth.

  “She couldn’t wait.”

  “No, I don’t s’pose she could. You got a skillet? We can fry two of these and boil the other with the beans. Fryin’s faster.”

  “Don’t got no grease.”

  “Then we’ll use a bit of water till their own fat melts.”

  Manda left off with feeding her sister and dug an iron skillet off a shelf that had once held stores. Several empty cans and a couple of flat sacks attested to that. She pushed the bean pot to the back of the stovetop and set the frying pan on the hottest part.

  “Did you find the salt?”

  “Yes.”

  Talkative, she wasn’t.

  Zeb cut the birds in smaller pieces and laid them in the skillet, dipping them in the bean water first. The sizzling meat added a fragrance of its own, making the putrid place seem almost homelike. Heat and cooking food had a tendency to do that.

  Zeb thought of his mother’s house—the braided rugs, curtains at the windows, tables and chairs, a pantry full of preserved food, and both a root cellar and a smokehouse that held more of their larder. She always put up more than they could use, but she often said it hadn’t been like that during the war. She never wanted to see her children go hungry again. Nor anyone else. If only he could send these two packing back to his mother. Between her and Mary Martha, they’d drive that hunted look out of Miss Manda’s eyes right fast.

  But they weren’t here. He was.

  God help him, he was. And he didn’t dare stay.

  We ain’t goin’ with you and that’s that.”

  Zeb could tell that his patience, the patience he’d been gripping with both hands and his teeth, was about to snap. He sucked in a deep breath and tried again. “I don’t see any way the two of you can remain on your homestead by yourselves like this.”

  “Pa’s comin’ back.”

  “Who you tryin’ to convince—me or yourself?”

  Her glare could have struck sparks if he were flint.

  “Look, Miss Manda—”

  “I said more times ’en I care to count, don’t call me that.”

  “Okay, don’t get all riled up again. Let’s just talk, sensible-like. Your ma is gone on to heaven, and your pa is either with her or run off.”

  “Or hurt and cain’t get back till he’s better.”

  “That too. Either way, with Deborah as sick as she is and no supplies, you’re going to starve to death with her, but first you’ll have to bury her out there by your ma. She won’t last as long as you.” Zeb knew he was being cruel, but he couldn’t see any other way. Manda wasn’t about to budge.

  “If’n we don’t stay, how will our pa find us?”

  “We can leave him a letter.”

  “Where would we go?”

  That was the question all right. Leave it to her to zero right in on the heart of the matter. Zeb propped his chin on his hands and his elbows on the table. “Surely there is someone in the nearest town who would help out two orph—”

  “We ain’t orphans and don’t you go sayin’ so.” She slammed her palms on the table, her rush to her feet nearly overturning the wobbly thing again.

  “All right.” He raised both hands, palms out. “Your pa is coming back when he can.”

  She nodded and settled back in her chair.

  “And if’n we left and he was gone too long, some rotten claim jumper might come and take up in our absence. We could lose our homestead thata way.”

  “True.” Zeb stared around the room. Between them they’d heated water and washed the blankets so a clean Deborah now slept in a clean bed. She looked to have a bit more color in her sunken cheeks, and now it wasn’t from the fever. Even Manda’s face looked a bit less haggard. Of course scrubbing off the dirt had helped with that. After he’d threatened to scrub her himself, she’d washed behind the curtain, and he’d scrubbed her clothes. That had set up another storm of invectives. But now, as long as she kept her mouth closed, he couldn’t imagine that this respectable-looking child in front of him was the same dirty hoyden he’d met at the river. No mistake, though, when she yelled at him, which she did with regularity. Especially whenever he suggested they leave with him.

  “You could stay here.”

  He blinked. Had she said what he thought she said?

  “Huh?”

  “Nothin’! I din’t say nothing.”

  “You did. And I thought about that. But I got to get on to Canada before—” He clamped his lips closed.

  “Afore what?” She cocked her head and studied him out of mistrusting eyes.

  “I just got to do it, that’s all.” With the ease of train travel now, the Galloway brothers could be anywhere. While he had grown a mustache—a beard had itched too bad—someone could put two and two together. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t let go of the way he talked. Up here his Missouri accent stood out like a black sheep in a flock of white. Maybe he should have headed south to Mexico.

  “Then you just git on yer goin’. Deborah and me, we’ll be fine, and our pa will come home any day now. Don’t you worry none.”

  “I wish.” While he muttered it under his breath, the look she shot him reminded him she had good ears. He sat up straighter. What he wouldn’t give for a cup of coffee right about now. Or something stronger. He tried again. Reasoning with her was like trying to talk a polecat out of the hen house. If it doused you or ate the chickens and eggs, you lost either way.

  “That deer I brought in won’t last forever. The beans are about gone, and we cleaned up the cornmeal this morning. Lessen you got something stored in the back you ain’t tellin’ me . . .” He let the sentence drift off. He knew there was nothing more than what he’d brought in. Even worse, she was down to three bullets for the rifle. The best shot in the world couldn’t live long on that. If he knew more about the edibles in this godforsaken land, he’d have gone out digging for tubers and such. Like his ma did to survive the war. She’d taught him well. But until something sprouted, he didn’t know where to look. Just digging anywhere was a mighty big waste of time and muscle. He hadn’t yet suggested snares for rabbit, but if he couldn’t get her to go with him, short of throwing them both over his saddle, he’d show her how to set some.

  Manda leaned against the chair back, her arms clamped across her skinny chest like a whalebone corset strapped tight. While she tried to hide it, the war within showed on her face.

  Zeb could feel his tightly strung patience taki
ng a breather. At least she was considering what he’d had to say.

  “Manda?” Deborah’s voice was stronger now.

  “Coming.” Like a child released from school on a summer day, Manda sprang from the chair and dropped to the floor beside her sister’s bed. The hand that had tried to beat him senseless only three days earlier now stroked the child’s head with the gentleness of a mother’s touch.

  She needed a mother’s touch herself, not to be the mother. And father and . . . Zeb shook his head. If the defeated men in the South had half the gumption of this young girl . . . He didn’t let that thought go any further. Visions of his own bitter father who’d never regained his heart and health hurt too bad.

  “We’ll go with you in the morning” was all she said.

  They reached Pierre just as night fell. He shifted the child sleeping in his arms. His left arm had gone to sleep hours earlier. Too well he knew the scarcity of the money in his pockets. No way could they stop at the hotel. And he didn’t dare go by the local sheriff’s.

  Light, laughter, and a tinkling piano tune spilled out the door of the saloon. They rode to the end of what appeared to be the main street. All the other businesses wore dark windows and shuttered doors.

  Should he try at the livery? Perhaps the owner would let them sleep in his barn. They’d stopped earlier and eaten the last of the cooked beans and part of the cooked venison. If only he’d had time to smoke some.

  Carting two kids along sure did slow him down. By himself he’d just roll his blanket out in someone’s barn or ask if he could exchange work for a meal and a place to bed down. Many a night he’d spent under the stars. But this night the stars hid behind roiling clouds. He could feel the coming rain in the wind on his face. Rain-laden clouds just smelled different somehow.

  A gust brought the first of the raindrops.

  “You could tell ’em yer our pa.” Manda spoke from off to his left. “I ain’t old enough to be your pa.”

  “Big brother then.”

  On the second spattering gust, he made up his mind. Livery it was.

  But when he returned from talking with the hired hand at the livery stable, he could feel the anger burning under his collar. The weasel said no. They had a perfectly good hotel in town, and he could ask there.

  Deborah coughed as he took her back from Manda. She weighed less than a sack of flour, and if he didn’t get her out of the cold and wet. . .

  “Come on.” He kicked his horse into a lope.

  “We could check with the sheriff.” Manda caught up with him, then pointing, said, “That’s the store where my pa done business.”

  “Yeah, and he probably owes a list as long as your arm.” Zeb regretted the unkind words as soon as they were out of his mouth. “Where we goin’ then?”

  “The church.” He hadn’t known that, but the building appeared out of the mist like an angel dressed in white.

  When he knocked on the door of what must have been the parsonage alongside the church, no one answered. Pulling his hat lower on his head, he waved Manda to stay where she was while he checked out the church. “Thank you, God,” he breathed when the door of the building swung open at the turning of the latch. Surely the good folks of Pierre wouldn’t mind if three strangers took cover there. He knew for certain God wouldn’t mind.

  He tied his horse in the three-sided shed and crossed the yard to the house where Manda’s horse stood by the closed gate. “Come on.” He reached up and took the quilt-wrapped child from Manda’s arms. “We’ll sleep in the church. Maybe there’s even wood for a fire.”

  But without a light of any kind, Zeb gave up that hope. And after seeing that the girls were wrapped warmly in their quilts, he rolled his own around him and fell asleep with a “Please, God” on his heart and mind.

  He woke to the feeling of something nudging his side. That was a boot toe that belonged to a man whose belly refused to obey the confines of his belt. A six-shooter that usually resided in the empty holster at the man’s side now pointed directly at Zeb’s head.

  If this was the preacher, Zeb figured God was scraping the bottom of the barrel for help. But a star that had long lost its glitter announced the man’s occupation.

  “Well, Sheriff, what can I do for you this fine morning?” Zeb strove to sound as northern as a native. But when he tried to sit up, the gun drew closer. He glanced over to see that the girls were still sleeping. Or at least, he hoped so.

  “What are you doing in this here church?”

  Sleeping, you ninny, what does it look like? But Zeb refrained from the obvious reply and kept his voice respectful. “It was raining, and since I didn’t have money for the hotel, and the livery denied us a roof, we came here. We haven’t damaged anything, as you can see.”

  “Oh.” The gun wavered and then clicked into the holster. “You shoulda asked.”

  “Who?” With the gun out of sight, Zeb rolled back his quilt and sat up. “No one answered at the parsonage and the—my little one’s been sick. We needed shelter right bad.” He hoped and prayed Manda was still sleeping, but a twitch of a shoulder let him know she wasn’t. God forgive my white lie here, please. It had slipped out so natural-like. No one would suspect he was Zeb MacCallister, wanted for a killing, while he traveled as a man with two children. So he was a mighty young-looking thirty, and no, he hadn’t fathered Manda when he was thirteen.

  When he rose to his feet, he looked down on the other man’s chest and read “Deputy” on the dull star. The man hadn’t corrected Zeb when he’d called him “Sheriff.” Short, paunchy, and power hungry. Zeb had met men like that on his travels, and he gave them as wide a berth as a hornet’s nest. They could be twice as stingy and ten times louder.

  “Well, the pastor, he done died in the flu. Kilt himself takin’ care of all the folks around here. Doc died not long after. Been a hard winter.” The deputy relaxed his stance somewhat. “Soon’s your children wake up, you clear on outa here, ya hear?”

  “Yes, sir, I surely do. Thank you for treating us so fair.” Zeb doubted the man could hear the sting behind the words. Calling him “sir” and licking his boots a little would hide a mile of sarcasm.

  “See that you do, now.” The man hesitated as if he were going to wait until they cleared out, but when Zeb smiled again and extended his hand, the deputy spun on his heel and left.

  And if the rest of the town is as accommodating as you, we’ll just shake the dust from our feet and keep on going. He leaned down to pick up his quilt and heard what he thought to be a snicker from the other bedroll.

  “Anytime you can be ready, girls, we’ll be rolling on.”

  Manda and Deborah both sat up, the smaller girl rubbing her eyes. She smiled up at Zeb and the angel brightness dimmed his eyes. Manda, however, gave him a look that said he would pay for this later. She might not be sure how, but she had a long memory.

  Zeb understood that look. His oldest sister, Eva Jane, had one that matched. And she always collected. He hoped her husband had learned how to handle her, or—

  He shut off the thoughts of home. They still hurt, in spite of the length and distance he’d traveled.

  “There’s a privy out back and the sun is shining. What more could we ask for?” He rolled his extra shirt and pants in the quilt and the slicker around it all. Glancing up, he saw the girls hadn’t moved.

  “Breakfast,” the two said together.

  “I’m getting to that.” With his roll under his arm, he paused. “I’m going to saddle up. We’ll water the horses at the livery and get a bit of grain for them.”

  “What about us?” With both hands, Deborah brushed wispy white hair back from her cheeks.

  “I said I’m getting to that.” Their concentrated stares made him want to shift from one foot to another. He kept still. “We’ll stop by the general store and get something.” If only I could find someone to work for, someone who could pay in cash, not just room and board.

  Manda watched the horses eat while he walked back to th
e store. He’d parked Deborah up against the barn wall on his bedroll and warned her not to move. Maybe the sun would warm a little strength into her frail body.

  A bell jingled overhead when he entered the narrow false front building. Mingled fragrances of pickles in a barrel, spices on the shelves, leather from boots and saddles, flour, cornmeal, and molasses blended together to spell “store.”

  “Good morning, stranger. How can I help you?” The aproned woman behind the counter turned from weighing and bagging dried beans. The smile on her face made him sure the remainder of the town wasn’t cast in the deputy’s mold.

  “I need some supplies and a little information, if you have it.” Zeb removed his hat and brushed his hair back with one hand.

  “The supplies? I have about anything you can think of.” She swept her hand wide to indicate the wealth of stores. “But as to the information? You ask and I’ll help you if I can.”

  “How about a couple pounds each of beans, cornmeal, and hard tack. A bit of salt, some sugar, and . . .” He inhaled and caught the perfume of fresh-baked bread. “Do you have bread for sale?”

  She nodded. “Just came outa the oven not ten minutes ago.”

  “Good. I’ll take a loaf. And cheese? You have any cheese?”

  She indicated the wheel set under glass. “This much?” She spread her finger and thumb about two inches apart. “Or more?”

  Zeb could feel his mouth water at the thought of coffee. How he wanted to buy coffee. “That’ll be fine.” He eyed a jar full of peppermint sticks. Surely a peppermint stick would bring the smile to Deborah’s face that nigh unto broke his heart. But he knew the state of his wallet. “You got any milk?”

  She shook her head. “But the Stoltzfusses up the road, they might.”

  He nodded. While she measured and wrapped, he stalked the aisles. Should he ask?

  He returned to the counter. Lie number two was about to be born. “I have a cousin by name of Elmer Norton, and I heard he homesteaded somewhere to the west of here. You know anything about him?”

  “We surely do. Man’s had a hard time. Why, he was by here . . .” She squinted her eyes to think. “Here, I can check when.” She opened a leather-bound ledger book and ran her finger down the column of names. “About what I thought. He was in just before that big snowstorm in early spring. Bought seed, wheat, some flour, and things like that. He apologized for running his bill up. Proud man but paid when he could. I sent two peppermint sticks home with him for his little girls. Poor things—their mother died clear last fall.”