by Lucy Inglis
We were back in the forest, and whilst the day had brightened around us from a dull start, in the trees it was still dark, though not nearly as forbidding as it had seemed when alone. Only a short time later, we emerged from the forest into the light. I put up a hand to shield my eyes. My bare feet hung down, heels banging against your shins as Tara climbed the grassy slope up the mountain with delicate, certain steps, finally coming to a halt in front of the porch. You dismounted, landing on your good foot, then helped me down. As you set me on my feet, I winced.
‘Only yourself to blame.’
I turned to the house, exhausted.
‘Ah-ha. What haven’t you done?’
I turned back. ‘I don’t understand.’
You pointed to Tara, standing obediently.
‘What?’ My voice was sullen, even in my own ears.
‘Look, Em, I know you’re tired, but you take care of the horse before you look to yourself. Nothing but the work of a few seconds to turn her out. Can’t just leave her standing here.’
I lifted my hands to her face, unsure.
‘Not the cheek strap. Just undo the throat strap there. The thin one. That’s it. Now reach up between her ears and take the crown there. Pull nice and easy.’ The bridle came away in my hand and Tara let the bit slip from her mouth, then gave her head a shake and moved off as you slapped her shoulder. Taking the bridle from me, you hung it on a nail in the railing and pointed to the bench on the porch. ‘Now, let me have a look at those feet.’
I sat down, stiff, as you made tea. Bringing out two cups, you handed one to me and dropped to your knees, fingers closing on my ankle. You lifted my foot and inspected the sole, making disapproving noises in your throat. ‘What am I going to do with you?’
‘Nothing. I don’t want you to do anything with me.’
You examined the other foot. ‘Spider bite.’ You felt the skin around it, blackened like a bruise.
Jerking from your grip, I flinched. ‘Ouch.’
‘Don’t be a baby. Do you feel hot? Sick?’
‘Cold. Just cold.’
‘And no wonder. You ain’t strong enough to sleep rough. Didn’t even make yourself a shelter.’
‘You . . . you followed me?’
‘What do you think?’ You got up and went over to where the wooden tub sat and turned the tap, filling it with the crystal clear water.
‘Why didn’t you help me, last night? I was so frightened.’ My chin trembled.
You frowned, looking awkward and unhappy. ‘Thought you might see sense and come back on your own. Damned if you ain’t obstinate.’
‘And you had to make your point, of course, didn’t you?’ I said, trying to be both dignified and hurt, like Mama.
Pushing to your feet, you went inside. I buried my head in my hands and cried a few exhausted tears, not feeling you standing over me until you threw a towel into my lap, frustrated. ‘For Chrissake, stop crying. It’s pitiful.’
I sat up and flung it back at you. ‘Stop making me cry!’ It hit your stomach, then dropped to the boards.
‘I told you to cease throwing stuff.’
Silence.
‘Just get cleaned up, Emily. Everything feels better clean,’ you said, weary, and went inside. The door closed behind you.
I swiped a hand beneath my nose, quelling a sob, and stripping out of my dirty clothes before washing in the chilly water.
As I got out you shouted from behind the door. ‘You decent?’
I wrapped myself in the towel, knotted my braid on the crown of my head and sat on the bench, quite a portrait of misery. ‘Yes.’
You opened the door. In one hand was an enamel bowl, and in the other a kettle. I could see a pile of dried herbs inside. You put them on the planks and poured the kettle over them, making a fragrant steam rise. You added some water from the tub and tested it.
‘Feet in.’
I did as you said, obediently. You handed me a blanket and I wrapped it around my shoulders, huddling up. Kneeling down and pulling my foot from the water, you examined it carefully, pulling thorns and splinters out where necessary with a pair of steel tweezers. I winced.
‘Oh no, lady, you’ve earned every part of this. The bite will bruise for a couple of days, but you’ve got away lightly, I reckon.’
‘I haven’t got away at all,’ I said quietly. The wind in the trees was the only sound for a few seconds. ‘Take me back, Nate. Please.’
You let go of my foot and sat back on your heels, head on one side, strange eyes fixed on mine. ‘Ask me anything else in that voice. Say my name like that. And you can have anything you want that I can give you.’
I swallowed. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Yes you do, Emily, you understand just fine.’
What you were suggesting . . . it was impossible. ‘We don’t know each other.’
‘You don’t know the man you were on your way to marry.’
‘My parents, they—’
You pushed up on to your feet, hard, towering over me. ‘They’re selling you. You can’t see that? I know how that feels, Emily, and it ain’t good.’
It wasn’t what you were making out, my marriage. It was a good thing. Everyone had told me so. I had to make you understand. Perhaps, that way, you would take me back. ‘I do know him. Better than you think. We write. They . . . they’ve shown me photographs. I . . .’
‘Photographs?’ Your hands clenched into fists. You stalked away, inside the house. When I dared to peep in, you were hunched over the sink, shoulders at an angle.
‘I don’t belong here,’ I said, my voice unsteady as I stood in the doorway, feet wetting the pale floorboards.
You threw your tin cup into the sink in a sudden show of temper, denting it further and making me start back. ‘You don’t know where you belong. That’s your problem.’
Two days passed. You came and went but you barely spoke to me. When I tried to make conversation, you turned away from me so often that I lost my voice, confused by your obstinate silence. But soon I grew to be happy when I saw Tara grazing outside, for I knew you were around. Somewhere. And the idea of being alone in the wilderness terrified me. Often, you stood near the corral, roping a wooden post, over and over again, snatching down the catch, rope scratching loudly as it tightened. You were clever with it, and sometimes I watched from the porch as you twirled it over your head, sometimes around your body, the noose fluid and ceaseless. On the second afternoon, you stood at a distance from the post and shot arrows from a small, sturdy bow into a deerskin bag filled with dirt. Over and over. Later you told me it was better than wasting ammunition out hunting, because every bullet counts.
I took my courage and walked down the meadow to you. You looked at the bow, not at me, fitting another arrow to it. ‘What do you want?’
I took a breath. ‘Why won’t you talk to me, please?’
‘Tried to talk to you and it didn’t go so well, did it? Thought I’d just see how it went if we don’t.’
‘Is this . . . is it because you disapprove of my parents arranging my marriage?’
‘Nope.’ You let the bow drop a little, then raised it to your eye and fired. It hit the bag with a dull thump. ‘But I don’t approve of it, no. Since you ask.’
‘Well, I don’t need your approval, thank you,’ I said, chin in the air.
‘That you don’t,’ you agreed, pulling another arrow from the quiver at your bad hip and fitting it to the bow. ‘But you do need my help. And because I don’t approve, I ain’t minded to give it.’
‘But please.’
You shook your head. ‘But no.’
‘If you make me stay I will never forgive you,’ I said, tears flooding my eyes. I turned on my heel and walked back to the cabin.
The arrow speared into the bag. It burst, spilling dirt on to the meadow.
‘Never is a long time!’ you yelled after me.
I slept in the bed, rose when the cockerel began to crow, and swept every inch of the cabin. I
realized that when you said you had inherited the cabin, you hadn’t said from whom. The chest in the bedroom gave me some answers. Two blankets, a pretty linen nightgown wrapped in a lace bag. A peculiar little book, which appeared to be pieces of advice for a young woman embarking upon married life, with blank pages for personal observations. There were also a few gold coins stamped in a language I didn’t understand, but akin to the German I did know. Bundles of lavender everywhere, falling out of every fold of cloth.
The chest spoke of newlyweds. Of preparation, and perhaps love. The things that I would never see in San Francisco, for I knew in my heart that even if I did manage to meet Mama and Papa and Mr Stanton in Portland, he would never marry me now. And why should he? There was no plausible story for my absence, and the truth – that I had been living alone with a horse trader – would render me worthless.
I explored the kitchen. On shelves were large crocks of dried beans and peas, which I did not know to soak before cooking and so I boiled and boiled them but they were still inedible. There was also flour, sugar, cornmeal, oats and dried corn kernels. Crates of carefully packed dried herbs were stored under the rough wooden counter. I experimented with cooking and practised breadmaking, though I soon realized I was using stupidly grand quantities, ending up with dough balls like bricks, which was mainly how they turned out. As long as I didn’t speak, you let me watch you cook in your simple, economical fashion.
It became apparent I was not much of a modern housewife, and far less of a pioneer. I cringed at the spiders in the outhouse and shrieked at the poor field mouse that reminded me of Miss Adams. Safe to say, I did not miss her at all, but I was very sorry for the death of Mr Goldsmith, who had been kind to me.
When you were around you said little. Sometimes you sat on the steps and shaved with a straight razor and no mirror, doing it by touch, rinsing the blade under the tap. Once you spent a day chopping wood, the axe a steady thump and crack, the side of the cabin thudding as you placed the logs beneath the shelter there. You did it shirtless and I watched from the shadows at the edge of the cabin window as the muscles of your chest and arms worked like the steel hawsers on the steamship. I had already realized how strong you were from the way you had lifted me with ease, but now I saw it was a strength forged from years of ceaseless labour; a hard life of constant motion had hewn you, rather than raised you. My gentle life of lessons, reading and sedate walks meant I had less strength than a kitten.
If you’d wanted to hurt me, it would have been easy. Yet . . . wouldn’t you have done so by now?
Time dragged. When I saw you in the meadow, so many times I almost went to you, but I was afraid you would dismiss me again. I was bored and lonely. And cold at night.
After that first night when you had slept in your own bed, on top of the covers, you slept in the kitchen in bad weather, and on the porch on fine nights; but in general, you did not sleep much at all and sometimes in the small hours you were troubled by dreams. One night I watched you wake, as usual pale and sweating, on the floor near the stove, blankets pushed aside. I had been listening to your breathing for some time, uneven and laboured, your face half-lit by the red light from the stove door. You hauled in a huge breath and sat up. After a moment you got to your feet, letting yourself out silently.
I hesitated, then got up and went on to the porch. Sitting on the boards, back against the cabin, you glanced up, pale in the moonlight. ‘Need something?’ Your voice was strained.
‘You were dreaming, again.’
‘Happens.’
‘Mama says laudanum helps her sleep. Perhaps that powder you gave me would—’
‘No. Been far enough down that road to know not to walk it again.’
I sat a couple of feet from you, on the step, and looked at the moon, hands beneath my arms to warm them. I had been using my underdress as a nightgown, but the night air was sharp. ‘Might I do anything to help?’
There was a silence. ‘What happened to never forgiving me?’
‘Never is longer than I thought.’
You huffed your soft laugh.
‘I could make tea?’
‘Take your rest, Emily. No purpose served by both of us sitting out here.’
I returned to bed and hugged myself as distant wolves began to howl. Dawn was an age in coming.
The following day you acted as if the night had never happened, acknowledging me with nothing more than a hum as you sifted through a bag of nails and stuck a hammer into your waistband before climbing on to the roof, banging a patch over the shingle I’d exploded, and which was now letting the rain inside. Later you made things you called ‘biscuits’, which weren’t like Cook’s biscuits but more like soft little cakes, and we ate them with eggs at the kitchen table. The small, speckled eggs were clustered in a dish, still hot from the water.
When I just stared at them, bemused, you picked one up, peeling it deftly, then splitting it on to the biscuit on my plate, hot bright-yellow yolk spilling over the dough. I remembered the many times I sat with Mama, learning how to plan meals and even grand embassy banquets. And all of that time I had been unable to boil an egg.
You folded your elbows on the table and watched me. ‘That looks like some deep thinking.’
I shrugged, shy. ‘Not much of a cook, am I?’
‘No,’ you agreed. ‘And if you take the lid off my biscuit pan again, I’ll make you wish you hadn’t.’
Regarding my plate, I began to say, ‘I’m sor—’
You shot me a warning look.
I bit my lip, then picked up my knife and fork. ‘I was just curious,’ I said firmly. ‘How was I to know they needed the lid on?’
Just for a second, the backs of your fingers touched mine, the smallest of smiles at the corner of your mouth.
After our meal, you disappeared and I washed some clothes and a sheet in the tub, banging the soap into them with a long-handled wooden contraption. I was becoming accustomed to the constant assault of nature on the mountain, and the work kept me warm. It was never silent, with the endless birdsong during the day, and the noises of the wild things at night.
My laundry skills were improving and I now had a workable system of clothing, which still consisted mainly of your shirts and trousers and a jumble of underclothes. I wondered what Mama would think of my laundressing, our shared things, and my hand-me-down linen. Imagining the look on her face made me smile. Far away, two foxes were playing in the meadow, tumbling over each other again and again as if inside a ball. There were clouds high in the sky and their shadows moved over the blowing, silvery grass. The effect was so peaceful I became much involved in my tasks, and failed to see three men approaching from the forest.
They were all on horseback. The horses were large and dark, not like Tara. The men were large and dark as well, wearing dun- and brown-coloured clothing, the same colour as their tanned and unwashed skins, their duster coats stained and ragged. But they were white men. And I was alone. They took their time in approaching, and the leader, for the leader was obvious, did not speak until they were in front of the porch. I had straightened up to my full height immediately on seeing them, which would not have done anything to impress them, I was sure. Yet it made me feel marginally better.
They pulled their horses to a halt.
‘Well well, Nate done got himself a plaything.’
I said nothing to that, for there was no well-bred response.
The man, perhaps as old as Papa, but unshaven and most definitely unwashed, clicked his tongue. ‘What is a rose like you doing with a lame savage? You need to get yourself a real man.’
The men chuckled. One spat into the grass in a filthy brown stream. Chewing tobacco. An entirely nauseating habit.
‘Nate isn’t here,’ I said, trying to keep the tremble from my voice. Then I realized my terrible error as their expressions changed.
The leader got down from his horse. ‘Then where is he?’ He swaggered towards me, big and hard-edged, spurs clinking. He had large, stron
g features. Near his eye was a small scar and another larger one underneath his jaw which Papa had once told me was what happened when poor people suffered abscessed teeth. At his throat was a dirty kerchief. If he came any closer I was sure I would smell him.
I stood my ground. ‘Out. Hunting,’ I lied uselessly, ‘but he’ll be back any moment.’
‘You English, ain’tcha? Proper fine English lady.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Where’d he find you?’
‘None of your business,’ I said, in the tone Mama had taught me.
The men all laughed. For a moment, the only movement in all four of us was from the man chewing the tobacco, jaw churning tirelessly.
‘What say we come on in?’ the leader said.
I took a breath to speak.
‘Reckon not, Hart, seeing as it’s already paining me hard enough you’re breathing the same air.’ You limped round the corner of the cabin, rifle over your arm, glaring at the leader. At your hip was a pistol I had never seen before, bullets belting your narrow waist.
My sigh of relief was obvious. Hart winked at me. ‘Just wanting to be friendly, Nate.’
You climbed the two porch steps and put yourself between me and Hart. ‘State your business.’
‘Now, what kind of a greeting is that after the best part of six months? See you ain’t made it to the barber since then.’
Silence.
‘Got a job in.’
‘Ain’t taking that kind of work no more.’
Hart shrugged. ‘Ain’t that kind of work. You’ll get to keep your hands clean, promise. It’s a scout. From the railroad big bugs.’
My heart leapt. Railroad? I could feel the tension radiating from your back, even though your voice was relaxed. You were waiting to see what I did, as much as talking to them.
‘Up in savage country. Gotta be done now and we’ve got business up on the plain to take care of. I’ll just take my usual share.’
‘Got another mouth to feed. Need more money.’
Hart snorted with laughter, then spat on the porch. ‘She don’t look like she’s eating you out of house nor home. And we can always look in on her while you’re gone. Make sure she’s taken care of.’