Opal

by Lauraine Snelling

  But then, if she hadn’t stopped for a swim . . . The fault always came back to her. Guilt was a terribly tiring burden.

  Even though Mrs. Brandon had convinced her she wasn’t responsible, that had been before she’d seen Atticus. The same Atticus who’d made sideways comments about marrying her someday and had now disappeared from her life. She pushed back her chair. ‘‘I’ll bring up the team.’’

  ‘‘Opa!’’ Per’s calling after her did nothing to slow down her headlong flight. If only she could outrun or outwork the voices in her head.

  The dew had dried off the raked hay by the time they arrived at the Robertsons’, all the men riding on the hay wagon with Rand and Opal.

  By dinnertime they’d hauled in four loads, finishing off the second stack by the barn and starting a third. When the men all doused their heads under the pump and shook the hay seeds out of their shirts, the children did the same, the girls going behind the house to shake out their clothing.

  ‘‘Ugh. I itch all over.’’ Opal turned so Virginia could brush off her back, then returned the favor. Water dripped from her soaking braid, sticking her shirt to her now seed-free back. ‘‘A dip in the river would have saved us all.’’

  ‘‘We can play in the water tonight. Sure wish our place was on the river.’’ Emily twisted her braids together and wrung more water from them.

  As Opal drove the first load back out, she turned at the sound of Ada Mae’s scream. ‘‘Snake! Snake!’’

  The rattler was slithering toward the edge of the load by the time Opal reached back and grabbed it by the tail. With the flip of her wrist, she snapped it as Rand had taught her and tossed the limp carcass over the side. She glanced up to see Ada Mae staring at her, her mouth hanging open in shock.

  ‘‘Missy, you be faster than dat old snake hisself.’’ Linc leaned on his carved wooden hay fork. ‘‘I was gonna pitch him over and let Chaps down there get a thrill.’’

  ‘‘Don’t need no thrill.’’ Chaps tossed up another forkful of hay.

  ‘‘Just tryin’ to keep you all on your toes. Move that wagon on up, young lady, or we’ll be here all day. Thought you wanted to go fishin’.’’

  Opal clucked the team forward. While her action had been automatic, her heart pounded as if she’d faced off the snake nose to nose. They’d been lucky so far. This was the first snake to get tossed up with the hay. He must have been dozing in the shade. ‘‘I wonder if snakes ever go deaf.’’

  ‘‘I’d rather they just went dead.’’ Ada Mae tramped by her, packing down the load. She shuddered, making a face at the same time. ‘‘I hate snakes worse than anything.’’

  ‘‘Me too.’’ But Opal was thinking more along the variety of two-legged vipers.

  ‘‘You was quick as a wink,’’ Chaps said later when they were unloading the wagon. ‘‘Sorry I didn’t see that thing before I flung it.’’

  ‘‘No harm done, other than Ada Mae near to had a conniption.’’ But Opal had to endure the story several times over as Ada Mae made her sound more a heroine with each telling whenever there were new ears to hear.

  Linc clapped her on the shoulder when she shook her head in denial. ‘‘Let her be. Everyone needs a hero sometimes.’’

  ‘‘I wasn’t brave like she says. If I’d have taken the time to think, I’d most likely not done what I did.’’ Opal kept her voice low.

  Linc lifted the harness from the back of one horse while she did the other. ‘‘Real courage is when you are scared to the bone and do it anyway.’’

  ‘‘I acted too fast to be scared, but afterward I nearly fell off the wagon I had the shakes so bad.’’

  They hung the harness on the pegs in the barn wall.

  ‘‘Shame we wasted all dat good meat.’’

  ‘‘Linc.’’ Her shuddery face made him laugh, a deep hearty sound that usually brought delight to her face. This time she just shook her head.

  Down at the river sometime later, with the fragrance of roasting rabbit drifting out over the water, Opal sat on a log, her cork floating on the surface of the sunset-burnished river, the brassy sheen broken only by the plop of another cork setting hers to bobbing in the ever-widening concentric circles. When hers dipped under the surface, she used the same wrist action as earlier, this time to flip a hooked fish from the water to the bank, where Ghost barked to announce the catch.

  ‘‘How many now?’’ Joel glanced back at the flopping fish.

  ‘‘Six. And you?’’

  ‘‘Four. I missed one.’’

  ‘‘You have to set the hook, or some of the old swimmers take your bait and slide right off.’’ Opal bent down and grabbed the flopping fish, disentangled the hook, and slid the stake up through the gill, settling the fish down in the water with the others.

  ‘‘You got enough to start scaling?’’ Rand called from near the campfire.

  ‘‘Is six enough? Joel’s got four more.’’

  ‘‘Have him bring them over.’’

  She turned to the boy at the other end of the log. ‘‘You heard the man.’’

  Joel jerked back on his pole. ‘‘Five.’’

  Opal threaded another grasshopper on her hook and tossed it back in the lazy river. She settled on her log and swatted a persistent mosquito. If only there was something invented to keep the bugs off, this would be absolutely perfect. She listened to the laughter and banter from those gathered around the fire. Rand was teasing Ruby, and Mrs. Robertson was scolding him for the teasing. Per toddled too close to the water and wailed when Ghost edged him back. Wood chips flew from the wood-chopping contest between Joe and Mr. Chandler.

  ‘‘You got one on.’’ Joel’s comment snatched her attention back from the wood choppers.

  Opal jerked her pole, but all that flew back was the cork and empty hook.

  ‘‘You got to pay attention.’’

  ‘‘Smart-mouthed kid.’’ Opal could feel her cheeks warming. Not that Joel knew where she’d been looking but that she had to eat her own words. She rebaited her hook and tossed the line up toward a log that protruded into the current.

  The fish hit it before the hook sank under the surface.

  ‘‘Like that?’’ The flopping fish slapped the ground right behind her.

  ‘‘Some fast. How come they don’t just catch their own grasshoppers?’’ ‘‘Most hoppers are too smart to fall in the water.’’

  ‘‘You think grasshoppers can think?’’

  ‘‘God must have given them a brain too. Everything has a brain.’’

  ‘‘You sure? Even trees?’’

  Opal thought a moment. This sounded like one of the discussions she’d had years earlier with Ruby. ‘‘No, not trees, but all things that breathe.’’

  ‘‘Trees don’t breathe?’’

  ‘‘They don’t have lungs.’’

  ‘‘But my pa said . . .’’ He paused. ‘‘My other pa said trees are good for the air. How can they do that if they don’t breathe?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know. Maybe by . . .’’ She paused and squinted her eyes, trying to remember what she’d read, at the same time wondering what he meant by his ‘‘other’’ pa. Should she ask? Or was that being too nosy? Since when had she cared about being nosy?

  But Joel seemed kind of private-like. As did his father. She inhaled, sucking the smell of wood fire, sizzling rabbit, and frying fish down deep into her soul. How would she describe an evening like this to the Brandons in New York? The cottonwood leaves tattled secrets in the evening breeze, mosquitoes whined loud enough to deafen one, and supper always tasted better outside. No idea why, but it seemed to.

  ‘‘Food’s ready. Come and eat,’’ Mrs. Robertson called.

  She and Joel pulled their lines out of the water, wrapping the strings around the willow poles and grabbing their stakes of fish, then waded back across the shallow river. The Little Missouri lazed on by, deeper in some places but shallow here at the ford.

  ‘‘Opa!’’ Per charged toward her, stu
bbed his fat little foot on a rock, and looked to hit the dirt except for his faithful guard dog who stepped in front of him so he could save himself by clutching her fur.

  Opal stopped to pat the dog. ‘‘Good girl. He sure keeps you on the move, doesn’t he?’’

  ‘‘Opa!’’ The little prince demanded her attention.

  She handed Joel her fish and pole and, crossing her two hands to grab Per’s, swung her nephew’s little body up on her shoulders. She let him grab her hair, retrieved her hat from where he’d knocked it, and glanced up to see Mr. Chandler’s gaze locked on her.

  ‘‘You do that well.’’ His voice lay like honey on toast.

  ‘‘Thank you. Lots of practice.’’ Her words snagged in her throat, then tumbled out in a rush. ‘‘Huh, Per?’’

  ‘‘Opa!’’ He drummed his fists on the top of her head, his giggle making those around him smile back.

  Opal ponied him up to his father and ducked so Rand could lift him off her shoulders. ‘‘Ouch. Per, let go.’’ Between her and Rand, they untangled his fingers from her hair, and Rand held his son while everyone quieted for grace.

  ‘‘Jacob, would you lead us?’’ Rand looked to the man across the fire.

  Why did he do that? Opal glanced from her brother-in-law to the visitor. Rand always led the grace. She caught a look that passed between the two men, as if they had a secret that she might decipher if she thought on it long enough.

  Who was this Jacob Chandler? Joel had referred to his other pa. And yet he’d been introduced as Mr. Chandler’s son. Did Mrs. Robertson know more than she was telling? And Edith? She was smitten, that was for sure.

  Opal lassoed her thoughts in time to join the amen, not having heard a word of the prayer. Guilt snipped at her ears as she watched Edith make sure she was near Mr. Chandler. Opal shook her head inwardly when the man deliberately, at least it seemed so, eased Chaps in between them. Edith smiled at something Chaps said, but her eyes didn’t agree with her mouth.

  ‘‘Help yourselves.’’ Ruby pointed to the table they’d created with boards set up on two sawhorses and covered with a blue-and-white-checked oilcloth.

  After supper Rand brought his guitar from the wagon, and while the women gathered up food and children, he practiced a few chords, then picked out the tune to ‘‘O Susannah!’’ One by one the voices joined in the song, accompanied by the basso profundo of a bullfrog and the tenor voices of a cricket chorus.

  ‘‘She’ll be Comin’ ’Round the Mountain’’ segued into ‘‘Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me,’’ which flowed through ballads and into ‘‘Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.’’

  ‘‘How about ‘My Old Kentucky Home’?’’ Mrs. Robertson requested, drawing Ada Mae closer to her side. After they finished she sighed. ‘‘I do miss the sing-alongs we used to have on evenings on the porch.’’

  ‘‘How about ‘Shenandoah’?’’ Chaps looked up from whittling, his fingers caressing the smooth wood being shaped by his knife.

  When the last strains faded away, Rand set his guitar to the side. ‘‘Thank you for coming, neighbors. Wish we could do this more often.’’

  ‘‘Morning’s going to come earlier than usual.’’ Mrs. Robertson picked up a towel-covered bowl and headed for the wagon. ‘‘Come along, girls. Oh, Joel and Mr. Chandler too. Sorry.’’

  ‘‘Thank you.’’ Jacob stopped beside Rand. ‘‘That was truly lovely.’’

  ‘‘I play sometimes for church. We hold it at the schoolhouse in town. You have a good voice. Maybe you would like to join our little choir.’’

  Opal caught herself waiting for his answer. Come Sunday, she and the girls would join Rand and Charlie singing for church, as they had before.

  ‘‘We usually practice just before the service.’’

  ‘‘Thanks, but I . . . we don’t hold much with churchgoing.’’

  Joel gave his father a puzzled look that Opal would have missed had she not been waiting for his answer herself. What kind of man didn’t go to church, especially after giving Mr. Robertson such a good burial? Ruby had gone on and on about it the day Opal returned from New York.

  ‘‘Sorry to hear that. You are always welcome any time you decide to come. Someday God’s going to bring us a real pastor, though right now we take turns with the preaching, mostly just reading Scripture and singing and praying together.’’

  Later that night, on her way to the outhouse, Opal passed Rand and Ruby’s room, then paused, caught by their conversation. They were talking about Mr. Chandler.

  ‘‘He’s hiding something,’’ Rand said.

  ‘‘Everyone’s hiding something.’’ Ruby sounded about asleep.

  ‘‘There’s a lot more to that man than meets the eye; you mark my words.’’

  Opal waited, but when nothing more was said, she continued on out the back door. Just who Jacob Chandler was seemed to be a question on more minds than hers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Ruby stood at the post on the back porch watching the sunrise gild the leaves of the oak and cottonwood trees and turn spider webs into masterpieces of diamond-sparkled strands. The rooster crowed, a robin greeted the dawn with song, a meadowlark strewed song pearls on the breeze.

  She started to move but paused, her hand finding its way to her belly to cup the new life she’d just felt flutter. Life in her womb, such an inexpressible joy. Mornings like this she knew how Mary had felt and why she said, ‘‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.’’ Lord, how can I thank you enough? She had so much to be thankful for. House and home, Rand, her family, friends, the produce of the garden, land and river, this place, where they dwelled far from the city and with a beauty that caught one’s breath and made songs of praise not be a sacrifice but a joy. ‘‘My soul indeed magnifies the Lord.’’

  ‘‘Talking to yourself again?’’ Rand stopped behind her and, like the touch of a butterfly, kissed that certain spot on the back of her neck. A spot that sent shivers clear to her toes and fingertips. ‘‘How about running away with me, you lithesome lady, you?’’

  He wrapped both arms around her, crossing his hands over her mounding front.

  ‘‘Fie, sweet sir, lithesome will not be the case for long.’’ She leaned her head back against his shoulder. ‘‘I felt the baby move.’’

  ‘‘Ah, my love. So much to be thankful for.’’

  ‘‘That’s just what I was saying. Look, Rand, just look at all we have. And are.’’

  ‘‘I know. Sometimes I feel almost guilty for all the blessings we’ve been given. We work our hearts out for it, but still, I can’t ask for more.’’

  ‘‘Nor I.’’

  ‘‘Ma?’’

  She turned and kissed Rand right under his mustache. ‘‘Your son calls.’’

  ‘‘We could leave Opal in charge and ride up the river a way. Just the two of us. It won’t be long before you’re too big to ride.’’

  ‘‘You think I should?’’

  ‘‘Do you mean able or according to the mores of the day?’’

  ‘‘I don’t give a fig about what’s proper anymore. The question is, would it hurt the baby?’’

  ‘‘Indian women ride when they are big as a bass drum. That is, if they can find a horse the men aren’t using.’’

  ‘‘How do you know?’’

  ‘‘I have eyes.’’

  ‘‘M-a-a?’’

  ‘‘Coming, Per. Hang on.’’

  ‘‘Think about it.’’

  ‘‘A day away. Just us? What’s to think about? Of course I want to go.’’ Even though riding is not my favorite thing, as it is Opal’s, being alone with my husband would be the perfect gift on a perfect day.

  ‘‘Don’t you go changing your mind.’’

  ‘‘I’ll pack our meal.’’ She ducked under his arm and headed for the hall to the bedrooms. Peeking into Opal’s room, she was not surprised to find the bed made and clothes hung on their pegs. Opal was most likely down milking.<
br />
  She swooped Per out of his bed and blew against his neck to make him laugh. ‘‘What a good boy you are.’’

  ‘‘Ma good?’’

  ‘‘Yes, Ma is good. Are you hungry?’’

  ‘‘Hungry.’’ He nodded and stuck his finger in her mouth as she leaned over him to change his diaper.

  ‘‘One of these days we are going to have to train you to no more diapers. You can go in the pot like a big boy.’’

  ‘‘Pot.’’

  ‘‘August is almost over, and school will soon be starting. With Opal gone all day at school, what are you going to do?’’

  ‘‘Do.’’

  ‘‘One of these days, and sooner than I think, you’ll be talking up a storm. We better be getting some clothes sewn for Opal. She can’t go to school in britches. That’s for sure.’’ And the gowns she brought back from New York aren’t suitable for school out here.

  She picked up the baby and settled him on her hip, one arm around him and the other hand carrying the diaper out to the pail on the porch. Time to wash again. How could she take the day off and go with Rand? What dreamers they were.

  ‘‘In every thing give thanks.’’ The Bible verse floated through her mind as she sliced the smoked venison haunch to fry for breakfast. Today was so easy to give thanks, but what about the days that weren’t so easy? And for certain there would be more. Life was just like that, with the ups and downs. Like being so big again she couldn’t see her feet, let alone button her shoes. Like the days and nights she had struggled with a new baby, never getting enough rest, even though Little Squirrel helped so much. Lord, I know Paul wrote of praise when he was in prison and had been beaten. Prison to me is the winter when the blizzard comes or when the children get sick. Please remind me when I grumble that I should praise you instead.

  ‘‘Ma-a?’’ A spoon banging on the table accompanied his request.

  How much easier it will be when he can talk and tell me what he wants. She handed Per a crust of bread she’d baked hard just for him.

  ‘‘Ruby, I strained the milk,’’ Opal said, entering the kitchen. ‘‘Are you churning butter today? There’s a lot of cream.’’