by Indiana Wake
“I’ll be there,” she said, knowing that she would ride anyone of her mother’s storms to make sure that she was ready and waiting for Arlon by the time he walked through the woods.
And then it happened; he raised his free hand to the side of her face and laid it gently there before leaning forward to kiss her on the lips. He didn’t linger long, but it was certainly long enough to get Jenny’s pulse racing. When he slowly pulled away from her, he was smiling and looking right into her eyes.
“Would you like some more fruit punch?” he asked, returning them to some form of normality.
“Yes, please,” Jenny said, knowing that nothing would ever be the same again.
Chapter Seven
For days after the barn dance, Jenny had felt as light as a feather. Every day she had woken up with a smile on her face and found herself humming little tunes where ordinarily she would have been silent.
“You seem bright and cheerful, honey,” her mother said as the two of them collected eggs from the henhouse first thing in the morning.
It was a bright day and already very warm, despite the fact that the sun had not been up for long. It was the sort of day Jenny loved; the sort of day she had been enjoying when she had first met the wonderful and handsome Arlon Hurst.
“Well, it’s a beautiful day, Mama. Not only that but look how many eggs our pretty little hens have laid this morning.” Already her basket was full of large white eggs. “Either we’ll need to get baking or we’ll need to give a few of these away,” Jenny went on, leaning over to look into her mother’s basket. “Goodness, you have as many as I do.”
“Then I reckon we’ll do a little bit of both. Some baking and some giving away.”
“These hens of ours sure must be in a good mood,” Jenny said and chuckled, making her mother laugh as well.
Jenny adored moments like this—moments when she and her mother got along the way they were always meant to. Polly Swain was a fine woman and had done so much for her daughter over the years. She’d been determined that Jenny get as good an education as could be found there in Oregon as well as teaching her everything she knew about cooking, baking, and self-sufficiency.
And when she thought about it, Jenny remembered that her mother had always been a clever, amusing, and occasionally fun woman to be around. Yes, she had always been in fear for the safety of her daughter, not to mention a little overprotective, but in earlier years it had not been anywhere near as obvious. Jenny very rarely looked back to those wonderful days and, now that she did, it was a timely reminder of just how much she loved her mother. Whatever it was which stood between them, Jenny knew it was not as great as their love for one another. It was a battle of wills, yes, a battle of fear on one hand and absolute determination on the other. Surely, there must be some way to work past it.
“They’re not the only ones,” Polly said in a wheedling tone. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you as happy and excited as this. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the barn dance last week, would it?”
Her mother looked so hopeful that Jenny couldn’t help herself. Polly was her mother after all and any little excitement in her daughter’s life was an excitement in her own. If only she could temper that fear, such sharing would be wonderful and the excitement absolute.
“Maybe a little,” Jenny said sheepishly.
She wanted to be able to tell her mother about Arlon. What young woman wouldn’t want her mother to be the first to know that she had met the most wonderful man? And perhaps this would be the very thing to put her mother’s mind at rest. At least it would if Arlon didn’t have every bit the wanderer’s spirit that Jenny had. Still, that was a revelation for another day, wasn’t it?
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense.” Polly set down her basket of eggs and sat down heavily on a straw bale.
Jenny did likewise, enjoying the feel of something mother and daughter had not had for a long time—an easy and peaceful conversation.
“I met a nice man, Mama,” Jenny began tentatively and Polly smiled from ear to ear.
“I knew you’d had a wonderful time at the barn dance, I could just tell. You were glowing when you got in that night, honey.”
“It really was wonderful, Mama. I never thought I’d meet somebody as nice as Arlon.”
“Arlon? I don’t reckon I know that name. Who are his folks? Do I know them?”
“Arlon doesn’t have any folks, Mama. His own mama died just a few months ago and he’s been on his own ever since,” Jenny said, beginning to feel the old sense of caution creeping in.
Did she really have to censor what she told her mother?
“Oh honey, that’s a shame. How old is Arlon?”
“Just about the same age as me, Mama. I think he’s twenty.”
“That sure is young to be alone in the world.” Polly sounded truly compassionate, just as Jenny had always known her to be. “I mean, I know there’s those who lose their parents even younger, but still, it’s young. I think of myself at that age, how much I needed protecting from the world, and it makes me shudder to think of such a young man without the kind of guidance that we all need.”
“Well, he’s a sensible man, Mama. I think he’s had it a little tough over the years and I reckon it’s made him grow up real quick.”
“The poor thing.”
“I think his mama was in poor health for a long time, but she still had to keep on working to keep the two of them going. But the fact that she was doing laundry day in day out and breathing in coal dust everywhere she went can’t have helped.” Jenny immediately realized her mistake: she’d given too much away.
“Coal dust?” her mother echoed, her head tipped to one side quizzically. “There aren’t any mines around here.”
“No, Arlon is from California, Mama. That’s where he grew up. It was just Arlon and his mother, and they lived in the same place for years and years. I believe his mother used to do laundry for the men who worked down in the coal mines and that’s why they lived where they lived. It was a permanent source of work for his mother, even if it was so poorly paid.”
“Then, Arlon is not from around here?” Polly asked pointlessly.
“No Mama, I just said he’s from California.” Every ounce of warm feeling was beginning to evaporate. Her mother was no longer excitedly questioning her daughter, she was interrogating her.
“So, he’s just moved here from California, has he? What does he do?”
“He doesn’t live here specifically, Mama, he’s a bargeman. He has a route of a couple of hundred miles on the Willamette River.”
“He lives on the boat, then?” Already, Polly sounded disapproving.
“Yes, he does. But how is a young man who’s spent so long in poverty trying to help his mama supposed to be able to afford a nice farmhouse like this?”
“There is no need to go snapping at me, Jenny.” Polly sounded truly affronted and Jenny began to second-guess herself. Was her mother really doing anything wrong?
“I’m sorry, Mama,” Jenny said genuinely. “I just don’t think you should judge him without knowing him.”
“Then maybe your daddy and I should meet him,” Polly said in a tone that was just a little too bright. Jenny’s heart plummeted.
“It’s a bit early for that, isn’t it? I only just met him, Mama, and I don’t know how things are going to go between us. We’re barely even friends, yet,” she said, closing her eyes and fighting an image of the two of them in the barn and that wonderful kiss.
“Well, when will you be seeing him again?”
“He’s out of town now. I guess he’ll be back in a week or two when the cargo company comes back this way. Like I said, he’s on a regular stretch of the river with regular cargo drops.”
“All right.” Polly, her lips narrow and tight, no hint of her former ease, looked a little worry worn.
“Please don’t start worrying, Mama. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“And I know you never would. It�
�s not you I don’t trust.”
“But how can you mistrust Arlon when you haven’t even met him?”
“I just wish you’d picked a local man is all.”
“If I’d wanted one of the local men, likely I would already be married to him. I’m just me, Mama, right down to my own choice of friends.”
“Well, just as soon as you can get this Arlon to my kitchen table, I’d like to meet him,” Polly Swain said firmly. “And I’m sure your daddy will be keen to meet him, too,” she added for good measure.
Chapter Eight
“So, are we going to the barn dance tonight? It’s always a lively one here,” Ted said with enthusiasm.
“I don’t know if I’m in the mood for lively. I reckon I’m a little beat,” Arlon said, hoping to avoid the rather raucous gathering.
They’d stopped at that part of the Willamette a couple of weeks before and, not knowing what to expect, had gone along to the barn dance with half the crew from the barge. It was a tiny town called Long Plains, and it was a hard living, hard playing kind of a place. Even the refreshments on offer had been solely of the liquor-heavy variety, leaving him wondering what a person did if they wanted a simple drink without the consequences.
And the women of Long Plains had been a determined bunch, all of them, or the single ones at least, on the hunt. Truly on the hunt and making no bones about it either. He knew, of course, that they were searching for a good man to give them a fair life and a darn sight more security than they currently had. He knew that look all too well from back home. But he wasn’t the kind of man who could take advantage of that thinly veiled desperation and he had decided there and then that it would be his first and last visit to the Long Plains Barn Dance.
“A little beat, or a little smitten?” Ted questioned teasingly.
As the weeks had rolled by, Arlon had come to realize that he really did have a true friend in Ted Wallace. What was more, he realized that this was the first time in his life. The hardships of his upbringing, the constant anxiety of it all, had made finding friends of his own seem like an impossible task. But now that he was out in the world and seeing something of it as he floated by, it seemed to Arlon that a certain normalcy was falling into place for him.
“All right, you got me.” Arlon held his hands up as if his friend were pointing a gun. “But I never did want to go back to Long Plains in the first place. I guess it reminds me too much of home.”
“It’s a hard place right enough,” Ted agreed with a sigh. “And I don’t know if I’m much interested in a wild night in the town barn either. Last time it took me three days to get over the punch. I know we’re on a barge, but I felt like we were on the open sea in a tin tub for a while there.” Ted grimaced and Arlon roared with laughter.
“Yes, I remember your pale face and the amount of time you spent hanging over the edge of the barge.”
“You sure did cover for me then, so I won’t get on your case now for falling in love.” He grinned.
“Who said anything about falling in love?” Arlon said a little defensively.
The truth was, however, that he had wondered about it all himself over the last week or so. Ever since the barn dance and the kiss—which even now he could hardly believe he’d given without thinking—he hadn’t been able to think about much else.
There was something about Jenny Swain which went much deeper than that shining dark hair and that creamy skin, and he knew it. There was something in her soul which reminded Arlon of himself, even if they’d been raised in such wildly differing circumstances.
He didn’t know much about her folks, but he knew that any man who owned a farm had a place in the world. Mr. Swain certainly had managed to achieve the stability in life which had never been Arlon’s, that was for sure. But that stability unsettled him in some ways, even though he didn’t know Jenny well enough to even be thinking so far ahead.
Of course, that hadn’t stopped him thinking ahead; the mind went where it liked without asking permission or waiting for the correct passage of time.
Knowing that Jenny was the only child of her parents, he was certain that any man who married her would be expected to take the reins of the farm into the future. While it was more than he had ever dreamed of growing up, it gave him a sense of being trapped. It might be nicer surroundings but being kept to one place for the rest of his life would be every bit the restriction that his old life in California had been.
In his most secret imaginings, he saw him and Jenny sailing along somewhere they’d never seen before, each of them content to know that the scenery, for them, would be forever changing. He imagined them exploring far-off places, working a little here and there to get by. Just enough to keep them moving forward—always forward, always somewhere new.
“You’re looking kind of thoughtful there, buddy,” Ted said, dragging him back into the present moment.
“I guess I was just wondering what I have in the world to offer a woman like Jenny Swain is all.”
“You have a good job and you’ve got a little money in your back pocket.”
“But I don’t have a home, do I? I don’t have anywhere permanent to rest my head,” he said, wondering why that even mattered when he wanted a life of movement.
Was this what falling for somebody did to a man? Made him want one thing one moment and something entirely different the next? Or was that just life in general, the perpetual search for contentment only coming after so many contradictory thoughts?
“All right, I can see you’ve got it bad. I thought you were the man who wanted to wander the earth—a free spirit? I thought travelling up and down the river on the barge, never staying anywhere more than a couple of days, was all that you wanted. If you’re thinking about finding your own roof, you’re thinking about it because of Jenny.”
“And you think that’s a bad thing?” Arlon asked, keen to have his only friend’s true opinion.
“No, not at all. What I reckon is that if you’re thinking in such a way so early on then she’s the woman for you. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Ted shrugged, imparting wisdom with such youthful ease that Arlon grinned. “What?”
“I don’t know, I suppose you’ve just managed to hit the nail on the head as usual, Ted. All I wanted when I was in California was this. Not the barge exactly, but this kind of life. And I want to see the world, I want to see America at least, that hasn’t changed. I just don’t know how I can do that now. I don’t know how to leave her behind.”
“And the longer you stay on this barge, the more you see her, the harder that will be,” Ted said, clearly warming to his wise old owl role.
“I’ve only known her a few weeks and I already know that I’d struggle to do it now.”
“But didn’t you tell me she’s got the same wanderlust as you? Do you really need to leave her behind?”
“She’s got a family, Ted. A mama, a daddy, and a stable home. Whoever they are, I don’t reckon they’ll give her up that easily, do you? What family would want their daughter wandering the earth with some man who doesn’t even have plans to make a home for her?”
“I know this doesn’t help right now, but I reckon that there’s somewhere in between all of this. I can’t think of it, exactly, but I’m certain that there is an answer somewhere. I’m certain that there is a way of doing both, I just can’t tell you how.”
“Well, you’re right, that doesn’t exactly help, Ted.” Arlon laughed and Ted, perfectly happy to be teased, laughed also. “But I can’t help thinking that you have the right idea somehow. I don’t know, something about your half-formed thoughts gives me hope. Maybe you’re right, maybe there is an answer.”
“Well, at least you’re not carrying on with the pretense that you haven’t fallen head over heels for this girl, I guess that’s something.” Ted chuckled a little vaguely as he turned to look at the last of the boxes that they needed to get from the barge to the wharf.
“No, I guess not,” Arlon said and felt a strange comfo
rt in admitting that much to himself at least.
Chapter Nine
Jenny had sneaked out of the house just as the sky had begun to lighten. She knew she would arrive early at the riverbank, but she didn’t care. She would sit on the grass and wait for him. It was better that than run into her inquisitive mother and have her excursion thwarted altogether. She left so early, in fact, that she couldn’t even hear her father stirring.
“Good morning, Jenny.” She had been there almost an hour by the time Arlon appeared, smiling and as handsome as ever, by the edge of the woods. “Have you collapsed your tent already?” He was looking all around for her things.
“I’m sorry, there’s no tea this morning. I have this, though.” She held out a crisp cotton square inside of which was some bread and cheese.
“Let’s sit down by the river,” he said, taking the parcel of food with one hand and reaching for her hand with the other.
Jenny had wondered what it would be like to see him again after the kiss. She had imagined that little frisson of awkwardness she ordinarily felt when they were reunited after two weeks apart would somehow be doubled, even trebled.
But it had been the most natural thing in the world to take his hand. It wasn’t awkward, it was wonderful. Now, Jenny realized what the other girls had talked about all these years; the amazing feeling of falling in love. Maybe it did come to everybody in the end, although she had always doubted that she herself would ever experience such a thing. And now, here it was. On a bright and warm summer’s morning, here was Jenny Swain falling in love.
The river was flowing fast, creating little white swirls where it hit rocks and the riverbank. The sun was reflected brightly in its ever-moving surface and Jenny had to squint to look at it properly. Arlon untied the cotton parcel and took out the bread, breaking the large chunk in two pieces and handing one to Jenny.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling as he handed her a piece of cheese to go with it.