by Caryl McAdoo
What he should have done was to buy her load of cotton and dump it into the creek that first morning. If he’d known for sure there would be a buyer for his seed, he would have, but if there was none, it would have taken a big chunk out of his honey money to pay her off. Getting into the cattle business would take a right smart stack of coin.
He smiled. He did like the fact that she owed him now. A mule and a brand-new gun. Not that the musket President Jackson had given him wasn’t a fine piece, but he’d been hearing about a new one, a Hall breech-loading rifle, a fifty-four-caliber with a round barrel almost thirty-three inches long. Might even be one for sale in Jefferson.
Would he really do that to her, though? His gun was old after all.
The late afternoon sun warmed him whenever it peeked through the wall of trees, but it didn’t hold the midsummer burn he hated so much. Past ready for the heat to break, he looked forward to the fall colors showing up as he always did this time of year. Autumn was by far his favorite season.
The boy sat next to him. Henry figured that he and Levi were about as tuckered as the animals were well rested. Even the snake-bit one appeared fine. Since it would be a short day anyway, he figured everyone should ride. Pretty soon, the grade dropped down, and the tall hardwoods and pines disappeared. Other than a smattering of cedars, nothing but bois d’arc lined the trace on both sides. Their fat, ripe, green horse apples dotted the ground everywhere.
But he had no time and no storage and no place to wash them.
About as quickly as the thorned trees started, they ended, and the trace began a gradual incline. After a mile or so, he handed the reins to the boy. Levi looked up at him. “How come you had to give up your mule and your musket and your tobacco, but she didn’t give up anything?”
“Oh, I’m not married to any of it. We needed help.”
“What if she can’t sell the cotton in Jefferson? What are you going to do then?”
Henry chuckled. “I don’t borrow trouble. Today has enough problems of its own. We’ll let tomorrow—and the day after—take care of their selves.”
“Well, tell me this. You said yesterday that you could’ve sold Brown Mule for seventy dollars. Why didn’t you? That’s more than he was worth, wasn’t it?”
“Value’s often hard to measure. He was going to be worth more than that to me; it wasn’t like I could go and replace him. Every mule and ox in the area was already pressed into service pulling cotton on the trace.”
“Couldn’t you have sold him and then bought him back when everyone got home again? Or at least another animal just as good, and made a profit?”
“For a fact, I could have. But then I had no intention of hanging around until they came back. My intent was to get myself to St. Louis.”
“Why St. Louis? Ain’t that up north?”
“To sell my seed. And yes, it’s up on the Missouri.”
“I saw you stowed some sacks away. What kind of seed you got?”
“Bois d’arc.”
The boy sat back. “You’re kidding me! Who in their right mind would pay good money for horse apple seeds? Especially when a bois d’arc ain’t nothing more that a thorny trash tree. Those Northerners must be crazy.”
“Up in the high plains, there isn’t much wood to build fences. Bois d’arc makes great hedgerows. Keep ’em trimmed down, and, after two years most animals won’t go through.” He held up his hand, forming a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “After three, they can’t.”
“So after you gather the horse apples, what do you have to do?”
For the next mile or two, as the trace rose higher, Henry explained the laborious task of harvesting the bois d’arc seeds. Each step of smashing the lime green apples, picking out the seeds, washing them, then washing them again and drying them. He gave Levi the whole story, even included a few tricks he’d come up with.
The boy didn’t ask, and Henry didn’t volunteer that he figured his sacks of seeds to be worth more than all of his aunt’s cotton. Nowhere was it written a body had to tell everything he knows.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
THE WIND SHIFTED, and then freshened to fifteen or twenty miles an hour. The temperature dropped as many degrees or more. Henry stood and glanced over his right shoulder. A wall of boiling black clouds filled the sky, moving rapidly from the northwest toward them. The wind swirled and gusted hard right at him, like a Union Jack eight-pounder, but he didn’t see any way to dodge this one.
He looked to Levi. “Hold on.” Henry slapped the reins hard. “Let’s be to it, mules. Storm’s coming.” He needed to find a big tree on level ground before that rain came.
He pulled next to the other wagon. Sue gave him a puzzled look. He nodded to the right. “Best we find somewhere flat.”
She looked for herself, then sat back down and draped an arm around Rebecca. Leather slapped across the team’s backs. “Oh, my! Slow down, wind, give us time!”
For a good two hundred yards, the wagons raced side by side. He didn’t spot anything that would offer protection. Finally, at the top of the knoll, he found it. He hollered toward Sue and pointed. “On the right. Let’s put the wagons together under that big oak.”
She nodded and reined in the mules, turning and pressing hard on the brake. He matched her, and the wagons stopped side by side, right under the tree, exactly like he planned. He intended to tell her what a good job she’d done, but first, he needed to get everything set up before the rain reached them.
For the next few minutes, he concentrated on untying and then retying the canvas covers to where the wagons were double-tarped with a couple of feet of open space between them. He then went to help Levi, who worked at unhooking and hobbling the animals. Once they were seen to, he and the boy joined the ladies.
Sue stepped to the edge of the canvas and studied the dark wall. “Sure is moving fast. Suppose it might just be a lot of blowing?”
A flash of lightning danced across the sky, followed almost immediately by a double clap of booming thunder. Henry walked up next to her. “Could be, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“At least we had time to get here.” She smiled at him. “I did tell the wind to slow down and give us time.”
Another bolt of lightning streaked its way to the ground and blinded him for a moment. Seconds later, the rain blew in. It poured down in sheets. The dark sky looked like night, though the day was barely half over. He stepped farther in beneath the tarps. “Guess I’d win that bet.”
After watching the downpour for a minute, she pulled her shawl tighter around herself and moved back as well. Big drops of rain dappled her skirt. She was one handsome woman. “Are you a gambling man, Mister Buckmeyer? Seems you talk a heap about betting.”
He gazed away, studying the storm, and thought about it. “Was once, but I prefer not to now. I hate to lose.”
A close lightning strike with its instantaneous boom of thunder pulled her further away from the opening. Rebecca ran to her mother and hugged her legs. “Mama, I’m scared.”
Kneeling, Sue stroked the child’s head. “Remember, Becky? We never have to be afraid because God is always with us.” She sat on the dry ground, and the nine-year-old cuddled in her lap. She looked up to Henry and smiled.
“Your mama’s right, you know. Scriptures say not to fear three hundred sixty-five times.”
Becky’s eyes widened. “That’s once for every day of the year!”
Sue looked him square in the eyes. “If you don’t mind me asking, how is it you know the Bible so well?”
“Mother pointed out that fact.” He loved the woman’s directness. “But she also taught me to read with the Good Book. Read through it cover to cover, more than once.”
She fell silent. He saw the question dance across her eyes but didn’t think now was the time to discuss religion. Besides, he had a question of his own that he wanted answered before he bared that much of his heart.
Rebecca raised her head off her mother’s chest and
rubbed Blue Dog’s head and ears. “Hey, Levi and I read the Bible, too. Mama makes us; well, she makes him.” She nodded toward her cousin leaning against one of the wheels, whittling on a piece of wood he’d been working. “I like reading, so she never has to make me.” She raised her eyebrows and nodded slowly, as though giving great affirmation to the truth. “I can read anything.”
He bent toward her and smiled. What an arrogant little angel. This miniature Sue was every bit as strong and sure of herself as her beautiful mother. How could he ever go back to his life without them in it? He couldn’t; even though he’d spent less than a week around the woman and her child, his heart belonged to them.
He reached and tousled Rebecca’s hair. “I’m sure you can.”
The young mother might not be willing to admit it, but she and her little girl needed him as much. The package deal suited him fine. He wanted both of them, and the way the boy was coming around, he’d gladly take him, too.
He faced Sue. “Ever read anything other than the Good Book?”
“Some, when I can take the time, which isn’t as often as I’d like. There’s always so much work to be done. How about you?”
“My mother insisted I read the Federalist Papers—and Poor Richard, of course. She even pounded enough Latin into me so that I could read Caesar’s commentaries.”
“Latin? You read Latin?”
He nodded. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought Caesar into the conversation. He’d never intended to make himself out to be more than he was. “Some, but I’d walk over a dozen leather-bound Latin volumes for one good newspaper.”
She waved him off. “I wouldn’t have one of those vicious rags in my house with all the muckraking and backbiting.”
He glanced up at the canvas. It shed the torrents without any apparent leaks. “Well, this upcoming election doesn’t seem to be as bad as ’twenty-eight, but from what I’ve read so far, it isn’t far behind.” He looked toward the girl. “Can the little miss really read anything?”
Sue smiled and nodded. “If she doesn’t know the word, she’ll sound it out then pester me until I tell her what it means—that’s if she can’t get the gist herself from the context.”
Henry laughed. He wouldn’t want a newspaper anywhere around Rebecca either. “No newspapers it is then.” Another flash of lightning lit the sky bright as the near noon it actually was, but the thunder didn’t follow right after like before. He started counting; the boom came thirty-four seconds later. “Good, seems to be moving off.”
“Guess it passed as quickly as it blew in. No doubt it will outrun us. Maybe we can get back on the trail.”
“I don’t think so, if you don’t mind me saying.”
* * *
THE YES-I-DO-DEFINITELY-MIND didn’t make it through her lips. Sue might be hardheaded, but not stupid. After that stuck wagon incident, prudence insisted that she not only hear what he had to say but pay good attention. They’d be with the train already if she’d listened to him.
“And so, tell me. Why do you think we should sit here and not move on?”
“If the old man was right, we’ve got four or five more miles before we get completely out of these bottoms.”
“So? That seems more an argument for my way of thinking, which is to get after it. We can make five miles if we get started and be up and out of this swamp by the end of the day.” She looked out. The rain had lessened to a soft drizzle, and the sky was already brightening. “One thing is for certain. Sitting here, we’ll be burning daylight in no time.”
“We could get hitched back up and, by then, maybe have three hours or so before dark.” Henry glanced away, obviously frustrated.
Why were men that way? Why couldn’t he just explain his obstinate self? It seemed as though he felt like she should trust him without question, do everything he said with no input at all. Why, it was as if he really were the king or something.
“So you say three hours? I’d think more like four, but even if, at a mile and a half an hour, we’re out of these nasty bottoms in no time.”
He nodded. “Probably right, if it wasn’t wet. Looks to me we got better than two inches. You know how this black dirt gets. Slick and sticky. We’re already a mule down, and—”
Levi laughed.
Henry faced him. “You know something funny?”
The boy chuckled again, grinning at him. “I wasn’t going to mention this, but that young Indian, the one riding the paint?”
Sue poked his shoulder; she hated it when they ignored her like she wasn’t the boss, the one paying all the bills and with everything to lose. “What’s that savage got to do with anything?”
He shrugged. “Claims we overpaid. Said they would have pulled us out for the gun and a few pounds of tobacco. Could’ve kept Brown Mule all along.”
“Really?” She faced her employee. “So it seems I overpaid.” She loved it, the great Patrick Henry Buckmeyer had blundered, and she had a witness.
Becky placed a hand on Sue’s cheek. “Mama, just because that Caddo boy said it, doesn’t make it true. Surely, you have heard that Indians are known for lying like dogs and making sport of white folks.” She gave her cousin a sideways glance with pursed lips. “Levi should know that, too.”
He stood and came toward her. “He was telling the truth, you little scallywag! You think you’re so smart and know everything, don’t you?”
Sue drew her daughter into an embrace. “Now, Levi, calm down. You know she meant no harm.”
Becky stuck out her tongue and gave him her pinched ha-ha-ha face.
Sue didn’t want to hear that she’d been bilked out of the price of a mule. Neither did she want to stay there wasting time discussing whether or not she’d overpaid for the assistance. She had something on Henry no matter what Becky said, and everyone knew you could hear a lot in a long day. Where did her baby girl hear such a thing anyway?
“All that is not an issue right now because the fact of the matter is, it’s over and done.” She let Becky sit straight but kept holding her hand. “What is important is getting out of these bottoms and on to Pleasant Mound. There may still be a chance to catch up with the train there.”
Levi shrugged. “Well, I’m with Mister Henry. I don’t think we should try getting out of here today. It’s too wet. Those wheels will get caked with mud, and no way could we make more than a quarter of a mile an hour, especially since we are a mule down.”
Becky climbed out of her lap and stepped to the man’s side, like she needed to physically support him. “Me, too. I’m with Mister Henry.”
Sue threw up her hands. “Oh, sure, jump on the bandwagon! How can I fight you all?” Besides, she’d never hear the end of it if something bad did happen. “So fine! I’ll not chance being blamed by the lot of you for anything that goes awry. So, against my wishes, we’ll spend the night right here.”
Henry nodded. She saw the faintest grin that he obviously worked at keeping hidden, like he’d won or something. She wanted to slap—or kiss—that silly grin off his face. No! What? Why would she even think such a thing? She put that thought right out of her mind. He was her employee, a heathen to boot, and nothing more. She was paying for his advice as well as his strength, so why shouldn’t she get her money’s worth and take advantage of both?
“It’s still dripping some, so let’s give it a bit to stop completely before we see if we can spark a fire.”
There he went again. Giving orders. And she was downright tired of it. Who did he think he was? Was he totally incapable of not being the one in charge? She turned away with her heart pounding and her face burning. Mad at him, but just as upset with her own self. Why was she being this way? He was only doing what he thought best.
He’d been the one who thought of wax to coat the wagons and keep her cotton dry, and his wonderful dog had saved her most precious daughter from the bear, and Henry had insisted on that signal fire. Without it, the wagon might have still been stuck in that creek when the rain came. She shuddered to th
ink.
Why did she always have to be so cross and stubborn? But in the same way, why couldn’t he understand that she had to get her cotton to Jefferson? That she had to sell it for enough money to get her little family through another year. She knew why. Because he had no idea what it took. He had no one but himself to be responsible for; only knew fighting and hunting and trapping and fishing and living his good ol’ bachelor’s life of ease.
She wanted to scream. Instead, she made herself go to the larder and get everything ready to start on supper. They had to eat, and seeing to that was her responsibility.
Without any prompting, after Henry got a cook fire going, he and Levi retied the wagons’ canvases and gave them a good oiling. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Well, probably only be cause she wasn’t as used to traveling, and apparently he’d been on more journeys than he could count.
No doubt he’d learned a heap about what to do when he was in the army. President Jackson must have pounded all that into his thick skull. She pondered on his fault of having to be the one in charge and wondered if Old Hickory taught him anything at all about submitting to authority. Surely he had; and, most likely, the young Henry had no trouble following the man’s orders.
She put all of that out of her head until the last of the day’s chores were completed. All evening, she’d forced herself not to think about the lost time or overpaying the Caddo or how insubordinate her employee continually acted. She’d concentrated instead on finishing the day, in order that another one could start.
Tomorrow, maybe she could catch up with the train and get her cotton to market without any further delays.
Once the opportunity to finally lay her head down presented itself, she pulled the already sleeping Becky to herself. At that moment, it all came crashing in on her. A powerful sense of dread and doom covered her like an early morning fog hovering on the creek bottoms back home. Home. Would she ever see her home again? Oh, Lord.