The Endearment

by LaVyrle Spencer

  “Like the blueberries.” She raised her palms in a gesture of futility, then dropped them back between her knees. “I mean, I wanted to pick him those blueberries so bad, James. I just wanted to do that for him. So what do I end up doing but getting lost, and he's got to come searching for me and carry me all the way home and put stuff on my mosquito bites like I was some baby.”

  “But that wasn't your fault, Anna,” James put in loyally. “He wasn't mad about that.”

  She shrugged and sighed. “It's not that he is really mad at me, James. It's more that he's disappointed with me. He thought he could get over all the disappointments he found in me when he learned about all the lies from those letters. But he can't. I'm nothing like he really needs a wife to be.”

  “But we had lots of fun in the beginning and he didn't seem to mind if it took you time to learn to do things around here.”

  “That was before the Johansons moved in up the road. Ever since Kerstin came he'd rather be up at her place than at home.”

  “That ain't true, Anna. I don't think that's true.”

  “Well, Kerstin can do everything. She can cook blueberry cobbler and she's not skinny and she's got braids and blonde hair and talks Swedish.”

  “Is that what's got you all hot under the collar, Anna?” James said, wide-eyed. “Why, shoot, that day we were up at their place without you, Karl hardly paid her any attention at all. They asked us to stay for supper and he said no, he thought he'd better get back here for supper.”

  “He did?” She brightened a little.

  “Well, of course he did.”

  But then her face fell again. “See? I didn't have anything ready for him the very first time he goes away and comes home expecting a hot meal. Instead, he finds me sitting up in some godforsaken maple tree with a pack of wolves at my heels.” It made her want to cry again at the thought of her failure. “He never even got any supper that night,” she chastised herself.

  “Supper was the last thing on his mind. I know that for sure. When we came home and you weren't here, why, I never saw Karl so upset. He pretended he wasn't, but I could tell. He ran all over, out to the log house and into the barn and everywhere, looking for you. When you didn't turn up and it was getting dark, I thought for a while Karl was gonna cry again.”

  “Again?” Anna interrupted, big-eyed now, disbelieving.

  “Oh, forget it.” James suddenly became engrossed in scratching a dab of dry gravy from the knee of his britches.

  “You saw Karl cry once?”

  “It don't matter, Anna.” He scratched all the harder, keeping his eyes carefully lowered.

  “When?” she insisted, and James threw her a look of appeal.

  “Anna, he doesn't know I saw him and I don't think I should be telling you about it.”

  “James, you've got to tell me. There are so many things Karl and I need to straighten out between us that can't be straightened out until we know things like . . . like how we've made each other cry.”

  James still looked doubtful, but after considering what Anna had said he decided it would be all right to tell her. “It was the night after he came stomping out to the barn and asked me point-blank if Barbara was a seamstress. Then, when I said no, he asked me if I knew what she did to earn a living. All I said was yes, and I thought he'd make me say what it was. But he just told me I did a good job on Belle's hooves, and walked out. I never told him, Anna. Honest, I didn't. Later on I went outside when I heard him get up in the middle of the night. I'd made up my mind I was gonna tell him, and explain to him how you hated what Barbara was, and how you only lied because of me. But I never got a chance to tell him because I come on him out by the garden. He was just standing there by the horses and when I got up behind him I heard him crying. He . . . he was holding onto Bill's mane . . . and . . .” James' voice had softened until it was a pale whisper. He scratched at something on the tabletop with his thumbnail. “Anna, I never seen a man cry before that. I didn't know men cried. Don't tell him I said so, okay?”

  “No, James, I won't. Promise.” She reached out and patted his hand.

  “Anna, I know Karl likes you more than Kerstin. Otherwise, why would he cry?”

  “I don't know.” She thought about it for a while. “Kerstin's sure pretty though,” Anna admitted wistfully. “And she's got some meat on her bones like Karl likes.”

  “Nothin's wrong with you, and if Karl thinks so, he's the one that's got somethin' wrong with him!”

  There it was, what she'd thought she'd lost from her brother. She realized she had been silly to think that just because he admired Karl with increasing fervor, his feeling for her had waned. But when it came down to the wire, when it came to Karl finding fault with her, there was James, ready to stand up and fight for her, just as he'd always done.

  “Oh, James, thank you, baby,” she said, using the name she used to call him when he was a runny-nosed toddler tagging after her dresstails through the Boston streets.

  “Anna?” James asked, after studying the fire intently to avoid the confusing rush of feelings that had made him feel so much like a man when she called him baby, “do you think he'll come back?”

  “Of course he'll come back. This is his home.”

  “He didn't take the rifle, Anna. He left it here for us.”

  “Oh, don't be silly. If you're worrying about that . . . that cougar out there in the pines, you know perfectly well Olaf will be with him and Olaf will have his gun.”

  “Well, you're one to call me silly, since it looks like the same thing's been on your mind, too, or you wouldn't have brought it up.”

  “Karl is the most careful person I've ever met in my life. And one of the most cautious woodsmen, too. Now, believe me, that cougar is the last thing we have to worry about.”

  Yet after Anna went to bed, she lay in the dark for long hours imagining the very scent of those pines, her nostrils pricking as if searching here in the dark cabin for the musk of cat, as if she could warn Karl should she detect it. His pillow lay beside her, puffed and empty. She punched it and made a hollow in the center of it and pretended that he had only gone outside for a minute. For the thousandth time since he had learned the truth, she cried out silently, from her aching throat, “I'm sorry, Karl. I'm sorry. Forgive me.” Tonight, she added, “Please don't go to her, Karl. Please come back to me.”

  She slept. She awakened, thinking of Karl crying into a horse's mane, knowing he had cried because of her. I'm sorry, Karl, she thought, tortured.

  She'd been sound asleep again, but sat up as if she were attached to the ceiling by a spring. Something was wrong! No sooner had she coherently thought it than James' voice came to her, strident, panicked.

  “Anna, are you awake? There's something out there! Listen!”

  She sat stone still, listening to the scraping and thumping that came from beyond the door. It sounded like something was trying to eat the panel itself.

  “James, come here!” she begged in a whisper, wanting him near enough so she could put her arms around him and know he was with her in the dark.

  “I gotta get the rifle,” he whispered back. “I gotta get it like Karl said to.”

  She heard him kick against a bowl or bucket on the hearth. She heard him pick up the bag of shot Karl had slapped down when he'd come wheeling back in the house this afternoon.

  “James, it's already loaded!” she warned. “Karl always keeps it loaded and he didn't shoot at that bear today!”

  “I know, but I gotta be ready to load fast if I need to take a second shot.”

  “Oh, James,” she wailed, “do you think you'll even have to take a first one?”

  “I don't know, Anna, but I gotta be ready. Karl said.”

  Outside the door they heard a grunt, like when a man lifts something heavy.

  “Do you think it's a man, James?”

  “No. Shhh!”

  But when she sat quiet, she could hear the intruder scraping around again on the puncheons.

&
nbsp; “James, is the latchstring in?” Panic hit her afresh. If the latchstring were hanging outside, all the intruder needed to do was pull it to lift the heavy bar that secured the door. She heard James make his way carefully through the dark to the door while she held her breath at the mere thought of his being so near whatever was on the opposite side of it.

  “It's in,” he whispered, and backed away from the door again.

  Relieved somewhat, she swung her feet to the earthen floor and said, “I'm coming, James, don't point the gun this way.”

  “Don't worry, it's pointed straight at the door.”

  “But you can't see anything. What are you gonna do?”

  “What I can't see, I can hear. I'll know if he breaks it down.”

  “B . . . breaks it down? How big—what to do you think it is?”

  “I think it's that bear, Anna.”

  “But . . . but there's never been a bear here before. Why would he come now?”

  “I don't know, but it sounded like something big.”

  “Shhh! Listen, it sounds like he's going away.”

  They heard thumping sounds again, then the unmistakable loud grunt and whine of a bruin. There was some clattering, then the sound of earthenware crashing, then a louder groan.

  “He's in the springhouse, Anna. He's eating stuff in the springhouse!”

  “Well, let him eat. Who cares? At least he's not eating us!”

  “Anna, I gotta go out and shoot him.”

  “For God's sake, don't be stupid! Let him take anything he wants, but don't go out there.”

  “Karl says once a bear finds food he'll come back and raid you time after time as long as he knows where it is. He'll come back unless I shoot him.”

  “James, please don't go out there. Forget what Karl said about you not getting the gun fast enough today. He didn't mean it. It was me he was upset with. I told you that.”

  “I gotta go. It's got nothin' to do with Karl today. That's darn sure a bear out there. What if he decides to come back some day when we're not safe inside the house?”

  From outside came the sound of splintering wood.

  “No, James, don't go. It's so dark you won't be able to see him anyway.”

  “There's enough moonlight.”

  “No, there isn't.”

  “Then get the torches, Anna. Get the torches that Karl made when you were lost. They're leaning in the corner behind the ash bucket. Get one and light it and when I say the word, you're gonna have to do just what I tell you to. You're gonna have to lift the latchstring and take the torch outside a little bit ahead of me, so the bear won't be able to see anything behind it. As soon as I get the first shot off, you drop it and run, though, Anna!”

  “No, I won't! We're not goin' outside with any torches and I'm not dropping it and running. We're staying right here.”

  “I'll do it without you if I have to, Anna,” her baby brother said. The steel determination in his voice made her realize that he meant every word.

  “Okay, I'll get the torch, but, James, if you miss him the first time, you gotta run with me!”

  “Okay, Anna, I promise. Now hurry and light the torch before he goes away!”

  She struck the flint and steel, and the spark grew to orange flame upon the cattails while the two big-eyed nightwalkers stared momentarily into each other's faces.

  “We can do it, Anna,” James said. “We got the rifle, not him.”

  “Be . . . be careful, James. Promise you'll run the minute the shot goes off?”

  “I promise. But, Anna?”

  “What?”

  “We ain't gonna need to. I promise that, too.”

  She raised the heavy latch with every fiber of her body trembling so violently she thought it would rattle the door in spite of her efforts at silence. The door squeaked softly once. She nudged it open and thrust the torch out before her.

  The bear was slurping watermelon syrup as if he was in bear heaven. When the light caught his eyes, he sluggishly nodded his head and looked quite human, as if torn between finishing this delightful drink or being put off by the intrusion. He made the wrong choice; his long tongue snaked out into the pink drink one more time, and the gun exploded and knocked James clear off his feet. He was up and running for the door of the sod house before the stunning reaction had truly registered, keeping up step-for-step with Anna, who had completely forgotten to drop the torch. They slammed the door, barred it and leaned against it, chests heaving, hugging, trying to hold perfectly still, listening . . . listening . . . listening.

  All they heard was silence.

  “I think you got him,” Anna whispered.

  “He could be just stunned. Wait awhile longer.”

  They hugged for what seemed an hour.

  “Anna?” James whispered at last.

  “What?”

  “Don't burn my hair with that thing!”

  They'd been standing there for so long the torch had burned down. James' remark broke their tension somewhat, and they agreed to light another torch and go outside to check and see if the bear was really dead. Anna got the torch and James reloaded the gun before they crept back out.

  When they saw what they had done, they both broke into relieved laughter. The bear lay half in and half out of what used to be the springhouse. The massive black body was sprawled across the little pool where they'd always gotten their water. The blood from the hole in his head flowed downstream with the current. The crocks and pots were lying in pieces all around. The bear had made mincemeat of some wooden pails, too. What walls of the springhouse had not been splintered by the animal had been blown to kingdom come by the blast from the gun, which Karl had “loaded for bear.”

  “James, you did it!”

  “I did it,” he repeated, now quite breathless at the realization. “I did it?”

  “You did it, baby brother!” Anna squealed, throwing her arms around him again.

  “By golly, I did!” he exclaimed.

  “And you know what?”

  “Ya, I know what. My backside hurts. That gun kicks like a mule.” James rubbed himself back there while they both giggled.

  “No, that's not what I was going to say. I was going to say, there lies our winter supply of tallow dips and enough to feed our family and the Johansons all winter long.”

  James beamed and couldn't resist slapping his knee like Olaf was fond of doing.

  “Guess what else?” Anna went on.

  “What else?”

  “We got no horses to budge this monster with and he's laying in our spring and he's gonna start rotting before Karl gets back and both him and our spring will never be the same again.”

  James started laughing. Then Anna started laughing at James because he was out of control. Then James started laughing at Anna out of control and before long they were on their knees, tired from the vast relief after their petrifying fright, and the fact that it was somewhere around four o'clock in the morning.

  After some time Anna said, “Tomorrow we'll have to walk over to Olaf's house and see if one of the boys can come over and help us gut this big fellow and get his carcass strung up and tell us what else we have to do with him.”

  “I'm not sure, Anna, but I don't think we can wait till then. I think we have to gut him now or the meat will foul.”

  “Now?” Anna exclaimed with disgust in her expression.

  “I think so, Anna.”

  “But, James, he's laying in that cold spring water. Won't that keep him fresh?”

  “The meat's got to be bled right away. I know that much because Karl told me. He says what you do in the first half hour after an animal is shot makes the difference between good meat and bad meat.”

  “Oh, James! Ish! Do we really have to get our hands in that thing?”

  “I don't see how else we're gonna get him gutted. If we don't, Karl will just come home to another mess we've made.”

  That finally convinced Anna what must be done, must be done. “There are still som
e torches left in the corner. I'll get them.”

  “And bring some knives, too, and I'll go get Karl's oilstone that he uses for sharpening his axe. I think we're gonna need it.”

  Anna turned back before she was at the doorway of the house and called to her brother, “Karl's gonna be so proud of you, James.” She was proud herself in a way she'd never dreamed she could be of her baby brother.

  “Of you too, Anna. I just know it.”

  For some inexplicable reason, Anna remembered she had forgotten to water her hop bines that day, and promised herself she'd do it first thing in the morning. Soon as that bear was gutted and she got a little sleep and they'd gone over to get one of the boys to help hoist that bear up and they'd taken care of digging the potatoes and the turnips and the rutabagas and . . .

  No, she thought, the hop bines will come first. First thing when I get up. Those hop bines will not fail!

  Chapter Nineteen

  Three days later Karl Lindstrom rode northward along the trail that was now showing evidence of autumn coming on. The first sumac glowed brilliantly in startling scarlet from the edges of the forest trail. The hazelnuts were brown and thick. Karl remembered he'd promised Anna he would show them to her. As soon as the cabin was finished, he would bring her back here and do just that. In the meantime, he pulled the team up and picked a stem of the nuts and put it in his pocket. Once again on his way, he passed through the place of the wide heartpine, which he knew would make thick planks for Anna's kitchen dresser. He must come back here and fell it and split it as soon as he had a free day, and begin making the piece of furniture, which, too, he had promised Anna.

  A pheasant lifted itself, disturbed from its dust bath at the edge of the road as Karl's team came clopping. The bird flashed in brilliant bars of rust and black, and iridescent green head, as it scaled quickly up toward cover in a graceful swoop, scolding, “C-a-a-a!”