by Pamela Morsi
"I feed it to the hogs," he told her, turning his face away from her so she didn't see his sly look. "They're low on feed, I need to get these dried and ground by tomorrow."
His look was a challenge. "I'm not sure that I can get it done by then, by myself. But then I remembered that I had you as my helpmate. Are you my helpmate, Miss Hannah?"
The look on his face, sort of teasing and flirty, was the same he had given her when she had brought him the water at the church. It had distinctly annoyed her at the time, now, strangely, it made her feel friendly toward him.
Hannah vividly recalled the vows she had made yesterday evening. She was his wife and she wanted to show that even if he hadn't chosen her, she could still prove to be a bargain. Never in her life had she heard of pigs that had to have special food. Her father's pigs ate fodder and leftovers and whatever else they had put in front of them. But if, for some strange reason, Henry Lee's pigs ate corn grits, then she would help him make corn grits, bushels and bushels of corn grits.
"Of course, I'll help," she said enthusiastically.
Henry Lee smiled back at her, pleased with his own private joke: the preacher's daughter making corn liquor.
He seemed content with the supper put before him, even with Hannah trying to apologize for not cooking something up special. He considered himself a pretty fair cook and had always taken care of himself. But the greens were better than they ever tasted when he cooked them, and her cornbread was so smooth and slightly sweet that it was almost like cake instead of bread.
"It tastes fine," he told her. He was not yet willing to give more of a compliment than that.
"Well, of course, you didn't have anyone to cook for you, but now that I'm here, I can do for you."
"You just worry about getting that corn ground into grits tomorrow, that's what I really care about."
Hannah shook off his concern. "I'll have all that corn ground before noon tomorrow, don't give it another thought. You really are an unusual man, to care more about the food you feed your hogs than about the food you feed yourself."
Henry Lee choked slightly on a bite and swallowed his laughter. Could this ignorant female really believe that he would go to all this trouble to feed hogs? She was either crazy, or she thought that he was!
"Now, about the food for yourself," she began, talking to him as if she were an adult and he was a rather slow child. "It's a bit late in the year, but I thought I would try to start up a garden. We won't get too much from it this far into the summer, but everything we do will be just that much that you won't have to buy."
"Don't worry about it," he said, wondering how he would explain his trading without mentioning the whiskey, "there's no need for you to start up a garden."
"But I want to. It's part of my job to set your table."
He shook his head and waved off the idea. "Like you said, it's too late in the year. There's no need for you putting in all that work for what you'd get out of it. I don't even have any ground that's been turned, it would take a team and a prairie cutter just to dig you out a space."
"I should put up stores for the winter," she protested. "I'm your wife, it's just not fitting that you should have to get store-bought to provide for your table."
To Henry Lee it almost sounded as if she were jealous. He was a bit surprised at her anxiousness. Being a hard worker fit his former image of her as the preacher's spinster daughter. It didn't fit at all with what he knew now to be the truth about her.
She was right about a woman providing for the table from her own garden as being more fitting, and if they only ate food that she'd put by, at least they'd be sure that it was plenty clean and good. He guessed that would be important to her, being in the family way.
Just reminding himself of that soured his disposition. His eyes automatically dropped to her stomach, the sight of which was hidden by the table. He wondered when she would be showing; hopefully, not until winter. People sort of lost track of time in the winter and maybe her early blossoming wouldn't start that much gossip. Though he hated the idea of being saddled with another man's child, he liked children well enough and he thought he could tolerate this one. He'd just have to think about it as an orphan.
"You're right about needing a garden and doing your own canning. I think that's a good idea, but it's too late for a garden this year. I'll trade with some of your farmer friends for fresh produce and you can do with it what you think best."
"Trade? What will you trade?"
"Pigs." That was the answer he gave and at her surprised expression he began carefully studying the food on his plate. He knew it made no sense to suggest that any local farmer would trade table crops for pigs. Everyone in the territory kept pigs. You could ship them out as a cash crop or take them into town and get something for them, but for the locals they were the main source of meat for territory cooking.
"Who around here would trade you for pigs?" she asked him.
"Pretty near anyone," he replied deciding that the bigger the lie the more likely it would be to be believed. "That's why I only feed my pigs corn grits, makes the best ham and sausage in these parts. Everybody wants one of my pigs, I'm surprised that you haven't heard of them before."
Hannah hadn't.
After the meal, Henry Lee went to work carefully stirring the corn on the quilting frame. It was very important that the kernels were completely dry, or they would not grind properly. The fire going smartly in the fireplace now made the room about one hundred degrees. With sweat running down the side of his face, he wondered why he'd been so impatient, not allowing the corn to dry out in the sun for a couple of days. It was all the fault of that woman, he decided. She had the power to make him do things that he wouldn't normally do.
Thinking about her, his eyes were drawn to the sight of her standing at the sink washing dishes. From his perspective he could see only the back of her, the tall body flanked by unfemininely broad shoulders that served to emphasize the very feminine nipped-in waist. The contrast was accented by her apron strings that gently smoothed the outline of her rounded hips. Her behind was one of her best features, Henry Lee decided. He had always preferred tiny, petite women. They made him feel massive and strong, but he suddenly understood what the appeal was for women who were "big of breast and broad of thigh." To relax in the comfort of that big, lush body seemed a worthwhile goal. And that generous rump, it almost begged a man to run his hand across it. He remembered his sleepy, waking dream this morning, when he had done just that. And just the memory of it had him hard as a blackjack stump at Christmastime. How had he failed to notice that enticing backside before? And who was the man who had noticed it before he did?
He quickly rose and headed out through the back door, grabbing up a bucket. "Getting fresh water for morning," he said tersely.
"Could you get an extra bucket for me?" she asked him. He stopped to turn and look at her. She seemed more her usual self if he looked at her in the face, not nearly so enticing.
"Sure, what do you need more water for?"
She blushed prettily as she answered him. "I wanted to wash up a bit before bed."
Henry Lee jerked up a second bucket and headed out the door, anger and desire struggling for dominance in his thought.
Unlike Hannah's father, Henry Lee had dug no well at his place. The creek was only a hundred yards or so down the hill and it had just not seemed worthwhile; however, he now thought that it might be hard for a woman to tote water that far up the hill several times a day, especially a woman big with child.
He tried to imagine Hannah a few months from now, her belly stretched out before her like a ripe watermelon. He briefly thought of his poor mother. Childbearing was no sure thing. He remembered her lying so white and still in the bed, she had given up trying to expel the baby and only moaned in pain and waited to die.
His father, drunk in the corner, had done nothing but curse at her. And the Creek woman he'd brought to help her only shook her head and told him, “Baby dead. Both be dead soon
."
Henry Lee reached the bank and knelt, ostensibly to fill the water buckets, but in fact the memory of his mother's death still had the power to frighten and grieve him. She was nothing but used goods. Skut had said that a million times. But she had been gentle too, and had cared for him. Somehow that seemed to make up for what she was. And watching her die in such pain, surely she hadn't deserved that, no matter what she had done.
She had been so young when Henry Lee was conceived. A pretty, light-skinned half-breed living near Fort Gibson, she had soon captured the eye of the fort's commander. She told Henry Lee about dances and parties, pretty dresses and a little house of her very own. Whether she had loved his father, Henry Lee never knew, but she had lived well as his mistress, and given him the son he'd never wanted.
Being little more than a child herself, the childhood that she offered Henry Lee was full of games and fun. She had no rules and made none for him. They ate when they were hungry and washed when they felt dirty. They worked too, when it was necessary. And Molly taught her son the only thing that she really knew, whittling.
His mother could pick up a fallen branch and make three toy soldiers, or a bird, or an axe handle. She knew the best wood for each task and she always sought out whatever was inside.
"You can't make a bowl from a stump, if there isn't a bowl in there already," she told him and showed him how to read the lines of the wood to see what was inside.
Henry Lee was never the carver that his mother had been, but he learned a lot about wood and used his knowledge for practical things. Where Molly had made figures and whirligigs, Henry Lee made chairs and tables.
When Henry Lee was seven, his mother had become pregnant again. He remembered Skut being very pleased about it, his mother was not. She felt poorly almost from the first and her death climaxed weeks of increasing agony.
His thought shifted from his mother to Hannah. Would she die crying and moaning as his mother had? No, he quickly discarded the thought. His mother had been tiny and delicate, breeding too early, she was never in the best of health. Hannah was built for birthing. She'd be one of those farm women who drop their babes in the field, and then go on to finish the row. No need to worry for her on that account. She'd put this one out early next spring he supposed, and after that, by God, he'd keep them coming spring and fall until he had enough young 'uns to populate his own territory! And every damn one of them had better look just like him. Except, of course, the first.
He had decided to forgive her. He had decided to make a life with her. He would accept this other man's baby. It wasn't the young'un's fault at all. A child was a child. And it wasn't that he was jealous, he told himself, he had no feelings for Hannah. He just hated the idea that he had to take another man's leavings. Skut had done the same and he was determined that he would be a better father than Skut had been to him.
He just wished the baby was here and over with, so that she would be his and they could get on with their lives. That was the rub. As long as she carried another man's child, another man's mark was on her. She could not be Henry Lee's.
He knew with certainty that he would not, could not, spend his seed where another man's had taken root. He would not share a bed with Hannah until she was delivered.
Having come to this decision, Henry Lee headed back up to the house, to explain to his bride just exactly how things were going to be.
Full darkness had fallen as Hannah lit the lamp in the main room and surveyed the drying corn kernels. It was so hot in the house now, that she doubted the possibility of sleep. If he really wanted these dried out by morning, someone would have to mind the fire.
She felt the sweat running down the back of her neck and decided she was wearing far too many clothes. In the bedroom she slipped out of her petticoats and removed the binder that she routinely wore on her bosom. The binder, which Hannah thought gave her a more youthful appearance by restricting her more womanly contour, was extremely bothersome in the heat and she gladly discarded it.
She stared at the cornstalk bed and imagined being in it with him tonight. The memory of the morning was still sweet to her, but because he had been grouchy on and off all day, it was tempered with a bit of embarrassment. She wondered if that tenderness in bed had not affected him as it did her. Perhaps he engaged in such things on a frequent basis and found them pretty usual, since he regularly attended all the parties and shindigs for miles around, maybe he regularly took women to bed. Maybe those other women were more attractive and exciting than herself. The thought was not very comforting.
She decided she would just have to be the same type of wife that she had been as a daughter. It had always been Myrtie who was pretty and sweet and lovable. It was Hannah who had been responsible and hardworking.
Freed from her hot, constricting underclothes and feeling a good deal cooler, Hannah returned to the quilting frame and carefully stirred the kernels as Henry Lee had. Maybe he would never see her in the same way as he might one of those other women, but she would prove her worth to him. Make him glad that he had taken her on. Prove that she could be a very good bargain.
When Henry Lee walked in the back door of the cabin, his mind was quite made up. He would move his workroom out to the shed and bed down next door to her until after the baby was born. Then they could use the workroom as a nursery and he'd move into his rightful place as husband, beside her in his own bed. He was ready to sit down and discuss it with her calmly and rationally. However, the sight that greeted him as he stepped into the cabin took away all rational thought.
Standing in profile next to the quilting frame with the fire to her back, Hannah was more exposed to Henry Lee's eyes than if she were stark naked. The light through her thin cotton dress revealed in detail the luscious curve of buttocks that he had already admired, as well as strong, well-muscled thighs that tapered into long well-turned calves. Her bosom, released from its confines, strained against the bodice of her gown like a ripe fig begging for a hand to pluck it. She turned her face toward him and smiled eagerly, as if to say, "I want to please you."
His resolution disappeared like ice in hell. Henry Lee bridged the distance between them and grasped Hannah from behind. He captured those breasts in both hands and pressed his aching desire against her firm yielding bottom.
She was wanton, desirable, and out to tempt him, he thought. But he would show her who was in charge. He was not a man to be led around by petticoats. His lips found her tender throat beneath her hair, and blazed a trail of sparks and flame up to her ear where he hoarsely whispered, "I want you."
Hannah was startled at his touch and frightened by the roughness of his embrace. Her breathing and her senses vividly alive, she could not seem to react to the onslaught of emotions and feelings that were bombarding her. The intense heat surrounding their mingled bodies blazed hotter than the fire behind them and Hannah had no coherent thought for responding to it. Her young, healthy body, however, knew exactly how to answer the flame he was stirring.
Henry Lee's need prodded him to harsh handling of her tender bosom. Through the thin summer blouse, he felt the hard nipples straining against his hand. His attention to them was both tender and crude as he alternately teased and treasured. His own desire was throbbing and plethoric as he brushed it hungrily against her backside.
Instinctively, her bottom squirmed and wiggled, pressing eagerly against him. Henry Lee's reaction came gasping from his throat, part moan, part cry, as he answered her squirming pressure with his own heated thrusting.
His right hand released the pouty nipple it had been worshiping and headed down the front of her dress, hoping to find her hot, feminine core wet and ready for him. As his hand splayed across the smooth curve of her abdomen, he suddenly thought of what lay beneath his touch. Another man's get. The result of her passion with some unknown male before him sparked his humiliation and anger.
Henry Lee released her abruptly and stepped away turning his back to her, so that she wouldn't see his body's obvious eagern
ess, so accurately displayed in the front of his trousers.
“Get some clothes on, Hannah!" He slammed his fist angrily against the wall. “Damn it, woman! Would you have me mount you on the table? Have you no shame at all?"
Hannah stood bereft, as if something vital was now lost. Her womanly parts were throbbing. The blood in her veins was pounding and every nerve in her body was awake and alert. His hurtful words sank through the red haze in her brain and suddenly she was ashamed. What had she done? What had happened to her?
The image of her mindless lust was as clear to her as if she had watched herself. Her wanton loss of control and her animalistic display of carnal appetite was completely unforeseen in her life thus far. She had shocked herself and was sure that she had disgusted Henry Lee.
Her mind filled with confusion and her eyes filled with tears of humiliation she fled to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her and slithering to the floor as she leaned against it. She folded her arms across her knees and as tears of mortification coursed down her cheeks, she willed herself to cry silently.
Henry Lee was also ashamed. He knew that his words had hurt her and knew that he had lashed out at her in anger at himself. She was no better than she should be. A woman of doubtful morals would be expected to try to entice a man when no one else was around. And it wasn't as if she were being dishonest about it. She must have been wanting a man pretty bad, the way she flashed to fire so quick. It must have been a while since she’d been with her lover. Henry Lee wondered why. Had the man voluntarily given her up when he found out she was in the family way? It was possible, but it seemed more likely that he would have continued to take his pleasure while scheming to find a way out.
Maybe he wasn't from around here. Henry Lee remembered an old tinker once sitting up drunk all night telling him stories of all the skirts of farmers' daughters that he'd raised in his travels. He made it sound like traveling man could have most any woman he set his sights on.