The Hired Man
Cord took one look at her, jumped down from the driver’s seat and lifted her onto the wagon bench beside him. Before he picked up the reins he leaned sideways and spoke near her ear.
“You all right, Eleanor? You look white as milk.”
“I’m fine,” she said shortly. “Just a little scared.”
“Scared about what?”
She twisted her hands in her lap and looked everywhere but at him, but she didn’t answer. Finally he laid down the reins and turned to face her. “Scared about what?”
“About all those people,” she admitted. “About... I guess I’m worried about Danny. It’s so hard to be on display.”
“Yeah.” He raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Instead he picked up the traces and they started off.
Danny clambered down to shut the gate behind them, then climbed back into the back. He looked so preoccupied Cord had to chuckle. Probably rehearsing his speech in his head.
The schoolhouse was lit up like a Christmas tree with kerosene lamps and candle sconces along the walls. Children milled about in the schoolyard, and as Cord maneuvered the wagon into an available space he heard Danny let out a groan.
“I don’t wanna do this!” he moaned.
“I don’t want to do this, either!” Eleanor murmured.
Molly stood up in the wagon, propped her hands at the waist of her starched pinafore, and at the top of her voice screeched, “Well, I do! I do wanna do this!”
All the way into the schoolhouse Cord chuckled about Fearless Molly in a family of Nervous Nellies. Danny disappeared into the cloakroom, and he followed Eleanor to an uncomfortable-looking wooden bench near the back. He lifted Molly onto his lap, careful not to squash the ruffles on her clean pinafore, and then looked around.
He recognized Carl Ness, the mercantile owner, with a thin-faced woman he took to be Carl’s wife, flanked by two young girls. He recognized Edith, the girl who had painted the mercantile front pink; the other girl looked exactly like her so that must be Edith’s twin sister.
Ike Bruhn, the owner of the sawmill, sat with two women, one with a baby in her arms and the other tying a bow on a young girl’s braids. Then a very beautiful young woman with a bun of dark hair caught at her neck with a ribbon stepped to the front of the room and clapped her hands.
That must be Danny’s teacher. At the clapped signal, a humming sound began at the door behind him, and all at once he heard singing.
Twenty or so students, ranging in age from about six or seven to a strapping blond boy of maybe fourteen, marched in two by two, singing “My Country ’tis of Thee.” A chill went up Cord’s spine.
Danny was the seventh in the line, walking next to a small blonde girl in a pink gingham dress. The boy looked like he wanted to sink through the floor.
The teacher, Mrs. Christina Panovsky, arranged them in rows against the front wall and turned to the audience. “Welcome, everyone. This is an extraordinary class of extraordinary young people—your sons and daughters. We want to share with you what we have been learning this school year.”
What followed was impressive. Four students acted out a scene from a play about Robin Hood they had written themselves. Then a small choir sang “Comin’ Through the Rye” in three-part harmony and a larger choir presented a “spoken word” song, a clever recitation of geographical names chanted in complicated rhythms. “Ar-gen-tin-a. Smoke Riv-er. Clacka-mas Coun-ty. Mex-i-co Ci-ty.”
Molly loved it; she bounced up and down on his lap in time with the words.
Finally Danny stepped forward to deliver his speech.
Molly sat up straight and craned her neck to see. Eleanor clutched Cord’s arm. He felt a tightening in his chest.
“Ladies and gentlemen...” The boy’s voice shook slightly, but as he progressed through his speech it grew stronger, and when he finished with, “We are one people, one nation... We are Americans,” his words rang with assurance. He stepped back to spirited applause.
Eleanor still clutched his arm, and now she was crying. Cord pried her fingers off his bicep and pressed his handkerchief into her hand.
“Th-thank you,” she wept.
It made him chuckle deep down inside. Molly twisted around and flung her small arms about his neck. “Wasn’t Danny wunnerful? I wanna go to school, too!”
Following Danny’s speech there were more songs and recitations, ending with the little blonde girl in the pink dress, who sang a haunting folk song, first in French and then in English. Something about yellow daisies in a meadow.
“That’s Manette Nicolet,” Eleanor whispered. “Her mother is French, from New Orleans. Her father is Colonel Wash Halliday, over there.” She tipped her head to the right, where a small, very attractive woman sat holding the hand of a well-muscled gent with a bushy gray-peppered mustache. His eyes were so shiny Cord could see the moisture from here.
“Colonel, huh?” he murmured. “Blue or gray?”
“Blue, I think. Union. His full name is George Washington Halliday. It’s her second marriage. Her first husband was killed in the War.”
“The daughter, Manette, doesn’t look much older than Molly. Looks like she does well in, uh, school.”
Eleanor let the remark lie.
When the presentations and recitations drew to a close, Mrs. Panovsky invited them all to stay for cookies and lemonade.
“Oh, boy, lemonade!” Molly sang. She scooted off Cord’s lap and bobbed excitedly at her mother’s side until Eleanor rose and moved toward the refreshment table in the far corner. Cord was about to follow when a feminine voice called his name.
“Why, Cordell Winterman, is that really you?” A ruffle-bedecked Fanny Moreland made a beeline across the room toward him. “Y’all remember me, don’t you? Carl Ness introduced us at the mercantile? You were buying coffee and lemon drops and—”
“Chicken mash,” Eleanor said from beside him.
“Oh, hello, Mrs. Malloy. I haven’t seen you in town for such a long time I thought you might be...well...you know, expecting. Are you?”
“Expecting what?” Eleanor inquired with a perfectly straight face.
“Um...well, you know,” Fanny said, lowering her voice. “Expecting a...baby.” She whispered the last word.
“I am not, thank you,” Eleanor replied, her voice cool. “My husband, you may recall, has been away for some years.”
Fanny looked nonplussed for just an instant. “Oh, that’s right, I remember now. Why, you’re practically a widow!”
Molly reached up and gave Fanny’s flounced skirt a sharp tug. “That’s not very nice! My mama is not a widow.”
Cord lifted Molly into his arms and started to move away, but Fanny wasn’t finished yet.
“Oh, Cordell, I am so terribly thirsty. Would you be so kind as to fetch me some lemonade?”
Cord gave her a level look. “Sorry, Miss Moreland. As you can see, I have my hands full.” He shifted Molly’s weight to emphasize his point.
“Why, who is this darling little girl?” Fanny gushed. “Surely you are not the father? You’re not married, are you, Cordell?”
“No, he’s not!” Molly blurted out. “I’m Molly, and he’s not married. He lives with us!”
Fanny’s expression changed. “Oh, you mean with Mrs. Malloy?”
Molly nodded. “Yes, with my mama.”
Cord cleared his throat. “I work for Mrs. Malloy. I’m her hired man.”
“Well, isn’t that interesting! I was just about to pay a call on Mrs.—”
“No, you weren’t,” Cord interjected.
“Well, why ever not? I only want to extend a friendly gesture.”
“You want a helluva lot more than that, Miss Moreland. And I’m not interested.”
The smile on the young woman’s face never wavered. “Oh, come now. I’m sure you don’t really mean that, do you, Cordell?”
Molly squirmed. “Oh, yes he does!” she shouted.
Cord could have kissed her. He spotted Danny across the room. “Excuse us, Miss Moreland.”
He met the boy halfway across the room. “Didja see me, Cord? Was I all right?”
Cord dipped to extend his hand to Danny without dislodging Molly. “You were very all right, Dan. Congratulations.”
He took the boy’s small hand in his and gave him a firm, manly handshake. Danny grinned up at him and Cord thought the boy was going to float up off the floor.
After cups of watery lemonade and too many chocolate cookies, Cord herded his little entourage out the door and across the schoolyard to their waiting wagon. He tightened the cinch on the gray horse, lifted Molly into the back and watched Danny climb in beside her. Then he walked around to the other side, where Eleanor stood.
He didn’t even ask, just slipped both hands around her waist and lifted her onto the wooden seat. She said nothing until he drove out of the schoolyard and started on the road out of town.
Chapter Seven
“It must be wonderful to be young and pretty,” Eleanor said at last. She kept her voice down so Molly and Danny in the back of the wagon couldn’t hear.
“It’s wonderful to be young, for sure,” Cord said. “Don’t know about being ‘pretty.’”
“Men don’t worry about ‘pretty.’ Women do.”
“Are you jealous of Fanny Moreland?”
Eleanor jerked. Oh, Cord could be so maddeningly blunt! No, she wasn’t jealous of Fanny. She did envy her boldness, though. She was jealous of Fanny’s youth. She acknowledged that she had squandered her own, trying to be a good mother to Danny and Molly and struggling to keep her farm going through winter storms and scorching summers that left vegetable seedlings dried up as soon as they sprouted. Now she was thin and tired and...not young anymore.
And she envied Fanny Moreland’s health.
“Cord, do you ever wish you could be young again?”
He surprised her with a harsh laugh. “Young and what, handsome? Rich? Smart?” He thought for a moment. “Yeah, I wish I was young enough to live some parts of my life over again.”
“What parts?”
He didn’t answer. She regretted her question the instant she uttered it; it was none of her business. Then after a tense minute or two of silence he surprised her by answering.
“Maybe getting married. Getting shot during the War.” He let out a long breath. “Killing a man.”
She gasped. “You killed a man?”
“I killed more than one in the War, Eleanor.”
The tone of his voice made her wish she had never asked.
Cord glanced quickly into the back of the wagon, where both Eleanor’s children were asleep. “Tell me about Fanny Moreland,” he said. He held his breath. It was obvious Eleanor didn’t like her. But he didn’t want to talk about his wife.
“Oh, Fanny.” Eleanor shifted on the bench next to him. “I guess it’s sad, really. Fanny is from the South. New Orleans, I think. She lives with her aunt, Ike Bruhn’s wife, Ernestine. And Ike, of course.”
“Why is that sad?”
“Well, Fanny has pots of money she inherited from her father. About three years ago she was jilted, left at the altar by a man Ernestine said was just after her fortune. Her father sent her out West to get her away from the city.”
Cord laughed. “Smoke River’s about as far from ‘a city’ as one can get.”
“Fanny has no use for small towns, and she is desperately looking for some man to spirit her away from here to a big city. Any big city.”
Cord made a noncommittal noise in his throat.
“Why?” Eleanor asked. “Are you interested in Fanny?”
“Not much. She doesn’t look like the type who’d be too interested in panning for gold in a California mining camp.”
“How do you know?”
He chuckled. “Too many expensive ruffles.”
Eleanor laughed out loud, and Cord shot her a look.
“You feeling better now that this school shindig is over?”
She nodded, but he noticed she was still twisting her hands together in her lap. He flapped the reins over the gray’s back and picked up the pace. After a moment he slowed the horse down again. Something had been crawling at the back of his mind for the last few days.
“You said that Mrs. Halliday’s first husband was killed in the War. Are you sure that’s what happened to Mr. Malloy?”
She didn’t answer for a long time, and before she did she checked to make sure Molly and Danny were asleep. “I—I don’t honestly know what happened to Tom. If he had been killed, you would think they would notify the next of kin.”
“Maybe. Maybe they didn’t know where to find you.”
“How could they not know? I’ve lived on this farm since before the War.”
“Or maybe,” he said with studied calm, “he’s not dead.” He shot a look at her. Her face changed, but not in the way he expected. Her mouth thinned into a straight line, and she stared down at her clenched hands.
He couldn’t blame her. “I guess you don’t want to talk about your husband.”
“And you don’t want to talk about your wife,” she replied.
“Ex-wife. She divorced me after I—did something I lived to regret.”
He sucked in a breath and let it out in an uneven sigh.
“Oh, Cord,” she breathed. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Eleanor. I’m not.”
In silence he drove up to the gate, climbed down to unlatch it, then guided the rattling wooden wagon up to the front porch. Molly popped up behind them. “Are we home?”
“Yes, we’re home,” Eleanor said. “Wake up Danny.”
Cord lifted both sleepy children out of the wagon bed and carried them up the front steps. Then he returned and reached up for Eleanor. He half expected her to stiffen up and brush past him and climb down by herself, but she let him circle her waist with his hands and swing her down to the ground.
“I’ll drive the wagon around in back of the barn, so I’ll say good-night now. It’s been an...interesting evening.”
Again he glimpsed that half-amused expression on her pale face. “Good night, Cord. I’m making French toast for breakfast tomorrow, so don’t be late.”
French toast? What in blazes is that?
She herded the kids through the front door screen and he heard them clatter up the staircase. He waited, but he didn’t hear the click of the lock on the front door. Was she crazy? Way out here with two kids and a revolver she didn’t know how to fire and she didn’t lock her front door at night?
He shook his head and climbed back onto the wagon bench. He’d argue it over with her tomorrow morning while eating her “French toast.”
* * *
Somehow Eleanor guessed Cord wouldn’t know what to make of French toast. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing a man like Cordell Winterman would eat, and she was certain sure it would never have been served on trail drives in Kansas. If, she thought with a dart of unease, that’s how he’d spent his time after the War. He’d never really said.
Molly and Danny waited patiently while she dipped the slices of day-old bread in the milk-and-egg mixture and plopped them onto the hot iron griddle. Before the first slice was ready to turn, she heard Cord tramp up the front steps.
But when he stepped into the kitchen she could tell something was wrong.
Chapter Eight
“Good morning,” Eleanor said.
“Morning,” Cord grumbled.
Well! That wasn’t like Cord at all! Usually he grinned at Molly and ruffled Danny’s shaggy hair.
“Morning, Cord,” her children sang in unison. “Hurry up,” Danny added. “We’re about to starve.”
He sat down heavily and tilted the chair back. “Eleanor?”
Her stomach turned over. He sounded angry about something, but what? She flipped the French toast slices onto a platter and set it down before him. “Yes, Cord? What is it?”
“Your front door,” he said tersely.
Danny pounced on the platter, speared a slice with his fork and flopped it onto his plate.
“What about the front door?” she inquired as she laid three more slices onto the griddle.
“Ma, we got any syrup or honey?”
“What? Oh, yes. In the pantry, Danny. Why don’t you fetch it? It’s on the middle shelf.” Maybe Cord would forget about the front door. She watched him stab his fork into a slice of nicely browned French toast.
Or maybe not.
“Your front door...” He paused to dribble the honey Danny had found over his plate.
“Yes? What about my front door?” Her appetite was fast fading. The expression on his face was... Thunderous was the only way she could use to describe it. Like clouds before a storm. A bad storm.
She couldn’t stand this suspense one more minute. “Just what is wrong with my front door, Cord?” It came out sounding more strident than she’d intended, but it certainly got his attention. She sat down across from him, folded her hands on the table and waited.
“The door...” he said between bites of honey-slathered French toast “...should be...” He chewed and swallowed and cut another bite.
“Should be what?” she said, her voice tight.
He looked up from his plate with narrowed blue eyes. “Should be locked at night.”
“Locked! Why, I’ve never locked the door in all my years on this farm! Nobody locks their door out here in Smoke River.”
“Eleanor,” he grated. “I’m asking you to lock the door at night.”
“Why? Give me one good reason and maybe, maybe, I will consider it.”
Cord sent her a hard look. “Molly and Daniel,” he said. “That’s two good reasons. And you. That’s three reasons.”
Eleanor stared at him like he had green cabbages for ears.
“That’s ridiculous,” she shot out.
“No, it isn’t,” he shot right back. “We’ll continue this discussion after the kids finish breakfast.”
Danny straightened up in his chair. “But we gotta stay and do the dishes!”
“I’ll do the damn dishes!” Cord shouted. Danny and Molly gaped at him, their eyes widening. Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. He reached out his fork for another slice of French toast and found his hand was shaking. Yeah, he was het up about her front door, but maybe he was madder than he thought. Very rarely did he allow any anger he might feel to show on the outside. It was one of the hard lessons he’d learned in prison.
Maybe that was why he’d just drifted when he got out. He hadn’t wanted to get involved with anything that made him feel anger or desperation or...anything much at all. There was safety in being numb.
“Very well,” she said primly. She pointedly removed his empty coffee cup from the table.
He pushed back his chair, stood up and grabbed the speckleware coffeepot off the stove. Then he grabbed his cup out of her hand, sloshed it full and sat down again.
Eleanor’s frown etched deep lines into her forehead. “Cord, what is wrong with you this morning?”
Cord caught Danny’s eye. “Kids?” He tipped his head toward the back door. “Outside.”
“C’mon, Molly. Let’s go find the kittens.”
“No! I wanna see what’s gonna happen.”
Danny blinked at his sister. “Molly,” he whispered. “What do you think’s gonna happen?”
“I think he’s gonna spank Mama!”
Eleanor made an involuntary jerk, shooed both children out the back door and moved toward the sink. When the door slammed shut, she sat back down and stared at her folded hands, waiting until Cord looked at her.
“It’s not the door, is it? It’s something else.”
He clamped his jaw shut. “Well,” he said after a long minute, “it is and it isn’t.”
“All right,” she said as patiently as she could manage. “What is and isn’t it?”
Cord swallowed a double gulp of coffee and pushed the cup around and around in a circle on the table. “I think...”
He made an effort to keep his voice calm. Stay rational. Don’t let too much show. “I don’t care what people in Smoke River do. I think you should lock your front door at night.”
She just stared at him, her eyes looking more like hard agates every second.
“And the back door,” he added. “You’ve got no way of knowing who might come snooping around, Eleanor. You’ve lived a very protected life.”
“This is something you learned at some point from people who weren’t exactly honest.”
“That’s partly true. The rest I learned just living somewhere that’s not a little town like Smoke River. This place is...well, it’s like a little bit of heaven. Peaceful and quiet. Nothing much goes wrong here unless it’s some mercantile store getting painted pink. Most places aren’t like this.”
She sat without moving for so long he thought maybe she hadn’t heard him. Then she absentmindedly reached for his coffee cup and downed a big swallow. “All this upset is about locking my doors?” An unexpected little spurt of laughter escaped her. “The children think you’re going to spank me!”
He chuckled at that. “Maybe I would if I thought I could catch you.”
He rescued his cup from her fingers and stood up to pour some coffee for her. Before he set it down in front of her he reached for the brandy bottle she kept on the top shelf of the china cabinet and dolloped some of the liquor into her cup.
* * *
Monday morning Cord decided he needed to go into town for another pound of nails and some hinges, and he timed his trip so he’d be riding back when Danny would be walking home from school. He had an idea. He knew Eleanor wouldn’t like it, but it was a good idea anyway.
Sure enough, half a mile after he left the mercantile he spied the boy trudging along the dusty road, his satchel slung over one drooping shoulder.
“Hold up, Danny.” Cord reined up his bay mare and waited. The boy looked up and his dusty, heat-flushed face broke into a tired smile.
“Didn’t know you was comin’ to town today, Cord. You see that Miss Fanny lady at the mercantile?”
“Nope. Wasn’t looking for Miss Fanny. Bought some nails and some sugar for your ma. Glad I ran into you, though.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
Cord leaned down and spoke quietly. “Thought you might fancy a ride on Sally here.”
Danny’s eyes lit up. “Oh, boy, would I? You mean it?”
“I never say things I don’t mean, son. Now just hold on a minute, all right?” Before the boy could say another word he slipped out of the saddle and was unbuckling the cinch.
“You ready to ride her?”
“Can’t. Ma won’t let me.”
“Maybe your ma won’t know about it.”
Danny frowned up at him. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Like I said, Dan, I never say things I don’t mean.” He lifted his saddle off and hefted it onto his shoulder.
“Golly, Cord, I don’t know.”
“Thought you wanted to learn to ride,” Cord said.
“Oh, I sure do, but—”
“No buts.”
Danny bit his lower lip in exactly the same way Eleanor bit hers. “How come you took the saddle off?”
“Because first you’re gonna learn to ride bareback. The saddle comes later.”
The boy dropped his book satchel in the dust and reached up to touch the mare’s nose. “H’lo, Sally. Gosh, you’re real handsome, and...” All at once he looked doubtful. “How am I gonna get up there without a stirrup?”
“Indian boys don’t use saddles or stirrups. How do you think they do it?”
“They... I bet they stand on something so’s they can reach.”
Cord shifted the saddle so he could make a foothold with his hands. “Step here,” he ordered. “Now, grab some of the mane and haul yourself up.” He watched the boy hold tight to a fistful of mane and clamber onto Sally’s broad back.
When he was sitting upright, he sent Cord a triumphant smile. “What do I do now?”
“Squeeze your knees right around her belly and let go of her mane. Then pick up the reins. You won’t fall off if you keep your knees tight.”
“O-okay. My knees are squeezin’ like anything and I’m gonna let go of all this hair.” He lifted one hand a scant inch from Sally’s thick mane, then gingerly freed the other and grabbed the leather lines.
“Now,” Cord said, “give her a little nudge with your heel.”
“Can’t,” Danny announced.
“Why not?”
“I’m scared she’ll move!”
Cord chuckled. “That’s what you want her to do, Dan. Try it.”
The horse moved ahead a single step and Danny yelped. “Hell, Cord, she’s moving!”