Hard Time Marrying

HardTime Marrying 17 b

Anya was shaking as she sat gripping the water glass, looking as though she might faint.  Joe took Sally from the sling, putting her on the floor.

“I ain’t no whore!  My stepmother handed me off to that devil to get me out of her man’s way.  I had no say than a cow or hog off to slaughter.  He tied me up and hauled me off in that damned peddler’s wagon.  He beat me and passed me around when he needed a bottle. That last night, he got drunk enough I was able to get to his pistol and fire a shot off at him.  I think I missed and finished him off with a shovel.  He would have killed me if I hadn’t gotten away, but I’m not a whore.”  She was furious now, clinching and unclenching her fists.  “I’d kill him again, if I could after all he done to me!”

Joe didn’t speak for a long time.  “So that’s how you come to be here.”  Pausing, he went on.  “Thank God the creek was high and we couldn’t get to Meadow Creek for the revival.  If you had showed up there, wanting to make a new start, folks would’a had questions after that peddler turned up with a hole in his head.  We got to come up with a plan.”

“I didn’t run off from one man just to get stuck out here bein’ your whore.  Just because I got nowhere to go don’t mean I gotta take anything off you.”  She was furious to be so near tears.

“I don’t want nuthin’ from you except you earn your keep and help out with Sally while you’re here.  You’re gonna have to lay low awhile to keep the sheriff off your tail.  The preacher is the only one who saw my wife.  If we just keep to the place, you ain’t gonna bump into him.  I never was one for goin’ to church an’ it ain’t likely he’ll have business way out here.  He might not know the difference anyhow.  It was dark an’ the woman was wrapped up when we woke him to marry us.

She stared ahead morosely, feeling a prisoner again.

Hard Time Marrying Part 17 a

buzzardThe spring rains didn’t let up for days, washing out any chance of getting to the Meadow Creek Revival.  The small creek near the house swelled till there was no question of fording.  Anya was devastated to know she’d be stuck a while longer, but Joe was relieved at the reprieve, having no idea how he’d manage.  For the next few weeks, they settled into a routine.  Joe tore a strip of the flannel and fashioned a sling so Anya could manage the baby as she worked.  She her strength and hearing improved every day, and she was putting on a little weight, something she’d never done.  As well as cooking and cleaning, she worked alongside Joe putting in a garden.  She felt better knowing Joe and the little ones would have something to eat after she was far way.  As they planted beans, squash, corn, cabbages, and spring onions, the boy tagged along, packing dirt over the seed as they planted.  With the baby on her back, she had to stop and rest often, but it was pleasant, hopeful work, the type she enjoyed.  She thought a few times of the fine crop they’d harvest till she remembered with a jolt, she wouldn’t be there.  One day, Joe stood and watched her for a while on his way back from the barn with another load of manure, thinking she and the children on his place was the finest sight he’d ever seen.  He strode back to the patch, telling her, “These young’uns has got to have a name.  We cain’t just keeping callin’ em The Boy and The Baby.  Even my barn cats has got a name.”  Anya kept right on with her planting, not bothering to answer. “Let’s call the boy Joe and the baby, Sally.”

As she was coming back from turning the chickens out to scratch one morning, she came around the barn to find Joe in conversation with a man on a horse.  She tried to duck out of sight, but the man waved and called out, “Howdy, Ma’am.”

“Anya, this is Rufus Menlo, our nearest neighbor.” Joe introduced her.

“Proud to meet you, ma’am.  The preacher told me Joe done got hitched to a widow-woman, but I didn’t expect to see such a purty one.  My woman is gonna be wantin’ to git over and meet you soon as she can.  She ain’t had a woman to talk to in a while and now there’s one on the next section.”  Anya didn’t bother to correct him.  “We don’t usually git much news around here, and now there’s a marrying and a killing, all in a few days.”  He continued without hesitation.  “My boy Melvin was out lookin’ for strays and saw buzzards circling and come over a rise to find a sorry sight.  The buzzards had already worked the man over, but Melvin could see his head bashed in.  He was a peddler and somebody must’a robbed him and stole his horse.  They was a woman’s things in his peddler’s cart. Melvin went for the sheriff, and he’s on the lookout for whoever might’of done ‘em in. Some drifters told the sheriff they’d seen him with a fancy woman a few days before.    He’s thinking some lowlife might’of knocked that peddler in the head and took off with the woman, or else the woman did the feller in, but it don’t really seem like something a woman could do, does it?  The sheriff’s on the lookout for any folk that don’t fit around here.”

At hearing his news, Anya retched and wiped her mouth on her skirt.    “I’m sorry ma’am.  I never thought of you being delicate.  Let me git on my way.  I’ll send my woman over to see you.”  Rufus kneed his horse and went on his way.

“Here, sit down.  Let me get you some water.”  Joe steadied her to a chair at the table and poured her a glass of water.  “Drink this.  It ought to steady you a bit.”

 

Hard Time Marrying Part 17 a

buzzardThe spring rains didn’t let up for days, washing out any chance of getting to the Meadow Creek Revival.  The small creek near the house swelled till there was no question of fording.  Anya was devastated to know she’d be stuck a while longer, but Joe was relieved at the reprieve, having no idea how he’d manage.  For the next few weeks, they settled into a routine.  Joe tore a strip of the flannel and fashioned a sling so Anya could manage the baby as she worked.  Her strength and hearing improved every day, and she was putting on a little weight, something she’d never done.  As well as cooking and cleaning, she worked alongside Joe putting in a garden.  She felt better knowing Joe and the little ones would have something to eat after she was far way.  As they planted beans, squash, corn, cabbages, and spring onions, the boy tagged along, packing dirt over the seed as they planted.  With the baby on her back, she had to stop and rest often, but it was pleasant, hopeful work, the type she enjoyed.  She thought a few times of the fine crop they’d harvest till she remembered with a jolt, she wouldn’t be there.  One day, Joe stood and watched her for a while on his way back from the barn with another load of manure, thinking she and the children on his place was the finest sight he’d ever seen.  He strode back to the patch, telling her, “These young’uns has got to have a name.  We cain’t just keeping callin’ em The Boy and The Baby.  Even my barn cats has got a name.” 

Anya kept right on with her planting, not bothering to answer. “Let’s call the boy Joe and the baby, Sally.”

As she was coming back from turning the chickens out to scratch one morning, she came around the barn to find Joe in conversation with a man on a horse.  She tried to duck out of sight, but the man waved and called out, “Howdy, Ma’am.”

“Anya, this is Rufus Menlo, our nearest neighbor.” Joe introduced her.

“Proud to meet you, ma’am.  The preacher told me Joe done got hitched to a widow-woman, but I didn’t expect to see such a purty one.  My woman is gonna be wantin’ to git over and meet you soon as she can.  She ain’t had a woman to talk to in a while and now there’s one on the next section.”  Anya didn’t bother to correct him.  “We don’t usually git much news around here, and now there’s a marrying and a killing, all in a few days.”  He continued without hesitation.  “My boy Melvin was out lookin’ for strays and saw buzzards circling and come over a rise to find a sorry sight.  The buzzards had already worked the man over, but Melvin could see his head bashed in.  He was a peddler and somebody must’a robbed him and stole his horse.  They was a woman’s things in his peddler’s cart. Melvin went for the sheriff, and he’s on the lookout for whoever might’of done ‘em in. Some drifters told the sheriff they’d seen him with a fancy woman a few days before.    He’s thinking some lowlife might’of knocked that peddler in the head and took off with the woman, or else the woman did the feller in, but it don’t really seem like something a woman could do, does it?  The sheriff’s on the lookout for any folk that don’t fit around here.”

At hearing his news, Anya retched and wiped her mouth on her skirt.    “I’m sorry ma’am.  I never thought of you being delicate.  Let me git on my way.  I’ll send my woman over to see you.”  Rufus kneed his horse and went on his way.

“Here, sit down.  Let me get you some water.”  Joe steadied her to a chair at the table and poured her a glass of water.  “Drink this.  It ought to steady you a bit.”

 

Hard Time Marrying Part 16

Anya lay awake a long time thinking after Joe went to the barn and the kids slept, the baby snuggled up warm and sweet in the curve of her body.   In his rope bed near the fire, the boy cried out for his mama in his sleep and whimpered without waking.   Anya went to him, smoothed his hair and rubbed his back till he went back to sleep.  His warm little hand sought hers and she felt stirrings of pity for him, even though she tried not to.  She’d already lost the battle of staying detached from the little girl, and was beginning to wonder if she could take the poor motherless thing when she left though she saw the folly in that.  She had no friends, nowhere to go and no way to care for the child. Not only that, she might have killed the peddler.  The law was hard on a woman.  They might be looking to hang her right now. She needed to get far enough away to disappear in a sizable town. The baby would just hold her back. A woman alone would have a hard enough time providing for herself, even if she had nothing to hide. She had to get as far away as possible and seek work as a housekeeper or cook, since that was all she knew.  Having barely been to school, she couldn’t be a schoolmarm.  She’d had enough of men to know she’d never marry.  She needed to get to town where folks had enough money and house to need help. Her prospects were poor, but maybe when she got to Meadow Creek Church she’d meet up with somebody who could help get her on the road to something else.  It would break her heart, but there’s no way she could take the tiny girl.

Out in the barn, Joe was thinking his own gloomy thoughts.  He didn’t want Anya to go.  He started to hope she might stay and they could be a family.  Even though Anya hadn’t warmed to him, he’d gotten a little taste of family watching her doing for the baby and doing about the house.  It had been such a pleasure to come in last night and find supper laid out.  No one had done that for him since Ma died.  When Anya left, he and the boy manage, but who would do for the baby?  She was far too young to go around with him while he worked.

 

Hard Time Marrying Part 15

!fireplace-3She had supper ready when Joe and the boy came in.  She’d laboriously managed to cook beans in a cast-iron pot hanging over the fire and baked cornbread and some sweet potatoes in the coals, pleasant work she was accustomed to.  Joe’s brows lifted when he saw supper and bowls and cups out on the table.  She crumbled cornbread in a cup and Joe poured buttermilk over it for the baby before lifting her to Anya’s lap.  They all fell to with an appetite. 

“My name is Anya, not Anna.  I’ll stay and earn my keep till I can manage, but I ain’t no whore.  Don’t come sniffing around me.  I don’t want to owe you nothing.  I’m gittin’ better so I can do for the baby and tend the house, but you need to keep the boy with you.”  She looked him fiercely in the eye.

Joe looked her and raised his voice.  “I’ll thank you to call me Joe.  Don’t you think I could’a already done hurt you if I’d wanted? I don’t want nothin’ more from you than you take care of yourself and the baby.”  He dropped his voice, speaking more to himself.  “I been getting along without a woman for a long time, but I ain’t fell so low I got to take up with a stringy, beat-up neck bone like you.”

Poor Joe was unaware her hearing had improved and was surprised to have a hot sweet potato hit him in the jaw.  “I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head,” she warned him through clinched jaws. 

“Yes, ma’am.”  He muttered.  “Beggin’ pardon, ma’am.  No call for me to be spiteful.  We are both in a pickle and battling ain’t gonna help.”

“You keep to your place and I’ll keep to mine till I can do better.”  The tension eased a bit now they understood each other.

They passed the evening watching the children at their play.  Joe had brought them a kitten from the barn.  The boy teased it with a bit of string, delighting the baby girl.  Joe and Anya caught themselves laughing at it a time or two.

“What’s the boy’s name?”  This was the first time it had occurred to her to ask.

“I don’t know.  I just been calling him boy.  His mama was sick when she got here and never told me nothing.  She died the next day.”  He stared into the fire.

“You mean these ain’t your young’uns?”  She was incredulous.

“No, I don’t know nuthin’ exceptin’ their mama up and died soon’s she got here.  I’d send ‘em back to her folk if I knew who they was.  She come with nuthin’ but my letter, a bundle of clothes, and these young’uns after I wrote off for a wife. I buried her out in the mesquite and tried to take the kids back to Talphus fer the town or the church to do for ‘em and them miserable bastards run me off like a scalded dog.  When I got back after doing chores that night, you was up in the house lookin’ at the baby.  I thought I’d done buried their mama alive.  It warn’t till just now the coyotes dug her body out of the grave till I knew you warn’t the woman I married.  Oh, Lordy.  I don’t know why I ain’t left well enough alone.”

 

Hard Time Marrying Part 14

She gathered the children next to the wall in bed with her with the fireplace poker hidden the quilts.  It wouldn’t be much protection from an ax or gun, but she might be able to put an eye out before he got to her.  Fatigued, she leaned against the wall so she wouldn’t be caught lying down when he burst in.  Though she was never aware of drifting off, the sound of the man trying the door awoke her just as the sun was rising.  Peeking out the window she saw he had put a pail of milk and basket of eggs on the step instead of bringing them in like he had every other morning.   “Come on out and git this for them kids.  They got to eat.” Jack trotted happily behind him as he headed to the barn.  When she was sure he was far enough away, she reached for the provisions.  Unable to lift the heavy milk bucket, she had to take it out a dipper full at a time and wasted a good bit trying to strain it into a pitcher.  Filling the baby’s bottle, and struggled to change the wriggling child’s malodorous diaper before finally giving up to let her run free.   The boy tipped a chair and banged his head trying to get an egg. The eggs crashed to the floor. The baby howled in unison with her brother, though he didn’t need any help. She burst into loud wails faced with the hopelessness of the situation.  Clearly, she couldn’t take care of even herself in her condition.  Desperate, she opened the door to the man’s banging.  If he’d wanted to kill them, he could have sneaked up on them in the night instead of bringing breakfast to the door.

“If you ain’t gonna be able to feed these young’uns, let me in so I can.”  She had no trouble understanding his shouted instructions.  He got straight to work, breaking up cold cornbread into warm milk, since the eggs were lost.  Gesturing for her to sit in a straight chair at the table, he handed her the baby girl propping her between Anya’s injured arm against the wall and raised his voice. “You feed this baby.  You need to earn your keep.  That other arm works fine.” 

While Anya fed the girl, she sneaked peeks at the man, trying not to get caught while he crumbled cornbread into the boy’s milk.  He made no effort to fix Anya’s meal, turning to hear and shouted.  “Now when you git your fill, clean this mess up.  I got too much to do to take care of youngun’s and an addled woman.”

Anya lost her fear as her face flamed with fury at the insult. “Addled!  I ain’t addled!  I’m jest kind’a deaf but I’m a’getting’ better!  And don’t go hollerin’ so loud at me.  I ain’t off!  You’d act addled too if you got cracked in the head.  At least I ain’t crazy enough to claim you’re my husband!  Just give me a few days more an’ I’ll be out of here.  I just gotta figure a way to take care of myself and git to a town.”

The damn holding back Joe’s frustration broke.  “I’ll be glad to see the last of you, but I got a crop to put in and cain’t take time to haul your sorry ass thirty miles to town. Me and these kids ain’t gonna starve on account of you!  You ain’t nothing to us!”  He didn’t even realize it was the first time he’d referred to himself and the kids as a unit. “The circuit preacher will be over to the Meadow Creek Church in two weeks for revival.  I’ll take you the twelve miles over there and some of them do-gooders from church can put you to work or git you to town.  It ain’t nothing to me what you do.”

“I ain’t staying here another night.” She spouted, slamming her open hand on the table.

“Suit yourself.  Talphus is thirty miles east and Meadowcreek Church is twelve miles northwest of here.  Them church folks will be gathering after spring planting.  Good riddance!  Come on Little Joe.  Now, you watch the baby out of the fire.  Me and Little Joe got work to do.”  He grabbed the little boy’s hand and slammed the door on the way out.

Hard Time Marrying Part 12

She awoke to a murderous headache and a deafening roar in her ear, the warmth of  the flickering fire beckoning her.  Pulling herself to her feet by clinging to a table leg, she made her way toward it.  As she turned to warm her backside, she caught sight of the baby girl on the bed.

From deep in her battered brain, love for her baby sister nudged her.  Drawn to the bedside, she studied the baby, hardly cognizant of the other child.  Dropping to the edge of the bed, she tenderly touched the child’s burning cheek and tried to gather her to her bosom.

Unaware of the man who’d entered the room, her last thought was of her lost baby sister as she slid back into the darkness, barely aware of being ministered to.

She held little memory of the next few days, though her headache dulled and the roaring in her ear became less demanding.  When she could stay awake, she focused on the baby, a blue-eyed blonde, so much like her sister.  A small boy trailed the man constantly. Thinking still made her head ache, especially when she had the nightmare about a pistol and a man.  The Dream always slipped away like dark silk as shuddered awake, but left her in a cold sweat. In her dream, she was always trying to get away.

The man was busy but quiet.  He and the boy were rarely in the house, except to bring in milk, do chores, and eat.  He did nothing to threaten or disturb her, but she wanted nothing to do with him or any other man.  Had she been able to think more clearly, she’d have wondered about the mother of the children, but that was too onerous a task for her addled brain.

 

 

Hard Time Marrying Part 11

 

Fatigued almost beyond bearing, Anya’s head felt as though it would burst.  Her jaw ached and blood drained from her left ear.  Her stepmother, Bessie had deafened her right years ago, but now she’d developed a deafening roar in her left.  Barely conscious, she struggled to maintain her death grip on the cow’s halter and half-walked and was half-dragged the final half-mile to the barn. Though she couldn’t hear it, the farm dog barked at her staggering approach, but for some reason didn’t offer to bite as she struggled to the barnyard. Instinct alone guided her into the barn where she collapsed on the haystack.  Old Bossie followed her in and was grateful of the opportunity to get her feed early.  Hay drifted over Anya as she slept, keeping the secret of her presence, though in her decreasing consciousness, she had no concern for anything.  Unaware of anything except pain and fatigue, she slept late into the next day.

Anya’s mind was foggy when she awoke, only aware of pain, hunger and thirst.  The beating she’d taken left her deaf and confused. She did vaguely remember trying to fire the pistol, but nothing after that.  Her raging thirst drove her from the barn.  With the pain in her jaw, eating would not have been an option.  She made her way toward the cabin, seeking water.

Had anyone been there to see her, she’d have been a horrifying specter as she fell against the door.  Wakening to find Jack licking the blood from her ear, she managed to hang onto the wall and table till she got to the water bucket.  Slaking her thirst, she dropped painfully to the cabin floor, unaware she was in the world.

 

 

Hard Time Marrying Part 9

traveling-medicine-show1No mother had ever loved her.  A woman or two passed through, but none of them stayed long.  Ever since she could remember, she’d trailed Pa at his blacksmith or on the homestead though some days he didn’t speak five words to her.  As she got older, she picked up a little cooking, but neither of them did more than they had to in the house.  She was near thirteen when Bessie and her three boys moved in homestead after marrying Pa, Bessie railed at the filth in the house and set about teaching Anya housekeeping with a ready back-hand.  She wasn’t partial to the girl, backhanding her own boys just as often.  When Bessie’s baby girl was born a few months later, she carelessly handed it off to Anya, taking it only to nurse.  For the first time in her life, Anya knew love, never leaving her new sister in Bessie’s way.

Bessie remarried quickly after Pa was kicked in the head by a horse and liked Anya even less after she caught her new man looking Anya’s way.  Within a month, she’d handed Anya off to a Snake Oil peddler passing through.  He warned her not to try to get away.  “I done paid good money for you.”  Anya endured his drunken assaults and those of men who paid him for her time.  After the most brutal beating and rape she’d yet endured, he passed out from his own “Snake Oil.”  Fueled by adrenaline and the knowledge that it was now or never, despite her useless right arm, Anya dragged herself to the wagon, took his pistol from under the wagon seat, aimed at his head and pulled the trigger.  It kicked her backwards against the wagon.  Desperately, she pulled herself up, took the shovel propped against the wagon wheel, steadied herself as best she could, and bashed in his skull.  Repositioning herself, she took another go at him, knowing if he lived, he’d kill her.

With agonizing effort, she pulled his old horse next to the wagon and slid over from the step.  Fortunately for her, the horse was old and docile or he’d have never tolerated her clumsiness.  Popping the reins, she gave him his head.  From time to time she’d nod off and awaken to find his head drooping, as he rested along with her.  Urging him on, they’d travel a bit more till he sensed she wouldn’t notice his dawdling. In that manner, they traveled on through the night and early morning.  As her fatigue and pain got the better of her, she spent less and less time pushing him.  He ambled along and grazed as he pleased with no interference from her.  She slid from his back as he made his way down a little slope to a stream.  She drank beside him and crawled into the shade of a willow to rest.  Somewhat interested, he watched his fellow traveler, then began grazing further and further along the stream.  It was a good day to be a horse on the loose.