18

The slop oozed over the edge of the bucket and plopped with thick drops into the wooden trough. Grunting, the nasty pig snuffed up the leftovers like it was his last supper. Manda hated this part of her job. She’d just as soon let the hog starve as stand here with the stink of the pen rising up around her like a vile perfume. Her earlier sunny mood took a dark turn.

She couldn’t figure why things happened as they did. Why wasn’t it her wearing a new outfit, waiting to catch a coach to the city? It was not that she minded helping Lilly. She actually liked the kid. But when would it ever be her turn?

If Manda stopped to think about it, and she often did, she was the one who’d paid the piper. Only stood to reason she should be the one to dance. Here Lilly had a life of ease with a mother who adored her and a father, even though he was a step, who saw to her every need. While Manda’s own father hardly knew she existed and her stepmother ignored her needs, as indifferent as a lazy sow flopping on its piglet.

Manda slapped at a horsefly. The day was turning hot. At least it wasn’t Tuesday. She wouldn’t sweat buckets while she ironed the Pelfreys’ clothes, and thankfully nobody occupied the sickroom, so there wouldn’t be extra chores. Often whole families turned up for meals whenever a relative was laid up there. Manda thought they were taking advantage, but Miz Copper was too kind to notice. Like that Abe Sizemore, Tillie’s no-account. That man could eat the leg off a mule and have the saddle for dessert. Manda had been glad to be shut of them.

Her emotions churned like the mud the pig rolled in. Stupid thing—happy to be living off the leavings of others. She couldn’t quite get a grip on what was making her so tired of her station in life. She’d never really minded until recently.

She thought of Sunday last and what she remembered of Brother Jasper’s sermon. “Every man received his reward according to his labor.” Well, she did the work. Now where was her reward? She’d had a bellyful of waiting.

It seemed to her that she always got the short end of the stick. As a girl, growing up in a house where nobody looked ahead and where manna was hard to come by—no matter what her father preached—Manda learned to make do or do without. Too often it was do without. By rights she should be living in hog heaven by now.

Manda was determined not to wind up settling like Dance or Cara, who was so befuddled by love she didn’t know what she was missing. Lost in thought, Manda crossed her arms on the top pole of the pigpen and rested her head. She jumped back and brushed at her sleeves when the hog rustled over and started rooting on the other side of the fence. Looking up, he leered at her while mud mixed with cornmeal slid down his snout. A cloud of gnats rose like mist from his black-and-white hide.

If she could have her dream come true like the lovely Rose Feathergay, it would be thus: She and the middling man, newly married, would travel by coach and then by train to Eddyville, where Darcy would greet them with open arms. For the journey, Manda would wear a purple taffeta calling suit adorned with beaded crystal swirls.

She would work with Darcy in her dress shop and he would . . . well, he would play his music, of course. In no time they would be wealthy and have a genuine brick two-story house. She could see it now: Mr. and Mrs. Whoever? She guessed she’d better ask him his name! They would be pillars of the community, solid as the white columns holding up the roof of their porch. Then Manda could forget about tar-paper shacks and thin walls layered with sheets of newsprint that failed its duty to keep out a cold winter’s wind. In the last house she lived in before her mother died, you could see the ground through the cracks in the floor. At least there was a floor. They all thought they’d come up in the world to park their chairs on wood.

All Manda could count on during her childhood was a passel of mouths for her mother to feed. At least that proved her father was good for something. No wonder women got old before their time.

Oh, she was full of woe today. She didn’t even like her own company. Better get to the well and pump some water to wash out the bucket, or the slick rim of slop would set like glue and she’d have to chip it out.

Manda turned from the pen—what a place to daydream—and started around the barn. The hog made a funny high-pitched sound—somewhere between a squeal and a whistle. Silly thing was probably strangled. It ate like a pig after all. This particular hog had a penchant for choking, which meant she’d have to take a board and thunk him between the shoulder blades to restore his breath. She didn’t have time for this. She was not about to let Lilly miss the coach.

A more musical note stopped her in her tracks. When she looked back, the middling man was sitting neat as a pin atop the rail fence as if her dreams had conjured him up. The pig nosed an apple core around the trough.

She laughed with delight. “What are you doing here?”

“Me? Why, I come to visit my girl.”

“How did you know I where I was?”

He looked at her through hooded eyes and laughed. “I been watching you. You and everybody else in this house. I don’t miss nothing.”

She stood clutching the handle of the slop bucket with both hands as if it were a bouquet of flowers. What she wouldn’t give for the purple taffeta dress right now. “Can you wait for me? I have to walk Lilly to the coach.”

“Surely,” he wheedled, “you can spare me ten minutes.”

“Just let me tell her—don’t leave. Promise?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, hooked his heels in a lower rail, and leaned back as if he were sitting at a banquet table and not on the top rail of a pigpen. “Baby, I’m yours.”

Manda put the bucket in the shade at the side of the barn and waved to Lilly. “I need to check on something. You stay right there. I’ll only be a minute.”

Right across from the pigpen was a narrow back door to the barn. With fumbling fingers she unlatched it, and he followed her in. Dust motes danced in the scant light let in by the few windows. A freshly cut stack of timothy hay sweetly scented the air. The double front doors were closed. She was glad Lilly couldn’t see her. The animals had been let out to pasture, so all the stalls were empty. The only witness to their tryst might be the barn cat.

Without preliminary, he caught her upper arms with a viselike grip and drew her to him. His lips were hard and demanding. Hers responded, soft and yielding. They stood for long minutes in the middle of the barn kissing—such kissing. The kisses seemed to draw the very lifeblood from her bones. She thought she might fall in a puddle of yearning at his feet. She couldn’t get close enough, and it seemed neither could he.

The world outside dissolved like so much sugar stirred into water. His lips were at her throat. She was spellbound. With one quick and fluid motion he lifted her by the waist, swung her up, and set her on the feed box. Suddenly frightened, she edged away until her back was against the barn siding. Forcefully, he pulled her toward him.

The splintered grain of the feed box scratched the back of her legs. Her arms ached where he pinned them across her chest with his muscular forearm. He grew insistent. Her mind screamed—Run! She twisted in his grasp like a fish on the line. “Stop! No!”

He backhanded her. Her head bounced against the barn siding with the thump of an overripe melon. “Tease,” he said with his mouth against her ear. “Like it rough, do you?” Then he hit her so hard she saw stars. When her lip split, she could taste her own blood.

With an effort she freed one hand and gouged his eye. He yelped and stepped back. It was her chance. The only one she might get. She scrambled off the bin, falling to her hands and knees. Finding her footing, she backed up to the hay, never taking her eyes off the man. He laughed but not in mirth. With a dip of her knees, she reached down to grab the tool she knew was at the base of the haystack.

He advanced with a look in his eyes that scarred her soul. She wondered if he meant to kill her. She swept the air with the pitchfork like a blind man with a cane. He put up his hands, palms out, still laughing that crazy-man’s laugh. Manda’s heart pumped pure fear through her body. She’d been entertaining the devil.

“Help me, Lord,” she prayed aloud.

He took a step forward, his arms still surrendered. “Who’re you talking to? Ain’t nobody here but us. Come on, baby. You’ve been asking for it.”

Manda screwed up her courage and struck out. She could feel the pitchfork make contact before it slipped from her sweaty hands. With trepidation she looked out the slits of her swollen eyes and saw him falter.

His eyes were wide with surprise. “You little rouser. You stabbed me.”

They stood in the middle of the barn like actors on a stage. It was cool and shadowy and strangely silent. The middling man stood stock-still. The pitchfork dangled where she’d stabbed him. It made an ugly sucking sound when he pulled it out. It clattered to the floor. Blood as red as rose petals dripped from the perfect holes left by the tines.

Manda was rooted to the spot. If the barn caved in, she couldn’t move to save herself. Shocked, she couldn’t take in what she had just done or what he had tried to do.

He looked around and found his hat. He put it on his head. Pulling a red bandanna from his back pocket, he bandaged his wounds. He walked right up to her and tipped her chin. He kissed her tender as a lover. “I’ll see you in hell,” he said, then walked out the back door.

Like a wooden soldier, she moved to the double doors and tried to shove one open. It stuck as it always did. She nearly screamed in frustration, but when it finally slid on its track, she took a minute to compose herself. Nobody had to know what had just happened. There were only two witnesses, and he wasn’t dumb enough to tell.

All she had to do was walk across the barnyard to the house, get Lilly, and take her to the coach. It was as simple as that. It was like a bad dream best forgotten. She felt renewed, saved from death—or worse.

“Lilly,” she called when she got to the porch. “Let’s start out. You don’t want to be late.” Her voice wavered weakly like that of an old woman. Lilly wouldn’t notice, though. She was too excited about her trip.

Nobody answered.

Manda went into the kitchen. Frantically, she searched each room. The house was hushed as a funeral parlor. She could hear nothing but the twelve strikes of the mantel clock. Her stomach churned. Oh no. Lilly must have walked to the coach stop alone.

She calmed herself. It would be all right. She would run and catch up. Generally speaking, the coach was late.

She made it to the crossroads in record time. There was no one about. The intersection was as empty as the house had been. Way off, she glimpsed the unmistakable back end of the coach bouncing away on its oversize wheels. She stood in the middle of the dusty lane waving like a fool, seeing Lilly off.