I WAKE UP THURSDAY MORNING with my nerves on edge. I wish we could have the meeting right now instead of waiting for tonight. With all the enemies that homesteaders are used to facing, from wild animals to wild savages, it’s a bad feeling to know that your worst enemies are right here among you, the very people you used to rely on to help stave off all those other enemies. And it’s frightening to know that Bill Osterman and Dave Harkness are the sorts that won’t think twice about taking somebody else’s life if it’ll make their own lives safer, richer, or more comfortable. In my view, the pair of them are double murderers. First they killed Mr. Bell, then they killed Louie Sam. Who pulled the trigger or yanked the rope tight isn’t the point. The point is that those two men wanted the other two dead, and dead is how they managed to leave them.
Father seems in a fine mood when he heads out to the fields with John to start seeding the barley. He’s like his old self, his own man again at last. But Mam must be rattled like me, because she snaps at little Teddy to hush when he cries from his cradle while she’s trying to make breakfast. That’s the first time I’ve heard Mam say a harsh word to the baby, so grateful has she been that he’s found his lungs and his appetite. Gypsy starts barking at something out in the yard, making us jumpier still. Then there comes a knock at the door. We all feel uneasy at that knock. Who could be coming to visit with the sun barely up?
“It’s probably Agnes. Let her in, George,” says Mam, wiping her hands on her apron.
When I pull open the door, to my surprise there’s nobody there. Then I notice a horse hitched to the post—Mr. Bell’s horse, the one that Pete and I rode when we followed the lynch mob north. A crazy thought comes into my head, that maybe Mr. Bell’s ghost rode the horse here as a sign to show us we’re doing the right thing, avenging his murder. When I step outside, I see just how foolish a notion that is. Mrs. Bell is standing a few paces off, admiring a dogwood bush that’s started to blossom. She’s wearing the getup I saw her in when I mistook her for a man a couple of weeks ago, outside the Nooksack Hotel—a wide-rimmed hat and an oilskin coat. She gives me a broad smile.
“George!” she says. “Just the fella I’m looking to see.”
Mam comes outside. So shocked is she at the sight of Annette Bell on her stoop that she just stares at her saying nothing. The lack of welcome doesn’t seem to trouble Mrs. Bell.
“Good morning, Mrs. Gillies,” she says. “Fine morning, isn’t it?”
“Yes, very fine,” says Mam.
Her words are polite enough, but Mam’s expression has gone cold and she makes no mention of inviting Mrs. Bell inside for a cup of tea and some breakfast, as she would any other passerby. If Mam’s alarm bells are going off the way mine are, she’s thinking it’s an evil omen for Mrs. Bell to be showing up here now, what with the discussions we’ve been having about her and her dead husband.
“You’re a long way from home, Mrs. Bell. What brings you this way so early?” asks Mam.
“I’ve come to see your George,” she answers.
“What would you be wanting with my boy?”
Mam isn’t sounding the least bit polite now. In fact, she sounds downright unfriendly. Mrs. Bell smiles, unperturbed.
“A word, is all. George is almost a grown man, Mrs. Gillies. Surely he needn’t ask for his ma’s permission to speak with the mother of one of his friends.”
“Jimmy isn’t my friend,” I tell her.
It comes out ruder than I intended. Mrs. Bell gives me a look. She almost seems hurt.
“I meant Pete,” she replies. My face must look quizzical, because she adds, “Didn’t Pete tell you? Mr. Harkness and I are to be married, as soon as all this unpleasantness settles down. So you see, I will soon be Pete’s mother as well as Jimmy’s.”
Mam seems not to know what to say to that, nor do I. It’s hard to know which is more scandalous—her living in sin with Mr. Harkness, or her marrying him so quick upon the murder of her other husband.
“George,” says she, not waiting for us to find our tongues, “will you walk down toward the creek with me?”
Mam gives me a look that tells me not to go with her, but Mrs. Bell has put me on the spot saying that a man wouldn’t let his mam tell him what to do. Besides, she seems all gentle and nice this morning. She starts down the path to our mill, and I follow her. She waits until we’re well clear of the house before she starts talking.
“People are saying, George, that you overheard something you shouldn’t have when you spent the night at my house this past Sunday.”
So that’s what this is about. My mind is working fast. Other than Pete, Sheriff Leckie is the only one I told about that. Which one of them spilled the beans? My panic must show, because she rests her hand on the cast on my broken arm to calm me.
“I like you, George. That’s why I’ve come here. To save you from yourself.”
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“Sometimes young men think they’re being noble, when what they’re really being is pig-headed. No good can come from going around spreading rumors about your neighbors, folks you might wind up living beside and doing business with for the rest of your life.”
I have no idea what to say to that, but she doesn’t seem to expect an answer. We’ve reached the mill house. She looks around and smiles at the pretty scene of the millpond. The water is smooth and calm and birds are chirping. She breathes in the fresh morning air.
“Some people,” she tells me, “are angry at you for turning against your own kind.”
I don’t need to ask who those people might be. Her soon-to-be husband must be one of them, as well as Mr. Osterman and Sheriff Leckie.
“But I’m not angry with you, George,” she says, “even though you have a funny way of showing your gratitude for us taking you in and feeding you and giving you a bed for the night when you were hurt so bad. I’m more worried for you, worried about what might befall a boy who doesn’t know when to keep his gob shut.”
She has lost all trace of gentleness. She looks me in the eye and tells me, “I see you have nothing to say, George. Best to keep it that way if you know what’s good for you and your kin.”
With that she heads back up the path to the house, taking long strides just like a man would. And I’m afraid of her, same as I would be if it were a man making threats against me and mine.
I GET BACK TO THE house in time to see the hindquarters of Mr. Bell’s horse carrying Mrs. Bell down the path to the track. Mam is leaning over Teddy’s cradle when I go inside. She keeps her back to me.
“What did that woman want with ye?” she asks.
I stop myself from telling Mam the truth. Mrs. Bell’s threats would only put more strain on her shaky nerves, when she’s just earned a respite by getting Teddy to fall asleep. Besides, Annie, Will, and Isabel are seated at the table eating their eggs and hotcakes. It’s not proper for little kids to hear about how evil the human spirit can be.
“It’s private,” I tell Mam.
Mam turns and gives me a funny look.
“George Gillies, I’ll not have you keeping secrets with the likes of her. Nor company, neither.”
I feel myself blushing. I don’t even want to think about what on earth she imagines is going on between me and Mrs. Bell.
“I got to get to school,” I tell her, and I head for the door.
“You need to walk Annie and Will,” Mam tells me. “John’s staying back to help Father with the planting today.”
That would be my job, if my arm weren’t broken. I feel as useless as a dull blade.
“I can walk Annie,” says Will.
Mam looks at Will, and finds a smile for him.
“I’m forgetting how much you’re grown,” she tells him. To me she says, “I’ll send your lunch with the children.”
I TOLD MAM A WHITE LIE—I’m not going to school. I just need air. Outside, I think that maybe I should go find Father in the fields and tell him about Mrs. Bell’s visit. But what exactly can I tell him, except that I let a woman scare the willies out of me? I need to go someplace where I can think. I start walking, and before I know it I’m at the creek. I keep walking along the creek, until the Hamptons’ shack comes into view. Joe is outside, near their cook fire. Something tells me that Joe is exactly the one I need to talk to. Maybe that’s why my feet have led me this way.