Underground was the awful water from the Salt Fork River? I thought my homestead would have clean, fresh water. It was why I chose this land beside Crooked Creek.
“All wrath, that’s terrible water,” I said, my voice craggy.
He drummed his fingers on his thigh. He wasn’t usually fidgety. Could he have salted the water, pranking me? I pressed my fingertips to my lips.
“You rake,” I said.
He lifted a black brow.
“You salted my well.”
A smile shocked across my face, and on a sudden I felt a hundred summers younger, as if I could just about glimpse the Minnie of long ago. He gripped his hat between his hands as I laughed until my eyes watered and my cheeks burnt with the streak of tears. I hadn’t expected such a thing from him. He pressed back on his hat and slipped his hands in his pockets, crinkles like rivulets at his eyes.
“I like you like this,” he said. “Laugh more.”
“Well, if we could justnot diethis winter. Then sure, I’ll laugh more.”
“Life’s hard, no matter. Suppose we could laugh anyway.”
Beyond, in the fallen dusk, the golden glow of winter dark fireflies floated about the hardwoods. “Do you even know how?” I asked.
A smirk tugged at his lips, unhurried and unrefined. “Well, no. But I’m damn sure amused.”
Then he strode off, his suspenders an X across his white shirt. Beyond, light flashed among the oaks and the hickories, longlost magic caught in shadow and bramble. I bit my lip as he climbed down the ladder. The edges of my cheeks felt tender with such movements. I’d barely smiled all winter.
I strode to the barn to feed my animals, the sun drifting down to ooze russet and ginger along the horizon. Whistlejacket’s smoke-gray nose peeked out from her stable window. Beside the barn were rows of vegetables and my cellar hid belowground. Behind, my tar paper shack shivered in the wind. My homestead was simple, in progress, with a long way to go—but I’d battled and sweat for this home, for this space of my own. And now I had fresh water. My ma couldn’t own land, or my grandma or her ancestors before her. And here I was, with my own homestead, looping a knot on this thread of legacy, embroidering myself into a history of women. A torrent of air rubbed my shoulder blades, as if pushing me back somewhere faraway. The norther roared, and once again I heard the women speaking among themselves.
I’d worked this soil for a season and knew this land as one knew a friend. I supposed the earth could be alive with the memories of those who’d come before. I might not understand it, but something was happening out in the wide distances. Down the hill, sunfall slanted through the feathery ends of wheat stalks and cast an effervescent form, like a rising mist or a woman walking toward me, her story forever lost in time.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ipulled on Cricket’s reins, slowing to a canter, my heart pounding with the rush of racing over the knolls. A curl of smoke smeared the blue sky—Olive’s homestead just beyond. I rubbed Cricket’s pale neck as we trotted over the crest. Below, the land stretched bleak gray and cashmere to the horizon. The Browns’ sod house pressed into a hill, the mud cut in neat rectangles, flower boxes with colorful pansies settled before the windowsills, twin apple trees and a willow sprouted to the side. Olive, in a blue gingham gown and white apron, bustled about before the soddy. Asa, Thad, and Stot chatted beside the rock-hewn well amid a pile of lumber, their sheepdog Old Watch loped the perimeter, and Poppy sang a ditty, somewhere.
I wasn’t practiced in quiet moments with others. I felt at ease in noise, in moments at the edge of control. I scrubbed my face, my kid-leather gloves velvety on my tight skin. To join the Browns and Stot today was settling into this land, acknowledging that I’d found a community.
I galloped downhill, tossing an upburst of red dust into the timid blue sky. As I dismounted, Olive greeted me, drying her hands on her apron. Asa took Cricket’s reins with a welcoming nod, and Olive slid her arm round my shoulder, guiding me toward their outdoor kitchen.
“Tell me you saw that enormous orange moon the other night?” she asked. I told her that I’d watched the moonrise from my porch, and she settled me beside Sophia to cut fruit. I hefted a barrel of Arkansas Black apples and dumped them on the wood block. The deep, wine-red apples were cool, fresh from the cellar. Olive handed me a folding knife, hilt out, an eyebrow quirked.
“I know how to use a blasted knife.”
“Never said you didn’t,” she said.
“However—” Sophia lowered herself onto a blanket. From a basket, she grabbed a pair of trousers to darn: Sophia had made a fine reputation as a seamstress. “One wonders if you’ve ever used a blade against such natural pursuits as baking a cobbler.”
Olive snorted and snapped a cloth toward Sophia. “Oh, stop.”
“Y’all are something awful to me,” I said.
Mirth edged Olive’s mouth. “You adore us.”
Olive watched me cut the apple, her brows drawn, anxious about my lack of skill. She opened her mouth to speak, and I held up my hand. “You asked for my help. I’ll bake pies however in smoky Sam Hill I want.”
She shared an amused glance with Sophia, then kneaded the dough. Olive brushed her forehead with the back of her hand, smearing a dusting of flour. We spoke of what novels we’d read these past weeks, the crisp scent of apples a texture in the air. Sophia and I talked ofLittle Women, which I’d recently loaned her. She thought perhaps she was like faithful Meg and supposed I was like independent and adventurous Jo. Poppy wandered past, grumbling that Sophia had told her she resembled the youngest, Amy, but that she felt like Jo.
“Sometimes I feel like Amy too,” I told her with a wink. Poppy wrinkled her nose and adjusted her bundle of wood. “But you get to choose who you want to be,” I said.
“See? I’m Jo,” Poppy said to Sophia, then stalked off down the slope.
