11
Two days after the town meeting, Helen fit the handle of a large basket over her right arm and crossed through the farmhouse kitchen on her way outside. Katie and a couple of the new girls sat at the table, peeling potatoes and yakking about the latest news from town. News that centered on the most recent male interloper.
He was already causing havoc. Not that Helen had expected anything less. Men always stirred up trouble. But bicycles? According to Katie, Emma had convinced Tori to order five of the crazy things just because Mr. Bledsoe said he preferred them to horses.
Helen’s stride lengthened in agitation as she left the farm behind. Wheels over horses. That right there proved the fellow was off his rocker. Who wanted to push a pair of wheels to get from place to place if a horse would do the moving for you? Besides, a horse was smart enough to stop at the edge of a cliff. A speeding velocipede would take you right over. Henrietta Chandler and her bloomers could take lessons from some crackpot wheelman if she chose, but Helen would keep her feet firmly planted on the ground, thank you very much.
The walk to the pecan grove took a good twenty minutes, and by the time Helen reached the first trees, she’d walked out much of her frustration. It was hard to stay focused on negativity when God had blessed her with such a glorious day.
She glanced at the sky, where a handful of puffy white clouds swam lazily across the bright blue expanse. So peaceful. Perhaps even happy. Helen didn’t really know what happiness felt like. To her, it was simply the absence of pain. Yet when she looked at a sky like this one, something inside her whispered that there could be more. There could be joy that led to dancing, to laughter, to a place where fear could not penetrate.
Others understood it. Katie was always giggling and smiling and urging Helen to stop being so gloomy. But Katie had learned how to laugh as a child. She’d played and danced and sung songs with a mother who’d called her princess. Helen had learned how to hide. She’d placated and ducked and taken blows without making a sound from a father who’d called her worthless.
Setting her basket on the ground beneath the first tree, Helen pulled her work gloves from where she’d tucked them into the waistband of her skirt. The first time she’d gathered pecans, her fingers had been stained for weeks, and no amount of scrubbing would remove the dark brown tint from her skin. Now she made a point to wear gloves along with her oldest, darkest dress, an ugly black thing she’d worn to her father’s funeral three years ago. She saved it for the dirtiest of chores. Mucking stalls, cleaning the chicken coop, gathering pecans. It seemed fitting to drag the dress she’d been assigned to wear out of respect for her dead father through manure and grime. His soul had been a cesspit.
But the day was too pretty to let ugly memories intrude. Helen directed her attention to the task of gathering pecans as she lowered herself to the ground and crawled through the leaves and debris. Shaking a handful of nuts together, she listened for the solid sound that indicated a husk full of meat. She discarded the lighter ones, flinging them away from the tree, and tossed the good ones into her basket. She did the same with her thoughts. Each time a thought of her father rose to instill anger or bitterness in her soul, she mentally flung it away and clung instead to a blessing.
Blessings like the sunshine and blue sky. The birds singing in the treetop above her head. The breeze that cooled her while she toiled. Betty and the girls at the farm. A bedroom with a lock on the door. Even that thief of a squirrel running around the base of the tree, stealing the nuts she was there to harvest.
“Get out of here, you!” She tossed a cracked pecan husk at the bushy-tailed rodent, a smile creasing her face as the rascal easily dodged her poor throw. In a flash, the squirrel jabbed a nut into his mouth, turned, and sprinted up the tree. His little claws scraped against the bark as he made his escape.
He was a marvel, moving so fast Helen could barely keep track of him. He leapt from trunk to branch to higher branch with such confidence and grace. That must be what freedom was like—jumping through life without worry or fear.
I want to trust you that completely, her heart prayed, for she knew she didn’t. She was a clinger, not a leaper. Once she found a safe branch, she grabbed on and held tight with every ounce of strength she had, terrified that if she let go, she’d plummet back to where she’d come from. She wanted to leap forward in faith, but her claws were too embedded. Something would have to shake her loose. And that prospect terrified her.
Her basket half full, Helen stood, stretched out her lower back, then moved to the next tree. A large cluster of nuts lay amid the dirt and leaves to the right of the trunk, so she started there. She’d just set the basket down when an odd sound caught her attention. She straightened and tilted her head toward the noise. It was low, more of a rumble than anything.
Helen strained her ears, mentally filtering out the rustling leaves and bird chatter. Holding her breath, she poured all her effort into listening.
There! She heard it again. A growly moan.
Cautiously, she moved out from under the overhanging tree branches and scanned the area. Had an animal been hurt? Nature was so barbaric—predators targeting the weak, packs abandoning their injured. It was despicable. Yet animals in pain were unpredictable. Some were even dangerous. She should take precautions.
Wishing she’d brought her rifle along, she settled for a sturdy tree branch that fit comfortably in her hands, and walked as stealthily as she could through the fallen leaves and hollowed-out pecan husks.
“Where are you?” she muttered under her breath when the sound faded away. It had come from somewhere to the west, she was sure. But where?
She crept forward, her gaze scanning the prairie grass in a wide arc in front of her. There. A section of flattened grass to her right. Near the path that led to the old line cabin she liked to visit when she needed a place to be alone for a while. She adjusted her grip on the branch and hefted it a little higher over her shoulder. Then she set her chin and strode forward.
Reddish-brown smears stained the flattened grass. Blood. A lot of it. The animal must be incapacitated, dragging itself away from whatever had caused it harm.
Helen’s heart panged in sympathy. She understood the instinct to escape, to hide and lick wounds. Judging by the width of the trail, the animal was big. Maybe a coyote or a wild pig. Both of which had large teeth and fierce temperaments. Helen slowed her approach. Perhaps she should just leave it alone.
Another moan, weaker this time, reached her ears. She steeled her spine. No creature deserved to suffer. Not even a coyote.
She pressed on a few more steps then faltered to a halt. This was no coyote. Unless they’d taken to wearing men’s trousers.
Helen shook her head, every sympathetic impulse inside her hardening to stone. Was this some kind of divine joke? If so, she wasn’t laughing.
“I’m not doing it,” she grumbled, peering from the corners of her eyes to the blue sky that had looked so inviting mere moments ago but now felt like it was bearing down upon her with ominous intent. “You can’t make me.”
The pressure didn’t relent. In fact, it grew heavier, pushing on her heart until her pulse throbbed in her veins.
It wasn’t fair. He was asking too much.
She glanced from side to side, praying for someone else to be within shouting distance. Anyone. Even the marshal or the freighter. Shoot, she’d even take that bicycle-riding, spectacle-wearing newcomer that Grace seemed to favor.
But no one was around. Only her.
And the unconscious man slowly dying from a nasty gunshot wound to his leg.