Although the afternoon Kells came to her in the garden was hot, he was wearing a broadcloth jacket. From the pocket he took a loosely knotted length of silk rope, as she knew he would. A woman knows. Even if she's long married, a woman knows, and Kells's heart had never changed.
"Will'ee?" he asked. "If'ee will, I'll sell my place to Old Destry--he wants it, for it sits next to his east field--and keep this'un. Covenant Man's coming, Nellie, and he'll have his hand out. With no man, how'll'ee fill it?"
"I cannot, as thee knows," said she.
"Then tell me--shall we slip the rope?"
She wiped her hands nervously on her weddiken, although they were already as clean as they'd be without water from the creek. "I . . . I need to think about it."
"What's to think about?" He took his bandanna--neatly folded in his pocket instead of tied loosely, woodsman-style, around his neck--and mopped his forehead with it. "Either'ee do and we go on in Tree as we always have--I'll find the boy something to work at that'll bring in a little, although he's far too wee for the woods--or ye and he'll go on the land. I can share, but I can't give, much as I might like to. I have only one place to sell, kennit."
She thought, He's trying to buy me to fill the empty side of the bed that Millicent left behind. But that seemed an unworthy thought for a man she'd known long before he was a man, and one who had worked for years by her beloved husband's side in the dark and dangerous trees near the end of the Ironwood Trail. One to watch and one to work, the oldtimers said. Pull together and never apart. Now that Jack Ross was gone, Bern Kells was asking her to pull with him. It was natural.
Yet she hesitated.
"Come tomorrow at this same time, if you still have a mind," Nell told him. "I'll give thee an answer then."
He didn't like it; she saw he didn't like it; she saw something in his eyes that she had occasionally glimpsed when she had been a green girl sparked by two likely lads and the envy of all her friends. That look was what caused her to hesitate, even though he had appeared like an angel, offering her--and Tim, of course--a way out of the terrible dilemma that had come with Big Ross's death.
Perhaps he saw her seeing it, for he dropped his gaze. He studied his feet for a bit, and when he looked up again, he was smiling. It made him almost as handsome as he'd been as a youth . . . but never so handsome as Jack Ross.
"Tomorrow, then. But no longer. They have a saying in the West'rds, my dear. 'Look not long at what's offered, for every precious thing has wings and may fly away.'"
She washed at the edge of the creek, stood smelling the sweet-sour aroma of the forest for a bit, then went inside and lay down upon her bed. It was unheard of for Nell Ross to be horizontal while the sun was still in the sky, but she had much to think of and much to remember from those days when two young woodsmen had vied for her kisses.
Even if her blood had called toward Bern Kells (not yet Big Kells in those days, although his father was dead, slain in the woods by a vurt or some such nightmare) instead of Jack Ross, she wasn't sure she would have slipped the rope with him. Kells was good-humored and laughing when he was sober, and as steady as sand through a glass, but he could be angry and quick with his fists when he was drunk. And he was drunk often in those days. His binges grew longer and more frequent after Ross and Nell were wed, and on many occasions he woke up in jail.
Jack had borne it awhile, but after a binge where Kells had destroyed most of the furniture in the saloon before passing out, Nell told her husband something had to be done. Big Ross reluctantly agreed. He got his partner and old friend out of jail--as he had many times before--but this time he spoke to him frankly instead of just telling Kells to go jump in the creek and stay there until his head was clear.
"Listen to me, Bern, and with both ears. You've been my friend since I could toddle, and my pard since we were old enough to go past the blossie and into the ironwood on our own. You've watched my back and I've watched yours. There's not a man I trust more, when you're sober. But once you pour the redeye down your throat, you're no more reliable than quickmud. I can't go into the forest alone, and everything I have--everything we both have--is at risk if I can't depend on'ee. I'd hate to cast about for a new pard, but fair warning: I have a wife and a kiddy on the way, and I'll do what I have to do."
Kells continued his drinking, brawling, and bawding for a few more months, as if to spite his old friend (and his old friend's new wife). Big Ross was on the verge of severing their partnership when the miracle happened. It was a small miracle, hardly more than five feet from toes to crown, and her name was Millicent Redhouse. What Bern Kells would not do for Big Ross, he did for Milly. When she died in childbirth six seasons later (and the babby soon after--even before the flush of labor had faded from the poor woman's dead cheek, the midwife confided to Nell), Ross was gloomy.
"He'll go back for the drink now, and gods know what will become of him."
But Big Kells stayed sober, and when his business happened to bring him into the vicinity of Gitty's Saloon, he crossed to the other side of the street. He said it had been Milly's dying request, and to do otherwise would be an insult to her memory. "I'll die before I take another drink," he said.
He had kept this promise . . . but Nell sometimes felt his eyes upon her. Often, even. He had never touched her in a way that could be called intimate, or even forward, had never stolen so much as a Reaptide kiss, but she felt his eyes. Not as a man looks at a friend, or at a friend's wife, but as a man looks at a woman.
Tim came home an hour before sunset with hay stuck to every visible inch of his sweaty skin, but happy. Farmer Destry had paid him in scrip for the town store, a fairish sum, and his goodwife had added a sack of her sweet peppers and busturd tomatoes. Nell took the scrip and the sack, thanked him, kissed him, gave him a well-stuffed popkin, and sent him down to the spring to bathe.
Ahead of him, as he stood in the cold water, ran the dreaming, mist-banded fields toward the Inners and Gilead. To his left bulked the forest, which began less than a wheel away. In there it was twilight even at noonday, his father had said. At the thought of his father, his happiness at being paid a man's wages (or almost) for a day's work ran out of him like grain from a sack with a hole in it. This sorrow came often, but it always surprised him. He sat for a while on a big rock with his knees drawn up to his chest and his head cradled in his arms. To be taken by a dragon so close to the edge of the forest was unlikely and terribly unfair, but it had happened before. His father wasn't the first and wouldn't be the last.
His mother's voice came floating to him over the fields, calling him to come in and have some real supper. Tim called cheerily back to her, then knelt on the rock to splash cold water on his eyes, which felt swollen, although he had shed no tears. He dressed quickly and trotted up the slope. His mother had lit the lamps, for the gloaming had come, and they cast long rectangles of light across her neat little garden. Tired but happy again--for boys turn like weathercocks, so they do--Tim hurried into the welcoming glow of home.
When the meal was done and the few dishes ridded between them, Nell said: "I'd talk to you mother to son, Tim . . . and a bit more. You're old enough to work a little now, you'll soon be leaving your childhood behind--sooner than I'd like--and you deserve a say in what happens."
"Is it about the Covenant Man, Mama?"
"In a way, but I . . . I think more than that." She came close to saying I fear instead of I think, but why would she? There was a hard decision to be made, an important decision, but what was there to fear?
She led the way into their sitting room--so cozy Big Ross had almost been able to touch the opposing walls when he stood in the middle with his arms outstretched--and there, as they sat before the cold hearth (for it was a warm Full Earth night), she told him all that had passed between Big Kells and herself. Tim listened with surprise and mounting unease.
"So," Nell said when she had finished. "What does thee think?" But before he could answer--perhaps she saw in his face the worry she f
elt in her own heart--she rushed on. "He's a good man, and was more brother than mate to your da'. I believe he cares for me, and cares for thee."
No, thought Tim, I'm just what comes in the same saddlebag. He never even looks at me. Unless I happened to be with Da', that is. Or with you.
"Mama, I don't know." The thought of Big Kells in the house--lying next to Mama in his da's place--made him feel light in his stomach, as if his supper had not set well. In truth, it no longer was sitting well.
"He's quit the drink," she said. Now she seemed to be talking to herself instead of to him. "Years ago. He could be wild as a youth, but your da' tamed him. And Millicent, of course."
"Maybe, but neither of them is here anymore," Tim pointed out. "And Ma, he hasn't found anyone yet to partner him on the Ironwood. He goes a-cutting on his own, and that's dead risky."
"It's early days yet," she said. "He'll find someone to partner up with, for he's strong and he knows where the good stands are. Your father showed him how to find them when they were both fresh to the work, and they have fine stakeouts near the place where the trail ends."
Tim knew this was so, but was less sure Kells would find someone to partner with. He thought the other woodcutters kept clear of him. They seemed to do it without knowing they were doing it, the way a seasoned woodsman would detour around a poisonthorn bush, even if he only saw it from the corner of his eye.
Maybe I'm only making that up, he thought.
"I don't know," he said again. "A rope that's slipped in church can't be unslipped."
Nell laughed nervously. "Where in Full Earth did thee hear that?"
"From you," Tim said.
She smiled. "Yar, p'raps thee did, for my mouth's hung in the middle and runs at both ends. We'll sleep on it, and see clearer in the morning."
But neither of them slept much. Tim lay wondering what it would be like to have Big Kells as a steppa. Would he be good to them? Would he take Tim into the forest with him to begin learning the woodsman's life? That would be fine, he thought, but would his mother want him going into the line of work that had killed her husband? Or would she want him to stay south of the Endless Forest? To be a farmer?
I like Destry well enough, he thought, but I'd never in life be a farmer. Not with the Endless Forest so close, and so much of the world to see.
Nell lay a wall away, with her own uncomfortable thoughts. Mostly she wondered what their lives would be like if she refused Kells's offer and they were turned out on the land, away from the only place they'd ever known. What their lives would be like if the Barony Covenanter rode up on his tall black horse and they had nothing to give him.
The next day was even hotter, but Big Kells came wearing the same broadcloth coat. His face was red and shining. Nell told herself she didn't smell graf on his breath, and if she did, what of it? 'Twas only hard cider, and any man might take a drink or two before going to hear a woman's decision. Besides, her mind was made up. Or almost.
Before he could ask his question, she spoke boldly. As boldly as she was able, anyhap. "My boy reminds me that a rope slipped in church can't be unslipped."
Big Kells frowned, although whether it was the mention of the boy or the marriage-loop that fashed him, she could not tell. "Aye, and what of that?"
"Only will you be good to Tim and me?"
"Aye, good as I can be." His frown deepened. She couldn't tell if it was anger or puzzlement. She hoped for puzzlement. Men who could cut and chop and dare beasts in the deep wood often found themselves lost in affairs like this, she knew, and at the thought of Big Kells lost, her heart opened to him.
"Set your word on it?" she asked.
The frown eased. White flashed in his neatly trimmed black beard as he smiled. "Aye, by watch and by warrant."
"Then I say yes."
And so they were wed. That is where many stories end; it's where this one--sad to say--really begins.
There was graf at the wedding reception, and for a man who no longer drank spirits, Big Kells tossed a goodly amount down his gullet. Tim viewed this with unease, but his mother appeared not to notice. Another thing that made Tim uneasy was how few of the other woodsmen showed up, although it was Ethday. If he had been a girl instead of a boy, he might have noticed something else. Several of the women whom Nell counted among her friends were looking at her with expressions of guarded pity.
That night, long after midnight, he was awakened by a thump and a cry that might have been part of a dream, but it seemed to come through the wall from the room his mother now shared (true, but not yet possible to believe) with Big Kells. Tim lay listening, and had almost dropped off to sleep again when he heard quiet weeping. This was followed by the voice of his new steppa, low and gruff: "Shut it, can't you? You ain't a bit hurt, there's no blood, and I have to be up with the birdies."
The sounds of crying stopped. Tim listened, but there was no more talk. Shortly after Big Kells's snores began, he fell asleep. The next morning, while she was at the stove frying eggs, Tim saw a bruise on his mother's arm above the inside of her elbow.
"It's nothing," Nell said when she saw him looking. "I had to get up in the night to do the necessary, and bumped it on the bedpost. I'll have to get used to finding my way in the dark again, now that I'm not alone."
Tim thought, Yar--that's what I'm afraid of.
When the second Ethday of his married life came round, Big Kells took Tim with him to the house that now belonged to Baldy Anderson, Tree's other big farmer. They went in Kells's wood-wagon. The mules stepped lightly with no rounds or strakes of ironwood to haul; today there were only a few little piles of sawdust in the back of the wagon. And that lingering sweet-sour smell, of course, the smell of the deep woods. Kells's old place looked sad and abandoned with its shutters closed and the tall, unscythed grass growing up to the splintery porch slats.
"Once I get my gunna out'n it, let Baldy take it all for kindling, do it please 'im," Kells grunted. "Fine wi' me."
As it turned out, there were only two things he wanted from the house--a dirty old footrest and a large leather trunk with straps and a brass lock. This was in the bedroom, and Kells stroked it as if it were a pet. "Can't leave this," he said. "Never this. 'Twas my father's."
Tim helped him get it outside, but Kells had to do most of the work. The trunk was very heavy. When it was in the wagonbed, Big Kells leaned over with his hands on the knees of his newly (and neatly) mended trousers. At last, when the purple patches began to fade from his cheeks, he stroked the trunk again, and with a gentleness Tim had as yet not seen applied to his mother. "All I own stowed in one trunk. As for the house, did Baldy pay the price I should have had?" He looked at Tim challengingly, as if expecting an argument on this subject.
"I don't know," Tim said cautiously. "Folk say sai Anderson's close."
Kells laughed harshly. "Close? Close? Tight as a virgin's cootchie is what he is. Nar, nar, I got crumbs instead of a slice, for he knew I couldn't afford to wait. Help me tie up this tailboard, boy, and be not sluggardly."
Tim was not sluggardly. He had his side of the tailboard roped tight before Kells had finished tying his in a sloppy ollie-knot that would have made his father laugh. When he was finally done, Big Kells gave his trunk another of those queerly affectionate caresses.
"All in here now, all I have. Baldy knew I had to have silver before Wide Earth, didn't he? Old You Know Who is coming, and he'll have his hand out." He spat between his old scuffed boots. "This is all your ma's fault."
"Ma's fault? Why? Didn't you want to marry her?"
"Watch your mouth, boy." Kells looked down, seemed surprised to see a fist where his hand had been, and opened his fingers. "You're too young to understand. When you're older, you'll find out how women can get the good of a man. Let's go on back."
Halfway to the driving seat, he stopped and looked across the stowed trunk at the boy. "I love yer ma, and that's enough for you to be going on with."
And as the mules trotted up the village high s
treet, Big Kells sighed and added, "I loved yer da', too, and how I miss 'im. 'Tain't the same wi'out him beside me in the woods, or seein Misty and Bitsy up the trail ahead of me."
At this Tim's heart opened a little to the big, slump-shouldered man with the reins in his hands--in spite of himself, really--but before the feeling had any chance to grow, Big Kells spoke again.
"Ye've had enough of books and numbers and that weirdy Smack woman. She with her veils and shakes--how she manages to wipe her arse after she shits is more than I'll ever know."
Tim's heart seemed to clap shut in his chest. He loved learning things, and he loved the Widow Smack--veil, shakes, and all. It dismayed him to hear her spoken of with such crude cruelty. "What would I do, then? Go into the woods with you?" He could see himself on Da's wagon, behind Misty and Bitsy. That would not be so bad. No, not so bad at all.
Kells barked a laugh. "You? In the woods? And not yet twelve?"
"I'll be twelve next m--"
"You won't be big enough to lumber on the Ironwood Trail at twice that age, for'ee take after yer ma's side of things, and will be Sma' Ross all yer life." That bark of laughter again. Tim felt his face grow hot at the sound of it. "No, lad, I've spoke a place for'ee at the sawmill. You ain't too sma' to stack boards. Ye'll start after harvest's done, and before first snow."
"What does Mama say?" Tim tried to keep the dismay out of his voice and failed.
"She don't get aye, no, or maybe in the matter. I'm her husband, and that makes me the one to decide." He snapped the reins across the backs of the plodding mules. "Hup!"
Tim went down to Tree Sawmill three days later, with one of the Destry boys--Straw Willem, so called for his nearly colorless hair. Both were hired on to stack, but they would not be needed for yet awhile, and only part-time, at least to begin with. Tim had brought his father's mules, which needed the exercise, and the boys rode back side by side.
"Thought you said your new step-poppa didn't drink," Willem said, as they passed Gitty's--which at midday was shuttered tight, its barrelhouse piano silent.