“Hold that,” she said, shoving the basket into his hand. “Well, let me grab your arm. How do you think I’m going to get up there?”
He shifted the basket and the reins to his other hand while she awkwardly caught him by the forearm and swung up behind him. She was much stronger than she looked. He expected to have to help her a lot more than he did.
“My name’s Rorie Conley,” she said when she was situated and he’d handed the basket back. “And yes, I already know—you ain’t got one. That’s Rorie Conley. Try to remember that. I’m a old widder woman and I don’t suffer fools gladly. That’s something else you need to remember. That way,” she added with a broad gesture that could have meant anything, and poking him in the ribs for emphasis.
He set the horse off in the direction she’d more or less indicated.
“That basket’s heavy. You got a revolver in it?” he asked after they’d gone a short way.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she countered.
“I would,” he said.
“I ain’t telling you.”
He waited for a time, but apparently she meant it.
“Well, they say ignorance is bliss. I’m not feeling particularly blissful, though.”
“Life’s like that, ain’t it?”
He smiled to himself and urged the horse back onto what may or may not be the path.
“You ain’t the first one,” she said as the way grew more wooded and more precariously downhill.
“The first what?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“Soldier without a name. No-name soldiers been coming to these hills ever since George Washington had an army. Some men just don’t like armies, I reckon.”
“Not much to like,” he said.
“Don’t reckon there is,” she said agreeably.
“How far are we going?”
“Why? You got a train to catch?”
He couldn’t keep from smiling. “No, ma’am. No train.”
“This trip ought to work out real well, then. I ain’t catching no train, either.”
They rode for a while in silence. He could feel the air growing cooler as they descended farther and farther down into the wooded hollow. He could hear water flowing somewhere, and every now and then a bird flew up or something scampered off among the bushes and undergrowth. There was nothing to do but follow the path he could barely see, in lieu of more specific directions.
“Jeremiah,” he said when they finally reached the bottom and crossed a small but bold stream and started up the other side. “My name’s Jeremiah.”
“Oh, I see,” she said. “You got yourself half a name. Well, I’m proud to know it. Half of something’s better than all of nothing, ain’t it, Jeremiah?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “That it is.”
“Did you up and run off from somewhere?” she asked, verifying what he already suspected regarding her penchant for bluntness.
“War’s over,” he said, assuming she was asking if he was a deserter.
“More things to run from than a war, Jeremiah. Must be one of them other things, then.”
He wasn’t about to ask what she meant, but she continued as if he had.
“You don’t look like you got no money, so I ain’t thinking you up and robbed a bank. Don’t look like no gambler what can’t pay his loses, neither. Must be something to do with a woman,” she said. “You running from somebody’s mad husband?”
He didn’t say anything, and she chuckled softly. “Didn’t take you for one of them, Jeremiah. Still, men ain’t the smartest creatures God put on this earth. They get themselves in all kind of messes and don’t never know for a gnat’s second how they got there. That’s how we ended up brother-fighting-brother these here last four years, to my way of thinking—and poor Thomas Henry Garth dead.”
That remark seemed to have ended the conversation.
For a while.
“I’m worried, Jeremiah,” she said, but he had lost sight of the path and wasn’t really listening.
“That way,” she said, pointing over his shoulder. “I’m worried and that’s why I’m running on so. Well, I like to talk anyway, and I don’t get much chance except when I get down the mountain to church. So when I’m all vexed like this—well, it just comes out and I’m a sight. I’m right fond of all of them Garth girls—Beatrice and Amity and Sayer. If the Lord takes them, it’s going to break my heart—and I told Him that, too. Don’t know that He sets much store by what’s going to happen to my old heart if He does one thing or another, but I figured it won’t hurt for Him to know for sure I ain’t going to be happy. I been real good about not asking for things for myself for a long time now—didn’t even mention how bad my knees is been paining me. But then it come to me—right out of the blue—right when I was of half a mind to shoot you for a bushwhacker. I thought, ‘Quit your yammering, Rorie Conley. Get that boy with the horse and go see about ’em.’ So here we are.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, because she had stopped talking and seemed to be expecting him to make some kind of response.
“Sayer, now, she’s a outsider,” Rorie continued when he’d obliged her by using the small space she’d given him. “She ain’t from these here mountains, but she tries. Thomas Henry’s mama showed her how to cook. And me, I showed her a couple of things about making soap and hominy and such as that. But there’s a lot of things she don’t know. There’s a lot to be said for trying, though. I didn’t reckon she’d last half as long as she has. Life’s hard enough around here when you got your man. When you ain’t, well...” She gave a heavy sigh. “Thomas Henry’s uncle—Halbert, his name is—he’s been plaguing her to death. If Thomas Henry knowed what that sorry uncle of his is been doing to Sayer and his little sisters, he’d kill him first thing he was home—blood kin or not. I know that for sure—but he’s dead, so what good is he?” She suddenly squeezed his shoulder. “I’m scared, Jeremiah. I’m scared we’re going to go in there and find them girls as dead as Thomas Henry.”
He didn’t say anything to that. He could hear her sniffing from time to time.
“No use worrying till we know,” he said, and he could feel the bonnet nod against his shoulder.
“You better hang on to that horse now,” she said.
“Why?”
“I smell a bear.”
“Maybe we ought to hurry, then.”
“Well, my stars, Jeremiah. You ain’t nearly as simple-headed as you look.”
With that, she gave the horse’s flank a dig with both her heels, not knowing that this particular piece of horseflesh would take such a gesture completely to heart and bolt to the top of the ridge, path or no path, whether they wanted it to or not. Unfortunately, the mount Ike had found for him was a seasoned warhorse whose war still continued at every turn—something Jack had discovered the hard way.
Rorie Conley was hanging on for dear life, but he didn’t try to slow the animal down. He already knew how useless that would be. A charge was a charge to this horse, at least until it ran out of room. They finally broke into the clearing around the Garth cabin, and he had to work hard to rein it in. “Next time, you let me give this animal his instructions,” he said as he helped her swing down.
He dismounted and looked toward the cabin. Someone had put a lot of work into building it. It was tall enough to have a good-size