The Green Lace Corset, стр. 35
She clenched her fists beside her and stamped her boot. “It’s not a dispute, I say. There’s a one-thousand-dollar reward out for him, dead or alive. Please, take me to Flagstaff!” She folded her hands under her chin.
His dark eyes shifted. “I’m not headed that way.”
“How about down to Prescott?”
“I need to keep from towns these days.”
Sally Sue understood what he meant. Flimflam men like him had come through her neighborhood in Kansas City all the time. What they said was always too good to be true. The last one had sold a tonic that gave folks diarrhea, including her ma. Sally Sue hadn’t been able to enter the outhouse for a week, the stench had been so bad.
“If I write a quick note, will you post it for me? I’d really appreciate it.”
“Be happy to.” He beamed. “I’ll wait right here.”
Sally Sue ran in the cabin, grabbed her writing materials out of her basket, set them on the table, and sat. Dipping the pen in ink, she started writing:
Dear Mama,
I’m okay.
That was a lie. Sally Sue scratched it out and started again:
Ma,
I’ve been kidnapped by the bank robber and taken to a homestead outside Flagstaff. Please send help.
Your daughter,
Sally Sue
She hurriedly wrote another:
Sheriff Mack,
I’m out at the Ivrys’ place with Clifford the outlaw. Please bring a posse.
Sally Sue Sullivan
She folded the notes in half, slid them into her last two envelopes, addressed each, grabbed some coins for stamps, and ran back outside. But the wagon was way up on top of the knoll. Darn it! She stomped her foot, ran out onto the meadow, and opened her mouth to yell.
“Who’s that?” Cliff came around the side of the cabin on the mare.
She froze, hid the letters behind her, and started backing up toward the cabin. “Nobody. Just a flimflam man. I sent him away.”
“Really? What’ve you got there?” Cliff asked.
“Uh, just a little poetry I’m writing.”
“I didn’t know you wrote poetry.”
“You don’t know everything about me.”
“I suppose not.” He rode toward the barn, a fowl swinging from the back of his saddle. He stopped and turned around. “Do you want to learn how to pluck a turkey?”
“Not really.” She averted her eyes away from the disgusting dead bird. She couldn’t imagine touching it, let alone plucking it. At home, they got their meat ready to cook from a butcher. Next, Cliff would be asking her to muck the horse manure.
“Clean out the fireplace, why don’t you?”
Sally Sue saw some things lying in the mud. She stooped down, picked them up, and brushed them off on her trousers: black lace and red ribbon remnants. Had the man left them for her because he felt guilty about running off, or had he dropped them by accident? Didn’t really matter. She’d keep them anyway.
She hid the letters and the remnants in the trunk under the red dress. Was there anything more she could have done to get that man to take her with him? She set to work cleaning out the fireplace ashes, now that they had cooled.
After a supper of flapjacks and eggs, she rinsed the dishes while Cliff reset and started the fire. She checked his holey socks to make sure they were dry on the hearth. From the trunk, she pulled out the darning egg and sat in the rocker. She inserted the egg into the sock under the hole and stretched it slightly, examining it.
His tall body stood before her, and when she looked up, he was smiling. “This is just cozy.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Cliff knocked his pipe on the mantel and sat across from her. He added tobacco to the pipe, lit it, took a puff, and blew out the smoke. The aromas of anisette and chocolate filled the air.
She put her basket on her lap and searched her sewing kit for a needle.
“Darn it!” She jumped up. “Mouse droppings. They’re all over in here.”
“I’m sorry. Let me take care of it for you.” He began to stand.
“No, you set.” She waved her hand at him. “I’ll be right back.”
She shook out all her supplies off the porch, waggled the basket upside down, and stomped back inside.
“That darned powder didn’t work.”
“It hasn’t been long. You gotta give it some time.” She could tell Cliff was trying not to laugh.
She held up her metal tatting shuttle. The collar she’d been making had been nibbled through. “How much time?”
He shrugged.
At least her Bible hadn’t been eaten. She was glad she had put it in her basket. She’d planned to read it to her bedridden aunt. Had she died? What did Ma think now that it was long past time for Sally Sue to return home?
Sally Sue found her biggest needle and pulled the egg and some yarn scraps from her pocket. She chose indigo blue, to match his eyes. She paused. She shouldn’t be thinking like that. Instead, she chose blue to match the sky and threaded it through the needle.
“How did the turkey cleaning go?” she asked.
“Fine, fine. We’ll be eating some tomorrow.” He took another puff on his pipe.
“Did you get all the buckshot out of it?” One time, she had broken a back tooth on some the butcher hadn’t found.
“No buckshot. I use a bow and arrow. It’s cleaner that way.”
“Really? Like an Indian? Wouldn’t you be able to get more turkeys with a gun?” She leaned toward the lantern hanging nearby and carefully began to weave the needle around the hole, making sure it lay flat. If it didn’t, he could get a blister on his foot—though why she should care about that, she didn’t know.
He put down his pipe on the end table next to him, stoked the fire, and sat again. “I only kill what I’m gonna eat.”
That made sense. She began to create the warp over the sock hole. She looked up to say something, but his eyes had drooped closed.
Loneliness gnawed at her