Stavewood (Stavewood Saga Book 1) (6 page)

Chapter Nine

         
 
M
ark
nearly dropped the girl in shock. With her face nearly cleaned up and her clothing lying against her he realized that Rebecca was not a child like him, but instead a grown woman. The boy was certain that even as filthy as she was, he did not recognize her. Mark knew almost everyone around the area and he was sure he would have remembered her, her features as fine and delicate as a doll.

      Studying her face he reflected that she looked a little like his grandmother. Her coloring was probably not the same, though it was hard to tell since this lady was whiter than a sun bleached bone. Her hair was dark too, he thought, but there was something in her fine face and tiny upturned nose that felt familiar and comfortable to him.

    Instantly he thought of his father. What would his father say? Mark thought of the possibilities. He’d brought a woman here that he’d saved from a shack that wasn’t there before, but was now. His thoughts were a jumble. His Pa would want to find out who she was and who had done this, but Mark had no idea when he would return and what would the boy do with her in the meantime? He could take her by horseback down the mountain, but what if whoever was after her saw them, or came here looking for her? And as pale as she was, he wasn’t even sure she’d survive the trip. When he cared for his sick animals he knew that poor color was not a good sign.

      The boy paced the room in a panic, ran to the front of the cabin, and peered out of the door cautiously. He’d have to hide her, he thought, just in case. That way if anyone came looking for her she might be safe. He began to gather blankets and a bedroll and decided to transport her to the old stable up the hill. She’d be safer there and he’d tend to her as he could.

      He crept up the hill several times, setting up a makeshift bed in the abandoned stable and returned, slipping silently back into the house intending to move the woman at once.

      While thinking about lifting and carrying her to the hideaway, Mark lost his resolve standing beside the bed. She was taller than him, and if he couldn’t carry her well enough she could get hurt. She wasn’t big though, he thought, mostly just in big clothes. He moved aside the bowl on the bench and sat watching her.

      The afternoon’s ordeal had exhausted him and his nerves were frazzled. He just couldn’t think of a way to address the whole situation and wished, as he had many times before, that his father would arrive. His Pa would know exactly what to do, and no one messed with his Pa. Ever. They’d be safe and he’d make everything right.

     As he watched the woman sleep silently, he too, soon grew drowsy. Mark moved to the big chair in the corner and drifted off.

      At nightfall he woke suddenly and cursed himself for falling asleep. Something in his memory tugged at him, recalling an event that had happened a few summers ago. One of the loggers had gotten hit on the head and there was something about not letting him sleep too long or he’d never wake up. Mark decided he had better wake the woman just in case, he was kind of hungry and she might be hungry too. Anyway, it might be nice to have someone share his supper. He leaned over the girl and touched her arm carefully, whispering her name softly.

      Rebecca opened her eyes wearily, and although she was paler than ever, she seemed somewhat coherent.

      “Hungry?” Mark asked.

      “Oh yes,” the woman whispered hoarsely.

      Mark left to heat a stew and Rebecca tried to sit up on the soft bed. Every muscle of her body cried out in cruel pain and her head pounded mercilessly. She wanted to slip into a deep long sleep but something kept her on the edge and she began to imagine that she was home at her dining table with a fine meal spread out before her.

      “I made this for us,” the boy interrupted her dream.

      Rebecca pried open her aching eyes and saw Mark squatting before her, a huge steaming bowl in his awkward hands. She knew she could barely move, but the smell of the food was so enticing.

      “Could you help me sit up?” she whispered weakly. Setting aside the bowl, Mark arranged the bed and tried to hand Rebecca the bowl but she seemed too confused to hold it herself. Instead he spooned the soup into her carefully and after she seemed to be unable to accept any more he shifted her down onto the mattress and let her continue to sleep.

      “How old are you?” he whispered. She looked really young, but he remembered when he was little and Grandmother was really sick she looked a lot like this, frail and helpless like a tiny bird. Maybe she was much older than he thought. Maybe she had a son of her own somewhere and she’d want someone to look after him. The boy was disappointed that she couldn’t talk to him while he ate, but he filled himself a bowl of stew and sat in the big chair he’d pulled up beside her and watched her. He decided he’d spend the night close to the front door, just in case, and make sure the rifle was close at hand should anyone come after his patient.

      Morning arrived without incident and Mark stretched beside the front door where he had spent the night. He’d gotten up several times in the night to check his new responsibility and found her sleeping, but not so soundly that she wouldn’t respond if he spoke her name.

      He mixed up a large batch of porridge in the hopes she’d have more appetite and be better company and took it in to his guest.

      Rebecca responded much more lucidly this time, able to sit up with support and could even lift a few spoonfuls to her mouth on her own. Her drowsiness lingered and it took the boy a full day of spooning food into her and hauling her out to the outhouse before it seemed that she might improve. He’d cleaned her wound as best he could and since it didn’t fester he was sure that it would heal alright, but it would most certainly leave a scar. He didn’t mind scars much himself, sometimes they were fun to brag over, but he didn’t imagine a lady like her would care much to have one right on her head where her hair was. It was too early to tell though. The gash was still bloody and looked ragged.

      Pa always told him that when a sick animal began to get feisty they were healing well and Rebecca was becoming just that. She started asking the boy every time he approached her if there were any way she could get a bath. He offered her some of his own clothes and she accepted them very sweetly but the only way she might get into a bath would be either to wash with a bucket or go down to the stream like he did. He was sure the trip to the stream would be impossible, and he feared taking the girl out, but he did eventually devise an idea for a bath.

      He rolled in an old split keg that they sometimes used to collect rain water. He scrubbed it out thoroughly in the yard with buckets full of water he had hauled up and left it in the sun to dry. When he rolled it into the room he announced to Rebecca that it was a bathtub just her size.

      The young woman was thrilled with any container that might hold her and some water as well and thanked the boy profusely in her usual manner. Mark spent most of the afternoon heating water for her bath and, once the tub was filled with the steaming liquid, Rebecca’s excitement was engaging. The boy sat her in a chair beside the keg, concerned she might fall and handed her a cowbell to ring periodically so he’d know if she drowned. Rebecca thought it hysterical, yet delightfully thoughtful, and shooed him away from her chair beside the tub. Mark gathered the blankets he had pulled from the bed, finished replacing them with fresh ones and slipped out of the room timidly.

      Rebecca carefully pulled the filthy, mud encrusted clothing from her aching legs. Although she had been convalescing for days she was shocked to see that she was deeply scratched and bruised. One ankle had what looked like a nasty burn and both of her knees were nearly black with discoloration. Her abdomen was swollen and distended on one side and her arms were spotted with blotches.

      “Are you alright in there?” Mark called through the heavy door.

      “Oh yes, fine,” Rebecca replied weakly. “I’m sorry I forgot the bell.” She had to laugh in spite of the ache in her side and her dismal discovery of her condition. The swelling in her side alarmed her most of all, sending a shiver up her spine.

      She rang the cowbell loudly and could hear the boy’s chuckle outside. Lifting her weight carefully and slowly she lowered herself into the keg and slid into the steaming water. Her head began to pound instantly and she realized she still had much healing to do before a bath, even one in a rough old keg, would be at all enjoyable. She rang the bell again and painfully lathered herself with the soft soap the boy had given her. After several excruciating attempts to wash her hair well and much ringing of the cow bell she decided she had done enough when she could barely focus as she watched a thin trickle of blood drip into the hot water from her forehead. Fearful she might need to call out to the boy for assistance should she linger much longer, she pulled herself painfully from the keg and wrapped the blanket he had left for her around herself. Dressing in clean clothes would have to wait as Rebecca fell to the mattress.

      No longer hearing the bell Mark called out to her.

      “I’m alright,” she whimpered back.

      Mark was alarmed at the tone of her voice and announced that he was coming in. Before Rebecca could protest he burst into the room and found her faint and bleeding on the bed. Throwing another blanket over her bare legs he arranged her as carefully as possible and pressed a clean cloth to her head. Rebecca shivered violently and it was clear she was feverish. The boy cursed at how the bath may not have been a good idea and contemplated, as he had several times since finding the woman, riding down the mountain for help. No one would come looking for her he hoped, but if he left her alone and someone did, he would never forgive himself.

      “Damn it, Pa,” he cursed aloud. “Why aren’t you back yet?”

      Rebecca whispered a weak thank you for the wonderful bath and drifted off to sleep. When Mark was sure she slept peacefully and that the bleeding had stopped on her forehead he stepped outside the cabin to catch his breath.

      He thought he heard the hooves of an approaching horse for a moment, but it passed quickly. He listened tensely for several minutes to the wind in the trees. He’d spent every night beside the door and concluded that he could not leave the woman alone. He would have to wait until his father returned.

Chapter Ten

          
 
O
nce
her fever broke Rebecca regained her strength quickly, joining the boy guardedly outdoors. When Mark’s father did not return as promised, the boy reminded himself that his late arrival was not unusual and did his best to help Rebecca heal quickly.

      She followed him out to feed the chickens in the afternoon.

      “What would happen if you didn’t take their eggs away?” Rebecca asked as she helped Mark gather the eggs.

      “They’d grow chicks,” he informed her, perplexed that the woman knew practically nothing about keeping fowl or any animal at all.

      “I would expect that,” she replied in her funny proper way.

      “Then we’d have no breakfast and a bunch of chickens!” Mark laughed.

      Rebecca scowled. She wasn’t a fool, she thought that there was something to taking away the warm eggs daily that she didn’t quite understand, but the boy found her ignorance so entertaining she held her tongue. His attitude towards her was improving though, she thought. She told him the best way to weed the garden while the soil was soft and damp, but not too muddy and he taught her not to be afraid of the chickens. She overdid, lying in pain at night, but she didn’t want the boy to see her as fragile and incapable of doing all the things a child could do.

      Both of them remained watchful, not venturing far from the cabin. Rebecca avoided the boy’s questioning about her as much as possible, preferring not to explain her reasons for leaving the train, or why she had come to America, and Mark spoke about his relationship with his father only when pressed, being as evasive as possible.

      Some books were left for Mark to study, but his father had stopped checking his progress over time and Rebecca helped him catch up. When they talked he’d ask her about England, never tiring of teasing her about her accent or what he called her “proper ways”, often mimicking her and laughing heartily at how different their descriptions were of the same things.

      Mark began to talk more and more about his mother and how desperately both he and his father had missed her. It concerned Rebecca that, although very capable of caring for himself, so young a child was left unattended for such a long period of time. She didn’t think much of Mark’s father for his neglect of the boy, even in the light of explanations of the man’s business dealings and grief over his lost wife.

      Rebecca did not put much thought into the man during her early convalescence. But now his return began to concern her. She stood in front of the mirror and tried to see herself through the eyes of a stranger.  The boy’s clothing was clean and decent she supposed, but she could not adjust to wearing pants instead of a skirt. The huge scab that had formed on her hairline was healing well, but still looked ghastly to her so she took to wearing a felt cap much of the time, stuffing her hair up into it to keep the waist-long mass out of her way. The clothing, though small, still fit her badly so she wore a large jacket over it most of the time. It occurred to her that the boy may have spent so much time laughing at her, not simply because she was a “foreigner”, as he called her, but perhaps because she looked so utterly ridiculous. She tried removing the cap, removing the jacket, replacing the cap without the jacket. Rebecca gave up hopelessly.

      It worried her that anyone might encounter her in such a state and she tried to devise a way she might find acceptable clothing. She was handy with a needle and she knit quite well. She mentioned that to Mark one day and it seemed to surprise him that she could be handy, even in a feminine way. Contrary to what her dead husband had once said to her about such things being best left to the peasants, as he often referred to the help, she enjoyed them and missed her tatting and the hours spent before the fire working on her bobbin lace. There was no way however that she could do anything about clothing herself in a suitable manner now. Rebecca began to wonder if perhaps she and Mark should leave the cabin and set out to find someone to care for the boy and possibly some kind of employment for herself, although she knew she possessed few marketable skills.

      “Mark,” she ventured one day. “I’m worried about your father. We really need to consider leaving. How would you know if something happened to him? I can’t just live here forever.”

      “We could ride back to the main house I suppose,” he responded to her suggestion. “I did it once before when he was gone for a while. He wasn’t too happy though.” Mark hadn’t forgotten his promise to always behave. He didn’t want to leave without his father knowing and he himself had begun to have concerns over explaining the woman. He did not want to admit to Rebecca that he had been worried now for quite some time about his father and where to go from here. He decided to be forthright with her and admit his concerns.

      “I’m not sure what Pa’ll say about you being here. I had a friend ride up here once and he didn’t care for it much. Like I said, since Ma passed he’s been, well…, he’s sorta short sometimes. Maybe I could send you down alone you think? No one’s come looking for you and maybe you could find a way to get back home.”

      Rebecca thought the boy’s father completely unreasonable if he were unable to see that her being at the cabin was unavoidable. She was also terrified of leaving alone, and what would she do if she actually made it to anywhere? Dressed this way no one would listen to her, even if she did attempt to explain. How would she get home? She had no money and the only people who knew her were Mark… and Bedra.

      What if Bedra were to find her? Rebecca trembled at the thought. She tried to explain her reservations to the boy without sounding too fragile.

      “I could give you money!” he volunteered. “Once you get down to the bottom of the mountain you could set the horse free and she’ll come back on her own. I know a lady friend of my mother’s that might take you in and give you some regular clothes to wear!” Mark had become animated with excitement at his plan.

      Rebecca pondered, frightened over the idea, and then decided there was no alternative except to venture down on her own and try to improve the situation. She went over possible problems with the boy, even trying to get him to at least go part of the way down with her. She wished the boy wasn’t so fearful of his father and would simply come with her. She had become so concerned over the boy being alone that she promised that if she did make it down safely she would quickly inform his mother’s friend of the boy’s isolation.

      “I’m fine,” he assured her. “He’ll be back, he always is. Must’a got sidetracked is all. I’ll be just fine.”

      Mark hung an unusual hand beaded bag from the saddle horn on the morning she decided to leave.

      “There’s some money for you.”

      Rebecca pulled the cap far down on her head, fearing that she’d run into Bedra, and hoping if she did she would not be recognized.

      “You’ll be fine,” the boy assured her. “My Ma used to ride that horse everywhere, if she could do it you can, too! I’ll look for you when Pa’s back up. You remember all the directions I told you right?” he asked as he helped her onto the horse.

      “I think so.” Rebecca winced at the continuing pain in her side and fought back tears of uncertainty.

      Mark gave the horse a sharp slap and the chestnut mare started in a slow pace down the mountain, still unfamiliar with Rebecca’s tentative form in the saddle. The young woman looked back at the boy and worried he’d be alright, but his open smile put her a little more at ease and she focused on the path before her.

      Standing before the cabin, overwhelmed with emotion, Mark watched the girl ride down the path. When she turned back once or twice he waved openly to her. She looked very different than the day he had found her all beaten up in the abandoned shack. The sun drenched autumn days had put color in her cheeks and regular meals had filled her out some. Her help with the chores around the cabin had made her stronger and built her confidence. Mark wondered how he ever thought she was a boy like himself. Even dressed in the boy’s clothing she was definitely a woman and she carried herself on the back of the horse in a very ladylike manner. The boy thought again of his mother and how she sat upright so similarly whenever she was nervous.

      Despite his assurances to Rebecca he’d become unusually concerned about his father, and now he had grown attached to this woman and she had taken the horse. When the animal returned he thought it might be long enough to think about heading back to the main house. He wasn’t too worried about the woman, she did have some curious ways and there were many things the boy knew she needed to learn to live easily in his world, but he felt confident she’d find her way alright if she didn’t run into those folks who had waylaid her.

      He knew if he did go down in a few days there’d be some things he have to take care of and with Rebecca there he had never picked up those blasted traps. He set out into the woods to find the snares and get rid of them.