A Bride in the Bargain (25 page)

She’d squeezed her eyes shut and promised God she’d be good if He’d keep Papa safe. She hadn’t known about the bullets. She hadn’t known.

Three weeks later, her mother was dead. The doctor said she’d died of a broken heart. But Anna knew better. It was because Anna hadn’t been the kind of daughter she should have been. She’d been impatient and surly and picked fights with Leon for the sole purpose of garnering Mama’s attention.

How would she tell Papa that Leon had run off? That Mama was dead? And that both were entirely her fault? Still, she knew she must.

Penning that letter was the hardest thing she’d done in her entire life. But even worse was never hearing back from him. It wasn’t until his name appeared in the local newspaper as one of the casualties of war that she discovered he’d died at the Antietam Battle. The same day she’d picked a fight with Leon and accidentally hit her mother.

A tear fell on her nightdress. Anna looked up, recalling where she was, the letter gripped in her hand.

The rain had started again. Bit by bit, a rhythmic pounding penetrated her consciousness. Frowning, she moved to the window and pulled back its sheer covering.

She couldn’t see anything but the reflection of the glowing logs from her room’s fireplace. Yet she didn’t need to see. She knew Joe was out there. With his ax. Chopping down a tree.
The
tree. The chestnut she’d accused him of loving more than anything else.

She leaned her forehead against the window.
Please don’t do this, Joe. Not now. Not after I’ve hurt you. I didn’t know it was her tree when I first asked you to fell it. I didn’t know
.

But she’d known what it was when she’d made her nasty charge against him. Bile churned in her stomach. She hadn’t changed at all. Deep down, she was that same impatient, surly girl who picked fights.

The rain’s intensity increased, hammering the glass. She wondered, not for the first time, if the downpour made it hard to grip his ax or secure his footing.

He labors in the rain all the time,
she thought. Only violent storms and the danger of fire could keep the lumberjacks from their work. That and darkness. But it was dark now.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

She pictured his strong, agile body swinging the ax, shoulders bunched, knees bent, rain sluicing down his face and neck, finding its way beneath his shirt.

The telltale cracking of a tree ready to fall drew her attention. No shout of timber accompanied it, but then, there wouldn’t be anyone in its way.

She held her breath, waiting for the impact, but heard instead a second splintering followed by two consecutive crashes. Then nothing.

The hairs on her arm rose. No scream of victory.

But, of course, Joe wouldn’t consider felling that tree a triumph. Yet even as she tried to reassure herself, she forsook her boots, grabbed her wrap and a lantern, then raced down the stairs and flew out into the rain.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

Joe stood before Lorraine’s chestnut tree, emotion clogging his throat. He should have taken it down long ago. It was just a tree.

Lifting the ax, he made his first swing. What was this one little tree compared to the three hundred twenty acres of trees he’d be losing to Tillney? Along with a portion of his skid road. And a section of his brand-new log chute. And the streams and springs coursing through that half.

And Anna. What was it compared to Anna?

It was nothing. It really was just a tree. But with each stroke, he knew the felling of it wouldn’t win her hand. He was going to lose her and he was going to lose his land.

He settled into a rhythm as frustration and anger welled up inside him. He didn’t want to think about Anna.

So he thought about his land. He should never have relied on Mercer. He should have gone out east himself and found his own bride. Being away all that time wouldn’t have been near as bad as losing his land.

And if he was going to lose his land, why did it have to be to Tillney? Bits of rain sprinkled through the leaves, moistening his face and hands.

The prospect of losing his land,
really
losing his land, became a serious possibility in his mind for the very first time. Before, he’d figured he could somehow work it out. But not anymore. He needed a wife and his last chance had just said no. Again. Judge Rountree wouldn’t be offering any more extensions.

Joe recalled the year he’d signed up for the grant and received his acreage. He’d had nothing but an ax and six wild oxen. It had taken him three weeks to break them. Once he had, he hired a four-man logging crew, then started every day at first light.

He cooked and fed the men in one old shanty, then fed the oxen in another. He acted as foreman, bucker, bullwhacker, and faller.

It had taken years of hard work and perseverance to build what he had. And he stood to lose half. Simply because he didn’t have a wife.

The rain beat down with a vengeance now, but he was almost done. Directing the chestnut to fall in the opposite direction from which it leaned was child’s play. Still, he eyed the spot he was aiming for.

Between the darkness and the rain, he couldn’t see a thing. No matter. He knew the lay of his land. After a couple more chops, he felt the tree start to give.

I’m sorry, Lorraine. I’m sorry for not loving you the way I should have
.

The sharp splintering of the fibers gave their own cry of warning. Joe jumped out of the way, then watched as it began its descent right where he’d planned.

The sound of another tremendous crack caught him by surprise. He knew without looking up that the falling timber had struck a second tree, breaking off the top of it and redirecting the chestnut’s path.

He started to run, praying the portion of the second tree— falling who knew where—wouldn’t crush him and that any ricocheting debris wouldn’t impale him.

His pant leg snagged on something.
I’m not wearing my sawed-off pants
.

It was his last thought.

A cold sheet of rain hit Anna as she left the lean-to, soaking her wrapper and nightdress. By the lantern’s light, she slowed as she approached the chestnut tree. Only a stump was left. The rest lay prostrate beside it. Her heart clutched; then she scanned the area.

“Joe?” Lifting the lantern, she crept closer, ignoring the rocky ground poking into her feet. “Joe?”

She picked her way along the fallen tree, but the limbs and debris made it near impossible. “Joe? Can you hear me?”

The rain swallowed any response he might have made. Something sharp jabbed into her tender sole. Yelping, she hopped back.

She would have to get her shoes. Retracing her steps, she paused to look around the clearing, squinting in an effort to see through the darkness.

The vague silhouette of a splintered log a few yards away captured her attention. Lifting the lantern, her breath caught. It wasn’t a log.

“Joe!”

He lay facedown and unmoving on the ground. Dropping to her knees, she touched his shoulder. “Joe? Are you all right? Can you hear me?”

Putting the lantern down, she slid a hand under his heavy head, lifted it a little, then turned his face so it was no longer buried. She placed her fingers on his neck, then held her breath. His pulse thrummed with a strong and steady beat.

Thank you, Lord
.

She ran her hands along his arms and back and legs, checking for breaks and blood. Nothing.

“Joe?”

No response.

“Joe, please. Can you hear me?” She combed his hair away from his face and pulled back quickly when she encountered something sticky.

Oh no
. She tentatively reached again for the spot that had blood on it. A knot the size of a lemon grew behind his ear.

Anna's heart dropped. This was her fault. If only she hadn’t been so thoughtless with her rejection of him. If only she hadn’t mentioned the tree again.

“Joe?” She gently shook his shoulder, tears mingling with the rain on her face. “Wake up. Can you hear me?”

He didn’t so much as moan.

She bit her lip. She was going to have to leave him and get help. Either that or sit here until he woke up. But that could be hours yet. Days, even.

She discarded that thought as quickly as it came.
Please, God. Not days
.

Surging to her feet, she ran to the lean-to and pulled a chair from the table, then dragged it out to where he lay. With great care, she positioned it over his neck and head. Rain began to puddle on the seat, but no longer hit his face underneath.

Satisfied, she ran inside to put on her boots, then gathered some blankets. When she had Joe and the chair covered as best as she could, she grabbed the lantern and ran to the men’s sleeping quarters, splashing through the puddles, slipping on mud, and tripping over roots.

Anna rapped her fist against the door of the bunkhouse. “Red! Thirsty! Somebody! Wake up!”

Ronny jerked the door open. His eyes bulged. His hair stood out in discordant spikes. His faded blue union suit covered him from neck to foot.

“Where’s Red?” she gasped, grabbing the ache in her side.

“Here.” Red pushed the door wider, hopping on one foot as he poked the other into his trouser leg. “What’s happened?”

“Joe got hurt felling a tree.”

Red paused, his shoulders relaxing. “You must be having a bad dream. Joe’s a seasoned lumberjack. He’d never do any chopping at night.”

She turned her attention back to Ronny. “Joe got hurt felling a tree. I need help moving him inside. Will you come?”

Ronny jerked upright as if struck by a bolt of lightning, then surged forward. “Show me where.”

Red grabbed him by the neck and flung him back inside. Anna hadn’t realized the rest of the men had crowded behind the door until they caught Ronny as he fell. All of them were mussed. All were wearing union suits. All were staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“Let us get our, um, boots on first.” Red turned to the men. “Well? You heard her. Get moving!”

She didn’t wait but began running back home.

“At the house,” she gasped when they caught up with her. “By the chestnut tree. Go on. Hurry.”

“Ronny, stay with her.”

The men rushed past.

Ronny grasped her elbow. “No need to run anymore, Miss Ivey. The boys will take care of him.”

She didn’t use up precious breath arguing. She simply alternated between running and jogging. Still, her body refused to cooperate. Several times, she had to stop until the stitch in her side eased. And once, she tripped over a root, sprawling facedown on the path.

The storm worsened, the rain pelting her face with a stinging force. By the time the two of them made it back to the house, Joe was already inside.

They had the fire roaring, the water heating, and Joe stripped of his wet clothing. Wrapped in nothing more than a blanket, he lay on the floor. The men lounged around the kitchen laughing, telling jokes, acting as if Joe’s accident was nothing but a trifle.

“He woke up?” she asked.

“Not that I know of.” Red glanced at Pelican. “Give him a kick, would you?”

Pelican—a great pouch of snuff swelling his lower lip and making him look like his namesake—gave Joe a little shove with his foot.

“Stop it! What are you doing?” She raced to his side and shooed the men back.

“Oh, come on now, Miss Ivey. It’s not too often we get the chance to kick the boss while he’s down.” There was no malice in Pelican’s voice, and his expression was one of amused tolerance. As if he were teasing about some child who’d scraped his knee.

The men chuckled. She could not believe they would jest at a time like this. Before she had time to say so, Fish and Milton lumbered down the stairs with a bed from the spare room.

“Be careful!”

But they paid her no heed, gouging the wall on one side and scraping the stair rail on the other. By the time they made it into the kitchen, they’d left a trail of destruction in their wake.

She quickly scooted a chair to the side.

“Hoist ’em up, boys,” Red bellowed.

The men closest to Joe each grabbed a limb and swung him like a pendulum.

“No!” she screamed.

But he was already airborne. The blanket around him slipped loose, pooling at the crux of the V his body made. He landed with a thud on the mattress, his modesty barely intact. A puff of dust billowed out around him.

“Out!” Anna pointed a finger at the door. “Out before I throttle every last one of you!”

They looked first at her and then each other, clearly perplexed.

“What’s the matter?” Thirsty asked.

“What’s the matter?
What’s the matter?
That man has a head injury and you boys are throwing him around like some log you plan to send down the chute. That’s what’s the matter.”

Gibbs glanced at Joe. “Oh, he’ll be all right. That little bump’s nothing compared to the one a fellow down in Tacoma got. Why, that one was so big it killed him dead. Joe’s not dead. He’s just sleeping it off.”