Amon (18 page)

“Does it take a long time to build a house?” Nettie asked out of the blue.

“Why?” asked Newton. “Are you wondering how long you’ll have to live in the hotel?”

“I like to know these things.”

“Let the menfolk worry about that,” Cutty said as he wondered how hard it would be to get the horses to turn right. They were going to have to leave the main road after about a mile and he wanted to be prepared.

“I would think having one’s own home would be much preferable to living in a room at the hotel,” Nettie commented.

“I’d be more concerned with seeing how things turn out between you and Amon,” Cutty said to stir up conversation.

It was a mistake. “What do you mean? I think things have come along rather well,” she said with a blush.

“You’ve only seen each other a few times, dear sister,” Newton pointed out. “Hardly the stuff of legend.”

“What marriage is?” she asked. “I realize we need to court to see if we’ll suit, but so far …” She blushed again. “… I see no reason for alarm. Do you?”

“I didn’t say a word,” he said, noticing she was becoming more flustered by the second.

Cutty chuckled as he remembered the kiss Amon had given her the day before and the effect it had on her. What was she going to do when he
really
laid one on her?

Without warning, she grabbed the reins from him. “I’d like to drive!”

“Hey, calm down!” Cutty said, trying to take them back. “Yer gettin’ yerself all riled up!”

“I’m doing no such thing,” she said and gave the horses’ rumps a slap. They broke into a trot.

“I’m the one drivin’ here! Anyways, women shouldn’t oughta handle horses!”

“What?” she snapped. “I’m perfectly capable!” To prove her point she slapped them again. They broke into a canter.

Cutty grabbed his hat before it blew off his head. “Whoa!”

Newton sighed. “She’s quite stubborn, this one. And likes to prove to herself she can do something.”

“Quite right!” Nettie yelled and, shoving Cutty’s hands out of the way, slapped the horses again. They went faster.

“Consarnit!” Cutty cried over the sound of thundering hooves. “What are ya tryin’ to do, get us all killed?”

Nettie laughed and leaned forward. Newton watched a moment, then grabbed the reins from her and slowed the horses down to a trot. “Perhaps I should drive.”

“Thank the Lord!” Cutty exclaimed as he gripped the wagon seat. He turned his panicked face to Nettie. “I think ya need a few lessons yet, so’s ya don’t scare the passengers.”

“Can you teach me?” she asked, her face flushed. “That was exhilarating!”

Cutty grimaced. “Exhilarating – right …”

Nettie faced forward, her eyes filled with excitement. “I could never have done such a thing in England!”

“Lucky for you, the rules are different out here,” Newton said.

“Indeed. Isn’t it exciting?” She looked between the two men, a wide smile on her face.

“That was excitin’, all right,” Cutty grumbled.

“Well?” she asked him.

“Well what?”

“When can you teach me how to drive?”

Cutty squinted his eyes shut.
When I’ve had a lesson or two myself
, he thought.

Seventeen

Nettie stared at Cutty and noticed his forehead was beaded with sweat despite the breeze from their recent run down the road. Good grief, was this hardened mountain man frightened by that little romp? She looked at his hands. They still gripped the wagon seat, white-knuckled. Heavens, he was! She turned and looked at Newton, who appeared cool as a cucumber as usual, then glanced back at Cutty. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he said in a squeak, his teeth clenched.

“I should have given you fair warning before I did such a foolish thing.”

“Ain’t foolish ‘less ya don’t know what yer doin’.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing. I’ve never driven a wagon before.”

Cutty slowly turned to her, still grimacing. “Well, I guess I’ll come clean – I ain’t driven one much either. But leastwise I done it more than you!”

“I see.” She covered her mouth as she began to giggle. “Perhaps we should have let Newton have the reins to begin with. He’s the expert.”

Cutty leaned forward on the seat to look at him. “Are ya, now? Ya had one of them fancy coaches back where ya come from?”

“Hardly,” Newton said. He gave Nettie a quick glance before continuing. “I spent more time in the driver’s seat of a coach than I ever did inside one as a passenger. Even so, driving was rare.”

Cutty stared at him. “I thought ya were the son of some fancy baron or somethin’. What’s a fella like you doin’ drivin’ a coach?”

Nettie gave Newton a tiny shake of her head. He ignored her. “You might as well know the truth.”

“Newton,” she pleaded. “Please don’t …”

Newton sighed. “No, dear sister – the time for masks is over. I’ve been giving this a great deal of thought. We have a chance to start a new life here, and –”

“Newton …” Nettie was near tears.

“– and we can’t do that if we’re hiding behind a façade. Besides, Cutty – and Amon – have been exceedingly good to us. I think they deserve to know.”

“To know what?” Cutty asked with suspicion. He was looking back and forth between Nettie, who was on the verge of hysterics, and the unnaturally calm Newton.

“We are relatives of the Sayers, that is true,” Newton told him. “But while we were wards of the Baron, we were not treated as nobility, and had none of the privileges. I was the Baron’s stable master – nothing more, nothing less. I cared for and trained his horses. And I had to fight to get that position.”

Cutty was taken aback. He gripped the seat again and gawked at them both. “Well … if’n yer brother worked in a barn, then what did you do?” he asked Nettie.

Her cheeks flamed red. “Newton, how could you?”

“I already told you,” he said. “It’s time to start over. And part of that is not pretending we were something more than … what the Baron allowed.”

“What he allowed?” Cutty said with a cough. “What do ya mean?”

Nettie shook her head. “He means nothing! It’s nothing!”

Newton took a deep breath and put an arm around his sister’s shoulders. “Poor Nettie was
nothing
more than a chambermaid for years. But that didn't satisfy his Lordship for long. She was soon reduced to a scullery maid.”

Cutty gasped. “A scullery maid? In yer own house?”

Nettie turned on the seat, her eyes imploring. “Please don’t tell Amon! I don’t want him to know –”

“Stop it,” Newton interrupted. He pulled on the reins and brought the team to a stop. “I’ll not have you go into this marriage with your future husband letting him believe a lie. It’s not fair to him, and it’s not fair to you. Yes, we grew up with on the Baron’s estate –but not as his children. He treated us little better than the plantation owners here in America treat their African slaves. That, my dear sister, is a simple fact.”

“Our secret was sealed behind those lips of yours!” Nettie raged. “Now you might as well shout it into the wind and let it be carried all over town!”

“And I will, if it proves necessary. But there’s something you don’t realize about our situation.” Newton looked past her to Cutty. “Does it matter to you, sir?”

Cutty knew he had to keep his temper. How dare the Baron … “It matters to me if’n he didn’t treat ya right. Wasn’t he some kind of relation?”

“Our grandfather,” Nettie said, her head low. “Most relatives of bastard children don’t even do that much.”

“What? Forcin’ ya to be a servant?” Cutty asked, appalled.

“Better a servant in our mother’s house than a beggar in the streets,” Newton said. “It wasn’t always that way – it didn’t start until after our mother died.”

“How old were ya?” Cutty asked, still trying to keep his temper in check.

Newton shrugged. “We were nine.”

Cutty let go of the wagon seat. “Well, I’ll be.”

“Do you see now, sister?” Newton asked. “People here, they worry not over class and station in life. Everyone here is what they have made of themselves, not where they were born nor who their parents were. We have been given the opportunity to do the same. Where we’ve come from matters not to Cutty – he doesn’t care if we worked in a stable or a kitchen. His only concern is whether we were treated well.”

“Dang right,” Cutty agreed, his voice flooded with emotion.

“And I know Amon will feel the same.”

Nettie remained unconvinced. “Please,” she pleaded to Cutty, “please don’t tell Amon!”

Cutty stared at her a moment before he finally spoke. “You don’t have to worry about me tellin’ him nothin’. It ain’t my place. If anyone’s gonna tell him, it should be you.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Newton said as he gave the horses a slap of leather and got them moving again.

“Oh … very well,” Nettie snapped. “But I’ll do it in my own time and in my own way.”

“Don’t wait too long,” Newton added. “I won’t have you married under a falsehood.”

“So that’s why yer here,” Cutty muttered to himself.

“Yes,” Newton said. “I petitioned our cousin the Duke of Stantham myself. Otherwise, who knows what might have happened to poor Nettie here. I had to do something – I couldn’t sit by and watch the Baron marry her off to just anyone.”

“To be rid of me,” she added, frowning.

“Why, that bloody bast …” Cutty began, then coughed. “… that low-down stinkin’ snake!”

“My thoughts exactly,” Newton said.

“He wasn’t evil,” Nettie confessed. “But he was insensitive. And he didn’t know what to do with a couple of by-blows after Mother died.”

All three remained silent the rest of the way, each lost in thought. Nettie wondered how she was going to explain to Amon her true position in the Baron’s household. Newton, though less embarrassed by the disclosure, knew he still needed to come clean with the people of Clear Creek if he was to get a job to support himself.

And Cutty … Cutty was still back at the part where the Baron made his daughter a kitchen maid. What he wouldn’t give to have that man in front of him for just five minutes. But would he thank him for not throwing his children into the streets, or throttle him for not doing better by them?

When they reached the men’s camp, he still didn't know.

* * *

Newton guided the wagon to a trough near the barn so he could water the horses. He brought the team to a stop, set the brake, hopped down and helped Nettie off. Cutty was already coming around the wagon as her feet touched the ground. “Amon’s prob’ly in the barn,” he told them. “That’s where his workshop is.”

“A workshop – how splendid,” Nettie said as she gazed at the barn’s open double doors. She still sounded a bit numb from Newton’s revelation.

Newton led the horses to the water and let them drink. “Why don’t you go see if he’s in there?”

“If he ain’t, he might be inside,” Cutty said as he nodded toward the cabin. “I know Jasper’s in there – I can smell bread bakin’.”

Newton laughed. “Leave it to you to know where there’s food.”

Cutty winked at him, smiled and patted his stomach. “You’re learnin’ me, son.”

Newton laughed. “Take her to the barn, will you?”

Cutty offered her his arm. “May I escort you, m’lady?” he asked in an upper-class English accent.

She giggled. “Why, Cutty, that was amazing. You could pass for an Englishman.”

Cutty cleared his throat. “Ya really think so?”

“Absolutely.”

“Yeah? Well, I prefer talkin’ like an imbecile.”

She hooked her arm through his. “You are not an imbecile, and don’t ever say you are. You’re one of the wittiest, kindest men I’ve ever met.”

He swallowed hard, bit his lip and steered her toward the barn without replying, praying she didn’t see the tears in his eyes. Thankfully the dim light of the barn would hide them from her. Not that she was likely to look at anything but Amon.

Sure enough, her eyes lit up when she saw him in his makeshift workshop inside a stall, and she pulled Cutty over to it. “Good morning,” she said.

Amon said nothing – he was too transfixed by the woman standing before him. He gave her a single nod and a wide smile.

“So,” she continued, “this is where you make beautiful things?”

“Ah … y-yes,” he stammered, collecting himself. He cleared his throat. “I was just starting something new. Would you like to see it?”

“It’s why we’re here. I hope we’re not imposing.”

“Not at all.”

“What’re ya makin’?” Cutty asked.

Amon pointed to several small pieces of wood on the worktable in front of him. “Toys.”

“Toys? For whom?” Nettie asked.

“There are several families with children in the area. I thought I could sell them at the mercantile. They’ll make fine Christmas gifts.”

Nettie stared at the pieces of wood and could see the beginnings of a face carved into one. “Have you ever made toys before?”

“This is a first. I’m used to working with larger pieces of wood. I wanted something a little more challenging, and the fine detail required for these should do the trick.”

She picked one up and fingered the work he’d already done. “I’m sure they’re going to be beautiful.”

“So yer … makin’ dolls?” Cutty asked.

“Soldiers, actually. I’m going to let Fina Stone paint them for me. She loves to do that sort of thing, I hear.”

“Ya can say that again!” Cutty chuckled. “Ya ever seen her kitchen table?”

Amon laughed. “No, but I’ve heard about it.”

“What’s wrong with her table?” Nettie asked.

“She done painted it bright red and yellah,” Cutty told her.

“I’d heard stories about Fina and her painting growing up. But I didn’t think she still did such things.”

“I don’t care what she did to her table, so long as she makes my toys look good,” Amon said as he came around to stand before them. “Would you like some coffee? I’m sure Jasper has a pot on the stove.”

“Thank you, I’d love some
,
” Nettie said.

He gazed into her eyes and smiled before heading toward the cabin.

Nettie stared after him in bewilderment, then sighed, her eyes downcast. “There he goes again …”

“What’s the matter?”

“A gentleman usually offers a lady his arm,” she stated.

“Ya came in on my arm – maybe he thinks I’m the one to escort you back.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Perhaps you’re right.”

“Perhaps ya worry too much.”

Nettie had no response for that.

“He’s eager to serve, I’ll give him that,” Cutty said with a wink. “He can’t pour you a cup of coffee fast enough.”

Nettie smiled. “He’ll make a good husband, won’t he?”

“Only you can be the judge of that. I ain’t the one has to marry him!” He wrapped one of her arms through his and headed for the doors.

“Cutty,” she said, bringing them to a stop. “If you thought him an ill match, would you tell me?”

“Course I would – I’m no blackguard.”
Anymore
. “I ain’t doin’ this just for the food like yer brother thinks.”

“He doesn’t think that at all. He adores you as much as I do.”

“Even so, I’m doin’ it because I like both of ya and want to see ya marry well.”

She smiled again and he glimpsed the tears in her eyes as she leaned toward him and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you. I knew I could count on you.”

“Shucks, Nettie, ya two are kinda growin’ on me too. I wouldn’t wanna see either of ya marry someone that’d make ya unhappy.” They kept walking, both smiling now.

When they reached the cabin Jasper poured them each a cup of coffee, got himself a cup, then sat at the table to visit. “Is that cinnamon bread I smell?” Cutty asked.

“Yep – but you ain’t makin’ off with no loaves,” Jasper snapped.

“Did I ask to take any?” Cutty asked innocently.

“You don’t have to say nothin’ – I know you too well!” Jasper scolded him.

“Ha! You don’t know nothin’!”