Olivia, Mourning (14 page)

Chapter Fourteen

“That gotta be Fae’s Landing over there on the other side,” Mourning said the next day when the road brought them to a narrow, swiftly flowing river. “And that be poor little Fae’s raft.” He pointed at the rack of decaying wooden slats that bobbed in the water.

A mill stood on the opposite bank, but there was no buzz of saws or smell of freshly cut lumber. Olivia stood up and craned her neck, looking for someone to call out to. “The whole place looks deserted,” she said, sitting back down.

“Maybe they all late risers. Or maybe they havin’ a town meeting or somethin’.”

“Hmm.” She kept straining to look behind her as Mourning drove on.

The road followed the river and soon narrowed into a grassy trail that was just wide enough to accommodate the wagon. They couldn’t always see the water through the trees, but they could hear it. Not far downriver the woods thinned and they glimpsed an equally silent gristmill.

“You’d think there’d be somebody about,” she said, ducking a branch.

“That fellow said it ain’t much of a town.”

“Even so.”

Soon they were facing the river and a large clearing, with open space and gently sloping banks on both sides of the water. Here the river was twice as wide, but looked shallow enough to cross.

“This must be the place he was talking about,” Olivia said. “I think I see a trail over there.” She squinted into the sun, scrutinizing the buffalo grass waving on the other side.

“We best get out of the wagon,” Mourning said. “It be easy enough for the team goin’ down, but gettin’ up that other side … We maybe gotta take some things out and carry ’em over. But first we give it a try.”

They climbed down and removed their shoes and stockings. Olivia tossed hers into the back of the wagon, but Mourning shook his head and told her to put her stockings in her pocket and tie her shoelaces to something. She was glad that while Mourning was still asleep she had changed out of her heavy traveling clothes and petticoats, into a plain green work dress with a green and white striped apron over it. She hitched up her skirts and stepped in.

“Uncle Scruggs wasn’t kidding about this water being ice cold.”

Mourning waded in a few steps, leading the oxen by the yoke and making no attempt to keep his pant legs dry. The team willingly followed him and he shouted to Olivia, “You grab the wagon and hold on. River can fool you. Watch out for holes.”

She obeyed. The swift current sparkled over slippery stones and she would have fallen on her backside had she not been holding on tight.

“We gotta wait up,” Mourning said, raising a hand. “They thirsty.”

The oxen were straining to lower their heads and Mourning freed them, allowing them to drink. Then he put them back in harness and gave Dixby a friendly slap on the rear as he yelled, “Hyahhhhh!” Olivia’s arm jerked forward and she struggled to keep up with the wagon as the team charged into the water, which was soon almost waist-deep. The smooth bottom turned to squishy mud studded with sharp rocks that scraped and stubbed her feet.

“Whoa, whoa, now.” When they’d made it up the other bank Mourning pulled the team short and stroked their heads. “You boys done one fine job. Guess you earned your breakfast.”

Olivia had heard a splash and – once she regained her balance – turned to look behind them. The washtub had escaped Mourning’s web of ropes and fallen off the wagon. Luckily the current had lodged it between some large rocks slightly downriver and Olivia slogged back into the water to retrieve it before it was carried it off. Without the wagon to hold on to, she took tiny steps and held her arms out for balance. The tub had a wooden handle at either end and as she reached out to grab one of them, she lost her balance. She didn’t fall, however. Mourning had plunged in behind her and was there to steady her. As they waded back to shore she was overcome with gratitude for this small kindness.

She was also disturbed by her reaction.
I’m so pathetic
, she thought.
Other people must do things like that for each other all the time, without giving it a thought. That’s what it’s like to have a friend. Not silly schoolgirls giggling and being nasty to the girls they don’t let into their snotty little group, or housewives gossiping about other women. Those aren’t friends. A friend looks out for you. Holds out a hand, without being asked. Poor Mourning picked a great person to be friends with. I always feel sorry for myself because I never had a friend, but I’ve never been one either. I don’t think I know how
.

Mourning tossed the tub back onto the wagon and, after tending to Dougan and Dixby, they sat on flat white stones with their feet in the river, wiggling their toes. Everything about the day was beautiful – the warm sun, the rush of the cool water, the breeze in the treetops. Olivia shook her wet skirt in the sun and watched the sun glint off the water.

“Listen to all the birds! I love Michigan already.”

Mourning had his eyes closed, face tilted toward the sun. “I got nothing to complain about,” he murmured.

After a while Olivia stood and went behind the wagon to put her stockings back on.

“Here’s the trail, right here.” She pointed to wisps of waist-high buffalo grass that didn’t conceal the deep ruts in the ground beneath them. “Just like Uncle Scruggs and Mr. Kincaid said.”

She expected Mourning to be eager to be on their way, but he remained motionless, eyes closed. She sat back down next to him.

After a while he said softly. “I don’t remember ever havin’ no moment like this one before,” he said. “Not ever. Feelin’ like the master of myself. Doin’ what I think needs doin’ when I feel like doin’ it.”

Olivia briefly put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. Then she turned her own face up to the sun and waited quietly. She was in no hurry to plunge back into those woods. Her arms ached from batting insects and branches away from her face. Soon Mourning pulled himself to a sitting position.

“We best be on our way,” he said.

They followed the trail through the woods until they came to a shallow stream. Two deer stood in the water, drinking, but snorted and shot off between the trees, flags up. Mourning drove the wagon straight across, no getting off this time. The trail then followed the water downstream, to the point where it fed back into the river, right before a sharp bend.

“Like the man said, there it be.” Mourning shielded his eyes to look up the gentle slope on their right.

“Oh,” was all Olivia could say, sweet contentment abandoning her.

She had tried to heed Tobey’s dire predictions and not expect too much, but nothing in her experience had prepared her for anything as squat, ugly, and depressing as her Uncle Scruggs’ cabin. This was Lydia Ann’s cozy little homestead? Uncle Scruggs’ Garden of Eden? She’d seen drawings of slaves’ quarters that looked more inviting than this. She dismally surveyed the scene. The cabin perched atop a low hill. A path of crosswise logs led up to it, but everything was overgrown with prickly, waist-high weeds.

Olivia looked back toward the water. Around the bend, where the river grew deeper, four spindly logs rested over it. That must be all that remained of Uncle Scruggs’ famous springhouse. Fields fanned out behind the left side of the cabin. Seven or eight acres had obviously once been cleared, but were now overgrown with thick brush and dotted with new growth trees and old stumps. Around the back and on the other side, the woods encroached. There weren’t more than twenty paces to the tree line.

Olivia reluctantly let her eyes go back to the cabin, which was exactly as Tobey had warned her it would be. Uncle Scruggs had cut down logs, notched them, stacked them on top of one another, and filled the wide gaps between them with a clay-like substance, most of which had crumbled away. The walls at either end rose in a triangular shape and a heavy log rested between them, but that center beam was all that remained of the roof. There was an opening in the front wall, slightly off-center to the right, but someone had apparently walked off with the door; nothing but rusty hinges remained. Not only were there no lace curtains at the windows, there were no window openings at all.

“There’s no roof,” Olivia noted dully.

“That ain’t no problem. Roof be easy. Lucky for us that center beam still up there. You got a good center beam, all you gotta do is rest your roof poles on it, tie ’em good and tight, and cover ’em with bark shingles. Bet I can cut them poles and get ’em up ’fore dark tonight. You can help me with piecin’ the bark. That gonna take some time cause it gotta dry first, but I bet we gonna have a roof over us ’fore the next rain.”

The oxen snorted and pulled them closer. Another roofless log structure, which she assumed was the barn, stood to the right of and slightly behind the cabin. The rickety and well-weathered outhouse in back of it was the only structure built of planed lumber.

Olivia looked sideways at Mourning, expecting him to be furious with her for talking him into coming to this dreadful place, but she saw only enthusiasm on his face. He jumped down and all but bounced through the weeds. She remained in the wagon, not yet prepared to claim the dingy little hovel as her new home. Mourning ducked down to go through the doorway, and she heard him stomping around inside.

“For sure he put a whole lot a work into the floor,” he said when his head reappeared in the doorway. “So smooth you could dance on it. Ain’t you comin’ in to see? Right fine cellar too. Can’t hardly see the trapdoor. Need a new ladder and there’s something making a stink down there, but that ain’t nothin’ to fix. Got a real stone fireplace and chimney, real fine workmanship. And there be a great big old table. What you waitin’ for, Livia?”

“I had no idea it would be this bad,” she apologized as she wearily climbed down and followed him inside. “He always talked about the cozy little cabin he built and how much his wife loved it.”

“It ain’t bad,” Mourning said. “Ain’t bad at all. What you been spectin’, anyway? Your uncle been a smart man. Invested his time in the things what matter. Lot easier to put up new walls than dig a cellar you don’t got. Easier to fix the roof than the floor. This place be just fine. We gonna get a roof on first thing, ’fore it start rainin’ down on us.”

He paced around, grinning. Olivia felt like sobbing, but did her best to hide it.

“I seen plenty of black ash back there by the trail,” he said. “Even seen some lyin’ on the ground, dry enough I can peel the bark off today. We stitch that bark together, it keep the wet off us fine. Won’t take too long, do up both the house and the barn. While I be choppin’, you can fix the chinking, keep all them Michigan snakes out.” He puckered his mouth in his ghost face and wiggled his fingers. “I show you how to find the right kind a clay and mix it up. Then I show you how to stitch the bark. We got canvas we can hang over the door for now, but we gotta go to that saw mill in town and order us a real door. It won’t be no good, it don’t fit ’zactly right, and I ain’t got tools for that. But the lintel and jambs be fine.” He pounded a fist against one of the jambs.

She dumbly followed him back out to the yard and behind the cabin. From there she could see that most of the back wall of the barn was missing.

“Oh.”

“What now?” Mourning asked.

“The barn . . . that whole wall is gone.”

“Don’t matter none. Make it easy for me to extend it out, fix up a threshing floor. All I gotta do is find trees to cut what got a good crotch to lay poles over. Won’t even need a real roof. Buckwheat straw over them poles do good ’nuff. Keep the sun off.”

He turned to look up at the treetops. “I guess the wind be comin’ from that way.” He pointed back toward the river. “So we put the woodpile back here. That be your number two job – gather kindling and split firewood. For now just go in the woods and pick up whatever you find on the ground. I gonna finish with the roof ’fore I start cuttin’ trees to burn. But then I gonna fix you up a nice chopping block, learn you how to split wood. Gotta put a roof over that wood pile too, keep it dry. They a long, cold winter comin’ and we gonna need lots a wood, so you gotta start lickety-split, do some every day.”

He strode to the wagon, hoisted the barrel down, and rolled it next to the door. “That be your number
one
job.” He pointed at it. “Keep that full a clean water. You do that and the wood, help me work the team when I gotta pull stumps, and keep my belly full, we do just fine.”

She shuddered at the prospect of all the physical labor he was describing and his mention of food added to her distress. How was she supposed to prepare a meal? But his optimism was contagious and she began to see the possibilities.
All beginnings are hard
, she reminded herself.

One thing for sure, she had made herself totally dependent on Mourning. Not just to inherit the land. To survive. She wouldn’t last a day out here on her own. Wouldn’t make it back to Detroit, if anything on the wagon broke. She didn’t even know how to hitch up the team. She began making a mental list of all the things she needed to learn in order not to feel totally helpless.

Apparently Mourning was not expecting any breakfast. While she stood there biting her bottom lip, he unyoked the team and led them into the barn where he put out buckets of feed. Then he took a long drink of water from one of the skins and said, “Team be needing water.” He nodded at the river and then at the barn. “They be a trough in there you can fill, don’t gotta let them drink out of our buckets any more.”