Olivia, Mourning (24 page)

The night before, while sinking down into sleep, she’d had a vision of herself slowly shriveling up. Uncle Scruggs’ fields blossomed and flourished, while she stood in the midst of the plenty they yielded, turning brown and wrinkled. Faceless people stood at a distance, but she said nothing to them. She had forgotten not only her manners, but how to speak at all. She was alone and would be forever.

But how could coming here have been a mistake, when she had no alternate version of herself?
Work the land for a year
, she thought.
You’re already here, might as well sell a crop and make some of your money back. Then you’ll see. Anyway, you promised Mourning
.

Still, doubts nagged. At eighteen, a year seemed forever. By twenty folks would be calling her an old maid. She might start looking like Iola. What if she started thinking and talking like her?

After the Stubblefields left, Olivia changed into her work clothes and found Mourning in the barn. The last thing she felt like doing was working.

“I’m going for a walk,” she told him.

“A walk?” He looked puzzled. “I thought with the team gone, you gonna help me burn the rest a them stumps.”

“Tomorrow. I’ll help you first thing in the morning. I promise.” She turned toward the trail.

“You keep that shotgun loaded by the door and now you goin’ off alone into the woods without it?” Mourning said to her back.

“I’m not going far. I just need a little time to think.”

Mourning shook his head and grumbled, loudly enough for her to hear, “Think. She gotta think some more. Ever time that girl say, Mourning, I been thinkin’, I know I be in trouble.”

Once she was out of his sight she slowed her pace and then stopped to sit in a small clearing, with her back resting against a tree. It was dark and cool under the canopy of the forest and the rustling of small animals was somehow comforting. A woodpecker ra-ta-tapped in the distance. There was so much life in the world. She looked around her and sighed. It was a beautiful country. No wonder Uncle Scruggs had missed Michigan so much. But not even he had wanted to stay here without his Lydia Ann.

What did I think I was I going to do, all alone on a stupid farm? Whatever was wrong with me in Five Rocks is still wrong with me here. It has nothing to do with my mother. Or my father carrying on with Jettie Place. It’s me. No man is ever going to want me. At least back in Five Rocks I had Tobey and Mrs. Hardaway and Miss Evans.

A mosquito began to annoy her and she rose and walked on farther, too distracted to bother marking her trail. Then she heard breaking branches and froze. That was no small animal. Lord, let it be a deer. She moved silently to the thickest tree and watched from behind it. The steps came closer and she crouched down.

It was Jeremy Kincaid who came into sight.

“Jeremy!” Olivia straightened and stepped from behind the tree. “Hullo, Jeremy! It’s Olivia. Over here.” She waved, making no effort to hide how happy she was to see him.

“Olivia!” he shouted and waved back. She was relieved that he seemed pleased to see her. “What are you doing out here alone?” he asked.

“Just going for a walk,” she said as they crossed the clearing toward one another.

Once the gap had been closed, neither of them seemed to know what to say.

“So how are you?” he asked.

“I’ve been keeping well. And you?”

“Grand. I’m grand.”

“What are you doing? Hunting?” She nodded at the shotgun and water skin slung over his shoulder.

“No, I was just going to check on something.” For a moment he stared at her in a vague, unfocused way, as if making up his mind about something.

He’s not really looking at me
, she thought.
He’s trying to figure out how long good manners require that he stand here bored to death talking to me
.

“You might want to come with me,” he said.

He had looked away from her, busying himself rolling up his shirtsleeves. She could see the taut muscles running up his forearm and felt an urge to run her finger over them.

“Where?”

“Surprise.” He grinned and put a finger to his lips. “Come along.”

He turned and she followed, hoping his water skin held enough for two, as she had brought none and was already thirsty. He walked on, never looking back to see if she was still there. The trail was narrow so she had no choice but to trudge along behind him.

Like one of those squaws,
she thought, remembering the day she and Mourning had driven over to see the Wyandot Indian village. Olivia had brought her journal and began making a sketch of the long houses.

“Look, here come the tribe,” Mourning said.

A long line of people was moving into the clearing, single file. The women were all at the end of the line, carrying everything in the world on their backs. Olivia could see only the hems of their dresses and their feet, as they shuffled along under piles of stuff.

Well, at least I’m not carrying a mountain
, she thought, as she watched Jeremy’s back and wondered if he intended to ever say another word. They continued in silence for half an hour before coming to the river, at a place where it was too deep to wade across. Flat-topped white rocks formed a zigzag trail across it and Olivia assumed he intended to lead her over them.

Aha. Now he’ll have to offer me his hand
.

But Jeremy paused under a spreading maple next to a stand of bushes and motioned for her to follow his example and sit down.

As he settled himself, back pressed against the trunk of the tree, he said, “If we both keep very quiet you have a good chance of seeing something special.”

“What?” she asked.

“Wait and see.” He put his finger to his lips again.

She sat a short distance from him and fidgeted. Finally she moved around so she could rest her back against the opposite side of the trunk.

“You don’t have any food with you, do you?” he asked over his shoulder. “In your pockets or anything?”

“No, sorry.”

“I’m not asking because I’m hungry.”

“Then why are you asking?”

“You’ll see.”

They sat in silence. The bugs didn’t seem to be bothering Jeremy, but they were all over Olivia and she batted her hands at them. She was hot and tired and soon grew restless. What were they waiting for?

Jeremy fiddled in his pocket, twisted around, and motioned for her to lean toward him. At last. Her irritation evaporated. He was shy and had been getting up his courage. Now he would say or do something of a romantic nature. Tell her how pretty she looked, or run his fingertips over her cheek, or lightly brush the hair back off her forehead. She closed her eyes and, finally, he touched her. His greasy finger briefly tapped the tip of her nose.

“Ick! What’s that?” Her eyes sprang open and she pushed his hand away. “Ugh! It stinks something awful.”

“Hold still.” He dabbed her cheeks with more of the disgusting concoction. “Now rub it in. It will keep the flies and mosquitoes off you. Make sure to get some on your wrists and ankles.”

“That stuff would keep the devil away from a lost soul,” she said, but obeyed and witnessed its immediate effect.

“Maybe now you’ll be able to hold still,” he said. He leaned back against the tree and they sat through another long silence.

“How long are we going to sit here?” she asked.

He paused before asking, “You don’t much care for this new life of yours, do you?”

It sounded like a criticism and she hesitated a moment before answering.

“Well … I do get bored,” she said, shifting around so she could see his face. “There’s nothing to do but work. Nobody to visit with or anything. No books. No music.”

“Nothing to do.” He put his head back and looked up. “I never have understood folks who prefer drinking tea in someone’s front parlor to this.” He held his palms up and let his eyes run over the forest ceiling. “Or think someone sawing on a fiddle makes better music than the sound of this river or the wind in the treetops.”

“It’s beautiful.” She followed his gaze. “Of course, it’s beautiful. But after an hour sitting in the same place, you pretty much get the idea.”

“Shh…” He tensed and peered at the far bank of the river.

She began to regret not having brought her shotgun. He rose to a squat and took small crab-like steps to move behind the tree, as far into the bushes as he could get. Olivia squeezed herself in beside him. He put his finger to his lips again and pointed toward the river.

On the other side of the river, about fifty yards upstream, a black mamma bear and two cubs lumbered out of the woods. Olivia gasped and Jeremy softly shushed her again, without taking his eyes off the bears as they waddled toward the water. The mother put out a paw to test one of the rocks in the river before carefully stepping onto it. She kept her head down, watching the water, facing Olivia and Jeremy. The two cubs clumsily chased one another and one of them let out a sudden growl. The mother jerked her head up and lost her balance. All four paws flailed and she slid into the river. The current wasn’t strong and she easily swam ashore and pulled herself out, slow and deliberate. Olivia imagined her counting to ten, trying not to lose her temper.

The mother bear ignored her cubs, shook herself off, and returned to her perch on the rock. Then one of the cubs tried to join her, snuggling up to her side, but the mamma moved her body in a way that said, “Not now.” The cub wouldn’t leave her alone and finally, with a look as exasperated as any human mother Olivia had ever seen, mamma batted a paw at it and sent it sprawling into the river. Olivia gasped again as its head went underwater, but it bobbed back up and the other cub jumped in to join it. They played around in the water, nipping at one another’s snouts.

A sudden swoosh of mamma’s paw sent a silver streak flying out of the water. She lumbered onto the bank and gobbled the fish down before it had time to stop flopping.

“Doesn’t she feed her babies first?” Olivia whispered.

“They haven’t been weaned yet. Won’t be for another month or two.”

“How old do you think they are?”

“Six, seven months. A good guess would be that they were born in January.”

Mamma caught more fish and, after finishing her meal, went in for a swim with the cubs. Then they lay on the bank sunning. The babies nestled up against mamma while she groomed them.

“She looks so motherly now,” Olivia said softly. “You think she meant to hurt the one she knocked into the water?”

“If she’d meant to hurt him, he’d be dead. A bear can kill a full-grown deer with one swipe. Watch her now,” he said.

Mamma tilted her head to one side, as if listening real hard for something. She got up, raised her front paws, and stood on her hind legs to full height, like a person. Then she lifted her nose and sniffed the air.

“She knows there’s something out there,” Jeremy whispered. “She just doesn’t know what we are or where. Keep completely still. I don’t think she can make out the shape of us from that distance, but if you move, she’ll see it. And if you had any food on you, she’d smell it.”

Mamma remained with her nose in the air for a few minutes. Standing like that, she looked thin and graceful. It was hard to believe she was the same clumsy-looking animal. For a moment the bear seemed to be looking straight at them, but she lowered herself to all fours and shambled off into the woods, her twin children behind her. Neither Olivia nor Jeremy spoke until they were well out of sight.

“That was really something,” Olivia said. “I’ve never seen a real live bear before. I had no idea they were so cute.”

“You won’t think they’re cute if you ever get too close to one. I’m surprised they haven’t bothered you.”

“Mourning found some tracks by the cabin, said they were made by a bear, but we haven’t seen it.”

“They can smell fish or anything else you fry from miles away. Some folks claim they can smell the apples in your cellar. Mourning did get a door on that cabin, didn’t he?”

“Yes. I have a proper leather string on the latch that I take in at night, along with a crossbar to let down, so I’m quite well fortified. So is Mourning. He got one of those doors that rolls on a rail for the barn, where he sleeps. How did you know those bears were going to be here?”

“Didn’t really, just hoped they might. I’ve been watching them for months. They don’t turn up here every afternoon, but often enough.”

“Is that what you do then, sit in the woods and watch animals?”

“Could say.” He took a drink of water from the skin and handed it to her.

“What for?” she asked and then drank and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“I love the woods – watching the plants grow, the trees change. I’ve been here eight years and haven’t been bored for one minute of it. I enjoy watching the animals more than anything else. They have a world of their own, parallel to ours, only more interesting, since they don’t hide behind good manners the way people do.”

She stood and brushed herself off. “Well, thanks for bringing me along. You’re going to have to point me in the direction home.”

He squinted at the sun. “It’s early enough. My place is only about forty minutes that way.” He nodded up-river. “We can make it there, have a cup of coffee, and get you on your way home before dark. ’Bout time you and Mr. Free know where I live, case you’re ever in need of anything.”

Olivia was too overjoyed to manage anything but a smile and a nod.