18. The Day Before
The Day Before
Kain woke before he meant to, with the grey just coming up at the window, and lay there a moment listening to the birds before he rose. Outside they were busy already, flitting from the eaves to the fence and back, never settling for more than a breath.
The spring had come on warm, and tomorrow was the festival. He found he was looking forward to it, which would have surprised the man who rode into Tillamore last spring.
He was at his breakfast, watching Ghost run off across the hills after something only it could see, when a knock came at the door. He took a last bite and went to answer it, and found Jeremiah on the step.
“Mornin’, neighbor. You headed up to town to help set up for the festival?”
“Probably.” Kain leaned on the doorframe. “Haven’t decided yet. Why?”
“Meant to drop these with Sasha when I came through town, but she was nursing Matthew and hollered through the door for me to leave them. Didn’t want to keep her.” Jeremiah dug into his coat and brought out a small wooden thing, and it took Kain a moment to place it. A carved horse.
The whole of it had been sanded smooth enough for a baby to gnaw on, which was likely the point. A long bump stood in for the head and neck, four stubs for the legs, and a thicker stub at the back for the tail.
Kain turned it over in his hand and took it.
“For Matthew?” Kain asked.
“No, for the mantel.” Jeremiah said. “Yes, for Matthew. You’ll get it to her when you go up?”
“I can do that.”
“And one more.” Jeremiah reached into the wagon bed and brought up a small jar sealed over with wax, a yellow-green tangle of greens floating in the brine.
“Elizabeth’s. She heard from Mrs. McGrath that Matthew’s sitting up on his own now, growing strong, and it put her in mind of her own boys at that age.
Pickled dandelion. She swears by it for a nursing mother, and it’ll do for the boy too once he’s on soft food.
She’d have come herself, but she’s been at the bread since first light. ”
“Pickled dandelion.”
“Don’t give me that look. They’re better than they sound. Elizabeth’s put them up every spring since we wed, and I’ve eaten my share and lived. Sasha’ll know what to do with them.”
“I’ll tell her they’re from Elizabeth.”
“Tell her Elizabeth said news of the boy growing strong is the kind that doesn’t reach her often enough. She was glad of it.”
“I’ll tell her.”
Kain nodded, and Jeremiah started back toward the wagon. “What’s your day look like?”
“Helping the wife bake.” Jeremiah stopped and turned.
“Lots and lots of baking. Back when the children were home she’d put them to work in the kitchen, and I could slip off and do man’s work somewhere.
Now it’s me kneading dough and fetching her flour.
Only a few times a year, mind, but a few times is plenty. ”
“You’ll live,” Kain said.
“If I’m not at the festival tomorrow, it’ll be because I’ve gone and angered her. Steer clear of the meat pies, that day.” Jeremiah climbed up onto the wagon, took the reins, and rolled off down the road, and Kain shook his head as he went.
Kain looked down at the little horse in his hand, four stubs and a long bump for a head, and the corner of his mouth moved before he caught it.
He saw to Roan, walked his rows to check the seedlings, and then rode up the road toward town. The air had warmed enough for shirtsleeves, cool but a long way from cold.
At the edge of town Sasha stood out on the Kettle’s porch, talking with a man who had the look of a merchant about him, and she nodded to Kain as the man turned and went inside.
“Who’s that?” Kain asked, swinging down.
“Came in for the festival. Word’s getting around about it, seems like.” Sasha leaned on the rail. “Folk smell coin in it now. More faces might be good for the town. Might not. I haven’t made up my mind.”
“Anyone makes trouble, I’ll see them out.” Kain dug the carved horse from his pocket. “This is from Jeremiah, before I forget it.”
Sasha turned it over in her hand. “What is it?”
“A horse.” Kain frowned. “Doesn’t it look like one?”
“Looks like a dog.” She turned it the other way. “Since when does Jeremiah carve?”
“Tell him it looks like a dog and he’ll quit carving,” Kain said.
“Then I won’t.” Sasha tucked it into her apron. “Tell him thank you, if I don’t catch him first.”
“And this.” Kain pulled the jar from the saddlebag. “From Elizabeth. Pickled dandelion. Good for a nursing mother, she says, and for the boy once he’s on soft food. She heard he’s sitting up on his own now.”
Sasha took it and turned it in her hand, the greens drifting pale in the brine.
“That’s a kind thing.”
“She said news of him growing strong doesn’t reach her often enough.”
Sasha was quiet a moment, working the wax seal with her thumbnail. “Tell her she’ll get a loaf of the cherry bread back. She was partial to it last spring.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“Anything else you need?” Kain asked.
“Not today. Go enjoy yourself.”
Kain had started to answer when a voice cut across the street behind him.
“Hey. You.”
Carol crossed over, lifted the reins out of his hand, and walked Roan to the nearest hitching post. “With me. I need those arms.”
“Tables,” she said, pointing down the road past the general store. “The whole length of the street, both sides. Fifty, sixty of them, give or take.”
“I hadn’t said yes,” Kain said.
“Glad you could.” Carol was already walking. “They’re stacked behind the town hall. Come on.”
She led him around behind the town hall, where a wide door stood open on a room stacked with tables, dozens of them. Carol took one end of the nearest and Kain took the other, and they hauled it up and started back across the street.
The tables weren’t heavy, but a day of hauling them wasn’t the morning Kain had pictured. They set the first down in front of the barber’s and went back for the next, and the next after that, until a line of them ran along the storefronts down the street.
He hauled tables until his shirt clung to his back and the line stretched the better part of the street. Back and forth, one end to the other, the row growing a table at a time. He dragged a sleeve across his forehead as they went for another.
“What’s all this for?” he asked.
“Food.” Carol set her end down. “The whole spread. More food than the lot of us could put away in a year, laid out the length of the street.”
Kain looked down the long row of tables and allowed she had a point. That many would hold a fair mountain of food.
When the last table found its place, Carol set off back down the middle of the street, and Kain kept to the storefronts along the side. As he came even with the general store he turned and stepped inside without a word, and Sam looked up from the counter.
“Kain.” Sam nodded. “After something?”
“Somewhere to get out of Carol’s sight, to start.”
“One of those days.” Sam leaned on the counter. “That’ll cost you. What’s Carol to you, then?”
“A friend.” Kain looked out the window. “Her father’s the man I owe for my horse.”
“Mm. And nothing past that?” Sam let the question sit. “Since you ask, the price of hiding in my store is the gossip on what brought you here.”
“I need linseed oil, too.” Kain let the rest go by. “A coat for the back porch at the Kettle. Nothing past that to tell.”
Sam gave it up with a tip of his head. “If that’s all I’m getting, we’ll call it square. Oil’s on the shelf by the window.”
Kain took down a tin of it and put it on the Kettle’s account, then went to the front and looked out the window. Carol stood out in the middle of the street, waving folk along as they hauled chairs one way and another. She glanced toward the store, and Kain stepped back from the glass.
“You’ve got a back way out?”
Sam tipped his head toward the rear, and Kain went through into the store room, where everything from the front shelves sat stacked in greater numbers. A wide door stood open to the alley behind, and he slipped out and started down toward the Kettle.
The alley ran wide and clear, and he came around to the back of the Copper Kettle, where he knelt and began working the linseed oil into the boards he and Carol had set in not long before. The door creaked, and Sasha stepped out, near enough to clip him with it.
“Oh. Kain. Didn’t see you down there.”
“Sorry.” Kain kept working the rag along the grain. “We’d been meaning to seal these. Figured I’d get it done before tomorrow. I’ll do the front boards while I’m at it.”
Sasha raised an eyebrow. “You’re taking this serious.”
Kain spread the oil along the next board, and the wood drank it in and went dark, a deep wet brown. “Suppose I am.”
Sasha stepped over the wet boards and gave his shoulder a pat on her way past. Kain finished the back and carried what was left of the oil around to the front, working it into the walkway boards there.
When he stood and stretched the kink out of his back, Carol was across the way, and she caught his eye and nodded before turning back to her work. He almost crossed the street to her, then stood with the rag in his hand a moment and bent to the front boards instead.
He gave Sasha a hand with a few last things about the tavern, then collected Roan and struck out for home. He looked back at it once from the road.
The front boards lay dark and even in the sun, and the town had taken shape around them, banners strung between the storefronts and a low stage going up at the end of the street for the musicians. He turned Roan down the lane toward the farm.
Home, he put Roan up for the night and saw him fed, then cut an apple into wedges the way Carol had shown him, a core could lodge in a horse’s throat, and held them out flat on his palm. After that he went inside, shut the door against the evening, and lit the fire.
The day’s work hadn’t worn him down. He fetched the last of the linseed oil and sat with his boots, rubbing it into the leather until it darkened and gave, looking better than it had in a long while.
He worked the caked dirt off the soles with his thumbnail.
He set the boots by the hearth to dry, then took clean clothes from the wardrobe and laid them folded by the bed for the morning. That done, he stepped out onto the porch, left the door cracked behind him, and lowered himself into the chair.
Down at the creek the frogs had started up, loud in the dusk. The light went out of the sky by degrees, and bats came over the yard to take the first insects of the year.
Roan blew and stamped and shifted in his stall. Ghost came up out of the dark and crossed the road to the porch, and settled at Kain’s feet.
The boots stood drying by the fire and the clean clothes lay folded by the bed, and there was nothing left to do but wait on the morning. He leaned back in the chair with the wolf warm against his boot and let the dark come down.
Tomorrow there would be a festival, and he found he wanted to be there.