CHAPTER 21 #2
"All three?"
I paused a half-breath — for the woman across the table from me who had midwived a stillborn infant in the cabin I now lived in two and a half years ago and had not asked me a single question about my new life until this minute.
"Aye."
"Good."
She drank her tea. She did not say one more thing about it.
She talked of the August mail — a letter from my mother she drew from her apron pocket; a letter from Bridget Halloran Connors in Pittsburgh for Tate; the boarder in Room 4 returning his nightshirt with a note saying my cuff-work was finer than his Saint Louis tailor's.
The three words across the parlor — all three? / aye / good — were the whole conversation. I had a friend.
When I stood to go I put my hand on the back of Hattie's wrist.
"Hattie. Thank you."
She nodded once. "Eat. Sleep. Write to your mother."
"I will."
---
Coming back up-pass at the lip of the basin, Tate brought the wagon to a stop at the lower freight gate. He gestured with his chin once toward the southeast lip.
I climbed down.
Eliza's grave was under a single tall lodgepole that had survived the fire of '74. The board cross was plain white-painted pine with Tate's careful copperplate hand burned in black: ELIZA HALLORAN / 1851–1877 / four; longer than a freight-route message would take. Beck nodded once. He reached into his vest and counted three pieces of money into the rider's open palm. The rider put his hat back on. He turned to go.
Beck said something then. The rider stopped. Beck said one more sentence — short, two beats — and the rider nodded and went to his gelding and rode back down to the lower gate without looking back.
Beck stood at the freight stable a long minute alone. He scratched his scarred left palm with his right thumbnail once. He looked at the south ridge.
He did not come to the cabin to tell me.
---
He did not come by four. He did not come by five.
Levi had come up from the corral at a quarter past three. The two spoke at the assay-shed door, Beck talking, Levi listening, Levi rubbing the cleft of his sternum-scar with two fingers. At the end Levi nodded once.
Tate came up from the upper pasture at half past five. Beck walked him to the freight wagon's running-board and they stood three minutes and Tate closed his eyes one beat longer than he should have and opened them and nodded.
The three came in to supper at twenty past six.
I had set the table — four tin plates and four tin cups. I had put the carved birch dipper at the head of the table beside the brass kerosene lamp. The cracked chimney's thin ray was on the east wall above Beck's chair.
They washed at the iron pump. They came in. They sat.
Beck took his hat off. He did not look at me. He picked up his fork.
We ate.
Beck ate slow. Beck ate slower than he ate. He took small bites of the cornbread. He chewed long. Tate ate his ham in three bites. Levi ate slow, watching Beck. Beck was watching his own fork.
I watched Beck's right thumb scratch his scarred left palm under the edge of the table.
He is keeping something from me, I thought.
I lifted the dipper from the head of the table to pour water into Tate's cup. The gold band on my left fourth finger clicked once against the dipper-handle. The same note. Small. Clear.
I set the dipper down without pouring. I laid both my hands flat on the table on either side of my own plate.
"Beck."
He looked up.
"You are keeping something from me."
He looked across at Tate. Tate looked back at Beck and nodded once, slow. Beck looked at Levi. Levi nodded once.
Beck looked at me.
"Tomorrow morning. I will tell you in the morning."
I held my hands flat on the table.
"All right."
"Sweetheart."
"I will hold you to it."
"I would not have it any other way."
He picked up his fork. He ate. Tate ate. Levi ate. I ate.
I lifted the dipper again at the end of supper because Tate's cup was empty a second time. I poured for Tate. The gold band clicked once more against the dipper-handle.
The cabin held its breath against the news that had not yet been said.
The cracked chimney's thin ray held on the east wall above Beck's chair. The kettle on the warming shelf clicked as it cooled. Outside the south window the dry wind whistled once through the knothole in the east wall and stopped.
I set the dipper back on the table.
"Eat, Beck. The morning will come."
He ate.