Chapter Seven #2
“Yes. A man named Holt was badly hurt. Jeb is with him and Dr. Paine now.” Delly’s mouth tightened. “He may keep the leg. He may not. It is too soon to say.”
Lottie sat back down slowly. “Oh, poor man.”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“I talked.” Delly looked faintly bewildered by the statement. “It helped.”
“Of course, it helped.”
Delly’s gaze sharpened despite her weariness. “You look wrong.”
“I used Mr. Peterson’s first name in front of the men.” Delly grew quiet. “It was an accident,” Lottie said.
“I assume so.”
“They laughed.”
Delly’s eyes moved to the ledger, then toward the open door. “How about him?”
“He corrected me and left.”
The words were small. Too small for how much they hurt. Delly sat beside her. For once, she did not immediately advise, warn, or organize the matter.
After a moment, she said, “Did you know the name was tender?”
“No.”
“Now you do.”
Lottie swallowed. “I think I should apologize.”
“Yes.”
“Should I wait?”
“No.” Delly looked toward the camp road. “If a man has been hurt at camp, they will all be raw tonight. Waiting may only give shame time to harden.”
That was not the answer Lottie wanted. It was likely the answer she needed.
She stood. “Will you come?”
Delly’s face softened. “No.”
Lottie stared at her.
“You do not need me for this,” Delly said. “If I come, you will look at me when you ought to look at him.”
The truth of that stung. Lottie picked up the cookie tin.
Delly lifted one eyebrow. “Are you taking cookies?”
“I cannot go empty-handed.”
“An apology is not improved by baked goods.”
“It may be steadied by them.”
Delly considered this and nodded once. “Do not offer too many words. You reach for words when you are nervous.”
“I know.”
“Do not explain so long he must comfort you for hurting him.”
Lottie closed her eyes. “That is painfully good advice.”
“I am often useful.”
Lottie opened her eyes and thought of Peterson flinching from that word.
“You are more than useful,” she said.
Delly looked surprised.
Lottie kissed her cheek and left before either of them could become sentimental about it.
The camp road rose through pines and shadow.
Lottie had not gone far along it alone before, and each step reminded her she was very far from Chicago.
The ground was uneven, the trees thick, and the evening air smelled of sap, sawdust, and smoke from the cookhouse.
Voices carried from ahead, lower now than the midday shouts.
She found Peterson near the edge of the camp clearing, splitting kindling with his left hand.
The sight startled her.
Not because he was working. Of course, he was working. He had tucked the Tennyson on a stump nearby, far enough from the wood chips to keep it safe. A small strip of cloth marked his place.
He had been reading. The knowledge nearly undid her. Then he saw her, and the careful distance returned to his posture.
“Miss Bellamy.”
She stopped several feet away. Not too close. Not in front of the men. The cookie tin suddenly felt foolish in her hands.
“Mr. Peterson. May I speak with you?”
He drove the hatchet into the chopping block. “About what?”
“My mistake.”
His gaze dropped to the tin. “Cookies?”
“These are Mrs. Beck’s mistake. I am merely carrying them.”
A faint movement touched his mouth, but it did not become a smile.
He glanced toward the cookhouse, where several men sat outside with coffee, trying not to watch and failing thoroughly. Peterson lifted the Tennyson from the stump and nodded toward the path beyond the woodpile.
“Not here.”
Lottie followed him to a place where the trees grew closer and the sounds of the camp softened behind them. He stopped beside a fallen log and waited.
He did not offer her help over the uneven ground.
A day ago, that might have stung. Now she wondered whether he was afraid she would take the offer for more than he meant, or whether he simply did not trust his hand.
There were too many possibilities, and not one of them belonged to her until he gave it to her.
She set the cookie tin on the fallen log.
“I am sorry,” she said.
He looked at her then.
She kept going before courage could falter, but she remembered Delly’s warning and kept the words plain. “I heard your first name from someone else. I liked it, and I used it without understanding what it cost you. Then I did worse and used it where others could hear. I am sorry.”
Peterson rubbed his thumb along the edge of the Tennyson.
“You didn’t know.”
“I know now.”
“That’s more than most manage.”
The bitterness in his voice was quiet, but it was there. Lottie folded her hands at her waist to keep from reaching toward him.
“May I ask you one question? Just one,” she said. “If you say no, I will not ask it again tonight.”
He looked toward the camp, then back at her. “One.”
“Is it the name itself you dislike, or the way people handle it?”
For a moment, he did not answer. Wind moved through the pines overhead. Somewhere behind them, a man laughed too loudly and was hushed at once. The camp was tender tonight after the accident. Even the rough men seemed to know it.
“At first, it was only the teasing,” Peterson said.
Lottie held still, not daring to breathe.
“My mother used it.” He looked down at the book in his hand. “She said it sounded as if it belonged to someone decent. Soft, maybe, but decent. Camps do not have much use for soft boys.”
The words pressed against her heart.
“They made sport of it?”
“Boys did. Men too, when they were bored or mean. Cecil sounded like lace cuffs to them. Peterson sounded like work.” His left hand tightened on the book. “Work was safer.”
Lottie’s mind drifted to the library, contemplating how people construct their sense of purpose and safety from the labels society bestows upon them.
“I will call you Peterson,” she said. His gaze lifted. “Unless you tell me otherwise. Not because I think Peterson is all of you, but because I will not take what you have not offered.”
He stared at her long enough that her courage wavered. Then he looked away.
“That is a careful enough answer.”
“I have been trying to learn from my mistakes.”
“You learn fast.”
“Not always. Delly tells me, I sometimes mistake enthusiasm for evidence.”
His mouth moved again. This time the smile lasted long enough to count.
“She is not wrong.”
“She is very often not wrong. It is a burden to love her.”
He huffed a quiet laugh.
Lottie smiled before she could stop herself.
He looked back at the Tennyson and ran one finger along the cloth marker. “I wasn’t angry at you.”
“You were hurt.”
His jaw worked once. “Maybe.”
That small admission felt like being trusted with a match in a dry room.
Lottie lowered her voice. “I will be more careful.”
“Don’t make yourself afraid to speak.”