Chapter Twelve #2
Brady considered this. Thunder boomed again, and he jumped a little.
Clay nodded toward the quilt. “You stay there. Tomorrow, if the creek hasn’t risen too high, I’ll show you where fish sit when bad weather’s coming.”
Brady looked at Violet, asking without words.
“If you do exactly as Clay tells you,” she said.
“I will.”
Clay pointed a finger at him. “That’s a promise I’ll remember.”
Brady tucked his chin into the quilt. “All right.”
Violet’s gaze held Clay’s for a moment. Her face had softened.
“Thank you,” she said.
He shook his head. “He’s easy company.”
“He likes you.”
“Poor judgment on his part.”
That earned him a brief smile. He left them to the sound of rain.
By the time he reached his own wagon, Clay’s boots were full of water. He was thinking of the dry shirt Sarah had hung near the front and whether she would let him wear it before it was fully dry when a woman cried out across the camp.
The sound cut through the weather.
Clay turned.
Everett’s wagon stood twenty yards away, its yellow canvas dark with rain. A lantern burned within, throwing a wavering square of light across the mud. Shadows moved behind the flap.
“I said, ‘Get out!’” Everett shouted.
A woman answered, but the wind took most of her words.
Then Anna stumbled from the wagon.
She had no bonnet. Her blonde hair clung wet against her face and neck. One side of her mouth was bleeding. She caught herself on the wagon wheel and looked back toward the open flap.
Everett stood in the doorway.
“You want to make a spectacle, go on and make one,” he said. “You’ve done little else since we joined this damned train.”
Anna wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You struck me.”
“You struck first.”
The men nearest Everett’s wagon watched from beneath their own cover. Harlan spat into the mud. Another man turned his face away, though he did not move.
Anna looked toward them.
“Will one of you say something?” she asked.
Nobody did.
Everett gave a short laugh. “Hear that? Not one of them’s interested in your troubles.”
Anna’s shoulders drew in. For one instant she looked younger than Clay had thought her, not nearly thirty but some lost girl caught in the rain.
Then Everett stepped down and shoved the flap closed behind him.
“Stay away from my wagon,” he told her. “You’ve had enough from me.”
He went back inside.
Clay stood where he was. Rain beat on his head and shoulders. He could feel Sarah watching from the wagon behind him, though he had not heard her come to the opening.
Anna remained beside Everett’s wheel. She did not cry. She looked at the mud as if it had given her some difficult instruction.
Clay started toward her.
Sarah said his name behind him. “Clay.”
He stopped.
Her face showed in the wagon’s dim interior. She had a blanket around her shoulders. Her eyes moved from him to Anna.
“Don’t,” Sarah said.
Clay looked back at Anna. The woman was shivering now, hard enough that her hands knocked against her sides.
“She’ll freeze out here,” he said.
“She knew what sort of man he was.”
“So did half the camp.”
Sarah’s jaw tightened. He knew what she saw when she looked at Anna. A woman who had laughed with Everett. A woman who had taken what she could from men and called it freedom. Perhaps Sarah saw a warning in her too.
Clay took off his wet hat and ran a hand over his hair.
Sarah looked past him. Anna had sunk down beside the wheel, arms wrapped around herself. Water ran from her hair to the ground.
Clay said, “There’s room in the animal lean-to. It’s dry under the back tarp. She can have blankets and a place by the ox.”
Sarah did not answer at once.
The wind pushed rain through the wagon opening. Somewhere close, Nell snorted and stamped.
At last Sarah stepped back from the flap.
“Give her the old brown blanket,” she said. “Not the wool one.”
Clay nodded. “All right.”
“And tell her she is not to come near our things.”
“I’ll tell her.”
Sarah disappeared deeper into the wagon. A moment later, the old brown blanket came flying out. It struck Clay in the chest.
He caught it.
When he reached Anna, she looked up with flat, wary eyes.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“To keep you from dying, stupid.”
She gave a bitter sound that might have been a laugh.
Clay held out the blanket. “Come on.”
“I don’t need charity.”
“Then call it shelter. You can owe me nothing.”
Anna stared at the blanket. Her pride held for another moment. Then her hand came out and took it.
Clay led her toward the animal lean-to. The ox shifted when they entered, but settled when Clay spoke to it. Nell stood on the other side, warm breath steaming in the close dark. The shelter smelled of wet hide, hay, manure, and the sharp animal heat that gathered beneath canvas.
Clay spread a little straw in the driest corner and gave Anna the blanket.
“There’s a bucket there,” he said. “Don’t use more than you need. We may be short on water by morning.”
Anna wrapped the blanket around herself. Her fingers had turned pale.
“You ought to hate me,” she said.
Clay looked at her.
“I don’t know you well enough for that.”
Her mouth worked. She looked away.
“Everett will be angry,” she said.
“He’s been angry since I met him.”
“He don’t forget a thing.”
“Neither do I.”
For the first time, her eyes met his without defiance. There was fear in them, plain as the rain outside.
Clay turned toward the shelter opening.
“Stay dry,” he said.
Back at the wagon, he paused beneath the flap and pulled off his boots. Mud and water poured from them onto the ground. Sarah sat near the small lantern with her knees drawn beneath her skirt. Rufus lay along the rear wall under a blanket, quiet enough that Clay could not tell if he slept.
Sarah had set a towel beside him.
He picked it up and rubbed his hair dry.
“She’s settled?” Sarah asked.
“Near the animals.”
Sarah nodded, but her hands stayed tight around one another.
Clay sat opposite her and began working at the laces of his boots. The wagon rocked beneath a strong gust. Rain drummed overhead, steadily now, almost thick enough to drown out the smaller noises of the camp.
“You always do that?” Sarah asked.
He glanced up. “Do what?”
“Take in every wounded thing you find.”
Clay looked down at his wet hands. Sarah took the dry shirt from beside her and held it out.
“You can wear this,” she said. “But if you stretch it, I’ll make you mend it.”
Clay accepted it. “That seems fair.”
He smiled a little and turned away to change. Behind him, the storm continued over the dark road, over the wagons pressed close together, over those who slept and those who did not.