This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [19]
John Austin didn’t exactly hurry to pick up the case, but that he came at all surprised his sister.
“What’s dawdle, Jack?”
“Dawdle’s when a man stands ’round with his head up his arse and lets his womenfolk do the work.” Jack heaved a large sack onto his shoulder and started toward the house.
John Austin flashed a glance at Summer’s red face and giggled.
“Why is it,” she mumbled as she retreated to the house, “that he always hears the things you don’t want him to hear?”
Bulldog came hurrying through the door.
“Has someone been living here?” Summer asked.
“It’s been used from time to time. Teresa cleaned it up a bit.”
“Mr. McLean’s wife?”
He swiveled around in surprise. “Ain’t married. Teresa’s the Mex woman what cooks ’n cleans for . . . the boss.”
Summer watched him hurry to the wagon for another load. He was anxious to be gone. She and Sadie were putting away supplies when Jack stuck his head in the door.
“Ma’am, I’m a goin’ now. Bulldog already lit a shuck fer the Keep. Pud’ll be stayin’ here. He’s a good lad for all his cuttin’ up.”
“Is the . . . Keep far from here?” For some reason, Summer’s face burned when she asked.
“It’s no more than a hoot and a holler. You go right on down there to the creek and look off yonder.” He pointed toward a cluster of trees partially hidden by an incline. “And you can see the top of the house. There ain’t no need for you all to be a worryin’ none. Pud’ll fire a signal shot if’n there’s anythin’ a’tall.”
“We’re grateful that Pud will be staying with us.” Summer smiled at the boy and held out her hand to Jack. “Thank you for bringing us here.”
Sadie clung to the door frame, shy, not yet sure how she was regarded. Jack smiled at her, the leathery skin around his eyes crinkled. On impulse, she held out her hand.
“Me, too.”
Jack’s smile deepened, and Summer thought the weathered face the kindest she had ever seen. Something like she had imagined Sam McLean would be.
Jack turned to the boy. “You behave yoreself with the women.” He hit him a gentle blow on the stomach. Pud doubled up, as if in pain. “You’ll have to feed him, ma’am. That’s sure ’nuff a chore, ’cause them legs of his are holler.”
They stood beneath the new porch roof and watched him splash across the creek and disappear up the slope.
“Ain’t he nice, Summer? Ain’t he about the nicest man you ever did see?” Sadie sighed. “It’s a pity all men ain’t like him.”
It was during the night that Summer decided she couldn’t stay in this house another day without seeing Sam McLean and thanking him for his assistance. Midmorning, she left the security of the log house and walked down to the creek and the two huge tree trunks lashed together to make a footbridge. She had taken pains with her appearance—she was wearing a blue calico dress with a full skirt and scooped neckline. Her dark hair was coiled on top of her head to make her look older, more sophisticated.
At the footbridge she paused, and her eyes sought the roof of the house where she was headed. She knew she must have been there before, but she remembered it no more than the home she had lived in until she was almost four years old. She stepped up onto the big split logs. High water had washed the far bank, causing the logs to tilt downward and barely clear the rushing water. “Don’t be afraid, I’ll hold your hand,” whispered the voice from the past. A feeling of homesickness for that distant time caused her to pause on the footbridge and look back at the house.
Sadie’s laugh and Mary’s squeals came drifting down to her. Up at dawn, Sadie moved about the kitchen as if she had found heaven. She was making bread and she sang happily to entertain her daughter. John Austin was drawing a picture in the dirt for Pud. The sight of her young brother brought Summer back to the present. And to her need to speak to Sam McLean.
The trail to the ranch house was sandy and up-hill. By the time Summer reached the top and the house came into view, she had a thin coat of perspiration on her brow. Cockleburrs caught