The Hired Man

“How come?”

The girl gazed up at him with huge blue eyes and he went down on one knee in front of her. “How come?” he repeated.

“Cuz I knocked over his candy jar once. But I didn’t mean to, honest. It just fell over when I reached in to get my lemon drop.”

Daniel came flying off the porch. “Ma says I can go!”

The wagon was behind the barn, all right. It should have been chucked onto the trash heap. Cord had never seen a more rickety pile of boards and rusted wheels. Probably wouldn’t hold even a light load of lumber.

In the barn he led out the gray gelding and lifted a saddle off the wall peg. When he blew off the dust he groaned. The leather was so dry it practically creaked.

“Got any saddle soap, son?”

Daniel sent him a blank look. “What’s that?”

“Stuff you rub on leather things like saddles to keep them soft.”

“How come?”

“Because...” Oh, the hell with it. “Come on, son, let’s go to town.”

The trip into Smoke River was one Cord wouldn’t soon forget. Daniel asked so many questions Cord’s throat got dry answering them. And one of them brought him up short.

“You ever been in jail, mister?”

Cord hesitated. “Yeah. A long time ago.”

“What for?”

“For...” He swallowed. “For being on the wrong side.” For getting shot in the leg in the field and then captured because he couldn’t run. It wasn’t something a young boy needed to know.

And the rest of it, spending eight years in a Missouri prison, he didn’t want anyone to know, especially Eleanor Malloy. He was trying like hell to put that behind him, to stop drifting and find some purpose in life, but it was rough. Everywhere he went people wanted to know things about him. That was one reason he decided to go to California, so he could start over.

He clenched his jaw. If he had his life to live over, he wouldn’t even carry a gun.

Smoke River’s main street looked like a hundred small towns in the West except that it was clean and the stores looked spruced up and well-painted. Ness’s mercantile, between the barber shop and the feed store, stood out like a sore thumb with a shiny coat of pink paint. Pink? What next?

Inside, the proprietor lounged behind the counter, bent over a newspaper. Cord read the upside-down headline.

MONTANA GOLD RUSH!

Suddenly the man looked up and scowled at him. “Need some help, mister?”

Daniel disappeared down an aisle lined with men’s hats on one side and boots on the other. “Yeah,” Cord said. “I need coffee, flour, salt and a bag of chicken mash. And some lemon drops,” he added quietly.

“You new in town? I’m the owner here. Name’s Carl Ness.”

“Cordell Winterman. I’m working for Mrs. Malloy a couple of miles out of town.”

The man’s shaggy eyebrows shot up. “Eleanor Malloy?”

“Something surprising about that?”

“Heck yes. Miss Eleanor, she, uh, she usually has her supplies delivered by one of the young men around town. Matter of fact, they have fistfights over who gets to do it. Leastways they did ’til Sheriff Rivera put a stop to it. You puttin’ these purchases on Miss Eleanor’s account?”

Cord nodded. When Carl Ness studied him a mite too long, he couldn’t resist.

“Pretty shade of pink on your storefront.”

Ness’s face turned the same shade. “Blame my daughter Edith for that.” He gestured one aisle over, where two young women stood examining bolts of cloth. “Wants to be an artist, she says. Didn’t know what she’d done to the store ’til one morning all my customers came in laughing.”

“Women can be unpredictable, all right,” Cord allowed.

One of the young women looked up from a bolt of gingham and studied Cord for a moment. Quickly she detached herself from her companion and scooted up the aisle toward him. She was extremely pretty, with blond ringlets that bounced at every step and a yellow ruffle-encrusted dress.

“Ooh, Mr. Ness,” she cooed. “Edith’s been telling me all about...” She gave Cord a flirty look. “Um...all about... Well, aren’t y’all going to introduce me to this handsome stranger?”

The proprietor rolled his eyes. “Fanny Moreland, Cordell Winterman. There, now you’re introduced!” He went back to his newspaper.

Miss Moreland giggled and sent Cord a dazzling smile. “Well, hello there! Fanny is short for Euphemia. Ah’m so very happy to meet you!” She slid her hand into his in a handshake of sorts. “Ah find this county is woefully short of good-looking gentlemen.”

Cord resisted an impulse to roll his eyes back at the proprietor. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Moreland.” He disengaged his imprisoned hand. “Now I—”

“Oh, please, you must call me Fanny.”

“Okay.”

“And ah may call you—?”

“Like the man said, my name’s Cordell Winterman. Now, I—”

“Oh, surely you’re not leavin’ already?”

The mercantile owner made a choking sound.

“Yep,” Cord said. “I sure am.” He stuffed a bag of lemon drops and one of caramels in his shirt pocket, hoisted the flour sack onto one shoulder and called out to Daniel. “Think you can wrestle that bag of coffee out to the wagon?”

“Yessir.” The boy grinned, waved goodbye to the girl at Cord’s elbow and bolted out the door. Cord followed him.

The owner came out with the bag of chicken mash over his shoulder, plopped it into the wagon bed and gave Cord a grin. “Kinda entertaining morning, I guess.”

“Not too much, no,” Cord replied.

Carl Ness chuckled all the way back into the mercantile.

The next stop was the feed store, and then the sawmill, where once again Cord managed to raise the owner’s eyebrows. “Eleanor Malloy? Say, mister, you know I could have all this delivered.”

“Nope. I brought a wagon.”

“Miss Eleanor know about this?”

“Yeah, she does. It’s her wagon.”

On the way back to the farm, he fed Daniel caramels and plied him with questions. “How come your mama has all her deliveries made by somebody else? Didn’t your previous hired man bring the wagon into town?”

“Nah. Isaiah was too old to drive it. Besides, people like helpin’ Ma out.”

“Men, you mean?”

“Yeah. Lots of ’em, ever since I was little. Even Sandy, the sheriff’s deputy. The only one who doesn’t bring her stuff is Doc.”

“Doc?”

“Doc Dougherty.”

That brought Cord’s own eyebrows up a notch. “Your ma’s been real ill, huh?”

“Yeah. She had pneumonia for a long time. She was real sick. I had to learn how to milk Bessie, and Molly and I cooked all the meals and took supper up to Ma every night.”

“Is she well now? She looks kinda pale.”

“Doc says she’ll be fine, but she’s gonna be weak an’ tired for a real long time. I’m sure glad you’re here, Mr. Winterman. I can’t hardly chop enough wood by myself.”

“How old are you, Daniel?”

“Nine. Molly’s just seven, and Ma won’t let her touch the ax, so I have to do it all by myself.”

The oddest sensation crawled into Cord’s chest. Here he was, out here on the Oregon frontier with no home and no money, trying to stay alive on an apple farm with not one thing that was working right. God had some sense of humor.

“You gonna stay with us, mister?”

“Yeah, I think so. For a while, anyway.” The warm feeling in his chest got bigger. Somebody needed him. Or at least needed his help. It made him feel...wanted. Worthwhile.

* * *

Eleanor glanced up as the wagon rumbled into the yard, a new screen door riding on top of a load of lumber. Oh, my heavens, she couldn’t afford all this, not even after the fall apple harvest came in and she had money in the bank. Her hired hand must have intimidated Ike Bruhn at the sawmill. Which wasn’t surprising, she thought as she watched him set the brake and climb down from the bench. Her hired man was tall and muscular; Ike Bruhn had been over-plump for years.

Mr. Winterman headed for the house with a bag of something—flour? Coffee beans?—over one shoulder. Daniel struggled to keep up with those long legs.

Her heart gave a queer little thump. Maybe if her hired man was around she would no longer have to make conversation with those too-eager young men from town, not until she was completely well and could fetch her own supplies.

Danny burst through the screen door. “Ma, guess what? Mr. Ness painted the mercantile pink!”

“Pink? Why on earth would he do that?”

“Actually, Miz Malloy,” said Mr. Winterman at Danny’s heels, “Ness claims his daughter Edith painted it. You want these coffee beans in the pantry?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Danny stopped short in front of her. “You all right, Ma? You look kinda funny.”

“Yes, I—Well, I tried to milk Bessie and I guess I overdid it.”

Cord stopped short. “I milked her before I went into town this morning, ma’am, even though you said not to. Didn’t you see the milk pail? I set it inside the back door.”

“I... Well, I...” How could she ever confess what she’d done?

He waited, a frown creasing his tan forehead.

“I, um, I accidentally kicked over the bucket. I had to mop it all up, and then I decided to milk her again, but first I had to catch her and...” She closed her eyes in embarrassment. Only an ignorant city girl would try to milk a cow twice in one morning, and she was certainly not a city girl. Ignorant, maybe, but not a city girl. And only a clumsy idiot would kick over a pail of milk.

Molly came to her rescue by stomping her little feet down the stairs. “Mama made me go to my room!” she announced in an aggrieved tone.

“How come?” her brother asked.

She stared at the floor. “Dunno.”

The hired man and the burlap bag of coffee beans disappeared into the pantry, and then he tramped back out through the screen door. When he returned he had a big white sack of flour over his shoulder. But this time the screen door twisted off its one remaining hinge and hung sideways. Without breaking his stride, he yanked it all the way off and sailed it off the front porch.

Molly and Danny watched, wide-eyed. “Wow,” her son breathed.

Suddenly Eleanor was bone-tired. She made an effort to breathe normally, in and out, like Doc said. In and out, slowly. She couldn’t manage all of this, the milk pail, the mop, the cow, Molly’s incessant questions, the screen door...she couldn’t manage any of it. She closed her eyes. She wanted to scream, but she didn’t have the energy.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and she snapped her lids open.

Cord stood beside her, dusting flour off his jeans. “Got any whiskey?”

“In the pantry,” she said wearily. “Top shelf.” She shut her eyes again and concentrated on her breathing.

“Ma’am?” He stood in front of her, holding out a cup of coffee. She hesitated, then lifted it out of his hand and downed a big swallow. Her throat convulsed as something hot burned its way down her throat. Tears came to her eyes.

“Guess you don’t drink much liquor,” he observed.

“I don’t drink liquor at all,” she rasped. She risked a dainty sip of the brew this time. “It tastes awful, like varnish.”

He chuckled. “You drink a lot of varnish?”

She laughed in spite of herself—in spite of her exhaustion, in spite of everything. She breathed in the scent of sweat and sunshine and caramel. “Mr. Wint—”

“Name’s Cordell.”

“Cordell—”

“Cord,” he corrected. At that moment Danny streaked out through the front door, stopping to inspect the space where the ruined screen had been. Molly tagged at his heels.

Cord pulled his attention back to Eleanor Malloy. “Guess you’ve had a tough morning, huh?”

At her nod, he continued. “Me, too. First there was that pink-painted storefront. Then what’s-his-name at the sawmill gave me some grief about putting the lumber on your account. And then,” he said with an exaggerated sigh, “Daniel ate all the caramels and wanted Molly’s lemon drops, too.”

“You bought lemon drops for Molly?”

“Sure. I knew Daniel’d brag about his caramels when we got home, so I figured—”

Without warning she started to cry.

“Well, now, maybe Molly doesn’t like lemon—”

“She l-loves lemon drops. Th-thank you.” She handed her coffee cup to him. “Mr. Winterman, I am feeling a bit tired. I think I will lie down for a few minutes.”

She managed to stand up without swaying and reached the settee in the parlor before her knees gave out. Cord thunked his cup onto the kitchen table, walked over to her and lifted her into his arms. She sure didn’t weigh much.

He started up the stairs. “Where’s your bedroom?”

“Last door,” she murmured.

Cord tramped down the hallway, swung open the door of her room and strode across the rag rug beside the bed. Then he bent and carefully laid her on the quilt. At once she curled up like a little girl and before he straightened up she was asleep.

The room was Spartan, just the bed and a battered armoire and a chest of drawers with a basin and china pitcher on top. No mirror. Ruffled white muslin curtains fluttered at the double window. Which, he noted in passing, looked out on the front yard where the discarded screen door lay between two maple trees. Daniel and Molly were squatting on their haunches with their chins propped in their hands, contemplating the rusty mess. He hated to think what project they’d come up with for the old screen—a safe one, he hoped. Mrs. Malloy, Eleanor, didn’t need any more worry.

He noted the intent look on both children’s faces and how they kept poking each other with their elbows. Guess he should be prepared for anything. Eleanor’s children were turning out to be fun to watch.

With a chuckle he went back down the stairs, climbed up onto the wagon bench and drove the load of lumber around behind the barn.

Chapter Four

Eleanor stretched luxuriously and opened her eyes. Doc Dougherty had ordered her to take afternoon naps, but really, this was ridiculous! From the angle of the sun through the bedroom window, she guessed she had slept for hours.

The sound of hammering came through the open window, and she dragged her aching body off the bed and peeked out. Danny was perched at Mr. Winterman’s elbow, handing him nails, which he pounded into the new porch step. Molly was playing with something in the porch swing. She wondered what it was until a tiny ball of orange fur tumbled off onto the floor.

A kitten! Where had she found a kitten? As she watched, another orange ball dropped off the swing, and then another! She groaned aloud. Surely Cord wouldn’t have brought kittens from town without asking her first?

Molly gave a squeak and scrambled out of the swing to corral the animals, and Eleanor turned away from the window. She splashed lukewarm water over her flushed cheeks and patted some on her neck. Imagine, sleeping away the afternoon when she should be baking bread and starting the beans for supper. It was probably because of that whiskey Cord had slipped into her coffee. The man was a bad influence.

Well, maybe not so bad, considering that he’d apparently worked all afternoon and watched over Daniel and Molly while he repaired whatever he was working on. She looked out the window again.

The front porch step was fixed. Oh, yes, she surely did need a hired man! She was glad she had hired Cordell Winterman. She thought about the tall, sun-browned man all the way down the stairs and into the kitchen to start supper.

An hour later the children tumbled in through the new screen door, dusty and happy. And hungry. “Wash up,” she ordered.

“We already did,” Molly answered.

“Oh? Where?”

“At the pump out front,” Danny volunteered. “With Cord. I mean Mr. Winterman.”

She propped both hands on her hips. “With soap?”

“With soap,” Cord said as he came through the door. He took the chair she indicated, tipping it back until the two front feet lifted off the floor.

“You’re gonna fall over backward,” Molly observed.

“You want to bet on that?”

“Yes!” the girl shouted.

“Okay. I bet three lemon drops that I won’t tip this chair over.”

“Please,” Eleanor interjected, setting a platter of fried potatoes on the table. “Do not teach my children to gamble!”

He stared up at her. “You mean I can’t bet even one lemon drop?”

“I mean exactly that,” she said, keeping her voice extra-crisp. “And kindly tell me where those kittens came from? Not from town, I hope?”

Molly went rigid. Cord returned all four chair legs to the floor. “Well, ma’am, to tell you the truth—”

“Don’t tell her anything!” Danny yelled. “She’ll make us get rid of ’em.”

“Would you do that, Mrs. Malloy?” Cord inquired, his voice quiet. “Make your children get rid of some kittens?”

“Well...”

“Because,” he continued, “actually they’re your kittens. They were born in your barn, up in the hayloft.”

“Are you absolutely sure about that?” She couldn’t soften the suspicion that tinged her voice.

“Oh, I’m sure, all right,” he said with a laugh. “Mama Cat and the little ones snuggled right up to my belly last night. They’re yours, all right.”

She sat down suddenly, completely out of steam. “What? Oh. Well, then, I suppose...”

“Yaaay!” Molly cried. “Tomorrow I’m gonna give them all names.”

Cord studied the white-faced woman sitting across from him. “Daniel,” he said quietly, “why don’t you check on whatever’s in the oven.”

“Oh, yessir, Cord.”

“And, Molly,” he continued, “get your mother’s napkin and wet it under the pump at the sink.”

The children bustled about their tasks while Eleanor sat limp as a cooked noodle. When Molly handed her the wet napkin, she took it without a word and laid it against the back of her neck.

Cord kept his eye on her while he pointed to the oven. “Dan?”

Danny opened the oven door and sniffed. “Beans, I guess. A big pot.”

Cord stood, grabbed two potholders and lifted the pot of bubbling beans to the table. Danny handed him the big serving spoon, and Cord ladled out a dollop onto a plate and pushed it over to Eleanor.

She pushed it back across the table to Cord. “I’m not hungry.”

Cord added a square of corn bread and slid the plate back to her.

“I said I wasn’t hungry,” she murmured.

“Yeah, I heard you. Eat some anyway. You’ve got two kids who need their mother, so don’t argue.”

“Well!” She ruffled herself up like an angry banty chicken. “Mr. Winterman, just who do you think you are, giving me orders?”

He drew in a tired breath. “I’m your hired man, Eleanor. I’m trying to help you here, so do what I say, all right?”

Molly and Danny exchanged wide-eyed looks and picked up their forks without a word. Cord ladled some beans onto their plates and then some onto his own. After a long moment their mother picked up her fork, and the kids exchanged another, even longer, look.

Cord caught Danny’s eye and gave him an imperceptible shake of his head. Don’t say anything, son. Nobody likes to give in when they’ve made a speech about refusing something. To Molly he sent a smile and a wink.

After that, supper was dead quiet except for the clink of utensils against the china plates. Finally Danny broke the spell. “We got any dessert, Ma?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” she said. “I meant to bake an apple pie, but...”

“I make a humdinger of an apple pie,” Cord announced.

Three startled pairs of eyes stared at him. “Aw, you can’t neither,” Danny said.

“Don’t bet on it, son.”

Eleanor pinned him with a disapproving look but he paid no attention, just grinned.

“You all get ready for apple pie tomorrow night, all right?” He held her gaze just long enough to make her a little nervous.

Eleanor stared at him. Apple pie? Surely he was joking. After an announcement like that, she found she couldn’t stop looking at him. Well, maybe it was more than his apple pie promise. Maybe it was his way of taking over, of making her feel...cared for somehow.

She gave herself a mental shake. The man left her with an uneasy, fluttery feeling in her stomach. She watched Danny and Molly gobble down their beans, butter extra squares of corn bread and gulp down their milk. Then, without a word from her, they gathered up the plates and pumped water into the teakettle to heat for washing up the dishes.

Things were certainly different since Cord Winterman had appeared at her door. She wasn’t sure she liked it. She wasn’t sure she even liked him. Could a man like that really deliver on a challenge to bake a pie? She didn’t think so for one minute. Not for one single minute!

* * *

That night, Cord lay awake in the loft until long past moonrise, not because he wasn’t tired from fixing the screen or the porch step or the front gate, but because Mama Cat brought her wriggly kittens to curl up against his back and he was afraid to roll over for fear of crushing them. He could move them, he supposed. But after a few hours he kinda liked hearing them purr next to him.

You know what, Winterman? You are a damn fool.

Maybe. He didn’t know exactly what he’d landed in here at Eleanor Malloy’s apple farm, but he was grateful for the roof over his head, even if the barn was drafty, and three meals a day with no one prodding him to hurry up or move on or...anything else.

God, it was good to be here! It felt good to buy lumber at the sawmill, buy lemon drops for Molly and caramels for Danny. It felt especially good to talk to a pretty girl at the mercantile. What was her name? Fanny something. Even if she did giggle and flutter her eyelashes at him, it was good to know he still looked like a normal man on the outside, even if the inside was pretty much broken.

He drifted off to sleep with Mama Cat warming his backside and a woman’s face floating in his mind. But it wasn’t Fanny What’s-her-name’s face. It was Eleanor Malloy’s.

In the morning he milked Bessie, saved a saucerful for Mama Cat and the kittens, laid out the lumber to repair the rotten corral fence and ate the best breakfast he could remember in the last seven years. Molly fried up a mess of bacon, Daniel mixed up thick sourdough pancake batter and Eleanor made coffee with one hand and flipped pancakes with the other.

She looked better this morning, more rested. The dark circles under her eyes seemed less pronounced. Maybe that nap yesterday afternoon had done her some good. Or maybe he should slip whiskey into her coffee more often.

It took all day to repair the fence. Halfway through the afternoon he remembered his promise to bake an apple pie for tonight’s dessert. He was sure ending up doing some strange things on this farm, cuddling kittens and plying kids with lemon drops and caramels. And now he’d gotten himself into baking a pie. Still, any single hour of life here on this farm was better than sixty seconds of where he’d been before.

After midday dinner he shooed the kids outside and watched Eleanor nod off on the parlor settee. After a while he tiptoed out onto the porch, where Molly and Danny were arguing about what to do with the old rusted-out door screen.

“Let’s build a bird cage.”

“No! Let’s make a chicken coop.”

“We’ve already got a chicken coop,” Molly pointed out.

“Yeah,” Danny conceded. “But it’s pretty rickety. How about making a dirt-strainer.”

“A dirt-strainer!” Molly’s blue eyes went wide. “That’s a dumb idea. What’s a dirt-strainer, anyway?”

“You know. When Ma plants tomatoes ’n’ carrots she hoes the dirt real fine. A dirt-strainer would make it easier.”

They argued and discussed until their mother woke from her nap, and Cord strode into the kitchen to bake his apple pie.

Eleanor shook her head at the sight of the rangy man in her kitchen and when he tied her blue-checked gingham apron around his waist she had to smile. Danny disappeared into the pantry and emerged with a big bowl of last season’s red Jonathan apples. Cord sat him down at the kitchen table with a paring knife and showed him how to cut them in half, remove the core and peel them. He showed Molly how to slice them up fine, and while the children labored away, he started his piecrust.