Soul of a Crow Read online

  Malcolm yelped and halted Aces to retrieve it; as he rejoined us he said, with an air of slight disdain, “Besides, that catfish was just a legend, Uncle Malcolm told me.”

  I teased affectionately, “This from the boy who believes in hoop snakes with all his heart.”

  “Lorie! I can’t tell you again, them things are real!” the boy insisted, dark eyebrows lofted high. He peered at me from beneath the brim of his newly-resettled hat.

  “But not a man-eating catfish?” I pestered, smiling at him.

  He pursed his lips and squinted one eye at me in the way he had, replying, “No, but I done heard of a bird in the North that eats children. Flies down an’ swoops ’em up in his talons.”

  “Perhaps like those?” Sawyer asked in all seriousness, though I caught the note of teasing in his voice. We all looked upwards, where he was indicating, at a pair of wide-winged birds gliding on an updraft, crisp and black against the deep blue backdrop of the sky.

  Malcolm whooped, and both Aces and Juniper shied at the unexpected sound, snorting and stomping. He yelped, “Run for cover! Lorie, get down!” He heeled Aces and cantered ahead, still shouting for all he was worth, as though in pursuit of the birds; he took aim with an imaginary pistol, and I could see the bunching of the horse’s muscular flanks as he flowed smoothly into a gallop. Malcolm’s already-lively imagination had been much stimulated since the night the catamounts bounded through our camp.

  I changed the subject, taking up an earlier conversation, “Do you believe we’ll be able to purchase land upon arrival?”

  “We’ll apply immediately,” Sawyer said. “The purchase will be determined upon approval of our application. And that’s where it becomes a fair amount sketchy for us, as former soldiers. We’ve taken up arms against the United States government, officially, and therefore might not be granted permission by the Act of ’sixty-two, though Gus was certain that it wouldn’t be so strictly enforced any longer.”

  “We’ll pray that’s so,” Boyd agreed. “Uncle Jacob was never a soldier himself. We may just be guests upon his homestead for the rest of our livin’ lives.” Winking at me, he said, “Y’all don’t mind living your golden years in a haymow, do you?”

  Sawyer assured me, “We’ll make our own home, I promise you. Even if I have to clear every acre with my bare hands.”

  I knew he would, too, if it came to that. I assured, “I will help you.”

  “Yes, an’ gripping your sharpest saw,” Boyd snorted in retort. “You may be strong, Davis, but I’ve yet to see you uproot a tree all alone. In fact, I recall the time me an’ Beau beat you an’ Ethan in the tug o’ war competition, July the fourth, 1858. Exactly ten years ago this very day, if I don’t mistake the date.”

  Sawyer laughed and Whistler tossed her head and high-stepped at the sound, happy to hear the joy in his voice. He countered, “Not by much, if you’ll recall.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Boyd warned me. “Shee-it. Me an’ Sawyer was fourteen years old that summer, more fulla piss an’ hot air than you’s ever seen. Christ.”

  “Where was I?” Malcolm demanded breathlessly, rejoining us. Sweat trickled over his temples and created fine rivulets in the dust on his face.

  “You was just a babe, still on the breast,” Boyd gleefully informed him, and Malcolm’s lips went into an immediate pout.

  “I done missed all the fun,” the boy muttered.

  Boyd explained to me, “It was the Suttonville celebration, the one in which Ethan usually won the blue ribbon in the horse race. He rode Buck that year, did he not?” Sawyer nodded with amused agreement and Boyd continued, “You shoulda seen Ethan, strutting around with that ribbon on his shirt. Remember how we all tried to get Emily Ingram’s attention that summer? Lord, that girl. She was pretty as a starlit night, but such a nag. Not that we noticed, nor even cared. We just wanted to get her around the corner of a barn for a kiss or two.” Boyd grinned impishly. “But she had her eye on Sawyer, an’ oh was I jealous.”

  “Emily Ingram,” Sawyer said, laughing. He shook his head and said, “Just the thought of her voice makes me cringe, yet. She always said my name in two parts, Saw-yer, all singsong-like.”

  “I notice that didn’t stop you from stealing a kiss, yourself,” Boyd remarked.

  “She was the first girl I’d ever tried to kiss,” Sawyer told me. “I was so nervous I was sweating buckets, and hardly had I touched her when she started giggling, and then ran away. I never knew if I had done something wrong, or what.”

  I laughed at this description, unable to imagine any girl who didn’t near die with pleasure at being kissed by him. I tried to form a picture of Sawyer at fourteen years of age. And Boyd, surely even more incorrigible than he was now, a decade later. They were each so solidly-built, strong and broad and capable, intimidatingly formidable when the need arose, and adorned by various scars from battle; I had difficulty envisioning them as slim and gangly boys, full of mischief but innocent to what they would someday be forced to know.

  “Well, you musta done something right, as she bragged about it to all the girls in attendance that day. I wanted to wring your gullet,” Boyd said good-naturedly, his eyes merry with remembrance. “I just knew I had to beat you at something if I wanted her attention.”

  Like my own, their memories of the idyllic days before the War were as precious as gold, though even in 1858 the conflict was already on the horizon, an all-encompassing shadow, its approach inescapable. I did not wish to dwell on that thought, and so I prompted, “What of the tug of war?”

  “Oh yes,” Boyd said, resettling his hat. “Well, Beau an’ me thought there was no better way to get the ladies to notice us than to challenge the Davis boys to a little friendly competition. Beau had his eye on Sara Lynn LeMoyne, you’ll recall, an’ we figured the girls would pay attention if we tugged you twos into the mud. There was a right big crowd gathered to watch, as it had been goin’ strong since afternoon. I recall that both Emily an’ Sara Lynn was in the crowd.”

  “It was an outright battle,” Sawyer said. “I remember you and me faced off in the front, Boyd. And Ethan behind me, yelling in my ear at the top of his voice, ‘Pull, goddammit, pull!’”

  “The determination in your eyes was right frightening, old friend,” Boyd said. “At the last moment I looked away an’ saw Emily watching, cheerin’ an’ clappin’, an’ I knew that we just had to win.”

  “Carters always win in tug o’ war,” Malcolm said, sounding affronted. “Daddy said it’s since we got such strong arms, that’s why.”

  I was laughing so hard I could hardly catch a breath, and Sawyer’s eyes were warm upon me.

  Boyd said, “An’ I was rewarded. Beau an’ me let the rope go slack just long enough to fool the two of you, an’ then hauled for all we was worth. There went Sawyer an’ Eth right into the mud-slick, all churned up from the boots of near every man in Suttonville. Oh, it was a ripe victory. We basked in glory until I felt a sudden cold chill an’ looked to see the glint in Ethan’s eye. See, Lorie, his blue ribbon was covered in mud. I barely had time to move before he launched at me, swingin’ for all he was worth.”

  “I was sitting right in the middle of it,” Sawyer informed me. “Ethan went near over my head and socked Boyd square in the nose.”

  “I then had to defend myself,” Boyd added, as Malcolm laughed and nodded in approval.

  “Beau tried to grab for the two of you and fell, and I couldn’t get to my feet as the mud was so slippery,” Sawyer said. “Then I got an elbow in the face.”

  “Before you could slap a tick, the four of us was all-out wrestling like a bunch of boars in spring,” Boyd laughed. “Jesus, our poor mamas was downright ashamed. Big boys like us shoulda known better.”

  “Your daddy waded in and near cracked our heads together,” Sawyer remembered. “And for all that trouble, Emily ended up on Nash Gandy’s arm anyway.”

  “Lord, that’s right, I’d forgotten,” Boyd said. He sobered and said softly, “
Gandy didn’t make it past the summer of ’sixty-three, not so’s I know of.”

  “It’s a wonder we did,” Sawyer said quietly, his gaze on the far horizon before coming back to me. He saw the concern in my eyes and sent me a smile of reassurance, asking, “You feel up to a ride? I’ll mind the wagon.”

  “I think I would,” I said, shifting and drawing back on the reins, halting the team. Sawyer pulled off his riding gloves and I slipped them into place, loving the warmth of the leather that had just been touching him. I hugged Whistler’s neck before climbing neatly atop her back; Sawyer shortened the stirrups for me, then straightened to his full height and curved both hands around my lower leg.

  “Don’t ride out of sight, I can’t bear it,” he told me, and I promised I would not.

  Malcolm doubled back and appropriated my attention immediately, coaxing me to canter.

  “Please, Lorie-Lorie,” he begged. “Aces wants to race.”

  “Let’s ride ahead a bit, instead,” I told him.

  Malcolm shrugged agreeably.

  I heeled Whistler and she pranced forward eagerly, following after Aces. Malcolm led us out at a trot; I overtook him easily and for a time we rode abreast while Boyd stayed back near the wagon.

  “You look right healed up,” Malcolm said, our knees no more than two feet apart. “You’s feeling better, ain’t you? I been awful worried.”

  “I am,” I assured. Wishing to compliment him, I specified, “The three of you take such marvelous care of me.”

  “We aim to,” he said. “Ladies need someone to care for them.”

  “Boys, too,” I couldn’t help but tease.

  “I’ll be a man right soon,” he contradicted. “Right soon.” He scrunched up his face and mused, “Do you think my uncle will care for us?”

  “He’s your family,” I said; it was so like Malcolm to express a similar sentiment, to echo what I had been wondering about, only earlier this day. I reassured, “Of course he’ll care for you.”

  “He’s your kin now, too,” the boy said. “You’s our sister now, recall?”

  I said solemnly, “Yes, I recall. Though I don’t know if your uncle will share that opinion.”

  “He will,” Malcolm said with all the confidence of a child. He added, a wistful note softening his voice, “I hope he looks like Mama. He is her kid brother, after all. I hope he reminds me of her. Lord, I do miss her. Sometimes I can’t quite see her face or hear her voice no more. It’s been near four years since she passed.” He released a little half-sigh, looking towards the horizon. He whispered, “I miss her, even still.”

  I reached and squeezed his forearm, and he tenderly patted me, brightening a little.

  “Did she sing?” I asked.

  He nodded vigorous affirmation. “She did, all the time.”

  “What did she sing?”

  “From the hymnal, mostly. When the boys was gone to War, she sang from the hymnal every night. Daddy would play his fiddle an’ we’d sing, real quiet-like. She loved ‘My Old Kentucky Home,’ though we did live in Tennessee. An’ songs of Christmastide. Her favorite was ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.’”

  “Perhaps if we sang for a spell, you’d hear her voice more clearly in your memory,” I said.

  His dark eyes lit with anticipation and he said, “Let’s sing the midnight one, do you know it, Lorie?”

  “I know that one well,” I said, and together we sang through all its verses. Malcolm’s voice was sweet and true. He loved to sing, or whistle, while he accomplished his chores, sometimes almost unconsciously; I had grown so accustomed to hearing him, and felt there were few things more cheerful than a whistled tune.

  “Let’s sing ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’ next!” he said upon finishing the first song, bouncing on the saddle.

  We worked our way through every Yuletide hymn we could recollect, until Boyd yelled from some distance behind, “Guess I best hang out my stocking tonight! An’ make up a mince pie or two!”

  “Oh Lordy, mince pies,” Malcolm said. He begged, “You’ll bake up pies for us, won’t you?”

  “It has been a long time since I baked anything,” I admitted, and another small burst of angst shivered across my belly; I lacked so many of the skills that a woman my age, nearly eighteen, would normally possess. My existence at Ginny’s required no work in the kitchen or lower household; my services, like all of the other women’s, had been expected exclusively in the rooms upstairs.

  And as he was so often wont to do, the boy lifted my spirits without even realizing, as he chirped, “Well, you’s a fast learner.”

  I looked his way, immeasurably touched at this observation.

  Malcolm’s eyebrows lifted abruptly and he indicated with an extended finger, noting, “There’s smoke up there!”

  “Looks more like dust,” I contradicted, squinting against the brilliant sun. We traveled along a beaten path upon which rain had not fallen for many days; a smoke-cloud of powder-fine dust rose in the wake of our passage, as well. I said decisively, “Come along, let’s ride back.”

  We circled the horses. Sawyer and Boyd had already noticed the disturbance on the trail; Boyd asked, “You three in the mood for a bit a company?”

  I was most assuredly not, but refrained from voicing the thought.

  From the wagon seat Sawyer asked, “Are you longing a bit for Christmas, you two?”

  I smiled up at him, replying, “We were remembering songs that Clairee used to sing.”

  “Then you shoulda been singing ‘Twinkling Stars Are Laughing, Love,’ as that was her favorite,” Boyd said.

  “Aw, Mama used to sing that, too,” Sawyer said. “That is such a lovely tune.”

  “Let’s!” Malcolm said, and so it was that all four of us were singing the lullaby as a pair of horses appeared distantly on the trail, trotting our way at a leisurely pace. As we finished the final verse, Boyd stood in his stirrups and called, “Hello there!”

  One of the approaching riders waved and called a greeting. Despite the friendly exchange thus far, I could sense both Sawyer and Boyd grow wary, their eyes calculating and noting details, surely far beyond that which mine would observe. Boyd and Malcolm maneuvered in front of me, and I was no more than a few feet from Sawyer, and so I let my shoulders relax. I noticed the horses first as they neared, one a lovely, showy sorrel with an amber mane that caught and threw the sunlight, the other a tall chestnut. The men mounted upon them were not traveling far, as they rode with no saddle bags or bedrolls. They were most certainly a father and son, and halted near us.

  The father spoke affably, greeting us, “Good day, fellows,” before he caught sight of me. He swept off his hat and amended, “And ma’am. Begging your pardon. Charley Rawley, and my boy, Grant.”

  The son also removed his hat, nodding politely; curly hair flopped at once over his forehead, and he quickly replaced his headwear.

  “That’s Lorie an’ she is actually a girl, even if she wears trousers,” Malcolm said importantly, and I blushed hotly at this well-meaning explanation.

  Sawyer took charge and said in his deep voice, “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Rawley. I am Sawyer Davis. This is my wife, Lorissa, and Boyd and Malcolm Carter. The four of us are bound for Minnesota.”

  He spoke the word wife with such pride and my heart swelled, overjoyed that he would introduce me so, despite our decidedly unmarried status according to the laws and expectations of society. I knew Sawyer wished to honor me with a proper wedding service, but in our hearts we were already wed; no words spoken by a reverend could make this any more true, at least not in mine or Sawyer’s eyes.

  “Tennessee?” asked Charley Rawley, surprising all of us. He sensed this and hurried to explain, “My wife is of Tennessee, originally. I can always recognize that particular lilt.”

  “We are, at that,” Boyd said, and I could hear his good humor though he faced away from me. “That’s a fine ear you have. Whereabouts is your wife from?”

  “Crossville, in the Cum
berland County,” Charley replied, resettling his hat.

  “Shucks, we was raised not but a stone’s throw from there, in Suttonville,” Boyd said.

  “As it is the Fourth of July, we are bound at the moment for the neighboring homestead, to invite them for an afternoon celebration,” Charley said. “We would surely appreciate your company for dinner, as well. My wife isn’t often able to converse with folks from her home state.”

  “Have you firecrackers?” Malcolm asked, with such eagerness that Charley laughed.

  He said, “We’ve a few, son.”

  Sawyer looked to me.

  Do you wish to join them?

  I think that would be all right, I responded.

  Boyd turned in the saddle to regard the both of us.

  “We could spare an evening,” he murmured. He turned back to Charley and said, “We would be most delighted to join your family.”

  Charley tipped his hat brim and then said, “I’ll continue to the Yancys’ homestead, and Grant shall show you the way to ours, if that suits? We’re but two miles northwest of here.”

  Charley heeled his chestnut and waved farewell, as Boyd and Malcolm rode forward to speak with his son. I heard Malcolm say, “That’s a fine sorrel you got there. Does she like to race?”

  I murmured to Sawyer, “I cannot pay a call dressed this way.”

  “I like how you look,” he said, grinning at me.

  “Mrs. Rawley would be horrified, as you well know,” I said, with absolute certainty. I could not under any circumstances meet a Tennessee woman while clad in Malcolm’s trousers. In my memory I heard the sound of my mama’s shocked, indrawn breath, the kind she always held just before releasing a deluge of critique. I had to presume that Mrs. Rawley’s sensibilities would be similarly delicate.

  “Thank you for introducing me as your wife,” I added softly, reaching up to rest my hand upon his knee.

  “I won’t have folks talking of that which isn’t their business. And you are my wife, Lorie-love, no matter if a preacher has spoken over us or not,” Sawyer said, echoing my thoughts exactly, and lifted my knuckles to his lips.