Dollybird (10 page)

CHAPTER 14

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MOIRA

I recognized him
the moment I stepped through the door to Walter's office. His beard and moustache had grown back a
little, though now his hair was shorn, but he was definitely
the driver of the honey wagon, the man the children had taunted. He held a child, a small boy, and, as I watched, swung him effortlessly from one hip to the other like an experienced mother might, then stood swaying back and forth, the child's head resting on his shoulder. I was relieved and angry at the same time. A child meant the man and I would not be alone in an empty house. But a child also meant work and mothering, something I didn't feel much capable of. He reached up to brush blond wisps of hair out of the boy's eyes and caught me watching. And then I knew him from an eternity before. He was the single father on the train.

A flush spread, darkening him from the base of his neck to his hairline. His eyes narrowed and moved from my face to my belly. At seven months I was bursting out everywhere. He looked up again, bewildered, sudden panic in those eyes. I glared, daring him to look again at my belly. He didn't.

“Well, Moira, there you are.” Walter's bow tie was askew, hanging to one side, his shirt unbuttoned at the throat. The office was stuffy, the windows sealed despite the fresh spring day outside. Walter came around behind me to close the door, as though to avoid the possibility of anyone attempting escape.

“You never said anything about no baby coming.” The man's eyes never left my face.

“Well he didn't tell me I'd have a child to care for either.” I nodded at the boy.

“I don't need another mouth to feed.”

“I hadn't planned to be a nanny.”

“Whoa there.” Walter held up his hands and laughed hollowly, then cleared his throat. “Okay, so you didn't know everything. But would you have showed up if you did?”

The man's eyes shifted to his son and back to me. He shrugged then as though he just wanted to get this over with, except it wouldn't be over any time soon. I shook my head.

“Exactly.” Walter stepped behind his desk and pushed his glasses up on his nose as though readying himself to deliver a grand elocution. “Face it. You're both in a predicament and you need each other. So let's just get through this.”

The room was silent except for the child's snuffling.

“Moira here only wants a roof over her head and three square meals,”
Walter said.

My neck grew hot. A man like him could reduce my life to this.

“And Dillan,” Walter pointed, “needs someone to watch the kid and take care of the house so he can get his farming done.” He leaned in close to me and whispered loudly, “Doesn't know shit about it, so we don't want him distracted having to raise the boy.”

Dillan flushed at this report of his inadequacies trumpeted for my amusement. The boy was trying to climb his father's torso, and Dillan swung him back to his other hip.

“It's perfect,” said Walter and, seeing he had the advantage added, “mind she won't tolerate no advances from you, young stud.” He winked at Dillan, who looked like he wanted to melt into the varnish of the floor. “A simple business arrangement is all.”

“Oh for heaven's sake.” I looked hard at Dillan, rolling my eyes to indicate Walter was as much idiot as saviour. “Let's go.”

Dillan followed me out. I climbed up to sit on the seat of the wagon while he quickly hoisted the boy up and loaded my possessions. Walter was still talking, reminding us of the conditions of our commitment. Dillan clambered up, grabbed the reins and whipped them over the back of the small mule hitched to the wagon. And we were off, relieved finally to escape Walter's incessant, embarrassing chatter. We rode, both of us ramrod straight on the seat, his knuckles white on the reins. The boy sat stiff between us, glancing up first at his father, then furtively at me, inching away when I tried to smile down at him.

After a long silence, I sniffed hard. “I guess we were both lied to.”

“I suppose so, then.”

We stared straight ahead. He shifted on the hard, uncomfortable seat. His sidelong glances grew longer and I sat upright under his stare, hoping to appear confident, maybe even stately. Perhaps he expected a dollybird to be needy, or contrite, especially one in my condition. I wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

The narrow trail was mined with rocks, the cart lurching into the air as the wheels jumped over them. Before long, my back and neck were stiff from anticipating the next jarring spasm. The mule seemed awfully small to be forced to haul even the meager contents of the cart.

The silence stretched.

Dillan continued to eye me, though not directly. Whether he was still coming to terms with the fact of my pregnancy, or my being there at all, I couldn't say. The tension from him grew, bloated questions hanging about.

Suddenly he looked hard at the child. “His name is Casey.”

“Nice. How old are you?” This last was directed to the boy,
who shrank even further into his father's side. But it was a re
lief to speak, and the release of tension caused a strange weight in my chest to push my words out fast and breathless. “I'm
quite sure I will have a girl. Her name will be Shannon Louise.” Why was I telling him this?

“After your mother, then?”

“No!” I said it too quickly, harshly, my jaw set.

He looked surprised, but thankfully didn't inquire further. Silence again.

“Walter is really something, isn't he?” I ventured.

“He's an ass all right.” He glanced over quickly and blushed.

I nodded. At least we agreed on that point. I wanted to ask him about the rest of the agreement, what he expected of his homestead, of me. And what of his son? But it stunned me to silence-the colossal insanity of our being together on a wagon, heading god-knew-where. It was as though my very nerve endings were searching the air for the answer to who he was. He seemed civil enough, but in the past my instincts had proven sorely lacking.

“The Scots are pigheaded Englishmen with an accent.”

“What?”

“Like Walter. They take over wherever they please as if they have a goddamn right to everything.”

I laughed then, so Casey had to look at me, puzzled, allowing himself a small grin.

“Where,” I sputtered, “did you hear that?”

“My father.” Dillan laughed. “He doesn't like Scotsmen much.”

“And what about Scotswomen?”

“He never said, though I think he'd pay no mind to where a woman came from.”

“I'm Scottish. Or at least my father is. I'm from St. John's.”

“Yeah, I know. I could tell from your accent.”

“And you?”

“Irish. Nova Scotia.”

Answers only led to more questions, but we knew too little. It would be improper to ask.

“Excuse me, but could we stop by that bluff up there?”

“Why?”

“I um.” Good Lord, did he have no manners at all?

The mule made his way toward the trees at his own pace, but I couldn't wait and stood up. “I have to go now!” Clenching my jaw, I scrambled onto the sideboard before the mule was stopped.

“Whoa!” he said, but I was already climbing down. “Okay, okay.”

I did my business out of sight, only a shrub and wagon between a total stranger and myself. Squatting there, holding my breath, barely able to go with the tension that clenched my whole body, I tried to relax, looking at spring around us. Buds were barely forming on the few scattered shrubs. The tall grasses, yellowed and brittle from the long winter, showed a hint of green at their base. Cowpies dotted the trail, some disintegrated into powder under the wheels of carts that had passed before us. Flocks of brilliant white snow geese and their darker Canadian cousins pointed uneven arrow formations north. Two or three pair landed on a dried-up slough nearby, keeping one suspicious eye on the wagon. I heard Casey laugh and finally stood to see him pointing at the geese.

“It can't be helped,” I said, climbing back in. “My father says the only thing to do when pregnant is go with whatever comes. Quite literally, I suppose.”

He snorted. “Your father an expert then?”

“Well yes. He's a doctor. Graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh.”

“Well then. What are you doing...” He stopped briefly.

Maybe he realized it was too soon, or that the question could mean anything: here with him, here in the new province of Saskatchewan, here and pregnant.

“Here?”

He was a surprisingly straightforward man.

“My father came to Newfoundland to help the ignorant Catholics.”

“What?”

“A sort of missionary post, you know.”

“Wait a minute.” He held up his hand. “It's not like Catholics are a bunch of savages to be saved.”

“No, no. But you should have seen them on the island. Not ten miles from St. John's, living in filth you can't imagine, no idea really and no medicine.”

“Maybe they had no choice,” he said quietly.

I considered this a moment, then blurted, “They wore charms, for goodness sake. And when we showed up to help, some of them even chased us off. Said they couldn't trust our magic. Magic! Can you imagine? It was so stupid.” I stopped, blushing. “No, not stupid. Just ignorant.”

Silence again, broken only by the creaking of the cart and Mule's plodding footfalls.

“We had charms,” he said quietly. “There, around Casey's neck in the amulet. It was his mother's. I made it.”

It was a tiny cross, made of cherry wood and wreathed in a flock of minute doves. His hands on the reins were big, detached from the rest of his body by ragged cuffs, and wrists that were bony and small. They had the harmless appearance of bear paws. That their careful crafting had fashioned something so delicate gave me pause. Such sensitivity surely pointed to something in his character.

“It's beautiful,” I said.

“We prayed every day the baby would be born healthy, not like so many of them little ones that never stood a chance.”

I looked down at Casey. “Well I guess it worked.”

“Yeah.” He smiled vaguely. “But I should have been praying for Taffy – my wife.” He nodded. “Guess I forgot all those aunts and cousins and other women who died having babies. People said it was God's way, but everyone grieved the poor motherless tykes.”

“I'm sorry. About your wife I mean.” There was a long pause. “Could the doctor do nothing?”

“Hmmph,” he snorted. “Doctors! Didn't help my Taffy none. Beg your pardon, but they mess things up bad before they do any good. Heard all about their operations; patients nearly always winding up as dead as they would have been without them.”

I couldn't help but laugh. “Surely you don't believe that?” But his eyes were neither amused nor doubtful.

“Saw it myself. An uncle. Watched the green and yellow pus fill up his lungs after they opened him up.” He shuddered. “He died in a hell of a lot more pain than if they'd just let him cough himself to death.”

“But a person has to try. If death is the only certainty, then every attempt should be made to find an alternative.”

“If you're meant to go.” He shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

How could anyone be so cavalier about death? Ready to argue the point, I glanced up just in time to see Mule veering off the path. “Look out,” I shrieked.

Dillan hauled on the reins, but Mule kept walking. He was about to cross a small creek when he stopped suddenly, pitching us all forward. Dillan clambered down and grabbed the harness, trying to pull the animal across the water.

“Whip those reins over his back. Hard,” Dillan yelled.

“I know how to drive a cart. I drove my father all over the countryside.”

“He couldn't drive himself, then?” Dillan whacked Mule's shoulders and hind end, but the beast wouldn't move. “Mac an diabhoil,” he berated the animal under his breath and finally cuffed it about the ears and nose.

“This is some horse,” I said quietly, trying not to laugh.

“It's a mule and he'll do just fine.” He held his head a little higher.

“Yes, until you get yourself stuck in a bog.” The laughter rolled out of me. He looked like he wanted to smack me too.

He waved his arms at the acres and acres of grass. “Do you see any bogs around then?”

“No, I suppose not. Still, he did manage to find the only water for miles.” Suddenly I had to clench my jaw to hold my bladder. I dropped the reins and scrambled off the wagon. “Turn around.”

“Holy hell,” he muttered as I disappeared behind the wagon.

When I came back he had taken the harness off Mule and tied him so he could reach the grass alongside the ruts that were the road. “I think he just needs a rest. We'll stop here awhile.”