Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (10 page)

She was like a small, sweet-smelling, boneless kitten; so vulnerable, so damned defenseless. He desperately wished for a way to shield her from hurt. He pressed his cheek to the top of her head. What the hell was the matter with people? Why didn’t they realize how fortunate they were to have her teaching their kids? Holding her tightly against him, Daniel vowed he would do something to make it right. He would, by God, or he would crack some heads.

It was a long time before she spoke, and when she did, it was in a low, husky voice that sounded as if she needed to clear her throat.

“I’m in disgrace, Danny.”

He said nothing.

“They don’t think I’m fit to teach their children.”

He said a curse word against the top of her head.

“They think I’m sleeping with you. You, my brother! How could they think that of me?”

“Goddamn!” The word he murmured was for two different reasons.

“It’s because the Baxters came looking for me.”

He grunted agreement, his heart hurting for her.

“Maybe it isn’t their fault. They love their mother and are trying to ease her dying. I can’t hate them for that.”

His crossed arms tightened, and his hands stroked her arms, which hung at her sides. Her voice was so full of sadness and defeat that he wanted to hurt someone, anyone. At that moment Daniel wished he had shot the Baxters and dragged their bodies off to the river that first night he’d found them with her. The thought shocked him. Lord Almighty! He’d never wished anyone dead before. Is
that
what love did to a man?

“There’s no point in staying here,” he said softly to the top of her head.

“Where can I go?” Her voice was wooden.

“You can go home or to the mill with me until I can take you out to my place. This will blow over. It needs a little time. I’ll go speak to the families and explain what happened.”

“No! We’ve done nothing we have to explain.” She placed her hands on his arms and moved back to look up into his face. The spirit seemed to flow back into her with the uttered words. Her chin came up, her body stiffened, and she turned away from him to cross her arms over her chest and look out the door. When she turned back, her jaw was set stubbornly, her lips pressed into an angry slash. “Damn them! Damn them to hell and back for not knowing or caring what they are doing to their own children!” She poked at his chest with her forefinger to give emphasis to the words. “And don’t tell me not to swear. I feel like swearing. It feels good to swear! Damn! Goddammit! Hell! Hellfire! Shitfire!” she added defiantly.

“Mercy Quill! I may have to wash your mouth out with soap,” Daniel said sternly, but he was smiling.

“I’m just so mad! The fools are depriving their children of an education because of their narrow-mindedness.”

“That’s true.”

“They don’t want me to teach their children because they think—they
think
—I’m a fallen woman. They didn’t want Tennessee to teach because she’s part Indian. I’m
not
a fallen woman, and Tennessee is smarter than all of those ignorant, narrow-minded, wooden-headed farmers put together.”

“You’re right about that.”

“Not two parents among the eight families can read and write. Oscar Walker didn’t want Robert to come to school, but Nettie Walker insisted. Oscar said Robert didn’t need to know how to read in order to plow.” Anger had loosened Mercy’s tongue. “They are so stubborn, they want their kids to be stupid too. Glenn Knibee’s fourteen-year-old daughter can twist him right around her little finger.” Mercy held up her finger and circled it with the forefinger of her other hand.

Their gazes locked; his was proud, hers angry.

“If Glenn Knibee thinks I’m going to shut down the school, he’s shouting down the rain barrel, Daniel.” She shook her finger beneath his nose before she sat down at her desk. “I’ll be right here in case one of the families come to their senses. I’ll sit here until time for school to be over and . . . to hell with the Baxters!”

“Now hold on. There’s no point in staying here alone.”

She looked at him steadily, then got to her feet.

“You’re right!” Her sudden about-face surprised him.

“I’m glad you agree.”

“I’ll not stay here. And it isn’t because of the Baxters. It’s because I’m going down to the store to tell Glenn Knibee what a . . . a horse’s ass he is!” She pulled her shawl up, lapped it across her bosom, and headed for the door.

“Wait a minute. That’s my job.”

“Education is not your job. It’s mine.” Mercy walked right out the door.

“Anything that concerns you is my business.”

She stopped on the step, turned and looked into Daniel’s concerned brown eyes while her mind groped for something to say.

“Oh, Danny! You’ve been my friend, my brother, my childhood playmate. All my life I’ve been willing to hang back and let you take care of me.”

“I’m not stopping now,” he said evenly, although her words about his being her friend and brother had hit him like a fist in the stomach.

“I think it’s time to stand on my own two feet and not depend on you to make things right for me. I’m not going to lie down and let people like Glenn Knibee walk on me! If I have to leave Quill’s Station in disgrace, it will be with my head up, not crawling on my knees.”

“Leave Quill’s Station? What the hell are you talking about?”

She sucked in her breath. “I . . . don’t know why I said that. I’ve no place to go except to Vandalia, and I’ll not take my troubles to Mamma and Papa. They’ve done enough for me.”

“You’ll come out to my place. Minnie and Rose will take care of you. I want you there.”

She was unaware of the intensity of his last words.

“I’m not running with my tail between my legs. I’m going up to that store, then I’m going home. You don’t have to stay with me. I’m no longer afraid of the Baxters or what they’ll say about me being their Sister. They won’t harm me. I’m sure of that.”

“They sure as hell won’t, because they won’t get the chance.” Daniel closed the door to the school and took her arm. “If you’re determined to go bait the bear, let’s go.”

As they retraced their steps up the road, Mercy could see that Glenn Knibee’s wagon, as well as two others were still in front of the store and that Granny Halpen sat in her rocking chair on the porch of the rooming house. The inevitable snuff stick was firmly embedded in the corner of the old woman’s mouth, her birdlike eyes taking in everything in sight. Granny’s imaginative mind always conceived its own distorted images of what went on in Quill’s Station. As they neared the rooming house, Mercy deliberately veered toward the side of the road that passed within a few feet of the porch.

“You’d better come on up to the store, Granny,” Mercy called cheerfully, but Daniel heard the strain in her voice. “I’m going to tell Glenn Knibee just what a stupid, narrow-minded jackass he is. You should hear it straight from the harlot’s mouth. It’ll give you enough to talk about all summer.”

Granny’s mouth fell open. The snuff stick slipped out, and a dark stain trickled from the corner of her mouth. Mercy Quill admitting she was a harlot was more than Granny’s mind could absorb all at one time.

Daniel couldn’t hold back the deep chuckle that rumbled up from his chest. “You could have caused Granny to swallow that snuff stick by giving her news like that. You’ve really got your dander up, haven’t you, honey?”

“Yes, I have. I’m dandered up good, and I mean to have my say. Oh . . . Mr. Knibee,” she called when a burly man came out and stepped off the porch of the store and headed for the wagon. “I’d like a word with you.”

The man turned, grabbed the porch post, and hauled himself back up onto the porch. He waited, his hands resting on the pouches of fat on his sides. Mercy walked up to within a few feet of him and looked him straight in the eye.

“I understand you’ve been busy carrying gossip to the parents of my students. You would do well to mind your own business and take care of your daughter instead of spreading tales that prevent other children from getting an education.”

“If’n a teacher ain’t fit ta teach our young-uns, ’tis my duty ta tell it.” He stuck his chin out belligerently and turned to go to his wagon. Mercy wanted to slap him but held her hands firmly against her sides.

“And who says I’m not fit to teach?” Her sharp words brought him back around to face her.

“I say it!”

Mercy was enraged, her face crimson with anger.

“You stupid jackass! What do you know about being fit? You can’t read or write, you’ve got the manners of a hog, and you’re standing there telling me I’m not fit to teach.”

“I ain’t a-talkin’ ’bout book learnin’. ’Tis other thin’s.” He crossed his arms stubbornly.

“What other things?” Mercy demanded. “What gossip have you spread around that has caused the parents to keep the children out of school?”

“Wal, if ya don’t know, missy—”

“My name is Miss Quill to you, Mr. Knibee, and I’ll thank you to use it.”

Knibee made a sound of ridicule in his throat. “Air ya sure that’s yore name? Ain’t yore name . . . Hester?”

“Hester may be my
real
name. I’m not sure yet,” Mercy answered without hesitation, and Daniel was never more proud of her. “But I’ve been Mercy Quill since I was two years old. But what has my name got to do with my ability to teach children to read and write?”

“That name business ain’t all what’s been goin’ on, ’n’ ya know it.” Knibee uncrossed his arms, and his huge fists hung at his sides. His small, deepset eyes went past her to the men who had crowded out the door when she had first called out to him. They stood silently on the porch. Damn fools! Why didn’t they speak up and say something?

Mercy stood stiff and prim and waited. “Well,” she snapped after a lengthy silence, “it seems you’ve got more to say, so say it. Spit out the gossip you’ve been so anxious to spread.”

Knibee’s eyes went to the tall, lean man who stood with a shoulder against the porch post. He had never liked Daniel Phelps. He was too quiet. His way of doing business at the mill irritated him, too—his way of letting a nigger take a turn the same as a white man. Knibee hitched up his breeches. He had been backed into a corner, and now he’d say his piece. He wasn’t going to be backed down by a chit who was no better than he was, even if she had been raised by the Quills.

“It’s been talked of . . . We heard . . . ah, my Mary heard some fellers say that you’d spent the night alone in the house with Phelps.”

“I did. What about it?’” Mercy refused to look away.

“What . . . about it?” Knibee sputtered. “Why, no
decent
unwedded woman’d stay the night alone with a man.”

“Are you saying I’m not decent because I spent the night alone in the house with a man who is like a brother to me?”

“But he ain’t yore brother! Ever’body knows it. And, yeah . . . I’m sayin’ ya ain’t a decent, God-fearin’ woman. Yore tainted, is what ya are. Ya ain’t fit ta be—”

Daniel’s fist shot out. The blow was so quick, so vicious, that it would have staggered a horse. It landed square on Knibee’s nose. He took two stumbling steps backward and fell off the end of the porch, landing on his back in the dirt. His nose was a spouting fountain of blood. There was no sound except for the thud when Daniel’s fist connected with Knibee’s nose, and the plop when Knibee hit the ground.

The men behind Mercy crowded to the edge of the porch and looked down.

Mercy frowned up into Daniel’s face. It was as calm as if nothing had happened. He was holding his cut knuckles.

“Why did you do that?”

“Because I wanted to.”

“But I was going to slap him, and you didn’t give me the chance.”

“Next time you’d better hurry if you want to get your lick in. I’m not waiting.”

Mercy’s eyes moved slowly over the men watching, confronting each directly until they turned their eyes away. At one time or another all of them had told her how pleased they were that their children were receiving the education they’d never had.

“You must agree with the ‘gentleman’ on his back in the dirt, or you wouldn’t have kept your children home from school. If you want them to go through life unable to read or write, to be ignorant, as you are, there is little I can do about it. If you reconsider and want me to teach them, I’ll be at home. And by the way, Daniel will stay with me tonight and every night until the McCourtneys get back from Vincennes. If you choose to consider me a fallen woman because of it, it only proves that you are a group of narrow-minded, muddleheads!”

With her head high, Mercy stepped off the porch and started up the road toward home. Behind her, she heard Daniel’s voice.

“Get on your feet, Knibee. If one more word about Miss Quill comes out of your dirty mouth, I’ll smash it all over your face.” The words were spoken in a way that left no doubt that he would do exactly as he said.

“See here! Ya ain’t got no right ta hit me. ’Cause Farr Quill’s gone ta the State House, ’n’ makin’ the laws don’t make you no better’n the rest a us.” Knibee pushed himself up into a sitting position.

“What you said about Miss Quill made me want to break your dammed neck! If you want to keep teeth in your mouth, keep it shut about her.” Daniel bit out the words sharply.

The rage that boiled up in Daniel was ready to erupt again. Knibee sensed it; the men on the porch sensed it. Knowing he was no match for the big angry man, Knibee rolled over onto his knees and got to his feet. He pulled a cloth from his pocket and held it to his nose. On his way to his wagon he paused and spoke to the men on the porch. “Ya comin’?”

Daniel glanced at Mercy’s retreating back, held stiff as a poker, as she walked briskly down the road toward home. He stepped upon the porch beside Mike, and the two of them watched the wagons leave town.

“I guess that’s that,” Daniel said. “It appears that school let out a little early this year.”

“How’d she take it?”

“Hard at first. Then she got mad.”

“She told Glenn Knibee how the cow ate the cabbage. Ignorant jackass, she called him. It takes a while to get her riled up, but when she is, she don’t back down.” Mike smiled broadly.