Rachel's Choice (7 page)

“Her name is Susan,” Rachel said. “Don't walk behind her. She kicks.”

Chance opened the stall door and sauntered in.

“I usually feed her before I milk,” Rachel observed.

“I knew that.” He set down the bucket and looked around.

“Hay is in the hayloft. I'm out of grain.”

“Just give her hay?”

“Put it in the manger in front of her. The feed will keep her occupied while you do the milking.”

Chance climbed the ladder awkwardly and kicked down some loose salt-grass hay. “Enough?”

“Yes.”

He gathered up an armload and carried it to the cow's manger. Susan began to eat the hay.

Rachel pointed to a three-legged stool that hung on the wall. “I use that.”

“All right,” he agreed. He wished Rachel Irons wouldn't talk to him as though he were the village half-wit. “I told you, I've never milked a cow before, but I'm willing to learn. How hard can it be? You squeeze the tits and—”

“Teats,” she corrected him. “They're called teats.”

Chance gritted his teeth and concentrated on the animal in front of him. He was still half asleep and needed his morning coffee. After drinking chicory with mosquitoes
floating in it, he'd come to appreciate Rachel's real coffee.

He wanted a full top-to-toe bath as well this morning. He'd been called fastidious, even a dandy by his friends, and it was true he took pride in how he looked. Until he'd been captured by the Yankees, he'd always gone against fashion and been clean shaven. A bath, a shave, and a decent haircut were long overdue.

The last thing he wanted to do on this rainy morning was yank on a cow's udder. His arm was starting to hurt again, and he'd nearly put his foot down in the patty of foul-smelling stuff in the straw.

“Do you want me to teach you how to milk her?” Rachel asked.

“Just go and do whatever you usually do before the sun comes up. Susan and I will manage without you.”

She laughed. “All right, but I'm counting on that milk to make butter.”

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure that she was really gone, and then looked back at the cow. The beast was staring at him again and chewing steadily. She did look fairly peaceful.

His parents hadn't kept cows. They'd purchased their milk from a free black woman who kept a dairy out of town. Maude delivered to the house. She'd come in the back door and leave eggs, butter, milk—whatever Miss Julie, the cook, needed for the kitchen. Chance was used to reaching across the dining-room table for his milk, not extracting it from the animal himself.

“Nice cow,” he murmured. “Good cow.” He set the stool in the straw and perched on it. He stuck the bucket under the pertinent part and inspected the creature's bag.

Her udder was pink, speckled with little black dots. It
looked clean enough, but there was an immediate choice to be made. After a minute's hesitation, he opted for the one closest to him and grabbed hold.

Susan bellowed as though he'd just sliced off her teat with a bayonet. She threw both hind legs into the air, and Chance leaped backward. He moved fast, but not fast enough to miss the stinging blow across his cheek from her dung-laden tail.

Chance's feet tangled with the bucket. He tried to catch his balance against the wall with his bad arm, but it folded under his weight. He struggled to keep from falling, but it was useless. He ended up flat on his back in the soiled straw. One leg of the stool ground into his hip, the bucket handle was still hooked over his left foot, and the cow's wicked-looking hind quarters were only inches away from his head.

“Whoa, steady, Susan. Good cow.”

“What are you going down there?”

Chance looked up to see Rachel peering over the top of the stall.

“It isn't funny,” he fumed. “If you value this beast, you'll get her away from me before I—”

“Before you do what?” Rachel snickered.

The cow mooed loudly, and Chance looked back just as she raised her tail.

Rachel flung the door open, slapped the animal on a bony hip, and turned her away seconds before the cow let fly with a yellow stream.

Chance got to his feet. He wasn't sure who he was less happy with, the cow or the woman. “Susan is obviously a woman's cow,” he muttered between clenched teeth. “She isn't trained to allow a man to milk her.”

“Nonsense. James milked her all the time. And when I
go into town, Cora Wright's grandson tends her and he's only twelve. You squeezed too hard, that's all. A cow's teats are tender. You have to handle her gently, talk to her so she isn't nervous.”

“She's nervous?”

“Let me show you.” Rachel retrieved the bucket and the stool and took her place beside the cow. “You do it like this,” she explained. “Squeeze and pull, squeeze and pull.” Two streams of milk hissed against the sides of the pail, filling the air with a comforting scent.

A black cat with a white spot on his face appeared out of nowhere and rubbed against Chance's leg and began to purr loudly.

Rachel pressed her head against the cow's belly and continued to produce a steady flow of milk. Then she rose and motioned to the stool. “Now you try.”

Chance sat down, extending his hand, and Rachel positioned it on a warm teat. He applied pressure.

Not a drop came out.

“Squeeze and pull at the same time,” Rachel said. “If you just pinch it shut, it doesn't work.”

A crude remark rose in Chance's mind, but he kept silent. Rachel Irons might be an exasperating female, but she was a respectable woman, and he'd not insult her with crass behavior.

He tried again, remembering to tug downward as he tightened his fingers. This time milk dribbled out, not so freely as when Rachel did it, but something.

“Good,” she said. “Another thirty minutes, and you'll have this licked. I'm making sausage and biscuits for breakfast. I expect at least a third of a bucket of milk this morning. Don't stop until every teat is dry, and don't let her kick over the bucket before you're done. Understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“She likes it if you sing to her.”

“I'm not singing to a da—to a dumb cow.”

Rachel shrugged. “Suit yourself. But you can't come to the table smelling like that. I'll leave some clean clothing, a towel, and a bar of soap by the back door. Go down to the creek and have a bath before you come into my house.”

“I want a razor.”

“Planning on cutting your throat, Reb?”

He knew she was laughing at him, but he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing that she was annoying him. “I want to shave.”

“What? Give up that handsome beard of yours?”

Chance gritted his teeth. His beard was scraggly, thin in some spots, and dark in others. He looked like Zacky McCoy, who'd come down out of hills to join the Fourth Virginia Cavalry riding a raw-boned mule and carrying an old wheel-lock musket. “I need a razor.”

“I'll see what I can do.” She paused a few steps from the gate. “And try to stay on the stool and not under it. I'd hate to go to the trouble of patching you up again.”

Susan shifted her front feet, and Chance grabbed the bucket and prepared to retreat if she became violent again. Instead she gazed at him, blinked her eyes, and belched.

“Good cow,” he murmured, reaching for the far left teat. “Good Susan.”

She moved slightly so that her belly lay against his cheek. Her odor was strong but not unpleasant. He could hear a multitude of rumblings from inside her body, but the milk continued to come down. Already his fingers were cramping.

Thirty minutes, Rachel had said. He couldn't imagine lasting thirty moments. It was easier for her; she had two good hands. He was doing the milking one-armed.

“Good cow,” he repeated.

Talking to a cow. Travis would have loved to see this. He'd never let Chance live it down.

If Travis was still alive.

He had to be.

Travis was the brother Chance had never had, and the bond between them was closer than blood. He'd stay here until Rachel had the baby, rescue Travis if it wasn't too late, and dispose of the Dutchman. Then if he survived, he'd come back and get Rachel's crops in.

He exhaled sharply. Maybe Rachel's husband would come home from the war, and then Chance wouldn't be tied up here for months. Maybe, but he had the sinking feeling that he sometimes got when he listened to a witness lie on the stand.

Chance didn't believe Rachel's husband was coming back. Either James had left her for good, or the man was dead and buried. The question was, did Rachel know the truth? And if she did, why was she lying to him about James being alive?

Susan groaned and her skin wrinkled so that it rolled in waves over her back. “Shhh,” Chance soothed. And then, almost without realizing what he was doing, he began to hum an old tune he'd often heard Miss Julie sing as she cooked.

Susan stopped wiggling, and encouraged, Chance softly continued.

Then, somehow, here in this barn, with the earthy smells and the soft hiss of streams of milk hitting the bucket, Chance found a few minutes of peace … something precious he hadn't experienced for a long time.

Miraculously Chance's fingers didn't stiffen beyond use, the cow didn't kick over the bucket, and he carried enough milk to the kitchen door to please Rachel.

“It's not what I'd have gotten,” she said, “but it'll do. You'll be better with practice.”

“That's a comforting thought,” he grumbled.

She handed him a green plaid shirt, soft from being worn and washed many times, and a pair of gray twill trousers. Through the open door, he could smell the coffee perking on the stove, but Rachel's own scent—that of a clean and desirable woman—was stronger.

“Biscuits nearly done?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light. It wouldn't do for her to realize that he was thinking of her as a woman, rather than an employer. Not when they were alone together on this farm. He forced a boyish grin.

“The biscuits have to finish browning. You've plenty of time to wash.” She glanced back and opened the door wider. “Bear,” she ordered the mastiff. “Go with Chance.”

The big black dog moved reluctantly past her and fixed Chance with a malevolent glare.

“Afraid I'll make a run for it?”

“No.” She chuckled. “Just afraid you'll get bitten by a blacksnake, Reb. You've already been attacked by a cow.”

He scowled at her. It was hard to be cross with a red-cheeked woman with flour on her nose and a dimple on one rosy cheek, but he gave it his best shot. “I asked you not to call me Reb. It was part of our bargain. If you break yours, what's to hold me to mine?”

She nodded. “You're right, I suppose. It just comes natural. It's not like I was saying something that wasn't true. You are a rebel, a traitor to your country.” She regarded him intently.

“That's incorrect. I'm a Virginian, not a citizen of the United States. We seceded from the Union, remember? Officially I'm a citizen of the Confederate States of America. I could only be named a traitor if I enlisted in the Union army and then deserted to the opposing forces.”

“You talk pretty,” she said. “But all those words don't amount to a hill of beans.”

“My name is Chance. Is that simple enough for you?” he countered.

Her cheeks flushed a darker hue. “What kind of name is that for parents to give an innocent baby?”

He stroked the stubbly beard along his jaw. “I told you before, Chance is a nickname. I was christened William Chancellor.”

“Sounds more likely,” she granted him. “They must have guessed you intended to read for the law.” Turning away, she rattled in a drawer and produced a shaving brush and mug and a straight razor. “These were my granddad's,” she said. “You're welcome to borrow them for as long as you're here.”

“Thank you, ma'am.” He touched an invisible hat in mock salute.

She sniffed indignantly. “You may win at words with me, but you and your kind will never win this war. And all the dying and the lives destroyed and farms burned and children left without fathers will be for nothing.”

The easy camaraderie between them suddenly evaporated. “We didn't start this,” he said, thinking back to the fields of fallen men and the sky so black with smoke that you couldn't see the sun. He could almost smell the stench of blood, the spilled bowels, and the charred grass and timbers.

“Didn't you? Didn't your people attack Fort Sumter, South—”

The odor of burning bread drifted through the doorway.

“Something's on fire!” he said, breaking free of his haunting memories.

“My biscuits!” She turned back to the stove and snatched open the oven door.

“Don't burn your—” he began.

“Ouch!”

A metal pan bounced off the floor, and Chance dropped the clothing and the shaving articles onto the ground. When he reached Rachel, she was standing amid scattered chunks of bread holding out a fastreddening hand.

Chance took hold of her waist and steered her toward the sink. He saw tears in her eyes, but she bit her bottom lip and didn't cry. “Put your hand out,” he ordered. He pumped cold water over her burned palm. “That should take some of the sting out of it.”

She nodded. “Yes, that's better.” She held her hand
under the spout again. “It's all right. See, it's not even blistering.” She spread her fingers for his inspection.

“Good,” he said. “I was afraid you'd really burned it badly.” He handed her a clean tea towel, and as he stepped closer, so did she. Her protruding belly brushed against him, and as it did, he felt the strangest sensation.