To Make My Bread (14 page)

It sounded as if John had pronounced judgment on her. She left her row and went back into the cabin. She could not deny Kirk his home, so long as he wanted to stay. And she did not wish to. She did not grudge Minnie the food nor the roof. If it had been any other girl having a baby she could take her in and say welcome. It was Minnie who made it hard. She was lacking in something fine and upstanding. Minnie's mother was the same. Even when she was a woman married twelve years she would go to the store and if a man was leaving with a sledge or on a horse for the outside she would beg him to bring her something “nice.” Emma had heard her once. This was no idle talk. If Minnie came she would be like poison ivy climbing around the cabin. Yet if Kirk wanted Minnie, it seemed that Emma must give in.

She went out to Kirk. “I reckon,” she said, “if you want her you've got to have her.”

“Will you give her welcome?” Kirk asked.

“I'll give her welcome,” Emma said and walked away, leaving Kirk standing by the trench and the big mound of dirt. He did not stay there long. She heard a noise out front and there was Kirk walking the path to the trail.

She called him and ran to catch up. He stood and faced her.

“Be ye bringing her to-day?” she asked. She had thought there would be some time between accepting Minnie and having her.

“Ora kept her.” Kirk looked across the cabin to South Range. He did not want to see his mother's face. “It's why I was late. I brought her last night. Ora said I'd got to ask you first.”

A warm rush of blood went over Emma at the knowledge that Ora had taken up for her and understood. But this was so soon. Yet she had told Kirk “I'll give her welcome,” and soon or late it must be.

“I'll cook some supper,” she said. She turned back to the potato patch where John and Bonnie were gathering up the potatoes to carry them to the trench. She thought, “With his Granpap just put in jail he had time to think of Minnie. Like dancing on top of a new grave.” In a moment she had another thought. “He's young and the young can't see what the old suffer. They're blind. He's blind as a hoot owl.”

All the rest of the afternoon while the sun went down further and the shadows got longer, and the white clouds made shadows on the mountains, Emma walked about the clearing and the cabin, helping Bonnie and John, and making supper. Inside her there was unquiet. It was like winds that blew from the north and the south at the same time. She would hate Minnie and Kirk too, and feel cold and hard toward them. Then she would think of excuses for both. The warm feeling struggled with the cold until Emma felt as if a storm had struck her and torn up her roots, so that she was lying helpless, like a tree on the side of a mountain.

O
NE
day in the late fall Minnie's boy child came. Ora sat over the fire with her legs spread out to make a big cradle of her lap for the child. Bonnie and John had gone over to tell Ora it was time for her to come. They had stayed with the children there. Ora reached Emma's cabin just in time. A few moments after Ora arrived Minnie groaned a little, and there was the baby. The child had got its first nursing and Minnie was sleeping over in Emma's bed.

“Come as easy,” Ora said. “Not like yours, Emma.”

“No,” Emma answered. “Mine all came hard. They seemed to dread getting into the world.”

“She'll have plenty of milk, being big and healthy like she is.”

“Hit's a good thing. That cow Hal sold us is most dry.”

“Hit'll be a surprise for Kirk,” Ora said and leaned far over the baby to spit.

“I do so hope they'll get a bear.”

“Who went along besides Frank?”

“Fraser McDonald and Jesse.”

“Four,” Ora said. “Hit won't be much for each one. Hal don't give much for hides.”

“No.”

Minnie stirred on the bed. She gave a great sigh and turned over. The women listened until she breathed regularly again.

“Does she vex ye much?” Ora asked in a low voice.

“No, I can't say she does. She hasn't helped, but she hasn't hindered. She ain't a talking woman and most of the day she just sits over the fire a-waiting for him.” Emma smiled. “Hit seems almost like a reproach from the Lord for the thoughts I had of her before.”

“Maybe.” Ora drew back with a sudden jerk from the baby. “That's right,” she said to him. “Wet me up, ye little man child.” She held out the baby to Emma. “Hold him,” she said, “while I dry out.”

In Emma's lap the baby sputtered as if it might come fully awake. Ora leaned over and the two watched the thin bowed legs squirm, and the head move weakly.

“A man child,” Ora said. “Look at him. Look at the damage his pappy did, and now he's here t' bring others to sorrow and maybe t' shame.”

“Ye're putting all the blame in one place,” Emma said.

“Hit's where hit ought to be.”

“The way I look at it,” Emma said, “hit's not one's fault nor the other.”

“You can't kill a bear without a shot in its side,” Ora said. “The bear does its part by getting in the way, but the gun does the killing. A man is a danger to every good woman and she's got to know it . . . . A danger to every woman good or bad. I tell my Sally to look on men that they're deadly as rattlesnakes.”

“There's good men,” Emma said. “Like Frank. And Jim McClure was good.”

“I'm not a-talking about husbands, but men and girls unmarried.”

“As I look back there was times when I would have been willing if Jim had a'wanted to take advantage before we was married,” Emma said. “And afterwards he was kind for a man. I would a'done anything he said. If he'd a'told me to put my hand in the fire and hold it there I think I would a'done it. But he never did. And before Bonnie was born he walked to Swain's a cold November night to get some pickles. I wanted them s' bad.”

The baby's red face screwed up into ugly tight knots. Small gasping whimpers came out of its mouth. Emma stood up. “I'll put hit in the bed,” she told Ora. “Maybe she'll wake up and give it some milk.”

The next day about noon the men who had been bear hunting came down the south trail. John was at the back watching. Bonnie couldn't be budged from the baby inside. She wanted to hold it continually. Emma almost had to smack her because she got in the way with her begging.

Both the young ones were so taken up with their interests Emma had to do everything about the cabin. She cut the wood and brought it in. But she was used to that. Even when the others were there, it took so long to urge them to the tasks she often did everything herself rather than go to the trouble of persuading them.

Since early daylight John had been on the lookout for the men. He went up the trail every few minutes. At last he saw them far up the trail and knew by the way they swung along together that they had a bear. Running through the bushes toward them he could see the poles across Kirk's and Jesse's shoulders. It was a huge she bear. Her feet were tied to the long poles and her head hung down. John felt her. His hands dug into her thick fur and he felt the nipples under the hair.

When they came on a rise and saw the cabin John remembered the baby. He looked at Kirk. The men were laboring, saving their breath for the burden they were carrying. It was no time to speak of a baby. He saw Emma come to the back door. He was afraid she would speak. But she was silent, watching them carry the load around the house to the spring hollow.

The dogs frisked around the carcase and John hung there too, watching and sniffing as if he was another dog. The men let him bring the stone and whet their knives, while they sat and drank from the jug Kirk fished from the bushes, where they had left it on the way out.

The four guns rested against the spring bench, and John took his soap stone there. He spat on the stone and pressed the blade down. With all the energy in his arm he moved the blade in a circle. When the stone got dry he spit again. When Fraser's knife seemed sharp enough he wiped it carefully on his jeans and picked a blade of dry grass. The knife cut straight through. The late sun glittered on the blade. John looked at Fraser. He wondered if Fraser would notice how finely the blade had been sharpened. If he did, perhaps when the time came to divide the carcase he would think, “What a fine boy Kirk's brother is. We will let him choose.”

For Fraser being the oldest and the best bear hunter was the leader. He would do the skinning and later hold up the divided carcase for the parts to be chosen.

When Fraser called for his knife John carried it to him. and stood by while Fraser began the skinning. Three skillful cuts and the skin lay back. The dogs, smelling the fresh meat, crowded between Fraser's legs.

“Shut them pests up, John,” Fraser said. The boy struggled with the dogs. They were very fierce now the blood was dripping and bit at him.

“Here,” Fraser said. He sliced off a piece of red meat and put it in John's hand. “Just let them smell that.”

John let them get a whiff and started toward the cabin. They followed yapping at his heels. He ran into the other room and left them fighting over the piece of meat. The door opened on the inside, and he had to spend some time getting it shut without crushing his fingers.

When he returned Jesse McDonald was finishing the knives. He was sitting to rest his leg that had been hurt in a fall over a cliff. It was not hurt much for he had been caught in some laurel bushes. But his face and hands were scratched. He had been out on the mountain picketing. When John came up and sat down beside him, he told how he had walked along taking a drink now and then when suddenly the ground went right out from under him. He winked a swollen eye at John. “The wine was good,” he said, “and the night was long.”

John was impatient with the talk. He had sat there so Jesse would give the knives back to him to finish. But Jesse went right on whetting them and talking. The new drink had made his tongue loose.

“Well, that's over,” Fraser said, and hung the huge mass of thick black fur on a bush.

“Fill the pot with water,” Kirk called out to John. They kept him busy. John brought laurel sticks for the fire and went inside to get fire from the chimney. Emma looked at him as if she wanted to speak but he hurried out. He had no time for women. At the spring he kept close to the bear. There was a curiosity to see the inside of the great animal, to see the entrails lying curled up inside the body.

“Get some more laurel sticks, John,” Kirk ordered.

John looked up at his brother. “If I do, can I choose?” he asked. Kirk frowned. Fraser was the leader. John knew that Kirk was ashamed. He dug his feet into the dry grass and hung his head. He was down before Kirk's look. Yet he would not go back on what he had asked. Fraser was bending over the red inside of the bear, but he heard.

“What does the young one want?” he asked Kirk.

“He wants to choose,” Kirk said in a queer shy voice.

“Let him,” Fraser said, and John gave Kirk a triumphant look. Fraser had said, “Let him,” right away as if he had confidence in John. It seemed hours before the men stood waiting by the divided carcase. There had been some wrangling about the division. Kirk and Frank McClure, wanting to be fair, had said the carcase must be cut into four pieces, since Jesse was one of the hunters. Fraser insisted that Jesse had been careless, and had had no part in getting the bear, and the family had enough with his piece. At last they gave in to Fraser who was very emphatic; and they had to acknowledge that with the carcase divided into three pieces there would be a very large part for each family.

“Get behind the big maple,” Fraser told John. “And shet your eyes.”

Behind the tree John turned his back on the spring and the men and closed his eyes tight. A leaf from the maple fell on the back of his neck when it was bent. There was the sound of an animal in the grass. Once he heard a sound from the cabin. It was a baby crying, and for a moment he wondered how a baby got there, for his mind was a long way from the happenings of the days before.

Then Fraser's big voice came. “Whose piece is this?” he asked. The names were already in John. He had them ready. Kirk, Fraser, Frank. But for a moment he was dumb with the weight of the decision.

“Fraser's piece,” he called. His voice sounded high and excited. He heard it after it had left his mouth.

There was a pause until Fraser lifted the next piece and called again. “Whose piece is this?”

John did not hesitate. “Kirk's,” he answered. The next was Frank McClure's.

Then it was time for John to open his eyes and come around the tree to see what his decisions had given each man. Kirk was holding a large forequarter, food for days to come.

The men slowly got ready to go, strapping up their shares of the meat. Fraser and Jesse divided their part, so each might carry a share of the load.

“Come in awhile,” Kirk said to them. “Hit's long till dark.”

Fraser picked up his gun. “My woman'll think I'm lost forever,” he said. “Fd better get home before she gives me out and takes up with another man.”

“You'll be welcome,” Kirk said, but he knew they were r'aring to get home and have their women cook some of the meat. He and John stood and watched the three go up the trail one after the other, bent over under the weight of the meat. Fraser McDonald's head was entirely hidden behind the black fur he had tied over the hindquarter. The three dogs John had let out followed them.

Kirk's eyes were dreamy with thinking about the hunt and being at the end of it ready for a fine supper in front of the fire. He picked up the heavy forequarter and they turned toward the cabin.

“How's Minnie?” he asked casually. The thought of her was just coming back into him.

“Hit's come,” John told him.

J
OHN
was coming up the road from Swain's, a sack of meal on his back, payment for Kirk's share in the bear skin. He did not hurry. Occasionally he passed one of the cabins of the settlement where tow-headed children came to the door and peered at him curiously. The women were inside hunched over the fires or moving around, working. Once he smelled cooking and his stomach contracted. He had eaten early that morning and there had been very little for the meal.