The trousers were wide in the waist by a good five inches and the circles
worn into the fabric by Mourning’s knees hung mid-calf on Olivia. She folded the bottoms of the pant legs into thick cuffs and ran a piece of twine through the
belt loops. Then she rolled up the sleeves of the flannel shirt. She felt
wonderfully unencumbered and her mood changed. Grinning, she did a little
dance around the cabin floor and then kicked each leg as high as she could. It was a whole new world of possibilities. I could climb over a fence, she thought.
Or up a tree. Ride bareback. She spun around.
“I heard ’bout women on the trail goin’ over them Great Plains wearin’ men’s
clothes.” Mourning’s voice came from the other side of the wall.
“I hope you don’t mind me borrowing them,” she said sheepishly, as she
stepped outside and did a little pirouette.
He lifted his right hand to his shoulder, slowly rolled it out, and bent at the waist, as if welcoming a queen into a room. “Nah, I don’t mind. Don’t want you
ruinin’ all them ’spensive dresses and thinkin’ you gotta buy more,” he said and
turned away
They worked all morning in a spitting drizzle. By mid-afternoon the sky was
clear and Olivia asked Mourning to help her carry her mattress out to dry.
“Ain’t no chance it gonna be dry for tonight,” Mourning said as they leaned it
against the wall of the cabin.
He took up the scythe and cut an enormous pile of buffalo grass laced with weeds. “You get the thorns out a that mess and pile it on your bed. I get you a
sheet of canvas to throw over it. Ain’t no mattress, but it be better than bare wood.”
Olivia smiled in thanks and they both went about their chores. When they stopped for a lunch of venison and beans, Mourning looked up and studied the
sky.
“Don’t look like they’s more rain comin’,” he said. “Course that don’t mean
nothing. One a them men on the boat said Michigan weather be hard to read on
’ccount of the wind blowin’ in crazy directions off all them lakes.” He stopped to
swallow and then asked, “How ’bout tomorrow morning we go into that Fae’s
Landing, see ’bout gettin’ a door made.”
“Oh yes.” Olivia’s smile was wide.
She hummed as she gathered up the sodden clothing and bedclothes. This
time she lit a fire down by the river, boiled water, and gave the laundry a proper
soaking. She tied up more lines and rinsed out the sheets first.
Later she walked past the bedclothes, enjoying the sound of them flapping in
the wind. The scent of sun on freshly laundered linen brought her to a stop, stone
still. That smell. That sound. The warmth of the sun on her skin. She was a little
girl – maybe five or six – sitting in the grass under the clothes line, watching her
mother slip wooden pegs into the pocket of her stiff white apron before shaking
out a white sheet and folding it into the laundry basket. Olivia squeezed her eyes
shut and lifted her chin. Her mother’s face. She had to see her mother’s face.
Hanging up the wash while her little girl played at her feet. But Olivia could not
see beyond her mother’s bare feet and the folds of her long brown skirt.
“I been thinkin’, maybe we both have us a bath tonight.” Mourning’s voice
