brought her back to the present. “Nice hot water. Take the chill off.”
“That sounds good,” she said. “Are we going to go into town even if it’s
raining?”
He frowned at the sky. “Dunno. Guess you can have your say ’bout that. I
ain’t gonna sit inside tomorrow, no matter if it be rainin’ or not. Make no difference to me if I be workin’ in the rain or drivin’ in the rain.”
“So we’ll go. Even if it’s raining,” she said and went on with her chores.
Late in the afternoon she called to Mourning that if he wanted a bath, he’d best come get it.
“Sure is dark in here now that you’ve got the roof on,” she said and ignored
his sarcastic offer to take it off.
She lifted four buckets of steaming water from the hearth, brought in two of
cold, and said, “You go first,” as she set the washtub near the fireplace. Before
she left him to his privacy, she set a large pot of water to heat on the crane and
their only other tin bucket on the hearth, to get started heating for her own bath.
She sat by the fire pit, watching the stars come out and listening to him
splash. When he emerged, fragrant with soap and shiny as tar, she noted that he
had put his dirty clothes back on.
“You don’t have to keep wearing the same clothes forever, Mourning. I’ll
wash them,” she said as she handed him a cup of coffee.
“Don’t matter none. They just be gettin’ dirty all over again.”
“Do you have enough clothes?” she asked. “I mean, if I keep –”
“You mean with you wearin’ my pants just for today?” He finished the
question with a grin.
“Well, they are awfully comfortable. I wouldn’t mind borrowing them every
day. Maybe we could get you some new ones in town tomorrow. Or even some
that would fit me better.”
“Yeah, we can see ’bout that.”
“We’ve got a special dessert,” she said. “I picked some berries today. I don’t
know what kind they are, but I ate some this morning and I haven’t died yet.”
“Sound good to me.”
“Come help me empty that tub so I can get cleaned up.”
At first she sat in the tub hugging her knees, but then sank down, arms and legs dangling over the sides. Her mind blank, she watched the flickering
shadows the lantern made on the wall. Coyotes howled in the distance and the strains of Mourning’s harmonica joined in. She wished someone would build a
fire under her, so she could lie there forever, but the chill eventually drove her out. She put Mourning’s clothes back on and joined him in the coolness of the early evening. Mourning had lit a fire in the pit and she put together a simple supper of venison, bread, and the berries.
“Maybe we should buy another barrel tomorrow,” she said. “We could set it
on the wagon and drive down to the river, so I could fill it up down there, instead
of carrying all those buckets.”
Mourning thought for a moment. “Could try, I guess. But the mouth a that
barrel gonna be awful high, standin’ up there. You gonna have to climb up on the
wagon, pour the water in, and get back down. Same thing when you get up
there.”
