All beginnings are hard, she reminded herself.
One thing for sure, she had made herself totally dependent on Mourning. Not
just to inherit the land. To survive. She wouldn’t last a day out here on her own.
Wouldn’t make it back to Detroit, if anything on the wagon broke. She didn’t even know how to hitch up the team. She began making a mental list of all the
things she needed to learn in order not to feel totally helpless.
Apparently Mourning was not expecting any breakfast. While she stood there
biting her bottom lip, he unyoked the team and led them into the barn where he put out buckets of feed. Then he took a long drink of water from one of the skins
and said, “Team be needing water.” He nodded at the river and then at the barn.
“They be a trough in there you can fill, don’t gotta let them drink out of our buckets any more.”
He rummaged in the back of the wagon and then loped off, ax and saw over
his shoulder. Watching him walk away, Olivia felt like crying, but shook it off.
Good Lord, Killion, what a big baby you are. If Aunt Lydia Ann could do this,
so can you.
What should she do first? Mourning would need the wagon to haul logs, so
she should unload it. But he would also be hungry, so she should get a fire going
and hang a pot of rice and beans over it. Maybe mix up dough to rise for a loaf
of bread. But she’d need water to do that. And for the animals. One must always
take care of the animals first. She grumbled out loud – “Can’t cook until I’ve got
wood and water and can’t get water until I cut a path to the river through this blasted mess of weeds.”
She took a bucket in each hand and headed toward the river, cursing the
thorny weeds that tore at her skirts and scratched her ankles. She knelt on a flat
rock to splash cold water over her face before filling the buckets. When she stood to pick them up, she emitted a loud “Oh.” How could water be so heavy?
Then she slipped on the wet clay around the rock, slightly twisting her ankle, but
quickly regained her footing.
“All right Killion, let’s be optimistic,” she spoke aloud. “What would merry
old Mourning say? ‘Look how lucky that was, you breaking your leg there. Now
you know where to get clay for chinking the logs.’”
Partway up the gentle hill she set her burden down to rest for a moment and
stared at her hands. They were already red with a maze of tiny scratches. She took a deep breath and continued, making it to the barn without spilling a drop.
She brushed the dust and debris out of the dry trough and poured both buckets
in. “There you go, boys.” She patted the tops of their heads and they nodded agreeably.
Shoulders aching, she made a second trip, this time setting the buckets by the
door. She picked up one of them to pour the water into the barrel, but paused.
The inside of the barrel was filthy. Dried leaves and cobwebs clung to its sides.
What if there were mouse droppings in there? She sighed and knew she would
have to use some of the precious “uphill” water to clean it. She lifted a bucket
into the barrel, tipped it, and ran it around the inside walls to rinse them. Then
she tied a clean rag around the handle of the broom and swished it around before
turning the barrel on its side and rolling it over to where the weeds were the
thickest, so that she could tip it upside down without the rim touching the dirt.
