something out a that river. Or we gotta go into town and buy some eggs. We gotta eat something what gonna stick to our inners. Your uncle ever take you fishing?”
“No.”
“Don’t neither of us got time to sit holding a pole, but I show you how to run
a trotline. All you gotta do is pull it in every day, see what you find on them hooks.”
“All right. And I’m not a bad shot. Maybe later this afternoon I’ll go find a
good blind and sit for a while,” she said over her shoulder as she headed back to
the cabin.
Nothing appealed to her more than the idea of resting quietly – and guilt-free
– in the woods, while she waited for a deer to wander by. Of course, if she got
one, she could guess who was going to be expected to process and preserve the
meat. And she had no idea how to do either.
She unwound the rags, shook her head at the bloody mess, and rubbed her
hands with chimney soot before wrapping them back up and lighting the fire. All
she felt like doing was soaking in a hot tub, but Mourning had been right about
one thing. She wasn’t cold any more.
“Come inside, eat at the table,” she called through the doorway and then
looked up at the sky. Some “inside” their roofless little cabin offered.
Mourning came in and sat on one of the stump chairs. Ignoring his knife and
fork, he spread a griddlecake with jam, rolled it up, and picked it up to eat with his fingers. Then he did the same with another.
“You ready for me to show you how to stitch that bark together for the roof?”
She looked at her breakfast, most of which was still on her plate. “Yes,
Massa.”
“You want a roof over your head?” He shrugged and rose. “This weather ain’t
gonna hold forever. Miracle we ain’t been soaked yet. It gonna rain sometime soon. I figure we can get most of the cabin roof on ’fore it does. We do the front
first. That where the wind be comin’ from. If we both sleep with our backs against the front wall, we shouldn’t be getting’ no rain on us.”
“You’re fooling me,” she said.
He raised his chin. “You ’spect me to sleep out in the rain?”
“Mourning, I can’t sleep inside the same cabin with you.”
“Why not? Your head gonna start where my feet end. We be farther apart in
here than we been on that boat.”
“That was different. There were all those people around. And no one knew us.
But this is our home. What would people say?”
“What would people say?” he mimicked her, pitching his voice high. “What
the hell people?” He stood up and spun around, hands out to both sides, palms
up. “Who gonna tell anyone, the raccoons?”
“I’m sure you can figure out some place to sleep besides the cabin.”
“Sure, I can go crawl inside one a them hollow trees.”
“You could sleep under the wagon. Stand it in the corner of the barn closest to
where the wind’s coming from. Then hang some canvas over the sides, like a
tent, to keep the wet out. That would be drier than the cabin with only half a roof
