Zeke nodded to her as he passed trying hard not to wonder what had inspired Mr. Curd’s outburst. Before he could make it to his own driver’s bench he stepped wrong and lost his balance. He heard her intake of breath as he reached for the traces. He grasped the leather tightly in his left hand. They snapped and he hit the ground with a thud.
She stood over him in three rapid beats of his heart.
“Are ye all right?”
Thank God his mother hadn’t seen. She’d be more breathless than he was sitting here right leg jutting out in front of him in the dust next to a cow. The tail slapped his face.
Beti laughed. A loud, full, belly laugh.
He looked around. Had Curd come back?
“Ye’re right.” She gasped between long strangled sounds of laughter. “It is funny.”
He couldn’t help the grin appearing on his face as she leaned against the wagon trying to gain control. So she thought it was funny did she? He’d never before heard a sound that made his heart sing quite like that.
Before she’d stopped gasping, his mother came up and caught sight of him on the ground.
“Oh, no!” Lightning flashed in her eyes. “How dare ye laugh at a cripple,” she raged at Beti.
Zeke grabbed hold of the wagon wheel and pulled himself to his feet. “Stop fussing, Mama.”
“It’s outrageous.” Then it sunk in that he was standing. “Ye’re all right then?”
“Yes. Is Tirzah with ye?”
His mother left them as quickly as she’d come casting a withering look at Beti.
“Ye are amused, Miss Beti?”
Her blue-green eyes twinkled in the sun. “Yes. I admit I was quite confused the other night when ye tied the reins of yer friends. Today ye have solved my conundrum of what was funny.”
“So ye swapped my harness for yer own worn and discarded leather.”
“Oh, no. I did not say I perpetrated the deed. I only found humor in the obvious retaliation of yer friends.”
He had to concede it was more likely to have been Mose or Gordon, but he found he did not wish to stop the banter between them.
“The good book has plenty to say about being kind, especially to a cripple.” His mother appeared next to him with a new harness.
“Stop calling me that,” Zeke snapped. He took the harness and proceeded to remove the shredded leather from his team. “Miss Beti didn’t do this, Mother, it was Mose or Gordon.” His money was on Mose, after watching Gordon chase his boys, he knew he probably didn’t have the time to think of it much less execute it.
“It wasn’t kind.”
Beti clasped her hands. “I am sorry, Mrs. Smith. If ye could have seen him plop just that way…” Another fit of giggles over took her. Zeke hid his smile by adjusting the traces. His mother remained unmoved. Beti cleared her throat to regain her composure. “Perhaps if he’s so bad off, Mrs. Smith, then he should not attempt this journey at all.” She pointed a look at him.
“Precisely what I and his sister have been telling him. But he will be stubborn. Just like his father.”
“Mama,” Zeke admonished.
“Since there is no use in arguing, and everyone who wishes to, will be traveling, perhaps we should all let the matter drop,” Beti offered.
“Indeed,” Zeke added. He limped toward his mother. A curious numbness still wrapped around his hip.
“Perhaps I should reconsider, Hezekiah. It won’t take me but a couple of hours to make us ready. Ye did just suffer a tumble.”
Silas gave her a nudge. Beti gave Zeke a grin and went to her own rig.
Zeke let out a groan. “No. Mama, it has been decided. All is settled between ye and my uncle, is it not?”
Mama looked down. “Aye.”
“I will let ye know when I have settled and then send for Tirzah.”
His sister hopped up to the bench rocking the entire wagon.
“Are ye sure ye will not change yer mind? I can help ye.” Her hopefulness pulled at his heart. He could have allowed his sister to come. She would at least be company, and her stew was more than a sight better than his own cooking.
“Tirzah.” His mother’s voice took on that quality that only his mother could achieve. “Ye will not be traveling to Kentucky with ye brother alone.”
“I am sure.” He answered.
Her eyes pleaded. “Ye will not forget to come to get me once ye have the cabin built.”
“I will come for ye.”
“Ye promise.”
He grinned. “I promise.”
