Light to the Hills: A Novel (10)

“Look what the cat drug in.” Mooney shut the stove’s door with a metal clang and stood to wipe her hands on her apron. Though Mooney fancied her nickname came from being a night owl and having to be roused repeatedly in the mornings, Amanda suspected it had more to do with her build. Everything about Mooney was round. Her face, made even rounder by her short, bobbed hair, danced with a ready smile and wide blue eyes. What she lacked in height, the top of her head only reaching Amanda’s shoulder, she made up for in girth, her crossed arms resting on the natural shelf between her bosom and hips.

“I feel like something the cat drug in,” Amanda admitted. “A drowned rat.” She hung her oil slicker on a peg by the door and unpacked the saddlebags, making neat stacks of periodicals and books on the table near the stove. She hoped the dampness they’d absorbed on her route would dry out. She turned and started to speak, but Mooney held up a finger.

“’Fore you even ask, Miles is right as rain. S’posed to a’ been asleep for an hour, but I bet he’s still holding out to see you.” Mooney nodded toward the curtain they’d hung between the kitchen and far wall of the cabin, and Amanda reached out to pull it aside. There, on a straw tick pallet on the floor, lay two small curled children, one—a girl—sound asleep, and the other—her Miles—peeking his nose out from beneath the patchwork quilt, his eyes shining in the lantern light. Amanda knelt by his side of the pallet and bent over his small figure.

“You sneaky little mouse,” she teased, “what’re you doing still awake?”

He reached up for her neck, his arms warm from the bed. “I wanted to wait for you, Mama, to tell you my word for today.”

She nodded and whispered, “All right, then, what word did you learn? And then you must close your eyes.”

“Misfortunate.” Miles pronounced it carefully and beamed at her, proud of remembering such a long one. Amanda’s brows rose in surprise.

“My! As many syllables as all your years. And where’d you hear that?” She touched the tip of his nose.

“Them ladies came by bringing baskets for the misfortunate, they said. That’s us.”

Amanda frowned. He meant the Peepers, as she and Mooney called the local busybodies. “Those ladies,” she corrected. “Miles, do you know what your word means?” He shook his head against the pillow. “It means miserable, wretched, someone you should pity. Do you feel like any of those things?”

“No, Mama.” He sat up and stuck out his chest. “I’m not miserable.”

“That’s right, Miles. Neither am I. Didn’t you have a full tummy before bed tonight? Doesn’t Mama have a job? We are not misfortunate, no matter what those ladies might say.”

“Is it a bad word?”

“No, baby, it’s not bad. They just didn’t use it right because maybe they don’t know all the things we know or live the way we do.” Amanda dismissed the ladies with a wave of her hand. “I am very fortunate to have you, Miles.”

“They said it’s ’cause of Daddy.” Her son’s small brow creased.

Amanda drew a sharp breath. “Did they, now. Well, those ladies can’t help who they were born to no more’n you can.”

She smiled and kissed his forehead. “Now, go to sleep, and I’ll tell you about my travels in the morning.”

He nestled down under the quilt once more, his light curls framing his head like a halo. “No snoring or you’ll wake up Maisie.” She winked at her small son, who giggled and closed his eyes.

As the curtain fell behind Amanda, Mooney held up two hands in the kitchen. “Now ’fore you go saying anything, I was out in the garden when the Peepers came knocking. Maisie’d done let ’em in here ’fore I could hightail it back to the house.”

“Maybe we could use a dog,” Amanda said, remembering the two hounds that barked and howled on the MacInteers’ front porch.

“Need something fiercer than that to turn back the Temperance League. Anyhow, they did leave a basket of biscuits with a slice of honeycomb, so maybe it was worth the price of admission.”

Amanda shook her head. “Mooney, you’d open the door to the devil himself for a teaspoon of sorghum.”

“And send him off with a kick in the rear after I’d licked my fingers clean.” Mooney stood with her hands on her hips and such a look of indignation on her face that Amanda couldn’t stifle her laughter. She helped herself to a biscuit smeared with honey before slipping into her nightdress and blowing out the lantern.

As she lay dozing beneath the quilt, the muscles in her legs at last easing, the day replayed itself in Amanda’s head. She heard the pistol report as she shot the snake and recalled the easy laughter of Sass’s brother Finn, who had kind eyes. If wishing were enough to erase her time with Frank, her life might’ve played out differently. Miles’s soft snores carried across the room, and gratitude welled in her heart. She wouldn’t trade the boy. No matter what Frank might’ve cost her—her safety, her reputation, her family. Frank and that barnacle Gripp Jessup who’d been attached to his side every living minute. Bile rose in her throat at the thought of him, even after so much time had passed.

Her father’s words echoed in her head as her eyes grew heavy. “Your mama and I made a good life together,” he’d told her. “Beady is more than a man deserves in this lifetime, and I hoped for as much for you.”