Part 9
Regina pulled aside the kitchen window curtain once again, searching the yard behind the house. She frowned when she did not immediately see a blond head out by the chicken coop as had been there during the last hour. The sun had pleasantly warmed the glass she realized as she brought her face closer to it to see further around the edges of the window's view.
"She moved herself over to the barn about ten minutes ago." Regina turned to see Vivian entering the kitchen with a tray full of empty mugs. In the room beyond, Regina heard the sounds of movement and knew the morning's lessons had ended. After the early morning chores were done, the women who wanted it, sat together learning to cipher, read, and write, from Vivian who had intended to be a schoolteacher when she first came out west from Tupelo, Mississippi.
Now the gray eyes which had seen so much that morning saw right through Regina. She shook her head and stepped back from the window. They had been friends for too long. "She is an unusual woman," Regina said.
"So what does that make you or I?" Vivian set the tray down beside the chairs then set herself down. Not everything around the house had to be done this minute and the break would allow Regina to settle Vivian's well meaning questions. "She rides alone, and she runs her own life. We do the same."
"After a fashion," Regina said. "She comes and goes anywhere she pleases."
"So do you."
Regina shook her head, lifting her tea and taking a sip to gather her thoughts. "She's noble, good and kind…"
"Where's this self-doubt coming from, Regina Mills? You are the noblest creature that ever walked the streets of Book's Pass, bringing in the girls, seeing to their education."
"But it won't ever take them anywhere. Unless they get away from here."
"So you been thinking about what to do with young Grace."
Regina nodded. "Her father will never stop trying to get her back. We can't live our lives with that hanging over our heads."
"So put her on the night coach that comes through with the mail. Twenty dollars is a lot more'n most get to have a new start. I'm sure we have that in the egg jar just this morning."
"But she's so young."
Vivian shook her head. "No. I ran away from home back east and traveled two thousand miles when I was two years younger than Grace. Tell her the options. She's old enough to make her own choices."
Regina sighed. It was why she had taken in the girl after all, to give her choices. Not have them taken away from her as they had been from Regina, from so many of the other women here.
"We shouldn't tell anyone. Let them think she ran away on her own. That'll keep the trouble off us," Vivian added.
"But we'd know."
"I been living with myself for a lotta hard choices for a fair number of years," Vivian snorted. "What's one more?"
Though she said nothing, gathering up the tea cups and returning to the kitchen, Regina feared this would be the choice that broke her.
Dropping the hand saw to the dirt, Emma kicked her foot off the hunk of wood she'd been trying to shape into something half useful. She pulled off her plaid cotton outer shirt and tied it around her waist, swiping sweat from her brow with the back of an equally sweaty arm. She looked at the hole in the side of the barn about three feet off the ground and a good two feet wide. Currently patched with a piece of cowhide, the hole had been pecked away in parts by chickens wanting to get at the feed they knew was stored inside. Emma was determined to replaced that leather with a wood plank.
Always used to scrounging and making other things suit a purpose with only sweat-money, she was fashioning a hunk of fallen tree into slats. She'd spent the morning retying all the chicken wire on the coop to keep the damn birds outta her hair. She'd found a machete and used its broad blade shave-style to carve off the bark from one side. She looked at the slice she had just finished hacking off. It was near five-foot lengthwise and three-foot wide. Now all that remained was smoothing the sides to create her wood patch.
Then her task would finish when she found nails that weren't rusted through to secure it to the barn wall.
It was back-breaking labor, but Emma had known worse. And life on the trail wasn't no picnic. Putting her hands on her hips, she looked up at the hole in the barn wall, imagining looking up there in satisfaction tomorrow to see her work's results.
"Water?"
Emma turned to see Regina holding out a tray with a pitcher and two mugs. The brunette smiled at her. Taking a mug, Emma smiled back before putting her head back and speedily drinking the contents in one go. The last few ounces of it poured over her face and she sighed happily. "More in the pitcher?" Emma asked.
"Tea." Regina said. "It's iced."
Regina put down the tray atop the fence post separating the chicken's area from the barn's yard and poured out from the pitcher into both mugs. Emma leaned against the post after Regina handed her mug back. In silence they gazed at one another over the rims of the mugs while sipping. Regina's eyes held a light they hadn't previously, and Emma hoped she was responsible for that, for giving Regina a small moment of happiness, a bit of peace.
"What are you doing here?" Regina asked when she finally let down the cup and looked away to the arrayed materials on the ground.
"Making a wood patch for the hole in the barn wall."
"Why didn't you just use another piece of hide?"
"It isn't keeping the chickens out," Emma pointed out. "I wanted to make sure you didn't have the problem again. How did the hole happen in the first place?"
"Tornado tossed a fence post through it," Regina said. "About three years ago. Killed the cow inside."
"Hence the hide."
"It was an awful stench until we could get that carcass completely cleared."
"I can imagine."
"Cured some of the meat, sold the rest. Amelia tanned the hide and sewed some nice saddlebags which local cowhands bought for the trail. She taught some of us how to make other leather bits and geegaws. We sold them for cash to use at the mercantile and stocked up goods for that winter."
"Well, this patch'll hold against the storms, keeping you safe unless it takes the whole barn."
Regina nodded. Emma absorbed the woman's profile as she stared at the hole. "Where's your safe place in a storm, Emma Swan?"
Emma swallowed as Regina's gaze swung back around to her. "Here and there. Gullies is good, and I've been in some box canyons that have provided real good protection." Regina rolled her eyes. She stopped. "But that's not what you're really asking."
Regina shook her head.
"When being alone on the road gets to be too much..." Emma paused and leaned on the fence post on her crossed arms, looking out at the horizon. "I find a home-cooked meal, maybe ask to sleep in a barn loft for the night." She pointed up toward the one in the building before them. "I'll do a little work to repay the kindness. And in the morning I'll move on."
"Where've you traveled?" Regina asked. "Have you been down to Mexico, or out to the California Territory?"
"Went into Mexico after the floods last year, but haven't made it all the way west yet."
"So it's just you, and Bug, on the trail."
"Yep."
"You ever run cattle?"
"Nah, trailhead running is a commitment. Most ranchers prefer working with men. That knocks me out on a two fronts. But they don't want unknowns skimming their herds."
"But it happens, yes?"
"Yes, I've known a few boys who'd skim herds playing a long game that way."
"What'd you do?"
Emma sighed. "I only went after those with bounties. I made a livin', not a run for sainthood."
Regina nodded. Whatever unspoken question she'd had were answered by Emma's words. "I'll leave the last of the pitcher here. You'll bring it up to the house when you're finished?"
It was the small things, Emma thought. Leaving her the pitcher and asking her to bring it up to the house. Regina wanted her to stay. She wasn't sure she could; she still had a life debt to repay, but the thought she might stay made her glance toward the barn hole, imagining not tomorrow, but looking up at it next year: I did that, she would say.
And she could be proud.
Unlikely, she snorted at herself. Dreams after all were for innocent children, not people like her. Not orphans with no family and no home. And only a man to chase down to see to justice for all of them.
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end note: I finally figured out where this is gonna finish up. I think there's only 2 more chapters to the end. And then an epilogue.
