Part 11

"Captain."

Adam awoke. In his dream, one of his men had been calling him, saying "Captain, Captain." But when he looked, it was the woman who was standing there, having called him awake.

"Lunch is ready if you're hungry." Then she turned and went back inside.

Adam pushed himself up from the chair and walked into the house. He noticed that his blankets between the sofa and fireplace were gone. When he walked cautiously into the kitchen he saw through the open back door, his blankets hanging on a clothesline. Adam just stood in the kitchen, not quite knowing what to do.

The woman glanced at him. "Sit down."

Adam quickly sat but when she walked toward the table with two bowls and spoons, he stood up and went around, pulling out her chair.

"Don't be foolish," she said. "Just sit down."

He did as she said and then he placed the napkin she had put on the table for him, on his lap. He began to eat and the warm chicken stew tasted like ambrosia to him. "This is very good, ma'am."

"It's just rewarmed stew from the other night."

"It was good then and it's good now." She said nothing else and Adam noticed that although she had allowed him to sit with her, she didn't otherwise acknowledge him; they ate in silence.

For the rest of the day, Zelphia worked at the chores that she hadn't been able to do in the morning as she usually did, and when she came in again, Adam noticed that she had a large basket of eggs. Then she sat in an upholstered rocking chair in the parlor and Adam watched as she worked with a bone shuttle that had a hook at one end to make lace. Her hands worked quickly and she continued until she had another two feet of elegant lace. Adam wondered why she was making it since she wore plain calico or simpler homespun without any decoration. But he did notice that there were a few lace doilies and antimacassars on the backs of the furniture.

"What is it you're making?" he asked.

She never looked up at him. "Lace."

"I know it's lace. I guess what I was asking is why you're making it."

The woman rested her hands in her lap and spoke to him as if he were a small child needing an explanation. "I sell it to the dressmaker in town as well as tatted collars and doilies. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"

"Yes, ma'am." And she didn't speak to him for the rest of the day, just went about making butter and tending to the necessities of living until she called him to dinner.

They sat in silence after she said grace. Dinner was a pan of cornbread with bacon drippings drizzled over it and a few slices of bacon, boiled carrots from the garden, and a tall glass of milk. Adam noticed that the woman had no meat on her plate.

"You have no bacon." He lifted his plate as an offering to her. "Take mine."

"I don't care for any, thank you." The woman went back to eating.

"Please. I can't eat it unless you have some. Please take it—at least a few slices."

"I don't want it," she said, obviously upset. "I served the food—I should know if I wanted any or not."

Adam put his plate back down. She was agitated and Adam feared that if he continued, she'd leave the table and go to her room and he'd be alone again. So they continued to eat in silence and he ate the bacon and the cornbread. She offered him more cornbread and he gladly took it but as for herself, she barely ate.

Then her voice broke the silence. "I have to go to town tomorrow; I need supplies."

Then Adam understood the reason for the sparse dinner. "I could go with you if you'd like. Ride along with you, keep you company."

"No." And then she added, "Thank you, but no."

Adam nodded; it was what he had expected. "Ma'am, I was wondering if, well, if you have any you can spare, if you have paper, I'd like to write my father, let him know I'm alive. I haven't had a chance to write him in almost two years." She said nothing. "My brothers, well, before I left, I talked them out of joining up but it's been so long. If Hoss thinks I'm dead he might join up just to try to get revenge—he's like that. He's good-natured but when he's riled, he's formidable. He's taller than I am and weighs a good 80 pounds more than I do—well, when I'm filled out." He smiled at her but she didn't look up. "Why if he had shown up here, he would've not only sucked all the eggs dry in the chicken coop, he probably would've built a spit and roasted all your chickens too." Then Adam saw a slight smile on the woman's face. "And then, Joe, well, his mother was from New Orleans and his sympathies lie with the south. You might even like him—he's a ladies' man though. He'd be flirting with you. He can't pass up a beautiful woman."

Then the woman looked at him and Adam knew he had said the wrong thing but he didn't seem to be able to stop himself from talking; all his loneliness and isolation needed a release. "Hop Sing would call you a woman of jade. Jade's a stone that's important to the Chinese; it's strong and has a certain luminous beauty. He had given me a piece of jade as a talisman—I don't know what happened to it."

She suddenly stood up and pushed her chair back, leaving the table. Adam looked after her, helpless to stop her, to bring her back.

"You goddamn fool," he told himself. He knew he should have shut up, stopped talking but he wanted to share so many things with her, to talk to her and have her respond; he had never felt as lonely before as he did in her company. But she returned and placed the jade disc on the table beside him.

"I found this in your shirt pocket. It fell out when I went to burn it. I've been meaning to return it to you—I wasn't stealing it."

Adam took the cool, round stone in his hand and ran it between his fingers. "It's supposed to keep me safe. I guess I don't yet know if it worked." He looked up at her face, questioning her. And then she did leave.

Adam looked at her empty place and quickly finished his meal, wetting his fingers with his tongue and picking up the last crumbs of cornbread. Then he picked up the dishes and boiled some water so that he could wash them. When the woman came in, Adam was finishing drying the few dishes and had washed out the coffee pot.

"I would have done that."

"Yes, ma'am, but I need to earn my keep some way. If I can lighten your burden in any other way…"

She interrupted him. "You can sleep in the spare room. The pillow you used isn't dry yet so there isn't one for sleeping and it's just a bed, small table and a lamp; we had no guests staying over—the furniture in there came with the house."

"Thank you, ma'am. I appreciate it." Adam folded the dish towel and smiled. "You said you'd read to me. I'm waiting for the next section of the novel."

"You seem well enough to read it for yourself. I'll bring it to you."

"It's really the company I like. If you don't want to read, we could play cards or cribbage. Do you have a cribbage board? Checkers? I won't cheat and I'll even let you win?" He grinned at her.

"No, I have none of that," she said, "but in the top drawer on the desk is paper and envelopes. If you want to write your family, I'll post your letter tomorrow when I go to town. Goodnight, Captain."

Adam stood in the kitchen for a few more minutes after she left and then went to the parlor to write his father. On the way, he passed her closed bedroom door. He paused for a moment but he passed on into the parlor and sat at the desk and pulled open a drawer where some writing paper lay and in another drawer, he found a pen, sealing wax and an ink well. Out of curiosity, he opened the other drawers to see if anything in them would reveal information about the woman but there was nothing; if she received letters, she kept them in her room.

Adam didn't know where to start his letter, with what event. So instead of telling his father everything, he chose to only tell him the basics:

Dear Father,

I hope this letter finds you well and that Hoss and Joe are sitting around the breakfast table (with Hop Sing standing at your right hand) listening while you read this aloud.

I am alive and Providence willing, will soon be rejoining my regiment. I hope that this war ends soon and that I can return to all of you at the Ponderosa.

As much as I yearn to hear the most recent news from home and that I am missed, there is no particular place to send me a letter. Therefore, trust God that I'll return home soon. I will then tell you all that befell me.

Your loving and devoted son,

Adam

Adam sat with the pen poised over the paper; he wanted to write more but decided that it was enough. He addressed the envelope to Benjamin Cartwright in Virginia City, Nevada Territory. He folded his letter, slid it inside the envelope and sealed it. Adam left it on the desk and turned down the lamp. He looked toward the bedrooms and wanted to go and knock on the woman's door. He smiled to himself. What would he say to her? He didn't know so instead of heading to the back where the bedrooms were, Adam went out onto the porch; there was a slight coolness in the air and all was silent.

He listened to all the night sounds that were so different from those of Nevada. Instead of the cry of wolves, there was the chirruping of frogs and the whirring of cicadas. Adam had never before, having never been in this part of the country, not even passing through it on his trips to New Orleans, seen this part of Georgia and hadn't been aware of the green lushness of the countryside, how full of life and energy it was. And Adam thought of the woman and how full and lush she was and how he had never met a woman like her before—and she was one woman that he could never have. And that thought practically drove him mad and he yearned to howl like a wolf in the mountains back home to release the emotions building up inside him.

TBC