Chapter 7: Jubilee
"Logan?" a soft voice woke him accompanied by a gentle touch on his shoulder.
He sat bolt upright suddenly, then caught himself before he made a noise that would wake the sleeping child on the bed in front of him. "Red Doe?"
"Yes," said the gentle voice. "It is morning. Are you all right? It looks like it has been a long night."
Logan got to his feet, stretched the kinks out of his back, and went to the fire to make some coffee. "It was definitely a damned long night," he groaned, rubbing gritty eyes. "She didn't fall asleep until the dawn birds started singin'. She stayed up most of the night babblin' an' cryin'." He sat down heavily in the chair, staring at the fire. "She kept sayin' someone was hurtin' her, an' she was rubbin' her loins. Red Doe…do you…" he swallowed. "Do you think that…she…" he trailed off.
Red Doe sighed. "I will never understand the white man's reluctance to speak of things concerning the body. Yes, I will examine her, maybe it was just a bad dream, and has not happened." She went to the sleeping child and slipped a hand under the thin blanket that covered her. After a second, her face grew tight. "It was not a dream," she said.
Logan was about to say something when he saw those blue eyes open. Red Doe calmly smoothed the blanket back over the child's body and said calmly, "Child, you spoke some things in your sleep last night. Logan wanted to know if they were true."
Those eyes turned to face him, and Jubilee nodded once. "But I never spoke to them," she said. "I never told the Railmaster. The men did whatever they wanted but I never told him."
Red Doe explained. "The words she spoke in her dream were words she wanted to say but did not. We often do this; we say things in our dreams, in our sleep that we wish we had said at the time the incident happened. Do not worry. It will not keep her from bearing children."
"That ain't what I was worried about," Logan said. "I was wonderin' if any boy will ever want to marry her, with her ru…" he saw the look on Red Doe's face and changed what he was about to say. 'Ruined' was not a word that would make Jubilee feel better about what happened. "With her body all scarred like that."
"If she finds a man who loves her he will not care." She sighed, and hefted the large bundle she had brought the last time and had been forgotten in the rush. "I brought some of the white woman's clothing we have," she said, "As well as some clothing that Autumn Rain's child has outgrown but are still suitable for wear. When you are stronger, small one, we shall have you try these on to see how they fit. For now, though," she said, opening the parcel she had brought, "I found a pair of moccasins that should fit you. When you are well enough to walk about they will protect your feet."
Jubilee insisted on getting up as soon as Red Doe left, but Logan was relieved that she seemed content to take it easy. She sat on the chair Logan pulled out the back door for her so she could watch him make her bed. She said nothing, but watched with wide eyes as he wove the willow limbs tightly together to form a flat mat. Then he took a couple of stout logs from his firewood pile, cut them until he had four posts to attach the willow branch mat to, and whittled them until they were smooth. He firmly lashed the platform to the four posts with lots of sturdy leather thongs and rope, then pushed the whole contraption into the cabin and placed it against the wall of the cabin opposite from his. Taking a feed sack from the pile of empty ones by the back door, he went out and gathered most of the now-dry grasses he'd cut the first night she was there, and packed them into the sack until it was full. He put that on top of the willow platform and sat down on it himself, testing the firmness of the platform and the softness of the sack. Satisfied, he grabbed a flour sack, put the rest of the dried grass into it, and placed that at the top of the bed.
She walked tentatively across the cabin floor and sat down, then lay back and smiled. He grinned. "Yer own bed," he smiled. "Better'n sleepin' on a hard wood floor. An' I can have mine back!" he smiled at her delighted face, and went back outside.
He'd bought some straight boards from the town's general store a while back, thinking to build himself a better outhouse, but had never gotten around to it, and the boards had been sitting under a sheet of canvas for close to a year. Now he was glad he'd never used them. He took them into the cabin one at a time, laying them on the floor, and grabbed his hammer and the box of metal nails he'd bought from the smith a while back. He opened the boxes. There was still enough to do what he needed to do. He started by nailing the shorter boards as upright supports to the cabin's floor, and then took the longer boards and nailed one end to the wall. Driving in more nails along its length to keep the long boards to the uprights, he soon had a wall built between his sleeping area and hers.
He took some of the leftover boards outside and started to saw them into much shorter lengths. Using more nails, he nailed them together to form a box, then chose a piece of board to go over top. Digging around in a box of odds and ends, he came up with a hinge that used to belong to a door. It would work. He affixed one side of the hinge to the inside of the box, one side to the board, and soon had an opening lid. He took the box with the hinged lid into the cabin and set it at the foot of the bed, then took the clothes Red Doe had brought and put them into the chest. "Not bad," he said to himself, looking at the chest.
Jubilee smiled. "It's perfect." She hesitated. "What do I call you? Red Doe said your name is John Logan, but you don't look like a 'John'."
Logan rolled his eyes. "Just call me Logan," he told her. "Ain't never like 'John', anyway."
He woke to the sight of sunlight streaming over the wooden partition between her bed and his. He stared at the wall, confused, while his brain sluggishly started to work, then rolled over and sat up.
The smell of fresh coffee reached his nose, and he sniffed appreciatively as he reached over and pulled his breeches on. Standing up, he walked out of his room and out into the main room of the cabin, and saw the girl pushing his twig broom across the floor, sweeping dirt and debris out the door, which was open to the sunlight. Two pots hung over the fire; one held the coffee he smelled; the other held the leftover stew of the day before. Logan blinked. "Ya didn't haveta."
She shrugged simply and went on sweeping. He went to the stew, lifting the cover and taking a sniff. The smell of rancid meat filled his nose. "Uh, kid? Did you know the stew went bad?"
She frowned, putting down the broom and going to the pot. She sniffed, then looked up at him, puzzled. He shook his head. "The stew's bad. Meat that sits out for more'n a day goes bad and it shouldn't be eaten because it'll make ya sick."
She looked at the contents of the pot. "I've smelled worse," she said finally. "I've eaten stuff that smelled worse. The cook for the railroad made stuff like this all the time."
Logan was horrified and repulsed by this revelation. "Well, yer livin' with me now. Ya ain't gonna eat bad food." He took the pot off the fire and took it outside.
She followed him as he went out to the pigpen and dumped the still steaming stew into the pig trough. The pigs came running when they smelled the food (he'd forgotten to feed them yesterday) but drew back when they felt the heat. They'd wait for it to cool before they ate.
She trailed after him silently as he went down to the stream and washed out the pot, watching intently as he took handfuls of the clean white sand and used it to scrub out the food stuck to the side of the pot. Finished, he rinsed the sand out and carried the pot back up to the house. He opened the door where he kept the smoked, cured meats in a cool room underground, and used his belt knife to cut a hunk off the side of bacon hanging there. When he came back out she was still standing there watching. He grinned and handed her a small basket. "Here. See that chicken yard right there? Think ya can go get the eggs? Been a couple of days since I collected the eggs." She took the basket and headed off toward the chicken yard.
He cooked the bacon first, then took out two metal plates and divided the bacon between them both, heaping one plate higher. She needed to eat more; and besides, he wasn't really hungry. He didn't usually eat breakfast; on days when he was busy with the horses he'd skip dinner and eat a large supper. He had a vague idea that maybe you couldn't do that with kids, though; and a couple of extra meals wouldn't hurt her, as skinny as she was. And he'd never met a kid who wasn't perpetually hungry; there was no reason to assume she'd be any different.
He went to the back door to see what was taking her so long with the eggs; and started to laugh. The bad-tempered old rooster that ruled the chicken yard wasn't intending to let the kid anywhere near the hens, who were sitting on two days' worth of eggs. Every time she tried to take a step toward the hens, the rooster flew at her in a fury, pecking angrily. She'd retreat hastily, and try again.
He stepped outside, intending to go to her rescue, still laughing. But as he started toward her, she changed tactics. Instead of going for the hens, she started going after the rooster. He stopped to watch, wondering what she was going to do.
She ran a couple of steps at the rooster, causing it to run the other way, then reversed and ran toward the gate. The rooster chased her. She ran at him a couple of steps, then took several strides toward the gate. The rooster pursued her. She reached the gate, opened it, and darted through. The rooster squeezed himself past the gate, and then she turned and flew back into the yard, closing the gate right on her heels and keeping the rooster outside. The rooster shrieked in anger and fury as she went quickly among the hens, taking their eggs and putting them gently in the basket. When she finished, she went to the fence, put her basket on the ground on the other side, then straddled the fence as she opened the gate. The rooster went to the hens immediately as she closed the gate, hopped off the fence, and picked up the basket. She trotted up to the back door, smiling broadly at his smile, and handed him the basket of eggs.
He grinned. "Never thought 'bout takin' care o' that ol' rooster that way," he said. "Yer clever." She blushed at the praise. He took the basket inside, put the eggs on the table, and then handed the basket back to her. "Out in the barn, there's a bag next to the door labeled 'chicken feed'. Fill the basket half-full and take it out to the yard, then scatter the feed around for the chickens. If they start seein' yer the one who feeds 'em, the ol' rooster'll stop attackin' ya when ya go ta get the eggs." She took the basket, but hesitated a moment. He saw the look. "What's wrong?" She paused, then shook her head and went out the back door.
She walked into the barn and looked beside the door. There were two bags there; her heart sank. They both had words printed on them, but she couldn't read, so she didn't know what they said. She hadn't wanted to tell him she couldn't read; he'd think she was stupid or something. She opened the first bag. Inside was what plainly were oats; that must be for his horses. The second bag, when she opened it, had kernels of corn in it. This must be for the chickens. Relieved that she had been able to figure that out, she filled the little basket half-full using the little tin cup at the mouth of the sack, and went out to the chicken yard. She deterred the rooster from attacking her by throwing a handful of corn at him; he settled down to eat busily. The hens came crowding up for their share, and he frowned. The ones Mr. Shiomo had kept weren't usually hungry like this. Then she thought back to the previous day, and realized they were hungry because their owner had spent the whole day with her, and hadn't feed them. Reasoning that they might need water too, she went and picked up the water bucket and took it off to the well.
Logan watched her feed and water the chickens. Clever. She'd figured they might be thirsty too. He smiled. Maybe he could use a little helper around here after all. She could take care of the livestock while he took care of the horses. And the floor of the cabin had been getting dirty; it had needed the sweeping.
He stuck his head out the back door. "Hey. Think ya could put some water in the pigs' trough too? Use the water bucket. Don't fill it all the way full, or it'll hurt yer hands. And when yer done that, come an' eat." She picked up the water bucket and took it to the well.
She filled it half-full, looked at the water in it, and at the size of the pig trough, and groaned. If she did it by half-buckets, it would take forever, and she was hungry. And the smell coming from the cabin really smelled delicious. Her stomach rumbled emptily. Recklessly she filled the bucket full and started to carry it to the pigpen carefully, so as not to spill any. Her hands throbbed from the weight, but she ignored it. She'd lived with pain for so long that she no longer noticed the small things like throbbing hands.
She was halfway to the pigpen when a strong hand caught up the pail and relieved her of its weight. Logan saw her struggling to walk with the heavy bucket and cursed her for seven kinds of a fool as he ran out to take the bucket from her. He dumped the water into the trough and walked back to where she was standing. He put the bucket down and grabbed her wrists, turning her palms upward to check them. They were red. "I told ya ta do it in half-bucketfuls," he scolded her, noting the places on her palms where old blisters had popped. "Why ya gotta be stubborn an' do it all at once?"
She lowered her eyes at the angry tone in his voice, and cowered visibly. "I was hungry and I wanted to eat before it was all gone," she whispered.
He sighed. "Food ain't goin' nowhere," he said. "What, ya think I'd eat what I wanted an' leave ya the leftovers?" Her silence was answer enough. He snarled silently at whoever the fools had been who'd mistreated her so badly for so long, and crouched in front of her, tilting his head to try and look into her lowered eyes. "Look. I dunno who started doin' that with ya, but here it's only you an' me. I'm gonna share anythin' I got with ya, fairly."
"Why?" came her soft whisper, and she looked up at him finally. "Why would you do that for me? I'm nobody, I'm just a slave girl."
Logan struggled to find words to describe what he felt. He wasn't much of a one for expressing feelings. "I do it cause yer a kid, an' ya shouldn't have ta go hungry. Ya shouldn't have ta be scared an' hurt an' tired all the time. I do it 'cause I've never believed ownin' another human's right. I'm almost thirty, an' I ain't never owned a slave before, an' I don't intend ta start doin' so now. Ya ain't a slave, I tol' ya before, here yer a free girl, and soon's I get some time I'm gonna go on down ta Jackson an' git ya papers ta prove yer free. And I do it 'cause…" and he swallowed hard, feeling a lump in his throat rise at the thought of another pair of blue eyes buried in the ground at his old home back East, "'Cause ya remind me o' someone I knew once, a long time ago. Now come on. 'Nuff jawin. Breakfast's ready."
