CHAPTER 9
Speaking Of Thieves
Misdemeanor
AMOS Rivers looked up from the sheets he was helping Cricket take off the line and groaned. A wagon was approaching and there was no mistaking the driver. Not a bad woman at heart but, if all women were like Mrs. Bolton, Amos would have stayed single to the grave.
She pulled up near the back door, the better to unload her cargo of borrowed supplies and goods to express her associated gratitude. There was no refusing the gifts either, far better to accept them than drown in her explanations of their necessity.
“Are you going to be of any use this time?” Amos whispered hurriedly.
“Me?” Cricket radiated false innocence. “Her no think me speaky English.”
“Traitor. We both know you speak English better than half the men west of Willow Creek. If she starts, you could at least put me out of my misery.” Amos dropped a folded sheet into the laundry basket and went to greet their visitor. “Mrs. Bolton, you didn’t have to come all the way out here. One of the boys would have gone by your place.”
Perhaps it would have been mean of him to send any son to her house, such however were the prerogatives of fatherhood.
“Nonsense,” the middle aged-woman declared, accepting Amos’s hand and climbing down. She shuffled her overweight self to the back of the wagon and began shoving goods at him, firing off chatter all the while. “Wouldn’t hear of it. Too nice a day to waste inside. You ought to get out more. Not good to keep inside. Saw a nice woman when I took all mine to town. Who is that on your roof?”
Amos, already taking the huge stack of blankets Mrs. Bolton had borrowed into the house, completely missed the question. Out of self-defense his ears tended to shut down shortly after ‘hello’. Far too many times he had listened to her none too subtle suggestions of women he should meet and how he should do this or that differently. Get outside more? Could she not see how tanned he was already?
“Well?” Mrs. Bolton pressed, door in one hand and a large cobbler in the other.
At least she was an excellent baker, although Amos wasn’t sure the trade off was worth it.
“Didn’t your regular men come back?”
“Yes, they did,” Amos assured her, still at a loss.
He had hired two men from town last spring, but that hardly counted for ‘regular men’, did it? And he hardly needed them every day, year-round either.
“Well then, who is that on your roof?” said Mrs. Bolton.
Amos dropped his burden on the kitchen table to shorten the trip and, thereby, his neighbor’s visit.
“I assume you are referring to the young man helping Aspen replace the shingles. That is Gideon Fletcher.”
Mrs. Bolton waited expectantly. Amos ignored her expectations and went for another load. She drafted along, hot on his heels.
“Amos Rivers, what are you doing hiring a boy like that? Who knows what vile activities he could get up to? He already attacked one of your boys, for heaven’s sake.”
“Mrs. Bolton, I have no doubt you mean well, however your information is,” Amos mitigated what he was about to say, “somewhat inaccurate.”
“Well, what is accurate?” she insisted, in the full belief that she had a right to ask.
Cricket came, holding the over laden laundry basket, gave a tip of his head, and addressed Amos in syllables indistinguishable. Amos obliged the obvious request and held open the back door, Mrs. Bolton once again at his elbow. Determined to unload the wagon as quickly as possible, he glared pointedly at Cricket. This time, as Amos escaped the kitchen, Mrs. Bolton was neatly blocked by Cricket gabbling over her wondrous job with the cobbler.
“Don’t you take another step, Buford Rivers,” Amos ordered, as his son ducked around the a corner of the house. “You come over here and unload this wagon.”
Like a little boy at his mother’s skirts, Fort clung to the shelter of the house, presenting the barest minimum of himself to his father.
“Pa, I was—”
“You were sneaking off and leaving me to deal with that woman. Quit whining and get over here.”
Fort crept reluctantly out, looking ridiculous. His father grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the wagon.
“Pa, couldn’t I—”
“No. Here, take these. And this too.”
Amos loaded his son’s arms until the young man could barely see to walk, then sent him on his way with an admonition to come back directly.
“Directly, do you hear?”
“Yes, sir,” Fort agreed sullenly, from behind his mountain of goods.
He was nearly toppled by Mrs. Bolton as she propelled herself down the back steps.
“Honestly, Amos, can’t you afford to hire a cook who can speak decent English?” she tisked with an exasperated sigh, as if speaking English were the first and foremost skill necessary to be a cook. “And as to hiring, what were you thinking hiring that boy?”
Amos had had enough. He tried to be courteous to everyone, particularly his neighbors. No one coming to his door was ever refused a meal or a place to sleep, but Mrs. Bolton’s assumption that she could pry into other people’s affairs was simply too much.
“I did not hire Gideon,” he said, turning to face his presumptuous neighbor. “He lives here, with me, my sons and Cricket who is an excellent cook. He shall remain here, as a member of this family, for at least the next three years. I appreciate your concern, however I am quite capable of running my household as I think best.”
Amos spoke bluntly, knowing this news would shock her and hoping it would end the discussion. Any normal person would have taken that rather obvious meaning. Not Mrs. Bolton. She braced her hands on her ample hips and charged on.
“I’m not sure you have thought, Amos Rivers. Four boys and a ranch to run and you take in someone like that? He could rob you blind, kill you in your sleep. I tell you, no good comes from riffraff like that and you’d best be rid of him or hide everything of value.”
“Ma’am, you’re a-speakin’ out-a turn. I ain’t no thief.”
Mrs. Bolton whipped around, astonished to find what she felt was a private discussion being invaded.
But Gideon knew precisely what it was. He had seen the like before and ‘conversation’ it was not. It was a trick some folks played in other people’s heads— bumptious, supercilious, overreaching people who thought they rode shotgun aside heaven itself and no man better. They were the sort who made others feel surrounded and alone with every Indian for a thousand miles swarming down on them and them wishing they could shrink down smaller than a grain of dirt.
“How dare you address me in that—”
“How dare you call me a thief,” Gideon interrupted. “I ain’t never stoled nothin’ an’ I ain’t no murderer. Thems as I shot were thems as deserved it.”
Mrs. Bolton stood sputtering, undoubtedly working up to a scathing reply. Amos took advantage of her momentary apoplexy to rescue his ward.
“Gideon, go help Aspen. Fort, show him where the new shingles are.”
Fort had only just come back outside, but his mamma hadn’t raised any dummies. He sized up the situation right quick and dropped an arm around Gideon’s shoulders to lead him to safety.
“Hold on,” Mrs. Bolton ordered. “Just who do you think you are speaking to me like that? I’ll have you know—”
“I’ll have you know, ma’am,” Gideon spoke right into the building squall, “ya got no call a-passin’ judgment where ya ain’t got no knowin’.”
“Gov—” Fort tried.
“No. I mayn’t be much, but I ain’t no thief nor no murderer. An’ no matter what I am, least I ain’t no busy-body a-stickin’ my nose where it don’t belong.”
Mrs. Bolton’s flat hand lashed out. Without any aid from his brain, Fort’s broad palm blocked what would have been a stinging slap. Gideon stood there, mentally rewriting a present that did not include collecting his teeth. The scene held for an unreal heartbeat and then Fort walked away with Gideon
tucked under his arm.
“Are you going to allow this sort of behavior?” the woman rounded on Amos.
“I will talk with Gideon.”
“You’d better do more than talk, in my opinion.”
Amos lost hold of his last shred of self-control. “And in my opinion Gideon has a point, you do speak out of turn,” he snapped.
In a bluster of indignation, skirts and ‘well I nevers’ Mrs. Bolton hustled to her wagon, threw herself on the seat and snatched up the reins. Amos watched her drive around the line of scrub oaks and out of sight.
“Least she not come visit for a while.”
Amos shook his head. His cook had come up beside him, the top of his head reaching only to Amos’s shoulder. Cricket crossed his arms and stared after the fading rattle of harness and rig. His expression made it clear he was willing to cut his losses and consider it a gain.
“Cricket, you are incorrigible.”
“Any man encouraged now she gone. Why not me?”
ANYONE who invited an outsider to ‘make themselves at home’ would be appalled to be taken at their word. Imagine a neighbor stretched out in your best chair and reading your favorite book in nothing but their unmentionables. Or using your toothbrush. Or rearranging the sitting room furniture. Isolation would start looking mighty attractive, all-fired quick.
What Gideon decided it meant was that some things could not be stolen since, if you were at home, they were yours to begin with. At least, the reasoning fit where doughnuts were concerned. He further reasoned he had done the Rivers a favor by pinching one because, after all, didn’t it prove he was— finally— doing as they wished?
Who d’ya reckon’ll get blamed this time?
Does it matter?
Not much.
Gideon knew it was small-minded, but he would have whistled his satisfaction at having perpetrated this latest misdemeanor— only doing so with a mouth full of sweet, fluffy dough was impossible.