Chapter 14
It was nearly dusk when Curtis saw Ellie home. She was determined to wait until her face did not bear any obvious traces of tears. Ellie explained that her outburst was not Curtis’s fault, that she simply missed her father, but by the set of his jaw, she reasoned that he did not share her view. Too emotionally drained to keep insisting, Ellie trudged along beside Curtis, who remained silent.
When they got to the house, Moses was awake, sitting at the table with a pair of shears, cutting through some deep blue fabric along a chalk line, his head wrapped with a fresh green calico eye patch. Linnea bent over the table, giving him instructions to remove the pins that held the fabric together before he got too close to them with the shears.
“Well, lookee at me,” Moses said, glancing up from his task with a bright smile. “Who’d have thought it’s easier to cut this than buckskin?” As soon as he caught sight of Curtis’s face, his chatter fell away as quickly as his smile.
Just then, Jack and Jesse burst through the door, their arms full of parcels that they dropped on the sofa and floor. Linnea looked up, startled. “Oh, my, is it that late already? You boys certainly took your time.” Neither of her sons looked sorry for it. “Goodness, Ellie, help me get supper on the table. We need to get these men fed.”
“Thank you, ma’am, but I’m afraid I need to be going now,” Curtis said, his voice carefully controlled.
Before Linnea could protest, a single knock on the door preceded David Unger. He strode inside and thrust two jars of preserves toward Linnea, along with two jars of apple butter. “Here. Mama heard that Jesse likes the apple butter particular, so she made me bring them along.” David glanced at Ellie standing next to Curtis, then dropped his gaze.
“You might as well eat with us since you’re here,” Linnea said.
“No, ma’am, I’ve just come to fetch my horse.”
Linnea put both hands out at her sides, palms up. “Is no one hungry?”
“I am,” Jesse said. “You should stay, David. You’re here mostly when supper's ready, like you can smell it all the way up to your place. Besides, you shouldn’t be going home alone in the dark.”
“Why?”
“They’re saying in town that there are Indians angry about being told to go to the reservations. Some are even messing with the train tracks.”
David scoffed. “How can they? They don’t have mallets or metal tools to break them.”
“Word is that they’re pulling up the rails somehow, burning the ties, or piling up blockades at bends in the line where the engineers don’t have a chance to see what’s coming,” Jesse said. “What’s to stop them from coming into town to wreak further havoc?”
David stole another glance at Ellie, seemingly oblivious that Curtis was staring at her, too. “I’ll stay for a bit,” he said.
Curtis ended up staying for supper, too, although he was a rather silent guest. Not wanting to explain to her mother why she had no appetite, Ellie picked at her food. As soon as she thought she could get away with it, Ellie said, “If I may be excused, I’m rather tired.”
“Look at you,” Linnea said. “You can barely keep your eyes open. I thought they looked red when you came in. Go on with you, get to bed.”
Ellie trudged to her doorway, then turned to look at Curtis, hoping to read something on his face. On their way home, he had knelt on the ground at her feet, like someone about to propose marriage. Is that what he intended? She may never know, because her sudden burst of hysterics had changed things between them. Was there still a chance for them? Or had her emotional outburst made him decide he would be better off spending time with someone else?
She didn’t catch Curtis’s eye, as he was turned toward Moses, listening to something Moses was saying in his deep voice, words so quiet that Ellie couldn’t make them out.
As her gaze swept away from Curtis, Ellie caught David staring at her. She turned away, shut her door, and climbed into bed without even changing. As soon as her head buried itself in the softness of her down pillow, she was asleep.
She dreamed of knocking, but no one was answering the door. She seemed to be stuck in place, unable to get up or walk.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Come in.” Her voice had a dreamlike quality to it.
A faint voice called, “Ellie?”
Ellie sat up, squinting into her dark room..
Knock, knock, knock. The sound seemed to be coming from the glass at her window.
The knocking intensified with desperation. Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. “Ellie?”
It was a woman’s voice.
Ellie finally stood and stumbled across the room to pull her curtain open. She had just enough time to make out a white face framed in wild red curls before a dark shape crashed into Polly Agar, and Polly disappeared.