Longshadow's Woman. Bronwyn Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ has racing interests,” her uncle had said, making it sound terribly important, as if he owned a track, or at least a flock of Thoroughbreds. “The man knows more about horseflesh than he knows about his own family.”

      If he even had a family, he’d never admitted it. “Raised up in New York,” he’d once boasted. “Been to every racetrack on the Eastern Seaboard.” She had later learned that he was what was called a carpetbagger, a species not well respected in the South. But that was long after she’d married the man. When they had crossed the border into North Carolina after the hasty marriage ceremony, she’d been picturing a fine house surrounded by green fields where elegant, long-legged horses gamboled with their foals.

      Oh, yes, Carrie was good at dreaming. It was all that had kept her going in the years since the Indian raid. She had learned to create a separate reality inside her head that made life more bearable.

      Things would get better. Someone would adopt her and take her into their home. The uncle who finally sent for her would come to love her, and she would be a comfort to him in his old age.

      None of her early dreams had worked out, of course. Her uncle, a storekeeper in Virginia, had turned out to be a mean, slovenly man without an ounce of kindness in him. And Darther, so dapper with his well-fed body and his fancy clothes, had turned out to be more nightmare than dream. The lovely plantation she had visualized on the ride south had been the last straw. She had taken one heart-stricken look at the pigsty her bridegroom called home and felt the last of her dreams crumble around her feet.

      Her honeymoon had been no better. The painful, embarrassing experience that even now she couldn’t bear to think about, had ended the next day when a weasel-faced man called Liam had turned up with the news that some breeders were coming down from New York to look over the crop of two-year-olds, and that there might be some action up in Suffolk.

      The dust hadn’t even settled behind them before Carrie had braced her shoulders, set her jaw and gone to work. She now had a roof over her head that didn’t leak, a chimney that hardly smoked at all, a real iron range big enough for a kettle and a stew pot, and a kitchen garden, never mind that it fed mostly deer and rabbits.

      Best of all, she had a good friend and enough rich, flat land, if she could ever manage to get it cultivated, to grow herself a fine cash crop. Last year’s hog was gone but for a side of bacon hanging in the smokehouse. Her cow was gone, too, and she really missed fresh milk and butter. She’d had a nanny goat briefly, but the thing had butted her off the stool one too many times. Carrie had sold her when she’d eaten the bottom off a whole line of laundry. Now she had only a flock of chickens, but she managed to snare enough squirrels and rabbits for meat, which she shared with Emma.

      She’d have herself some fine, collard-fed venison, too, if she could ever locate the ammunition for her husband’s Springfield rifle. The gun rested proudly on a rack of antlers over the door. He’d told her more than once that he’d skin her alive if she ever touched it, and she had to believe him. His pappy’s Springfield, a fancy gold watch fob, and Peck, that ugly old gelding, were the only three things in the world her husband valued.

      When he’d left home this last time she’d watched him out of sight, then deliberately climbed up on a chair and lifted the gun down from the wall. Staggering under the unexpected weight, she had propped it beside the door. Living more than a mile from the nearest neighbor, and that neighbor only Emma, who could scarcely do for herself, much less for anyone else, she felt better having protection at hand—or at least the appearance of protection. Now and again someone would wander in, looking for Darther. She always told them he was away, but because she didn’t want strangers hanging around waiting for him to come home, she made sure they saw the rifle and tried to look like the kind of woman who knew how to use it.

      And now, here she was, getting ready to take a prisoner home with her. What she needed was a big, mean dog, only she didn’t know where to get one. Wouldn’t much trust him if she did. Still, even empty, the rifle should be enough to keep her prisoner in line. He would have no way of knowing the thing wasn’t loaded. Emma said he’d be wearing leg irons, too, so if he gave her any trouble, she’d just club him with the barrel.

      Catching a glimpse of a brick building, which could only mean they were nearing Currituck Courthouse, Carrie dealt with her misgivings one at a time. The county wouldn’t allow a dangerous criminal out on parole. Besides, he’d be in irons. As for what Darther would say when he found out, she would think of something. She could tell him she intended to plant a pasture for Peck; that should do the trick. Until it was knee-high, he probably wouldn’t know the difference between corn and pasture grass.

      Meanwhile, she had her own future to see to.

      To pass the time, he counted. Counted the fleas crushed between a grimy thumbnail and forefinger. Counted the bricks in the wall, the bars on the window, the number of times the jailhouse dog yapped outside the door.

      Counted the years of his age, that numbered twenty-nine—not as many as he would have liked, but as many as he was apt to see.

      Counted the ships that had sunk beneath him, which, unfortunately, totaled three. Counted the shipmates lost at sea, too great a number to recount without pain, even though he had had no friends among them.

      With a mixture of grief, anger and resignation, Jonah Longshadow counted the years it had taken him to save enough money to buy his land, fence it and stock it with a blooded stallion and a few good brood mares. He counted the number of foals he would never live to see and wondered who would eventually claim all that was his.

      And when he was done counting all that, and counting the days his body could go without food, he turned to counting his chances of escaping the hangman’s noose.

      The number was less than the number of hairs on a goose egg—less than the number of legs on a fish.

      Hearing footsteps approaching his cell, Jonah suffered the indignity of eagerness. There might even be more than a crust of stale cornbread today. Yesterday’s chunk, no bigger than his thumb, had been soaked with something that hinted of ham and cabbage. He suspected either the caretaker or the jailer himself ate most of the food prepared for the prisoners, allowing them only enough to keep them alive for a trial.

      The water he could abide. Even with a few wiggling worms, the kind that would turn into mosquitoes, it filled his belly. A man could live for a long time without food as long as he had water.

      It was the jailer this time, not the young caretaker. He came empty-handed, and Jonah’s belly growled in protest. He sank back onto the matted straw that smelled of dog and crawled with fleas and waited to be told that the judge had finally arrived, had tried him without a hearing and sentenced him to hang for the crime of being a stranger, a half-breed. For being a survivor. With a streak of bitter amusement, he hoped it would be today, while he still had the strength to stand and face his executioner.

      “On yer feet, Injun, got some good news fer ye.”

      The sun was at its hottest by the time Carrie finished her business and turned toward home, her prisoner following along behind. Hobbled by leg irons, he couldn’t walk fast, but then, Sorry was in no great rush. She only hoped the poor wretch would be worth the two dollars he had cost her.

      An Indian. She still couldn’t believe she had rented herself an Indian, after what had happened to her parents. But he’d been the only prisoner at the time, and she was determined not to go back empty-handed.

      The jailer, a potbellied man with a drooping moustache and eyes that seemed to weigh her and find her wanting—which was nothing new in her life—had given her a small key, but warned her to keep СКАЧАТЬ