The Road to Love. Linda Ford

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СКАЧАТЬ hem frayed, but it had a heavy wool lining and had kept him relatively warm through many winters.

      He pulled the canvas tarp out of his pack, wrapped it around his shoulders, adjusted it so the rip was hidden and hunkered down over the fire.

      He opened his Bible and read in the flickering firelight. But his thoughts kept leaving the page.

      Mrs. Bradshaw had a huge load to carry. The farm was too much for a woman to handle on her own. He wished he could stay and help but it wasn’t possible. He had to keep moving. He couldn’t stay in one place long enough…

      He shuddered and pulled the tarp over his hat.

      Best for everyone if he moved on.

      Mrs. Bradshaw could find a hired man in town. Like she said, most men were looking for work. And the majority of them were decent men, down on their luck.

      He tried not to remember the few he’d met who were scoundrels. He was good at not remembering. Had honed the skill over ten years. But he couldn’t stop the memory of one man in particular from coming to mind.

      Only name he knew him by was Mos. A man with an ageless face and a vacant soul who had, in the few days Hatcher reluctantly spent time in his association, robbed an old lady of her precious groceries, stole from a man who offered him a meal, and if Hatcher were to believe the whispers behind other men’s hands, beat another man half to death when Mos was caught with the man’s daughter under suspicious circumstances.

      When Mos moved on, Hatcher headed the opposite direction. He needed no reminders of violence.

      The cold deepened. Rain slashed across his face. He shifted his back into the wind.

      Mrs. Bradshaw was a strong, determined woman. She’d find a way of getting her crop in. He’d pray Mos wasn’t in the area. Or men like him.

      She was right about one thing, though. No matter how long he spent on the road, he never learned a way of ignoring a cold rain. Worse than snow because you couldn’t shake it off. It seeped around your collar and cuffs, doused the fire, left you aching for the comforts of a home.

      He thought of his home. Something he managed to avoid for the most part. He had Mrs. Bradshaw and her talk of protecting her place to thank for the fact such thoughts were more difficult to ignore tonight.

      But he must. The place he’d once known as home was gone. Now his home was the world; his father, God above; his family, believers wherever he found them, although he never stayed long enough to be able to call them friends.

      The wind caught at his huddled shelter and gave him a whiff of cows and hay. Before he could stop it, a memory raced in. He and Lowell had climbed to the hayloft to escape a rainstorm. Lowell, three years older, had been his best friend since Hatcher was old enough to recognize his brother’s face. Lowell had one unchanging dream.

      “Hatch, when you and I grow up we’re going to turn this farm into something to be proud of.”

      They were on their stomachs gazing out the open loft doors. Rain slashed across the landscape, blotting out much of the familiar scene, but both he and Lowell knew every blade of grass, every cow, every bush by heart.

      “How we gonna do that, Low?” he asked his big brother.

      “We’re going to work hard.”

      Hatcher recalled how he’d rolled over, hooting with laughter. “All we do is work now. From sunup to sundown. And lots of times Daddy pulls us from bed before the sun puts so much as one ray over the horizon.”

      Lowell turned and tickled Hatcher until they were both dusty and exhausted from laughing. “Someday, though, our work will pay off. You and me will get the farm from Daddy and then we’ll enjoy the benefit of our hard work.”

      Hatcher sat up to study his brother and suddenly understood why Lowell didn’t complain or shirk the chores their father loaded on him. “That why you work so hard now?”

      Lowell nodded. “If you and me keep it up we’ll have a lot less work to do when it’s ours.” Lowell flipped back to his stomach and edged as close to the opening as he could. “See that pasture over there? It could carry twice as many cattle if we broke it and seeded it down to tame hay. And that field Daddy always puts wheat in has so many wild oats he never gets top price for his wheat. Now, the way I see it, if we planted oats for a few years, cut them for feed before the wild ones go to seed, I think we could clean up the field.”

      For hours they remained in the loft, planning how to improve the farm. Hatcher remembered that day so clearly, because it was the first time he and Lowell had officially decided they would own the farm some day. As months passed, and he began to observe and analyze, Hatcher, too, came up with dreams.

      But it was not to be.

      If he let himself think about it he’d gain nothing but anger and pain and probably a giant headache. He determinedly shoved aside the memory.

      Too cold and damp to read his Bible, he began to recite verses. He began in Genesis. He got as far as the second chapter when the words in his mind stalled. It is not good for the man to be alone. He’d said the words hundreds of times but suddenly it hit him. He was alone. And God was right. It wasn’t good. Like a flash of lightning illuminating his brain, he pictured Mrs. Bradshaw stirring something on the stove, that persistent strand of hair drifting across her cheek, her look alternating between pensive and determined. He recalled the way her hands reached for her children, encouraging shy Mary, calming rambunctious Dougie. He’d also seen flashes of impatience on her face, guessed she was often torn between the children’s needs and the weight of the farm work. He could ease that burden if he could stay.

      It wasn’t possible.

      He shifted, pulled the tarp tighter around his head and started reciting from the Psalms.

      “Mr. Jones?”

      Hatcher jerked hard enough to shake open his protective covering. Icy water ran down his neck. The shock of it jolted every sense into acute awareness.

      The voice came again. “Mr. Jones?”

      He adjusted the tarp, resigned to being cold and wet until the rain let up and he found something dry to light fire to.

      “Mr. Jones?”

      He didn’t want to talk to her. Didn’t want to have her presence loosening any more memories so he didn’t move a muscle. Maybe she wouldn’t see him and go away.

      “Mr. Jones?” She was closer. He heard her footsteps padding in the wet grass. “There you are.”

      He lowered the tarp and stared at her, wrapped in a too-large black slicker. She held a flickering lantern up to him. The pale light touched the planes and angles of her face, giving her features the look of granite.

      “It’s raining,” he said, meaning, What are you doing out in the wet?

      “It’s cold,” she said. “Your fire’s gone out.”

      He didn’t need any reminding about how cold and wet he was. “Rain put it out.”

      “I remember how it is. You must be frozen.”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ