Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] by Yesteryear

wasn’t going to have news to pass along that night at the tavern.
     
    *  *  *
     
    Usually in the afternoon Colin took the sheep out to the meadow behind the farm where there was no nightshade weed to poison them. Today, however, Addie went with him, leaving Trisha at the house with the younger children. The ram, Mr. Jefferson, and the ewes, Dolly and Bucket, were family pets. They knew the sound of Addie’s voice when she called them and knew that she usually had a little tidbit in her pocket to feed them. The ewes were especially docile. Mr. Jefferson got stubborn at times but obeyed the long stick Addie carried.
    Bucket had been born during a late spring storm. Her mother had died, and Addie had brought the small lamb to the house to feed. Dillon was allowed to name her as Jane Ann had named the other lamb. As he was being pressed to come up with a name, he looked around the kitchen for inspiration. When his eyes had come to rest on the water bucket, he had smiled.
    “I’m gonna call her Bucket,” he had announced.
    “Is that your final choice?” Addie had asked seriously, while the rest of the family had snickered behind their hands.
    “I’m gonna name her Bucket.”
    The meadow was a long, narrow strip that ran between two steep hills covered with a heavy growth of pine trees and scrub. The grass grew deep and lush. Today Colin and Addie would fill bags of cut or pulled grass to take back to use on days they couldn’t bring the animals out to graze.
    Addie loved to come here. It was peaceful and quiet. The air was still, the sky impossibly clear. She sat now on a large rock that had been her special spot since childhood. She could remember when she had to climb to get up onto it. Now she just sat down. The sun felt warm on her back.
    While Addie rested, questions dogged her mind. Why had John Tallman followed the men out to the farm? Curiosity, maybe. After that was satisfied, why had he stayed the night? He might truly have wanted to guard against the men’s returning, Addie reasoned. But why had he done all that work this morning? And why the offer to help Colin? Addie mulled it over and the only conclusion she could come to was that he was from a close-knit family and Colin’s plight had somehow touched a soft spot in him.
    “Do ya think Mr. Tallman’ll come back, Miss Addie?” Colin asked, as if he had been reading Addie’s mind.
    “He said he’d speak to the magistrate. I think he’ll come and tell us what was said.”
    “I want to be like him when I grow up.”
    “What makes you say that? You don’t know him. He could be just putting on a show.”
    “He ain’t puttin’ on a show. He got real mad while I was tellin’ him ’bout . . . old Renshaw.”
    “You have to be with someone longer than just a few hours before you
know
him. Sometimes it takes months to find the real person under a nice facade; and when you do, you realize he didn’t really care about you at all.” There was a wistful tone in her voice.
    “I don’t think Mr. Tallman is like that.”
    Colin, honey, you are more trusting than I. He could be a
rascal for all we know.
    Addie sat on the rock and looked out over the valley. She needed this quiet time. It seemed to her lately that her life was passing too fast, that soon she would be old and would not have done the many things she had dreamed of doing nor seen the things she had dreamed of seeing.
    Besides giving her Dillon, Kirby had opened doors to her imagination with his stories of places and things. Poor Kirby. She would always wonder if he had been heading back to her when he was killed, or if he had dismissed her and Dillon from his mind to seek his own dreams.
    Several hours slipped by. Colin went out to drive the sheep back when they strayed too far down the valley and then returned to stand beside Addie.
    “Miss Addie, don’t turn your head now, but over yonder where lightnin’ split that big cedar, there’s a man on horseback. I think he’s lookin’