“Hit don’t signify,” Ellie said. She looked up toward a corner of the porch overhang where two sparrows argued about which had stolen the thistle seed from the other. “I jest figgered I’d drop by t’ be neighborly, but if you’ve got affairs . . . ?”
“The fish’ll wait,” said the cunning man, dipping a gourd of water from the barrel. He’d drunk the coffee in the pot nigh down to the grounds already. “I was jest talkin’ t’ my mule.”
Ellie’s explanation of what she was doing here was a lie for at least several reasons. First, Bully Ransden was no friend to the cunning man. Second, the two cabins, Old Nathan’s and Ransden’s back some miles on the main road, were close enough to be neighbors in parts as ill-settled as these—but in the three years past, Ellie hadn’t felt the need to come down this way.
The last reason was the swollen redness at the corners of the young woman’s eyes. Mis’ry was what brought folks most times t’ see the cunning man, t’ see Old Nathan the Witch. Mis’ry and anger. . . .
Old Nathan poured water into the iron coffeepot on the table of his one-room cabin. Some of last night’s coffee grounds, the beans bought green and roasted in the fireplace, floated on the inch of liquid remaining. They’d have enough strength left for another heating.
“Lots of folks, they talk t’ their animals,” he added defensively as he hung the refilled pot on the swinging bar and pivoted it back over the fire. Not so many thet hear what the beasts answer back, but thet was nobody’s affair save his own.
“Cullen ain’t a bad man, ye know,” Ellie Ransden said in a falsely idle voice as she examined one of the cabin’s pair of glazed sash-windows.
Old Nathan set a knot of pitchy lightwood in the coals to heat the fire up quickly. She was likely the only soul in the county called Bully Ransden by his baptized name. “Thet’s for them t’ say as knows him better ‘n I do,” he said aloud. “Or care t’ know him.”
“He was raised hard, thet’s all,” Ellie said to the rectangles of window glass. “I reckon—”
She turned around and her voice rose in challenge, though she probably didn’t realize what was happening. “—thet you’re afeerd t’ cross him, same as airy soul hereabouts?”
Old Nathan snorted. “I cain’t remember the time I met a man who skeerd me,” he said. “Seeins as I’ve got this old, I don’t figger I’ll meet one hereafter neither.”
He smiled, amused at the way he’d reacted to the girl’s—the woman’s—obvious ploy. “Set,” he offered, gesturing her to the rocking chair.
Ellie moved toward the chair, then angled off in a flutter of gingham like a butterfly unwilling to light for nervousness. She stood near the fireplace, staring in the direction of the five cups of blue-rimmed porcelain on the fireboard above the hearth. Her hands twisted together instinctively as if she were attempting to strangle a snake.
“Reckon you heerd about thet Modom Taliaferro down t’ Oak Hill,” she said.
Old Nathan seated himself in the rocker. There was the straight chair beside the table if Ellie wanted it. Now that he’d heard the problem, he didn’t guess she was going to settle.
“Might uv heard the name,” the cunning man agreed. “Lady from New Orleens, bought ‘Siah Chesson’s house from his brother back in March after thet dead limb hit ‘Siah.”
Oak Hill, the nearest settlement, wasn’t much, but its dozen dwellings were mostly of saw-cut boards. There was a store, a tavern, and several artisans who supplemented their trade with farm plots behind the houses.
Not a place where a wealthy, pretty lady from New Orleans was likely to be found; but it might be that Madame Francine Taliaferro didn’t choose to be found by some of those looking for her.
Ellie turned and glared at Old Nathan. “She’s a whore!” she blazed, deliberately holding his eyes.
Pitch popped loudly in the hearth. Old Nathan rubbed his beard. “I ain’t heard,” he said mildly, “thet the lady’s sellin’ merchandise of any sort.”
“Then she’s a witch,” Ellie said, as firm as a treetrunk bent the last finger’s breadth before it snaps.