Then, though he hadn’t wished it—he thought—and he hadn’t said the words—aloud—there was a woman’s face, young and full-lipped and framed in hair as long and black as the years since last he’d seen her, the eve of marching off with Colonel Sevier to what ended at King’s Mountain. . . .
“Jes’ turn ‘n let me see ye move, Slowly,” Old Nathan whispered to his memories. “There’s nairy a thing so purty in all the world.”
The reflection shattered. The grip of the cunning man’s right hand had snapped the neck of the gourd. The hollowed body fell into the barrel.
Old Nathan straightened, wiping his eyes and forehead with the back of his hand. He tossed the gourd neck off the porch. “Niver knew why her folks, they named her thet, Slowly,” he muttered. “Ifen it was them ‘n not a name she’d picked herse’f.”
The cat hopped up onto the cane seat of the rocking chair. He poised there for a moment, allowing the rockers to return to balance before he settled himself.
“I’ll tell ye a thing, though, cat,” the cunning man said forcefully. “Afore King’s Mountain, I couldn’t no more talk t’ you an’ t’ other animals thin I could talk t’ this hearth rock.”
The tomcat curled his full tail over his face, then flicked it barely aside.
“Afore ye got yer knackers blowed off, ye mean?” the cat said. The discussion wasn’t of great concern to him, but he demanded precise language nonetheless.
* * *
“Aye,” Old Nathan said, glaring at the animal. “Thet’s what I mean.”
The cat snorted into his tail fur. “Thin you made a durned bad bargain, old man,” he said.
Old Nathan tore his eyes away from the cat. The tin basin was still in his left hand. He sighed and hung it up unused.
“Aye,” he muttered. “I reckon I did, cat.”
He went out to saddle the mule again.
* * *
Ransden’s cabin had a single door, in the front. It was open, but there was no sign of life within.
Old Nathan dismounted and wrapped the reins around the porch rail.
“Goin’ t’ water me?” the mule snorted.
“In my own sweet time, I reckon,” the cunning man snapped back.
“Cull?” Ellie Ransden called from the cabin. “Cullen?” she repeated as she swept to the door. Her eyes were swollen and tear-blurred; they told her only that the figure at the front of her cabin wasn’t her man. She ducked back inside—and reappeared behind a long flintlock rifle much like the one which hung on pegs over Old Nathan’s fireboard.
“Howdy,” said the cunning man. “Didn’t mean t’ startle ye, Miz Ransden.”
Old Nathan spoke as calmly as though it were an everyday thing for him to look down the small end of a rifle. It wasn’t. It hadn’t been for many years, and that was a thing he didn’t regret in the least about the passing of the old days.
“Oh!” she said, coloring in embarrassment. “Oh, do please come in. I got coffee, ifen hit ain’t biled dry by now.”
She lifted the rifle’s muzzle before she lowered the hammer. The trigger dogs made a muted double click in releasing the mainspring’s tension.
Ellie bustled quickly inside, fully a housewife again. “Oh, law!” she chirped as she set the rifle back on its pegs. “Here the fust time we git visitors in I don’t know, and everything’s all sixes ‘n sevens!”
The cabin was neat as a pin, all but the bed where the eagle-patterned quilt was disarrayed. It didn’t take art to see that Ellie had flung herself there crying, then jumped up in the hope her man had come home.
Bully Ransden must have knocked the furniture together himself. Not fancy, but it was all solid work, pinned with trenails rather than iron. There were two chairs, a table, and the bed. Three chests held clothes and acted as additional seats—though from what Ellie had blurted, the couple had few visitors, which was no surprise with Bully Ransden’s reputation.
The windows in each end wall had shutters but no glazing. Curtains, made from sacking and embroidered with bright pink roses, set off their frames.