The rich odor of fresh bread filled the tiny room.
“Oh, law, what hev I done?” Ellie moaned as she looked at the fireplace.
The dutch oven sat on coals raked to the front of the hearth. They’d burned down, and the hotter coals pilled onto the cast iron lid were now a mass of fluffy white ash. Ellie grabbed fireplace tongs and lifted the lid away.
“Oh, hit’s ruint!” the girl said.
Old Nathan reached into the oven and cracked the bread loose from the surface of the cast iron. The loaf had contracted slightly as it cooled. It felt light, more like biscuit than bread, and the crust was a brown as deep as a walnut plank.
“Don’t look ruint t’ me,” he said as he lifted the loaf to one of the two pewter plates sitting ready on the table. “Looks right good. I’d admire t’ try a piece.”
Ellie Ransden picked up a knife with a well-worn blade. Unexpectedly, she crumpled into sobs. The knife dropped. It stuck in the cabin floor between the woman’s bare feet, unnoticed as she bawled into her hands.
Old Nathan stepped around the table and touched Ellie’s shoulders to back her away. Judging from how the light played, the butcher knife had an edge that would slice to the bone if she kicked it. The way the gal carried on, she might not notice the cut—and she might not care if she did.
“I’m ugly!” Ellie cried as she wrapped her arms around Old Nathan. “I cain’t blame him, I’ve got t’ be an old frumpy thing ‘n he don’t love me no more!”
For the moment, she didn’t know who she held, just that he was warm and solid. She could talk at the cunning man, whether he listened or not.
“Tain’t thet,” Old Nathan muttered, feeling awkward as a hog on ice. One of the high-backed tortoiseshell combs that held and ornamented Ellie’s hair tickled his beard. “Hit’s jest the newness. Not thet he don’t love ye. . . .”
He spoke the words because they were handy; but as he heard them come out, he guessed they were pretty much the truth. “Cullen ain’t a bad man,” the girl had said, back to the cunning man’s cabin. No worse ‘n most men, the cunning man thought, and thet’s a durned poor lot.
“Don’t reckon there’s a purtier girl in the county,” Old Nathan said aloud. “Likely there’s not in the whole blame state.”
Ellie squeezed him firmly, this time a conscious action, and stepped back. She reached into her sleeve for her handkerchief, then saw it crumpled on the quilt where she’d been lying. She snatched up the square of linen, turned aside, and blew her nose firmly.
“You’re a right good man,” Ellie mumbled before she looked around again.
She raised her chin and said, pretending that her face was not flushed and tear-streaked, “Ifen it ain’t me, hit’s thet bitch down t’ the sittlement. Fer a month hit’s been Francine this ‘n Francine that an’ him spendin’ the ev’nins out an’ thin—”
Ellie’s upper lip trembled as she tumbled out her recent history. The cunning man bent to tug the butcher knife from the floor and hide his face from the woman’s.
“She witched him, sir!” Ellie burst out. “I heerd what you said up t’ yer cabin, but I tell ye, she witched my Cull. He ain’t like this!”
Old Nathan rose. He set the knife down, precisely parallel to the edge of the table, and met the woman’s eyes. “Yer Cull ain’t the fust man t’ go where his pecker led,” he said, harshly to be able to get the words out of his own throat. “Tain’t witch’ry, hit’s jest human natur. An’ don’t be carryin’ on, ’cause he’ll be back—sure as the leaves turn.”
Ellie wrung her hands together. The handkerchief was a tiny ball in one of them. “Oh, d’ ye think he will, sir?” she whispered. “Oh, sir, could ye give me a charm t’ bring him back? I’d be iver so grateful. . . .”
She looked down at her hands. Her lips pressed tightly together while silent tears dripped again from her eyes.