The Orphan Mother Read Online Free PDF Page B

died as a child; and Tole after his father, who was dead of drink, or worse, these long years past. But now, here, hearing her speak it, the whole name sounded exotic and mysterious and worthy.
    “You heading out of town?” he asked her.
    “Carnton. The McGavock place.”
    “Where you were—” Where you were a slave. He knew he didn’t have to finish the sentence.
    “Yes,” she said. “Heading back to return some things to Missus McGavock.”
    “I ain’t never been over that way. I’m still learning my way around here.”
    “Well, I don’t make a habit of walking these back roads with strangers, but since you know my son, you welcome to walk along with me if that’s what you trying to say.”
    “Thank you,” he said, falling into step with her. “But I want to carry your bag there.”
    “I can carry my own bag,” Mariah said. “You just focus on walking.”
    He felt an unfamiliar tightening around his lips: it took him a moment, as he fell into step next to her, to recognize that he was smiling.
    There were certain simple pleasures, he reflected, that had been denied him—or that he had denied himself, more like. Simple easy graces that could fall upon you unexpectedly, if you had the good fortune to recognize them for what they were, like an unlooked-for gift from someone you loved once. Who would have thought it a gift, walking down a humid summer lane in Middle Tennessee with a beautiful woman swinging a basket next to you? But if you were a killer and sometimes con man, a drunk and washed-up soldier who could sit with a rifle in a tree and pick off defenseless men from a quarter of a mile away, it would seem a gift indeed.
    She seemed different from other women he had known—a bringer of life, with a confidence and assuredness he envied and wanted to possess. But now, for this moment, it was enough just to walk beside her. Right then, with the dust of the road kicking up at each step, even with piles of horse dung and ruts to avoid, right then he wasn’t a drunk and a killer. He was a better man.
    “You say you not from around here,” Mariah said.
    “Yes’m, New York’s home for me. Was, anyhow. Came out here to Franklin just before this summer.”
    “What a summer it’s been,” Mariah said. “I don’t think it’ll ever end.”
    “There’ll be an Indian summer, surely,” Tole said. “Though I don’t know what the Indians have to do with it. I guess they go ahead and blame them for everything they can, even the heat.”
    Mariah smiled. “Why you come to Franklin, of all the places?”
    “Oh, this and that reason,” Tole said.
    Her eyes narrowed. “That ain’t no kinda answer.”
    “I guess I just needed some new scenery,” he said. “New faces to look at.”
    “What was wrong with the faces in New York?”
    “The problem wasn’t so much with their faces,” he said. “The problem was with mine.”
    “Ain’t nothing wrong with your face as far as I can tell,” Mariah said.
    Was she flattering or flirting with him? Surely neither. Or both?
    Or she was just being kind. And was kindness such a bad thing? The war, after all, was over. This situation with Mr. Dixon would soon be resolved. Perhaps Dixon would be grateful for a job well done, help find him work. The man was a magistrate, after all, and very wealthy. Talk was that one of his children was sickly, and Dixon doted on her like a crazy man. The man had some charity in his heart. Perhaps this was the new beginning that Tole had sought. “Believe it or not, I had my looks when I was a younger man. I wasn’t always this old fool.”
    “Don’t go talkin’ about age, Mr. Tole.”
    “You don’t look a day over twenty years old, Missus Reddick.”
    Tole could have sworn he saw the tinge of a blush in her cheeks, but he took the summer heat to be the cause and lowered his eyes to his feet.
    “You’re kind. A liar, but kind. You think you can charm your way out answering the question, though, you wrong.”
    “Not