One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow: A Novel by Olivia Hawker

Author:Olivia Hawker [Hawker, Olivia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

8

AT THE EDGE OF THE SPIRAL

I knew we weren’t likely to see another storm as powerful as the one that had almost claimed Miranda’s life—not till winter arrived. But the autumn winds blew as fiercely as they had in all the years before. With the harvest in, Clyde and I found ourselves with more time for leisure. Which was not to say either of us was exactly idle. Our fences could always stand a bit of fortification, so a few days after the thunderstorm, when we reckoned the river and Tensleep Creek had returned to their accustomed courses, we began making our daily treks to the canyon to cut willows. We took all the straightest saplings we could find, assured that plenty more would sprout from the sandy gorge when springtime came again, but with my family’s livestock added to Clyde’s—the cattle, the hogs, even our flock of fowl—there didn’t seem to be enough willow to go around.

We’ve fences back at our homestead we might take apart, I told Clyde.

We were trudging side by side through the pasture, each with one last bundle of saplings on our backs. The grass had begun to right itself after the floodwaters had flattened stems and blades to the ground, but there were still drifts of red silt piled up around the roots of the sagebrush.

Clyde said, We might go over to your place, then, and see what we can find.

Your ma won’t like it one bit.

Clyde looked at me with a crooked smile. He had lost his hat in the river, so he said, and he hadn’t yet dug a replacement out of the trunks of his pa’s old things, which he kept in the long shed. I wasn’t used to seeing Clyde without a hat. His hair was so thick the wind couldn’t even stir it.

He said, Have you been talking to my mother? I’m surprised she’ll speak a word to you.

She don’t speak one single word to me unless it’s to scold me, I said. But I don’t mind. I know she’s only so hard and cold because she’s afraid.

Afraid! Clyde said.

That word burst out of him sharp and loud, like the shot of a rifle. A covey of grouse broke from the pasture ahead, startled by his voice. As they lifted into the air, the birds’ wings sounded like a fall of rocks rattling down the walls of a canyon.

Clyde said, My mother ain’t scared of anything. She never has been in all her life. She’s the bravest woman I ever knew.

I ain’t said a thing about bravery, I told him. Your ma’s as brave as a lion. You’ll never hear me argue otherwise. But she is awful scared, too, Clyde. Can’t you tell when you’re around her? Don’t you hear it in her voice?

What has Mother to be scared of?

I didn’t answer Clyde. I thought I knew what Nettie Mae feared, but I couldn’t be perfectly sure. Oh, she was frightened of death, as most people were. And as

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