imagined the roof repaired.
Besides harvesting her garden produce, she would have to chop enough wood to last through the winter. She watched Haywood send another shovelful of dirt onto the pile. It was easy to picture him replenishing her woodpile.
Somehow, watching him too closely made her stomach nervous and her cheeks warm. Deliberately, she pulled her thoughts back to her plans.
She needed to put up as many jars of tomatoes from her neglected patch as she could. The money she made selling her pies and bread paid for flour, sugar and a few other supplies, but mostly she had to live through the winter on what she saved from the garden.
Cally was used to hard work and deciding upon a plan felt better than the persistent hopelessness of the weeks since Pa’s arrest. In a way, she knew life would be easier. Pa, bless him, wasn’t really much help. Cally scolded herself for the disloyal thought. Poor Pa was right beside her!
Haywood’s shirt had become soaked with sweat, defining those useful muscles even more. Yes, her best bet was to humor the sheriff and play on his guilt as long as it lasted. With that in mind, she scrambled to her feet. She walked to the well and brought back a tin cup full of water. She didn’t speak but stood in front of Haywood until he looked up.
He eyed her speculatively.
“It ain’t poisoned,” she said, thrusting the cup toward him.
“Thanks,” he murmured. He tried to hide a grin as he brought the cup to his lips.
That grin made Cally furious. Her one act of kindness was suspect! Well, sure, it was more an act of encouragement than kindness, but he wasn’t supposed to see it that way. Shoot! It was hard to be nice to this man! Maybe the barn roof wasn’t worth it.
He handed the empty cup to her, and she snatched it out of his hand. She couldn’t stay here and watch him anymore. Waiting for him to dig the grave was worse than digging it herself. She stomped back to the well and hung up the cup. At the house she took her bucket from its hook on the side of the house and went to the garden.
With a sigh she surveyed the tomatoes. Lately she had been picking only what she wanted to eat. “There are more rotten ones than good ones,” she said to Royal before she remembered that Royal hadn’t followed her. She looked toward the little hill where Royal lay in the shade of the cart, guarding Haywood while he worked. There was another mark against that interfering sheriff.
She picked overripe tomatoes and dropped them into her bucket, muttering to herself. She almost called Queen over so she would have an excuse to grumble aloud. She had tossed the second bucketful of spoiled tomatoes to the chickens when she saw Haywood approaching.
He had unbuttoned the damp shirt halfway to his waist revealing glimpses of his hairy, muscular chest. Dirt smudged his face and once-white shirt. His hair was in complete disarray. This, Cally decided, was the way she would remember Sheriff Andrew Haywood next time the always-perfect sheriff tried to tell her what to do!
“The grave’s dug, Miss Dubois.”
It took Cally a moment to realize that Haywood had spoken.
He eyed her curiously as he went on in that soft voice, “I thought you’d want to say a few words over the body.” He paused, waiting, but she didn’t know what to do. “Do you have a Bible?”
Cally fought down a moment of panic. Nodding, she hurried to the well to wash. Inside the soddy, she found her mother’s Bible and, hugging it to her breast, walked to the grave. Haywood had rebuttoned his shirt and was shrugging into his coat. He looked oddly formal for as dirty as he was.
He had laid Pa’s body out on the ground and wrapped him more neatly in the sheet. She couldn’t help staring at it.
“Do you want one last look?” he offered.
Cally shook her head. Haywood jumped easily into the hole, lifted the body gently, and laid it in the grave. He pulled himself back out and stood beside Cally, his hands clasped in front of him. And waited. “Go ahead,” he urged gently, indicating the Bible.
Cally swallowed. “I…can’t.” She sniffed. “Would you?”
Haywood nodded and took the Bible. Cally watched his hands as he turned the Bible over then leafed through it. In a moment, he found what he was looking for. His soft, warm voice read some verses that sounded faintly familiar to Cally. When he was done, he closed the Bible gently. “Did you want to say anything else?”
Cally shook her head, unwilling to look at him.
After what seemed like a long pause, he said, “It’s sometimes customary for a family member to—”
Cally looked up as his voice trailed off. He held the small shovel toward her. The look on his face was more upsetting than the thought of throwing dirt on Pa’s body. Compassion. Sympathy. She straightened her shoulders. If that was the custom, she didn’t want to disappoint him. And she didn’t want him thinking she was about to fall apart!
As calmly as she could, she took the shovel and slid it into the pile of dirt—dirt the color of his eyes, she reminded herself. Using all her irritation at Sheriff Haywood to give her strength, she lifted as large a load as she could handle.
As she let it fall into the grave, Haywood spoke gently, “Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes. We commit this body back to the earth from whence it sprang. Amen.”
Cally watched him for a long moment before his eyes met hers again. “Are you a preacher?” she asked.
“No,” was all he said. He took the shovel from her hands, handing her the Bible, and nodded toward the cart. “Why don’t you hitch the mule to the cart and take it back to the barn? I’ll finish up here.” He was already removing the coat.
There he was, telling her what to do again! He turned his back on her as if he expected her to do just what she was told. Well, maybe she wanted to finish up here.
She watched those fascinating muscles flex as scoop after scoop of dirt fell on the corpse. Maybe she was being ridiculous. She hurried to Jewel, brought her to the cart and hitched her up. She called to Royal, and this time the dog followed her to the barn.
When the cart was put away and Jewel was staked once again, this time on grass as far from the grave as was practical, Cally walked slowly toward the house. She knew she should return to her garden. The tomatoes needed to be picked before they all rotted. Instead, she sat down on her rocker.
“He’s truly gone,” she whispered to herself. Royal whimpered in response to her sorrow and settled down beside her, his head resting on his paws, watching her with sad eyes. “I should have saved him.”
Her eyes turned to the hill where Haywood worked steadily. Soon he would be done, and she would be alone again. He was the reason Pa was dead! When he left, things would be closer to normal. She would be glad when he was off her farm and out of her sight!
That didn’t explain the stab of panic when she watched him drive her crude little cross into the fresh earth and, retrieving his hat and coat as well as the shovels, start toward the house. She didn’t think he so much as glanced in her direction but left the tools beside the barn and walked slowly to the well. He splashed water over his face and neck, revealing his fatigue as he leaned against the low rock wall.
Cally’s own stomach rumbled, and she glanced at the sun, now directly overhead. He could ride that horse into town and have a fancy meal at a restaurant, she told herself. And I can eat alone.
“I’ll be on my way, Miss DuBois.”
She had watched him walk toward her so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn’t realized he watched her, too. She simply nodded, letting the chair rock gently.
He took a deep breath.