Wild Rose

For a moment she looked at him, then finally turned away. “Suit yourself.”

He took the bucket down another row of plants, watching and listening as she explained which way she watered what, taking care not to wet the leaves of some plants, not worrying about sloshing others, and crouching low to inspect the underside of a leaf here and there, looking for hungry caterpillars.

“By the way,” he said when they’d each emptied their last bucketful, “you said something about seeds the other day. Do you still have any to spare?”

“You still want ’em?” she asked doubtfully.

The captain nodded. “You told me to plant something every week, didn’t you?”

“Yep. I just figured since then—” She shook her head, falling silent.

“You figured what?”

She could feel a flush covering her cheeks. “Nothin’—you having company and all.”

“Nate? He just stayed three nights.”

She turned away, saying with a shrug, “Thought you’d be heading back to Boston by now.”

Leaving him, she headed toward the lean-to attached to her house. She unlatched the door and entered its shadowy interior. Firewood lined most of the walls, floor to ceiling. The air was redolent with the spicy scent of drying spruce and balsam. She turned to the shelf holding gardening implements and took down a jar. From it she extracted a folded paper. Inside it were minute specks. She refolded the paper and handed it to the captain, who had followed her into the shed.

“You can bring me back what you don’t use.”

He nodded absently and took the paper. “What did you mean—you thought I would be returning to Boston the first chance I got?”

She continued uncorking jars and extracting folded packets of paper. “It’s where you’re from. Didn’t think you’d stick it out here if you didn’t have to.”

The captain thrust out his hand to stop the motion of her hand on a jar. “I chose to come here. I didn’t have to. Do you understand the difference?”

She raised startled eyes to him. For a second their gazes met and held. The sunlight sliced through the open doorway, cutting a path across her face, leaving her feeling exposed, yet helpless to look away. His eyes traveled across her face, almost as if he were seeing her for the first time.

“I jus’ thought—I mean—I didn’t think anyone’d come here to live. Not from Boston, anyway. Ain’t none of my business, anyhow.”

His hand still held her wrist. She jerked it away, and he immediately let it go.

He looked at the seed papers in his other hand. “How do I tell what is what?”

Again he’d caught her off guard. “Uh, I jus’ know by looking at ’em.” She unfolded one and said, “This here’s lettuce. It’ll grow quick. You should get enough through the summer if you plant some now, and then again in a week or so.”

“I should write the names of each on the papers.”

She bit her lip. “Uh, sure. I don’t have a pencil with me.”

He took one from his breast pocket. “Here.”

She looked at the pencil distrustfully. “You write. I—I’ll tell you what they are.”

“Good enough.” He unfolded the first paper and showed her. Then he refolded it and wrote the name she gave him on the paper. They continued until they’d labeled all the packets, though she gave him only the seeds she thought he should plant.

When they finished, he thanked her and left. She watched him walk back down the path to the road. Shame engulfed her.

What a fool she felt, not even being able to do so simple a task as write down the names of the seeds.

Chapter Three

Caleb walked down the dirt road that descended into the village. He’d hiked the three miles into town from the Point, enjoying the droplets of mist on his face the entire way, and now his clothes and hair felt damp.

Gradually the number of white clapboard houses increased until he was in the center of town, which consisted of a post office, a small store, a newly opened hotel, and a few warehouses along the three piers jutting out into the harbor.

Caleb entered Mr. Watson’s store and carefully shut the door behind him. He was glad to be out of the fog. The woodstove radiated heat throughout the store’s interior. A group of men sat around it, their eyes turned to him.

He nodded to them before turning to the storekeeper. “Afternoon.”

“Afternoon, Captain,” Mr. Watson answered.

Caleb ventured in a few feet. One woman looked at him over some bolts of fabric spread out before her. He removed his hat, acknowledging her. With a quick little duck of her head, she turned her attention back to the calico prints.

The men leaning back in their chairs by the potbellied stove continued eyeing him with undisguised interest, their boots propped against the fender of the stove. Although none of the men said a word, their mouths weren’t still. Two moved in rhythm working over plugs of tobacco and the third sucked on the stem of a pipe.

Caleb gave his list to Mr. Watson.

“Good summah we’ve been havin’ up until today,” one man in bib overalls commented.

“Yup,” another answered, his plump fingers interlaced atop his stomach. “I seen summahs the sun didn’t come out atall.”

“Was gettin’ a bit dry for the plantin’, though,” Mr. Watson put in from across the room.

“I seen you got a garden started down at the Point.” One of the three by the stove turned his light blue eyes on Caleb. He stood out from the other two by his neater appearance. His red beard was trimmed and his hair slicked back. He wore a suit and string tie in contrast to the others’ overalls and open collars. “It’s been quite a few yeahs since anybody’s tried to grow anything up theah.”

Caleb nodded, wondering when anybody had been by his place to notice his garden.

“Didn’t evah get your house finished, did ya?” the red-bearded man asked when Caleb didn’t volunteer any more information.

“No.” Caleb moved to examine the fishhooks at one end of the store. “But it’s fine for myself.”

“Ain’t too lonely for ya, after Boston?” one of the men in overalls asked from around his pipe.

Caleb shook his head without offering any comment.

“You could always knock on your neighbah’s door if you’re hankerin’ aftah some company,” the man with plump fingers laced atop his belly suggested. He seemed the boldest of the three, if the angle of his tilted chair was any indication.

The other two chuckled. “Hankerin’ after a bullet in his chest, you mean,” Bib Overalls put in.

“’Less, o’course, she was particularly ornery that mornin’ and aimed lowah,” Red Beard added, punctuating his remark with a well-aimed stream of tobacco juice at the spittoon.

All three men, as well as Mr. Watson, laughed at the implication.

“First he’d have to get past Jake,” Bib Overalls warned.