Lucille sat on the bench next to Caleb and asked questions the entire way. She wanted to know how many rooms the house had. She wanted to know if there was a dog. She wanted to know if the creek had fish in it and whether she would have her own bed and what they would eat for supper. Caleb answered each question with the same flat honesty he used for everything.
Two rooms, no dog. The creek had catfish in the spring. She and Bess would share the bed in the back room, and he would sleep on the bench by the stove. Supper tonight would be beans and salt pork because he had not planned for company, and that was what he had. Beth sat on the other side of Lucille and held her tin cup and said nothing.
When they reached the claim, it was nearly dark. The house sat low against the rise with the barn behind it and the wheat fields running east in rose that disappeared into the dusk. Caleb stopped the wagon in front of the porch and climbed down and lifted Bess off the bench and set her on the ground. And the child stood there holding her cup and looking at the house with the same expression Caleb had seen on the faces of cattle when they were driven into a new pasture. Not fear.
Exactly. Just the careful stillness of a creature deciding whether the ground under its feet was safe. Lucille jumped down without help and took Bess by the hand and said, "Show us inside." He showed them inside. Two rooms, a stove, a table with two chairs, a shelf of canned goods, a window that faced west.
The back room had a bed with a straw mattress and a quilt his mother had sewn before she got too sick to hold a needle. He had washed the quilt that morning and hung it on the line so it would smell like air instead of a house that had been closed too long. Lucille said, "Where do you sleep?" He pointed at the bench by the stove. She said, "That is too short for you."
He said, "I have been sleeping on it since October." She said, "Why?" He said, "Because my mother had the bed, and after she passed, I did not want it." Lucille looked at the bed and then at Caleb and said nothing. She led Bess into the back room and set the canvas sack on the floor and pulled the quilt back and lifted Bess onto the mattress and pulled off the small girl's shoes one at a time and set them side by side on the floor.
Bess lay back on the pillow and held her cup on her stomach and closed her eyes and she was asleep before Lucille had finished folding the quilt over her legs. Lucille came back into the front room and sat at the table and said, "I will have some beans now." He heated the beans and set a plate in front of her and sat in the other chair and watched her eat. She ate carefully, taking small bites and chewing with her mouth closed. And she did not look at him while she ate.