#72
"I need a 'gentleman' to take the good ladies home. They had an encounter with something that growled and scared them badly. I would like to see them return for service's, so please go prepared and keep them safe." Mark looked Chuck square in the eye, and the younger man nodded.
"I'd like to use the horses, the ladies seem to be tired, perhaps an easy ride home would be a benefit."
"Good idea," Mark agreed, "I'll get Andy to give you a hand and get the horses ready."
"Thanks, I need to run home and take the pot of chili off the stove, I'll be right back." Chuck remembered his last hunting trip, and went to get the appropriate clothes.
The three ladies visited and fellowshiped with the ladies of the clan, while Chuck and Andy got the horses ready.
"I'm Pricilla, that's Reva, and Dory," The oldest woman introduced herself and her friends. "We live, I'm guessing about four miles from here. I've got to tell you, the people that were here before you, were very strange and standoffish but we have Sheriff Coleman's assurance that you were friendly and very approachable. He is really very handsome, isn't he?" and the ladies smiled in a knowing way.
The Linderman ladies nodded, agreeing with the newcomers. Mark appeared in the doorway and signaled to Clora that the horses were ready. She mentioned to the women and they all moved to the front door.
"Oh, this is a luxary way to travel," Dory exclaimed brom the back of a dead broke gelding. "It won't run away with me, will it?"
"No Ma'am," Chuck handed the reins to Dory, "he's a good horse."
It took a little bit of getting used to the horses, but soon the foursome was fording the small river, headed East.
Andy and Judy had brought another box of canned jars for Donny, Clora had brought a sack of potatoes and carrots, and one by one the families slipped food into the boxes for the new family. Finally there was so much, that it took a parade of men carrying boxes to Donnys place while the ladies took kids home and started Sunday dinner.
When Sally and Donny finally closed the door on the family bearing gifts, all of them had tears in their eyes over the generous bounty given them. "I can't believe it," Sally was sitting on the floor with all the kids warming by the stove. "Donny, your people are wonderful, they don't even know us, and here they are giving us all this food. What can we do to pay back?"
Donny was heating a couple of jars of venison chunks, and looking at the paper that Clora had written out on how to make gravy. There was the ever present rice as a base, and the kids ate silently and asked for more.
Children with full tummys practically went to sleep at the table, and Sally gathered them up and positioned the sleepy ones near the stove.
"I've got to sleep tonight in a bed," Donny explained as he and Sally washed and dried dishes. "I don't rest as well as I should, on the floor."
Sally looked at him with a scared expression, and skittered away from her strong, young husband.
"Oh hey, I didn't mean to scare you. You are welcome to sleep where ever you would like." Donny added in haste, "If you feel like you ain't ready for a husband, then you ain't ready. No problems, no pressures." Donny used a soapy hand to rub his nose and left a small cluster of bubbles.
Sally giggled and carefully brushed off the dissapearing bubbles. Donny stood real still while she was close, so as not to scare her.
"Do you think you will be Ok if I go hunting tomorrow? You'll gave to be up early and put the beans on to cook for breakfast. I'll try to be as quiet as possible, but I can't help but make some noise. Andy's gonna go with me, so you'll hear his voice, he's usually not very quiet." Donny explained.
"We will do alright," Sally felt scared inside at the thought of being in the house alone, without Donny, but she had to be brave. "I hope you have good luck." she added. "What are you hunting for?"
"Anything, rabbits, grouse, prairie chickens, squirrles, deer. We need a lot of protein to feed the kids. It won't be long and we'll have to be plantin garden, and that takes every body to work."
"Tell me about the garden, where will it be and what are we gonna plant?" Sally hung up the dish towel and she and Donny sat in the chairs on the stove side of the table. They chatted for a long while, exchanging ideas and getting to know one another.
"We gotta be gettin supper started, how about meat and gravy over potatoes?" All around the stove, kids that had been sleeping, perked up their ears at the mention of potatoes, their eyes opened and little tongues swiped at their lips.
"Now tomorrow, you'll have to cook rice and the beans and get the meals. I can't tell you when I'll be back, cause I don't know. It all depends on how far we need to go to find game. The horses will bring us back home, even in the dark, cause they know where the oats and hay are." Donny added for Sally's benefit, the scared look on her face, easing some.
"I was just gonna ask how you could see in the dark to get home." Sally went to the sack Clora had sent, and got a bowl of potatoes to cook. "We usually didn't peel them, we didn't let nothin go to waste," she explained to Donny as she pumped the handle for water. "I just wash'em good and cut in quarters."
"Sure, fine by me. By us making the best of what we have been given, honors the people that gave it to us." Donny sat in his chair and sharpened his knife, while Sally worked with the supper.