They all laughed over that one.
Three hours later, Lou and Oz were no longer laughing. They had milked the other two
cows—one heavy with calf, Louisa told them—which had taken half an hour each;
carried four large buckets of water into the house; and then lugged four more from the
springhouse for the animals. That was followed by two loads of wood and three of coal to
fill the house's wood and coal bins. Now they were slopping the hogs, and their chore list
only seemed to be growing.
Oz struggled with his bucket and Eugene helped him get it over the top rail. Lou dumped
hers and then stepped back.
"I can't believe we have to feed pigs," she said.
"They sure eat a lot," added Oz, as he watched the creatures attack what appeared to be
liquid garbage.
"They're disgusting," said Lou, as she wiped her hands on her overalls.
"And they give us food when we need it."
They both turned and saw Louisa standing there, a full bucket of com feed for the
chickens in hand, her brow already damp with sweat, despite the coolness. Louisa picked
up Lou's empty slop bucket and handed it to her. "Snow come there's no going down the
mountain. Have to store up. And they're hogs, Lou, not pigs." Lou and Louisa held a
silent stare-down for a half dozen heartbeats, until the sound of the car coming made
them look toward the farmhouse.
It was an Oldsmobile roadster, packing all of forty-seven horsepower and a rumble seat.
The car's black paint was chipped and rusted in numerous places, fenders dented, skinny
tires near bald; and it had a convertible top that was open on this cold morning. It was a
beautiful wreck of a thing.
The man stopped the car and got out. He was tall, with a lanky body that both foretold a
certain fragility and also promised exceptional strength. When he took off his hat, his hair
was revealed as dark and straight, cutting a fine outline around his head. A nicely shaped
nose and jawline, pleasant light blue eyes, and a mouth that had an abundance of laugh
lines shimmying around it gave him a face that would prompt a smile even on a trying
day. He appeared closer to forty than thirty. His suit was a two-piece gray, with a black
vest and a gentleman's watch the size of a silver dollar hanging from a heavy chain riding
across the front of the vest. The pants were baggy at the knee, and the man's shoes had
long since given back their shine for good. He started to walk toward them, stopped, went
back to his car, and pulled out a fat and battered briefcase.
Absentminded, Lou thought to herself as she watched him closely. After meeting the
likes of Hell No and Diamond, she wondered what odd moniker this stranger might have.
"Who's that?" Oz asked.
Louisa said in a loud voice, "Lou, Oz, this here's Cotton Longfellow, the finest lawyer
round."
The man smiled and shook Louisa's hand. "Well, since I'm also one of the very few
lawyers round here, that's a dubious distinction at best, Louisa."
His voice, a mixture of southern drawl and a New England rhythm, was unique to Lou.
She could not place him to a particular area, and she was usually quite good at that.
Cotton Longfellow! Lord, she had not been disappointed with the name.
Cotton put down his briefcase and shook their hands solemnly, though there was an easy
twinkle in his eye as he did so. "Very honored to meet you both. I feel like I know you
from all that Louisa has told me. I've always hoped to meet you one day. And I'm right
sorry it has to be under these circumstances." He said the last with a gentleness that not
even Lou could fault.
"Cotton and I got things to talk about. After you slop the hogs, you help Eugene turn the
rest of the livestock out and drop hay. Then you can finish gathering the eggs."
As Cotton and Louisa walked off, Oz picked up his bucket and happily went for some
more slop. But Lou stared after Cotton and Louisa, clearly not thinking of hogs. She was
wondering about a man with the strange name of Cotton Longfellow, who spoke sort of
oddly and seemed to know so much about them. Finally, she eyed a four-hundred-pound
hog that would somehow keep them from all starving come winter, and trudged after her
brother. The walls of mountains seemed to close around the girl.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
COTTON AND LOUISA ENTERED THE HOUSE THROUGH the back door. As they headed
down the hallway to the front room, Cotton stopped, his gaze holding through the
partially opened door and into the room where Amanda lay in bed.
Cotton said, "What do the doctors say?"
"Men... tal trau ... ma." Louisa formed the strange words slowly. "That what the nurse
call it."
They went to the kitchen and sat down in stump-legged chairs of hand-planed oak worn