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Very impressive. Bareback, anyone else would have been thrown.
“Oh, iffen only I’d a had my rifle with me. I’d have shot that little critter and made us some rabbit stew.”
Leather creaked as Michael shifted in his saddle. “I don’t understand you, Selina. You love animals. You’re always doctoring them and here you are wanting to shoot something as cute as a rabbit.”
“Oh, I don’t enjoy it iffen that’s what you’re thinkin’. It’s a matter of survival, and I know the good Lord put certain things on this earth to provide food for our bellies. I could never shoot somethin’ just to be shootin’ it. And, it does bother me. But when you see your brothers hungry, you’ll shoot just about anything to provide for them.”
Michael couldn’t even imagine what the woman and her family had gone through. Couldn’t imagine what it was like to go hungry, and he prayed he never would. Hearing her comments hurt enough. “Did everyone in your family go hunting?” Side by side, they followed the wide trail through the trees.
“Not when they were younger. When my ma took sick and died, my pa loved her so much he plumb gave up. Forgot all about us youngins. But I didn’t. I couldn’t bear seein’ them beg for somethin’ to eat. So, I taught myself how to shoot and hunt and look for plants and other things that were edible.”
“How old were you when your ma died?”
“Ten.”
“Ten?” Michael felt the shock clear to his toes. What kind of a father let his ten-year-old daughter hunt? He couldn’t fathom letting his sixteen-year-old sister Abby go hungry or hunt for food. “How old was your brother?”
“Seven. Ma lost two babies after she had me.”
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“Ain’t got no sisters. Only six brothers.”
“How old were they when your mother died?”
“Jacob was seven. Peter and Eli were five, Matthew was three, and Zeke and Zachary were almost two. Jacob, Peter and Eli are married now. And Doc’s payin’ for Matthew to go to school to become a doctor so he can take over his practice one day. Zeke and Zachary live with Jacob and his wife, Sarah. Even though they’re seventeen now, I could a never let myself get hitched iffen I thought they wasn’t being taken care of.”
His admiration toward her went up another notch, although he wondered how someone so young could raise a family, especially two sets of twins. “So you basically raised them by yourself then.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Had to. My brothers helped when they got older, but it still took a lot of work to gather food and all.”
“Why didn’t your father help?”
“Like I told you, Pa gave up when Ma died. He just sat around, starin’ into the air most of the time until his muscles no longer worked. It got to where we had to carry him everywhere. Sure hurt watchin’ him suffer like that.”
“What about the suffering you and your siblings endured because he gave up? Didn’t you ever resent him for basically dying then, too?”
Even though his own father’s death was an accident, Michael had felt that way when the man had died. But, Selina’s pa, well, he had just given up and that wasn’t right.
His horse shook his head, trying to rid its neck of a pesky horsefly. Michael leaned over and took care of it for him.
“No, I never did resent my pa for that, Michael. He loved my ma something fierce. And before my ma died, Pa used to read to us, tell us stories, hugged us a lot and told us how much he loved us. Pa was a good provider up until then. But his heart broke when Ma died. He said it was as iffen he’d died that day, too. And in a way, I reckon he had.”
“My father died a long time ago.” Michael still felt his father’s death as if it had just happened instead of eons ago.
“What was your pa like?”
“He was a strong man who loved the Lord and loved to spend time with his family. That’s one of the reasons why he moved us out here, to spend more time with us. Business took too much of his time back in New York. And even though he worked hard, long hours out here, we were all together and could go with him anytime.”
“How’d your pa die?”
“A tree fell on him. Crushed his chest. He died instantly. I never got to say goodbye.”
“You still can, you know.”
Michael glanced over at Selina, frowning. “What do you mean? He’s gone.”
“Well, I never got a chance to say goodbye to my ma. Always felt like somethin’ was left undone, iffen you know what I mean.”
He understood exactly what she meant.
