Free Wish You Well by David Baldacci

smart.” She paused as Lou considered this.
    “Like what?” the girl finally asked.
    “He come to unnerstand the land.”
    “Understand . . . dirt?”
    “It got lots of secrets, and not all good ones. Things up here hurt you bad if you ain’t careful. Weather so fickle, like it break your heart ’bout the time it do your back. Land don’t help none who don’t never bother to learn it.” On this she glanced at Eugene. “Lord knows Eugene could use help. This farm ain’t going one minute more without his strong back.”
    Eugene swallowed a piece of fish and washed it down with a gulp of water he had poured directly into his glass from a bucket. As Lou watched him, Eugene’s mouth trembled. She interpreted that as a big smile.
    “Fact is,” Louisa continued, “you and Oz coming here is a blessing. Some folk might say I helping you out, but that ain’t the truth. You helping me a lot more’n I can you. For that I thank you.”
    “Sure,” said Oz gallantly. “Glad to do it.”
    “You mentioned there were chores,” Lou said.
    Louisa looked over at Eugene. “Better to show, not tell. Come morning, I commence showing.”
    Diamond could contain himself no longer.
    “Johnny Booker’s pa said some fellers been looking round his place.”
    “What fellers?” asked Louisa sharply.
    “Ain’t know. But they’s asking questions ’bout the coal mines.”
    “Get your ears on the ground, Diamond.” Louisa looked at Lou and Oz. “And you too. God put us on this earth and he take us away when he good and ready. Meantime, family got to look out for each other.”
    Oz smiled and said he’d keep his ears so low to the ground, they’d be regularly filled with dirt. Everyone except Lou laughed at that. She simply stared at Louisa and said nothing.

    The table was cleared, and while Louisa scraped dishes, Lou worked the sink hand pump hard, the way Louisa had shown her, to make only a very thin stream of water come out. No indoor plumbing, she had been told. Louisa had also explained to them the outhouse arrangement and shown them the small rolls of toilet paper stacked in the pantry. She had said a lantern would be needed after dark if the facilities were required, and she had shown Lou how to light one. There was also a chamberpot under each of their beds if the call of nature was of such urgency that they couldn’t make it to the outhouse in time. However, Louisa informed them that the cleaning of the chamberpot was strictly the responsibility of the one using it. Lou wondered how timid Oz, a champion user of the bathroom in the middle of the night, would get along with this accommodation. She imagined she would be standing outside this outhouse many an evening while he did his business, and that was a weary thought.
    Right after supper Oz and Diamond had gone outside with Jeb. Lou now watched as Eugene lifted the rifle off its rack above the fireplace. He loaded the gun and went outside.
    Lou said to Louisa, “Where’s he going with that gun?”
    Louisa scrubbed plates vigorously with a hardened corncob. “See to the livestock. Now we done turned out the cows and hogs, Old Mo’s coming round.”
    “Old Mo?”
    “Mountain lion. Old Mo, he ’bout as old as me, but that durn cat still be a bother. Not to people. Lets the mare and the mules be too, ’specially the mules, Hit and Sam. Don’t never cross no mule, Lou. They’s the toughest things God ever made, and them durn critters keep grudges till kingdom come. Don’t never forget one smack of the whip, or slip of a shoeing nail. Some folks say mules ’bout as smart as a man. Mebbe that why they get so mean.” She smiled. “But Mo does go after the sheep, hogs, and cows. So we got to protect ’em. Eugene gonna fire the gun, scare Old Mo off.”
    “Diamond told me about Eugene’s father leaving him.”
    Louisa glanced at her sternly. “A lie! Tom Randall were a good man.”
    “What happened to him then?” Lou prompted when it appeared Louisa