Joelle's Secret Read Free

fear.
    “You’re meeting a man, ain’t you?”
    “No.”
    “You better not. I won’t have it. You mind what I say now.”
    “I didn’t sneak, and I wasn’t meeting anybody.” She moved to get by him, but he blocked the way.
    “It won’t do you any good to get medicine for Clara. She’s not going to make it. You can see that.” He suddenly reached out and took her by the arm, and immediately Jo jerked her arm away. Harper laughed. “I like a girl with spirit. Don’t you worry, Joelle. I’ll take care of you.”
    “I can take care of myself, Harper!”
    “Why do you always call me that?”
    “It’s your name, isn’t it?”
    “Well, you stay away from men. You saw what I done to that one that came courting. I’ll do it again if another one comes.” He reached out for her, but she quickly stepped away.
    “Leave me alone,” she said coldly. But she saw the gleam in his eyes and knew that he would not.
    Moving across the yard, she entered the house, put the groceries in the kitchen, and went at once to her mother’s bedroom. No matter how many times she saw her mother, it was always a slight shock. Her mother had been an attractive woman, well-shaped with a full face, and now her face was shrunken, which made her eyes look abnormally large. “I got some medicine from Dr. Raeburn. You got to take a teaspoon five times a day.”
    There was little response in Clara’s face. She didn’t protest but swallowed the medicine and said, “Where’s Harper?”
    “He was out at the barn—” She broke off abruptly when she heard a horse crying out and walked over to the window.
    Burl Harper was mounted on the big stallion Napoleon. She watched as he whipped the horse with a quirt, and she saw that he was laughing when the stallion reared up. He lashed the horse and left the yard at a dead run. Burl Harper didn’t know how to treat a horse, and Jo knew that he was the same with every living thing.
    She moved into the kitchen and made some broth. As she waited for it to heat, she looked around the kitchen—the only home she had ever known. Mom is going to die, and I’ll have to leave this place. A bleak future seemed to loom before her, and she steeled herself against it. Forcing herself to concentrate on the care of her mother, she took the bowl in and watched her mother eat a few spoonfuls.
    Clara said weakly, “I can’t eat anymore, honey.”
    “You need to keep your strength up.”
    Clara suddenly reached out and caught Jo’s hand. “Jo,” she said, “I’m going to die. When I’m gone”—she hesitated and her lips forced the words reluctantly—“you’ll have to leave this place.”
    Both of them knew she was talking about Burl Harper. Clara had already seen the attention he was paying to her daughter, and once she had challenged him. When she had warned him, he had laughed and pushed her away. “You’ll have to leave here,” Clara repeated to Joelle.
    “I don’t have anywhere to go, Ma.”
    “You need to go to Fort Smith to my sister Rita. She’s Rita Faye Johnson. They’ll take you in.”
    “All right, Ma.” Joelle didn’t want to talk about it but knew she wouldn’t do it. The thought of asking a stranger to take her in was abhorrent, but she didn’t want to argue.
    She sat beside her mother and read to her from the Bible. She read well enough, but her mind was not on the words. Her mother had always loved the Bible, and this one was worn and marked on every page, it seemed. As she read on, her mother was listening to the words, but Jo herself was thinking of the day that would come soon enough when she would have to leave River Bend.
    * * *
    MID-DECEMBER CAME, AND THE snow had all disappeared. Joelle spent the days taking care of her mother and staying away from Burl. One day, as she bathed her mother’s face, she said, “I’ll fix you something to eat.”
    “Can’t eat.”
    Suddenly Joelle saw something in her mother’s eyes, and she whispered, “What is it,