The Native Star Read Free

you . The robin’s call drifted down from the spruce’s crown. Not you .
    Tucking the basket under her arm, Emily walked quickly, as if she could outrun the sound. But it followed her, high and piercing:
    Not you .
    On a grassy swale overlooking the main road from Dutch Flat to Lost Pine, where the rapidly rising sun was bright and hot in the cloudless sky, Emily set herself down to work.
    She laid the slab of oak on her lap and looked at it for a long time. It showed the signs of Dag Hansen’s strong, industrious hands. He was a good man. A good, kind, trusting man.
    He’d make a wonderful husband.
    She opened the pots of milk paint. Reaching into the silk pouch she wore around her neck, she took out the little bag of ashes. She put a generous pinch into each pot.
    Then she dipped a horsehair brush into the yellow and began dabbing carefully at the oak, muttering rhyming incantations as she laid the bright color onto the wood. She focused her intentions, concentrating on prosperity and happiness, goodwill and success, love and (Heaven help her) fertility.
    She focused closely on her work, so deeply engrossed that when an echoing “Hey there” came up from the road, she almost knocked over the pot of red. Shading her eyes with a paint-stained hand, she noticed how high the sun had climbed.
    “Hey, Em Edwards!”
    On the road, a pair of heavy bays stood in front of a stout buckboard. It was Mr. Orta, the delivery agent for the Wells, Fargo & Company express office in Dutch Flat. She waved, set her work aside, and hurried down, glad to stretch her stiff legs.
    “I thought it was you,” he said, pushing his cap back. “What are you up to?”
    “I’m painting a hex for Dag Hansen’s new shed.” Emily was aware of a high, tense note in her voice. For goodness’ sake, it sounded like she was confessing to a shooting! She licked her lips and continued. “They’re putting it up this afternoon.”
    “Folks say he’ll have the narrow-gauge track laid into Dutch Flat before summer, and you folks won’t have to wait for me to haul deliveries up to you.” He gave her a sly look. “I suppose there’ll be a dance later?”
    “I suppose,” Emily said, not wanting to talk about Dag and dancing. She craned her neck to see what Mr. Orta had in his buckboard. Two huge crates, half covered with canvas.
    “Who are those for?” She pointed.
    “Curiosity killed the cat,” he chuckled. “But I guess it can’t do no harm to a sturdy young Witch like you. One’s for that easterner, that fellow Stanton. The other’s a bunch of separate deliveries from Baugh’s Patent Magicks—an order in it for almost everyone up here, it seems.”
    Emily looked at the crates more closely. Sure enough, one was marked with the distinctive blue logo of Baugh’s Patent Magicks—a saucy genie rising out of a bottle in a cloud of smoke.
    A whole crate of Baugh’s. Emily felt like spitting in the dust.
    “I don’t suppose I could talk you into dumping that crate into a ditch and pretending it never came?” Emily gave Mr. Orta a winsome, slightly desperate smile.
    Mr. Orta chuckled awkwardly. They were, after all, joking about her livelihood.
    “Sorry, Em.” He scratched the back of his head. “I guess times change. Anyway, you need a ride? I can get you closer to Hansen’s place than you are now.”
    “No, thank you,” she said, entertaining the dramatic notion that she’d rather walk than ride in a buckboard with a crate of Baugh’s Patent Magicks. “I have to go see about Pap’s lunch.”
    Mr. Orta slapped the lines and clucked to the horses. Whistling, he disappeared beyond the bend, and Emily climbed the hill to gather up her paints. The hex she’d painted had dried nicely in the warm sun. She ran her fingers over the bright rough surface. She’d done it up neat, but the plaque was …  rustic . Not shiny and precise like a hex of baked enamel from Baugh’s Patent Magicks would be.
    Damn that Baugh, whoever he was!