December 16, 1871
Rudy came with a buckle in his hand and no horse to put it on.
The brass had been polished bright. He held it out while I stood on the step, waiting for him to explain why a sound piece of harness needed my opinion. His own horse was tied at the rail. Its bridle had all its buckles.
His name is Rudolph. Ma uses the whole of it when she wants something carried. I write Rudy, as I call him, because he has spent enough time about this place to answer before I have finished the second syllable.
He began coming up the road in the spring. The first time he brought a saddle he had scrubbed until the leather lost its dust and most of its color. I thanked him. He stayed to ask whether the girth fitted, though he knew perfectly well it did. I gave him another minute of my attention, and by the following week he had found three more things to mend.
He is no brother and no hired hand. He may leave whenever he chooses. That is what makes the hours he spends here interesting.
This morning he turned the buckle over for me twice. I told him it was a handsome piece of work. His face changed as if I had praised the hand beneath it.
Ma opened the door behind me.
“Rudolph. If you're standing in the cold, you may as well see to that rail.”
She meant the loose board beside the hitching post. She also meant to put a price on his visit. Rudy took off his coat and went for the hammer before she could say more.
I watched him from the kitchen window. He set each nail straight before he struck it. He was careful with our poor timber, as though the house might take offense.
The key to the little room was in my sewing box. After last night's sound in the lock, I had thought of asking him to look at its door. He could have lifted it by the handle and made the iron catch properly. I said nothing. Rudy would have followed me upstairs, and then Ma would have wanted to know what we had been doing there.
He came in for coffee with wood shavings on his sleeve.
“You look tired,” he said.
“Then you have been looking too closely.”
He looked down at the cup, but he did not deny it.
I have watched him make that little retreat before. A man who wants to be forgiven for admiring me is easily persuaded to do something useful. I am less certain what to do with one who knows I see him and stays anyway.
When the coffee was gone, I asked if he would come back should I send for him after dark.
“Yes.”
He gave me no condition. Not if the road was clear, nor if there was work he understood. Only yes.
I had wanted the answer. I disliked how quickly he had given it.
At the gate I returned his coat and thanked him for the rail. He put the bright buckle in his pocket, still without telling me why he had brought it.
I watched him ride off. There was frost on the upper window of the little room, except for one clear oval at the height of a face.
It remained after Rudy had passed the bend.