by Pam Hillman
Feeling quite shy around Isabella, Alanah moved back to the fire and stirred the pot of stew. The tantalizing aroma wafted upward. What was she supposed to do with a female guest? Other than Lydia, Betsy, and herself, there hadn’t been another woman at their cabin since . . . since before her mother and Aunt Rachel had passed away.
She tried not to think how run-down everything must look to a lady like Isabella. “Could I offer you some refreshment? A bite of stew? Or —”
“No. No food, thank you.” The color leached out of Isabella’s cheeks, and she clutched her stomach. “Actually, if I could just sit down for a bit . . .”
Alanah rushed to Isabella’s side, slid an arm around her waist, and led her to a chair on the porch. “Lydia!”
Instantly Lydia materialized out of the shadows and, without a word, pulled another chair over, lifted Isabella’s feet, and propped them up.
Alanah stared at Isabella’s face. “Are you all right? Should I call Caleb?”
“No.” Eyes closed, Isabella wagged her head. “I’ll be all right in a moment or two.”
“Bring a damp cloth.” As Lydia knelt by Isabella’s side, Alanah ran to do her bidding.
When she returned, Lydia folded the cloth and placed it on Isabella’s forehead. After a moment, Isabella sat up, the color returning to her cheeks.
Lydia stared at her. “You are in the family way.”
It wasn’t a question.
“How did you know?” The color deepened on Isabella’s cheeks. Then she waved a hand. “Never mind. I can see you have a sixth sense about these things.”
Lydia’s lips twitched, and Alanah could tell she was pleased that she’d been right. “How far along?”
“Two months, I think. I just began to suspect last week. This is the first time I’ve felt queasy, but —” a sad little smile flitted across her face, and she smoothed a hand over her flat stomach —“I was sick with my first. I lost the baby. A perfect little angel. A boy.”
Alanah’s heart broke at the sorrow in her voice, and she placed a hand on her arm, no longer worried about entertaining her guest, but only comforting her. “I’m sorry, Isabella. Are you sure you don’t want me to get Caleb so he can take you back to the logging camp?”
“No, and I don’t want you to tell him. Or anyone.”
Alanah pursed her lips. “Not even your husband?”
“Especially not Connor. Not yet. He’ll worry, and he’ll send me back to Breeze Hill.”
Lydia’s gaze met Alanah’s, and it was clear she didn’t agree, but she said nothing. “I will make some tea. It will help with the nausea.”
As Lydia disappeared inside, Alanah took the tepid cloth from Isabella and dipped it in cool water, wrung it out, and handed it back.
Isabella pressed the cloth to her forehead. Eyes closed, she asked, “Why did you leave so suddenly the other day?”
“I —I just needed to get home.”
“Was it because of your uncle?”
“Why would you say that?” Alanah busied herself with the stewpot.
“Just something Caleb said.” Isabella waved a hand toward the bundle. “I washed your belongings. I hope you don’t mind.”
Her face flamed. That meant Isabella had seen every rip, every tear, every patch. She turned toward the house. “I’ll get your dress. Thank you for loaning —”
“Please, the dress is yours. It was a gift.” Isabella peeked out from underneath the damp cloth. “But you have to wear it the next time you visit me at the logging camp. Promise?”
Alanah chuckled. “I promise.”
“Good.” Isabella removed the cloth, folded it, and gently dabbed at her cheeks. “I don’t mean to pry, but how long will your uncle be gone?”
“A few days. Weeks. Months.” Alanah shrugged. She hoped his declaration that they’d head north within the fortnight meant nothing. “One can never tell.”
Isabella’s mouth gaped. “He leaves you all alone for months? Without protection?”
“We can protect ourselves if need be.” Alanah lifted her chin.
“I don’t doubt that. It’s just that those who intend harm are more likely to move on to easier targets if there’s a man about the place.”
Alanah couldn’t help but agree. Would Micaiah Jones have spirited her sister away had their uncle been here to protect her? Or would he have just bashed in her uncle’s head and taken Betsy anyway?
“Forgive me, Alanah. I didn’t mean to disparage your uncle. It’s a high calling to preach to the masses.”
“Yes, sometimes I wonder if his calling would be easier on him if he didn’t have us to care for.” Alanah emptied her tote, spreading the herbs out on the table. She separated each, wincing that the mushrooms had already started to blacken.
“And your parents? What happened to them?”
“My mother died of swamp fever nine years ago, and my father died in Natchez Under-the-Hill not long after.” She jerked her head toward the cemetery plot behind the house. “They’re buried back there, along with Aunt Rachel and her four babes.”
“Ah, your uncle’s wife?”
“Yes.”
“Poor man.” Isabella gently rubbed the tips of her fingers in a circle on her stomach. “No wonder he feels lost here.”
Alanah’s heart squeezed, and she felt a kinship with the woman. Somehow she understood the pain of loss. The pain of looking on it every day.
“And where was your home before?”
“Philadelphia.”
“That had to be a shock, coming from Philadelphia to the backwoods of the Natchez District.”
“I was so young, I remember none of it.”
Alanah separated the last of the blackened mushrooms from the yellow tansy and flicked them into the bushes.
“I see you know your medicinal herbs.”
Alanah glanced at her. “You recognize these?”
“Some of them.” Isabella pointed to a clutch of yellow tansy. “I know enough to stay away from that one.”
“It has its uses.” Alanah looked at her pointedly and smiled. “But you’re wise to avoid it while carrying.”
“You’re a healer, then? Connor told me what you did for Frank.”
Alanah cringed. She’d done nothing for the injured logger except faint. “Lydia is the healer. I’m blessed to be learning from her.”
“Do not let her fool you.” Lydia returned, a mug of steaming tea cradled in her hands. She handed the tea to Isabella. “She has the gift.”
“The gift? Of healing?”
“The gift of healing will come, I think. But she has more. She has the gift of discernment for which herbs are good for different ailments. She takes what I teach her of the woods and what Mr. Weaver —”
“Mr. Weaver? The apothecary in Natchez?”
“Yes. You know of him?”
“Who doesn’t? It’s fascinating that you work with Mr. Weaver. How —?”
“I don’t work with him.” Alanah motioned to the herbs spread out before her. “I simply supply him with what he needs.”
“She does more than that.” Lydia snorted. “She listens and applies what she learns to make her own concoctions. When she can get the supplies she needs.”
“You have trouble finding herbs for Mr. Weaver?”
“It’s not that so much as it is getting them to Natchez.” Alanah ducked her head. “Uncle Jude forbids me to go.”
“But you do it anyway?”
“Sometimes it’s necessary.” She shrugged.
“Why not send your herbs to Mr. Weaver with Caleb.” Isabella eyed her. “I’m sure he would be more than willing to help.”
“Help with what?”
Startled, Alanah knocked half her squawroot to the ground. As she bent to retrieve the roots, she peeked at Caleb, standing less than ten feet away, arms loaded with firewood.
Chapter 14
CALEB’S ATTENTION swung between the two women.
“Alanah needs someone to take her herb
s to Natchez.” Isabella smiled, looking pleased with herself. “I thought you could do that when you go.”
“Aye.” Caleb stacked the firewood beside the cabin. “I would be glad t’.”
“I don’t want to be beholden.” Alanah peeked at him from beneath lowered lashes. “But thank you just the same.”
“’Tis no’ any trouble. Just let me know —”
He stopped as the thunder of hooves pounding down the overgrown lane reached him. Sounded like half a dozen horses or more. Tossing the firewood to the side, he drew his pistol and primed it. “Tiberius?”
“I am here.” The Moor’s voice floated to him from the shadows.
Caleb motioned to the women. “Isabella, get inside. Alanah, Lydia, you too.”
The women obeyed. Sort of. They backed into the shadows of the porch, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alanah nock an arrow and heard Lydia prime and cock her old flintlock.
When the riders rode into sight, Caleb breathed a sigh of relief. It was Connor, accompanied by several of the loggers. William must have returned within the last hour.
Connor threw himself off his horse, looking around. “Where’s Isabella? Gimpy said she was with you.”
“She’s here.” Caleb’s relief turned to concern at the frantic look on his brother’s face.
“Connor? What’s wrong?” Isabella rushed down the steps. “Is it Patrick? Or Papa?”
Connor grabbed her by the shoulders. “No, they’re fine. Something happened back at camp, and then Gimpy said you were gone and —”
“What happened?” Caleb interrupted.
“Jed Willis was killed today.”
“Killed?” Isabella gasped. “What happened?”
“I do no’ know.” Connor threw a glance at Caleb, and he knew there was more to Willis’s death than his brother had let on. He turned back to his wife. “Isabella, promise me you won’t leave camp again. When I could no’ find you, I thought —”
“I’m sorry, Connor. I’ll do as you say.” She patted his arm. “Just let me say good-bye to Alanah and Lydia, and I’ll be ready to go.”
As soon as Isabella was out of earshot, Caleb moved closer to his brother. “I take it this was no’ an accident?”
“No. Willis was murdered. With his own ax.”
A chill settled over Caleb. “Could he have tripped and fallen? Maybe —”
Connor’s face grew hard. “If you’d been there, seen . . . seen his body, you’d know somebody killed him.”
“But why?”
“Do these cutthroats need a reason?”
Her good-byes said, Isabella headed back toward them. Connor glanced around, then settled his attention on Caleb. “Where are your horses?”
“We walked. It’s only a couple o’ miles as the crow flies.”
His brother scowled. “I do no’ like Isabella traipsing all over the woods with these highwaymen roaming about.” Connor lifted her to his horse, then mounted behind her. He motioned to the mounted men with him. “You want to ride double back t’ camp?”
“No, we’ll walk. Tiberius isn’t much for riding.”
“All right, then.” Connor nodded. “Watch yourself.”
“We will.”
Alanah watched his brother and the others ride out of the yard. “That man, Willis —he was murdered, wasn’t he?”
Caleb sighed. There was no use in keeping the truth from her. “Aye.”
Sorrow filled her eyes. “It’s the way of it here in Cypress Creek.”
“It should no’ be.” Caleb frowned, remembering the battles he’d fought on foreign soil and on ships’ decks. And over what? Sometimes nothing more than the rotting hull of a sloop or a patch of parched earth. “Why can men no’ live in peace?”
“Because Satan fills their hearts with wickedness and their bellies with ale, and their thoughts are on evil continually. It’s been this way since Cain killed Abel.”
“Aye, you’re right about that, lass.” Caleb rubbed a hand around the back of his neck. “Perhaps you should come to the lumber camp —”
She lifted her chin. “We will stay here. It’s our home.”
“Knowing there’s a killer loose out there?”
She smiled, but her eyes remained as serious as his next heartbeat. “There have been killers in these parts for as long as I can remember.”
“Then why do you stay?”
“Where would we go?” She sighed. “That’s not true, I suppose. Uncle Jude is talking about going north, but —”
“You’re leaving?”
“Perhaps.” Brow knit, she shrugged. “Uncle Jude says it’s the Lord’s will.”
“And do you agree?”
“It matters not whether I agree. I must go where Uncle Jude wishes for me to go.”
A pall had fallen over the lumber camp by the time Caleb and Tiberius returned. Not even William’s arrival from home with fresh butter and eggs lifted it. Everyone filed to a knoll overlooking the river, where they buried Jed Willis, his two brothers standing over his grave, hats in their hands, devastation on their bearded faces.
Horne spoke a few words over the grave, and they all tromped back to camp, a somber bunch.
Isabella pleaded a headache and retired to her cabin, and Caleb joined his brothers and William outside the office.
William leaned against a post and eyed the men as they gathered in small groups, talking of the incident. “This is unfortunate, unfortunate indeed. The last thing we need is for the men to become skittish. Do you know what happened?”
“Nay,” Connor said. “Maybe he had an argument with someone at the tavern, or he ran afoul o’ the highwaymen out in the woods.”
“Or his killer could be one of our own.” William nodded toward the men Reverend Browning had recommended. “Who are those men, and where did they come from?”
“Reverend Browning brought them over two days ago. They’re riverboat men, no’ loggers.”
William grunted. “No wonder they’re keeping apart from the others.”
Caleb straightened as Jed’s brothers approached the raftsmen. “Looks like that’s about t’ change.”
The tension mounted as Sam Willis exchanged words with a sour-faced crewman who went by Whiskey Massey. The next thing Caleb knew, Massey threw a punch at Willis. Men yelled, and within seconds, the entire camp had converged around the two men, shouting encouragement. Soon, it was obvious the loggers were rooting for Sam, the river crew for Massey. As was the custom with fistfights, no one stepped in, not even William or Connor.
From his vantage point on the porch, Caleb watched the fight. Sam was a big, brawny man, muscles honed from years of swinging an ax or pulling a crosscut saw. One perfectly placed blow from a meaty fist would knock almost any man out.
Caleb’s attention shifted to Massey, and he knew that even though the raftsman was smaller, more wiry and less muscled, he’d kill Willis given half the chance. And he wouldn’t do it with his fists. Massey had been in camp for only three days, but his short temper and predilection for too much ale made an explosive combination. An uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, Caleb stepped off the porch, strode toward the ring of men, and pushed his way to the front.
The men went down in a flurry of fists, grappling to gain the upper hand on the other. Sam Willis grabbed his opponent by the throat and squeezed. Massey’s eyes bugged out, and then Caleb saw him scrabble for the knife strapped to his thigh.
Caleb rushed forward and kicked the knife away before Massey had the chance to plunge the blade into Willis. Tiberius and Willis’s younger brother pulled Sam off Massey before he could choke the man to death. Connor stepped in, helped Caleb haul Massey to his feet. Both men, held at bay, growled at each other like rabid dogs.
“Let me at him. He killed my brother.”
“Sam, there’s no proof of that.” His brother held him back.
“I asked him where he was this afternoon, and he refused to say. And that’s good enough for me.” Sam Willi
s struggled vainly against Tiberius’s and his brother’s hold. “He’s had it in for Jed ever since that gal over at the tavern wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”
William stepped forward, facing Whiskey Massey. “Mr. Massey, is it?”
“Just Massey, yer lordship,” Massey snarled.
William stood ramrod straight, his pale-blue eyes like ice. In spite of his dusty clothes, he still carried himself like a gentleman, his commanding presence at odds with the rough-and-tumble lumberjacks and the raftsmen. And if his cold presence wasn’t enough to make the men cower, Connor’s glare was.
Ice and fire. Dandy and danger. Different as night and day, but now Caleb understood the bond of friendship between the two.
“I’m not a lord, Mr. Massey. I don’t hold a title of any kind. I assure you bowing and scraping is not necessary.” William clasped his hands behind his back. “However, my father owns this land that we stand on, along with these trees, and up until this day, he owned the papers of one Jed Willis, deceased. And that concerns me. You’ve been accused of his murder —”
“I didn’t kill anybody, least of all a lousy cracker.” Massey glared at the Willis brothers. “But iffen he’d gotten in my way, I would have.”
An angry rumble rippled through the loggers backing the Willis brothers, the tension rising again as Massey showed no remorse or compassion for the dead man.
“That’s enough, sir. You’ll do well to hold your tongue.”
“Massey?” All eyes turned to Connor. “Would you care t’ tell the Willis brothers where you were this afternoon?”
“It ain’t none of their business.”
“None o’ their —?” Connor glared at Massey. “Well, I suppose t’ save your neck, I’ll tell them. Mr. Massey did indeed spend the night and most o’ the morning at the tavern but agreed to make up the time this afternoon. He was with me and Vickers working on the timber raft when word came that Jed had been found murdered.”
Vickers nodded. “’Tis true.”
“I know what I know.” Sam Willis stabbed a meaty finger toward Massey. “You’d best watch yer back.” Sam stomped away, his younger brother following behind.