by Laura Frantz
Was he the only one who minded the delay?
Around him his party was almost comical in their Sabbath rest. Across the low fire—their one comfort as its smoke if not its scent was masked by the weather—sat Nate, humming a hymn as he repaired a moccasin with awl and whang leather. Beside him, sunk into Gulliver’s Travels, was Spencer, still looking a mite green from all that river water. Hascal kept himself occupied checking and polishing all the equipment while Lucian, ever obliging but silent, concocted something in a kettle that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the fare at the Moonbow Inn.
Had he and Cornelius only recently left the inn amid such an uproar?
As riled as the memory made him, Sion felt powerless to halt the pictures the place had painted in his head. Pewter plates burgeoning with crusty corn cakes. Slabs of steak. Chill mugs of sweet milk. Deep dishes of pie . . .
An indigo skirt.
As if to taunt him, Cornelius sat across the fire, partaking of some edible. Sion reckoned the serving girl—Paige—had supplied him. As he thought it, Spencer looked up from his book and whined, “What’s that you got?”
Cornelius ceased chewing. “A culinary wonder from the Moonbow Inn. A delicacy known as a beaten biscuit.”
With a chuckle, Nate looked up from his moccasin mending. “I was beginnin’ to believe you boys had dreamed this Moonbow business up, but that there’s proof. Got any to spare?”
“Nay.”
“You lyin’ Redcoat!” Spencer tossed aside his book in a rare show of temper. “Here we be, unable to lay any chain or hardly stir a foot for the fog, and you fill your greedy belly with such.”
“Easy,” Sion warned, knowing hunger and boredom were one step away from mutiny. “The weather will clear and we’ll soon be at Crab Orchard. There’ll be more to eat then.”
“Guess we’ll have to make do only hearin’ about beaten biscuits, then.” Nate took up his awl again, not one to make trouble. “So is this here inn run by the same folks we heard tried to come over the Gap with Boone in ’73?”
“Not sure about their tie to Boone.” Sion spoke carefully, certain Cornelius was wiser to the situation than he, given the time he’d lodged there. “Looks to be a woman with a grown son and daughter, aye.”
“No other man about the place?”
When Sion hesitated, Cornelius launched in. “There’s a steady stream of longhunters and settlers in due season, or so the serving girl told me. For all their hospitality, the tenants are a close-mouthed bunch.”
For once, he and Cornelius agreed. The Moonbow Inn’s occupants were an odd clan, tight-lipped if cordial. But it was a cordiality that bordered on coldness if a man raised too many questions. Fiercely knit, all of them. And bold, camped so close to the Warrior’s Path.
“Seems like we could sashay over thataway given the weather’s so chancy.” Nate examined his work. “It ain’t but a bit southwest of here, you said. I’d give my eyeteeth for some hot coffee. Cornbread.”
Sion stirred the fire with a stick, watching the thin column of smoke vanish into the fog. “We’re no longer welcome.”
Cornelius snorted, no mirth in it, eyeing Sion as he gave the fire another poke.
Nate was looking from him to Cornelius, bewhiskered face full of questions. “Not welcome, you say?”
Since they’d returned to base camp, Sion had said little, leaving Cornelius to sleep off the spirits the serving girl had given him. All Nate knew was that Smokey remained at the inn, an enviable position given their own damp, fog-bound state.
Sion changed course. “We’ll leave out at first light for Crab Orchard, weather permitting. There’ll be no backtracking.” Even as he said it, he envisioned the flash of displeasure in the eyes of the young woman whose full name he didn’t know. Just Tempe, a winsome wisp of a lass if there ever was one.
Would she follow them again like she had at first, raising the hair on the back of his neck because he thought her Cherokee or Shawnee? Or was her interest limited to their trespassing on her territory? He sensed she’d wanted to be rid of them but was content to keep Smokey. He’d rather it be the reverse.
“So we’re to meet up with a guide?” Cornelius glanced at him, sulkiness replaced by curiosity. “Someone from one of the three Kentucke stations, I suppose.”
“Aye, it’ll likely be Boonesborough depending on any trouble and which gun can be spared.”
Cornelius looked to his supplies, the paints and brushes carefully packed alongside rolled blank paper. “This Crab Orchard, the rendezvous point . . . might there be a cabin there? A dry place to resume my maps?”
Sion lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “We could set about building one, if needs be.”
Surprise washed Cornelius’s face. Catering to the man’s maps was the one route to appeasement. If Sion could keep Cornelius away from spirits, allow plenty of room for his detailed work, they’d likely stay out of further trouble, personal and otherwise.
For all Cornelius’s faults, Sion could find no quarrel with his skills. He was known for the excellence of his maps, some of which had been engraved and printed in Williamsburg and Philadelphia. This was what had first caught Sion’s eye. Well, not entirely.
He felt a chill, thinking of Harper. Always Harper. With effort he shifted his thoughts toward safer ground.
On this particular journey, Cornelius’s intricate work would be based on Sion’s surveys. Sion’s other preoccupation was creating a guidebook of the region, detailing trails, mountains, settlements, and countless rivers that lay between the Gap and the Falls of Ohio. But he’d not reckoned with the depth of all that wildness, the dearth of knowledge he had with the land, how difficult it was to master or make peace with.
Ambitious. Treacherous. Laborious.
Insane.
But for the injured dog and the hole in her poetry book, Tempe could almost believe Sion Morgan and Cornelius Lyon were naught but a bad dream. She went about kitchen and woods for days after, expecting more passersby, but none came. The lull unsettled her. She didn’t dare venture far with the fog. It seemed to take the land captive whilst scrambling her usually sound sense of direction. Without the sun or North Star as her guide, she felt adrift.
’Twas full spring. All the wilderness seemed to be holding its breath, pining for summer’s start.
Was Pa sitting by in some distant rockhouse or cave till the weather righted itself? She prayed not, though it bemused her to think of the strapping Sion Morgan fog-bound and befuddled. Maybe a spell of bad weather would send the surveyors back over the Gap to Virginia. That she welcomed.
Pondering it, she helped Paige finish hetcheling the flax. It was tedious, smelly work breaking the molding, dried straws and dancing with the flax, as Ma called it, once they got the rhythm of the hetchels. Their reward was silken strands fit for Aylee’s spinning and weaving.
It seemed she ran between the flax and sheep, helping Russell with the shearing. Tempe stood by with baskets as her brother wrestled with their small, predator-harried flock. It was her job to wash the filthy fleeces in the sudsy lye kettle, then tease them clean once dry. Tempe warmed to the plushness of the fleece, the softening of the lanolin on her work-worn hands.
All of this was a prelude to the task she loved best, the assembling of dye pots. Ma said she was a hand at concocting colors. The pleasing beige of sassafras bark. Madder reds and browns. Oakish yellows. It was a joy to scour the woods for what was needful, though they had a small dye garden that her mother tended like a baby. Of all the fabric they made, wool was the best to work. She shut her mind to the notion of Tidewater finery to the east, savoring both the challenge and the joy of making much of little, reassuring herself they had no need of the life they’d left behind. But Paige wasn’t so easily persuaded.
“Here’s what I miss.” Paige held up a handful of shining flax, full as a horse’s tail. “I miss apple trees and pies and such. That’s nearly the first thing the Englishman said to me. ‘Have you any cider?’”
“Cornelius Lyon?”
“Aye. I told him orchards grow slow here or the savages hack them down like happened at Boonesborough.” She looked a trifle dreamy as they hung sacks of wool near Aylee’s spinning wheel in a cabin corner. “He asked me to go with him.”
“He—what?”
“That he did. ‘We’re in need of a camp cook,’ says he. He promised me wages, safe passage to the settlements.”
Tempe’s grip on the wool tightened. “When he was full of spirits, likely.”
“Nay, ’twas said sober.”
“Wages, maybe, but no one is sure of safe passage.”
Paige studied her, a rare rebuke in her colorless eyes. “Mister Morgan is of Boone’s ilk. If there ever was safe passage, ’twould be with him.”
This Tempe couldn’t deny, but she was unwilling to dwell on Sion Morgan’s merits. “And what would you do once you reach the settlements? You’d create quite a stir arriving with so many men.”
“Sully myself, you mean? Nay. With women so scarce, I could have my pick of any man I pleased.” Wonder teased her face into a smile. “Fancy that!”
Bemused, Tempe began to dress the distaff of Aylee’s great wheel, glad Ma was in the kitchen away from their silly prattle. “I misdoubt forting up is what you make it out to be. Most say settlement life is naught but a pigsty with pickets.”
“My brother’s in the middle ground. I might see him.”
Elisha? Was he even alive? They’d had no word . . .
Tempe amended, “I wouldn’t blame you if you were to go. Betimes I’m tempted myself.”
Wistful, Paige looked toward the open door, voice dropping a notch. “You reckon Russell would miss me?”
The hope in her words twisted Tempe’s heart. “Oh, he would, but he’d never likely say. Russell holds tight to what hurts.”
“Here lately I been thinkin’ about Russell and me . . .” She lifted slim shoulders in a shrug. “I ain’t so sure about the two of us. Betimes life only gives you so many chances. I don’t want to reach the grave full of whethers and what-ifs.”
Tempe straightened, struck by the words. Paige, for all her simple ways, could turn profound. “Maybe your leaving will stir Russell into action.” Why did she taste betrayal in the words? If she encouraged the girl to go . . . “But I’m not sure I’d trust Cornelius Lyon. He’s a rascal if there ever was one. I haven’t made up my mind about Sion Morgan.”
Aylee came in, wiping her hands on her apron. Her eyes lit with pleasure at the sight of the readied flax and wool. “What with the foul weather, no one’s coming or going here lately. I just might get some spinning done, and I’d welcome some company. Fetch you a chair, Paige, and commence knitting. Russell will be here shortly.”
Russell? Tempe halted on the loft stair. It was unusual for Russell to come in so early. He kept to shed and stable, sleeping in the loft there all but the coldest nights. Hope ignited as she climbed upward, gaining the top step when his voice met her ears.
Below, filling the doorway, stood a freshly shaved Russell in clean linsey-woolsey shirt and breeches. He looked up at her as if as surprised to find her there as she was him. Fair enough. She was usually out on a ramble.
Stepping around Paige’s bed and then her own, the two separated by a blanket chest, she found her moccasins and a shawl spun by her mother’s hand and dyed a deep butternut.
Aylee resumed work again. The wheel bore a familiar rhythm, Russell’s voice overriding it as he read. Ma had gotten hold of a newspaper, probably months old, her hunger for the East never satisfied. She had kin in Carolina, all Patriots. Unable to read or write, she relied on Russell. Like Aylee, Paige had never learned her letters. She regarded Russell and Tempe with a sort of awe. Russell had begun to teach Paige in spare moments, but their work often got in the way.
Pondering it, Tempe reached for a tiny book of Psalms, the print so fine it seemed made for a fairy or some small-sighted creature. It fit easily into her pocket, best read in a glare of sunlight.
Once free of the cabin, she cast a glance skyward. The heavens had cracked open, patches of blue amid gauzy tendrils of fog. Thankful, she took the river path, wishing Sion Morgan’s crippled collie could follow.
“Soon,” she told the doe-eyed dog.
The other curs, always loath to leave Russell’s side except to chase a fox or wildcat, lazily watched her going.
The woods were an unending palette, its unearthly hues evidence of a Master’s hand. Spring always renewed her sense of wonder. Soon the fireflies would flare along the riverbank, tiny lights against the endless rush of green. The air would turn sticky and summer sweet. Garden and inn would steal all her time. But today the afternoon was hers till the twilight.
She moved freely, unencumbered by her rifle. Yet she was enough like Pa to stay alert to the slightest sound, the barest intrusion. She stood on the overlook where she’d first spotted Sion, the very place that inspired their forest chase. Below, the river heaved and foamed, a reminder of his wild ride. She’d spied a ragged scratch along his jawline, evidence he’d not escaped unscathed, though his dog and Cornelius bore the brunt of it.
She pushed deeper into the woods, wondering where the surveyors camped. In time she forgot them too in her climb to what she called Fairy Rock. Smothered with the softest, plumiest moss, the throne-like stone made a fine seat ringed with blooming haw shrubs. Fit for royalty. The Lady of the Woods, as James once called her.
She walked on, book tucked to her chest. The solitude, the shift in weather, brought about an almost unbearable sweetness of soul. She’d heard that Boone, caught up in an ecstasy of aloneness, would sometimes burst into song, heedless of any danger. She longed to do the same.
A hymn stirred in her spirit. Her mouth opened, then shut. She sensed the meadow wasn’t entirely hers. Like a cloud passing over the sun, she felt a cloudiness. Not fear, just a foreboding, a heightening tension. She stepped behind a chestnut, its bulk broad as two men.
Raven.
He crossed the clearing, moving with an easy grace, gaze turned toward her as if telling her she was plain as a parakeet with its noisy chatter and brilliant plumage. She looked down at her showy skirt, dyed pumpkin orange. She’d have to take care. Only she didn’t care.
Her attention returned to Raven. Half Chickamauga Cherokee, Raven seemed rootless, restless, living between two worlds, never quite at home in either. Whenever she saw him he was on the move, usually on the Warrior’s Path. But today he was in this very meadow, near her beloved Fairy Rock.
She felt . . . wronged.
Chafing at her resistance, she stepped from behind the tree as if to banish any territorial thoughts. This was Indian ground be it anyone’s. She had no special claim, no preemption here. ’Twas more Raven’s than hers. The Almighty had made the Indians same as she, determined the bounds of their habitations, as Scripture said. Who was she to name him an intrusion? Not once had she ever spoken to him, only tipped her head in silent greeting.
Raven’s gait never slowed, and in seconds it seemed she’d dreamed him up. He headed east in the direction of the inn. Like as not he was hungry for the white man’s bread, as he called it. Though he never set foot inside the keeping room, he was a frequent visitor to the barn-shed. Russell always gave him food or performed some task Raven wanted done. In exchange, Raven brought him some trinket or needful thing like seed or black powder. Usually all he had for Tempe was a small smile, though he bore no smile this day.
Sunlight blanketed her shoulders, warm as a quilt, as she moved into the meadow. The giant rock was heated too, and she settled in, her gaze landing on a fitting Psalm. By chance? Or was the Lord taking her to task? The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. She pondered the words. Committed them to memory.
The still, sunlit moment shattered. A cry rent the air, animal-like in its intensity. Dropping the Psalms, she shot to her feet, gaze swinging wide. She half expected an ambush, her beloved meadow ov
errun with screaming, writhing red men. But nothing had changed save that anguished cry.
She started in its direction, past spicebush and yellow poplar, down a gravelly slope, her moccasins nearly sliding out from under her at her rapid descent.
Below, Raven lay on the ground amid a scattering of faded redbud flowers. Pain and panic chased all stoicism away. He looked at her like a trapped creature, his dark eyes communicating a great many things, one foremost. He was unsure of her. Unsure if she would help him—or forsake him.
Her knees hit the hard ground near his imprisoned foot. ’Twas a leghold trap, the length of rusty chain anchored to a towering hickory. Intended for spring beaver, the vicious device cut off the blood and could break bones. Desperate animals would eat their own limbs to free themselves, the main reason Pa shunned such.
Sickened, Tempe took in the carved jaws and foot plate, the powerful springs. Made by a blacksmith, its iron teeth called to mind a bear’s mouth. Grabbing a near stick, she tried to pry the contraption open with all her might.
Raven groaned as the jaws eased then clamped shut again. His moccasin was mangled, blood staining the worn elk-skin seams. She fought back her own rising panic and stood, eyeing the iron teeth with gritty determination. And then, overriding all, came a chilling reminder.
It’s been said Raven was with the war party in Powell Valley.
Among all the ale-soaked speculations and rumors that swirled at the inn, this had stuck to her like pitch. But would Russell be helping him if Raven had been a part of that terrible time? Would Russell even remember the attack through the haze of pain and war paint?
Another glance at the half-blood left her torn. She had every right to leave him, let him die of thirst, fall prey to hungry wolves. A fitting end to the misery of Powell Valley, where unspeakable things had been done to James and his party. Things too dark to mention. Russell kept what he’d witnessed to himself, leaving her to fester, forever wondering.