A Place Called Home

by Elizabeth Grayson

  Why, for the love of God, couldn't Cissy just accept that she would never see her papa again?

  With a moan of effort, Livi wrapped her arms around her daughter and lifted the child onto her hip. Cissy was too old to be held like this, with her skirt hitched up and bare legs sticking out. Livi hugged her anyway, swaying in the age-old rhythm all mothers know.

  "I'm sorry," Livi crooned. "I wish with all my heart I could make things different. But your papa isn't coming back."

  The girl pushed hard against her mother's chest, but Livi held on. She held tight as David's daughter fought the truth and her mother's compelling embrace.

  "I'm sorry," she murmured, swaying again. "I'm sorry, but it isn't right to lie to you, especially about this."

  Cissy fought with one fist jammed in her mouth and tears streaking down her face.

  Then all at once, Livi couldn't bear to be pushed away. Not when she'd lost David. Not when Tad and Cissy were all she had. With a final burst of energy, Livi crushed her daughter in her arms, buried her face in her tumbled hair, breathed the balm of Cissy's innocence.

  The girl melted into her mother's body, limp, defeated. Sobbing as if her heart would break. Livi's heart was breaking, too.

  Then slowly she became aware that the tempo of the rain had picked up around them. It came rippling through the trees, plopping onto Livi's hat, soaking into her heavy cloak. The crumbled clods of earth at the edges of the grave turned treacherous underfoot.

  With a long, deep sigh, Livi cupped her hand to the back of Cissy's head and carried her daughter down the rise.

  Tad trailed them back to camp, catching his mother's arm before she could seek refuge in the tent. "We are going on to Kentucky, aren't we, Ma?"

  The question hung heavy between them.

  "If we are, shouldn't we move out today?"

  Livi refused to even look at her son.

  "What if the Indians come back?" he demanded. "What will we do then?"

  Livi lifted her gaze to the hills rising on every side, to the ridges mounded up behind them, to the road that probed the wild unknown. This vast, imposing place was David's world. Going west was David's dream. It was not hers. It had never been hers.

  As she held her daughter and considered the question in her son's dark eyes, Livi groped for words of reassurance. It was a long and futile search.

  Deciding lies offered only transient comfort, Livi chose to tell the truth.

  "I don't know if we'll be going on to Kentucky," she said, fighting to steady the tremor in her voice. "I don't know what we'll do if the Indians come. I don't know anything, Tad. Not anything at all."

  * * *

  We can't stay here, Livi Talbot thought, raising her eyes to the ring of hills, visible now through the pink of dawn. After what had happened to David, it was only by the grace of God that they had survived a second night in this miserable place. Though the Indians had slunk away, taking their dead, they might well have returned.

  But leaving the tiny campsite and her husband's grave would have forced Livi to decide where they would go and what they would do. She couldn't have done that yesterday. Not when her thoughts were warily circling the reality of David's death. Not when turmoil skimmed the surface of her world with black. The pain of losing David was every bit as sharp today, but the darkness was receding.

  There was no question of what David would expect of her. Kentucky had enthralled him from the moment he heard the name. He'd been mesmerized by the promise of this vast new world, obsessed with owning a piece of it. When they set out from Lynchburg, David had waved extravagant good-byes and burst into song as they rode into the open countryside. The sound of his voice still rang in Livi's ears, a memory as strong and vivid as David had been. But instead of the three hundred acres of fertile land in Kentucky, David had ended up with a single plot of coarse Virginia dirt.

  His cherished piece of land still lay waiting on the far side of the mountains—waiting now for her. Just knowing that, Livi went weak and weightless inside. Every instinct clamored that she was incapable of braving the wilderness. With her upbringing and her terrors, how could she be?

  After seeing their father killed by savages, what mother could drag her children through country rife with Indians? And how in God's name could a woman with a babe in her belly survive a trip over rough terrain?

  If by some stray miracle she and the children reached David's claim, how would they fell the trees, plant the fields and harvest enough to see them through the winter? There'd be a cabin to build, and they'd need outbuildings for storage and the animals. The enormity of the task set desperation fluttering in her chest.

  Livi had the baby to consider—David Talbot's final mark upon this earth. Could a pregnant woman and two children possibly build the homestead her husband had seen in their future? The truth was, no matter how much she'd loved David or how much she owed him, Livi couldn't live up to his legacy.

  I'm sorry, David. I know Kentucky is all you ever wanted, all you ever dreamed about. With you to guide me, I might have learned to live on the frontier. But without you there's no one to teach me, no one to protect us as I learn to live that other life.

  And if I fail—oh, David, if I fail—our children will die out there. Please try to understand that our babies are all I have. How can you expect me to gamble their lives for the sake of your dream?

  Giving up on David's dream was like losing him all over again—but it eased the panic burning in her chest.

  Returning to Lynchburg made sense. She could draw strength from familiar surroundings, live among people she knew. She could give birth to David's child attended by women she counted as friends. Lynchburg had looked after her when David was off fighting with Colonel Clark. Surely they'd be willing to stand by her and the children again.

  Still, the house and blacksmith shop were gone, sold off to buy packhorses and supplies. She had no idea how much money they had left, or what she would do for more when that ran out. No Chesterton had ever accepted charity, and after running off to marry David, she could hardly turn to her family for help.

  Wrapping her icy fingers around the mug, Livi took a sip of tea to quell the churn of nausea. She couldn't decide the rest of her life in a single moment. She couldn't make this kind of decision when other lives were at stake.

  Livi had barely completed the thought when Tad stumbled out of the tent, snarling like a bobcat.

  "The sun's been up for an hour. Why didn't you wake me?" he demanded, his fair hair standing up at the back of his head. "Why haven't you started packing?"

  "I'm not certain where we're going."

  "Not certain?" Tad stopped where he stood. "We're going on to Kentucky, aren't we, Ma?"

  "I told you yesterday I wasn't sure, and now that I think on it, I don't see how we can. What are we going to do without your father? Where are we going to live? Who's going to plant the fields, and what are we going to live on until the crops come in? Besides, Tad, there's the whole of the Wilderness Road between here and there."

  Certainty replaced the confusion in his eyes. "We can do it, Ma. We'll meet up with some folks at the Block House just like Pa planned. We can travel with them over the mountains as far as Hazel Patch. Pa's land isn't more than a few miles beyond that. I'm sure I can read his maps and journal well enough to find it."

  Livi only wished the trek to Kentucky were as easy as Tad made it sound.

  "And when we get there," he went on, his voice rising, "I'll plant the fields. I'll build the cabin. I'll work day and night if I have to—"

  "Tad," his mother offered gently, "you're a boy. I can't ask you to do a man's work. You can't expect that of yourself. It would make far more sense for us to go back to Lynchburg—"

  "Lynchburg?" the boy spit. "That piss-poor excuse for a town? How can you think about heading back when you know the land in Kentucky meant everything to Pa?"

  She could see the essence of his father in the set of Tad's jaw, in his fierce and boundless optimism. />
  "Tad, your father's dead," Livi said, working to steady her voice. "We can't base our decisions on what he wanted. We have to make them on what's best for the three of us."

  "This isn't best," Tad insisted.

  "I think it is."

  Cissy emerged from the tent, rumpled and sloe-eyed, the knuckle she hadn't sucked in two full years jammed deep in her mouth.

  "What are you yelling about?"

  Neither Tad nor Livi answered her.

  "Fine, then! Fine!" Tad shouted at his mother. "You do what's best for you and Cissy. You go back to Lynchburg if you want. I'm going on to Kentucky. I'm going to claim Pa's land. It's what he would have wanted me to do."

  "You can't go alone! You're only twelve years old!"

  Tad bent and began cramming his belongings into a battered pair of saddlebags.

  "I can make the trip on my own! I won't take much—just my clothes, a little food, Pa's gun and horse and maps. You don't give a damn where those acres are anyway."

  Tad honestly meant to go, to brave the wilderness by himself. The thought stunned Livi, stirred the barely controlled panic simmering beneath her ribs. What madness possessed her son to make him think he could trek all the way to Kentucky alone, that he could pick up the broken standard of David's dream?

  "For God's sake, Tad," she argued, fear for her firstborn gripping hard. "You have no idea what dangers you'll be facing. Please don't do this."

  "I am going to Kentucky!" Tad proclaimed. "I can chop trees and dig dirt as well as any man. I can handle Pa's gun if I have to, and I'm good with animals. And once I make Kentucky, I'll look up Reid Campbell. He's Pa's best friend. He'll help me plant Pa's fields. He'll help me raise a cabin."

  "Reid Campbell!" Livi jerked like a toy on a string. "I won't have you seeking out that blackguard's help."

  "I like Reid," Cissy piped up.

  "It's Reid Campbell who put these crazy notions about Kentucky in your father's head," Livi accused. "It's Reid Campbell who came around with his wild stories and his promises of free land. He'd talk until your father's eyes began to shine, and off they'd go into the hills. And when they came back your father would be restless, all stirred up. He'd be ready to change our perfectly settled life for some dangerous dream."

  Tad continued as if he had not heard. "Once Reid learns what's happened, he'll help me start the farm. He might even want to live there permanent-like."

  "Oh, I wouldn't count on that," his mother advised. "Reid Campbell's no farmer. He's not good at anything but hying off to explore the woods. He's unreliable as summer rain, never around when you've need of him."

  Tad's shoulders stiffened at her words. "Well, if Reid had been in camp two nights ago, he would have done something to save Pa's life."

  The accusation that she'd hadn't even tried to save David hung thick and poisonous in the air between them. A tingle of faintness danced along Livi's skin. Wetness gathered under her tongue, and she thought she might be sick.

  Questions she'd smothered with her grief and drowned in her tears slithered to the surface. If she had come out of the tent a moment sooner, could she have saved her husband's life? If she had raised and fired the pistol, would David be alive today?

  Livi would never know. Even through the haze of pain, she realized Tad had no idea what he'd implied or how deeply he'd hurt her.

  Tad had been trailing Reid Campbell around from the time he could toddle, staring up at the big half-breed as if he were some mystical forest spirit. Tad hadn't meant to hurt her. He had only been protecting his hero from her wrath.

  Neither of the children was old enough to understand guilt and culpability. Livi was the one who would carry those questions in her heart for the rest of her days. She was the one who would see condemnation or absolution in David's eyes when her life on Earth was done.

  The thought of facing her husband's disapproval, coupled with the realization that if she didn't take the road to Kentucky she would lose her son, made Livi's decision inevitable.

  "Strike the tent, Tad," she finally said, "and douse the fire. Cissy and I will begin loading and saddling the horses."

  They broke camp as silently and as efficiently as they could without David's help. Livi wished she were strong enough to heft the packs onto the saddles by herself, wished she'd learned the neat, tight knots David used to secure the ropes that linked the animals together. She wished the small of her back didn't ache at the thought of hours on horseback.

  Once they were ready to leave, she walked alone to the top of the rise. This was where the bones of David Talbot would lie for all eternity. Here on this barren knoll in the heart of the rolling Virginia hills. Here, more than two hundred miles from where his heart and his soul would ever be.

  Bending beside her husband's grave, she laid a small bouquet of pussy willows on the mound of earth. It was too early in the year for flowers to be blooming in the woods, but the soft gray buds had burst through their winter coats. The graceful branches seemed the right offering for David somehow—they suited his optimism, his tenderness.

  Tears blurred Livi's vision again.

  I love you, David. I'll always love you. I won't let the children forget you. Nor will I.

  There was so much more she wished she could say, so many questions she needed to ask. She wanted to pour out her frustration and fear, demand assurances and assuage her guilt. But David was no longer there with her.

  Slowly she made her way to where the children waited. Tad handed her the reins to Nancy, her docile buttermilk mare. He helped her mount and she arrange herself as comfortably as possible on the leather sidesaddle. He slung Cissy up behind her.

  These were duties that David had performed for Livi every time they'd ridden together, every time for thirteen years. And David had always patted her knee when he was done.

  Tad didn't know to do that.

  Livi swallowed hard. "Mount up," she said.

  As she waited, she looked toward the three packhorses and the cow that were strung out behind her. Tad had four more packhorses and David's mount tied to the back of his saddle. It would be difficult for the two of them to manage so many animals.

  Livi looked down the road toward Lynchburg, nearly six days away. Back there were friends, a town she knew, a life she had come to enjoy. All that was safe and familiar pulled at her. It was a tether she was loath to break.

  She turned to look to the road ahead. The trees crowded close, hemming it in, shrouding it in shadows. David had told her what lay ahead—steep, rocky trails; fast-flowing rivers and streams that must be forded; rugged mountains to bar their way. Wilderness, wild animals, Indians.

  Kentucky.

  Livi shivered and looked long and hard at David's grave. Then she kicked her mount forward, west on the Wilderness Road.

  Chapter 2

  Bedraggled, sodden, and chilled to the bone, Livi Talbot peered down the long, dim arch between the trees. The road ahead was hazy and indistinct with misty rain, lost in a filigree of shifting branches. Before it got too dark, they needed to find a place to spend the night.

  Unfortunately, Livi had no idea what criteria David had used in selecting a campsite. A clearing set well back from the road, she supposed, high ground, running water. Remembering the smugness that had hitched up one corner of Tad's mouth as they'd turned toward Kentucky this morning, she dismissed the notion of asking her son's advice.

  Somehow he must have sensed her concerns, because a few minutes later, Tad pulled up beside her. "Do you suppose we should look for somewhere to camp?"

  He sounded at once deferential and contrite.

  Livi nodded, her brow furrowing a little. "We've never had to make camp without your father's help."

  "We'll manage," Tad offered, and Livi wondered if David had taught Tad about living in the wilds. Or was the boy just whistling in the dark?

  "Well," she murmured, accepting of his assurance, "if you see a likely place..."

  Tad kicked his roan forward, taking the lead,
the pack animals trailing after him. A few minutes later, he gestured off to the right.

  "There's a clearing just ahead. I'll poke around and make sure it has what we need."

  Livi reined in beside him and dismounted, seeing that the clearing was located slightly uphill from the road. It was sheltered on one side by a rocky overhang and ringed with pines. The black pockmark of old fires gave evidence that travelers had often rested here.

  "Is there a stream nearby?" Livi asked fretfully.

  Tad gave her one of David's smiles, said what might well have been David's words. "In this rain—Livi—set out a pot, and you'll have all the water you could possibly want."

  They found a spring trickling down to form a clear, deep pool on the far side of the rocks, and Tad set about bringing the horses up to the clearing. No boy had ever loved horses more, so Livi freely gave care of the animals to him.

  Once Tad had removed them, Livi wrestled the packs and saddles into a pile beneath the lip of the overhang and threw a tarpaulin over them to keep out the worst of the wet. While Tad watered and fed the horses, Cissy tended the shoats and chickens that had been strapped in cages on the horses' backs.

  With the last of the goods stowed away, Livi addressed what remained—a jumble of canvas, sticks, and iron stakes that went together somehow to form a tent. She'd always been too busy making supper to notice how David had pounded and pinned the structure together. Now she wished she'd paid closer attention. She began struggling with the poles and canvas. Soon Tad joined her.

  The first time they tried to erect the tent frame, they set the uprights so far apart that the notched cross-member wouldn't bridge the gap.

  "You should have measured," Tad admonished her.

  "I did measure—then you moved your end back!"

  The next time, they pounded one of the uprights in too deep so the lintel pitched steeply toward the back. At last they managed to coordinate the uprights and slide the notched pieces together. It was a minor victory, but mother and son paused to grin at each other.