River Bend

by Barbara Shepherd

  Later, Benjamin sat on a rotting tree stump, staring at the girl’s sleeping form while he rubbed the swelling in his groin. Mesmerized by her shapely beauty and the mere fact a lone woman materialized in his life, he allowed his latent lustiness free rein. He stood straight, his leering face fastened to her enticing female body as if imprisoned by an invisible chain. He pulled at the button fasteners on his woolen trousers.

  “Whoa, there!” Samuel’s booming voice threatened to shake the nearby trees. He sent Benjamin a hard, cold stare.

  Benjamin gave Samuel a strange look and covered his gaping, trouser placket with his hands. “I wasn’t going to hurt her none,” he said in a strong, defiant voice. Gazing again at the fragile-looking young woman on the ground and with his primeval need so powerful, he offered his defense. “She ain’t no innocent, you know.” He gestured toward the drenched pair. “What with the babe and all. She’s had a man before.”

  Samuel continued to glare at his partner, trying hard to control his anger. “Leave it to you, Benjamin,” he replied, his voice cold, “to take advantage of a little thing like this.”

  Starting to stroke his burgeoning crotch again, Benjamin said, “But, lookee, she might never know it if’n she don’t wake up durin’ it.” He continued to wheedle, yet he was bold enough to add, “And if’n she does wake up, she might enjoy it.”

  This pushed Samuel to take slow, measured steps toward his trusted friend. They had lived and trapped together for five years, depending on one another when in danger, but this was too much—too wrong.

  Benjamin took a few steps backward from the girl, putting more space between the big man and himself. He begged. “But, but, there ain’t another woman for miles, and Old Sally done took off with some cantankerous bully of a sergeant and went south with him.” He paused and looked at the girl again. “And she is such a purty thing, even if’n she is all tuckered out and looks like a drowned rat.”

  Like an enraged bull, Samuel roared, his menacing bulk closing the space between the two trappers, his immense anger and disgust powerful incentives to right things.

  To avoid the wrath of the hostile giant, Benjamin turned and retreated to the tree line.

  Generally a mild-mannered man, Samuel knew no bounds in his role as protector. He would have gone to hell and back to protect the young woman and her babe, even if he had not recognized her, his sense of duty, his sense of right and wrong infallible. He might have killed Benjamin with his bare hands when he caught up with him had the woman not moaned loud enough to penetrate his rage. He stopped chasing Benjamin and took deep breaths to relax his tensed muscles, allowing his anger to uncoil from its twisted bonds of fury before he turned his attention to the trembling girl.

  He had no idea how long she swam. Samuel took long strides back the way he had come after retrieving a large blanket from his pack. He spread the coarse blanket on dry ground and lifted Belle onto the center of the blanket at an angle, covering her with all four corners. He wrapped her, encasing her in the woolen envelope, exposing only her face.

  She looked delicate and fragile to Samuel, but Mrs. Strong had to have a hidden strength to save herself and her babe. That took nerve and determination.

  “This woman has grit.” He smiled down at her, hoping she could avoid sickness from her ordeal.

  Glancing toward the timber, Samuel watched Benjamin like a hawk concentrates on its prey. With women a scarce commodity this far west, many a man suffered in one way or another while trying to entice a woman to live with him or to hang on to the one he had. Some men married or captured Indian women to substitute for the lack of white women while others traded with the friendly Indians for their captive women, sometimes picking up a Mexican female. All of this was risky business, though, as some soon found out.

  Not all trades were meant to be final, and some of the captives, whether Indian or Mexican, either escaped by first light or stayed and transformed their white captors into captives. Some viewed the white man as weak, but all kinds of personalities existed in all colors. Some temperaments meshed while others revolved inside a violent whirlwind.

  Samuel smiled down at the exhausted woman and brushed auburn tendrils from her creamy cheeks. He thought how different she looked now from the time he first saw her in Horseshoe Bend. He had worried then about her survival, because she looked too fragile to withstand the elements, let alone other trepidations that might come her way. Samuel felt it an honor when Trader Jake, before setting sail for China, requested Samuel provide game for the spirited female.

  Just before sunup and without detection, Samuel deposited game outside the Strong dugout at least twice a week. He enjoyed hunting for someone other than Benjamin and himself. It gave him a source of pride when Trader Jake shook his massive hand and uttered just one simple word—thanks. But that one word coming from a man of Trader Jake’s status carried a lot of weight. Samuel scratched his thick beard and glanced at the sleeping babe lying close by, apparently none the worse for wear.

  “Poor little feller, all tuckered out,” Samuel mumbled. He hadn’t known the Widow Strong had become a mother. “What a surprise,” he whispered. “I wonder if Trader Jake knows about the little one.”

  Samuel stood and motioned for Benjamin to follow him into the woods. As they left the clearing beside the river bank, he spoke to his partner in low tones, warning him to never lay a hand on the young widow. “And if you get that horny again, Benjamin, you old greedy lecher,” he said, “you just steal yourself a squaw if you can’t trade for one.” He raised his voice for emphasis. “You hear me?”

  Benjamin nodded. “Reckon I lost my head, Samuel.”

  “Reckon you did. And it better be the only time you ever do.”

  “Reckon I lost…” Benjamin mumbled before he walked away.

  “Was that remorse for what he almost did or was that sadness for not accomplishing his goal?” Samuel whispered the words and decided to continue his watch to save the young widow from his trapping partner.

  Benjamin went back down to the river bank to butcher a beef carcass from a cow that didn’t possess the strength of the others Samuel had saved. The trappers would dine on beefsteak that night, and Benjamin returned with the meat.

  “No need to hunt when food just washes downstream toward you,” Samuel said.

  When the embers of the fire glowed red-hot, he hung strip steaks from the cooking sticks, tender beef a welcome change from bear, beaver, and buffalo. He and Benjamin could hardly wait, so they scorched their tongues and the tips of their fingers by tasting a piece before the beef finished cooking.

  Enticing aroma from the fresh steaks must have reached Belle. She stirred, talking in her weariness, her sleep troubled, probably reliving the nightmare of the flood.

  Samuel went to her, his touch gentle. He readjusted her relaxed body into a sitting position so she could lean against him for support and stroked her auburn tresses. Speaking in a soft voice, he assured her that danger lay behind her and she was safe now, identical to the way he reassured a baby animal whose parent he had snared in a trap for its pelt. When others talked of a gentle giant, they spoke only words. Samuel was such a man.

  He watched Benjamin out of the corner of his eye, expecting a rush of jealousy. Instead, he saw the same, concerned look on his partner’s face he knew must show on his own. “Perhaps,” he whispered, “it was only a momentary lapse from reality. It could happen to any one of us, living without women out here for too long. Occasionally, men turn to other men when they feel so desperate for a woman, but that could never be my choice.”

  Samuel had abstained from sex for years for a couple of reasons. There were few, if any, women where he lived and hunted, and he worried about his size. Other trappers teased him that women might even pay for a romp in the hay with him, but Samuel shrugged and ignored the teasing. As a young man, he frequented one of the brothels in New Orleans where an immense octoroon taught him how to make love. He never forgot those lessons, although he tried no
t to dwell on them—not until the right woman came along, if she ever did.

  When Belle came fully awake, she pulled away from Samuel and gave the compassionate giant a frightened look. She resembled a cornered rabbit with nowhere to run. He released her and handed her the bundle, hidden from view by his massive frame.

  She snatched the babe, checking for injuries. Then, she gave Samuel a sheepish look and apologized. “I’m sorry. I’ve just now dreamed a terrible nightmare that Johnathan died, and I didn’t.” She shuddered before going on and Samuel covered her shoulders again with the blanket. “I could not live without him. He’s all I have.” She sobbed.

  Samuel took her and the child into his aching arms, wishful to have them both as his. He searched for words to make her smile, because he didn’t think he could bear to see her cry.

  “You have us,” he said. “Me and old ornery Benjamin here. We’ll take good care of you for a spell ’til we can get you back to Horseshoe Bend.”

  She had stopped crying, but then, she burst out with a new supply of tears that flooded her cheeks.

  Samuel didn’t know what to do. He thought he had handled things well. “And then, we can get you back to your place.”

  That must have been the wrong thing to say, he decided, because not only did she cry again, she cried louder, almost wailing. He couldn’t understand why, and the babe joined in with cries of his own.

  The giant couldn’t stand the combination of terror and despair emanating from the young woman’s emerald eyes. Not knowing what to do, he held her close, rocking and crooning until she wore herself out. She cried in her sleep, a forlorn little creature that looked like she had no one in the world to turn to. He laid her down again, covering the woman and her babe with the warm blanket.

  “Maybe after you wake this time, you’ll be hungry enough to eat,” he whispered. With a tired sigh, he joined Benjamin for their evening meal, this time savoring the fresh beefsteaks along with warmed-over beans left from noon.

  “You know, Benjamin, we can’t really keep this woman and babe. Come morning, we’d best take her by Owens’ place and see if she can stay there awhile.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  China 1831

  Foreign banners waved in a gentle ocean breeze, their bright stripes and geometric designs standing guard over many warehouses, called hongs, on the colorful wharf. Trader Jake searched the row of banners until he sighted bold red and white stripes of an American flag with its circle of white stars on royal blue. A feeling of pride surged within his chest, knowing his American ship would be welcome here in the Port of Canton, the only port China had opened to foreign trading.

  With his ship gliding into port, Jake winked at his crew. They, too, accepted approving looks as they quietly entered, no one barking orders to an unhappy or ill-trained crew like they heard from craft around them.

  Jake had signed on at the bottom several years ago, and within three years, owned his own shipping business. Although he learned sailing and shipping the hard way, he never forgot the training he received. Parts of the process came naturally to him, the “common-sense method” he called it, while other portions had been more of the trial-and-error sort—sometimes a harsh price to pay for an error in judgment. He credited “String,” a short and wiry character, as the one who taught him to sail in all types of weather, always mindful of the sea’s ever-changing temperament.

  When Jake purchased his first ship, he hired String. The rest had been easy, because Jake allowed String to train all new commissioned hands. He also insisted String retrain all seasoned sailors, a plan that begged to be doomed had it not been for String’s quick wit and Jake’s unquestionable air of authority and massive strength. Good pay for his crews and respectful treatment they received attested to Jake’s strategic business sense and common logic. When his shipping company touted five ships, he added more crewmen. His reputation preceding him, he now owned a waiting list of seven hundred men above and beyond the actual number who worked for him.

  Chinese laborers, with braided queues down their backs that sometimes reached their waists, were loading two ships nearby. Jake observed their pattern of orderliness, each one performing his task with no apparent superior present. He stood, leaning against the door jamb of his cabin for quite some time, mesmerized by the fluidity of their movements. Shifting his gaze to the hong in front of him, he viewed the warehouse where he normally traded beaver pelts for Chinese teas and other goods. Because this was one of the larger hongs, providing lodging for foreign traders, he sometimes stayed in this one.

  He nodded to String, who still sailed everywhere with him even though String could have captained his own ship. Jake signaled his acceptance that the largest portion of his crew could go ashore to appease their appetites while in port, whether epicurean or carnal in design. The rest of the crew would guard the ship and its cargo until their turn to go ashore.

  Later, Jake sauntered into the hong and received a formal greeting from the proprietor. Since Jake was a frequent guest of the hong’s accommodations, he nodded his approval and encouraged the proprietor to resume overseeing the tea shipment. Finding a comfortable place to sit, Jake stretched out his long legs and settled back to watch the busy scene in front of him, each movement well orchestrated by the workers.

  Chinese men, wearing off-white tunics and pants with legs rolled up above their knees, tamped tea leaves into green chests. Sometimes, they stood in one chest, tamping with both feet, and other times, they stood in two chests, one leg in each, to compress the tea. But always, their movements looked effortless and their queues swung back and forth. They never missed a step, never missed a beat, until the chests were ready to be moved out and new ones brought in.

  Other men transferred the packed tea chests to a group of workers who nailed tops to the chests, then carried them to be weighed, one at a time, on huge scales. When each chest was counted on an abacus by the proprietor, it was stacked and moved to another section of the warehouse.

  Watching the continual tamping by more than a dozen workers was almost mind-boggling to Jake, yet it was only a small amount of tea for this hong. Other hongs also sold tea, but every chest in this one was painted the color of jade. Not as deep as a standard American trunk, the tea chests represented a calm sea of green.

  Caught up in the movement of color, Jake appreciated the chests’ ornate carvings. He almost jumped when one with an elaborate dragon decoration came past, because the dragon had shiny eyes the color of emerald.

  Jake, you fool, you can’t get away from those green eyes—sweet like they belong to an angel, bright and sparkling like those of a mischievous scamp, or flashing like a vixen’s. He rubbed the stubble on his chin. I wonder what those green eyes look like when that beauty is in the heat of passion.

  “Trader Jake,” the proprietor said in a soft voice. “I hate to intrude when you are so deep in thought.” He bowed. “Forgive me, please.”

  Laughing, Jake bowed in greeting. “There is nothing to forgive. If I had kept my mind on business, Wong, I would have heard your approach.”

  “Ah,” Wong said, “now, I understand the faraway look in your eyes and the reason for your deep thought.” He smiled. “She is most beautiful I would wager.”

  “I shall be more careful.” Jake tapped his forefinger on his cheek. “It is unwise to be so transparent in my line of business. A perceptive Oriental could take advantage of such a situation and transact a lopsided bargain.”

  “Not I.” Wong winked. “I wish to trade many more years with you, my American friend.”

  “We are in agreement, Wong.” Jake almost chuckled aloud as he remembered the first time he heard the proprietor’s name. He had wondered if the family owned The Hong of Wong or Wong’s Hong. This trip, I shall dub it The Hong According to Wong.

  “Come.” Wong motioned for Jake to follow. “It is time to check the quality of my tea. Then, we shall complete our bargain.”

  “That will be my pleasure,” Jake said. “P
lease, lead the way.”

  After a close examination of the tea leaves being readied for shipment, Jake and Wong left their boots and sandals at the front door of Wong’s living quarters and retired to a quiet room. Jake folded his long legs, Indian style, to sit on the floor at a lacquered table where an amah served them cups of steaming tea.

  “Perfect,” Jake said to the Oriental female servant while enjoying his beverage. Later, he said, “Wong, I’m confused. I can see your dining room from here. It has regular chairs and the large turntable in the center of the round table.”

  “As in Chinese homes,” Wong said. “Yet we sit on the floor in here for tea. My mother also lives here. She is from Japan, so the rooms in my home reflect both cultures.”

  Translucent screens, enclosing the room, slid open to reveal a true virago, a woman of great stature. She stepped into the room, her strength and proud bearing apparent.

  Jake rose to greet her, amazed she stood inches taller than he. From his former sitting position, he would have sworn she was a great deal taller than his six-and-a-half feet.

  Wong introduced them but gave Jake no information other than the woman’s name, Catherine Atkins.

  Jake kissed her hand, noticing callouses on her palm. She was no raving beauty, yet her engaging smile softened her sizeable appearance that bordered on masculinity. Jake’s eyes roved quickly, and he hoped imperceptibly, over her large body to mentally note she was all woman.

  “Trader Jake,” the woman said in a deep, mellow tone. “It is my understanding you plan to set sail for America, and I wish to book passage for myself and my sister, Amelia.”