by Lori Benton
She didn’t weep. Didn’t tell him her husband couldn’t possibly be dead. Didn’t say anything at all. She put her back to him, lay down with her baby, and appeared to go to sleep.
For the rest of that day, Mrs. Inglesby napped, saying no more than was necessary when awake. Jeremiah found foodstuffs in the wagon and fixed a meal of corn cakes in the fire’s ashes. He fetched and carried for her. She tended her baby, rising once to make her way into the wood to tend herself. He watched for her return but didn’t aid or interfere. Her stark, preoccupied face was a daunting sight.
She slept that night in the brush shelter, in a clean shift, on fresh bedding. He washed the soiled things in the creek, spread them on the wagon’s gate, then slept by the fire, his last thoughts troubled by what the morrow would bring.
What it brought was Clare Inglesby on her feet before the sun was up, gowned, shod, capped, baby in a makeshift sling across her breasts.
“Will this trail lead me to Wheeling Settlement, Mr. Ring?” Her gaze burned him as her lips formed the words.
“Aye, it will, but oughtn’t you to be heading back to Redstone?”
At this sensible suggestion the woman radiated impatience. “I have no intention of returning to Redstone. Not without Jacob.”
He rubbed a hand behind his neck, for a moment at a loss for words. What was the Almighty thinking, saddling him with this woman when he’d pressing need to be elsewhere? Already her plight had stirred up memories, ones he’d spent the last ten years laying to rest.
“Missus, exactly how do you mean to find your boy?”
“By following this trail to Wheeling Settlement. I can travel neither far nor fast at present, but I am determined to start today.”
The woman waited, arms laced beneath the bulge of her newborn, looking for all the world mere seconds from starting off down that trail. He stood by the fire with the rising sun shedding no light for his tired brain, not liking the lift of her stubborn little chin. She’d gone stony since hurling the timepiece away, the only emotion she’d exhibited since he gave her the news of Inglesby’s death. He’d found the piece in the weeds while she slept and slipped it back into his knapsack. In case she changed her mind about wanting the thing.
“What,” he began carefully, “makes you think your son is in Wheeling?”
“He must be!” For the first time, Jeremiah detected a hint of desperation behind her stubbornness. “I know it’s my fault. I fell asleep and…they must not have known, mustn’t have realized Jacob wasn’t abandoned.”
She nearly choked on that last word, ducking her head toward the tiny infant in her sling, hunching over the child as if she feared the baby being snatched away as well.
He was trying hard to fathom her train of thought. “They? I thought you said you didn’t know who took your boy.”
“I don’t! I…” Mrs. Inglesby clamped a hand over her mouth, but her eyes gazed at him, searchingly. When she spoke again, it was from behind the shield of her hand, as if she wished to hide from the words. “My parents…They warned me not to go through with it, not to marry Philip. Not after…everything.”
“Everything?” He’d no idea where she was going with this and was pretty certain he didn’t want to know.
The woman’s face twisted as she fought for control of emotions that seemed to be surfacing now, whether she wanted them to or not.
“Philip’s father…He lost their family’s fortune on the eve of our wedding, then took his own life. It was our fathers who arranged the marriage, and after Philip’s…my father advised me to break the engagement, but…I couldn’t. I couldn’t abandon Philip. Now he’s abandoned me. But I will not abandon Jacob!”
There was panic in her eyes, raw and pleading. Jeremiah felt a wrench in his chest and realized he knew this woman—leastwise her anger, her grief, her terror, the desperate hope that wouldn’t let her accept her son was lost to her. Ten years, yet memory of that driving need was as fresh as though it had entered his soul yesterday.
Though he feared to reach for her or make any move that might spook or offend, to his surprise words came bubbling out. “You got to keep steady now, Missus. Don’t let fear drive you beyond reason. I know it seems like nothing’s ever going to be right in your world again, but that’s a lie. I promise you, it’s a lie.”
The panic in her eyes receded some, but not the pain. “How can you know it’s a lie?”
Jeremiah clenched his teeth to keep from telling her how he knew, or how hard-won was the knowing. “Missus, you got another child to think of. There’s only one thing to be done now.” He drew breath to tell her again what that one thing was—return to Redstone—when, amazingly, he saw something like calm overtake her. As if she’d heard his words, inadequate as they’d been, taken strength and comfort from them, and would allow herself at last to be sensibly led. Hallelujah.
“You are correct,” she said, the steel coming back into her tone. “There is but one thing for me to do now. One thing with which I must concern myself, with all my heart and strength.”
Clare Inglesby straightened her spine. Up went that chin again. “I am going to find my son, Mr. Ring, and you…surely you are meant to be my guide.”
Darkness had fallen, busy with insects and the stirrings of night creatures. The fire Mr. Ring had built was small, growing smaller since he’d ceased to fuel it. What light it cast showed his face, so needful of a razor’s attention that it might properly be called bearded, but did little to push back the blackness pressing close. The twisting flames made the shadows edging their camp shift like stealthy figures darting through the brush.
The wagon had been no true protection from peril, but away from it now Clare felt stripped of its comfort, the last tie to a life taken from her piecemeal, severed. Now all that remained was the wrenching need to recover the piece that mattered most.
Jacob. He was her life now, along with the baby in her arms. Not the son she’d envisioned, the playmate for Jacob whom she’d intended to name after Philip.
The baby’s arrival, Jacob’s disappearance, Philip’s death, the man seated across the fire—it might all have been a merciless nightmare from which she couldn’t wake. The one hopeful turn was Mr. Ring’s agreement to escort her to Wheeling where, no doubt, she would find her son in the company of whomever had needlessly taken him into their care.
Never mind what he had to say on the matter. Not Indians…
She laid the baby on the blanket spread over moss, enduring the visceral need to feel not this tiny infant in her arms but Jacob’s solid weight. Did someone hold him? Was he hungry? Did he cry for her?
Unable to stem her tears, she turned her back on the fire, giving her attention to the baby’s soiled clout. She sorted through the items Mr. Ring had approved her bringing, parceled out in packs they’d each carried, until she unearthed fresh wrappings and the cloths she needed to tend herself.
He’d argued for stopping well before dark because of the spring, the faint burble of which his keen ears had caught, issuing from under a rock.
The spring had been an excuse. Clare knew he’d thought her too spent to press on until nightfall. Perhaps she was. Once they’d stopped she’d grown aware of a ravenous hunger and a thirst that had been building all that day, no matter how often they’d stopped to quench it, as well as muscles aching from the birth, the pain in her breasts as her milk began to come in.
That latter was going to worsen—at least it had with Jacob—before it got better. The thought of wearing her baby in a sling against those breasts again was quailing.
That was tomorrow’s worry. For now she needed to find the strength to stand and wash out the soiled clout.
“Let me see to that, Missus.”
Clare looked over her shoulder to find the man come silently to his feet, hand extended.
One thing he could not be called was garrulous, this Jeremiah Ring. They’d spoken little since leaving the wagon that morning. Their exchanges since pitching camp had been mar
ked by wariness, uncertainty, and, on Clare’s part, the rawest, bone-achingest exhaustion she had ever known.
“You needn’t feel obliged, Mr. Ring. I’m well able to care for my child.” She all but cringed, hearing the words. Were they true, she wouldn’t have allowed Jacob to be stolen from under her nose.
“Of course you can, Missus. Just thought the mite would be hungry and you’d need to feed her. I’d not have that clout stinking up camp, drawing in whatever it may draw, before you get the chance to see to it. Nor the little one crying to feed while you clean that clout.”
Too tired to argue with his logic, she gave the bundle into his hand.
While he went into the dark, she draped her shoulder with a blanket, unpinned her bodice, unlaced her stays, and pressed the baby warm against her sore flesh. She winced as the tiny mouth latched on with a strength she’d forgotten a newborn possessed, but was glad she hadn’t to struggle over getting this one to nurse. Unlike Jacob, she made no fuss over suckling but seemed to know what to do from the first time Clare put her to a breast.
She’d been a quiet baby thus far, not squalling incessantly as Jacob had done his first weeks. Granted, she’d come early, though perhaps not as early as Clare had thought, given her ability to thrive.
She glanced at the shadows where Mr. Ring had vanished, then moved the blanket aside to observe the baby.
This was her child, every bit as much as Jacob. Where then was the overpowering love, the consuming passion, that had engulfed her at first sight of her son? In its place was a maelstrom of resentment the child didn’t deserve. She hadn’t chosen the timing of her birth. Yet the thought wouldn’t dislodge from Clare’s mind that had it not been for this baby, she and Jacob would never have been parted.
Mechanically she stroked the baby’s cheek, then ran a fingertip over the cap of soft, dark hair. Jacob’s hair had been the same startling shade at birth. It had long since been replaced by fair curls, a process she’d found fascinating.
Footsteps in the brush snapped the sweet thread of memory.
Mr. Ring set his ever-present rifle near to hand, spread the wet clout before the fire, and resumed his place opposite, legs crossed. Clare looked away from his sun-browned thighs bared by breechclout and leggings. She’d seen such immodest clothing at Redstone, a distinguishing feature of frontiersmen. By the look of him, Mr. Ring had long acquaintance with the wilds, though she didn’t think he was many years older than she, despite the weathering around his eyes.
He had nicely shaped eyes. Kind. A little sad.
Self-conscious about nursing her child in front of him, even under the concealing blanket, Clare did her best to discreetly settle her daughter against her other side. She avoided looking at Mr. Ring again until she had spread the blanket on the moss, put the baby down, and readjusted her stained clothing.
The baby squirmed in her wrappings, little face clenched, pink gums baring in a fretful mewl. Clare hurried with her pins, then picked up the baby with tired arms and hoisted her against one shoulder. She patted the tiny back until she’d elicited a soft burp. Hoping that would suffice, she laid the baby down.
The little face scrunched tight.
“What is the matter?” Clare asked, as if the infant could convey such knowledge. She rolled the little body gently aside and felt under her with a hand. No stones or roots met her searching palm.
The baby’s crying escalated. Stifling a sigh, Clare scooped her up again.
“Mind if I hold her for a spell? You look to need a rest.”
Surprised by the man’s offer, Clare’s first instinct was to deny any such need, but her arms were sagging under the tiny weight. Reluctantly she handed her daughter over.
“Mind her belly stump. And her neck. Take care how…” But he already had one big hand splayed protectively behind the baby’s head, steadying her wobbly neck.
“You’ve held a baby before.”
Mr. Ring met her gaze across the fire’s embers. “A time or two.”
But not his own. He’d told her as much that morning as they’d locked horns over which direction she would head from the wagon. Mr. Ring had wanted her to start for Redstone, abandoning all they could not carry. After all, she’d no business, a woman alone with a newborn, being in the west.
“No business?” she’d retorted. “You know very well what my business is, Mr. Ring. Jacob. Have you so soon forgotten?”
The man hadn’t backed down in the face of her indignation. Taller than she by a head, he’d gazed at her with seemingly unruffled calm. “I’ve not forgotten him, Missus. But it might be best if you try to. Chances of you getting him back—”
“You’ve obviously no child of your own,” she’d asserted, cutting him off. “Or you would never suggest such a thing!”
He’d flinched at that. “I have no child.”
“Then do me the courtesy of ceasing to pretend you’ve any understanding of the need that compels me.” Her chin had trembled but she’d ground her teeth, refusing to cry again.
“Yet I do grasp the enormity of what you propose to do, far better than you possibly could.”
She’d gazed at him, desperate to refute the stark words, and into her mind popped a phrase. “With God all things are possible.”
She wasn’t sure if that was Scripture. It sounded like it. And it sounded brave. Determined. She needed him to believe she was both.
“With God, yes,” Mr. Ring had agreed. “If we’re certain sure it’s His leading.”
“Of course it is.” Why wouldn’t the Almighty wish her to find her son? To do all in her power to recover him?
“I’ve lived among both Shawnees and Mingos, Missus,” Mr. Ring had said. “They aren’t going to harm your boy. He’s not suffering right now, not in any want. He’s safe among them.”
Face blanching, she’d raised her hand to halt such talk. “Jacob is in Wheeling, Mr. Ring. Of that I’m certain. You are headed in that direction regardless, are you not?”
“I am. But—”
“Then take me with you. Once there I shall go my way and you yours. There will be others willing to help me, surely.”
He’d caught the reproach in her words, though this time the flinching was only in his eyes. He’d opened his mouth as if to argue but then shut it, shaking his head.
“I mean to go to Wheeling Settlement, Mr. Ring,” she’d reiterated. “Should you attempt to force me back east, I promise I shall go kicking and screaming the entire way. Still, what you do or don’t do to aid me from this point is up to you.”
With that, she’d started walking westward, away from the wagon. Foolishly. Blindly. Without a scrap of food or anything on her person but the baby.
In moments she’d heard his footfalls coming fast behind her and thought he meant to brave the kicking and screaming, throw her over his shoulder, baby and all, and carry her east to Redstone.
“All right. All right, Missus. Will you…just stop!”
She stopped. “What?”
The man held her gaze, his own resigned. “I said all right, Mrs. Inglesby. I’ll help you get to Wheeling, but I’m telling you, you won’t find your son there.”
“But I shall.” Clutching her baby close, Clare turned her back on the man, returning to the wagon to pack her things.
Of the wagon’s contents, they’d taken what could be borne on their backs—provisions, bedding, the pistol and its ammunition, the contents of Clare’s simples box though not the box itself. Gowns and wrappings for the baby. The hatchet.
As for the rest, though no word of it passed between them, Clare knew she would never see any of it again.
Mr. Ring had remained taciturn throughout the day’s sojourn, slow as it was. She’d been content to let him remain so, it needing all her willpower to put one foot in front of another.
Now, in the firelight, Clare studied the man, who seemed absorbed in like inspection of her daughter, cradled along his forearm. He’d worn a battered, round-brimmed hat for most of the day bu
t had removed it, baring dark hair pulled back into a tail that fell below his shoulders. His forehead was high, his brows level and thick, the bridge of his nose long and narrow. From that headbent angle, his cheekbones appeared prominent, though his face was longer than it was wide, rather mournfully cast until…
Her gaze traveled downward to his mouth, which had softened in a smile. It crinkled the corners of his eyes, which captured a glint of firelight as though sight of her baby’s face had kindled warmth behind them.
It was the first time she’d seen him smile. It made his sober face seem almost handsome.
Clare had thought it wise to refrain from inquiring exactly how long it would take to walk to Wheeling, for she supposed that would depend upon her stamina. She’d pushed herself over a trail that had twisted along creeks, climbed wooded slopes, and plunged down ravines, proving the men of Redstone correct beyond any doubt; had they made it to Wheeling, it would have been on foot with the wagon abandoned—the wagon they’d meant to trade for river passage. Had he survived, Philip would have led them into utter ruin, destitute on the frontier.
She supposed he’d managed to do it, even in death.
Mr. Ring lifted his head and caught her staring. “You settle on a name yet?” he asked, that soft smile lingering.
“I— No.” The question disconcerted. “I’d a boy’s name chosen these months past. Philip John, after…” When she hesitated at the painful closing in her throat, Mr. Ring cleared his own.
“Did you never think on a girl’s name?”
Not only had she never considered a feminine name during her pregnancy, she’d yet to give a name for her daughter a moment’s thought. “I suppose I could still name her as I’d planned.”
Mr. Ring raised his brows over the baby asleep in his embrace. “Call her by a boy’s name? Philip or John?”
“Neither, of course. I’d call her Philippa. Philippa Joan, perhaps.”
The name didn’t resonate in any particular way. Nor did it with Mr. Ring, apparently. He frowned at the baby, as if searching her tiny features for some indication the name suited.