by Laura Frantz
Old Amos appeared at her elbow, gun in hand. “I been watchin’ the dead men, and one don’t seem dead at all. Have a look.”
And so she did. One of the white men on the ground was indeed alive. As she stared she saw that his hand moved ever so perceptibly, not once, but twice.
“Best train your rifle,” Amos said, stepping up to sight. “They’s goin’ to open the gate and bring ’im in.”
She moved to the fort wall, taking up her rifle and thrusting it through the hole. She could hear the gate swing open just a crack, groaning as it did. It was Will who ran out to pull the man to safety. Just as he reached him, a half dozen fallen redmen leapt to their feet and stormed the gate, hacking at the air with tomahawks and firing wildly into the common.
“Lord have mercy! Them Injuns have risen from the dead!” old Amos shouted.
Feeling she might faint, Lael ran back to the cabin, bolting the door and the shutter behind her. Ma Horn and Susanna looked up from tending the wounded.
“What’s happenin’ out there?” Susanna asked, ashen.
“There’s some trouble at the gate,” she answered, willing her hands to stop shaking. Indeed, not only her hands but her whole body quivered like a leaf in the wind.
“It’s Will, ain’t it? I—”
“Get the children into the loft and draw up the ladder.”
As the ladder disappeared through the dark hole, Lael wanted nothing so much as to run after it and hide as well. Outside, the screaming and gunfire mingled in a grotesque chorus as she stood by the hearth feeding sticks of wood to the flames. If the door was broken down, she might use the burning wood as a weapon. She’d given her gun to one of the wounded men who could still sit upright. At the door, Susanna had taken up an ax.
Oh, dear God, help us. Spare us.
She remembered Miss Mayella’s parting words to her only weeks before. May God watch between us when we are absent one from another.
Was God watching over her now? Was Miss Mayella praying? For a fleeting, desperate moment she rued coming back to this fearsome place. She’d been away so long she’d gone soft. Images were ricocheting through her head like spent musket balls— thoughts of Simon and Captain Jack and Pa, even Piper—pushing aside all common sense. Where was God in all this confusion? Looking up, she saw Susanna studying her as if she sensed how upended she was. Not the old Lael Click she’d always known, her wary eyes seemed to say, but a weak and vulnerable woman.
Oh Lord, help us. Help me. I am not the girl I was.
27
A loud banging sounded on the door, but Ma Horn would only open it when she heard Will shout. He stood on the threshold, sweat streaming down his face, his arms filled with a large, blood-splattered figure. Behind him stood John Logan, and in his arms was Simon.
There was little room for either man in the crowded cabin. Ma Horn called for Susanna to pass down the loft mattress, and this she did gladly, her eyes drinking in the sight of Will.
At first glance Lael determined that Simon hadn’t suffered a mortal injury, though he was unconscious. She motioned for Simon to be laid upon the mattress, while Will placed his burden on the trestle table before the hearth.
Looking on, Lael’s first reaction was to weep. “His name?”
“Marcus Fowler,” Will told her quietly.
A tomahawk had disfigured the left side of his face, and his scalp was so bloody and bare she had to swallow down the bile backing up in her throat at the sight. Numbly, she took a cloth and a bowl of water and began to clean him. His wounds were so grievous she couldn’t tell if he was young or old, comely or plain. But he was no less brave. For a long time she stood over him until, finally, she was called away.
“My eyes fail me,” Ma Horn said, showing her the gunshot wound in Simon’s shoulder. “I ain’t able to get the lead out, try as I might.”
Simon had come to and was moaning now, moving his head from side to side. His eyes, brown as coffee beans, were open but unseeing. Lael wiped her hands and took up the pincer-like tool. The lead ball had smashed a good deal of bone and was embedded deep within the shoulder. Blood seeped through his muslin shirt, dripping onto the corn-husk mattress, warning her to work quickly. She called for some whiskey, and Susanna brought forth a jug, holding her brother’s head and forcing him to swallow.
Nearly nauseous, Lael probed the wound deeply as Susanna and Ma Horn held him fast. The light of the tallow candles was dim at best, and Simon, strong as a bull, would occasionally thrash about, unnerving them all. Sweat streamed down her face and neck in sticky rivulets as she worked.
“We need a doctor,” she said aloud, her voice unsteady as the candle flame. A doctor—not like the ones at Briar Hill, befuddled by drink or their own self-importance, but a man with a steady hand and heart who earned his keep. A man who could extract a lead ball without mangling more of the shoulder.
At last she managed to remove the lead, dropping the ball in a cup and placing it on the mantle. Soon after, Piper came in, pushing past them and dropping to her knees by Simon’s side. In all fairness, she’d never looked so lovely. Her dark glossy hair was knotted at the nape of her neck, and her dress, waistless to allow for a growing child, was a clean, pale blue.
Looking on, Lael saw that the rumors were true. With Piper pregnant, it had indeed been a hasty wedding. A stinging burst of resentment flared, and then her heart twisted at the sight. Once Piper had suffered the loss of her entire family. Now she was afraid of losing Simon as well.
Bone weary, blood covering her own dress and flecking her face, Lael looked at her and said, “He’ll live.”
But Piper cried as if her heart were broken. The three women looked on in dismay, then Susanna’s voice rang out, sharp as steel in the cramped cabin. “You can take up your cryin’ elsewheres, Piper Cane Hayes. You’ll fracture the men’s nerves with your wailin’, and I’ll not allow it.”
In truth, it was their own nerves that were fractured, Lael thought. Most of the men were blessedly unconscious or, in Simon’s case, medicinally drunk. She drew a sigh of relief when Piper fled the cabin.
Numb, she poured a fresh pitcher of water and tore strips of clean cloth to rewrap Marcus Fowler’s head. His breathing was shallower now, scarcely breathing at all, and she knew he’d be dead by morning.
Near dawn she heard someone cry out. She stirred, stiff from sitting against the hearthstones, and came awake to a cold fire, her body trammeled by weariness. Susanna, who’d sat vigil with Simon, was nowhere to be seen.
She went first to Marcus Fowler and found he had died in the night. Taking a sheet, she covered him, feeling at a loss. She moved among the other men, examining their wounds and feeling for fever, wondering all the while if the dead man had kin.
“Lael.”
Her hands stilled at the sound. The name was spoken like a caress, so soft she was certain only she had heard. When she turned, Simon grabbed her wrist. He was lucid now, looking up at her from his mattress on the floor.
“It is you. I heard—” He winced from the sudden movement, and his shoulder began to bleed afresh. “I heard—but I misdoubted you’d stay—but you come back—to me.”
Frantic, she pulled free of his weak hold and turned toward the hearth, out of his reach. Taking up a poker, she scratched at the ashes for a live coal, hearing him call to her again, a lazy drawl in the suddenly still room. The tenderness in his voice threatened to undo her. Her hands were trembling again, and she feared her whole body would follow.
Would the pain in her heart never ease? Five years she’d been away, yet her feeling for him was fresh as yesterday. Oh Simon! Simon! What have you done? Coming home and hearing about him had been hard enough, but now—seeing him—seeing Piper carrying his child when it should have been her—
“Lael,” he called again, his voice near breaking.
With a sob, she covered her face with her hands. The poker clattered to the hearth, awakening Ma Horn. As she stirred, Lael shucked off her soiled apron and hur
ried to the door just as Susanna entered. Lael nearly collided with her in her haste.
At once, Susanna’s eyes widened. “Lael? What is it? What—?” She swung to Simon and saw the telling look on her brother’s face.
Lael pushed past, wiping her eyes. “I’ve got to get shut of this place.”
“Lael, you don’t mean—?”
But Lael was already walking across the fort common, aware of the lull in gunfire. Susanna ran after her, pleading. They were making a spectacle of themselves, truly. Some of the men along the pickets turned to watch them in the pale morning light.
“Lael, you can’t go. It’s—it’s—”
“Suicide?” Lael finished for her. “I’ll need a good horse. I reckon Asa Forbes’s bay will do.”
“Lael—please—listen to reason . . .”
Susanna stopped, but Lael kept walking. Toward light and fresh air and freedom. Whatever the cost.
•• Will met her at the corral. The horses were restless, anticipating the next round of gunfire, the dust never settling. He put his hand out as if to soothe a fractious colt. Whoa, Lael, she half expected to hear him say. His voice was low but incredulous. “Ain’t you even goin’ to ask what’s happenin’ outside them walls?”
She reached for a bridle dangling from the fence. “I don’t care, Will. I’m going out, plain and simple.”
He grabbed her arm. “It ain’t plain and simple, Lael. You’ll lose your scalp if you go out them gates.”
“It’s my choice and no one else’s,” she said, pulling free. John Logan and another man approached warily, their eyes clouded with weariness. Would they try to stop her? She ignored them, finally securing Asa’s prize bay.
As she led the horse out, Will threw down his hat. “Your pa did some rash things in his day, but this beats all I ever seen. What’ll I tell your ma and Ransom?”
Her voice was hard, though her heart felt fractured. “Tell them it was more Simon than some Indian arrow that killed me, Will. That’s the truth of it.”
He turned his back to her as if unable to watch her destruction. Above the massive gates, she glanced skyward a final time and saw Pa’s name chiseled in the rough wood. What would he think of her folly?
Father, forgive me.
Two sentries moved to open the postern gate just a crack, and drawing a ragged breath, she slipped through the narrow opening on foot, leading the borrowed horse behind her. The morning sun was cresting Hackberry Ridge, and a warm wind rippled the river’s surface. Sometime in the night the Indians had gathered their dead. The grassy slope was picked clean of bodies, save the fallen white men.
Strange how she felt like a girl again, on the porch with Pa, facing the Shawnee. Only this time she was all alone and more afraid. Just as she had back then, she reached up and removed the combs from her hair. It tumbled down to her ankles, turning her into a golden target. She stood stone still and waited. Not a shot sounded.
Within moments an Indian came striding toward her from some brush along the river’s edge. Though he was painted for war, one eye in a distinctive black circle, his tawny body bearing hideous markings, he moved with a familiar grace and authority. The years hadn’t dulled her memory of him, and clearly he hadn’t forgotten her. Time had only made him more striking, and his eyes, green as spring, sought her own as he stood before her.
She felt an old longing rekindle and her voice was soft. “Captain Jack.”
His hard eyes seemed to soften. “Click’s daughter.”
For a long moment they just looked at one another, as if getting their bearings after years apart. “I’m sorry . . . about your loss,” she finally said, thinking of the trappers who’d brought about this butchery.
He looked down at her with a startling intensity. Was he remembering their own meeting long ago, when he had surprised her in the woods with Pa? The memory settled her somehow and eased her traitorous trembling.
“I am sorry . . . about yours,” he echoed.
At his poignant words, emotion spilled out of her. He’d obviously heard about Pa’s passing and seemed nearly as grieved as she. Looking away, she wiped her face with her sleeve.
His voice was low, reflective. “You went away for many seasons.”
“I’ve just come back.”
His smile was almost imperceptible. “To the cabin of your father.”
“Aye,” she said without needing to. He knew she’d returned, perhaps to the very day, the very hour. The fact was strangely comforting. Did she dare question him further about the melee all around them? In truth, he looked as weary as she but for entirely different reasons. She swallowed hard and gathered her courage about her like a cloak. “Can you not call for a truce? Are you not a chief?”
He nodded and lifted his eyes to the white men lining the pickets. Truly, it was not safe for him to come so near the fort. A trigger’s breath from death, he was. She moved her horse to stand between him and the fort’s guns.
“Though you are well within your rights to retaliate for the loss of your men,” she ventured carefully, “why Fort Click?”
“The trapper who led the ambush is a member of the fort’s militia.”
Her expression turned grave. “Do you know his name?”
“McClary.”
She nearly winced. “I know of him, but he is not within.”
“We will find him then.”
She did not doubt it. She wished he would. The grief McClary once caused her father was reason enough.
His eyes fell on her again, lingering on her hair. She remembered he’d once taken off the end of her braid with his scalping knife. Was he also thinking of the blue beads? Had Providence prompted her to bring them? Relieved, she drew them out, their blueness glossy and undimmed. Her girlhood seemed bound up with those beads. They had solaced her during the long years at Briar Hill, tethering her to her past, reminding her of just who she was. But she couldn’t tell him such things. He wouldn’t understand . . . would he?
She offered him the beads like a gift and he took them, only to give them back. “You want to go home,” he said, more statement than question. She nodded slowly, and he turned toward the ridge and river and gave a signal.
“Go home,” he told her. With that, he began to walk away, and a hundred Indians seemed to retreat with him.
She got up on the big bay and glanced back at the fort, relief making her woozy. She could well imagine the talk already abuzz inside those walls. Her tangle of emotions left her so tired she could barely sit astride her horse. But she was free, free of the stockade if not Simon.
One day, she vowed, she would be free of Simon as well.
28
Lael was cutting the last of the black-eyed Susans for a bouquet when she heard hoofbeats. It was always best to cut flowers in the morning, she could hear Ma say, when the dew was still on the petals. And it was such a lovely morning, the dew drenching her bare feet and the chickens clucking contentedly all around, scratching at the dirt.
Just three days before, she had been dead on her feet at the fort, smelling blood and burnt powder and molding lead, in the heart and heat of the trouble which now seemed like it never was. She’d not seen a soul but Asa Forbes, come to claim his bay horse and return her rifle. Her own horse had been waiting when she came home.
She moved to the porch to stand in the open door frame, the flowers forgotten in her arms. Her gun was just inside. She could hear the approaching horse plain now, just in back of the barn. When Simon rounded the corner, Lael took a small step backwards. He dismounted in the yard, not even bothering to tether his horse, and came to stand just beyond the porch stoop. His arm and shoulder were in a sling, but it seemed to hinder him not at all. He moved with the same easy grace as always, drawing her eyes and her heart effortlessly.
“I come to see if there’s still a livin’ soul here,” he told her. “Or if you’d run off with the Shawnee.”
“You can see I didn’t,” she said matter-of-factly. “Now get on your horse a
nd go back to wherever it is you came from.”
He stepped onto the porch stone and pulled off his hat. “That was a mighty daring stunt you pulled outside fort walls. You ain’t been back two months, and you’re the talk of the settlement again. Only this time the tattle’s mostly good, considerin’ you saved all our hides.”
“You can thank Captain Jack,” she told him, careful not to look at him overlong.
His expression turned almost wistful. “Captain Jack, is it? You never let your hair down for me, Lael.”
Would he never stop saying her name? His words shamed and riled her all at once. “You never asked me.”
“We need to talk.”
She sighed. “The time for talking is past, Si—” She broke off, fearful of letting slip with something so intimate as Simon Henry Hayes. Looking past him, she fixed her eyes on the distant hills still purpled with early morning shadows. An uneasy silence hung between them, a silence she longed to remedy but had no right to.
“You were wrong to come here,” she said dully.
“So were you. How do you aim to live here—a woman—alone? Everything I look at needs a man’s hand. I see fences down in the pasture. The barn needs a new roof. Who’s goin’ to keep you in meat come winter?”
Pained to hear all that she had left undone, or had yet to do, she said, “I’m no longer your concern.”
“You’ve been my concern ever since you were six years old, come to fort up with me. You’re in my blood, Lael—a forever and endurin’ part of me!” With his good hand he reached for her, and she spilled the flowers onto the porch. “Why’d you not tell me you’d come back before I—”
With a cry she tried to wrench her arm away from him. “Why didn’t you ask Pa for my hand again? He might have believed you really loved me if you’d not turned tail and run the first time he refused you.”