The Frontiersman’s Daughter
Page 19
She rode on, the bags of nuts brushing against her legs. A young boy came from nowhere, his face earnest and eager. “I’ll see to your horse for some of them nuts,” he said, eyeing the bags.
Smiling, she turned over the mare and he was off, eager to earn his reward. The door to Ma Horn’s cabin was ajar. As was her custom, she didn’t knock. Clutching the bags of nuts, she pushed open the door. It swung forward with a familiar creak, and the sudden sunlight smote the cabin’s dimness.
“Halloo,” she called as she stood in the door frame.
“Halloo tae you,” came a man’s reply.
Pausing in the doorway, Lael was legitimately speechless. She stood as still and stoic as her father when facing a Shawnee war party. For a fleeting moment she thought she’d mistakenly entered the old Hayes place. She didn’t mean to stare. After so long a ride in the sunlight, her eyes needed adjusting to the sudden gloom.
It seemed he knew who she was instantly. Had someone painted her likeness to him in words . . . said something particular to describe her?
“Miss Click,” he said simply.
“Mr. Justus,” she replied. She would not call him doctor, not yet.
He seemed to smile at the sound of her voice. It was a woman’s voice with a girl’s softness. A cultured voice, with all the underlying rawness of the Kentucke frontier.
“I’m here, child, if you’re wonderin’, ” said Ma Horn.
“I’ve brought you some nuts,” Lael told her, depositing the sacks at one end of the hearth.
“Much obliged.” She came forward out of the shadows, leaning on a cane. “And nary the twain shall meet, someone said. But here ye both are.”
“We’ve seen each other before,” the Scot said.
“Aye, so we have,” Lael said.
“At the corn husking,” they both said at once.
Ma Horn laughed then, easy as a girl, and moved toward the door. “Well then, no need for me to stay and make howdy-dos twice. Since the doctor got me this here cane, I ain’t so shut in. Reckon I’ll go see to Airy Phelps.”
And so she passed out the door, albeit slowly, leaving it open for decency’s sake. Color high, Lael felt like running after her. How could Ma Horn leave them together—alone—at first meeting? To hide her befuddlement, she reached up and removed her straw hat, then chastised herself. He will think I mean to stay.
“So you’re the settlement midwife.”
Startled, she looked at him. His words, spoken with a strong Scottish brogue, put her on edge. To make sure she clearly understood him, she had to listen hard and weigh and measure his every word. Aye, his voice was rich and thick as molasses. A honeyed tongue, if ever there was one.
“Midwife? Nay,” she replied. Truly, she had yet to birth a baby.
“Perhaps a modest one?” His slow smile was disarming.
“Not a midwife,” she said at last, thinking it too smart a title. “Just a body with a knowledge of healing herbs, is all.”
He studied her as she spoke, his eyes on her face. Furtively, she studied him. There was none of the fumbling of Asa Forbes or the brazen boldness of Simon Hayes about him. She was taken aback at his easy manner. He was taller than she, and his rugged features were handsome and tan as new leather.
“Have you lived here long, Miss Click?”
She felt a bit scattered standing so near him. His eyes . . . were they blue? Blue as berries. “All my life, nearly. I was the first white child born in these parts.” With that, she took a step back, quickly replacing her hat. It caught on some pins and dislodged them, sending a portion of her hair tumbling about her shoulders in one sunshiny shock. What a sight I must look!
“Good day,” she muttered as she turned away, intent on fleeing.
“Good day,” he uttered after her, following her to the doorway and leaning against it. He watched her hurry across the crowded common, her hair spilling down nearly to her feet.
She turned back just once, nearly stumbling in her haste, impressing him upon the pages of her mind with that last look, all the while hoping she’d never see him again.
35
She’d hardly returned home and caught her breath before she was off to another frolic. Just ahead, Coy Miller’s farm lay bright as a lantern. This time, she came with Susanna and Will when reason told her she should have been home with her hefty medical books, feet to the fire.
But she’d come anyway, in a fancy dress to boot, cheeks flushed and courting trouble. The cider making had begun at noon, and the dancing would commence at dusk. Old Amos needed little prompting to haul out his fiddle. As usual, the men outnumbered the women and the unmarried girls were the first to pair up, their colorful skirts swirling as they danced.
Lael surveyed the company of revelers and spotted Simon. Standing around one of the smaller fires away from the dancing, he was deep in conversation with some other men, a mug in his hand. Hard cider, she reckoned. A prickle of alarm coursed through her. Obviously, he had a fondness for it—in excess, some said. Rumor was he even had his own still, hidden high in the mountains.
How thankful she was that Will and Susanna were here! Will, once a notorious hothead himself but now somehow soothed and salved by religion, would be a calming influence if things were to get out of hand. And Susanna always had a steadying effect on Simon.
Try as she might, Lael could not help but study him. He stood out sorely, being the tallest man there. And tonight there seemed something odd about him—something in his gait and his exaggerated expressions that riveted her—but not pleasantly so. Where was Piper? Restlessly, her eyes scoured the crowd, searching, hoping for the first time for a sign of Piper’s presence.
Her eyes fell—nay, feasted—on the Scot. He was in earnest conversation with Eliza Harold and Jane McFee. From the look of things, he certainly wouldn’t lack for female patients. What, she wondered, did he think of these frontier frolics? She purposed to avoid him, wishing she had a bonnet to hide behind.
Beside her, Susanna’s voice rose then faded against the music. Lael bent to listen.
“I said the doctor likes Sir Roger de Coverley, same as you,” Susanna repeated as the familiar tune began. “Seems he can run a set with the best of them.”
“You seem to know an uncommon amount about the doctor.”
“He’s come to our cabin a few times,” Susanna said, obviously pleased by this. “Why, he and Will get on like a pair of bluetick hounds.”
Lael said nothing in reply, wondering what Will Bliss could possibly have in common with a Scottish physician. She sat down on a hay bale beside Susanna, her own toes tapping beneath her skirt. Tonight, she would be content to do nothing more than sit and drink in the night air, letting the music be a salve to her sorry soul.
But it was not to be.
Perhaps it was her dress. The color of butter, the square neck and gathered sleeves trimmed with ivory ribbon. It was wrinkled from riding but fetching nonetheless. She’d not even admit to herself why she wore it, only that she’d chosen it in expectation, wanting to look her best. Already her hair was falling down her neck in wayward wisps below her lace cap.
But all her lofty expectations took flight when Simon swaggered out of the shadows, seeking her out for the next dance, a fire in his eyes that still kindled from their last meeting. She swallowed hard, knowing that if she denied him she could dance with no other man. Accept him and she could dance with them all. As liquored up as he was, she dared not refuse him. She didn’t smile as he approached, just gave a curt nod and stood up, but she rued the gossip it was bound to cause.
Old Amos burst into a fiddling frenzy. She moved woodenly and haltingly. Simon, agile as always, was made more so by the hard cider, and he held her none too gently.
“Where’s your wife?” she asked curtly, eyes averted.
“Where’s your gun?” he shot back.
The curious onlookers seemed a blur to her. Would the dance never end? The steps were as familiar as the path to her cabin, but her fe
et felt leaden. Here she was, intent on a bit of fun, and she simply felt empty and terribly discontent—and near tears. When the set ended, she fled from the circle, past Susanna and a cluster of rowdies to the shadows.
At the cider press, now empty of apples, she got hold of herself. The tart tang of apple pulp still lingered in the air, and a large oak barrel beneath the press was half full of fresh cider. Beneath her hands, the rough wood of the mill was solid and reassuring. She leaned against it, wistful yet cautious. Would Simon follow?
“You look tae be flushed. Would you care for a wee bit of cider?”
She started at the Scot’s voice and turned in its direction, dismayed at being discovered. Given his stance and demeanor, he had plainly been there all along, even before she. He stood on the opposite side of the press, leaning against a beam, a cup in his hands. From this vantage point he had a clear view of the dancing while remaining apart from the frolic itself. Fleetingly, she wondered why he’d not joined in.
“Nay . . . no cider. Thank you.” Still breathless from the set, she stood where she was, planning her next move. Susanna would worry if she up and left. Besides, she’d promised she would stay. But neither could she stand here with the strange Scot, completely speechless.
“I’d ask you tae dance if I thought that was what you really wanted.”
She swallowed, glad the darkness hid her face. “Nay, I . . . it’s not quite as I remember. The dancing, I mean.”
He said nothing to this, so she rushed on. “I—I last danced like this when I was a slip of a girl . . . just thirteen. Cider-makings were always a favorite of ours . . . my pa anyways.”
The memory only made her melancholy, and she looked down at the solid lines of the press, a bit lost.
“I’m sorry aboot your faither,” he said, and the gravity in his voice touched her and brought her round.
“Sorry?” she echoed.
“I used tae read aboot him in the eastern papers. He was a bit of a legend where I come from.”
Her voice was rueful. “He never liked a fuss to be made about him. I recollect he said a newspaper was nothing but a pack of lies.”
“I dinna doubt it.” He took a sip of cider. “But ’tis true that Kentucke’s first county is tae be named after him.”
She looked up, surprised. “Did you read that in the newspapers, too?”
“Nae. I heard it firsthand from a judge in Lexington.”
“Then you have friends in high places, sir, for even I have not heard that.” Still, the news warmed her. Click County. It did sound fetching. She looked across the press and found that he was looking at her unabashedly just as he had the night of the corn husking.
“You’re uncommon tall for a lass.”
Surprised, she smiled. “Do you always speak your mind so?”
He nodded. “You’ll find I do.”
“Anything else?”
“Aye,” he replied, coming around the press to close the distance between them. “Do you always court trouble, Miss Click, or does it just seem tae follow you where’er you go?”
Trouble?
Behind her, Simon was approaching and the hostility in his swagger chilled her to the bone. Did the Scot sense her unease? If he did, he gave no sign of it. Slowly, he set his cider down on the press and extended a hand.
“I was just asking Miss Click if she wanted tae dance,” he announced to Simon with a quiet confidence.
Relief coursed through Lael. And gratitude. She took Ian Justus’s outstretched hand and followed him into the firelight.
Before she returned home from the frolic her name had been linked with that of the Scot. But at least it was no longer tied with Simon’s. It was only a single dance, her second and last of the night. Perhaps that is what set people’s tongues a-wagging. Or perhaps it was the contrast they made—he so dark and she so fair. Whatever the reason, it made for good gossip.
All the way home and well into the next day, as she milked and churned and gathered eggs, she thought of the few words they’d spoken. Her hands slackened on the churn’s dasher as she recalled the raw sympathy in his voice when he had spoken of Pa. In that moment something inside her had softened, then melted further when he’d asked her to dance.
And dance he could, holding her with just the right amount of gentleness and gentlemanly distance. Remembering, she nearly dropped her gathered eggs. He’d even escorted her back to Susanna and Will after the set, as if he knew tarrying would raise a ruckus with the drunken Simon.
Remembering every detail, she poured herself a cup of buttermilk and sat down behind the screen of roses. Fatigue pinched the back of her eyes. She’d not slept well after the frolic. All night long the questions she still hadn’t asked pointed accusing fingers at her.
Why had the Scot come here? Where had he come from? How long would he stay? What was the breadth of his medical training? Did he believe in bloodletting? Did he look askance at the herbs she and Ma Horn used so extensively?
She finished the buttermilk and breathed in the perfume of the roses without truly savoring them. Though he had been gallant to her, she remained somewhat suspicious of him. Nor could she bring herself to call him Doctor. And it pained her greatly to admit that after a near kiss, two conversations, and one dance, he remained the finest man she’d ever laid eyes on.
36
Lael continued to make her way up the branch, her saddlebags full of herbs and other indispensables. Lovey Runion was always on the porch as if expecting her, her pipe in her trembling hands, some crumbled tobacco in her lap. After fixing the older woman a good meal with enough left over for the days to come, Lael would refill Lovey’s pipe and sit down opposite her on the porch, a book in hand. She’d grown accustomed, even fond, of the pungent smoke as it spiraled above Lovey’s head and sweetened the air. She’d even become used to her fey, almost endearing ways.
As for Titus Grubbs, his arm healed quickly. The day she removed the splints she accompanied him fishing. He was a ten-year-old child again, all soberness gone, fiercely determined to repay her for her treatment of him.
“I’ll catch you the biggest fish you ever did see,” he boasted, preparing his bait.
She stood with him in the sandy shoals of the river, just beyond the high banks where the wild grapes grew the thickest, and watched as he produced a sharp hook made of hawthorn and tied it to a horsehair line. She waded into the water after him, skirts held up at a modest level, and savored a few pawpaws she found hiding on shore. Within moments he’d jerked a fish from the water, proudly displaying it to her before placing it in a lidded basket.
By noon the basket was half full and they parted, Lael accepting the two biggest fish while Titus took the rest home to his mother.
“I can trap too,” he told her. “I can bring you some squirrel or rabbit once you eat them fish. I reckon a woman on her own don’t get much meat.”
She thanked him warmly, touched by his thoughtfulness. She was already anticipating how she would prepare the fish for supper. Roll it in cornmeal and fry it in grease, Ma always said. And this she would do.
In the days that followed Lael would return home from foraging in the woods or from a call to a settler’s cabin to find a wild turkey or a rabbit hanging out of Tuck’s reach on the porch. Always, she took the meat down with a smile, filled with gratitude that one small boy could meet so pressing a need.
Now Lael was able to share meat with Lovey as well, and the added nourishment was good for them both. Lovey’s hands seemed not to shake so badly these days, and the unhealthy pallor had begun to leave her face. She grew stronger and moved more steadily about the small cabin, sometimes venturing near her bees with Lael watching spellbound as she robbed them of their delicious honey.
Often Lael wondered what winter would bring; Lovey could not live on honey alone, nor could Lael brave the branch in deep snow. Her worries were not unfounded. Even Ma Horn turned dull eyes and ears to the signs, reporting what she’d observed or was told to her.
Lael pondered the signs herself. Everything she looked at seemed to call out a subtle warning. The dogwood berries were heavier than she ever remembered, and the leaves of the mountain laurel were rolled up. Even the beaver lodges that jammed the river had more logs.
Still, she had not a stick of firewood laid by. The thought dogged her for days, and to allay it she went in search of fallen timber in the woods bordering the cabin. What wood she found was green and would be hard to kindle and keep warm by. And she was no hand with an ax or saw. She returned home burdened, too proud to ask Will Bliss or anyone else for help.
Her garden was now overflowing, and she spent time drying beans and storing potatoes and onions. In the dog days of autumn there was a spate of sickness and the entries in her ledger grew. One deerskin. One and a half pounds of beeswax. Four bushels of oats. One venison ham. One coonskin. Two pounds of lard. Five pounds of tallow. One bushel of flax seed. Two candle molds. Three tin cups. One box of bone buttons. One saddle.
As she worked, she wondered how the doctor was doing. In rare idle moments, she looked to the woods or wandered onto the porch as if expecting some other gift would await her. Hoping. Almost praying. Was lonesomeness filling her with foolish romantic notions? Her nightly reading certainly was. Just yesterday she’d come across the story of an Indian princess and an Englishman. Long ago in Virginia, John Rolfe had written that Pocahontas captured his heart and he could think of no one else.
Entranced, Lael could hardly put the book down. The memory of Captain Jack standing steadfast near the gates of Fort Click held just as firmly in her mind. The pull of the savage and the civilized seemed at war within her once again. Only this time, the savage was gaining the upper hand.