by Laura Frantz
“Dog days!” she fumed, smelling scorched turnips. If she kept this up, she would have little to offer him but buttermilk. Her dress was splattered with grease, and a red welt glowered on one palm where she had burned it removing a kettle of potatoes from the fire.
With a sigh, she passed onto the cool shade of the porch and surveyed her clean laundry along the fence. The sun had already done its work, and even her yellow dress, the one she’d worn to the frolic, was sun-warmed and dry. But it wouldn’t do for a simple supper.
She chose a plain dress, bereft of ribbon or buttons or lace, though an extraordinary green dyed from oak leaves. The color of Captain Jack’s eyes. The thought gave her pause. What if he watched from the woods? She sighed and snatched up a cambric apron whose creases cried for ironing. Her only finery was a ribbon the hue of the roses on the porch which she wove through her hair as she braided and pinned it in place.
When at last Mr. Justus came, they sat on the porch where she’d spread a quilt over the freshly scrubbed planks. Its cheerful pattern of browns and reds was soon hidden by an assortment of dishes, plates, and cups. For a moment she lamented the fact that she hadn’t a single saucer of Ma’s chipped but fine old china. The sun kindly slipped to the west, casting them in a cool shadow as the food on her guest’s full plate dwindled.
Lael ate little herself, so full of questions she had no appetite, but he seemed not to notice. Afterward there was warm apple pie and coffee laced with cream. As she poured she looked up and saw that he was staring at her. The Scot’s blue eyes bewildered her. She couldn’t decide whether they were the color of a cloudless July sky or the hue of a raggedy robin blooming along the river bottom. His hair was as black as Captain Jack’s own.
“Do you often make meals for outlanders, Miss Click?” There was teasing in his tone and in his astonishing eyes.
Scarlet, she looked down at her apron, now soiled by three spots of coffee, a bit lost in the richness of his speech.
“You’ve yet tae call me Doctor, which I dinna mind in the least. But it tells me you are questioning my credentials. And those eyes of yours demand I must somehow prove myself, pass a test. Like your faither did when he ran the Shawnee gauntlet.”
“You read that in the papers, I reckon.”
“Aye. Is it true?”
She nodded. “He carried the scars to his grave.”
“So he passed the test. Will I?”
She smiled then without meaning to. Law, but she was nervous and ashamed of her pretense. The flock of questions that sat so heavily in her breast suddenly took flight, like a hundred startled birds. But she swallowed and pressed on. “I—I know so little about you. Like where you come from, for starters.”
“Scotlain, first, and then Boston. My family is from the Highlands. I took my medical training at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. The school is a fine one and specializes in medical surgery.”
“Have you just come from there?”
He shook his head. “Nae, I am a Scot with a patriot’s heart. I left Scotlain when war with the Crown broke out. There was a need for medical men with the Colonial army, and I signed on and stayed till the war was won. Then I went to Boston and practiced with an older established physician. Until now.”
Boston. From her geography lessons at Briar Hill she knew Boston to be large and civilized and cultured. And dirty and plague-ridden and crowded. Everything Kentucke was not and might never be.
“You longed to leave the city, then?”
He shook his head. “No’ particularly. I was tae busy. Though I admit tae a certain wanderlust, I had no’ thought tae come here.”
“Then why did you come?”
He took his eyes off the river and turned to look at her. “When the Almighty puts a thing in a mon’s mind it willna be moved. Kentucke became like that for me.”
She looked hard at him, taking the strange words to heart. Never in her life had she heard such talk. She finally found her voice and said, “Sounds like you should have been a preacher.”
He smiled and the lines about his eyes deepened. “Perhaps. But the Lord saw fit tae make me a surgeon.”
“You’ve led an interesting life.”
“No’ so interesting as yours, truly,” he said with a strange intensity.
She began gathering up the supper plates where she sat, as if signaling him to go, though she sensed he had more to say. Beside him, she felt like she was back at Briar Hill again, making polite conversation, pretending to be a lady. With Captain Jack she was simply Lael Click, Pa’s daughter, which required no effort at all.
His eyes were on her, unnerving her so much she dropped a pewter plate. It clunked to the porch stone, sparking her temper. Her voice was soft but a tad sharp. “You call yourself a gentleman, yet you stare at me.”
“I never called myself a gentleman.”
“You are a gentleman and you still stare.”
“If I do, the fault is your own. You are a complicated lass, Lael Click.”
She set the dishes down with a clatter. Complicated? She wouldn’t ask him to explain himself. She didn’t have to.
He leaned back against a porch post, stretched his legs, and crossed his shiny black boots. “You went tae one of the finest finishing schools in the colonies, yet I find you barefoot and bonnetless and making social calls tae Indians, wi’ your hair down tae boot. And unchaperoned, as weel.”
Her eyes widened. So it had been him in the woods watching her! She turned as pink as the porch roses but managed to say, “You’d best watch your backside. You outlanders are always gettin’ killed wanderin’ where you don’t belong.”
“And you, Miss Click? Are you immune tae Indian arrows?”
Their eyes locked. She could tell he had a temper as his speech was threaded with heat and becoming more Highland by the minute. As for herself, she was nearly choking on settlement vernacular in her dander.
He reached down and retrieved the pewter plate. “I ken you want me off your porch and out of the settlement as weel. But I’ll no’ oblige you till you answer a few questions of my own.”
Her voice was cold as creek ice in January. “I don’t have to.”
His blue eyes flashed a warning. “If you want tae be rid of me, you’ll answer. Or I’ll still be here come morning.”
She didn’t doubt it. “You Scots are a stubborn lot.”
He grinned and rolled his eyes. “And you colonials are no’?”
She sighed and folded her arms across her chest. “Very well. What do you want to know?”
“I’m curious about where you took your training in midwifery.”
Her color deepened. “As I told you, I’m not the settlement midwife. I’ve not birthed one baby.”
“But you are an herbalist.”
“I suppose I am. The woods and Ma Horn have been my teachers since I was a girl.” She looked away from him, embarrassed. Here she was, considering him a quack, and he was unraveling her own lack of expertise fast as a spool of thread.
“I’m finding the settlers here a superstitious lot. I dinna doubt you are much the same.”
She sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”
“Axes under the bed tae cut the pain of childbirth. Garlic charms and spells. Boiling beaver tails tae cure snakebite. No’ tae mention the misuse of useful herbs.”
Her own face clouded. “I do none of those things.”
He looked doubtful. “Prove it.”
“How do you expect me to do that?”
His steely eyes held a challenge. “Work alongside me.”
Her lips parted in astonishment. She shook her head warily. “I have no desire to become an indentured servant, thank you kindly.”
Though he kept a straight face, his eyes were smiling. Would he never leave? She had dishes to wash and the night chores to see about . . .
He stood up suddenly, casting a long shadow. “If you’ve nae more questions, Miss Click, I’d best be going. Thank you for the fine supper.
It’s the best I’ve had since leaving Boston.”
Night was falling fast. The only sound was the plaintive call of a dove looking for its mate. She stood up but laced her fingers behind her back so he couldn’t kiss her hand or do whatever a Scotsman did when parting company with a lady. Only I’m no lady.
“Good night, Doctor,” she said.
He turned and went to untie his horse without another word. She stood and watched him go until the purple twilight had completely swallowed him up. Would he be safe in these woods? ’Twas a far piece to the fort.
She felt unsettled as a river current, wending this way and that in his wake. She sighed and went into the cabin, drawing in the latchstring and barring the door. Like herbs and conventional medicine, they obviously did not mix well. In the future, she must avoid him.
40
The next morning she went to the fort to see if a letter from Ransom was waiting and was greatly relieved to find Ian Justus absent. The doctor had gone to Lexington, Ma Horn told her, and would not be back until the morrow. There was no letter either, and so she returned home.
She performed her chores by rote, her mind on her recent encounters. But the treasured memory of her meadow meeting with Captain Jack was muddied by that of her visit from the doctor.
Often she thought of Uncle Neddy. In the evenings when she sat on the porch, stripping sassafras leaves or bundling spicewood twigs, she tried not to think of how it had been that fateful day. Tragedy seemed far from her fragrant, sun-rimmed porch, though trouble had never needed an invitation.
For days now she had seen no sign of Titus Grubbs. No telltale meat hung on her porch, not even one fish in a willow basket. So she set out to find him, concern marking her every step. The Grubbs cabin was not far but nearly hidden in a shady cove. How many people had passed by and not even known it was there?
She tethered her horse to a fading laurel and began a slow walk to the cabin. Mourning Grubbs was on the porch in a rocker that creaked with each movement. Once again the half-starved hounds did not so much as bark. She couldn’t see her clearly—was she rocking and crying?
Mourning had risen and now stood inside the door frame. For the first time the shifty-eyed woman looked directly at her and Lael read the fear in her eyes.
“I ain’t set for no company,” she muttered.
Lael put a foot on the porch step. “I thought I heard crying.”
The woman coughed and made a move to go inside, muttering something unintelligible.
“I do hear crying.” Lael stepped to the door just as the tiny woman tried to shut it. But Lael, easily the stronger of the two, pushed it open.
One sweep of the cabin told her the pitiful sounds came from the loft. She climbed the rough ladder, dread filling her heart. Titus lay on a dirty pallet, his face so bloody and bruised she hardly knew him. His torn shirt was a brilliant ruby red, seeping into the pallet. Whatever the trouble, it was fresh— and brutal.
“Titus.” Lael spoke the name through a throat so tight with tears she feared she would choke. A cold fury filled her as she backed down the ladder to find his mother gone.
Clutching some rags and a bowl of water, she returned to the loft. The boy’s eyes were closed now—was he unconscious? She whispered his name over and over as if this would somehow soothe him. Were there internal injuries? She prayed not. The loft was dim as a cave. How could she possibly move him? But move him she must.
If only the doctor were here.
Dear Lord in heaven . . . help me . . . help me move him. Past feeling now, she carried him precariously down the ladder and out onto the empty porch and across the yard. His silent, shamefaced mother was nowhere to be seen. A cart she’d not noticed before rested by a trickle of creek. She hitched the mare to the cart then lay the boy in it as gently as she could. It was not until morning that Titus opened his eyes to find a sleepless Lael hovering over him as he lay in her corner bed. And, bless him, through cracked lips he smiled.
“I—knowed—you’d—come,” he whispered as she gave him a sip of water. “I prayed—you’d come.” His face was bruised and swollen, but all traces of blood had been sponged away during the long night.
She longed to fetch the doctor but was afraid to leave the boy. Afraid that whoever had done this terrible thing would somehow find him and take him away from her forever.
“Titus, who has done this ugly thing?”
But he would have none of it. The light in his eyes faded as she asked it, and he turned away from her, his face to the wall.
In the morning, when she returned from milking, he was gone.
All the next day Lael combed the woods and hillsides. She came upon the abandoned Grubbs cabin, but the shiftless hounds did not so much as raise their heads. Where was Mourning? Hollow-hearted, she returned home, where she took a bit of cold cornbread that crumbled dryly in her mouth and chased it with cider that tasted oversweet. Taking up her gun, she passed onto the porch to wait for the deepening darkness.
In time she heard the rustle of brush and a sob. Out of the shadows came Mourning Grubbs, bent and weeping. Setting aside her gun, Lael went out to meet her. In truth, she’d never cared much for the woman. But the sight of her cut lip and blackened eye filled her with compassion.
“Mourning, what’s become of you?”
But she merely repeated, “I got to see Titus.”
Lael stood firm, arms crossed. “I’ll not take you in—nor let you near Titus—till you speak your mind to me.” She kept her eyes on the woman’s battered face. “Did you take a hand to your boy?”
Mourning shook her head vehemently, trembling now. As if wounded himself, Tuck let out a mournful wail by the door and would not stop till Lael took off one of her moccasins and hurled it in his direction.
She was unnerved herself but tried not to show it. “I’ll say it again. Did you take a hand to Titus?”
“Nay!”
“Who, then?”
It took time but the whole sordid story spilled out, not ending till moonlight had edged the porch in silver. Mourning’s husband had died some months past, leaving her and her young son alone. Pining for her family in North Carolina, she met a man who promised to take her back over the mountains. Soon he was visiting her cabin and demanding her favors, never telling her where he lived, only that he made a little moonshine for a living up on high. Desperate to return home, she endured his visits, only to find that the promised trip never materialized. Now when he came he was drunk—and violent. When a meal or a word did not suit him, he struck her—or her boy.
“Twice he broke Titus’s arm,” she confessed.
Lael was sickened. From somewhere deep within, Mourning Grubbs had summoned the courage to tell him he was no longer welcome. When he attempted to beat her, Titus stepped in and took the licking in her stead.
“I—I thought he would kill him he was so drunk—and so riled. I’m a-feared he’ll come back.”
“You must tell me the name of this man.” She remembered Pa once said that a man who struck a woman was no man at all, not even a beast, for almost always an animal took care of its own. Would Mourning tell her? Or was her fear too great? Lael nearly held her breath in the ensuing silence.
“The man who like to have killed Titus is one of them McClarys,” she said at last, turning flinty eyes on Lael. “Hero McClary. Brother to Hugh.”
The name came out a whisper. Hugh McClary. Hero McClary. Two brothers cut from the same cloth, if there ever was, Lael thought in revulsion. Years before he’d shot her father, Hugh McClary led his clan over Cumberland Gap for no other reason than to escape the trouble they’d made in Pennsylvania. But there was one telling difference between the two brothers. If possible, Hero was worse.
Mourning stood up and looked beseechingly at Lael.
“Your boy’s not here,” Lael said. “He ran off early this morning.”
And with that, the woman fainted.
With Mourning settled in the Click cabin, Lael set out alone. It to
ok two days of tramping through stinging nettles and briar patches to find Hero McClary. She finally came across him on a tangled slope of ridge made nearly impassable by large rocks. A stingy wisp of gray smoke gave him away. He was crouched, back to her, feeding a small fire. All the makings for a fresh batch of corn liquor were at hand. Though she’d never before seen a still, she knew it to be a crude operation but a profitable one. This particular contraption looked to have taken some time, finely wrought by a cooper and reinforced with metal bands.
She paused behind a stand of mountain laurel. All her exertion from crawling over rocks and wading streams and unfamiliar woods had not assuaged her anger. She felt fairly white hot with it, fueled by Mourning’s sad tale and the disappearance of Titus.
Her own anxiety over the missing boy had left her sleepless and surly. Her dander rose higher when she realized that Hero must have been party to the recent ambush of the Shawnee, and she rued the future trouble their misdeeds were bound to cause the settlement.
She stepped out from behind the laurel, deliberately brushing against the heavy leaves. At the sound, Hero McClary whirled around, face strained. She knew what he feared. Shawnee. Or Wyandotte. Or Cherokee.
Would that it had been him rather than Neddy.
Seeing her, a mere woman, his face relaxed. Worse yet was the look on his shabby, bearded face—the smile that curled but held no warmth, only contempt and lust and arrogance.
She raised her gun slowly and her hands did not shake.
“Hero McClary, if you ever lay a hand on the woman or the boy again, I’ll bring every man in the settlement down on you.” She paused, surprised to find her voice as strong and steady as a man’s. “And if the men don’t come fast enough to suit me, I’ll shoot you myself.”
And with that, she blasted a hole in his still.