by Laura Frantz
As Christmas drew nearer, her thoughts turned to gift giving. She wanted Susanna and Ma Horn to have something memorable, even sentimental, something that couldn’t be had at the fort store or even Lexington. It was best, she decided, to give the gift of oneself or the work of one’s hands. And so she set to work, cutting pieces from the skirt of her second-best Briar Hill gown and a bit of the lace besides. Susanna dearly loved fancy things and an apron and pincushion would be both pretty and practical, embroidered with some words of friendship.
For little Lael she dug into her trunk and brought out the fashion doll the Rose Hill seamstress had given her. Its small wooden frame bore an exact replica of her rose gown, complete with lace sleeves and tiny glass buttons. For the boys, Will and Henry, she had Ransom’s toy tomahawk and a few flint arrowheads she’d found. Perhaps Pa’s remaining farm tools would go to Will, for all the trouble he had taken with her, and maybe Pa’s budget as well, if she could part with it.
At the bottom of her trunk was a new pair of ivory stockings held up with garter ribbons. On each she embroidered Ma Horn’s initials in scarlet thread. As she sewed, she dreamt of Christmases past. From the simplicity of a corn-husk doll in her childhood to the grand, candlelit firs of Briar Hill, the day was magic, wherever she happened to be. Should it be any less here without so much as a pine bough for decoration or a cup of mulled cider?
A gift for Ian required much thought . . . and prayer. A practical gift it must be, yet she couldn’t give it without a touch of sentiment besides. Night after night, her new spectacles perched on her nose, she sat at the trestle table, quill in hand, composing a book in gothic hand to make her former writing master proud.
In alphabetical order she painstakingly transcribed all the herbs and plants and roots known as healers, giving a detailed description of each, their benefits and dangers, and a sketch as well. From basswood to red clover to sassafras, she wrote down all she knew. For the cover she applied some rose petals she’d pressed in late summer, then signed her name in one corner.
Next she sharpened some scissors and cut her hair. Just a small piece, about the width of her little finger, taken from the nape of her neck after it had been brushed and braided. The long golden strand, tied at each end with a bit of moss green ribbon, would make a fine bookmark.
She sat back and examined her work with a smile. She’d not felt so satisfied in a very long time.
55
Toward dusk on Christmas Eve, a light snow began to fall. She put her head down on Neddy’s Bible, spectacles in hand, and went to sleep. She awoke to fading firelight and the tinkling of a bell. But the snow spitting against the shutter and a rising wind soon drowned out the sound.
Her imagination, she decided. Or had she simply dreamed of Christmas bells? A dream, she reckoned, for Tuck did not bark. She got up to add wood to the fire and heard it again. Bells. Not one but several, ringing out a blissful melody in the growing darkness.
Still Tuck did not bark. Without a thought for the cold she flung open the cabin door and stepped onto the frozen planks of the porch. In the yard Tuck was like a dog possessed, running in crazy circles, ears flying and eyes bright.
Around the burned barn came a figure in a blue coat on a beautiful bay horse. An unfamiliar hat was pulled low, hiding his features, yet she knew him instantly. A warm, lilting feeling clutched her heart. Ian Justus rode up to the porch, smiling at her through a snow suddenly gone wild. The bells about the bay’s neck quieted, and Tuck began to lick his boots.
Speechless, she stood, hands clasped behind her back.
“Since you’re no’ going tae ask, I’ll just tell you tae come,” he called. “Come as you are. But if you dinna hurry, we’ll miss Christmas.”
Christmas. She felt the delight of it clear to her toes. He leaned forward in the saddle, looking frozen. “Are you coming, Lael lass, or are you no’?”
“I—well . . .” She turned and flew into the cabin, smoothing her hair, banking the fire, and disposing of her uneaten supper all at once. Suddenly she reappeared at the door. “I don’t even know where we’re going!”
“Tae Cozy Creek. Till the new year.”
The prospect threw her into action and sent her rummaging through her trunk, stuffing her rose silk gown into a saddlebag along with a nightgown and the gifts she’d made. On a whim she grabbed the popcorn popper before she flew out the door again.
He was tying her mule behind the bay. She noticed his violin case hanging from his saddle, and her heart sang a note all its own. Before she could even step off the porch he was picking her up.
“Light as thistledown,” he teased. “’Tis what I suspected.”
She laughed at this for she had never been scrawny. With a bark, Tuck brought up the rear.
As they climbed the gentle mountain path the snow both blinded them with its brightness and lit their way. The solid warmth of his back and his wide-brimmed hat kept the wind from devouring her as she leaned against him.
And then, out of habit, came a dire, dreadful reminder. She had forgotten her gun. Despite this trespass she’d never felt safer or more serene. Truly, she felt she’d passed from darkness into light.
At the top of Cozy Creek the lights of the Bliss cabin shone like stars. The baying of Will’s hounds shattered the stillness, then the cabin door was flung open wide in welcome. Lael was at once relieved and rueful. Oh, but she hated for the night to end, with the magic of every snowflake shaken down from heaven all around them and the ride, not cold and long, but sheer bliss. Ian’s arms were snug around her, helping her down from the bay, bringing their time alone to an end.
“Come in!” shouted Susanna in her merry way. “You must be near froze and starved half to death. Supper’s waitin’.”
Behind her, filling the door frame, was Will, puffing contentedly on a pipe, two of the children entwined about his legs. Inside, a roaring fire sent their shadows dancing about the room. Susanna and the children had draped laurel leaves on strings and they gleamed waxy and bright, while the scent of candles competed with the smoky smell of roasting goose. Susanna hugged her hard in welcome, and Lael realized just how long it had been.
“Lael Click’s become a stranger,” Will said with a grin. “Cavortin’ about with her remedies and forsakin’ her friends. We’d hoped the competition with Doc Justus would change all that.”
“It might yet,” she answered, shedding her buffalo robe.
Ian was removing his coat as well and stood looking at her so intently she knew something was wrong. Her dress? This was one of her two work dresses, and the plainest of the two, with grease spots that refused to budge despite repeated scourings with lye. Or maybe it was her hair—damp and bedraggled and completely free of its pins so that it hung in wild waves down her back. Or her shoes! Oh, law! She stared at her stocking feet in mortification. A double layer of stockings . . . but no shoes!
Deep down, from somewhere in his belly, Will Bliss began to laugh. Susanna followed, clutching her sides, then Ian as well. “You could say we were in a wee bit of a hurry tae get here,” he admitted as Lael finally broke into laughter herself.
“Wet feet never hurt a body,” Will said with a wink. “Besides, the doctor here will take care of you.”
Susanna skirted the table, so heavily laden it seemed to list, and motioned for them to sit. “Lael, set out the bread. Will, you can pour the cider. Doctor, you’ll have to fend off the least ’uns for a place.”
Little Lael, pink-cheeked from the novelty of company, was in a fit of giggles brought on by Ian’s carrying her like a keg of powder under his arm. She insisted on sitting at his knee until Susanna intervened and she squirmed into place between him and Lael.
Surveying the table before her and the people all around her, Lael felt such a rush of gratitude she wanted to weep. What had become of her? Soft as mush, she rebuked herself, bowing her head to hear Will’s prayer.
But what of Ma Horn? Lael asked after her as the dishes were passed.
“Ma Horn,” Ian said, “is making merry with Colonel Barr and Airy Phelps.”
Susanna chuckled at this. “Making merry with the likes of Philo Barr? Now that I would like to see. Though Airy Phelps is a merry old widow woman if ever there was one.”
“Perhaps the colonel will be a changed mon come the New Year,” said Ian with a grin, lifting his mug of cider in a toast. “Keep good company and ye will be counted one of them, so the Scots say.”
They laughed, and talk turned to more banal matters. There was no fresh settlement news and the hope was that everyone in Kentucke could rest easy for Christmas. Indians weren’t known to be winter raiders, though reports of trouble still trickled through the settlements despite the intermittent snows.
Will scratched his beard. “I heard there’s been some ruckus upriver with the Shawnee raidin’ flatboats and the like. I was goin’ to ask the doctor if Colonel Barr—”
Lael felt a woozy rush of alarm and kept her eyes on her plate as Susanna scolded, “Oh, hush about trouble. Tonight we’re together, safe and sound, and trouble seems far off. Let’s talk of better things to come.”
Will winked at her. “Like spring and calvin’ time?”
She gave an unusual blush and Lael stole a glance at her friend knowingly. Even Ian smiled as he reached for more cider.
“And what of you, Lael?” Susanna asked. “What are your plans come the new year?”
Lael paused and took up her knife to butter a biscuit. Did she look as scattered as she felt? “I don’t rightly know . . . not yet.” True enough. “I thought I might leave for a spell. Finally visit my mother and Ransom.” She kept her eyes down and was relieved when Will asked Ian the same.
“Forting up,” he said simply.
Susanna looked pensive as if keeping some secret. “Spring’ll bring about some changes in the settlement, I reckon. Don’t you agree, Doctor?”
They exchanged a glance, though he said nothing. But hearing it, Lael knew.
Olivia. In the spring when the dogwood was flowering and the sarvis berries were ruby red, Olivia was to come to Kentucke. Contemplating it, Lael felt like all the breath had been knocked out of her. Knowing made her own uncertain future that much harder to bear.
That first night they stayed up till midnight, sampling Will’s blackberry wine and talking among themselves. Susanna was expecting her fourth child in spring and wanted both the doctor and Lael to attend her. The new year, Ian told them, would indeed bring a new county to Kentucke in honor of Lael’s father. Colonel Barr had only lately received official word of this and had asked that the news be passed on to Lael. Hearing it by the fire, among friends, Lael felt a deep glow of pride. The tide of conversation shifted to Pa as Will and Susanna recounted stories of his exploits, with Lael adding or detracting as they went, her lingering grief softened by their friendship.
And yet the evening soon came to an end, with Will and Susanna joining their sleeping children in the loft and Ian disappearing behind a makeshift partition of coverlets hiding a corner bed. As for Lael, a pallet beneath a window suited her fine, stuffed full of clean straw and graced with a feather pillow and Susanna’s best quilt.
At half past midnight the only sound was the wind blowing an icy breath against the shutter and the logs settling in the fire. It was plumb unnerving, Lael thought, to have Ian Justus lying so close. She lay fully clothed atop the pallet, baiting sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. Perhaps neglecting her nightly ritual was the trouble. Silently, on stocking feet, she left her bed.
A fire always drew her, and this one was especially enticing, warming the plank floor directly in front, glowing golden on the smooth hearthstones till they looked polished, even wet. Hoping the heat would lull her to sleep, she sat as close as she dared. Fragments of the evening’s conversation echoed in her head . . .
Click, show us your pretty daughter . . . let down your hair.
To Lael’s dismay, Will had recounted this tale over blackberry wine. But how had he known? She’d never spoken of it to anyone, not Susanna nor Simon. But there it was, out in the open, the stuff of legend. Hearing it afresh, she wanted to slip under the table. Ian said not a word during the telling, and she dared not look at him.
Law, but she could add a few more tales of her own, but they would hardly believe her.
She let down her hair now as she’d done then, pulling the pins loose and letting the heavy locks fall. Her horsehair brush was old and missing some bristles, but the mother-of-pearl handle conformed to her hand, smooth and worn. Absently, she began to brush. One stroke . . . two . . . ten . . .
From the shadows came the slightest sound. Startled, she looked up and the brush fell to the floor. Ian sat in the shadows, in the same chair he’d occupied all evening. Had he never left? She had seen him go herself, but perhaps he found sleep as impossible as she. With a trembling hand she retrieved the brush and hurriedly braided her hair, gathering up the pins in her lap.
He said quietly, “Lael, what is happening between you and the Shawnee?”
She nearly flinched at the sound of her name, so softly spoken. It was just like him to come straight to the heart of the matter. Slowly, she sat back down and glanced anxiously at the loft. Could they be heard? But Ian kept his voice so low even she had to lean forward to make out his words.
“Why . . .” she began, uncertain. “Why do you want to know?”
“You are nae longer so lighthearted—so blithesome. Have you no’ seen him?”
She smoothed the wrinkled ruche of her skirt. “Not since fall.” The admission grieved her, but she wouldn’t give quarter to tears. Not this time.
He tread gently yet persistently. “Is there nae understanding between you?”
“Aye . . . nay.” Must she unlock her heart for this man? The silver bracelet lay hidden beneath her sleeve, warm against her skin. Not once had she been without it since he’d given it to her three months before.
The fire shifted and popped, and he leaned forward. For a fleeting moment she felt as if she was face to face with Captain Jack. Ian’s black hair, free of its usual tie, had grown longer since she’d last seen him and hung about his shoulders, framing his handsome, intense face. Her breath caught. What was happening here? She looked away, confused.
“He’s not come again for some time now, though he promised to return. But truly, what does it matter?”
“It matters more than you know.” The poignancy in his voice hurt her, and she felt the urge to stem his words with her fingertips, but he kept on. “I ken one day he’ll come for you and you’ll simply disappear. Withoot a word tae anyone. Withoot a trace.”
Put this way, it sounded so selfish, so unfeeling, if it ever did happen. “I—he—” she began, then stopped, contemplating all the uncertainties before her.
His voice dropped lower, yet more a whisper. “You’re needed here, Lael. The settlement needs you. I need you.”
She’d misheard him, surely. In the darkness, their eyes met. His face was partially hidden by shadows, but hers, framed by firelight, felt vulnerable and exposed. He got up and took a seat beside her at the hearth, shoulder to shoulder. “Colonel Barr asked me tae deliver this. A courier brought it just yesterday, but I forgot tae give it tae you till now.”
In his hands was a letter—addressed to her. The heavy seal had not yet been broken, and she recognized the bold but elegant scrawl of Briar Hill’s headmistress. She took it, searching in her pocket for her spectacles.
She felt a bit breathless. “You’ll have to read it to me. Please. I’ve forgotten my glasses.”
He took it back and broke the seal. Listening to the lilt of his voice, she became lost in the richness of his speech. Distracted as she was, she hardly heard the invitation in the letter, then sat slightly open-mouthed when it came. The school was offering her a position, he read. One of her instructors had recently passed away, and they were in need of a replacement. She could come to Briar Hill and begin at once, if she so desired.
Did surprise and relief show on her face? Surely it did, for he folded the letter and said a bit heatedly, “What can you be thinking?”
She looked up at him. “I did not write them asking for a situation.”
“Nae? Yet you are considering it. I see it in your face.”
“And what if I am?”
“A place for you—as a spinster teacher? Do you no’ ken what you do when you shut yourself away from life at some fancy school?”
“You make no sense.”
“The Master made you a Click, and a Click you’ll always be. You belong tae this place and these people.”
“I don’t belong here—you belong here,” she nearly hissed, as quietly as she dared. “I—I’m not the healer I thought I was. I don’t truly have the gift, but you do. You heal body. And spirit.”
“Nae. No’ I.” His eyes, so alive, so intensely blue, were lit by a fire that was not his own. “There is but one soul mender, Lael, and He is no mere man.”
“You speak of God.”
“Aye.”
“You know Him well.”
“He wants tae be known.” His eyes seemed to challenge her, and she faltered under his scrutiny. “Are you no’ a believer?”
“I know about religion.”
“That’s no’ what I am asking.”
“What are you asking?”
“Do you know of God’s forgiveness?”
“I—I have read about it in Scripture,” she murmured.
“But do you know of it—for yourself?”
“I—nay.” The admission pained her in a way she couldn’t fathom. She looked down at her hands and thought of how often they had held Neddy’s Bible, her heart and head full of questions.
“You must make a choice tae believe, Lael. His way or your way—you canna have both. Ask Him tae show you the truth.”
The truth. Though she had no name for it, that was what she longed for. The truth about God. The truth about herself. The truth about sin and forgiveness, prayer and eternity. Beside her, he said no more, but it seemed he was loath to leave her. Yet how could she possibly tell him all that was in her heart? Things she didn’t rightly understand herself?