The Cumberland Bride

by Shannon McNear

  And it was still their favorite story to tell, how Truth had fed Micah at gunpoint the first time she’d met him, on foot and starving from days of wandering the mountains.

  Thomas wasn’t sure who’d gotten the better end of that deal.

  Micah had made a very decent older brother too, all things considered. Thomas could not deny his affection for Truth, and hers for him.

  Crossing the southern spur of Holston Mountain, he slowed, breathing deeply of the laurel barely beginning to bloom. The sunlight fell in patches through the new leaves, oak and walnut and elm arching overhead. He hadn’t thought he’d missed this bit of country—but he realized now he had.

  Down into the valley and up over the next ridge he went, Ladyslipper scrambling over the rocks and finding her way as she always did. Once he descended the ridge, it was just another couple of miles over a road that once had been but a footpath—and then there, with the slope of a mountainside rising beyond, lay nestled the cabin and barn his papa had raised when they’d first come in ’73. The sunlight pooled, jewellike, in the greening of the trees and the new fields spreading to either side of the cabin.

  An unaccustomed tightness seized his throat. For a moment, he could not speak, then he swallowed and called out, “Halloo the house!”

  A knot of children—two in skirts and two in britches—emerged from the edge of the woods, watching. So much taller than when he’d seen them last—for that matter, the youngest of those was still in leading strings then. No one on the porch though, until he was well within sight as well. Truth herself stepped out, shading her eyes, then gave a whoop and ran to meet him.

  He dismounted, laughing, and caught her in a hug that lifted her off her feet. “Hie, big sister.”

  “Oh you!” She squeezed him so hard, it nearly hurt, laughing as well. When he set her down, mist-grey eyes met his own and crinkled. Both hands came up to frame his face. “Look at you! It’s been an age. Are you well? What brings you back?”

  And then the children were upon them. “Uncle Thomas! Uncle Thomas!”

  He embraced them all, overcome by the laughter and their welcome. “Here, stand back and let me have a look!”

  At last they disentangled themselves, still bouncing and fidgeting. Thomas, the oldest at twelve, named after him as he was named after a grandfather. Magdalene, not quite ten, and then Abraham and Rebecca, five and eight respectively.

  “Jacob and the baby are in the house, napping,” Truth said when the older ones were finished filling him in on their ages and latest adventures. “And Micah should be home—”

  “Long about now,” came a male voice, calling across the field.

  Beneath the brim of his plain felt hat, Micah’s teeth gleamed white against his dark beard, and though Thomas topped him by half a head, his embrace was every bit as hearty as Truth’s.

  “Can you stay long?” he added to the questions already asked.

  “A few days,” Thomas said. “Been carrying the post from Bean’s Station up the Wilderness Road, through Cumberland Gap and sometimes as far as Danville and Harrodsburg, but I’ve agreed to guide a party of settlers up that way. Will be meeting up with them in a week at Bean’s.”

  “Well, come on to the cabin,” Truth said. “We’ll be having supper before long.”

  The inside of the cabin looked so nearly the same, he wondered whether he’d stepped back to his own childhood. Finger to her lips, Truth beckoned him to the lean-to bedroom, and he peered in at the small boy, still in skirts, asleep on the bed. A bundle in a nearby cradle squeaked and waved a wee fist. “Ah, now,” Truth murmured, and scooped the baby into her arms. “It isn’t time for you to wake, but perhaps your uncle wouldn’t mind toting you a bit while I finish supper. Once I change your swaddling,” she added, slanting Thomas a smile.

  She accomplished that swiftly enough, both of them staying silent so as not to wake Jacob, and then tucked the tiny bundle into the crook of Thomas’s arm. “Here,” she murmured. “She’ll need to nurse before long, but meet your youngest niece, Constant.”

  Such a little thing. A smile pulled at Thomas’s mouth. “After Mama.”

  Truth nodded soberly. “It took me this long to work up the nerve for it.”

  Thomas shifted her more closely to his chest. “She’s a sweet bit.”

  “That she is.” Truth smiled again, brushing the baby’s brow with her fingertips, then turned away. “Now. Supper.”

  A half-made mound of biscuit dough lay on the table. As she sank her hands into the mess, gathering in the flour, Thomas was struck by the strands of silver amongst the dark peeking from her cap, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes.

  When had she begun looking like such a mama herself?

  He cleared his throat. “So what of the girls these days?”

  She slid him another smile, as if just remembering he was there. “Well. Patience and Daniel settled somewhere about Nashborough and seem to be doing just fine. Thankful and Joe are still up on the Clinch River—I believe, anyway, haven’t heard from her in long about a year—and one of the Clark boys is sparkin’ Mercy. Another wedding won’t be far off, I’m thinking.” Her pale gaze probed his. “And what about yourself? Any promise of a family of your own soon?”

  What was it about married women that they needed to have everyone else matched off as well? He shook his head. “Nope. Not looking for it either.”

  She smiled a little, her eyes falling to the babe who’d dropped off to sleep again, cradled against him. “You’d be a good papa. Always had the right touch with my young’uns.”

  “And I’m happy enough to keep it to your young’uns.”

  Her smile went sly. “You just haven’t found the right girl. One of these days, you’re going to meet one, get so attached that you won’t want to be without her.”

  Thomas snorted. “Like that would happen.” Gently bobbing the baby, he took a few steps across the floor and back. “To be honest, Truth, I’ve no interest in staying put. And I’d rather not leave a woman crying over me.”

  She stilled and regarded him gravely for a long minute. Thomas paced away again. The words sounded foolish now that he’d said them aloud.

  “We can’t avoid all the heartache,” she said softly.

  He could think of no answer to that, so he merely shrugged.

  “And if you try to shut it all out,” she went on, “you’ll also shut out love. And die a sad, lonely man.”

  “Like our grandpa?” He gritted his teeth. Some words seemed to just come without thought.

  She sniffed. “At least Grandma took the chance. We’d not be here, otherwise.”

  He shrugged again. “Sometimes…I feel like I was born twenty years too late. So many people moving west.”

  Another look. “So go farther.”

  He wanted to. God help him, he did. But something kept him here on the edge of the frontier, still working with, and for, the very people that made him feel so restless.

  The place he felt most alive was in the wilderness. But he still felt a need to be among his sisters, upon occasion, sore weakness though it be.

  He stayed for two days, savoring the young’uns chatter and the baby’s sweetness and trying not to look when Truth and Micah were openly affectionate, between bantering, just like the old days.

  ’Twas enough to make a body sick.

  Late on the second day, they all sat around the table at supper, talking and laughing. The children ran off to play and finish chores, and only Truth, Micah, and Thomas’s sister Mercy remained with him. After a lull in the laughter, Truth lifted her head and gave Thomas a soft smile. “’Tis so good seeing you. When do you think you’ll be home again?”

  Something caught him squarely in the chest, and he rose and paced away a few steps. “Reckon it ain’t home anymore,” he said, finally.

  And it hadn’t been, not since those two years with the Shawnee.

  Mercy blinked and looked away, but pulling at his pipe, Micah made no comment. He under
stood well enough, Thomas knew.

  Truth’s gaze held steady. “Nay, I expect not. You always did have more of a restless spirit since Papa died.”

  She said it without heat, but the implication still stung. “Just haven’t found where I’m supposed to be yet.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” she said, just as soft. The smile returned. “The door’s always open either way. You know that. Just don’t forget us, you hear?”

  His throat thickened unaccountably at that. There was a scrape of chair against the floor, and when he turned back, she was right there, slipping her arms around his waist. “We’ll miss you.”

  He grunted, embracing her in return, cheek against her hair. “Likely not.”

  A giggle shook her lean frame.

  The first day of their grand adventure dawned grey and cool, threatening rain.

  Kate hoped that did not portend worse things. Or that Papa would delay their departure for another day.

  As it was, he and Mama had bickered nearly without ceasing since he’d rejoined them. Perhaps bickered was too strong a word. Spirited discussions might be better, over everything from provisions to mode of transportation to where they planned to settle. Mama was unhappy that Papa had confirmed other travelers’ insistence that a wagon could not yet be taken over the Wilderness Road, at least not without great hardship and possibly taking the thing apart in the roughest spots. The road itself had been worn wide enough by twenty years’ use, for certain. It was certainly wide enough from Bean’s Station to Powell Valley. Mama wanted to try it anyway. Papa doggedly insisted not, shaking his great, shaggy blond head. Yet Papa was the one insisting they make the journey. “A beautiful land,” he said, more than once. “You cannot imagine. Richer even than the Shenandoah Valley.”

  But when Papa said they must take packhorses or nothing, Mama’s eyes widened and her nostrils flared.

  “But our furnishings and goods,” she said.

  “New furnishings I can build,” Papa said, his German accent becoming thicker as it always did when he was agitated. “And new goods will come to us when the road is improved.”

  “If the road will be improved with time, then why can we not wait to make the journey?”

  “All the best land will be gone if we wait. Our children will not wait to grow, ja? We should go now.”

  “But…Indians.”

  And then Kate realized. Could it be that Mama was secretly afraid?

  “Thus why I hire an extra scout,” Papa said, his voice dropping back to more even tones.

  And at the word scout, Kate’s thoughts flew back to that day at the tavern. The tall, severe young man who’d risen so abruptly from his chair and walked toward her with a single-minded focus that she couldn’t help but be startled by. His pale blue eyes and deep voice.

  What had those eyes seen? What stories could that voice tell?

  Perhaps there would be opportunity on the journey to find out.

  Papa and Mama had traded the same arguments the night before, back and forth, in their room just below Kate’s. But this morning they’d arisen, rolled up their bedding, supervised the household in doing the same, and carried on as if none of the spirited discussions had ever happened.

  The beds, the tables and chairs, all furniture was to stay behind. Kate folded the last of the linens and laid them in the center of a blanket. Her clothing had already been similarly packed because the trunks would not go. Another thing Mama and Papa had…discussed.

  Her personal things—brush, pins, journal in progress—were bundled into a haversack to be slung across her body. Papa had warned she’d likely have to walk much of the way and save the horses for their baggage and younger ones. The rest of her belongings were already downstairs, being packed for the journey.

  Their journey. After months at Bean’s Station, they’d be leaving. Today.

  A rap came at the open door, and her brother Johann, tall and gangly at fifteen, leaned into the room. One lock of gold fell over his blue eyes. “Mama says make haste. And that I’m to carry anything extra you have for the packhorses.”

  “This is the last one.” She stood back from the bundle she’d just closed up and laid on the bed. “Is Mama decided yet about the ticks?”

  Johann gathered up the packet and somehow mangled it in the process. “Papa has bargained for extra provisions in exchange for leaving them.”

  Kate was not surprised. For all Mama’s strong nature, Papa often had his way. But it would have been nice to have at least a shuck tick for a pallet. Papa said that sleeping in beds had ruined them for travel and they’d all do well to embrace the hardship.

  She released a sigh. Sometimes his former soldier habits were a worse hardship than anything else.

  The room now lay bare except for furnishings. She turned a slow circle. So many hours, so many words written here. Would she even have opportunity over the next few months? It was bad enough that the bulk of her writings had to be bundled with her clothing, both to keep them safe and because the stack was too thick for the haversack.

  She could only pray it truly was the safest place.

  The voices downstairs rose to a pitch that could only be called insistent, so with another sigh and a last glance around the tiny attic room, she slung her haversack over her shoulder and around her body, gathered her skirts, and made her way down the narrow stairs.

  The rest of the house bore a similarly forlorn air. All that was going had been carried out, it seemed, and all that was left was for Kate to take her woolen shawl and simple straw hat from their pegs by the front door. The hat she tied on at the nape of her neck, beneath the pinned and cap-covered knot of her hair, and the shawl she draped loosely about her shoulders.

  Kate stepped aside for Dulsey and Betsy, who carried a basket between them, then followed them outside. A brisk breeze nearly took her hat, and she angled her head against it while tightening the shawl.

  Despite the wind, fog obscured all but the nearest buildings. More than a dozen saddle and packhorses stood along the road, in varying states of readiness. Papa stood talking with one of several men in frontiersman dress—oh wait, was that the post rider she’d talked with two weeks ago? Though his hat brim obscured his face, when he turned, the same dark hair lay in a braided tail down the back of his hunting coat.

  It was curious, the differences in appearance and dress among the men she’d seen at their former home in the upper Shenandoah Valley and here at Bean’s Station. Papa himself, sporting whiskers now, usually went clean shaven, but Mama told how when she’d met him, he wore a thick mustache, the habit many of his fellow Hessians affected. Many men of fashion still curled and powdered their hair, while some insisted on a neat club and side rolls. Men of the frontier most often either simply tied theirs back, wore it loose, or braided it as this one did.

  Even more curious were the changes in ladies’ fashion. Mama decried the new high-waisted, short-sleeved styles as hoydenish, but Kate wished she could at least try them on. No arguing, however, that her sensible jacket and petticoats were much more practical for traveling, and Mama said old-style stays offered better support than the new.

  Kate tore her thoughts back to the present and surveyed the line of packhorses again. They’d already met the two other families traveling with them. Papa spoke in terms of how many men they had, and how many guns, and she supposed those were important enough, but Kate was more interested in how many children each family had, where they traveled from, and what they hoped to do when they reached their intended destination.

  “Kate, is all your baggage ready?” Mama’s voice drew her around. “Yes? Then take Stefan, please.”

  She handed off the shawl-wrapped bundle of Kate’s youngest brother—old enough to walk but they daren’t let him with all this commotion—and bustled off again in the direction of Papa and the packhorses. Overseeing their family’s loads, no doubt.

  Kate would rather dandle Stefan and keep him out of harm’s way.

  The tiny boy gri
nned at her around a slobbery finger, then took his wet hand out of his mouth and patted her cheek. Laughing, Kate wiped the hand and then her cheek with a corner of her shawl. “Silly child. You’ll have us both sodden before we’re even properly on our way.”

  “This is my wife, Jemima Lytton Gruener, and Jemima, this is Thomas Bledsoe, the scout I have hired.”

  The woman’s officious air dissolved momentarily with a flush. “I am most grateful for your services, Mr. Bledsoe. Thank you for agreeing to come along.”

  Thomas gave a respectful bob. “My pleasure, Mrs. Gruener.” It wasn’t, but he knew to be civil under the circumstances.

  She beamed, nodded again, and turned to her husband. “The packing…?”

  This was not his purview. Mr. Gruener excused himself and moved away with his shorter, slightly plump wife, and Thomas took the opportunity to survey the group bustling around him.

  A cluster of men conferred about the packing, about half completed, and two young women with babes in arms stood over beyond them. A pair of squealing children, still in skirts, chased each other about, mostly within arms’ reach of the women.

  A girl, somewhere between childhood and womanhood, stood with a Negro woman near a pile of belongings. And not too far away from them was the young woman he’d met at the tavern, dandling a toddler on her hip.

  Her own child or—someone else’s? Something between relief and disappointment pricked him, but he shrugged it away. No concern of his whether she was married or not.

  ’Twould make things much simpler if she were.

  His gaze roamed the scene again, skimming past to hilltops draped in mist, but the baby’s giggle and the girl’s answering chuckle drew him back. Both were completely absorbed in each other, the baby riveted by the silly faces the young woman made in between peals of her own laughter.