Kate sighed and leaned into him, one arm snugging tight around his middle, both of them swaying to Ladyslipper’s stride. Her form was soft against his back, made more so by her choice of the Shawnee clothing while they traveled. More practical than the gown Mrs. Foster had given her, and more convenient than any other with proper stays, which she’d confessed she couldn’t yet face, still being chafed from wearing her old ones for days on end.
Thomas found her so darling in the Shawnee outfit, he didn’t mind.
“Must we rush back as quickly as we can?” she asked. “Not that I’m not concerned for my family, but—”
He thought of the difficulty sure to be had of stealing away alone once they reached the others, and of the almost complete lack of privacy in the camp itself. “Nay. We can take our time. My only urgency at the moment is finding Carrington and relaying what I’ve learned about plans for attack on General Wayne’s new fort.”
“Ahh, so that’s what you and Flying Clouds were discussing.”
“Aye.” He clasped his arm across hers. “Among other things.” He sighed.
She tightened her hold on him briefly. “So what was it he said to you at the last?”
Thomas thought through the bits that he’d shared with her already, and so much more that he still ought to. “That he still considered me his son, and we’re welcome back any time.”
Kate was quiet for a long moment. “’Tis extremely generous of him.”
“Aye. I almost wish—”
She stirred. “What?”
“I wish we could bring him to live down here, with us. He seems weary of the constant war.”
“Maybe…someday…we could.”
“The Shawnee nation plans to go to battle before the month is out. Not sure if Flying Clouds will go along, but if he survives, maybe we could send him word. Once we know where we plan to settle.”
“I’d like that,” Kate said.
He lifted her hand from his waist and brought it to his mouth. How was it this girl could seem such a complete match for him, after such a short time? And that he felt such a deep connection with her already? As if…his heart had found its home, at last.
They caught up to Carrington at a tavern in Lexington. Thomas determined to ask at every establishment on their way, and Kate bravely trailed along without complaint, even when it meant traversing every tawdry street in the sprawling settlement that already boasted itself a city.
The older woodsman rose to shake Thomas’s hand. “Well, here you are! We’ve heard quite the tale about you.” His gaze slid past Thomas to Kate, with a speculative gleam.
“None of it true, I wager,” Thomas said, then reached back a hand for her. She slid hers into it and stepped forward. “My wife, Kate. Lately Katarina Gruener.”
Carrington’s jaw dropped for an instant. “It is true then. The girl from Bean’s Station, whose family you led up over the gap and to Springfield.”
“We didn’t make it quite to Springfield,” Thomas said then smiled. “But aye. She was taken by the Shawnee, and I got her back. We were married just two days ago.”
The older man’s eyebrows climbed even higher, then with a half bow, Carrington shook Kate’s hand as well. “I wish you both very happy, Mrs. Bledsoe.”
She flushed prettily and smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Carrington. ’Tis good to meet you.”
They sat, ordered food and drink, and Thomas launched into telling what he’d learned.
“The Shawnee are planning to move against the fort by month’s end. Most of the town will pick up and set up a war camp elsewhere. They think it’ll be an easy win because of St. Clair’s defeat, but—” Thomas shook his head.
Carrington nodded slowly. “This is really no more than what we’ve guessed already. And I think General Wayne is more prepared than they know. But—thank you for sharing it.”
“I tried—” Thomas hesitated. “I tried to dissuade them. Many are so weary of war, but most I think are even more weary of being pushed back, over and over. The younger warriors especially are spoiling for a fight.”
“Well, it’s a fight they’ll get,” Carrington said.
The bitterness rising in his throat at the memory of Crying Bird’s fury, Thomas idly rubbed a gouge in the table. Beside him, Kate looked just as somber. Likely thinking of the same thing.
The tavern maid brought a platter with mugs of ale, bowls of stew, and several slabs of rough bread. They all set to without comment.
“What plans have you now?” Carrington asked.
Thomas exchanged a glance with Kate. “Return to her family. See them settled on their land over past Baird’s Town.” He scooped stew with a chunk of bread. “Beyond that, not sure.”
Carrington took a pull of his ale. “Could use another man in Indian Affairs. If you’re interested.”
Thomas eyed him. “Does that mean protecting the United States government’s interests or that of the Indians?”
The other man stilled, met his gaze with a hardness Thomas did not like but expected. “I reckon that would be up to you.”
“I’ll think about it,” Thomas said.
“Fair enough.”
They finished the meal with talk about other things, then Carrington excused himself and left the tavern.
“I do not care for that man at all,” Kate whispered.
He squeezed her hand, where he held it beneath the table. “Me neither.”
“Are you seriously considering his offer?”
Thomas shook his head slightly. “Don’t know. Might…later.”
She leaned toward him. “I’ll be praying about it.”
“And so,” he said slowly, “will I.”
June was growing old, and the full moon had come and gone by the time they meandered down Boone’s Trace and up the western branch of the Wilderness Road toward Danville. They’d dawdled enough and needed to return to Kate’s family and the rest of the traveling party.
But when they reached the station where the party had camped when Kate and Thomas were taken captive, they found another group in temporary residence there. Kate’s family and the others had moved on. “Decided to press on to the land they’d all purchased,” the station owner told Thomas. “Jenkins and his team are capable enough, I reckon, even with Injuns.”
So he and Kate wasted no more time but pressed down the road to Springfield and beyond that very afternoon. Having provisioned well enough at Danville, they waited until sunset to camp and tucked up in a thicket with no fire, both Ladyslipper and the Shawnee horse tethered nearby. Curled up together, loosely entwined with both blankets around them as protection from mosquitos, they lay listening to the whip-poor-wills and the sound of each other’s breathing.
“What if,” Kate whispered, “what if Papa’s angry that we already married.”
Thomas huffed. “He’d be more angry, I wager, if we weren’t.” He shifted in order to give her a long kiss that left them both breathless. “Because with all these nights alone, I’m not sure I could have held out—”
With a laugh, she was the one to swoop in for the kiss this time, and for a while all questions were lost in a delight they still could hardly believe they found in each other.
But with daylight, Kate’s questions came sweeping back. They were near enough to where Papa had purchased the land, by Thomas’s reckoning, to be there by nightfall, or to catch up with them wherever they’d camped—and so far everyone they inquired of affirmed that yes, the Grueners and their party had moved on up the trace.
“He warned me so many times, to leave you alone…let you do what he’d hired you to,” she fretted.
Thomas chuckled, long and low. “Did he now?”
“Thomas…”
She felt him sober a little.
“Likely, he saw, or felt, something between us already as well… enough to know, maybe, how it could be between us.” He hesitated. “And from what he said to me, things were hard enough between him and your mama’s father…”
&nb
sp; That was something she’d have to ask Mama and Papa later, for certain. And then, with the sudden understanding of what it meant to be fully married—
“Oh Thomas.”
“What, sweetheart?”
“We—” She collapsed against him, wrapping both arms around him as tightly as she could.
“What’s that for?” he said, laughing again.
“I’m truly yours, am I not? And you—are mine.”
“‘I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine,’” he murmured.
“‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine,’” Kate returned.
Thomas hummed deep in his chest, and she could only chuckle in response.
“That would be why he warned you away,” Thomas said.
Evening shadows were grown long by the time they found the path that, by all Thomas and Kate both knew, led to the tract of land Karl Gruener had purchased. It had lately been widened enough to accommodate a wagon, if need be, and as they continued, the sounds of children shrieking and laughing came to their ears.
Thomas pulled Ladyslipper to a halt, and the Shawnee horse beside them, and glanced back at Kate. Her eyes wide, lips parted, her breath came in small gasps.
“Your family loves you, sweet Kate,” he murmured. “They’ll be overjoyed to see you, regardless.”
She seemed to collect herself, shut her mouth, and looked at him, eyes swimming in tears. “They love you as well.”
Trembling, she clung to his shoulders, but as soon as they rounded a bend that brought a rough clearing into sight, with several folk moving about a pair of tents and the beginnings of a cabin, Kate didn’t even wait for him to stop the horses. She slid down and ran, squealing, toward the midst of her family.
And he couldn’t stop his own laughter welling up, nor the blurring of his eyes, though he swept a sleeve across his face and pretended it was just the sultry summer evening. Kate was caught in a knot of young’uns—Stefan, Betsy, and Jemmy—and then Jemima and Dulsey came running, and Karl himself. All of them, laughing, weeping, shouting with joy, swaying this way and that—
Only his own sisters and their young’uns would match the like of it.
He dismounted, hanging back to let them have their reunion, but then Kate burst out of the midst of them and came running back to him. And they all followed.
She got there first, her cheeks wet but grinning radiantly, and seized his hand. “Mama, Papa! Everyone. Thomas and I are married!”
And another round of jubilation broke out as they all surrounded him, hugging and pummeling and in general making him one of theirs.
Over the heads of the others, Karl Gruener stood back, the rough former Hessian weeping without shame, grinning fiercely, and nodding his most enthusiastic approval at both Thomas and Kate.
One last thing I need do before we settle,” Thomas had said.
Her heart pounded in her throat. Again. Had she not enough of adventure this summer to fill an entire book of stories? And it was both Papa and Thomas who’d insisted she sit down every spare moment and record all that had happened—including Thomas’s own tale, which she herself had become part of.
She rode beside him, this time on Trillium, with the pony they’d simply taken to calling Shawnee carrying baggage, as they headed back down the road that had brought them here.
Only for a while, Thomas warned. He wanted to return to her family, help get the big dogtrot cabin finished and weathertight before winter.
But first—first he wanted her to meet his sisters.
One lived up on the Clinch River, with her husband and a pair of little ones. Thankful, she was called. The next oldest, Thomas had warned, called Patience, they might not be able to meet, but he’d sent word ahead for both of them to come. The youngest, Mercy, they’d almost certainly get to meet, and the family matriarch, called Truth, would be waiting, and gladly.
Thomas watched her now, smiling, those pale eyes all too knowing as she gave attention to simply breathing in and out. “I’ll tell you the same thing you said to me,” he said at last. “They’ll love you. They can’t help but love you.”
She could only look at him helplessly.
“Remember Flying Clouds,” he said softly.
Across a creek then, and up over a rise—and there was the prettiest farmstead, against the backdrop of steep mountainside, bluish green in the summer heat.
Thomas rose on his toes in the saddle. “Halloo the house!”
A lean, gowned form appeared on the porch. Three or four children swarmed from the woods behind, and a bearded man stepped from the barn. Thomas nudged Ladyslipper to a trot, but Kate held Trillium back. A wave of dizziness swept over her.
Ah, this was not a good time for that!
Swallowing hard, she drew a deep breath. Thomas fairly flung himself off of Ladyslipper and swooped the woman into a hug that had them twirling around the yard.
“Thomas! What in the world—”
Kate could not help but grin at the mingled exasperation and joy in the woman’s voice. And as her attention fastened on Kate, the eyes widening, Kate could see the resemblance between her and Thomas.
Oh yes, this was her husband’s sister.
She pulled Trillium to a stop, and Thomas was there with a steadying hand as she swung down. She felt his trembling joy as he drew her to his side.
“Truth,” he said, “this is my wife, Kate.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
All authors, I suppose, look back at a story and think of all they could, or should, have written. I once heard that novelists can expect to only use about 1 percent of all the research they’ve done for a book, and I can attest to the truth of that. When I started digging into this particular slice of history, tucked in between the American Revolution and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, I didn’t expect to be so immediately drawn in to the precarious world of westward expansion, although it’s the next logical step after the colonial era and the Revolutionary War. I’d studied the history of the American War for Independence intensively for more than a decade at this point and found my knowledge of that time not only useful, but also crucial for understanding the events unfolding over the next decade or two.
During my study of the American Revolution, sparked by my interest in a particular facet of British camp and family life during that era, my husband often teased me about being a Tory sympathizer. It’s true that history is so much more complex and nuanced than we think. So much wrong is committed on both sides of a conflict, most times, and no nation is without its share of bloodguilt in some form or another. But historical events are told through the filter of individuals and their unique perspectives and prejudices, so when I write a story, I do my best to capture that individual mind-set as it might have been without imposing modern sensibilities.That includes attitudes toward native peoples, slavery, or at what age and under what terms marriage might be acceptable. So if you run into something while reading this story that makes you cringe in one of these areas, please keep in mind that we are all very much products of our own time.
That said, let me highlight a few areas of study I found interesting but was unable to further expand on within the story itself.
When these characters first presented themselves to me, I found them not only easily rooted within the overall family history of Daughters of the Mayflower, but also deeply rooted in their own family histories. I first heard Kate’s voice reciting her father’s experience with the British army early in the Revolution—an event I found my interest and imagination captured by from the account, told by Colonel Rawdon himself, in the pages of a volume that in turn tells the story of the American Revolution from the British viewpoint (Redcoats and Rebels, see bibliography). Other accounts give provenance for the possibility of a young Hessian soldier falling in love with the daughter of his host family and later deserting his military duty. Countless family histories trace the migration of peoples from the Eastern Seaboard, down the Great Road along the Shenand
oah Valley, into the Carolina backcountry and what is now eastern Tennessee.
I was also delighted to get to return to the Bledsoe family, which I’d first discovered during my research for the novella “Defending Truth” (A Pioneer Christmas Collection, Barbour Publishing). This particular branch of the real-life Bledsoe family provided historical backdrop for the heroine of that story, and then again for this one. My interest was initially sparked by the coincidence of name between Anthony Bledsoe, who served as captain of the home guard during the foray by the Overmountain Men in answer to Ferguson’s threats in the fall of 1780, and the last name of one of my daughter’s fellow ballet students. Come to find out, after spending some time tracing the Bledsoes’ migration from Virginia, through Tennessee, then into and across Missouri, they’re probably related.
The issue of slavery was so interwoven with the fabric of society that most gave it no thought. So many people didn’t even own slaves, and I debated long before deciding that Dulsey, the African American woman who serves as nanny and second mother to the Gruener children, was a freedwoman and not enslaved. Some might find fault with that, some would doubtlessly find fault no matter how I portray this issue—whether I have more characters of various ethnicities or fewer—but all I can say is that I can fit only so many things into the scope of one story. I did touch on the fact that the native tribes also took and used slaves, and by several accounts they liked in particular to take captives of African Americans because of the status it gave them within their own people. Again, I must portray folk as they would have been in their own time.
Another theme I found I had to treat with a light hand was that of the church. Lest anyone take my comment about the Baptists as an insult, let me assure you, I grew up in a Baptist church and owe that upbringing with much of my knowledge of scripture and church history. I’ve found it both interesting and amusing, however, that early Baptists emerge in colonial history as quite the upstart group whose emotionalism and zeal were looked askance upon by other, more settled, denominations…rather how modern Baptists have tended to view the Pentecostals and charismatics of our day. That same zeal helped carry the Word of God into the heart of the wilderness. I’d hoped to make some reference to the Travelling Church but could find no way to do so without sacrificing story flow, and the faith of scattered individuals was just as important as larger moves such as the Travelling Church.
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