Keturah

by Lisa T. Bergren

  In response, the jungle seemed to quiet. But still there was no answer. Please, Lord. Please let her be all right. Please … “I am coming, Verity!” he cried, wanting to reassure the girl. “Shout to me again!”

  “Here! I am here!” she yelled back, a bit closer now. He shoved through a patch of coco plum to his left, the mud having lifted several boulders in his direct path. He had a brief, horrible thought of Keturah under the deep mud against the rocks—caught beneath—and shoved it hurriedly away.

  Surely not. Please, Lord, no …

  He called Verity’s name again on the other side of the brush, and finding that free of the mud, he made better time down the hill. In minutes he had found her, climbing toward him. She fell into his arms. “Oh, Gray,” she sobbed, trembling. “Where is Keturah?”

  “I do not know. Were you not together at first?”

  “Yes,” she said, sniffing. “She had my hand for a bit. Then she pushed me toward a tree and we lost each other. There was so much water, Gray. So much mud. It sent us tumbling.”

  Tumbling. Was she unconscious, then? Knocked against a tree or rock?

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “No. At least nothing that won’t heal in a few days … Never mind that. Let us find Ket.”

  They agreed to each take a side of the mud, moving their way downward. “Surely she cannot be much farther than where you came to rest,” Gray said, already making his way across the twenty feet of sludge.

  “I don’t know,” Verity said. “We were moving so fast … she might have gone another fifty paces in the time I was able to hold to that tree limb. Or a hundred. My memory of it is a bit dim.”

  “For good reason,” Gray muttered. The poor girl had been tossed about by a mudslide that had carried her hundreds of feet downhill! Perhaps she too had suffered a bump or two on the head. And given the dark and rain …

  “Keturah!” he called, this time controlling his voice. He didn’t want his own panic to ignite Verity’s.

  “Ket!” she echoed.

  By the sound of it, it didn’t matter what he did or how he called to Keturah. Her sister was feeling every bit of the terror he was. It was so terribly dark. Even with the moonlight, now clear of the storm clouds, it was difficult to see much more than the outline of trees and brush. How were they to find her? If she was partially covered by mud? Unconscious?

  “Prayer before panic,” a vicar once told him. “Always the best choice, my boy.”

  Lord, he groaned inwardly, settle my heart. Help me to think. To see. Help me to find her, Father.

  The sense of urgency and alarm continued to waft through him. Was that from God, not just his own desire to have Ket back in his arms? Or rather the ability to pull her into his arms? How he’d longed for it. Tonight as he watched her speak to one person after another, he’d jealously wished that they were alone, just them on her front porch.

  Truly he’d never met any woman like her in all his life. There was not another white woman on even Nevis who would work as hard as she had on Tabletop, and in turn on Teller’s Landing. Together, planting their fields … the thought of watching the cane grow in the coming months, the harvest … and now? Was it over?

  Was Keturah gone?

  Gray stopped and bent partially over, wondering if he was going to be sick. But no. She could not be dead. She could not. There was too much life ahead of them. Too much for them to share. Beyond the plantations. Between them.

  Please, God. Please, please … “Keturah!” he bellowed.

  Again all was silent.

  The mud diverged here, divided by a huge mango tree. He paused, panting, hand on a tree limb, and looked down the far side. It was steeper and moved into a gaut—one of the island’s many ravines carved by centuries of runoff.

  He leaned over and shouted again. Waited, holding his breath.

  Please, Keturah. Please, darling. Call out. Let me hear you.

  But there was nothing.

  Lord? Lord! Help me!

  Verity called to her too, sounding choked by sobs. He stepped toward her, thinking he might cross the river of mud again to give her some comfort, to search together, then stopped.

  Gray looked back and forth, carefully studying each line of rock, of earth—anything that might be a body. He could hear Verity crying. Again he turned to go to her, but then stopped, as if feeling a visceral pull in the other direction.

  “Hold on, Verity,” he called. “Stay right there and I’ll be with you in a moment. Just let me search this small area over here.”

  Keturah had been holding Verity’s hand, the two of them trying to make it to higher ground together when a wave of water and mud pushed her from her feet. They had slid together for some distance when she was able to shove Ver toward a tree. Ket somersaulted and twisted, hit the base of what she thought was a palm and fairly bounced off it, carried by a virtual slide of water and slick mud. She hit another tree and this time managed to grasp a palm branch, swinging enough out of the forceful gush of water to claw her way to safety.

  But then the mud came from the other side of the tree and rammed her against a rock, she thought. The memory was dim. All she knew now was that she had awakened, and she was pinned. Barely able to breathe. One of her legs was caught beneath a large rock and in an awkward, painful position. Worse was the bigger rock lodged against her chest.

  She concentrated on breathing as shallowly as she could—anything to get some oxygen into her lungs. She was growing dizzy, but she thought she could hear someone calling.

  “Here!” she cried. “Here!”

  But each one was little more than a whisper, her throat raspy and weak.

  “Keturah!” called a man.

  Gray. He was close.

  “Gray!” she tried. But again it was painfully quiet. “Help me!”

  She thought she could hear him, grunting, growling in frustration as he shoved aside a branch. Then closer.

  “Keturah!” he shouted, so close that it startled her.

  “Gray,” she tried again, praying he would know she was here. That she was so near. “Gray,” she whispered. Then she needed to concentrate on the next breath. And the next …

  When he next called, he was beside her. Her eyes drifted to the right, and she could see him then, his fine features a silhouette in the moonlight. He lifted his hands and rubbed his face, plainly in anguish.

  “Please, God,” he whispered. “Please. Help me find her.” He let out a sound of agony. “Oh, my love. My love. Where are you?”

  Keturah willed herself to keep concentrating on the next breath, and the next, when her heart made her want to hold it. Gray Covington … loved her?

  He turned slowly, and she thought, in that moment, that she had never seen a more magnificent man in her life. And it was not only that God had made him handsome. He moved her because she could see how much he cared for her. He wouldn’t have to say another word at all. She could see it as he turned in the moonlight … in the biting of his cheek, the agonized arch of his brows, the clawing of his hand at the neck of his shirt. He wanted nothing more than to find her. Because he loved her.

  She tried to swallow, but her mouth was painfully dry. “Gray,” she whispered. She moved her left hand. It was nearer to him, but was the only thing she could move. Perhaps if she could squeeze it through that opening there …

  “Gray,” she whispered again.

  She didn’t know if it was her movement or her final attempt at calling to him, or the Lord Almighty himself, but he turned and seemed to see her at last.

  “Keturah?” he breathed, rushing to her. “Ket!”

  She smiled as tears formed in her eyes, but again all she could concentrate on was the next breath, and the next …

  “Oh, my Ket, there you are!” he said, kneeling next to her, his fingers running over the curve of the cursed rock that pinned her. “I see,” he said to her silent plea. “I will get you out. Hold on, Ket. Hold on.”

  He pivoted, put a foot a
gainst the rock at her back, and pushed at the one atop her, but the rock would not budge. Grunting, he shifted and repositioned himself. Then with another tremendous shove, he sent the stone rolling away.

  She tentatively took her first free breath, and then another as he shoved the other rock from her leg. She could breathe. She could breathe!

  “She’s here!” he called. “Verity! She’s over here!” He sank down to his knees beside her. “Keturah, darling,” he said, taking her hand in his, “where are you hurt? Can you breathe well now? What of your leg?”

  His broad hands moved from her shoulders to her neck to her face, as if he intended to decide for himself.

  “I am all right,” she said in wonder, gingerly testing arms, hands, neck, back. “Except …” With the barest of movements, she knew. “Oh no. I think my leg is broken.”

  “I’ll get you home, Ket. Don’t worry.”

  “I’m … not. Not now. With you. Gray, you said … you called me …”

  He stilled, paused a moment. Then, “You heard. You heard me call you my love.”

  Verity called out, getting closer. “Over here!” Gray called back. “She’s all right, Ver!” But his eyes remained on Ket. His hands gently cradled her face, then tightened in intensity. And she felt none of Edward’s threat in his touch, only … devotion. Fervor.

  “Yes, Keturah Banning Tomlinson. I love you. I think I have always loved you, though I was dreadfully slow in recognizing it. Do you … do you think you could ever come to love me? In time?”

  Ket paused. Did she love him? She’d never permitted herself to think of it. Not in truth. But she knew that she had loved these last weeks of working beside him. Of seeing how he treated others—from her sisters to his slaves—with kindness. And how through it all, he cared for her, in both big and small ways. How he had respected her, even when she didn’t deserve it. Did she love him?

  She laughed under her breath. “Yes,” she said to him, nodding. “Yes.”

  “Yes?” he said, as if he hardly dared to believe it. “Yes?”

  “Yes,” she said with another breathy laugh.

  “Oh, Ket. My Ket. May I kiss you?”

  “Yes,” she said again, this time in a whisper.

  “Your leg … I do not wish to hurt you.”

  “Come to this side of me,” she said.

  He crossed over her and bent closer. Tenderly, reverently, he kissed her lips, then slowly drew back a bit. “I fear, Lady Ket, you taste like mud.”

  She laughed lightly and pulled his head closer. “As do you,” she whispered, inviting him to kiss her again. Together they ignored their filth, their bruises, the blood. And in that moment Keturah thought it a thousand times more moving, more beautiful, more lovely than any kiss she’d ever shared with Edward.

  “Keturah! Gray!” Verity cried, still searching and at last finding them. “Oh!” she said, shocked at seeing them so close. “Keturah! And Gray …”

  Verity said his name with a tilt of a smile to her tone, and Ket grinned too. She lifted a hand to his chest and turned to her sister. “He found me,” she said. “Saved me, really.”

  But Verity just crossed her arms and smiled back. “So I see.”

  By the time Gray carried her up the hill to place her on his horse’s back, both of them were panting and sweating—Gray from the effort, Ket from the pain. Her leg hadn’t hurt that badly when she stayed still, encased as it was in mud. But as soon as Gray pulled her free and lifted her, tears began streaming down her cheeks. Every step sent a shudder of agony through her. She concentrated on two things to get her through. How glad she was the bone hadn’t broken through the skin—it would be far easier to set—and the wonder of what just had transpired between her and Gray.

  He loved her.

  And she loved him.

  The men put Verity and Selah astride the other horse, and together they gingerly moved down the road toward Tabletop. They would have to wait until morning to negotiate the mud and fetch a doctor from town.

  “Or we could set it,” said Philip. “’Tis a clean break, you think?”

  “I do. But still, I might need a fair dose of laudanum,” Keturah said. She knew that there were few doctors on-island. One, maybe two. She’d heard a woman say at the party say that the fevers kept claiming every decent doctor who arrived. “That or the drink,” said the other. Was it not better to have her friends set her leg than to entrust herself to an intoxicated physician?

  They reached the house, and Gray led Keturah’s mount close to the steps and then carefully pulled her off the mare’s back and into his arms. “Please forgive me, my lady. I’m about to track some mud into your house.”

  She grinned through her weary tears. “You and everyone else.”

  “Where would you like me to take you?” he asked, trudging up the steps and across the porch.

  Grace opened the door for them, lifting a lamp, and gasped. “Mr. Covington! Lady Ket! What has happened?”

  “Hot water, Grace,” he returned over his shoulder as he passed her. “We’ll need lots of hot water. I just fished your mistress out of a mudslide.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Her sisters had stripped her out of her ruined gown and did their best to bathe her and get her into a clean gown before the men joined them. They placed a light board beneath her broken leg, with strips of cloth stretched out to either side. Verity then took one hand, Selah the other, while Grace stood beside her, wringing her hands. “I may need more laudanum,” Keturah said fearfully.

  “Dear lady,” Philip said, sliding a gentle hand beneath her calf and turning a bit so her leg was not in shadow as he studied it. “I doubt there’d be enough for this. It will most certainly hurt, but then your recovery shall begin in earnest.”

  “You have set bones before, Philip?”

  “Ten or more, back in England. I’m rather good at it.” He flashed her a grin, and she tried to smile back but knew she was failing.

  She supposed her mother would be scandalized, what with these two men at her feet, seeing her leg bared to the knee. But at that moment, she had a difficult time caring who was in the room with her. She only wanted it done. Anticipating what was to come had to be worse than it actually—

  With a swift nod to Gray—who grabbed hold of her ankle to keep her from lurching—Philip set his other hand directly atop the break and pressed down.

  Keturah screamed and then was left panting, sweat pouring off her brow and down into her hair as one wave of pain after another wracked her body.

  “Forgive me, Lady Ket,” Philip said, gently placing a layer of cloth over her leg and then a board on top, quickly tying front and back boards together with neat efficiency. “I find it best not to warn my patients before I do that.”

  “I … can … see … why …” Ket panted, crying now too. There was no relief in having the bones back in alignment, only a whole new level of agonizing pain. Her vision was swimming. She fought to stay conscious.

  And then lost.

  It was Matthew who shook Gray’s shoulder at sunup. “Mr. Gray,” he said. “You best come.”

  His black brows were knit, and the lines of his face told him it wasn’t good.

  “Keturah …” he said, sitting up fast.

  “No, no. Lady Ket is still asleep. It is the fields, Mr. Gray. Red Rock had their mudslide. But so did Tabletop.”

  Oh no …

  He rose on shaking legs and followed the man out of Keturah’s parlor and to the front porch. Cuffee had washed and brushed Theo sometime last night or this morning, and the boy stood waiting with him.

  “Thank you, Cuffee,” Gray said, taking the horse’s reins from his hand. Matthew was already mounted.

  “Yes, Mr. Gray.” From the somber look in the boy’s eyes, news had already traveled among the slaves about whatever difficulty lay before them.

  They trotted up the hill as the sun rose, filling the sky with peach-colored clouds above an azure sea. It was so tranquil, so inviting
, that Gray had a hard time believing this was the same island that had nearly killed them all the night before. But he smelled it before they reached the lowest field. That unique deep-earth odor that he hadn’t quite known before last night. Even after all these weeks of planting, of tilling the soil and covering each stretch of cane, it was different. Somehow more primal.

  They paused beside the field, now covered in mud. Just yesterday the cane had begun to sprout, tiny light-green shoots that dotted the field. Now not a single sprout was visible.

  Gray dragged a hand over his mouth and stared. “How deep do you think it is?”

  “Two, maybe three feet, I expect,” Matthew said.

  Too deep for the cane to work through.

  “And the other fields?” he ground out. “What of those up top?”

  “The middle looks like this,” the overseer said. “The top field is all right.”

  Gray’s hand moved to his eyes. He rubbed them, wishing that when he opened them he’d see something different. But it remained the same.

  “It will take us weeks to replant these two fields.”

  “Yes, sir. I expec’ so. There’s something else.”

  Wearily, Gray looked to him.

  “Some of the slaves came down with fever last night. Eight, maybe nine will not be able to work today.”

  Gray’s brow furrowed in alarm. They’d been blessed, so far, that no yellow fever or malaria had visited their plantations. But of all days …

  “Best we get to town and buy some more, sir,” Matthew said. “We cannot get Lady Ket’s fields replanted with so few. Truth be told, we’ve been running too lean for a while now. And the way these fevers go …”

  “You expect some shall not survive,” he finished for him.

  “Yes, sir. That’s the way of it, most days.”

  Gray rubbed the back of his neck and sighed heavily. “All right. Let’s head to market in an hour or so. First I need to look in on Lady Ket and find a way to tell her.”

  “There is some good in this,” Matthew said. “Tabletop just got served a whole lot of virgin earth. She might produce better than ever.”