Broken Pledge

by Marti Talbott

“All but Melba, Jesse, Israel, and Polly’s father.”

  “Only four remaining?” John asked. “Polly lost her mother?”

  “And a new sister born the month before,” Laughing Rain answered.

  For a long moment, the room was silent. Then John lifted his eyes to find Laughing Rain watching him. “What?”

  “She’s gone,” Laughing Rain said.

  John’s jaw dropped. “Gone where?”

  “Her people were unkind.”

  “Do you mean they shunned her?” John asked.

  “Worse,” Laughing Rain answered.

  “What could possibly be worse?” Uriah asked.

  “La Rue. He searched for her and waited for her, but when she returned, she still would not marry him. So he saw the bottom of a jug, showed a deed and...”

  “He threw them off their land?” Uriah asked, his voice growing louder as he got to his feet.

  “Papa, calm yourself.”

  “Calm myself?” Uriah asked, starting for the door and then pausing to briefly turn back. “You heard the man, she’s gone. We’ve come too late!” With that, he marched out the door and headed down the road toward the center of the village.

  “Shall I follow?” Laughing Rain asked.

  “He’ll be fine, and the exercise will do him good.”

  Laughing Rain glanced once more at the door and then looked back at John. “Is he well?”

  “Quite. Did Polly say where they were going?”

  “She did not know.”

  “Then they could be anywhere. Papa is right, we’ve come too late.”

  THEY CALLED IT THE Wilderness Road and they came by the thousands. From the rock-laden fields of the North, the crowded shores of the East, and the sweltering heat of the South, came the young, the old, the afflicted, the impoverished, the war-weary and the outcast. They came in all seasons, sleeping on the hard earth, bringing all they could carry, foraging for food and struggling to survive. Yet, on they came, their hopes high, their faith strong, and their resolve set – forming a six-hundred-mile human ribbon, down the Shenandoah Valley, through a gap in the southern Appalachian Mountains, up again to the Ohio River, and into the land of the Shawnee.

  With them came those who lusted after evil; nefarious horse thieves, cunning pickpockets, sinister moneylenders, claim jumpers, land surveyors easily bought, licentious women, and men whose thirst for blood had not yet been quenched.

  KENTUCKY

  “Three hundred eighty-three, three hundred eighty-four, three hundred eighty-five...” Uriah mumbled, seated on a large rock in the dense forest halfway up a hillside. Tempered with sadness over the loss of Polly, Uriah held his tongue and made the journey from the Cherokee village as peaceful as he could for John’s sake. But he soon tired of being peaceful.

  “Papa, do you intend to count all the people on the Wilderness Road?” John asked, stepping over a fallen oak tree and then sitting down.

  “Of course not. With so many trees, one cannot see all the people. Three hundred eighty-four.”

  “You already said eighty-four.”

  “Did I? When?”

  “Just after eighty-three.”

  Uriah slowly turned to glare at his son. “I should have had a daughter.”

  “Too late. Tell me, why do you count them?”

  “Shoes, naturally. I will tell Caleb we need at least three hundred eighty-four pair of British shoes.”

  “I see,” said John, “and do you intend peddling them yourself?”

  “No, I don’t. They are Caleb’s shoes, let him do the peddling.”

  “Papa, these people can ill afford new shoes.”

  “They’ll find a way. They have walked for months, some with no shoes at all.”

  “Doesn’t Harrodsburg have a cobbler?”

  “Yes, but how many shoes can one cobbler make in a lifetime?” Uriah suddenly pointed toward the road. “There, did you see him?”

  “Who?”

  “That man traveling in the opposite direction. We can use men like that to carry a post to Mahala.”

  “So we can.”

  “And have you noticed how exalted the people look once they round the bend?”

  John started to chuckle. “Someone hung a sign telling them they are only ten miles from the Kentucky River.”

  “Only ten miles?”

  John took off his three-cornered hat to run his fingers through his hair. “Aye. And this day, from the ridge just above this property, I have seen both the river and the meadow.”

  “Splendid! Then Harrodsburg is but a day’s ride. Has the meadow bloomed?”

  “Not yet, but soon, I think. ‘Tis the first of May.”

  “So it is,” Uriah said. Then his attention turned back to the people on the road. Their bundles looked unbearably heavy and their bodies weary. “They come with so little and there are so many of them. What will they do, where will they all go?”

  “Anywhere they like, I imagine.”

  “Anywhere the Indians will allow, you mean. Why does a man take his family into such peril?”

  “Papa, they only just fought the British. They do not fear a small band of Indians, particularly Indians who helped the British. Besides, Kentucky fills quickly and men report better land north of the River Ohio.”

  “Has Ezekiel Lewis taken his family north, do you think?”

  “Now that’s more like it,” John said. “You have not mentioned Polly since we left Gideon with the Cherokee. I’d begun to think you ill.”

  “I am quite well. I’ve merely been thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “What I would do if I were Mister Lewis. I say we go north.”

  “And I say we build a home here.”

  “Here, do you mean right here?” Uriah asked.

  “Aye. There are walnut and chestnut trees, plenty of oak for building, a convenient brook and a very fine ridge from which to see all of Kentucky. Papa, I am twenty-six. I have a fortune I don’t know what to do with, a maroon to build, and a barge coming. Besides, I’ve already given directions to this place.”

  “To whom?”

  “To Gideon, Laughing Rain, Adam...”

  “Adam? Do you mean you chose this land before we came here?”

  “Before we left even. We shall call it Maryridge. Do you think Mama would approve?”

  “Well, I like it very much. But...”

  “I intend to build a large house with plenty of hearths for warmth in winter, each with a fine mantel where a man might set his clock.”

  “Particularly a clock with diamonds in the bottom?”

  “Precisely.”

  “But son, neither of us is handy with a hammer and nails.”

  “True, but they are,” John said, nodding toward the road. “What man would not gladly trade a day’s work for food, rest for his family and fair wages?”

  “I see your point. How large a house?”

  “I have a drawing in my saddlebag. It is to have four bedchambers, two sitting rooms, a study for you, a book room, a...”

  “A mansion? In the midst of impoverished settlers? You’ve lost your wits,” said Uriah. Then he wrinkled his brow, “On the other hand, with a house that big, Polly might hear of it and come back.”

  “Papa, Polly will not come back.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Laughing Rain told her I had taken a wife.”

  Uriah bit his lower lip. “Well then, we must find her and tell her otherwise. I will need paper and ink.”

  “What for?”

  “To write letters. You pay the people to build, and I’ll pay them to carry a letter wherever they go – addressed to Miss Polly Lewis.”

  John stood up and stretched a hand out to his father. “Paper and ink it is, then.”

  “You have no objections? Do you now admit you loved Polly all along?”

  “To you, never! Besides, we have more important concerns.”

  Uriah took John’s hand, groaned as he got to his fe
et, and then paused to straighten his jacket. “Such as?”

  “Such as locating the man who owns this land?”

  “And if La Rue owns it, do you think to kill him?”

  John put his hat back on. “I admit the thought occurred to me, but no...not yet anyway. I’m hoping the good people of Kentucky have run him off by now. Oh, look, Papa, we have a neighbor.”

  “Where?”

  “In the trees just across the road. Can you see her? There is a woman sitting on her porch—and a handsome woman at that.”

  OHIO

  The children were finally sound asleep in bedrolls near the campfire when Polly wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and sat down by her father. She tucked her dress under her, laid her musket across her lap and then leaned back against a tree. For a long time, both remained silent, listening to the sounds of the rushing River Ohio.

  “Hast thou calmed thyself?” Ezekiel asked, watching her expression in the flickering firelight. “Dare I speak?”

  She tried to remain angry but couldn’t keep from cracking a slight smile, “White or Indian, they’ll not take me alive again,” she giggled. “Papa, are there no women in the Territory? Must every man we meet ask to marry me?”

  “Thou art a pleasing woman. A man would be remiss not to ask.”

  “I do not feel pleasing, I feel...I don’t know what I feel.”

  “Thou art heartbroken. Thou lost thy mother, thy brothers and sisters are gone, and thou still loves John Carson.”

  Polly’s smile faded as she stared into the campfire. A twelve-by-twelve foot overloaded river raft rested in the water a few yards away, and an owl hooted in the trees. Above her, the stars were bright and the moon cast its beam across the wide river. “I grew up loving John,” she said finally. “I believed he was searching for me. I imagined him behind a bush waiting for the best time to rescue me, and I thought he loved me as much as I loved him. But he did not even come back. I have never known such disappointment.”

  Ezekiel lovingly touched her shoulder. “A husband might heal thy pain.”

  “A husband who doesn’t care who he marries would bring only more misery. Even one who did love me would soon learn I’ve had a child. What am I to say about that?”

  “If a man truly loves a woman, he can overlook such things.”

  “Perhaps, but a man cannot truly love a woman at first sight on a passing raft. These men only want a woman to bed, to bear children, and to work the fields. Besides, it will be a considerable time before I trust any man. And even then, I’ll not marry one bound for the wilderness. I’ve had my fill of it! And another thing, I’ll not get on that raft another day!” Polly’s eyes were the deep blue of defiance.

  “Polly, what art thou saying?”

  “We have rowed it, pulled it, pushed it, and threatened it. Still it goes upriver but a mile a day, if that. We could have walked to Philadelphia by now. The river is rising with the spring thaw, thou art bone tired, and so are the rest of us. We need a home.”

  The tone of Ezekiel’s voice was steadily rising too. “Leave the raft?”

  “What’s all the shouting?” Melba asked, starting to sit up.

  “Go to sleep,” both Polly and Ezekiel demanded at the same time. Melba lay back down, crossed her eyes and pulled her blanket up under her chin.

  “We cannot leave the raft,” Ezekiel whispered.

  Polly watched her little sister snuggle deeper into the blankets and then rubbed her tired eyes. “We’ll trade for horses. Many have offered, and as we have seen daily, the raft goes downriver far better than it goes up.”

  “But what of our belongings?”

  “We’ll buy new,” she answered, moving her blanket aside and reaching into the pocket of her skirt. Slowly, she withdrew a closed fist. When she opened her hand, eight diamonds sparkled in the moonlight.

  “Where did thou get those?”

  “John’s father gave them to me and I hid them in the tree stump by the house. He said I was to sell them if ever we had a need. Well...we have a need now.”

  “But Mister Carson is impoverished. He must have given you what little he had,” Ezekiel muttered, his brow deeply wrinkled. “Why does a man do that?”

  CHAPTER 9

  Kentucky

  Tempted by wages and food, men gladly stopped for a day or two, allowed their families to rest, helped build Maryridge, and then moved on, allowing other men to take their place. It was Uriah’s duty to provide food, and at first, he hauled it himself from nearby farms. But with no market for their crops, farmers soon began arriving with fully loaded carts, making his duty little more than a nod of his head. Bored, Uriah often returned to his favorite rock, watched the people passing on the Wilderness Road and wrote letters to Polly. Then at last, the house was finished.

  Alone in the new downstairs sitting room, Uriah wound the clock once meant as a gift for Maralee’s marriage to Dulane, and placed it on the mantel. “The boy builds a bloody empire, Mary,” he muttered. For a long moment he examined the placement, moved it an inch this way and then that. It was the only thing on the mantel, and except for a wood box, the room was completely empty. The bare walls, high ceiling and heavily waxed hardwood floor made it appear nearly as large as Mahala’s sitting room. In truth, it was only half that size.

  Holding an arm full of chopped wood, John walked into the adjoining foyer, heard his father mumbling and paused to listen.

  “The house is too big,” Uriah went on, moving the clock left two inches. “Granted, one cannot have a plantation without a proper house, and we might even manage to stay warm with so many hearths, but my love, the place is empty. It creaks in the wind.”

  Uriah turned and walked to the front window. He opened the heavy shutters to let in more light and then paused to look out. Autumn was turning the leaves to beautiful shades of yellow and orange, but he did not notice. “If only Polly would come back. Oh Mary, could you have another word with God? Say...say we need Polly to give me grandsons. Otherwise, my father’s bloodline will simply wither away.”

  John’s heart sank. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he tiptoed back down the hall, slipped across the large kitchen, quietly opened the backdoor and let it slam. “Papa, where are you?” he called out.

  “In here.”

  “In where, precisely?”

  “Where indeed? You built so many rooms we might never see each other again,” said Uriah, hurrying to the mantel and moving the clock back where he had it to begin with.

  John walked across the sitting room and dumped the wood into the wood box. “We need kitchen cupboards.”

  “Cupboards? We need proper furniture.”

  “Wasn’t it you who wanted nothing more than to hear the pounding stop? If you had indulged me another week, we’d have considerably more than one wobbly table, two beds, and four poorly made stools.”

  “You’re right, we must bring the men back.”

  John was shocked. “Bring them back?”

  “Polly will want planters on the verandahs and a swing for the children in the back. We have a very fine oak tree there, you know. Perhaps she’ll want a swing on the front veranda too. We have no shelves for books, no cradle for a baby and no...”

  “Cupboards?”

  Once more, Uriah moved the clock – this time to the right. “Precisely.”

  “In that case, tomorrow we ride to Harrodsburg. We need candles that give off the pleasant odor of beeswax, blankets, kettles, cups, and plates. And let us not forget mattresses, cows, and chickens.”

  “And whom do you have in mind to tend the animals? I’ve never milked a cow in my life.”

  Just then, someone knocked on the front door. “Who the devil might that be?” Uriah asked too loudly. He walked around John, entered the foyer, and yanked open the front door.

  “I assure you, the devil has nothing to do with it,” a woman close to his same age shot back. She was tall with red hair and soft brown eyes. She wore a simple black cape, a
pale green frock, an ordinary white bonnet, and short white gloves. Over her arm hung a basket, and even with a cloth covering the contents, it gave off the aroma of freshly baked bread.

  “I...” Uriah started.

  Standing just behind his father, John grinned. “Mrs. Puddifoot, you have come at last. Do come in.”

  Uriah frowned. “You know her?”

  “Papa, allow me to introduce the Widow, Emiline Puddifoot, our neighbor from across the road.”

  “I see. Have you any other secrets?”

  “Is he always so unpleasant?” Emiline asked, untying her cape strings. She allowed John to take her cape and then marched past Uriah into the sitting room.

  John quickly glared at his father. “Not always,” he said, following her. “Mrs. Puddifoot, kindly allow me to bring stools from the kitchen and set the tea water to heat. You will stay for tea, won’t you?”

  “I’d be pleased,” Emiline answered, smiling sweetly at John. “This is for you,” she went on, handing him the basket.

  “Fresh bread?” John asked, his eyes lighting up as he lifted the cloth. “How very kind of you.”

  “Kind indeed. Mrs. Puddifoot, is it? My son simply cannot bake.”

  John covered the bread back up and rolled his eyes. “Perhaps you might take it up yourself.” With that, he left the room.

  Suddenly, there was an uncomfortable silence. Standing just inside the sitting room, Uriah watched Emiline remove her gloves, glance around for a place to put them and finally lay them on the mantel next to the clock. Trying hard not to stare, he walked back to the window and looked out. He could hear John dip water out of the bucket, pour it into the teapot and then hang the teapot over the fire in the kitchen hearth. Still, he couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Here we are,” John said, at last returning with two three-legged stools. He placed both in the middle of the room, offered his hand to help her sit, and then sat down opposite her. “I cannot tell you how pleased I am to have you visit. Papa and I have become quite bored with each other.”

  Emiline straightened her skirt and folded her hands in her lap. “The truth be known, I don’t have so many friends myself. I have a sister in Harrodsburg, but she doesn’t come often. My front yard has become a highway of people, but they don’t stay long enough to be friendly. When Mister Puddifoot was alive, we were quite content to live in the wilderness. But he is dead now, and I...”