Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 03]

by Almost Eden

  Paul’s shoulders squared. “For a certainty, m’sieur. My friend and I will not stay if the welcome is gone. We’ll be goin’ when this is past, you can be sure of it.”

  “Don’t get yore back up, Frenchman. The womenfolk don’t rule the roost here. ’Course I live with ‘em an’ listen t’ their wants. Ya an’ yore friend be welcome here fer as long as ya want t’ stay.”

  “We owe you for Eli’s doctoring. He will pay in coin or goods.”

  “Aye. T’ have ya standin’ by till Vega leaves—that be all the pay I be needin’.”

  “That we’d do regardless of the welcome, m’sieur.”

  When Aee and Eli returned, he carried the basket and Aee held a lamp. Eli set the basket on the end of the bunk. He turned the cloth back from Zee’s thigh to look at the wound.

  “I’ve mended a few sailors in my time. Do you want me to do it?” he said to Aee.

  “No. Yo’re apt t’ get thin’s bassackwards an’ sew up his mouth.”

  This brought laughter from MacMillan and a snicker from the little man on the table, who grimaced afterward.

  “Then you do it, sour-mouth,” Eli growled, and stalked out.

  Aee ignored his parting shot, slipped a doeskin under Zee’s thigh and prepared to wash the wound with the vinegar.

  “This’ll hurt like yo’re bein’ poked with a hot pitchfork, Zee. I’m hatin’ t’ do it, but I got to. Ma says it’ll get pus in it if we don’t. She learned that someplace. If we don’t have vinegar we can use whiskey, but vinegar’s best.”

  Aee kept up a constant line of chatter while she sewed and bandaged Zee’s leg. When she finished, she covered him with a blanket and then brought him biscuits filled with berry jam and insisted that he eat.

  “Tomorrow I’ll get a reed from the river an’ fix it so ya can suck up the water. My ma did that once when I was sick.” Maggie lifted his head and held the cup while he drank water. Losing so much blood had made him thirsty.

  Although the pain was agonizing, Zee had not let out even a groan while Aee stitched his leg, smoothed the jimson-leaf salve over it and wrapped it in clean cloth. With Singing Bird there fussing over him, he would have died before he showed a sign of weakness.

  Aee made a strong toddy of whiskey and honey and again Maggie held the cup so he could drink.

  “Go ta sleep, Zee. Ya’ll feel better in the mornin’.”

  It was the most wonderful night in Zee’s life. Two young women were treating him as if he were a normal man. They had touched him, spoken to him, tended him, without even a hint that he was so grossly ugly that even he avoided looking at his reflection in a clear pond. Their attention was far more than he had ever expected. His crooked mouth smiled beneath the heavy beard. Before he went to sleep he silently thanked the rivermen for hooking him out of the tree.

  * * *

  Light squatted on his heels and explained to the three men what he had overheard being said by Vega’s men and Kruger. He was careful to keep his voice low when he spoke of their plans to capture Maggie.

  Eli swore.

  “They have women aboard. They talked of Kruger using one.”

  Light told in as few words as possible about Zee and what the boatmen had planned for him. He did not, however, go into the details of how he had killed the three men. MacMillan didn’t question, knowing he would get the full story from Zee.

  “’Pears we won’t be attacked this night, but the warriors an’ Caleb an’ Linus will keep watch. They’d be disappointed t’ be called off so soon,” MacMillan said. After a short silence he said, “I guess yo’re curious ’bout Zee now ya got a look at him.”

  “It is so, m’sieur,” Paul agreed. “You do not see such a one every day.”

  “He’s a sight if yo’re not used t’ seein’ ’im. Years back he was with the Delaware. He’s not sure how he got there or fer how long. He don’t recall much ’fore that. I’m stumped why they didn’t kill ’im, mean as they be. But it ’pears they was scared he’d come back an’ bring a plague or somethin’. When a Osage raidin’ party took him from an old woman who took care of ’im, they never tried to get him back. They mighta been glad t’ be rid a him, thinkin’ he was bad medicine. Not the Osage. They think he’s magic. He gets credit when game is plentiful, crops is good, and their women fertile.”

  “If he’s good medicine, why’d they give him up?” Eli, still in a sour mood, asked.

  “They ain’t give him up. Few years back, Many Spots brought him down. He’d almost forgot how t’ talk English. Said he talked it to hisself some. After talkin’ it a while with us, some come back to ’im. He ain’t no dummy, I can swear to that. Somehow he kept hisself alive. In the shape he’s in, that took some doin’.

  “His legs is terrible bowed fer walkin’ so he learned t’ climb. Climbs like a squirrel. Goes up a grapevine lickety-split and scampers ’round in the trees. Dangedest thin’ ya ever did see. Ain’t much good on the ground though. Lately he stays here most of the time. Many Spots takes him up t’ the Osage now and then. They’d not let him stay if it wasn’t for Miz Mac. The chief’s the son of her ma’s brother.”

  MacMillan waited for that to soak in before he continued.

  “Me and Zee worked out some signals. I knowed when ya tied up on that bar before the storm. I knowed when ya was tryin’ to get the boat off the sawyer. Knowed ya had a hurt man so we come down.”

  “What would you have done if we’d jumped you?” Eli asked.

  “First one t’ make a move woulda got a arrow. Zee ain’t big, but he can put a arrow anywhere he wants.” MacMillan turned to Light. “Stories will be told an’ told in the lodges of how Sharp Knife saved Zee from the rivermen.”

  “The Osage did not give him his name.”

  “Ya knew that, did ya?”

  “They would wait until he chose one.”

  “He did not choose. We had to call him somethin’, so we named him Zee. He likes the name. Makes him feel part of the family.” MacMillan explained. “The Osage thought it all right for me to put a name on him ’cause we’re both white. Now they call him Zee too.

  “It pure-dee took me back,” MacMillan continued, “when Miz Lightbody didn’t blink a eye when she saw him. Men’ve come off the river what couldn’t look at him. My younguns is used t’ him. We don’t pay no mind what he looks like no more. He’s Zee. He looks after us. We look after him.”

  * * *

  Aee and Bee alternated sitting with Zee throughout the long cold night. The little man slept fretfully and called out in his sleep. Aee, wrapped in a blanket, talked soothingly to him, and when he quieted, she dozed.

  MacMillan invited Light and Maggie to spend the night inside the house. Maggie tugged at Light’s hand and Light politely refused. Now, not wanting to fall completely asleep, Light sat in the yard, his back to the elm tree, and held Maggie across his lap.

  For a long while they had whispered, saying the private things lovers say to each other after being apart and sharing long clinging kisses. Maggie told him that when she sat near their things she felt him to be with her. She explained that when she closed her eyes she could see and talk to him. She shifted so that her heart and his were pressed closely together and beat in unison. He was truly her heart, and she was his.

  After Maggie had fallen asleep, Light’s mind forged ahead to the time they could continue their journey to their mountain. He longed to leave this place, leave the sulking Swede before he had to kill him, leave the anxious Frenchman, leave the burden of helping to protect MacMillan and his family from the river pirate.

  He tucked the blanket snugly around his sleeping wife to protect her from the cold. Until tonight, they had not been apart more than a few minutes at a time. He had not realized that parting from her for a few hours would cause her such anguish. Her love for him was as deep and abiding as his for her.

  Light listened to the night sounds and wondered now at the advisability of the two of them striking out across the plains alone. What if somethi
ng happened to him? He could not bear the thought of her wandering alone and lost. She was his sunlight. She was the wind. She was the moon and the stars.

  He pressed his lips to her forehead. When he raised his head, he sniffed the frosty air. The smell of drying leaves wafted on the night breeze. He should be preparing for winter, but first Ramon de la Vega had to be dealt with.

  Light thought of something Will Murdock had said two years before when they had been attacked by Pittsburgh boatmen. He and Will had been taking their winter catch of furs to St. Louis to trade. Jefferson had come along to buy supplies.

  “Split ’em up an’ we can whip ’em,” Will had said, after they had been pinned down for an hour.

  The plan had worked well. Being more fleet of foot than his friends, Light had been the one to show himself and run. Four of the pirates had followed him. He had led them into the woods knowing that he could lose them there. He had spied a huge hornet’s nest and knocked it from the tree with the barrel of his rifle as he ran by. The swarm of hornets attacked the boatmen that followed him. To escape the vicious stings, they had scrambled back to the river to immerse themselves in the water. Meanwhile, Jeff and Will had easily dispatched the other four with a few flaming arrows.

  Light reasoned that Vega was already short three crewmen. To weaken him further, more of his men must be lured from the boat. But how?

  Light pondered the question until the clouds drifted away and the quarter moon shone brightly. Finally, an idea took form in his mind.

  In the morning he would seek out Caleb and tell him his plan. He had liked the Negro immediately and was sure he would cooperate. The man had been loyal to MacMillan and had much the same relationship to him as the free Negro men who lived and worked on Jefferson Merrick’s place had had with him.

  His mind more at ease, Light dozed, his cheek resting against his wife’s hair.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Ramon de la Vega was angry. He scanned the shoreline with his glass and saw nothing of the men who were to meet him at first light. Before daylight, risking damage to his craft, he had drifted a mile downriver to the meeting place.

  Having been convinced the woman he sought was of rare beauty, he had sent three of his most reliable men with the German. The man she was with was a breed. Kruger had said that he insisted on bedding down with her away from the others, no doubt to satisfy his sexual perversions.

  Four men should surely be able to handle one half-breed. But if the German had led the other men into a trap, and if he came out alive, he would wish he were dead long before he drew his last breath!

  “Julio!”

  “Si, señor.”

  “Send Dixon ashore to look around.”

  Julio hesitated, then asked, “Alone?”

  “Si, you fool. How many men does it take to look around? Tell him to look for a sign they’ve been there and had to go on downriver.”

  Julio turned away and kicked at one of the oarsmen sleeping on the deck. He sat up and turned on Julio with a clenched fist.

  “Get up,” Julio said loudly and then hissed in a low voice. “Move or he’ll cut yore throat.” Loudly again, he said, “The señor want you to go ashore.”

  “What for?”

  “Look for sign. See if ya can see anything of the men sent to the homesteader’s. The señor’s workin’ hisself into a fit,” he added in a whisper.

  Noah Dixon rose hurriedly to his feet, casting fearful glances at Vega. A few days after they left Natchez he had learned how cruel the man could be. Because Noah had grumbled about being at the oars for a twelve-hour stretch, the Spaniard had had the men hold him while he lopped off the end of Noah’s forefinger. The pain had sent him into a faint. He had come to only when Julio had held a hot iron to the end of his finger to stop the bleeding.

  Dixon was slight, agile and young, still in his teens. He went over the side, into the canoe Kruger had brought downriver, and grabbed a paddle. He angled and tacked as he crossed the river, wishing to God he had the nerve to beach the canoe and head off through the woods to the homesteader’s place. He had heard Vega telling Julio they would not attack the homestead at this time, that he planned to return sometime later with a larger crew. The German had told Vega that there were two Negroes at MacMillan’s but could not recall their names. Vega thought one of them might be his runaway, Caleb.

  The idea of deserting became more and more appealing to Dixon. He’d more than likely never make it back to Natchez anyway. If he was going to be killed, he would as soon it be by the homesteader as by the crazy, puffed-up little dandy who was so free with the whip and sword.

  Vega had whipped one poor bastard nearly to death for grabbing at the Indian maid he’d set aside for his own personal use. In a fit of rage he had run another man through with his sword when the man had fallen asleep at the oars. Dixon had been ordered to help throw the body over the side and had watched it twisting and turning as it went downriver.

  Noah freely admitted that he had committed his share of sins. He’d taken his turn with the white woman because he was horny as a two-peckered goat, and she had been willing. But more than that, he hadn’t wanted the men to tease him if he didn’t.

  He tried to close his mind to the Indian maids who sat in an opium stupor in the cabin because there was nothing he could do. The trip downriver would take at least three weeks—less if they could use the sail. Would the women be alive when they reached Natchez?

  He beached the canoe on a sandbar, looked back toward the keelboat and lifted his hand before he turned into the woods. He had no weapon; Vega kept them locked up, allowing the crew to carry only their eating knives unless the boat were attacked. Dixon had been so eager for a little time to himself that he had forgotten to ask Julio for a gun or a knife.

  The woods were dim, cool and quiet. The wave of waterfowl that had flown up when he approached the bank had settled farther downriver. Well out of sight of the Spaniard’s spyglass, Dixon stopped and leaned against the trunk of a towering oak. His boots, stirring the dry leaves, made the only sound. What to do? This was the first time he had been alone since he had signed on to crew this hell-boat.

  His eyes roamed the woods around him. Nothing moved except a squirrel busy packing away acorns for winter. He wondered what was keeping the men from returning to the boat. Had they failed to capture the woman? It was unlikely that four men would be unable to overpower one, if the German had told the straight of it. Dixon’s stomach churned at the thought of killing a man and stealing his wife to be used by that sorry piece of cow dung who was considered “quality” by the folks back home.

  He thought of his ma and his sisters back on the bayou. Admittedly, he had traveled far from his ma’s teachings, had done things he hoped and prayed she would never find out about, but he had not dishonored a woman or killed a man except for a Delaware who was trying to kill him.

  Having unconsciously made his decision, Dixon started off through the woods, stopping occasionally to listen for voices. What would he do if he met Rico and the men on their way back to the meeting place? They would be sure to kill him if they thought he was going to desert, and the homesteader would kill him on sight if the boatmen had taken the woman.

  The thought caused Dixon to pause. Life was good back home. He didn’t want to die here in this lonely place. If he returned to the keelboat and told the Spaniard he had seen nothing and the man didn’t believe him, he would think no more of running him through with his sword than of swatting a fly.

  Standing with his back to a large tree, with only the sounds of fluttering birds to break the silence, Noah felt a sudden chill of apprehension. Fear raised the hair on the back of his neck and on his arms. He tilted his head to listen and heard a slight rasping sound behind him. Before he could turn, a blow to the back of his head knocked him off his feet. His eyes crossed, his vision blurred and he sank into blackness.

  * * *

  After a morning meal of bread, hot gruel and tea, Light left Maggie and Aee f
ussing over Zee in the sickroom and walked down to the creek, where MacMillan said he would find Caleb. The huge Negro was skinning a large catfish. In his belt was a knife and a tomahawk. A strong bow and a quiver of arrows lay nearby. He grinned at Light as he approached.

  Light found Caleb to be a strange blend of brawn and sharp native intelligence. His body, hardened by a lifetime of backbreaking labor, was all interlocking muscles, yet his hands were remarkably deft as he handled the fish-skinning knife. The large golden eyes had a soft sadness in their depths. He appeared to be cheerful by nature rather than bitter over his hard and degrading years as a slave.

  Light nodded a greeting.

  Caleb responded.

  “You’ve got a good bow,” Light said, and lifted the five-foot-long shaft of carefully selected ash strung with two buffalo sinews twisted together for extra strength.

  “Yas’sah.” Caleb chuckled. “Many Spots learn me how to make it an’ shoot it. Mista Mac show me how to shoot the gun, but I load the bow faster an’ I hits what I shoots at. It don’t make no racket an’ don’t let out no smoke.” He flourished his skinning knife. “An’ I ain’t havin’ to tote no lead balls, waddin’, firin’ pins, an’ gunpowder.”

  A rare smile flashed across Light’s face, then lightning-fast, it disappeared as if it had no right to be there.

  “Many Spots says that Vega moved downriver before daylight and tied up again. He’s waiting to rendezvous with the men he sent to kill me and take my wife.”

  “That devil man ain’t goin’ t’ like it none a’tall if he be countin’ on gettin’ the little missy.”

  “I’m not sure Kruger will return to the boat. He’ll take off downriver by himself, which means he’ll have to steal another canoe.”