Blue Moon (14 page)

Had Little Pay’s lashes just fluttered?

“Noah,” Payson said, waving him closer, daring to hope. “Noah, come see if he’s breathing,” he whispered.

The other man’s clothing was soaked, water dripped onto the ground around his feet, but LeCroix was there in an instant, leaning over Susanna, softly begging her pardon, pressing two fingers against the thin blue vein in Little Pay’s neck. The color from the turkey-red shirt he was wearing spotted the shoulder of Susanna’s faded yellow gown. It wasn’t until Noah looked up at Payson that he realized LeCroix had lost his eye patch. The puckered depression on the scarred side of his face was not horrible at all. The relief in his good eye was unmistakable.

“He’s alive,” Noah whispered in awe. For a moment Payson thought LeCroix might actually be moved to tears.

“Let’s get him inside,” Payson said.

Susanna quickly handed the boy over to Payson, rose, and followed close behind her husband as he carried Little Pay in and laid him in the center of the bed.

“Livvie, help me get his clothes off.” Susanna spoke in a low but firm tone, the first time she had sounded like her old self in almost a year. As she started unbuttoning the boy’s shirt, Olivia hurried around to the opposite side of the bed and bent to the task of stripping off his too-short pants.

Payson stood at the foot of the bed, shoving his hands through his hair. While Susanna and Livvie worked together again with swift, silent efficiency, he watched them through a blur of tears. His world had just righted itself and settled back into place.

Standing apart from the Bonds in a pool of sunlight that streamed through the open door, Noah watched Susanna and Olivia undress Little Pay, prop his head on the pillows, and draw the covers over his bony chest. He was not aware of Freddie beside him until he felt a small, warm hand slip into his and hold on tight. He looked down. Freddie looked up.

“Whath happening?” Freddie whispered, all eyes and tousled white-blond hair. “I thought Little Pay wath dead.”

The boy’s hand was as fragile as a sparrow’s wing. Noah could feel the tiny bones beneath the skin, so fragile that if he barely squeezed at all, he would crush them. The thought was intimidating.

“He’s not dead,” Noah whispered back. “I think maybe when I ran across the field, I shook the water out of him.”

Freddie smiled up at him. “You did good, Noah. I would be tho lonethome if Little Pay wath really dead.”

Noah knelt down until he was at eye level with the boy. “What happened at the pool, Freddie?”

The child stared back intently. “Where did your eye go?”

Noah blinked his good eye and sighed. He had forgotten until now that his eye patch had come off in the pool.

“I was in an accident and it got poked out.”

“Doeth it hurt?”

Noah shook his head. “Not anymore.”

“Can I touch it?”

“What?”

“Can I touch the hole?”

Noah looked over at Olivia, hoping for rescue, but she was sitting on the bed opposite Susanna. Both women were holding Little Pay’s hands, talking to the boy, who was conscious again.

Noah sighed. “All right.”

Freddie’s eyes were round with fear, but his hand came up. With one finger, he barely touched the empty eye socket before he jerked his hand away. Then his narrow little chest swelled.

“What happened at the pool, Freddie?”

“Little Pay waded in and I hollered to him not to go too far but he juth kept walkin’ until he wath up to his butt and then hith middle and then hith cheth and then he juth … dithappeared.”

Noah stood up again, drawing Olivia’s attention. When she gazed at him across the room as if he had hung the moon, his heart plummeted to his feet. Freddie let go of his hand and ran straight over to Olivia. She hugged the boy before he climbed up onto her lap, then she slipped her arm around his waist to anchor him there.

“Hey, Little Pay,” Freddie spoke to his brother as conversationally as if nothing untoward had happened. “I got to put my finger in Noah’th eye hole!”

Little Pay flashed a grand smile over at Noah, then turned back to his brother. “Well that’s nothing. I saw a heavenly band of angels in the pool.”

Noah watched Olivia reach out and tap the end of Little Pay’s nose. “Don’t go telling tales, Little Pay.”

“I’m not, Livvie,” the boy insisted. “I really did see a whole bunch of them. They had golden halos and the fluffiest, softest white wings you ever saw and they all talked to me.”

“What did they say, son?” Payson was seated beside Susanna. Noah never knew so many people could fit on a bed and oddly enough, none of them looked in the least uncomfortable.

“They told me that they had plenty of angels for now and that they wanted me to go on back home.” He looked up at his mother, whose hand rested on his chest, above his heart. “They told me I wouldn’t have any more accidents.”

Susanna leaned down and hugged him close. “That’s good, son. That’s real good news. Isn’t it, Livvie?”

Olivia squeezed Freddie so hard he yelped. “Ow, Livvie! You’re thquithin’ me!”

None of them noticed when Noah walked out of the cabin. Once outside, he moved away from the door and lowered himself into Susanna’s rocking chair. Never having sat in one in his life, he tested it first, rocking slowly a few times before he leaned back and fell into a smooth rhythm. Directly across the field, beneath a huge old hickory, he could see a small white wooden cross and realized that Susanna must have been sitting here day after day, staring out at the grave of her stillborn child.

Angels in the pool
. His father had read a story of angels from his bible once. Back then, Noah had wondered if perhaps the voices his mother heard might be the sound of angels, but when he asked, she told him that she didn’t believe that they were and went on to say that she wished it were that simple. Since she had estranged herself from her people, Noah never knew his extended family, or even how to find them. If he did, he would go to them now, ask if any of them had ever heard voices in the wind or the water. Perhaps someone could explain what had happened to him.

Something
had spoken to him when he dove for Little Pay. Something that guided him right to the boy—something not akin to sight, and yet stronger than intuition. It had almost seemed as if the water
spoke
to him or even
sang
to him by sounding chords. As he searched for Little Pay he had
sensed
the water’s fluid dance, known where every rock and ripple lay hidden beneath the water’s surface. He turned his head and gazed off in the direction of his camp in the wood. The stream and the pool lay beyond. He fought an intense urge to go back and dive beneath the water again just to see if the strange sensation would come back to him.

He fought the urge, pumped the rocker back and forth, and found the movement soothing. Inside, the Bonds were still talking among themselves. Now and again, he heard Olivia’s voice above the others.

Someday she would want children of her own. As sure as he knew the sun would set, he knew that once she had healed, once she could let herself love and be loved, she would want a family. She deserved to be happy. She deserved a man who could give her what she wanted.

Even after all the weeks he had spent here, he was still not used to the way the Bonds dealt with each other. He had not become accustomed to the chatter and constant activity of the little boys, their scuffles, the lack of privacy. He did not know how or when Payson Bond found time to think, what with his constant work in the fields, his wife’s misery, his worries about providing for all of them.

Although the boys had trailed after him as often as they could, he was still uncomfortable around them. He had no notion of how to deal with children, how to care for them, what to say to them. And after what happened today, he was certain that he could not bear to lose a child of his own, a child of his and Olivia’s.

He laid his head against the back of the rocker and thought,
The Prince of the Ohio is a coward
. He wanted Olivia, but he had not stopped to think about what wanting her really entailed. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was best for him to leave her, to give up and go back to Heron Pond and the simple, unencumbered life he knew, a life where he was cut off from the world of feeling.

Mired in his dark thoughts, he did not hear her walk up beside him.

“Noah? Are you all right?”

He looked up at her, memorized the way her long, dark hair curled over her shoulders, the bright spots of color on her cheeks, the way her long lashes feathered at the corners of her eyes. Now that Little Pay was all right, a glorious, buoyant joy radiated from her, one unlike any he had seen since he found her.

“I’m fine,” he assured her, slowly pushing himself to his feet.

“You saved Little Pay, Noah.” She reached for his hand and held it to her cheek. “You saved his life.”

He shook his head, remembered the quaking coward’s heart that had sent him jogging across the field so that he could put the boy’s body down and be done with the ache.

“I did nothing of the kind.”

“Whether you want to believe it or not, you did. I think you really did shake the water out of him somehow,” she said.

He wanted to deny it, but she went on before he could speak.

“Don’t look so worried. I’m not about to go writing another verse about you.” She squeezed his hand, let it go, and smoothed the front of her gown. “Noah, you can smile now, you know. Little Pay is going to be all right.”

“I’m going home, Olivia. Back to Heron Pond.”

Chapter 12

He heard her swift intake of breath. Her hands fluttered over her skirt again like two lost butterflies as she fussed with the folds. She pressed her palms together.

“You’re leaving?” She sounded shocked, as if it were an impossibility. As if she had some right to dictate to him.

He nodded. “Going home.” The relief, the joy he expected was missing. He was running scared, afraid of making a fool of himself over her again, afraid of the voices in the water.

“You need to go on with your life, Olivia, and so do I. Your father’s corn is growing. The smokehouse is built and stocked. There are vegetables in the patch.” The Bonds would not starve. He had given his word to help Payson and he had kept it. But right now he had to get away from Olivia, from all of them, from caring too much.

“I have to leave.”

“But—”

“You know why I can’t stay.” He thought of the kiss they had shared that morning, of what might have happened again before Little Pay spoke to the angels, before he had heard the voices in the water. He wanted her still, but he refused to live with such constant, aching torment any longer.

She stared at the ground. “I’m sorry, Noah. I told you that I was no good.”

Forgetting the family inside, he grabbed her by the shoulders, held her fast, forced her to look at him. Tears shimmered in her eyes.

“You are good, Olivia. You
are
good.” Would she ever believe it? Would she ever feel worthy enough to let herself love anyone? He quickly dropped his hands and stepped back.

“Say good-bye, Olivia, and let me go.”

“Are you leaving now? Just like this?”

He tried to ignore the guilt twisting his insides.

“I’m going to collect my things and leave from the camp. Tell your family good-bye for me.”

Enough had happened already today without having to learn to say good-bye to little boys. Noah wished he had on a fine new shirt, or at least a clean one, that his hair wasn’t plastered to his head and his eye patch missing. He wished he looked the best he could, so that when she thought of him, if she thought of him at all, she would remember him that way.

“Olivia—” There were many, many more things he wanted to say to her, things of his heart. Most of all, he wanted to thank her for what she had given him the night before they left Heron Pond, but he knew it would only make her upset with herself, her actions. So, there were no words he could say.

“Good-bye, Noah.”

The tears shimmering in her eyes almost changed his mind.

“Good-bye, Olivia.”

Before anyone came out of the cabin, he turned around and slowly ran across the unevenly plowed rows of new corn shoots, toward his campsite in the wood.

Olivia watched him go, waited to see if he would have a change of heart, but he did not look back. Noah LeCroix carried himself with more grace than any man she had ever seen. He
had
saved Little Pay, no matter how he tried to deny it. No one else could have dived into that pool and pulled him out in time. Somehow, he had been responsible for reviving the boy. Maybe Noah and the angels both.

Olivia sighed, blinking back tears. She didn’t need clear vision to see the rest of her life stretched before her. What other man would want her after what she had been in New Orleans? It would be selfish to call Noah back because
he
did, which was exactly what her fickle heart wanted her to do. No doubt he wanted her because she was the only woman he had ever known. But he deserved better. And she knew it. He deserved a woman of his worth, a woman of honor unsullied by her past.

She watched him until the foliage closed in around him. Then intense dread slowly came over her.

Freddie came running out of the house.

“Whereth Noah?” He looked around expectantly. “Hey, are you cryin’, Livvie?”

“Noah’s gone. He’s going back to his own home.”

“Why?”

“He’s finished helping Daddy.”

“I wanna go tell him ’bye.”

She put her hands on the boy’s shoulders, holding him there gently but firmly.

“He said to tell you good-bye. He was in a hurry.”

“Ith he coming back?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“He has his own life.”

She closed her eyes, momentarily letting herself sink into memories of Heron Pond, the blessed stillness, the dense cypress, the shadows and sunlight on the water. The blue heron. The white egrets against the dark forest green.

She felt the boy staring up at her. “You
are
cryin’, Livvie.”

“I guess I am, a little.”

“I’m thure gonna mith him,” Freddie said.

She started to say, “Me, too,” but the words stuck in her throat.

It took Noah but a few moments to change into dry clothes and load his pack. He hastily fashioned a new eye patch out of a strip of red cloth he ripped from the hem of his shirt, tied it on like a headband, then pulled it down over his empty eye socket. He put on his black hat. Then he packed up his bedroll, shouldered his long rifle, and started the long walk home.

He had almost reached the edge of Payson Bond’s land when he noticed two male riders approaching from the direction of Shawneetown. He made sure his rifle was loaded and primed and waited as the men on horseback drew closer.

Until he was certain they meant no harm to Olivia and her family, he was not about to go on.

A handsome square-jawed man in his early thirties accompanied by a boy in his teens pulled rein when they reached him. Noah sized them up and waited to hear what they had to say. The gentleman doffed his hat and dismounted. Cut out of the same hide, the two looked to be father and son.

“Are you Noah LeCroix?” There was no denying the look of excitement on the man’s face. Noah winced, afraid the traveler might burst into song.

Reluctant, Noah nodded. “I am.”

The man shoved out his hand. “I’m Benson Bridges, sir.” He gestured toward the boy. “This is my son, Gerald. I’m headed down the river to Tennessee and you’re just the man I’m looking for.”

“Why is that, Mr. Bridges?” Noah guessed what the man wanted before he said the words.

“I’ve come to beg for your help, if I have to. The river’s running high and all the best pilots are taken. I’m in quite a pickle. I’m a businessman first and foremost, so let me say right off that I’m willing to pay whatever you ask, Mr. LeCroix, within reason that is, to get me downriver right away.”

“I’m out of the business.” Noah shouldered his rifle, hefted his pack and prepared to walk away, even though he had to admit to a dose of excitement that had started to snake its way through his blood when he thought of piloting a craft downriver.

“Every man has a price, Mr. LeCroix.”

“I don’t.” Noah wondered what it was about white men and money. He had not met one who did not believe a man would do just about anything for enough gold. He started to walk around Bridges, but the man smiled and blocked his way. The son, Gerald, leaned on his pommel and closely watched the exchange. His face was sunburned, as if he had already spent too much time on the river without his hat.

“Oh, come on, LeCroix. You really willing to turn down more than most of these men earn in a year just to make one trip?”

Noah paused to consider. “Money doesn’t matter.”

What did he need money for? The land provided all he would ever need. He shifted, looked over at the sandy-haired young man whose blue eyes missed nothing. Bridges and his kind were moving here in droves. How many years would it be before they flushed him out of his swamp? How long before the settlers cleared so much land that the fertile plains and woodlands could no longer provide for them all? That had always been his mother’s prophesy, her darkest vision. White men like these would take everything and ruin the land.

“You have quite a name in these parts,” Bridges told him.

“So?”

“So I want the best and I’m used to getting it. I have to be in New Orleans in a few days.” The man watched him closely. Noah guessed Bridges was a shrewd trader, one sharp enough to seek out his most vulnerable spot.

“I hear you haven’t been on the river since you lost your eye. Are you scared your legend might crumble?”

Noah was not about to bother telling the man he had not even known he was a legend until a few weeks ago. It wasn’t a fading legend he feared, but failing the people in the boat.

“If you don’t want the money, maybe you have a wife who would appreciate a fancy new dress or a new horse?”

Wife. Noah almost laughed; then he pictured Olivia in a fancy new gown, wearing some shiny ribbons in her hair, green to match her eyes. Store-bought candy would make Little Pay and Freddie’s eyes light up.

He shook his head. Impossible. He was on his way home.

“I heard down at the riverfront that you haven’t been back on the water for three years. You don’t look the type who would run from a challenge to me, LeCroix.”

“You don’t know me, so don’t make judgments, Mr. Bridges.” Hadn’t he just run from Olivia? From what living too near her was doing to him? From the confusing notions and complications of family?

“Why don’t you call me Benson?”

“Why don’t you head back to Shawneetown?”

Noah didn’t know what irritated him more, Benson Bridges’ dogged persistence or the notion that he couldn’t shake the urge to say yes and take to the river again. If he agreed, would he hear the voices in the water? Would the strange
knowing
come over him again, or had that been a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence? Accepting the offer would mean challenging the river. The waters would be running high and fast after the spring thaw and rains. How would he fare? Would his skill and not just his perception be off with only one eye?

Noah looked over at the boy and then the man. “You want to risk your family’s lives, Mr. Bridges? Maybe lose your fine strong son, there?”

Benson Bridges sobered. “That’s exactly why I’ve come to see
you
, LeCroix. You’re the best there is—”

Noah cut him off. “When I had both eyes.”

“I’m willing to bet you’re still the best. Hell, if you are half as good as they say you were, you could take us down the Ohio and the Mississippi blindfolded.”

Noah reckoned that one-eyed he
was
better than some of the piss-poor pilots he had run across.

Hell, why not
? he suddenly thought. Without Olivia in his life, there was nothing to make his heart race anymore, nothing to look forward to except the monotony and solitude. Maybe the river would fill the void for a while. Maybe he could find out if the strange thing that had happened in the stream would haunt him again. He would discover if he was either blessed or cursed with the voices whispering in his head.

“I can see you’re considering it, LeCroix.” Bridges rocked back on his heels, already smug.

Noah looked out from beneath his hat brim, scanned the treeline, over the open land. The Bond cabin wasn’t visible from where he stood, but he could see the smoke from the chimney rising above the treetops.

If he made it downriver, he could stop in at Sandy Shoals and visit Hunter Boone and his wife, Jemma. He had never felt as great a need to see his old friend as he did right now.

“I’ll do it.” He extended his hand to Bridges. “I’ll take you all the way to Natchez. From there the worst of the river is behind you and you can hire on another man to get you to New Orleans.” He had no desire to go where there were more people than a man could count in a day. Nor did he want to chance running into the man who had hurt Olivia, Darcy Lankanal.

The boy took off his hat, whipped it over his head and let out a war whoop. “Wait until folks hear this,” he cried. “Noah LeCroix is taking us downriver.”

“You won’t be sorry,” Bridges told Noah.

“I hope not.”

A few new stanzas were added to his song as soon as Noah walked into Shawneetown alongside Benson Bridges and his son and they headed for the riverfront. With the red rag still tied around his head, he suffered the stares of the townsfolk, some of whom followed along at a discreet distance and stayed to hover nearby while he was introduced to the rest of the party at the river. When he met Bridges’ wife and four daughters, doubt and responsibility weighed heavy on him and Noah tried to back out of the bargain until Bridges asked if he was a man of his word.

Noah studied the man’s attractive, well-dressed wife as she eyed him back suspiciously. The woman openly argued with her husband against leaving. She was afraid, dead-set against challenging the river, especially after she had a look at Noah. Ranging in age from eight to fourteen, the pretty round-faced girls clung together and giggled while their brother, Gerald, walked the horses aboard.

It weighed heavy on Noah, the notion that all of their lives would be in his hands. He walked on board the flat-boat, one of many made and purchased in Erie. It looked to be a sturdy enough craft. While a crowd stood by on the muddy riverbank, Noah ignored them, walked to the front of the boat, gauged the current’s speed, and tried not to strain to hear the voices in the water.

It was one of the swiftest currents he had ever seen. Word around town was that a handful of boats had gone downriver over the past week and three had broken up, sending passengers and goods into the water, many to their deaths. Other boats were beached along the shoreline, their owners opting to wait for the water to recede. Noah took a deep breath. Muddy, deep water churned wildly in the midst of the current as it rushed downstream. The sound lulled him, drowning out the murmur of the onlookers who stood along the shore watching in expectation.

Beneath him, the flatboat swayed, almost as if impatient to be on its way.

“What do you think, LeCroix? Can you do it?”

Noah sensed hesitation in Bridges for the first time. Faced with both the river and his wife’s concern, the man was losing his bravado.

Noah scanned the opposite bank, then looked up and down the river. Hidden sandbars, debris, rocks, and shoals lurked beneath the water. Could he do it again? Could he see this family safely through?

“LeCroix?”

He ignored Bridges and waited for some sign, some intuitive impression that would assure success. He noted the wind direction, the breeze off the river. Then slowly, as if fed by the current, his heart began to beat in time with the water’s flow. A soothing calm swept through him, the same sort of settling peace he had experienced in the pool. He listened for a moment longer, completely at one with the water. Then he smiled to himself.