Daughter of the Sword (12 page)

Ignoring him, Johnny picked up a sheath from the bench where he kept his tools and supplies for repairing wagon woodwork. The sheath, like Thos's, was reinforced at the bottom with brass, and it was fitted to a soft leather belt.

“Sara and I did some experimentin' about the best way for a lady to carry that big a knife. You
could
wear it under your arm, but it'd always be bumpin' and would show unless you had on a coat or shawl. You could wear it in the top of your boot, but you don't have any. It'd show if you wore it around your waist, and while that's fine for men, it don't look … well, hell, ladylike!”

Laughing, Sara took the sheath from him and gave it to Deborah. “You may find a better way, but I thought you could wear it
under
your skirts, and have a side slit like a pocket so that you could reach for it quickly.”

“Isn't that a bit … underskirted?” Rolf, diverted by the rather piquant discussion, laughed at his own joke.

“If Deborah has to use the knife, she'll need the advantage of surprise.” Sara wasn't amused.

Holding a cooled hinge in the forge to heat again to working temperature, Maccabee chuckled. “You just hide that knife, Miss 'Borah, and when one of them pro-slavers bothers you, carve him up and do it good! He'll have a Bowie and pistols, an' your first try may be the onliest one you get.”

With a last look at the wonderful blade, Deborah sheathed it. She felt chilled and burning at once, as if on this warm, fine day she'd caught a fever. “I hope it can stay under my mattress most of the time,” she said. “But when we're conducting—” She broke off, remembering that Dane and Rolf didn't know about the underground railroad. “When I'm away from the house, I'll wear it the way you suggest, Sara.”

“Thought you folks'd be moving to town,” Johnny said, pointing his chin in that direction.

“Father wanted to. But Mother, though she wants to send me to town, won't go herself.”

Once again, Deborah repressed a mention of the railroad. In several near arguments, Mother had insisted that it was important for the underground to have a station outside Lawrence.

“Not many come this way,” Father had urged. “Perhaps a dozen in the three and a half years we've been here.”

“Each one, now, is safe and free.” Mother's eyes shone with a deep feeling. “Why did we come to this Territory, Josiah?”

Now, studying Deborah, Johnny look relieved. “Whoa! So you'll be moving into Lawrence. I'm right glad of that, lass. Not many Border Ruffians would raise a finger to your ma, but you—” He shook his grizzled head. “You might be more than some hot young devil could keep his hands off of.”

“But I'm not moving to Lawrence, Johnny.” There was an edge in Deborah's voice. Just as Mother had resisted Father's wish to settle his women in town, so had Deborah resisted her mother's attempts to deposit her there.

Scanning her face, Johnny looked worried but proud. “You Whitlaws are all alike—stubborn.”

Both Sara and Deborah burst out laughing. He glanced from one to the other like a buffalo pestered by hummingbirds, then growled self-righteously, “I'm just determined.” He squinted anxiously at the twins. “You keep them rib-ticklers out of sight of your ma, now! I don't want her usin' one to lift my hair.”

“We'll be careful,” Deborah promised. Yielding to impulse, she dropped a kiss on his weathered cheek near the tightly curling gray sideburn. “Thank you, Johnny! For the knives, and for teaching us.”

“No one's ever learned it all,” warned Johnny with pleased embarrassment, placing his sinewy hand over the spot her lips had brushed. “Keep in practice, mind, and when you can, come over and let me make sure you're rememberin' what I told you. Head back, knife low. Don't ever lift it so high you leave yourself bare. Throat to hips, that's your target, and a good uppercut—”

Deborah felt slightly sick. This was making the possibilities much too real! As if guessing her discomfort, Sara interrupted: “Johnny! If you don't let them go, they'll be late, Mrs. Whitlaw will see the knives, and I think you'd rather face the whole Sioux nation than an angry Mrs. Whitlaw!”

“
Tatanka wakan
, yes!” Johnny shot a harassed glance at the sun. They had eaten late that day and it was mid-afternoon. “Get along home, then! But remember, there's part of me in the knives. Be careful how you use 'em.”

They nodded solemnly. Thos went to fetch Nebuchadnezzar. Johnny was striding toward the forge when Rolf stepped in his way. “Mr. Chaudoin, about a knife—”

Dane caught his brother's arm. “Let it be!” he said. He smiled and bowed to Sara. “Thank you for dinner. It was excellent.”

From the pile of things waiting to be repaired, Johnny selected a plowshare. Since plowshares were made of expensive, malleable chilled steel, Johnny was constantly welding extra steel to the old point and shaping it to cut a furrow. Shares only slightly worn down could be heated cherry-red and hammered out, though this made them thinner. With a final nod, Johnny turned to his work.

As Thos halted Nebuchadnezzar near the stump so Deborah could get up behind him, Rolf gave her a hand up. “What a lucky thing I was here today,” he murmured in her ear. “Now I'll know where that formidable weapon is hidden.”

“If I had to draw it, you might not find that such a great advantage,” she said a trifle breathlessly, putting her arms around Thos.

Rolf's hand, concealed by her skirt, gave her ankle a lingering brush. “I wonder,” he said. “To find it might be worth a slashing.”

She pretended not to hear, as calling their thanks and waving good-byes, she and Thos moved off on their unenthusiastic steed.

Thos was so elated with his knife that he spent most of the way home invoking gory and glorious fact and legend of the Bowie. In the 1855 elections, when Claib Jackson had led across hundreds of Missourians to vote pro-slavers into office, hadn't they bragged they could each go eight rounds without reloading and would go the ninth with the Bowie knife? Hadn't Unitarian minister Theodore Parker married a black couple and then placed a Bible and a Bowie knife in the husband's hands to show he must defend both body and soul?

Deborah responded automatically. What did Dane think of her having the Bowie? His cool gray eyes had been impenetrable. There was no doubt, certainly, of what he thought about her marrying into his blue-blooded family! Not that there was any danger of that! But Rolf must want her badly to make such a suggestion, even in half-earnestness. She sighed.

Why, why, was Dane so politely guarded? He couldn't think her a coquette. She'd never flirted with him for a second, and, furthermore, she never would!

“Thos,” she said, interrupting his excited flow, “did you make up with Sara?”

“Oh, sure. She wasn't mad at me, you know—just at blue-eyes in general. I wonder, 'Borah! Did they really burn Bowie's knife on that funeral pyre at the Alamo, or did some Mexican hook it? That knife
could
be rattling around this minute down in Texas or Mexico!”

“I can't see that it matters, since Bowie's dead and it was his use of the knife that made it fabulous.”

“'Borah!”

“Well, I don't see any use in idolizing
things.
But just think of poor James Black living on, blind all these twenty years, not able to do anything with the secrets he has locked in his mind and hands!”

“His father-in-law was a mean old cuss, all right,” Thos agreed. “Think of waiting till his daughter was dead and then sneaking up on Black when he was sick, beating him, and leaving him for dead. Somehow managed to sell Black's property, and beggar as well as blind him.”

“I guess the father-in-law never forgave Black, his former apprentice, for marrying his daughter. But it was such a cruel thing, and the old man left his own grandchildren the same as orphaned. Neighbors took them in.”

“And Black still lives in Washington, Arkansas, with that Jones family which took him in after Dr. Jones tried to cure his blindness.” Thos shook his head. “Funny that strangers should be so kind when a father-in-law was that wicked.”

“Johnny stayed with Black till he was settled, didn't he, and then came west?”

Thos nodded. “Trapped for a while and then settled down with his Sioux wife till she died. Funny he's never married again.”

“Not really.”

Thos twisted his head around. “What do you mean?”

Deborah hesitated. What good would it do to tell her twin that she was sure Johnny loved Sara as a woman? It might make him angry or guilty, or he might speak of it to Sara, which could cause all sorts of trouble.

No, it was Johnny's secret. Having guessed it, she should help him keep it. But what a shame it was! Only a tenderly loving, big-hearted man could have watched his beloved forever stroll off with the man
she
loved and manage to smile on them both.

“I mean Johnny's busy with the forge and he has sort of a family.” Deborah's evasion sounded lame and she bolstered it by demanding, “What woman would be able to fit into that household? Maccabee, Laddie, Sara, and Johnny. They don't need anyone.”

Over his shoulder, Thos gave his sister the pityingly superior glance of one who knows about love to one who doesn't. “Johnny's not
that
old. Of course, most ways it may be fine as long as Sara's there, but she won't be much longer.”

Now it was Deborah's turn to ask, “What do you mean?”

“Sara thinks you know.”

“That you're both head over heels? Anyone with eyes must see that. But you're so young, Thos!”

“Fellows younger than I am get married every day, and girls a sight younger.” He grinned annoyingly. “You're the one who better look out, or you'll be an old maid!”

“That's better than having a baby a year so that you die worn out at thirty and your husband has time to marry and bury two or three more poor women!”

“You sound like Dan Anthony's sister Susan,” laughed Thos.

Young Dan Anthony had come out from Boston with the very first New England Emigrant Aid Company settlers. He and his outspoken sister were the children of a wealthy Quaker who'd been suspended for marrying out of meeting and expelled for letting his children dance at home. Dan ran a paper at Leavenworth, and his friend, John Doy, was active in the underground railroad. Deborah admired what she'd heard about Susan Anthony, who'd stayed in New England and taught school till she organized a woman's temperance society in 1852. Four years later she'd become New York State's agent in the American Anti-Slavery Society, but she was agitating more and more for women's rights.

“Women are almost as defenseless as slaves when they marry!” Deborah said, giving Thos a pinch for the sins of his sex. “We can't vote, and we have about the same rights as children, lunatics, and criminals!”

“Oh, Lordy!” choked Thos. “Can't we free the slaves first?”

“Yes, but I'm not anxious to become one myself! Seriously, Thos, have you and Sara talked about getting married?”

“Well, sure, we have. But Sara's nervous about marrying white, and even though you and I know it's rubbish, she's scared Mother and Father won't like it.”

“You can talk her out of that notion, or I will, if you like.”

Thos shrugged. Suddenly he wasn't the twin with whom she'd shared all her life, but a young male with his thoughts on battle. “There's not much use in getting into that yet. There's war coming, I'm going to be in it, and I don't want to leave a widow.”

“Silly, you aren't going to die! There may not even be war!”

“There will.”

That dark, ever-menacing shadow! Wouldn't it ever go away? Deborah said impatiently to conquer the fear chilling her heart, “I think Sara would rather be married to you for a little while than never at all! I would if … if I loved someone.”

Her tone faltered. For some reason, Dane flashed before her, watching her with those wintry eyes which she so longed to see turn warm and interested.

“Maybe that's how a girl feels.” Again, Thos sounded so patronizing that she was between wanting to kick him or giggle. “But I won't marry Sara till I can take care of her and until I can feel pretty sure I won't be going off to fight in a few months.”

“You're going against nature,” Deborah teased. “Father says sudden marriages and … and attachments always multiply during wars. Instinct drives young men to reproduce themselves in case they die in battle.”

Thos said disgustedly, “If that's your notion of romance, maybe you'd better stay single! And ladies don't talk about reproduction!”

“Sara does,” Deborah reminded him tranquilly, “because Johnny's raised her not to be ridiculous about plain, everyday facts.”

“It's different for Sara.”

“Why?”

Thos's jaw thrust out stubbornly. “You said yourself she was raised another way.”

“All the same, she doesn't talk like a lady, but
you
want to marry
her
instead of some mealy mouthed female who faints at plain language.”

They had ridden up to the stable and Thos slid out of the saddle before he helped Deborah down. “I pity the man you marry—if you ever do,” he groused. “He'll never win an argument, that's certain!”

“Maybe he won't argue when he knows I'm right!” Deborah retorted.

Thos groaned. “Lord have mercy!”

Deborah wrinkled her nose at him, sobered as she looked at the Bowie she'd fastened around her waist for the ride home. “I suppose we'll have to hide these under our mattresses; that's about the only place Mother won't run across them. I hate deceiving her, Thos. Don't you?”

Would there never be an end today of his acting male and lordly? After all, he was her twin—born five minutes later, in fact! “There are lots of things Father and I don't tell you and Mother,” he said. “Father says a man shouldn't worry his womenfolk unless it's necessary for their safety. So,” he concluded virtuously, “it may be different for you, but not telling her doesn't worry me a particle.”