Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (19 page)

Juicy asked Farr to go, take Fawnella, and try to find out something about her people. Farr spoke of this to Fawnella. She shook her head vigorously, took his hand and pulled him toward the cabin.

“It’s all right, honey. We won’t go if you don’t want to. We’ll stay here. Juicy just thought you might want to find your folks.”

She shook her head again, put her fingers on his chest, and then on her own. He knew she was telling him that
he
was her folks. He was all she wanted, and his love for her swelled in his young heart.

They waved good-bye to Juicy one morning in late September and watched the boat take him down the Wabash. The journey would take him almost a month. They walked back to the cabin. It seemed strange to be alone, and at first they were shy with one another. Juicy had always been with them or was close by.

The first two nights Farr tossed and turned in his bunk. Sleep seemed to evade him. He couldn’t get his mind off the girl who slept in the bunk across the room. His healthy young body responded to his thoughts, and he would turn over on his belly and grind his teeth in frustration.

On the third night he was wakened out of a deep sleep. Fawnella lifted his blanket, crept into bed beside him and curled up in his arms. The sweet softness of her body pressed against his, and the trusting way she nuzzled her head to his shoulder and curled an arm about his neck brought a groan from his throat. He wrapped her in his arms, pulling her so close he couldn’t tell if the loud thumping between them was his heart or hers.

An instinct born from a woman’s desire to comfort man caused the child-woman in his arms to move sweetly against him. She held him in her arms, caressed him with her hands and lips, showed him in every way she wanted to mate with him as a woman mated with the man she loved.

“You want to, little sweetling?” he asked hoarsely. “Are you wanting me to take you for my . . . wife? Are you sure?” Her answer was to place little kisses on his face. “Oh, little darlin’, I’ve not done it. I don’t know—I might hurt you.” More kisses stopped his words. “Ah . . . sweetheart. You’re my woman . . . you are, you are! Sweet, sweet girl . . . I want to touch you everywhere, I want you to touch me.”

She responded to him eagerly. Lightly his mouth touched hers, moving tenderly over her parted, breathless lips. Her warm taste filled him. Like two children in paradise, they fondled each other’s bodies, discovered hidden pleasures, became bolder as their passion grew. Instinct guided them. Farr waited until he was sure she was ready to receive him, but he held back for so long that it was Fawnella who pulled him on top of her and they were finally united. Their release was immediate, instantaneous and glorious. It left them pantingly breathless and holding on to each other.

Farr knew the sweet bliss of holding her all through the night, of feeling her damp cheek on his chest, knowing she was where she wanted to be. He scattered soft kisses over the top of her head and his hand gently ran up and down her spine as if to reassure himself that she was really in his arms.

It was the beginning of the most wonderful time in his life. He called her wife, told her that her name was now Fawnella Quill, that she belonged to him and only to him, forever and ever. She blossomed under his loving devotion. Their days were filled with work and play. At almost any time she would come to where he was working, put her arms around him and pull him down on to the soft grass, her face filled with silent laughter at the pleasure she found in his. In the evenings, when the work was done, they ran to the river together, played, bathed each other, and during the long nights they lay entwined in the bunk built into the side of the cabin wall.

Farr talked to her as he had never talked to anyone. He told her his innermost thoughts and dreams. They communicated with touch and eyes. He knew what she was thinking by the expression on her face; there was little need for words between them. He gave her all the love his boyish heart possessed, and she gave him a bottomless, unending love, its gentle flow like a sunbeam bathing him. There was no way he could count its worth. His world had suddenly become bright, new and beautiful.

From the notches they made each day on the stick, they knew that soon Juicy would be back, and so the morning they heard the shout from the river, they ran hand in hand across the clearing and through the trees to the bank. The canoe that was beached there was not Juicy’s, but that of a Frenchman who had came down from the north. He was a big man with a thick black beard and bright dancing eyes. He wore a knitted red-tasseled cap tilted at a jaunty angle on his head.

“Ho, mon ami, it is good to see someone without a feather in his hair. I smelled the smoke from your fire.”

“You’re welcome to a meal. I’m Farrway Quill, and this is my wife, Fawnella.”

The Frenchman jerked the cap from his head and bowed low. “It is indeed a pleasure, Mademoiselle.”

Farr held tightly to Fawnella’s hand and smiled down at her proudly. She pressed close to him, nodded to the Frenchman, but didn’t smile.

“Not mademoiselle, Monsieur. She is Madame Quill,” Farr corrected, knowing it meant little to Fawnella, but wanting to make sure the Frenchman knew she was his wife.

“Oui, you are indeed a lucky man, my friend.”

“Come on up to the cabin,” Farr invited, “and tell us the news from Vincennes.”

The Frenchman spent most of the day. He talked to Farr, but his eyes followed Fawnella. Farr decided he didn’t like the man and let the conversation lag, hoping he would leave.

“Your woman . . . she don’t talk much, no?”

“Not much.”

“Mademoiselle—ah, madame, forgive my poor eyes, but your beauty makes such a feast for them.”

Fawnella glanced quickly at Farr, and then moved around to sit behind him.

When it came time for the Frenchman to leave, Farr was not sorry. He walked with him to the river’s edge. When the canoe turned the bend in the river and was out of sight, he hurried back to the cabin and the girl who waited for him.

The next morning, while Fawnella peeled and sliced the pumpkins to dry, Farr took his rifle and walked out into the woods behind the cabin. For two days he’d seen a large stag come almost to within rifle shot distance of the cabin. Their meat supply was getting low, and it was a good opportunity to replenish it without having to go far. Time went by faster than he expected, and soon he was an hour’s walk from the cabin before he realized it and turned back without sighting the stag.

He shouted when he came out of the woods, and looked expectantly at the door of the cabin for Fawnella to appear and race down the path to meet him. After the second, and then the third shout, a dark, deep, frightening fear that something was terribly wrong possessed him. He began to run.

Farr found her lying in the dirt beside the cabin. Her britches were off and her lower limbs were covered with blood. Her head was thrown back and she was gasping for air. When she saw him, her arms reached for him and her eyes pleaded for him to hold her.

“Darling . . . Oh, my darling girl.” He fell on his knees beside her, gathered her in his arms and kissed her face. “Oh, sweet girl. Who did this? Who did this?” he demanded. She opened her fingers and the tassel from the Frenchman’s cap fell from her hand. “Oh, God! I’m sorry . . . I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him,” he whispered fiercely.

He carried her into the cabin and placed her on their bed. One of her eyes was almost swollen shut, her jaw was bruised and her lower lip cut and bleeding. Farr washed her the best he could and placed a blanket between her legs to try and stop the flow of blood that continued to come. He pushed all thoughts of the Frenchman from his mind as he worked. Finally, when he had done all he could, he sat beside the bunk and held her hand.

“Darling girl, forgive me for leaving you here alone.” The agonized words tore from his throat and tears rolled unashamed from his eyes.

Her eyes remained on his face, her fingers tightened on his, and her swollen lips formed words. “No, no,” she was trying to say.

“I love you more than I ever thought I could love anything. You’re everything that’s beautiful; you’re my love, my life.” He knelt down, gathered her in his arms, and kissed every part of her face that he could without giving her pain, kissed her desperately, lovingly. The pain in his heart cried out don’t die! Please don’t die!

Farr held her all through the afternoon while the blood slowly drained from her. He talked to her, told her how much she meant to him, how happy she had made him the last few weeks. He begged her not to fall asleep. But gradually her eyes drifted shut, and her fingers could no longer grip his. He had to face what he had known all along: he was losing her.

“Don’t leave me, Fawnella,” he pleaded. “Don’t leave me, my love! Wake up and look at me.”

At the end, a small bubble of breath came from her parted lips. It was the last breath to leave her frail body. Still he held her, his eyes on her face. She seemed even smaller now that life had left her. The crushing grief that pressed down on Farr in the hours that followed seemed to drain all reason from his mind. He wondered if he were going mad. He couldn’t imagine how he was going to live without her. He placed his head on the pillow beside hers, and agonizing sobs shook him.

Slowly the tears were drained from him. He sat beside the bed and watched the bright October sunlight come in through the open door, making a path across the floor to where Fawnella lay as if she were sleeping. Evening came and light faded. He sat unmoving. All through the long, lonely night he sat beside her, not leaving his chair for as much as a drink of water. Morning came and he set about doing what his logical mind told him had to be done.

Farr washed Fawnella and dressed her in his best shirt and britches. He combed her hair and tied it the way she liked to wear it. When he was finished, he went to the shed for the spade and took it to their favorite place, a small grassy clearing on a high bank beside the river. They had gone there often, frolicked in the grass, played, made love.

Farr buried his Fawnella deep in the earth. He carried stones from the river to partially fill the grave and then finished filling it with soft earth. He carefully replaced the sod and the wild flowers on the top, and when it was done, he collapsed on the grave, weeping uncontrollably.

It took Farr three days walking cross-country to reach the Ohio. At Shawneetown he learned the Frenchman was headed for Cairo. He followed the river south and one day out of Cairo overtook him where he had camped for the night. Farr walked into the camp. When the startled Frenchman stood, Farr tilted his rifle and fired point blank without even raising the weapon to his shoulder.

The force of the double load flung the Frenchman ten feet back. He was dead before he hit the ground, but Farr followed. He drew his knife and slit the man’s buckskins. With a single stroke of the sharp blade he cut the sex organ from the dead body and tossed it into the fire. Then he spit in the face of the man he had killed and headed back to the cabin on the Wabash, the place where he had known his greatest happiness and deepest sorrow. . . .

*  *  *

The memories were less painful now as they floated through Farr’s mind. It all seemed so long ago. He didn’t come here as often as he used to do. He carried the memory of Fawnella in his heart. She would always be there, though he be a million miles from this place. Today when he had looked at the young girl, Willa, and had seen the marks of cruelty on her back, memories of what Fawnella had endured had come rushing back to haunt him. He had wanted to sink his fist in George Thompson’s fat face. Even though he was not the one who had mistreated the girl, he had permitted it to happen.

Farr left the clearing and followed the path Liberty had taken minutes before. He came out of the woods and saw the train of three wagons approaching. The lead wagon was a heavy freight wagon pulled by four oxen, Liberty’s wagon was next, and behind that was another large freight wagon followed by a span of mules.

Colby and Rain spurred their mounts and came on ahead.

“Yeehaw, ole hoss!” Colby shouted. “We found it, just where you said it was.” He pulled his mount to a stop beside Farr. “We hit luck this time, Farr. We ran into Mrs. Perry’s kin from New York State and brought him on.”

“I
t’s Molly and Sally!” Amy called out happily. “Oh, Libby, I was so afraid we’d never see them again. Pa said they’d be ate up by now.”

Liberty sat on the doorstone with Mercy on her lap. Her wagon was second in line and a big man sat on the wagon seat. An uneasy feeling began to work its way into her stomach. Slowly she stood and set the child on her feet. Daniel, sensitive to her moods, knew she was disturbed and took Mercy’s hand.

“Oh, Pa! They’re coming, they’re coming!”

Amy’s excitement brought Elija up from where he was sitting on a stump beneath the oak tree. “By jinks damn!”

“Molly and Sally didn’t get eat up by the savages, Papa.”

“I’ll be dogfetched if they ain’t bringin’ it. Ne’er thought to see it again a’tall.”

Colby and Rain had come on ahead and were talking with Farr. Farr waved to the lead wagon to turn up the lane to the station.

The wagons came on. Liberty’s eyes were on the man driving hers. As they neared, realization of who he was hit Liberty like a dash of icy water. Then a blazing hot, consuming anger washed over her, blotting her vision for an instant, making her heart pound so hard she could scarcely breathe. The lead wagon reached the cabin and passed her. By the time her wagon stopped, she was trembling so violently her legs threatened to collapse beneath her.

Instinctively, she grabbed Mercy to keep her from getting too close to the oxen, and then relinquished her hold as she realized Daniel was pulling her back.

Amy was suddenly quiet.

“Get off my wagon!” Liberty’s strident shout overrode the creaking of the wagons, the commands of the drivers, and the snorts from the tired mules.

“Hello, Libby.”

“Get off my wagon . . . damn you!”