Just Once (24 page)

Hunter opened the door and then walked over to the bed, took a deep breath, and scooped up the old man and the bear hide. Although tall and long of limb, Tate weighed next to nothing. His eyes were closed. If he was awake, he gave no indication.

On his way across the cabin, Hunter picked up Charlie’s tall beaver hat. When he stepped through the open door, biting snow driven by a fierce north wind stung his face. He walked away from the cabin, struggling through the mounting snow until he reached a spot beside the stream that he had chosen earlier. A gathering of cottonwoods and aspen formed a semicircle, and it was here that Hunter chose to set the old man. He propped Charlie against the tallest cottonwood and arranged the bearskin over his shoulders. Gently placing the beaver hat on Charlie’s head, Hunter adjusted it until he was satisfied. His own hands were already stiffening with cold, his fingers growing numb. It wouldn’t take long.

“Boone …”

He nearly came out of his skin when Charlie rasped out a whisper. The old-timer had changed his mind. Hunter was ready to bundle him up and take him back inside. Tate coughed, the sound now audible enough to hear, as if Charlie were winning the battle over by killing the host.

“Bless … you,” he wheezed. “Now … leave … me … be. And go … home.”

Before he could change his mind, Hunter stumbled out of the stand of trees, head down against the stinging, icy snow, his vision blurred. The cabin door was a golden rectangle swimming in the distance. He hurried toward it, refusing to think of the man beside the stream, for when he did, he not only thought of Charlie Tate, but of himself and this solitary life he had chosen.

He hurried into the cabin but couldn’t close the door. Not with Charlie out there dying, freezing inch by inch, fingers, toes, nose and ears. Hunter hoped to God that everything he had heard was true, that Charlie would drift off to sleep without pain.

Like a madman, he began to pull everything out of the dugout and pile it a few yards beyond the door. Again and again he went back into the filthy hovel, gathered an armload of Charlie’s possessions, and struggled through the swiftly deepening snow until he had emptied the place save for the table and chairs and the empty bedframe.

Go back. Go home
.

Beneath the bed he discovered a battered, leather-bound box. The find slowed his frantic pace and took his mind off Charlie for a moment. Hunter sat on the edge of the bedframe and opened the shallow, dust-covered box. Inside he found a pile of what appeared to have been letters on parchment so yellowed and crumbled with time that they were little more than shreds. He brushed them aside and there, lying beneath the scraps, was a tarnished, hollow, heart-shaped pendant.

The trinket looked even smaller in the palm of his hand. He held it to the light and admired the scrollwork etched on the surface of the brass. Threads of what was once a black ribbon still clung to the loop. His hand closed around the heart.

Where was the woman Charlie had left behind? Her letters had turned to dust; there would be no way to trace her even if he could. Did she even remember Charlie? Had she gone on before him?

Hunter opened his possibles bag and slipped the heart inside. He couldn’t get Charlie’s voice out of his head as he went back outside, this time carrying a tin of lamp oil. His foot slipped on the icy, snow-packed path he’d worn between the pile and the cabin. He went to his knees, staring into the dark, toward the stand of cottonwoods. Charlie was out there dying.

He doused the pile of furs, knives, antlers, poorly cured hides, utensils, and ragged worn-out clothes. From his possibles bag, he drew a tinderbox, hunched his shoulders to shield it against the wind, and cupped his hands. Finally a spark flared and ignited the oil. Tongues of flame licked at the pile, flickering against the wind. The fire gained strength as it drank up the oil, and Charlie’s possessions began to burn.

Within minutes, the bonfire was huge. Flames writhed and leapt toward the starless sky, melting the falling snow. Hunter watched the heavy smoke and fire dance in the face of the wind. He thought of the places he had been, the things he’d seen out here. As he watched the fire burn, he knew for certain that not one of the wonders of the wilderness would ever match the sparkle in Jemma’s eyes, the lilt of her voice and her laughter. Not one vista could compare with the way it felt when little Sadie planted a kiss on his cheek or when Junior looked up and called him Uncle Hunt.

He watched what was left of Charlie Tate’s time on earth go up in smoke and ash and wondered what it all meant. He had never felt so alone.

Sandy Shoals, March 1817

“Will
you
marry me, Miss Jemma?”

Jemma stared at the young man standing across the counter holding a battered hat in his hand. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed nervously and waited for her answer. It was all she could do not to laugh—not at his discomfort, but at the ludicrousness of the proposal; it was the second he had made in ten minutes.

“Didn’t you just ask Lucy to marry you, Stanley?”

The youth swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Well, I did, but since she isn’t of a mind to marry me, I figured I’d try you. I know you’re a mite older than me, but I don’t hold that against you.” He crushed his poor, weathered hat to his chest with a shaking hand.

“Exactly how old are you?” He was so earnest that Jemma tried not to laugh.

“Sixteen.”

“I am a
mite
older.” When she had left Boston, she didn’t think she was over the hill.

“So the answer’s still no?”

“I’m afraid so, Stanley. You’ll have to try the next stop downriver,” Jemma told him in all seriousness. “By the way, I think your boat’s about to leave.”

The would-be bridegroom looked around, shocked to find himself one of the few travelers left in the post.

“Thanks, Miss Jemma. Miss Lucy.” The youth shoved his hat on and fled.

Lucy, who now helped Jemma behind the counter while Nette and Hannah served meals, walked up and handed her a paring knife.

“How many does that make?” Lucy watched Jemma make a notch on the inside edge of the countertop.

“Twenty-two proposals since we started keeping count. How about you?”

“Twenty-seven.” Lucy laughed, her cheeks ablaze with color.

Jemma handed the knife back. “It never ceases to amaze me that these men think they can just stop and collect a wife on the way downriver like they do their jugs of whiskey. What if they meet someone they like better at the next stop?”

Lucy giggled again. “If they’re all as fickle as Stanley, that’s probably happened.”

Fifteen minutes earlier they had been fending off proposals and selling whiskey and supplies hand over fist while Hannah and Nette kept the hot food coming. It had been an unseasonably warm winter, and since the beginning of March, settlers had been passing through. Not all of them traveled on floating crafts, either. Heavy ox-drawn wagons driven by determined, hardy souls were making their way over land into the Mississippi Valley.

Two new families had settled not far away, clearing the land and raising cabins in anticipation of continued good weather for spring planting. More often than not, Luther trusted Jemma to run the post while he went off to join the neighbors in building or clearing the land in exchange for help with his own planting. It was the first day of spring. Everyone hoped the good weather would hold and that the frost was over.

Noah LeCroix had been around more often since the thaw, hiring on to guide the keelboats through the shoals. Jemma tried to sound nonchalant as she wiped down the countertop and smacked a thick cork into the top of a heavy whiskey crock. “Noah was in here earlier. I saw him watching you from across the room.”

Lucy’s brow knit. “He makes me nervous.”

“He doesn’t mean you any harm. I think he’s smitten,” Jemma said.

“I think so, too, but he’s just not the one for me, that’s all.” Lucy smiled a wistful, faraway smile.

Jemma picked up a broom and walked over to a row of gunnysacks full of dried beans. In their haste to scoop out what they needed, the travelers had spilled a few here and there. As she began to sweep, she thought about what Lucy had just said.

Jemma envied the girl her dreams. For herself, she had plans now, but not dreams. She had written to her father again, letting him know where she was and that she was well and would soon be returning to New Orleans. So far, all of her correspondence had been one-sided. She had no way of knowing if he had received any of the letters that she had copied and sent to both New Orleans and Boston. When they did reunite, things might still be unsettled between them, but she was no longer the same starry-eyed girl who had left home looking for adventure. She knew what she wanted out of life, and her father would have to deal with her on her own terms.

The only thing that was certain was that she couldn’t have Hunter Boone.

“What are you thinking about, Jemma?”

Hannah had come up behind her, one hand on her hip, the other holding an empty wooden serving tray.

“Leaving.” Jemma couldn’t hide her regret.

Hannah set down the tray and leaned against the end of the table. The concern in her eyes was hard to miss.

“You sure you can’t wait a while longer?”

“He’s not coming back,” Jemma said softly, stacking her hands on top of the broom handle. “No matter what you and the others think.”

“Hunter loves you, Jemma. We all saw it.”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it? He’s gone. I can’t spend my life waiting for him to return. I’ve intruded on Nette’s hospitality long enough.” She could finally talk of Hunter and of leaving without tears. They had run out long ago. All that was left was a hollow ache in her heart whenever she thought of what might have been and what would never be.

Hannah shook her head. “You’ve been a big help to all of us, especially Nette. Why, Luther wouldn’t have been able to take off and help those new folk settle in if it weren’t for your head for business. You can tally up the accounts twice as fast as he can and I swear you could sell a bear a new set of teeth.”

“I come by it honestly. My father’s quite a businessman.”

“You miss him?” For a minute Jemma thought Hannah was referring to Hunter. Did she miss him? She ached for him. Then she realized Hannah was asking about her father.

“I do,” Jemma admitted, but she didn’t add that even when she had lived with her father, she spent most of her time missing him. “I hope he’s received my letters so that he isn’t worried.”

“I still think you ought to give it more time. Even if Hunter has changed his mind and is on his way home, the weather might be holding him back.”

“I was very blunt with him the night before he left, Hannah. If he thinks of me at all, it’s probably not with much regard.”

“Honey, have you been thinking of him?”

Jemma took a deep breath and sighed. “Night and day.”

“I’ll be willing to bet that he could say the same. I think you’re making a mistake leavin’.” Hannah met her eyes and must have recognized the determination in them. “We won’t forget you, Jemma. Look at what you’ve done for this place.”

Jemma looked around the post. Two of Nette’s quilts, a Feather Star worked in blue and yellow and a President’s Wreath with green leaves and red flowers, were draped over the edge of the loft, adding vibrant color to the huge room. She had gathered dried twigs and flowers and made arrangements in various bottles for the tables. The shelves were well stocked, thanks to the lists she had made of which items, sold best and which didn’t. She had learned from Luther how to barter for goods whenever a boat came through so they could replenish the stock on hand. Although the Boones’ thanked her over and over for helping fill the gap Hunter had left, she was grateful to them for giving her the opportunity of a lifetime.

“I have to go back,” Jemma said, wishing things were different—wishing Hunter Boone had not walked out of her life just when she had found him. “I have to settle things with my father.”

“You’ll let us know where you are, won’t you? We’ll watch for your letters.” Hannah stood up and tucked the tray beneath her arm.

“Of course.” Jemma assured her.

“Lucy will really miss you.”

There were tears shimmering in Hannah’s eyes. Jemma felt her own eyes begin to sting. Out of long habit, she turned away and quickly wiped them dry. “I’ll miss all of you.”

“I better get back to the kitchen or Nette will have done all the dishes by herself.” Hannah hurried away, wiping her cheek with the corner of her apron.

Jemma pushed the spilled beans into a little pile and then began to sweep them toward the door, wondering if she’d ever be able to sweep Hunter Boone out of her heart.

Chapter 18

Southern Illinois, April 1817

He’d been a wanderer of the uncharted wilderness long enough to know it was not what he wanted. Not anymore. Not since Charlie. He sold the pack mules in St. Louis. Traveling light, Hunter headed toward Kentucky.

Heavy snows in the northwest had hampered his progress, but finally he was so close to home that he could almost smell it. With two or three days of hard riding, he would be back at Sandy Shoals. Spring had come early; the oak forest branches were heavy with bud. Golden-yellow buttercups, toothwort, and rue anemone littered the ground with a palette of color. Dogwood and redbud were about to burst into bloom. One morning, while following the rivers home, he heard a shout and drew rein atop a gravelly knoll carpeted with bird’s-foot violets.

Below him, in a meadow of wildflowers, a small family of immigrants gathered around a wagon with a broken wheel. Another wagon piled high with household furniture and worldly goods stood nearby; the oxen had been turned loose to graze. A woman sat beside an open fire nursing her babe. Not far away, a chubby little boy and a redheaded girl played tag, threading their way through the trees while an old man stood with a watchful eye and laughed at their antics. Hunter thought of Charlie Tate, who had been about the wayfarer’s age.

Away from the children’s game, a younger man was seated in the shade of a gnarled oak. His blond hair reflected the sunlight streaking through the dappled leaves. The youth couldn’t have been more than nineteen, but there was a serene gentleness about him, a certainty, as if he knew who he was and where he was going. In the grass beside him lay a long hickory staff and a knapsack. A Bible was spread open on his lap.

It was a scene reminiscent of so many Hunter had seen over the years, of families banded together, braving hardships, Indians, weather, and the unknown in order to make new lives for themselves. Resignation, determination, fear, hope, and regret were written on their faces.

He doubted there was a seasoned woodsman among this weary band. He felt a nagging urge to ride up to the travelers and offer to help, but if he delayed his own journey, Jemma might leave. He didn’t want to chance missing her.

Over all the long, lonely miles back to Kentucky, he had refused to let himself think that she might have already left Sandy Shoals. Not now, he swore. Not when he knew for certain that no matter what he did with the rest of his life, no matter where he went or how far he roamed, he wanted Jemma beside him.

The rivers were running high and fast. Flatboats and keelboats going to Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana crowded the waterways. She might have already joined one of the parties headed south. If he didn’t hurry, there was every chance that he might never see her again.

He was about to turn away and let the pilgrims fend for themselves until his eyes met and held those of the mother with the babe at her breast. She was rail-thin. Dark, careworn circles smudged the skin beneath her eyes. She looked forlorn and exhausted, but the minute she noticed him there atop the knoll, her weary expression was replaced with surprise, and hope. She lifted the hand that wasn’t cradling the babe and waved.

“Damn,” he whispered, but he waved back.

His horse’s ears twitched when he cursed. Hunter nudged the roan into a walk and headed down the knoll. By the time he reached the busted wagon, the whole family, young and old alike, had gathered to greet him. He dismounted, handed the reins of his horse to the chubby little boy with a dirt-streaked face, and nodded to a man beside the wagon who looked to be about his own age.

“What do you think, mister? Can it be fixed?” The pilgrim’s hands were still smooth, the hands of a man who had not ever put in a hard day in the fields. He was kneeling in the dirt beside the busted wheel. His brow was puckered, his lips pinched in a worried line.

“Anything can be fixed,” Hunter assured him. “Just takes a little know-how.”

Relief flooded the man’s features. The woman with the infant walked up beside him. “Can it be fixed, Tom?”

“He says it can.” The man nodded toward Hunter with far too much undeserved admiration in his tone. The youth that Hunter had seen reading the Bible joined them.

“I’m Devon Childress, a Baptist preacher, headed down to Texas.” He introduced the others as his sister, Diana, and her husband, Tom Evans. Glenda was their infant daughter. The older gentleman was Evans’s father, Arthur—or Big Artie, as he liked to be called. Little Artie and Fanny were the other children. Young Preacher Childress was easygoing and mild-mannered, gentle of speech, and, although the youngest of the men, apparently he was the spokesman for the group.

Hunter quickly found himself the center of attention as the travelers gathered around. Questions started flying. Where were they, exactly? How far to the next stop? Was there any homestead land nearby? Had he ever been to Mississippi?

“What place are you headed?” Big Artie Evans wanted to know. The white-haired older gent looked as spry as a bantam rooster. He wore a brown hat and an outmoded waistcoat stretched taut over the paunch at his waist. Pointing to a map, he insisted on knowing exactly where Hunter was going.

“Sandy Shoals, not far south of here, on the Mississippi.” Hunter put his finger on the spot and went on to describe the fledgling settlement and the trading post. He talked about the easy access to the river; the fields of cotton flax, corn, and tobacco; and the fertile soil and woods full of pheasant, wild turkey, and other game.

Diana Evans was still holding the child, standing in the circle of her husband’s arm. Hunter’s gaze touched on the infant. For the first time in his life, he let himself wonder what it would feel like to hold a child of his own, a child that looked like Jemma, or him, or a combination of both. How would it feel to hear someone call him Pa?

“It sounds like your heart is in Sandy Shoals,” the woman said, interrupting his thoughts.

“She is,” he said with determination.

“I’m sure that Providence sent you to us, Mr. Boone,” the Reverend Childress told Hunter. “We left New York too late in the season and got trapped on the Ohio. The party we were traveling with gave up waiting for the thaw and found land near the river. Collectively, what my family knows about homesteading would fit in a teacup, sir. We know even less about making our way south. We would be beholden to you if you could see us as far downriver as you can.”

Big Artie had been eyeing Hunter carefully. “We paid a guide good money to take us to Mississippi,” the elder man began, “but one morning he ran off, cash in hand. We don’t have anything left to spare.”

“If you decide to help, all we can offer you is our thanks and our blessings, Mr. Boone,” Devon Childress added.

Hunter shoved his hat back and scratched his head. Two range hens were roasting on a spit over the fire. The succulent aroma made his mouth water. He tried to avoid looking at Devon Childress, his sister and her husband, and the children standing so close with their upturned faces. He wanted to ignore Big Artie standing there so expectant and hopeful at his elbow. He wanted to deny that he actually did care what happened to these strangers even as it hit him with sure, swift certainty that there was no way he could refuse.

Jemma was right. She knew him better than he knew himself. He collected people. These folks needed him. It was as simple as that. His conscience would never let him walk away, even if it meant getting home a few days later,

Jemma, above all, would understand.

“Will you do it, Mr. Boone?” Diana Evans was swaying to and fro, gently lulling the babe in her arms to sleep.

“I will.” With that simple pledge to guide them through the wilderness, Hunter was forced to acknowledge who he truly was for the first time in his life, and in doing so, he experienced a newfound freedom. “On one condition,” he said.

“What’s that, Mr. Boone?” Preacher Childress asked. The rest of the family waited on tenterhooks.

Hunter dusted off his hands and turned to Mrs. Evans. “I’d like to hold the baby, if you’ll let me, ma’am, while you tend to those chickens before they burn.”

A collective sigh of relief followed by easy laughter cocooned him like the warm cotton batting in one of Nette’s quilts. When she gently handed the baby over, the sleeping infant didn’t awaken, but simply opened its mouth twice, like a tiny bird, and then settled back into a deep sleep. Hunter looked down at the baby, cupped one of his hands over the child’s scalp, and rubbed the fine, downy hair.

Unbidden, the memory of Charlie Tate came back to him. As he had carried Charlie into the woods to die, he had cradled the old man in much the same way. He’d buried the trapper the morning after the storm, not beneath frozen earth too hard to turn, but under a rock cairn marked with a plain wooden cross.

“You have any children of your own?” Tom Evans’s words startled Hunter out of his reverie.

“No. I don’t even have a wife,” Hunter said as the warmth of the small bundle amazed him. Evans’s wife had trusted him enough to leave him and hurry over to the fire to tend the roasting hens. “But I’m fixin’ to remedy that as soon as I can.”

“So you got a sweetheart, mister?” Little Artie, the chubby boy who had been named for his grandfather, tugged on Hunter’s pantleg. His two front teeth were missing.

“I hope so, Little Artie,” Hunter said. “I surely do hope so.”

Sandy Shoals, April 1817

Jemma stood on the riverbank with Sadie Boone clinging to her neck, surrounded by the family she had come to know and love, all but Lucy, who was crying so hard she refused to come to the landing to say good-bye.

When Callie and Junior started scrambling up the steps to the bluff, Sadie wanted down. Jemma let the girl go. As she watched the child run off after the others, her arms felt empty. Tears stung her eyes, blurring the sight of Nette, who had stepped up to her with a quilt folded in her arms. Jemma recognized it. The Honey Bee was one of Nette’s favorites.

“I can’t take this,” Jemma said, clutching the folded quilt to her heart. “It’s one of your finest.”

“They’re all my finest, child. But it’s not anywhere as dear to me as you are. Take it. It’s bound to get cold once in a while down there in New Orleans.”

“You ready, Jemma?” Noah LeCroix stood waiting to help her board a huge flatboat tied up between the other boats on the shoreline.

Her stomach turned over. The day she had dreaded so long had finally come. It was time to go. She wanted to run up the crooked wooden steps built into the bluff and hide in Hunter’s loft. She would never see the forest fully green with summer’s leaves. Timmy would take his first steps without her being there to cheer him on. One day the man Lucy was so certain she would recognize as her special mate would walk in and propose, and Jemma wouldn’t be there to share her joy.

Jemma thought of a thousand and one excuses for not getting aboard. Noah stood there silent, his dark, unfathomable eyes watching her as she wrestled with doubt and longing.

She had to go. A week ago, a group of travelers headed up to St. Louis had brought a letter for her from New Orleans. Her father had arrived in the city ahead of schedule, contacted the Moreaus and found her gone. The events that followed, he wrote, were too complicated to put down in a letter. He demanded her return, an explanation, and an apology. She had to go.

Her fate was sealed. She would never see Hunter again, never look into his green eyes, never hear the sound of his laughter or the impatient tone that hid his concern. Never again would she know his touch or taste his kiss.

She was certain of it. If she weren’t, nothing on earth could have ever made her leave. Travel up the river being what it was, there was every likelihood that she would never see the Boones, Nette, or Lucy again either.

“Stay, Jemma,” Hannah begged. “Write your father. He’ll understand.”

Jemma shook her head. “I can’t. I … Don’t you see, Hannah?” She glanced over at Nette, who had reached for her hand. “If I stay, I’ll just keep watching the river, walking the trail along the bluff waiting for Hunter. Every time someone walks through the door of the post, I’ll look to see if it’s him—and when it isn’t, my heart will break all over again.”

She blinked back tears and looked over at Luther. He was helping to load passengers on top of a boat so big and so crowded with people and their possessions that it looked like a floating island with rails and a roof. Fastened on each side of the roof near the bow were immense oars. Taking charge, separating the supplies to better distribute the weight, he reminded her so much of Hunter that it was hard to watch him. Nette was squeezing her hand. Tears slipped out from beneath the old woman’s glasses.

“I can’t stay,” Jemma whispered. “Not when everything I see or touch or hear reminds me of Hunter.”

“What if he comes back?” Hannah wanted to know. “What will we tell him?”

“Tell him that I had to go.” Her voice broke. Even after almost four months, the pain of missing him was still too raw. She managed to whisper, “He’ll understand.”

If there was an ounce of hope in her heart, she would have stayed, but the words he had spoken on Christmas night were still too clearly etched in her memory. “
I don’t want to wake up some morning knowing I made a mistake, wishing I’d gone after my dream
.”

Noah picked up the bundle of clothes she had tied in a length of fabric. To the naked eye it seemed she was leaving with little more than she had come with: a mended silk dress, a worn forest-green cloak, the pants and shirt Hunter had bought for her, the moccasins.

And memories.

Priceless memories crowded into every corner of her heart and mind. Her own memories, not her grandfather’s embellished tales. Recollections that would last a lifetime. But above all, she was leaving with a clarity of vision she had never known before. For the first time in her life, she knew who she was and what she wanted.

All that was missing from her life was Hunter Boone, but she had survived the wilderness trek and a winter in Sandy Shoals. She could survive anything. Even a broken heart.