Midwife of the Blue Ridge (42 page)

saw Duncan Moon hobble out from the trees on his peg leg, lead-

ing two mules loaded with goods. Tom and Guy rushed over to

greet the old trader with handshakes and slaps on the back.

“Saw the smoke. This close to the lick I figured it must be the

two o’ yiz.”

They helped Duncan unload and hobble his mules and invited

him to share their fi re.

“I’d like t’ contribute,” he said, rifling through his packs.

Guy stood over him, clutching the crucifix hanging around

his neck, muttering, “Brandy and tobacco . . . brandy and to-

bacco . . .”

Duncan tossed them each a pigtail of tobacco. From a second

pack he drew forth three onion-shaped bottles and lined them up

in the dirt. “Peach brandy.”

Guy dropped to his knees, eyes squeezed tight, hands clasped

in prayer.
“Merci beaucoup, Sainte Solange!
I swear to you—no

less than three rosaries—once I am sober.”

“What the hell kind of Frenchy-papist hoodoo is this?” Dun-

can planted his hands on hips. “I’m the one what fixed you in

brandy and smoke. Who’s this sansolange feller?”

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
299

“Sainte

Solange—ze patron saint against ze drought. She

answered my prayer.” Guy hopped to his feet and gleefully gath-

ered the bottles as if he were plucking posies in a garden.

Tom flipped crispy dodgers onto a piece of birch bark. Guy

passed each man a tin plate and a bottle. The trio sat on a log and

pulled the bones from the fire. They split them open with toma-

hawks and used the corn dodgers to scoop up steamy, rich mar-

row. They shaved tender slices from the roasting tongues with

hunting knives and washed it all down with glugs of peach brandy.

Guy was the first to finish. Producing a clay stem pipe, he slid

down to sit on the ground, his back against the log.

Tom tossed Friday the remains of his meal and settled next to

his partner in a well-fed stupor. “To the providers of the feast.”

He hoisted his bottle in toast.

“Here,

here!” Duncan maintained his seat on the log and

tapped his bottle to Tom’s. The trader lit his pipe with a brand

from the fi re.

Guy puffed on his pipe.
“Ahhh . . . c’est une bonne vie, mes

amis . . .”

“So, Duncan,” Tom said, loosening his belt a notch. “Tell me,

how does Maggie fare?”

Before Duncan could answer, DeMontforte sat up and smacked

himself on the forehead. “
Bien sûr
—of course, only women can

cause such crazy in ze head.”

Tom groaned. “I am not crazy in the head.”

“
Mais oui,
you are crazy.” Guy twisted around to address

Duncan. “He cannot hunt. He cannot sleep. He is angry. He is

sad.” The Frenchman ticked off symptoms and jabbed Tom with

his elbow. “He is in love!”

Duncan puffed out a perfect smoke ring. “Yep. He was sure

lovestruck back at Roundabout—paid thirty silver dollars for

Maggie’s lunch basket at the gather-all. Can you imagine?”

Tom cursed under his breath and took a deep swig from his

bottle.

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Blevins

Duncan lifted his bottle. “’Tis woman makes us love, ’tis love.

that makes us sad. ’Tis sadness makes us drink, and drinking

makes us mad!”

“Bravo!”
Guy tapped his pipe to clink against his tin plate.

“
Écoutez
, Tommy—you should have told me about zis woman. I

am expert in love, and I—”

Tom cut the Frenchman short. “I’ll warn ye right now, friend,

you’d do well to mind your own snake. My love life stays none of

your concern.”

Guy tsked and threw his arm around Tom’s shoulder. “Since

you are like a brother to me, I will share with you ze wisdom of

mon père
. . .” The Frenchman paused, hand darting in the sign

of the cross. He then raised his voice in oratory.

“Women,
mon ami
, are like ze perfect snowfl akes falling from

ze sky.” Guy’s fi ngers fluttered through the air. “Each one, unique.

Each one, beautiful. Why limit yourself to one when there are so

many? They all will melt when they land on your face . . .”

Duncan sprayed a mouthful of brandy into the fi re, punctuat-

ing Guy’s philosophy with a
whoosh
of flames and a raucous

guffaw. He shook a finger at DeMontforte. “Sure, you and your

Frenchy-parlay-voo will take up with anyone’s dog that’ll hunt

with ye, but Tom here pines after a good woman, and he’s gone

out o’ heart ’cause he knows he’s most likely left his best fortune

behind.”

Tom shrugged Guy off, growling, “Blast your eyes, both of

you—I wish t’ fuck yid both leave it alone.”

They sat quiet, but for the crackling of the fire and the crickets

chirping in the trees, until Duncan braved the silence. “Bert

Hawkins showed the day after you left. Came in with four big

bales of buckskin.”

Tom grunted. “Good for Bert. Bess must be happy.”

“Yep. Good time t’ find yourself with a pocket full o’ silver

what with that English feller running everyone off’n their

claims.”

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
301

Tom looked up. “You mean Portland?”

“Yep. Him and his gang of toughs beat Joe Mulberry to a pulp.

I packed my goods and hit the trail to avoid any mischief done to

me. Ada and Alistair went to their daughter in Richmond. The

two Willies left with the Wheelers, up to Pennsylvania.”

Tom couldn’t help himself. “What about Maggie?”

“Last I saw, she headed back with Seth. He was in an awful

swither, poor fella, everything tumbling onto his shoulders just

days after buryin’ Naomi.”

“Naomi’s
dead
?” Tom sat upright. “How?”

“Childbed fever, poor thing.” Duncan shook his head. “Trou-

ble rides a fast horse, it surely does.”

Tom stoppered his bottle and set it in Guy’s lap. “I have to

go . . .” He jumped to his feet and began gathering his gear.

“Go?” Guy scrambled to stand. “Go where?”

“To Maggie. To Seth—I have to go.”

“Mon ami.”
Guy grabbed Tom by the forearm. “Wait for

daylight . . .”

“Moon’s on the rise, brother, and I can get a few miles under me

yet tonight.” Tom jerked free and disappeared inside the shelter.

“It’s been more’n a week since I last saw Seth,” Duncan

shouted after Tom. “Said he was goin’ to head out soon as he

gathered provender. They’re most likely on the road by now . . .”

Tom emerged with arms full. “Don’t fret—I’ll find ’em.” He

stuffed a sack of jerky into his shirtfront, extra powder and shot

into his pouch. “You keep Friday for me,” he said, slapping the

speechless Frenchman on the shoulder. Tom slipped his arm

through the rope that kept his bedroll tied, grabbed his pouch,

shouldered his rifle, and turned to shake Duncan by the hand.

“You understand, don’t you, Duncan? My best fortune, you said.”

He bid farewell to firelight and friends and climbed the steep

path to the top of the ridge. Once there, he stopped to get a fi x on

the North Star and turned eastward.

The light cast by the star-strewn sky filtered through the leaves.

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Tom coursed his trail through the dark, wondering, for perhaps

the hundredth time that night, what Maggie might be doing.

Wondering if she missed him as much as he missed her . . .

H

. . . Twenty-two and twenty- three.

Twenty-three spokes in the spider’s orbed web. Maggie lay on

her pallet with her right arm trussed in a soft flannel sling. She

wasted the day doing naught but watch her spider spin the end-

less filament, connecting the spokes of her web with an ever-

widening spiral of silk.

At daybreak, Justice had brought Achilles to the cabin. The

smith’s gangly apprentice dripped blood from a two-inch gash in

his shin, the result of falling onto a just-sharpened hoe blade. Say-

ing, “Sorry, Miz Spider,” Tempie stepped up onto her stool and

tore down the vast web and used it to pack Achilles’ wound.

Nothing helped to stanch a bloody wound faster than spider-

web. Maggie always tried to keep a packet of the sticky stuff

ready in her basket. Wounds dressed with web seldom festered

and always seemed to heal quickly. Even Tom knew to gather

spiderweb to pack wee Mary’s scalp wound.

“Oh, Tom . . .” She felt as if someone had reached into her chest

with both hands to wring her heart dry. Maggie swiped at the

tears sprung to her eyes, once again caught off guard by the inten-

sity of her heartache. These days, Tom never trailed too far from

her thoughts. “Daft is what I am,” she whispered to her spider.

Beaten and raped by one man, and all she could do was yearn for

another.

“Plain daft.” She chided herself for her foolishness, but still

could not keep her mind from wandering back to Tom. The

pleasant memories of the time they spent together crowded out

the awful reality of her brutal encounter with Cavendish. Turn-

ing her thoughts to Tom was the only thing that kept her from

rending her garments and tearing at her hair. This worried Mag-

gie, but Tempie said it made perfect sense.

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
303

“They ain’t no wonder in you wishin’ for th’ man you love in

trouble times. No wonder in that at all.”

Maggie turned onto her left side, her right hand extended out

from the sling, and she rested it on her belly. She closed her eyes,

splayed her fingers wide, and pressed them into her soft fl esh,

calling up the recollection of lying curled in Tom’s strong arms,

his big hand pulling her close . . .

The dissonant tumbled rhythm of a hammer bouncing the in-

side of an iron triangle rang out, calling the slaves to their din-

ner. On this signal, Maggie roused from her pallet on the fl oor, a

guilty glance cast at the basket of beans Tempie had asked her to

shell, still sitting there untouched in their leathery pods.

She moved slow from one corner of the small cabin to the

other, dipped a battered kettle into the water barrel, and shuffl ed

to the fireplace to put the pot on the boil for their tea. Not a single

ember glowed bright in the pile of ashes on the limestone hearth.

Her eyes shifted from the cold ashes to the firewood stacked ex-

actly as Castor and Pollux had left it early that morning.

“Feich!”
She’d neglected to tend the fi re properly—again.

Maggie set the pot down and sank onto Tempie’s three-legged

stool, clenching the wool of her skirt in her sweaty fist. The no-

tion of stepping out into the fortyard to fetch a bucket of hot

coals from Tempie’s cookhearth served to shrivel her belly into a

tight prune. With eyes darting, she followed the ashes on the

hearthstone, swirling with the ebb and tide of the evening breeze

blowing down the chimney. It had been four days since Aurelia

brought her into the cabin to see to her injuries, and Maggie had

yet to step out over the threshold.

“Supper time.” Aurelia appeared in the open doorway, her

arms akimbo. “Why don’t you c’mon on out today and git yo’self

somethin’ t’ eat?”

Maggie looked up. “I’m not verra hungry.”

“C’mon, sugar, a body gots to eat.” Aurelia came to put her arm

around Maggie’s shoulders. Her voice dropped to an encouraging

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whisper. “You be needin’ yo’ strength if you’s fixin’ t’ run off to

your ol’ massa, like you said you was.”

Unbidden tears fell one by one, absorbed into the bunched fab-

ric in Maggie’s lap. “I canna go out
there. He
might be out there.”

Aurelia rubbed soothing circles between Maggie’s shoulder

blades. “’S awright girl, no matter. I’ll brang somethin’ by for

you.” With that, she sailed out the door, her starched apron

snapping on the breeze.

Hard times and shared burdens make for true fast friends.

Maggie understood this now more than ever. She counted herself

specially blessed for having these caring strangers take her in

hand at her hour of dire need, just as Alan and Hannah Cameron

had so long ago. Aurelia and Tempie were both so good to her.

They listened to her rambling worries, their knowing heads nod-

ding, pointing no fingers, placing no blame or shame.

When Maggie first woke from her jimsonweed-induced sleep,

she found Aurelia had taken her clothes and scrubbed and salted

away every speck of mud, blood, and rape. The laundress handed

back a stack of fresh-pressed garments, unpleasant reminders

tossed away with the wash water.

And though Tempie was as short and black as Hannah had

been tall and white, Maggie thought them much alike. Tempie

was gifted with the same rare wisdom and an intuitive empathy

that Hannah had—the ability to know exactly what to say and

what to do to make a body feel better.

The day before, Tempie managed to have the master’s tin tub

installed in their cabin. The slave women toted in buckets and

buckets of hot water. Aurelia gave the lend of a stiff boar-bristle