Midwife of the Blue Ridge (54 page)

Tom offered his hand and pulled her to stand. He peeled away

a sweaty curl pasted to her cheek and tucked it behind her ear.

“Thee must know this—I mean to share a large portion of thy

life, Maggie Duncan.”

“Aye, lad.” Maggie smiled at his slip into the Quaker-speak.

“Yer my man, an’ I’m yer woman.” She reached up on tiptoes

and kissed him quick on the lips.

“Good.” Tom squeezed her hand. “Then let’s away.”

H

Noolektokie decided to cure the hide with the hair on and tiny

tail intact—to remind the Shawano of the fawn’s pure- white

beauty, and to prove to future generations that they had indeed

been blessed by the presence of such a magical being.

She spread the flayed fawn skin on the ground and cut a mea-

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381

sured series of small slits around its perimeter. Using buckskin

thong, she laced the skin through the slits and around a sturdy pole

frame, stretching the hide taut and even, the line of the spine true to

center. Noolektokie leaned the prepared frame against a large oak.

Normally when working hides, she would sit with other women

and they would chitter like gray squirrels about children, husbands,

and recipes. Today, none of the other women joined her.

She sank down to sit cross- legged before the frame and pulled

her medicine bag onto her lap. The elders had enjoined her to this

task and the responsibility weighed heavy upon her shoulders. In

preserving the white fawn skin, she hoped to undo some of the

damage her brother had wrought.

Her tools were arranged in a row on her right—a toothed

bone scraper for fleshing the hide, the fawn’s severed head with

its cranial cap removed and oily brains exposed, a smooth

bevel-ended hickory stick for working the brain solution into the

skin, a

palm-size pumice stone for a final scouring after the

skin’d dried, and embers she’d culled from her fire, glowing in a

small clay pot.

She placed the clay pot before the framed skin. From her medi-

cine bag she produced a small leather envelope fi lled with a hand-

ful of tobacco crumblings. She sprinkled a generous pinch onto the

embers and fanned the acrid smoke to billow up. Noolektokie

pushed the smoke with cupped palms, up to the eve ning sky.

“Spirit of the White Fawn—I call upon thee. Grant me the

skill to honor thy beauty.”

Laying her scraper at center, she leaned in and scraped a curl of

fat and flesh from the skin. Intent on her task, she did not hear old

Skootekitehi come upon her, and she startled when he spoke.

“Payakootha has approved. Your brother will join with your

man, Waythea, in a war party heading over the mountains to

raid on the Long Knives. They will travel the Warrior’s Path.”

“My brother seeks to possess what cannot be possessed.” Noolek-

tokie shrugged and shook her head. “What ever happens—even if

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he kills Ghizhibatoo and makes Mag-kie his woman—Panagashea

will not succeed.”

The old man nodded. “Waythea makes ready to leave. He

asked for you.”

“Please tell Waythea I will be along, Grandfather.”

Noolektokie drizzled a gourd of water over the skin to keep it

moist. Before leaving to bid farewell to her husband, she tossed

what was left of the tobacco onto the embers and closed her eyes.

The smoke fl oated up toward the heavens and she whispered one

more prayer.

H

Connor added a stick of deadfall to the growing pile in Figg’s

outstretched arms. He jerked his thumb and said, “Would ye

take a look at that preening peacock . . .”

Some twenty yards off, the viscount stood alongside the creek in

the small clearing where they’d set up camp for the night. He wore

a faux-military coat—a bright red wool affair trimmed with

offi cial- looking gold braid and regimental lace. Two silver- bound

pistols jutted from the blue satin sash belted at his waist. Since the

day they’d left Roundabout, he had taken to wearing an elaborate

small sword, a light but deadly thrusting weapon. With one booted

foot propped on a rock, he angled a mahogany-framed mirror to

the light of the setting sun, contemplating his refl ection.

Connor snickered and piled more wood onto Figg’s burden.

“All th’ glass-gazin’ in the world’ll never change the fact that he’s

a fuckin’ ugly bastard, fancy red coat or no.”

The viscount’s wounds had healed rudely. The
R
carved onto his

forehead festered angry red and oozed putrid matter around the

edges of the scab. Frayed stitches holding the raw edges of his nos-

tril together seemed to strain with swelling that would not abate.

Overall, he exhibited an unhealthy pallor, his eyes gone so yellow

with jaundice as to look like a pair of piss holes in the snow.

“Glass-gazin’,” Connor snorted. “Him with a face like a plate-

ful of mortal sin . . .”

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
383

Figg chortled, “Like it caught fire, and been put out with a

spade.”

Connor slapped his knee. “Good one, Figgy.”

The viscount set the mirror aside and called out, “Will you

two lackwits hurry along? There’s a plaguey chill in the air . . .”

“Aye, m’lord.” The little Irishman smiled, waved, and wan-

dered farther away. He found a nice long branch, braced a foot

to it, and cracked the length into sections small enough to carry.

“Hurry, the bastard says. D’ye think he might deign t’ lift a fi n-

ger and help us see to the camp?”

Figg shagged his massive head negative as his brother contin-

ued to rant.

“Not him. If work were a bed, yer lordship there would sleep

on the floor.” Connor struck a foppish pose with wrist limp, and

mimicked, “‘Gather four of the best men’—what a load o’ shite!

As if anyone’s fool enough to follow that utter arsehead into In-

dian territory.”

After a moment’s reflection, Figg noted, “We followed him—

you an’ me . . . an’ Crab . . . an’ there was them two slaves afore

they run off . . .”

“Brilliant, those two. They knew well enough to flee a sinking

ship.”

After only two nights in the wild, the Negroes they’d brought

along as porters disappeared with most of the meal, parched

corn, and dried meat. Worst of all, with the slaves gone, all the

hard work fell square upon Connor and Figg.

“Crab’s still aboard the sinkin’ ship wi’ us . . .” Figg offered

with some optimism.

“Crab’s a drunken sot. You and me—we’re fools.” Connor

shrugged his bony shoulders. “C’mon, let’s get a fire goin’ and

hope Crab brings in some meat for our supper.”

“Amen t’ meat, sez I.”

Cavendish’s vengeful expedition had been cursed from the on-

set. He had a hard time convincing any frontiersmen to venture

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into hostile territory in pursuit of Tom Roberts, who seemed to

be held in high esteem among the rough fellows. In the end, of-

fering a goodly amount of silver, Cavendish was able to coerce a

single drunken scoundrel to act as their scout.

“Awright . . .” Obediah Crabtree agreed, sealing the bargain

by hawking up a glob of tobacco-tinged mucus to splat in the

dirt. “I can take yiz as far as Peavey’s village on the Scioto, but

there’s where we part company. I hold no quarrel with Tom Rob-

erts, and I’ve lived this long avoidin’ Injuns wherever possible.”

True to his word, Crabtree led them through the wild wood-

lands cloaking the Blue Ridge, through the mountain pass into

the country called
Kenta-ke.
They traveled up toward the Scioto

River by way of an ancient trail known as the Warrior’s Path.

The viscount did not travel light. Two packhorses were re-

quired to haul his luxurious accoutrements. As his lordship could

not be expected to sleep without shelter, or on the ground, Con-

nor and Figg set up a canvas tent and a camp bed complete with

feather mattress and pillow every night. Conspicuous among the

furnishings and extensive wardrobe the viscount insisted on trav-

eling with were no fewer than two ten-gallon casks of French

brandy.

Figg dumped the wood next to the circle of stones they’d pre-

pared as a hearth for their fi re. Cavendish shed his weapons and

jacket, unfolded his canvas camp chair, and planted it next to the

fire ring. He authorized Figg to decant two bottles of brandy—

one for himself, and one for the men to share. Connor found his

tinderbox and set to kindling a fi re.

“Ho! The camp!” Obediah Crabtree shouted. Their guide

slipped out from a tangle of mountain laurel with a tom turkey

slung over his shoulder. Connor grinned. He had to concede—

Crab had yet to fail in providing for their supper.

A narrow,

loose- knit man, Crab shambled toward them

dressed in dirty, droopy buckskin from head to toe—shirt, clout,

and fringed leggings. His gaunt cheeks

were covered with a

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
385

patchy dark stubble. A wild ridge of bushy brows shadowed

deep-set eyes. Hatless, he had taken to wearing a sweat- and salt-

stained scrap of linsey tied gypsy style around his balding pate.

“Well done, Crabby!” Figg licked his lips. “Amen t’ turkey

bird, sez I.”

“Picked a bunch of custard apples.” Crab’s possibles pouch

bulged with yellow fruit.

“Make haste with supper, sir,” Cavendish ordered. “The stom-

ach worm gnaws.”

“Aye aye, Cap’n.” Crab rolled his eyes at Connor, and the two

of them exchanged an amused glance. The hunter set to work,

briskly plucking feathers. Connor kindled a

good-size blaze.

Crab had the bird eviscerated and roasting on a spit just as the

stars began to pop onto the sky.

Connor, Crab, and Figg sat on the ground in a semicircle on

one side of the fire, taking turns tending the meat, the fi re, and

their brandy. On the other side, perched in his chair, Cavendish

sat in sullen silence, sipping Armagnac straight from the bottle,

glaring at the fl ames.

“Ye keep a fine supply, Cap’n, an’ that’s of some import.”

Crab saluted the viscount and took a swig of brandy. “I’ll tell ye

boys, once, when I was out hunting buffeler with Ned Hatch,

we’d badly misjudged our supply and run through all our rum

premature like.”

“Misjudged!” Connor derided, snatching the bottle away from

him. “Drunken sot.”

“Hard work—butcherin’ wild beef.” Crab dug a fi nger under

the kerchief on his head for a scratch. “Yep, we were desperate

for drink, so we did like the Injuns do, and took t’ sucking the

water and sludge from the butchered buffeler guts.”

“If that isn’ the most disgustin’ . . .” Connor shuddered.

“’S truth. ’Tweren’t anywhere near as fine as this Frenchy

swill. Fermented grass mostly.” Crab plucked something from

behind his ear, examined it for a moment before flicking it into

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the fire. “It tasted kinda like ale what’d turned—but it served to

make us drunk, and that was all we cared for.” The skin on the

bird crisped golden, and when Crab pierced it with his knife, the

juices ran clear.

“Ho! The camp!” A shout resounded from the murky tangle

to the north.

Crab was the first to his feet. Gun in hand, he squinted, then

waved. “Ho! Macauley!”

Smiling, Hamish Macauley entered the circle of light cast by

the campfire. “Followed the smell of meat a-roastin’ and happily

spied th’ yellow of yer fi re.”

The Scotsman and Crab exchanged slaps on the back. The

viscount bounded to his feet, brandishing his bottle. “Recreant!

Judas!
How dare you exhibit your face in my presence . . .”

“Now, tha’s a fine way t’ greet the man what saved yer life

oncet.” Hamish slipped his gear from his shoulders.

The viscount blustered.
“Saved my life?!
’Twas
you
who ad-

mitted that madman into my demesne—
you
who allowed the

blackguard to escape, and
you
who ran off, leaving me sore

wounded and in desperate straits.”

“Och, quit yer bellyachin’.” The big Scotsman plunked him-

self down and settled comfortable betwixt Crab and Figg. “Con-

siderin’ the way ye blethered on t’ Tom aboot how ye bent his

woman o’er yer writin’ table t’ ravish, yer lucky t’ have gotten by

with those paltry cuts an’ bruises.” Hamish snapped a turkey leg

from the carcass. “Ye might recollect, Tom meant t’ kill ye. Had

his barrel t’ yer throat he did. Saved yer royal hide, I did, calming

his head and hand.”

Cavendish sighed, fell back into his chair, and took a deep

swallow from his bottle.

“The midwife is
Roberts’s woman
?” Connor sputtered.

“This . . .” He fluttered his hands through the air. “This is all on

account of that Scots whore?”

“Yer lordship’s manly boasts put Tom over the edge.” Hamish

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
387

tore a bite from the drumstick. Bits of meat and spittle fl ew from