The Frontiersman’s Daughter (11 page)

17

Surely Pa would be home soon.

Lael pushed farther into forbidden territory. Drowning Creek. Log Lick Trace. The Little Muddy River. On a day edged with frost, she came upon a hackberry tree that bore his initials deep within its bark.
EEC. February 22, 1778.
Just two days past. At the sight, she knew her wandering days were almost over.

Homesick for him, her cold fingers traced the familiar lettering in the rough trunk. For just a moment she forgot where she was, deep in the heart of the dangerous Warrior’s Trace.

The movement that stirred the stand of mountain laurel at her back failed to warn, and the Shawnee surrounded her in a sudden ghostly circle. Pa’s words of warning echoed thunderously in her ears.
Never give way to fear in an Indian’s sight.
Her head came up, but her rifle was leaden in her arms, primed and cocked but useless. All six Shawnee had tomahawks in hand. By the time she could draw a bead, her head would be split open wider than a watermelon.

The warriors circled her, their expressions sober, head feathers a-dance in the winter wind. Six sets of eyes held unmistakable warning. Already she felt shackled, though they hadn’t laid a hand on her. The fear that they might made her bold.

She made straight for the smallest brave, the butt end of her rifle pointed like a battering ram at his belly. The impact nearly toppled her, but she got past him. Dropping her gun, a wildness seemed to possess her and she ran like fire across the forest floor, leaping over bushes and around trees, her dress hardly slowing her.

At her heels came a tall warrior, playing a fast and furious game. He’d dropped his buffalo robe the same instant she’d dropped her rifle, the thrill of pursuit in his every step. His terrifying footfall seemed to shake the very treetops. He was only toying with her, she knew, and would soon overtake her. Her lungs were near bursting—she vowed she would die before she let him touch her—but if she kept on going she’d run right into the ground.

Stay standing.

Another leap over a half-frozen creek and she swung around, chest heaving. Graceful as a bull elk, he slowed, his moccasins digging deep into the wintry ground. When he faced her, she saw that he was hardly winded. Now close enough to touch her, he did just that. His rough fingers skimmed her trembling jaw. No malice marred his striking features. His startling eyes, green as her own, told her it was him.

Captain Jack.

She felt woozy with fear and fascination.

“Click’s daughter,” he said easily, then pointed to her pocket.

What?
How did he know she kept the beads near at hand? Startled, she reached down, her eyes never leaving his face, and pulled out her treasure. They nested like a bounty of robin’s eggs in her open, trembling hand. At the sight of them a satisfied smile softened his intensity.

Taking the beads, he returned them to her pocket. Hungrily, his eyes roamed her vulnerable face, lingering on her unkempt hair and parted mouth as if measuring every ragged breath she took. He reached for her hand ever so slowly, as if she might take wing and fly away from him.

She would not, could not, look away from him. The pressure of his palm against hers . . . the raw strength of him . . . the unclouded invitation in his eyes . . .

A guffaw, rude and loud, broke the spell. As the other warriors reached them, Lael moved to stand in Captain Jack’s shadow. Still, he didn’t release her hand. Warily, her eyes swept the circle of Shawnee, then stopped cold at a familiar figure.

Pa!

Her shock was so apparent, the Indians erupted in laughter. Suddenly it all came clear. He’d been with them from the first. And he meant to teach her a lesson. Was this his punishment for her wandering ways?

Yelping, Nip and Tuck came forward to sniff her skirts. Sheepish, she eyed the Indian she’d nearly gutted and saw he held her rifle.

“Howdy-do, Daughter,” Pa called.

At this, the Indians laughed harder, all but Captain Jack. Letting go of her, he took her father aside. His impassioned words were in Shawnee, but his intent was clear. The tall warrior was arguing to have her. The strangeness of this struck her. She and her pa were outnumbered six to two and could easily be overtaken if the Indians so desired.

She stood staring at her pa, so bearded he was almost unrecognizable. Captain Jack gestured to her, his movements graceful and pleasing. She longed with a deep gnawing to know what it was they said, but she made herself look away and down at her moccasins, one of which had torn and was unraveling.

Standing in the midst of these hardy, tawny men, she felt a smidgen of what her father seemed to feel for them. Admiration. Envy. Awe. Her own reserve began thawing as Captain Jack took her to a little clearing, well away from the others, and they worked together to make a fire. Still, she felt a tremor of unease. This was a white man, she reminded herself, despite his buckskin and feathers and thorough Shawnee manner.

“You were not much afraid when I went after you,” he said with a little smile.

“Oh, I was afraid,” she confessed, picking up some pine knots. “But then I saw that it was you . . .”

“I see your father in your face, and that is good,” he told her. “You have his courage. We were glad to find him hunting today.”

A flicker of alarm lit her eyes. “You mean him no harm?”

He straightened to his full height and looked down at her. “He means us no harm, so we are at peace. Among our people he is
nenothtu oukimah
, a great chief.”

“But I’ve heard—”

“You have heard that the Shawnee kill escaped captives once they are found?” His eyes held hers steadfastly. “Lesser men, yes. But not your father.”

Considering his words, she held her cold hands toward the curling orange flames, finding it hard to look away from him. Here was one of the men who had taken Pa from her years ago, yet her heart twisted with empathy when she thought of how he too had been torn from another life.

“I have so many questions,” she said quietly, eyes on the fire. “About you.”
About the past
, she thought, looking over her shoulder to where her father stood speaking with the other Shawnee.

Captain Jack nodded as if he understood, and patiently coaxed the fire into a golden glow of warmth and light. His response shot such hope into her heart that she had to turn away lest he see the tears shining in her eyes. A bit of her nervousness eased, and she began to enjoy this strange and wondrous twilight, thrilled with Pa’s sudden return.

The cold deepened and a light snow began to fall. The Shawnee began studying the sky, talking among themselves. While they made camp, Pa left to hunt. She watched him go, her high spirits suddenly sinking like stone. What if he returned and they’d taken her away? But he soon came back with a deer, which she helped skin and dress then roast over a generous fire.

’Twas a strange supper, sitting like the guests of honor, while the Shawnee passed the choicest pieces of meat to her father and herself. Her cold fingers took the venison hungrily, and she was careful not to let the juices run down her chin. Not a scrap of meat remained after their feast and then the dogs gnawed on the bones.

Afterward, in the firelight, she mended her moccasin with an awl and sinew, aware of Captain Jack’s eyes on her. He was, she decided, as smitten with her as Simon was. She found the attention more pleasing than provoking and was drawn to his quiet confidence and easy manner.

“Not this . . .
this
.” Captain Jack took the shoe from her, his voice low and gentle.

How old could he be, truly? Thirty or better, she guessed. As he worked, she let her eyes linger on the fine lines of his face. Not a trace of the white man remained. With patient hands, he showed her how to double loop and tie the string to better bind the worn leather. As she watched, one brave called out something in jest and Captain Jack hurled her moccasin at him across the fire.

They were teasing him for all his attention to her, she knew. Smiling, she glanced at Pa, but he was relating some story in Shawnee to the man beside him. Her ears warmed to the talk and laughter all around. The camaraderie thickened as the night deepened. ’Twas harder and harder to hold her eyes open. Twice her head tilted and hit Captain Jack’s hard shoulder, but he didn’t seem to mind, nor did she.

Bedtime found her rolled in a blanket, feet to the fire. A hundred unasked and unanswered questions lodged in her breast, seeming to multiply by the minute. Never in her life had she felt so queer, wedged between Captain Jack and her father in a tight circle of Shawnee. Her last thought before she surrendered to sleep pinked her cheeks.

What would her mother say to see her so? Or Simon?

When she awoke, the Indians were gone. Had she only dreamt it? Nay, the ground where they had bedded down told her it was true. Only she and Pa remained. A fierce longing to have them back swept through her, at odds with her relief at finding them gone.

She said aloud, “That was the queerest night I ever spent, wonderin’ if I’d wake up captive or free.”

Pa looked up from reloading his rifle. “Best be gone before they change their minds about you—or the both of us.”

She looked around in surprise. “Where are your packhorses?”

“At Logan’s Station. When I got wind of Captain Jack’s huntin’ party, I cached them there. No sense in spoilin’ their hunt by handin’ them all my furs. I done that a time or two before.”

Lael remembered all too well—mostly Ma’s temper at losing half a year’s wages. Unsteadily, she stood. Her very bones seemed as frozen as the hard ground, and her skirts were speckled with blood from butchering the deer. But her stomach was still full, content with the choice venison. She figured the Shawnee could be gentlemanly when they pleased. Even her mended moccasin felt like new.

“Come along, Daughter,” Pa said, whistling for Nip and Tuck. He passed a hand over his scraggly beard and studied her, his blue eyes warm. “You’ve grown prettier since I last saw you. Only your hair’s a mite shorter.”

Her cold fingers flew to her braid. Land sakes, but he gave her such a fright! “I’m surprised it ain’t plumb gray after yesterday!” she shot back at him, examining the heavy plait. He hesitated, then laughed outright as she gasped and held the missing end aloft. Although still bound with her favorite ribbon, it had been cut square across and now resembled a straw broom.

“Captain Jack said he’d take some of you if he couldn’t have all of you,” he said, the mirth in his eyes making light of her ire.

“And you let him?”

“Seems a small price to pay to keep you.”

“When? How?” she sputtered.

“Near dawn, with his scalping knife.”

“While I slept?” She swallowed hard, for she was sounding like Ma now, all growl and bite.

With a wink, he turned toward the trail, toward the fort, leaving her to fall in step behind him. She reached into her pocket and fingered the blue beads, wondering if Captain Jack would keep her hair close as well. Sighing, she took a reluctant step away from the dying campfire.

Time spent with the Shawnee only deepened their mystery instead of unraveling it. Was this Pa’s feeling too? Having lived among them, did he feel the same irresistible, if dangerous, pull to be with them? Was this how the Indians felt about him? Though she didn’t ask and he didn’t answer, she knew.

She wondered if she’d ever see the Shawnee, or Captain Jack, again.

18

Lael stood with her father in the center of the fort common, his packhorses burdened with all manner of furs, a passel of people there to welcome him. Snow was falling, but no one seemed to care. Colonel Corey and the militia had welcomed him in with a volley of gunfire. Her ma and Ransom could hardly get to him for the press of folks hungry for news of any kind, all anxious to hear if he thought it safe for them to return to their homesteads beyond fort walls. Out of the corner of her eye, Lael noticed Hugh McClary coming out of Ma Horn’s cabin, but she thought little of it.

In time, the welcoming throng began to disperse and the family faced the bearded, muddy, trail-worn figure they hardly recognized. Even Nip and Tuck looked pinched and weary, ready to drop.

Looking hard at Lael, Pa turned to open one of his saddlebags. She clasped her hands together, expectant. Had he brought her something then?

Behind them, someone shouted hoarsely from the door of a cabin. A warning? Thunderous gunfire ripped through the common, scattering stock and settlers. Pa was turning around, holding something in his hand, when he fell. Blood spattered onto Lael’s butternut dress. The gift—a small box—dropped to her feet, and then she followed, falling hard to the ground after him.

At first glance it seemed two had fallen from Hugh McClary’s bullet, but Lael had only fainted. Colonel Corey carried her to the Click cabin while others moved her father. The trail of blood on the ground marked an inglorious homecoming. A scuffle ensued as McClary’s rifle was wrested away despite his screaming epithets and obscenities in a whiskey-soaked voice. He would soon be locked up and flogged, then forcibly evicted from fort walls. This was lenient punishment, the colonel said, as he doubted even the Shawnee would want him. And all this after one of the Click clan’s own had nursed him through the weary winter.

Lael rose up to find him lying on a bed surrounded by a press of people. Colonel Corey tried to shield her but she pushed forward, chilled by the sight of so much blood. After some minutes Ma Horn determined the wound was in Pa’s right thigh. His face faded to the color of gray linen as a fellow trapper worked to extract the ball while she attempted to stay the bleeding.

She looked up suddenly at Lael. “Fetch some comfrey and snakeroot from my cabin.”

Lael ran next door, her hands far calmer than her twisted insides. With some help, she concocted a poultice. When at last the ball had come out, they cleaned the wound with corn liquor and applied the snakeroot while Ma Horn tore linen into rags for bandages.

For a sudden, dizzying moment, Lael felt the stuffy room sway and suffocate her. She put one hand out and covered Pa’s still, cool wrist. Beneath her fingers she could feel the rhythm of his pulse, and it steadied her. Still, the bandages turned scarlet as soon as they were applied, and they were pulled free for fresh ones. Ma Horn began binding the wounded leg so tight the entire thigh was soon encased in a cocoon of cloth.

Lael sponged Pa’s face with a damp rag, but he didn’t so much as twitch. What if this small gesture was to be the last given to him? What if they were to next wash his body for burial? She’d be left with nothing but the hoard of unasked riddles and questions that had dogged her since childhood. She swallowed hard, feeling small and scared again, just as she had years ago when learning of his capture. She glanced toward Ransom, his still, bent body crumpled in the door frame. No one in the cabin spoke. A vigil had begun that would not end until he awoke or passed on. The heavy bleeding and threat of blood poisoning still loomed.

With a heavy sigh, the trapper retreated to the warm hearth to finish off the rest of the corn liquor. Colonel Corey stood at the door, barring entry to those who waited outside.

After a while they heard cries of “String up McClary!”

The trapper swore, setting down his jug. “McClary’s the cause of all this blood and trouble, him with a temper that would curdle milk.”

Inwardly, Lael flinched. His words bore the makings of a deadly feud. But she knew the trouble had begun long ago at the salt licks when her father had been faced with an impossible choice. Truly, he had saved the settlement. Hadn’t both judge and jury said that it was so at the court-martial? But Hugh McClary believed none of it.

“He’ll live, but he’ll limp to his dying day,” Ma Horn pronounced when the danger seemed past.

Lael fell to her knees in the cold loft and said a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord for sparing him. With McClary not seen since the flogging and no fresh Shawnee sign about, it seemed they could finally go home to the cabin and abide in peace, at least for a time.

Before she blew out the candle and slipped under the coverlet, Lael took out the gift from Pa and held it in one cold hand. Aside from the blue beads, she’d never owned a piece of jewelry, at least not a civilized one such as this. The pale pink and ivory cameo fit in her palm, a profile of a pretty girl etched upon its shell surface, her flowing tresses entwined with leaves and flowers and berries like some woodland fairy. She reckoned she would never wear it, as it was too fine to be pinned to a homespun dress. But she would keep it with her always, in her pocket, alongside the blue beads.