The Frontiersman’s Daughter (31 page)

54

Christmas was approaching, and the land lay frozen in the grip of winter. How long had it been since she’d last been at the fort? Fourteen . . . fifteen days?

And how long had it been since she’d last seen Captain Jack? The memory of their encounter at the river had faded somewhat. How tall had he stood? How green were his eyes? Just what had he said before leaving her at the last? Her forbidden feelings for him lay tucked within her heart, but they no longer warmed her as they once had.

Her days were relentlessly the same. She woke up, trading her warm bed for a frigid cabin. From the ashes she made a fire, boiled tea and mush for breakfast, and watched her store of honey dwindle even though she meted it out in miserly fashion. She washed dishes and swept out the cabin, needed or not, then set out dried beans or apples to soak, ground meal for bread, and cut a small hank of meat for seasoning from the ham hanging in the springhouse. There were Tuck and the mule to tend to and, on kinder days, a walk to the river.

To her dismay, some days she did not so much as wash her face or comb her hair. Besides, who was there to see—or care? Soon she lost all track of time. She was too much alone, she reasoned, forever fighting the urge to ride to the fort. The solitude was making her strange. Was this how it had been for Lovey Runion? Fine at first . . . and then fey?

At least she had her spectacles and her books. But the medical volumes rested at one end of the table, coated white with a sprinkling of dust. Shakespeare and
The Pilgrim’s Progress
were no different, sitting idly on the mantle where she had left them a month before. Only the Bible was in use, lying open and waiting for first one reading then another. How was it that she could read the same passage twice and come away with a different understanding each time?

“’Tis a rude book,” she pronounced one day in irritation. The words demanded her full concentration, prodding and provoking her, assailing her with questions even when closed. Lately, in the stillness, it seemed to speak to her, calling her back after she had shut it.

Like Ian’s prayers, the Bible would not let her be. It demanded something of her, though she knew not what. The more she read, the deeper she looked into its truths, the more she felt herself being looked into, laid bare and open.

Not one soul had sent for her in weeks, not one request made. Visiting Lovey and Mourning and Titus up the branch had been her only call, and even there she had felt like an intruder. Though they were glad to see her, they needed nothing from her except a little tobacco. Why, Lovey had even given up her tonic.

She returned home, dreading the cold cabin, then remembered the firewood that had been mysteriously split and stacked. This time, however, the change was more subtle: Just beyond the rick of firewood the fence in the pasture had been mended. And there were new shingles on the shed.

Tuck barked furiously in welcome and circled the mule in a frenzy. Laughing, she got down, wondering who’d done these needed repairs. Will Bliss? Simon? It was Will’s way to do good deeds in secret, but not Simon’s. Her rush of gratitude was soon overshadowed by a nagging sense of failure. Who’d been here? And why? She was a woman alone, hard pressed to do the repairs herself, and that was her answer.

Hadn’t Will had to plow for her in spring? Hadn’t he brought her feed corn when the barn burned and taken care of her mare? Wasn’t she a thorn in Colonel Barr’s side? As it was, she’d already spent too much time at the fort, living off Ma Horn’s meager supplies and replenishing little.

And then there was the matter of Doc Justus, who cared as much about doctoring people’s souls as their bodies. Nay, he didn’t know much about walnut poultices or the properties of ginseng, but with his medical training and prayer, what need did she herself serve? The time was ripe for running away.

The folly of living alone and courting danger went against her own good judgment. What had Ma Horn once told her?
There’s only one thing worse than a broken heart. It comes of getting what you want and finding out it ain’t what you thought it would be.
Lael had come home and found that to be true.

As Christmas drew nearer, her thoughts turned to gift giving. She wanted Susanna and Ma Horn to have something memorable, even sentimental, something that couldn’t be had at the fort store or even Lexington. It was best, she decided, to give the gift of oneself or the work of one’s hands. And so she set to work, cutting pieces from the skirt of her second-best Briar Hill gown and a bit of the lace besides. Susanna dearly loved fancy things and an apron and pincushion would be both pretty and practical, embroidered with some words of friendship.

For little Lael she dug into her trunk and brought out the fashion doll the Rose Hill seamstress had given her. Its small wooden frame bore an exact replica of her rose gown, complete with lace sleeves and tiny glass buttons. For the boys, Will and Henry, she had Ransom’s toy tomahawk and a few flint arrowheads she’d found. Perhaps Pa’s remaining farm tools would go to Will, for all the trouble he had taken with her, and maybe Pa’s budget as well, if she could part with it.

At the bottom of her trunk was a new pair of ivory stockings held up with garter ribbons. On each she embroidered Ma Horn’s initials in scarlet thread. As she sewed, she dreamt of Christmases past. From the simplicity of a corn-husk doll in her childhood to the grand, candlelit firs of Briar Hill, the day was magic, wherever she happened to be. Should it be any less here without so much as a pine bough for decoration or a cup of mulled cider?

A gift for Ian required much thought . . . and prayer. A practical gift it must be, yet she couldn’t give it without a touch of sentiment besides. Night after night, her new spectacles perched on her nose, she sat at the trestle table, quill in hand, composing a book in gothic hand to make her former writing master proud.

In alphabetical order she painstakingly transcribed all the herbs and plants and roots known as healers, giving a detailed description of each, their benefits and dangers, and a sketch as well. From basswood to red clover to sassafras, she wrote down all she knew. For the cover she applied some rose petals she’d pressed in late summer, then signed her name in one corner.

Next she sharpened some scissors and cut her hair. Just a small piece, about the width of her little finger, taken from the nape of her neck after it had been brushed and braided. The long golden strand, tied at each end with a bit of moss green ribbon, would make a fine bookmark.

She sat back and examined her work with a smile. She’d not felt so satisfied in a very long time.

55

Toward dusk on Christmas Eve, a light snow began to fall. She put her head down on Neddy’s Bible, spectacles in hand, and went to sleep. She awoke to fading firelight and the tinkling of a bell. But the snow spitting against the shutter and a rising wind soon drowned out the sound.

Her imagination, she decided. Or had she simply dreamed of Christmas bells? A dream, she reckoned, for Tuck did not bark. She got up to add wood to the fire and heard it again.
Bells.
Not one but several, ringing out a blissful melody in the growing darkness.

Still Tuck did not bark. Without a thought for the cold she flung open the cabin door and stepped onto the frozen planks of the porch. In the yard Tuck was like a dog possessed, running in crazy circles, ears flying and eyes bright.

Around the burned barn came a figure in a blue coat on a beautiful bay horse. An unfamiliar hat was pulled low, hiding his features, yet she knew him instantly. A warm, lilting feeling clutched her heart. Ian Justus rode up to the porch, smiling at her through a snow suddenly gone wild. The bells about the bay’s neck quieted, and Tuck began to lick his boots.

Speechless, she stood, hands clasped behind her back.

“Since you’re no’ going tae ask, I’ll just tell you tae come,” he called. “Come as you are. But if you dinna hurry, we’ll miss Christmas.”

Christmas.
She felt the delight of it clear to her toes. He leaned forward in the saddle, looking frozen. “Are you coming, Lael lass, or are you no’?”

“I—well . . .” She turned and flew into the cabin, smoothing her hair, banking the fire, and disposing of her uneaten supper all at once. Suddenly she reappeared at the door. “I don’t even know where we’re going!”

“Tae Cozy Creek. Till the new year.”

The prospect threw her into action and sent her rummaging through her trunk, stuffing her rose silk gown into a saddlebag along with a nightgown and the gifts she’d made. On a whim she grabbed the popcorn popper before she flew out the door again.

He was tying her mule behind the bay. She noticed his violin case hanging from his saddle, and her heart sang a note all its own. Before she could even step off the porch he was picking her up.

“Light as thistledown,” he teased. “’Tis what I suspected.”

She laughed at this for she had never been scrawny. With a bark, Tuck brought up the rear.

As they climbed the gentle mountain path the snow both blinded them with its brightness and lit their way. The solid warmth of his back and his wide-brimmed hat kept the wind from devouring her as she leaned against him.

And then, out of habit, came a dire, dreadful reminder. She had forgotten her gun. Despite this trespass she’d never felt safer or more serene. Truly, she felt she’d passed from darkness into light.

At the top of Cozy Creek the lights of the Bliss cabin shone like stars. The baying of Will’s hounds shattered the stillness, then the cabin door was flung open wide in welcome. Lael was at once relieved and rueful. Oh, but she hated for the night to end, with the magic of every snowflake shaken down from heaven all around them and the ride, not cold and long, but sheer bliss. Ian’s arms were snug around her, helping her down from the bay, bringing their time alone to an end.

“Come in!” shouted Susanna in her merry way. “You must be near froze and starved half to death. Supper’s waitin’.”

Behind her, filling the door frame, was Will, puffing contentedly on a pipe, two of the children entwined about his legs. Inside, a roaring fire sent their shadows dancing about the room. Susanna and the children had draped laurel leaves on strings and they gleamed waxy and bright, while the scent of candles competed with the smoky smell of roasting goose. Susanna hugged her hard in welcome, and Lael realized just how long it had been.

“Lael Click’s become a stranger,” Will said with a grin. “Cavortin’ about with her remedies and forsakin’ her friends. We’d hoped the competition with Doc Justus would change all that.”

“It might yet,” she answered, shedding her buffalo robe.

Ian was removing his coat as well and stood looking at her so intently she knew something was wrong. Her dress? This was one of her two work dresses, and the plainest of the two, with grease spots that refused to budge despite repeated scourings with lye. Or maybe it was her hair—damp and bedraggled and completely free of its pins so that it hung in wild waves down her back. Or her shoes!
Oh, law!
She stared at her stocking feet in mortification. A double layer of stockings . . . but no shoes!

Deep down, from somewhere in his belly, Will Bliss began to laugh. Susanna followed, clutching her sides, then Ian as well. “You could say we were in a wee bit of a hurry tae get here,” he admitted as Lael finally broke into laughter herself.

“Wet feet never hurt a body,” Will said with a wink. “Besides, the doctor here will take care of you.”

Susanna skirted the table, so heavily laden it seemed to list, and motioned for them to sit. “Lael, set out the bread. Will, you can pour the cider. Doctor, you’ll have to fend off the least ’uns for a place.”

Little Lael, pink-cheeked from the novelty of company, was in a fit of giggles brought on by Ian’s carrying her like a keg of powder under his arm. She insisted on sitting at his knee until Susanna intervened and she squirmed into place between him and Lael.

Surveying the table before her and the people all around her, Lael felt such a rush of gratitude she wanted to weep. What had become of her? Soft as mush, she rebuked herself, bowing her head to hear Will’s prayer.

But what of Ma Horn? Lael asked after her as the dishes were passed.

“Ma Horn,” Ian said, “is making merry with Colonel Barr and Airy Phelps.”

Susanna chuckled at this. “Making merry with the likes of Philo Barr? Now that I would like to see. Though Airy Phelps is a merry old widow woman if ever there was one.”

“Perhaps the colonel will be a changed mon come the New Year,” said Ian with a grin, lifting his mug of cider in a toast. “Keep good company and ye will be counted one of them, so the Scots say.”

They laughed, and talk turned to more banal matters. There was no fresh settlement news and the hope was that everyone in Kentucke could rest easy for Christmas. Indians weren’t known to be winter raiders, though reports of trouble still trickled through the settlements despite the intermittent snows.

Will scratched his beard. “I heard there’s been some ruckus upriver with the Shawnee raidin’ flatboats and the like. I was goin’ to ask the doctor if Colonel Barr—”

Lael felt a woozy rush of alarm and kept her eyes on her plate as Susanna scolded, “Oh, hush about trouble. Tonight we’re together, safe and sound, and trouble seems far off. Let’s talk of better things to come.”

Will winked at her. “Like spring and calvin’ time?”

She gave an unusual blush and Lael stole a glance at her friend knowingly. Even Ian smiled as he reached for more cider.

“And what of you, Lael?” Susanna asked. “What are your plans come the new year?”

Lael paused and took up her knife to butter a biscuit. Did she look as scattered as she felt? “I don’t rightly know . . . not yet.”
True enough.
“I thought I might leave for a spell. Finally visit my mother and Ransom.” She kept her eyes down and was relieved when Will asked Ian the same.

“Forting up,” he said simply.

Susanna looked pensive as if keeping some secret. “Spring’ll bring about some changes in the settlement, I reckon. Don’t you agree, Doctor?”

They exchanged a glance, though he said nothing. But hearing it, Lael knew.

Olivia.
In the spring when the dogwood was flowering and the sarvis berries were ruby red, Olivia was to come to Kentucke. Contemplating it, Lael felt like all the breath had been knocked out of her. Knowing made her own uncertain future that much harder to bear.

That first night they stayed up till midnight, sampling Will’s blackberry wine and talking among themselves. Susanna was expecting her fourth child in spring and wanted both the doctor and Lael to attend her. The new year, Ian told them, would indeed bring a new county to Kentucke in honor of Lael’s father. Colonel Barr had only lately received official word of this and had asked that the news be passed on to Lael. Hearing it by the fire, among friends, Lael felt a deep glow of pride. The tide of conversation shifted to Pa as Will and Susanna recounted stories of his exploits, with Lael adding or detracting as they went, her lingering grief softened by their friendship.

And yet the evening soon came to an end, with Will and Susanna joining their sleeping children in the loft and Ian disappearing behind a makeshift partition of coverlets hiding a corner bed. As for Lael, a pallet beneath a window suited her fine, stuffed full of clean straw and graced with a feather pillow and Susanna’s best quilt.

At half past midnight the only sound was the wind blowing an icy breath against the shutter and the logs settling in the fire. It was plumb unnerving, Lael thought, to have Ian Justus lying so close. She lay fully clothed atop the pallet, baiting sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. Perhaps neglecting her nightly ritual was the trouble. Silently, on stocking feet, she left her bed.

A fire always drew her, and this one was especially enticing, warming the plank floor directly in front, glowing golden on the smooth hearthstones till they looked polished, even wet. Hoping the heat would lull her to sleep, she sat as close as she dared. Fragments of the evening’s conversation echoed in her head . . .

Click, show us your pretty daughter . . . let down your hair.

To Lael’s dismay, Will had recounted this tale over blackberry wine. But how had he known? She’d never spoken of it to anyone, not Susanna nor Simon. But there it was, out in the open, the stuff of legend. Hearing it afresh, she wanted to slip under the table. Ian said not a word during the telling, and she dared not look at him.

Law, but she could add a few more tales of her own, but they would hardly believe her.

She let down her hair now as she’d done then, pulling the pins loose and letting the heavy locks fall. Her horsehair brush was old and missing some bristles, but the mother-of-pearl handle conformed to her hand, smooth and worn. Absently, she began to brush. One stroke . . . two . . . ten . . .

From the shadows came the slightest sound. Startled, she looked up and the brush fell to the floor. Ian sat in the shadows, in the same chair he’d occupied all evening. Had he never left? She had seen him go herself, but perhaps he found sleep as impossible as she. With a trembling hand she retrieved the brush and hurriedly braided her hair, gathering up the pins in her lap.

He said quietly, “Lael, what is happening between you and the Shawnee?”

She nearly flinched at the sound of her name, so softly spoken. It was just like him to come straight to the heart of the matter. Slowly, she sat back down and glanced anxiously at the loft. Could they be heard? But Ian kept his voice so low even she had to lean forward to make out his words.

“Why . . .” she began, uncertain. “Why do you want to know?”

“You are nae longer so lighthearted—so blithesome. Have you no’ seen him?”