The Frontiersman’s Daughter (34 page)

58

Blessedly, there was a break in the weather. The sun deigned to shine on their first medical call together, banishing the rain yet leaving behind mud as thick and black as chicory coffee. Will had returned Pandora hale and hearty, and Lael now rode beside Ian, saddlebags full of herbs, just as his own were full of his medicines. Curiously, the call had not come from Fort Click or even the settlement itself but from Cobb’s Station, many miles north, a recent hub of military activity.

“I never thought to see you packing a gun,” she said as they rode out.

“Neither did I,” he confessed, eyeing hers. “But ’twas either that or have half the militia accompany us, including Colonel Barr.”

“Well, if you can shoot as well as you fiddle, I might have left mine at home,” she teased.

He grinned, then sobered. “I’m sorry we have tae spend the night. With all the soldiers aboot, you’ll likely have half a dozen marriage proposals by morning.”

She squinted up at the sun beneath her straw hat and smiled. “What a bother.”

He tipped his hat forward. “Of course, I could simply tell them you’re my wife.”

“And what would you do with me come nightfall?” she said. “Best say I’m your sister, like Abram of old.” She’d just read the Old Testament account and was amazed that a man of God could be so deceitful.

“The lie earned him nae favors with Pharaoh or the Almighty,” he reminded, reaching for his canteen and offering her a drink.

“Or Sarai,” Lael added, taking out her own water. “Scripture says she was very beautiful.”

“Bonny women drive men tae desperate measures,” he murmured, eyeing the woods.

She leaned forward and patted Pandora’s sleek neck. All her carefully ordered emotions, reviewed and subdued in the eight days since New Year’s, began fraying. What if Susanna was right? What if he
was
in love with her?

Mercifully, the pickets of the station finally came into view. It was dusk when they rode in, bone weary and famished. An aura of tension penetrated the gloom, and when the gates swung open to reveal a dozen armed men, Lael knew there had been trouble.

An officer approached and took their horses with a terse command. “Major Bristow needs you in the northeast blockhouse.” There they found several men on pallets, while one, the most gravely wounded, lay on top of a table near the fire. But this was not why they’d been summoned to the fort in the first place.

The major greeted them, his news of the attack followed by a coughing fit. The fort’s commanding officer was sorely in need of a doctor, as was his wife, who awaited Lael in a nearby cabin.
Consumption
, she thought, and glanced at Ian who was removing her cape and then his own coat. But the prostrate soldiers demanded their immediate attention.

There had been a small skirmish shortly after dawn when the livestock was driven down to the river to drink. A small party of Indians had been hiding in the dense brush along the bank and fired upon the unsuspecting soldiers.

Lael could see straightaway their bandages needed changing, and she set about doing this, fetching warm water and a pile of clean cloths, while Ian tended to the man on the table, talking in low tones with the major.

The clock on the mantle ticked sure and steady as a heartbeat and proclaimed it nearly midnight when she finally sat down, dog tired, to watch him work. Many miles they’d ridden this day, and he had yet to rest. Would he stay up all night?

Soon a soldier entered carrying a tray of venison broth and bread. From where she sat, the aroma smelled like the richest of foods, and even the stale bread was a delight. Ian said a brief blessing, his voice quiet and steady, and they sat side by side, crumbling the bread into the broth and sharing a jug of sweet cider.

“You’re an answer tae my prayers, ye ken.”

“I’ve not done much,” she said, ashamed she’d held out on working with him so long. “You seem to manage fine all by yourself.”

“’Tis a strange thing tae finish one war and begin another,” he uttered, finishing his food.

“George Washington’s war, you mean? And now this?”

“Aye.” He took the empty bowl from her hands. “You need tae rest. Take the loft. I canna sleep tonight.”

Without protest she climbed the steps to the simple pallet, guided by the light of a single candle. Before dawn she was on her feet again, as much to check on him as the wounded men. “I dinna ken,” he said from the shadows. “Tho’ the wounds are clean, they still fester.”

She came to stand beside him and looked down at the unconscious soldier. “All the lead is out?”

“Every ball.”

The man’s pallor beneath his bushy beard was ghostlike and his breathing uneasy. Some dim memory pulled at her from the past. “I remember Pa saying the Indians used some sort of poison to taint their lead and arrowheads for battle.”

“Poison?”

“Some herb or plant extract that could taint a man’s flesh.”

“And the remedy?”

“I don’t recollect exactly,” she said wearily. “But a walnut poultice gives the best draw.”

He ran one hand through his hair in agitation, though he managed a wry grin. “I’m afraid I dinna have any walnuts in my medical bag.”

She looked up at him and smiled. “You don’t, but I do. I picked a good bushel for Ma Horn in the fall and kept a few in my saddlebags. But we’ll have to borrow some salt and flour to make the poultice.”

Together they began the tedious process of cracking the tough hulls, then beating them with salt and flour to make a paste. He watched closely as she smeared the mixture on clean cloths and placed them over the man’s chest and leg wounds.

“If walnuts are scarce, sometimes honey will do. We’ll know by morning anyhow.” She turned and began washing up, aware that he watched her. “I suppose they don’t teach you such things in medical school.”

He shook his head, and the lines of weariness deepened about his eyes. “Walnut poultices? Nae. I’m beginning tae find my training sorely lacking.”

The other men began to stir, and Lael moved about spooning them broth and water until Major Bristow appeared, calling her away to see his wife. She was glad to go, breathing in the fresh air outside the stale blockhouse, taking in the gunmetal-gray sky and the persisting feeling of gloom all around her.

She was ushered into a spacious cabin where a woman lay in a corner bed. Lael started at the sight of her, so different than what she’d expected. This was a mere girl, a fading flower next to the much older major. Lael sensed the harshness and deprivations of frontier life did not suit her. Indeed, she hardly smiled and returned no greeting as Lael came near.

“Your husband tells me you feel poorly,” Lael said. “Perhaps I can help, if you tell me what the trouble is.”

The girl colored, then rested thin hands atop her stomach. “I think I might be expecting but hope to heaven I’m not.”

Lael was relieved, for this was a simple matter next to consumption. “I’ll just ask you some questions, and that should tell us if a baby’s on the way and when. Dr. Justus is more skilled than I in these matters, but he’s busy treating the wounded men. He can follow up with you when I’m finished.”

Tiny and narrow-hipped, she hardly seemed fit physically to be a mother. Lael blended some raspberry tea to help with any nausea and calculated the baby would come before the heat of July. The girl looked sour as buttermilk at the news, though lately the thought of babies turned Lael herself to mush. As she packed up her saddlebags, she remembered her own vivid dream. Of childbirth and Captain Jack. Even in her dream the desire to hold her baby had been sure and strong. Would the major’s wife not feel the same in time?

As she shut the cabin door and walked across the busy common, the feeling of being hemmed in grew stronger. Surely they could get away soon. She missed hearth and home in this forbidding place, though at least Ransom was home to tend to matters in her absence. She chafed at the thought of the long ride ahead. Emptying herself of all feeling when with Ian was proving harder than she’d ever imagined.

The blockhouse was empty save two soldiers moving among the wounded. “Where’s Dr. Justus?” she asked.

One shrugged. “He wanted to see the prisoners, though I ain’t sure why. They’re to be executed on the morrow.”

Prisoners?
She turned to go, but one soldier came forward and caught her arm. “Major Bristow don’t want any womenfolk around them Cherokee.”

She pulled her arm free. “I don’t take orders from the major. Now tell me where Dr. Justus is, or I’ll hunt him down myself.”

His expression turned surly. “You ain’t no Indian lover, are ye?”

She opened the door and went out, saddlebags heavy in her arms. Truly, she didn’t need their help. It was obvious enough where Ian was. In the middle of the common stood a crude building, heavily guarded, with metal bars at the lone window. Why hadn’t she noticed it before?

The soldier dogged her every step. She walked with confidence, like she’d been ordered to the stockade instead of away from it, and shifted the saddlebags in her arms. Her purposeful stride paid off and a guard moved to open the thick door. But the man behind her whined, “Major Bristow said she ain’t supposed to mingle with them Cherokee.”

But she was already inside despite the angry murmur of the soldiers looking on. Her breath caught as she took in the Indians, their familiar dress and bearing. Ian looked up, warning in his gaze. Whirling, she pinned the soldier to the wall with one look. “Cherokee? Don’t you even know the difference? These men are Shawnee.”

Overcome, she kicked the door shut with her boot, blocking out the sight of his loathsome face. Three Shawnee warriors were being held in the cold, smelly room. Not a blanket was in sight, nor a scrap of food or water. The smell of urine assaulted her. Legs weak, she dropped her load by the door. The Shawnee were staring at her. At least one of them looked familiar.

She uttered the only Shawnee words she knew, “
Oui-shi-cat-tu-oui
.”
Be strong.
Long ago when he’d returned from captivity, Pa had taught her this, and she’d never forgotten. It seemed to sum up his life among the Indians and admonish her as well.

One Indian, who looked to be a chief, echoed the words back to her. She took in the eagle feathers affixed to his hair with a silver disk, his buckskin leggins and frock shirt, the fine beadwork on his moccasins, so like Captain Jack’s. Looking at him brought back a swift, intense longing, further muddying her feelings. He sat proudly on the dirt floor beside another warrior, his face impassive.

At the back of the dim room lay a third man, mortally wounded. She smelled decay and saw clearly the devastating injury Ian worked to treat. Gut shot, she knew. When he drew back, she looked away from the bloody rags that bound him. She could do but one thing to help.

She pushed open the door. “I need hot broth and fresh water,” she ordered, but the men only stared, some glaring with contempt, others simply stoic.

One soldier said, “We’d sooner scalp ’em than feed ’em. And since we cain’t scalp ’em, we ain’t gonna feed ’em either.”

“They’re dead men tomorrow, anyhow,” said another. “Best not waste good grub.”

The hate in their voices nearly made her falter. Looking on, Ian rose from tending the men and went to speak to the nearest officer, and in time he returned with what she requested. She took it gratefully, though she felt it mattered little to men who had hours to live. Working together, they did what they could to make the men comfortable, easing the dying man with a blend of her strongest herbs and Ian’s most able medicines.

Finally she sat back, spent and unable to ignore the forlorn feeling that permeated the fetid room. If only she’d known what the day had in store, she wouldn’t have come. Ian might handle it dispassionately, outwardly stoic at least, but she could not. As long minutes ticked by, memories of Pa and Captain Jack and the past were being resurrected, and she felt herself unraveling.

“We canna do any more this day,” Ian finally said, and she breathed a silent prayer of thanks, scooping up her saddlebags and following him to the corral.

Her melancholy deepened as they rode out. At the gate, Ian was detained by Major Bristow, but Lael kept riding, pushing Pandora ahead, thinking they might not make it home before nightfall, if they ever did.

Were more Shawnee waiting outside the walls? She looked around at the naked winter woods and ridges with a growing unease. The cold bit into her, and she lowered her head in the rising wind, a light snow stinging her damp face.

She was crying now without really knowing why, and she couldn’t stop shaking. Within minutes she heard the drum of hoofbeats behind her, and the sound only made her ride faster. She wanted to be alone, to put distance between her and the past. But Pandora was no match for the big bay. All at once they were neck and neck and Ian was reaching for her reins, slowing her. He stopped her completely beneath an enormous elm, out of the way of the falling snow. She dismounted and turned her back on him, leaning against the rough trunk.

Without a word he draped his wool coat around her shaking shoulders, though it was his arms she wanted. She saw his hair had come loose of its tie and hung like a black curtain against the white muslin of his shirt. She’d not stood so near him before. Why, she barely grazed his chin. It had been the same with Captain Jack.