A Moonbow Night

  Full dark had come on when the wolves began to howl. Would James and the men not come? They’d promised to return by Saturday eve. Something kept them at Castle’s Woods, or with a full load of seed and farm tools and such, they’d been slowed.

  She lay down on her pallet, the forest floor chill and uneven beneath her. A snaking root stabbed her back, and she felt the ticklish trail of an ant across her bare arm. Russell usually slept an arm’s reach away on the outside, his rifle slung across upright sticks, ever ready. Across the embers of a dwindling cookfire, her mother lay, eyes closed, lips parted. And Pa? She didn’t know.

  Tempe stared heavenward, eyes on the full moon floating free of the sugar trees.

  Blind to the beauty, she sent three words into the stillness.

  Lord, please . . . James.

  When she finally slept, she’d dreamed of thunder.

  The distant thunder of guns? Uneasiness smothered her heart. Her head came free of the pallet, her body poised for flight. Her sleepy gaze was drawn to the Boones, an assortment of lumps beneath unkempt bedding a few families away. Maybe James had come in during the night. The moon had been full, good for travel.

  But it wasn’t James she saw.

  Standing a few feet from her was the young man—Isaac Simmons—nobody seemed particularly fond of. He’d earned a brand for cowardice and thieving and had left their party earlier on the trace. Now his face stood out in the wan morning light, pale as frost, eyes wild.

  The guard gathered round him, a trio of buckskin-clad men who seemed more aggravated than alarmed by his presence. Hastily, Tempe stood and ran callused hands down her dress to smooth out the wrinkles before plucking a shawl, damp with dew, from a laurel bush. She hardly felt its chill as it draped her.

  The camp was astir. Bedrolls needed to be strapped to packsaddles and children fed. But Tempe kept her gaze on Isaac, who’d finally begun to talk. She moved nearer, reading his lips, his gestures and grimaces. He turned and spat into a clump of weeds, looking sick enough to retch.

  Tempe hardly noticed Mary Mendenhall’s approach. Mary was sixteen and newly wed, her face holding a question. Her husband had gone with James and Russell to Castle’s Woods.

  Next came Jane Mendenhall, carrying the least of her children. Her face was still pinched with fatigue despite several days’ rest. “You bring word of my Richard?”

  For a split second, Isaac just stared back at them before starting up again with a choking stutter.

  “It—it’s bad—I come upon an ambush some three miles back along Wallen’s Creek—Cherokee and Shawnee—from the look of it. The stock’s all scattered—the horses took. Both Mendenhalls killed outright.” The young man spoke in breathless spurts, sweat slicking his brow despite the morning’s chill. “Three more are shot full of arrows, so torn up I could hardly make ’em out. I believe one’s Boone—maybe Tucker.”

  Tempe took a step back, blood singing in her ears.

  A wall of folks were behind her now, hemming her in, leaving no room to run or cry or collapse. She looked about wildly, the ragged trees fading to gray then black, cutting off light and air. If she’d been high atop a knob, she’d have flung herself off it, so deep went her hurt.

  James . . . dead . . . on their wedding day?

  What of Russell? Was her beloved brother dead too?

  James’s father appeared then, gun in hand, striding toward them. Daniel held himself ramrod-straight at the news, his weathered features showing neither surprise nor sorrow. He asked a few low questions as if weighing all the facts before calling his brother and a small party of men to go back and bury the dead. James’s mother took out linen sheets from their precious stores to wrap the bodies in.

  Stoic, the men began herding the women and children toward a large hollow beneath a beech tree, throwing up a rude defense of brush and fallen timber. The scene was one of chaos and near panic.

  Shaking from the storm of her emotions, Tempe fisted her apron, the linen wadded in trembling hands. Beside her, Mary Mendenhall cried quietly, but Jane Mendenhall—a widow minutes old with eight fatherless children—stood stricken, the forgotten baby in her arms fretful.

  Across the way was Tempe’s mother, also bereft of a son. Aylee Tucker put an arm about James’s mother, leading her to the shelter of the beech tree, seven younger Boones trailing. Little Livvy was crying, her small chest working like a blacksmith’s bellows as she clasped her older sisters’ hands.

  Unable to look at her, Tempe turned her face to the sky. Seeking answers. Trying to stay standing. Desperate to recall what James had said to her at the last.

  I wish you could go with me.

  With all her being, she wished she had.

  Sion took the night watch till the moon foretold three o’clock and Lucian roused. Expecting to fall into a dead slumber, he lay on his scant bedding in the rockhouse, dreaming of softer ground. Between him and Nate was Tempe, but he couldn’t tell if she was asleep or awake. And then when the silence and blackness of the night was deepest, she mumbled a few sleep-slurred words. He could make out but one.

  James.

  It was enough to keep him wide-eyed till daylight. After that she’d quieted. Was her time on the trace stirring up old heartaches like trail dust? If she turned back, headed to the inn . . . What a hole she’d leave should she retreat. And he had no guess as to whether Raven would accompany her for double wages or fly.

  It was clear the half-blood was partial to her. Sion watched Raven craft a bow and a quiver of arrows for her. They bounced on her back, making her abandon her rifle altogether at times. Raven was teaching her how to use them, and being Tempe, she warmed to the task. Sion had yet to tease apart the reasons for their tie, and the wondering gnawed at him like a mouse finding a shed deer antler on the forest floor.

  Turning on his side, he rested his head on his forearm and allowed himself an unguarded look at her. The moon was obliging, at such a slant that silver light spilled into the rockhouse and soaked every ridge and hollow of her. She lay on her back, her comely profile at rest, hands folded atop her middle.

  If she left . . . what would he miss?

  The flash in her eyes when he riled her? The deep-set dimple in her cheek? Her amiable self-possession? Her surprising, slow-to-speak ways? Tending to any complaint with her herbs and simples? The fall of hair to the small of her back, an untamed coil of too many colors to count?

  She stirred then, turning toward him. A handbreadth away. Nate’s raucous snoring didn’t dent the enchantment or even earn the customary nudge to quiet down. Moonlight limned her cheekbones and fringe of lashes. Sion clenched his free hand, the temptation to brush back a stray wisp of her hair nigh impossible to resist.

  She had nearly been James’s bride. A worthy bride for a Boone. What had Daniel once told him?

  All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.

  A true-hearted woman, Daniel had concluded. Sion had heeded that advice. Had all a man could ask for. Then as now the knife’s edge of sorrow descended and cut short the faint stirrings of awe he’d begun to feel.

  “Sion?” Tempe looked over at him. Her voice was like a caress in the darkness. “Is it time yet?”

  He swallowed. Rolled onto his back. “Time?”

  “To leave out?”

  Would he lose her? He forced more words past a too-tight throat. “Which direction?”

  She chuckled, a sweet, throaty sound, nearly drawing his eyes back to her. He focused on the rockhouse ceiling, a gnarled, smoke-blackened overhang he’d be glad to part with come daybreak.

  “Time’ll tell,” she whispered, turning her back to him.

  Tempe was aware of Sion’s eyes on her as they decamped. She sent him several sidelong glances, enjoying his attention. Maybe a smidgen of Paige’s flirtatiousness had rubbed off. Though Sion was clearly in charge, she had the upper hand, at least for the moment.

  The horses were saddled and loaded, the camp picked clean of belongings. A br
eakfast of spring water and parched corn sufficed, and then she saw to Sion’s arm, pleased the bite was fading from an ugly red to a mottled purplish black, though her anger at Cornelius still burned bright.

  This very morning Cornelius began to whine, pestering Sion about the particulars of their march. Sion wasn’t in a garrulous mood, annoying Cornelius with belated, one-word answers. Tempe tensed. Would another fight erupt?

  Cornelius stood over Lucian as the manservant tightened his saddle’s girth. “I have decided that the fatal flaw of the wilderness is the dearth of daily bread. Had we some beeves, wheaten flour, and maccobean sugar, I’d be more inclined to suffer your tyranny.” This he leveled at Sion, who stood inspecting the Jacob’s staff, the crown jewel of surveying.

  To Tempe’s delight, Sion ignored him.

  “I call for a change of order in the column,” Cornelius droned on. “I shall lead out and set the pace, the Cherokee and Miss Tucker scouting ahead, and the rest following behind, with you, Morgan, bringing up the rear. When we reach the survey site—”

  “When?” Nate burst out. “If is more likely. Yer liable to lead us straight off a cliff. You might make pretty maps, but you ain’t got no internal compass.”

  The chain men snickered as they awaited Sion’s orders. And Sion—Sion was awaiting her, unwilling to make a move till she declared her intentions. She’d put him off long enough, though the lure of home was like the scent of baked bread. Nigh irresistible.

  She swung herself into the saddle, facing west, still a bit sleepy-headed. She’d dreamed of James again. Sifted through the last of her memories. Glad she was of dawn’s light. Now her stomach, hardly content with her handful of corn, made noisy protest.

  Mounted beside her, Raven turned to her with a sympathetic aside. “Fish enough to fill your belly once we reach the Green.”

  She smiled, having withheld from him Sion’s tempting offer to turn back. The promise of catfish or carp, a favorite, seemed subtle confirmation to press on. Kneeing Dulcey, she moved past Sion to the front of the column.

  Was he hoping she would turn back? Or had his dire words last night merely masked his feeling that he found her more hindrance than help? Then and there she purposed to prove herself.

  Dawn bespoke another blazing day. A redbird sang from the topmost branches of a poplar, its sweet whistle one of the first songs of morning. Sweat began a slow trickle down her back. Her stays would soon be soaked through. She’d laced them less tight, leaving room to breathe as the heat ratcheted. She longed to be as unclad and free as Raven.

  Turning to look over her shoulder, she found Sion watching her so intently she wished she could climb inside his head and try his thoughts. Squaring her shoulders, refusing homesickness, she steeled herself against the demands of the day, trying to stay forward thinking.

  She remembered that along the Green was a series of waterfalls, a cool, misting place rife with shade. Privacy. On one of her forays with Pa they’d camped along the largest falls, naming it after Aylee. It had been late autumn and Pa was hunting buffalo. The cold turned so intense Tempe stayed wrapped in a buffalo robe the entire journey.

  Now she followed Raven a ways and then they parted, he taking to the ridge above and she keeping to the humid bottoms, the surveyors trailing or between them.

  Sion wasted little time laying the line, the sun soon striking the equipment and creating a fearful shine. Tempe kept alert to the line marks for the next direction west, their noisy work even bringing a halt to the birdsong. Though talk was minimal there was no doubt surveying was an intrusion to the untrammeled woods. The axemen never ceased their chopping. With Nate and Lucian as chain carriers, Cornelius grudgingly was made marker. Sion rebuked them for short-chaining—failing to pull the chain tight—making a mockery of his accuracy.

  When Raven rejoined her at noon, his expression held a hint of disgust. Each foot forward thrust the Indians back. No doubt he was thinking it too.

  “It’s a wide sweep of world.” Raising a hand, Tempe pushed back her hat to ease her damp hairline. “Can’t we all just abide together in harmony?”

  “No, oginalii.” He flicked a mosquito from a silver-banded forearm. “The land stealers are here to stay.”

  “Where then will you go?”

  His shrug held resignation. “Maybe it will not matter. I may join my Tsalagi brothers and fight.”

  Alarmed anew, she looked at him. “You would make war?”

  Raven studied her, more grim. “This Morgan, the Long Knife, he is a wolf.”

  Wolf? Once she had thought the same. Now she wasn’t sure. She cast a look over her shoulder as the main party caught up with them at the rendezvous point, a grove of stately maples near a sulphur spring. “Every man is part wolf, part lamb. The stronger depends on which you feed, remember?”

  “You borrow the words of the holy man Asbury.”

  She nodded, the memory convicting if distant. The preacher had come but once, then gone back over the Gap. Raven happened to be at the inn when he held them spellbound on the dogtrot, planting biblical seeds. Was she watering them in his wake?

  “I pray for peace,” she said.

  “To your holy Father?”

  “God is your Father too,” she returned quietly. “He makes a place for us in heaven, forever.”

  Still grim-faced, Raven reined his horse around to face the rest of their party. “I am not sure of this heaven you speak of. But I think the hell the holy man spoke of is here.”

  Her heart sank. Sion approached slowly as if gauging the intensity of their talk. With another push to her hat, Tempe sent it dangling down her back.

  She was unsure of Raven. Unsure of Sion. Unsure of taking another step. And still missing James.

  For now they rested, the axemen spent. Looking back over the ground they’d come, Tempe took in the destruction. Broken twigs and branches. Crushed undergrowth. The telling marks of men’s tracks. Blaze marks on tree after tree. All the tools were finally idle—the red-tipped chaining arrows, the tally belt to track them, one too many felling axes and fascine knives.

  Cornelius was bent over his plane table, a drawing board with paper and rule, a sight at each end. Sion kept slightly apart, jotting in his field book. At day’s end they would gather and compare notes and sketches, astonishing her with their mathematical and artistic prowess. But at the moment they seemed subdued, overcome by the vastness they claimed by metal chains.

  Cornelius looked up from his work, his fair hair hanging in damp wisps about his face. “There was a time we surveyed nine tracts totaling twenty thousand acres in seventeen days.”

  “Fincastle County is not the frontier,” Sion replied without looking up.

  “No, it ain’t,” Nate sputtered between a mouthful of jerky. “Most of Virginia seems naught but Yankee Doodle land from here.”

  “Yankee Doodle land, indeed.” Laying his quill aside, Cornelius reached for a canteen. “The Kentucke guidebook you’re writing shall be as formidable a weapon as these axes and knives, enticing settlers far and wide to venture into the wilderness, or so I hope. I’m confident my publisher in Philadelphia will print the guide along with my maps. Once that happens I shan’t stoop to a field survey again.”

  Tempe uncorked her own canteen as Sion looked up at her over his notes. “How far to the Barrens, Miss Tucker?”

  So he’d forsaken Tempe, had he? A stilted formality had crept between them again. So be it. “Another ten miles by my reckoning, Mister Morgan, though Raven might be of a different mind.”

  At that Sion tucked his field book beneath one arm and walked toward Raven, who stood beneath a sugar tree, leaving her to puzzle out Cornelius’s lofty talk. A guidebook? Such a farfetched notion! Settlement was coming, but she rued its violent advance. Ink and paper, a guidebook, had little bearing on conquering the wilderness, surely.

  Yet in her heart of hearts lived a longing for peaceful times. Neighbors. Acres of corn and rail fence. A lessening of danger. Caught on the cusp o
f change, she squirmed.

  Her beloved wilderness was vast and unfettered. Free.

  She was with the very men who would bring all that untrammeled beauty to an end.

  And she had lent her hand to help them.

  20

  We had hoped that the white men would not be willing to travel beyond the mountains. Now that hope is gone.

  —CHIEF DRAGGING CANOE, CHICKAMAUGA TSALAGI (CHEROKEE)

  Cornelius was lost in the cane.

  “Suppose we let him stay thataway,” Nate said.

  As Sion chuckled, Nate shifted in the saddle and spat a stream of tobacco juice in the direction Cornelius had taken. Ten feet high in places and thick as turkey feathers, the reedy stalks seemed without end. Somewhere beyond the mess of rustling green lay the Barrens, that treeless sweep of grasses stretching as far as the eye could see.

  Tempe’s mare began foraging, mouth so full of cane Tempe feared she might choke.

  On his mount beside her, Raven waved a hand to the north. “Keep to the tulip trees along the water. I will find the dila.”

  Both Sion and Nate looked from Raven to Tempe as if wanting her to translate. She lifted her shoulders. “Cherokee for skunk, likely.” Or fool.

  Sion cracked another smile as Nate dissolved in silent laughter. Raven frowned. He thought as little of Cornelius as Sion, though Sion had earned Raven’s grudging respect, at least. Tempe could see it. Feel it. But Raven seemed especially contemptuous of Cornelius, who had charged into the cane in pursuit of a rare ivory-billed woodpecker.

  Without waiting for any agreement, Raven plunged into the reeds atop his pony, a bone whistle in his mouth. In minutes, Tempe could hear the throaty trill of it, their main hope of locating the wayward mapmaker.

  Lord forgive her, but she wished he’d stay gone. Last night when it was her turn to stand watch and relieve him, he’d come entirely too close. With Sion asleep and no one to intervene, Cornelius had slipped a possessive arm about her before she could shake him loose. Revulsion turned her sick inside. Had he no decency? Would he see his sister, Harper, so manhandled?