“Your leg?” The dulcet tone was soothing. “What about your hand?”
Hanging limply at her side, Tempe’s hand with its missing nail was all but forgotten.
“You’re in need of some comfort, looks like. I’ve got a pinch of tea. You can take it in the one china cup my granny gave me when I left Virginia.”
The simple kindness blunted the other woman’s ugly slur. Raising her head, Tempe took in the fort’s enclosure where rows of cabins formed the north and south walls.
“Mercy, where are my manners?” The woman’s finely freckled skin stretched across high cheekbones, as fair as Tempe’s was sun soaked, the brim of her faded bonnet hiding the vivid russet of her hair. “My name’s Esther. Esther Hart.”
“I’m Temperance—Tempe, most call me.”
“How come you to be with so many men?”
“It’s a story . . .” She’d tell it in time, but now, thirsty and strangely winded, she held her tongue.
They walked on haltingly. Just when Tempe thought her leg would fail her, Esther thrust open a cabin door, and together they surveyed the dim interior. It was cramped with one room, its sooty fireplace made of rock. Tempe’s eyes went immediately to the two loopholes along the back wall just big enough to ram a rifle barrel through. Behind her, one open, unshuttered window faced the fort yard.
The clanging from the blacksmith’s forge ushered in the memory of Russell and the barn-shed. Swallowing hard, Tempe fought down the ache his memory always wrought.
“This here belongs to an old granny woman who’s gone over to Harrod’s to be with kin. We’re right next to you. The men you come in with can bunk in the blockhouse down by the necessary.”
Esther gestured to a rope bed and slab table and twin hickory chairs with deerskin seats. Gourds, big and little, held sundry things. Buck antlers and wooden pegs were home to a faded sunbonnet and beaten saddlebags, a fishing pole and hands of tobacco. Above was a loft. Tempe could see the outline of two hogsheads of water beneath eaves strung with strings of red pepper and dried herb bundles. All was fragrant. Quiet. The privacy seemed heaven sent.
“I’ll make a poultice of oak leaves and dress your leg. But first a bath.”
Tempe stared at her, disbelieving. Had they a tub?
“Once you’re clean we’ll use the water to wash your pretty dress.”
Pretty? Esther, bless her, looked on the sunny side of things.
“I have something you can wear in the by-and-by.”
She went out, leaving Tempe to shed her filthy garments and shake her short braid loose from its tie. In time Esther maneuvered a hip bath through the narrow cabin door, a man following with steaming buckets. This was heaven sent too.
“In time maybe we’ll have us a tunnel leading from the fort to the spring like I hear they have at Logan’s,” Esther said, setting down soft soap before closing the shutters. “It’s a blessing to have enough water, especially when besieged.”
In an hour’s time the warm bath had stripped away the grime and left Tempe’s hair clean. Wrapped in a linen towel, she tried to make light of Esther’s grave expression as she examined her leg.
“I wish Granny Mason was here. She’d know what to do.”
The fragrant salve Esther applied bespoke familiar, beloved things that crowded the rafters of the Moonbow Inn. Tempe set her jaw as Esther bound the cut leg like Nate had done.
Soon clad in a borrowed, threadbare shift, Tempe waited whilst Esther retrieved more garments. A striped blue and cream petticoat and stays were followed by the sweetest shortgown Tempe had ever seen. Embroidered with tiny rosebuds, the pale ground was lemon-hued, a burst of civility in a roughshod fort.
“This belonged to my mother. She was a lady, a Virginian. She never did take to the fact that my Henry wanted to go into the wilderness. Word came last spring she’d died. I haven’t had the occasion to wear her best gown, always bringing one child into the world or nursing another.”
Tempe made a move to return the heirloom. “I couldn’t—”
“It’s good to see it be of use.” Esther’s smile disarmed all doubt, knitting Tempe’s heart to her in unexpected ways. “I reckon that man who brought you in will smile to see you in something different. Sion, I recollect his name was.”
Smoothing a sleeve, Tempe nodded as a quiet delight stole over her. Sion was foremost in her thoughts of late. Could Esther sense their tie?
“One of the scouts brung in a buffalo early this morning.” Esther moved to the window and reopened the shutter to peruse the common. “We’re set to have a little feasting and fiddling. Welcome you proper.”
Tempe joined her at the window, a bit startled to see a fire, brazen and bright, crackling inside a ring of stones at the very heart of the fort’s common. Lucian and two unknown men were minding the buffalo meat, laughing and talking as they worked. A good many people went about fort business, all strangers.
At last she voiced the question that had dogged her since she’d first come in. “Aren’t the Boones here?” Given the fort bore their name, she’d expected Daniel would be the one to meet them at the gates. Her disappointment went deep.
“Captain Boone’s likely out on a scout.” Esther pointed a slim finger toward a far cabin. “That’s his and Rebecca’s place over there. Their two eldest daughters have up and married and live in that double cabin opposite.”
Susannah and Jemima? Married? Why was she surprised? Younger than Tempe herself, they were desirable, accomplished women and bore the Boone name besides, a coup on the frontier. Likely they’d had their pick of suitors.
Her gaze roamed restlessly, assessing and dismissing men and women by turn, hope rising in her. But there was such a passel of people in the fort she was hard-pressed to name any of them Boones. At the gate more folks were coming in.
“You know the Boones well?” Esther asked, interest enlivening her pale eyes.
Tempe bit her lip. Was it possible to put such in words? “We were part of their party that made a try for Kentucke in ’73.” She couldn’t say James’s name. Couldn’t relive in the simplest words their valley experience nor her heartache since. “I never thought to see Boonesborough.”
Esther let out a rueful chuckle. “I’d not think you’d want to see Boonesborough. These poor people were dirty, lousy, ragged, and half starved when we arrived last fall. This year, harassed as we are by Indians, finds us little better.”
“But at least you’re all together, making a stand.” Spying a near rocker, Tempe sat. “Now seems a good time to tell you how I come to be with so many men.” In as few words as possible, she shared the tumult of the past month, reliving the caves and how they’d ventured to the middle ground. Esther listened, asking few questions.
“You picked a fine time to arrive. We were under siege till Colonel Bowman and his men marched in from Virginia. Here lately the country’s as quiet as I’ve ever seen it.” Esther picked up a comb and began working the tangles out of Tempe’s hair. “We’re down to fifteen guns, though I can stand up to a loophole good as any man. I’m guessing, since Mister Morgan hired you on as guide, you can say the same.”
“I’d rather cook and tend children than rifles and one too many men.” As Tempe said it, the cabin door pushed open and two little girls entered, the eldest toting the baby, a fat fist in her mouth.
Esther smiled a welcome, gesturing to the tallest daughter. “This here’s Ellender, my oldest, and then Isabella. The baby’s Frances.” Esther sighed good-naturedly. “Nary a boy in sight.”
Tempe reached for the baby, settling her on her lap. Ellender seemed glad to relinquish her burden. “They’ve grown used to the thunder of the guns, I expect.”
“If one can grow used to such. They’ve spent the better part of this year hiding under the bed playing with their dolls. We’re hoping this fall to return to our farm. We settled out a few miles from here. By some miracle our wheat and corn was still standing, so my husband, Henry, brought it in to share. There’ll be so
me roasting ears tonight at supper. And bread.”
Mouth watering, Tempe wound a lock of the baby’s sweat-dampened hair around one finger, unwilling to leave the cabin but knowing she must, and trying to dismiss the slur she’d heard at the fort’s gates. At least she no longer looked like a hussy, clean and modestly dressed, save her bare feet.
The little girls were regarding her with something akin to wonder, as if the bedraggled woman they’d first seen was altogether different from the one who sat before them.
She surrendered to the sweetness of the moment, the weight of the baby warm and pleasurable in her lap. This could be her babe, her least’un. She felt an unbearable urge to kiss the infant’s flushed cheek. She finally did.
Esther ceased her combing. “You need a babe of your own, Tempe Tucker. And if you stay on here more’n a day or so, there’ll be suitors lined up all the way to the river to oblige you, Sion Morgan or no.”
27
I thought it was hard times—no bred, no salt, no vegetables, no fruit of any kind, no Ardent Sperrets, indeed nothing but meet.
—JOSIAH COLLINS
Tempe . . . Tempe Tucker?”
The feminine voice swung Tempe around. She faced the young woman whose curves and comely features were but an echo of another time and place. “Jemima Boone?”
“Aye, all growed up, and now a Callaway.” Teary-eyed, Jemima rushed forward and enveloped her in a humid, sweat-scented embrace. “Let me look at you.” She stepped back, hands firm on Tempe’s shoulders. “If you aren’t a sight to behold. Prettier than a summer’s morn too, even more than when—”
A flash of pain darkened her eyes, and her voice faded. Tempe well knew what James’s sister was thinking. There was no need to finish. Tempe forced a smile, determined to move past any awkwardness. “So you’re a married woman, Susannah too, Esther tells me.”
“Aye, we get on with the business of living out here. One never knows what a day will bring.” Jemima smoothed her bodice where it joined her skirt. “No least’uns yet, though Susannah has a baby girl, little Betsy.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Needs be more womenfolk around.”
Jemima locked eyes with her. “And you? You married to one of those men I hear brought you in?”
Obviously talk spread like fever in the confines of the fort. “Not married, nay.” The words all but caught in her throat. She tried to keep the lingering sadness from her tone. “One day, maybe.”
“Well, beware a stampede of lonesome men.” Jemima gestured toward a chair. “Let’s sit a spell. I’ve heard tell of your folks’ inn along the Shawnee River. People say the fare’s better than any ordinary in Virginia.”
“People are kind. We do what we can.” She bit her lip as pain seared her leg when she took a seat. In light of the wretched conditions at Boonesborough, life along the Shawnee seemed almost idyllic. “There’s little Indian trouble that way so far out, but I don’t expect the peace to last.” The handbill flashed to mind—and Russell’s involvement with the British, whatever that entailed. “I’d rather hear about you.”
Jemima was smiling now, clearly bemused. “You likely know about our canoeing the river last summer and being took by Indians.”
“Bits and pieces, mostly how your would-be husband rescued you.”
“It makes a fine tale in hindsight, but I’d rather not repeat it. Pa cautioned me against going and I should have heeded him. It’s a wonder you made it here safely. How long you aim to stay?”
Tempe raised her shoulders in a shrug, gaze falling to her leg. Leaning forward, she raised her petticoat. “My hope is to get home soon but for this.”
Kneeling, Jemima unwrapped the linen bandage about her calf, her features stoic despite the sour odor and sight. “It needs some tending, for true. I know just the trick.” She rose and headed toward the door. “I’ll be back quick as I can.”
Her disappearance allowed Tempe a moment to collect herself. Turning her face away from her leg, she fastened her gaze on a far wall made bright with a tangle of bittersweet vine.
Being here was bittersweet.
She saw James in Jemima’s face. Heard him in the cadence of her voice, that distinct lilt true to all the Boones. Though James was long gone and Sion was larger than life, her heart still ran after James. What man would want her, given that? What truehearted woman pined for a lost love while a whole, warm-blooded man was hers for the taking? Dismayed, she swiped a tear away with a callused hand.
“Tempe Tucker?” The gentle question brought Tempe’s head around. James’s mother spoke from the open doorway. “What’s truly ailing you? Your leg . . . or your heart?”
Tempe blinked. Another tear fell. Rebecca came forward, a little more lined, streaks of gray silvering her dark hair, and lay a soothing hand on Tempe’s shoulder.
How was it that Rebecca knew, after so long, what Tempe’s heart held? Was it so plain she missed James? Dare she confess the half-crazed thought that she’d come here hoping to find him? That in her heart of hearts, her dreams, she’d not buried him in Powell Valley, that some stubborn part of her refused to let go, preferring he live on, solid and beloved and enduring as the ground beneath her feet?
The truth was Boonesborough was full of Boones. But not James.
In Rebecca’s left hand was a small basin of elm bark ooze. Tempe had a notion to tell her not to bother, that Esther had tried the same. But maybe Rebecca needed to do this. Maybe Tempe needed her nursing as well.
Looking considerably leaner than she’d been in Powell Valley, Rebecca knelt on the hard floor. The black-haired woman who’d birthed James, nursed and rocked him, and watched him grow then given him over to death, tended to her in silence.
In a kinder, sweeter time and place, Rebecca would have called her daughter, celebrated grandchildren and freedom and life beyond fort walls. But here and now, in the sore silence, she could only try to mend her leg and touch her heart. One of life’s most painful mysteries was that time moved on, with or without you. Those left behind loved and laughed and resumed living as if you’d never been at all.
“It’s good you came to be here.” Rebecca spoke softly as she worked, her liver-spotted hands gentle. “Many a time I’ve wondered how you fared. I hoped you’d marry, start a family someday.”
Tempe bit her lip, unable to answer.
“That’s a good man who brung you in. Well, one of them.” Rebecca’s half smile turned her almost girlish. “That Sion Morgan reminds me of Daniel. You could do no better.”
Studying the petticoat of Esther’s borrowed dress, Tempe fingered a finely sewn seam.
“It’s no accident he brought you here. It’s time. The Lord made a way and you came.” Rebecca’s voice held acceptance, both a grieving and a letting go. The ache would never fade, this Tempe knew. But somehow Rebecca had come to terms with it.
“I thought by now I’d join James.” Swallowing, Tempe forged ahead. “I’ve been reckless in those woods, hungering to see him again.”
Rebecca looked up, understanding in her gaze. “You’ve got too much life in you yet. It’s not your time.”
Tempe took the words in, forgetting her leg, thoughts swinging from James to Sion. Maybe she’d stay on right here, spare herself parting with Sion at the inn . . .
Jemima returned just then, Susannah in her wake bearing little Betsy on one hip. Tempe opened her arms to James’s eldest sister, the one who’d cried the longest and loudest at his passing. Little Lavina came in next, now almost as tall as Tempe herself. Did she even remember her beloved older brother?
Soon they all were crying quietly, undone by the moment. And then Jemima, ever good-natured, brought their weepiness to a halt. “Best shush lest the men bust in here thinking we’re under siege. Besides, it’s a glad day when Tempe returns to us. Reckon we can convince her to stay on at this stubborn fort—or will she slip away with her black-headed borderman?”
They laughed as Rebecca finished with Tempe’s leg. Little Betsy began making a
fuss, arms open to her granny, wanting some attention.
Tempe looked toward the open window, wondering where Sion was, what he was doing. And what if she did slip away with her black-headed borderman?
Betimes Sion was as hard to read as one of his surveys. For a few halfhearted seconds Tempe pondered what was to come. But the future was hazy at best, and she’d take what came moment by moment, savoring the humble hospitality of this beleaguered outpost that was, at the moment, standing strong.
Esther Hart was something of a miracle worker. Sion had heard what a fine shot she was. Fresh from the summer siege on their station, the men were generous with their praise, recounting every detail of Boone’s onerous run to Virginia for powder. But it was Esther’s marksmanship he remembered now—and her miraculous transformation of Tempe.
The late-summer dusk lent a dreamlike quality to the fort enclosure, softening the choking dust and harsh edges of the white oak pickets. When Tempe emerged from a far cabin, Sion realized how much he’d missed her in the few hours they’d been apart. Whether by her continual quiet companionship or his own growing need of her, she’d become as near and dear as the seams of his linen shirt.
Unprepared for the sudden charge in his middle at the sight of her, he lowered his gaze to the ground. But the impression she made remained. Hair caught up atop her head. A delicate dress. The grit of dirt replaced by a rosy glow. And he wasn’t the only one who noticed. More than a few men looked her way. Lingered. Tempe stayed beneath the eave of the Hart cabin.
He was barely aware of Esther coming up alongside him where he was minding Beck near the smithy, till the babe she held gave a little cry of discontent. Esther offered him a small smile, bouncing the child on her hip. “I wanted to talk to you about Miss Tucker.”
His chest tightened. He lowered his head with the intent of listening.