Her eyes widened. “A preacher?”
“Aye, to marry us.”
Her skin pinked. His own face felt feverish. She looked . . . startled. Didn’t she recall his proposal to her in the caves?
“Don’t you mean to ask me first?” she chided softly.
“Your kiss was answer enough.”
“Along the Green?” A wistful half smile was followed by a laugh. “It’s been so long ago I misdoubt you remember much.”
“Oh, I remember, all right.” He extended a hand and swung the door shut, nearly snuffing the tallow dip on a near table. Let the fort’s wags have a heyday with that.
His arms went round her, gathering her out of the rocking chair. She felt so small. Wilted. Lonesome, even. When she settled in his lap, her mouth brushed his ear. “I need to be outside these walls.”
He understood. He shared her pent-up feelings, that odd bursting inside to be unfettered. Free. Liberty, for some, trumped danger.
“We’ll leave at first light,” he murmured.
“Will Nate and the others come too?”
“I haven’t asked them.” At the moment it hardly mattered. “Boone agrees now’s the time to go, with Colonel Bowman being in the country and things calmer.”
She looked at him wonderingly, her fingers tracing the sun-hardened lines of his jaw. Feather light, her touch tickled and teased all at once. He leaned in slightly, lips brushing the little bare hollow of her shoulder. She shut her eyes, fingers falling to his linen-clad chest. Bestirred, the both of them.
Easy, reason urged.
But it was sweet. A holy moment. A promise of what was to come.
Their foreheads touching, he took a breath. This close, the rosebud stitching on her bodice rose and fell in a fetching swell. He drank in the clean soap scent of her, his hands cupping the back of her head, finding the pins he longed to pull free.
“Marry me, Tempe.”
She looked into his eyes, her own so full of emotion it rent his heart. Was she thinking of James? Feeling she’d betray him by accepting Sion’s sudden proposal? He sensed a reluctance in her that made him stumble. Was she unsure of him? Their future?
Was he sure? Or just buckling beneath the need and emotion of the moment?
Her kiss held no reservations. The feel of her arms about his neck was like a balm for all his own heartache. He loved her. He’d never loved anyone like her. Not even Harper, whom he’d wed more out of a sense of soldierly duty and youthful desire. This . . . this was different. Tempe was a truehearted woman.
But could she love him back?
Bidding Esther and the Boones goodbye was not an easy task. In their few days together, she and Esther in particular had forged a friendship that defied their short acquaintance.
“I’ll not rest till you come back this way,” Esther said. “Tell your borderman that there’s plenty of land for the taking over by the Harts on Cedar Creek.”
In a feat only an accomplished woman could manage, Esther presented Tempe with her marrying quilt. “It’s a mite smaller, as I ran out of time to finish, but it’s plenty big enough to wrap your firstborn in.”
They embraced, then drew apart. Rebecca and her grown girls came next, bidding her a hasty goodbye if only to hold their emotion in check. The warmth and strength of their arms was something Tempe wouldn’t soon forget.
Once they’d passed through the fort’s gates, Tempe didn’t look back. Her heart felt as sore as her leg. But for Sion and his beguiling plans, she’d be completely undone. Harrod’s was before them, then home.
She sat her mare comfortably the first few miles, keeping in mind the journey was short, though sometimes she felt they were back on the Green. Cornelius and Lucian brought up the rear, the chain carriers in the middle. She rode between Sion and Nate, Sion leading. Without the equipment, the pace was far faster.
At last they traversed the Great Meadow, that rolling, blue-green grassland so different from the rocky, watery Shawnee River country. The three forts formed a triangle of sorts, Harrod’s being the largest, then Boone’s. Logan’s seemed the runt of the litter. If more trouble came, Tempe prayed all would survive. Thrive.
“Logan’s is made of sterner stuff than you think,” Nate told her. “After the last siege, the Indians started calling it Standing Fort.”
Any mention of Indians turned Tempe’s thoughts to Raven. A hollow place had formed inside her at his leaving. His betrayal, Cornelius said. She tried to keep her half-blood friend in a favorable light. He hadn’t hurt them, had he? He’d just abandoned them. Or was there more to the rock slide than she thought?
Still, she longed to know he was all right. Maybe he’d gone back to see Russell, was even now at the inn. Would she ever know?
Toward dusk, when she could go no farther, Sion called a halt. Mare’s tails were clouding the blue of the sky, promising rain on the morrow. A clap of thunder turned the horses skittish, reverberating like an unseen heavenly drum. Uneasy, Tempe scoured the sky for lightning. She’d seen trees shredded by such.
Sion took charge of her, erecting a brush shelter covered by a hide so she wouldn’t get wet.
“I won’t melt,” she said quietly.
“I’ll make sure you don’t,” he returned with a wink.
The wind picked up, shaking her humble bower as they ate supper, and they all hunkered down as the wet splashed large drops on hat brims and tin cups.
They’d come halfway to Harrod’s. She took comfort in the fact they’d seen no sign. She worried some about Sion’s equipment hidden along the Green, all that he’d abandoned to hasten her to Boonesborough. But as the night unwound, a plan was hatched to recover the tools of their trade.
“Me and Spencer’ll go,” Hascal told them, looking at Cornelius as he sat smoking nearby. “If you can part with Lucian for a spell, we’ll make good time and meet up with you at Harrod’s before September’s out.”
Sending him a mulish look, Cornelius paused in his pipe smoking. “What makes you think I can be without my manservant?”
Privy to the exchange, Lucian looked hopeful, wrenching Tempe’s heart. She knew how he longed for his liberty, even if it was but a few days of freedom from his overbearing master.
Spencer elbowed Hascal, mirth riddling his words. “What with all the petticoats at Harrod’s, I misdoubt you’ll notice he’s even gone. You got distracted somethin’ fierce at Boone’s.”
At this even Sion chuckled. Bristling, smoke pluming, Cornelius stared the chain carriers into silence. “What say you, Lucian? Can you stomach these scalawags in the far reaches?”
“Yessir,” came the polite reply.
“And you, Morgan? Any objection to their returning our equipment posthaste?”
“Given you get to stay at Harrod’s while they bushwhack their way west, I’d say the rest of us have the better part of the deal.”
Seemingly solaced, Cornelius leaned back against a beech tree. “I’ve given some thought to going upriver rather than overland once they return. A flatboat seems preferable to facing the Gap again.”
“So be it,” Sion said. “That’s where we part company. I’m bent on Shawnee River country.”
Tempe looked to Nate standing watch a few rods away. She sensed he’d stay on with them and head south. Riding up the Ohio River was risky at such a time, though she didn’t blame Cornelius for wanting to take the river route.
As for her, Nate, and Sion, if it came to that, they’d journey on, and she’d return home a married woman if she was willing. Pondering it, she looked down at the tonic in her tin cup.
Was the inn still standing? What of Pa’s future if she and Sion wed? Sion needed to know the truth of Pa’s past, though the burden seemed Pa’s to tell. Would Sion even want her once he learned she was the daughter of a murderer, and the harm done to a fellow surveyor at that?
Spirits plummeting, she bent her mind to kinder things. If all went well, she and Sion could carve out time for themselves. Watch for the moonbow. She?
??d show him the secret chamber behind the falls. There’d be talk of where to settle. He was leaning toward Green River country but was considering Esther’s invitation.
The details came hard and fast, like the rock slide. Pleasure melded to confusion. Was she willing to let go of James? Her desire to join him? Or would she choose life? Sion?
She might heal. See home. Marry.
Or not.
29
My wife and daughters were the first white women that ever stood on the banks of the Kentucky River.
—DANIEL BOONE
You gonna tell her?” Nate queried at their change of watch. “About her pa?”
The quiet words held a strange urgency. Nate had been after him to relieve Tempe of the burden of her secret ever since they’d come out of the caves. But Sion resisted. “I’ve held off, hoping she’d trust me. Tell me herself.”
“Tell you her pa’s a wanted man just so you can tell her he ain’t?” Nate looked perplexed.
“Aye, something like that,” Sion answered, struck by the ridiculousness of the situation.
“It mighten go bad for you if you was to wait and cause her more heartache.”
Though stabbed with guilt, Sion shrugged. “I’m just trying to build trust.”
Nate shook his head. “Well, you’re goin’ about it wrongheaded.”
“If she’s not told me by the ceremony—provided we can find a preacher—I’ll spill everything.”
“If I was you, I’d be askin’ for her pa’s hand before I stole his only daughter away.”
“With the good news I’m carrying, he won’t begrudge me getting things backwards.”
With a sigh, Nate ambled off to camp just as the rain switched from a steady spatter to an outright drenching. Water ran off the brim of Sion’s hat, and his worn shirt was soon sagging against him. Annie was dry at least, wrapped in an oiled skin. Keeping his powder dry was paramount, though he doubted there’d be trouble, what with the lack of sign and the weather.
Still, instinct wouldn’t let him settle. It was Tempe he was most vigilant about. Their future. He’d begun to allow himself a vision of what that might be like, the shadowy outline of the coming years taking shape, bent in the direction of his dreams.
He wasn’t much of a farmer, though he could plow and build fence and bring in the harvest. For her he’d raise a fine cabin of logs, but in time, with his surveying, he could afford brick. His desire to run the line, go on a scout, seemed second best. It was Tempe he wanted. A home. Children.
Humbled by all that was before them, he felt gratefulness take hold. He murmured a silent plea.
Lord, let it be.
Mornings were hardest. Her leg, stiff from sleep, seemed as lame as Russell’s. Though she hadn’t told Sion, her wound had torn open slightly from her long stint in the saddle the day before. Scooting out of the bough shelter, she looked up into a sky lit by dawn. All around her the trees were dripping, but other than this it was still. She missed birdsong. Sunlight. The sky seemed to scowl.
She put one foot forward. She must relieve herself or burst. Gimp-legged, she limped into the brush, realizing Sion hadn’t woken her to stand watch in the night.
Through dawn’s hush the sudden stirring of the horses sounded like a warning bell. They were uncommonly nervy, stamping and snorting farther back in the trees where they’d been hobbled. She paused. A bear or fox could scare them . . . or was it something else?
Wary, bladder aching, she moved on in search of privacy. Her gun was more walking stick, a crutch. Who was standing guard?
The watery woods ahead of her released a shadowy shape. Her sleepy senses sharpened.
Raven.
She held tight to her rifle as he came toward her, unsmiling. His hair was shorn on the sides, a topknot of feathers declaring his allegiance. But it was his paint that stilled her heart. One side of his head was black, the other a garish red. Confused, embarrassed, she felt a warm trickle down her bare leg beneath her skirt. She opened her mouth to greet him—but couldn’t. Voice gone, she broke into a spasm of yellow-bellied trembling.
The new morning was split open by the crack of gunfire and fiendish yells.
Whirling, she turned her back on Raven to see someone fall. Nate? The smoke of the guns clouded the heavy air, choking and blinding her.
A cry built inside her, and then Raven’s fingers digging into her shoulder forced her to the ground. He crouched beside her, his harsh words filling her ear.
“Stay down or they will kill you.” At that he stood, yanking her gun from her before striding toward the panicked horses.
Pushing up from the wet grass, she began limping in the direction of the camp, where men fought hand to hand. Jelly-legged, she fell down in back of the shelter Sion had made for her.
Lord, please. We’ve come so far . . .
Raven was shadowing her again. She turned and raised a hand to deflect what was sure to come. The tomahawk at his waist glinted, the sharp edge bloodied. It was with the butt of her own rifle that he struck her, sending her sprawling backwards into thorny brush.
She came to, rain on her face. The sky tilted and spun, gradually clearing of clouds as she lay on her back, her battered head as sore as her leg. Thirst parched her insides, making her first swallow excruciating. Slowly she raised her good hand. When she touched the sore place on her scalp, her fingers came away red.
What of Sion? Nate? All the rest?
A stone’s throw away lay Sion’s pocket compass—the land stealer—its glass face shattered. Beyond that was where they’d camped and been attacked.
She pulled herself to her feet, willing herself to stay standing, and stumbled into what had been a ring of dozing men a short time before. Nate’s hunting knife lay in a clump of trampled grass. All else—bedding, gear, weapons—had been taken in the frenzy of ambush. All the horses gone. A trace of spent powder hung in the damp air.
Leaning into a tree, she listened, half expecting Raven or another warrior to come finish her. She’d rather that than relive the pain. The shadow of that day in Powell Valley sounded in the deepest part of her.
First James . . . then Sion.
She was cursed in love. Twice bereft. Nauseous, she knelt down in the place Sion had lain sleeping, the grass matted down. Signs of struggle were everywhere. A frantic mingling of footprints. Broken laurel. Her own shelter destroyed. A few steps to the right was a young haw where the bullets had cut down the greenery. Blood trailed on the limp leaves, turning her cold.
Numb, she began backtracking and retrieved Sion’s compass as a nickering farther back in the trees gave her pause.
Her mare?
Hobbled—one might say hidden—Dulcey regarded her a bit wild-eyed. Of herd mentality and stripped of her companions, the nervous creature looked as forlorn as Tempe felt.
Had Raven left her horse to help her?
She stood on the spot Nate had last stood watch. She expected to find him there, stretched across the grass, eyes open and unseeing. But for the knife and compass, it was like she’d dreamed all of them up.
Pressing a hand to her aching head, she wandered about like a broken compass, looking for fallen men, sure someone had been tomahawked and killed. Each downed log or clump of brush left her more sick, thinking it was a body.
What would she do if she came across Sion? With her wounded hand, she could only grieve him, not bury him. She didn’t even have a sheet like they’d wrapped James in at the last.
A lonesomeness like she’d never known hovered. She looked toward the settlements, miles distant, indecision astir inside her. Should she ride back and enlist help? Nay. With so few guns, none could be spared outside the three forts. Bowman’s men had gone north, leaving the fragile stations to fend for themselves. Had Raven and the war party taken Sion and the others south?
She had a horse but no gun. A bad leg. A throbbing head. And no time to waste woolgathering.
Calling softly to Dulcey, she waited while the mare picked its wa
y toward her gingerly. She tried to mount. Failed. Her strength was spent. Up she went again, but short of the mark. Dulcey waited patiently, tail swishing. Tempe let go of the reins, slid her arms around the mare’s sleek neck, and wept.
Sion had heard of running the gauntlet in the Indian towns, but he doubted they’d live to see it. The dawn ambush, only hours old, was already sketchy in his memory on account of his gut-wrenching thirst and the terror of the present. His every thought was for Tempe.
Fate—God—had allowed him one last look at her. Through the bluish haze of rifle fire, he’d spied her near Raven, desperation and disbelief scrawled across her comely face. She’d been standing unbloodied apart from the fracas. But what had become of her was anyone’s guess. She was not a part of the long snaking column of men and horses now heading south.
The leather thongs binding his wrists from behind were so tight his fingers were benumbed and tingly by turns. He was at the head of the line, just behind the warrior he knew to be Five Killer. Armed with war club and tomahawk, his quiver full of brass-tipped arrows, he was a punishing sight.
A quick glance over his shoulder earned Sion a swift jab in the side by the brave just behind. But it was worth the blow seeing Nate farther back. He was bound in a neck noose, his face gray as linen. Still alive, at least. Sion wasn’t sure about the others. He knew Hascal had taken a bullet to the arm in the ambush but didn’t know how badly he’d been hurt.
Chest streaming with sweat, Sion marched on, his heart a-gallop, legs burning with exhaustion. Up a wooded slope they climbed, branches stinging and slapping his face and neck, the whine of insects a discordant song. Wending through towering trees, they came to a notch in a steep ridge. The trail thinned at its crest, leading them along a cliff with a sheer drop too narrow for horses.
They had crossed some invisible border into territory Sion had never seen. Disoriented, he grappled for his bearings. A second look back cost him another blow but told him the party had divided. The horses were gone, and it was just a body of warriors and captives on foot, making their way along that precarious drop above a shimmering emerald valley far below.