A Moonbow Night

  “Maybe you can sashay down to a salt lick and bring back a buffalo. We could use fresh meat.” Nate scratched his whiskery jaw and began to chuckle. “Remember that time along the upper Ohio when—” He couldn’t speak for laughing, hand slapping his thigh.

  “When you ate all those marrow bones and like to have died?” Sion grinned beneath the brim of his felt hat. “I’ll never forget it.”

  Nate snorted. “Sick as I was, I still crave ’em.” He sobered all at once, his gaze turning fretful. “You’d best tell me why you’re takin’ to the trail. If somethin’ happens to you—or us . . .” He left the thought unfinished as Sion swung himself into the saddle.

  “I won’t be away but a couple of days. Mayhap Cornelius will turn up. If not, I might have to ride to the settlements and see about more help. Jim Harrod is a fine one to run the line, so it’s said. There’s bound to be others like him around Logan’s Station or Boonesborough.”

  “Watch your back,” Nate told him. “I got an unlikely feeling about all this, Corny bein’ gone and now you ridin’ away.”

  “No call to fret.” The words were calm. Confident. But nudging the stallion’s flanks with his heels, Sion wondered if and when he’d see Nate again.

  The way was little more than a deer trail, but it penetrated the dense backwoods, leading Sion past windfalls and ivy thickets and strange rock formations peculiar to river country. Gaze never settling, ears open to the slightest sound, Sion pressed west, mapping every feature of unfamiliar ground in his head.

  No Indian sign. No game to distract him. Just an aggravation of noisy red-billed, green-bodied parakeets that seemed to resent his presence. And yet . . . he sensed someone at his back, ever shadowing him. Mayhap this wild, unsettled country was just like that, a-haunted. Else it was the shadows in his own conscience he felt so keenly.

  He commenced climbing a long, woodsy slope till he came to the ledge on which the woman had stood watching him. Worn to bare rock and free of grass, it appeared to be a favorite lookout. Had she been here many a time? Drinking in the falls and river as it snaked southwest?

  If not for the distant mountains crowding the northeast horizon, he could glimpse the Great Meadow, as Boone called it, the place where the first Kentucke settlements were struggling to stand. He longed to push free of these steep draws and ridges that tried his breath and his patience, but he had a job to do, and he couldn’t do it without Cornelius.

  He blew out a breath, his empty belly gnawing a hole to his backbone. Again that uneasy feeling hovered, that certainty he was conspicuous as a fly in new milk. He scanned the ridge just ahead, Annie close, Beck following.

  The snap of a twig sent him spinning. He whirled, gun to his shoulder, and saw a flash of indigo blue. A lissome figure shot away from him like an arrow launched from a bow.

  Abandoning Beck, Sion gave chase. Over windfalls and creeks, around boulders and laurel thickets he trailed her, determined to catch her yet unsure what he would do or say if he did. Even in a skirt she flew over the unforgiving ground in such a way that told him she knew it well, every inch. He, the outlander, was at a distinct disadvantage.

  Lungs crying for air, sweat damping his hairline, he gained speed when she started downhill. She cut away from him round a protrusion of limestone, and he spied a flash of white stocking. Her moccasined feet hardly seemed to touch the ground.

  They were on a thread of muddy trail now. The roar of the river was to his left, a wall of rock to his right. On and on he ran, slipping and stumbling, the recent rain wreaking havoc with his sure-footedness. And then, without warning, he found himself in a clearing, his senses scrambled by an unaccountably domestic scene.

  The sun, six hours high, slanted down, casting everything in a golden glow. The indigo-clad figure had disappeared. Sion stood in back of what looked to be a sizable dwelling place. Raising a frayed sleeve, he slicked the sweat from his brow and willed his breathing to settle.

  Nearest him was a stone springhouse situated on the hillside, set in the deep shade of twin sycamores. Water cascaded from beneath one rock wall, spilling like a waterfall into a cedar trough before turning into a trickle as it ran off down the hill into the river far below.

  Cleanly folks, whoever they were.

  Setting Annie aside, he plunged his hands into the trough and splashed his heated face. A clean tow linen towel hung on a nearby buttonbush. Ignoring it, he swung his gaze wide, taking in the usual necessities of living. Ash hopper. Hominy block. Smokehouse. Woodshed. Kettles and piggins and tubs rested atop an abundance of stumps. Barrows and sleds held river rock and firewood.

  Cleanly, aye, and industrious.

  Twin cabins claimed his attention—and respect. South facing and connected by a dogtrot, they were as stout as a station even without pickets and loopholes. A thick column of smoke curled from one chimney. Sion caught the savory odor of baked bread and meat, and his stomach cramped in empty protest.

  Taking rifle in hand, he started toward the buildings, where half a dozen mongrels stood guard. Growling. One old gray-muzzled cur lounged idly and didn’t even lift his head. The thought of Smokey brought a pang. His gaze roamed log walls hung with traps, bridles, and tools as two of the dogs sniffed his leggings. Halfway down the dogtrot the door to the east cabin was open wide, enticing him.

  Where had the woman gone?

  He meant to find out.

  Tempe returned to the kitchen, her legs atremble from running, her heated face the shade of the pickled beets Aylee was spearing into a bowl.

  “Mercy, but you’re tardy,” her mother admonished. “Tie you on an apron and make ready to serve some hungry folk.”

  “There’ll be one more, likely,” Tempe said.

  Aylee stopped her spearing and Paige her frying, both of them looking at her in expectation. Tempe tied on the apron with nary an explanation and sailed into the keeping room as if she’d not run two miles through thick woods and a blaze of danger.

  She sensed her pursuer would come and stay. The excited bark of the dogs along the dogtrot needn’t announce him. Going to the shelf that hugged the west wall, she took down a shiny pewter plate. The room was empty but would soon fill. Harrod’s men were gone. In their place was a party of longhunters headed downriver into the French Broad territory of Tennessee—and Cornelius Lyon.

  Aylee didn’t open the door to the dining room till noon. All comers were free to loiter in the yard in fair weather or seek the shelter of the dogtrot in foul. Setting down the plate atop the puncheon table, Tempe was glad to the heart she’d ironed a linen cloth and picked some phlox and Jacob’s ladder early that morning. Such care had a gentling effect on the roughest men.

  Once the door opened, Russell appeared, Cornelius Lyon after him. Tempe nearly chuckled. He brought to mind a banty rooster, strutting and proud. Somehow he’d managed to wheedle a scrap of red cloth from Paige, which he wore around his neck. It brightened up the dull homespun Russell had lent him, giving him a jaunty air.

  The fish she’d caught that morning—fat catfish and carp—had been fried to succulent, brown perfection alongside crusty slabs of venison steak. A mound of hominy seasoned with bacon filled a wooden bowl, and there were enough corn cakes to rival the miracle of the loaves and fishes. The Englishman’s eyes lit with pleasure.

  “Ah, Mistress Moonbow. Another extraordinary meal, I see.”

  Tempe smiled at Cornelius’s flatter. His air of refinement hinted he’d known far better fare. In the brief time he’d been with them, she’d grown used to his gushing ways.

  The longhunters came in, resting rifles against a sidewall before claiming the benches. The empty chair at table’s end, once reserved for Pa, yawned empty.

  And the stranger in the woods? Would he not come? After chasing her such a distance?

  Maybe he’d gone back for his horse. She’d hate to part with a mount with so fetching a blaze down its muzzle.

  Russell shot her a querying look from his end of the table. She was alarmed
now—and more than a little dismayed. Had her plan to reunite the banty rooster with the rest of his surveying party gone awry? Not only that, the longhunters looked famished. If her pursuer didn’t come quick, nary a crumb would remain.

  Lord, please. I asked Your help to find this man, and now I need You to usher him in.

  Before she’d mumbled amen, a figure darkened the doorway. Aylee came out of the kitchen right then, bearing a bowl of sallet. With her usual courtesy, she simply said, “Bide awhile.”

  With nary a word, the stranger ducked beneath the door’s lintel before parting with his rifle, hanging his hat from the barrel’s tip.

  Standing unseen beneath the loft stair by the kitchen door, Tempe felt a flicker of triumph. It took little time to size him up. She was used to men like Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone. This man was their caliber, right down to his fine weapon with its silver mountings. He had that same air of intense quietness, that inbred strength and stealth that marked an able woodsman.

  But that was not all.

  His hair was so black it had a blue sheen to it, so raggety on the ends it seemed like scissors had gone awry. It lay like a mane across his broad shoulders, broken free of its tie. Had he lost the tie in the chase? He wore the typical garb of the woods, a linsey hunting shirt and deerskin leggings, every seam fringed to repel water, all a pleasing nutmeg hue. Her gaze dropped. His moccasins and his hands were immense, nearly as large as Pa’s. Hatchet and knife hung at his sides.

  She dug deep for some imperfection. Some flaw. But this man, at least outwardly, was as fine a one as the Almighty ever made.

  After James.

  His eyes seemed to be everywhere at once, sorting, sifting, weighing, missing nothing. When he turned her way she expected to feel dissected by that gaze. As if he could see clear through to the heart. To the hurts and thwarted hopes secreted there. But he hadn’t seen her. Not yet. She’d stepped behind the loft stair out of sight.

  And then Cornelius murmured a stiff greeting, stealing the frontiersman’s attention. With a sigh of relief, Tempe turned into the kitchen, leaving the reunited men to their dinner and their talk.

  The lure of the open cabin door and his empty belly proved too much. Sion ducked inside the west cabin, unsure of his welcome. A spare, sandy-haired woman greeted him. “Bide awhile,” she said. Neat and tidy as a well-kept cupboard, she led him to a table at which sat half a dozen men—and Cornelius Lyon.

  Sion staunched his dislike as best he could. But Cornelius was not so stoic. Animosity sprawled across his bruised face, checked only by a serving girl offering him something to drink.

  The only open seat was at table’s end. Sion sat, head swimming with a great many things at once. Ash floors scoured a lighter shade. Stout oak walls and walnut shutters. No cat-and-clay chimney but one of sturdy river rock, a carved sunburst on the mantel. He surveyed the burgeoning table. He’d not seen such an abundance of food since—his throat knotted and he forced himself to finish the thought—since he’d first met Harper amid the opulence of Oakwood. Walnut trenchers and buckeye bowls held cheese, pickled vegetables, conserves, even a mound of butter with a dogwood flower molded on top.

  His pewter plate was soon heaped with fried fish and more. Along with all the bounty he felt a queer emptiness that he’d not yet sighted that indigo skirt. It was on account of her being like Harper that moved him so. Fleet of foot. Cider-haired. Bosomy yet spare-waisted.

  Here he sat at a strange table bearing heaven’s bounty, when all he wanted was to ride home to Virginia and fall headlong into Harper’s arms.

  “Sweet milk or buttermilk?” The serving girl was at his elbow, holding two pitchers.

  He swallowed a bite of cornbread drenched with butter, nearly speechless at its goodness. “Sweet.”

  What he needed was a staunch mug of applejack or ale, but this establishment might be dry. And in the face of such abundance he’d not ask for it. The woman who’d greeted him upon entering had disappeared through a door below the loft stair. The kitchen? The only sounds in the keeping room were utensils scraping plates, grunts of approval, and some ill-bred belching. Men generally made little conversation at meals, and Sion felt at ease with the silence.

  Through the open door to the dogtrot he heard a familiar neighing. Beck. He’d been foolish to leave his horse. What was the matter with him? He’d hardly had room to think of Beck, what with his sprint through the woods and finding Cornelius and his ongoing angst over Smokey. He felt nigh addlepated.

  When the kitchen door creaked open again he felt an odd twist of excitement. The indigo skirt came in. She rounded the table, refilling drinks and bringing more butter. Eyes down, she didn’t look at him, just made a dance of her work, leaning and pouring and sashaying in and out.

  She came to a sudden stop at his elbow. “Be you a surveyor?”

  Clearing his throat with a swig of milk, he said, “Aye. Sion Morgan. And you?”

  “A tavern wench.”

  “Tavern wenches have names.”

  A slight hesitation. “Tempe.”

  “Tempe . . .” He waited for a surname.

  “Just Tempe,” she returned quietly.

  “Well, Just Tempe, what business do you have with me?”

  “Only this—your horse is outside . . . and your dog.”

  “My dog?” he said, forking a last bite of fish.

  “Her leg’s broke and splinted but she’ll mend.” She poured him more milk without his asking. “If you carry her across your saddle careful-like, you and your partner can be on your way.”

  He didn’t miss the meaning buried in her hushed words. Had Cornelius overstayed his welcome? He could believe it. But Cornelius, finished with his meal, showed no sign of departing. With a lingering scowl at Sion, he got up and wandered to the rack on the wall that bore a collection of clay pipes. A tobacco box rested on the mantel.

  “As I have no ha’pence to pay,” Cornelius announced, “you can charge Mister Morgan the amount.”

  Sion said nothing, just raised his gaze to look into the woman’s, a query in their blueness. His gladness over her news about Smokey curbed his ire over Cornelius’s arrogance. “You saved my dog.”

  She lowered her eyes, flicking away a crumb on the linen cloth while the longhunters got up from the table. “Nay, just mended her.”

  He sat back as she stole away his empty plate. “What do I owe you?”

  “Naught for the dog, but your friend there . . .” Her eyes rounded as she cast a glance Cornelius’s way. “He’s a mite more troublesome, being a gentleman.”

  Sion couldn’t hide a rueful smile. Mite was an understatement, as was friend, even gentleman. “I’ll settle up with you before I go.”

  Cornelius was lounging now, occupying the best chair by the hearth. He took up smoking tongs and snagged a live coal from the dwindling fire to light the tobacco Sion now owed.

  The kitchen door swung open again and the other serving girl, the flaxen-haired one, brought in a tankard. “Your metheglin, sir.”

  Cornelius smiled his ingratiating smile. “Miss Shaw, you anticipate my every need.”

  She gave a little curtsey and produced a pack of playing cards. “The mistress will see to your injury shortly.”

  Sion studied the exchange, remembering Cornelius’s cane-stobbed foot. Foot encased in a moccasin, he still bore a limp. But it was nothing compared to the man sitting opposite him who took up a fiddle, his bow sliding across the strings with a finesse that belied both his quiet and his crippling. The French Broad men and Cornelius listened. The other longhunters had gone outside.

  Sion judged the man to be shy of thirty, the leg he dragged behind him turning him older still. He had seated himself with difficulty, though no pain marred his face. An old injury, mayhap. His hair was cider-brown, like the indigo-skirted girl. Were they kin? Both bore the markings of the older woman who’d first greeted him, owning her intense blue eyes and that wary watchfulness.

  Cornelius looked his way an
d said above the music, “Care to join us, Morgan?”

  Though he wanted to bow out, he knew Cornelius was in no mood to leave, and short of hauling him back to camp, he’d wait till the metheglin had done its mellowing work.

  “I’d best see to my horse and dog first.” With that, Sion passed outside to the dogtrot. Beck had been hobbled in back, and Smokey’s tail was waving wildly from beneath the low eave of a woodshed. Relieved, he knelt beside her, running a hand over her silken coat, wishing he had no more to do than pack her back to camp.

  She licked his hand, nuzzling the fringe of his hunting shirt as he took in her splinted leg. “You’re but a little worse for wear, tackling the falls like you did. At least you bear me no grudge, like some.”

  Returning inside, he selected a pipe, leaving money enough for his and Cornelius’s expenses. Ignoring the smoking tongs, he snatched a glowing coal between thumb and forefinger, his calluses shielding him from its heat. The heady blend of tobacco riffled through his senses as he settled down to play a round of All Fours.

  If he tipped back in his chair he could see outside and keep an eye on both Smokey and Beck, a far better prospect than watching the bewhiskered, bruised face of Cornelius across from him.

  The man with the lame leg was dealing. He hadn’t said his name and Sion wondered. Just who were these people surviving—nay, thriving—along a remote river in the howling wilderness? He supposed it didn’t matter. He had a job to do. The sooner he returned his mapmaker to base camp, the better. They were expected back at Fort Henry by August.

  “Another drink, if you will.” Cornelius was almost comical in his condescension, but the serving girl hastened to do his bidding, clearly charmed.

  Soon all the men were sipping and smoking, earning points and playing tricks in order to reach the winning score. The game intensified, the tension mounting. When Sion won the first round, Cornelius began to tap his foot, a sure sign of his agitation.