Courting Morrow Little: A Novel

  He was familiar enough with their cabin now that he knew where to step on the stairs to avoid their creaking. Silent as a cat he came down, his silhouette tall and dark in the firelight as he stopped briefly at the hearth and moved soundlessly through the cabin. A blast of icy air reached her in the few seconds it took for him to open and shut the front door. Perhaps he'd simply gone out to relieve himself. He had a natural sense of decorum that made him shun the chamber pot beneath her bed. Sometimes she sensed he felt her room was little more than a cage, that he was as confined as a bear in a trap. Little wonder he spent more and more time outside.

  In seconds she was on her feet, her ruffled nightgown a tangle of linen and lace, long forgotten by some fancy Philadelphia lady. She nearly tripped over the hem but made it to the door, snatching up her shawl and draping it around her before tugging at the handle.

  The sound of Pa's snoring made her bolder still, and she hardly minded the icy porch planks beneath her bare feet. Red Shirt was just an arm's reach away, his back to her as he sat on the edge of the porch. With his buffalo coat around him and his rifle near, he looked poised to leave just as she suspected. He was smoking the pipe Pa had made for him, and the aroma she was coming to appreciate enveloped her in a small white cloud. She sat down near him and watched as he inhaled and exhaled easily on the pipe, his handsome face a study of satisfaction.

  He smiled down at her in the darkness. "You watch me so well I think you want to smoke"

  "I've been wondering what it's like;' she admitted. Thinking of Aunt Sally, she added, "Some of the settlement women smoke"

  Still, she wrinkled her nose and drew back a bit as he reached for her hand and placed the warm bowl of the pipe in her palm, wrapping her fingers around it. Timidly she put the stem to her mouth. The pungent smoke seemed to race down her windpipe, creating a small storm. Gasping, she began to cough, sounding so much like Pa she thought Red Shirt might laugh. He thumped her on the back and gestured for her to be quiet at the same time, stopping just shy of clamping a hand over her mouth.

  "Leave the smoking to me;' he teased, taking the pipe back.

  She tensed, wondering if Pa might appear. "I thought you were leaving"

  I had to see the sky. The stars'

  She glanced up beyond the porch eave, awed. Tonight the heavens seemed near enough to touch. The bright trail of stardust she knew to be the Milky Way had never been brighter. No wonder he'd come downstairs. The view from her bedroom window was stingy indeed, but here on the porch, profound.

  His own voice was touched with wonder. "The Shawnee believe that is the path to the Otherside world"

  "The Otherside world, she echoed, drawn to an explosion of shooting stars to the south, like sparks from some heavenly fire.

  "They say the stars are the souls of all the warriors from the beginning of time"

  All those souls... What of his soul? she wondered. She thought of his Bible lying open upstairs. When he'd been in the barn helping Pa with the horses, she'd picked it up, surprised that it was so old and worn. The leather binding was fraying, a few pages missing. She could make out a signature inside, the fine writing so faded it was almost invisible. And she knew without asking that it was very dear to him.

  Wrapping her arms around her knees, she looked skyward again. "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained. . "

  "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" he finished.

  She turned to him, fresh wonder trickling through her.

  "I spend a lot of time reading in your room, he said.

  "I know. I saw your Bible."

  "It was my mother's before me. That's all I have left of her"

  "That's plenty," she said softly. "To know that she touched those pages ... read those very words"

  "I took it to Brafferton and asked them to teach me what it said. But I nearly lost it when I left Virginia"

  "What happened?"

  "A party of trappers robbed me along the Clinch River. The Bible fell into the water and I dove after it. I believe it saved my life"

  "'Tis meant to save lives;' she said with a little smile.

  "You sound like your father"

  "Do you mind?"

  He took up his pipe again, face reflective. "He's different than any man I've ever known. I'm glad you're like him"

  "But I'm not;' she said, throat tight. "He's generous and kind and good ... forgiving"

  "You're different than you used to be. A few months ago you wouldn't have followed me onto this porch:"

  The compliment, if it was that, brought tears to her eyes. "I-I'm sorry for treating you so badly. I'm ashamed now of how I snubbed you-acted afraid of you-"

  "It's common enough"

  The admission startled her-made her feel grieved and defensive and tender toward him all at once. She longed to lay a reassuring hand on his sleeve but checked herself. There was no self-pity in his manner, only truth telling, and she sensed he didn't want her sympathy, just her friendship. And her forgiveness.

  "A half blood belongs to no one, red or white, he said.

  "You belong to God, she said softly.

  The ensuing silence lengthened and turned tense. She was suddenly mindful of her cold feet and thin shawl and wondered if she shouldn't go inside. As she moved to stand, a sudden cry filled the clearing. A mockingbird?

  He drew back as if bitten, moving between her and the sound so suddenly she nearly toppled backward. With a fierce gesture, he urged her into the cabin, his hands so fast upon his rifle that she gasped at the flash of moonlight on metal.

  She fled inside, keeping the door cracked, and watched as he backed up, his rifle aimed at the clearing. The mockingbird failed to call again. He slipped in after her, and she shut the door with a thud, setting the crossbar in place. Across the room, Pa still slept through the commotion, though his snoring had ceased. Suddenly she realized they'd left Red Shirt's pipe and buffalo coat on the porch, but his expression told her it didn't matter. He'd stand watch and neither smoke nor sleep the remainder of the night.

  "Go, Morrow," he whispered, nodding toward the trundle bed. "Sleep"

  She shook her head. "What is happening out there?"

  "Someone watches your cabin"

  She felt a flicker of panic and glanced at the crossbar again to make sure it was in place. McKie had spies everywhere ... but so did the Shawnee. He knew this as well as she. But his calm suggested such danger was a trifling thing hardly worth mentioning.

  "Go. Sleep," he said again.

  But she couldn't, stirred up as she was by what waited outside. Instead she took a candle and lit it at the low fire, shielding its flame against the draft with one cupped hand as she climbed the stairs to her room to better see the surrounding woods. Setting the candle on her dresser, she crossed to the smallest window and stood at its corner. Dawn was beginning to paint the frozen forest with sepia light. The mockingbird they'd heard moments before had sounded queer. She knew their call, and this particular one had not rung true. And he, far more familiar with these things than she, knew it too.

  Morrow paced on the landing outside her room, hearing the creak of wagons and horses. It was early afternoon, and members of the singing school were already arriving in the winter gloom. A light skiff of snow graced the frozen ground, and a bonfire was already blazing down by the barn to warm the revelers. She could hear Jemima's harsh laugh, and it rankled her nearfractured nerves.

  If only they could just skip to tomorrow-Christmas Day. It would be just she, Pa, and Red Shirt then. All week she'd been anticipating Pa's reading of Christ's birth in the Gospels and giving them the gifts she'd made. They'd share a special supper, and she'd wear the velvet dress. Red Shirt had not celebrated Christmas, he'd said, not since leaving Brafferton.

  Taking a steadying breath, Morrow slipped into her darkened bedroom. He was standing by the window, arms crossed, looking down upon the bonfire and
gathering wagons. She wondered how many frontier frolics he'd seen. The intensity of his expression told her he missed nothing, from the number of soldiers present to the caliber of weapons they carried, the condition of their mounts, and the uniforms they wore. Wary, she breathed another silent prayer.

  "I wanted to check on you one last time ... see if you needed anything, she whispered, stopping in the center of the room.

  "Have you come to give me my orders?" There was a hint of a smile in his voice as he moved to stand before her, arms still crossed.

  "Orders?" she echoed.

  "Don't look out the window. Don't climb onto the roof. Don't go below:"

  She tried to smile, surprised at his easy manner, but her sense of impending disaster only deepened. "I have no heart for a frolic tonight. The soldiers are simply too close:'

  He looked down at her, studying her small form smothered in moss green wool. She pulled her scarlet shawl closer around her, chilled by the cold bedroom. She could hear Pa calling her but made no move to go. Distracted, her eyes fell to his feet. He wore the shoepacks he'd made as they'd sat together about the fire these long winter nights, just the three of them in a warm circle of firelight-she, he, and Pa. That was what she craved-quiet companionship about the fire, not the forced frivolity before her. She swallowed down a sigh, a bit startled when he put his hands on her shoulders.

  In the dimness, his face held a rare pensiveness. "Do you forgive me, Morrow?"

  The heartfelt words returned her to the autumn day he'd first asked. "Forgive you?" she echoed.

  "Do you forgive me-for my father's people?"

  The humble question, now thrice asked, seemed to resound to the far corners of the room. Her lips parted in answer, but no sound came. She had a keen awareness of her own thudding heart. The pressure of his hands. The warmth in his eyes. Below, the frolic seemed to fade away.

  "Yes"

  Before the word even left her lips, she felt an unburdening deep inside her, a telling softening and healing. Tears shimmered in her eyes, and she sensed he was as moved as she. But the poignancy of the moment was broken when a footfall on the stair sounded and Jemima's strident voice rang out. With a gasp, Morrow stepped away, fleeing the dark room and pulling the door shut behind her.

  "Well, it's about time I found you!" Jemima lingered on the bottom step, bedecked in red calico and a poke bonnet. "Major McKie's asking for you"

  The unwelcome words had a numbing effect, and Morrow blinked back tears before coming downstairs. Taking a deep breath, she ushered her friend outside while fighting the urge to look back, to make sure she'd shut the door to her room. She mustn't give anything away, no matter how rattled she felt.

  "Morrow, you all right?"

  She ignored Jemima's probing, greeting people as they arrived. Moments before, she'd decided to decline the dancing. Her excuse was that she felt a bit poorly, hardly an exaggeration. She must avoid McKie at all costs. She simply wanted to sit on a bench near the bonfire, her eye on the cabin to make sure no one entered.

  Nearby the major was speaking with her father. Her attention shifted from them to a militiaman unloading a barrel of cider from a wagon and another hefting a large sack of chestnuts for roasting. The barn doors were open, and she could see the tables laden with food, hear the sweet strains of a fiddle. Soon the clearing between the cabin and barn was filled with folks, mostly couples, in high spirits despite the swirling snow. Absently Morrow watched the flakes shake down and lay like lace upon her shawl, her thoughts on the attic, far from the festivities.

  "Miss Little, you're looking like a Christmas angel:"

  Distracted as she was, she hadn't noticed the major at her elbow. Why was it, she wondered, that he always managed to make a simple compliment sound excessive? She thanked him and threaded her arm through Jemima's, afraid to be alone with him.

  "I'd like to be your partner for supper, if you've not been spoken for," he said.

  She simply nodded, wondering if Red Shirt watched her from upstairs. Once she thought she saw his silhouette, but when she looked again, it was gone.

  The evening passed in a sort of trance. She was mindful of saying and doing the expected things but enjoying nothing, watching the slant of the moon to judge the time, finding reasons to return to the cabin. The bitter weather seemed to cooperate, calling a halt to the festivities earlier than planned. Half a dozen wagons pulled out of the yard and groaned as their wheels crushed the powdery snow, and the soldiers went about fetching their horses.

  Suddenly McKie was at her father's side, his ruddy face perplexed. "I'm afraid I'm missing my horse"

  Pa studied him for a moment and coughed hard into his handkerchief. "Your fine gelding? Perhaps he simply came unhobbled"

  Standing near, Morrow watched as Pa took a lantern and headed past the paddock, the major in his wake. She inched closer to the porch and waved goodbye to those leaving, wishing Lizzy had come. Her friend had been wise to stay put at the fort, heavy with child as she was. A few Clays were in attendance, Lysander and Robbie tarrying longest. The sight of them, a girl on each one's arm, was the one glad note of the night. Perhaps Robbie had finally given up on her and sought solace elsewhere. Not once all evening had he spoken to her.

  "Morrow Mary, I thought you'd mind your manners and ask me to stay the night like last time," Jemima told her, a rebuke in her gaze. "Don't you remember? 'Twas that frolic right before you went to Philadelphia:'

  The mere suggestion engulfed her with panic. "B-but the weather. . " she stammered. "You'd best make a start for the fort. The Tates have opened their cabin and barn to any who want to stay the night there, and it's only a few miles from here:"

  Jemima looked down at the gathering snow, her black boots dusted white. "Maybe you're right. I'd hate to be snowed in here till spring"

  She turned away, leaving Morrow to breathe a thankful prayer. Ifonly the remainder would do the same, she thought. The crowd dispersed slowly, most traveling in wagons and bearing pitchpine torches to brighten the dusk-all but half a dozen officers who waited for Major McKie. The saber points of their rifles glinted harshly in the light of the fading fire, and she began backing away from them, shivering.

  From the shadows McKie cursed and followed Pa into the barn to borrow a horse. Apparently his fine gelding was nowhere to be found.

  At the cabin door Morrow waited till all was quiet, the yard bare, before going inside. She took the steps slowly, feeling an unmistakable emptiness even before she entered her room. The buffalo coat-gone. The weapons along the wall-gone. The far window-slightly ajar. Weary, she lay down on her bed, fully clothed, her head on the pillow where his had once lain. The masculine scent of him still lingered ... made her feel lost.

  In time she heard Pa's footfall on the stair, and his shadow filled the doorway. Long moments passed as he pieced together the obvious. Did he think she was sleeping? Or did he sense her heart was so full she couldn't speak? Coughing, he withdrew.

  A bitter breeze wafted through the open window, but she didn't want to shut it, as if doing so would shut away the memory of what had happened here. She wanted to hold on to the sweet feeling of forgiveness a little longer.

  Slowly she pulled the colorful quilt around her, curling up on her side, throat tight. She dashed her tears dry with a corner of the quilt. The realization that Red Shirt had taken McKie's fine horse almost made her smile.

  Would McKie never look away from her? She'd worn her plainest dress-a chestnut wool gown and prim bonnet that made her look sallow, Pa said. She didn't dare tell him she did so in a desperate effort to stem the major's ardor, a bit amused when Jemima told her how fetching it was. 'Twas the first Sabbath of the New Year, and they'd sped through the snow in the colonial cutter to reach Red River Station. Every pew in the frigid blockhouse was filled with a great many coughing, sniffling congregants, but she hardly noticed. All she felt was McKie's eyes on her, conveying shameful things that couldn't be uttered. Stiff with embarrassment, she watched Pa rem
ove his Bible from the pulpit and resume his tortured hacking.

  As the service ended and folks shuffled out into the bitter winter's afternoon, Morrow noticed Robbie Clay along the back wall, hat in hand, tarrying as if waiting to speak to her. But McKie intervened, asking if she'd received an invitation to supper. Before she could answer, an officer came and whispered in his ear, and he excused himself, leaving her alone. When she looked up again, Robbie had gone, and it was Lizzy who stood by her side, issuing an invitation.

  "Morrow, you and your pa should come eat with us;' she urged.

  Gratefully, Morrow accepted, knowing Pa needed a rest and a warm meal before going home.

  Later, as Abe and Pa sat sipping cider and talking in low tones at the trestle table, she helped Lizzy with the meal, marveling at the change in her friend. Dear, devoted Lizzy was lean no longer. From the voluminous look of her, she'd not last till spring. Morrow's thoughts took a wistful turn. How would it be, she wondered, to belong to someone? To have a child on the way? How would it be to live as Aunt Etta lives-alone and likely to stay that way?

  As Morrow stood at the hearth stirring a skillet of fried apples, she noticed three extra places had been set. But before she could ask who else would join them, a knock sounded and Jemima swept in, followed by Major McKie and an unfamiliar soldier. Morrow felt a sudden, sweeping dismay. She'd felt safe hereshe'd thought McKie had other matters to attend to ...

  At once the major's eyes sought her out, and his penetrating gaze told her she was as helpless as a hare in a snare, without a single hope of escape. Pa greeted them as the men removed their heavy wool coats, and Jemima her cape and bonnet.

  Lizzy cast an apologetic look at Morrow, bending to take the biscuits from the bake kettle, and whispered, "Those three invited themselves, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it"

  Morrow sighed, easily believing it of Jemima. She tried to master her distaste as Major McKie sidled up to her, wearing a hint of a smile as if making some great joke. "Miss Little, it's been much too long"