Courting Morrow Little: A Novel

  "I'll take one spool of plain thread, two needles, and one thimble, she said softly, unsure of how the trading transpired.

  Loramie winked conspiratorially. "Your husband has told me you are to take anything you like:"

  Turning, she looked at Red Shirt, who merely smiled while Loramie began displaying his latest shipment of striped cot ton, the heavier osnaburg, and delicate silks. Thinking ahead, she selected swanskin and watched as the clerk cut enough for two babies.

  "I know you are partial to cocoa," Loramie said, turning to take two tins off a shelf.

  She smiled her thanks, already perusing the bins of dried rice and beans, huge barrels of pickles and brined beef, and a selection of books that would have made Pa linger. A final aisle boasted elaborately plumed hats and silk shoes and overdone dresses.

  Morrow watched the clerks move their goods across the frozen common, past Loramie's imposing house to the cabin that would be their home till they went west. Soon after, she stood in the middle of the impossibly small room and tried to summon some appreciation for the cane-backed rocker before the stone hearth and the bed in the corner boasting a clean, if less than fluffy, feather tick. Angelique brought over a washbasin and pitcher while Morrow unpacked their belongings from the Red River cabin.

  Almost home, she thought, her mind on Missouri. She saw Red Shirt's eyes linger on the thick-timbered beams strung with spiderwebs before taking in every dim corner escaping the lamplight. Though he said nothing, she sensed his dissatisfaction. Was he missing his old way of life? Wanting to be out under the stars? The thought that he might be grieved her. They should have been well on their way to Missouri by now ...

  While he went with Loramie to settle accounts, she finished unpacking. Esme helped make the big bed and set out kettles and pans at the hearth before leaving Morrow alone.

  As she bent to take some pewter cups out of a saddlebag, her senses quickened. From far off came a distant yet distinct sound, almost an echo. Long minutes ticked by, bringing the noise ever nearer. The very room seemed to reverberate, re minding her of the steady cadence of regimental drums, full of bluster and warning.

  Red Shirt appeared in the doorway. "Redcoats, he said.

  Redcoats ... notBluecoats. Lately she'd hardly thought of the Americans who'd pursued them beyond the Ohio River. Within the safety of Loramie's Station, she'd begun to feel cocooned from the danger. Their ongoing honeymoon, sweet and hallowed as any should be, had eclipsed the gathering darkness. Did her fear show in her face?

  He looked at her, the thunder of the drums between them, and she looked at his weapons by the cabin door. Loramie's words, spoken across the candlelit table on Christmas Eve, returned to her in a haunting rush.

  I fear for you, mon ami.

  Having never lived within the confines of a fort, Morrow was soon wondering how Lizzy and Jemima had managed traipsing to the necessary at the far end of the common and laundering their under things in plain view of so many men. There was no privacy to be had unless the door was barred, and then the boldest Indians and frontiersmen would appear at the windows. Within a few days she'd all but abandoned the strictures of her old Red River routine. Her new life was like a patchwork quilt, bright and colorful but entirely without pattern or order. She quickly learned to keep a pot of stew simmering all day and to show no surprise when someone stopped in to have a bite to eat and a good look at her besides. Soon there was a marked trail to their cabin door and dozens of bewildering reunions.

  "I think you know everyone in this fort," she said to Red Shirt with wonder. "Perhaps the whole frontier"

  He smiled and his eyes seemed to dance. "Once you asked if I ever stayed in one place. Now you know the answer"

  British soldiers, Indians, and frontiersmen gathered round their hearth, filling the air with a thundercloud of smoke as they puffed on their pipes and swapped stories or news. She understood little of the cacophony of languages-English, French, Spanish, and a host of Indian tongues-but all reminded her of Babel.

  Sitting apart from the circle of men, she stayed engrossed in her sewing, fashioning tiny garments made of swanskin from Loramie's store and praying for the child she carried. Sometimes when her queasiness seemed unbearable, she would slip outside to stand beneath the blockhouse eave. There, beyond the post's open postern gate, she could see the glowing campfires along Loramie's Creek and was rewarded with the sweet trill of a fife or a fiddle.

  And then, quite suddenly, the torrent of visitors slowed to a trickle.

  Slightly alarmed, she turned to Red Shirt. "Is something wrong? We have so few visitors anymore"

  "The trading season is simply slowing down, he said. "And your patience has been rewarded with peace"

  Peace. That was what she felt in the flickering firelight alone with him in the evenings to come, when they sat shoulder to shoulder and he read from his Bible. The treasured copy was even more worn now, having survived a second immersion in the river they'd crossed on their way to Loramie's. She'd looked regretfully at the water-stained text and had been grateful when their host had offered a new one from his stores.

  "Take it with you when you go out on a scout, mon ami," he'd said. "It will cheer you when you sit about your campfire and are missing your lovely wife"

  Later, as she packed both Bibles in Red Shirt's saddlebags, sneaking in some sweetmeats and other nonessentials from Loramie's store, she prayed unceasingly for his safety. When he first rode out, it seemed she held her breath and didn't exhale till he came back again.

  "What do you do out there?" she asked in the inky midnight darkness when she couldn't sleep, knowing he'd be gone again by dawn.

  "Ride and read sign and hunt. Sometimes I come across red flag men-"

  "Red flag men?"

  "Surveyors;' he said. "And I send them and their chains and markers back from whence they came:"

  She realized how dangerous it was, yet she knew he couldn't be shut up in the post. He was earning their keep supplying meat for Loramie's table, at which they were often guests. When he was away, she spent much of her time with Angelique and her daughters, sewing in their brightly lit sitting room. Their shared talk and laughter seemed a living thing-warm and consoling, strengthening and healing.

  Often she thought of home, or tried to, but all the little details that had cocooned her there were growing hazy. The view from her bedroom window ... the leafy richness of the orchard ... the disarray across the dogtrot ... the poignant timbre of Pa's voice. Even her treasured, tattered memory of Jess seemed to have fallen to pieces, as if leaving the Red River had broken their last tenuous tie. Yet he was ever in her thoughts as she discreetly studied the men who ventured into the post, hoping and praying he might be among them. But she soon grew disheartened. There were so many bearded, trail-worn, dirty travelers. How would she even recognize him if she saw him? And after so long, how could he possibly know her?

  As the snow thawed, Red Shirt's forays led to longer absences. She began to sense a growing restlessness about him when he was within fort walls. Though he never complained, she saw the faraway look in his eyes and feared he was wishing they were on the trail to Missouri. Sitting by the fire without him, she felt the baby flutter inside her and pondered their uncertain future. Even with Angelique across the way and hoards of people within and without fort walls, she felt smothered by aloneness. She tried to pray, but her tangled thoughts took a lonesome turn.

  Pa, Ma, Euphemia dead. Jess missing.

  And Morrow lost.

  Red Shirt had been away for eight days. The first of spring's wildflowers he'd picked for her-pale blue and nameless-had wilted, bent over their vase in colorful disarray. Morrow tried not to look at them as she walked to the postern gates and gazed in the direction he'd ridden out, as if doing so could bring him back to her. Even Loramie seemed tense and restless in his absence. His best scout had gone missing and he could not account for him, and he was a man who liked to account for everything.

  Awakening the next morn
ing to a tumbled bed empty of Red Shirt's bulk once more, she felt a gnawing restlessness. Finally, she could stand it no longer. She sat up on the side of the feather bed and waited for the unwelcome rush of wooziness, but all she felt were her cold feet and the miracle of life inside her. Despite her heaviness of heart, the wonder of it made her want to sing. She hummed an old French lullaby that pulled at the corners of her mind.

  She dressed in simple calico, reaching for the scarlet cape Angelique had given her and settling it around her shoulders. Quiet as an Indian, she slipped through the front gates in the early dawn, past shelters and arbors full of sated, snoring wayfarers sleeping off their revelry of the night before.

  As she walked south along Loramie's Creek, toward Kentucke and the Red River and all the familiar things she'd turned her back on months before, the implications of Red Shirt's absence tugged at her. He'd never been away more than three days at most. Eight seemed a lifetime. Anger crowded out concern and then circled back to simple worry.

  Lord, You know where he is even ifI don't. Please don't leave me wondering, like I've always wondered about Jess.

  The morning was new and clean-smelling, the air threaded with birdsong. Out here God seemed to give her a gift at every turn-a pretty stone, an eagle's majestic flight, a fragile wild flower pushing up through new grass. She stopped and rested on a sun-warmed rock, eyes on a distant river unfolding in its spring rush through the greening valley beyond.

  The sturdy pickets of Loramie's Station were no longer visible. She felt a bit foolish for having wandered so far without telling anyone at the fort. There was a real risk in being alone in the wilderness, unarmed except for a small pen knife.

  It was past noon when she sensed she was being followed. The hair at the nape of her neck seemed to tingle, and then a horse's soft nickering alerted her. Veering away from the creek, she plunged into the gloom of the woods. There she made herself small, huddling behind a fallen log, suddenly aware she was bright as a cardinal in the scarlet cape. She'd left no trail following the water's gravelly bank, but this was cold comfort. If something happened to her, who would know? Or care? Not Aunt Etta, far away in Philadelphia. Only Red Shirt, she guessed.

  Closing her eyes, she mumbled a terrified prayer. When she opened them, she saw a tall shadow leaning against the trunk of the pine she hid beneath. The rush of relief she felt was so acute she was half sick.

  Arms crossed, Red Shirt looked down at her, stark displeasure in his eyes. "You came a long way. I nearly lost your trail:"

  "I wanted to take a little walk, is all ..

  "Hardly a little walk, Morrow"

  She flushed. She hadn't thought of him returning and finding her missing, trail-weary as he was. All his weapons were upon him, his leggings mud-spattered, his frocked shirt torn. He looked leaner, his jaw more whiskered than she'd ever seen, his handsome face almost haunting.

  "The cabin was so empty. I just had to be free of the fort .." Even as she said it, she realized how selfish it sounded. "I wanted to find you. I thought-when you didn't come back-"

  "You thought ... T'

  "I thought ..." Her voice broke, and she looked toward the river glinting through the trees. "I thought you didn't want to:"

  A flash of pain darkened his face, replacing the anger of a moment before. He moved to sit beside her, his shoulder solid and reassuring against her own. Though she worked to stop them, tears began making trails to her chin, and all her pent-up angst of the past months seemed to unleash itself in an irrepressible torrent.

  "You should have been in Missouri now like you wanted, she said. "But I've kept you from it. I've been nothing but a burden since we came north. You're used to living free, answering to no one, going where you please. I know how hard it must be for you, living at the fort-"

  "How hard it is for me?" The quiet words were edged with disbelief. "I'm not the one grieving a father. I didn't almost die of a fever. Nor am I carrying a child"

  Despite his reasonable words, her heart was choked with doubt. She swallowed past the knot in her throat, aware of his eyes on her while hers remained on the river. "Lately I've been wondering if I'm made for this kind of life ... if I'm the wife you need. Maybe Pa was right. I-I don't seem to weather things well.."

  Her voice faded, each word seeming to hover between them, the stillness excruciating. A tiny bird lit on a nearby branch, singing with all its might. How she wished she was that bird. Oh, that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away and be at rest.

  He said quietly, "Do you love me, Morrow?"

  She turned her face to him in alarm. Did he doubt her love? Did he think all her emotional talk was her way of telling him she didn't?

  A humbling realization stole over her. Not once had she ever said she loved him. Not on their wedding day ... or wedding night. She felt an overwhelming love for him, but the tender words seemed to lodge in her throat.

  Reaching out, she took his hand, the golden band a telling reminder of their tie. "I love you. I will always love you ... more than you know'

  His eyes were solemn. "You show me your love in many ways. But you haven't said it till now"

  She hadn't ... but he had. She flushed, thinking of the countless times he'd whispered his love to her, both in passion and in the many practical moments that made up their days. The heartfelt words had formed a hedge around her, shoring her up against all the trouble she'd encountered since leaving the Red River. And he'd kept on saying them even when she hadn't, with no promise she ever would.

  "Do you believe I love you, Morrow?"

  "Yes"

  "Do you believe what the holy words say?"

  She nodded, thinking of their Bible reading by the fire.

  "Then you know love bears all things, he said.

  The fragment of Scripture, so unexpected, so simply stated, gave her pause. Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. The simple utterance seemed to cast down all her disappointments and failures, her unmet expectations and fears, and turn them to ashes. How was it, she wondered, that he always managed to condense a matter in so few words and restore reason?

  He stood and called for his horse, then bent down and helped her up. Already she was considerably rounded, the baby making her feel awkward. The black stallion came stamping through the brush, snorting as if impatient to be off. She rubbed his nose, glad she'd not have to walk all the way back to the post.

  She watched Red Shirt adjust the saddle just for her comfort. Yet another expression of his love, like bringing his horse today when he could have let her find her way back on foot to chasten her for her wandering. She stepped closer and touched his sleeve. He was wearing the linsey hunting shirt she'd made, dun-colored and heavily fringed to wick away water. Her eyes trailed along its masculine lines, thinking of the love in every stitch. He paused and looked down at her, surely unaware, she thought, of the hold he had on her heart.

  "I missed you, she said, thinking how cold the bed had been and the way the days seemed to double in his absence.

  "And I you;' he replied. "I had to go further than I wanted-to meet up with the courier Loramie told us about"

  She furrowed her forehead in concern. "The one wanting you to come to Fort Pitt?"

  He nodded. "My father asked me to go to Pitt and act as mediator as well. There's a new Indian agent there who seems more honorable than those before him" His eyes flickered over her as if gauging her feelings. "But I sent the courier back to General Hand to say I won't be coming"

  The words turned her inside out with relief. She couldn't tell him how much Loramie's warning words had been in her thoughts of late. Or how she'd been haunted by the threat of Bluecoat soldiers when he hadn't come back.

  "I won't break the promise I made to your father," he said with quiet conviction. "I won't leave you heavy with child as you're becoming"

  Her shoulders relaxed, and the cape she wore slipped to the forest floor. A slice of sunlight through the trees c
ast a lacy pattern on her calico dress, and she stood in its warmth, pondering all he'd told her. He paused to take her in, his face awash with tenderness. She felt a certain shyness at his scrutiny. Placing one hand on the horse's mane, she prepared to mount, but he made no move to help her. His eyes were on the scarlet cape at her feet. He bent not to retrieve it but to hobble his horse.

  "Morrow ... you're like molasses to a winter-weary bear"

  With a sure hand he brought her against him. Oh, but he'd been gone too long. He began kissing her like he'd kissed her beside the Falls of the Ohio, till he took her breath. And she heard herself whispering over and over what she'd so long denied him. I love you ... love you ... love you. It was like a snow melting inside her, thawing all the hurt and distance between them, forging a new, beloved tie.

  It was late when they returned to Loramie's Station. But the scent of spring was in the air, and her world had been righted again. In the lengthening shadows, she saw him looking west and wondered ...

  Lord, please hasten us to Missouri.

  Half a dozen fiddlers and pipers struck up a brisk reel, and Morrow watched in amusement as a group of men partnered each other with as much zeal as they could muster. The large dusty common had been transformed from orderly and efficient by day to one of rambunctious abandon this April eve. Redcoats and Indians stood smoking and downing the rum Loramie had so generously provided, while intoxicated trappers and traders clogged and entertained. Morrow danced a four-handed reel with Angelique and her daughters, but the girls were soon whisked away to the sanctuary of their rooms as the revelry grew more unrestrained. On the fringe of the crowd, Loramie stood, a pair of pistols in his belt, his small stature belying his imposing reputation. On his watch nothing untoward would happen.