As she drew near Will’s old place, three children played beneath a pine, unaware of her approach. There was a curious absence of barking dogs. She remembered that Will had a penchant for dogs—not just any dogs, but tried and true bluetick hounds from Virginia.
She tied the mare to a fence and stood watching the children. She could see Susanna and Will in their small faces. The youngest, a girl, toddled about on fat legs and pulled at a cat’s tail. The older two, both boys with dirty faces, were making stick drawings in the dirt.
Not wanting to startle them, she whistled softly. The girl looked up and, seeing her, bawled, “Ma-Maw!”
Susanna came running. Across the yard the children scrambled, hiding in her skirts and pointing toward Lael.
No light of recognition lit Susanna’s face. For a moment Lael felt foolish—and speechless. Had she changed so much? As in days past she was bonnetless and barefoot. Her hair hung down her back in a long braid with little wisps about her face and she wore a simple linen dress with little trim.
Suddenly, Susanna threw up her arms. “Lael! Lael Click! Is that you?”
Lael smiled and held out her hands. “Here I am.”
Susanna started across the yard, stumbling over her children in her gladness. The women embraced long and hard, then pulled apart in laughter.
“Why, I never!” Susanna exclaimed, looking her over. “You’re supposed to be at some fancy school, fillin’ your head with facts and figures—or so the settlement gossip goes.”
“I’ve come home, to stay.”
“To stay? Where?”
“Pa deeded me the land—all four hundred acres,” Lael told her proudly. “I aim to live there.”
“Alone?”
“Nay, not alone. There’s my mare—and I’ll have some chickens and a milk cow as soon as I’m able.”
“Oh, Lael, it is you! Only you could talk so! But what about your ma and pa—and Ransom?”
Lael sobered then. “Pa’s gone, Susanna. Last December, on the way to map the Missouri River country . . .” She nearly stumbled over the words as she said them, recalling anew the day she’d received Ma’s letter.
Susanna, slack-jawed with shock, looked at the ground. Her children hung on her apron but were silent. “We never heard it here. We been cooped up in the cove all winter; not once have we been to the fort since fall.”
“Better you hear it from me than some settlement ninny,” Lael said. “Pa drowned crossing the Missouri on a cold, rainy day. The river was swollen from the winter thaw . . . the current was too strong. The Spanish government had granted him land in Missouri, and he was going to claim it.”
Susanna looked bewildered. “You sure? That sets queer with me.”
Lael could do nothing but nod, the threat of tears too near.
Wet-eyed herself, Susanna pressed on. “And your ma?”
“Ma’s remarried and lives in Bardstown. Ransom’s with her.” For a fleeting moment Lael felt guilty she’d not stopped and seen them. But her heart was yet too sore, her resentment too fresh about Ma’s remarrying. She’d simply wanted to come home as fast as she could with no detours along the way, though she did miss her brother.
“Ransom. He was just a little feller when you set out. I misdoubt I’d know him on sight.”
They fell silent for a moment, then Susanna hooked her arm through Lael’s, calling to her oldest boy, “Henry, go water and hay that mare. Then we’ll all go in the house for some pie and coffee.”
They said little once inside. Susanna bustled about the cabin, fetching dishes and cups from a corner cupboard—not the daily wooden ones, but the chipped blue china her mother had brought over the gap from North Carolina. She set the kettle over the fire while the children vied for the biggest piece of pie and the closest seat to Lael.
“My oldest is Henry,” Susanna called over her shoulder as she made coffee. “Then there’s Ben. And my baby—well, she had such fair hair and green eyes I couldn’t call her nothin’ but Lael.”
“Lay-elle,” the little girl echoed shyly.
Lael smiled and reached out to touch a wisp of the fine baby hair. “I’m honored, Susanna. Did Will put up too much of a fuss?”
Susanna smiled and poured the coffee. “He wanted to call her Matilda Jane after his mother, but I stood my ground. I said she’d never know the difference, her being grave-bound and all. He called her Matilda for a week then gave up.” She sat down and sampled a piece of pie, then looked at Lael long and hard. “You don’t have the look of a lady, all huffy and high-minded. I was a-feared you would be. Now your voice, it’s some different.”
“Oh?”
“I have a notion you could talk a blue streak and I wouldn’t know a word you’d be saying. But that dress of yours is as homely as mine.”
Lael looked down and smoothed a crease. “It’s a simple one. I was afraid you wouldn’t know me if I wore anything else.”
Susanna looked dashed. “I hope you have some fancy dresses. It would tickle me to see somethin’ other than homespun.”
Lael smiled, thinking how she had once felt the same, in awe of satins and velvets and pretty painted silks. “Henry, fetch my pack, if you please.”
From the pack Lael pulled out a small straw hat encircled with silk pansies and a pair of kid gloves. Susanna drew in her breath, and six childish eyes rounded in delight. “I’ve no pretty dresses with me today. Just these—for you.” Lael set the hat atop Susanna’s head, and little Lael clapped in delight. “A sight better than an old poke bonnet!”
Susanna laughed. “And these gloves are soft as butter. They’ll do fine to cover up these knotty hands of mine.” She removed the hat and set it in her lap. “There’s big changes in the settlement, Lael. Last spring the men built a church just beyond the fort’s west wall. There’s no preacher yet so it’s sat empty over the winter, but sometimes a circuit rider comes round. You should hear the singin’ on Sundays. Like a choir of angels.”
Listening, Lael forgot her pie and coffee, a tangle of bittersweet feelings in her breast.
“There’s been lots of changes, mostly good. But the old timers are passing on,” Susanna went on.
Lael swallowed and the words formed an ache in her throat as she asked, “And Ma Horn? Is she . . . well?”
“Ma Horn moved to the fort two years back, being blind in one eye and all. She can’t get around like she used to, and there’s been a sight of sickness in the settlement. She ain’t been up here since she birthed Henry.”
“But that was years ago!” Lael exclaimed.
“I birthed the last two myself, with Will’s help,” Susanna said with a touch of pride. “But I do miss Ma Horn. No one else knows where the best ginseng grows and all them healin’ herbs.”
Susanna poured more coffee and Lael looked around, sensing her friend’s contentment. “This is all so good . . . the pie . . . you . . . the children. Are you happy, Susanna?”
Susanna shooed the children back outside but left the door open. When she sat back down her eyes were alight. “I done right by marryin’ Will, Lael. He’s a good man.”
“Where is he?”
“Took to the woods with his dogs this morning. Say you’ll stay for supper, Lael, and spend the night. Say you’ll stay till we get our visit out.”
Lael smiled. “Then I don’t expect I’ll ever leave.”
When Will returned after noon, he carried a wild turkey, his pack of tired dogs close behind. His eyes twinkled when he spotted Lael. “So the good Lord has brought you back to us.”
Lael smiled. “I don’t know if it’s the Lord’s doing or my own.”
“Either way, we’re mighty glad to have you,” he replied, handing her his catch. “Now let’s see how a fine Virginia lady handles an old bird. Or are you still your father’s daughter?”
The rest of the day was spent in many of the domestic duties Lael had nearly forgotten. Scalding and plucking the bird. Digging for potatoes stored in straw in the springhouse. Grinding corn in
to meal for bread. Setting the table and filling the salt gourd.
The interior of the cabin held all the touches of a man’s hand that warmed a woman’s heart. A sturdy pine cupboard with a leaf pattern whittled in the doors. A cradle big enough to hold two babies. A spinning wheel under one shuttered window.
After the supper dishes had been cleared away, and Will and the children were in bed, Lael found herself alone with Susanna before the fire. Outside, the katydids chorused in the calm of the warm night, and far beyond the shuttered windows a wolf howled. Lael felt a little thrill that she could hardly recall the civilized sounds of Virginia—bells tolling, carriages clip-clopping, the incessant hum of voices day and night. Her mind seemed clear and spacious and settled for the first time in years.
“There’s been no Injun trouble for some time now,” Susanna said in a hushed voice. “The worst of it came before you left, when the Canes were killed and burnt out. Since then there’s been some horse stealin’ and random killin’ but no attacks on the fort.”
She got up and moved about the room, checking the latches on the shutters and the heavy bar across the door before taking her seat with a sigh. Watching her, Lael sensed there was more than Indian trouble on her mind, and she braced herself to hear whatever Susanna held back.
All day long they had skirted the subject of Simon, at times coming dangerously close when Susanna spoke of her kin or the goings-on in the settlement. All day the suspense had been building around the omission of his name until here at day’s end they could hide from it no longer.
Susanna gave a push to the rocker that was across from Lael’s own. “I never thought to see you again, Lael. None of us did. The day your pa pulled out, Ma Horn said we’d not see hide nor hair of you again, and everyone believed it. But it’s queer, ain’t it, how you come to be here right now, like you knowed . . .” She broke off and looked into the fire, fingers twining and untwining in her lap. “It’s queer how you come back, just in time.”
Lael sat utterly still. An uncomfortable silence fell between them like a chasm neither was willing to cross. Lael studied her old friend, her thoughts wild with speculation, her heart like a stone in her chest. Susanna would not look at her. Lael’s voice was soft. “Say it, Susanna.”
Susanna looked up, her eyes reflecting resignation. “Simon is to wed Piper Cane on Sunday next.”
Lael let the words flower fully in her mind with all their unwanted implications. “Sunday next,” she echoed.
“Aye, at noon, alongside the river by the fort.”
Lael swallowed, her mouth dry. After all this time the sting of betrayal still hurt. Years before she and Piper and Simon had been linked in a strange and twisted love knot—and were still. She said dully, “I should have expected it long before now.”
Susanna reached across and clasped her hand. “But you’ve come back! There’s still time! Once he knows you’re here—”
“Nay!” Lael exclaimed. “He mustn’t know.”
Susanna looked incredulous. “But he must! Why would he dally with the likes of Piper Cane these past five years? She’s badgered him into marrying her, is all. He was heartbroke when you left. All he ever wanted was you, ever since you forted up with us when you were just a young ’un.”
Lael shook her head. “There’s much that you don’t know, Susanna. The past is the past. Let’s leave it be.”
“Tell me you don’t love him, and then I’ll leave it be. Tell me that.”
This time Lael looked away. “I loved a boy once. I hardly know the man.”
Simon Hayes is all show and no stay.
“Simon’s the same as he ever was, only handsomer,” Susanna said softly.
Lael’s heart twisted painfully. She longed to ask, How handsome? How tall? How deep is his voice? Does he ever speak of me?
Susanna continued in a rush, “You should see his homeplace! He got an extra thousand acres from the land commission, and he’s put in the first crop of tobacco in this country. Everything he touches turns to gold, and I ain’t just sayin’ so ’cause he’s my brother.” Her mouth turned grim. “But he’s makin’ a mistake come Sunday. You remember how Piper Cane had no kin after that Shawnee raid so Ma took her in. Ma always was one for strays and orphans and the like. I never wanted it to happen, but Piper Cane, with her bewitchin’ ways, stayed on long after, and I saw her work quite a spell on Simon.”
Lael shut her mind against the thought of Simon and Piper living and loving beneath the same roof. “He’s made his choice,” she said flatly, beginning to let go of the dream she had carried in her heart for so long.
Abruptly she got up and opened a shutter and leaned out onto the sill, letting the night breeze brush her face and wanting to clear her head of all she’d just heard. Behind her, Susanna came and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I always wanted you for a sister, Lael, and it ain’t too late.”
For a long time Lael stood alone by the window until her legs grew numb beneath her, the still night like a balm to her unsettled spirits. She was glad she’d come, but all the joy had gone out of the visit. She retired to the corner bed Will and Susanna had graciously given over to her. The corn shucks rustled beneath her weight and felt strangely comfortable. But sleep did not come.
In the morning, after some half-hearted bites of cornmeal mush laced with sorghum and cream, she prepared to leave, smiling wryly as Susanna supplied her with a generous supply of meal and other necessities. She hadn’t had to say a thing about her need, but somehow Susanna knew. Around her the children ate cheerfully, anxious to meet the day. She teased and talked with them and envied them their innocence.
Her last words to Susanna were soft but stern: “Not a word to anyone, you hear?”
Susanna shook her head in consternation, but there were tears in her eyes. “You’re a hard one, Lael Click. Suppose somebody sees you?”
Lael turned the mare toward home. “Nobody will.”
25
In the days to come Lael was careful to keep to the cabin. No longer did she make a fire in the hearth lest someone see the smoke from the chimney. Blessedly, the days were warm. She took her meals cold but hardly ate at all. Susanna had given her an ample supply of bear bacon, hominy, salt, a pouch of dried apples, and a sack of dried beans to tide her over till she could go to the fort.
She avoided the river, though once, under the cover of twilight, she walked down the long, sloping bank to bathe. With great effort, she shunned all thoughts of Simon. But like the memory of Pa he was everywhere, enduringly linked to the river and the woods and hills around her.
Perhaps I was wrong to come back. But in her heart she knew it was the only place to be. Here it was a wonder to shake off time and be free of its pressures and restraints. She recalled the silver pocket watch given to her by Miss Mayella when she’d finished her first year. It was perfectly round with a dainty chain and a filigree of leaves on its face, but she’d been unable to truly appreciate its beauty. She’d sold it before leaving Virginia, and the extra funds had helped her come home.
And so she spent her first days rediscovering her homeplace. She trimmed back the rose canes, newly leafed and already heavy with tiny buds, inspected the harnesses and bridles hanging in the barn, sorted through Pa’s tools, sharpened the ax head, and added to her list of needed supplies.
On a whim one day she climbed to the loft and there, beneath a pile of straw, long buried, lay her rifle and the Indian blanket with the blue stripe, one corner still fire-blackened. She took up the gun but let the blanket lay for now, awash with memories. What had become of Captain Jack? The haze of years had come between them, severing her infatuation with him, if not her lingering fascination. She was slowly letting go of Simon. Time to do the same with the Shawnee.
For two days she labored at replacing the chinking that had crumbled all over the plank floor. She trod a worn path to and from the river, gathering mud to press between the logs. Her shoulders and arms ached from heaving the buckets, but her rewa
rd was a deep, dreamless sleep each night.
She plotted out a corn patch small enough for a woman alone to turn her hand to yet ample enough to see her through the winter. Looking out over the vast meadow that had once been a sea of corn, she felt a tiny prick of alarm. How would she, a girl gone soft, ever turn over the sod? The field was overgrown with rye grass and clover and blackberry vines thick as rope. It had once taken all Pa’s strength, and her ma with him, to wrestle the land into submission.
Still mulling the corn, she repaired the paling fence that once framed the garden spot to the left of the cabin, then began to turn over the soil with a shovel for a vegetable patch. In her hands the dirt was black and loamy and smelled richly of spring, promising potatoes and beans, squash and turnips. Susanna had said that watermelons were now being grown at the fort!
As the day approached when Simon would wed, Lael’s spirits began to sag, though it signaled an end to her self-imposed exile, and once again she could ride into the settlement, head held high and free, an independent woman.
The wedding day dawned bright and glorious. The sun’s first rays crept onto the cabin porch and peered at her through the shuttered windows. She rolled over on her makeshift bed and thought wistfully, This is the day I might have wed Simon Hayes.
By noon she’d climbed to the knob. Up high, she felt stronger and more settled. She watched the sweeping arm of the sun change the valleys below from green to gold and noted that the swallows flew low to the ground, a sure sign of rain.
That evening it did rain, falling hard and clean on the cabin roof. ’Twas a fine night for wedded bliss, she mused. As a girl, she’d often dreamed of being a bride, but maybe it was time to put that wish away. She’d been unlucky in love even at Briar Hill. No man had ever turned her head, trapped as she was in the past. Those fine city dandies hadn’t the appeal of the stalwart woodsmen and Indians she’d been raised with.
Maybe I’m meant to be alone like this. No husband, no babies in a cradle, no rocking chair in which to nurse them and kiss them and croon to them. Just me, and only me. For always.