He held her fast, his face like stone, and said nothing.
“Why didn’t you come after me these past five years? Why did you wait? Why, Simon Hayes? I’ll tell you why!” She was crying now, so hard she could barely talk. All the pent-up hurt and longing came roiling out of her like an overfull kettle. “You made your choice long ago, that’s why! My own pa told me you’d been dallying with the likes of Piper Cane before we’d ever left this place. But I held you to be true. All those years in Virginia I waited, hoping you’d come after me, dreaming of the life we’d make together . . .”
“Lael . . . Lael,” he said over and over, encircling her with his good arm so that together they leaned against the door frame. “I made a terrible mistake marryin’ Piper. It was you I said my vows to on my weddin’ day—your face was in my mind. And that night ’twas you I—”
“Nay!” She covered his mouth with her hand, unable to hear it, but he only held her tighter.
She cried until the front of his linen shirt was damp with her tears, and when she pushed away from him he would not let her go. “There’s never been another like you,” he whispered. “And never will there be.”
“There’s no undoing what’s been done,” she cried, yet she could feel her ironclad defenses give way at the beloved nearness of him. This was the fabric of her dreams—the solid, familiar length of him supporting her, his hand weaving in and out of her hair, pulling it free of her braid.
All show and no stay.
But the lure of Simon Hayes was as warm and seductive as the swiftest river current, pulling her under and proving her undoing. Weak, she rested against him and heard the tinkle of bells. At first a far-off sound, the morning breeze carried it nearer and nearer. This time she pushed away from him and he let her go, a puzzled look upon his face. Lael raised her apron and dried her face.
Within moments a small covered wagon pulled into sight with a man driving. It was by far the most unusual contraption she had ever seen outside of Virginia, painted blue, the sides like chests of drawers, each little door opening, she guessed, to reveal wares to sell. The chapman called a greeting before climbing down from the seat.
Simon nodded tersely to the man before striding toward his horse, clearly irritated at the interruption. Lael turned and faced the stranger alone.
“The name’s Gideon, miss,” he said, removing a hat. “I hope I’ve not caused any trouble coming up so sudden on you and the gentleman.”
“He’s no gentleman,” she admitted, wondering if her eyes were red from crying.
“Perhaps you’d be needing some wares. Some sea salt from Connecticut or some nutmeg from the East Indies.”
She smiled despite her heaviness of heart. “Well, Mr. Gideon, I’d not thought to see the likes of a chapman in troubled times like these.”
He smiled back, his eyes kind. “Indian trouble is never reason enough to keep me out of Kentucke, miss.”
“That’s what my pa used to say,” she told him, surprised at her candor. “Please, water your horse. I’ve some beans and cornbread from last night’s supper I’ll warm for you if you’re hungry.”
“I’d be much obliged.”
As he unhitched the horse and led it to a water trough, Lael picked up the scattered black-eyed Susans on the porch. They were a sad lot, the stems and petals crushed beneath Simon’s feet. She felt like weeping afresh looking at them. They were a reminder of herself as she’d been back then—once lovely and fresh and new, but now sullied by broken dreams and empty promises.
“I’m sorry about your flowers, miss.”
He was standing just beyond the porch stoop, his eyes so sympathetic it seemed he knew what had caused their brokenness—and her own. She straightened and gestured toward the end of the porch where the roses provided both scent and shade. “Please have a seat and rest while I see to your breakfast.”
When she returned carrying a full plate and a cup of cold cider, she found him reading, an open book in his hands. A Bible, she noted, small and dog-eared like some of her own best-loved books. She left him to his reading but was not gone long, just out to pasture to fetch the mare. She returned to an empty plate and cup and a bouquet of flowers, just like the ones Simon had spilled out of her hands.
“Mr. Gideon,” she called, but he and his wagon were gone. Not a bell tinkled. Not a wagon rut remained.
29
The despair Lael felt over Simon’s coming permeated all that she did for days. Each time she crossed the threshold she remembered afresh the broken flowers and felt his hands in her hair and heard the words he should never have spoken. Nary a word she said to anyone, but Ma Horn had only to look at her to sense something was amiss.
“The best way to start anew is to shuck off the old,” she said plainly, tying an herb bundle together. “Take this to Lovey Runion up the branch. She’s fey, but don’t let it bother you none. That’s the way of it for some.”
And so Lael mounted the mare with the herb bundle and traversed the bubbling branch in a sort of trance, hardly watching her way. Ma Horn’s anecdote for heartache was neither tonic nor tea but busyness. She never chafed at the old woman’s requests but carried and fetched whatever she asked. A sack of poke. A bunch of spicewood twigs. Baskets of salat and sang and other indispensables.
With a growing sense of sadness, Lael watched as Ma Horn’s eyesight grew dimmer and her bent body a little more accustomed to her rocker. She hardly ever ventured beyond the fort’s gates now. Those who wanted her services had to come to the settlement. Those who could not come because of illness or infirmity were given over to Lael’s care.
Partway up the branch, Lael climbed down off the mare and sat upon a rock to soak her feet in the clear, cold water. Two days before she’d cut her left heel on some cane and it throbbed unmercifully. The moss she’d put in her moccasin helped some, but nothing relieved the soreness like the singing branch as it wended its way to the river below.
Truth be told, she was in no hurry to see Lovey Runion. Fey, Ma Horn called her. Fey was but a kindness, Lael thought. From the attic of childhood memory she searched for the sad tatters of Lovey Runion’s life. Lael knew little except that Lovey once had a husband and child who mysteriously disappeared one spring, never to be heard from again. Some said they’d been taken by Indians; others swore they’d run off. Lael figured the truth would never be known.
By the time she arrived, the cool mist that had followed her up the branch departed, revealing a ramshackle cabin in the shadow of the mountain. Lael had never passed this way, nor had many others. Lovey Runion was fey, and folks stayed clear of her though she was a distant relation of the Hayes clan.
“Halloo,” Lael called when she was just beyond shotgun range.
Hearing no answer, she reined in the mare beneath a towering chestnut and looked about. A garden, choked with weeds and thistles, occupied a sunny spot to the right of the small cabin, the branch singing merrily beside it. Three homemade bee gums sat on rocks out front, looking like small houses with their slanted roofs. Bees entered and exited the gums, humming as they went.
“Halloo,” she called again.
“I heard ye the first time,” came the answering call. “Light and tie.”
There was no note of welcome in the words, but Lael went forward, making a wide circle around the humming hives. Hidden in the shadows of the porch sat a tiny woman in a straight-backed chair. In her lap lay some crumbled tobacco and a clay pipe. She was shaking badly, her hands fluttering like twin birds that refused to light.
Lael stepped onto the porch. “Mind if I fill your pipe for you, Lovey?”
Slowly she took the pipe, dumping the old ashes over the porch rail. “I’m Lael Click. Ma Horn sent me with an herb bundle.”
The woman studied her, her faded gray eyes vacuous and searching. “Click, ye say? I never knowed Zeke Click to have a daughter. But ye do look some like him.”
The pipe finally lit, Lael gave over the herbs. “I’ll make some ginseng tea for yo
u. Ma Horn tells me you’re partial to it.”
The woman nodded absently, drawing on her pipe, and the pungent tobacco drifted upward in spirals about her head.
Inside the cabin Lael kindled a fire and set a kettle of water to boil. Sparsely furnished, the cabin was nevertheless tidy, but Lael noticed a curious absence of food. There was no lingering smell of meat or grease, no beans set to soak, no strings of dried apples above the hearth, no telltale salt gourd on the table.
Lael went to the door and said quietly, “Lovey, when’s the last time you ate?”
A slow, childlike smile spread over the woman’s face. “I disremember exactly. Must have been when my Matthias come home with them squirrels. Fried squirrel we had that night with corncakes. And cress. I had a hankering for cress . . .”
“Would you like some cress now, Lovey? I saw some down along the branch a-ways.”
But there was no answer. While the water warmed, Lael found a basket and went back outside, walking till she found the wild greens, then picking all the tender young leaves she could find. She came upon some wild onion for seasoning, hoping to make a nourishing broth, but without meat it was nigh impossible. As Lovey smoked, Lael cooked the greens and strained the tea. She did find some salt, damp with age, in a corner cupboard.
Lael set the simple fare on the table, but Lovey remained on the porch. “I believe I’ll wait for Matthias and my boy. They’ll be along directly.” Her shaking had subsided, but the dull, vacant look remained.
Taking her arm, Lael led her to the table. “You know the cress is always better fresh, Lovey. Eat and I’ll fill your pipe again.”
Like a child, she did as she was told, sitting and taking slow bites as if she forgot what she did in between. As she ate, Lael talked, filling the silence with all the inane settlement news she could think of, hoping some spark of recognition would kindle. But Lovey Runion’s isolation had been too long and too complete, and time had all but erased those nearest and dearest to her. That she remembered Pa was no small miracle, Lael thought.
But if rational thought was queer to Lovey, gratitude was not. Before Lael left the woman gave her a crock of amber-colored honey.
“Here’s some long-sweetenin’ for ye” was all she said.
“I’ll be back with some meal and meat,” Lael told her, but the strange woman had already turned her back and was heading for the porch.
All the way down the branch, the afternoon sun warm upon her back, Lael rode with a small stab of joy in her heart. A slow, satisfied smile spread over her face. Not once had she thought about her sore foot.
Or Simon.
30
At last her trunks arrived from Briar Hill, and Lael was overjoyed, opening the heavy lids and examining her schoolbooks one by one. In the first, wrapped in linen, was the rose gown she’d worn to a ball. With a sigh she drew it out, and its silken folds rustled and shone in the candlelight. She’d meant it to be her marrying dress. Despite being creased from travel, the gown was too grand for the likes of the rough cabin. She hung it from a peg nevertheless, for its beauty never failed to move her.
She’d worn it only once. Would she ever again? Not here, surely, for folks would say she was putting on airs. It would make a fine wedding gown, fit to be handed down to a daughter. Despite its grandeur, the color had always reminded her of pink dogwoods in spring. There were shoes also, narrow and long, of the same pale pink with small wooden heels. She remembered how they’d pinched her feet when she danced that long autumn’s eve in Virginia and how she’d wished that her many partners had simply been Simon.
With a sigh she closed the trunks. Two stacks of books lay on the trestle table. One for keeping and one for sharing. She would give Aesop’s Fables to Lovey Runion, for it had pictures as well as words. The rest she would take to Uncle Neddy.
She hadn’t seen Ned Click since she left the settlement, when Pa had taken her away, and it was high time she visited him. Would he even recognize her? She misdoubted he would.
Before she had even alighted from the mare he came out of the cabin. “Why, Lael Click,” he said slowly. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
“I’m a sight and I’m sore, is all,” she said, removing her straw hat and fanning her warm face. “You live a far piece.”
“That’s how I like it.” He grinned and helped her down and they stood face to face, studying the other.
Time, she determined, had been hard on her uncle. The sun had baked his face a tobacco brown, and he was even leaner than she remembered. A woman would have seen to that, adding pounds to his leanness, but he’d never married, nor did he come to the fort in times of trouble.
She followed him into the shade of a big oak where a blessed breeze blew. Gratefully, she sat down on a stump and looked out on steep fields of tobacco and cotton. Clearly, Uncle Neddy was a man of means. To come here she’d had to skirt Simon’s land, for it bordered Ned Click’s own. His proximity had kept her away this long, but it paled to what faced her now.
Did Ned know of Pa, his brother? Did he ever wonder about Ransom, or had he somehow seen him in her absence?
She smiled when he passed her a cup of cold cider.
“I reckon you come to tell me about your pa,” he said, looking down at his boots. “No need, Lael. I already knowed.”
She didn’t ask him how. The loss was still so painful she dared not discuss it lest it bring on a fresh fit of weeping. Instead she spoke of the living, treading carefully, wondering if this was a sore subject for him as well. “Ransom’s nearly grown now, but I haven’t seen him since I went to Virginia. Ma says he looks some like you.”
“More’s the pity.”
“He’s never been one to shirk work either, so you can be proud.”
“Reckon he’ll ever come round here?”
The expectant question touched her, and she sensed his deep lonesomeness. “I reckon he would if we were to ask him.”
He looked out on the nearly ripened fields, squinting into the sun. “Does he—was he ever told about me?”
“I don’t know that he was. Maybe now that Pa’s passed on he knows.”
“And your ma?”
She sighed again without meaning to. Was her uncle once as sore about losing Ma as she herself was about Simon? “Ma’s remarried now. To a barrister in Bardstown.”
He grew quiet for a time. “Livin’ in a town, she’ll be safe from any Injun trouble. Sara never was one for the wilderness.”
Lael felt at a loss then remembered the books. “I brought you some reading material.” She went to the mare and retrieved the books from a saddlebag, gratified to see his eyes light up. Turning them over in his work-worn hands, he read the titles aloud. The Navigator. Thomas’s Hymns. The Order of Man in Ancient Times. John Donne’s Poems.
“They’re yours to keep or to share,” she told him.
He sat back down, clearly reluctant for her to go. “Tell me about that fancy school of yours.”
And so she did, recalling the echoing rooms and ticking clocks and endless books. It pleasured her to picture again the sea, as blue as a raggedy robin in spring, then gray as a mourning dove in winter. They passed a pleasant hour, sipping sweet cider and reminiscing, and Lael felt sad to take her leave. Aside from Ma and Ransom and Ma Horn, Uncle Neddy was the only living relative she knew.
“I’ll be back shortly,” she promised, hooking arms with him. “And we’ll talk books.”
He walked with her a ways to the thin trail that led down off the ridge. Suddenly he called after her, “Will you—do you— forgive me for what I done . . . for runnin’ off with your ma?”
Surprised, she turned around and looked at him from her perch in the saddle. “It takes two to run off, Uncle. And aye, I forgive you.”
He nodded and again looked down at his boots. A wave of pity stirred her and she kicked her horse gently, the surrounding woods a blur of brown and green. She’d always had a soft spot for Uncle Neddy. But had she forgiven her mother? Nay, she de
cided. Never forgiven her or understood her, then or now. Nor for that matter had she forgiven Simon. The hurt they’d caused her still burned bitter and bright. The burden of it tired her so, but try as she might, she could not lay it down.
31
The small corn patch was Lael’s pride. Tall enough now to whisper in the wind, the sound was as exquisite as the rustle of a silk skirt. In the cool of the morning she would hoe until the sun rose and touched her back, reminding her to go and eat. She could think of as little or as much as she liked, lost in the gentle monotony of hoeing and watering, and she could dress as she liked, barefoot and bonnetless, sometimes wearing nothing more than a shift, her long braid sashaying around her hips.
On one such morning she was thinking of nothing more than her new milk cow and the ball of butter she’d washed and salted and secured in a cold crock just that morning. She could hear a faint tinkling coming from the woods as the cow foraged in the brush. The fort’s cooper had just finished her butter churn, and the dasher already seemed conformed to her hand.
She paused to catch her breath, staring at the cornplanter birds hopping from row to row. What a harvest she would have! The thought made her giddy. She thought of Ransom who loved to farm, like Neddy. She missed him with a fierceness she’d not thought possible.
That very night she penned him a letter and told him how tall the corn was, and about the gathering storm that growled outside her window behind a bank of blue-black clouds. But she omitted her fear about the prowling painter, whose large prints she’d found along the muddy banks of the creek. Nor did she tell him she had no firewood for winter. Or that the barn roof leaked and a beam in the springhouse was rotting.
With a sigh she began to sign her name, but it was no more than a scratch upon the page, for her ink had run out. Beyond the open door, rain began to fall, at first a whisper and then a pounding. All familiar, reassuring sounds. She wondered how it would be to hear another human voice break in upon her solitude. Would she, in time, grow fey as Lovey Runion?