She began to wonder where Captain Jack was and if he would come by her cabin. When she was out herbing in the woods or wandering the river bottoms, a strange yearning filled her heart to come upon him watching her, perhaps waiting to speak to her. Sometimes in her aloneness she sensed she was not really alone at all, that the very woods watched her, shielding him from view.
Nay, she wasn’t lonesome . . . yet. But she was alone.
On a sultry afternoon in late August when the sourwood tree by the springhouse hummed from the thickness of the bees in its waxy white blossoms, Simon returned. Lael met him on the porch, gun in hand.
“You’re a far piece from home, Simon Hayes,” she said, and her tone put distance between them.
“I just come from Susanna’s,” he replied, leaning against a porch post and partaking of a plug of tobacco.
“I don’t have time to talk.”
“I reckon you don’t with all the work that needs to be done around here. Still no wood for winter, I see.”
The judgment in his tone riled her. She gripped the gun harder and found her hands were sweating.
“But I could remedy that,” he said softly, the eyes that held hers a rich, inviting brown.
Her face turned crimson clear to the collar of her dress. “I’m sure you have plenty to do about your own place without worryin’ about mine.”
He stepped closer. “Seems like I can’t turn my hand to nothin’ when all I do is think about you.”
Weak, she leaned against the wall of the cabin, the gun pointing down. “You’ve made your bed, and you’d best lie in it.”
“Oh, I’m lying in it all right, but I’m alone when I’m doin’ it,” he said with heat. “I’m here to tell you Piper has my name but nothin’ else, Lael. Our marriage is over.”
His words forced her to look at him, to measure the truth of what he said. She ached to believe it, yet divorce was not to be reckoned with. Why, Pa would turn over in his grave. As if he took her silence for agreement, Simon stepped onto the porch and wrested the gun away from her.
Her fear doubled at his strength. “Simon—nay!”
But he pinned her against the cabin wall, the rough wood scraping her backside. His breath was hot on her face and held a hint of tobacco—and whiskey. There was no one to interrupt them now, no chapman with his wares in a wagon. He kissed her hard but missed her mouth when she turned her head away. Swearing, he tried again. Desperate, she ground her fist into his hurt shoulder, the very wound she’d plucked the lead ball from. With a fierce yell, he released her. Dodging him, she grabbed up her gun and faced him, sick at heart.
Looking into those eyes that in years past beheld her with warmth and affection but had since hardened into something chill and reviling, she felt violated. The Simon she knew was no more. She raised the gun until it was level with his chest. “You’re trespassing, to my way of thinking.”
His eyes never wavered. Nor did hers. For several eternal moments they stood, locked in a silent contest of wills. Then without a word he turned away.
She didn’t lower the rifle until he’d ridden out of sight. When she did, she was trembling as violently as Lovey Runion. Shutting the door, she set the gun back over the mantle. A terrible, crushing grief took hold of her, and she sank down on a bench, put her head in her hands, and sobbed.
Thoughts of how different her homecoming might have been wove through her head, stinging her afresh. She should have returned to find Simon unwed and waiting, then moved up on his homestead. As it was, she was nothing but a workhorse, a woman alone, so soft she could hardly split wood or hoe her garden without sprouting blisters.
That night she took time to peel bark from a slippery elm sapling, scraping out the inner ooze to spread on a clean piece of linen. She bound her hands thus each evening, and by morning the blisters were less painful and turning callused. She’d grown weak, she knew, all those years at Briar Hill. But eventually her ladylike hands would become as hard and tough as the frontier itself.
Wearied by Simon’s visit, only a bath in the river could revive her enough to make a simple supper. She overslept the next morning, coming awake to a bawling cow wanting to be milked. Not bothering to get dressed, she stumbled onto the porch and into the arms of a warm morning. The cow quieted at the sight of her, but in place of its bellowing came a piteous yelping near the churn.
A long-loved memory washed over her. There, just where the blue beads had once been years before, was a basket. An Indian basket.
Much like the willow ones woven by her ma, this was of a different pattern, its lid fastened with a leather thong. Inside was a wiggling, shivering pup. At her touch, he quieted and licked her chin. Laughing, she turned him loose, looking long at the woods.
She felt like a girl again, expectant, excited. But what a sight she made in her nightgown, her hair hanging down in a tangle, her feet bare and brown. Still, she stepped off the porch and scooped the pup up, her smile wide and satisfied.
“Why, you’re all ears and paws,” she exclaimed. Just like Pa’s dogs, Nip and Tuck. Surely this was no accident. Had the gift giver thought so too? “I’ll call you Tuck.”
Reluctantly, she returned to the cabin, delighted when Tuck barked around noon, announcing company. From within the paling fence of her garden, she spied Susanna and little Lael emerging from the woods on a big mule, the boys and Will walking behind.
“How you keepin’?” he called.
“Right smart,” she lied, thinking of Simon.
The boys ran toward the puppy, shrieking with delight. Will cast a long look at her and scratched his beard. “Looks like one of them Indian dogs to me.” She said nothing, thinking she was becoming as much of a mystery as Pa with her long silences and short answers.
Susanna’s face was alight, her hair a blinding copper in the noon sun. “Lael Click, I can hardly believe you’re standin’ before me hale and hearty after all that fuss at the fort.” Lael only leaned on her hoe, squinting into the sun. She nearly sighed with relief when Susanna changed the subject. “This very night there’s to be a corn huskin’ at the Powells’, and you’re invited.”
Listening, Lael attacked a clump of weeds vigorously with her hoe like she was killing snakes. Susanna stood just beyond the garden fence now, surveying the tidy rows of onions and potatoes and beans, and urged, “Say you’ll go.”
But Lael shook her head. “I’ve not been to a corn husking since I was twelve years old and danced half the night with your brother.”
“Why, that was a hundred years ago!”
Lael paused and leaned on her hoe. “Maybe in another hundred I’ll be willing.”
“Willin’ to what? Dance half the night? Eat somethin’ beside meal and sallet greens? Be with folks you care about?”
“I’m sorry, Susanna,” was all she could say.
Susanna looked as dashed as she’d ever seen her, but it was Will who looked straight at her. “You’d do right to remember that a man who has friends must himself be friendly, Lael Click.”
Lael took the quoted Scripture as a rebuke but said not a word. That night, after another meal of sallet and cornbread, long after Will and Susanna and the children had gone, she stood on the porch. The roses were into their second blooming now, making her senses swim with their heady sweetness. A handful of petals had fallen onto the porch, dainty spent blossoms that looked more silver than pink in the moonlight.
Was it her imagination or could she hear the lilting call of a fiddle on the night wind? Tuck’s ears were alert, his eyes fixed on the dark woods. For the briefest moment she was sorry she’d not gone with them. How she loved to dance! Her feet fairly tapped at the memory.
Turning abruptly, she went inside the cabin. Everything was in order. She’d swept the floor twice and returned the rag rug to its proper place before the hearth, washed and dried the supper dishes, and carried the rinse water to the garden. A bucket of fresh water sat near the door with a wooden lid, the drinking dipper hanging above it. She??
?d refilled the salt gourd and stored it alongside Lovey Runion’s precious honey.
There was nothing to do but light a candle and read as was her habit. She’d written Miss Mayella to request a medical book, and she’d kindly sent one. The Complete Herbal lay before her, unopened and unread. Strange, but she’d never been able to resist the lure of a new book. Until now.
32
It was not a far piece to Dan and Avarilla Powell’s place. Lael literally followed the music. She imagined Susanna’s surprise, but there was no joy in her own heart. Every step of the mare fueled fresh dread. Surely Simon and Piper would not be present, as their home place was so far away. It was this reassurance that drew her.
She’d taken pains with her appearance, pinning her hair atop her head beneath a lace cap the way Miss Mayella had done. Her dress was an airy, cream-colored muslin sprigged with tiny bluebells. Pa’s cameo was pinned to her bodice, the blue beads in her pocket.
As she rode toward the welcoming light of the fires she nearly balked. But the fiddling wooed her ever nearer. Oh, to dance again! She felt suddenly shy. Who did she know here? She’d been away too long. She dismounted, surely the last to arrive. The doors of the big barn were flung open and lanterns hung high, illuminating a crowd of revelers. The bee had not yet begun. A mountain of corn awaited as the last of the supper dishes were cleared away. Lael spied Susanna talking with Jane McFee and Eliza Harold, as yet unaware of her presence.
She hesitated in the shadows, and a group of children skittered past her. “Lael, is that you?” Young Henry Bliss peered at her, eyes bright as a coon’s in the darkness. “We’re so glad you come!”
She laughed despite herself and made her way to the brightly lit barn. The tang of fresh cider and hay carried on a warm wind along with the hum of a hundred voices. Daniel Powell had already selected two captains for the corn husking race and teams were being chosen. Each team would be given an equal number of ears to husk, and the side finishing first won the race. Often, the race was settled by the two captains having a wrestling match or a fight. Lael grimaced. No doubt the corn liquor was in abundance too, making monsters of mild-mannered men.
Will Bliss was a captain and Susanna, delighted, sat on a hay bale watching him. Looking on, Lael envied them their happiness. If she’d had her way, she’d be an old married woman now with almost as many young ’uns instead of a spinster at twenty.
She started as a gun was fired to begin the race. Folks erupted in laughter at the antics of the teams as they began husking as fast as they could, making faces and gesturing at their opponents. “Why, Lael! Lael Click!”
Jane McFee grabbed her elbow, propelling her to a circle where a group of women talked and shucked a pile of their own. Susanna followed, whispering a greeting and a compliment.
“Lael, I reckoned nothin’ would change your mind, and here you are—in a purty dress, to boot!”
They sat down on some hay, spreading their skirts over their ankles. Lael was aware of all the feminine eyes on her, taking in her hair and dress and everything about her. This was her first social since being back, and she was face to face with the girls who’d been in pudding caps when she left the settlement.
She was, she knew, a spinster by settlement standards. Not to worry, she wanted to announce to them all, I am forever and enduring an old maid. No doubt they’d heard the tale of her and Simon and Piper. Their love triangle seemed nearly as old as the settlement itself.
Taking up some corn, she yanked at a husk, revealing a perfectly turned ear. “Reminds me of my new purchase,” she said quietly to Susanna. “I bought a popcorn popper when I was last at the fort.”
“A popcorn popper?”
“They’re all the buzzel in the East. You put some dried kernels of corn in it like so and hold it over the fire. Before long you have a mess of popcorn.”
“I never heard of the like,” Susanna said slyly with an eye toward a knot of men. “Maybe you could pop some directly for Asa Forbes. He seems all but rabid at the sight of you.”
Lael shot her a warning look. “None of that foolishness or I’ll up and go as quick as I came.”
“You’ll stay for the dancin’, I reckon. There’s a sight of single men to choose from tonight. See any that tickles your fancy?”
But Lael kept her eyes down, intent on the shucking.
Susanna sighed. “Too bad my Will had all them sisters and nary a brother. You’d do right by a man like Will.”
Picking up a handful of shuck, Lael tossed it at her, her flushed face tense. “I didn’t come so you could marry me off, you hear?”
But Susanna merely laughed. “Why did you come?”
Lael gave no answer but gestured to her pile of shucked corn, which was larger than Susanna’s own.
Susanna sobered and whispered, “No matter, Lael. Simon’s not here. So you’d best smile and have some fun.”
At these comforting words she did grow easier, smiling and laughing at the good-natured banter around the circle. Soon a shout went up as Will’s team won and they pointed in proof to their pyramid of corn, leaving the losers to shuck the remainder.
“Looks like a late night,” a man said, eyeing the pile of corn still waiting to be shucked. But no one cared as spirits were high and the cider was flowing freely.
As he passed, old Amos winked at Lael, bearing his worn fiddle. She smiled in return and before she looked back down to the corn in her lap she saw a curious sight indeed. To one side of the barn, in a pale circle of lantern light, stood a man. He was leaning against a beam, arms folded across his chest. Around him several settlement men were deep in conversation but he—he was not talking at all. Just looking. At her.
She took in his unusual clothing, finding him oddly reminiscent of Briar Hill. Was this why he looked her way? In a sea of buckskins and breeches and linsey-woolsey, he stood out as much as she.
Startled, she looked back down to the corn in her lap, but all she saw was him. And his fine linen shirt. Black breeches. Shiny leather boots. He was a newcomer, no doubt, or an outlander merely passing through. A Yankee doodle dandy. Lael wrinkled her nose in dismissal. He had the look of a gentleman, but there was no sign of the dandy about him. Or was there?
She dared herself to look up again and did. But he was no longer looking at her. He’d turned to take a cup of cider. His hair, black as iron, was worn in typical settlement fashion, longish and tied from behind with a simple leather whang. Though not as tall as Simon, he looked sturdy as oak, with thick shoulders and narrow hips.
Someone hooted and all eyes riveted to a young man brandishing a red ear of corn. Lael’s lips parted in surprise. How had she forgotten this? Unmarried folks came from miles around in hopes of finding a red ear. The lucky fellow made a beeline to a red-faced young girl near Lael and, amid good-natured laughter, kissed her swiftly on the lips.
“Keep watch, ladies,” Eliza Harold called. “There’s likely half a dozen red ears awaitin’, same as last time.”
Several unmarried females grinned and blushed at this news— all but Lael. She had no one to blush about and certainly not to kiss. Why, she was safe as old Granny Henderson, who sat directly across from her in the circle.
The night grew deeper, and beyond the barn doors the fireflies winged about and the wind settled. Oddly, no other red ears had been found. Some of the girls looked a bit crestfallen as the pile of unshucked corn dwindled. In the back of the barn old Amos was tuning his fiddle.
Susanna sat beside Lael, holding her sleeping namesake, as Lael continued to work, amused at the children who played and hid in the mounds of shucks that lay in piles everywhere. The crowd was growing rowdier and more restless now. Some of the women were cutting pie and pouring coffee in anticipation of the dancing. She’d seen no more of the dark-headed stranger.
“I need a sip of cider. Can I bring you some?” she asked Susanna, feeling cramped from sitting so long. She stood as Susanna answered, but her reply was lost amid a series of deafening hoots and w
histles.
A second red ear?
Lael turned to look behind her at all the commotion, then abruptly sat back down. It was the handsome stranger, turning a red ear over in his hands as if he were as surprised by it as she. Slowly, he made his way toward the large circle of women, grinning at the ribbing and back slapping of the men.
Some of the girls around her looked up expectantly, even brazenly, as he neared. She dropped her own eyes and—lo and behold—there was no more corn near enough to shuck. Her hands stilled in her lap.
Out of the corner of her eye she watched him walk ever so slowly around the circle of women as if judging the merits of each. Someone hooted as he came to a stop behind Lael.
She’d never felt so conspicuous, like a horsefly in new milk! Surely every eye in the barn was upon her. Heat began to creep up her neck and rose clear to her lace cap. Still as stone she sat, fighting the urge to flee.
Standing behind her now, he spoke, and his voice was rich and thick as molasses. “So mony bonny lasses, so hard tae choose.”
A Scot! At his words, the barn erupted in laughter, easing the tension of the moment. Lael waited, certain of a kiss—but he walked on, stopping a second time behind Granny Henderson. With a devastating grin he bent and pecked the old woman’s parchment-paper cheek as raucous laughter thundered a second time. Why, the old widow looked pleased as punch!
As he turned and walked away Lael felt a bit lost, wondering what it was about him that made her feel so odd.
Watching him go, Susanna finally said, “I don’t know as I’ve ever seen that one before. More than likely he’s just passin’ through.”
Passing through, never to be seen again. She felt a foolish urge to run after him and catch his arm and ask if he’d meant to kiss her. But that would never do.
“I believe—” she began, unable to finish. She watched him walk away, out of the barn, and disappear into the dark night.