The Frontiersman’s Daughter

  She went up the loft ladder, leaving Ma Horn asleep in her chair. The once gay quilt spread upon the corn-husk tick had faded to a dull blood red over the years and now looked uninviting. She didn’t bother to undress or turn the covers down but simply lay upon the bed and stared up at the rafters just inches from her face. The cold seeped in and settled over her, but she no longer cared. She doubted she would sleep at all. The doctor’s words were bitter, and she tasted them again and again as she recounted each one.

  He’d raised more questions than she had answers. The thought of sharing a husband made her shudder. She’d heard polygamy was no longer practiced except by the oldest members of the tribe and was now dying out. Why had she not thought to argue that very thing? As for religion, wasn’t the Shawnee god the same as the white man’s?

  She pressed cold fingers to her aching head. She couldn’t deny the growing conflict between the settlers and the Indians. Captain Jack had told her of the danger. Strange how, when she was with him, all the things she meant to ask him flew right out of her head like a flock of frightened birds. Would her questions ever find answers?

  Promise me, she’d almost begged the last time she’d seen him. Don’t stay away too long. Sometimes it seems you’re not real . . . that I only dream of you.

  50

  Did all Shawnee men attend their children’s births? Or could he, because he was a chief with a white wife, buck whatever custom he chose? All day she had labored with only an Indian midwife present and then, as if he could stand it no longer, Captain Jack entered the wigwam at dusk. His eyes took in everything at once before he came and sat behind her, acting as a headboard upon which she leaned, his fingers entwined with her own. She wore her usual buckskin dress, but a length of trade calico modestly covered her to the waist, and beneath her was a huge buffalo hide. Oddly enough, the Shawnee woman attending her reminded her of Ma Horn.

  It was already the blackberry moon—July—but she’d stopped keeping track of time months ago. Outside their shelter, a concerto of fiddling crickets and the latent perfume of honeysuckle ushered in the summer twilight. Despite her pain, she could hear the rushing of the cold Scioto River, a sharp contrast to the oppressive heat that had hardly dimmed at day’s end.

  Sweat beaded her upper lip and turned her loose hair riotous about her flushed face. Determined not to shame him or herself by crying out, she bit her lips till they were bruised and bleeding. What had begun hours ago at dawn as a mild twinge had become a torrent of terrible pain rivaling the Falls of the Ohio itself. Once she forgot herself and nearly screamed. How could such pain both sap her yet give her unusual strength? Her fingers dug into her husband’s hands, but he was like a wall, unflinching and unmoving as he held her.

  His face showed little expression, but the English endearments he whispered in her ear told her he was nearly as anguished as she. As she labored, he wiped her face with a cold cloth as she leaned against him. Was there no end to this? Was this the way of it for all women?

  At the end, when she felt she was being torn in two, she sobbed in Shawnee, “Dear God . . . help me . . . save me . . . spare my baby . . . let me live . . .” The baby’s head was crowning, capped with such a wealth of blue-black hair the Indian midwife chuckled with glee. Looking up, she assured them only a son could have such hair.

  Lael tried hard to smile, to show her relief. She did not want their son to have her cornsilk hair, to stand out like she did among the people . . .

  Lael came awake at once. Her heart seemed to swell her throat shut with its rapid rhythm, and she opened her mouth to breathe.

  The dream was slow in leaving, but her muddled feelings remained. Love for her husband, tenderness toward their child, yet both framed with fear. In the dream she was one of several wives, and each had many children. She was looked down upon because, as the favorite of her husband, she was not made to work like the other women. She was Ezekial Click’s daughter—a kind of coup, a prize. And she was white. That Captain Jack was white had long been forgotten.

  She sat up, bumped her head on the rough ceiling, then fell back onto the quilt instead of Captain Jack’s waiting arms. What had the doctor done to her? Sleeping on harsh words begat bad dreams, truly. Peeking through a loophole told her it was indeed daylight. She tiptoed past Ma Horn, still asleep in her chair. Outside on the common, she whistled for Tuck and went in search of the mule. She did not want to see Ian Justus.

  When she left the fort, she made her way straight up the branch where the snow lay untouched. As she rode she exhaled an icy breath and shook off the effects of the lingering dream.

  Lovey Runion and her two guests were snug as snug could be, and it seemed to Lael that they had always been that way, their lives entwined like knotted thread, and her bruised feeling from the night before mended a bit. With Hero McClary dead, Mourning and Titus were safe and could stay with Lovey until Lael figured out a way to send them back to North Carolina, if they still wanted to go. So much for Colonel Barr’s census. She doubted he even knew of these three tucked away in the bosom of the branch.

  With the feud ended, she too was free to return home. When she came around the charred ruins of the barn, she gave a little gasp. To the left of the cabin, under a crumbling eave, was a small mountain of firewood, deftly chopped and neatly stacked.

  Just like Pa would have done.

  51

  Since her return from the fort she lay awake nights, unsettled by her dreams. Thoughts of her harsh words to the doctor were interspersed with images of a laughing, living Sadie Floyd, brought back from the brink of the grave.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t get the Scot’s mealtime prayers out of her mind. She’d heard them so often the week of the census she had unwittingly memorized parts of them, particularly the benediction he always said at the last: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord. These were no mere words. They had somehow become living things, probing and questioning and penetrating her thoughts day and night. They simply would not let her forget them, nor would they let her be.

  Were the words of her mouth and the meditation of her heart acceptable in His sight? In answer, she thought of her violent anger at the McClarys and their whole wretched clan. Her jealousy of Piper. Her past fury and longing for Simon. Her tenuous relationship with Ian Justus. And a hundred other things she would never want brought to light. She was, she concluded, sorely lacking in God’s sight.

  In her disquiet she roamed the river bottoms where the melting snow sluiced through her moccasins and turned them black. Always she watched for Captain Jack. But there was only the eternal stillness of the woods marred by a passing animal or a moody wind promising a bitter winter. When her days were spent, she returned home to a cold cabin, where the mountain of firewood resting within arm’s reach of the porch was welcome indeed. Whom, she wondered for the hundredth time, did she have to thank for that?

  In the evenings she read or wrote letters. Often she paused to consider what the doctor called her rashness with Captain Jack. She looked down at the half-finished letters to Ma and Miss Mayella, imagining the stir she would cause if she told them about her Shawnee courtship. With a sigh, she took up a book but couldn’t read, at least at night. Even by the light of two candles, the words seemed to melt together like wax on the page.

  She consulted the few medical books she had, studying the swimming words, and came away wretchedly disquieted. She could no longer plead weariness as the cause since she had just had a week’s rest at the fort. There was nothing else to do but face the thing she feared: She must see Ian Justus.

  She sighed just thinking about it. What if he dismissed her as rudely as she’d dismissed him in her fury over Captain Jack? She realized now he’d just meant to caution her, as any true friend would. Although she’d shunned his personal advice, she did need his medical expertise.

  Against her better judgment she took out her second-best work dress, heated a hand iron at the fire, and pres
sed out the fiercest wrinkles. It was cold in the cabin, but she bathed anyway, pulling a wooden barrel to the hearth and washing herself with a cake of bayberry soap saved for a special occasion. Instead of the usual girlish plait hanging to her knees, she wrapped her long braid like a crown about her head then peered skeptically in the fragment of mirror.

  The girl who peered back at her was not a girl at all but a woman—a woman who didn’t dare admit why she took such pains with herself on a wintry morning when her buffalo robe and worn boots would spoil the entire effect.

  Will had taken Pandora to Cozy Creek, for the mare was lame and Lael had had little luck tending her. She glared fiercely at the mule as she mounted, daring him to give her a moment’s trouble. He took off down the path as if glad to move his cold bones and was at a near run when the fort came into view. Smoke from a dozen chimneys wrapped the river valley in a hazy scarf. To her left the river itself was no longer a summer sapphire but a pearly winter opal.

  As always, she went first to Ma Horn. The old woman sat huddled by the fire, sewing new soles on a pair of old moccasins. There were two places set at the table, Lael noticed, well in advance of the noon meal, and a pot of beans and side-meat simmered at the fire.

  “I’ve come to see the doctor,” Lael told her.

  Ma Horn didn’t pause from her sewing. “You ailin’?”

  “Just my eyes.”

  “Too much readin’ and writin’, ” she surmised. She set aside her work and gave a sigh which, coming from her, was an unusual utterance. Immediately, Lael sensed trouble. Olivia . . . had she already come? Or had the doctor gone?

  Ma Horn reached for her pipe, which was still smoking on the hearth. “I got some sorry news to tell you about the doctor. He’s taken a lickin’. ”

  Lael simply stared.

  “He rode out of here pretty as you please and come back lookin’ like painter bait.”

  Slowly, Lael sat. “When?”

  “Yesterday mornin’. ”

  “Who?”

  “He ain’t sayin’.”

  Ma Horn took a draw on her pipe, her mouth pinched with sorrow. “All I know is he was going to see to that trapper and his Indian wife over on the gulch. I reckon somebody ambushed him on the trail—somebody who don’t take kindly to his strange speech and ways.”

  They sat for a time in uneasy silence. Lael felt queer and lightheaded at the news, and her heart hammered so hard she had trouble drawing an easy breath.

  “I made him up some healin’ salve just this mornin,’ ” she said, handing her a small bowl. “Give it to him when you go.”

  With some trepidation, Lael approached the blockhouse and knocked lightly. At the sound of muffled voices, she let herself in. The large room had been divided by a sheet and two chairs sat facing the fire. She took one, noting everything was clean if spare. The voices behind the screen told her the doctor was with a patient who, from the pained howl he let out, was not taking kindly to his treatment. The delay gave her time to compose herself and study the objects on the long mantle.

  There was a small clock with bold Roman numerals that, she was soon to discover, chimed the hour. Some books and a pouch of tobacco sat beside it. Lastly, in a small silver frame, was a portrait of a man and woman bearing a remarkable resemblance to the doctor himself. Near her on a table lay a book—a Bible—open to the Psalms.

  In a few moments old Amos appeared from behind the curtain, nursing his mouth with a blood-stained rag. He flashed her a winsome grin nonetheless, holding up the extracted, oncetroublesome tooth before he ambled out the door.

  Ian Justus appeared soon after, wiping his hands on a cloth, unaware of her presence. She cleared her throat, and he turned toward her. Wary, she sat stoic under his scrutiny. Was he remembering their harsh words at last meeting, before he’d gone out and slammed the door? She certainly was. But the sight of his battered, swollen face, one eye nearly shut and his lower lip split at the corner, made her nearly forget why she’d come in the first place.

  “Miss Click.”

  Ian crossed the room, not in his usual agile way, but slowly and deliberately and obviously in pain, taking the chair opposite her. How it hurt her simply to look at him! She struggled to maintain her composure, but a tear fell anyway, making a trail to her chin.

  “So you’ve come tae see me,” he said slowly, giving her a crooked smile. “Well, I’m sure ’tis nothing tae cry aboot. You look well enough tae me.”

  Finally she stammered, “W-who has done this terrible . . . thing?”

  He stood up and moved to the table where he poured steaming water into a basin. “You might say I met up with one of your Kentucke panthers in the woods.”

  A fierce protective passion rose up inside her, swelling her voice. “You must tell Colonel Barr, so the person who did this may be brought in—and punished.”

  “Nae.”

  He was so firm—so calm—she nearly faltered. She watched as he methodically cleaned a few surgical tools, laying them out on a clean cloth to dry.

  She swallowed back her scalding emotions. “Someone attacks you and you do nothing but say nay? You might have been killed! Suppose it happens again—”

  “Suppose it does? My standards remain the same. And they are no’ settlement standards, Miss Click. They’re scriptural.” The conviction in his voice nearly left her speechless.

  “But the Bible says an eye for an eye, a wound for a wound.”

  “Dinna you also read ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’?”

  She shook her head vehemently. “You make no sense.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Need I remind you tae tend tae your own business? You often advise me tae do the same.” There was teasing in his tone, bringing back the heat of their last meeting, but it only left her shame-faced.

  She sat mute, suddenly so tired she didn’t think she could rise from her chair. But worse than his strange words—worse even than the beating—was the feeling that she didn’t understand him. He was, after all, an outlander, a stranger to their ways.

  Getting up, she set the healing salve on the table and turned to go.

  “Lael—wait.” He caught her elbow and his voice was far gentler than his grip. “You dinna come here tae argue with me. Why did you come?”

  She started to cry again at the tenderness in his voice. “Something’s the matter with my sight. At times I cannot see.”

  Who, she wondered, was most in need of soothing words and healing hands?

  “’Tis a scratch, is all,” he said when she protested over his injuries. “If you’d ever seen a mon near death from battle and disease, you’d no’ be making such a fuss.”

  And so she fell silent, letting him shine the light of a candle into her eyes and instruct her to read aloud some letters and numerals from a chart hanging on the opposite wall.

  “Your eyes are a wee bit weak,” he told her. “But I have just the remedy. You must wait, tho’, till I next go tae Lexington.”

  The quiet confidence in his voice reassured her. She continued to sit as if hoping his nearness would somehow take away the sting of his earlier rebuke and they could be friends again.

  He said gently, “You can go, if you like. But no’ tae your own cabin. Night is falling fast.”

  “To Ma Horn’s, then.”

  “Aye,” he said, adding, “I would have you stay here in hospital quarters, but you’re hardly sick enough tae do that.”

  Just lovesick, she thought miserably.

  He came and sat opposite her. His face was so battered she nearly winced. She worked to make her voice strong and sure. “You must let me help you with the healing salve. Then I will go.”

  He smiled despite his cracked lip, and she fervently hoped he’d not broken his fine nose or the cheekbones that made his handsome face so noble. Would the cuts heal or scar? The one over his eye was deep, while the rest were more like scratches.

  Ma Horn’s salve was pleasant-smelling, made from crushed rosemar
y and comfrey and mixed with the ooze of white oak. Lael applied it with a clean cloth as gently as she could. He did not so much as wince, but she sensed some inner struggle within him. Anger? Fear? Exhaustion? He looked as though he’d just come from battle though he bore no musket wounds.

  She left the salve on the table then started to go, but he blocked her exit. His eyes were as earnest as she’d ever seen them. “Will you forgive me for the things I said tae you when we last met? Before I went oot and slammed the door?”

  She looked up at him. “I came here to ask you that very thing.”

  Only when I saw you, I forgot.

  “Forgiven, then?”

  She softened. “You were only trying to warn me, as a friend.”

  “Aye, as a friend.”

  “I shouldn’t have sassed you so.”

  He smiled, or tried to. “But you are so good at it.”

  She almost smiled as well, then looked again at his face and went solemn. “Is there nothing more I can do for you?”

  “Aye,” he answered. “You can pray.”

  Her eyes filled again. “I’m not very good at that.”

  “You dinna have tae be. Just honest before the Almighty.”

  She was suddenly struck by a curious thought. “Do you ever . . . pray for me?”

  His eyes fastened on her face. “Aye, I do.”

  Her heart turned over. If he prayed for her . . . what did he pray about? She quickly shut away the question lest her heart grow too soft toward him.

  “I still think you should have been a preacher,” she said softly, then turned her back and departed.

  52

  Two days later, on a raw November morning, one of Simon’s nearest neighbors arrived on a mule even more ornery than Lael’s own. It stopped just short of the cabin, nearly sending the boy sailing off its bare back and onto the slippery porch.