Daughter of the Sword (26 page)

“If I'd known—” began Deborah.

“Then it wouldn't have been a surprise, would it?” He laughed savagely. “A surprise for both of us! Now what shall I do with this sumptuous, if despised, garment? Mrs. Whitlaw, do you share your daughter's qualms?”

“I agree with her,” said Leticia gently, “though I'm sorry for your disappointment.”

He stuffed it into the pack. “No doubt I can dispose of it to some merchant, or live rent-free at Mrs. Eden's for far longer than I expect to.” When he rose and faced them again, he'd regained control and even had a faint smile. “So, Miss Deborah, I must still find you a suitable gift. This becomes a true challenge! It may take some time, especially now that my confidence is so badly shaken. Could you restore me by agreeing to go to a concert Saturday night?”

Deborah wasn't expecting to be invited in her parents' presence. Though appalled at his gift, she shrank at rejecting him a second time in a matter of minutes, but to make her refusal consistent, she must stick to it.

Dreading his gaze, she forced herself to meet it. “Thank you, Mr. Hunter, but I've considered myself a—a sort of chaperone for Sara and Thos. Now that he's gone, it would be improper for me to go with you to merrymakings, kind as it is of you to ask.”

“Kind!” He sucked in his breath, obviously choking down a torrent of bitter words. Controlling himself, he said lightly, “I found a chaperone for the Fourth, and I am sure I can do it again.”

At bay, Deborah flushed, unhappily conscious of her parents' embarrassment. It wasn't fair for him to press her like this right after he'd given them such perfect gifts, right after she'd had to refuse the one he'd thought would charm her.

“Forgive me. I should have explained long ago, but I thought—oh, never mind! I consider myself pledged to your brother.”

“Pledged?” Rolf's tone rose incredulously. “You couldn't agree! And don't think Dane may change his mind. He never will!”

Lifting her chin, Deborah said firmly, “He's still the only man I'll marry. I
am
pledged.”

Rolf set his hands behind him and turned away for a few seconds. When he faced them, it was with a smile that had the chill dazzle of ice. “I'm a great sinner. I covet most what is my brother's. But don't worry that I'll plague you further. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Whitlaw, for making me welcome. I doubt that we'll meet again, so let me wish you good fortune, and an end, soon, to the turbulences that shake this Territory.”

Much distressed, Leticia said, “Are you going away? The passes to the west will be high with snow till spring.”

He shrugged. “I'll find some excitement till the way's open to Pike's Peak. Leavenworth had attractions for me, though Dane abhorred them, and it's not far to Kansas City.”

Reaching into his coat, Rolf extracted a Bowie from an ingenious sewed-in, brass-tipped sheath. “Chaudoin wouldn't make one for me,” he told Deborah. “But I bought one in town. I've learned to use it. Anyone who takes me for a greenhorn will find himself well gored.” He bowed with the grace he might have used at court. “Good-bye. Now you can call in that mulatto. I've known since the harvest that she was here; I saw her working in the field with Dane. Apparently you trusted
him.”

He started for the door. Deborah blocked his way “You—you won't tell?”

He watched her, his mouth curving down. This was no longer a man hoping to please her, but a mocking, outraged stranger. “You wouldn't believe me, would you, my dear, whatever I might say?”

To Leticia, wordlessly offering back the music box and book, he shook his golden head. “Indeed, madam, acquaintance with you and Mr. Whitlaw has been a rare experience for me, one I'll treasure. If there were more people like you—but how can there be? With all my heart, I wish you well.” He spoke to her parents, not to Deborah.

Josiah went out with him, then returned looking grave. “A reckless youngster, for the moment, at least, bound on going to the devil. I wish his brother were here.”

Judith, called out of hiding, smoothed her new dress and gave a sniff. “Devil been waitin' for that one since he was born! Wouldn't have stayed clear this long except for Mr. Dane.”

Helpless and resentful, Deborah said, “If he gets into trouble, I'll feel partly to blame. I should never have stepped out the door with him.”
But I was lonesome, he was flattering and fun, and I could pretend I went for Thos's and Sara's sake. If only no one else has to pay for my folly!

“He knows about Judith,” she said. “Do you think he might tell?”

“Daughter,” rebuked Leticia, “he's not a monster. Why should he give her away?”

Father frowned. “I don't believe he'd do it on purpose, but if he got to roistering among Border Ruffians, he might let drop much more than he would deliberately.” He turned to Judith. “Winter's a hard time to go north, child, but perhaps you should.”

The dark-lashed amber eyes seemed to grow huge. “I like it here with you.”

The Whitlaws exchanged glances. No one pointed out that Judith's presence, revealed, might provoke another raid from Missouri. One of Jed's gang had escaped. It could well be that only the distance of the Whitlaw farm from the border had kept him from rallying other brigands and retaliating. If such men knew an escaped slave was hiding at the Whitlaws', it'd be like a crusade for them to take her back, punish her protectors.

Leticia smiled. “You've become one of our family, Judith. It'll be a sad day for us when you do move on. Of course, you may stay as long as you choose.”

“Maybe I better go to Mr. Chaudoin's,” proposed Judith. “Not so many travelers stoppin' how it's winter. I don't trust that Mr. Rolf one mingy bit. Never forgive myself if I bring trouble on you, but I hate to go north. Rather find a way to stay hereabouts if that can be.”

“We'll hate to lose you,” said Father, considering. “But it might be best. It would be Johnny or Maccabee who would take you on the next part of your trip, anyway, if you do have to go farther.”

Judith's mouth trembled and her eyes brimmed. “Should I leave now?”

The early winter twilight would be falling soon. “Wait till morning,” Josiah said. “Deborah will want to go with you, and I don't want her out alone after dark. This is blizzard season.”

Indeed, it was. One struck during the night. Deborah and Judith, who'd been sleeping in Deborah's tiny “room” since the weather turned cold, awoke to find a powdering of snow on their bedding and the floor, forced through cracks by the scourging wind.

Going anywhere was unthinkable, but the stock had to be seen to. From the window, tiny wind-driven particles of ice completely hid the soddy, the chicken coop, and the well-house. “I hope this isn't going to be a winter like the first one we spent in Kansas,” Josiah said, bundling up. “And I hope Venus and the horses all got to the stable. Stay inside, Deborah.” In spite of his worry, he tried to joke. “I won't be much uglier if I get frostbite, but it wouldn't help your nose!”

“If Chica's not there, I've got to find her.”

“She was in the stable when Rolf left,” Josiah said. “Maybe she felt this coming.” He gave a small cough.

“Let me go,” said Deborah quickly.

He shook his head. “I'm fine. You do too much rough work as it is.”

“You'd better stretch a rope from the cabin to the stable,” Leticia said, already tying together lengths of rawhide. “You know how people can get lost and freeze just outside their own doors.”

Father used the rawhide and was back in half an hour with a half-bucket of milk and news as good as it could be under the circumstances. Chica was still in the stable, and Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Venus had come in during the night. The soddy, built as a dwelling, was a good shelter; the body heat of four large animals was considerable, and unless the temperature fell below zero and stayed there for a time, the animals should be fine. He'd filled the mangers and there was enough snow drifted around the door for them to eat it for moisture. Also, he'd tossed grain in for the chickens, which similarly found their haven.

Since no one could go anywhere and nothing could be done outside, Mother made pancakes for breakfast, served with homemade blackberry syrup. After the dishes were scraped and put in water to wait till more accumulated, and after worship, Father read aloud from Mr. Whitman's poems while the women mended or knitted, though this was difficult. Their fingers were stiff with cold, though the fire was kept built up and they sat as near it as was safe, wearing their coats and wrapping quilts or blankets around their legs. Several days' supply of wood, corncobs, and cow chips was stacked in the kitchen, and the main lot was piled near the door. The water buckets had been filled last night, and if it proved too hard to get to the well-house, they could shovel out enough ice-snow to melt for their needs.

With the animals secure, the storm should pass with no real hardships.
Should.
That terrible winter of '55–'56, they'd had to bring the horses and Venus into the soddy, for that had been all the Whitlaws had had time to build before the earth froze. Temperatures stayed twenty and thirty degrees below zero for one stretch of days. Water froze in the buckets and food froze brick-hard. Father had written his news items with his inkwell on the hearth, because when he tried to work at the table, ink froze on the pen.

The Whitlaws had been used to the New Hampshire cold, but there they'd had no livestock to care for. Nor were they prepared for what no one could get used to—blizzards. These furious winds could come up even on a sunny day and send snow and ice whipping against man, beast, and shelter like myriad stinging tiny razors.

“I hope that Rolf won't have gotten caught in this,” Leticia said once, gazing out at the impenetrable whining gale.

“He can't have,” Josiah assured her. “He couldn't pack and leave Lawrence last night, surely, and the storm was going full blast before dawn.”

“I hope Thos isn't in it,” Deborah worried, prowling about from sheer restlessness.

Father sighed. “Daughter, we must pray for Thos, but we can know nothing of where he is. It boots nothing to fret.”

And I don't know where Dane is, either. Why do men have to go off to places where you can't know how they are or what they're doing?

“Deborah,” said Mother, “why don't you make a big kettle of potato soup? Put in dill for flavoring and remember not to add the sour cream till it's nearly done.”

It was a task calculated to stop her pacing. Twinkling ruefully at her mother, Deborah attacked the potatoes.

Father's voice had hoarsened and he began to cough. The slight cold he'd had seemed to be rooting itself in his lungs. Mother gave him a soothing syrup of boiled onions, and Deborah and Judith placed the benches by his chair, arranging pillows so that he had a sort of couch near the warmth.

“A lot of fuss,” he grumbled.

“You've no excuse not to take care of yourself since you can't get out to do anything else,” Mother said practically. “If you rest now, maybe the cough will be gone by the time we can drive to town.”

Thus obliquely reminded of the cold he'd neglected last year that had left him coughing for months, Josiah subsided and began working on an editorial.

“Slave-catchers have been working the river towns lately,” he said, glancing up from what he was writing. “They've kidnapped free Negroes and sold them as slaves. This kind of outrage makes it easy for hotheads or youngsters like Thos to feel justified in almost anything they do across the Missouri line. But it shames me to see Free State leaders like Jim Lane and Montgomery and, yes, John Brown, be rightfully called horse thieves and plunderers.”

Was there ever a cause whose defenders had all been honest and decent? John Brown was more madman or thunderbolt of Jehovah than mortal, but there was no dodging the fact that Free Staters had pillaged in the name of liberty and that the best horses seemed to belong to proslavers, whom it was righteous to rob.

If Thos could keep clear of such disgraces!

The soup was bubbling, giving oft an appetizing smell of onions and dill. Deborah moved it to the side of the grate and began to make biscuits. Her movements were clumsy because of her bulky coat and chilled fingers. Her nose was cold, too, and so were her feet, in spite of several pairs of Thos's wool socks.

Would the wind never stop? Now that Father was ailing, the outside chores were up to her. Cutting out biscuits with a floured glass, Deborah arranged them in the Dutch oven and added sour cream to the thick soup.

If the storm abated, she'd bring in the extra stores of cream and butter from the well-house. There was no worry now that they'd get too warm in the house! Eggs had better be kept inside, too, and the frozen ones should be used up. But it was more pleasant to find room for food in the cabin than to make space for horses and a cow and chickens, much better to find ways to use up frozen food than to have none.

They ate heartily of richly flavorsome soup and biscuits dripping with butter. Short on cash, as they always were, Mother insisted that the family have all the eggs and products of Venus's bounty that they could use before selling any.

“As long as we're not in debt to anyone, we'll eat as well as we can,” she had said early in their Kansas days. “It keeps us strong and cheerful. We need to be both.” But she often gave butter or cottage cheese or eggs to people in need.

Josiah's grace at meals often strayed to politics and seemed long, especially when one was hungry. Leticia's was always the same, but blessedly short.
“Bless this food to its intended use. Help us to pay our honest debts and lead us in Thy ways.”

“This soup's just what I need,” Father said, propped up on his makeshift lounge. “And I must admit that now that I've decided to let you ladies make an invalid of me, I'm enjoying it! I may never go back to work.” This speech brought on a fit of coughing, echoed by a small, suppressed cough from Judith, which she hastily said was just a crumb lodging in her throat.