Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 03] (21 page)

MacMillan tried to block Maggie’s way into the room, but she slipped past him, went directly to the bunk and looked sorrowfully down on the grotesque face of the little man.

“Tch-tch-tch.” Maggie shook her head and clicked her tongue as her friend Biedy used to do back home. “It was mean what they did t’ ya, Zee,” she said, and smoothed the bushy thick hair back from the grossly distorted face. “I’m glad Light killed ’em.”

The unblinking eye looked at her with alarm; the lid of the other eye drooped, almost covering it. The nose was merely two nostrils in a face covered by thick brown beard. The man’s head, large in comparison to his small body, looked as if it had been placed in a vise and squeezed. One eye, one nostril and one side of his mouth were higher than the other.

Maggie seemed to take no notice of the deformity. She continued to stroke the lopsided forehead and speak soft smoothing words.

“Aee’ll come an’ fix yore leg. Me an’ Light’s got
gonoshay
we picked for Eli’s foot. There be plenty left. We’ll put it on if Aee ain’t got nothin’ better. The
gonoshay
healed Eli’s foot jist fine.”

MacMillan, Paul and Eli gaped at her in amazement. Light was amused by their expressions. He was exceedingly proud of his young and beautiful wife and was not at all surprised by her reaction to the deformed little man.

“Get rags outta our pack, Light. He’s bleedin’ somethin’ awful.”

“Aee’ll have t’ stitch up the hole, ma’am,” MacMillan said. “Many Spots has gone t’ fetch her. Guess she’s comin’. I can hear her mouth goin’.”

Aee’s voice, speaking in Osage, preceded her. She came in hatless and wearing an old black wool coat. She went right to the bunk.

“Oh, Zee! Name of a cow! What happened to ya?” Aee looked down at the wound, ignoring Maggie.

“I . . . be a bit careless, lass.” The voice was deep, a man’s voice.

Aee quickly took off her coat and dropped it on the end of the bunk.

“Them pissants! Many Spots said Mr. Lightbody killed ’em. Good. I hope they hurt like hell ’fore they died.”

“He didn’t kill Kruger,” Maggie said. “But he will.”

“Zee, it’s a big hole. I’ll have to sew it.” Aee looked closely at the wound and dabbed at the blood that still oozed. “Shoot! I wish Ma was here.”

“Don’t fret, lassie. Ye’ll be doin’ fine,” Zee assured her.

“Pa, we’ll need vinegar t’ wash it. And get Zee some milk. Ya know how he likes it. I’ll go get Ma’s basket of doctorin’ thin’s.”

Eli picked up a candle. “I’ll help you.”

Aee’s head turned so quickly that her braids whipped around.

“Ya reckon yo’re up t’ doin’ it, town-man? Ma’s basket’s loaded with herbs an’ cloth an’ thread an’ such. It’d be a mite hefty fer ya t’ carry.”

Eli’s jaws clenched. “Hush your back-talk and get on with it,” he growled, following Aee out the door.

Paul looked quickly to see if Aee’s father had taken exception to what Eli had said. He was surprised to see that MacMillan was grinning.

“Strike sparks off each other like flint hittin’ rock. Ain’t it the dad-gummest thin’ ya ever saw? Aee ain’t never give a feller the time a day before. ’Course the ones that come by warn’t much. Says she cain’t abide the Swede. Wants me t’ give him the boot. Not Mr. and Mrs. Lightbody,” he hastily added. “Just the Swede. ’Course, she knows ya’d go, too,” he said to Paul. “Thick as the two of ya are.”

Paul’s shoulders squared. “For a certainty,
m’sieur.
My friend and I will not stay if the welcome is gone. We’ll be goin’ when this is past, you can be sure of it.”

“Don’t get yore back up, Frenchman. The womenfolk don’t rule the roost here. ’Course I live with ‘em an’ listen t’ their wants. Ya an’ yore friend be welcome here fer as long as ya want t’ stay.”

“We owe you for Eli’s doctoring. He will pay in coin or goods.”

“Aye. T’ have ya standin’ by till Vega leaves—that be all the pay I be needin’.”

“That we’d do regardless of the welcome,
m’sieur.
”

When Aee and Eli returned, he carried the basket and Aee held a lamp. Eli set the basket on the end of the bunk. He turned the cloth back from Zee’s thigh to look at the wound.

“I’ve mended a few sailors in my time. Do you want me to do it?” he said to Aee.

“No. Yo’re apt t’ get thin’s bassackwards an’ sew up his mouth.”

This brought laughter from MacMillan and a snicker from the little man on the table, who grimaced afterward.

“Then you do it, sour-mouth,” Eli growled, and stalked out.

Aee ignored his parting shot, slipped a doeskin under Zee’s thigh and prepared to wash the wound with the vinegar.

“This’ll hurt like yo’re bein’ poked with a hot pitchfork, Zee. I’m hatin’ t’ do it, but I got to. Ma says it’ll get pus in it if we don’t. She learned that someplace. If we don’t have vinegar we can use whiskey, but vinegar’s best.”

Aee kept up a constant line of chatter while she sewed and bandaged Zee’s leg. When she finished, she covered him with a blanket and then brought him biscuits filled with berry jam and insisted that he eat.

“Tomorrow I’ll get a reed from the river an’ fix it so ya can suck up the water. My ma did that once when I was sick.” Maggie lifted his head and held the cup while he drank water. Losing so much blood had made him thirsty.

Although the pain was agonizing, Zee had not let out even a groan while Aee stitched his leg, smoothed the jimson-leaf salve over it and wrapped it in clean cloth. With Singing Bird there fussing over him, he would have died before he showed a sign of weakness.

Aee made a strong toddy of whiskey and honey and again Maggie held the cup so he could drink.

“Go ta sleep, Zee. Ya’ll feel better in the mornin’.”

It was the most wonderful night in Zee’s life. Two young women were treating him as if he were a normal man. They had touched him, spoken to him, tended him, without even a hint that he was so grossly ugly that even he avoided looking at his reflection in a clear pond. Their attention was far more than he had ever expected. His crooked mouth smiled beneath the heavy beard. Before he went to sleep he silently thanked the rivermen for hooking him out of the tree.

*  *  *

Light squatted on his heels and explained to the three men what he had overheard being said by Vega’s men and Kruger. He was careful to keep his voice low when he spoke of their plans to capture Maggie.

Eli swore.

“They have women aboard. They talked of Kruger using one.”

Light told in as few words as possible about Zee and what the boatmen had planned for him. He did not, however, go into the details of how he had killed the three men. MacMillan didn’t question, knowing he would get the full story from Zee.

“’Pears we won’t be attacked this night, but the warriors an’ Caleb an’ Linus will keep watch. They’d be disappointed t’ be called off so soon,” MacMillan said. After a short silence he said, “I guess yo’re curious ’bout Zee now ya got a look at him.”

“It is so,
m’sieur,
” Paul agreed. “You do not see such a one every day.”

“He’s a sight if yo’re not used t’ seein’ ’im. Years back he was with the Delaware. He’s not sure how he got there or fer how long. He don’t recall much ’fore that. I’m stumped why they didn’t kill ’im, mean as they be. But it ’pears they was scared he’d come back an’ bring a plague or somethin’. When a Osage raidin’ party took him from an old woman who took care of ’im, they never tried to get him back. They mighta been glad t’ be rid a him, thinkin’ he was bad medicine. Not the Osage. They think he’s magic. He gets credit when game is plentiful, crops is good, and their women fertile.”

“If he’s good medicine, why’d they give him up?” Eli, still in a sour mood, asked.

“They ain’t give him up. Few years back, Many Spots brought him down. He’d almost forgot how t’ talk English. Said he talked it to hisself some. After talkin’ it a while with us, some come back to ’im. He ain’t no dummy, I can swear to that. Somehow he kept hisself alive. In the shape he’s in, that took some doin’.

“His legs is terrible bowed fer walkin’ so he learned t’ climb. Climbs like a squirrel. Goes up a grapevine lickety-split and scampers ’round in the trees. Dangedest thin’ ya ever did see. Ain’t much good on the ground though. Lately he stays here most of the time. Many Spots takes him up t’ the Osage now and then. They’d not let him stay if it wasn’t for Miz Mac. The chief’s the son of her ma’s brother.”

MacMillan waited for that to soak in before he continued.

“Me and Zee worked out some signals. I knowed when ya tied up on that bar before the storm. I knowed when ya was tryin’ to get the boat off the sawyer. Knowed ya had a hurt man so we come down.”

“What would you have done if we’d jumped you?” Eli asked.

“First one t’ make a move woulda got a arrow. Zee ain’t big, but he can put a arrow anywhere he wants.” MacMillan turned to Light. “Stories will be told an’ told in the lodges of how Sharp Knife saved Zee from the rivermen.”

“The Osage did not give him his name.”

“Ya knew that, did ya?”

“They would wait until he chose one.”

“He did not choose. We had to call him somethin’, so we named him Zee. He likes the name. Makes him feel part of the family.” MacMillan explained. “The Osage thought it all right for me to put a name on him ’cause we’re both white. Now they call him Zee too.

“It pure-dee took me back,” MacMillan continued, “when Miz Lightbody didn’t blink a eye when she saw him. Men’ve come off the river what couldn’t look at him. My younguns is used t’ him. We don’t pay no mind what he looks like no more. He’s Zee. He looks after us. We look after him.”

*  *  *

Aee and Bee alternated sitting with Zee throughout the long cold night. The little man slept fretfully and called out in his sleep. Aee, wrapped in a blanket, talked soothingly to him, and when he quieted, she dozed.

MacMillan invited Light and Maggie to spend the night inside the house. Maggie tugged at Light’s hand and Light politely refused. Now, not wanting to fall completely asleep, Light sat in the yard, his back to the elm tree, and held Maggie across his lap.

For a long while they had whispered, saying the private things lovers say to each other after being apart and sharing long clinging kisses. Maggie told him that when she sat near their things she felt him to be with her. She explained that when she closed her eyes she could see and talk to him. She shifted so that her heart and his were pressed closely together and beat in unison. He was truly her heart, and she was his.

After Maggie had fallen asleep, Light’s mind forged ahead to the time they could continue their journey to their mountain. He longed to leave this place, leave the sulking Swede before he had to kill him, leave the anxious Frenchman, leave the burden of helping to protect MacMillan and his family from the river pirate.

He tucked the blanket snugly around his sleeping wife to protect her from the cold. Until tonight, they had not been apart more than a few minutes at a time. He had not realized that parting from her for a few hours would cause her such anguish. Her love for him was as deep and abiding as his for her.

Light listened to the night sounds and wondered now at the advisability of the two of them striking out across the plains alone. What if something happened to him? He could not bear the thought of her wandering alone and lost. She was his sunlight. She was the wind. She was the moon and the stars.

He pressed his lips to her forehead. When he raised his head, he sniffed the frosty air. The smell of drying leaves wafted on the night breeze. He should be preparing for winter, but first Ramon de la Vega had to be dealt with.

Light thought of something Will Murdock had said two years before when they had been attacked by Pittsburgh boatmen. He and Will had been taking their winter catch of furs to St. Louis to trade. Jefferson had come along to buy supplies.

“Split ’em up an’ we can whip ’em,” Will had said, after they had been pinned down for an hour.

The plan had worked well. Being more fleet of foot than his friends, Light had been the one to show himself and run. Four of the pirates had followed him. He had led them into the woods knowing that he could lose them there. He had spied a huge hornet’s nest and knocked it from the tree with the barrel of his rifle as he ran by. The swarm of hornets attacked the boatmen that followed him. To escape the vicious stings, they had scrambled back to the river to immerse themselves in the water. Meanwhile, Jeff and Will had easily dispatched the other four with a few flaming arrows.

Light reasoned that Vega was already short three crewmen. To weaken him further, more of his men must be lured from the boat. But how?

Light pondered the question until the clouds drifted away and the quarter moon shone brightly. Finally, an idea took form in his mind.

In the morning he would seek out Caleb and tell him his plan. He had liked the Negro immediately and was sure he would cooperate. The man had been loyal to MacMillan and had much the same relationship to him as the free Negro men who lived and worked on Jefferson Merrick’s place had had with him.

His mind more at ease, Light dozed, his cheek resting against his wife’s hair.