Midwife of the Blue Ridge (14 page)

“My Indian released me from my bindings, and by gibberish

and gesture made me understand I was to run this gauntlet.

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
93

Colby received the same instruction from his Indian. I looked up

and down those lines and saw most of the men armed with stout

clubs. Women, young and old, chattered like jaybirds, all the

while gathering good-size stones in their aprons. Even the chil-

dren ran about snapping willow withies in the air. I shed my tat-

tered moccasins, stretched my muscles, and hopped about. I

figured on runnin’ very fast indeed!” Tom stopped for a sip of

milk, relishing the moment with Maggie on the edge of her seat.

“An’ then?” Maggie urged.

“Well, when my Indian gave me the signal, I tucked my head

and ran with long strides—quicker’n a snake through a hollow

log.” Tom wriggled his arm through the air. “I ended up taking

quite a few solid blows across my shoulders and back, but noth-

ing too hurtful. My Indian met up with me at the end of the

gauntlet very pleased and puffed proud. I had done well.”

“And Colby?” Maggie asked.

Tom shook his head. “Poor, poor Colby—that boy didn’t have

the backbone of a fishworm, and not an ounce of mother wit

about him. Given a shove, he stumble-bumbled along, fl ogged and

clubbed the whole long way. In the end, he just lay there writhing

while braves took turns with their muskets, discharging powder

into the bare skin of his legs and arms. His Indian drug him away,

burned, bloodied, and beaten. I never heard tell of him again.”

“And you—what happened with you?”

Tom stood up and snatched his hat from Jack’s head. “I think

I’ll leave that tale for another tellin’ . . . next time we meet up.”

“Aw, Tom!” the children wailed in unison, but Tom would not

be so coerced. He donned his hat, retrieved his rifle, slung it over

his shoulder, and the Martin family followed him out to the

dooryard. Tom dawdled, making a pretense of searching for Fri-

day, then fussing with the lashings on his packs, waiting to see if

Maggie might come out to bid him farewell. She didn’t.

“Take care, Tom.” Naomi hugged him. “Stop by and see us on

your way back.”

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Tom ruffled Jack’s hair and reached out to shake hands with

Seth. “Thank you, brother, for the breakfast and all.”

“Aye, Tommy . . . have a good hunt . . . mind yer topknot.”

Tom set off through the clearing, making for the path that led

down to the stream. Upon reaching the forest edge, he heard his

name called.

“Tom! Tom Roberts!”

He turned to see Maggie, skirts flying, running through the

cornfield. Breathing hard when she caught up, she held out a

knotted bundle of red fl annel.

“I meant for ye to have these. Corn dodgers . . . hot off the

griddle. And this . . .” She dug into her pocket, pulled out a small

muslin packet, and offered it to him. “Willow bark tea—if yer

head should ache.”

Tom weighed the packet in his palm for a moment before slip-

ping it into the front of his shirt. “You’ve been kind. I’m glad to

have a chance to thank you for your care and concern.”

How pretty she was—breathless and flushed. He moved in,

intent on pulling her into his arms for a kiss, but Maggie shoved

the flannel bundle into his hands and scampered back several

steps, saying, “A good pinch of that tea steeped in boilt water if

yer head aches.” She swayed and fi ddled with a tendril of hair.

Tom took a step forward. “I know you most probably think me

a proper savage, but given a chance, I think we might become . . .

better friends.”

“Aye . . . well . . . we’ll have t’ see about that.” She turned and

ran back up the hill, calling over her shoulder, “Good luck t’ ye,

Tom! Fare well on yer hunt!”

Tom watched until she disappeared beyond the crest. He sat

down on a tree stump and opened the bundle. The dodgers were

crisp and still warm. He bit into one of the yellow circles, and

with pensive thoroughness, chewed and swallowed his way

through the lot.

Tom whistled sharp and his dog came tearing out of the corn-

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
95

field. He wrapped Friday in a bear hug and scratched him behind

the ears until he got the dog’s rear leg to thumping.

“Friday, I will tell you I am fl ummoxed—
women!
” He stood

and brushed crumbs from his shirt, shaking his head. “I read the

sign and stalked her with care, but when I took aim, she caught

my scent and hightailed it.” Tom looped his hand through the

gelding’s lead and headed into the woods, his dog trotting along-

side. “Probably a good thing, though—that was a hurried shot,

and those never hit true.”

9

Hitting the Nail on the Head

Streaming sunlight pierced through morning mist and the tangle

of foliage overhead.

Tall-tree silence was interrupted by the

crunch of their footfalls and the skreel of a hawk on the hunt.

Although not much more than a deer path, the overgrown ridge

trail they followed was the quickest way to Roundabout Sta-

tion.

“There’s another!” Jack’s sharp eye was the first to spy the

triangular notch blazed into a big oak. “I count
six
for me!”

Winnie and Jack galloped ahead, each hoping to win the game

and find the most markers along the fi ve-mile trek.

Maggie marched behind the children, lugging her basket, keen

eyes scouring the forest floor for familiar plants. Seth followed,

burdened by a basket of barrel staves strapped to his back. The

cooper might be at the station that day and Seth planned to trade

the set of planks for a ready-made barrel. Rifle gripped in his left

hand, he tugged the mule’s lead with the other. Pregnant Naomi

sat a clumsy sidesaddle behind Battler, who rode quite content

perched astride Ol’ Mule’s withers.

Seth drew Maggie’s attention to every marker and landmark,

stressing the importance of learning the way. “Mind, Maggie, if

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
97

the Redmen rise and the alarm to fort up is called, ye may need t’

find yer way to Roundabout.”

“Come onto the overpeer,” Winnie called. “You can see the

station from here.”

Maggie ducked through a thicket of laurel and stepped onto a

limestone ledge jutting out from the ridgeline. “Look yonder.”

Winnie pointed. “Down in the clearing . . .”

Bony-hipped cattle grazed among the stubble of stumps that

pocked the clearing. A timber wall crawled along the crest of a

low-rising hill. Multiple strings of smoke slid up from behind the

stockade, dissolving into a sheer blue sky.

“Megstie me! Ye canna mean tha’ scraggle of timber there?”

She expected her last refuge from berserk, savage Indians to be

something more—something of greater magnitude.

“Aye . . .” Seth joined them on the outcropping. “When plant-

ing began, attentions turned elsewhere, and as ye can see, we’ve

yet to complete the west wall. Dinna fash, lass.” Seth gave her a

pat on the back. “I ken it doesna compare to the stone fortresses

back home, but even a wooden fort unfinished is better than

naught.”

The last steep mile switchbacking down to the valley required

careful footing. Entering the clearing, they wound a path through

the sea of stumps—some of them five and six feet in diameter—

and Maggie developed a greater appreciation for the labor en-

tailed in providing for the common defense.

Sounds and smells of fellow humanity caused a quickening in

the pace—the ring of iron on iron, children squealing at play,

hickory smoke and roasting meat. Maggie startled with alarm at

the sudden report of gunfi re.

“Rifle frolic,” Seth said with a smile. “When the lads gang

thegither, it most always leads to a target shoot.”

The structure loomed before her. Centered in the stockade, a

huge pair of gates hinged and banded with iron hung open. The

wall was constructed of uniform logs sunk close on the vertical,

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Blevins

each one adzed to a menacing point at the top. Maggie judged it

to be twelve feet high and almost fifty yards long. A double row

of gun ports decorated the two-storied blockhouse straddling the

southeast corner.

While Seth helped Naomi dismount, Winnie and Jack ran

ahead to join the huddle of children at the gate. Battler clung te-

naciously to the mule’s stubby mane and Maggie wrestled to pull

him down and set him on sturdy legs. She squeezed his sweaty

little hand in hers and grabbed her basket. Seth hobbled and

slapped his beast to pasture, and they passed through the gates to

enter Roundabout Station.

The rectangular fortyard was also littered with tree stumps.

On Maggie’s left, the unfinished section of stockade wall opened

to a view of field and forest beyond. Before her, lining the long

side, she counted a row of ten miniature cabins—each sharing a

common wall with its neighbor. A half-size chimney constructed

of smooth river stones flanked every doorway, and the plank

roofs pitched from front to back, sloping up to the stockade,

which served as the back wall of every cabin.

“So folk live in the station?”

“Newcomers use the station till they build their own home-

place,” Naomi explained.

“The cabins are meant to shelter all during a siege,” Seth added.

“In times like those, ye can imagine ’twill be close quarters.”

A few squinting women emerged from dark doorways, shad-

ing their eyes. Naomi waved and wandered off to speak with her

friends. Maggie continued with Seth and Battler, intrigued by the

surroundings and new faces.

“Missus Buchanan! How d’ye fend this fine mornin’?” Seth

waved to a wide woman sitting on a stump, her hands busy

plucking dung-caked daglocks from a puff of wool fl eece.

“I canna complain.” Her response was barely audible, as the

large wicker hamper at her feet was filled with peeping chicks.

A fire burned in a ring of stones that served as the central

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
99

hearth. There, a young girl tended a ham roasting on a spit.

Drippings plopped onto hot coals in a sputter of delicious smoke.

A pair of daring boys ran up and plucked off strips of crisp fat

before being shooed away, their ill- gotten gains stuffed into their

mouths.

“Och, aye!” Seth exclaimed. “The cooper’s come up.”

To the left of the block house and nested in a circle of fi nished

barrels, piggins, and tubs, the cooper turned the crank, winding

the cord of his windlass to draw a dozen staves up into a bulging

barrel shape. Seth lingered, perusing the cooper’s ready stock.

Maggie tightened her grip on Battler’s hand as he strained to

join a pack of older children and their game of tag. Billows of

dust followed as they dodged and hopped over tree stumps, rac-

ing from one end of the station to the other.

Next to the cooper, the blacksmith occupied the most promi-

nent position at the northeast corner, where an open- faced shed

housed a chimneyed brick forge. There, a sweat-drenched, bare-

chested young man worked the leather bellows whooshing and

bulging from one end of the forge. At the other end, an older and

more substantial version of the bellows-man bent a curve into a

bar of iron with a bang of his hammer and a turn of the tongs.

The two Willies.
Maggie recognized them. Naomi had told

her all about the burly smith and his hulking son—Palatine Prot-

estants forced from their German homeland. The Roundabout

settlers had happily organized a mule train to haul the smith’s

tools and bricks for a forge. The services of a good blacksmith,

favorably equipped with anvil, grinding wheel, and bar stock,

were essential for survival on the edge of the wilderness. Espe-

cially a smith as skilled as Willie Wagner, who—according to

Seth—was one of few able to forge a square iron rod into a per-

fect gun barrel, rifled with the spiral groove that provided the

deadly accuracy frontiersmen depended upon.

Enamored by the din and clang, Battler slipped his hand from

Maggie’s and darted toward the forge. Maggie dropped her basket

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Blevins

and scurried to scoop the boy up just as he tipped over a rack of

tools. Elder Willie glanced up from his task, fleeting irritation re-

placed by a broken-toothed grin.

“Sorry fer the bother, sir, but this wee laddie’s full o’ th’

devil.” Maggie struggled to right the rack and keep Battler

planted on her hip.

Elder Willie pounded in rhythm with his speech. “I betcha you

be Martin’s new bondvoman.”

“Aye, sir. Maggie Duncan.” She bobbed a shallow curtsy, hug-

ging squirmy Battler to her chest, very uncomfortable with

Younger Willie’s suddenly slow pumping of the bellows and gape-

mouth gaze upon her.

“Vilhelm!”
the father barked.
“Vershwendete zeit ist ver-