The Frontiersman’s Daughter (20 page)

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 whistles.

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.

I believe that’s the finest man I’ve ever seen.

33

At the end of August a string of accidents around the settlement nearly brought Ma Horn out of confinement. Asa Forbes lost two of his toes to an ax, Sadie Harold’s child’s hands were scalded badly in a tub of lye, and Mourning Grubbs’s son Titus broke his arm for the second time. Yet it was Hugh McClary’s fall from his horse that most urgently required care, though Lael would not hear of it. Even Ma Horn’s entreaties fell on deaf ears.

“I’ll not set foot on McClary land,” Lael announced, not caring that his son stood just inside the door frame. “Hugh McClary shot my pa inside this very fort and nearly killed him. As it was, Pa limped to his dying day.” Winded, she paused for breath, mindful of the fracas he’d caused at the fort with Captain Jack. “Let Mister High-and-Mighty McClary heal himself. I’ll see to the rest.”

And so Lael rode off, bristling at the temerity of the McClary clan in seeking her out. She cared not a whit what became of the lot of them, nor did it matter what the settlement thought of her refusal.

Lael rode to the Harold cabin first, and the mare was in a lather by the time she got there. The burned girl was a pitiful sight, not yet two years old, her small hands blistered and drawn from the lye. She was still gripped by such convulsive sobs her whole frame shook. There was little to do but wrap the hands with a healing salve and linen. Lael produced a pouch of herbs to ease the pain, but her own lack of helpful knowledge made her heartsore. She left the cabin without accepting payment, for she felt she’d not earned any and promised to come again.

Titus Grubbs’s broken arm was a simpler matter. As she pulled the arm into place to set it, albeit gently, the boy did not so much as wince. He stared at the cabin wall with faraway eyes, jaw slack. She spoke to him in low tones as she fashioned a splint. “Ma Horn tells me she set this same arm in the spring. It’s a wonder you’ve lived to be ten years old.” He said nothing, but a faint smile tugged at his mouth. She continued quietly, “Sometimes a bone is weakened by too many breaks. How’d it happen this time, Titus?”

He looked down at his arm and a single tear fell, wetting Lael’s hand as she worked, surprising her with his sudden turn of emotion. His voice was so low she had to bend closer to hear him.

“I—fell—off the loft ladder.”

Lael straightened, pausing to watch his mother through the open doorway as she tended a haunch of venison on a spit outside the cabin, and tried a different tack.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“Them’s all dead.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, thinking it an all too familiar answer. “I just lost my pa, as well.”

A flicker of interest lit his eyes and he looked at her, then away. “I heard tell your pa was a real hero.”

“I suppose he was. Want to hear a story of how he made an escape downriver from here?”

As she bound his arm she told him how Pa had jumped from the rocky bluff along the river into the towering maple. When she’d finished, he darted another look at her and whispered, “Tell another.”

She smiled. “I’ll tell about the time he tussled with a painter when I come back to tend your arm.”

She gathered her bag and went out of the cabin to speak to his mother. The woman wiped greasy hands on an apron but kept her eyes averted. “Thank you kindly. I’m always tellin’ him he ought not to be so rambunctious, climbin’ them trees and the like. But he don’t never listen.”

At the words Lael paused, her hands going limp on the saddlebag she’d just tied shut. Climbing trees and the like? What had Titus said? Something about a fall from the loft ladder?

There was no offer of payment. Had there been she wouldn’t have taken it. She got on the mare and took a last look around. The woman had already disappeared inside. Everything Lael’s eyes rested on spoke of neglect and decay. The barn, a poorly built affair, had a door off one hinge. The garden was choked with weeds and only half-planted in corn. Why, even the dogs looked half starved. She tried to recall what Ma Horn had told her about Mourning Grubbs and her son, but nothing came to mind. There was no man about, truly, nor it seemed had there ever been.

On the long trek up the mountain to Asa Forbes’s place, Lael passed a group of wild hogs foraging on chestnut mast in the woods. They grunted as she passed, wild and almost comical in expression. The thought of fresh meat made her mouth water, as she’d not had any for some time, not since a settler had paid her with a haunch of venison in June.

She found Asa in a crude lean-to that seemed to cling to the rocky ridge. A bed of rock had been laid for the foundation of a small cabin, and a crop of corn was growing precipitously on a ledge, all that was necessary for proving up a settler’s four hundred acres. His four horses, considered among the finest in all Kentucke, grazed near a creek.

Entering his humble dwelling, Lael felt awkward and tonguetied. Women and children were one thing, but doctoring a man was quite another. She wondered if he was still sweet on her. He limped to a pile of blankets and removed the bloody bandages for her to see. The ax had done its work, for the two smallest toes on his right foot were completely severed. The unmistakable smell of corn liquor threaded the stale air and, from Asa’s manner, it had been employed, and perhaps enjoyed, liberally.

Working as quickly as she could, for the light was fading fast, Lael cleaned the wound and applied a mixture of walnut leaves and dock.

Wincing, Asa asked, “What’s that?”

“A healing salve.”

“I ain’t used to such. Reckon they’ll grow back?”

She looked up, amused. “Your toes?”

He nodded and winced.

“Asa Forbes, how much whiskey have you drunk?” He looked shamefaced as she wrapped his foot and said in her most bookish tone, “Man is incapable of regeneration, I’m sorry to say.”

“I reckon that means no more toes.”

“You reckon right,” she answered, sitting back on her haunches. Though cleaned, the foot was still a sight, and the blackish skin, hidden now by bandages, troubled her. She would need to consult the medical book Miss Mayella had sent. Her own lack of knowledge continued to confound her. “Do you have enough liquor for your misery?” she asked.

Grinning, he gestured to a shed. “A right smart supply. I figure if it gets any worse I’ll just chop the whole durn foot off—or see the doctor.”

Standing, she brushed off her skirt. “You’ll find no doctor in these parts, Asa Forbes. Well, maybe in Lexington, but that’s a far piece.”

He looked smug, as if he’d caught her in a lie. “There is too a doctor—least he claims to be. But I’m partial to you, Miss Lael.”

Miss Lael.
At least,
she thought,
he minds his manners despite being rough as a cob. A doctor!
She shot him a last look. Perhaps delirium had set in already. She suspected he was courting blood poisoning but was hesitant to say so just yet.

Staggering to his feet, he hobbled out of the lean-to after her. “I ain’t one to take up with a stranger, doctor or no. Him and his queer ways don’t set right with me.”

“So you’ve met this man.”

“Aye, met him but can’t say as I like him.” He looked at her askance as she mounted the mare. “I ain’t got nothin’ to give you for your trouble.”

“You loaned me your bay when I needed it. We’ll consider that payment enough.” She took her leave as quickly as she could, turning away with a wave of her hand.

All around her the forest light shifted and settled as she passed, shrouding her with black shadows. She found herself missing Tuck and her own warm hearth. Tired as she was, she rode on and took out a ginseng root to chew to keep up her spirits, but ere long the darkness overtook her and she could go no farther. Soon she found herself benighted in the woods.

There was nothing to do but wait out the night. The darkness was complete and heavy, pressing in on her like a humid black blanket. She was familiar with these woods, but on her way to Asa Forbes’s she had noted that the sudden drops and ledges, precipitous enough by day, would be deadly by dark. So she sat on the ground, the mare breathing evenly beside her, and mulled her foolishness.

She’d failed to pay attention to the setting sun as she made her rounds. In truth, she was so troubled by her visit to the Grubbs cabin, all else had been forgotten. She thought of the boy Titus now. Something had been amiss, some word or action, but what?

She thought too of Asa Forbes. A doctor, indeed. She tried not to think of Simon, but here in the dark silence broken only by the hoot of an owl, what was to stop her? Unhindered, Lael came face to face with both Simon and her longings. Would she always love him? Perhaps some distant day . . . Nay, she shut her eyes against the flicker of hope that lay in the unknown future. It came unbidden nevertheless. Perhaps . . . one distant day . . . Simon would be free.

Twice her reverie was broken by the startling trill of a mockingbird. Her senses turned sharp, straining toward the coming dawn. She was not much afraid. Pa’s blood pulsed too strongly in her veins for fear to have its way.

Tired as she was, she retraced her path to Mourning Grubbs’s ramshackle cabin the next morning, tying the mare to a serviceberry bush well away from the cabin and walking the remainder. She crouched behind a thick curtain of mountain laurel rich with scarlet blooms and waited. Though it was early the chimney belched smoke, and Lael could smell salt pork and bread. Her mouth watered, and she remembered she had eaten nothing since yesterday noon.

In time the door opened and Titus himself came out, carrying a bucket in the direction of the spring. In and out of the cabin he moved, first with the water, then with a basket of eggs, and finally carrying some sticks of firewood with his good arm.

Lael waited, hoping to observe she knew not what. But it was an unremarkable morning filled with chores she herself should be doing. And so, backtracking, she untied the mare and returned home.