The Frontiersman’s Daughter (27 page)

45

Susanna Bliss filled the leach barrel with several buckets of wood ashes and water, while Lael tended a large kettle of lard over an open fire. From the barn Will rolled out a fresh wood barrel that would, at day’s end, be filled with the soft soap the two women were making. It was a monotonous chore made lighter by shared talk and laughter. There was no hurry to be home before the evening shadows as Lael had agreed to spend the night at Cozy Creek.

As the children and dogs played outside around them, filling the air with happy chatter, Lael felt glad she’d come. Soap-making was a handy excuse to spend time with Susanna and bury the matters hanging heavily on her heart. She wiped her hands on her apron and went in search of small sticks and dry leaves for the fire. The children followed after her, intent on finding the prettiest autumn leaf to show their mother. The maples and oaks were ablaze now, full of showy splendor.

Could it truly be nigh on October? She had left Virginia in April to come home again. Just six months had passed, and yet it seemed she’d lived a lifetime within their days. She tossed an armful of sticks onto the fire as Susanna called for more water. The boys ran to do her bidding, taking little Lael with them.

“I have a hankerin’ for some of them fancy hard cakes of soap from back east.” Susanna looked askance at the lye seeping out of the leach tub.

“Bayberry soap,” Lael said wistfully, recalling the pleasant-smelling fragrance. “I picked a bushel of bayberries at Briar Hill. They grow right along the sea and are the queerest silver gray.”

Susanna studied her a moment. “Do you miss it, Lael? Virginia, I mean?”

“It was tolerable enough, but I never liked it. Sometimes though I miss the sight of the sea on a summer’s day. But there’s a heap of things I don’t miss.”

Susanna took the bucket of water from the children and poured it into the ash tub. “I was a-feared you’d go back.”

“To Virginia? Not hardly. Right here is where I’ll always be.” But even as she said it, she felt a twinge of conscience. If Captain Jack were to ask, would she not go with him?

They worked till dusk, finally filling the barrel to the top with the jelly-like soap. To Lael’s delight, Will brought in an oak tub and set it in front of the hearth after supper so she and Susanna could take a true soaking. Gleeful, the boys took turns pouring buckets of heated water into it and then disappeared with Will to wait their turn while Lael and Susanna and little Lael bathed first.

“Why, I ain’t been wet all over at once these twenty-five years past,” Susanna exclaimed in delight, rubbing some of the soft soap into her hair. “But I guess that’s a sight better than old Granny Henderson who last had a bath on her weddin’ day.”

After the six of them had bathed and dried off by the fire, Will took the children to bed, leaving Lael and Susanna alone. As Susanna poured sweet cider into pewter cups, Lael popped corn in the contraption she had purchased at the fort mercantile.

“Why, it’s the strangest stuff I ever et,” Susanna exclaimed, seemingly torn between swallowing and spitting it out. She examined the puffed kernels with a wondering eye as Lael sprinkled it with salt.

“Popped corn is all the buzzel in the east,” Lael said. “If you don’t like it, save it for your least ’uns to try.”

Susanna sampled another piece and looked up at the herbs hanging in festive bunches from the rafters. “I’m awful thankful for the herbs you brung me. I can’t abide meat hangin’ and spittin’ at you as you pass underneath.”

“Sweet fern and sassafras always sweeten things a bit. My own place is full of it.”

Sitting back, Susanna folded her hands across her lap in a rare moment of idleness. “I’m so glad you come, Lael. Seems like I hardly ever see you. I’ve been wonderin’ if you don’t get awful lonesome, livin’ like you do. I think I’d go plumb crazy without the sound of children scrappin’ and Will snorin’. ”

Lael took a sip of cider. “I’m not home much lately. And when I am the silence isn’t lonesome. It’s . . . lovely.” She felt an odd pleasure in the revelation. “If I feel the need for company, I head to the fort.”

“So I hear.”

Their eyes met and held. Something—what could it be?— was suddenly grave in Susanna’s face, and the shadow there alarmed Lael.

Susanna’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Are you . . . sweet . . . on Doc Justus, Lael?”

Lael set down her cider. “Why, Susanna Bliss! You don’t have a spoonful of sense thinking such things as that.”

Susanna gave the rocker an agitated push. “I was hopin’, after Simon, there’d be somebody else to settle on. But the doctor won’t do at all. Will says he’s spoken for.”

Spoken for?
For a few moments Lael just sat.

Susanna went on quietly. “Her name is Olivia. Ain’t that pretty? She’s from Boston. A doctor’s daughter. He’s known her for a long while.”

Olivia. From up east. Was this the daughter of the older, established physician he’d worked with after the war? Though not surprised, she felt a queer pang hearing it. “I misdoubt he’d settle for the likes of us settlement folk. We’re all rough as cobs.”

“Not you!” Susanna exclaimed, a trifle loud. With a quick glance at the loft she whispered, “You’re educated and the like. Why, you’re a lady yourself.”

Olivia.
The name conjured images of satin skirts, violetscented handkerchiefs, and snow-white hands.
Aye,
she thought brutally,
such a man deserves an Olivia—or some highborn genteel sort.
The sight of her own bare feet, still stained with dirt after her bath, made her tuck them out of sight under her worn nightgown. No doubt Miss Olivia had never known a barefoot day in her life.

Susanna poked at the fire with a tong. “Of course, the doctor don’t say much about her, only what Will asks him. Just bits and pieces. He’s invited her here for a visit. That’s about all I know.”

Olivia? At Fort Click? The idea seemed impossible, like snow in summer. The last lady at the fort had been Miss Mayella. She’d stayed on less than two years, but in that short span had brought refinement to roughness and knowledge to ignorance. Perhaps that is what Ian Justus hoped to accomplish with Olivia as well.

“Ladies never stay long in Kentucke,” Lael said. “They just pass through, like Miss Mayella.”

Susanna’s face brightened. “I recollect Miss Mayella’s fine lace caps . . . and her small gloved hands. Remember when we took her to that flowery meadow Simon always called Possum Kingdom? It was your birthday and Simon give you that little carved bird—”

“Don’t, Susanna.” Lael looked into the fire, her face hard. Truly, it seemed a better time, a happier time, with their lives yet uncharted before them, unstained with the angst of regret and longing. “I don’t want to remember. I prefer to forget.”

“Forgivin’ comes before forgettin’, Lael.”

“Meaning?”

“You need to let go. Forgive Simon for what he’s done. Lord knows he’s paid the price for his foolishness with Piper. Don’t make his foolishness your own.” She took a deep breath and forged ahead, heedless. “Maybe it weren’t meant to be noways, you and Simon. There’s somethin’ different about you, Lael— somethin’ fine and free that don’t set well with Simon’s ways.” Susanna smoothed her nightgown with knotty hands. “Someday there’ll be someone else for you. I’ve been prayin’ about that too.”

Lael looked away, wishing she could share her heart, feeling nearly torn in two by the secrets she withheld. Was Captain Jack the answer to her prayers? What would Susanna say if Lael told her about their time together in the meadow and then the river? What would Susanna think if she knew how much Lael longed for their next meeting? There was a time for everything, Scripture said. She reckoned this was one time to stay silent.

46

The tallow candle flickered as Lael lay down the quill. Her second letter to Ransom lay unfinished before her. What, she wondered, might have happened to the first? She’d written to him of Neddy’s death but had yet to receive a reply. Guilt nudged her, making her consider the lengthy distance from here to Bardstown. Perhaps she should have delivered the news in person, but her resentment still simmered over Ma’s remarrying in such haste. And she was so busy here she’d gotten by thus far simply by sending letters. She’d written so much of late, to her mother, her brother, and Miss Mayella. A small callus had even formed on the third finger of her writing hand. But that was not the reason she paused.

She lay cool hands against her closed eyes. The burning lessened briefly, but when she took up her quill again the words on the page danced and dipped like insects running for cover, and nothing she did would bring them into focus.

“I’m plumb give out, is all,” she said aloud, lapsing into settlement vernacular.

Hadn’t there been two broken bones and a drowning this week, as well as a second trip to the branch to deliver meal and a tonic to Lovey and Mourning, just as her mare and mule were acting queer and refusing to eat or be ridden? She’d had to hoof it herself until the soles of her moccasins were thin as paper.

And yet the sweet sleep she sought would not come. Instead, there were dreams—vivid dreams of river water and Captain Jack calling her Yellow Bird, only she could not answer. Was he all right? Did he think of her?

She sighed as she looked at the unfinished letter. She had gotten into a bad habit of sighing of late, and it annoyed her no end. Aye, she was simply worn out and needed a rest. With a second sigh she snuffed out the candle with her fingers. The darkness was profound, almost unfriendly. If she’d ever been inclined to believe in haints, now was the time.

She crawled between cold bedding, shivering despite her nightclothes and heavy woolen stockings, and let her hair down so that it covered her like an extra blanket. When she awoke she found herself in a room filled with light and silence. Beyond the shutters, snow was falling steadily, outlining the roses like frozen lace and lying in gentle swells along the porch. It was deep and sharp and cold.

It was not yet mid-October.

Shivering, she broke the skim of ice on the bucket of water and came suddenly awake. Never had she been so glad to see a live coal in the ashes of the hearth waiting to be kindled. Soon the curl of smoke and snap of dry wood was like a familiar song as she heated water and mixed meal and water for bread. She set out beans to soak for supper and wished that the bear bacon she needed was hanging from the cabin rafters and not in the springhouse.

Outside, the mule was braying and Tuck lay shivering beneath the porch. She went about her chores beneath the weight of a buffalo robe. The snow pelted her face and bare hands so fiercely she was nigh frozen, and her coat sagged with the weight of wetness. Surely the early snow would make him come sooner. She was confident he knew the signs pointed to a hard winter.

Colonel Philo Barr had issued an order that all area settlers report to the fort. Asa Forbes brought the confounding news, lingering a bit too long as if in hopes he could bring her in like before. Reluctantly, Lael prepared the mule for travel and then herself, donning two dresses, the buffalo robe, and a bonnet instead of her favored straw hat. The silver bracelet was hidden beneath her sleeve, while the blue beads stayed in her pocket. She packed Tuck in her biggest basket and a few of her beloved books in a saddlebag, all the while fighting the feeling that she was running away from home.

As she rode she spotted fresh buffalo tracks, now nearly covered by the fast falling snow. The brilliance and beauty of the day was nearly blinding. All the familiar landmarks along the way now appeared strange to her, wrapped as they were in a coat of white. The twin oaks atop Hackberry Ridge, so fiercely twined, huddled together as if for warmth, and the creek she traversed sang a muted song beneath its icy skin.

She had no strong liking for Colonel Barr and his two dogs, Judas and Jezebel. Biting and acrimonious in speech and manner, he put her on her guard. Nevertheless, he was an educated man who, it was rumored, had once studied to be a doctor. But the loss of a wife and a son in the Indian wars made him abandon his studies and turned him bitter.

“Enter!” he barked at the rap on his cabin door. At Lael’s appearance, Judas and Jezebel elicited fierce growls from beneath a massive desk situated in the center of the room.

She entered, unperturbed, removing her bonnet and shaking snow on the smooth dirt floor. The growling didn’t cease nor did the colonel make an effort to silence the odious creatures. Lael had a strong desire to hiss back and silence them herself but instead came straight to the point, her voice quiet but respectful. “How long must I stay at the fort?”

“Long enough for me to conduct a census.”

“It seems a bit odd to call for such in the middle of a storm. Your numbers may be a mite skewed.”

He licked dry lips and shifted his eyes to his watch. “Orders are orders, Miss Click. Mine come from Virginia where they don’t give a whit about settlement weather. The edict was issued long ago. Besides, who could predict snow in October?”

“Any settler worth his salt could have foretold it,” she answered, so nettled by being here she was downright cantankerous. “All right, mark me down and I’ll go back to my cabin.”

He laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “How like your father you sound. A pity you weren’t born a man, Miss Click.”

“If I had been, sir,” she retorted, struggling to hide her dislike of him, “that might well be my desk you occupy so grandly.”

He laughed again and, oddly, the dogs commenced growling once more. She snuck a peek at them, lank black beasts with sunken yellow eyes and deep red jowls. Good thing she’d left Tuck outside.

Barr got up and went to a small table where he poured himself some cider and offered her a cup, which she declined. “Why are you so anxious to leave the fort, Miss Click?” At her silence, he grew pensive. “Are you still fraternizing with Indians?”

She looked down, if only to escape his stare. The bonnet she held in her cold, stiff hands was dripping onto the toes of her boots. Did her face betray her fears? Did he know anything about Captain Jack that might put him in danger?

“Miss Click, I am keeping you here till I conduct my census,” he told her, finishing the cider. Seeing she was about to protest, he added quickly, “If you attempt to defy my orders I shall confine you to the blockhouse, just as I would any other offender.”

She let herself out. Walking across the common, she glanced at the gates where settlers were slowly trickling in. The snow was spitting rather than pouring now and would likely melt in the face of an Indian summer sun.

As she entered Ma Horn’s cabin, leaving Tuck outside to wrestle with the fort dogs, the smell of fried apples, jowl, and biscuits welcomed her with open arms. Ma Horn straightened but expressed no surprise at the sight of her.

“Set a third place,” she said. “Doc Justus nearly always takes the noon meal with me.”

They were a strange trio, Lael, the doctor, and the wizened, shrunken woman older than Kentucke itself. Lael wondered how long they would be thrown together before the census was complete.

Distracted, she pushed her supper around her plate, sipped her cider, and simply listened. Listened to the rich lilt of the doctor’s voice with its rolling r’s and sonorous inflections. Smiled as if lighthearted at the sound of Ma Horn’s girlish laugh. Absently digested the scraps of settlement news that peppered their conversation. But she said not one word.

Eventually the doctor pushed back his chair and stood. “’Tis always a pleasure tae see, if no’ talk tae you, Miss Click.”

Miss Click. Once he had called her Lael.

But here, now, in his simple greeting and good-bye, a certain formality had returned, or so it seemed. How must he speak to Olivia, the one he loved?

She made herself smile at him and acknowledge his greeting. He was putting on his coat, the finest she’d ever seen. Wool, she guessed. A deep, dusky blue, a shade darker than his eyes. Beside it, her buffalo robe looked barbaric. Outside the snow continued to swirl, creating a cocoon of the fort.

“Reminds me of the snow in Scotlain,” he said, looking out the shutter. “It comes early and is deep . . . knee high tae a horse’s back some winters.”

“You talk of the Scottish mountains then,” said Ma Horn. “Is that where your people hail from?”

“Aye. From the Grampian Highlands. Castle Roslyn. On the North Sea.”

There was a touch of wistfulness in his voice, and Lael’s own heart thawed a bit. She knew all about missing hearth and home and all things familiar; the ache was palpable as any illness. She wondered if he pined for Olivia as she pined for Captain Jack.

“Good day tae you, ladies,” he said and was gone, lost in a blinding squall of snow that obliterated the common and the cabins beyond.