Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (4 page)

Quill’s Station. Would Amy still be there? Rain remembered the way she had cried when he left the station seven long years ago. He had held her, kissed her, and promised to come back for her someday after Juicy had passed away. She had promised to think about Rain every day and to wait for him no matter how long he was gone. They were kids’ promises, he thought now with a silent chuckle, although he had really meant them at the time. She was the first white girl he had known, the first girl he had talked to alone, the first one he had kissed. He remembered his surprise that her body had been so soft and her breasts so firm when he held her against him. She had smelled so fresh and clean that the memory of it lingered for days.

At times during the first few years he had thought about her, especially at night when he was on the keelboat feeling lonely, cut loose from everything that was familiar to him. As the years passed it became harder and harder to visualize her face, and gradually he stopped thinking about her.

Little Amy with the long skinny legs and freckles on her nose would he grown up now. When Farr’s letter telling about Juicy’s death reached him a year earlier, Amy had already been a widow for more than a year. Two years. That was a long time for a pretty woman to remain unwed among the woman-hungry men in the wilderness along the Wabash.

Pretty? Now why did he think that Amy had grown into a pretty woman? Because her sister looked like an angel didn’t mean she would too. More than likely she had married again, turned to fat, and had a child or two.

Somehow the thought didn’t sit well in his mind.

Two

“This turkey is as old as I am!” Liberty Quill pushed the pan containing the huge bird back into the wall oven and gave her husband a disgusted look. “And he’s as tough as shoe leather.”

“You said you wanted a big one, love.”

“Fiddle faddle! I didn’t think I’d get one as old as the hills.”

Farr sat in the rocker holding his four-month-old daughter against his shoulder and watched his wife with loving eyes. Sanctuary and peace existed for him in that sweet woman. Her white-blond hair was drawn in graceful wings to a knot at the back of her neck, framing her pale oval face. Her blue eyes flashed him a bright, happy smile. As she moved he caught the scent of her, the clean sweetness of her hair and skin. He never ceased to marvel that she was his and that she loved him. The baby burped and Farr felt something wet on his shoulder.

“Ah, shoot, Libby! She puked on me again.”

Liberty laughed. “Serves you right for pounding her little back so hard. Mercy, fetch your papa a cloth. He’s complaining about a little puke.”

Nine-year-old Mercy, whom Farr had found in a burned-out homestead seven years before, tugged on a strand of his hair at the nape of his neck as she passed behind him on the way to the wash stand.

“Someday I’m going to tan your backside, young lady,” Farr growled menacingly.

“You always say that, but I know you won’t.” Mercy wrinkled her nose and gave him a saucy grin.

“But he ought to. It’d take some of the sass out of you.” A tall youth called out as he came in the door, quickly closed it behind him to shut out the cold and stood on the rag rug stamping his feet to rid them of snow.

“Just hush up, Daniel Phelps. You’re not giving orders around here!”

“No bickering on Christmas Eve, Mercy. That goes for you, too, Daniel.” Liberty gazed fondly at the boy, and her husband gazed fondly at her.

“Tell
him.
He’s always saying, ‘do this, do that’.” Mercy tossed her blond head and behind Liberty’s back stuck her tongue out at Daniel.

“Shhh . . . I did tell him. Be quiet or you’ll wake up the baby.”

“Papa, Daniel’s back! Ya done the chores, Daniel? Can we go out and fire the shots, Papa?” A towheaded boy scampered down the stairs from the loft. His shouts woke the baby, and she let out a screech.

“Oh, Zack! We can see that Daniel’s back. Must you always shout?” Liberty spoke loudly to her five-year-old son so she could be heard over her daughter’s frightened cries. Zachary, named for Major Zachary Taylor, was a big, robust child with his father’s green eyes and his mother’s light hair.

“Take Mary Elizabeth, Libby, and I’ll get these younguns out from under your feet.” Farr stood and passed the crying infant over to her mother.

“If you’re going to make a racket, go far enough from the house so you won’t scare the baby. There, there, darling . . .” Liberty crooned.

“We’ll just fire off a few shots to celebrate.” Farr shrugged into his coat. His green eyes twinkled with laughter. The lines about his eyes and mouth attested to the fact that he smiled often. “We’re suppose to make a little racket on Christmas Eve. I bet your Liberty Bell is ringing in Philadelphia right now.”

“Silly man! It isn’t
my
bell; I’m just named after it. Folks in town will think you’re crazy as a loon to waste all that good powder.”

“Since when do you care what folks think, Mrs. Quill?” His eyes mocked her.

“I guess I don’t, now that you mention it.”

“I’m going! I’m going to shoot the gun too!” Mercy pulled her coat from the peg on the wall and tried to wiggle around Daniel to get out the door.

“Hold on there, you stupid girl!” He yanked on her arm to stop her, then shoved a cap down on her head. “Put your coat on before you go out.”

“Dan, Dan, the bossy man!” Mercy chanted and stamped her foot. “Oh, you make me so mad! Papa!” she shrieked when Daniel wrapped a scarf around and around her neck and drew it tight. “Make him leave me be.”

Liberty watched with a tolerant smile. Daniel had been looking after Mercy since the day they had found him, a four-year-old boy, sitting beside his dead mother. She had tossed him into hiding in the berry bushes to save him when their caravan had been attacked by river pirates.

“Daniel’s right this time, Mercy. If you’re going with us, put on your cap and mittens and wrap that scarf around your neck. If you get sick it will spoil your Christmas.” Farr helped his young son into his coat and shoved a fur cap down over his ears. “Put on your mittens and let’s get out of here before Mama loses her temper and calls off Christmas.”

“Calls off Christmas? Can Mama do that?” Zack asked with a fearful look over his shoulder at his mother.

“Your mama usually does whatever she sets her mind to.” Farr opened the door and a puff of cold air came rushing in. “Get the sled, Daniel, and let’s go.” While ushering the children out, his eyes, soft with twinkling lights, rested lovingly on his wife’s face.

After the door closed, Liberty pulled the rocker up close to the fire, sat down and opened her dress. The baby’s seeking mouth found the nipple on her breast and sucked greedily. She hugged her small daughter to her and rocked contentedly. She had caught the look her husband had given her before he closed the door. He had sought her eyes, and she his, as they did a hundred times or more each day. He did not have to touch her or even move toward her to let her know she was wrapped in his love.

Liberty could hear her sister moving around upstairs. Amy had been quiet and restless lately, no doubt dreading their father and stepmother’s visit the next day. Amy had not forgiven her father for trying to force her when she was only twelve to marry Stith Lenning, a man so cruel and devious that Farr had later been forced to kill him. Amy had married old Juicy Deverell instead. Now her father wanted her to marry Tally Perkins, his stepson. Tally had proposed marriage almost immediately after Juicy had died two years ago.

Amy came lightly down the steep stairway. Unusually tall for a girl, she was amazingly slender and graceful, with a long neck, arms and legs. She wore her hair loose today. It hung down her back in shimmering reddish brown waves. The most arresting feature in her fragile, finely sculpted face was her eyes. They were pure amber, large and thickly fringed with long, brown, gold-tipped lashes. Juicy had once described her as quick as a cat, smart as a whip, and wild as a deer. The old man had married her, given her his name for protection, and treated her like the beloved granddaughter he’d never had.

The last years of Juicy’s life had been devoted to Amy. He taught her to load and shoot the gun in half a minute; and more important than speed, he taught her to hit what she shot at. He taught her to use a knife, a whip, and to follow a track through the forest. The old man took great pride in the fact that she could handle a canoe, hunt, and trap almost as well as Farr, who was the best he had ever known. In general, Juicy taught her the things he would have taught a grandson. Amy, in turn, gave to him the love and devotion she had never felt for her own father, and she missed him terribly after he died.

“I can smell the turkey.”

“It’ll have to cook all night. The partridges won’t take so long. I’ll put them in early in the morning. All we have left to make are the pies. Ah . . . Mary Elizabeth, I’m soaking wet. Why couldn’t you have done that when your papa was holding you?” Liberty lifted her daughter and put a folded cloth beneath her. The baby spit and cooed and smiled. Liberty held the chubby infant to her shoulder and watched her sister roam around the room.

“It’s stopped snowing.” Amy let the curtain fall back in place, turned and put her hands on her hips. “Why do I always look for him on Christmas Eve?”

Liberty knew who “he” was—Rain Tallman, the boy Amy had loved since she was twelve years old.

“Because the year of the earthquake he came on Christmas Eve. In his letter to Farr he said that he was coming back sometime this year.”

“Well, the year is about over, damn it,” Amy said crossly and turned back to the window.

“Don’t swear, love.”

“Why not? Sometimes I feel like swearing. He knows Uncle Juicy is gone. I’ve waited two years for him to come back!”

“Rain won’t be the same boy who went away seven years ago, Amy. By now he’s a man who has seen more country than a dozen men put together. He may have . . . married, put down roots, had children—”

Amy spun around and glared at her sister. “If he has, I’ll kill him,” she said slowly and venomously. Then her voice softened and the anger went from her face. “I’ll be an old maid before he comes back!”

“You’ll never be an old maid. You’re a widow, remember? There are a dozen men in the territory who would come running if you blinked an eye in their direction.”

“They’re all clods like Tally Perkins! If Papa even mentions his name to me tomorrow I’ll throw up. I wish he and Maude weren’t coming for Christmas. We’ll have to listen to Papa tell about his bad back and how
he
runs the farm. They’ll bring Tally and Walter, who’s every bit as boring as Tally, and it’ll just spoil the day.”

Liberty laughed. “Maude has done a good job handling Papa these past seven years. I’m glad she’s the one who has had to put up with him and not us. She sees to it that he does his share of the work, and I think he’s been happy with her in spite of it.”

“She’s welcome to him. He did nothing but complain all the way out here when we were traveling from Middlecrossing. He was a grump! You had to do everything. I don’t know how you stood him, Libby. Or how I did either, for that matter. You’re strong. You know what you want and set about getting it.”

“So do you, love. I’ve not seen you back down from anything yet.”

“I just feel like I’m suspended here . . . waiting—”

“Oh, honey! I don’t know what to tell you. Seven years is a long time. And if Rain does come back he’ll not be the same. Heaven only knows where all he’s been. My, my, when I think of him going all the way up the Missouri on a keelboat, and him only a lone boy. It’s just a marvel that he lived through those first years.”

“Rain was never a
boy,
Libby. I think he was born a man! Remember how stubborn he was? He’d get his mind set and no one could change it. He said he was going away to find out what kind of man he was. How long is it going to take him, for goodness sake?”

“It took courage for him, a boy who hadn’t even shaved yet, to leave here all by himself and go west where there are hardly any settlers at all.”

“He didn’t want to fight against his people. Not that the Shawnee were his people, even if he was raised by John Spotted Elk. There wasn’t much trouble around here anyway. Some people say we had some peace because of Farr’s strong connection with Tecumseh. I think it was because the Shawnee respected you. They called you the White Dove of the Wabash for good reason.”

“I think it was because Farr had organized the settlers so well and built the stockade.” Liberty stood and gently placed the sleeping child in the cradle.

“I get scared when I think about how easily Rain could have died during the earthquake.” Amy was looking out the window again. “All of his village was wiped out except for a dozen or so. We’re his family, now. Damn him! He was always bullheaded—”

“I remember. Stubborn and proud. The first year he sent back money to pay for the gun and the horse he rode away on. Help me move the cradle into the other room, Amy. Farr and the children will be back soon. They’re so excited about Christmas they can’t possibly be quiet. Mary Elizabeth will never be able to sleep in here with all the racket.”

“What can I do to help with the fixings, Libby?” Amy asked after they had settled the baby in the spare room, built up the fire to keep the room warm and returned to the kitchen. “Making pies isn’t my favorite thing to do, but I need to be doing something.”

“You’d rather be in those buckskin britches with your gun in your hand. My but Juicy ruined you for homemaking chores.” Liberty smiled fondly at her sister. “You look awfully pretty in your blue dress with your hair hanging down. Are you going to wear it tomorrow? If you do, poor Tally won’t be able to eat a bite for looking at you.” When she got no response to her teasing, Liberty pulled the pan out of the oven and poked at the big bird with a two-tined fork. “Maybe it’s going to tender up after all. I may even have to apologize to Farr.” She looked over her shoulder to see her sister peering out the window again. “Are the presents wrapped for the children?”

“Every last one of them,” Amy said absently and let the window curtain fall back in place.