Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (22 page)

“Don’t mention it. I wasn’t
drawn
in. I stepped in because I wanted to.”

“Stith is the reason Jubal and I left Middlecrossing. He was the one Jubal was talking about the night he died.”

“I figured that.”

“Stith’s pride couldn’t stand it when I turned him down. He was humiliated because he was one of the richest men in town and we were some of the poorest. It was his pride that goaded him to follow us here, not any love for me. He won’t rest until he has me completely in control and shames me as he believes I shamed him.”

“He must be a mule-headed bastard to want a woman who doesn’t want him.”

“He’s that and more. I thought I had things worked out so that Amy and I could stay here, but that’s all changed now. I’ve been thinking about what to do—”

“Why do anything? Tell him how you feel and let that be the end of it. If he tries to force himself on you, fill his hide with buckshot. You carry that gun like you know how to use it.”

“I’ve been telling him for years that I don’t want to marry him. I’m not afraid he’ll hurt
me.
It would be his way to hurt Papa or Amy or . . . Mercy and Daniel, if he thought they meant something to me.”

“He must be a real, low-down son of a bitch!” Farr’s voice was as hard as iron. His knife bit deeper into the wood than he intended and he bit out a curse.

“As I see it I have only two choices. One is to go on out to the Shellenberger place with Amy and the children. I can’t depend on any help from Papa, but I don’t think Stith will put up with him for long when he finally realizes that I’m not going to marry him.”

She watched him move the knife steadily down the long shaft of hickory, slicing paper thin sheets from the wood.

“That’s one. What’s your other choice?”

“My other choice is to take Amy and go on to Vincennes like Jubal and I planned.” She drew a deep, hurtful breath. What she was going to say wouldn’t be easy to put into words. “I won’t be able to take Mercy and Daniel with me. Not right now. But you’ll have Willa here to take care of them.”

“Seems like you’re giving up on Mercy and Daniel mighty quick.”

“I don’t want to give up on them. I just won’t be able to take care of them for a while. When I get settled, I’ll send for them. Willa has had such a hard time herself that she’ll be good to them. They need to be with someone who loves them. And I do—”

“Seems like you’re giving up on Willa too. You’re the one who wanted her papers.”

“Of course I did. When I saw how they were treating her I wanted to pull all the hair out of Mrs. Thompson’s head,” Liberty said spiritedly. “But because I’m a woman, Mr. Thompson gave the papers to you.”

She thought she saw the shadow of a smile twitch Farr’s lips and impatience flared in her eyes. He cat off her retort with his logical question.

“If Lenning is as determined to have you as you say, won’t he follow you to Vincennes?” Farr moved his palms up and down the wooden shaft, feeling for the places he wanted to work on.

“Surely Hammond Perry can . . . discourage him.”

“Hammond Perry?” He looked at her then. “I’d not count on Hammond helping you.”

“But he’s my brother-in-law.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Well, we’re kin, sort of.”

Farr held the piece of wood up to his eyes and sighted down the length of it.

“You can forget going to the Shellenberger place. Lenning has moved in there, lock, stock and barrel.”

His calm words shocked her speechless for a moment.

“No!” She ground out the word from between clenched teeth. Then, “Did Papa take him there?”

“Straight as a string. I went up there last night and again early this morning to see what was going on. He’s moved in, taken over; his men are putting up a pole pen by the shed.”

“Can’t you make them leave?”

“No. It’s not my land. It’s there for the taking and he got there first. Your pa must have told him it was an abandoned homestead.”

Liberty was silent for a long while before she spoke. She didn’t want to go on to Vincennes, but now she had no choice.

“I guess that settles it. I hate to ask, Farr, knowing how much you’re trying to get done this summer, but could you spare Colby or Rain to take me and Amy to Vincennes?”

“No.”

Liberty gasped at his blunt answer. She was embarrassed now that she had asked. Paralysis gripped her throat, preventing her from saying anything. There was a sudden wall of silence between them. She pulled her shawl tightly about her shoulders and got slowly to her feet.

“Sit down, Libby. You have another choice.

The words were spoken kindly and broke down the wall between them. Without even thinking about it, she sat down, and words of anguish poured out of her.

“You don’t understand, Farr. If Stith Lenning stays, I’ve got to go, or one way or another he’ll force me to marry him. I saw him eyeing Amy. If Papa can’t make me marry him, he’ll ask for Amy. He knows I’ll marry him before I let him have my sister.” She ground her teeth in frustration.

“Amy? Hell!” Farr’s head came up with a jerk. His eyes were cold, his brows drew together in a frown, and the white scar at the edge of his mouth deepened. “Amy’s just a little girl yet.”

“She’ll be thirteen soon. Some girls marry at thirteen and die in childbirth at fourteen! I’ll . . . kill him before I let him have Amy.” Just saying the words aloud sent a shiver of dread down her spine.

The scowl lines changed like magic, and Farr grinned. His green eyes held hers like a magnet. “I bet you’d do it too.”

Not even the note of admiration in his voice could keep Liberty’s shoulders from slumping. Some of the desperation she was feeling made itself known by lips that quivered of their own volition.

“Papa will be back soon. He never stays away for long. I’ve got to decide what to do. You said I had another choice.”

Farr lifted the axe handle again and sighted down the length. He made a notch at one end with the tip of his knife before he spoke.

“You can marry me.”

Liberty’s shoulders jerked up and her eyes sought his face. He was drawing the knife blade down the wood and appeared to be concentrating on what he was doing. She looked at him for so long that her eyes compelled his to meet them. She wondered if he knew that her stomach was churning and that her heart might leap from her breast. His eyes were curiously devoid of expression.

Her mouth was parted in surprise and she managed to say, “Marry you? Why?” There was a kind of desperation in the jerky way she spoke.

“For the same reason you married Jubal Perry.”

She searched his face with puzzled eyes, but there was no crack in his invulnerable self-assurance, no expression to tell her what he was thinking.

“But I don’t—you don’t—”

“You don’t what? Love me? It didn’t appear to me that you loved Perry either. Leastways not like a wife should love her man. That didn’t stop you from marrying him.”

“Why would you do it?”

He shrugged and didn’t answer.

“You . . . don’t love
me,
” Liberty insisted.

“And Jubal Perry did.”

“Yes, he did, and I loved him . . . sort of.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t understand you. You said a woman would be like a millstone about your neck. You said you had mountains to climb, rivers to cross—”

“Maybe I’ve changed my mind about the millstone. Women have their uses. Without them none of us would be here.” His hands stilled and he looked at her steadily. “I can still cross rivers and climb mountains. Maybe it’s time I took
a
wife—that’s what Juicy is always telling me. If I am going to do it, I might as well have one that won’t fold up on me the first time she hears a musket fired.”

“And you think I wouldn’t? Is that the only reason you asked me?” A hectic flush stained her cheeks when she realized the implication of her question, but her eyes narrowed dangerously and gave him back stare for stare.

“No. I have the desire to mate like any other man, to have a son of my own flesh and blood. I’d like to know there would be another generation of Quills after I’m gone.” He spoke simply as if this were an everyday topic of conversation, but the measured words left no doubt as to their rock-hard meaning.

Liberty felt a new wave of crimson wash up from her neck and flood her face. He was telling her that he meant to avail himself of all the privileges he was entitled to have if she became his wife. As she looked at him, shock receded, and in its place came logic.

“Stith will ask for Amy and Papa will give her to him if he thinks it will make life easier for him,” she said bluntly, forgetting a lifelong habit of whitewashing over her father’s faults.

“Then it’d be my job to kill Lenning, and not yours.”

“You’d do that?”

“It’s best that you know about me right now, Liberty.” He looked her straight in the eyes, his green ones taking on a shine that contrasted strongly with his dark face. “I do what has to be done to keep my hair on my head and my hide on my back. And I do it in whatever manner suits the place and the time. This is a hard land where only the strongest survive. I’m like Lenning in one respect. I keep what’s mine and do my best to see that no harm comes to it. If that means killing, I kill.”

“Me and Amy being the ‘it’?”

“If we marry, you, Amy and the children will be my family, along with Juicy, Colby and Rain.”

A blanket of silence covered them after his words. He looked at her as if he knew every line and hair on her body. Consciously she willed herself to remember that this man was all that was standing between her and a life of pure hell with Stith Lenning.

“It’s a lot for you to take on,” she said with a deep sigh. “Are you sure you want to?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean, especially something that will change my life.”

“Marriage is . . . forever.” Her voice was flat and strained.

“No. It’s just until one of us dies.”

“But what about Juicy?”

“He stays with me for as long as he lives.”

‘I didn’t mean that. I meant what will he think?”

“What difference does it make to you what he thinks?”

“Well. . . .”

“Well what? Get it all out, Liberty.”

“I like him. I don’t want him to think we’re pushing him out of his cabin. That’s five extra people, Farr. Six, counting Papa.”

“I’ve thought of that. It’ll only take a couple days’ work to make over the front part of the storage shed into a snug room for Juicy, Colby and Rain. We’re not using it now that the Indian trade isn’t what it was. We can fix up the loft. It’ll make a snug room for Willa, Amy and the kids.”

“What if . . . what if Papa comes back?”

“He’s welcome to sleep in the barn,” Farr said without looking up. “But he’ll pull his own weight. I want you to understand that.”

“There’s one more thing—the most important. Stith will try to kill you.”

He dismissed her statement with a shrug. “Let him try.”

“But it isn’t fair that you have the most to lose and I have the most to gain. You’ll be giving me and my sister a home, protecting us. What do we give you in return?”

“I’ve told you one thing. And you’ll do the things women do, cook, wash, milk, plant a garden, make a home out of this place.” He looked up and she saw a glimmer of laughter in his eyes. “Juicy will wallow in all the attention. He doesn’t admit it, but he’s getting old and enjoys his comforts.”

“How long were you and Fawnella married?”

Liberty saw his hands still for just an instant, and when she looked at his face she saw a muscle was jumping in his tightly clenched jaw. She wished with all her heart that she could recall the words.

“Not long. That time in my life has nothing to do with you.”

Liberty was stunned by the cold tone in his voice. A wave of sickness rose into her throat, and she fought it down. The silence lengthened. She felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her, but she refused to let him see how his words had affected her.

It seemed to Liberty that they had been by the woodpile for only a few minutes, but the sun was up and bathing everything with its bright light. She could feel the heat on her back through the shawl. She didn’t understand why the thought of Farr with Fawnella depressed her so. If she married him, would the ghost of the love he and Fawnella shared stand between them? The panic in her stomach began to build.

“Well, what are you going to do?” Farr was watching the knife slice into the hickory wood.

“I don’t seem to have a choice.”

“No, you don’t,” he agreed matter-of-factly. “You’ve got yourself into a peck of trouble.”

“When did you think . . . When do you want to . . . do it?”

“Now. It’s as good a time as any.”

“Now?”

He wiped the blade of his knife on his buckskin pants and shoved it into the band that circled his waist.

“Now. Come on. I’ve got to get back and finish this axe handle. Today we’re going to mark the trees to be felled. I sure hate to use green wood, but there’s no helping it.” He started off down the path that led to the road and she hurried to catch up with him. “I wish I’d known last year what I know now. We could have cut the poles and they would have been cured out. As it is they’ll be so damn green they’ll warp out of shape if we don’t lash them tight.”

“Farr! Wait. Don’t walk so fast. Where are we going?”

“To be wed.” He stopped and looked at her with a frown. “Have you changed your mind?”

“No, but where are we going? Who’ll . . . do it?”

“The preacher man down at the Sufferites’ homestead. Vernon Ellefson. It’ll be legal. He’ll give us a paper. If you have doubts about it, I can send it up to Vincennes for Harrison to sign.”

“No. If you say it’s legal I believe you. I’m just surprised that we’re . . . doing it so fast. When I put this dress on this morning I never dreamed it would be my wedding dress.”

“It looks fine to me. Come on. Ellefson may already be out in the field. He doesn’t waste much time.” Farr started off, then stopped. “Wait. He’ll not even talk to you unless your head is covered. He thinks a woman’s hair lures men into their clutches.”

“Well, for goodness sake! If that isn’t the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. I thought I’d left all that nonsense back in Middlecrossing.”