Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (5 page)

“As soon as the water is boiling, we’ll bring him out here. The steam should go into the tent. Heat another pan of water too, Mrs. Perry, so you can lay a warm, wet cloth over his face. The moisture may help loosen what’s in his chest.”

“All that wet? I heard tell that’d kill a man,” Elija said with a sad shake of his head.

Farrway walked away to fetch more wood, and Liberty gritted her teeth to keep from saying something to her father that she would regret later.

It was Farrway who lifted Jubal out of the wagon and gently placed him on the pallet Liberty had made inside the low tent. He roused and his eyes sought Liberty’s.

“It’s all right. He’s helping us, Jubal.” She covered him and gently turned his face toward the fire.

“Libby . . . I’m sorry,” he gasped. “Don’t go back. Go on and find Hammond.”

“We’re going to stay right here until you’re better. Then we’ll go to Hammond together.” She stroked his hot, dry forehead as if he were a sick child. He closed his eyes wearily.

Farrway fashioned a curved piece of bark to funnel the plume of steam coming from the teakettle into the tent over Jubal’s face. He kept the fire built up and the teakettle filled while Liberty placed warm wet cloths over Jubal’s face at intervals so he could breathe in the warm dampness. Elija, grumbling that what they were doing was useless, crawled into the wagon and went to bed.

At first it seemed Jubal was able to breathe easier. It was almost as though he were sleeping peacefully. Then he roused and Liberty knew he was delirious when he started babbling about his mother who died when Hammond was born and his father who despised him because all he wanted to do was make pots and jugs.

“Don’t . . . Pa! Don’t break ’em. I done my chores! Please, Pa. I’ll work hard—” The words came from his cracked lips in gasps. “Libby asked me to marry her. Me, old Jubal Perry can have pretty Liberty Carroll for my wife. I’m old . . . I don’t know what to do. It hadn’t ought to be like this—Stith’ll crush her, make her old . . . worn out! I’ll kill him . . . oh, I wish I could kill him. We’d not have to go if I did.”

“Jubal, dear, don't worry about Stith. Shhh. . . .” He tried to raise up and Liberty gently pushed him down.

“He’ll put out my eyes! He said he’d put out my eyes so I couldn’t see Libby!” His eyes rolled back in their sockets and he struggled for breath through quivering lips. “She’s . . . sweet, and I can’t let him hurt her . . . If I was big and strong, I’d fight him . . . I want to, but I’m afraid—”

“It’s all right, Jubal. You don’t have to fight anyone.” Liberty spoke soothingly and stroked the hair back from his face with her fingertips. “Don’t think about Stith. He can’t hurt us now. I’m here with you. I don’t care if you’re not a big, strong man. You’re a good man and the best potter in all New York State and this vast territory. You make beautiful, lasting things, and that’s more important than being able to fight. I’ve got your best pieces packed in my trunk. No one will ever have them. I’ll keep them forever and . . . ever—” A sob came up in her throat, and she choked it back. “Think about that clay dye you were going to make, Jubal. You said the madder plant would make strong red to go with your blue. Your jugs will be so pretty with blue and red stripes around them.”

Liberty looked up at the tall stranger with tears clouding her eyes. “He dying,” she whispered.

Farrway squatted down on his haunches. “Yes, ma’am.”

She gazed at him blankly as if she had not heard clearly what he had said. She shivered.

Farrway sat back on his haunches and studied the woman. The shock at seeing her standing in the firelight in her pantaloons, with hair as white as a cloud floating down about her shoulders and over her breasts had stopped him in his tracks. He had just come from the Shawnee village where he had visited his friend, John Spotted Elk, and the light-haired woman had been a sight to stop any man. He had been dumbfounded to see the lone wagon with a fire blazing. The road from Louisville to Shawneetown had almost been taken over by roving bands of cutthroats and robbers, not like a few years before when all one had to worry about was Indians. It had been his intention to give these people a warning and move on. He could have been almost home by another day. But to his experienced eye it would have been like giving sheep to the wolves.

“If you want to get some sleep, Mrs. Perry, I’ll sit with him.”

“Thank you, but I’ll stay. He might open his eyes again, and I want him to know that I’m here. He gave up a lot for me. I’ll not leave him now.”

“We should let this fire go down. The steam has done all it’s going to.” He considered telling her that the light of a single campfire was like a beacon to Indians as well as to river pirates who plundered along this track, but she looked like a small, weary child, and he decided not to worry her more.

“I know. I thank you for what you’ve done.”

Farr got to his feet and smothered part of the fire with several scoops of loose earth. With the loss of part of the cheery flame, the campsite took on a ghostly atmosphere. Liberty tucked the covers around Jubal’s thin shoulders. In the silence she could hear the forest begin to crackle and pop, and she wondered how she could have ever thought the wilderness a silent and peaceful place.

They sat silently. Liberty was tired but not as frightened as she had been other nights. Sitting with this man beside the fire, a feeling of safety engulfed her, but her eyes, out of habit, continued to look beyond the small circle of light. Caution had become a part of her since she first became aware that Stith Lenning wanted her in the ways a man wanted a woman. She had learned to watch and listen, to not let herself get cornered, and always to have a weapon handy. Those watchful habits had intensified during the journey.

“Where did you get the little girl?” she asked suddenly, needing to talk.

“Down on the Green in Kentucky. I found her in the cellar of a burned-out cabin. I suspect her folks put her there when they feared trouble.”

“Indians?”

“River pirates. They tried to make it look like Indians. Scalped a man, woman, and a boy. But no Indians I ever heard of spoiled sacks of grain and killed horses.”

“Poor little girl.”

“She was scared to death of me at first. That, too, makes me think white men did it.”

“Are you taking her to your wife?”

“I don’t have a wife. If I can’t find someone to take her here, I’ll have to take her to some friends up the Ohio at Carrolltown.”

“We passed Carrolltown coming downriver. My father’s name is Carroll.”

“Any kin to Sloan Benedict Carroll?”

“Not that I know of. Papa has lived in New York State all his life. I don’t know where he got the idea he was from the Virginia Carrolls. You don’t have to sit up with me, Mr. Quill.”

He wondered what she would think if she knew that there were five hundred men in the territory who would give anything in the world to be sitting with her, talking to her. Pretty women were scarce in the territory. Why had this one come into the wilderness with two such men as her pa and Jubal Perry? He suspected she had more courage than brains. He would be surprised if they made it to Shawneetown without her being raped by the riffraff that roamed the river. In this country women like her were almost like a crust of bread to a starving man.

“Do you live near here?” Liberty decided it was very peaceful sitting there with this strange man. She liked hearing him talk. His voice was low and soft, and his manner of speaking suggested that he was educated.

“I have a place up on the Wabash, on the Illinois side.”

Liberty drew her legs up, wrapped her arms around them, and rested her chin on her knees. She pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders and stared into the fire.

Silence stretched between them. Finally she said, “Please talk to me.” Tears sprang to her eyes, stinging, unshed tears, and such a feeling of helplessness sliced through her that she winced. She and Jubal had left behind everything that was known to them, for this. She glanced at Jubal’s drawn face reflected in the firelight and knew again that she could not have done anything else. She looked back at the quiet man, her lower lip caught firmly between her teeth to keep it from quivering. “I’ve never heard the name Farrway.”

“I’ve never heard of it either, but that’s what my grandpa said my name was. I’m called Farr.”

“I guess you think I’m asking a lot of questions. It’s just so dark out there, and the night is so long.”

“I don’t mind.”

“What happened to your folks?” she asked in a small, weary voice.

“Bay fever cleaned out our village over on the Hudson. I was just a tyke and had gone off downriver with my grandpa on his durham boat. When we came back they were gone.”

“You were lucky to have your grandpa. Poor little Mercy doesn’t have anyone,” she said sadly.

“After Grandpa died, I stayed with a couple of old mountain men.” He chuckled. “Talk about odd names—guess they didn’t pay any attention to mine because they were called True and Juicy. They taught me everything I know about staying alive in the woods.” Farr suddenly realized that was the longest conversation he’d had with a woman since his last visit to Carrolltown and his talk with Cherish.

“Why did you decide to come out here?”

“I first came out here with True and Juicy when I was just a stripling. Later Sloan Carroll sent me, along with his son Colby, back east to school. While I was there, True passed on. When I came back, Juicy and I decided we wanted new country and came out here. We’ve seen a lot of change, people are moving in.”

“I’d never been more than thirty miles from Middlecrossing when we came out here. I knew the journey would take several months, but I never imagined it would be so vast, so empty, so wild.”

“It’s getting too settled for some folk,” he said. His eyes roamed the area before he spoke again. “You’ve got to move on in the morning, ma’am. Regardless of your man, you’ve got to move on.”

“Because of Indians?”

“And the scum that prowl the river. You’d not stand a chance against them.”

“Why are you walking? Don’t you have a horse?”

“I have one. It was faster to pole downriver.”

“Have you been to Vincennes?”

“A number of times.”

“What’s it like?”

“It’s not big compared to Cincinnati or Louisville, but Fort Knox is nearby, and the governor has a fine home there. What do you plan to do, Mrs. Perry?”

“We have no choice but to go on to Vincennes to Hammond, my brother-in-law.”

“Have you met him?”

“No.” The thought flashed through Liberty’s mind and she voiced it the same instant. “Do you know him?”

“I’ve met him. I don’t think he’s there. A few weeks ago a large group of men were sent north to Fort Harrison.” Farr watched the look of disappointment cover her face.

Liberty closed her eyes briefly. A small groan escaped her. “Oh, my! Poor Jubal! All this way for . . . nothing.”

“What had you planned to do, ma’am?” The look on her face was the saddest Farr had ever seen.

“What I still plan to do—farm. We were going to find a place by the river and Jubal was going to set up his potter’s wheel and drying kiln. I wanted to plant fruit trees and farm. I have my seed, a fine plow blade and the oxen. For Amy’s sake we need to be near other people.”

“You could have stopped off at a number of places along the river.”

“Jubal wanted to be near his brother. He was afraid—” She cut off her words and added, “It had been a long time since he’d seen him. Are Vincennes and Shawneetown the only settlements along the Wabash?”

“The settlement around my station is small. But almost a hundred people live within five miles. One family pulled up and moved on west to Saint Louis. The old man thought it was whistling that made the plow go . . .” Farr’s voice trailed away. His narrowed eyes studied the girl.

Liberty sat immobile, expressionless, withdrawn. A faint pulse throbbed in her slender white throat. In the delicate shadow of her lashes her blue eyes shone with a strange intent light.

“Is any of the land already cleared?”

“The land beyond the Wabash is level prairie land except for patches of forest here and there. It stretches away like an ocean under a curving sky. From the Wabash to the Mississippi the land lies open to the sun.”

“It’s said that treeless land cannot produce crops,” she said thoughtfully.

“Not so. I’ve seen corn grow as high as my head on that prairie land.”

“Do you farm?”

“No.”

Liberty could see his face in the dim light. His head was in constant motion, turning this way and that, but so slowly it seemed not to move at all. He was an extremely alert man, she decided, and beneath his calm manner lay something as inflexible as a stout axe handle.

In the silence that followed his last word, Liberty slowly leaned over to look into Jubal’s face, knowing something was wrong, instinctively knowing something had happened that couldn’t be changed.

“Jubal?” She placed her palm against his cheek. He had stopped struggling for breath and lay absolutely still. Life, for him, had ended. Somehow she had thought it would be different, that she would know and could hold his hand when the last breath left him. “Jubal. . . .”

She turned away and began to cry silently.

S
ometime in the long hours before dawn, the wind came roaring in from the southwest, tormenting the branches of the giant oak trees, flinging a hail of broken twigs down on the campsite, and sweeping leaves off the ground.

Liberty was jolted awake by the creaking of the wagon as the wind pelted the canvas, coveting it with huge rain drops. She lay beneath the wagon with Amy and the child, Mercy, her head pillowed on her arm. A fierce gust of wind slammed the rain against the ground beside her, causing her to rise in alarm.
Jubal was out there, alone, in the rain.

“Jubal—”

“It’s all right.” Farr’s voice came out of the darkness, and a hand on her shoulder pressed her down.

“He’ll . . . get wet.”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

“I rolled him in the canvas and put him in the wagon alongside your pa.”