The Frontiersman’s Daughter (18 page)
Lael was cutting the last of the black-eyed Susans for a bouquet when she heard hoofbeats. It was always best to cut flowers in the morning, she could hear Ma say, when the dew was still on the petals. And it was such a lovely morning, the dew drenching her bare feet and the chickens clucking contentedly all around, scratching at the dirt.
Just three days before, she had been dead on her feet at the fort, smelling blood and burnt powder and molding lead, in the heart and heat of the trouble which now seemed like it never was. She’d not seen a soul but Asa Forbes, come to claim his bay horse and return her rifle. Her own horse had been waiting when she came home.
She moved to the porch to stand in the open door frame, the flowers forgotten in her arms. Her gun was just inside. She could hear the approaching horse plain now, just in back of the barn. When Simon rounded the corner, Lael took a small step backwards. He dismounted in the yard, not even bothering to tether his horse, and came to stand just beyond the porch stoop. His arm and shoulder were in a sling, but it seemed to hinder him not at all. He moved with the same easy grace as always, drawing her eyes and her heart effortlessly.
“I come to see if there’s still a livin’ soul here,” he told her. “Or if you’d run off with the Shawnee.”
“You can see I didn’t,” she said matter-of-factly. “Now get on your horse and go back to wherever it is you came from.”
He stepped onto the porch stone and pulled off his hat. “That was a mighty daring stunt you pulled outside fort walls. You ain’t been back two months, and you’re the talk of the settlement again. Only this time the tattle’s mostly good, considerin’ you saved all our hides.”
“You can thank Captain Jack,” she told him, careful not to look at him overlong.
His expression turned almost wistful. “Captain Jack, is it? You never let your hair down for me, Lael.”
Would he never stop saying her name? His words shamed and riled her all at once. “You never asked me.”
“We need to talk.”
She sighed. “The time for talking is past, Si—” She broke off, fearful of letting slip with something so intimate as
Simon Henry Hayes
. Looking past him, she fixed her eyes on the distant hills still purpled with early morning shadows. An uneasy silence hung between them, a silence she longed to remedy but had no right to.
“You were wrong to come here,” she said dully.
“So were you. How do you aim to live here—a woman—alone? Everything I look at needs a man’s hand. I see fences down in the pasture. The barn needs a new roof. Who’s goin’ to keep you in meat come winter?”
Pained to hear all that she had left undone, or had yet to do, she said, “I’m no longer your concern.”
“You’ve been my concern ever since you were six years old, come to fort up with me. You’re in my blood, Lael—a forever and endurin’ part of me!” With his good hand he reached for her, and she spilled the flowers onto the porch. “Why’d you not tell me you’d come back before I—”
With a cry she tried to wrench her arm away from him. “Why didn’t you ask Pa for my hand again? He might have believed you really loved me if you’d not turned tail and run the first time he refused you.”
He held her fast, his face like stone, and said nothing.
“Why didn’t you come after me these past five years? Why did you wait? Why, Simon Hayes? I’ll tell you why!” She was crying now, so hard she could barely talk. All the pent-up hurt and longing came roiling out of her like an overfull kettle. “You made your choice long ago, that’s why! My own pa told me you’d been dallying with the likes of Piper Cane before we’d ever left this place. But I held you to be true. All those years in Virginia I waited, hoping you’d come after me, dreaming of the life we’d make together . . .”
“Lael . . . Lael,” he said over and over, encircling her with his good arm so that together they leaned against the door frame. “I made a terrible mistake marryin’ Piper. It was you I said my vows to on my weddin’ day—your face was in my mind. And that night ’twas you I—”
“Nay!” She covered his mouth with her hand, unable to hear it, but he only held her tighter.
She cried until the front of his linen shirt was damp with her tears, and when she pushed away from him he would not let her go. “There’s never been another like you,” he whispered. “And never will there be.”
“There’s no undoing what’s been done,” she cried, yet she could feel her ironclad defenses give way at the beloved nearness of him. This was the fabric of her dreams—the solid, familiar length of him supporting her, his hand weaving in and out of her hair, pulling it free of her braid.
All show and no stay.
But the lure of Simon Hayes was as warm and seductive as the swiftest river current, pulling her under and proving her undoing. Weak, she rested against him and heard the tinkle of bells. At first a far-off sound, the morning breeze carried it nearer and nearer. This time she pushed away from him and he let her go, a puzzled look upon his face. Lael raised her apron and dried her face.
Within moments a small covered wagon pulled into sight with a man driving. It was by far the most unusual contraption she had ever seen outside of Virginia, painted blue, the sides like chests of drawers, each little door opening, she guessed, to reveal wares to sell. The chapman called a greeting before climbing down from the seat.
Simon nodded tersely to the man before striding toward his horse, clearly irritated at the interruption. Lael turned and faced the stranger alone.
“The name’s Gideon, miss,” he said, removing a hat. “I hope I’ve not caused any trouble coming up so sudden on you and the gentleman.”
“He’s no gentleman,” she admitted, wondering if her eyes were red from crying.
“Perhaps you’d be needing some wares. Some sea salt from Connecticut or some nutmeg from the East Indies.”
She smiled despite her heaviness of heart. “Well, Mr. Gideon, I’d not thought to see the likes of a chapman in troubled times like these.”
He smiled back, his eyes kind. “Indian trouble is never reason enough to keep me out of Kentucke, miss.”
“That’s what my pa used to say,” she told him, surprised at her candor. “Please, water your horse. I’ve some beans and cornbread from last night’s supper I’ll warm for you if you’re hungry.”
“I’d be much obliged.”
As he unhitched the horse and led it to a water trough, Lael picked up the scattered black-eyed Susans on the porch. They were a sad lot, the stems and petals crushed beneath Simon’s feet. She felt like weeping afresh looking at them. They were a reminder of herself as she’d been back then—once lovely and fresh and new, but now sullied by broken dreams and empty promises.
“I’m sorry about your flowers, miss.”
He was standing just beyond the porch stoop, his eyes so sympathetic it seemed he knew what had caused their brokenness—and her own. She straightened and gestured toward the end of the porch where the roses provided both scent and shade. “Please have a seat and rest while I see to your breakfast.”
When she returned carrying a full plate and a cup of cold cider, she found him reading, an open book in his hands. A Bible, she noted, small and dog-eared like some of her own best-loved books. She left him to his reading but was not gone long, just out to pasture to fetch the mare. She returned to an empty plate and cup and a bouquet of flowers, just like the ones Simon had spilled out of her hands.
“Mr. Gideon,” she called, but he and his wagon were gone. Not a bell tinkled. Not a wagon rut remained.
The despair Lael felt over Simon’s coming permeated all that she did for days. Each time she crossed the threshold she remembered afresh the broken flowers and felt his hands in her hair and heard the words he should never have spoken. Nary a word she said to anyone, but Ma Horn had only to look at her to sense something was amiss.
“The best way to start anew is to shuck off the old,” she said plainly, tying an herb bundle together. “Take this to Lovey Runion up the branch. She’s fey, but don’t let it bother you none. That’s the way of it for some.”
And so Lael mounted the mare with the herb bundle and traversed the bubbling branch in a sort of trance, hardly watching her way. Ma Horn’s anecdote for heartache was neither tonic nor tea but busyness. She never chafed at the old woman’s requests but carried and fetched whatever she asked. A sack of poke. A bunch of spicewood twigs. Baskets of salat and sang and other indispensables.
With a growing sense of sadness, Lael watched as Ma Horn’s eyesight grew dimmer and her bent body a little more accustomed to her rocker. She hardly ever ventured beyond the fort’s gates now. Those who wanted her services had to come to the settlement. Those who could not come because of illness or infirmity were given over to Lael’s care.
Partway up the branch, Lael climbed down off the mare and sat upon a rock to soak her feet in the clear, cold water. Two days before she’d cut her left heel on some cane and it throbbed unmercifully. The moss she’d put in her moccasin helped some, but nothing relieved the soreness like the singing branch as it wended its way to the river below.
Truth be told, she was in no hurry to see Lovey Runion. Fey, Ma Horn called her.
Fey
was but a kindness, Lael thought. From the attic of childhood memory she searched for the sad tatters of Lovey Runion’s life. Lael knew little except that Lovey once had a husband and child who mysteriously disappeared one spring, never to be heard from again. Some said they’d been taken by Indians; others swore they’d run off. Lael figured the truth would never be known.
By the time she arrived, the cool mist that had followed her up the branch departed, revealing a ramshackle cabin in the shadow of the mountain. Lael had never passed this way, nor had many others. Lovey Runion was fey, and folks stayed clear of her though she was a distant relation of the Hayes clan.
“Halloo,” Lael called when she was just beyond shotgun range.
Hearing no answer, she reined in the mare beneath a towering chestnut and looked about. A garden, choked with weeds and thistles, occupied a sunny spot to the right of the small cabin, the branch singing merrily beside it. Three homemade bee gums sat on rocks out front, looking like small houses with their slanted roofs. Bees entered and exited the gums, humming as they went.
“Halloo,” she called again.
“I heard ye the first time,” came the answering call. “Light and tie.”
There was no note of welcome in the words, but Lael went forward, making a wide circle around the humming hives. Hidden in the shadows of the porch sat a tiny woman in a straight-backed chair. In her lap lay some crumbled tobacco and a clay pipe. She was shaking badly, her hands fluttering like twin birds that refused to light.
Lael stepped onto the porch. “Mind if I fill your pipe for you, Lovey?”
Slowly she took the pipe, dumping the old ashes over the porch rail. “I’m Lael Click. Ma Horn sent me with an herb bundle.”
The woman studied her, her faded gray eyes vacuous and searching. “Click, ye say? I never knowed Zeke Click to have a daughter. But ye do look some like him.”
The pipe finally lit, Lael gave over the herbs. “I’ll make some ginseng tea for you. Ma Horn tells me you’re partial to it.”
The woman nodded absently, drawing on her pipe, and the pungent tobacco drifted upward in spirals about her head.
Inside the cabin Lael kindled a fire and set a kettle of water to boil. Sparsely furnished, the cabin was nevertheless tidy, but Lael noticed a curious absence of food. There was no lingering smell of meat or grease, no beans set to soak, no strings of dried apples above the hearth, no telltale salt gourd on the table.
Lael went to the door and said quietly, “Lovey, when’s the last time you ate?”
A slow, childlike smile spread over the woman’s face. “I disremember exactly. Must have been when my Matthias come home with them squirrels. Fried squirrel we had that night with corncakes. And cress. I had a hankering for cress . . .”
“Would you like some cress now, Lovey? I saw some down along the branch a-ways.”
But there was no answer. While the water warmed, Lael found a basket and went back outside, walking till she found the wild greens, then picking all the tender young leaves she could find. She came upon some wild onion for seasoning, hoping to make a nourishing broth, but without meat it was nigh impossible. As Lovey smoked, Lael cooked the greens and strained the tea. She did find some salt, damp with age, in a corner cupboard.
Lael set the simple fare on the table, but Lovey remained on the porch. “I believe I’ll wait for Matthias and my boy. They’ll be along directly.” Her shaking had subsided, but the dull, vacant look remained.
Taking her arm, Lael led her to the table. “You know the cress is always better fresh, Lovey. Eat and I’ll fill your pipe again.”
Like a child, she did as she was told, sitting and taking slow bites as if she forgot what she did in between. As she ate, Lael talked, filling the silence with all the inane settlement news she could think of, hoping some spark of recognition would kindle. But Lovey Runion’s isolation had been too long and too complete, and time had all but erased those nearest and dearest to her. That she remembered Pa was no small miracle, Lael thought.
But if rational thought was queer to Lovey, gratitude was not. Before Lael left the woman gave her a crock of amber-colored honey.
“Here’s some long-sweetenin’ for ye” was all she said.
“I’ll be back with some meal and meat,” Lael told her, but the strange woman had already turned her back and was heading for the porch.
All the way down the branch, the afternoon sun warm upon her back, Lael rode with a small stab of joy in her heart. A slow, satisfied smile spread over her face. Not once had she thought about her sore foot.
Or Simon.