Twin Willows: A Novel (11 page)

“Good day, Master Heath,” Anna greeted him when he shuffled over to the counter.

The old man squinted, then nodded. “Mistress McKnight, is it? What can I do for y’?”

“Master Heath, you said something the other day about a scrivener who went to Kentucky. Do you know how he got there?”

The clerk frowned and scratched his head. “Why, he rid ’is ’orse, ma’am. He left out a ’ere with all ’e ’ad in th’ world in two saddlebags.”

“Oh. Do you know of any other way to get there from here?”

“Why do y’ ask, young missy?”

“My father lives there. I’d like to join him, but I don’t know how to go about it.”

“Well, a young miss like y’ can’t go by y’rself all that way on an ’orse, that’s for sure. But if y’ can get to Pittsburgh, y’ can likely find a flatboat t’ take y’ west.”

“Thank you, Master Heath. I’ll see about that.”

When Anna neared the livery stable where James had left the wagon, she saw that many of the goods had apparently already been sold. James stood in earnest conversation with a bearded man, who, with many gestures and much head-shaking, finally bought the remainder of the household effects.

“It looks as if you’ve done well,” Anna told James after he’d helped load the items onto the man’s Conestoga.

James handed Anna a handful of coins, a jumble of Spanish pieces of eights and Portuguese gold pieces. “I didn’t get as much for the bedstead as it’d be worth in barter, but the other things brought more, and that made up for it.”

Anna closed her hand around the coins, still warm from James’s hands, and enjoyed their hefty weight. “I thank you for doing this for me, James.”

Her cousin looked away in embarrassment. “I wish it hadn’t had to come to this. If you’d marry me, I’d fix up the old place for us—”

“That subject is closed,” Anna interrupted. “Anyway, I’ve found out the best way to get to Kentucky is by flatboat from Pittsburgh.”

James looked dubious. “I dunno about flatboats, Anna Willow. Give me a horse any old time and I’ll get to where I want to go. Travelin’ by water—that’s a different story.”

“Well, I can’t ride a horse through the wilderness, so I don’t have much other choice. Master Heath says flatboats leave for Kentucky all the time. All I have to do now is find one.”

“No—first you got to get to Pittsburgh, and that’s still a lot of hard goin’,” James said. “How do you aim to get there?”

“I’ll use some of my hard money to buy a horse—you can pick one out for me. I can sell it when I get there.”

“If you’re not robbed by then.” James shook his head. “You can’t go to Pittsburgh alone, Anna Willow.”

“I got here from Lancaster by myself, didn’t I? If I don’t buy a horse, then I’ll find myself a ride. Lots of Conestogas go through Bedford to the West. I’m sure that many of them would welcome a paying passenger.”

James tightened his mouth in the gesture of disapproval that he and his brother shared, and which Anna knew only too well. “Henry says it’s your Indian blood that makes you so stubborn, but I recall that Uncle Ian’s the same way. He’d not want you goin’ off alone, and I’ll not let you do it, neither.”

“Neither you nor Henry nor anyone in Bedford can keep me from going to Kentucky,” Anna said firmly.

“No, but I can have some say in how you get there. I’ll go to Pittsburgh with you to see the flatboats. If you still want to go on after that, you’ll be on your own.”

What James proposed made sense, and Anna decided that she might as well give in gracefully. “All right, if you must, you can travel to Pittsburgh with me. But for now, take me to Gray’s tavern. I want to send a message to my father to let him know I’m coming.”

The lone traveler in Tom Gray’s tavern was a merchant of indeterminate years, on his way back to Pittsburgh after a visit East.

Anna explained what she sought. “I need someone to see that a message gets to my father in Kentucky. He lives near a place called Lexington.”

The man nodded. “For a bit of hard money, it can be done.”

After giving the tavern owner a penny for a sheet of paper and the loan of a scratchy quill, Anna wrote her father a hasty message, sealed with wax from a greasy tavern candle. On the outer fold she wrote in a bold hand: Colonel Ian McKnight, Lexington, Kentucky County, Virginia, and handed it to the merchant, along with a bit coin.

“My father will probably add another for its safe delivery,” Anna said.

The man nodded and stuck the letter into a well-worn fringed pouch. “Consider it done, missy.”

For a while after they left the tavern, neither James nor Anna spoke. As they rode out of Bedford, Anna broke the silence.

“Henry and Helen won’t like it that you’re going to Pittsburgh with me.”

“They don’t like much I do. In fact—” James fell silent for a moment, then spoke rapidly, as if he might otherwise lose his nerve. “Anna Willow, this might not be a good time to bring this up, but since you won’t be usin’ the McKnight cabin anytime soon, will you let me fix it up and use it—just ’til you need it, of course?”

“I wondered how you’ve stayed under the same roof with Henry and Helen this long,” Anna said. “Since you’re going out of your way to help me, I suppose that the least I can do is return the favor. Yes, you can use the cabin until such time as I need it myself.”

James looked relieved. “I’m much obliged,” he said.

As Anna expected, Henry and Helen Barfield thought she had lost her mind even to consider trying to join her father in Kentucky, but when James added that he planned to go with her as far as Pittsburgh, they were really concerned.

“You can’t leave now, when the crops all need seein’ to! Anna must bide here a while longer, at least ’til the corn’s laid by.”

“No, I don’t intend to wait any longer,” Anna told him. “You might as well find someone to help you with some of the chores, anyway. When James returns, he’ll be busy fixing up the old cabin to live in.”

Henry and Helen exchanged startled glances. “Does that mean you’ll marry James?” Henry asked hopefully.

“No, and I’m not giving him the land, either. You can continue to farm it until such time as I need it. But in the meantime, James can live in the cabin.”

Henry scowled. “Well, now I see why you’ve got to go with her. ’Tis a hard trip—I hope that cabin’s worth it.”

James opened his mouth as if to protest, but Anna laid a finger to her lips in warning.
Let it be
, her eyes told him, and James turned and left the room.

“When will you be leavin’?” Helen asked.

“As soon as I can decide what to take and what to store. I do expect to come back after I’ve seen my father,” Anna added, lest Helen think she’d seen the last of her.

“Humph,” Helen said. “I just hope James knows what he’s gettin’ himself into.”

Anna might have said the same thing herself a few days later. James had found and outfitted a horse for her, and they had chosen and packed what would be needed for the journey. She and James hadn’t ridden more than a few miles west on the old Forbes Road before Anna realized that this trip over the mountains would be much more difficult than she had expected.

Once they passed Somerset, a town similar to Bedford, facilities for travelers were few and far between. For long stretches, the trail was barely a wagon-rut wide, alternately muddy and dusty. Streams swollen from recent rains had to be forded with caution, and more than once Anna and James were forced to ride through dense woods to get around a broken-down wagon. As long as the weather held fair, Anna didn’t mind sleeping in the open, but she gratefully accepted shelter underneath another traveler’s Conestoga when a heavy thunderstorm swept through the meadow where they had stopped for the night. Still, she never once considered turning back. Not for anything would Anna give Helen Barfield the satisfaction of saying “I told you so.”

P
ITTSBURGH

The afternoon sun sparkled on the waters of the Monongahela when they finally reached Pittsburgh, and Anna marveled at the size and beauty of the river.

After asking directions, they found a rough camp hard by the flatboat construction site at Redstone Old Fort, from which a man in his middle years came out to meet them.

“What is it?” he asked James.

“I’m lookin’ for a boat to go to Kentucky. You have one?” James asked.

“Aye. She’s ’most finished, wantin’ just the pens.”

Anna looked at the water, puzzled that she saw no vessel. “Where is it?”

The builder pointed to what Anna had taken to be some logs lying on the ground. “Over there. I reckon you never seen a flatboat before.”

“I thought it’d already be in the water,” James said.

“Come along, take a look.”

James and Anna followed the boatman and stood in silence as he proclaimed the craft’s virtues.

“What you see now is the bottom. She’ll be turned over tomorrow and the pens put in place. That’s hewed and whipsawed hardwood, with ever’ crack filled with oakum and rope—not a drop of water will ever come up from the bottom.”

Anna looked at it in disappointment, having expected the vessel to resemble the sailing ships she’d seen in Philadelphia. “It looks like a raft,” she said.

“’Tis a flatboat—made to travel downstream with the current, steered by an aft rudder and guided by poles. Fifteen foot wide and nigh unto fifty foot long—you never saw no raft that size.”

James looked at Anna. “Do you really mean to travel all the way to Kentucky on this thing?”

Anna tried to imagine life aboard this flatboat and decided it would be quite uncomfortable. However, that did not diminish her resolve to go to Kentucky. Rather than answering James, she spoke to the builder. “Do you still have space on this boat?”

As if he hadn’t heard Anna, the man addressed James. “How much household goods do you have?”

“None, and the lady has one saddlebag.”

The builder frowned at James. “You ain’t a-comin’ with her?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry to hear that—we can allus use an extra hand with a rifle.”

“I’m a pretty good shot, myself,” Anna said.

James had detected something in the man’s tone that Anna had not, something that made him frown and look anxious. “Just what’ll y’ be shootin’?” James asked.

The flatboat owner shrugged. “The usual varmints, like on every run. We tie up at night and use our rifles to get our meat. ’Coons, squirrel, rabbits, turkeys—ever’ now and then, a boar. We eat pretty good.”

“What about Indians?” James said.

“We sometimes see a few along the way, but nothin’ we can’t handle. I’ve took a dozen parties to Kentucky with nary a life lost, man nor beast. Anyhow, if the young lady wants a place and has hard money to pay for it, she had best say so now.”

“I do want to go, sir. What is your charge?” Anna asked.

“Will you be bringin’ your horse?”

Anna glanced uncertainly at James. “I haven’t thought about it—I didn’t know I could.”

James shook his head. “’Tisn’t wise, Anna Willow. You won’t need to be burdened with the care of an animal.”

Anna turned back to the flatboat owner. “I’ll sell my horse before we leave—it’ll just be me.”

The man looked at Anna’s plain homespun gown as if trying to decide how much he could get away with charging her. After a moment he named a figure, which James instantly rejected.

“That would be robbery and you know it,” he said. “I’ll not let her be taken advantage of that way.”

“It takes a great deal of coin to build and supply these boats,” the owner said defensively. “I’ve got a family what has to be took care of whilst I’m away—”

“Others will be headin’ downriver. Come, Anna, let’s go.”

James turned as if to leave and Anna opened her mouth to protest. Before she said a word, however, the man threw his hands over his head and quoted a price that was half of what he’d originally asked.

“Still high, but if you’ll agree to give her a rifle and shot for the trip, we’ll take it. Payment in hard coin, half now, half when you make land in Kentucky.”

“I need it all now—the supplies—” the shipmaster began, but the set of James’s mouth persuaded him that further protest would be futile.

Anna turned her back to retrieve the necessary coins from the pocket hidden in her bodice. The man inspected the money carefully before nodding his approval. “We’ll leave as soon after first light on Wednesday as we can manage. Look to see that you’re here then,” he told Anna.

“She will be.” James turned to Anna. “We’d better be on our way now if we’re to get back to Pittsburgh before dark.”

When they had ridden out of the boatman’s hearing, James spoke without looking directly at Anna. “Now that we’re here and I see how things are, I’m thinkin’ I might ought to come along and see this Kentucky for myself.”

Anna gasped in surprise. “James Barfield! You can’t do that—what would Cousin Henry think?”

James smiled ruefully. “More important, I guess, is what you’d think. Anna Willow, I’ve truly enjoyed your company these last few days, and even though you say you won’t marry me, I believe you’ve felt the same way.”

Anna nodded. “Yes, despite everything, the trip from Bedford wasn’t bad, and I know I could never have made it without your help. But we share the bond of kinship, and that’s all it can ever be. That won’t change, even if you come to Kentucky with me. Besides, what would you do there? You can’t take up land without so much as a plow to break it, and lacking the money to buy one.”

A shadow passed over James’s face and his lips tightened. “Thanks for remindin’ me how poor I am,” he said bitterly.

Without further conversation, they rode the rest of the way into town to find lodging.

Anna sighed and wished that her relationship with James could be different. Although he been nicer to her in the past few days than he had in the rest of their lives put together, James hadn’t really changed. He still tended to behave like a spoiled child when he didn’t get his way, all but thrusting out his lower lip in a pout. From long experience, Anna knew it could take a while for her cousin’s mood to change for the better.

When they reached an inn that looked like a likely place to stay, James dismounted and said shortly, “Take your saddlebag inside—I’ll see to the horses.”

Without replying, Anna went inside and sat at a table in the tavern. Now that her cousin wasn’t looking over her shoulder, she would write another letter to Stuart Martin. She hadn’t had time to hear from him before leaving Bedford, but she wanted him to know where she was going.

Anna opened her saddlebag and removed a quill pen and paper. Rather than mix some of her precious ink powder, she bargained with the inn owner for the use of his inkwell in exchange for copying one of his documents.

When she finished that task, Anna smoothed out her own paper and began to compose her second letter to Stuart Martin, this one inviting him to join her and her father in Kentucky.

Anna sighed, not satisfied with the way the letter had turned out, but even if she had known any way to improve it, she had no more paper. She signed her first name, then folded the page, sealed it well with thick candle wax, and tucked it inside her pocket. She would ask James to post the letter when he got back to Bedford.

By the time Stuart gets my letter, I should already be in Kentucky
, Anna thought. Then she would send him more specific directions on how he could find her. Imagining their reunion, she smiled.

Parting is such sweet sorrow
, Mr. Shakespeare once said. But meeting again—that would be pure pleasure.

Anna was so weary that night that not even the snoring women around her in the room where she slept and the considerable noise from the tavern below kept her awake very long.

James, in a better mood after a good night’s sleep, reported the same experience when they took breakfast together the next morning.

“What do you think we should do first today?” he asked her.

“I need to sell my horse—let’s find a livery stable and see what kind of price we can get.”

The first stabler offered less than Anna had paid, but at the second, James struck a deal for her horse and arranged for the buyer to pick it up at Redstone Old Fort the next morning. There he would pay Anna and bring the animal back to Pittsburgh.

Their business in town concluded, the two cousins started back towards Redstone Old Fort and the site where the flatboat would set out the next day.

“You should have a part of the price for coming with me,” Anna told James. “I’d not have gotten here nearly so soon without your help.”

He shook his head. “You bought the horse with your own money—anyway, you know I didn’t come with you expectin’ any pay.”

“Yes, but you sold it for more than I paid. At least let me give you the difference—it can be part of your stake.”

James pulled down the corners of his mouth. “I’d need a sum a hundred times greater than that to be my own man.”

“I’m sure that with hard work, that day will soon come,” Anna said.

James laughed without humor. “Hard work for someone else won’t help much. Henry says I ought to marry me a rich widow. Maybe if I stay around Pittsburgh long enough, I’ll find myself one.”

Anna didn’t doubt for a moment that Henry would have suggested that his brother should find a rich wife, nor that James might even take the idea seriously himself, but she had little regard for the idea herself. “If so, you’d probably deserve each other,” she said.

As soon as they had left the noise of Pittsburgh behind and could speak without raising their voices, Anna handed him the letter she’d written to Stuart.

“Will you post it for me in Bedford?”

James nodded. “For a fee.” His expression was serious, but Anna knew that in his own way, James was teasing her. He glanced at the address, then at Anna. “Stuart Martin—is he that lieutenant that Uncle Ian soldiered with, the one who got you into the fancy school?”

Anna nodded. “Yes. He was always kind to me when I was at Miss Martin’s.”

James opened the flap of his saddlebag and dropped the letter inside. “You don’t have to explain. No wonder you wouldn’t marry me.”

Anna sighed. “Oh, James, we’re cousins. Stuart Martin has nothing to do with that.”

“I said I’ll mail your letter, and I will, and that’s the end of it.”

Anna said nothing, but privately she wondered. Just about the time she thought that James had given up any notion of marrying her, he’d do or say something that showed how much her refusal still stung him.

When they reached Redstone Old Fort, they found a flurry of activity around the flatboat launch site. Many of the passengers had already arrived and were making preparations to camp there overnight.

Anna looked in awe at the assembled jumble of running children, harried mothers, busy fathers, and bawling livestock. “How can one flatboat hold all this?” she wondered out loud.

The boatmaster overheard Anna and came over to where she and James stood. “A flatboat’s the sturdiest craft that man ever made,” he declared. “There’s room and plenty for all that you see about you here today.”

James looked equally dubious. “I hope so. This lady’s father is Colonel Ian McKnight, a man of some note in the wilderness. He’d not take it kindly should any harm come to her in your care.”

At the mention of Ian McKnight’s name, the man narrowed his eyes and stared hard at Anna. “Colonel McKnight, is it? We hunted together, many years past. I recall that he took an Indian wife—you must be hers, all right.”

You look Indian enough to be daughter of a savage
, Anna knew he meant. She raised her chin slightly and looked him in the eye.

“My mother was Delaware.”

“Graceful people they are, for savages,” the boatman murmured. He nodded brusquely and left them to greet some other new arrivals.

James turned to Anna. “Now that you’re in safe hands, I’d best start on back. I can be down the road quite a ways by nightfall if I go now.”

Anna felt a moment of panic at being left alone with all these strangers. “What about my horse?”

“The livery man will come for him tomorrow and pay you then. If not, you can prob’ly find someone else to buy it—or even change your mind and take it to Kentucky. You don’t need me anymore, Anna Willow—if you ever did.”

Seeing the expression on his face, Anna felt her heart constrict. Saying good-bye to James wouldn’t be as easy as she had imagined, but he must never know it.

Anna forced her voice to be steady. “In that case, I thank you for bringing me this far, James. I know Father will appreciate your kindness to me when he hears of it.”

“Tell Uncle Ian I send the family’s greetings,” he said stiffly. “Since you’re such a scribe, you might write an’ let me know you got there.”

Anna nodded. “I will. And James—should a letter come for me from Mr. Martin—”

James interrupted her. “I’ll send it on, in the care of Ian McKnight, near Lexington.”

“Thank you. And remember—I expect you to use the old cabin.”

James nodded. “Good-bye, Anna Willow. ’Tis a wild trip that you’re undertakin’. Be careful.”

“I will. And don’t look so worried. I’ll be all right.”

Mutually they moved toward each other for a brief embrace, but did not kiss good-bye. Then James turned and mounted his horse.