Daughter of the Sword (5 page)

Annoyed at his friendliness, Deborah dug her elbow into his chest. “Ouch!” he winced. “Why'd you do that, 'Borah?”

He plunged on, establishing that the brothers had crossed the ocean in ten days in a Cunard iron-clad liner, spent some weeks in the north and south, then traveled by steamboat to Leavenworth and spent a month there, acquiring horses and Rolf's hounds and picking up information about their proposed route while Rolf hunted and Dane sketched. They had only last night arrived in Lawrence and had found, in the home of Mrs. Eden, a widow, lodgings much more comfortable and private than the hotel. Deborah stiffened at that. Melissa Eden acted demure, but she carried herself in a way few men could ignore.

When Rolf disclosed that his brother had fought in the Crimean War, Thos plied Dane with questions and refused to be daunted even when Dane pronounced the Charge of the Light Brigade to be the greatest folly in a war beset with blunders.

“Practically nothing was known about the Crimea—the terrain or conditions,” he said. “Lord Raglan, one of our two seventy-year-old field commanders, was so confused that he kept calling the enemy ‘the French' even though the French were finally fighting beside us, not against. Half the army was wounded or sick during that first winter, and because the campaign hadn't been intelligently planned or provided for, cold and hunger added to the misery. The only good thing to come out of the wretched mess was the way Florence Nightingale cleaned up the hospitals and saved countless lives. A lot was learned about military medicine and treatment. But so many were wasted, so many young men! And for what? The Turks made some dubious promises safeguarding Christians in their territories, and the Russians agreed to keep their ships out of the Black Sea.”

Thos frowned. “But, sir, surely the feat of allied arms was amazing! Invading an unknown region, defeating the enemy on his own ground with far fewer troops and those often ill and poorly equipped!”

“We had the Minié. The Russians didn't.” Dane shrugged and the scar along his cheek seemed livid. “They bayoneted us and we blew them apart. Their priests blessed them, our chaplains blessed us, and we became a sacrifice, they protecting Holy Mother Russia, we defending, at bottom, our access to India.”

Thos ignored the moral for the unedifying facts. “A Minié, sir? What's that?”

“It's a conical bullet dreamed up by the French, weighing five hundred grains. It shoots harder and straighter, maybe five times as far as the old round ball, and is practically guaranteed to shatter any bone it hits, which the round balls seldom did.” Dane's mouth turned down. “Is it progress, Miss Deborah, when weapons become more lethal?”

“You men have always found excuses to slaughter each other. I suppose it doesn't matter whether you do it quickly or at leisure.”

“'Borah!” cried Thos. “How can you say that when you're learning to use a Bowie knife?”

“What?” choked Rolf. He looked at her in astonished delight. “Not the Bowie?”

Dane said nothing, but the startled expression in his gray eyes goaded Deborah far more than Rolf's mischievous glee.

“You don't understand our circumstances,” she said austerely.

“I think we do,” countered Dane. “Every brigand in Leavenworth had one or two Bowies and several pistols, as did most passengers on the steamboat. But I'll confess I hadn't suspected women, even in Kansas, felt it necessary to go armed.”

“We don't,” snapped Deborah. “But I could have wished this afternoon, sir, that I'd had the Bowie!” Thos stared at her and she recovered hastily. “But it's well I didn't, since you came in time to haul your hounds off the coyote and me. It would've been a pity to hurt the dogs for obeying their master.”

Rolf threw back his head and laughed. “You wouldn't have scrupled to carve on me?”

“No.”

“Be warned, brother,” said Dane in that intolerably superior way that made Deborah's hackles rise. “These Western women aren't at all what you're used to. You'd best stick to hunting buffalo.”

“That's a comely woman at the blacksmith's,” said Rolf. “Is she Indian?”

“Shawnee,” said Deborah. “My dearest friend.”

“I'd like to paint her,” Dane mused. “That was an intriguing group: the smith, Indian boy and girl, and that huge black man. Is he a slave?”

“Johnny bought and freed him.” Deborah was reluctant to discuss her friends with these overbearing strangers.

“Do you think they'd let me do some studies of them? They could go about their work and I'd just sketch what struck me.”

“You'd have to ask Johnny—Mr. Chaudoin, and then see if the others were willing.” Deborah gnawed her lip, hating to say still another thing that would add to his conviction that she was an indelicate, unfeminine savage—though why should she care?

She didn't give a fig for Rolf's opinion. Why should Dane's matter? It did, but as to
why,
she was too bewildered and resentful to sort out just now. She only knew that for everyone's sake, she must make Sara's position clear. “Sara Field and her brother are like adopted children to Johnny. It's thought by some whites that all Indian girls are ready game because Indian ideas about marriage and … and all that are different from ours. Sara thinks lots of white ways are crazy, but she was educated at Shawnee Mission. The man who wants her will have to get married in church.”

“Or that formidable smith or giant blackamoor will get him if you don't first slice him up with your Bowie?” Rolf grinned. He cocked his head at Dane. “Can you imagine Pater's face if either of us came back with an Indian wife? Gad, it's almost worth doing for that alone!”

Thos sounded breathless. “Miss Sara has an understanding!”

“Oh, is that the way of it?” whistled Rolf. At Dane's scowl and Thos's rather wild look, he added good-humoredly, “I'm sure I wish them happy, the Indian maid and her favored swain. But I still think it would be a rare jest, Dane, if our American trophies included a daughter-in-law for Sir Harry.”

Dane said nothing, though his face was set. Deborah concluded that Rolf enjoyed baiting his older brother and that it sorely tried Dane to hold his tongue, though argument would merely push Rolf into more reckless assertions and, no doubt, actions.

It was also humiliating to hear them discuss an American bride in the way they'd have spoken of a Hottentot. Deborah took solace in the thought that if the pair did stay for supper, which she heartily hoped they wouldn't, since she wanted nothing more to do with either of them, Mother and Father would demonstrate, even to these prejudiced Englishmen, that Americans could be cultured and gracious even though they worked hard to scrape together a living and lived in a crude cabin.

How, at that moment, she wished ferociously that they were still living in the soddy! That would give these sons of obviously rich
Sir
Harry something to write home about! Especially if a spider or baby field mouse dropped into their plates!

That happy thought improved Deborah's spirits, but as they approached the cabin and sod outbuildings, she looked at them as strangers would, as she had when freshly come from New England, the bark-covered logs of the cabin dabbed with mud, while from the sod and grass roof, wildflowers and weeds grew as thickly as on the ground. The cabin was much easier to keep clean and much lighter than the soddy had been, with four windows instead of two, but snow
did
blow in through the cracks during the heaviest storms.

The soddy had been warmer in winter, cooler in summer, but so dark, and, worst of all, in spite of the cheesecloth fastened to the rafter poles, bits of root and grass and plenty of bugs and spiders dropped regularly from the layer of brush, the layer of prairie grass, and the final covering of more sod.

And when it rained!

Deborah grimaced. If rain was from the north, that side of the roof soon began to leak and the bed and pallets had to be moved to the south; when south rains came, they were moved north.

And for days after the sun was bright and the outside air was fresh and sunny, the roof dripped sullenly into every bucket, kettle, and pan that could be spared.

After one torrential storm followed by a steady all-day drizzle, the rafters had sunk deep into the walls and the roof sagged till it seemed certain to cave in. Father and Thos had gone to the river and cut several stout posts with which to prop up the overburdened rafter-poles.

Fortunately, it hadn't rained again for a month, so they escaped real disaster, but Mother had given thanks with special fervor when they'd moved out of the soddy, which, rafters propped up by more posts, served now as a stable.

Chickens clucked, making for the coop where they'd be shut up safe for the night, Venus was over by the stable, standing companionably by Belshazzar, who whinnied and ambled forward to meet his pasture mate, who gave an answering and heartfelt response.

Rolf ordered the hounds away from the chickens, enforcing his commands by slashes of the whip, which sent the dogs huddling off behind the house.

Mother and Father, thank goodness, were already home, and the familiar smell of frying jackrabbit and cornbread drifted out.

“I'm afraid we're late,” said Deborah, “and we'll have to hurry with our chores, so you'll excuse us for making rather hasty introductions.”

Dane frowned. “We'll ride on to Lawrence. Stopping at this hour is presumptuous.”

“
You
may go to Lawrence,” drawled Rolf, “but I'm invited to supper, and I'm staying.”

“But of course you'll both stay!” called Father from the door. “You must be the English brothers everyone in town's talking about! Let's take care of your horses, and then you must meet Mrs. Whitlaw and share our table.” He came forward, putting out his hand as the Hunters dismounted. “I'm Josiah Whitlaw.”

The brothers introduced themselves and Deborah was glad to see the respect and swiftly hidden surprise in their expressions. Father was in shirtsleeves, his dark trousers were worn shiny, and his fingers were permanently stained from setting type, but he was carefully shaved and his diction was as cultivated as that of his guests.

Leaving them to him with vast relief, Deborah handed her mother Sara's gift of light bread, quickly explained her ruined sleeves, and carried skim milk and cornbread to the subdued hounds, fetching them a pan of water before she fed the chickens and collected five eggs from the hay nests in the coop.

Usually Thos milked Venus, but he'd been rubbing down and watering the horses, lingering over the sleek blood bay and handsome gray as he gave them some corn. He was patting Nebuchadnezzar a trifle guiltily as Deborah passed him with the pail.

“I'll milk,” she told him. “You still have to bring in wood and water.”

“Thanks, 'Borah.” Thos gave her a searching look. “I have to clean those rabbits, too. Young Mr. Hunter gave them to us. Cross your heart?”

It was an old code between them, asking for and promising complete truth, which Deborah at that moment wasn't sure she cared for. “Don't wheedle, Thos! You'd best tend to your chores.”

The setting sun reddened his hair as he blocked her way. “Don't
you
get skitterish, my girl! Did either of those fellows say or do anything they shouldn't?”

“It's a fine time to worry about that, isn't it, now you've asked them home and Father's met them?”

Thos flushed. “Quit beating around the bush, or I'll wait for them on the road to Lawrence and see what they have to say about it.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake!”

“No. For yours.”

She couldn't lie to him; he'd have known it immediately through that extreme sensitivity they'd always had to each other. But neither could she let him fight either of the older, bigger men.

“I was terribly angry at Rolf Hunter for chasing the coyote, and when he tried to look after my scratches, I … well, we got into sort of a muddle, which his brother interrupted.”

Thos's brows knit. “Did he insult you?”

“Good gracious! Some women might have thought it flattering!” Deborah forced a laugh, giving him a shake. “It's over, nothing's wrong, and though I'd rather not have that conceited pair in our house, they'll be a change for Father and Mother. You, too, from all the questions you were asking.”

“I don't see how an officer could give up his commission and start painting posies,” shrugged Thos, but, his protective brotherly conscience relieved, he hurried off. He was clearly fascinated by the Englishmen. He'd always loved heroes. Given half a chance, he'd make one of that grim Dane Hunter.

Vexed at the thought, Deborah stripped the last of Venus's milk into the frothing bucket, carried it to the well-house, and poured it into crocks so the cream would settle on the top for skimming. She washed out the pail and set it upside down on the bench, counted the eggs in another crock, saw there were fourteen, enough for Mother to trade at the store.

The cream crock held almost enough for churning butter. Father could trade the new butter because there was still a pound or so left from the last churning. It was only during the past month that they'd felt rich enough to use butter instead of making do with pork drippings and sorghum. There'd be butter on the table tonight, butter and Sara's fresh loaf, as well as cornbread.

Deborah took a deep breath. There was nothing else to do, no other chores, nothing to check on. She had to go in.

And face the strangers.

iii

Rolf and Dane rose from the round table as she entered. Rolf presented his chair to her so insistently that she let him seat her while he took the other side of Thos's bench.

It hadn't been possible to bring all their furniture from New Hampshire, and what there was, though comfortingly familiar, looked incongruous. The polished legs of Mother's rosewood pianoforte stood on the rough plank floor with the oval-framed portrait of her mother above it and a cut-glass bowl of wild roses on the top beside the thick leather-bound Bible handed down through gennerations of Father's family.