Authors: Annie Lash
“The fire’s ’bout to peter out. It’s been a good day for burnin’.” Will made the comment just as Jeff reached him.
“This patch’ll be ready to plow with a little raking.”
“It’s a sightly piece of ground. It’ll make a good field for corn or oats.”
“How much of your land do you plan to clear?”
“Enough to meet the requirements.” Will grinned. “I figure on puttin’ me a tradin’ post on that high ground by the river and gettin’ rich asellin’ supplies to boat people.”
Jeff didn’t laugh as Will thought he would. Instead, he nodded thoughtfully. “It could happen.”
Will moved down the line of the fire, beating at it with the gunnysack; Jeff followed.
“Light found out in Saint Louis that Jason spent the winter in New Orleans.” Jeff squatted down on his heels and pulled at a blade of grass. “He’s in Natchez. It appears to me he’s headed this way.”
“Light told me.” There was a tense, angry tone in Will’s voice.
“Light wouldn’t think twice about slipping a knife in Jason’s back if he thought you wanted his woman,” Jeff said flatly, and got to his feet. He stood with legs braced, looking out over his land.
“I know that.” There was an edge of irritation in Will’s voice. “I’ll not give him a reason.”
“Callie might. She lights up like a full moon when she looks at you.”
Will looked at him then, his mouth drawn tight. “She’s obliged to me for helpin’ her out, is all.”
Jeff shrugged. “She’s had a hell of a time with Jason. I don’t want any more hurt piled on her.”
“If ya think I’d hurt Callie—”
“You know I don’t think that. I’m worried about what will happen if Jason comes back. She’s his wife, man. Those are his boys.”
“I’ll not let ’im take her if she don’t want to go. Hell! You and I know he’d leave ’er and the kids once he got ’em away from here.” He rubbed the back of the rake with an angry motion over the flames that were eating the dry grass. “The gawddamn bastard married her to keep her ol’ man from blowin’ his head off. Brother to ya or not, Jeff, he’ll not hurt ’er again.” The eyes that looked into Jeff’s were blue and hard and raging.
“Christ, Will! Are you in love with her?”
“Why in hell do ya say that?” he demanded, and looked away. “Callie and them boys ain’t goin’ to be sittin’ in a shack on a riverbank ever again awaitin’ for that bastard to remember where he left ’em!”
Jeff stared into eyes filled with the unfamiliar gleam of hate. “Have you talked to Callie about it?”
“Naw.”
“I have. She doesn’t want Jason back. She told me so.”
“What kind of woman’d take a man back after what he done? Goin’ off and leavin’ her like that in the middle of the winter, and her expectin’! Shit, Jeff! Ya know he ain’t worth the powder it’d take to blow him to hell!”
“Callie might figure he has a right to his boys.”
“Shitfire! They don’t even know ’im!”
“He’s got a legal claim, despite what he did. It would be best all around if we raised your cabin, Will. It’ll give Callie time to sort out her feelings before Jason gets here.”
Will spread his legs and leaned on the rake. He looked defiantly into the face of his friend. “If he lays a hand on her, I’ll kill ’im. Henry tol’ me how he used her after we was gone. He said Jute come within a inch a doin’ it on account a what he done to Amos. Jute would a killed him an’ gone to live with the Osage, cause he couldn’t a faced ya.”
“I couldn’t stand by and let you murder a man, Will. And not just because he’s my brother. But I promise you this: he’ll not abuse Callie or the boys while she’s in my house.”
“And if she leaves?”
“She’s a grown woman. It’s up to her. If she chooses to go I’ll not stop her.”
Will looked away from the sympathy in his friend’s eyes. He knows, he thought, and hated himself for revealing his innermost feelings about Callie. All the beauty in life that he had ever dreamed of was summed up in her. His love for her, so long imprisoned, was escaping. It seemed to be thrusting outward and upward, demanding release. He had never so much as held her hand, yet he could feel it clasped in his own, could see the soft gleam of her hair in the firelight, the shadow of her lashes on her cheeks. He had resisted the temptation to step over the bounds of friendship, although he was almost sure his advances would have been welcomed. She had been lonely and it may have been that loneliness that made him seem desirable to her. He didn’t want that! Gawd! What a trap he had fallen into!
“You know that they’ll do everything they can to kill us before we can testify at Burr’s trial.” Jeff’s voice brought him back to the present. “They know where we are, Will. I’m surprised they didn’t ride in here, take care of you, and wait for me. That attempt to kill me on the trail is the third try since we delivered the evidence to Tom Jefferson. Without us, Aaron Burr will be acquitted of the treason charge.”
“He’s an ambitious bastard, and vicious,” Will said coldly. “His murder of Hamilton proved that. He’s out to set himself up a little empire in the South and Wilkinson will go along with it.”
“Could be all that’s standing in his way is you and me and Tom Jefferson.”
“James Wilkinson is bein’ used. You’d think the governor of the territory’d know better.”
“It’ll all come out in the trial this fall.”
“If we live to get to Richmond,” Will said dryly.
“That brings up another question. What about the women?”
“What about ’em? They’re better off here than anywhere. They’ll have Light, Henry, and Jute to look out for ’em. I’m glad ya brought the woman out to be with Callie.” Will grinned and his eyes narrowed as he watched Jeff’s face. “That’s why ya brung her, wasn’t it?”
“I guess at the start I was doin’ it for Zan, then things changed. I got to thinking that I want a woman of my own, a son to carry on the Merrick name.”
The grin left Will’s face. “Ya think ol’ Aaron’ll be able to waylay us?”
“There’s a good possibility he might. He’s got some of the best in the business working on it. It would have happened back there on the way from Saint Charles if not for Annie Lash.”
The brushfire was almost out. Only a few scattered patches smoldered, sending up wafts of smoke. The men reached the river and Will tossed his hat onto a wild plum bush and knelt beside the water to wash his face.
“Ya always shied away from gettin’ hitched with a woman,” he said when he stood back from the river’s edge and ran his hands over his face to rid it of the water.
“They had their uses.” Jeff’s eyes searched the landscape, a habit of almost a lifetime.
“And this ’un? She ’pears to be a special kind a woman.”
“She is. I guess I never thought I’d meet a woman like her. I don’t know how to treat her, to make her feel comfortable with me.”
Neither man spoke while they studied each other. Will’s light brown hair had grown down to his shoulders and the mustache that curled down from his upper lip added a certain fierceness to his expression. Jeff, taller by half a head, clean shaven, with hair that clung to his head like the wool on a sheep, seldom showed to anyone other than this man the softer side of his nature.
Will nodded, as if in answer to something, and plucked his hat from the bush.
“I’m goin’ to raise my cabin on that bare hill yonder, overlookin’ the bend in the river.”
“It’s a good place near that stand of oaks, but a hell of a long way to drag the logs unless you’re planning on using them.”
Will laughed, slapped his hat against his thigh to rid it of ashes, and pulled it down onto his head. “It won’t be like haulin’ all that rock up from the river when we raised yores.”
Jeff grinned. “I worked the hell outta you, didn’t I?”
“Ya shore as hell did! We made a dandy cabin even if’n it did ’bout break my back.”
“We can do the same to yours.”
“Naw. A stout log cabin with a slab floor will do fine.” He shifted his shoulders and loosened the strap which held the long rifle that had been riding on his back. The gun fit into his hand as naturally as a cane might fit the hand of another man. “Think Light will show up tonight?”
“Can’t say. He was going to scout downriver. Did you notice he let the women think he was cutting trees?”
“It’s good of him not to worry the women. I was hoping that when this was over he’d settle someplace, find himself a woman and some peace.”
“His bitterness runs deep and he covers it well. We’re fortunate that we, and not Burr, have his allegiance.”
“He stops now and then at Simon’s. He likes Fain, too, but he takes a special interest in that little ’un a Berry and Simon’s. He fetched his Indian aunt to help in the birthin’.”
“Nowatha is quite a woman,” Jeff said with a broad grin. “I think the first English words she learned were ‘damn you.’ I wonder what would happen if she’n Biedy got together.”
“It might end in a hair pullin’.” Will laughed. “I can’t see either of ’em steppin’ back fer the other’n.”
They walked up out of a gully and the house was in sight. Jeff’s eyes settled on it. It nestled cozily in the stand of oak and cedar trees. Thin, white smoke drifted from the kitchen chimney and lost itself among the towering branches. While he watched, Annie Lash stepped into the yard, Amos tugging on her hand. The boy spied them, broke loose, and raced toward them. She stood there, not moving, her gaze fixed on them.
“Will! Will! Guess what?” Amos reached them and danced alongside. “Annie Lash let me hold her picture book! She’s got another one ’bout a man left on a island by some mean fellers. She’s goin’ to read the words. Her ’n ma is gonna make grape raisins ’n go berryin’! They’ll put maple sugar in bars if’n Uncle Jeff’ll slash a sugar tree. She said the Injuns call bees white man’s flies, ’cause there warn’t none till the whites come. All of ’em was tame; now they’re wild and all over. Annie Lash said maybe we could find us a honey tree. She said—”
“Whoa, muley! Ya had better a day’n if ya come a burnin’. Tomorry ya go work with Uncle Jeff ’n I’ll stay home ’n talk to Annie Lash.”
“They’re washin’ tomorry.” Amos screwed his face up in disgust. “I’ll have to watch ol’ nasty britches!”
Will laughed and clasped the small hand that crept into his. “Abe’s growin’ fast. This time next year he’ll be a runnin’ ya down.”
“He won’t! And he stinks!”
“So did you at that age.”
“I never!”
“Shore ya did. Even yore Uncle Jeff did.”
“Uncle Jeff did it in his pants, too?” He gazed up at his uncle, who was looking straight ahead at the woman standing in the yard.
“He didn’t wear any pants. He lived in the woods with the grizzly b’ars.”
“Ah, Will . . .”
Jeff didn’t really hear the chatter going on beside him. All his senses were focused on the woman standing in his yard. This was something he’d always remember, he thought. Someday, when he was really old, when the living part of his life was done, he’d remember the way she looked at him that first day when he came home from burning the field to find her waiting with her quiet face turned toward him, the evening sun shining on her glorious hair, the gentle breeze pressing the skirt of her blue dress to hug her slender legs. Jeff was troubled by the thoughts that spiraled through his mind.
What is she thinking, he wondered, when she looks at me with eyes the color of a robin’s egg? Does she hate me for what happened on the raft? Suddenly, he felt sick. Not physically, but in another way, worse than sick. Scared. This woman could take his heart, and more of his soul than a man could spare. She could be his only joy, his love, the all-consuming factor in his life. Everything had gone wrong. His plan was to take a woman, get a son from her, and that was all. All his dealings had been with women who knew their trade, loved nothing, wanted nothing but the coins he’d placed in their hands. His thoughts were an unwieldy jumble as he approached her. The urge to protect this woman was stronger than the urge to take what he was sure he could have by gentling her as he would a skittish mare. It was an odd feeling and it made him uneasy.
Annie Lash’s first thought was to escape back to the house and the safety of Callie’s presence when she saw Will and Jeff following the creek to the house. It took only a few seconds for her to reconsider and realize the absurdity of that first impulsive reaction. Now she waited with her hands clasped in front of her, holding fast to each other so they wouldn’t fly up and smooth the hair that floated about her face. Her thoughts were so absorbed with the approaching men that she failed to notice the two that came from around the barn until Will raised his rifle over his head and hailed them.
“Henry! Jute!” Amos shrieked, running to throw himself at the young black giant of a man who caught him and tossed him in the air before settling him on his shoulders.
They were both huge men and it was hard to tell which was the father and which the son. Their skins were as black as any Annie Lash had ever seen; so black that her only impression was of white eyeballs and flashing white teeth. They wore homespun shirts and leather britches similar to Jeff’s, and low moccasins on their feet.
“How’s it goin’, Henry?”
“Hit’s a doin’ good, Mista Jeff. Dat mule don’ know he’s a pullin’ dat new plow.” The man’s huge black hands twisted the hat he’d removed when he saw Annie Lash. “Lawsy me, we’s goin’ to be done wid plantin’ afore ya knows it.”
“This is Miss Jester, Henry,” Jeff said, then looked at Annie Lash. “Henry and Jute live down along the creek beyond the cottonwoods, yonder.” He lifted his hand and gestured.
Annie Lash had never been introduced to a black before. She didn’t know what to do, so she smiled and nodded her head.
The man’s smile widened. “Missy,” he said, and bobbed his head up and down a few times.
Callie came out of the house. “Jute,” she yelled crossly, “I’m goin’ to take a stick to you, if you don’t stop spoilin’ that youngun!”
Henry laughed. “Ya do dat, Miz Callie. Ya take a board to dat boy if’n ya wants. Ya ketch ’im. I helps ya hol’ ’im down.”
Jute started galloping around the yard with Amos shrieking and holding onto his short, woolly hair. Will shoved his rifle into Jeff’s hands and lifted Abe from Callie’s arms.