Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 01] (17 page)

Biedy Cornick left the men standing in the yard and came toward Berry. She was the plainest woman Berry had ever seen. Her bright blue eyes played up and down and over Berry like a blue flame. Not one of the men had uttered a word, but now Berry heard soft chuckles as they watched the birdlike woman come to the house.

There was absolutely nothing pretty about Biedy Cornick. Her features were sharp, her lips thin, and the hair that framed her face was a fine, brown fuzz. She wore a black apron over a faded butternut dyed homespun dress. She carried herself like a young girl, head up, shoulders back, her feet moving lightly across the ground. It was impossible to tell her age.

When she reached Berry she walked right up to her and enfolded her in her arms. “Land a goshin’! If’n ya ain’t ’bout the purtiest thing I ever set my eyes on.” She laughed. Her voice was like a melody, soft and flowing. “Course, ya ain’t the one havin’ the youngun. I can see that. I’m Biedy Cornick, come to help with the birthin’.” She clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “I know what hurtin’ goes with birthin’. I had me four boys. They’re about grown now. I’d-a give my right arm for a girl—a purty little gal such as you are.”

“The baby came last night, Mrs. Cornick.”

“It’s come? Glory be! Them men coulda said so! Call me Biedy—ever’one does when they ain’t a-callin’ me chatterbox.” The musical laughter came again.

“I’m Berry Rose War—”

“Berry? Oh . . . Bring in that berry pie, Fain. If’n it’s fit to eat I’ll be surprised, what with the way Jeff was a-sloshin’ it this-a-way and that-a-way. Bring the butter, too,” she called over her shoulder. “Land sakes! Much as that man takes to butter’n thin’s, he oughtta keep a cow.” She untied her sunbonnet and jerked it from her head. “Wheee . . . it’s gonna be a scorcher today.” She moved past Berry and went into the cabin, tiptoeing and smiling. “There you is. Are ya a-makin’ out all right? Are ya wore out? Birthin’ ain’t easy.”

Berry followed Biedy into the room, stood beside the table, and watched her swoop down on Rachel. Her lips curled in a smile when she saw the look on Rachel’s face. The woman was like a whirlwind, but like a ray of sunshine, too.

“I’m Biedy,” she said to Rachel before she turned the force of her attention on the baby. “It’s been a coon’s age since I held me a baby.” Rachel turned back the cover and the woman needed no other invitation. She lifted Faith and cuddled her in the curve of her arm, clucking and crooning.

“Her name is Faith,” Rachel murmured.

“It’s a girl baby? Glory be! Faith, ya say? It’s a suitable name.” Biedy’s bright eyes softened and her mouth gentled as she looked at the baby. “You’re jist as purty a youngun as I ever did see, lovey.” She made dovelike sounds in her throat and rocked from side to side.

Berry exchanged glances and pleased smiles with Rachel and glided out the door.

*    *    *

Simon was bathing at the spring when he heard the shout that told him Jeff Merrick and Will Murdock had arrived with Biedy Cornick. Cleanliness was not a luxury to Simon. It was a necessity that went back to the time he had spent with the Pollard family. There, he and the other children were bathed once a week the year around, whereas their friends were bathed only occasionally in the summer. The habit had stayed with him, and during the warm weather he seldom let two days go by without a dunking in the river or a stream.

He toweled his wet head and dressed quickly. He liked and respected the two Virginians who had come out over a year ago to take up a parcel of land on the Missouri beyond the Cornicks’ place. He was almost sure the two were involved in the political intrigue that had flourished in the territory since the land had been purchased by the United States. But their politics were of no concern to him. They were good, reliable men and good company. It was through them that he had met Lightbody, the French-and-Indian scout they called Light.

The late-afternoon sun shone softly on the leaves and the ground when he left the woods. He sniffed, gratefully identifying the mingling odor of pine, rotting vegetation, and the delicate scent of yellow and purple wildflowers. He loved the forest. Loved it much more than any river. Each month now, new encroachments were made on it as the eastern settlers moved in to establish homesteads. You’ll either have to adjust to the population increase or move on, he often told himself.

Cutting around back of the cabin, he unexpectedly came upon Berry. Only minutes ago, while bathing, he had found himself thinking of the arm that had circled his neck and the soft breasts that had pressed against him. He had even found himself looking around for a glimpse of her as he came out of the woods; but now, the sight of her gave him a guilty start. She was standing at the end of the dogtrot, her head tilted back against the rough logs, her eyes closed. She was not aware of his nearness.

“Berry.” Her eyes opened. “Are you asleep?”

She stammered for something to say. The smile on his usually solemn brown face and the gleam of the afternoon sun on his dark, wet hair completely wiped all logical thought from her mind.

“I was listening to the sounds.” It seemed to her a stupid thing to say even if it was true. He didn’t laugh.

“I do that sometimes,” he admitted. “The best place to listen is deep in the woods. If you’re still enough, you can hear an owl snore in a tree above your head.”

The smile on her face was brilliant when she realized he was teasing. He found he could not take his gaze away from her sparkling gray-green eyes and high dark brows, her small nose, and her soft, full mouth. He had an almost irresistible urge to take the pins from her hair and set it free. Anything so beautiful and alive shouldn’t be twisted and confined in that harsh knot on the top of her head.

Blast it! What was the matter with him that he stood there staring at her? He’d seen women more beautiful than this one; women who made pleasing a man their life’s work.

“Next you’ll be telling me you can hear a cloud float overhead.”

Her soft voice and the low musical laughter that followed it drew him back to the present and he looked away from her. He felt a tightening in his throat and with it a kind of terror, like that of a child awakening in the dark to find himself half-smothered by a blanket. For one frightening second he imagined himself bound by soft clinging arms, always holding him back.

Berry was very aware that he looked at her strangely. Dark blue eyes bored into hers, eyes bordered by thick, dark lashes. His irises were truly blue, but so dark that they appeared black at this close range. She could see that his eyes had widened, as if he was surprised by something he saw in hers.

“Has Biedy got things under control?”

It wasn’t at all what she had expected him to say. She nodded while her mind searched for a logical reply.

Fain’s booming laughter shattered the quiet. Simon took a step back, glanced around the corner of the house, nodded to her, and moved out of sight. Berry heard him greet his friends and listened to the voices as they moved away from the cabin. She rested her head against the rough logs, shut her eyes, and recalled the moment when she was held clasped in his arms, his lips on hers. She could feel her body crying to be close to him again, her lips hungering for his kisses. Could he rouse her as he did and feel nothing in return? What could she do? Nothing. It was ever a woman’s fate to wait for the man’s next move.

*    *    *

Jefferson Merrick was a big man with hair so light that at first it appeared to be gray, but he was a young man. His eyes were dark brown and he had a week’s growth of brown whiskers on his cheeks. He wore buckskin pants and shirt much like the French voyageurs wore, but without the fringe and bead decorations. His deerskin moccasins were well worn, as were those of his friend Will. Both men moved with the ease of those who had long used their feet for transportation through the dense forest that lay east of the river.

Jeff squatted with his back to a tree, his long gun in his arms. He handed it over to Fain when the big man reached for it. Fain caressed the carved stock, lifted it to test the balance, and sighted down the long barrel.

“Should hit a pimple on a blue jay’s ass at ninety yards,” he murmured. “That’s if a man knows how to shoot it.”

Jeff laughed. “I’ll put my shootin’ with that rifle up against any in the territory.”

“I hadn’t oughtta let you hornswoggle me out of it. It’s the best I ever made.”

“Hornswoggle! Listen to that, Will! I gave the old cuss everything but the skin off my back.” He reached for the gun. “Give it back, you old son of a goat. She’s my wilderness wife, by gawd!”

Pride in his work was etched in Fain’s face. He handed the rifle back to Jeff. There was a proud, wide grin on his face. “Wilderness wife, huh? It’d be a cold comfort to snuggle up to in the wintertime.”

“Not if the wolves were a-howlin’ at the door or the Indians breathin’ down your neck.”

“Speaking of Indians,” Simon said. “Are you still on good terms with the Osage?”

“So far. They seem to be fascinated by the two black men who live up on the place. They’ve taken them into the tribe, shared their women. Besides, the Osage and the Delawares are on the warpath and too busy to pay much attention to settlers.”

“How’s your apprentice a-doin’?” Will asked in the slurry tones of a Virginian.

Fain laughed and glanced at Simon. “Well . . . if he lives to be a hundred he might learn a thin’ or two about gunsmithin’. He’s a good lad, just ain’t handy with borin’ tools and the like.”

“Did he ever say exactly where he come from?” Jeff asked.

“Back east,” Simon said. “I guess he went to Harvard College for a year and to the university at Paris. That’s about all we know about him except he was about to be thrown into debtors’ prison for family debts and skipped out. He drifted down the Trace and ended up in Saint Louis. He came into the warehouse one day and I told him about Fain being a gunsmith. It was something he wanted to do, he said, so he wandered on up here and made a bargain with Fain.”

“He’s a better cook than gunsmith, that’s certain,” Fain added with a chuckle.

“Is he staying around awhile?”

Fain looked at Jeff sharply. It wasn’t like the man to ask so many questions. “Dunno. Ain’t bothered to ask.” He knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “Ya got a notion about Fish?”

“The name Edmund Aston rang a bell when I first heard it, but nothing’s cleared in my mind since.”

“I’d almost forgot his name.” Simon ran his fingers through his still-damp hair. “We’ve called him Fish since Eben pulled him out of the river. The name stuck. He didn’t seem to mind.”

Jeff stood. “We’ve got to be a-pushing on. I’d like to stay and eat some of Biedy’s pie, but can’t spare the time.” The men walked toward the river and the fast skiff they had beached there.

“We’re a-headin’ for Natchez to see the sights.” Will carefully placed his rifle in the boat. “Whoeeeeee . . . I’m gonna find me a sweet, soft woman ’n’ stay abed a week!” His blue eyes twinkled and he jumped in the air and clicked his feet together.

“You’d not last a week,” Jeff teased, then said to Simon and Fain, “If Light comes back this way, ask him to check on the homestead. Henry and Jute would be glad for his company.”

“We’ll do that. Thanks for bringing Biedy.” Simon shook hands with the two men.

“It’s a shame you can’t wait to meet the two purtiest womenfolk to come down the pike,” Fain said when the men stepped into the boat. “Second thought, seein’ your ugly faces mighta scared the wits outta ’em.”

“From what Lardy told us, they don’t scare easy. They sound like gutsy women, my kind of womenfolk.” Will smiled his cool, dry smile, but his eyes teased. “You’re lucky I ain’t a-stayin’ ’round. I’m a-goin’ to let ya get a little head start before I come a-courtin’.”

“Are ya gonna have to listen to that braggin’ all the way to Natchez, Jeff?” Fain called as the boat pulled away.

“He’ll get tired o’ talking to himself,” Jeff said cheerfully. Then: “Are the women going back east?”

“We’re not sure what they’re going to do,” Simon called as the boat pulled away.

They stood on the bank and watched the current catch the canoe. In a few minutes it was around the bend and out of sight. They walked back up the slope toward the house. A burst of feminine laughter came from the open door of the cabin.

“It sounds good a-hearin’ womenfolk in the house,” Fain said, and then seemed embarrassed that he’d voiced his thought.

Simon didn’t answer, but silently he agreed.

S
imon had been gone for four days, and the thought of him was ever in Berry’s mind. She thought about his homestead a great deal, too, visualizing a tight, neat cabin and outbuildings, seeing herself there as mistress of it all, loved, cherished beyond all Simon’s other possessions. Sometimes in the evenings she would walk out toward the river and give herself up to the recollection of his hands gripping her arms, his mouth against hers, and the lean tautness of his body when he lifted her off her feet to kiss her. At other times she was disgusted with herself for lusting after the tall trader with the quiet, dark face and blue-black eyes.

Berry worked from sunup to sunset each day, enjoying Biedy’s cheerful companionship, Rachel’s bright, happy face, and the wonder of the baby who slept peacefully most of the time. The double cabin had been scrubbed from top to bottom, the clothes washed and put away, candles made, corn ground for bread and cakes. Fain supplied an abundance of fresh-killed foul for hearty meals, and Berry and Biedy scoured the woods to find salad greens, poke, and fresh green shoots from the wild grapevines to cook with the meat.

Israel had learned to catch the huge catfish that frolicked in the river, and Biedy had taught Berry how to bake them covered with red clay and buried beneath the coals of the outdoor fire.

“I ’spect Silas ’n’ the boys will be here tomorry or the next day to fetch me home,” Biedy said one evening. She sat in Fain’s big chair, her feet barely reaching the floor, and cuddled Faith in her arms. “It’s goin’ to be plumb miserable leavin’ this little lovey. Are ya sure you won’t come along home with me, Rachel? You’re welcome. You’re just as welcome as plum blossoms in the spring. You ’n’ Berry both. Why, my land! Two unhitched women in this wild place is rare as a green rooster! There’s men all over this territory what’ll be flockin’ about ya like bears after honey when they hear. Now, if’n my boys was a mite older, I’d steal ya away for ’em.”