Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 01] (5 page)

“Who’re you?”

“Fain. I’m goin’ to give ya a hand and see ya get across.” He looked up at Rachel. “Ya gotta come down off that seat, ma’am. It’s a mite safer for ya to sit on the raft. I’ll get ya an oilskin ta sit on.”

“No! No . . .” Rachel shook her head. She looked as if she would be sick.

“We can’t have ya sittin’ up there,” the man said firmly. He reached for her. “I won’t let ya fall. I’m goin’ to hold on to ya. Ya can count on it.”

Rachel’s eyes swung to Berry. “He won’t, Rachel.” Berry laughed. “From the looks of him, he could lift that ox down from there.”

“Thanky, purty little gal.” The man’s laugh was a soft, rolling chuckle.

It could have been what changed Rachel’s mind. She leaned over and put her hands on his shoulders. He grasped her beneath the arms, carefully lifted her over the wheel, and set her gently on the floor of the raft. She swayed, lowered her chin to her chest, and refused to let him go. “Oh . . . oh . . .”

“It’s all right to be scared. Only a fool ain’t scared some,” the giant murmured to the top of Rachel’s head. “Spread the cloth on the floor, little ’un, so she can sit.” Berry spread the cloth and the man eased Rachel down. “Sit right down, ma’am. When we get goin’ I’ll be right by ya. Don’t you worry none. I can swim like a beaver for all the size of me.”

Berry sat down beside Rachel facing the back of the raft. She saw Simon Witcher standing beside Israel and her pa’s sorrel mare. Why hadn’t he come to speak to them?

“Why’re you helping us?” she asked the big man.

“Wal, now, a man’d hafta be daft to not help purty womenfolk.” He smiled broadly, holding the pipe stem in his teeth.

“Did Mr. Witcher tell you to help us?”

“Not just like that. We knowed ya needed help, and being the fine gentlemen that we are, we jist naturallike pitched right in.” His clean-shaven face was alive with amusement. He was like a big friendly bear.

Berry’s laugh floated out over the water like the song of a bird. Totally unaware that every male eye turned to look at her, she smiled happily into the twinkling eyes that smiled back. She liked this man. Liked him a lot. In all her life she’d not met a man she was more comfortable with, or one who in just a few short minutes had put her so at ease that she trusted him completely. She glanced at Rachel and found that she too was looking at him, and some of the strain had left her face.

Although he squatted beside them they still had to look up to see his face. He took the pipe from his mouth, knocked the ashes out on the floor of the boat, then put it in a pouch that hung on his shirt. “Don’t ya move. I’ll be back.” He stood up. For such a big man he moved lightly.

“Fain. Mr. Fain . . .”

“Fain MacCartney, ma’am.”

“My pa was drunk and didn’t come back to camp last night. Ah . . . we’re wonderin’ where he could be.”

“He ain’t dead. Simon hauled him off and throwed him under our freight wagon. Them river rats he was with musta dosed up his whiskey. Your man’s back thar with your slave, ma’am,” he said to Rachel. “He ain’t gonna be wakin’ up fer a spell.”

“He’s not her man!” The words burst from Berry in bitter anger. “He’s my pa, sorry as he is. That’s all he is!”

“Berry!” Rachel’s face turned crimson and she turned it away from the man’s searching look, so penetrating, yet filled with understanding, that she couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Berry? Is that your name?” Fain said easily, turning the attention from Rachel. “Strawberry or Raspberry? Maybe Chokeberry, huh?”

Berry caught her lower lip between her teeth as she did sometimes when she was trying not to laugh. The damp river air had turned all the loose hair floating around her face into tight curls. Her gray-green eyes sparkled with mischief. Fain thought he’d never seen a prettier, more alive woman in all his thirty-five years. The other one was a beauty too, but sad, and scared like a little doe caught in a trap. He had a sudden urge to throw the girl’s pa in the river once they got halfway across.

Fain cursed silently to himself and moved down the raft to where Simon was helping lash the wheels of the heavy wagon in place. “Are ya goin’ over?”

“No need, if you will. The other boat is coming back. We can load it.”

“Wal, I ain’t goin’ ta be mis-put ’bout that. Them’s might purty women. That little ’un is about as purty as a covey of quail.”

Simon looked at his friend with eyes so dark blue that they appeared black. “That’s the trouble,” he said simply. “Every horny bastard within miles will be after her like flies on a pile of flesh cow dung.” He shrugged. “But it won’t be no concern of mine once her pa sobers up.”

Fain swore under his breath. Simon continued with his work. “Consarn it all! The little ’un said her pa wasn’t the other’n’s man. She blurted it right out, angrylike. What’s that bastard up to?”

“I reckon he figures to start up a tavern and put them in it as a draw.”

“They’d draw, ain’t no doubt about that. Do you reckon they’re that kind?”

Simon chuckled. “If they’re not, the black-haired one’ll fight him ever step of the way. She’s got spunk she hasn’t used yet. The other’n has had the fight taken outta her.”

“Shitfire!” Fain uttered the word and moved back toward the women.

“Watch the boy with the mare,” Simon called, and jumped off the raft as the bargemen untied the ropes so it could drift free.

There were eight men with long poles on each side of the flatboat. They let the craft drift out until the current caught it and the front shifted slightly to the south. Then they worked in unison, poling to the distant point that seemed to be a good way south of where they had embarked.

Berry was surprised at how easily the craft rode in the water. She’d expected it to bob up and down like a cork. Instead, it rode the current so smoothly that scarcely any water lapped up on the planks.

Fain hunkered down beside them. “This is a good time to cross. The snows up north has melted and run down and there’s not been much rain.” He filled his pipe from his leather pouch and stuck it between his teeth. “Consarn it! What’d I do that for? I ain’t got no fire.”

Berry laughed and Rachel smiled shyly.

“Are you a trader like Mr. Witcher?” Berry asked after a brief silence.

“Naw. I’m not a trader. I make a trip or two a year with him. We got land that joins. We got cabins on it. Had to so we could get title, but Simon stays down at my place most of the time. Good man. The best.”

“We hope Pa’s place is by a clear stream. We thought . . .”

“Oh . . . oh!” The end of the raft suddenly swung with the current and Rachel grabbed Fain’s arm.

“It’s all right. That’s not nothin’. Just a little fast water.” He spoke calmly.

“I can’t help it. I’m so afraid.”

“Ya’ll have to learn to swim. Then ya’ll not be scared.” Rachel suddenly realized she was holding his arm. She let go and looked away, embarrassed. Fain stood. “I’d best take a look and see how the boy’s doin’. Sit tight. It’s goin’ to be smooth now.”

“Why’d you tell him Asa’s not my man?” Rachel whispered as soon as he’d left them. “What’s he goin’ to think? From the looks of me, he knows I’ve been with a man!” Her eyes were filled with anguish.

“I told him that so he wouldn’t think you was tied to Asa. If you get a chance, you can go anytime you want to and Asa can’t stop you. You paid out your bond a long time ago.”

Rachel looked at her in horrified silence. When she spoke, her voice trembled. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. I’d not go off and leave you! You . . . and . . .”

“If we get a chance we’ll both go. Maybe there’s a place in Saint Louis where we can work.” Berry’s mouth took on a stubborn look and her eyes narrowed angrily. “He’s not goin’ to knock us around anymore, Rachel. If he hits us again, I might kill him. I don’t want to do it, so it’d be better if we could get away from him.”

“There’s nothing we can do in this wild place. I won’t be no good to you at all for another month. And if this babe comes out right, it’s got to be took care of.” Tears came to Rachel’s eyes, as they had so easily since her pregnancy had begun. “It’d be better if you wasn’t hampered with me. I don’t do nothin’ but hold you down.”

“Don’t you ever say that again, Rachel Warfield!”

“Ain’t Warfield. It’s Tompkins.”

“Tompkins?” Berry said with wonder in her voice. “Just think of all the years I’ve known you and I didn’t know your name was Tompkins.”

“There wasn’t no reason to tell you.” Rachel leaned over her lap and wiped her eyes on the hem of her dress.

“Look. We’re about to the other side. It doesn’t look much different, as far as I can tell. Of course, I know back of those trees there’s nothing but more trees.” Berry laughed lightly and lifted her chin to the cool breeze blowing off the water.

Fain returned and hunkered down beside them. “We’ll be tying up soon. When we do, y’all get back up in the wagon and outta the way. A bunch a rowdys’ll swarm on and lead the teams off. Ya just have to sit tight.”

“Are you leavin’ us?” It was Rachel who asked.

Fain’s face creased in a smile. “I’ll help the boy with the mare. I’ll see ya strung out with your train. Don’t worry none.”

The front of the raft hit the heavy timbers of the dock with a jolt. As soon as the raft stopped rocking, Fain reached down and lifted Rachel to her feet. “Do ya want to stand for a minute after sittin’ for so long?”

Both Berry and Rachel looked at him with astonishment. They’d never had a man treat them with such gentle attentiveness. Their eyes were drawn to his face. A rosy blush covered Rachel’s cheeks.

Berry was used to filling the void when Rachel was speechless. “It’d help. The trip’s been hard on her.”

Fain ignored Rachel’s embarrassment. “I’d ’spect so. Stand here ’n’ hold to the wheel till the blood gets a-goin’. I’ll look and see what the boy’s doin’.”

Fain came back dragging a heavy crate. He placed it beside the wheel, scooped Rachel up in his arms, and, as lightly as a dancer, stepped up on the box and set her down on the wagon seat. “Thar ya are, ma’am.” He looked at Berry. “Your turn, little ’un.” Before she could open her mouth she was high in his arms. He swung her easily up onto the seat.

“That was like bein’ on a swing,” she said, laughing. “Thank you.”

“It was the most pleasurable thin’ I’ve done in a coon’s age,” he admitted with a low chuckle. He stepped away and pulled back the crate.

The men swarmed over the boat as Fain had said they would. Rachel and Berry watched from the wagon seat. The ox was untied and led off the boat and up a short ramp to level ground. Berry jumped off the wagon and went to lead the beast up the trail where she could see members of their party waiting.

Rachel cringed when she saw the leering looks of the boatmen as they gazed at Berry walking beside the ox, her young body swaying gracefully, her hair shining in the bright sunlight. Rachel’s heart contracted painfully. They were in a wild, rough land among wilder and rougher men than they had ever known.

T
he settlement of Saint Louis was larger than it had appeared when Berry viewed it from across the river. It was situated on ground not much higher than the river and protected from flood by a natural bank of limestone. Behind the town, to the west, on a forty-foot bluff, was a small stockade with several circular towers and a stone breastwork. It had been built as a defense against the Indians but now was used only occasionally by the soldiers.

There was one main road through the center of the town. It was rutted, dusty, and now filled with wagons, carts, dogs, and excited children; emigrants from Ohio seeking new homes. Weary farm women followed behind the wagons to urge a cow along or to hit at a village dog that ran out to nip at their heels.

The street ran parallel to the river and was lined on both sides with shops and dwellings. Other tracks led off toward the bluffs. The houses on these roads were of various sizes; some made of log and stone, some built cabin-fashion, all one-storied. They looked, Berry thought, permanent, solid, and grand.

Black-suited merchants and clerks with suspenders and sleeves rolled to the elbow came out to watch the caravan of settlers pass. They stood on porches or plank walkways built from the lumber of wrecked keelboats. Dark-skinned bargemen lingered in front of taverns and watched the young girl walking beside the ox. Several called out to her and some guffawed loudly when a dog ran out and nipped at her heels. She turned the switch on the cur, and it yelped and slunk off between the buildings.

Berry wished, desperately, that she was sitting on the wagon seat with a nice sunbonnet on her head. She would have liked to look her fill at the stores that lined the street and at the people who watched them pass. Instead, she kept her eyes straight ahead as if she weren’t tired, dirty, and embarrassed to be stared at. Saint Louis was the largest town she’d ever seen. Mr. Benson had told her there were almost eight hundred people living there, but even so she was not prepared for its size; it was so much larger than she had expected.

Simon and Fain came out of a stone building on the edge of town and watched the caravan pass. Simon’s eyes, shaded by his flat-brimmed hat, focused immediately on the girl. She walked as proudly as if she were promenading along a fine boardwalk. The dust raised by the wagons ahead swirled around her, settled on her shiny black hair, and clung to her damp skin. Her chin was tilted with determination not to be intimidated by the stares of the curious. She was the most incredibly lovely creature Simon had ever seen.

Fain watched his friend’s face. Simon’s eyes were narrowed, the dark brows lowered and drawn together. He stood as if turned to stone. He was plainly a man with things on his mind and not in a talkative mood. When Fain turned his steady blue gaze back to the wagons, he was surprised to see the wagon seat now vacant. His own brows beetled in question as the wagon passed. Then he saw a pale face topped with straw-blond hair peeking out of the puckered end of the wagon. Rachel seemed to be looking at him, but when he smiled and waved, she didn’t return the greeting and swiftly moved out of sight.