Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (3 page)

Amy came out of the wagon and climbed onto the seat. “He’s sleepin’, but he makes a awful racket.”

Liberty looked at her shivering sister. There was a scared, peaked look on her freckled face. Good heavens! She had forgotten how it upset Amy for her to argue with their father. Oh, God, she prayed. Please don’t let Amy get sick. Liberty’s greatest fear was that something would happen to Amy. Next was the fear that Stith Lenning would follow them into the wilderness.

“You’re all wet, love. Get back in there, put on something dry, and stay out of the rain. You don’t have to be afraid you’ll catch what Jubal has. Those ignorant louts that left us here wouldn’t know lung sickness from the pox.”

“Aren’t you hungry, Libby?”

“Sure, I am. We’ll be out of this bog soon. There’s a rise up ahead where I think we can stop. Papa should be able to find some dry wood for a fire under that thick stand of trees and I’ll fix us something hot. We’ll spend the day there. The wagons up ahead can’t make time in weather like this either.”

Liberty walked beside the oxen. Her long homespun dress was wet. It molded her shoulders and high pert breasts and clung to her slender thighs as she walked. She was not a tall girl, but her erectness and the proud way she carried her head made her seem tall. Her face was smooth and slightly tanned, a perfect oval frame for her straight, golden brown brows and large, clear, deep set eyes that were as blue as the feathers on a young bluejaw. Her slightly tilted nose and soft, red mouth were just there in her face, because it was her curly blond hair, a legacy from her Swedish mother, that drew one’s attention. She wore it parted in the middle, and now it hung to her hips in two long, soggy braids that were secured at the ends by a heavy linen string. In the rain the short hair about her face curled in ringlets so tight they resembled small corkscrews plastered to her forehead.

Back in Middlecrossing no one paid much attention to the color of her hair because there were so many blonds among the Dutch and Swedish families in the area. But the farther west they came, the more it was noticed, and in Louisville the rivermen had hooted and whistled when the string broke and her bonnet went sailing in the wind.

Liberty guided the oxen to a place where the branches of two huge oaks intermingled, making a canopy under which they could park the wagon. She could see where another wagon had parked in this place and where the traveler had left a circle of stones, made to enclose a cookfire.

She hoisted her skirts and climbed into the wagon as soon as she picketed the extra horse. Amy had changed her clothes and put on one of their father’s old buckskin shirts that hung below her knees. She climbed out onto the wagon seat and down the wheel to the ground.

“Jubal, are you awake?” Liberty knelt down and peered into his face.

“Libby?” he said weakly and groped for her hand. He held it to his feverish cheek. “I’m sorry I’m no help to you.”

“You will be when you’re feeling better. We’ll get a fire going and I’ll make you some hot switchel.”

“I don’t know, Libby. I don’t know if I can drink it.” His voice rasped and a severe fit of coughing seized him.

“Of course you can. I’ll put in a dab of rum.” She spoke gently when his coughing subsided. “You’ll get well, and we’ll build us a place near the river where you can get the finest clay to make your pots. People need jugs out here, too. Maybe we can send them downriver to New Orleans. I’ll do the farming and we’ll have milk and butter and eggs to make the nog you like so much.”

“I’m not much good to you, Libby.” His voice was so much like her father’s defeated voice that it frightened her.

“Yes, you are. You’re going to get well, or I’ll . . . or I’ll snatch you plumb bald, Jubal Perry. That’s what I’ll do,” she threatened with a catch in her voice, hoping he would smile.

He didn’t.

“We’re going to have that place we dreamed about, away from Stith Lenning, away from all of those pissants back in Middlecrossing who thought a jug was a jug as long as it held their corn liquor.” She brought his thin hand to her cheek, one of the few gestures of affection she had ever shown him.

“Is it still raining, Libby? I don’t know as I ever felt the cold and damp so much. I don’t know how Hammond has stood this country.”

“It’s only a puny little old drizzle now. Tomorrow the sun will be out and will dry things off. Try to sleep, Jubal. Are you warm enough?”

“I guess so. Are we keeping up? It seems like we go so slow and stop a lot.”

“We’re keeping up. We’re all stopping today because of the weather. It won’t be long, Jubal, and you’ll see Hammond.” Liberty felt not a twinge of guilt for the lie she was telling. She would tell a hundred lies, she vowed, if it would ease Jubal’s mind.

“I hope so. You’d better get out of those wet clothes or you’ll come down with the fever.” He wearily closed his eyes.

Liberty looked at him for a moment. His mouth was agape as he struggled to get air to his lungs. The daylight that filtered through the thick forest made the interior of the wagon dark and gloomy and gave a yellowish cast to his face. She could not remember feeling more helpless or more alone. It was her fault they were there. Jubal had given up everything to try to keep her out of Stith’s clutches. She knew it wasn’t fear for his life that prompted him to leave Middlecrossing. He had taken a fatalistic attitude about Stith killing him. Now he would die and be left in this lonely place.

She stroked his hot, dry brow and thought back to the day she had married Jubal. She had been sure Stith would back off and leave her alone, but that wasn’t the case. He seemed to be all the more determined. As the days, weeks and months passed, she was afraid to be alone even long enough to go to the outhouse. She talked it over with Jubal and they had decided to move West. Together they had reread the letters he had received over the last few years from his brother, Hammond, telling about the free land in the Illinois and Indiana country. He was a militiaman, and when Ohio became a state in 1803, he had been sent further west to posts along the Ohio River. At Limestone they were told he was at Louisville, and there they were told he was at Vincennes, so they had joined the party led by Hull Dexter, who promised to take them to the village on the Wabash River.

Liberty allowed herself one brief moment of regret for the pain she had caused her gentle husband, then she squared her shoulders and climbed out of the wagon. She unhitched the oxen and staked them beneath the tree where they could reach the long, green grass. Elija and Amy searched for dry wood. They found some and piled it beside the wagon. Liberty dug punk from a rotten log, poured on a small amount of black powder, then struck steel against flint to make a spark. It caught suddenly, and she fed in small twigs until it blazed brightly.

“How’s Jubal?” Elija asked without looking at her. It would take the rest of the day for him to end his pouting.

“His cough is worse.”

“He’ll choke is what he’ll do. Lung fever’s bad. Mighty bad. It dang near killed off the army at the Potomac. General Washington was in a fine kettle a fish, I tell you. Why, when I was a boy, my papa said—”

“Get some more wood, Papa. Then we’ve got to build some sort of shelter so I can cook something hot for Jubal and Amy.”

“Papa do this, Papa do that,” he grumbled. “Papa’s good enuff ta work, but he ain’t good enuff to listen to. And his advice ain’t worth a flitter.”

“Advice is like croton oil. It’s easy to give to someone else.” Liberty tried to take the sting from her words by smiling at her sister as she took a load of wood from her arms. “Are you warm now?”

“Uh huh. But I’m hungry.”

“I’ll make some pap and lace it with molasses. It’ll be good for Jubal too.”

“Won’t do no good. Won’t do no good a’tall.” Elija fed wood to the growing fire. “I told him it was foolhardy to come out here. I told him he ain’t the buildin’ kind a man. But it’s too late now.” He shook his head sadly. “Way too late.”

Liberty suspended the kettle over the fire, boiled the water, and sifted in finely ground cornmeal. While it bubbled, she filled the copper pot with water to make tea and the switchel for Jubal. She went to the wagon to feed him before she ate, but he was asleep and didn’t respond when she called his name.

They spent the rest of the morning looking for dry firewood, and most of the afternoon erecting a shelter. Elija complained about his back, and finally, with Liberty and Amy doing most of the work, the poles were set and a canvas that reached from the end of the wagon was stretched over them and tied down. The end of the canvas overhung the fire and helped throw the heat inside, dispelling the dampness inside the wagon.

“There’s gotta be a town here somewhere.” Elija had thrown himself down by the fire and hadn’t moved for an hour. “Them tracks is rutted. Wagons aplenty has been headin’ fer somewhere. Hull Dexter might not a been tryin’ to hornswaggle us, Libby. He could a knowed we be ’bout there.”

“Fiddle faddle! Of course those tracks are heading somewhere or else he wouldn’t be following them. And we’re not about there. Hull Dexter cheated us. He’s not scouting for us, hunting, protecting us from the savages. He left us to fend for ourselves because those ignorant louts thought Jubal had the flux. He refused to give any of our money back. He’s a rotten skunk, not fit for crow bait!”

Liberty was bone-tired, her mind not on what she was saying. Her gaze fixed abstractedly on the dim trail that disappeared into the thick forest. She was feeling lower and more frightened than she had in all her life. They were in a dense forest with a coach pistol and a rifle to defend themselves. And Jubal was dying. He hadn’t wanted to eat. He had swallowed barely a spoonful of food. When she tried to force it into his mouth he had choked. Late in the afternoon he had become delirious and had messed on the bedclothes. She had changed them, taken the soiled covers back down to the rain pond and washed them. Now darkness was drawing near, and she stood shivering, not wanting to listen to her father’s dire predictions.

“Bake your back for a while, Papa,” she said crossly. “I’ve got to get out of these wet clothes.”

Elija grunted and turned his back to her. “Ya want that I whittle ya a whistle, Amy?”

“If you want to.” Amy looked up at her sister and grinned. “He thinks I’m still a baby.”

Liberty loosened Amy’s braids and spread her hair over her shoulders so it would dry. “If it makes him happy, let him do it,” she whispered. “It gives him something to do.”

Darkness grew thicker. Elija rolled up in a blanket with his back to the fire. Liberty stood shivering in her shift and pantaloons. She had peeled off her dress and her petticoats, hanging them over two saplings she had thrust in the ground with the tops tied together.

The firelight flickered against her white skin and the heat dried her undergarments. Turning often to keep from burning on one side, she unbraided her hair and ran her fingers into it, lifting it to shake it. In this pose of arrested motion she saw the tall man standing on the fringe of light made by their fire.

“Oh! My heavens!”

The shock was so acute, she was stunned motionless for a few seconds. Then she dived for the heavy coach pistol she had kept nearby.

L
iberty cocked the gun and pointed it at the man who stood just inside the circle of light. He wore a buckskin shirt with the tail outside and belted about the waist. Fringed leather pants were tucked inside his knee-high fringed moccasins. He was taller than average with wide shoulders and chest, but with a lean trimness. His flat-crowned, round-brimmed hat sat low on his forehead so that Liberty couldn’t see his eyes, but she saw a narrow nose, prominent cheekbones and wide mouth with a white scar at the corner. His free hand held the barrel of a long rifle, the stock resting on the ground beside his foot. In his other arm he held a sleeping child.

“What do you mean sneaking up on us? What do you want?” Fright made her voice shrill.

Elija rolled from the blanket and got to his feet. “What, what . . . Who’re you?”

The stranger stood quietly and Elija’s eyes went to Liberty, standing in her underdrawers, holding the pistol in both hands.

“Libby! Ya ain’t decent. Get some clothes on. Gimme that pistol.” He snatched it from her hand and stood in front of her.

“I saw your fire,” the man said. “I’ve come from the river.” He took several steps before Liberty’s words stopped him.

“What river? Don’t come any closer. Lean that gun against a tree and stay right there.” She peered out from behind Elija. When the man did as he was told, she snatched up her dress, slipped it over her head, and pulled the drawstrings at the neck and waist. She pulled her hair free and let it hang down her back. When she was decently covered she stepped out from behind her father. “Now, who are you and what do you want?”

“The name’s Farrway Quill, ma’am. As to
wanting
something, well, I saw your fire and thought a visit with folks and a cup of tea would be comforting. The river I come from is the Ohio. It runs a few miles south of here.” His voice carried a slight flavor of the south, and yet he bit off his words sharply. “But I’ll not force my company on you. I’ll take my leave.”

“Hold on,” Elija said. “Liberty, my daughter, is edgy. Come on in. Come right on in. Sister,” he said to Amy, “get a cup and pour Mr. Quill some tea.” He shoved the pistol into Liberty’s hands. “Put that thing away.”

Elija’s commanding tone riled Liberty, but she bit back the retort that came to her mind. He liked people to think he was in control. If he would really take control, she wouldn’t mind, but this playacting always irritated her.

Elija stepped out and offered the man his hand. “Elija Carroll, of the Virginia Carrolls, late of New York State. Ya gotta excuse our manners. We jist ain’t used to bein’ out here in the wilderness all by our ownselves this way. I’ll be dodfetched if’n we meant ta be standoffish.”

“No offense. It pays to be careful.”

When the stranger came forward Liberty could see that he had a huge pack on his back, and that the child sleeping on his shoulder was a little girl. Her long blond hair had been tied at the nape of her neck and in several more places down the long rope. She was covered with a piece of soft doeskin. Liberty took a quilt from the back of the wagon and spread it on the ground sheet Amy had been sitting on. She indicated with a nod of her head that the man could place the child on it. He knelt down and with a large hand on the back of her head, placed her on the quilt and covered her with the doeskin. The child’s feet were bare, and she wore what appeared to be a man’s ragged homespun shirt.