Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (8 page)

“Liberty?” he whispered. “Liberty, are you awake?”

“Of course,” she said testily, becoming fully alert. “What is it?”

“We’ll rest here for an hour.”

“I don’t need to rest—”

“The horses do. We can water them here, and they can feed while we rest. Give me the boy. I’ll lay him down and come back for Amy and Mercy.”

Her arms felt magically light when the boy was taken from them. Now only Amy rested against her. She scarcely had had time to untie the shawl when Farr returned and lifted Amy into his arms. Liberty flexed her shoulders and moved her head in a circular motion in an effort to ease her tired muscles. Her father sat his horse directly behind her. Farr went to him and lifted Mercy down from in front of him.

Liberty knew she should get off the horse, but she was powerless to move. Pain, like a giant hand, was squeezing her legs and thighs. Her bottom was numb and her back ached from her tailbone to the base of her skull.

“Let me help you.”

“I’ll get off in a minute.”

Ignoring her protest, he lifted her from the horse with strong hands at her waist. She didn’t know when her feet touched the ground because they were numb, and her legs seemed boneless. She sagged against Farr, clinging to him to keep from falling. A whimper escaped her lips as the blood rushed to her numbed limbs. Her mind was mixed and unclear, but she knew that the arms that held her were strong, and there was no threat in that strength. Her face pressed against a smooth buckskin shirt that smelled of smoke, male body, and the peculiar, heavy, yet clean odor that was found only in tall timber.

He tilted his head downward, the better to see her face. “Are you all right?”

She laughed nervously and tried to step back, but her knees bent. “I’m not used to riding.” Before she finished speaking he had swung her up in his arms. “Oh, no! I can walk.” She hadn’t been carried since she was a child. Afraid of being so high off the ground, she raised her arms to encircle his neck and cling.

Farr carried her to where he had placed the children, knelt, and gently set her on the ground beside them. They lay on one shawl and were covered with the other. When his arms left her she instantly felt the cool, damp air.

“Don’t fall asleep.” The words were breathed in her ear before he released her. “Sit for a bit, then move around, or you’ll get stiff.”

“I’ll help with the horses.”

“Your pa can help. You stay here,” he said firmly and left her, moving swiftly and silently.

Liberty sat for a moment, then rolled over onto her knees and got slowly and carefully to her feet. Her buttocks and thighs ached, and every muscle in her body quaked with weakness. She stumbled to a tree, put her palms flat on the trunk and stood there until her light-headedness passed and the terrific pounding of her heart subsided a little.

Farr removed the saddle from her horse and after a few murmured words to Elija, he followed suit. They led the horses to where a ribbon of glimmering water snaked through the clearing. Liberty picked up the water bag he had left on the ground beside the children and stumbled after them.

“I ain’t seein’ no need a ridin’ all night with them younguns and jist awearin’ ourselves out,” Elija said when Liberty came up beside him and knelt down to fill the water bag. “We ain’t agoin’ to outrun nobody. We’ll jist—”

“Please hush up, Papa,” she said tiredly. “You could have turned back, but you chose to come with us. You’ll do just as Mr. Quill tells you to do. Can’t you see that he’s doing his best to save our lives?”

“Life ain’t hardly worth livin’ out here’n this place God forgot about, nohow. Twarn’t worth much back home, either, what with ya always naggin’ do this, do that, and holdin’ so tight to the purse strings a man’d die a thirst afore ya squeezed out a shillin’. Work is all ya want to do. I ain’t been fishin’ fer so long I’ve plumb forgot how.”

Farr led the horse back from the stream and staked him in the shadows of the huge trees so he could eat the tall grass. Grumbling, Elija followed.

Liberty stood beside the stream after her father left her, her head bowed, her unseeing gaze on the rippling water. Tears of frustration filled her eyes. Her unruly hair had worked loose and its shining curls made a decorative frame for her strong, still, beautiful face. In her chest her heart pounded to the rhythm of the words that beat in her mind. It was not true! It was not true! She nagged because she had to, she cried silently, and she held the purse strings tight because otherwise it would all have been spent at the Bloody Red Ox.

An owl hooted nearby, and an answer came from some distant place. Like a doe who sensed danger, she tensed, poised, and tilted her head in a listening position. Stories of Indian atrocities flooded her mind.

“It
was
an owl.” Farr’s voice came out of the darkness and she turned to see him beside her.

“How do you know?”

“The crickets are still singing back in the woods. I’m reasonably sure we’re all right here for a while, but put your shawl over your head. That hair of yours shines like a candle in the moonlight.” He lay down on the rocks bordering the stream, removed his hat, and plunged his face into the water.

Liberty draped the shawl over her head, held it together beneath her chin, and watched him. He was the most confident man she had ever known. There was something plain and honest and earthy in his manner, not at all like the men in Middlecrossing. It amazed her that Farrway Quill, a stranger, had stepped in and assumed responsibility for them. Farrway Quill. She liked his name, his face, his gentleness with the children, his quick decisions. He was the type of man who would tame this vast wilderness.

She had yearned to be a part of the western movement, to build a home in a new land. She still wanted that despite all that had happened since they started the journey. She would have a house standing by itself in the center of her land, she mused. One that would withstand summer storms, give warmth in winter and protect her from wild things. Before the sun was up she would be hard at work growing vegetables, flax and corn, finding berries and greens and nuts in the woods. She would make hot breads and meat stews for her man when he came in from a hard day of labor. They would go to a bed spread with woolen sheets she had woven. . . .

All these thoughts flashed through Liberty’s mind while she watched Farr wipe the water from his face with his two hands and slam his hat back on his head. She was grateful for the darkness that hid her flaming face when he looked at her and was ashamed that she could think of another man with her husband so newly laid to rest. But Jubal was not a
husband,
she reasoned, more like a dear friend. She had never lain in his arms, he had never lifted her and held her to his chest, or kissed her with passion. Jubal was not strong enough to take care of himself, much less a wife. He was not strong about anything. The main difference between him and her father was that Jubal didn’t complain.

Farr stood looking down at her, his long body relaxed, a boneless grace that was neither anxious nor indifferent. While he waited for her to speak, time and space seemed to shrink to the small, rocky place where they stood beside the stream.

“Liberty?” He said her name slowly.

“You think it’s a silly name

“No. It suits you.”

“My mother’s people came from Philadelphia. When the Liberty Bell arrived from London in 1752, my great-grandfather helped to place it in Independence Hall. And twenty-four years later, my mother was allowed to tug on the rope when the bell rang on Independence Day. Because she was very proud of that, she named me Liberty.”

She met his look with unsmiling calm while an almost frantic uneasiness leaped within her. Actually this man was a stranger. Could it be that only one night, a day and part of another night had passed since she first set eyes on him? So much had happened in such a short time. Why did she babble on and on when she was with him? Did he think she was bragging about her mother’s connection with the famous bell?

“What are you thinking about when you stand so still, watching me with those big, sad eyes?” His voice was soft and intimate. She thought it had a teasing quality too, but he was not smiling.

She turned away, letting her glance move around the meadow to the trees that edged it. She knew she must speak, and speak casually. She looked back at him, then dropped her eyes. It was a strange feeling that washed over her, as if she lacked breath, as if she were sad to the point of tears, yet she was excited to be alone with him.

“I don’t know that I should tell you.”

“Why?”

“You’d think I’ve taken leave of my senses.” She tilted her face, looked up at him, and smiled provocatively, unaware that she was doing so. Her mouth was wide and straight, its beauty was in the swift mobile movements of her lips as they parted over her even white teeth.

“I might. I don’t know much about women.”

“And I don’t know much about men . . . like you.”

“Like me? Why am I different? I’m a man like any other. I get tired, hungry, angry, scared. I get lonely, I dream—”

“About what?”

“About most things a man dreams about, I guess.”

“Why did you stay with us?” she asked, wishing she were less conscious of his nearness.

“Maybe I wanted you to take Mercy off my hands.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“No.”

“Why, then? Hull Dexter went off and left us.”

“I like to think I’m a cut above Hull Dexter,” he said with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

“Do you think he ran off and left those folks?”

“What else can I think? I saw no sign of a fight.”

“It would be like him. He ran off and left us! He should be brought to justice!”

“By whom? There’s very little white man’s law out here Liberty. It’s every man for himself. Self-preservation is the first law of the frontier.”

“But that’s uncivilized. What about the Indians?”

“They have their own laws and punish their own people.”

“I mean what about the Indians who raid and kill? Is there no one to punish them?”

“The militia does what it can to keep the peace. Don’t forget that it’s the Indians’ land that’s being taken away. Wouldn’t you fight for your home?”

“You sound as if you’re on
their
side,” she said coolly.

“I have a certain sympathy for their predicament. They’ve lived here for hundreds of years. Now a steady stream of whites is invading their territory, killing off the game, clearing and plowing the land.”

“Well, I don’t have any sympathy for them. There’s enough room for everyone. They’ve no right to kill . . . and take hair just because they don’t want us here!”

“White men started the custom of paying for scalps. They offered the Indians a bonus for scalps. The Indians are not the only savages on the frontier. Yesterday you saw what white men are capable of doing to their own kind. They’ve done even worse to Indian women. I advise you to give a lot of thought about staying out here, especially without a man to protect you. An unmarried woman is fair game to such as Hull Dexter and others who want a woman. You’ll be courted by every single man between sixteen and sixty within a hundred square miles.”

“You, too?” The words popped out of her mouth before she could stop them. She felt the blood rush to her face as the embarrassing words left her parted lips; but she forced herself to hold up her head, and her steady blue eyes looked directly into his eyes.

“I’m not ready to settle down. I’ve got rivers to cross and mountains to climb. A woman would be like a millstone around my neck.” His tone was light, but he did not smile. His words irritated her.

“I’m not looking for a man to protect me. More than likely I’d have to protect
him.
If ever I marry again it will be to a settled man, a providing man, one who wants to share
my
life, not one who goes off chasing rainbows. I’ll walk beside him, not behind him, and I’ll have my
say
!” Liberty held her head high with a kind of necessary dignity because he was looking at her with an air that said he was amused by her declaration. Her soft mouth was set stubbornly and her eyes dared him to deny her right.

“I bet you will!” A deep chuckle escaped Farr and his wide lips spread in a grin.

A wave of anger washed over Liberty. He was making fun of her! He was just like the rest of the conceited asses that thought women were good enough for drudges but were too stupid to voice an opinion. She wanted to kick him, to wipe that smirk off his face, to tell him that her brain was every bit as good as his. She wanted to make him admit she
was
a person of worth.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me, you . . . you backwoods, mountain-climbing river-crosser!”

His deep chuckle escalated into soft but full-blown laughter.

“I wasn’t laughing at you, Liberty. I was laughing at something my Indian friend told me. He said white woman’s mouth open all the time. You beat—she shut it.”

“So they beat their women too! I’m not surprised,” she said with a look of indignation on her face. She thrust her chin out at a defiant angle. Her back was up,
good.
He would have known it even if she had not shot him the withering look.

“Only when they need it. Come on, let’s get back. I want to sit for a while before we go on.”

*  *  *

The night had passed slowly for Farr, and he welcomed the rising sun when it broke over the eastern hills and poured a radiance upon the trail. He led the party at a steady pace along a familiar path, one he had used many times. The land was more open here. They had made better time than he had anticipated. He figured they should be at the station by the middle of the morning.

He glanced back to see Liberty sitting erect in the saddle, the child in her arms and her sister sleeping against her back. She was a strong woman; strong and gutsy. Maybe too gutsy for her own good, he reflected uneasily. She had held herself together at a time when it was difficult even for him to do what had to be done, and he had seen violent death many times. Damned if he could think of another white woman who would have done half as well.