Far From Home (38 page)

A committee was formed at Georgiana’s suggestion and a plan of action drawn up. Three carpenters and a wheelwright came back with Wilhelm after one of his trips to Philadelphia and they, with Pike and Jason, began to build the bridge across the creek whilst the water was low. At first they had decided on a footbridge, but then it was realized that if the community should grow, as inevitably it would, a wider bridge to take a horse and waggon would be necessary. The sound of sawing and hammering, whistling and sometimes cursing, could be heard all through the days, ceasing only when the sun went down.

Wilhelm, Ellis, Ted and Isaac began the conversion of the longhouse to make it ready for Nellie O’Neil. The upper storey was to be put up later when the carpenters were finished at the bridge. Then an opening for the road was blasted through, the explosion echoing around the valley and reverberating through the mountains. ‘Folks will wonder what that was.’ Ted shook his head and pressed his eardrums. ‘Bet that could be heard down in Philadelphia.’

The men cleared the rubble and ruminated that it needed a second blast to make it wide enough for two waggons driving in side by side. ‘Folks will be coming and going along this road,’ Pike said. ‘We’re planning for the future.’

‘When we find gold,’ Ted said positively, ‘I want a piece of land in the next valley. I’ll plant corn.’

‘Me too,’ Pike agreed. ‘If we have corn planted for twelve months then no government department can take it from us.’

The summer was almost over and the men were eager to finish the blasting so that the first of the new settlers could come before winter. As Wilhelm had bought and owned the whole valley, he would sell off plots of land and timber, and the newcomers would build their own cabins.

‘We’d like to buy a piece of land from you.’ One of the carpenters came to Wilhelm on behalf of himself and the other tradesmen. ‘We’d build a community workshop,’ he said. ‘Not all the folks coming will have the know-how to build for themselves, so we’d buy the timber from you and charge them a daily rate.’

‘Things are happening so fast,’ Wilhelm said to Georgiana one evening as they sat on the bench outside the freshly painted saloon. ‘Before we know what’s happened we shall have a new town here!’

‘It’s so exciting, isn’t it?’ she said enthusiastically. ‘I’m so pleased, Wilhelm, that you allowed me to be a part of it.’

‘Allowed you to be part of it?’ He was astonished. ‘Without you, Georgiana, it would not have happened!’

Have I then accomplished what I set out to do? she mused. Have I achieved equality? Certainly the men here treat me as their equal. They even swear and curse in front of me, she thought wryly. Except for Isaac and Wilhelm, of course. Isaac still calls me Miz Gianna, and Wilhelm is never anything but courteous.

‘Why are you smiling?’ Wilhelm interrupted her musings.

‘I was thinking of how I have changed.’ She laughed. ‘I am no longer an English lady. I have broken fingernails, rough hands and a sun-browned skin. And I draw water from the creek. I am a different person from the one I once was!’

He smiled back at her. ‘I think not, Georgiana,’ he murmured. ‘You are what you always were. But you were shackled by convention, as you would have been if you had stayed in New York, where propriety rules just as in England. But out here . . .’ His glance took in the valley, the cattle across the creek and up the mountains where the last rays of the sun were glinting red and gold. ‘Out here you have cast off those shackles and found the freedom you always wanted.’

She followed his gaze. They scanned the radius of the mountains and both, simultaneously, caught the movement on the eastern edge. Wilhelm put his hand to his eyes to narrow the view, but Georgiana knew, almost without seeing. She could tell, by the throbbing of her temples and the pulsating in her body, just who it was.

‘Lake!’ Wilhelm murmured. ‘I thought he would come.’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, and Wilhelm turned an enquiring gaze upon her. ‘Yes, indeed.’

Lake showed no surprise at what had happened in the valley since his last visit, but when he had greeted Dreumel, he looked closely at Georgiana. ‘I heard that you were travelling in the forest,’ he said bluntly.

‘The guide told you?’ she queried. ‘Is he a friend of yours?’

‘No. Not a friend,’ he stated flatly. ‘He’s evil. A desperado. A killer.’

She was shaken. ‘I hope he didn’t follow our trail?’

‘He did for some time,’ Lake said, still keeping his eyes on her face. ‘You wouldn’t have heard him. But then his way was barred.’

‘Barred!’ she said. ‘By what? Surely he wouldn’t have been stopped by a fallen tree or a rock?’

‘Not by either of those. By a bear!’ He stared unblinkingly at her. ‘It blocked his path and he had to retreat.’

‘He didn’t kill it?’ she asked anxiously.

He shook his head. ‘He said he had no time to load, or he would have done.’ His mouth twitched disdainfully. ‘He’s a braggart. He wouldn’t have been able to strike. She would have killed him first.’

Georgiana’s heart thudded. ‘She?’ she asked, in a small voice.

‘It was a she-bear. More dangerous than the male.’

‘We saw one too,’ she murmured. ‘At least, I did. I let her know of our presence and she went away.’

‘You didn’t mention the bear, Georgiana,’ Dreumel said quietly. ‘Were you not afraid?’

‘Yes. I think I was, but I didn’t want to alarm Kitty.’ Then she gave a sudden smile. ‘We sang for the rest of the journey. We frightened all the wild animals and wild men away!’

Both men shook their heads at her in admonishment but said nothing more.

Lake stayed for three weeks. He told Wilhelm and Georgiana that he had known the valley would one day be occupied again. ‘The Iroquois moved on to fresh hunting grounds,’ he said, ‘but their spirits remain here to watch over it.’

He assisted the men by working on the road by day, then he rode into the mountains in the evenings, returning after dark and making his bed on the floor of one of the men’s cabins.

‘Where do you go?’ Georgiana plucked up courage to ask him one evening. She had watched for his return until quite late. ‘Are you hunting?’

‘No,’ he said, in his usual abrupt way. ‘Not here.’ He looked down at her. ‘I go to be quiet. Away from people.’

‘I see,’ she said, feeling disappointed but not knowing why. ‘Of course. You are used to being alone.’

‘Yes. Tomorrow you can come.’ His tone was decisive. ‘You can ride behind me.’

She bit on her lip and pondered. Would that be the right thing to do? Her emotions were in a turmoil whenever he was around, and when he wasn’t she was constantly watching for him.

‘Are you afraid?’ His eyes held hers.

‘Yes,’ she answered swiftly. ‘I am.’

‘There is no need,’ he said. ‘You will be safe with me.’

He doesn’t know it is of myself that I’m afraid, she thought, not wolves or bears or wild men! I know I would be safe from all those things when he is there. It is the thought of being alone with him that makes me tremble.

The next day the men brought about the first explosion at the western end of the creek, but the rock was harder than they had expected and the gunpowder they were using produced only a small hole which allowed a mere trickle of water through.

Wilhelm and Ted conferred. ‘We’ll use nitroglycerine,’ Ted said. ‘That’ll shift it.’

‘
No!
’ Wilhelm objected harshly. ‘It’s not stable. Someone could be killed. And in any case we couldn’t get it.’

‘Yes we can,’ Ted said. ‘I’ve got some.’

‘Good God!’ Anger showed on Wilhelm’s usually calm face. ‘Where is it? Where is it stored? We could all be blown to pieces!’

‘Safe.’ Ted’s expression was stubborn. ‘It’s buried and away from the valley.’

‘You were going to use it for the shaft!’ Wilhelm accused him.

‘In the beginning I was,’ Ted admitted, looking away from him. ‘But then I thought better of it. The site was too confined, it was too dangerous.’

‘I’ve trusted you—’ Wilhelm began.

‘And you still can,’ Ted said quickly. ‘It would save us so much time and effort. I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘I won’t ask anyone else to use it.’

‘No!’ Wilhelm was adamant. ‘We cannot take the risk. But how can we get rid of it?’

Ted seemed disappointed, but he just shrugged and said that he knew how.

They blew another small hole, which widened the gap but not enough, and the men decided to leave any further blasting until the following day. They were dirty and tired and only wanted to eat and then go to their beds.

‘Tomorrow I’ll ride to Philadelphia and fetch Miss O’Neil and some of the others,’ Wilhelm decided. ‘We must make a start.’ He seemed very low after the altercation with Ted, Georgiana thought, and she sat with him for a while, talking of this and that to try and make him more cheerful.

‘It’s all right, Georgiana,’ he murmured after a while. ‘You do not need to humour me. It is only that I have had a disappointment. Life does sometimes have a way of making us look again at ourselves.’

She agreed that was true, but added that she didn’t like to see him cast down.

He gave her a pensive smile and gently patted her hand. ‘I have been much lower than this. It will pass, I expect.’

Georgiana, riding off behind Lake as the men were sitting down to their supper, wondered if anyone would notice that they were both missing. She had told Kitty that she was going into the mountains in case she should worry about her. She glanced back as they crossed over the new bridge and saw Wilhelm standing at the longhouse door looking down the valley towards them.

The sun was such a vivid red as they reached a high bluff that they shielded their eyes from it. They dismounted and watched the shadows on the mountains grow longer and darker as the sun went down, leaving flaming scarlet streaks in the sky.

‘It is so beautiful,’ Georgiana murmured. ‘I don’t wonder that you escape to be alone here.’

He reached out and drew her towards him. ‘There are times when I don’t wish to be alone.’ He stroked her hair. ‘There are times when I am lonely.’ He kissed her lips. ‘Since I met you, Gianna, I have often been lonely.’ He cupped her face in his hands. ‘But it is the course I have chosen.’

She put her arms around his waist. ‘Is it the only life for you?’ she asked softly, knowing that in his world there wasn’t a place for her.

‘It is the only life,’ he replied. ‘It is what I know. Out here in the mountains I know who I am.’

‘Who are you?’ she murmured.

‘Not Indian, nor white man. I am at one with the elements of nature, the solitude and silence. The spirits of the forest and the mountains know that I am just one of the many creatures who live here.’

‘A mountain man?’ she said, understanding by his words that he was more Indian than white man.

‘Yes.’ He took her into his arms. Gently he lowered her and himself to the ground and she didn’t resist. ‘You are beautiful, Gianna. If I was a different kind of man I would want you as my woman – my squaw.’ He kissed her again. ‘But this is a hard life and I would not wish it on you, or any woman.’

‘But some women follow the mountain men,’ she said, resting her head on his chest.

‘Those women have no other choice.’ Slowly he unbuttoned her bodice and she drew her head back, exposing her throat and conscious of the pulse throbbing there. ‘They are poor Indian women, cast out from their tribe and reliant on the drunken trappers to look after them. They are not women such as you.’

‘What kind of woman am I?’ She ran her hands over his shoulders and down his arms, feeling the muscular strength beneath her fingers. ‘You don’t know me.’

‘I know you,’ he said softly, and slipped her shirt over her shoulders, where she shrugged it free. He buried his mouth in the tender hollow beneath her neck and shoulder and sucked gently on her skin. ‘I know that you are my woman. That whilst I am on this earth you are mine.’

He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. ‘Isn’t that so?’

‘Yes,’ she breathed, her lips moist and her body yielding. ‘It is so.’

He pulled her down to lie in his arms and she smelt the sharp scent of pine needles, the sweet musky odour of animals, and felt his warm breath on her cheek. She heard the rustle and sigh of the wind in the tree tops as he whispered to her. ‘You know that you and I have no tomorrow? We only have today.’

She brushed her cheek against his. ‘I only know – that I love you and always will.’

The stars were bright in the dark sky as they reached the bridge and a full moon was shining, its luminescence lighting up the creek and the valley and touching the roofs of the cabins with silver. Lake drew in before riding onto the bridge and put his head to one side, listening. He raised his hand to his ear as if to capture whatever it was that he heard.

‘What is it?’ Georgiana whispered.

He shook his head. ‘Something. I don’t know.’ He sniffed the air like a dog and listened again. His horse too pricked his ears and snorted restlessly.

Then from the western end of the valley came a crack of light and a mighty explosion which echoed and reverberated around the valley.

Georgiana screamed, ‘What’s happened?’ and clung to Lake’s waist as the horse reared and he fought to control it.

‘The rock face has been blown up! The water’s coming! Hold on! We must get across it before it reaches the bridge.’

In the split second before Lake dug his heels into the horse’s flanks, Georgiana shot a glance along the valley and saw a force of turbulent foaming water heading down the creek towards them.

Ted, she thought, as they galloped across the wooden structure. He’s done it, even though Wilhelm told him not to. Oh, no! Suppose he’s been killed! Stupid, stupid man!

They reached the other side as the torrent rushed at the bridge, churning and frothing around the uprights and swirling over the base and sides before continuing its path towards the newly blasted exit at the bottom of the valley.

Shouts were echoing down the valley and in the moonlight they saw people running towards the scene of the explosion. Two men on horseback were already galloping down. Lake urged his horse on and as they reached the longhouse, he drew to a halt. ‘Go inside,’ he said to her. ‘Prepare bandaging in case someone is hurt.’