Over the Misty Mountains (37 page)

“I’ll like it, Hawk!”

The assurance in her voice caught at him. “Pretty sure of that, are you?”

“Yes.”

He smiled suddenly, then nudged his horse into a fast gallop. Elizabeth kept up with him, and when he pulled up short and swung his arm forward in an abrupt gesture, she lifted her head—and then caught her breath.

“It’s beautiful!”

“Don’t know about that—but it’s good ground for planting crops.”

Elizabeth was stunned by the panorama that lay in front of them. A line of ragged mountains lifted to the east, green and rolling as they filled the horizon. To the west a series of short, choppy hills spilled out, and directly in front of them a third line of hogback ranges formed a valley.

She turned and whispered, “I know where I want the house.”

“Where?”

“Down there, in that space where the brook bends. You see? If we build it there, it’ll be as though the brook has thrown its arm around the house.”

Again Hawk was taken by the swift imagination of Elizabeth’s mind, but he said practically, “That’s the best spot, I’m thinking.”

She turned and smiled brillantly. “Did you really pick just that spot?”

“Sure did. Seems like we have the same tastes in cabins. Come along and we’ll see what’s to be done. . . .

****

In the days that followed, Elizabeth learned a great deal about building a log cabin. She was impatient to begin and would have begun hacking at the trees back of the meadow, but the first day of actual work, Hawk said, “Can’t build a cabin on dirt. Doesn’t the Bible say somewhere that a wise man doesn’t build his house on sand?”

“Yes, but this is dirt.”

“All the same. Now, the first thing we do is haul rocks from the creek for a foundation. You’re going to be sick of stones and rocks before this is over!”

Elizabeth denied this vehemently, but by the end of the day, his word proved prophetic. She wore blisters on her hands very quickly, and Hawk forbad her to do any more work. She drove the horses, pulling the sled that Hawk had built, while he loaded and unloaded the rocks.

“Now—for the sills,” Hawk said after the outline of the cabin was plainly marked with flat stones.

“What’s a sill?” Elizabeth asked.

“Beams or logs that rest on the foundation,” Hawk grinned, adding, “Then we can cut the sleepers.”

“Sleepers? What in the world is
that
?”

“The floor beams of the cabin. Then we put hewn boards on top of them.”

“Most of the cabins I’ve seen have dirt floors,” Elizabeth said. “Wouldn’t it be quicker that way?”

“Don’t want you to get your feet dirty,” Hawk said mildly. He had taken an interest in the cabin, and for some reason he wanted it to be the finest he was capable of raising. “After we get the floor in, I’ll plane it down nice and smooth. You’ll have the best cabin in the territory!”

Elizabeth turned to meet his gaze, and there were tears in her eyes. Her voice was not quite steady when she said, “It’ll be the house Patrick dreamed of, Hawk.”

Hawk had to bite his lips to keep back the words that almost jumped out:
But he’ll never see it, Elizabeth
. . . . He was rather mystified by her attitude. He knew that she grieved over her husband, although she never said so. She had lost weight since his death, and Andrew had once told him very confidentially, “My mom cries at night when she thinks we won’t hear her.” Then Andrew had added, “I do too . . . cry that is—sometimes.”

Hawk had said, “It’s all right to cry.”

“Do
you
ever cry, Hawk?” the boy had asked.

“I want to sometimes,” Hawk had told the boy. “Maybe I ought to. You loved your pa, so it’s all right.”

Now as he stood beside Elizabeth, he was reminded of the scene and wondered if Andrew still wept for his father. But aloud he said only, “Well, I’ll haul the stones for the fireplace tomorrow.”

“I’ll help you.”

“No, your hands are blistered already. You make a good dinner, and we’ll call that a bargain.”

The next morning he hauled more stones, and again Elizabeth drove the team back and forth from the creek to the cabin site. Andrew had insisted on helping with the stones, and once Elizabeth said quietly to Hawk, “He’s having such a good time. I . . . I’ve been worried about him.”

“He misses his father, doesn’t he?”

“Of course.” Elizabeth bit her lower lip, then said quietly, “So does Sarah—and I think sometimes I can’t go on without Patrick.”

Hawk had nothing to say to that, so he turned and walked down to the creek for more stones. The cabin raising gave him as much pleasure as hunting—which puzzled him. Finally he thought,
I guess I’m building something that will last. When a man kills a deer, he eats it and that’s the end of it. But there’s something eternal about building a house
.

When Elizabeth called out that lunch was ready, they all sat down on the ground and ate hungrily. She had broiled steaks over an open fire, and Hawk said, “These are fine—but wait until you get in your new house and have a fine new fireplace.”

“I’ll show you some cooking, indeed,” Elizabeth smiled. She looked at the huge pile of stones that waited to be fitted into a fireplace, then asked, “Is it hard to build a fireplace?”

“Hardest part of building a cabin. If your foundation is wrong,” Hawk said, “the whole thing will fall down. If the throat isn’t done right, it won’t draw, and you’ll cough the rest of your life from the smoke.”

“When will we start cutting trees?” Andy piped up.

“I’d say right after dinner.” Hawk remarked. “But don’t be in a hurry.”

“I can’t help it,” Andy protested. “I want to get it done so we can move in.”

Hawk grinned and ruffled the boy’s hair. “I guess I’d like to be sitting down in this cabin myself. But it takes time to do things that count.”

“Will I have a room of my own?” Sarah piped up.

“You and Andrew will sleep in the loft,” Elizabeth said. “You’ll have to climb up a ladder to go to bed. Won’t that be fun?”

Sarah thought it over, then slowly nodded. “Yes, it will be fun. Will I have my own bed?”

“Sure you will,” Hawk spoke up. “I’ll make it myself—but it won’t have but one leg.”

“One leg! It’ll fall down!”

“No it won’t, Sarah,” Hawk promised. “It’ll be fastened on three corners to the wall, and one leg will hold up the other corner.”

“Oh, that’s nice!” Sarah exclaimed. “When will you make it?”

“Got to have a cabin to put it in first.” Rising to his feet he said, “I guess we can go cut down our first tree. Anyone in here want to go?”

Hawk had no troubled getting volunteers. Indeed, the two youngsters were so anxious, they protested when he took time to sharpen his ax. But finally they all walked across the meadow to the fine grove of straight trees that Hawk had decided to use.

The rest of the morning was a pure delight to the MacNeals. Hawk was a good man with an ax, and the three stood around and watched as he measured the first tree with his eye, then began cutting. The chips flew, and as the notch in the tall walnut tree grew, Andy said, “Which way will it fall, Hawk?”

“Over there—so don’t stand in that direction.”

Quickly the three moved away, and the chips seemed to fly as Hawk swung with machine-like precision, the blows of his ax echoing down the valley. Once he stopped to wipe his face and grinned at them. “A beaver could do a better job than this—but I don’t know how a man could train a beaver to cut down trees.”

Finally the tree seemed to shiver, and Hawk called out sharply, “Stand back, now!” The tree swayed, then fell to the earth with a crash.

“I wish I could chop down a tree like that!” Andrew said.

“Well, here’s your ax. I made the handle a little smaller just to fit you. Come along. I’ll mark the end, and you can cut it off.”

Elizabeth watched anxiously. Andy, as she had begun to call him because Hawk did, had not had any training with tools, but she saw Hawk show him exactly how to hold the ax, how to swing it, then how to cut at a different angle. Hawk stayed right with him until the boy grew tired.

“Now, let’s look at those hands.” He looked at Andy’s hands and said, “Well, they still got some blisters from haulin’ rock. You do a little today, a little tomorrow, and first thing you know they’ll look like mine.” He held out his hard, callused hands, and Andy ran his over them.

“I want to work today!” he protested.

“Be plenty of time, boy,” he said. “We’ve got lots of trees to cut down.”

At midafternoon, Hawk hitched up his horse to one of the logs. Handing the lines to Andrew, he said, “All right. Let’s see you drive him.”

A frightened look came over Andrew’s face. “Well, what’ll I do?”

“Slap those lines on his rear and say, ‘Get up, Easy!’ That’s his name. Easy.”

“But what if he runs away?”

Hawk laughed. “Then you say, ‘Whoa, Easy!’ and haul back on those lines. He’s a pretty smart horse, though. He knows what we’re doin’.” He had borrowed this particular animal from William. It was a heavy iron-colored horse, very large and strong with powerful legs and bulky shoulders.

Tentatively Andrew slapped the reins and said in a rather feeble voice, “Get up, Easy!”

Instantly the animal moved forward, and Andrew said in a panic, “What do I do now?”

“If you want him to go left, pull that left rein. If you want him to go right, pull the right line. That’s all there is to it.” Elizabeth and Hawk followed along. Hawk stayed in close reach so he could leap forward and grab the lines if necessary.

“I’ve never seen him so happy,” Elizabeth said.

“The boy likes to learn to do things. He’ll be a good man.”

Hawk’s words pleased Elizabeth, and she wanted to say how much she appreciated his sacrifice in working for them, but she had already learned that he did not like her to thank him.

When they got to the site of the cabin, Andrew hauled back on the lines and said, “Whoa, Easy!” Instantly the big horse halted, and Andrew looked around with triumph brightening his eyes. “I did it! I did it!”

“You sure did. I don’t know any man who could’ve done it better,” Hawk said, smiling at the boy.

The simple praise brought a flush to Andrew’s eyes, and he dropped his head for a moment. Looking at his mother, he saw her smiling at him, then he turned and said, “Can we go get another one, Hawk?”

“I reckon so, but first, let’s eat. Why don’t you fix up that bait of food, Elizabeth? After we get these logs hauled, I’ll be ready to eat like a bear!”

As Elizabeth and Sarah cooked the supper over an open fire, Sarah said jealously, “Andy gets to have all the fun, Mama! He gets to drive the horses and everything!”

“We’ll have fun, too. As we build the cabin, you’ll have to help me decide where to put the furniture and where to put the beds. It’ll be fun.” She reached over and squeezed the girl and said, “Oh, we’re going to have a wonderful home here!”

“I wish—” Sarah started to speak, then broke off suddenly.

Elizabeth looked down and read the child’s mind. “I know,” she said. “I wish your daddy were here, too. But we promised him we wouldn’t worry and grieve.”

“I know, but sometimes I can’t help it. I miss him so much.”

Elizabeth hugged her, and Sarah grabbed her mother and held on with all of her might. “We’ll be all right, Sarah.”

“I’m glad Hawk is here to help us. I don’t know what we’d do without him.”

Elizabeth nodded and whispered, “I don’t know either. I think God gave him to us to get us through this time.”

****

Rhoda Harper was staying with the family of John Russell. She liked John and his wife, Leah, very much, but with four children, the small cabin was already overcrowded. Actually she would have preferred to sleep outdoors, but that would have seemed ungrateful.

She had watched Hawk and Elizabeth ride out along with the children early in the morning, and she was glad for Elizabeth. She knew of the promise Hawk had made to Patrick MacNeal and was aware of how dependent the family had already become on the tall frontiersman.

Needing to escape from the crowded cabin for a while, Rhoda strolled along the outskirts of the settlement. She heard the sound of axes and cheerful voices ringing everywhere over the cool October air. She took a deep breath, thinking how much better it was here in the clean freshness of the open country than in the stale dark interior of
The Brown Stag
. For a time she had grieved over the deaths of the Simmons family and of Patrick MacNeal. She had known Patrick the best, of course, and even the thought of him now ran like a sharp knife into her heart as she considered how she might have prevented it. The attack had come early, but no matter how many times she told herself that, she knew she should’ve gone to Hawk at once and warned him.

Her mood grew somber, and she wondered when Jacques Cartier would appear again. Somehow she knew she had not seen the last of the man, and she muttered, “I wish he had gotten killed in that attack! He deserves it!”

Walking along the bank of a creek where most of the settlers drew their water, she heard her name being called. She turned to see Paul Anderson dismounting from his horse and waving.

“Rhoda!” he cried. “Let me tie my horse.”

Rhoda stood there and waited, and he came up to her, a smile on his face. He wore better clothing than most of the settlers—a white shirt with a string tie and a pair of black wool trousers topped off by a light green coat.

“Hello, Paul,” Rhoda greeted him. “Where have you been?”

“I’ve been talking with Sequatchie. We’ll be leaving in a few days to go to his village.”

Rhoda was disappointed, for his kindness to her was part of what made her feel secure. “I know you’re anxious to go,” she said quietly, “but I’ll miss you.”

Anderson blinked with surprise. “Will you?”

“Why, of course I will! What did you think?”

Anderson had pulled his hat off, and now he twirled it around in his hands. It was a low-crown brown felt hat, and he studied it before looking at her. “I don’t know what I thought.”

She laughed at him. “I thought preachers always knew everything.”

“You don’t know much about preachers. Where you going?” he asked.