Before the song had ended, the tearful captive had flung herself into her aging mother’s arms. The words and image had clung to him ever since.
Let it be the same for Keturah Braam.
7
Tessa set the tattered rag doll on the cabin mantel, then thrust it back into her pocket. ’Twas only a matter of time till her keen-eyed brothers spied its presence. Jasper, likely. Though he wouldn’t place the doll, he’d want to know the story behind it. Ma would get misty-eyed as she always did on the rare occasions the Braams were mentioned. Mayhap she’d best secret the doll away in her curtained corner. Yet as she took a step in that direction, a voice she’d not heard for more than two months cut across the clearing. Jasper’s bottomless laugh filled Tessa to the brim. Home from overmountain?
Tessa nearly tripped in her haste to the cabin’s open door. She drank her oldest brother in as he stood there. Mercy, how lean. And bewhiskered. The string of packhorses behind him bespoke weariness and distance, saddlebags stuffed with necessities in exchange for ginseng and furs.
Ma was just ahead of her, already running to meet him with the gait of a girl. Spry she was at midcentury, her silvered braid spilling down her back. Skirts in hand, Tessa dashed after her, the dust of the yard soft beneath her feet.
Jasper caught them both up in a bearish, trail-worn embrace. It squeezed the breath right out of Tessa.
“A few weeks overmountain and I find you taller and even prettier,” he teased, winking.
“I quit growing a long time ago, you furry rascal,” she shot back.
He spat a stream of tobacco juice into a clump of weeds, making her wrinkle her nose in distaste. Trail tobacco was a reward for so arduous a journey. She’d tried it once, but it made her fluttery-stomached.
“Nary a speck of trouble,” he replied to Ma’s question. “Though the price of a pretty petticoat now trumps a brass kettle.”
Tessa smiled. He’d remembered? But first the unpacking and inspecting and storing. Anticipation made her steps light.
By suppertime, all was in order, the seven of them lining the trestle table. Jasper always brought something for them all.
For Ma, a Holland handkerchief and a hard cone of loaf sugar wrapped in purple paper. For her brothers, some hand tool or implement sufficed. Enjoying her expectation, Jasper made her wait till everything else had been distributed. Her parcel was store wrapped and tied with twine. She sat it upon her aproned lap as every eye settled on her.
Zadock cut the string with a swipe of his new knife. Her eager fingers did the rest. Even Ma sighed with pleasure when Tessa held up a tiny vial. Toilette water? She’d heard of such among fancy folk. Uncorking it, she shut her eyes and breathed in a distillation of rose and lavender and something she couldn’t name amid her brothers’ chuckling. Though impractical, it made her heart sing and the rough-hewn log walls fade away.
She smiled her thanks, setting the tiny bottle on the table for all to see or pass around. But her brothers merely regarded it dismissively as if too manly to touch such. Next came something silvery. Shaped like an acorn, it fit in the palm of her hand, the initials of TS engraved on the shiny top. She looked at Jasper in question.
“Pocket grater,” he said. “Open it.”
She twisted it apart, finding a curious brown nut within.
“Nutmeg,” he told her, swiping Lemuel’s refilled tankard of cider.
To her astonishment, he grated a dusting of the russet brown atop the drink and bade her taste it. She did, brows arching. The fine spice elevated simple cider to the sublime.
“Brother spoils you,” Ross teased. “You won’t be worth a hoot and a holler ’fore long.”
The cider was passed round. A small bag of nutmegs was next, enough that she would not hoard the one. Dropping the grater into her pocket alongside the rag doll, she turned her attention to the final gift. Candlelight gave the creamy linen a special sheen. Finely sewn and flounced, the petticoat was a snowy marvel, more art than garment.
“Nary a cinder speck to be found,” Jasper remarked, reminding her of her hole-ridden garments from where the hearth fire threw sparks.
Leaning nearer, she kissed his bristled cheek. “All this took a passel of furs, I reckon.”
He shrugged broad shoulders, his mind clearly on another matter. “Heavily laden as I was, I took care to come the untrammeled way.” He lit his pipe, the fragrant smoke hinting of Tidewater tobacco from eastern Virginia. “Came upon a party of two men and two women near the north fork of Drowning Creek. They knew what they were about, leaving little trail. Though I tried, I could never catch up to them. The white woman in particular drew my notice. The white man I believe to be Colonel Tygart. I heard the black man in their party call him by name.”
“Tygart’s wed then?” Zadock looked surprised. “Bringing his bride to the wilderness?”
Tessa digested this, dismay hollowing out her middle. But why? Because she’d heard he was handsome. In his prime. Many a settlement maiden would be sorely disappointed. Ruth, foremost.
“If you’re here, then they’re there,” Cyrus surmised. The Swan homestead was south of Fort Tygart just a league.
“Reckon they’re causing a stir at the garrison then.” Lemuel lit his own pipe from his new tobacco pouch. “Makes me wish I was forting up for once.”
“Not me,” Ma said, pushing away from the table to clear the last of the supper dishes. “Good enough to see you safely home again, the door barred.”
