“Best let her go first.” He looked to the pommel of his saddle, the downward slant of his felt hat cutting the sun’s glare but turning his hairline itchy.
Something about the scene was too tender to witness. Half of him was glad she’d returned to ghosts. Betimes an actual reunion was too much to bear.
“What did McKee say happened to her Indian family?” Maddie asked him. “Before she was brought in to Pitt?”
“Something about disease cutting half the tribe down.” He watched a ring snake slither away beneath a rotted stump. “Notice the old scars on her throat and arms? My guess is she survived the disease as a child before living with the Lenape, then lost her Indian family to it not so long ago.”
“I wondered why she’s not put up a fight to rejoin the Indians. She seems surrendered to coming back here.”
“So far, aye.”
After a few minutes Maddie dismounted, intent on the cabin. Keturah had set foot on the porch but made no move to open the cabin door. What would she find? Moreover, what would doing so unleash?
Clay’s gaze dissected the surrounding woods for any untoward movement. He blinked, eyes stinging from lack of sleep in an ill-fitting bed. Since his captivity he’d preferred the ground, a cushion of moss or leaves beneath him.
At first light he’d met with the fort’s four spies, needing to add to their number. Scouting was an unenviable job. He’d gotten his start spying at Fort Henry under General Amherst years ago.
Veering away from that sore mental trail, he pondered telling Keturah his story as she’d asked. Rarely did he unearth it, letting his past gather dust and fall into disuse like the Braams’ homestead. Most folks didn’t understand the path he’d trod. Or didn’t want to.
The women went into the cabin, Maddie leading. Keturah hovered on the threshold for a few indecisive seconds. Maddie was a godsend even if she didn’t speak Lenape. In her quiet way, she’d begun teaching—rather, reminding—Keturah of simple English words. Soap. Bowl. Milk. Corn.
A flicker of movement by a laurel to his left snagged his eye. A sun-dappled fox was all it amounted to. His shoulders relaxed though his mind stayed wary. The last spate of trouble, Cutright told him, started near the Buckhannon ferry last month. Two clashing tribes. One brave killed. The fort was briefly besieged after that by a small party of Wyandot, leaving one settler with a shattered elbow but no fatal wounds. Since then, nary a whiff of unrest, though Indian sign continued to be plentiful.
Keturah and Maddie emerged into the sunlight. The cabin door closed. Keturah lingered at the well again, picking up the water pail severed from its rope as if wondering how it happened to be so. Finally, they were on their way again, Keturah looking lost in thought.
“Where to now?” Maddie asked Clay.
“Closest neighbor—Swans. Their land borders the river.”
Mightn’t Keturah remember her former neighbors?
Their horses went at a walk, Clay intent on giving her ample time to adjust to her former surroundings. Once the Swan homestead spread before them, Keturah’s expression seemed unchanged. Or did he note a faint flicker of recognition?
Unlike the Braams’, all was order and industry here. Corn thriving ankle high in the surrounding fields. A cabin clearing free of stumps, with half a dozen sturdy outbuildings at first glance, including a new stable. A large fenced garden patch in colorful array to the south. Not just any house but a fortified blockhouse on the west end of a handsome cabin. Most surprising of all was the stone springhouse, the equal of any he’d seen in the east. Swan Station, Cutright had called it. The place looked to have been along the Buckhannon for some time.
They rode in slowly but had already been seen. A great many noises set up at once. A hog grunted noisily and a chicken squawked. The aproned woman coming out of the cabin made a beeline toward them while a bewhiskered young man emerged from a smithy, leather apron tied about his lean waist, red-faced from a small forge fire. His hammering had been heard a ways off.
Clay slid his rifle into its pouch and dismounted to the woman’s greeting. “Colonel Tygart?”
“Aye, Tygart,” Clay replied. “And company.”
“Welcome then. You’re the talk of the border here lately. I’m the widow Swan.” Her gracious manner warmed him. He didn’t miss the start of surprise in her eyes when her gaze fixed on the former captive. He held his peace, waiting for recognition to kindle and confirm one of the Braams was truly among them.
“Keturah?” Uncertainty framed her words. “Heaven be praised! Can it be?” Mistress Swan took a tentative step toward her, a wealth of emotion in her tanned face. “So long it’s been, yet you look the same, only taller. Like your ma.”
Her poignant words narrowed Clay’s attention, yet he didn’t miss the gawking men now in their midst, all in varying degrees of befuddlement. The Swan brothers he’d heard about?
Mistress Swan enfolded Keturah in a plump, homespun embrace once she’d dismounted. And the single, inexplicable tear Clay had witnessed at Fort Pitt faded to the far reaches as Keturah cracked open like a broken water pitcher.
“Watch your hide,” Ross cautioned as Tessa left the river, trading her setting pole for a small willow basket.
Up at first light, she’d accompanied Ross, glad few folks needed ferrying since her mind was set on berrying. Strawberries were abundant this year, bits of scarlet amid the sun-stroked, loamy places. Telltale white blooms promised a good gathering. Never mind if winter-starved deer got there first or the ruby gems had been bird-pecked in places. Such creatures helped scatter the seed.
Her gait was light as she neared home. Her gun she’d left behind at the ferry house. The heavy rifle was an encumbrance, but she’d catch what for from her brothers for her carelessness. Yet sooner or later she must set it aside much like they did when plowing and sowing and doing their many chores.
A peaceable hour passed. Sweat-spackled, her belly and basket full, she came into the cabin clearing. Odd how a body was ill prepared for the most heart-wrenching surprises. No warning hullabaloo. No shadowy feeling. Just a rare lull about the cabin. What had made her brothers abandon their pressing tasks at midday? Had it something to do with the three strange horses grazing around the springhouse?
Voices floated to her across the empty clearing. Most she knew. One was distinct in cadence and tone, a manly volley of English and . . . Indian?
