Basket dangling from one arm, she pushed open the cabin door. All her brothers but Ross were gathered around the table. The man at the head, occupying Pa’s place, was one she’d never laid eyes on, as was the black woman to his left. Ma sat with her back to the door in her usual place, unnervingly close to a woman whose pale braid snaked down her slender back.
The woodsy giant was the first to acknowledge her, his gaze swiveling to Tessa as she hovered in the doorway. As it wasn’t his house, he didn’t motion her in.
“Tessa . . .” Jasper spoke in the sudden lull as she entered.
Mindlessly, Tessa set the berries aside.
“Best sit down,” Cyrus said, voice full of portent. “Your long-lost friend has come back to us.”
The braided woman turned, delft-blue eyes searching. Disbelief struck Tessa like a blow.
Keturah?
Her old friend sat before her, once a mere bud of a girl, now blossomed into a full-blown flower of a woman. Keturah . . . who once taught her to write her name . . . who made a game out of chasing deer from the fields . . . who sang like a bird . . . who always called her lieverd . . . who stuffed tow linen in her ears at the firing of the fort guns . . . who kept all Tessa’s secrets and laughed with her like no one since.
Emotion tightened her throat. No greeting could she give that fit the mighty chasm that time and distance had wrought. Yet every eye was upon her, willing her to do something.
Coming from behind, Tessa opened her arms and embraced her old friend. Smoke and earthiness suffused her senses instead of the milky, sugar-laced scent of before.
The conversation resumed around her, none of it answering her needling questions. She sought the open seat between Zadock and Lemuel while Keturah turned around again as easily as if she’d never left. The lively talk was hard to track till her surprise simmered down. Scraps about the militia. Fort spies. Enemy sign. Provisions. Gun powder and bullet lead.
They seemed to skirt the heart of the matter, that Keturah Braam was here, had come back to them, was at their very table. Another discreet glance told her that Keturah was worn. Spent. The slight sag of her features might be called resigned. And her cheeks bore the faintest imprint of dried tears, the dust of the trail marking their downward course.
Was this strapping tree of a man Keturah’s husband? Though seated, he was a full head taller than her brothers. And not nearly as loose-lipped.
“Why, without any kin close at hand, she’ll stay right here,” Ma was saying. “Just us women in the cabin. The men keep mostly to the blockhouse when they’re not in the fields or at the ferry.”
Murmurs of affirmation went round. Finally, Tessa snapped to. The tense tickle in her middle nearly erupted into a laugh at the sight of her brothers’ barely restrained glee. She swallowed all mirth while the man at the head of the table looked straight at Keturah and spoke Indian again.
So, they weren’t wed? Was he asking Keturah where she wanted to be? Penned up at the fort or with the Swans along the spacious Buckhannon? The cabin stilled again. Keturah answered in the dulcet voice Tessa remembered, though the words were gibberish. Somehow it hurt her that she couldn’t understand her former friend yet this tall stranger could. And how was it that a white man could speak Indian so well?
“Seems our company manners have fled, what with all the excitement,” Ma said, looking from the stranger to Tessa. “Colonel Tygart, this is my only daughter, Tessa Swan.”
“Pleased to meet you,” he replied as Tessa inclined her head to acknowledge the introduction.
All her expectations and presumptions collapsed in a disheartening heap. Was this truly Colonel Clayton Tygart or some buckskinned imposter? He was not at all like she’d expected. Nothing like she’d hoped.
She studied him beneath lowered lashes, but the shadows in the cabin were too deep even in daylight to grasp hold of him. All she knew was that he was tall and as soot-haired as Keturah was fair.
They were locked out of the conversation for several more moments as he spoke to Keturah. And then he said in plain King’s English, “She will stay.”
9
Clay moved toward Bolt, who’d mowed down the tallest grass around the Swans’ springhouse and was now eyeing the sweet timothy by the smokehouse. Maddie lingered with Keturah and Mistress Swan in the cabin while the brothers returned to their work.
Belly full of mincemeat pie and coffee, he’d formed a pleasant association at first meeting, given all the Swan brothers would muster with the militia. The youngest, Ross, was absent but just as eager, they said. All in all, a satisfying day’s work, mayhap the most important matter being Keturah’s settling till her kin could be found.
Though the half-dozen horses in a near pasture bespoke plenty, he’d leave Keturah’s mare here. One less animal to tend at Fort Tygart. One less to steal. Indians had a terrible penchant for horseflesh.
“Colonel Tygart, sir.”
He swung round to face the one Swan whose voice he hadn’t heard till now, though her uncommon name had stuck to him like pitch. Tessa. In a world of Marthas and Janes and Annes, it rang refreshing. And now she stood in front of him, catching him by surprise again.
“Mightn’t you send round Keturah’s belongings?” she asked.
He regarded her in thoughtful silence. In the cabin’s dimness, he’d not grasped her features. Here in broad daylight he saw she was a deep tobacco brown, her eyes a startling indigo—nay, more violet—and the dominating feature in her oval face. Had she no hat to shield her from the sun?
“Redeemed captives have precious few belongings,” he replied.
