He gripped his rifle harder, the memory carrying a lick of regret. Keturah had married well within the tribe. Tamanen of the Wolf Clan was well chosen. Mayhap her desire to go with Heckewelder was founded on a desire to reunite with Tamanen. Clay’s own marriage had been thwarted by the treaty that took him away from the Lenape, yet his thoughts stretched back to a misty memory of the woman his Indian mother hoped he would choose. Ganoshowanna. Falling Water. What had become of her?
The bell ceased tinkling. The sigh of the wind was the only sound other than a hawk’s cry. He got back into the saddle and pressed higher, harder, rocks scattering beneath Bolt’s clambering hooves into the streambed far below.
No matter how hard he rode, how far he roamed, Tessa followed.
Without Keturah the cabin seemed less like home. The time she’d been with them had added a new depth and dimension keenly felt in her absence. Pondering it, Tessa gathered the rest of the melons by herself, sitting down beside the burgeoning wooden sled when done and allowing herself a moment’s melancholy.
This morning when she’d awakened to that empty trundle bed, she’d lain very still, listening to Ma’s usual noises at the hearth. The thunk of wood added to the cook fire. The dry scent of toasted bread. And finally, coffee, its fragrance filling the cabin’s far corners, teasing her brothers awake in the adjoining blockhouse.
This morn there was no sleepy wëli kishku, which surely meant good morning or good day. What she most remembered were Keturah’s last Lenape words, which Heckewelder had translated when he’d seen her chin trembling as she and Keturah embraced.
Làpich knewël. Goodbye. I will see you again.
Would she? Keturah was going so far. There were countless dangers, even though she was dressed again as a Lenape woman in the clothes she’d abandoned upon coming here.
“Take care, Keturah. Our door is always open to you.” Tessa’s words were shaky as a surge of emotion threatened her stoicism. “There’s been no friend to me like you. I expect there never will be.”
Keturah gave a tremulous smile suffused with joy and heartache as she stepped away from Tessa’s embrace. The hide pouch about her neck bulged. The old doll?
Tessa took a long look at her, praying the memory held. As she watched Heckewelder’s party vanish into the dense woods, all her hopes seemed to vanish with them.
Keturah did not look back. That tore Tessa’s heart in two. ’Twas all she could do not to run after her. Gone was her beloved childhood friend. Again. While her family looked on, all but Jasper, she’d fisted her hands at her sides and set her jaw till it ached. Ma cried openly, dabbing at her eyes with her apron, while Zadock seemed the most bewildered, finding the woman he’d hoped would look his way instead wed to a warrior who could lift his scalp.
Keturah’s going left more than an empty place at table, one less hand to lighten the work. It seemed a small death, reminding Tessa of Pa’s and the bottomless well of emptiness he’d left behind. Even Snuff seemed mournful, ears drooping. How she wished she was more like Ross, face turned toward the sun.
“Don’t tie yourself in knots,” he said quietly as they lost sight of Heckewelder’s party and resumed their chores. “Look how the Lord provided a companion in that Mingo woman. And how Heckewelder talks Indian like he was born to it. Could be a sight worse. But I’ll miss Keturah, I’ll give you that.”
Ross always dwelt on the light side, his faith practical, almost childlike, forever mining the good out of the darkest depths. Even when Pa passed he’d received a thrashing from Jasper when he’d said with raw honesty, “Just think on it, Pa’s gout don’t vex him now that he’s in his eternity box.”
Tessa had chuckled through her tears at the time, earning a stern look from the rest of them, but what Ross said was true then and now. Keturah could not have better company than the Moravians, no matter where she roamed. And surely heaven was the best remedy for what ailed Pa, or anyone else, for that matter.
“I pray we see her again,” was all Ma said before seeking the solace of the garden.
Recalling it now, Tessa shut her eyes and tried to make peace with it all, only to ponder matters more sore than satisfying.
Like Clay.
Someday, maybe, she’d work up the nerve to speak his name. She’d thought to say it when they left the fort yesterday morning. But the west blockhouse yawned empty and Bolt was missing from the corral. Maddie told her he’d gone out on a scout. Though Clay never left the fort for long, he did take a turn like the rest of his spies. Somehow it comforted her knowing he was out there somewhere. Even now he might be near at hand.
Her eyes roved the tasseling cornstalks, her whole being wishing he’d materialize before her. Their occasional encounters always left her craving more. They’d begun an uncertain dance, she and Clay, and she was unsure of the next step. How did a couple arrive at courtship? When did a man and a woman move beyond a very public muster-day kiss? Maybe she was making too much of matters. His hot-cold regard of her left her in a continual muddle.
Slowly she stood, a bit stiff from sitting so long. Woolgathering, as Hester called it, left her forgetting the time. Taking the hemp rope, she began pulling the sled with its load of melons toward home, the sun at her back.
Lord, let Keturah find happiness. And let Clay find his way to me in Your time.
Clay sat down at Maddie’s table, the fare rivaling Hester’s. Betimes his blockhouse quarters yawned too empty. Hester needed a rest, so he sometimes came here, just as hungry for good company. Maddie and Jude’s tiny cabin was spare but as tidy and clean as Maddie could make it. The finished cradle rested in a corner, crafted from walnut, awaiting winter’s use. Jude had always been a hand with wood.
“Have another helping, Clay.” Like it or not, Maddie replenished his plate, mounding it high with the first of the corn she’d taken from the cob and fried with butter and sweet milk.
“Thought you said your mother was a laundress,” Clay said between mouthfuls. “How’d you become so good a cook?”
“Helps to have a big fort garden,” she returned with a smile as she finished frying the last of the catfish. “And a husband handy with a hook.”
“Sure beats being on the trail.” Jude pulled a fish bone from between his teeth. “Though I did partake of a fine slab of blackberry pie at Cox’s Station near the tail end of my last scout.”
“Berry, you say? The berries are drying up on the vine, Hester tells me.” Maddie gestured to the rafters, where a berry basket Keturah had made hung empty.
The sight put him in mind of Heckewelder, how far their party had traveled. Though Keturah was no longer at Swan Station, Indian sign abounded up and down the border, confirmed by the string of forts and stations. Should he heed the growing cry for reinforcements, more soldiers? If Fort Tygart was undermanned and fell . . .
