Tessa searched his face as if seeking all he could possibly remember, as if knowing her brother’s life depended on it.
“Mayhap the wound needs suturing with linen thread. I’d hoped to avoid such, but if needs be we ready a needle.” Here there’d be no stitching skin with the inner bark of basswood or the fiber from the long tendon of a deer’s leg. Or the purifying properties of steam. But in truth he put more stock in them than white man’s medicine.
“I can ride out to fetch slippery elm,” Tessa said. “Shouldn’t have far to go. But first, mightn’t you pray with me?”
His mind became blank as inkless paper, but the plea in her lovely face couldn’t be denied. Removing his hat, he bent his head, feeling the warmth of her fingers lacing through his own. Her lips were moving but he couldn’t make out the words. Still, it was a rare, hallowed moment that seemed to fight back the darkness of the unknown future as they said amen.
He pulled himself to his feet. “As for that remedy, I’ll ask Jude. You try to get some water down Cyrus in the meantime.”
Ruth and Maddie helped Tessa and Hester keep watch of Cyrus, the slippery elm remedy and careful stitches soon in place. Meanwhile, Clay kept the door open to his blockhouse quarters, able to watch the comings and goings of all who entered and exited the fort.
It was almost a relief to return to the mundane the next morn. He sat at his desk and managed various interruptions by settlers wanting to address some matter, returning to his paperwork between times. His latest report was half written, penned with no small sorrow.
There has been no mischief done in this county since the 17th instance when a family of nine persons was killed and scalped about eight miles above this, on the North Branch opposite . . .
Having no heart to finish, he set down his quill and tried to read. He perused the latest laws from the colonial government tongue in cheek. Some he overlooked as petty, and others, if enforced, would fine half the settlement.
In the interest of good morals and the suppression of vice, a penalty of fifty cents was to be exacted for swearing. For drunkenness, ten lashes across a bare back. For laboring on the Sabbath, one dollar was owed. Stealing land warrants resulted in death.
His attention wandered to the open doorway. Toward Hester’s.
What about kissing a spinster in the nighttime shadows?
He leaned back, the creak of the wood slats against his weight a testament to their age. That somebody had hauled a Windsor chair clear to the back settlements was more than a tad befuddling. That it ended up in this blockhouse, more befuddling still. Most frontier furniture was a far cry from eastern colonial parlors. A stump for a seat and a couple of planks nailed down for a table sufficed.
If he returned to the Monongahela country and laid the foundation for a stone house, what would he furnish it with in time? What belongings would Tessa want? He could send east for what was needed. York and Lancaster had fine furniture makers. The orders could be delivered in wagons to Fort Pitt, not too far from his acreage, or floated downriver.
Tessa had a hankering for finer things. Things not even a stone house along the Monongahela might offer. She craved poetry. Hand fans. English tea. Yet she made do with what her rusticated life offered.
He stared without focus at the list of colonial laws, allowing himself a look into the future. Why did he see it so clearly? A house of solid stone. Fencing around a colorful garden with Tessa at its heart. Around her, running and playing, were sons and daughters that bore both their features. Held captive by the scene, he shut his eyes, trying to picture himself there, somewhere.
“Clay?”
Tessa’s voice snatched him back to the present. He opened his eyes. She walked toward him, her smile encouraging. Cyrus hadn’t worsened then.
“He’s awake and taking some of Hester’s tea. And he’s asking for blackberry pie.” She held up a basket. “Don’t want to take you away from your work, but if you could spare some time . . .”
He reached for his powder horn and shot pouch in answer, unable to keep a smile from his own face. With the country calm, there’d be no reason to deny her even a half hour. The morning’s fair scouting report that had let the settlers loose surely extended to them.
Bolt was glad to be free if only on a short jaunt, snorting softly and pawing the ground as they readied to ride out. Tessa sat behind Clay with her pail, their closeness an outright declaration. As they left, Maddie waved from her cabin doorway while a dozen other fort dwellers stared in brazen curiosity.
For once the heat wasn’t oppressive, the noonday sun tucked behind cloud cover that stretched for miles. He felt no sense of danger, not only because fort spies spread out like spokes on a wheel in every direction. His own soul bespoke peace. For the first time in a long time, all the tension drained from his frame, the enjoyment of the moment foremost.
The thicket they sought was still abundant, the berries spared the summer’s sun by a dense surround of white oak. Tessa stood within reach of a rich harvest, gleeful as a girl. He chuckled as she flew through her task, her lips soon stained a telling purple. Ever generous, she fed him the plumpest, juiciest berries. Bolt ignored them both, tearing rapturously at a patch of bluestem.
“I prefer whortleberries to blackberries,” he told her as her basket filled, overcome by a vivid memory. “Baked into cornbread, they were a prize.”
“Whortleberries, aye. I was fond of Keturah’s strawberry cakes.”
Keturah and Heckewelder were never far from his thoughts. Had they safely reached the Tuscarawas? Already laid out their newest mission in pursuit of peace? He leaned back against an oak’s rough bark, mindful of all that was at stake. He was here to help bring about safety and peace in his own small way. Yet he was growing increasingly disheartened defending a cause he didn’t wholeheartedly believe in, pushing back the Indians till they lost not only their lands but a way of life. Unrelentingly, his part in their demise cut across his conscience whenever he gave orders in the blockhouse or scouted land that surveyors and settlers had grabbed and gouged with their implements, refusing to stop till they’d claimed every acre. The Indian in him hated such. The settler and officer in him saw it as a grim necessity. The spoils of war.
But for now, a moment’s peace. Tessa. She glanced up as a sudden breeze teased the leaves overhead. Her throat was bare, and he kissed the hollow of her shoulder where her fichu had slipped slightly. She sighed, the sound content. His own heart was so overfull he couldn’t speak.
“I wish I owned time and could slow it down, especially when you’re near me,” she said.
“How about forsaking the Buckhannon for the Monongahela?”
“I hear the Mon is a mighty big river.” She studied him, their noses almost touching. “Makes the Buckhannon look like a creek. Most fertile land west of the Alleghenies, Pa always said.”
