What was Selah doing on so contrary a day?
Thoughts of her quickened his pace. How should he come to her? Just as he was, an unshaven, gut-foundered, overeager rogue? Or by way of Rose-n-Vale and a bath? Impatience and longing discarded the latter. By now, under the watch of McCaskey and his farm managers, Rose-n-Vale’s leaf should have been bound into hands and left to sweat beneath barn eaves, the last step before inspection. Surely all was in hand enough for him to go straight to Selah. He’d prove to her she came first, business second.
The next morn he sprinted to the grassy glen where he’d pastured Lancelot. So winded his ribs ached, he leaned into an oak, the soughing wind cooling his brow. Well rested and fortified, his horse nickered at the sight of him. And then,ears snapping forward, head lifting, he gave a distraught snort.
Lightning flared on the horizon, thunder after it. Before Xander could reach him, Lancelot bolted. Biting back an epithet, he watched his hopes gallop away till the animal was but a dot of black on the stormy horizon. Xander trod half a mile more, then the skies tore open and soaked him, the ground beneath his feet no longer dust and brittle leaves but sinking muck.
It would be a long, hard slog to Rose-n-Vale.
Candace stood staring at Selah as if she were a ghost. A very sodden one. “Daughter, I was nigh frantic when I awoke and found you gone!”
“Forgive me, Mother. I didn’t mean to stay away so long.” Selah entered the house and set her dripping hat on the table, not hanging it beside her father’s just inside the door like usual lest she burst into fresh tears. “I’ve been out looking for Watseka. I shan’t rest till I find her.”
“But your wound.” Her mother’s face seemed to have aged doubly overnight. “The physic fears it might fester.”
“I would rather it fester than seek his services. ’Twas my wish from the beginning that another be sent for.”
“Mine as well, yet the Mount Malady physic has not come.”
“No doubt Laurent has contrived to stop him somehow.”
“Laurent is too fond of you, I fear.” Candace moved toward a window, near tears herself. “I hear someone coming, and it may be him of whom we speak.”
Selah removed her muddied shoes and left them behindas she climbed the stairs to her room. Her steps seemed lined with lead, her spirits little better. Was this grief? This bone-deep weariness, this teeth-on-edge existence? Or was it mostly fear for Watseka and the future?
Her bedchamber was smothering, the curtain motionless. Through the shut window she heard voices alongshore. Laurent’s voice carried the clearest. Soon they would dock. He’d obviously returned from seeing patients downriver. Dread pushed against her like a cold wind, buckling her knees till she sank onto the bed’s corner. She’d not go looking for Watseka again with him so near.
She began shedding her damp dress with difficulty. Her mother was needed, as she couldn’t manage with one arm. Selah called to her from the landing, and the task was soon completed. When Laurent’s knock sounded, she prepared to face him. How different Xander’s homecoming would be. ’Twas him her heart beat for and her every hope hinged upon.
Nearly lightning struck, Xander sought cover beneath a rocky overhang once he passed from Powhatan territory to the westernmost land now claimed by the English. Here he waited till the storm had spent its strength. Night was encroaching, drawing a murky curtain over the sodden landscape. Once the thunder rumbled away, he pressed on despite the wet and his weariness, every step engulfed by darkness.
Something inexplicable thrust him forward beyond his gnawing need to see Selah again. Every delay now scraped at him like the briars he’d pushed through. If only his horse would return. If only he could continue in the moonless dark.
At last he bedded down, still alert for signs of Lancelot, ready to launch to his feet if he heard the familiar tromping or a neigh. For now, the night insects began a chorus broken only by a whip-poor-will’s soulful song. Soon, this too would be silent as the first frost fell across the land. By then, would Selah be at Rose-n-Vale by his side, awaiting Oceanus’s return?
All the time they’d lost through misunderstanding and pride ... Did she now wait for him with the same yearning, the same half-wild eagerness, anticipating a life together that had till now been denied them?
He’d long carried one recollection of her like an old cameo in his pocket. She’d been but a bashful girl. Upon his return from living among the Naturals years before, he’d come into their store, buckskinned and befeathered. She’d mistaken him for an Indian, so long he’d been with them. How dumbfounded she’d been to hear his Scots lilt, her pale brows peaked over rounded eyes, cheeks red as a Pippin apple. Betimes she wore that same flush now.
Selah, I am coming.
On the borders of the westernmost English settlement, Xander breathed in air that was no longer pure but singed his lungs. At first it was only a searing trace. But half a mile more left him fighting for a clean breath. There, in the foothills that afforded a windswept view of east-lying lands—Renick land—his ongoing fear materialized.
Fire.
Though he’d not stopped since first light, all exhaustion deserted him. Abandoning everything weighting him save his essentials, he began a long sprint toward the flaming horizon.
O merciful God.
His barns. The year’s harvest.
Smoke, thick and pluming, was almost fragrant, redolent of prime curing tobacco. Enough leaf to fill thousands of exported hogsheads to England. To settle the debts owed his creditors. To ensure the plantation’s workings for another year. To fund the passage of more indentures.
Gone.
The leather fire buckets in the main house and all the dependencies were little more than a few drops amid such a firestorm. By now every hand he had would be working to stop the blaze from spreading, if it could be stopped.
Xander ran on toward the worst of the danger, unsure of what awaited him, praying his aunt and everyone within his care was unscathed.
