Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 03] (13 page)

In the tops of towering elm trees, branches reached out and intermingled with one another, lacing over the forest trail. With an unblinking eye the creature perched on a limb watched Light and Maggie leave the camp and walk through the woods toward MacMillan’s homestead. Sure-footed, it leaped lightly from spreading branch to spreading branch in order to follow their progress.

During the morning it had observed the man with the injured foot move around the camp with the help of a staff and the hairless man work with an adze to shape a steering oar for the boat. The bald man’s eyes went often to the woman who kept her distance from him. The creature marveled at her persistence as she practiced with the whip and the knife while her man sat nearby carefully repacking their belongings. She appeared to be tireless in her endeavor to perfect her skill.

Her man was undoubtedly part Indian, but not she. Her skin was still startlingly white despite the summer sun. Not a single flaw that he could see marred her beauty. Hair, black as midnight, lay in tight ringlets around her face and hung to the middle of her back. She constantly pushed it back from her face until her man went to her and tied it at the nape of her neck with a thong. He watched over her as if he were starving and she was his last meal.

Now, desiring to get a closer look at the woman, the creature, high in the giant elm, made a misstep and knocked a scab of dried bark to the ground. Scurrying back into the concealing foliage, the watcher peered down through the lattice of leaves at the couple below.

Light stopped and threw his hand out to grasp Maggie’s arm and draw her with him into the thick undergrowth. His sharp, dark eyes searched the overhead branches for movement and saw a fluttering of leaves.

“What?” Maggie whispered.

Light shook his head.

The quiet was absolute.

Not even a bird moved in the trees above them. After waiting several minutes until the birds began to chirp again, Light decided that they must have drawn the attention of a curious raccoon. He drew Maggie away from the animal path they had been following, and together they slipped quietly through the wood that bordered the river.

The creature, its face so grotesque it appeared not to be human, turned so that the unblinking eye could follow the couple until they were out of sight.

*  *  *

MacMillan’s home was set in a clearing completely shielded from the river. Light was not sure what he had expected to see but it certainly wasn’t a homestead as permanently established as this one. Several buildings of various sizes and a stockade fence surrounding a hog lot sat well away from the house. Osage plum bushes had been planted around the kitchen garden. The wiry shrubs had grown into an impenetrable hedge surrounding the plot, creating a veritable barrier between it and the wildlife that might devour it. The land around the homestead had been cleared of brush so that an enemy could not approach without being seen.

The cabin was of “poteau” construction: logs set upright in trenches and chinked with mud. Hewn shingles instead of thatch covered the roof. The noonday sun shone on two glass windows—a rare luxury this far from civilization. Wild rose vines climbed the cobblestone chimneys that rose above the roof on each end. A black wash-pot sat in the yard, and a stout clothes drying line stretched from the corner of the house to a tree. In the distance a small patch of barley grain stubbles lay golden in the sun.

In this territory where a man with a couple of mules and a wagon was considered well-off, MacMillan was evidently very wealthy.

“Can we have a place like this on our mountain, Light? Oh, looky, they got a well in the yard.”

Light’s sharp eyes caught movement near a large open-ended building and saw a bare-chested Negro man wearing buckskin britches disappear inside.

As Maggie and Light approached, MacMillan came out of the cabin to greet them. He was followed by his pregnant wife, a tall, large-boned woman with shining dark hair parted in the middle, coiled, and pinned at the nape of her neck. Her back was straight despite the load she was carrying in her belly. She wore a loose blue-flowered dress with a white collar. MacMillan walked out into the yard, a smile on his face.

“Welcome to our home.”

“It’s a pleasure to be here,” Light replied.

Maggie, eager as a child, smiled up at MacMillan.

“Where’s Aee?”

“She’s lookin’ forward to yer comin’, Miz Lightbody.”

Maggie loosened her hand from Light’s and stepped up to the woman standing beside the door.

“Hello.”

The tall woman looked down and smiled. “Hello.”

“Miz Mac,” the settler said from behind Maggie, “this is Mr. Lightbody and his wife.”

“Welcome to our home.” She repeated the words her husband had spoken.

“
Madame.
” Light nodded politely.

“Where’s Aee ’n’ Bee?” Maggie asked.

The doorway was suddenly filled with children. One by one they stepped shyly out into the yard, the smallest one first. They all wore freshly ironed homespun dresses with small white collars. Their hair, neatly combed and braided, ranged in color from dark to golden brown. When they were lined up, MacMillan proudly presented them.

“Our daughters, Aee, Bee, Cee, Dee and Eee.”

Light bowed slightly. “
Mesdemoiselles.
”

Maggie clasped her hands together. “Oh! They’re all so pretty.” Soft giggles blew from her mouth. She smiled up at Mrs. MacMillan. “Not a one of ’em is ugly, ma’am.”

The red-faced girls, not knowing how to take Maggie’s compliment, stood with downcast eyes.

Light glanced at MacMillan and his wife to see their reactions to Maggie’s remark. He was relieved to see MacMillan beaming proudly and Mrs. MacMillan’s smile.

“Thank you, Mrs. Lightbody. Won’t you come in?” She turned to her husband. “The meal is almost ready, Mr. Mac. Why don’t you and Mr. Lightbody sit in the shade until I call you. You can show him around the place this afternoon.”

“All right, my dear.” MacMillan waved Light toward a bench beneath a giant elm. “I’m out of tobacco or I’d offer a smoke.”

Light looked up at the elm whose spreading branches seemed to cover the whole sky.

“Ain’t it a wonder?” MacMillan said, his eyes following Light’s to the top of the tree. “Ain’t another ’round here to match it. Two hundred fifty feet if it’s a inch.” He patted the trunk. “Gotta be eight feet thick.”

Light nodded. It was hard for him to make talk unless there was something to discuss.

After a lengthy silence, MacMillan said, “Ya goin’ to the Bluffs?”

“To the mountains to the west.”

“I heared them mountains reaches to the sky. Feller with Clark said ’twas the prettiest sight he ever did see. Said beaver’d come right up to say howdy.”

“How far to where the river turns northwest?”

“Not goin’ to the Bluffs, eh?” MacMillan chuckled. “I was wonderin’ how come ya tied up with that outfit. Figured ya knowed four men ain’t goin’ to get that cargo to the Bluffs.” When Light remained silent, MacMillan added, “Up ahead there’s towing and cordelling to be done. It’d take eight or ten men for that and ta fight off the riffraff on the river ’bove the turn. Where ever ya be goin’ ya’d have the best chance to go by canoe and be rid a him and that German feller.”

“I was told it was mostly Osage country between here and the mountains,” Light said, ignoring MacMillan’s words of advice.

“’Tis. Ya be Osage?”

Light nodded.

“My woman’s ma was Osage, her pa a Pittsburgh boatman. He was the orneriest bastard to come down the Ohio.” After another silence MacMillan said, “Miz Mac bein’ Osage helped me get a foothold here. Fine people, the Osage. Treat ’em fair and they’ll do the same by ya,” he added.

The sound of Maggie’s laughter floated out the door. Both men looked toward the house.

“That bald-headed bastard’s after yore woman.” MacMillan said quietly. Light’s dark eyes narrowed, but he didn’t answer. “See one like him ever’ once in a while. They don’t give up once they get a woman on their mind. Not even a Indian woman’d suit after he seen what he wants. Guess ya know ya’ll have to kill ’im sooner or later.”

“I reckon so.”

*  *  *

Maggie had seldom been in the company of women who accepted her as readily as the MacMillans did. They didn’t seem to think it strange when she prowled the house, exclaiming over the clock, the pewter plates and the pieced quilt that covered the bed in the corner.

“This is nice,” she exclaimed, rubbing her moccasined toe over the hard-packed clay floor. Do ya sleep in here, Aee?”

“Pa and Ma sleep in there. We sleep in there.” She gestured toward the room separated by a half partition.

“Can I see?”

“I guess so,” Aee said, after her mother nodded her approval.

Aee led the way into the other room. Her sisters, clearly fascinated by the visitor, followed.

“This is nice,” Maggie exclaimed again. She moved to sit down on the wide shelf that served as a communal bed for the girls. “Do all of ya sleep on here?” Without waiting for an answer she said, “I slept on a pallet. Pa was goin’ to build me a bed off the floor . . . someday.”

The youngest girl, a child of three or four years, came to lean against Maggie’s knees and gaze up at her. Maggie’s smile was one of pure pleasure.

“Yore name’s Eee, ain’t it, little ’un?”

“Uh huh. I can stand on my head.”

“Ya can?”

“Want me to show ya?”

“If ya want to.”

“Not now, Eee. It’s time for noonin’,” Aee said, then to Maggie. “She’s a hoyden. Ma said she should’a been a boy.”

“What’s a hoyden?”

Aee frowned and wondered if it were possible that she had more book learning than this woman.

“It means she acts like a boy . . . sometimes.”

“And that’s bad?” When Maggie stood, the little girl took her hand.

“I got a pet chicken. I’ll show you, if ya won’t go.”

“They ain’t goin’ . . . yet,” Bee blurted, then turned beet red when Maggie looked at her and exclaimed, “Ya can talk!”

“’Course she can. She’s bashful, is all,” Aee said, and led the way to the door.

The MacMillan children were well-mannered even though they were excited about having visitors. Maggie found herself seated across the trestle table from Light. There had been a quiet commotion when Eee had been told to sit in her usual place, which was not beside Maggie. The child had gone sullenly to the other end of the table. The meal of roasted buffalo hump, pigeon pie, hominy and soda bread was followed by vinegar pie.

Hungry for news, MacMillan asked about the latest happenings in St. Louis and St. Charles. He had not heard that Aaron Burr had been brought to trial and acquitted or that an Indian trail from Davidson County, Tennessee to Natchez on the Mississippi River had become known as the Natchez Trace, a road much used by traders and the military.

Mrs. MacMillan listened carefully to the conversation but did not participate. The younger children appeared to be too excited to eat. Aee waited on the table, pouring tea and removing empty serving platters.

Aee shyly asked if they knew Berry and Simon Witcher, who lived north of where the Missouri flowed into the Mississippi.

“Light does,” Maggie said proudly. “Tell ’em, Light. Tell ’em how Berry saved Simon from the mad riverman, Linc Smith, and how you killed that man that was goin’ to blow them up.”

“You tell it,
chérie.
”

Maggie repeated the story that had become a legend up and down the rivers. While telling it her eyes went often to Light. He added a word or two when she asked him to confirm a fact. He listened carefully, his dark eyes traveling from one face to the other and returning often to gaze proudly at his wife.

“Light threw his knife and killed the man just as he was goin’ to shoot the barrel of gunpowder. He saved them all.”

“Maggie,” Light admonished gently. “Jeff and Will were there.”

“But ya did it, Light. Berry tells ever’body ya did. Light went t’ the weddin’,” Maggie said, and looked around the table at the expectant faces. “Zeb Pike was there. He wanted Light t’ go with him up the Mississippi.”

All eyes turned to Light. “No, I didn’t go,” he said, and then, to Maggie, “
Chérie,
you talk too much.” There was love and pride in his dark eyes when he spoke.

Maggie laughed. “And ya don’t talk enough.”

The girls gazed at Light with awe. They had heard the story many times but never expected the famous scout would be sitting at their table.

Later MacMillan showed Light his grindstone, root cellar and the pull-bucket well surrounded by a waist-high stone wall. He lowered a bucket on a rope, pulled it up and poured the water in the chicken trough.

“Spring-fed,” he said proudly. “Clear and sweet.”

They walked to a railed enclosure where a cow chewed contentedly on meadow grass that had been forked from the large pile outside the fence. Two hobbled oxen grazed in the open field beyond the cowpen.

“Don’t keep horses,” MacMillan explained. “Too big a temptation for the Delaware.”

Light didn’t reply. Men who lived in the woods did not speak when no answer was required.

In a shed beside the barn a Negro worked at making bowls out of burls from ash and maple trees.

“Got two Negroes and a couple of Osage on the place,” MacMillan volunteered. “Them, my two oldest and Miz Mac are all crack shots.”

Eight guns in a place like this would hold off a good-sized attack. Light was curious about the Negroes. It prompted him to ask a question, something he seldom did.

“You keep slaves?”

“Don’t believe in tradin’ in human flesh. Never did. The Negroes and the Osage are free to go anytime. Osage drift in and out from time to time. Howdy, Linus,” he said to the Negro, who was bent over a bench where he was scraping the inside of a burl.

“Howdy, Mista.” The small man smiled warmly, and his dark eyes flicked from MacMillan to the scout.

“Linus is the best woodworker I ever did see. Looky here at this. He can burn the inside of a burl to within a half-inch.” MacMillan held a highly polished bowl for Light’s inspection. “We send ’em downriver to a feller in St. Louie. He sends them on to New Orleans. Linus gets part of the money. He’s goin’ to have more than me if I ain’t careful, and I’ll be workin’ for him.”