Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 03] (26 page)

*  *  *

The night was cool. A full moon shone brightly amid a sea of stars. Everyone at the homestead, with the exception of Mrs. MacMillan and the newborn, sat in the yard around a small fire. Caleb, Linus and Zee were as eager as the children, who sat wide-eyed with excitement and listened avidly to the stories told by Paul, Eli and Bodkin. Dixon was so bashful in the presence of the girls that he said not a word, but his eyes strayed often to Bee.

Eli presented MacMillan with the sack of tobacco. The homesteader was overjoyed.

“By jinks damn, Eli, it be too much fer mere doctorin’. There be enough tobaccy to last till next year.”

Eli smirked at Aee. “I hope I’ll be back with another sack by then.”

In the shelter of Light’s arms, Maggie watched Aee cast fleeting glances at Eli; and when Paul was telling the story about Eli being chased down the street in a river town by a barmaid and having to jump on his boat and pole it out from the bank so she couldn’t reach him, Aee tossed her head, curled her lips and snorted in disgust.

“The maid was goin’ to bang his head with a skillet. She say to me, ‘He has billy-goat in his blood.’ ” Everyone laughed at the story, but Eli had a special interest in Aee’s reaction to it. She gave him a caustic look, turned, and smiled sweetly at Bodkin.

*  *  *

Five miles downriver, Ramon de la Vega’s steady drinking had transformed his frustration into rage. He walked the deck and shouted abuses at the diminished crew. A sudden gust of southern wind had propelled the keelboat onto a sandbar. The two crewmen and the women had strained at the poles for hours and had been unable to budge the craft.

Vega had vented his anger by using the young Delaware girl cruelly, then forcing her to bare her body and touch herself intimately. In her drugged state she had groggily obeyed him. Afterward he had whipped her. Using the lash on the girl was more sexually satisfying to him than the act he had performed on her body. He then applied the whip to all the women, laying it especially hard on the white woman known as the slut.

The other men on board were disgusted by the performance of the Indian girl and shocked by the cruel whipping of the women, but they were too afraid of the Spaniard to object.

Born to a whore in a brothel, sired by one of the hundreds of Pittsburgh boatmen she serviced, the white woman had been named Betsy by her mother. Betsy was twelve years old and already wise in the ways of pleasing men when her mother died of the pox. A life of depravity was all she had known. Now six years after her mother’s death, she thought nothing of spreading her legs for any man who wanted her as long as she received something in return.

On Vega’s boat she had been given food and a place to sleep, and until now she had not been whipped but rather ignored by the richly dressed little dandy. She had whored for his crew, washed his clothes, emptied his piss-pot, and washed the Indian girl for his use. For this she had been given a small pinch of the white powder that gave her forgetfulness.

Deep inside Betsy resentment began to rise. Not only was her back afire from the lash, but the fierce pain in her head and belly had intensified. She had eaten little for days, and when she used the pot, she had found streaks of blood. She knew she would die soon. She had begun to welcome the idea of death as a release from the pain.

After his tantrum, Vega permitted a half hour of rest. As she huddled in the darkness next to the cabin, Betsy’s dazed mind suddenly became alert. Beside her were the two kegs of gunpowder the German had had in his canoe when they had brought him aboard. The top of one keg had been pried open when the cannon was fired. The lid had not been nailed shut again. Betsy moved it aside far enough for her hand to dip inside.

Slowly and cautiously she brought out handful after handful of the black powder, spreading it around the kegs and along the wall of the cabin. She was amazingly calm. Soon her torment and that of the Indian women would be over.

When the Spaniard yelled for Julio a half hour later, the trail of black gunpowder had reached the cabin door.

“Go over the side and see how bad we are stuck.”

Julio gaped. “
Señor,
I cannot see. Do you not think we should wait for morning—”

“In the morning we’ll be sitting ducks.” The Spaniard’s voice rose to a shriek. “Get over the side or I’ll run you through like the filthy swine you are,” he shouted.

“I . . . will need a . . . light,
señor.
” Julio trembled so violently that he could hardly speak.

“Get him a light!”

Betsy got to her feet as quickly as her aching, trembling body allowed. Inside the cabin she struck a spark and first lit a candle, then held the flame to the wick in the lantern. Shielding the candle flame from the thin night breeze with her body, she handed the lantern to Julio when he came to the door. Betsy waited until the candle flame was strong. Then she went out, bent, and dipped the flame into the narrow trail of gunpowder.

With a smile on her face, the woman known as the slut looked straight into Vega’s horrified eyes as he watched the hissing blue-green fire race along the cabin wall. The lantern, held by a paralyzed Julio, cast an eerie light for the few seconds it took the flame to reach the gunpowder kegs. The last thing Betsy saw before the brilliant light was the terrified face of Ramon de la Vega.

The explosion was heard for miles.

*  *  *

At the homestead the children were sent to bed. The men sat beside the small fire and talked of many things. MacMillan believed that with the number of people coming into the territory Missouri would soon be admitted to the Union.

“Then watch out. The land grabbers will come a rollin’ up the river. Man’d be smart to get hisself a place staked out a’fore the rush.”

Light smiled behind his hand. It was the same forecast MacMillan had offered to tempt him into staying and helping start a village.

“Indians is friendly here,” MacMillan continued. “Osage people mighty fine people. Treat ’em right an’ don’t try t’ change their ways. Hell! Some a their ways is better’n ours.”

“Careful, Mac,” Eli teased. “You’ll get you a town started here before ya know it. You’ve got two young bucks here and two pretty daughters.”

“Well, now . . . I ain’t aimin’ for that.”

Eli watched Aee squirm and with a half-smirk on his face, continued on.

“Yessiree. Wouldn’t take long to throw up a couple a cabins. Right here on this bend is a good place for a town. You could call it MacMillanville.”

“That’s a good name,” Bodkin said. Then when all heads turned to look at him, he turned a fiery red.

“See there, Mac. You’ve got you a cooper. Now get him a wife and you’ve got MacMillanville’s first businessman.”

Paul watched the glances Eli cast toward Mac’s eldest daughter. When Aee got up abruptly and went into the house, Eli leaned back with his hands behind his head and said no more. Bee followed her sister after a while.

The men drank sparingly; all but Light took a swallow when the jug was passed. They were taking turns patrolling the woods surrounding the cabin. When the moon was straight overhead it was time for Light’s shift. Maggie went with him, holding onto his hand, walking quietly.

Maggie loved to walk in the woods at night with Light. She liked the night sounds; the rustle of the leaves stirred by a pack rat, the hoot of an owl, the cry of a nightbird. Most of all she loved the sound of a wolf howling at the moon or calling to his mate. In the soft darkness she could almost believe that she and Light were the only people in all the world.

They didn’t speak. There was no need for words between them.

When Caleb came to relieve them, they talked quietly with him for a moment, then sought their blankets. Maggie snuggled close to Light, seeking the warmth of his body and the security of his arms.

“Aee an’ I was goin’ t’ take us a bath tomorrow, but now I can’t. I got my woman’s time today. Ma says not t’ get in the water when I’m bleedin’.”

“Why is that?”

“It would stop it an’ I’d be sick.”

“I’ve not heard of that, love. Indian women bathe more at that time than at any other.”

“I’ve not got a babe growin’, Light,” Maggie announced matter-of-factly.

“I realize that. Have you been hoping one was started,
ma
petite?
”

Maggie was thoughtful for a moment before she spoke.

“No. I want us t’ get t’ our mountain first.”

“Would you rather we didn’t mate until then? It’s the only way to be sure.”

“Then I don’t want t’ be sure.” Maggie leaned up, placed her nose next to his and spoke against his lips. “If a babe starts t’ grow, it’ll just have t’ put up with us.”

Light laughed and hugged her. “My jewel, I treasure each day with you.”

“I’m not afraid t’ have the babies, Light.”

“Were you afraid before,
mon amour?
” He stroked the hair from her face.

“I was . . . dreadin’ it. My aunt used to holler somethin’ awful when she was havin’ her younguns. Mrs. Mac didn’t holler a’tall. She just squatted down, held onto a post an’ in a little while the babe slid out. It was wet an’ bloody . . . an’ ugly lookin’. I didn’t say it was ugly, ’cause Aee kept sayin’ how pretty it was.”

“You’d never before seen a woman give birth?”

“I saw a deer. I rubbed her head while the babe came out.”

“
Mon Dieu!
She let you?”

“Uh-huh. Animals aren’t scared of me. Ya know that.”

Maggie laid her head on Light’s chest and placed her hand over his heart. She liked to feel it beat. When she heard a sound that resembled a loud crack of thunder, she lifted her head.

Light had heard it too. He turned his head to listen.

“Is is goin’ t’ rain, Light?”

“There are no clouds,
chérie.
”

A feeling that he could not quite understand drew him to his feet. He looked and he listened. The moon shone, the stars were bright, the night was quiet . . . but somehow eerie.

And to the east the sky was aglow with a rosy light.

Daylight came and the smell of woodsmoke mingled with the aroma of roasting meat. Linus began cooking a hindquarter of the deer before dawn. The other parts of the deer were curing in the smokehouse.

Bodkin’s oven became the center of attention for a while. Aee exclaimed over it. Mrs. MacMillan came from the house to look at it and see how it worked. Beneath an iron grate set on river stones a slow fire of hickory chips burned. The oven was roomy enough to hold both the turkey and the goose. Fat falling from the birds hissed and burned and smoked. Bodkin basked in the women’s praise.

Over the morning coffee the men talked about the loud noise they had heard during the early part of the night.

“There warn’t a cloud in the sky,” MacMillan said. “Maybe there was a storm far off, an’ lightnin’ set the woods afire.”

“If it did,
m’sieur,
it soon burned itself out.”

“Sounded to me more like something blew up.” When he heard the
boom-boom,
Eli had thought of the two kegs of gunpowder Kruger had stolen. He was crazy enough and knew enough about explosives to set the charges.

“Might be the German blew one of his kegs of gunpowder.”

“Otto wouldn’t waste the powder unless he had a good reason. It would take more than one keg to make a noise like that.” It was clear to Eli that MacMillan didn’t know much about explosives.

“The German left the gunpowder on Vega’s boat, isn’t that right, Noah?” Bodkin squatted by the oven making hickory chips with a hatchet.

“They was sittin’ by the cannon when I left. Vega had three more kegs he kept locked up,” Dixon said shyly. He wasn’t comfortable enough with these men yet to venture all opinion, and when the girls were around he was more tongue-tied than ever.

“What do you think, Light?” Paul asked.

Light shrugged. Whatever had happened didn’t appear to be a threat to him or Maggie nor to the homestead. Light’s mind was on other things.

*  *  *

Everyone was ready to celebrate. The weather was perfect, no wind and pleasantly warm as a sweet-smelling fall day can be. The men carried the long trestle table from the house to the yard to hold the food. Afterward they shaved and combed their hair, and those who had them put on clean shirts.

The women changed into their best dresses after the food had been prepared to Mrs. Mac’s satisfaction. The MacMillan girls wore the same dresses they had worn the day Light and Maggie came to dinner, blue linsey with white collars. Aee brought out a dress for Maggie that eleven-year-old Cee had outgrown. It had been put away for Dee to grow into. It was like the others except that the color was a deeper blue and was faded from many washings. For this very special occasion, each of the girls wore a blue ribbon in her hair.

Maggie had never had the companionship of women near her own age. She laughed and giggled with them over the tangles in Dee’s hair and the fact that Cee at eleven years was as tall as Maggie. At Cee’s age it was all right for her ankles to show, but when she reached Bee’s age it would no longer be proper.