Dorothy Garlock (4 page)

“I have a farm up on the Missouri River. My half brother and his family live there. I had been away for a year and returned to find my brother gone and his wife sick. She has two small children and needs help. There are two black men, freed black men, who work the land, but no other woman on the place.”

He stopped and Annie Lash met his eyes. Instinctively, she knew he was not used to talking about himself.

“Buy a black woman.”

His eyes held hers. “I don’t buy human flesh.”

Her face burned. She felt suitably rebuked. Her pa didn’t hold with slavery, either. Why had she said such a stupid thing? His next words brought an even deeper flush to her face.

“I heard talk of you in the tavern.” His voice was set, his eyes on her were unwavering. She turned hers away from them and looked into the dying fire. “The talk is that you’re a lone woman, a decent woman.” She looked back at him at that. “I looked over the three that had asked for your hand, and I think I can make a better offer.”

Her eyes widened and for some reason unknown to her she felt a spurt of anger. Now she was up for barter, like a cow! He saw the sparks light her eyes and what he said next took her completely by surprise.

“I should have your eyes and you should have mine.”

She thought about what he said. Her blue eyes, his light hair; his dark eyes, her dark hair. She was still thinking about it when he shrugged his shoulders as if what he had said was of no consequence. The action spurred her to say, “I won’t.”

His dark eyes searched her face and she felt a stir of something in the marrow of her bones, in her brain, in that secret corner of her heart that she kept locked away and brought out only occasionally as she did tonight when she had looked in the mirror and took down her hair.
Hair!
She had forgotten about her hair hanging down her back! Only a loose woman allowed a strange man to see her with her hair down. She lifted her hands and gathered it into a bunch at the nape of her neck. With it safely behind her back she leaned back against it.

He seemed to know what she was doing, how she felt, but it didn’t soften his features.

“I realize I came without notice,” he said, as if to put her at ease. “But I don’t have time to dally around. I go back upriver tomorrow. Why did you say you won’t? Have you accepted one of your suitors?”

She shook her head vigorously. “No. I won’t marry one of them and I won’t marry you!” It was what she had known all the time. She’d not marry a man who didn’t yearn for her as she would yearn for him. He must be a man who had the same hunger for love that she had, she thought. He must have the same longing that the seed from that love would produce children who would be equally loved, nurtured, challenged to grow to adulthood with the same values. Before she would settle for less she would take her chances on the river.

“I’m not asking you to
marry
me!”

For heaven’s sake! What in the world was he asking, then? Her face warmed from the pounding of her heart and the embarrassment that fought with her pride. One wanted her to cringe, turn her eyes away, the other demanded she keep her eyes fixed on his. Pride won, and she and the stranger continued to regard each other with deep soberness. Neither spoke. Both were used to waiting.

Finally, she was forced into speech which came from stiff lips. “State your business.”

“What do you plan to do if you don’t marry?”

“I don’t know.”

“Zan Thatcher is an old man.”

“You know him?”

“Every mountain man between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi knows about Zan Thatcher.”

“You’re a mountain man?”

“You might say that.” He waited for her to speak, and when she didn’t, he asked, “Can you be ready to leave come morning?”

“I never said I was going.”

“It stuck in my craw to hear the talk about you in the tavern.” He spoke as if she hadn’t said anything.

Annie Lash gazed at him, the beat of her heart picking up speed. “Why?”

He ignored the question and asked one of his own. “Why haven’t you married? You’ve had offers.” The last was a statement, not a question.

“That’s none of your business.” She thought he was going to smile, but he didn’t. “I’ve not loved a man, except my pa and Zan, and that’s not the same.” She had decided in an instant to be candid.

He took his eyes away from hers and swung them slowly around the room. Annie Lash thought that perhaps she had shocked him with her frankness, but when his eyes returned to hers they held the same quiet, serious look.

“I have a good, strong house with neighbors no more than five, six miles away. It isn’t fancy, but it’s snug in the winter and airy in the summer. You would be safer there than here on the Bank. Although, in all honesty, I must tell you we are bothered some by the Osage.”

“What would I do when you no longer need me to care for the woman?”

“I’d bring you back here, but you’d be welcome to stay.” He continued to regard her with deep soberness.

“Who’s taking care of her now?”

“A friend.”

“A woman?” She spoke before she thought and her face reddened with embarrassment. To her astonishment, she saw his lips curl and amber flecks appear in his dark eyes. The smile rearranged his features in a fascinating way, and suddenly she smiled at him, felt her own lips move, lengthen; felt her cheeks curve and her eyelids half close. “It’s none of my business,” she hastened to say before he did.

“I wasn’t going to say that,” he said as if he had read her mind, but he was still smiling. “A friend, Will Murdock, is minding the younguns. Callie is taking care of herself.”

His smile vanished as quickly as it came and she wanted suddenly to bring it back. He leaned back in the chair, an ankle crossed over a knee, studying her.

“Would you like a piece of candy?” The words came off her not-quite-steady lips, but the smile returned and it was worth the effort it took her to say them.

“I can smell it. It brings back memories of maple time when I was a boy.”

Annie Lash placed the pistol on the table and got to her feet, forgetting about her loose hair. There was exultation in her; it was rising, pulsing in her throat, making her eyes shine. She glanced at him from the high bench counter where she went to break the cooled slab of candy into bite-size pieces. He was watching her, and a light flush came to her face. She turned her flustered attention back to the candy, the beat of her heart faster now. She opened a drawer and took out a thong, caught her hair back with it, and tied it behind her neck before she carried the plate of candy to the table.

Jefferson had not expected to find a woman such as Annie Lash Jester on the Bank. When he had turned after lighting the lamp, he was almost stunned into believing someone else was in the room, but it was his pistol the woman held in her hand, so he knew she was real. Could this be the same woman who had been talked about at the tavern—the spinster who had to take a man? The talk was that she was sightly, but no one had praised her perfect features: her straight, finely boned nose, her soft brown brows arching away from eyes that were not quite blue, not quite gray. Her hair was the color of rich chocolate and lay, soft and luxuriant, in careless disarray along her shoulders and down her back. Loose tendrils framed delicate cheekbones flushed with uneasiness. He had seen her from a distance, talking with the storekeeper, and his impression of her was merely that she was a tall, slim young woman. He hadn’t been prepared for the face that went with the body.

He continued to study her. Cleanliness. She was shining clean from the top of that glorious hair to the toes of the soft shoes that peeked from the hem of her skirt. It surprised him that a woman living on the Bank could be so faultlessly clean. She had looked him over with the same degree of interest as he had looked at her. The straightforwardness of her stare was also a surprise. This was no empty-headed beauty, but a strong-willed, determined woman.

“Mr. Merrick.” His name rolled off her tongue easily, softly slurred in the accent of the middle South.

He accepted the plate, selected a chunk of the confection, and leaned back to watch her nibble at the sugary lump she held between her thumb and forefinger. The candy was a treat and she didn’t mind his knowing she was enjoying it. They sat in the silence looking at each other. When Jeff reached for another piece, she smiled with her lips together because her mouth was full, and the dimples appeared in her cheeks. She finished eating and drew a square of cloth from her pocket to wipe her fingers.

“I can’t give you my answer tonight, Mr. Merrick. I’ll have to talk it over with Zan.”

“Is Zan on the docks? I’ll bring him here so you can speak with him tonight. I want to leave by first light. We have a five-day journey.”

Annie Lash caught the word
we,
but made no mention of it. There were other matters to be discussed.

“I won’t leave my mother’s trunk.”

“We can take it.”

“I would hate leaving the rocking chair,” she said wistfully and rubbed her hand lovingly over the polished curved arms.

“You won’t have to leave it.” His voice, though soft, seemed to fill every corner of the room. “We’ll be taking a flatboat upriver until we get out of the bottom land, then we’ll transfer to wagons for the rest of the trip. There’ll be room for whatever you want to take.”

Her head whirled in a quickening eddy. Was it possible that her troubles were over? Would this man take care of her and ask nothing more than that she care for his sister-in-law and her children? She wouldn’t have to take a man. Heavenly Father! Let all that he says be true, she prayed. Her sanity argued, this is madness. She couldn’t leave this place with a man she had known less than an hour. She had to talk to Zan.

She opened her mouth to say so, but the words never came out. The door crashed open and Walt Ransom sprang into the room. Instantly, Jeff jumped and whirled to face the intruder, a knife in his hand. Annie Lash drew in a frightened breath, too numbed to move.

“Ya bitch!” Walt was drunk, shaking with anger. Two men crowded into the doorway behind him. “Ya ain’t goin’ to be givin’ out no bit a tail when I git ya!” He was either too drunk to see the knife in Jeff’s hand or too mad to care. He lowered his head and charged him like a mad bull.

Annie Lash grabbed the pistol from the table and backed out of the way. Her disbelieving eyes focused on the men at the door and she pointed the gun at them. They made a move to come farther into the room.

“No!” The word burst from her mouth and they heard it above the crashing noise made by Walt’s body as it was slammed against the floor. They were not so drunk or so foolish as to argue with a woman holding a gun, and they backed to the doorway and stayed there.

Jeff’s fist had collided with Walt’s nose. It had taken just one blow. Walt lay on the floor, blood running down over his mouth and into his beard. He shook his head and tried to get to his feet. He made it on the second attempt and stood, swaying, his eyes glazed.

“Get him out of here,” Jeff said. “I don’t want to kill him.”

One of the men picked up Walt’s hat and the other took his arm. Docile and still reeling, Walt stumbled to the doorway, muttering incoherently.

“Walt ain’t goin’ ta fergit this,” one of the men said over his shoulder. The threat was directed at Annie Lash, but Jeff answered.

“He better forget it if he wants to live,” he said quietly.

The man was roughly shoved aside, and Zan’s broad body appeared in the doorway.

“Gawddamn!” he roared. “Annie Lash, ya be all right?”

“I’m all right, Zan,” she called from the corner where she stood with her back to the wall, the gun still pointed toward the door.

Zan’s eyes flicked over Jeff and then away. “Ya tell that thar bastid when he sobers that he pert nigh got his head blowed off,” he told the men moving away with the staggering Walt between them. “Now then . . . put down the firearm, Annie Lash, lessin’ yore aimin’ to shoot me.” Then, quick as a cat, he snatched his hat from his head and struck Jeff on the chest with it. “Jeff Merrick, ya ol’ son of a grizzly b’ar!” Zan threw his arms around Jeff and they whirled around the room.

It was crazy! In all the years she had known Zan she had never seen such a wild display. The two huge men pounded on each other, laughed, roared greetings. One time they banged against the table and jarred the precious lamp. It was a miracle it didn’t topple over. Jeff’s face was split into a wide, wide grin. His teeth were white and even, his face years younger.

“Zan Thatcher! I thought the buzzards had picked your old bones clean by now.”

“Ain’t no goldanged buzzard goin’ to get a hunk of Zan Thatcher. How ya be, boy? Heared ya was off up the Trace. Wat ya doin’ in Saint Louis? What ya a doin’ with my little gal, Annie Lash?”

“Your little gal, Zan?”

“Same as,” Zan said firmly, still pumping Jeff’s hand.

“I heard talk as to how a man would have to reckon with Zan Thatcher if he made a move toward the girl.”

“Yup, that’s kerrect. Her pa was a man what I owed. Took up fer me agin’ a parcel a riffraff ’n took a knife fer his bother. But I’d a seen to the gal anyways, she’s gen-u-ine.”

The two men were talking about her as if she wasn’t there. Neither had given her as much as a second glance. She stood silently watching them, the pistol hanging from the hand at her side.

Jeff reached down and righted a chair that had been upset during the brief struggle. “How long have you been here, Zan?”

“Two, three year, off and on, come pie time.” Zan’s eyes were brighter, happier than Annie Lash had seen them before. “Do ya recollect that thar widder woman on the Trace what made apple pie?”

“I remember several widows on the Trace that had an eye on you in those days,” Jeff teased. “You always managed to find one that could cook a good pie.”

“How’s thin’s on the Trace, boy?” There was a certain amount of wistfulness in Zan’s tone.

“Changed, Zan. It’s a solid nest of cutthroats and robbers. Not like five years back when all we had to worry about was Indians. Now roving bands of thieves have almost taken it over.”