Dorothy Garlock (7 page)

“My Gawd!” Zan snorted. “Hit’s jist a bunch a younguns a showin’ off! They ain’t even dry behind the ears yet.” He put his hand to his mouth. “Hold yer fire!” he yelled.

The settler continued to fire while the raft, caught in the dangerous, swift current, raced downriver. Annie Lash heard Isaac curse. Then Jeff shouted to Light to pull in toward shore. The settler continued to fire while the Indian boys danced their ponies along the shore well out of rifle range, enjoying the havoc they were creating.

As the raft raced closer to them, Annie Lash could see the women and children huddled beneath the log shelter. The settler, who suddenly seemed to realize the immediate danger was not with the Indians but a collision with another raft, dropped his rifle and grabbed a pole.

“Gawdamned ignoramus!” Zan shouted. “Hold tight, gal, they jist mought ram us!”

Annie Lash gripped the ropes and braced her legs against the platform, more frightened for the people on the other raft than for herself. The Indian boys on the shore were forgotten as she watched the space between the two rafts narrow rapidly. The men pushed with all their strength to avoid the path of the out-of-control craft coming toward them. The raft was so close, Annie Lash could see the terror on the faces of the women as they hugged the children to them. She felt the jar as heavy logs scraped against each other.

“Now!” Jeff shouted. He and Light leaped to the other craft.

Annie Lash watched it move away with four men now straining at the poles to steer it out of the swift current. Her quick feeling of relief that they had not crashed was replaced by a spurt of pride in the way Jeff and Light had jumped to aid the people on the other boat.

Zan shoved his rifle beneath the canvas and grabbed a pole.

“Can I help?”

“Stay where ya is, gal. We ain’t got no time to be a fishin’ ya outta the river.”

The Indian boys raced their ponies along the edge of the water to harass the craft coming in toward the shore. The boldest among them urged their ponies out into the water, while the others raised their bows over their heads and shook them menacingly as they had done to the panic-stricken settlers on the other boat. Zan cupped his hands and yelled at them in a strange dialect. The yipping ceased and Zan yelled again. They drew away from the water’s edge, retreated to the edge of the forest, and sat quietly watching for a moment. Then, with defiant yells, they wheeled their ponies and raced away.

“Thank Gawd fer that!” Silas snorted.

“What’d ya say to ’em?” Isaac looked at Zan with new respect.

“I tol’ ’em to git on back to their lodge or I’d kick their butts up atween their ears an’ put a feather in ’em.”

“Ya didn’t!”

“Wal, I’ll be a horned toad!” Silas chuckled.

Zan turned his back and spit in the river. Annie Lash could see the grin on his face and felt a rush of affection for the grizzled frontiersman. Zan had never talked much about himself. She wondered now, as she had done dozens of times before, about his life before he came to Saint Louis.

Thoughts of Zan and whatever life he’d had before fled her mind when she saw the other craft coming around the point in the river. It was smaller and lighter than the one they were on, and the four men at the poles moved it along faster.

Their own craft jarred against the shore, and Isaac scrambled up the muddy bank to tie a rope to the stump of a tree. Zan and Silas dug their poles into the river bottom and lashed them to the raft to steady it. Annie Lash stood beside the platform while the second raft was secured and the women and children helped up the three-foot bank. She went to the end of the craft, holding on to the platform to steady her wobbling legs. Jeff was waiting at the top of the bank with his hand extended. Without hesitating, she put hers in it, braced her foot on a root, and he hauled her up onto solid ground.

A pair of deep dark eyes studied her face. She smiled at him without being aware that her lips were pressed together and two deep holes appeared in her cheeks. As his eyes studied her, hers noted that his leather shirt had shrunk from repeated wettings until it fit him like the skin on an animal and that his hair was damp and curled around his ears; its startling, white-blond color drew her eyes to it again and again. His powder horn, knife, and tomahawk were as much a part of him as were his arms or his legs, and the long rifle fit in his hand so naturally that he seemed to be unaware it was there. They stood gazing at each other as they had done earlier. Annie Lash couldn’t turn her eyes away.

“Be careful of snakes. They’ll be coming out to sun themselves.” The tone of his voice was soft, as though he were saying other words, and her lips parted so she could take a trembling breath. She prayed that he wasn’t aware of how girlish she felt or how excited she was.

“Snakes?”

“Are you afraid of them?”

She tried to suppress a shudder. He had touched on one of her real fears. She was deathly afraid of snakes and moved uncomfortably.

He grinned down at her and his glance dropped toward her feet. She lifted the hem of her home-spun dress, disclosing strong, high shoes. He nodded his approval.

“Carry a stick. Snakes are just as afraid of you as you are of them and will get you out of your way if they can. They won’t strike unless startled or cornered.”

The shudder shook her shoulders. “I had to kill one a few weeks back and drag it out of the house. It had a flat head and beady eyes. It was clammy and . . . slithery. Zan said it was a diamondback rattler and very poisonous.”

His grin became a smile. “They’re not bad eatin’. That is, if you’re good and hungry.”

Annie Lash felt the saliva flood her mouth and her stomach do a slow roll at the thought. He observed the way her mouth turned down at the corners and laughed. She knew, then, he was teasing.

“Oh, you. I couldn’t!”

“You’d be surprised at what you’d eat if you were hungry enough. You might even eat grub worms.”

“No! No—” She shook her head vigorously. Her eyes shone and her dimples deepened as she smiled.

She was still smiling as she walked away from him.

The women from the other raft stood together, silently waiting for Annie Lash to approach them. Their faces reflected the kind of resigned patience that was typical of women who had left their homes to build a new life on the frontier. Their clothes were ragged and mud splattered. One held a sleeping baby on her hip, the other clutched the hands of two small children. A young girl stood beside them. Annie Lash smiled. The women returned the smile shyly, apologetically, as if they feared their presence was somehow offensive to her.

The young girl stared at her with a mixture of curiosity and hostility and then looked away toward the line of trees. She was not much bigger than the small boy who stood beside her, but her young breasts pushed against the thin material of a dress that was too small for her. The hem came a good two inches above her bare ankles. A tangle of jet black curls that looked as if they had never known a brush tumbled around a beautiful, fine-boned face that could not possibly be that of a young child. There was an elfin, untouchable quality about the girl, as if she were with them in body but not in spirit.

“Hello.” Annie Lash instinctively knew the women would not speak first.

“Howdy.” The two older women spoke in unison. The girl threw her a quick glance, then ignored her.

“Annie Lash,” Zan called. “Hit’s a’right if’n y’all go in the woods a ways. Not deep mind ya, just outta’ sight like.”

“Thank you, Zan.”

Jeff appeared beside her with a long, slim willow stick. She took it from his hand without looking at him and despised the shyness that caused the heat to come up from the base of her neck to flood her face with color.

Annie Lash followed the women, the girl, and the children into the clearing behind the bushes. She looked around carefully and then beat the leaf-covered ground with the willow switch to make sure there were no crawly things before she squatted to relieve herself. The girl and the children squatted also, but the two women stood in the sprattled stance, as was the habit of backwoods women, to attend to their bodily needs.

“Is the one with hair like sheep’s wool yore man?” the girl asked. Her large hazel eyes were as clear and as innocent as a young child’s. The foliage of thick, dark lashes that surrounded them contrasted vividly with her translucent complexion.

Annie Lash was so intrigued with the girl’s beauty that she almost forgot to answer. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said with an embarrassed little laugh. “You’re just so pretty that I forgot . . .” Her voice trailed off as if she couldn’t find the right words to explain.

“Hit’s all right, ma’am. Maggie’s used to folk astarin’ at ’er. I’m her ma, Mrs. Gentry.”

“I’m Annie Lash Jester. And, no, he’s not my man,” she said to the girl. “I’m not married. I’m going upriver to Mr. Merrick’s homestead to take care of his sister-in-law and her two small children.”

“Ah . . .” The sound came softly from Maggie and her thick brush of lashes lowered. Her lips tilted in a smile and her arched brows raised slightly. Annie Lash wasn’t sure what the sound meant, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it. The girl’s mother was introducing the other woman.

“This here’s another Mrs. Gentry. We wed up with brothers.”

“Howdy, ma’am.”

Annie Lash nodded. “Where are you from?”

“Kaintuck.” Maggie’s mother answered with a yearning in her voice. “We left us a snug cabin with a good stand a fruit trees, good huntin’, a garden—”

“Our men’s been hankerin’ to try new land,” the other Mrs. Gentry said with a deep sigh. “Hit’s certain they got wanderin’ feet.”

“It wasn’t that a’tall.” Maggie turned flashing green eyes on her mother and her aunt. “It was ’cause them loony ol’ hill folk thought I was a witch, and Pa was feared they’d get a notion to burn me!”

Annie Lash looked from one woman to the other, expecting one of them to deny what the girl had said. To her surprise both women nodded their heads in agreement.

“Folks is funny,” Maggie’s mother said sadly. “My girl’s a good girl fer all her queer ways. Nobody’d pay her no never mind if’n she didn’t have the face of an angel. Menfolk say she puts a spell on ’em an’ they trail ’er like she were a bitch in heat. Times is when she takes to the woods to get away from the pesterin’. The womenfolk back thar in Kaintuck were talkin’ witchcraft, so we up and moved on.”

Annie Lash thought surely Mrs. Gentry was exaggerating. The girl was beautiful, but—Maggie stood silently watching to see what effect her mother’s words had on Annie Lash. Annie Lash smiled at her, but the girl’s expression was defensive, as if she expected her to dislike her. Suddenly, she whirled and darted into the woods, disappearing among the trees like a shadow. Mrs. Gentry gave her attention to the baby that had awakened and was pawing at the bodice of her dress.

“Don’t you think we should wait?” Annie Lash asked when the women started to leave the clearing.

“Don’t give no worry ’bout Maggie. She’ll come when she’s aready.”

Mrs. Gentry seemed unconcerned about her daughter’s disappearance. A feeling of uneasiness about the girl settled on Annie Lash. She had seemed taut, like a bird ready for flight, and had moved away from them so swiftly and silently Annie Lash had hardly been aware of it until she was gone. She’s like a wild, shy, forest creature, and quite the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Annie Lash thought. At the riverbank, she looked behind her, but there was no sign of the girl.

Overhead, the rustling wings of migrating, northbound birds caught her attention. Ahead of her the Missouri, so often hostile, repellent, lay shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight. The channel where they had entered and tied the rafts was smooth, sheltered from the main current by a string of little islands. The islands seemed to be floating in the river, idyllic ships of green carpet. The northern riverbank was splendid with the masses of darkly growing redbud set against the snow-white blooms of wild pear and plum.

Annie Lash drew in a long, satisfied breath, consciously permitting herself to enjoy the view. She was in new country and from now on every hour, every bend of the river, would reveal new and interesting views. She went to stand beside Zan. The old mountain man was her family now, and she had the feeling of belonging when she was near him. She felt every bit as close to him as she had to her pa. Zan cut a chew of tobacco, stuffed it in his jaw, and listened closely to what Jeff was saying.

“We’ll not make Saint Charles by nightfall, so we might as well make camp,” Jeff told him, then turned to Silas. “That all right with you?”

“Hit’s the onlyest thin’ to do.”

“What do you think, Light?”

“Is that not a good place?” The scout pointed toward a narrow strip of land that jutted out from the store. “Waterfowl to rise up if disturbed. A belt of rose thicket on the land side to keep out bear or wolf.” The man’s dark, alert eyes caught and held Jeff’s in unspoken communication.

Jeff nodded. Light jumped off the bank onto the raft and made ready to cast off.

Silas came close and spoke to Jeff in low tones. “These folk ain’t got no river know-how a’tall. Hit’s a wonder they ain’t got them younguns drowned afore now.”

“What do you want to do, Silas?”

“I’m a thinkin’ we ort to help ’em.”

“Are you suggesting we let them come along with us?”

“Hit’s our Christian duty,” Silas said firmly.

“All right.” Jeff waited a long moment before he spoke. “We’ll see them as far as Saint Charles, then they’re on their own.”

The older Gentry brother came hesitantly forward and stood twisting his hat in his hands. “How far air ya agoin’ upriver, mister?”

“From Saint Charles? Quite a ways. It’ll take us the better part
of four days unless we have a mishap.”

Annie Lash listened for a hint of impatience in Jeff’s voice. She could detect none and was surprised because she had heard Zan’s snort of disgust when Silas suggested that they help the ill equipped settlers. Zan didn’t suffer fools easily, and it was plain he considered the men fools for bringing their women and children into the wilderness without the know-how to protect them.