Dorothy Garlock (9 page)

A place to call home had taken on a new meaning during the last few months. Jeff wanted some permanence in his life, a strong, calm woman to bear his children. He studied the oval face of the woman sitting across from him. She was lovely. He judged her age to be at least five years less than his twenty-eight. He admired her wide hips, generous bust and her tiny waist. He liked her voice; it was low and soothing. In fact, he liked everything about her from the dark lashes that fringed her remarkable light eyes to the way she tried to suppress laughter by smiling with her mouth closed. He wondered what her laughter would sound like: deep, satisfying gulps or light, high trills. He turned his eyes away from her. Light and Zan were bound to notice how often he looked at her.

It had been distinctly typical of Jeff to take exception to the rough talk he had overheard in the tavern about the girl. He’d already been irritated by the sour-faced man with the snaky look who was not quite drunk, but nearing it. His talk about the woman he planned to wed and the fact he planned to share her once Zan Thatcher took a boat upriver had brought him up short. Jeff had come out from Virginia with Zan when he was no more than a stripling, and Zan had taught him how to survive on the Trace.

Jeff’s inquiries led him to the mercantile store and he saw the slender young woman walk away. The reluctant storekeeper had told him where she lived, and while he was on his way there, it occurred to him to offer to take her to Callie. At first his interest in her was merely a means of locating Zan and upsetting the plans of the bully in the tavern, but when he turned and saw her in the soft glow of the lamplight, he had held his breath until his chest hurt, then breathed deeply to ease it, still watching her. A tightness had crept into his throat and he had thought, how foolish. He was a grown man, not a callow youth to spin fancies around a pretty woman. Still, three evenings later, he was sitting across the campfire from her trying to ponder up an excuse to talk to her.

Jeff’s stomach rumbled with hunger. He got to his feet and went to lean against a young sapling growing near the river. The glow from the campfire the settlers had built downriver caught his eye. He watched it with disinterest. A poignant loneliness possessed him. He was filled with a quiet unrest. He suddenly felt the desire to hold a soft woman in his arms, not any woman,
that
woman, and have her respond to his lovemaking. The thought was so real, that before he could comprehend what was happening, his own body was responding to his thoughts and he turned toward the line of trees fronting the river and moved among them.

Annie Lash watched Jeff walk away with regret.

“How long have you known Jeff, Zan?”

He was whittling on a stick with a long, slim blade, his mouth puckered and twisted to the side.

“Fer a right smart spell.” He rubbed his foot over the shavings on the ground. “Met up with ’im acomin’ over the mountains. Jist a wet-eared kid astrikin’ out, he was. He done good. Warn’t no time a’tall till he was full learned in the ways of the trail.”

Annie Lash waited for more. She knew the futility of trying to hurry Zan into speech. When it was apparent to her he wasn’t going to say more, she was forced to ask another question.

“Did he leave a family behind?”

“If’n ya want to know so goldarned much, what’cha askin’ me fer? Ask ’im.” He chuckled when he saw her bristle.

“Sometimes, Zan Thatcher, you make me so . . . so darned mad!”

“Hold yore tater, gal. I was just a funnin’ ya.”

“I get tired of having to pull every word out of you, Zan. I’m just
curious about this place where I’m going and what kind of man is taking me there. What’s so wrong about that?” she asked waspishly.

Zan chuckled again. “Nothin’.”

Annie Lash clamped her lips together and the foot of her crossed leg began to move back and forth in a rhythmic movement that reflected her frustration.

“Ain’t much I kin tell ya, gal. He be a good man, best I ever knowed. He come from moneyed folk. His pa died and his ma wed up with Harrison Pickett of Caroliney. He got a brother named Jason. He ain’t nothin’ like Jeff. Dandy, is what he is. Hit’s ’bout all I knowed. Never figured hit was my business where he came from. Wed up with ’im, gal. He’ll make ya a good man.”

“Don’t talk like that!” she snapped. “That’s what makes me so damn mad about being a woman! There’s no place for me unless I take a man. Why can’t I have a business, homestead a tract of land, make my own way? It’s not fair, Zan!” She ended her torrent of words and glared at his set face.

“Hit’s foolishness yore atalkin’, Annie Lash You’d a wed up with one of them no-goods back in Saint Louis.”

“I’d of done it to free you, Zan. Not because I wanted to do it.” She regretted the words instantly and placed her hand on his arm.

“I knowed that, gal. I warn’t ’bout to let ya wed up to
one of ’em what asked ya.”

She rested her forehead against his arm. “Thank you for looking after Pa and me. Just don’t push me to marry someone who doesn’t love me. I want more than to be a man’s possession. I want to be his partner, the other part of himself. I want the closeness that my mother had with my father.”

Zan threw the stick on the ground. “Humph! Ya don’t know
nothin’ bout your ma and pa.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Ya was jist a snot-nosed kid.”

“I was not. I know my father loved her. It almost killed him when she died.” Her voice was little more than a hissing whisper.

Zan half turned so that he could look directly at her. Her face glimmered in the firelight, floating with disembodied paleness in the dark aura of her cloudy dark hair.

“Yeah, hit did,” he admitted softly. His gnarled hand came out and swept the hair back from her face.

Annie Lash was so surprised and touched by the gentle gesture that tears sprang to her eyes. “I loved him. I love you, too, Zan.” Zan let out a snort. She knew his affection for her ran deep, but he was unable to voice it. “But don’t think that gives you the right to boss me, Zan Thatcher,” she said saucily.

Zan took an unnecessarily long time picking up the stick he’d tossed to the ground. He began to carefully shape the ends with his thin-bladed knife.

“What ya needs is knittin’ needles, gal. A woman ort to keep her hands busy ’n her mouth won’t flap all the time. Hit’s been awhile since I had me a pair of stockin’s.”

“You didn’t wear the last pair I knit for you. All you wear are those moccasins.”

“Don’t argue. I weared ’em in the moccasins.”

Annie Lash laughed, heartier than any she’d enjoyed in a long time. It was melodious. A happy, friendly laugh that floated on the night air to Light and Jeff, who were bent over the pit where they had buried the ducks. Jeff glanced up to see Light watching him with a perceptive look on his usually solemn face.

“What’s the matter with you?” he growled.

“Not me,
mon ami.
” He shook his head. “Ho, but your eyes stray often to the woman. Is mating on your mind?” He winked and shrugged his shoulders. “My own eyes have enjoyed her beauty.”

Jeff gave no indication he had heard. He dug something out of the ground that resembled a melon. This was one of the mud-plastered ducks, the encircling clay now baked brittle and hard. He rolled it onto a piece of bark and moved away from the pit as Silas and Isaac, hungry after the day of toil on the river, came forward to get their supper.

Outlined against the glow of the fire, he knelt in front of Annie Lash and began cracking the shell with his tomahawk. The clay broke off readily, the feathers adhering to each piece, so that the smooth brown body of the roasted duck was exposed.

“Wal, now. Thanky, Jeff.” Zan tucked his knife in his belt. “Hit’s right friendly of ya to wait on a ol’ man.”

“This is for the lady.”

“Annie Lash ain’t used to be a waited on,” Zan said stubbornly. He stood. “We, if’n I got no invite—”

“You don’t.” Jeff said it sharply, abruptly, as if he was angry.

Zan began to whistle and moved out into the darkness. Annie Lash wished a crack would appear in the ground and swallow her up. What in the world had gotten into Zan that he would act this way? She was grateful for the darkness that hid her burning cheeks.

Jeff broke off a portion of the duck and handed it to her. She stood and leaned over while she ate it so the abundant juices would not soil her dress. It was delicious. They ate without speaking until their hunger was satisfied.

“Will the people from the other raft be traveling with us tomorrow?” Annie Lash asked just to have something to say.

“No. If they plan to settle here they must see the Territory man and select a tract. We’ll leave before sunup. We’ll load the wagons at first light.” He threw the duck carcass into the fire and it blazed briefly. “You’ll bed down on the raft. I’ll take you there.”

He was standing close to her and they were both aware of a sudden tension. She started to speak, but would not trust her voice. She had the feeling that there was nothing anywhere that could frighten or disturb this man. He was a man who knew himself, knew what he wanted. He had measured himself against the mountains, against the river, against the land and its wilderness. He knew his strength.

The wind stirred the leaves and moaned softly in the treetops. Downriver an owl hooted. It was a lonely sound, a sound that always frightened her because it brought to mind her aloneness. She turned swiftly, fighting down an overwhelming urge to run, to escape from this man. There was something big and hard and sure about him, something in the way he moved. It was impossible, ridiculous, but she had the feeling he had made a decision about her. She hugged her shawl about her shoulders, feeling suddenly chilled and unsure of herself.

Jeff put his hand beneath her elbow and guided her down to where the raft was beached.

“I’ve fixed a spot under the canvas and left the pelts for you to use for cover.”

“Thank you. But I could have slept on shore.” She
couldn’t make out his features in the dark, but his light hair was visible.

“It may rain.”

“Oh? It doesn’t look like rain.”

“Light left the pelts on the raft so you might as well use them.”

“He looks . . . part Indian.”

“He is part Indian. The other part’s French.”

“Does he work for you?”

Jeff smiled. “Only when he wants to. Light is a very complicated man. He pleases only himself.”

Annie Lash laughed. “It would be a nice way to live.”

“Don’t envy him. He’s had much sadness in his life.
He’s the son of an Osage woman and a French trapper. He’s seen his mother, his brother and sisters killed by white men and his father killed by Indians. His young wife was raped and murdered by French rivermen.”

“Oh, the poor man!” She was shocked by the story, and equally shocked by the dispassionate way he told it. “He must find it hard not to hate all mankind.”

“When I first met him his depression was deep, and at times I was sure he had lost his mind. For days he wouldn’t eat and at night he couldn’t sleep. Whenever his grief became unbearable he would go into the woods and raise his head to the sky and howl like a wounded animal.”

Annie Lash shuddered and turned away from him, although it was too dark for him to see the sparkle of tears in her eyes. It had been unfair of her to think he didn’t care. It was there in the tremor of his voice.

“How long ago?” She voiced the question huskily.

“Five years come summer. It isn’t a very pretty story.”

She was silent for a long time. Then, in a strange tone of voice, she said, “Life is so short. Sometimes you don’t have time to make it beautiful.”

With his hand beneath her elbow he guided her to the edge of the platform and they sat down. She was increasingly aware he was in a different mood.

“Beautiful?” He shrugged. “The important thing is for a man to leave something behind to show he has passed through this life. If he doesn’t, he’s just put in his time.”

What a strange thing for him to say. She stared at him, her eyes straining in the darkness. “Is that what you want to do?”

“Yes.”

She fought to still her trembling. “What is your home like?”

“It’s the best I could build in this place. It’s not elegant by Virginia standards, but it’s sturdy and will do for now. I call it Berrywood.”

Annie Lash felt a strange tenseness come over her and fought it with a sudden desperation. She was uneasy, and to cover it she rushed into speech.

“Berrywood? It sounds like a Virginia mansion.”

He was silent and a queer little shock of something almost like panic went through her. Had he thought her frivolous? What if he did? What could it possibly matter? The thought disturbed her. Today she had looked at his face and wondered what was behind it. Zan respected him. The men trusted him. What sort of woman would he want? She looked at him keenly and knew he was watching her. A woman could strengthen a weak man, but this man didn’t need to be strengthened. A woman wouldn’t make a whit of an impression on him. She would have to conform to what he wanted, be what he wanted. Resentment edged its way into her thoughts. On the shore she could see Zan moving about the campfire. She wanted to call out to him, but she didn’t because Jeff had placed his hand on her shoulder to get her attention.

“I want to talk to you about something and I think now is the best time to do it.”

Slowly, she shifted her gaze to him. “About what?”

“I’ve decided to marry you. There’s a man here in
Saint Charles who can do it and it’ll be legal. We’ll go see him in the morning.”

Annie Lash wasn’t sure she had heard the words correctly. Had he really made that shocking statement?
I’ve decided to marry you.
That’s what he said! She drew a quivering breath into her lungs and stiffened as the hand on her shoulder slid down her back and he began to pull her toward him.

“
You
have decided?” Her throat was so dry and lumpy she almost choked on the words.

“Yes, I’ve decided.”

“If this was what you had in mind, why didn’t you say so last night, or the night before?” Anger burned in her independent heart.