Merline Lovelace (4 page)

“I resent both your tone and your inference, but if it will ease your mind, I will assure you I mean no harm to you or yours.”

The lie came easily, like the many others Barbara had uttered over the years. And so naturally, the lieutenant stared at her for only a moment or two longer before accepting it.

“Very well. I’ll take you to see my mother.”

She hid her relief behind a polite smile. She would have made the journey with or without his assistance, but much preferred to travel in the company of a man who knew his way about this wilderness.

“The trip will be faster if we go by water,” he told
her. “I’ll arrange matters and come for you in the morning, just after mess call.”

“I’ll be ready.”

Barbara would make every attempt at it, anyway. She had yet to master the art of packing her trunks and valises with the same efficiency her maid had. Perhaps she could beg the assistance of the servant who took care of Mrs. Nicks’s personal needs. With luck the attendant might have some skill with arranging hair, as well. Barbara had grown quite tired of drawing it up herself in this unsophisticated cluster of curls.

With a nod to the lieutenant, she allowed him to escort her back to the crowded parlor. His dashing friend with the silky mustaches jumped up at their return. While Prescott and his fellow officers jostled for position, Morgan took temporary leave of his hostess and promised to return shortly with Mistress Goodson.

True to his word, he reappeared a short time later with the bruised woman. Mrs. Nicks’s manservant admitted them just as Barbara and her hostess were preparing to mount the stairs and dress for dinner.

With a gentle hand, the lieutenant nudged his charge inside. The timorous woman had found time to brush the red soil from her skirt, Barbara noted. And to knot her hair in a thick, smooth coil of some intricacy. Her interest piqued, she took a keener in
ventory while the lieutenant introduced the woman to Sallie.

“This is Mistress Hattie Goodson, ma’am. As I said, she’s had a rough time of it.”

The widow clucked in sympathy. “So I see. You may leave her with me, Zach. I’ll see she’s made comfortable.”

“Thank you.”

Hattie clutched at her rescuer’s arm. “You won’t forget the paper you promised to write for me?”

“I’ll draft it tonight and deliver it to you in the morning.”

With that, he sketched a bow in the direction of the other two women and departed. Mrs. Nicks bustled back down the stairs.

“Come with me, Hattie. I’ll have the servants make up a pallet for you in the pantry room. It’s cool and dry and will afford you a measure of privacy.”

“I…I can’t pay for my keep, ma’am.”

“I’m not expecting payment, my dear.”

Overhearing the exchange, Barbara made an impulsive offer.

“I’m in need of a maid. Mine chose not to journey to America with me. Do you think you could attend to me?”

Hattie threw her a surprised look. “Attend to you?”

“Help me with my hair and wash out my linens. I’ll pay you for your services.”

“How much?”

“We’ll determine that when I see how handy you are with a brush or curling tongs. Should I be pleased with your efforts and you choose to accompany me when I leave Fort Gibson with Lieutenant Morgan tomorrow, the arrangement could prove beneficial to both of us.”

“You’re leaving with Lieutenant Morgan?”

“He’s escorting me to the home of his parents. Do you wish to try your hand with my comb or not?”

The question ended on a somewhat tart note. Barbara wasn’t used to conducting such protracted negotiations with an underling.

Looking properly abashed, the woman bobbed her head. “Yes, ma’am. I do wish it. I promise, I’ll do my best by you.”

“Very well. You may accompany me upstairs now and show me what your best consists of.”

Hattie hastened up the stairs after the lady. Her thoughts all atumble, she could scarcely credit her amazing fortune.

Only last night she’d made the near-fatal mistake of attempting to keep that pig, Thomas, from bending her over the table and ramming into her yet again by telling him she had her monthlies. He’d near killed her when he’d yanked up her skirts and found it to be a lie. In the dark, desperate hours of the night, she’d decided to plunge a carving knife into the bastard’s back the
very next time he turned it to her. Lieutenant Morgan and his men had ridden up before she’d had the chance.

The lieutenant was her savior. Her hero. He could never know that Hattie had seen how he’d aimed to wound, not kill. Could never suspect she’d shoved Thomas directly into his line of fire. That secret would stay buried forever in the grave that held Thomas’s rotting carcass.

Now Hattie would travel with the lieutenant to the home of his parents. Her fortunes had indeed taken a turn!

Z
ach arrived at Sallie Nicks’s house just as the bugler sounded morning mess call. The crisp October air echoed to the tramp of the infantrymen’s boots as they marched to their breakfast.

Zach soon discovered Barbara Chamberlain wasn’t as accustomed to living by the bugle as the residents of a military community. Nor was she a creature of punctuality, apparently. He cooled his heels in Sallie Nicks’s front parlor for close on to thirty minutes before the lady descended the stairs.

To his consternation, Hattie descended with her, as did two of Sallie’s menservants carrying an assortment of bandboxes and valises.

“I’ve asked Mistress Goodson to accompany me,” the lady informed him. “She was in need of employment, and I of a maid.”

She said it casually, with barely a nod in Hattie’s direction, but Zach remembered how she’d dropped to her knees in the dirt to aid the fainting woman. He began to suspect a warm heart beat under the lady’s cool, porcelain exterior.

“That was well done of you.”

She looked surprised that he would presume to comment on her actions and shrugged aside his words of praise.

“If you will direct these men to your boat, they can load the luggage while I make my farewells to Mrs. Nicks.”

“I should have described our mode of transportation in more detail last night,” Zach said ruefully. “We travel by canoe, not keelboat. It will accommodate you and Hattie, but not all those bags.”

“Then you must procure an additional canoe.”

Zach hid a smile. He’d already accepted that inevitability. Not one of his sisters could travel so far as the next settlement without carting along what seemed like every ribbon and shawl she owned. The lawyer in him, however, was reluctant to cede the issue without at least a token debate.

“A second canoe will be easy enough to procure. The men to paddle it are another matter.”

“Surely you can hire someone?”

“I suppose I could.”

“If it is a matter of payment,” she said stiffly, “I shall be happy to recompense you.”

Zach’s eyes glinted. “I might collect on that, if you allow me to decide the manner of payment. In the meantime, you’ll want to change your frock.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He skimmed a glance over her coffee-colored taffeta day dress and matching silk-lined cape. One careless splash from a paddle would ruin it.

“Perhaps you have something more serviceable in one of those bags,” he suggested. “Something water won’t ruin.”

“Do we canoe to your parents’ home, or swim?”

The tart retort drew a laugh from Zach. “I spent my boyhood paddling these rivers, ma’am. I’ve learned it’s always best to be prepared for the worst. I’ll return for you shortly.”

It took him only a brief time to arrange for another canoe, somewhat longer to hire the men to paddle it. He finally reached an agreement with two Choctaw.

Zach knew them both. He’d spent some weeks in their winter camp a few years back. They’d come to Fort Gibson to inquire about the arrival of the provisions promised by the government to their tribe and were only too happy to travel back downriver with him.

He returned to the Widow Nicks’s home to find the delectable Lady Barbara changed into a gown of hunter-green gabardine. A fringed shawl was draped over her shoulders and a straw bonnet trimmed with white netting and green ribbons shielded her face.

“I hope this frock meets with your approval?”

“Most decidedly.”

“You cannot imagine how that relieves my mind.”

Grinning, Zach waited patiently while she went in search of Sallie Nicks. Hattie waited with him. She also wore different attire, he noted. Her homespun skirt and much-darned short blouse had disappeared. She was now attired in a dress of sensible striped cotton. Its ruffled collar hid the livid finger marks that ringed her throat, and the cherry-colored ribbons added a touch of whimsy to the otherwise sturdy fabric.

“Do you like it?” she asked shyly when she saw she’d caught his attention.

“Very much.”

“Lady Barbara purchased it for me from Mrs. Nicks’s store. She said she couldn’t have her maid going about looking as though the ragman had clothed her.”

Her fingers plucked at the cherry ribbons.

“She was going to give me one of her castoffs, but she’s so big, her dress fell right off me.”

Zach bit back a smile at the artless disclosure. He’d hardly describe the slender, graceful blonde as big, but he supposed anyone would seem overlarge to the sparrow-size Hattie.

“Well, you look very fetching, Mistress Goodson.”

She colored under her bruises and preened a bit. Her cheeks were still red when her new mistress swept back down the hall with Sallie in tow.

“Thank you again for this lovely gift,” the widow said, raising her left wrist to display the fan dangling from a tasseled cord.

“It’s little enough recompense for your generous hospitality.”

“You must promise to stay with me again when you return to Fort Gibson. Which will be soon, I hope. You can’t miss the Cotton Balers’ Ball.”

“Your field hands hold a ball?”

“No,” Sallie laughed, “our soldiers do. That’s their nickname, the Cotton Balers.”

“How very odd.”

Zach stepped in with an explanation. “The Seventh Infantry Regiment stood with General Jackson, our current president, at the Battle of New Orleans. The artillerymen used cotton bales coated with mud as gun platforms and embrasures.”

The Americans under Old Hickory had soundly trounced the British in that particular battle, but Zach decided not to mention the redcoats’ humiliating defeat.

“The ball won’t be what you’re used to,” Sallie warned, “but it’s quite lively and very colorful. Zach’s parents always attend, as do many of the local chiefs.”

The Englishwoman sidestepped gracefully. “My plans are as yet indefinite. I’ll make note of the occasion and attend if possible.”

Now
that
would be a sight to see, Zach thought
with a grin. The exquisite Barbara Chamberlain dripping silk and lace while she trod the boards with a Creek or Cherokee chief. Resolving to make sure he also claimed her for a dance, Zach stood aside to allow her and Hattie to precede him out the door. The two servants followed with their burden of bandboxes and valises.

The small procession caused no end of a stir as it wound its way past the fort’s outbuildings. The soldiers harvesting what looked like a bumper crop of pumpkins from the gardens paused in their labors to stare. So did the blacksmith and his minions. Even the whack of the laundress’s paddles stilled as the small cavalcade approached the river.

With each step closer to the red mud banks crowded by birch and oak ablaze with fall colors, Zach felt the burdens of his military duties ease. He loved serving with the rangers, felt right at home among their rough-and-tumble company. Yet the prospect of leaving the fort and his men behind for a few days and paddling through the distant reaches of the land that had bred him started his blood singing.

Eager to shake free of the trappings of civilization, he introduced his charges to the men he’d hired to paddle the second canoe.

“This is Chula Humma. Red Fox in our language. And this is Ok-Shakla. His name translates loosely to Deep Water. They’re of the Chata, or Choctaw, people.”

Like so many who’d migrated from the East, the Choctaw braves displayed the mix of cultures that had shaped them. Their fringed deerskin trousers were quilled and beaded in the style of their people. Their wool shirts, suspenders and flat-crowned hats could only have come from a trader’s stock.

Barbara offered the two men a small nod. Hattie hung back nervously until Zach assured her he knew them personally. Even then she had to be persuaded to climb into the second canoe. Zach arranged the valises around her and made sure she was comfortable before stowing the rest of the bandboxes in the first canoe and holding out a hand to his passenger.

“Lady Barbara.”

She eyed the thin bark strips with a frown, gave an almost infinitesimal shrug, and put her hand in his.

Her fingers felt warm through her gloves, her grip surprisingly firm. Zach handed her into the canoe and saw her securely seated before he shoved away from the bank.

The bark boat tipped when he swung into it. At the motion his passenger grabbed for the sides. She sat stiff as a rail post while Zach’s paddle cut into the water and steered the craft toward the current.

A quick look over his shoulder assured him the second canoe had launched without mishap. Like her mistress, Hattie gripped the sides. Neither woman relaxed until the current took the boats and the paddlers found their rhythm.

A few moments later they rounded a bend of the river. Fort Gibson disappeared from view, and with it all signs and sounds of settlement. As swiftly as that, the wilderness claimed them.

Zach could only wonder what his passenger thought of the tangled brush lining the riverbank and still, silent forests beyond. Her bonnet hid her face from his view until she felt secure enough to relax her grip on the canoe’s sides and twist around.

“How far do we travel this river?”

“Until it joins with the Arkansas. We’ll follow that to where the Canadian empties into it. Morgan’s Falls lies fifteen miles up the Canadian.”

“How long do you anticipate our journey will take?”

“If we hit no snags or unexpected delays, we should arrive in time for supper.”

Nodding, she faced forward again.

The Grand carried them swiftly down the three miles to its juncture with the Arkansas. Muscles straining, Zach used his paddle to negotiate the swirling currents. With sure, clean strokes, he took his craft into the main channel. The second canoe cut through the rippling waters right behind him.

Much wider and swifter than the Grand, the Arkansas constituted the main waterway through Indian Country. Keelboats and paddle wheelers now coursed it regularly, hauling supplies, recruits and, of late, more and more of the migrating eastern
tribes. At the moment, though, the occupants of the two canoes had the long, winding river to themselves.

The muscles in Zach’s arms bunched and stretched in easy rhythm. Long years of experience had him keeping a constant vigilance for sunken logs and hidden sandbars.

In between, his glance lingered on the green ribbons trailing from Barbara’s bonnet. He couldn’t imagine what a woman of her background and breeding must make of Indian Country.

He got some sense of her thoughts when they broke their journey at noon. They’d covered a longer stretch of the Arkansas than Zach had hoped for and were able to bank their canoes at John Jolly’s plantation. A shrewd merchant who’d obtained a license to act as government provisioner to the Chickasaw Nation, he operated a store and sawmill some miles above the point where the Canadian River fed into the Arkansas.

He and his Chickasaw wife welcomed the travelers and treated them to a hearty meal of fried corn, buffalo steak and pumpkin bread. Zach shared the news from Fort Gibson with Jolly, who in turn related the unwelcome information that a Creek hunting party had surprised two Chickasaw braves and relieved them of their weapons and horses. In retaliation, the Chickasaw had raided the Creeks’ village.

“They took two captives,” the agent muttered, shaking his head. “I’ll have a devil of a time getting either side to cry peace.”

The meal done, Zach lit up a fat cigar and waited by the canoes with the other men while the ladies made visits to the necessary. Barbara emerged first and joined Zach at the river.

The October afternoon had warmed enough for her to slip off her shawl and fold it over her arm. She stood silent, watching the rippling water. After a moment, her gaze lifted to the bluffs standing sentinel above the river. Tall pines dotted their granite ledges and speared into a cloudless blue sky. Hawks circled above the pines, wings spread, talons back, ever vigilant and ready to dive on their prey.

“This land is quite awe inspiring,” she murmured. “So wild and untamed.”

“River country has its own beauty,” Zach agreed, “but you’ll see no more remarkable sight than a storm rolling across the prairies. Or a more frightening one than a buffalo herd thundering over the hills in your direction,” he added dryly.

She turned a curious glance on him. “You speak as though you love this land.”

“I do. I’m sure you couldn’t tell it from my refined manners,” he added on a teasing note, “but I was born and bred here.”

“Yet I understand you’ve only just returned to Indian Country after a good number of years away.”

“I studied at a university in the East and practiced the law for a few years before going into the army. After that, it was anyone’s guess which post I’d be assigned to until headquarters formed a company of mounted rangers. I promptly applied to serve with them and came home to Indian Country.”

“I know little about the army, but I’ve heard service in a regular unit holds more honors and prestige than your irregulars.”

Zach’s mouth curved. “Been talking to Nate, have you?”

“It’s the same in the British army, I would guess.”

“You’d guess right,” he admitted with a shrug, “but the rangers suit me.”

She made no reply to that. She didn’t have to. Zach was sure she considered him eminently suited for the rough-and-tumble irregulars.

“Will you tell me about your parents?” she said after a moment. “I don’t like arriving on their doorstep knowing little more than their names.”

Was that all she really knew of them? Zach wondered as he blew a cloud fragrant with the perfume of sweet Virginia tobacco.

“My father spent a good number of years as a rifle sergeant in the 2d Regiment of Foot.”

“Ah, another military man. It’s a tradition with your family, I see.”

“More or less.”

His father’s military career had taken as many
twists and turns as his own. Daniel Morgan had enlisted in a rifle regiment and eventually rose to the exalted position of sergeant major, only to be stripped of his rank and cashiered from the service.

He’d then served as guide, surveyor and consultant to the army’s elite corps of topographical engineers until the War of 1812 precipitated his return to uniform. His service during the Battle of New Orleans had won him special recognition from his commander, General Andrew Jackson, and reinstatement of his former rank. In recognition, Old Hickory had recommended the sergeant major’s son for admission to West Point years later.