That’s my boy yonder!” A big grin splashed across Patrick’s face.
John followed his friend’s gaze and saw young Michael MacBride on the opposite side of the Swatara, waving his arms and jumping up and down.
With a gleeful shout, the lad swung around and ran back to the house, likely to fetch his grandfather so the raft could be brought across the water.
John was relieved to see the MacBride farmstead still standing. Several militia rovers had reported recent attacks on homes a few miles away on the outskirts of the Palmyra settlement. After he and Pat passed a particularly gruesome scene where all the buildings lay in ashes and bodies had been left to rot after being hacked and scalped, they were glad to hear that remaining families in the area had sought shelter within the stockade. John and Pat were frantic to get home and check on their own dear ones.
Even with Nate Kinyon and Black Horse Bob tracking for them, it seemed John and his roving party had only been chasing ghosts. The Delaware war party sneaked past the Swatara Fort in the Hole, then split up and split again. For the past three days, John’s group, along with Nate and Bob Bloom, had tracked one small band of raiders. But just when they thought they were closing in on the savages, the trail vanished in a stream. The Indians had sent off a packhorse to throw the searchers off track. John’s group found the decoy but never discerned the point where the war party had emerged from the water.
The loose packhorse was minus all goods except tied-on haversacks. John figured its owner must be lying dead somewhere. The gravity of the situation compelled their leader, Sergeant Forbes, to allow Nate and the Beaver Creek men to travel on to their cove, while Bob and others continued the search for the war party.
John ground his teeth. If Fort Duquesne wasn’t taken from the French soon, vicious raids could go on forever—and Beaver Cove would inevitably be targeted. Sloughing off his frustration, he dredged up a grin at the cheerful greetings from the other side of the broad creek as Ian MacBride and his grandson hauled the raft they had rigged with a ferry rope over to fetch them.
Jackson Dunlap moved to John’s side, a sullen glower darkening his brown eyes. “Sure wish you didn’t send Lily away.” The stocky young man had voiced that comment at least a dozen times over the past weeks. “Me an’ Frank’s enlistments is up the first of September. Near as I can reckon, that was yesterday. We won’t be goin’ back. Neither of us.”
“So you’ve said.” John kept his eye on the raft.
“An’ like I tol’ ya, I was plannin’ on takin’ her to wife now that she ain’t bound to you no more.”
John nodded a response. He’d already explained his reasoning to the persistent upstart till he was blue in the face.
Jackson droned on. “Soon as I see my folks, I’m headin’ on out to fetch that li’l gal back here. Her sister lives on one of them tobacco farms on the Potomac, don’t she?”
John cut a glance to Nate Kinyon. Being a backwoodsman himself, Nate didn’t seem to have a problem with this jackanapes courting Lily. But John did, and he detested being trapped in this same conversation with Jackson yet again. “Her sister lives on a very prosperous plantation.” He hoped the emphasis on the Barclays’ prosperity would dampen the guy’s enthusiasm a bit.
It didn’t.
“Aw, that don’t matter none to Lily. I heard her say a dozen times she placed more value on friends she has here than she would any amount of silver or gold. An’ I figger she values me a whole lot more’n any of that truck.”
John couldn’t recall a single instance when Lily had brought that young buck’s name into a conversation, nor had he ever caught her stealing a glance at the burly lad. If she’d expressed the slightest interest in Jackson Dunlap—or any other young man in the settlement—John was certain he’d have noticed.
As thoughts of Lily danced across his mind, he envisioned her tearful farewell, the desperate look that tugged at his heart. The tears she’d shed had not been for the Dunlap kid or that brother of his. They’d been for—
Well, maybe not for himself directly, but certainly for his boys and for the farm they’d built together.
The raft thudded against the bank. Ian and Michael jumped ashore and went to hug Patrick. John and the others waded in to help hold the craft steady so Jackson and Frank could load the packhorse onto it.
Once everyone was aboard, eager hands grabbed hold of the ferrying rope while Ian poled the raft away from the bank. Then the older man set the pole down and stepped cautiously across the lashed logs to John.
“I kinda hoped to see Lily-girl with ye.”
“With us? Why would you expect that?”
The raft lurched a bit, and the Scotsman clutched John’s arm for support. “Ye dinna’ hear, then? We rafted a couple backwoods fellas across the crick ’bout an hour ago. They was escortin’ her back here an’ lost track of her.”
“Lost track of her!” Shocked, John used his musket to steady himself on the rocking conveyance. “What do you mean, lost track of her?”
Frank Dunlap’s hooded eyes grew wide. “Ya talkin’ about Lily? She’s missin’?”
Ahead of them, Nate, Jackson, and Pat stopped tugging on the ferry rope.
Ian scanned the group with his shrewd blue eyes. “A pair of frontiersmen escortin’ Lily back here to the cove rode into John’s place awhile ago, hopin’ the lass made it back on her own.”
His jaw set like granite, John thrust his musket into the older man’s hands and snatched hold of the rope, pulling the clumsy raft across the creek as hard as he could with the help of the other three men. The instant it banged against the bank, he, Nate, and the Dunlap boys grabbed their weapons and took off along the wagon trail to his farmstead.
Please, dear God, let her be there. I promise never to be jealous again. If she has a mind to marry Jack or Frank or to go live with her sister, I won’t try to stop her. Just let her be safe. That’s all I ask.
Despite being completely winded by the time he and the others reached his cutoff, John kept going. He turned down the wooded path to the farm, pressing a fist to the hitch in his side as he ran down his lane.
Duke, ever on alert in the distance, started barking.
Before John broke completely out of the trees, his sons rounded the house and raced to meet him.
“Pa!” Matt slammed into him. “Come quick! Lily’s missing!”
All strength left John. Panting, he struggled to regain his footing. “She’s not…here, then.”
Luke tugged on his arm. “We gotta go find her, Pa, before somethin’ bad happens to her.”
The rest of the group arrived, breathing hard, and surrounded the boys.
“Where are those worthless maggots who lost track of Lily?” Jackson grated out, his eyes angry slits. “Let me at ’em.”
Matthew gestured toward the cabin. “Back there. At the house.”
The words barely left his mouth before John and the others charged toward the place. Rounding the corner, John saw two tall, lanky men in hunter’s clothes sitting on the porch like they’d come to tea!
The strangers both rose. One had his arm in a sling. “Kinyon!” one of them hollered.
“Reynolds?” Gasping for breath, Nate frowned. “Thought you was up New York way at that Indian council, you old scapegrace.”
“We was. Till we reported to Governor Denny. He tol’ us—”
“Quit yer blasted jawin’!” Jackson spat. “Where’s Lily?”
The red beard on the longhunter’s jaw hiked upward with his scowl as he shot Jackson a surly glare. He returned his attention to Nate and clambered down the porch steps. “I know the gal’s yer kin, an’ all, an’ we was takin’ real special care of her. But when we seen some Lenape braves carryin’ off two young’uns, we tol’ the lass to hide whilst we went to fetch ’em back.”
His cohort stood on the porch, favoring his injured arm. “The varmints heared us comin’ on them dad-gum horses of ourn an’ started shootin’ at us. We was lucky to escape with our scalps. Winged me good, they did.” He indicated his shoulder with a tip of his grizzled head, then reclaimed his chair.
“Aye.” Reynolds elaborated a bit more. “We made some fast tracks outta there. Figgered they might follow us, so’s we went the opposite direction from where we left yer little gal. When we finally shed ’em an’ got back there, she was gone, an’ so was the packhorses.”
“A whole passel of moccasin tracks was all over them horse prints, too,” his buddy said. “But strange ‘nough, there wasn’t none of hers. I never heared tell of no savage wipin’ away tracks of no victim, neither.”
At the end of his patience, John latched on to the nearest frontiersman. “Well, she couldn’t just disappear.”
Reynolds peered down his nose at his captured arm, then eyed John. “We figger she must’a heared ’em comin’ an’ covered her own tracks.” He paused. “Would the gal know to do that, ya think?”
“Our Lily sure would.” Matt took John’s hand. “She ain’t no stupid city girl. Let’s go, Pa. We gotta find her and bring her home.”
Even as he and Matt turned to head out, Reynolds raised a hand to stop them. “Hold yer horses, boy. I ain’t finished. Me an’ Stewart made a wide circle around where we left the little gal, an’ the only sign we come across was from them Lenapes. We lit out for the Palmyra stockade, hopin’ she found her way there. But nobody seen her. So we rode on back to Fort Lebanon. No luck there, neither. Then we come here, hopin the gal’d come home.”
“Pa.” Matt tugged John’s sleeve. “I was just goin’ out to saddle up Smokey. We gotta go find her.”
John turned to frontiersman Reynolds. “Are you willing to take us back there? Show us where you left Lily?”
“Don’t see as how it kin help, but we’ll give it a try.”
“Frank.” Jackson elbowed his brother. “Run over to the Shaw place. Borrow his two horses while I round us up some extra food.”
As irritating as the young militiaman could be at times, John was grateful the lad and his brother weren’t hesitating to help with the search.
“You can take along that packhorse we found,” Nate suggested.
“An’ mine.” Stewart rose to his feet again. “Ya kin take my horse. My arm’s achin’ somethin’ fierce. I’ll stay here an’ look after the livestock for ya.”
Reynolds glanced at Nate. “Did I hear you mention a packhorse?”
“Aye. Some Injuns we was chasin’ used him for a decoy. Threw us off their trail.”
The longhunter wagged his head. “Prob’ly ours. Did the beast still have our gear on him?”
“ ’Fraid not.”
“Well, let’s go.” Leaping off the porch, John sprinted to the stable. Who cared about some worthless horse when Lily was who knew where?
Within the hour, John, Matt, Nate, and the Dunlaps were again unloading horses with frontiersman Reynolds on the south side of the Swatara. A disappointed Luke had been left at home with the wounded longhunter.
Nate looked at Reynolds. “Why don’t you take the Dunlap boys with you? Spread out and backtrack to where you left Lily. I’ll take John and Matt and head upstream. No matter what, she’ll have to cross the Swatara.”
Matt gave a decisive nod as John hoisted him up onto the big packhorse. “Lily knows the Palmyra settlements are south of us. Right, Pa?”
“I’m pretty sure she does, Son.” South, southeast. Would she be able to tell the difference? It was easy to lose one’s direction in these dense woods, especially when overcast and raining, as it had been yesterday. He hefted himself up onto Smokey’s broad gray back. Please be alive, Lily. Be alive.
Nate cocked his head at Matt as they headed upstream along a narrow trace. “Boy, stay close to your pa. I’ll search a ways up the first gully, then cross over to the second. You two ride up the trace an’ track across from the second to the third, then I’ll take the next, and so on. We’ll cover more ground that way. An’ remember to keep your eyes open an’ your mouth shut. We think them war parties’re headed outta here, but we ain’t sure.” He switched to John. “If you find Lily, shoot off a ball.”
“Pa.” Matt reined his mount alongside. “Would it be all right if I go with Mr. Kinyon? Maybe learn somethin’ more about trackin’?”
The idea didn’t appeal much to John. He’d just gotten home again. Besides, it was a couple of frontiersmen who had somehow managed to lose Lily.
“I’ll see the boy comes to no harm,” Nate said.
“All right. But, Matt, do exactly what Nate tells you, you hear?” With that, John heeled his mount into a trot ahead of them. The sooner he reached the second brook, the sooner he could start searching in earnest for Lily. Still, he couldn’t deny that, in this vast wilderness, the chances of finding her were slim. She could be anywhere.
Setting his jaw with determination, he vowed to maintain hope. No one had spoken the words, but he refused even to venture anywhere near the thought that Indians had captured her. Not his sweet Lily. He would find her…or die trying.