10
Behold, I Myself have created the smith who blows the fires of coals and brings out a weapon for its work.
ISAIAH 54:16 NASB
Sion had watched many blacksmiths, but few with the art and skill of Tempe’s brother. Russell stood in the barn-shed turned smithy the next morning, leather apron hugging his narrow waist. The small stone furnace glowed when a bellows belched air at necessary intervals, stoking the flames. Sweat ran in shiny rivulets down his half-bearded face as he hammered and turned an orangey morass of ore into a horseshoe. He was a forge master, such a melding of muscle and intensity that one soon forgot his lameness.
Russell didn’t look up, just kept to the task in that almost effortless, unfailing way that made Sion want to try his hand at it too. He seemed unaware of Sion’s entrance, or mayhap rued the interruption. Or had overlooked Sion entirely.
There was a queer vacancy about Russell sometimes, a sort of otherworldliness, of not being fully present. Sion had seen that same blankness in other men, those marked by bloodshed and tragedy. His thoughts spun back to ’73 when Boone and a large party had failed to gain Kentucke and Boone lost his son. He recalled newspaper accounts of the day. Others besides James Boone had died. Had Russell somehow been a part of that?
“Where do you get your ore?” Sion asked, eyes roaming the rough walls adorned with the work of Russell’s blackened hands. Clearly, material was not a hindrance to Russell’s industry. Sion took in all the means necessary to subdue the wilderness. Hammers and hoes. Axes and plowshares and pot hooks. Hinges and rims and harness fittings. Cowbells and froes.
“Ore? I dig it out of the mountainside. Plenty of wood handy to make charcoal too.”
“You’d do well in the settlements.”
“Someday this’ll be one.” Finishing the shoe, Russell began work on a link on the Gunter’s chain Sion had brought in.
Sion risked another question. “No other men about the place?”
“Mayhap in time. With two unwed women . . .”
Two? Tempe and the serving girl, Paige, Sion reckoned. But what about Russell’s own mother?
“Shouldn’t take too long.” Russell’s odd half smile was as crooked as his gait. “We need some least’uns running about.”
Sion’s thoughts clung to Aylee. Nate sure sat at attention when she came round. The widow Tucker, folks called her in hushed tones. Sion sensed it unwise to press the matter about what had happened to Mister Tucker. He’d heard of men walking off and never coming back, leaving their womenfolk ever wondering what happened to them. Harper had expressed such a fear, all but begged him to stay. A sharpness stitched across his chest. He’d not heeded her.
“And you?” Russell looked up briefly, startling Sion with his sudden affability. “Looking to settle out somewhere?”
“Nay. I’ve work to do. As soon as you mend that chain we’ll be on our way west.”
“West?” Raising a heavy hand, Russell swiped back a damp hank of hair. “That country’s a mite formidable. It’s big, barren. Some of those canebrakes are so thick you can wander for days. Best take a guide.”
“I tried. She refused me.”
Another crooked half smile. “Levi Todd had a bit of tomfoolery sending you to Tempe. But he was right about her knowing that part of Kentucke as well as any man who ever made a study of it. Maybe better.”
“I expect she’s needed here.”
“Ma would likely never forgive you if you took her away. Tempe lends her hand to just about everything.”
The prospect made Sion want to risk Aylee’s displeasure. Tempe could cook. Forage. Shoot. Track. Hunt. Run. Their forest chase was never far from his thoughts. The memory kept him on a short tether, always circling back to amuse him. Taunt him. Tempt him.
“What makes you so bent on the Green River country?”
“The Great Meadow’s been overrun with British-backed Indians. That leaves the land west of here. It’s ripe for settlement, or will be.”
“You might tussle with a Chickamauga or two.”
“What of their Scots Tory agent, Alexander Cameron? Doesn’t he keep the peace?”
“Scotchie? The redheaded Indian? He lives among the Cherokee, but the Chickamauga are beyond controlling.”
“You’ve not had any trouble here?”
Russell shook his head, eyes on his work. “None to speak of. There’s superstitions that come with these hills, this river. It’s sacred ground, a burial place. The ghosts of Azgens and such.”
Sion had heard the legends. The Azgens were a light-skinned, blue-eyed people from across the eastern sea. The Shawnee claimed Kentucke belonged to the white Azgen spirits, a murdered race. The Indians were a superstitious lot, mostly fearless yet easily frightened in terms of the supernatural and entirely committed to the British cause, which included driving the settlers back over the mountains.
Sion didn’t share Russell’s calm or confidence. A wilderness war was coming that made the war to the east look like child’s play. The trouble with the Kentucke settlements was just a foretaste. No doubt the Shawnee and Cherokee and their allies would strike here, at this very inn, hallowed ground or no. Sion intended to finish his work and be well out of the way before then.
The Gunter’s chain was finished, the conversation stalled. Sion caught a flash of movement pass by the barn-shed. Just Tempe armed with her hoe. On her way to the cornfield? He watched her a second longer than he should have.
Russell was studying him, understanding in his gaze. He gave a sly wink. “Careful, Morgan, lest you be inclined to stay.”
The large party of settlers encamped in their loft had decided to return to North Carolina and wait for a safer time to trespass into Kentucke’s heart. In their wake were abandoned belongings, a broken tool and misplaced knife, a forgotten cornhusk doll. Paige picked through the offerings beneath the stifling sun, gleeful over a lost shilling glinting in the tamped-down grass.
All morning they’d cleaned, scouring the scuffed keeping room floor with river sand to free it from tobacco stains and spills, washing the loft’s soiled bedding and airing the mattresses, finally beating the rugs. By suppertime it was only the four of them. Tempe took advantage of the long summer’s eve when the heat of the woods settled a bit and a coolness drifted up from the river, weariness slowing her steps as she made her way to the rockhouse.
The surveying party had come this way earlier in the day. It was Sion’s footprints she saw—nay, sought—among the dust and horse droppings. She fancied she could distinguish between Cornelius Lyon’s light, trifling gait and the deeper, slower tread of the silver-haired man. Indians toed inward but a white man walked wide, outward. Broken brush and tamped-down undergrowth showed their passing. She guessed they couldn’t help it, burdened by the surveying equipment as they were.
She might have been among them.
Sion’s startling offer still gnawed at her. Bestirred her sleep. What manner of person made such an unfitting proposal, exposing her to untold dangers and the attentions of too many men? Yet something indefinable filled her, a strange yearning she hadn’t experienced since James. It felt good to be wanted even if it was for mercenary means, to do a job usually done by a man.
Now she half regretted sending him away. Mayhap it would have been best if she’d softened her stance and taken in the moonbow with him at least. Only there’d been no moonbow. Not since the night she’d spent watching with Raven.
Half a mile more and her thoughts took a dangerous turn. What if . . . ? She frowned and fingered the knife in her pocket. What if Sion met up with Pa coming and going?
But the possibility stood. The Loyal Land Company surveyors couldn’t have picked a better time to intersect with August Tucker, who was heavily laden with trade goods and slow to return. Sion and his men were on the main westerly trace.
She veered off the deer path toward the rockhouse, empty as Lazarus’s tomb. How glad she would have been to find Pa here, trade goods scattered about, a feast for the eyes and heart.
A bat flew low, nearly skimming her head as it winged farther back into the cavern. Nothing was disturbed in the fortnight she’d been gone. All was as Pa had left it. Another worry took hold of her that had little to do with Sion’s men.
Might Pa have been delayed by something else?
The wilderness offered many ways of dying. Wild animals. Accident. Disease. Indians. Ruffians. It wasn’t herself that she feared for but those she loved, Pa foremost.
As for her own death, she prayed it would be swift. A sudden fever. A fall from a cliff. A flint-tipped arrow straight to the heart.
Not slow and agonizing like James’s.
Forsaking the main trace, Sion followed a buffalo trail to a lick. Cane rimmed the outer edges, a sort of reedy prison offering temporary refuge but no liberating escape. They’d come thirty foot-scalding miles since daybreak by Sion’s calculations. Well beyond the Moonbow Inn.
And they were being followed.
No one seemed the wiser, though Nate was watching Sion hawk-like as if reading his consternation. With a low word to stand guard after herding the horses and equipment behind a canebrake, Sion doubled back off the trail.
He was glad to keep moving. When he stood still, gnats and biting flies swarmed him. His linsey-woolsey shirt was damp from exertion, and his hat had made a sticky mass of his hair. He started to climb, Annie in hand, three rifle balls in his mouth to keep it from drying out completely.
He gained a ridge and kept to the tree line, gaze never settling. When he saw what he sought, he expelled a relieved breath. A lone Indian. Young. Fleet of foot. An expert tracker. Fully exposed on the riverbank below and within rifle range.
If he sighted . . . fired . . .
It would be justice. Retribution. Revenge.
For Harper. For all that had been lost. For all that could never be regained.
He raised Annie, drawing a bead on the Indian’s bare back. His heart beat in his ears like the rush of birds’ wings.
Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
His hands shook. Emotion clouded his vision. The moment was lost.
Or mayhap redeemed in light of eternity.
A week passed. A tense, breathless week when the heat heralded late June and the garden slowly came into its own. Rotund melons and deep green cucumbers. Golden potatoes and pungent onions. Crookneck squash and gourds of all shapes and sizes. Climbing beans entwining leafy arms around everything.
Whilst Paige and Aylee tended the garden and helped Russell in the corn, Tempe was let loose in the woods. From now till Indian summer she’d be gathering, her most beloved task of all. With the sap running high beneath the new July moon, she fashioned her berry baskets. The bark of tulip trees was best, laced together with hickory.
For a brief spell she almost fancied she was in Eden, taking a special delight in her Maker’s garden. As she wandered, she felt the Lord’s pleasure in the things He had made. Did He too take pleasure in the ways she put His bounty to use?
“Gather you some blackberries,” Aylee called after her. “I’ll be needing some leaves for the summer complaint.”
Tempe began gathering thimbleberries in cool mountain ravines and gooseberries atop rocky outcrops and ledges. Raspberries, huckleberries, and blackberries filled her baskets and her belly. Once dried they’d hang in sacks from the rafters. But first their kitchen would turn out an abundance of pies and cobblers brimming purple, with sweet, rich cream poured atop them.
Thoughts as full of Pa as her baskets were of berries, she had little room left for Sion. He and his party might have reached the Green River by now or the white sulphur springs on the east fork of the Little Barren River. With the Shawnee River sinking lower by midsummer, he’d be wise to raft to the farthest reaches.
She tarried late in the woods, stumbling home by the stars, having waited at the rockhouse without reward. No light issued from the inn. Ma and Paige were early to bed, early to rise. The door was barred and she’d need to sleep in the loft of the barn-shed.
Opening the springhouse, she left her berry baskets till morning, tarrying long enough to drink some rich sweet milk, the cream at the top unstirred. Thirst slaked, she quietly shut the heavy door.
Was Russell abed?
The barn-shed loomed empty as she passed through to the loft. The hay gave beneath her weight, and she was spared its prickles by lying atop a saddle blanket. The familiar smells and sounds settled around her. Worn leather and wood shavings. Burnt ashes from the forge. Aging rafters. The cooing of doves. Through the shrunken timbers she could see the stars, great white spangles of them flung out across the heavens.
Russell usually slept in a near corner. Tonight no one seemed to be lodging with them. The few hobbled horses at the woods’ edge were their own.
She fell asleep missing her feather tick, then stirred awake at the sound of someone below. Raven? His striking silhouette was before her. The supple upper body, bare in summer. The ragged outline of fletched arrows at his back. The graceful arch of his bow. Three hawk feathers in his hair.
She rolled to one side to better see him and realized her mistake. Not Raven. This man was taller. Stouter. The hay gave a faint rustle as she moved for a better look. He looked up, and she held her breath till he turned his face away.
Hiskyteehee. Five Killer.
An icy finger trailed down her spine. She’d last seen Five Killer a year or so ago when Pa took her south to trade with the Cherokee. She’d not forgotten him. On his jawline was a ragged scar that told of a hard-won victory over five white men in the settlements, hence his name. He was young. A leader among the new Chickamauga sect. He had a special hatred for settlers coming over the Gap. She’d heard worse . . .
The moon bespoke midnight. ’Twas light enough for her to see a rolled paper leave his hand. As soon as he placed it on Russell’s worktable he left, moving beyond her line of sight to the midnight woods.
She waited for several long minutes before going below and lighting a wick from the forge’s dying coals. Holding the taper aloft, she perused the paper. A handbill from the British? Since the war began she’d seen her share. This one was meant for the tribes, and not only the Cherokee. Sent by the Cherokees’ agent, Alexander Cameron, one boldface line particularly chilled her.
Your father, the great King George, who lives in the lands where the sun rises, says the time has now come to feast on settlers and drink their blood.
Sickened, she let the paper go as if her fingers were soiled. It landed on the worktable, but she was of a mind to burn it. Taking it up again, she turned to feed it to the forge’s embers when the sound of horse hooves stopped her.
Russell rode into view just outside the barn-shed, looking just as she remembered him before Powell Valley. Unmaimed. Whole. In control. Where had he been? His stallion snorted, further jarring her. A look of pure suspicion marred his face.
“Temperance, what is that you’re holding?”
She faced him, torn between destroying the missive and handing it over. “Somebody just brought this by. Some Indian other than Raven.”
Dare she say it was Five Killer?
He dismounted and walked toward her as fast as he could. Taking the paper from her hand, he read it. Stoic, he turned his back on her and surrendered it to the forge’s embers. “It doesn’t concern us.”
Stunned, she stared at him. “Are we not settlers?”
“Aye. But we’re peaceable folk—”
“Peaceable? This inn sits on unpeaceable ground near the Warrior’s Path. An Indian delivered this very handbill. Do you think it some courtesy on his part?”
“He might have tomahawked the lot of us instead.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Do? What can I do?” He thrust his bad leg forward and locked eyes with her. “I can do nothing but keep the peace.”
“Peace? There is no peace!” She thrust her hands into her pockets to still their shaking. “The Indian that came—Hiskyteehee—was one of the party that killed James and the others that day, or so I heard tell of it. They meant to kill you—”
The words died in her throat as she took in Russell’s expression. His haunted gaze left her and fixed itself on a far corner. She’d seen that look. Feared it. It bespoke a terrible wound, one she couldn’t see. His silence was sudden and full of reproach. Twice now she had mentioned what happened in Powell Valley. What had made her blurt it again?
“Take care, Russell.” She gentled her tone, carefulness with him taking hold. “When Pa comes back he might bring news. He never says where he’s going, but I sense he’s in the thick of trouble traveling south into Cherokee country.”
Russell blew out a breath. “This is hallowed ground, remember. You know that Raven’s full of talk about how the tribes give us a wide berth because this is a burial place.” He took down a large wooden hetchel from a beam, its bed of nails coarse. The flax harvest was over, but the gathering of green corn was nearly upon them. “The Indians are shy of Pa, Raven says. They think he’s naught but an Azgen spirit.”
“What about the rest of us? We’re flesh and blood, living right here in the way of danger. This handbill is naught but a flaming arrow. We need to prepare, lay up provisions, and bar our doors. You need to arm yourself, sleep inside the cabin of a night with us women.” At his indifference her anger simmered and boiled over again. “You need to quit jabbering with Raven and mending Indian muskets and whatnot—”
“Mending those muskets and whatnot is what keeps your hair attached to your scalp.” He turned on her, hetchel in hand. “How else do you account for my jabbering and fixing? I aim to keep things calm, to stop any bloodshed. You, Ma, and Paige are my responsibility. With Pa in hiding, what else am I to do?” He threw the hetchel into a spidery corner. “I keep the peace to keep you safe.”
She fell silent, torn in two. Wasn’t Russell’s logic twisted? Could one wounded man keep danger at bay by mending a few Indian guns or fixing what they brought his way? Living unharmed by the falls but a few years was no promise of continued safety. They’d once thought that those first settlers would scatter the tribes and quash the danger. They’d been wrong. Something terrible was coming, mayhap a hundredfold of what had happened in Powell Valley.
Russell was regarding her with a haggard look, clearly spent from her outburst—and his. “Say nothing of this to Ma or Paige, nor Pa when he comes back.”
If he came back.
With that, he turned his back on her and staggered off into the shadows.