26

We shall lay up provisions for a siege. We are all in fine spirits, and have good crops growing, and intend to fight hard in order to secure them.

—DANIEL BOONE

Tempe expected something grand, a good quarter-mile of stout pickets linked by bulwarks of blockhouses, not this beleaguered structure susceptible to the first assault. Her disappointment ran deep. But even a pitiful outpost such as this was better than a worn saddle.

Blackened cornfields to the west told of a recent attack and promised little meal to grind. Yet she couldn’t rid her mind of the notion of thick wedges of hot cornbread slathered with butter. Turnips and potatoes. Maybe a melon or two.

She kept this in mind as they crossed the Chenoa River, the horses adjusting easily to the sluggish current. The muddy water made her wrinkle her nose, but it was blessedly cool, the far bank holding the promise of safety. Healing. A full belly.

The sodden horses scrambled up the shore and picked their way over unfamiliar ground, bypassing stumps and grass burnt umber by the sun. Sion led, arms round her as he held the reins. She could hear the creak of leather thongs as the fort’s front gate slowly opened.

A cow mooed dolefully, and then the fort’s dogs began barking, the boldest curs rushing toward them and turning Cornelius’s high-strung horse more dauncy. Seeing neatly clothed women in bonnets and aprons waiting just inside the safety of the enclosure—and staring—lent to Tempe’s loose ends. Clad in a marrying dress now begrimed with a sodden hem, shorn of half her hair, she lowered her lashes.

Sion had taken a knife and slashed off her remaining braid, what little the rock hadn’t severed. Now her hair hung to mid-back, hardly the lush waterfall to her hips of before. But any embarrassment was short-lived. One of the men who greeted them had a pegged head, evidence of a survived scalping. A shiver ran through her at the sight of all that puckered skin about his ears and forehead. The startling pate was bare and round as an egg.

Sion dismounted. Mute, Tempe sat on his horse as introductions were made and he shook hands with men she’d heard about but never seen. Richard Callaway. William Hays. Flanders Callaway. David Gass. Their women stood behind them, sober faced, taking her measure. Her leg was aching, the linen bandage in need of changing.

The bonnet-clad bunch was dominated by a tall young woman, babe in arms, two little girls hanging on her skirts. Tempe softened at the sight of them, reminded of James’s sisters. But not one Boone did she see as her gaze scoured all present. What she’d give to meet Susannah and Jemima, Lavina and Becky. But would she even recognize them? The passage of time and all the changes it wrought stole away her gladness.

“I’m hoping for a doctor,” Sion was saying quietly, sparing Tempe further unease by being terse.

“No doctor hereabouts,” the elder Callaway said matter-of-factly. “This your wife?”

“Nay, Miss Tucker lives down along the Shawnee River. Her family inn-keeps there.”

Gass flashed a yellow-toothed smile. “The Moonbow?”

“Aye,” Sion answered for her. “I aim to return her there as soon as she can travel.”

Her heart squeezed at the finality of his words. So they’d part company at the inn. Try as she might, she still couldn’t recall their tense exchange in the caves. Wouldn’t she remember if it had been heartfelt? All that filled her mind was the horror of finding Raven gone and the ensuing deluge of rock and mud. The heavy stench of it still seemed to cling to her. She longed for a good soaking, but she doubted a decent tub could be found in so sparse a fort.

Hays looked at Sion’s party with an appraising eye. “We’re in need of a few more guns. Since the June siege we’ve been worn down to a nub.”

The young woman in back of him spoke softly but distinctly. “I’ll see to Miss Tucker.” At that she passed the baby to the wrinkled woman beside her and shook the least ones from her skirts. Sion moved to help Tempe down. She swayed a bit, not trusting her leg, and clung to him longer than she should have.

“Nothin’ but a hussy,” came an overloud womanly whisper.

Stung, Tempe looked to the ground, mortification giving way to understanding. What else were they to think of an unwed woman among so many men? Hadn’t she cautioned Pa about the very same?

The tall young woman turned on the whisperer. “What does it matter how she’s come here in the midst of so much wilderness, being in such obvious distress?”

Reaching out a welcoming hand, Tempe’s protector drew her farther into the fort’s dusty common. “We’ll leave the men to their talk.” Her chin nearly touched her chest as she looked down the length of Tempe’s dress. “There’s blood on your skirt.”

Tempe flushed, beads of perspiration dotting her upper lip. “It’s not what you’re thinking.” That had been hard enough to manage on the trail with so many men and so many miles. “It’s my leg.”

“Your leg?” The dulcet tone was soothing. “What about your hand?”

Hanging limply at her side, Tempe’s hand with its missing nail was all but forgotten.

“You’re in need of some comfort, looks like. I’ve got a pinch of tea. You can take it in the one china cup my granny gave me when I left Virginia.”

The simple kindness blunted the other woman’s ugly slur. Raising her head, Tempe took in the fort’s enclosure where rows of cabins formed the north and south walls.

“Mercy, where are my manners?” The woman’s finely freckled skin stretched across high cheekbones, as fair as Tempe’s was sun soaked, the brim of her faded bonnet hiding the vivid russet of her hair. “My name’s Esther. Esther Hart.”

“I’m Temperance—Tempe, most call me.”

“How come you to be with so many men?”

“It’s a story . . .” She’d tell it in time, but now, thirsty and strangely winded, she held her tongue.

They walked on haltingly. Just when Tempe thought her leg would fail her, Esther thrust open a cabin door, and together they surveyed the dim interior. It was cramped with one room, its sooty fireplace made of rock. Tempe’s eyes went immediately to the two loopholes along the back wall just big enough to ram a rifle barrel through. Behind her, one open, unshuttered window faced the fort yard.

The clanging from the blacksmith’s forge ushered in the memory of Russell and the barn-shed. Swallowing hard, Tempe fought down the ache his memory always wrought.

“This here belongs to an old granny woman who’s gone over to Harrod’s to be with kin. We’re right next to you. The men you come in with can bunk in the blockhouse down by the necessary.”

Esther gestured to a rope bed and slab table and twin hickory chairs with deerskin seats. Gourds, big and little, held sundry things. Buck antlers and wooden pegs were home to a faded sunbonnet and beaten saddlebags, a fishing pole and hands of tobacco. Above was a loft. Tempe could see the outline of two hogsheads of water beneath eaves strung with strings of red pepper and dried herb bundles. All was fragrant. Quiet. The privacy seemed heaven sent.

“I’ll make a poultice of oak leaves and dress your leg. But first a bath.”

Tempe stared at her, disbelieving. Had they a tub?

“Once you’re clean we’ll use the water to wash your pretty dress.”

Pretty? Esther, bless her, looked on the sunny side of things.

“I have something you can wear in the by-and-by.”

She went out, leaving Tempe to shed her filthy garments and shake her short braid loose from its tie. In time Esther maneuvered a hip bath through the narrow cabin door, a man following with steaming buckets. This was heaven sent too.

“In time maybe we’ll have us a tunnel leading from the fort to the spring like I hear they have at Logan’s,” Esther said, setting down soft soap before closing the shutters. “It’s a blessing to have enough water, especially when besieged.”

In an hour’s time the warm bath had stripped away the grime and left Tempe’s hair clean. Wrapped in a linen towel, she tried to make light of Esther’s grave expression as she examined her leg.

“I wish Granny Mason was here. She’d know what to do.”

The fragrant salve Esther applied bespoke familiar, beloved things that crowded the rafters of the Moonbow Inn. Tempe set her jaw as Esther bound the cut leg like Nate had done.

Soon clad in a borrowed, threadbare shift, Tempe waited whilst Esther retrieved more garments. A striped blue and cream petticoat and stays were followed by the sweetest shortgown Tempe had ever seen. Embroidered with tiny rosebuds, the pale ground was lemon-hued, a burst of civility in a roughshod fort.

“This belonged to my mother. She was a lady, a Virginian. She never did take to the fact that my Henry wanted to go into the wilderness. Word came last spring she’d died. I haven’t had the occasion to wear her best gown, always bringing one child into the world or nursing another.”

Tempe made a move to return the heirloom. “I couldn’t—”

“It’s good to see it be of use.” Esther’s smile disarmed all doubt, knitting Tempe’s heart to her in unexpected ways. “I reckon that man who brought you in will smile to see you in something different. Sion, I recollect his name was.”

Smoothing a sleeve, Tempe nodded as a quiet delight stole over her. Sion was foremost in her thoughts of late. Could Esther sense their tie?

“One of the scouts brung in a buffalo early this morning.” Esther moved to the window and reopened the shutter to peruse the common. “We’re set to have a little feasting and fiddling. Welcome you proper.”

Tempe joined her at the window, a bit startled to see a fire, brazen and bright, crackling inside a ring of stones at the very heart of the fort’s common. Lucian and two unknown men were minding the buffalo meat, laughing and talking as they worked. A good many people went about fort business, all strangers.

At last she voiced the question that had dogged her since she’d first come in. “Aren’t the Boones here?” Given the fort bore their name, she’d expected Daniel would be the one to meet them at the gates. Her disappointment went deep.

“Captain Boone’s likely out on a scout.” Esther pointed a slim finger toward a far cabin. “That’s his and Rebecca’s place over there. Their two eldest daughters have up and married and live in that double cabin opposite.”

Susannah and Jemima? Married? Why was she surprised? Younger than Tempe herself, they were desirable, accomplished women and bore the Boone name besides, a coup on the frontier. Likely they’d had their pick of suitors.

Her gaze roamed restlessly, assessing and dismissing men and women by turn, hope rising in her. But there was such a passel of people in the fort she was hard-pressed to name any of them Boones. At the gate more folks were coming in.

“You know the Boones well?” Esther asked, interest enlivening her pale eyes.

Tempe bit her lip. Was it possible to put such in words? “We were part of their party that made a try for Kentucke in ’73.” She couldn’t say James’s name. Couldn’t relive in the simplest words their valley experience nor her heartache since. “I never thought to see Boonesborough.”

Esther let out a rueful chuckle. “I’d not think you’d want to see Boonesborough. These poor people were dirty, lousy, ragged, and half starved when we arrived last fall. This year, harassed as we are by Indians, finds us little better.”

“But at least you’re all together, making a stand.” Spying a near rocker, Tempe sat. “Now seems a good time to tell you how I come to be with so many men.” In as few words as possible, she shared the tumult of the past month, reliving the caves and how they’d ventured to the middle ground. Esther listened, asking few questions.

“You picked a fine time to arrive. We were under siege till Colonel Bowman and his men marched in from Virginia. Here lately the country’s as quiet as I’ve ever seen it.” Esther picked up a comb and began working the tangles out of Tempe’s hair. “We’re down to fifteen guns, though I can stand up to a loophole good as any man. I’m guessing, since Mister Morgan hired you on as guide, you can say the same.”

“I’d rather cook and tend children than rifles and one too many men.” As Tempe said it, the cabin door pushed open and two little girls entered, the eldest toting the baby, a fat fist in her mouth.

Esther smiled a welcome, gesturing to the tallest daughter. “This here’s Ellender, my oldest, and then Isabella. The baby’s Frances.” Esther sighed good-naturedly. “Nary a boy in sight.”

Tempe reached for the baby, settling her on her lap. Ellender seemed glad to relinquish her burden. “They’ve grown used to the thunder of the guns, I expect.”

“If one can grow used to such. They’ve spent the better part of this year hiding under the bed playing with their dolls. We’re hoping this fall to return to our farm. We settled out a few miles from here. By some miracle our wheat and corn was still standing, so my husband, Henry, brought it in to share. There’ll be some roasting ears tonight at supper. And bread.”

Mouth watering, Tempe wound a lock of the baby’s sweat-dampened hair around one finger, unwilling to leave the cabin but knowing she must, and trying to dismiss the slur she’d heard at the fort’s gates. At least she no longer looked like a hussy, clean and modestly dressed, save her bare feet.

The little girls were regarding her with something akin to wonder, as if the bedraggled woman they’d first seen was altogether different from the one who sat before them.

She surrendered to the sweetness of the moment, the weight of the baby warm and pleasurable in her lap. This could be her babe, her least’un. She felt an unbearable urge to kiss the infant’s flushed cheek. She finally did.

Esther ceased her combing. “You need a babe of your own, Tempe Tucker. And if you stay on here more’n a day or so, there’ll be suitors lined up all the way to the river to oblige you, Sion Morgan or no.”