There you are, mon chere, with your head as hard as a rock.”
At the sound of Annie’s bright voice and happy giggle, Brock looked up from cleaning his rifle. During their nearly two weeks in the fort, he’d come to pay scant attention to the hundred or so voices constantly buzzing around the little compound. Mixed with animal sounds, they all blended together in an unintelligible drone that reminded him of a bee tree. Yet his ears seemed tuned to Annie’s voice alone, which never failed to send a thrill rippling through him.
“Are you talking to me or Cap’n Brody here?” His heart thumped harder as she neared the east end of the garrison house porch where he sat cross-legged beside the big dog.
“Why, the cap’n, of course.” She bent to hug the dog’s thick, woolly neck. “But if the cap fits …” She sent Brock a teasing grin, displaying that delightful little dimple in her cheek he loved so much.
“I’m convinced he lived for no other purpose than to see you again.” Brock hoped his voice sounded nonchalant, but doubted it. How could he remain unaffected by her nearness when these private conversations with her had become as rare and dear as gold?
In slow, careful movements, she lowered herself to the brownstone step next to the spot on the porch where Cap’n Brody lay basking in the midmorning sun. Caught in a slice of sunlight, Annie looked achingly beautiful as she settled on the rock, readjusting her brown calico skirt to better accommodate her expanding girth.
Brock allowed his gaze to roam untethered over her features, drinking in her loveliness like a thirsty man guzzles water. Her faded calico bonnet hung limply at the back of her neck, and a freshening breeze tantalizingly rearranged the walnut-colored curls at her forehead.
He swallowed down the painful knot that had gathered in his throat. Had there ever been a man so completely smitten as he … a heart so helplessly beguiled as his?
“There is nothing you would not do for me, is that not so, mon ami?” The golden freckles sprinkled over Annie’s face seemed to dance merrily as she wrinkled her nose at the dog, who answered with a contented groan and a soulful look.
Brock longed to say that the sentiment exactly described his own devotion to her. But she must surely know that. Hadn’t he tracked her from Deux Fleuves to the interior of Ohio, risking both his life and freedom to bring her home? He would gladly do it again without a moment’s hesitation. How he longed to proclaim his love and devotion to her. But between his appointment with Stryker’s hangman’s noose and the hostile Shawnee who kept them penned up in this fort, his time on earth was quickly dwindling.
Annie offered Brock an unsteady smile. “Surely by now, Gray Feather has sent word to the rangers at Fort French Lick. Until they arrive, we must all stay as strong as our stout-hearted Cap’n Brody.” A tinge of uncertainty tarnished the bright hope in her voice.
Brock rammed the cleaning rod down the barrel of his rifle and prayed Annie was right. He longed to reassure her, but giving her false hope would only be cruel. “Gray Feather will do all he can to help—you know that.”
Though his statement was true, Brock feared that even if Gray Feather managed to get word of their predicament to Fort French Lick, the rangers might not believe him. Too many times Indians had used just such tricks to lure soldiers into death traps.
But something needed to be done … and soon. The limited food supplies in the fort would not hold out long. For the first two or three days, there’d been an almost celebratory attitude among the settlers, as if they had gathered in the fort for a wedding or a log rolling. As they had experienced on earlier occasions, they expected a company of soldiers to arrive within a day or two and shoo away the pesky Indians bedeviling them. But ten days had passed with no sign of help, and the menace lurking outside the little stockade had become frighteningly apparent.
Lately, Brock had sensed a further deterioration in the general mood within the compound. As the days passed, their frustration at being cooped up in the fort had gradually given way to a growing panic. Each time someone tried to leave the stockade, they were greeted by a musket shot or an arrow that seemed to come from nowhere. Until yesterday, they’d all been warning shots. Then, impatience and worry over the condition of his livestock at home had caused Pritch Callahan to foolishly walk out of the fort in the middle of the day. The man hadn’t gotten twenty paces before an arrow whistled through the air and struck his shoulder. Brock and Amos Buxton just barely managed to get him back into the safety of the compound with their own skins intact.
Annie’s brows pinched together as she rubbed the dog’s head and glanced down the length of the porch toward the building’s open front door.
Brock longed to still her fears. He infused his voice with as much optimism as he could muster. “Pritch didn’t make it yesterday, but it was a fool thing he did, leaving in broad daylight. He’s lucky he’s still breathing and wearing his scalp. But I think if some of us tried it at night—”
“Pritch Callahan should have waited for the soldiers.” Annie fixed Brock with a stern glare. “We all should wait for the soldiers. In another day or two—”
“Annie!” Her name exploded from Brock’s mouth. His back stiffened, and he sat up straight, his musket forgotten. As much as he wanted to give her hope, he couldn’t bear to hear another person say that all they needed to do was to wait another day. “We’ve been saying ‘a day or two’ for over a week now. Most of the army is occupied up north fighting the British as well as Tecumseh and The Prophet. The army doesn’t have the resources these days to send soldiers to check on every settler fort in the Territory.”
When Annie turned silent and went back to petting the dog, Brock blew out a calming breath and relaxed against the garrison house wall again. The last thing he’d wanted to do was fight with Annie. He resumed his work with the musket and tempered his voice. “How is Pritch?”
Annie shrugged. She seemed as disinclined to argue as he did. “Bess says if the wound doesn’t putrefy, he should live.” Her gaze swung toward the east perimeter of the stockade, where several farm animals grazed. “I’m just thankful the Hoffmeiers thought to bring Sal and Persimmon when they came to the fort. At least I know I’ll still have my animals when I’m able to go home again. And Johann is fairly certain that Persimmon is with calf.”
Brock smiled as he ran a scrap of oily cloth over the gun’s mechanisms, heartened by the lilt in her voice. “Then she will be freshening in a few months, and you won’t have to worry about her going dry.” He decided it would be best not to mention that if the days dragged on and they remained trapped in the fort, the animals would soon be competing with the people for food.
“Johann said if Hermann doesn’t buy the calf, he will.” She turned a fond smile toward Johann, who was leading Persimmon and Sal to one of the few remaining patches of high grass inside the fort.
The familiarity in her voice when she spoke of their new friend set emotions warring within Brock. He’d noticed that Annie seemed to divide her time between the Dunbars, the Hoffmeiers, and Johann. He knew he should be glad if Annie’s friendship with the young German turned to love. Brock liked the kind, even-tempered fellow very much. He could leave this world with his heart at peace knowing Johann would take good care of Annie and her baby. Yet the thought of her with another man—even a good man like Johann Arnholt—gouged at his heart.
Brock clicked the hammer on the gun’s lock several times to make sure it didn’t stick. He needed to know he could depend on his weapon if the Shawnee managed to sneak into the fort.
“You’re not thinking of going out there, are you?” Her worried tone touched Brock. Perhaps she still had a soft place in her heart for him. It warmed his heart to think so.
He rubbed the oily rag down the musket’s barrel, then set the gun aside. “Sooner or later, someone will have to try again, and I’d have a better chance than most. More than likely, there are just a handful of Shawnee keeping us in here.”
She rose and looked him directly in the eye. “Promise me you won’t go out there until the soldiers or the rangers come.”
Brock’s heart writhed. He wanted to do as she asked. He wanted to take her in his arms and promise her he would never leave her.
“I can’t do that, Annie. If help doesn’t come soon, I can’t just sit here and do nothing while a few renegade Shawnee starve us all to death.”
He stood and picked up his gun, his fingers convulsing around the smooth wood stock. “You once told me that your father said, ‘A soldier fights, but a coward runs.’ Well, I’m done running, Annie.”
Whirling on him, she let go a volley of angry-sounding French words. She glanced down at Cap’n Brody, then back up to him, tears shimmering in her flashing agate eyes. “Then your head is as hard as Cap’n Brody’s!”
His next words leaped from his mouth before he could stop them. “I’d say me and the cap’n are not the only ones with hard heads. Or maybe your time with the Shawnee has blinded you to the extent of the danger we are in.”
A myriad of emotions—shock, fury, and sadness—flashed from her watery eyes. Her chin trembled, and she shot him a withering look. “And maybe you’re more afraid of the soldiers and Colonel Stryker than you are of the Shawnee.”
Miserable, he stood on the porch and watched her stomp away toward her mule and cow—and Johann Arnholt. A few minutes ago he’d reveled in the chance to have a conversation with Annie that he didn’t have to share with anyone else. Now he’d ruined it and, most likely, the prospect of any further conversations with her.
“‘A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.’” Obadiah’s quiet voice behind Brock yanked him around.
“I reckon you heard that.” Brock had trouble meeting the preacher’s gaze.
Obadiah clasped a warm, comforting hand on Brock’s shoulder. “Me and most everyone else in the fort, I reckon,” he said with a friendly sounding chuckle.
Brock cast a sidelong glance at Obadiah. But instead of the disapproval he’d expected to see on the man’s face, he found only compassion. It encouraged him to unburden his heart.
With a deep sigh, Brock shoved his fingers through his hair. “I thought she wanted to get back to her cabin—back to her land. But when I said I might sneak out at night to get help, she got her back all up.”
“Perhaps she’s found something more important to her than the land.”
Nonplussed, Brock cocked his head and stared at the preacher, unable to deduce the man’s meaning. “Since I met Annie, nothing has been more important to her than that land, and keeping her word to her pa and Jonah.”
Obadiah placed a firm but gentle hand on Brock’s back and guided him to the end of the porch. Motioning for Brock to join him, he sat down and stretched out his legs, resting his crossed feet on the brownstone steps where Annie had sat a few moments earlier.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Obadiah looked out toward the stockade’s weathered posts. But the distant look in his eyes suggested he was seeing something else.
“A couple of years ago when Bess and I first came here, Bess was forever frettin’ about not havin’ any honey or sorgum for sweetin’.” He shot Brock a sidelong grin.
Perched on the edge of the porch, Brock leaned forward and rested his arms on the tops of his legs. He was obviously in for one of Obadiah’s famous yarns, so he might as well get comfortable.
“Well, sir,” Obadiah continued, “one day while Jonah, Annie’s pa, and I were out huntin’ deer, we came across Gray Feather. He said he’d found a bee tree a little ways down the trail and wondered if we had an ax. Gerard did, so we proceeded to the tree and commenced hackin’ it open.”
Brock couldn’t imagine what the preacher’s story about a bee tree could have to do with his argument with Annie. But a good story would be a welcome diversion from his worries.
Obadiah angled his barrel-chested torso toward Brock, his widening grin pushing up his bearded cheeks nearly to his eyes. “Well, sir, we’d just opened up that tree when the biggest black bear I ever saw come barrelin’ toward us, determined he was going to have that honey for himself.” A merry chuckle bubbled from the big man. “The four of us played tag with that bear around the honey tree for quite some time, neither us nor the bear willin’ to concede.”
Though still not grasping the point of the story, Brock laughed appreciatively, imagining the comic scene.
Growing quieter, Obadiah scratched his hairy chin. “We finally got off some good shots and ended up with a tree full of honey and bear meat to boot.”
“Reckon Bess was pretty happy about that, huh?” Brock wondered if Obadiah was trying to say Brock should offer Annie some kind of present.
Obadiah shook his head. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” His blue eyes twinkled. “When I got home and told her the tale, Bess tore into me like I’d done somethin’ awful.”
Brock was confused. “But you said she wanted the honey.”
“She was mad because I put myself in danger to get that honey.”
The preacher’s voice and smile softened. “Turns out, she’d rather have me than the honey. Or the bear meat, for that matter. And for that, I am eternally thankful to God,” he added with a little laugh.
Both men stood. Brock smiled and nodded, still unable to glean any kind of moral from the story. Perhaps after all, Obadiah had simply attempted to lift their spirits with the entertaining yarn.
Obadiah leveled a piercing look at Brock. “Annie loves you, Brock. She wants to keep you alive. That’s more important to her than gettin’ back into her cabin.”
His heart thumping harder, Brock looked with wonder across the stockade at Annie. She sat on a stool milking Persimmon and laughing up at Johann, who stood holding the cow still. Could Obadiah be right? Could Annie really love him?
Reality squeezed Brock’s heart. What did it matter? They had no chance for a future together. He had no future at all. “Annie would be better off with Johann—’bout anybody but me.” It was high time he told Obadiah of his predicament. “There’s another reason Annie doesn’t want me to fetch the rangers here. The Indians ain’t the only ones after my hide.”
“You’re in trouble with the army.” Obadiah’s quiet comment held no hint of a question, and Brock experienced a flash of disappointment. Annie must have told the Dunbars of his situation.
“Annie told you?” Brock gazed across the yard to the spot where she sat milking.
“No. She didn’t have to.” A grin touched Obadiah’s voice. “I may not look like the sharpest tool in the shed, but I can add two and two. You come here out o’ nowhere, cloister yourself out there in Gerard’s old cabin and stay shy of the fort, especially when soldiers are about. Didn’t take much figurin’ to see you’re runnin’ from somethin’, and I reckoned it was the army.”
Brock snorted a half laugh. “The way you put it, I might as well have had FUGITIVE written across my forehead.”
“Care to tell me why?” Obadiah crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a shoulder against the garrison house wall.
Brock recounted the tragic events that led to his desertion. “If your conscience prods you to turn me in should we make it through this siege, I wouldn’t hold it against you.”
Obadiah straightened and clapped a hand on Brock’s shoulder. “Son, I consider what you told me a confidence. I’ll share it with no one but Bess, and she’d take it to her grave if I asked her to. It’s a powerful burden you carry, for sure. I’ll be praying God guides your decision on the matter.”
Brock was about to thank Obadiah when Amos Buxton strode down the porch toward them, his face grim.
“Obadiah. Brock. Have you taken a good look at the creek today?” His voice sounded tight, and he drew a shaky hand across his whiskered face. “There ain’t hardly more than a trickle of water runnin’ through it.” A look of mounting panic shone in his eyes. “Me and Joel Tanner think the Shawnee have dammed it up somewhere outside the fort to deprive us of water.”