A Moonbow Night

by Laura Frantz

  With Sion at the stern as steersman and her at the bow, they crouched, sitting on their heels for better balance. Before they’d gone far they’d established a rhythm. The riverbanks became a blur of green. Should there be any enemy about, they couldn’t aim at so fast a moving target, so she paddled with an easy indifference, free to savor her surroundings.

  Springs that had burst forth from rocky bluffs in April had now withered to a trickle on both sides of them. Sandbars and small islands abounded, the Green feeding smaller rivers that seemed no wider than a hair ribbon. Her spirit expanded with a rush, the feel of the wind against her flushed cheek and the man in back of her a needed tonic.

  She kept a close eye on her surroundings to gauge when to run ashore. If memory served, the Green ran fairly straight before taking a sharp southerly bend near the mouth of the caves. She’d been so wide-eyed that last trip she’d not forgotten. Pa lost a paddle at that very spot and nearly upset their canoe, the river high in late spring. It was half as mulish now and the paddling was easier, the only threat an occasional boulder or floating snag.

  The sun beat down, reflecting so fiercely off the water Tempe squinted beneath the brim of her hat. An hour in, the sky darkened, snuffing the sun, but the gray clouds were simply a vast flock of pigeons, their wing beats like the distant roll of thunder.

  The soft-sloping hills began to call out to her like an old acquaintance bidding her welcome. Beneath a flinty ridge were the caves. Their entrance. One of several, Pa said.

  Did Sion mean to explore? She braced herself for bats and salamanders and the queer crickets that made no sound but jumped about, song starved in their honeycombed caverns.

  They finally ran ashore near the spot she and Pa had grounded. Taking a long swig from her canteen, she waited as Sion gathered their rifles before helping him hide the canoe in a laurel thicket. Noon now, it seemed hotter here, the air thick with the whine and swirl of insects.

  Yet nothing—not the heat nor the swarm—could dim her quiet delight in the moment. Sion could have come here with Raven or Nate or any of the others, but he’d chosen her. Maybe he didn’t disdain her after all.

  They started away from ridge and river single file, she ten paces behind. The only thing wearisome about a scout was the utter quiet. Listening hard was essential. Tempe had learned to walk backwards silently, covering their trail when she had to.

  She hadn’t told Sion of her growing unease the nearer they came to the caves, or that, once tepid at the start of their journey, her unrest had reached a full boil this far west. Once Pa said she possessed an uncanny instinct about the woods. Did Sion share that same presentiment of danger?

  Beneath the canopy of dense forest, they moved without bringing a halt to the forest sounds. Catbirds and robins sang and squirrels chattered undisturbed. A dull, distant roar bespoke tumbling waters.

  So intent was she on their steps she left a thousand things unadmired. A fetching clump of maidenhair fern. The glint of the river through the trees. A vine-covered maple slightly tinted with the colors of the coming autumn.

  They were closing in on the caves. Here the past winter’s wind had done its work felling trees, which made their approach chancy. The windfall was ample enough to hide a whole band of Indians.

  They stepped carefully, leaving no sign, hardly daring to breathe. She tensed tight as a fiddle string, half expecting the crack of a rifle or whoosh of an arrow. Her gun suddenly seemed heavy, her palms slick, the heat blistering. Sweat trickled into her eyes and set them afire despite a pennyroyal-lined cloth beneath her wide-brimmed hat.

  Sion stopped. Knelt. She felt an overwhelming urge to cough. Reaching up, she yanked the cloth free and muffled the sound as he examined the ground. The faintest imprint had been left in the earth ahead of them, made by a moccasin toed inward. More than one.

  She leveled her gaze on the surrounding woods, wiping the sheen from her face and neck with the cloth. Sion looked a mite cooler, one jaw swelled slightly from the lead balls he mouthed to keep thirst at bay. Beneath his felt hat his hairline curled slightly but mostly lay damp against his skull. She longed to smooth the sweat from his brow. It reflected mightily, as much a signal as Cornelius’s scarlet handkerchief.

  In an odd about-face, she craved the coolness of the caves, that labyrinth of stone where the darkness was absolute. Just ahead, the shaded opening yawned at them through a small, sun-dappled meadow. Her focus narrowed to a nearby crab apple, the dusty bark marred by a handprint, the leaves bruised. When Sion looked at her she gestured to the subtle sign, and he thumbed downward, indicating the obvious.

  Danger.

  She crouched beside him, her gaze lifting to the forested ridge to the south where deep shadows stood. Slowly, like a mist settling, the shadows took shape. Cherokee . . . Shawnee. A whole slew of them. Frozen in place, they watched the Indians approach. The windfall would not hide the two of them much longer.

  Rapt, she barely felt the touch of Sion’s hand. It wasn’t till he crawled away from her that she sensed emptiness and followed.

  A hollow sycamore ten paces ahead was his aim. Big as it was, she’d noticed it when they’d first come into these woods. A grandpappy of a tree, past its prime, a massive shelter.

  Stones and pine needles bit into her knees. Every thrust forward became a prayer. Lord, help. Fearful her canteen would clink and give them away, she abandoned it beneath some brush.

  Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me. Nate had read these very verses on the Sabbath. I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid.

  The earthy smell of the sycamore, ancient and decayed, enveloped her as she crawled into its hollow center. Heart pulsing in her ears, she flexed her limbs and stood like Sion had a moment before, taking care to stay clear of the knothole at chin level. For the moment Sion was looking through the knothole from the side, back pressed against bark, Annie in hand.

  Single file, the Indians continued their silent march. Like the first war party they’d encountered, these men were stripped nearly bare, their bodies agleam with paint and bear grease. They were a formidable, grim-faced foe, seemingly without end. Yet Tempe was aware of only one of them.

  Just behind the lead Indian was Big Jim. She shut her eyes, her belly with its bit of jerky and parched corn beginning to roil. Sighting Five Killer with the previous war party had been grief enough. Bad to the bone he was, but Big Jim was worse. The Boones had opened their home to him on the Yadkin more than once, given him meat and bread, called him friend. In turn he’d joined Five Killer and others and led the ambush in Powell Valley. Or so it was said.

  The memory was too much. Too raw. Would it never fade? Jerking her gaze from the Indians, she looked to Sion like he was the answer to her rising anguish.

  At his most cautious, he stood perfectly still, ready to take action at a second’s notice. They had powder and bullet lead enough, but what were two pitted against so many? Eyes trained on the war party through the knothole, he was as calm as if encountering a herd of elk. She latched on to that look, that uncanny calm, lest she be swept away by the unforgiving onslaught of memory.

  Unexpectedly, as if sensing her turmoil, he turned slightly toward her, easing his rifle to the ground. Her body was atremble. She felt a telling wetness on her cheeks.

  He reached out a hand to circle her waist. The roughened fingers of his other hand, damp from her tears, trailed to her throat, giving rise to a shiver. In a heartbeat, she lost all thought of the enemy marching past, the danger of the moment blotted out as sweetness swept in.

  The brims of their hats touched as Sion lowered his face to hers, unseating her black felt. It fell like a whisper down her back, dangling from its leather tie. He leaned into her, the burly, leathery heft of him so unfamiliar yet so . . . pleasing. She gave a little sigh as his hand cupped the back of her head, fingers tangling in her braid. The brush of his lips was warm.

  No thought of James. Nor Harper. Just
the two of them, here and now, pressed together in a hollow tree, whilst death stalked past.

  He kissed her softly then soundly. She lost count of his kisses. Her arms went around his neck. The feel of his mouth on hers, feathery and brusque by turns, came to be as natural as breathing. Only she couldn’t breathe. He stole all her air.

  The hammering of a woodpecker farther up the tree restored all reason. She pushed at Sion’s chest and he stepped back, attention returning to the woods. The Indians had gone, the forest sounds slowly resuming as if the Indians had never been there at all.

  “What,” she whispered, still breathless, “made you do that?”

  His smile surfaced, turning her weak-kneed all over again. “I figured if this was the end of the trail I’d not leave any unfinished business betwixt us. But I misdoubt I’ll have a killing need to repeat it.”

  The low words sparked her temper. So he dallied, did he? Then set her aside so easily? She simmered, unable to risk any more talk even whispered.

  For half an hour they waited without touching, backs against the rough inner bark. Her heart settled but would never be the same. Sion seemed unchanged, giving no indication he’d nearly kissed her senseless, his tanned features composed and watchful.

  “Harper,” she finally whispered, a question in the word.

  He looked at her again. “Harper’s dead, Tempe.” His slate gaze softened. “As dead as your James.”

  Expertly, the canoe shot into the jade water as if the very bank was aflame. Sion and Tempe paddled up the Green as they’d paddled down. Smoothly. Silently. Swiftly. Sion half expected to see the war party lined up along the bank, but the woods had absorbed them. They were likely en route to join the assault on the settlements in the middle ground.

  Disappointment pooled in his chest that his hope of entering the caves had been thwarted. He felt it too chancy to remain. But nothing could contain the bubbling pleasure he felt having come away with those kisses, no war party intervening.

  Death had come near, and he’d resolved to have no unsatisfied longings. No regrets. If his life was to end he’d go on a high note, in Tempe Tucker’s arms.

  His gaze left the high limestone gorge they’d entered to take her in. Beneath her battered hat her fraying braid had unraveled completely. Like corn silk her hair had been, twined in his callused fingers. The color of maple sugar, it rippled to her waist, the very place he’d first set his hands in a tentative bid to gauge her reaction.

  There were kisses . . . and there were kisses. He hadn’t just kissed her. She’d kissed him. With the same unrighteous urgency he’d felt himself. The strength of her response hardly surprised him. She kissed as wholeheartedly as she did everything else. With abandon and a breathtaking thoroughness.

  Aye, she’d been willing but emotional. The arrival of the Indians had shaken loose a memory, of James Boone, no doubt. Other than question him about Harper, she’d said no more. Now he only heard birdsong and the river’s sweeping rush.

  Everything had changed. Only it hadn’t. They sat in camp that evening—every man present but Raven, who stood watch—partaking of their stale corn and tough meat, and listening as Sion told of their river ride and crossing paths with the war party. Tempe half expected him to recount the intimate details of their sycamore sojourn.

  “So how long were you holed up in that hollow tree?” Nate wanted to know.

  Long enough to make me forget I was sweat-stained and a hairbreadth away from harm.

  Tempe bit her lip to keep a smile from forming as Sion murmured, “Half an hour or better.”

  Cornelius took out his pipe and began stuffing it with tobacco crumbles. “Cherokee and Shawnee, you say?”

  “Aye. About fifty, to my reckoning.”

  At this Tempe stared at him. Did he have eyes in the back of his head whilst he kissed her? Or was fifty just a wild guess?

  “Far too many.” Cornelius gave a shudder as Lucian lit his pipe from a bit of flint and tinder. “We’ve seen no sign here. For all the talk back east, the country should be overrun with savages, but instead we only get an occasional glimpse.”

  “That’s all the Indian I want,” Spencer muttered, oddly irritable.

  Hascal pulled a long face. “I wonder if the Kentucke forts are still standin’?”

  “Time’ll tell,” Nate said, knocking the dottle out of his pipe. “Since that war party you saw was on the other side of the river, I reckon I’ll have a smoke myself.”

  “It might just be your last,” Spencer warned, glancing over his shoulder.

  Looking to her lap, Tempe picked at a threadbare seam in her skirt, reliving in slow motion the breathless moments when Sion touched her and made her his, if kisses counted as claiming. On the heels of her wondering came Harper.

  How had she died? When? Had her passing caused the festering wound between Sion and Cornelius?

  Cornelius regarded Sion through the smoky haze of his pipe. The fragrant tobacco drifted to Tempe, a welcome mask for unwashed men. “Well, Morgan, my map work is progressing, but I believe your guidebook is . . . um . . . sorely lacking. You seem to have an inordinate fondness for going out on these scouts of yours and leaving your paperwork unfinished.”

  The slight seemed to have no effect. Sion studied his pocket compass with keen concentration, no change in his expression, but Tempe was coming to know that troublesome edge to his voice when he said, “I leave your maps to you. You’d best leave my work to me.”

  “I understand your surveyin’ field book. But a guidebook?” Nate removed his hat and scratched his head. “Ain’t that type of thing full of lies and exaggerations? Lurin’ poor folks beyond the Gap to lose their scalps?”

  Cornelius ignored him, firing another question at Sion. “If you plan to have one of my maps engraved and printed in Philadelphia to include in this guidebook of yours, I insist on the right to a title.” He drew hard on his pipe, looking thoughtful. “The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke shall do nicely. I believe a first printing of fifteen hundred copies is adequate and two pounds per copy a fair price.”

  Nate gave a low whistle. “Two pounds?”

  “And since General Washington is known to you, Morgan, I suggest you seek an endorsement from him.”

  “Anything else?” Sion queried, looking up at him with barely veiled disgust.

  To Tempe’s surprise, Cornelius said no more. They all fell silent as wolves began howling, chilling in their clarity and range. Hascal and Spencer exchanged troubled looks.

  Without looking at Sion again, Tempe left their tight circle to take her turn at watch as the moon rose. Dark brought a blessed coolness, much like the caves. At her approach Raven’s teeth flashed white as he smiled. Dog-tired she was, but she greeted him with quiet gladness.

  “So the Long Knife wants to conquer the underground,” he said beneath the wolves’ noise.

  “We came near the entrance . . .” She left off. Raven knew they’d had a close call with the war party. She’d overheard Sion tell him so. “We went no farther.”

  “The Long Knife won’t leave the country till he returns there.”

  She’d suspected as much. Was Raven getting weary of their journey? Her own feelings were now in such disarray she felt knotted from head to toe. Mention of a guidebook, all this surveying, went against the grain. “The work’s nearly done, Morgan says. He has his sights set on the Falls of Ohio, then they’ll go upriver to Fort Henry.”

  “And you, oginalii?” Raven was standing back to back with her, speaking over his shoulder, his eyes ever roaming as the shadows overtook them.

  She felt a loss she couldn’t explain. Would Sion bid her goodbye? Or having kissed her, would he declare a change in future plans? Ask her to follow him? Her breath came shallow at the thought. If he asked, would she go?

  “He is determined to take the land. To help others take it.” She’d not heard Raven’s voice so grieved, not since she’d found him in the leghold trap. “And then there is you
. Adageyudi.”

  “Adageyudi?” she echoed.

  “The Long Knife has taken you to heart . . . adageyudi.”

  The words sank into her restlessly. Hadn’t she and Sion had this very same conversation about Raven? She couldn’t deny Raven’s claim, yet she wondered how he’d come by his knowledge. Was Raven jealous? Merciful days. If he tried to kiss her . . .

  She stepped clear of him just in case. Here she’d been lamenting her loveless state, and now . . . The prospect of a romantic tie with any living man upended her. James held first place in her heart, no matter those heated, hollow-tree kisses. No matter Raven’s shrewd observations.

  She stared into the blackness, weary and wary. For all she knew they were surrounded by the enemy, though the Indians usually struck at dawn. “Sion Morgan had a wife. He’s still mourning.”

  ’Twas grief that drove him, some unresolved matter over Harper. She didn’t know what or why, but she sensed it plain.

  Without another word, Raven returned to camp, leaving her in the lonesome dark. Lately he’d turned quieter, nearly as silent as Sion. That openness with her, being beholden to her, had passed.

  Stroking her gun’s stock, she shucked off any dark thoughts and got her bearings. Sion had posted her to the west of camp and Lucian to the east. Was Lucian as unnerved by the wolves as she?

  She prayed silently as she stood watch, tracing the spread of stars with new appreciation. Sion seemed to be beside her in spirit, pointing out constellations whose names she didn’t know. Till she’d met him she’d never felt the need to know, the need for more, but he enlarged her borders.

  If she followed him, where would he lead?

  24

  A grand, gloomy, and peculiar place.

  —STEPHEN BISHOP, EARLY EXPLORER AND GUIDE, ON MAMMOTH CAVE