Brock’s throat moved with a hard swallow, but his gaze rested unflinchingly on Annie’s.
The afternoon sun filtering through the tree’s leaves lit his russet hair and scraggly-bearded jaw, making them shine like burnished copper. It reminded Annie of the day last April when he first arrived at her cabin—the way he’d looked as he walked tentatively toward her, hat in hand. The memory made her heart flutter.
“Annie,” he began, then cleared his throat. For an instant, his gaze faltered, sending his lashes to the tops of his cheeks. Why had she never noticed that the sunlight made his lashes look like spun gold and copper?
His eyes sought hers again. “Katarina told me you’re not eating. She’s worried about you, and so am I.”
Annie’s heart pinched as Katarina’s name slipped with ease from Brock’s tongue. Immediately she felt ashamed. The German girl had shown Annie nothing but kindness. Indeed, Katarina had even had the forethought to bring Annie’s mother’s Bible to the fort in the event that the Indians might burn the cabin.
Annie reached into her pocket and brought out the cloth swaddling the johnnycake. “Bess gave me this a while ago. I’ve eaten a little….”
“Oh, Annie.” A sad weariness frayed the edges of Brock’s voice.
He gently grasped her elbow and led her to a milking stool on the south side of the tree. With careful, gallant movements that reminded her of her mother’s tales of noblemen, he situated her on the stool. Only when she was seated did he crouch at her side.
The pained look on his face made his features appear tired and drawn. “Katarina thinks the reason you’re not eating has something to do with …” He glanced down for an instant to the bare patch of dirt beneath him, then looked up at her again and swallowed. “She thinks it’s because some folks aren’t treating you well because of your time with the Indians.”
Tears stung Annie’s eyes and the temptation to unburden her heart to Brock became too strong. The words tumbled from her lips like apples from a torn sack.
“I hear folks call me a white Indian and look hard at me when I take a bite of food or a drink of water.” She hated the renegade tears that escaped her eyes and slid down her cheeks. “I see it in their eyes, Brock. They think my baby is Shawnee. And when they see me eat or drink, they look at me like I’ve taken the food from their children’s mouths.”
Brock’s voice hardened. “Pay no attention to them, Annie. We know your babe is Jonah’s, but regardless, you have just as much right to the food stores as anyone in this fort.”
He swallowed again and winced. “It’s been tearing at me that you might be going without food because of what I said the other day.”
Annie touched his forearm, and her heart throbbed painfully. “Non. It’s not because of what you said.” And it wasn’t. Even before Bess told her so, Annie had known in her heart Brock hadn’t meant what he’d said to her.
The taut lines in his face relaxed. “Good. Promise me you will eat your share. Promise me.” The urgency in his voice and desperate look in his eyes frightened her.
“I promise.” Her reply came out in a breathy whisper.
“Annie”—he took both her hands into his and gazed into her face as if committing it to memory—”we can’t wait any longer. People are sickening. I won’t stand by and watch you die and do nothing.”
A new wave of panic rolled through her, and she pulled her hands from his. Maybe if she showed her displeasure with the notion, she could once again persuade him to stay. “You’re not thinking of leaving the fort again, are you?”
He gently recaptured her hands and caressed the backs of them with his thumbs. “Annie, you’ve known for months that I’ve been living on borrowed time. If I’m to die, I’d rather do it trying to save you and everyone else here in the fort, than satisfy Stryker’s thirst for revenge.”
Annie’s mind raced to think of something that might persuade him not to go. “But what if the Shawnee break into the fort? You’re a trained soldier. We need you here.”
He shook his head. “Every man in this stockade has a gun and knows how to use it. You know I scouted for the army. I’d have the best chance of making it to Fort French Lick.”
Her heart writhing, she swallowed down a hot lump of tears. “But you cannot go. It is not only for your life I fear, ma chère, but your soul as well.” Tears that would not be denied flowed in earnest now. “I want to see you in heaven one day. Promise me you will not go without putting your soul in Christ’s keeping.”
He smiled wryly. “Not sure God wants my ornery soul, but if you’d care to pray for it, I’d reckon the Almighty would listen to you before He’d listen to me.”
Did she sense a softening in his resistance to Christ’s offer of salvation? At once, hope and urgency filled her, and she gripped his hands tighter. “But God does want your soul, ma chère. And oui, I can pray for you. I have been praying for you for a long time. But you must ask Christ to come into your heart. I cannot do that for you. Just ask Him to forgive your sins and take you into His fold, and whatever happens, one day we will meet again in heaven.”
His sweet smile clawed at her heart. “I will think on it.” Then the smile vanished and he turned somber. “It has been decided. Johann, Ezra, and I will try to slip out tonight and head for Fort French Lick.”
“Nooo.” The word dragged out of her throat in a low, agonized moan.
“Yes, Annie.” The sternness in his voice broached no further argument. “The Shawnee are most likely waiting for us to get too weak to fight, then they will come in and … do what they did at Pigeon Roost. This may be our only chance.”
He puffed out a long breath and his voice softened. “I promise you I’ll do everything in my power to bring help and get Johann and Ezra back with their scalps on.”
Unable to speak past the wad of tears knotting in her throat, Annie nodded.
For a long moment he simply held her hands, his gaze caressing her face. Then giving her fingers one last squeeze, he rose and walked toward the garrison house.
Annie shoved her fist against her mouth to stifle the scream trying to claw its way out of her throat. Her teeth bit into her knuckles until she tasted blood, but she pushed her hand harder against her mouth. Brock had said he would do what he could to keep Johann and Ezra safe, but he’d made no such promise about his own safety.
A brown and white cow ambled near, its nose pressed against the ground, it’s flaring nostrils blowing up puffs of dust as it attempted to nibble the pitifully overgrazed grass. Annie knew Brock was right, and she would pray for him—for all three of the men. But the life-spark inside her dimmed, for short of a miracle, she feared she’d never see Brock again.
Chapter 17
Is something wrong, Katarina?”
The moment Annie whispered the statement she realized how ridiculous it must sound. What was not wrong? Food and water had dwindled to dangerous levels. Over the past two days, three people had died, including Pritch Callahan, who’d finally succumbed to his wounds. But as she crossed the garrison house in the predawn darkness, Annie suspected something more personal caused Katarina Hoffmeier’s muted sobs.
In the dim space, lit only by the hearth’s glowing embers, Annie carefully maneuvered around the many dark, sleeping forms of women and children scattered about the floor. Even with both the front and back doors open, the smell of unwashed bodies, sickness, and despair hung heavily in the air. She was grateful that the men, when weather permitted, slept on the porch or on pallets in the yard to help relieve the crowding.
As Annie neared the fireplace, sympathy twanged hard inside her at the sight of the robust German girl. Katarina’s substantial frame shook convulsively as she bent to feed kindling into the hearth’s glowing throat.
“Has Giselle worsened?” Annie pressed her hand against Katarina’s trembling shoulder. Yesterday Katarina’s mother had suffered terribly with a stomach ailment.
Katarina sniffed and ran a hand under her nose as she shook her hea
d. “Nein.” She angled a weak smile at Annie and patted her belly. “Mutter is better now.”
Katarina tossed another piece of wood into the fireplace, sending red and orange sparks flying amid a puff of gray ash. She straightened and her red-rimmed blue eyes quickly swept the room as if to assure herself that the other occupants, now rousing from sleep, paid them no heed.
Turning her attention back to Annie, she pressed a hand against her chest and drew in a ragged breath. “My heart, it hurts. Afraid I am that they not come back. That they die.” New tears slid down her round cheeks, making meandering little trails that glistened in the firelight.
Annie didn’t have to ask to whom Katarina referred. She patted the girl’s arm as a surge of renewed fear gripped her own chest. In the five days since Brock, Johann, and Ezra left for Fort French Lick, Annie’s lungs had felt incapable of holding a full breath of air. Every beat of her heart was a prayer for the safety of the man she loved, as well as the safety of Johann and Ezra.
Obviously Katarina was stricken with the same worries about Brock. Jealousy slithered up from some dark, ugly place inside Annie. Her conscience rose and swatted it down. If Brock returned safely and chose Katarina for his bride, Annie would wish them well. Her wounded heart would wail out its grief and carry its scars to the grave, but she would accept God’s verdict.
Annie patted Katarina’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, ma chère. God will protect and deliver us. Remember the words of our Lord that Obadiah read to us last night? ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.’” She mustered up as confident a smile as she could manage. “The Northwest Rangers will come. We will be saved. Brock used to scout for the army. If anyone can get past the Indians to Fort French Lick, he can.”
Katarina glanced around the room again, and Annie followed her gaze. Light fingers of dawn reached through the open windows and doorways, illuminating the figures that had awakened and were now milling about the place. Children cried and quarreled. Mothers soothed and chided. The constant buzz of voices blended with the jumble of noises generated by many people living in close quarters.
“Come.” Katarina bent and lifted two oak buckets from beside the hearth. “Time to milk, it is now. We go milk together, Ja?” She held one bucket out to Annie, who wrapped her fingers around the stiff, prickly fibers of the rope handle.
Outside, the crisp autumn morn sent a shiver through her, jerking her fully awake. Overhead, a morning star winked at them from a steel-blue sky. She wished she could see the horizon. But the stockade’s silver-gray pickets hid much of the rich, rosy-gold hues that heralded the sun’s first peek at the earth.
They wended their way through the yard full of stoop-shouldered men who seemed to wander aimlessly, bowed by their despair as if they carried their hopelessness on their backs.
The livestock had grazed every bit of vegetation until there was hardly enough grass to wet Annie’s bare feet with dew as they walked toward the east end of the stockade.
Near the wall of the compound, several cows stood like dark hulks in the dim morning light, tethered side by side to stakes. As Annie and Katarina approached, the animals lowed with such mournful sounds that she wondered if they, too, sensed death lurking.
Persimmon bent her head back and blinked her big, long-lashed eyes at them.
“It’s all right ma bonne fille.” Annie ran her hand along the cow’s side and winced as her fingers bumped across the animal’s ribs. In another few days Persimmon would most likely go dry and have to be slaughtered to provide food for the settlers. The thought pinched Annie’s heart. She loved the young cow that was little more than a heifer, having weaned her first calf last winter.
“It is just me and Katarina coming to get your fine milk, Persimmon.”
They each chose one of the three-legged stools kept nearby. Annie sat down at Persimmon’s right side, while Katarina did the same with a big reddish cow next to Persimmon. With Persimmon’s bulk between them, Annie and Katarina set to their tasks. And for a time, the rhythmic splat, splat of the milk hitting the wooden buckets filled the silence.
“You think they come back, then? You think they … live?” Katarina’s soft voice was almost inaudible over the sound of the milk squirting into the buckets.
Annie paused in coaxing milk from Persimmon’s udders. “Yes, I think they are still alive.” Perhaps it was her own hope clinging to life, but Annie’s heart had twined so tightly with Brock’s, surely she would know if his soul had left his body.
The soft shh, shh, shh sound of Katarina’s milking halted, replaced by another long, ragged sigh. “I beten Sie—pray it be so.”
Sensing the girl felt more comfortable venting her worries with her countenance hidden, Annie quietly resumed her own milking.
“If he die, my heart die, I think….” Katarina’s words dissolved into soft sobs.
The girl’s agony crumpled Annie’s heart. She got up and walked around Persimmon’s head, rubbing the cow’s soft muzzle as she passed. When she reached Katarina, she gently grasped her shoulders, inviting her to stand, and as well as her expanded belly allowed, she embraced her.
Annie clung to the taller girl nearly twice her size, rocking her as if she were a little child. The scent of dew-drenched morning glories, fresh sweet milk, and bitter tears filled Annie’s nostrils as an indescribable pain filled her breast. Why did they have to love the same man?
When Katarina’s sobs had subsided, Annie pushed gently away, but continued to grasp the girl’s shoulders. “I told you, if anyone can make it to Fort French Lick and back alive, it is Brock.”
Katarina snuffed and swiped at her wet, puffy eyes. “Ja.” Her voice sounded almost indignant. “Brock, maybe. He was in army. He know this land. But Johann …” Her rounded shoulders rose and fell in a helpless shrug. “Johann not know land. Not know Indian ways.”
An incredible realization dawned in Annie’s brain like the sun’s golden rays now spilling over the stockade’s weathered, gray pickets. Could she dare to believe it was not Brock, but Johann that Katarina cared for?
Katarina inhaled another tattered breath. “If Johann not come back, then I lose him zweimal.” She held up two fingers, forming a V, as fresh tears cascaded down her face.
At Annie’s perplexed look, Katarina offered a wobbly smile. “We finish milking. I tell you.”
They returned to their tasks, and over the next few minutes, in a mixture of broken English and German, Katarina disclosed how she, Johann, and his late wife, Sophie, had been children together in their small village in Hanover. From what Annie could glean from Katarina’s fractured English, Katarina and Johann had been childhood sweethearts. But when unwed Sophie learned she was with child after receiving news that her sweetheart was killed fighting in Napoleon’s army, Johann married her to save her from shame and shunning.
“It was gut thing Johann do.” A weak smile trembled across Katarina’s full lips. “I love Sophie, too.” She tapped her chest. “My heart sad for me, but happy for Sophie and Johann.”
Annie nodded. She understood the girl’s sentiment exactly. It was the same feeling she’d experienced only moments ago with Katarina.
Katarina’s voice took a sad dip. “But Sophie and Kind gone now … with Gott.”
Her tone lifted again … brighter, sweeter. “When Johann come here, sich grämen …” She paused as if searching for the appropriate English word, then patted her chest. “Hearts cry together.” She brushed away another tear. “Then our hearts”—she clasped both hands together—”again.”
Katarina is in love with Johann, not Brock!
The joy inside Annie threatened to bubble out in a spate of silly giggles. But she tamped down the urge to laugh in deference to Katarina’s heartache.
They retrieved their buckets of milk—both less than half full—from beneath the cows. Feeling a little guilty that her affection for Katarina had grown afte
r her revelation, Annie looped her free arm with the other girl’s.
As they walked together to the garrison house, Annie tried to assure both Katarina and herself that God would hear their prayers and bring the three men safely back to Fort Deux Fleuves.
“Even Ezra,” Annie said with a burst of unrestrained mirth, admitting that she and Ezra had once been sweethearts before she married Jonah.
“After being wed to Jonah and now losing my heart to Brock, I wouldn’t have Ezra if he served himself up to me on a silver platter,” she confided with a giggle.
A commotion erupted in the yard, and Annie and Katarina turned to see what had occurred. The sound of hoofbeats and musket fire outside the compound sent cold fingers of fear skittering up Annie’s spine. Had the Shawnee decided the settlers inside the fort had grown too weak to fight and were storming the compound?
Suddenly the men stationed on the parapet walkway began cheering. In another moment, men rushed to push open the big front gates that had remained closed for weeks.
Riders streamed in and such a deluge of relief washed through Annie it buckled her knees.
“Thank You, Lord! Oh, Jesus, thank You!” She dropped to her knees in earnest now, lifting her hands to heaven along with many others, praising God for the long-awaited arrival of the rangers.
Katarina tugged Annie to her feet and they fell into each other’s arms, all at once laughing and weeping.
Eager to find Brock among the group of strangers milling with Deux Fleuves’ settlers, she scanned the crowd.
Katarina, too, was gazing intently into the faces of the men who’d just arrived. She gasped the same moment Annie saw Johann step away from the crowd, his head pivoting, searching.
With a little shriek, Katarina snatched her skirts away from her feet and sprinted to Johann, who caught her in a fierce embrace.
Still not finding Brock, Annie hurried to Johann and Katarina.
“Johann, where is Brock? Is he here?” Annie continued to search the crowd for Brock’s face. Perhaps he had stayed outside the fort to help the rangers secure it.
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