The Frontiersman’s Daughter

by Laura Frantz

  “You’d best be careful,” Susanna cautioned. “I’ve heard what happens once they get hold of us womenfolk.”

  Lael wrapped her arms around herself, amazed that she could shiver and sweat all at once. “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Susanna said, voice low. “Old Jemima Talbot was taken by the Cherokee as a girl in North Carolina. On the trail to the Indian towns . . . she had to pick their hair for nits.”

  Lael waited for more, then smiled with relief. “Is that all?”

  “Is that all? No, that ain’t all. Then they picked hers.”

  Lael laughed and touched her own clean braid. “Jemima’s lucky she kept her scalp. I aim to do the same. And I promise to be right beside you come the sixth of June.”

  With a cursory glance at the woods Susanna chuckled and waited for her father to join her. As they rode away she looked back once, mouthing the words Lael had been hearing all her life. Take care, Lael Click, or the yellow jackets’ll sting you.

  The old settlement saying squared sourly with the near breathless elation she felt when her fingers touched her pocket. The Shawnee might sting, but they couldn’t steal her joy. Her hands almost seemed to dance as she held open the note. There, upon the scrap of paper, as big and bold as Simon Hayes himself, was a heavy scrawl that seemed more command than invitation.

  Lael Catherine Click, save every dance for me. Simon Henry Hayes.

  4

  The next morning Lael felt an unusual lightness in spirit. Thoughts of the frolic to come, of fiddling and feasting and dancing, filled her with gladness. Even her chores seemed less like work and more a means of drawing her closer to the coveted event. Pa had eased his tether a bit, letting her go to the barn and springhouse but no farther. With Simon’s note in her pocket she felt she’d turned a new page and taken a step toward the future.

  With a wary glance at the woods she entered the barn, thankful for the stillness of the bright May morning. Settled beside the docile Tillie, she filled her bucket and squirted a stream of milk at a passing barn cat before rising from her stool and journeying to the springhouse. The heavy door creaked and the shadows within smelled of dirt and dampness and pickled beans. Wrinkling her nose, she lifted her heavy bucket and poured the warm milk into a cold crock, then toted a piggin of old cream to the cabin.

  She paused for a moment to admire the roses wending their way along the porch rail. The buds were open and a warm wind spread their scent hither and yon. All was still save the rooster crowing around the side of the barn. ’Twas early still, though Pa had gone hunting hours ago. She considered his leaving a good sign, as he’d kept so close to the cabin lately.

  Her bare feet tread the worn porch planks when she noticed her churning chair was slightly askew. The strangeness of it slowed her. On edge again, she set the bucket down hard and hesitated.

  At the far end of the porch, coiled like a copperhead, lay a necklace.

  Her gaze ricocheted to the woods, then back. She heard Ma moving about the cabin, busy at the hearth most likely, judging from the sizzle and snap of a frying pan. A dozen different emotions sliced through her, but fear cut the deepest.

  She bent and grabbed the necklace, gathering the beads into her balled fist. Oddly, they were warm and she longed to look at them.

  “Lael, aren’t you done yet?” Ma called.

  Done? She swallowed, feeling a bit ill. Why, she’d hardly begun. She sank into the chair, heart hammering. How in heaven could she sit and churn when the gift giver likely watched her from the woods?

  She cast a glance at the dirt yard. Pa could ferret out a moccasin print at fifty paces. She saw none, nor wanted to. Just then Ma appeared, wiping her hands on her apron. Lael tried hard to smile but still looked stricken. Her hand closed tight around the beads as if squeezing harder would make them disappear.

  Ma stopped just shy of the door, dark eyes intense. “Lael, are you ailing?”

  “Just a mite woozy, is all,” she managed. Truly, she didn’t lie.

  “I reckon I’ve been workin’ you overmuch. A body’s liable to melt in this heat.” Ma took the lid off the churn and emptied the cream in.

  The smell of it nearly curdled Lael’s stomach. Desperate, she grabbed the dasher with her empty hand. “I’ll be fine, Ma, really I will.”

  Now that was a lie.

  That afternoon, Lael dampened the rows with a gourd dipper, the tension inside her ratcheting up alongside the rising heat. The garden, framed by a paling fence, was within a stone’s throw of the cabin. There Lael never left her mother’s watchful eye.

  Had it been only this morning that she’d found the Indian beads? Since then time seemed to have ceased and flown, causing dread to tick inside her like a clock, drawing her ever nearer to some unspoken calamity. Despite Pa’s presence, she felt nearly frozen with fear. Through the screen of roses she could see the glint of his gun barrel as he sat on the porch.

  His voice was deep and untroubled as he spoke of mustering the settlement militia at Fort Click. Several settlement scouts had brought word that the Shawnee leader, Blackfish, was ailing and there was to be a new chief. In the meantime bands of young braves were coming across the Ohio, making mischief, and reports of horse stealing abounded. Some of the more contentious settlers were threatening to take matters into their own hands and shoot at whatever provoked them. But this was hardly the time for a wilderness war, not with all the trouble between the Redcoats and colonists in the east.

  Leaning on her hoe, Lael stood, sweat trickling down her face and neck. Through the trees the river beckoned with a blue finger, making her feel feverish with longing to jump in, dress and all. The memory of how she once did with near abandon seemed to cut her. Now the Shawnee were out there, somewhere. Waiting. Watching. Biding their time till they caught her unawares at the river. Or calling the cow home from the woods. Or digging herbs in some lonesome hollow.

  Had she become something of a prize to them, being Ezekial Click’s only daughter?

  Her fingers went to her pocket, now nearly bulging with newsprint, Simon’s note, and the blue beads. Like a string of speckled robin’s eggs, their glassy brilliance took her breath. She’d seen the beads the traders used in their dealings with the tribes. Pa kept a glass bottle of them under the bed, a veritable rainbow of bewitching colors blended with silver ornaments and tinkling brass cones. Some had clear cores the Indians called white eyes. But never before had she seen beads of such a startling blue.

  Packed away in her pocket, she longed to look at them but knew she mustn’t. They would stay a secret to her dying day. What a ruckus she’d raise if she pulled them out to parade them! Her forehead furrowed as she thought of where she might hide them lest they spill out of her pocket and expose her. Perhaps in the woods, if she could get to them.

  The Click cabin was beginning to feel overfull of secrets. Her mother’s. Pa’s from his Shawnee past. Even Ransom’s, though he didn’t know he had any.

  And now her own.

  Sometime in the night Ma had finished the apple-green dress. Lael awoke to find it dangling from a peg opposite her bed, two days ahead of the nuptials, leaving time for the fine fabric to hang and work out the wrinkles. The finery lent a touch of civility to the rough wall she’d been looking at her whole life. She spied two new muslin petticoats as well and the slippers sitting underneath in expectation. With the stifling June heat she’d need no stockings or garters. When Ma wasn’t looking she planned to shed her shoes for the dancing, hiding her bare feet beneath the generous hem of her gown.

  Rolling over, she ran a hand underneath her pillow, netting the blue beads and Simon’s note in one sweep. The necklace provoked her, while the note continued to please no matter how many times she read it. The dilemma she now faced was how to appease both Ma and Simon. Her mother would be watching to see how many sets she danced, and Simon would simply keep asking.

  Pushing aside the thin sheet, she swung her feet to the floor, crossing to the cracked glass to take a lo
ng look at herself. Pale as frost. She’d finally slept from sheer exhaustion, but the worry she felt seemed to tell on her face. Would Simon notice—or care? She’d not seen him since winter when they’d last spent time at the fort and he’d been spelling his father at the smithy.

  Although he was supposed to be intent on shoeing their new gelding, the way he’d looked at her as she waited with Pa turned her to jelly. Each time she saw Simon he seemed to have changed ever so slightly. Taller, broader of shoulder, with a hint more swagger to his step. Sometimes he seemed almost Goliath-like. Willowy as she was, she barely reached his chin.

  “Lael, you’d best come down and eat your breakfast.” Ma’s voice seemed shrill in the stillness, and Lael hastened into her linsey shift, forehead furrowed.

  Their close confinement of late was clearly taking a toll on her mother. Lael could hear her muttering as she moved about the cabin and hoped Ransom was well out of her way, as it was he who got the brunt of Ma’s broom and ill temper. She sighed as she pocketed both the note and beads. What would Ma do if she knew the Shawnee had come calling not once but twice?

  Click, show us your pretty daughter.

  The memory made a deep ache inside her. She looked askance at the length of her hair. Like a bolt of yellow cloth, it seemed to have no end. Hastily she braided it, wondering whether to wear it up or down for the wedding, only to hear Ma call a second time.

  “Comin’, Ma,” she shot back, tying off the end with a piece of whang leather. She’d save her ribbons for the wedding. Today was wash day—a hot, smelly business if there ever was one. Descending the loft ladder, she spied the hipbath by the hearth and caught the tail end of her father’s stride as he went out the door.

  He’d brought the tub in on account of the festivities, she gathered. Its rotund belly held twenty-two buckets of water from the spring that bubbled in back of the house, a rare treat when heated and scented with the soft soap they made. Ma added a handful of lavender to sweeten each batch, and the smell lingered long about the cabin. But the tub was out of place in summer. Its appearance spelled trouble, or at least caution. Until now, the river had sufficed in warm weather, its cool blueness as refreshing as it was deep.

  “I’ve already milked,” Ma said over her shoulder, frying bacon in a heavy skillet. “You’ve been acting so poorly, I thought I’d better let you sleep.”

  Lael sank onto the bench, suddenly wearier than when she’d gone to bed. Did Ma somehow suspect the beads hidden away in her pocket? She tried to smile as Ma passed her a bowl of mush laced with long-sweetening and a strip of bacon. Across from her Ransom finished his helping and eyed hers. When Ma turned her back, Lael slid her bowl toward him, and with a grin he gave up his.

  “Well, at least your appetite’s some better,” Ma said, coming back around and eyeing her empty bowl. “Now go on and see to the garden. Something’s after my melons.”

  A bit lightheaded, Lael went out, her need to see her father nearly overwhelming. The clearing and outbuildings stood golden in the rising sun, empty of his reassuring presence. She hesitated before stepping off the porch, hoping he’d appear. Her attention was drawn to the smoke pluming in back of the cabin, making the place appear like it was on fire.

  Ma had hung a huge kettle to boil, and the smell of lye was overwhelming. Mouth wry, Lael watched Ransom wander out and cavort about the flames, as naked as decency allowed. Stripped to his skivvies, he set to work chopping brush with his small hatchet and feeding the fire while she rounded the cabin to tend the garden.

  Though still early, sweat darkened her hairline and trickled into her eyes, stinging them as she walked. If this was but June, July would be all ablaze. Folks were already talking about the queer weather. Winter seemed to have jumped right into summer, bypassing spring altogether.

  At the garden gate, her fingers fumbled with the latch on the paling fence but touched fabric, not wood. She drew back as if bitten.

  There, draped over the gate, was a blanket.

  An Indian blanket.

  The familiarity of it stunned her. Hadn’t she seen the very same hanging from the tall Indian’s shoulder when the Shawnee came calling? The square of white wool bore a solid blue stripe. Backing up, she tried to take a breath, but it caught in her throat. This time there was no ignoring the footprints. Mingled with those made by her own moccasins, they stretched solitarily to the woods.

  “Lael, I want you to water the beans a mite heavy this morning and then—” Ma came around the corner, seeing her daughter standing in front of the blanket she couldn’t hide. For a moment her expression was empty, then understanding dawned and she gave a startled cry.

  With a ferocious jerk, Ma pulled the blanket from the pickets and rushed to the back of the cabin. Lael ran after her, aghast as her mother threw the gift into the fire. Billows of gray smoke poured forth as the heavy wool smothered the flames beneath the kettle.

  “Nay!” Lael cried.

  Pushing past her, she grabbed a corner of the blanket and pulled it free. Would her mother’s impetuous act bring death down upon them? Shawnee were watching from the woods— whether two or twenty did not matter. Frantic, she scanned the clearing.

  Oh Pa, where are you?

  Holding the blanket tight, she stamped out the fire from it with one moccasin, sickened as she did so. Did her actions encourage her Shawnee suitor? In saving the blanket did she somehow seal his ardor? If she’d been in doubt about the beads, the blanket confirmed her fears. One look at her mother’s face and she knew Ma surmised the same. The Shawnee had come calling again, and his intent was now clear.

  The blue beads seemed to burn a hole in her pocket.

  5

  By sunset the air inside the shut-up cabin was stifling and still, and they could hear the cow bawling to be milked beyond the barred door. Lael peered through a crack in the shuttered window, searching for any sign of the Shawnee. A footfall on the porch made her breathless. When she heard the reassuring voice of her father calling her name, she fumbled with the latchstring and let him in.

  Even before he set eyes on the fire-blackened blanket in the cabin corner, her tense expression told him what she couldn’t say. Setting his rifle and powder horn atop the trestle table, he listened as she poured forth her story. Unable to hide them any longer, she produced the blue beads. “I found these on the porch yesterday morning.”

  Ma’s sharp intake of breath jarred her. She hadn’t meant to deceive, just mollify her ma. Why had she thought hiding them would be a simple matter? A lie always came to light. Pa had taught her to be truthful even if it hurt.

  Her mother’s hand came down hard and swept the necklace off the table. The beads clattered to the floor but didn’t break. The leather string that bound them was too strong. Next she turned on Lael and smacked her hard, then ran weeping from the room.

  Like a flustered squirrel, Ransom looked out from under the table where he’d been hiding and scampered up the loft ladder. The cheek that bore the stinging handprint led to a queer emptiness in Lael’s breast.

  “Pack your things,” Pa told her. “We’re headed to Pigeon Ridge.”

  Pigeon Ridge was miles away and already the twilight was falling fast. Seated behind Pa on a dun-colored mare, Lael watched as the dying sun pulled a purple curtain over the mountains and seeded the sky with a million stars. She knew they’d soon be benighted in the woods. Better that, she thought, than a cabin crammed with ill will. Evidently her father felt the same.

  As they rode, she finally gave in to the question she’d longed to ask ever since the Shawnee first appeared in the cabin clearing. “Pa, I’ve been wonderin’ . . .” She swallowed hard, the words seeming to stick in her throat. “Are you afraid the Shawnee mean me harm?”

  “I’m not fearful, just cautious,” he said evenly. “They’re somewhat chancy. Best stay one step ahead of ’em.”

  “But I don’t want to cause trouble for Ma Horn,” she said quietly. “Seems like the Shawnee’ll be able to find me up on hig
h same as at home.”

  “Not likely. They’re a mite afraid of her.”

  “What?” She leaned into his shoulder, breathing in sweat and damp linen.

  “Every time she meets up with an Indian in the woods, she acts crazy or spouts Scripture at ’em so they leave her be. You’re safer with her than you would be locked up at the fort.”

  Truly? A tickled smile pulled at her solemn face, and she nearly laughed outright. She let the strangeness of the words seep over her and settle her. Now that he’d spoken, it seemed he’d left the door open for her to ask him a dozen other things, things no one had dared ask him, not even Ma. Quietly she rehearsed them in her heart. Pa, did you like living with the Shawnee? Do you ever miss those days? Did they come by the cabin just to see you? What exactly did they say?

  Taking a deep breath, she gathered her courage about her, then felt it dwindle. Last time she’d probed, he’d called her a gabby, yellow-haired gal and shut her out. Maybe she had no right to ask about his past. But it seemed that his past was now intruding on her present in a bewildering way.

  As they brushed by a sorrel tree she stripped off one narrow leaf, chewing it to quiet her thirst. If only she had something to still her heart. She fished in her pocket, empty of the beads now, and found Simon’s note alongside the old newspaper. This would have to do.

  When the darkness hemmed them in and they could go no farther, they made a cold camp in a small clearing. Crickets hollered all around them and sang them to sleep as they lay on hard ground with nary a blanket. Before dawn they rose, dew covered and slightly stiff, and journeyed on.

  After being tethered to the cabin for days on end, Lael felt a queer elation with every step, her spirits rising like the swell of mountains they traversed. At noon they crested a steep divide and looked down upon the river bottoms from which they’d come. Far below, the Kentucke River lay at low ebb, a startling sapphire blue.