The Colonel's Lady

by Laura Frantz

  Tucked in a corner with paper and inkpots and sand, she’d been making final copies of letters to the Continental Congress and the acting commander at Fort Pitt regarding the coming campaign into Ohio. Across the wide green river of the same name, which the Shawnee called Spaylayweetheepi, he would go at some undetermined point in future, and everything they did now seemed caught up in that end.

  Since the keelboats had come and gone, their days had been an unceasing routine of correspondence and dispatches and details. By sending couriers on differing routes, Cass had managed to keep them alive and reestablish a chain of communication previously broken. But it seemed they all held a collective breath nevertheless when fresh messages were tucked in dispatch cases and the men rode away.

  Looking across the suddenly still room, she almost smiled to see Cass leaning forward in a cane-backed chair, Falling Water seated beside him, Ben Simmons shadowing them from behind and translating. They were studying a map, their backs to her, discussing winsome rivers and valleys and ridges that few, if any, white men had ever seen. Having picked up some of the mellifluous Shawnee tongue, Cass could communicate a bit with Falling Water directly, and his efforts often brought about her small, delighted smile.

  Sometimes it seemed to Roxanna that she’d tell him anything he wanted. And who could blame her? The tan, intense lines of Cass’s face—and his astonishing blue eyes—seemed to shift more rapidly than the weathervane atop the fort commissary. Brooding one minute, animated the next, he had a mercurial charm that was both disarming and endearing. She wondered if this was a common Irish trait.

  From the corner, the clock struck the hour of three, but he paid no attention. He’d already met with the two male prisoners that morning. Out of leg irons but still well guarded, they came in separately. First the older chief, fully recovered and garrulous again, and then the younger, less talkative but clearly pleased at having his sweetheart in residence. Roxanna watched them make eyes at one another with a kind of awed envy.

  Save the Sabbath, the three Shawnee had met with Cass in the orderly room every day for a month. Sometimes she wondered if his strategy was simply to wear them down in order to glean the information he wanted. His officers were less patient, probably weary of fort walls, she guessed, and wanting to finalize plans and begin the campaign. He conferred with them often, asking them their opinions and insights.

  “They’ve given us plenty to go on,” Micajah had told him the day before. “More than I ever dreamed you’d drum out of them. But how can you be sure they’re telling the truth?”

  “Because I bring them in separately, ask the same questions, allow them no time to confer, and see if they give me the same answers.”

  The officers pondered this, poring over the detailed maps on the table, till Joram Herkimer finally said with a sort of suspicious wonder, “They’ve practically handed over the key to their territory, telling you about every valley, river, Shawnee town, and the like.”

  “You glean a great deal from asking the right questions,” Cass replied. “But most of it comes from how you ask them.”

  Still, Micajah looked perturbed. “They’ve still not told you who Hamilton’s second-in-command is out of Detroit? The one plying them with trade goods and sending their warriors to raid the settlements?”

  Cass shook his head slowly, eyes on a particularly detailed map. “Nay, but I’m coming closer.”

  There was a murmur among them, and Major Herkimer said, “I wish you’d allow some of us to be present when you question them.”

  “Why? To make them feel they’re being bamboozled?” Hard azure eyes shot down the notion. “I’ll not give the appearance of a court-martial.”

  Micajah leaned against the mantel, eyes roaming to Roxanna as she worked across the room. “When do we move?”

  “July at the latest.”

  Her head bent over her work, Roxanna felt nearly woozy. The thought of marching north in deep summer when the mosquitoes and flies and chiggers were the thickest would be punishment enough, but to make war in wool uniforms with sixty-pound packs . . .

  Cass traced a path on the map with a forefinger. “Our intent is to avoid the peaceful Shawnee towns and push north toward Detroit. We’ll strike Shemento’s band if we have to, as he’s closely allied to the British. The other chiefs are declaring their neutrality, if only to spare their women and children another hard winter.”

  A glimmer of satisfaction shone on Micajah’s face. “So your reputation as the Bluecoat town burner is having some effect.”

  A shadow passed over Cass’s features. “I’m not proud of past tactics. Burning villages amounts to making war on women and children, and I’ve decided to try a far different tack. I’ll not have an army of firebrands and brutes.”

  At this, a few of them looked shamefaced, and Roxanna sensed surprise and tension in the air. Returning to her work, she found the letters dipping and swaying in a wash of black ink as she tried to contain her swelling emotions. She was hardly aware of the officers ending their discussion and leaving her alone with Cass and the orderlies.

  Brooding again, he stared into the low fire a few moments before turning in her direction, giving her time to compose herself. Still, her unsettled feelings lingered. He was leaving. Though he’d said little of what was ahead, the campaign he’d soon wage was fraught with danger, and as she’d learned firsthand in December, not everyone came back.

  His shadow fell across her lap desk, but she didn’t look up for fear he’d see the tears in her eyes. “I’ve nearly finished this final letter, and these documents are ready for your signature.”

  Straddling a chair, he took the sheaf of papers from her and said nothing. It was the closest he’d been to her in two weeks, and she breathed in the scent of the stone house—and him—for the two had become inseparable in her mind. Since she’d fled to Smitty’s Fort, he seemed to be so careful, so formal with her, never being alone with her for even a few moments, always having others present.

  If he’d ever been even slightly infatuated with her, she knew he wasn’t any longer. His interest had dissolved like the pearly mist that hung over the river most mornings, and its leaving had stolen something from her. She should have been glad. Friendship was all she could offer—or receive. Because of Cecily, first and foremost. Because he was a man in an intense season of doubt. About himself. His position. Providence. Yet despite everything, she felt blasphemously discontent, and so full of yearning she ached.

  “Fine work,” he said in low tones, “considering you’d rather be in your garden.”

  Reaching the bottom of the page, she sprinkled the wet ink with pounce. “There’s still time yet.”

  He leaned closer. “I caught you smiling to yourself earlier, and since it couldn’t be anything you overheard me saying . . .”

  “I was thinking of my peas.” Carefully, she funneled the pounce back into the jar, his nearness making a stew of her insides. “And I meant to thank you for having that fence built to keep the animals out. Those Kentucke rabbits especially seem to have a penchant for all things green.”

  “So do my men. Best keep an eye on them.”

  She almost smiled—and then a rush of hot tears surprised her a second time. Panicked, she dropped a piece of paper. As they bent over, their hands and heads collided, and she felt she was swimming in leather and Indian tobacco. He was wearing the buckskin jacket instead of his usual uniform coat, and it made him look more rugged frontiersman than gentleman soldier. ’Twas a wonder she could keep her head on her shoulders and do a smidgen of work . . .

  He retrieved the paper, and she murmured her thanks, determined not to look at him. And then, giving sway to his poignant request for her support at Smitty’s Fort, she did look, alarmed by the shadows she saw beneath his eyes. “Are you . . . all right?”

  He hesitated. “Aye, and you?”

  Nay. She couldn’t answer—at least honestly—so she said nothing.

  A commotion at the door made them both turn
to see Joram Herkimer enter again. “The scouting patrols are back, sir, and ready to give a full report.”

  With a nod, Cass stood. “Bring them in.”

  Taking the scrap of paper she’d dropped, she retrieved her quill and dipped it in ink. Still tearful, she scribbled the only encouragement she could muster before pressing the note into his hand as she went out.

  Praying for you.

  23

  On her knees that night, Roxanna felt the hard, cold, hickory planks through her linen nightgown as she knelt by her bed. Since childhood she’d prayed thus, like her mother and father before her, and it provided a warm if sometimes bittersweet tie to her past. No other position felt quite right, though she knew all that mattered was the posture of one’s heart. Try as she might, she couldn’t imagine Cass on his knees. It seemed as far-fetched as her lying abed in the stone house, in that wondrous dream, about to bear a child.

  Her first petition was unceasingly the same. Lord, deliver me from Fort Endeavor. Being penned within its walls day in and day out was deepening her melancholy over her father’s death, her fatal attraction for Cass. Still, she’d promised to pray for him. The hastily scrawled note that said she’d do so was uppermost in her mind, though he might not appreciate her petitions.

  Lord, soften his arrogance and temper and intemperate habits. Make him a man after Your own heart . . . because somehow, against my will and surely Yours, he’s stolen mine.

  Early the next morning, Abby came and shook Roxanna awake. Rolling over on the thin mattress, she took in Abby’s tearstained face and sat bolt upright. “Abby, have you had another bad dream?”

  The little girl nodded and crawled into bed beside her, which did little to ease Roxanna’s anxiety. Oh, Abby, won’t you speak? Lying back down, Roxanna wrapped her arms about the child’s slight form, gratified when her even breathing assured her she was slumbering again. Lately Abby had been coming to her cabin more often, and Olympia didn’t seem to miss her. In the mornings before work, Roxanna continued to school Abby in her sums and letters without interference. But she worried unceasingly about the child wandering around in the dark when no one else was about save the sentries.

  Before Roxanna could fall back asleep, Bella appeared, kerchief askew, eyes bright in the dawn light as she pushed the door open. “Law, but I been worried to death ’bout that child. Between her sleepwalkin’ like a ghost and McLinn sick . . .”

  Roxanna pushed herself up on an elbow. “The colonel—sick?”

  “Aye, been up all night, Hank says. Can’t keep nothin’ down and is in an agony wi’ his stomach.”

  “Is it the ague?”

  Bella shot her a chilling glance. “Not this time.”

  “Maybe the dysentery, then.”

  “Naw . . . worse.” Bella slumped in a chair. “Somethin’ ain’t right here lately. Somebody’s been goin’ through the kitchen disturbin’ things.”

  “What?”

  “I know it sounds foolish, but somebody’s out to make mischief and now the colonel ain’t well. Somethin’ smells.”

  A coldness crept into Roxanna’s spirit. Bella didn’t know about the spy. No one did except Cass and herself. He hadn’t even confided in his own officers. “Are you saying someone means the colonel harm?”

  “I think somebody’s set to hurt him, all right. Mebbe poison him. The cinchona I keep in the kitchen in that little tin looks different somehow. I give him some after supper last night as he didn’t look right to me, like he might be gettin’ the ague again. And now . . .”

  “Perhaps he’s simply exhausted,” Roxanna said, trying to fit all the pieces of this strange puzzle together. “Do you truly believe he’s been poisoned?”

  Tears glittered in Bella’s eyes, and she raised her apron to dash them away. “I know it’s so. And I’m sore afraid I’ll be blamed for it.”

  “Bella, I know you wouldn’t do such a thing.”

  “Naw, I wouldn’t. But somebody would, and they’re right here in these walls. And that scares me to death.” She heaved a sigh, damp eyes hardening. “I ’spect it might be one o’ them doxies, in and out o’ the kitchen like they is. That Olympia bemoans the colonel so.”

  Roxanna’s mind spun with all the possibilities. Perhaps this spy—this man or woman, whoever they were—was no longer content simply rummaging through papers. Perhaps it had become a different sort of game. A dangerous, even murderous one.

  Slipping free of Abby’s sleeping form, Roxanna began to dress with unsteady hands. Bella sat with surprising lethargy, and Roxanna sensed her fear. Without saying a word, she slipped out and crossed the empty parade ground at a near run. Knowing reveille would soon sound, she wanted to be well out of the way.

  The spring dawn was arriving in a red fury, the sky so strangely fiery Roxanna nearly winced. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight . . . Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. The little rhyme only intensified the fear now crawling all over her, raising gooseflesh as she entered the dim kitchen.

  The cinchona tin rested above the hearth on the mantel. Taking it down, she noticed the kettle was already steaming over the hearth’s fire, as Bella had been here since first light. Uncapping the tin, she sniffed the contents. The cinchona, unpleasant in any form, seemed no different now. Reaching for a pewter cup, she measured out the amount she’d seen Bella use previously and then added hot water. Bitter tendrils of steam stung her nostrils. She waited for a few minutes, weighing the wisdom of what she was about to do, senses taut.

  A spy, she thought, was nothing but a poltroon, slinking around doing damage in the dark. Taking the cup, she took one sip, then two. Never having tasted the medicinal tea, it was all she could do not to sputter as she swallowed.

  The back door creaked open and Bella stood there, wild-eyed with worry. “Law, Miz Roxanna, what on earth you doin’ with that cup?”

  “Praying it’s not poisonous, Bella.”

  Bella rushed forward, hands outstretched, looking like she would dash it to the floor. Quickly Roxanna downed the hot liquid and set the empty cup on the table.

  Bella looked stricken. “Lord have mercy! If it made McLinn sick, strappin’ man that he is, it might well kill you!”

  “So be it,” Roxanna said. “’Tis better to know one way or another. Poison or not.”

  She was indeed sick. Horribly so. Within half an hour, she was retching into the chamber pot beneath her bed. With Abby safely ensconced in the kitchen with Bella, Roxanna drew the latchstring in and wanted to die. Surely Cass felt the same. The malignant brew, tainted with whatever caused such misery, lingered on her tongue and seemed it would never leave her. Bella came by and maneuvered the door open, trying to get her to sip water and take an antidote for her roiling stomach, but Roxanna couldn’t keep the remedy down either.

  “I’m goin’ to send Hank downriver for Dr. Clary,” Bella whispered, nearly wringing her hands. “The colonel forbade it for hisself, but he’s liable to court-martial me if I don’t fetch him for you.”

  But Roxanna shook her head weakly. “No one need know.”

  With Cass ill as well, she would hardly be missed. There would be no working at headquarters, anyway. A heavy rain was now pounding on the shingled roof with such fury it rivaled the smithy’s hammering. Few were about on such a day, as the parade ground was now a seething pool of dark, ankle-deep mud. She lay on her bed, stripped to her shift, the quilt half covering her between bouts of retching, her mind rife with dark thoughts.

  Oh, Lord, let me die in this place, then I’ll be free. No more worries about spies or Abby or a bleak future. No more fighting my attraction for a man who loves another . . .

  Toward twilight she slept. But it was a nauseous, dreamless sleep punctuated with stomach pain. She came awake to shadows—of someone replenishing the fire that had almost burned out. Bella? And then someone was lifting her head, stroking the tangled hair back from her face, and murmuring whispered words in Gaelic.

  She shot upright, pushing against the
hard shoulders that loomed over her, fear spiking as she grappled with the shadows.

  “Roxie—Roxie, ’tis only me.”

  Cass? She grabbed his coat sleeve with frantic hands, a bit out of her head. He sat down on the bed and gathered her up in his arms as if she were a child. Like Abby, she thought woozily. Like Papa had with her so long ago. Weak, she succumbed to the heady scent of him, gave in to the unfamiliar feel of his arms and solidness of his chest as he cradled her.

  “You need water,” he said, but he didn’t reach for the cup Bella had close by. He simply stroked her hair and kept murmuring soothing words till she was still.

  Ashamed to be seen so, she tried to turn away, face to the wall, but he wouldn’t relinquish her. He held her tighter, his breath warm against her ear.

  “Roxie, what have you done?” His voice held an uncanny tenderness, so poignant her heart ached. “Why, love, why? If anything should happen to you . . .” He broke off as if aware he’d tread too far. Fumbling with the cup, he brought her head around so she could drink. She managed a few swallows, chest sore from heaving, skin all ashiver.

  He bent his head, murmuring Gaelic words that made no sense yet left an unmistakable impression. He was praying for her. Pleading for her. Petitioning the Providence he disdained on her behalf. Though he wasn’t on his knees, she sensed his soul was.

  Tears slid down her cheeks, but she was too weary to push them away. Finding her embroidered hankie lost in the bedding, he dried her face, and she succumbed to the warmth of him and slept. In time Bella came, but Cass didn’t leave her. Nor did he go when Dr. Clary examined her, poking and prodding and shaking his head.

  “I’d issue a statement—an order—saying there’s an enemy within fort walls. Every man is suspect,” he said vehemently. “Every man is to watch every man. Anything even slightly suspicious is to be reported at once.”