The river over which the ferry was being pulled was rust-colored but still enough, the surface reflecting the brightness of the sun. A strong musky smell permeated the air but now and again, a hint of jasmine and honeysuckle wafted under Lorna's nose.
"You'll like it up to the Hill," Cail told her as he worked. "To me, it's the most beautiful place on earth."
Lorna fluffed her skirt over her legs. "Have you traveled much, Mr. McGregor?"
"Cail," he corrected.
"Cail," she repeated, feeling heat enveloping her cheeks at the familiarity.
He shrugged carelessly. "I've done my share, I reckon. I've been as far north as Marshalltown in the Miswin Territory and as far south as Milton in the Flagala Territory. Once rode the rails west all the way out to Kellogg in the Moilia Territory. Never been further east than Dovertown, though."
"Why is that?" she asked since most people made it a point to venture to the capitol at Boreas to get a look at the Citadel, the fortress from which the country was ruled.
"Just haven't had the opportunity to do so," he replied. “One day, I’d like to travel over to see the Citadel.” He glanced at her. “Ever been there?”
“Once,” she said. “I went to a wedding.”
“One of the Reapers?” Cail asked.
"Actually, it was one of the Shadowlords. Do the Reapers come up to Tabor Hill?" she asked, referring to the bounty hunters who were the law in the Territories.
Cail twisted his head to give her a steady look. "There's no call for them to for we have our own law up there," he said. "I've seen the Reaper assigned to this Territory once but that was in passing. He’s the Prime’s second-in-command, I believe. Bevyn Coure, isn’t it?"
"I met him and his lady on the train. They were on their way out to Clewiston," Lorna said. "He is a very imposing man."
"Reckon they all are," Cail agreed.
"Dangerous, too," O'Day interjected.
"So I've heard," Lorna responded.
A hawk flew overhead—catching the thermals to soar in the bright blue sky. She watched it until it landed in a tall cottonwood tree and folded its dark brown wings against its plump body before lowering its head to peck at its breast.
It seemed as though mention of the Reapers made them each introspective for there was no more conversation as Cail worked the lines, pulling the ferry across the glassy surface of the river. With the sun so intense, Lorna was glad she had on a bonnet. The brim managed to block some of the intense light spearing into her face though perspiration trickled down the sides of her face.
"We haven't had a good rain in several weeks," O'Day spoke up as he pulled a red bandana from his back pocket and blew his nose. "Sure could use some, don't you think, Cail?"
"It would sure help this ungodly heat," Cail asserted. His pale blue shirt was plastered to his back, turning the material darker where it touched his flesh.
As they drew closer to the shore, Lorna noticed a buckboard and brace of horses coming out of the verdant growth of trees. Behind the buckboard was tethered a sorrel stallion.
"That would be Samuel," Cail said. "He's Mary Reid's oldest boy. She makes a fair living selling her condiments."
"Makes the best goldarn preserves I've ever tasted, that's for sure," O'Day stated. “Her fig preserves can’t be beat.”
The strapping young man driving the buckboard looped the reins around the brake and hopped down to stand with his hands on his hips as the ferry neared the shore. "Want I should tie ye off, Cail?" he called out.
"I'd be much obliged Sam," Cail replied.
Lorna watched the young man—no older than seventeen or eighteen by her reckoning—as he caught the line Cail tossed out to him and made quick work of securing the ferry to its landing. He was as muscular as Cail but not quite as tall.
"Grow 'em big up here on that mountain," O'Day told her with a wink.
"It's all that good mountain air that nourishes us, isn't it, Sam?" Cail asked.
"That and Ma's cooking," Sam replied.
"Mary Reid sort of looks after the McGregor boys now that there ain't no woman to cook for 'em," O'Day said. "What with her being a widow woman and.…"
"And you talk entirely too much, Thaddeus," Cail warned. A muscle worked in his lean jaw as he ground his teeth together.
"Reckon I've been accused of that often enough," O'Day said in a good-natured tone. He jumped down from the ferry with a grunt. As soon as he saw how many boxes were in the bed of the buckboard his shoulders slumped.
"Sam Reid," Cail said, "this is the priest's sister, Miss Lorna Brent."
Sam ran his hand along the thigh of his pants before extending it to Lorna. "Right proud to meet ye, my lady," he said, giving her hand a hearty pump. “Didn’t know you was a’comin’.”
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Sam, and I’m beginning to think Daniel never got my letter telling him I was on my way," Lorna said. The young man was as handsome as Cail and his gray eyes were sparkling as he swept them covertly down her.
"Let's get her baggage onto the buckboard before we off-load your ma's stuff," Cail said. "And thanks for bringing my horse."
"Figured ye'd rather have him than be sitting on the tailgate of the wagon," Sam replied.
"What's your horse's name?" Lorna asked. She loved animals, and though she'd never ridden a horse, she had always wanted to.
"Saoirse," Cail answered. "It means freedom in the old language."
Lorna frowned. "Is that spoken much here?"
"Just by old folks like Cail," Sam said with a twinkle and laughed when Cail caught him around the neck with the crook of his arm and gave the boy's dark blond hair a brisk rub with his knuckles. "Aw!" the young man cried out.
"I'll old folk you, boy," Cail warned as the teenager grabbed him around the waist and they started scuffling playfully.
"Boys will be boys," O'Day said with a chuckle. "Gotta work that nervous energy off somehow."
Lorna laughed as she watched the men grabbling. It was obvious there was great affection between them and when they finally stopped with Cail swooping a hand over Sam's ducked head as he tried to take him in another head hold, something at the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned to see a man standing amidst the lush greenery of the trees. Shielding her eyes to the bright sun in order to get a better look, she realized he was staring right at her.
Half hidden beneath the canopy of a spreading white oak, he stood perfectly still with his arms at his side. He was wearing faded denim jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. From that distance, she couldn't tell much about his features other than she was keenly aware that his eyes were blazing at her. She could see the sunlight glinting in the steady orbs.
"Mr. O'Day, is that one of the gentlemen from the Hill?" she asked.
The other three men looked around at her then toward the forest. As she watched, the man in the forest seemed to step back into the foliage, blending in with the branches and leaves until she could no longer see him.
“I don’t see nobody,” O’Day said.
"He's gone now but he was standing over there," Lorna said, pointing at the stand of oaks.
"Must have been one of the Shaws," Cail said. "They have trap lines over that way." He stared at the spot she’d indicated, his brows drawn together.
"Ya'll go on and get them boxes of Mary's off that buckboard," O'Day said, nervously glancing around. "I don't like being here any more than I have to!" He strode back to the ferry and pulled himself up.
Lorna could sense the edginess of the men and turned to look once more in the direction she'd seen the watcher. Nothing moved and if he was still there observing them, the sentinel was well hidden. She felt the hair stir at the nape of her neck and gave a slight shiver.
"There's no need for you to worry," Cail said as though he'd made note of her shudder. "You're perfectly safe with me and Sam."
"Aye, ye are," Sam said. "Wouldn't nobody mess with ye with us’ns looking after you
, my lady, and especially not in the daytime. Nothin’ ever happens in the daytime."
"That’s good to know," Lorna said, but she noticed all three men kept glancing toward the oaks, as though they expected something—or someone—to jump out at them.
It was then she noticed the rocks that had been laid all along the ground in a border separating the forest from the shoreline. The rocks stretched away as far as the eye could see.
"Someone has certainly been industrious," she said as Cail helped her from the ferry onto the dock.
"Beg pardon?" Cail asked as he finished securing her luggage and began helping Sam tote the boxes of jams and jellies over to the ferry.
"The rocks," she said. "Are they whitewashed?"
"They call 'em wyndstones. Women ain't supposed to cross over 'em," O'Day said from the ferry then ducked his head when Cail gave him a hard look.
"One of these days somebody is going to snip out your tongue, Thaddeus," Cail warned. "Why don't you just sit down and hush up for a change?"
O'Day mumbled something then went to sit beside the stack of furs. Once more, he glanced at the stand of oaks, his eyes apprehensive.
“Here comes Euan,” Sam said as the sound of horse hooves striking the hard-packed dirt broke the stillness.
“’Bout damned time,” O’Day grumbled.
Lorna turned as the rider came into view. He was sitting high in the saddle, a black hat pulled low over his features. The blue and white checked shirt he wore stretched across the yoke as he lifted his hand in greeting.
“I was beginning to wonder where you were,” Cail called out as his twin slowed his mount to walk it up to the buckboard.
“If I’d known there was a lovely lady gonna be with you, I’d have stayed hidden until you had to take Thaddeus back across the river,” Euan said as he swung a leg over his horse’s head and slid to the ground. He swept off his hat and came over to Lorna—his boot heels ringing on the dock’s wooden planks—and held out his free hand. “Pleased to meet you, my lady,” he said. “I’m Euan.”
“This is the priest’s sister,” Cail said.
Euan’ left eyebrow crooked up. “Well, I’ll be,” he said. “Don’t that beat all?”
“Lorna,” she said as she placed her hand in his and felt the same electric jolt that had gone through her arm when his brother had touched her. She wasn’t surprised when he kissed her hand in the same old-fashioned way.
“Ferry’s ready to make the trip back across,” Cail said and when Lorna glanced at him, she could see a muscle tightening in his cheek. “It won’t pull itself across the river.”
“Don’t get your long johns in a bunch, Ronnie,” Euan quipped. “It isn’t every day we have a woman this beautiful in our midst. Give me time to look my fill.” He released Lorna’s hand. “It’s a sight that will sustain me until I get home.”
A heated blush stole over Lorna’s face, and she ducked her head. She was not accustomed to men complimenting her on her looks.
“Get a move on, Euan,” Cail snapped at his twin. “Thad doesn’t have all day.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” O’Day agreed.
Euan put his hat on then winked at Lorna. “Duty calls, Miss Lorna.”
She smiled at him. “Lorna,” she corrected as she stared into his handsome face. It was like looking at a mirror image of Cail, although she knew she would be able to tell them apart for Euan had a faint white scar running along the edge of his left jawbone.
“We’ve a long trip ahead of us, Lorna,” Cail said. “Let’s get you settled on the buckboard.” Not giving her a chance to say anything else to his twin, he took her hand and led her off the dock and to the buckboard.
“I’ll see you up at the Hill, Lorna,” Euan told her.
“Take care, Euan,” she said and was a bit surprised to hear Cail hiss under his breath. She looked up at him, started to ask him what was wrong, but once again he swept her up in his brawn arms to deposit her on the buckboard seat.
Sam climbed aboard and bent over to retrieve the reins, snapping them lightly.
Lorna turned in the seat. “Goodbye, Mr. O’Day! Thank you for bringing me out.”
O’Day had been pointing to the spot where Lorna had seen the sentinel, but he lifted a hand in acknowledgement of her thanks. She saw Euan glance back at her with a deep frown on his rugged face.
“Stay inside the wyndstones!” he yelled to her.
“I’ll see to it!” Cail told his brother as he swung onto the horse Sam had brought for him.
Lorna waited until the ferry was out of sight, Cail riding his sorrel beside them as the team of grays pulled the wagon along a winding dirt road that led through the thick forest before she asked after the wyndstones.
Cail sighed deeply. "They're just an old folk legend," he told her.
"Will you tell me about them?" she inquired. She was looking up at him and at the easy way he sat his mount—one hand to the reins and the other braced on his thigh.
After exchanging a quick look with Sam, Cail said, "Isn't much to tell. Way back before the Burning War, it was said the old folks up at the Hill believed the stones had certain magical properties. They'd been put there generations before by the first settlers and had been placed around the perimeter of the village to keep out things that ought not to be seen by decent, gods-fearing folk."
"What kind of things?" she asked.
"Mealladhs," Sam said beneath his breath, but she heard him.
"What is a Mealladh?"
"Another old wive’s tale," Cail said between clenched teeth. "I don't know anything about them beyond the name."
Sam glanced over at Cail. "I know enough not to let my woman near one of 'em," he stated.
Lorna's eyebrow arched upward. "Do you have a girlfriend, Sam?"
"Missy Gilmore," Sam said with a grin. "We gonna be Joined as soon as she turns eighteen next month."
"Well, congratulations," Lorna said. "I hope all your troubles will be little ones."
Sam blushed and lowered his head. "Thank ye, my lady."
"His will be the first Joining your brother has performed at the Hill," Cail informed her. "I think he's as excited about it as Sam and Missy."
"It may well be his very first Joining," Lorna said. "I don't believe he's officiated at any other."
"He's a good man, your brother," Cail said, "if a bit naive."
Lorna wanted to ask what he meant by that but the buckboard was headed up a rather steep incline, and she was holding on tightly to the edge of her seat. She heard Cail clucking his tongue at his horse and the stallion dug its hooves into the roadway and trotted past them on up the steeply winding road. The path wasn't wide enough for the buckboard and Cail.
"We don't get visitors up this here way," Sam told her, lightly snapping his reins to set his horses moving a bit faster. "Last one was Father Danny." He glanced at her with a crooked smile. "Guess he's gonna make the Hill his home now."
"Until the diocese sends him to his next assignment anyway," Lorna commented.
Sam shot her a strange look. “Reckon that won’t be no time soon, though.”
“Ten years is the average length of an assignment,” she told him.
“What about you?” she asked. “Will the Hill always be your home?”
“I ain’t going nowheres,” the young man said. “Can’t and don’t wanna.”
“Why can’t you?” she asked.
Sam shrugged. “I ain’t like Cail and Mose what went and got them a education at that college thing in Ruckston.” He lifted a hand to tap his head. “Me? I got natural smarts. Don’t need no book learning other than what Ma taught me.”
Lorna looked over at Cail. “You and Euan went to college?”
“Didn’t graduate,” Cail replied. “We just wanted to learn a few things that would be of help to the Hill.”
“Elders sent them,” Sam said. “That’s why they get to leave the Hill when they want. They got Elder approval.”
“You nee
d approval from the Elders before you can leave the Hill?” Lorna inquired.
Before Sam could answer, Cail interrupted. “You like hog plums, Lorna?”
She realized he was pointing to a tree sitting beside the road. “I don’t know,” she said.
Cail turned the horse toward the tree, took off his hat and started pulling bright red fruit that looked a bit like cherries from a heavily laden branch. “They make good jelly but most folks just eat them like candy.”
“Them and bullisses,” Sam agreed, drawing the grays to a halt.
“Bullisses?” Lorna asked, unfamiliar with the term.
“That’s mountain talk for scuppernongs,” Cail stated and when she gave him a look that said she didn’t know what that meant, either, he explained they were a type of muscadine grape native to the region. “They’re big and green and make a wine that will give you one helluva hangover.”
“Good jelly, though,” Sam put in. “They’re my favorites next to mayhaws.”
“Now, that I have had,” Lorna said. “I love mayhaw jelly.”
“Don’t we all?” Cail said and pulled on the reins to direct his mount to the buckboard. He held out his hat. “Try a few.”
Lorna dipped her hand into the hat and took a couple of the bright red plums. She popped one in her mouth, bit down then grinned.
“Good, huh?” Cail asked, returning her smile.
“I could get seriously addicted to those,” she said and though she protested, he gave his hat into her keeping. “Don’t you want some more?”
He nodded. “I’ll just lean over and take what I want,” he said, his eyes traveling over her.
Lorna felt her face warm at his suggestive look. His handsome countenance and powerful body kept drawing her eyes to him like a magnet. Long before they reached the settlement, she was having not-so-ladylike thoughts of the burly mountain man.
Chapter Two
For over an hour the wagon moved steadily upward along a serpentine path only wide enough for the wagon. Cail rode ahead of them about fifty feet away. Lorna was too afraid to turn around and look behind her and there were enough trees and bushes close to the roadway that she couldn't see the drop off she knew was there. The farther they went, the cooler the air became and that certainly was a relief from the broiling heat but the higher they went, the more difficult it was to draw an easy breath. Her ears were popping so she had to yawn often to stabilize the pressure. On both sides of the track, the wyndstones edged the roadway, sitting flush against one another, their white-washed brightness beautiful against the lush green foliage.
WyndStones Page 3
