Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 03]

by Almost Eden

  Paul lifted his dark brows. “I stand corrected, madame.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “My name is Paul, mon petit chou.” The Frenchman grinned.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Pretty little cabbage.”

  Maggie smiled. “I like cabbage.” She looked pointedly at Eli. He and Light were studying a map. “What’s his name?”

  “Eli Nielson.”

  “I knew the Nielson part. He’s not a bad man like the other’n.”

  “I’ve known him most of his life, madame. You are right, he’s not a bad man.”

  “I don’t like that bald one. Light will kill him,” Maggie said with a positive note in her voice.

  “How do you know that?” Paul stood.

  “I just know.”

  Maggie walked over to take Light’s hand. Without looking at her, he put his arm around her and drew her close to him. His finger was on a spot on the map.

  “At this point the river turns northwest. This is the Osage country.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “No. There are half a hundred Osage camps between the big river and the mountains. Maggie and I will stay there. If you give the chief tobacco and a bit of gunpowder he’ll furnish you with rowers for a week or two.”

  “Then what would I do?”

  Light shrugged. “Clark said that most of the tribes, except for the Delaware, were friendly.”

  “Why not go on with us?”

  “I’d rather go it alone.”

  “I’ll pay you in trade goods.”

  “We have all we can carry.”

  “Dammit man. Be reasonable. Your wife will be safer if you stay with us.”

  “I am the one who decides what is best for my wife. We’ll stay with you until we reach the Osage country.” Light’s tone put an end to the conversation. He folded the map and put it inside his shirt.

  “Come and get it,” Paul called from the cook fire.

  * * *

  The weather was hot and sticky and had been for the past two days. Sweat poured off the men pushing the raft upriver. Eli dipped a bucket in the river and poured the water over his head. It cooled his body for the moment. He glanced at the woman sitting at the sweep oar. In all his travels, up the Ohio to Pittsburgh, across the Cumberland Gap and on to Chesapeake Bay, he had never seen a woman to compare with her.

  Most of the beautiful women he had seen had been rather plump and useless, having been put on a pedestal to be admired. Maggie was not only beautiful, she was quick and capable. Her great green eyes seemed to see everything. She could have had any man she wanted. Why had she chosen Lightbody?

  Eli looked over at the dark-haired man toiling at the pole. He was not at all the dim-witted, half-breed savage he had expected. Half-breed, yes, but far from dim-witted. He hoped to know more about him before they parted company at the Osage camp. If they parted. It was damn hard to change five years of thinking.

  * * *

  By mid-afternoon of the fourth day, a sultry calm had settled over the river. Not a leaf stirred. Even the birds fell silent. Light began to listen and to sniff the air. As they rounded a bend, a fringe of iron-gray clouds appeared above the forested landscape. In an hour’s time the dark mass had boiled upward until it towered into the sky. White wispy clouds scurried ahead of the storm.

  The men moved the flatboat swiftly alongside a clay bank that loomed above their heads. Eli scanned the shoreline ahead with his glass, looking for a place to pull in and tie up. He knew the river was a formidable enemy during a wind storm and even more so if it were accompanied by lightning, especially if the boat had a cargo of gunpowder.

  Light watched the distant sky for a downward spiral of clouds that might indicate a tornado was in the making. Puffs of hot dry air traveled down the river ahead of the storm. Even the current seemed to slow, as if waiting. From far away they could hear the roar of thunder that accompanied the flashes of lightning that illuminated the dark clouds. The atmosphere seemed ominously still, like a hungry cat perched on a limb with its eyes on a nest of baby birds.

  “Sandbar,” Paul shouted.

  The men increased their efforts and headed for the bar a few hundred yards ahead. A wave of water came rushing down and they strained to maintain what progress they had made.

  “Somethin’s let loose up ahead,” Eli yelled, then, “Take ’er in.”

  They reached the sandbar seconds ahead of a great gust of wind that came from behind them.

  “Vind’s changed,” Kruger announced as if he were the only one to notice.

  A wind-driven wave coursed upward against the current, bearing the flatboat on its crest and casting it upon the bar that jutted out from the bank.

  All hands sprang to do what was necessary to save the boat and themselves. Poles were sunk deep into the river bottom and lashed to the boat to secure it. Eli and Paul grabbed mooring lines and jumped from the craft. Light rushed to tilt and tie the sweep oar.

  Moving swiftly, Light slung his rifle and his bow over his shoulder, tucked his powder sack inside his shirt, grabbed a heavy canvas and, pulling Maggie along with him, jumped off the boat and headed inland.

  The storm broke over them with fury. Rain poured from the sky. Huge drops, propelled by the wind, whipped their faces. Streaks of lightning were followed by loud claps of thunder. Light ran through the thick grove of trees that grew alongside the river. Maggie easily kept pace with him. In the middle of a clearing away from the trees, the river, and the boat with its kegs of gunpowder, Light stopped, sat on the ground and pulled Maggie down between his legs. Setting his long gun beside him, he covered the two of them with the canvas.

  They were both breathing hard.

  Maggie loved the storm. Her hair was sopping wet, rivulets of water ran down her cheeks. Wrapped in her husband’s arms, she tilted her head to nuzzle her nose into the warm flesh of his throat.

  One particularly loud bark of thunder made her jump. Over the sound of the rain pounding on the canvas they heard the cracking and rending of trees hit by the fiery knife.

  “I love you,” Light said to the woman he held in his arms. He said it slowly and sincerely because he was not sure if he would have a chance to say it again. The next strike could end their lives, either by a direct hit, or by sending a tree crashing down on top of them.

  “Yo’re my heart,” Maggie murmured, her mouth against his, her nose alongside his, her eyelashes tangling with his. She wrapped her arms tightly about his waist. “Don’t be scared,” she crooned. “We ain’t goin’ t’ die here. It isn’t our time. We’ll have years an’ years t’gether.”

  “Ah . . . my little witch. How can you be so sure?”

  “I just know. That’s all.” She offered the familiar explanation and lifted her puzzled face.

  “Maybe I am a witch, Light.”

  She was so serious that he chuckled. “Why do you say that?”

  “’Cause sometimes I just know thin’s. Like the first time I saw ya, Light, I knew I was yore woman. And I knew that Jefferson’s old wolf dog wouldn’t hurt me; an’, that day when his brother tried to go inside me, I knew ya’d come. I only had t’ hold him off an’ wait for ya.”

  “Ma petite, you may be a witch, but a most beautiful one.”

  “I don’t want ya t’ love me ’cause I’m beautiful,” she murmured.

  “Ah . . . sweet one. I love you because you’re my precious girl. I’ll love you when your hair is gray and your teeth are gone. You’re my life, my soul, my wife, my Maggie.” He whispered the words reverently.

  “Ya say pretty words, Light.” She was quiet for a moment, then she leaned away from him and asked, “When my teeth are gone?”

  Light laughed and hugged her so tight she could hardly breathe.

  “You will be beautiful to me even then.”

  The first violence of the storm was followed by a steady drumming rain which seem to last for a long while. When it lessened and stopped suddenly, Light
threw off the canvas and they stood, stretching stiff limbs. Patches of gray light filtered through the scurrying clouds.

  Around them in the clearing lay broken limbs and uprooted saplings. After the heat of the day, the air was cold on their wet bodies. As they walked back through the grove toward the river, the sun, low in the west, broke through, but it offered no warmth.

  Eli joined them as they reached the bank above the sandbar, which was completely covered with swiftly moving river water. The flatboat had been struck by a sawyer. The top of a submerged tree was embedded in the muddy bottom of the river and a long strong limb jutted up hard and sharp through the bottom of the flatboat, thrusting it upward. Impaled like a butterfly on a pin, the raft thrashed about on the swift current. A foot of brown river water sloshed to and fro on the aft deck. The steering oar was gone. Two of the stout poles the men had sunk into the river bottom to help secure the boat were broken.

  “Bloody hell!” Eli swore.

  “Don’t worry, Eli. It can be fixed. Light will know what to do,” Maggie said soothingly and placed her hand on his arm.

  Light’s face was expressionless when he looked down at his wife. Maggie seldom touched anyone, and here she was stroking the arm of this man.

  Eli appeared to be charmed. His expression held a mixture of awe and admiration. He lifted his eyes to Light’s face. The man knew of his desire for his wife. Their eyes locked for a long moment, then Eli moved away and waded through the water to the boat.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The multitude of vultures and other river fowl that perched along the riverbank turned their backs to the sun and stretched their wings to dry. The deluge upriver had filled the creeks that flowed into the Missouri. The brown and muddy river raced on, carrying uprooted trees and broken branches. Dead logs pried from the sand and gravel bars along the river joined the parade.

  The front of Eli’s boat was tilted upward. River water washing over the stern had not yet reached the shed. Light and Maggie’s packs were above water. Light pulled a dry blanket from his pack, wrapped it about Maggie and cautioned her to stay near the shed lest the boat lurch suddenly and she need to grab onto it.

  Eli met the threat of disaster to his boat with calm. He knew it would not immediately sink. Its buoyancy depended on the thick timbers of which it was constructed. But strong and as tight as it was, it would not hold together long under the punishment of grinding against the sawyer that had impaled it and the buffeting of debris coming downriver.

  Paul and Kruger came out of the woods and joined them on the slanting deck.

  “Mon Dieu!” Paul exclaimed.

  “I make goot strong boat,” Kruger bragged.

  Eli said nothing. He’d traveled the rivers on flatboats since he was a lad and knew that along with the unbearable exasperation one could cause a man, they possessed a single definite virtue. They could endure almost anything. A couple of strips of planking could mend a hole adequately if the understructure were strong. He’d not have attempted this venture if he hadn’t been sure of that.

  “What’ll we do?” Paul asked.

  “Cut her loose.” Light and Eli spoke the same words at the same time. They looked at each other in surprise.

  “First we unload.” Eli went to the shed and came out with an armload of muskets, rolled them in a canvas, and placed them on the roof.

  “Paul, you and Kruger start hauling cargo. Let’s get it ashore. When she breaks loose from the sawyer, she’ll either float or sink. The river current has made a deep cut here. She’s on the edge of the bank. When she tilts back, if she does”—he looked pointedly at Kruger—“water will wash into the shed.”

  “Verdammt! It von’t sink!” Kruger seemed to take it as an insult to his ability as a craftsman.

  With the men carrying kegs of gunpowder and whiskey, sacks of salt, and bundles of tobacco, and Maggie bearing the lighter goods, they made numerous trips to the riverbank through the foot-high water that covered the sandbar. Paul stayed aboard the boat and lifted the heavy kegs over the side to rest on the shoulders of the men.

  Maggie managed not to be onshore at the same time as Kruger. She was aware that not only was Light watching the man, but so was Eli. Once when she passed Otto on her way to the boat, his thick lips stretched in a grin and he eyed the way her wet britches clung to her bottom and thighs.

  “The riffer iss full of vater snakes, missy,” he murmured, his eyes lingering on her breasts. “Vatch ya don’t get a bite on yore pretty little titties. Ja?”

  Shortly after that Maggie had seen one of the snakes cutting through the muddy water, its head up, its long body making serpentine curves, winding its way downriver. She watched it until it passed the boat.

  When all the cargo was unloaded except the tools that were hung on the sides and ceiling of the shed, they returned to the boat, wet and hungry. But there was no time to think of their discomfort.

  Eli removed his shirt and boots and lowered himself into the fast-moving water on the river side of the boat. He groped in the dark until he found the tree limb. He came up gasping for breath.

  “The son of a bitch is a foot or more thick. Give me the saw.”

  Eli took a deep breath and sank under the boat again. It seemed a long while before he came up to hang onto the side of the boat, gasp agonizingly for breath and then vomit some of the water.

  “Kruger . . . come take a turn on the saw.”

  “Verdammt! Ya tink I fool.”

  Paul swore viciously and began to unlace his heavy boots.

  “Are you refusing to take orders?” Eli spoke calmly, but his mouth snapped shut and his nostrils flared.

  “Dis iss no fuckin’ ship, captain. Vat ya gonna do? Make me valk ta plank? I ain’t goin’ down ta get bit by vater snake.”

  “Damn you! If we don’t get off this sawyer before dark it’ll rip this boat apart.”

  “Ain’t mein boat. Ya gott it fer half a vat it vorth. Ain’t no skin off mein arse if she breaks. I’ll build me raft an’ catch current down riffer.”

  Light reached for his rifle, checked the load and put it in Maggie’s hands. He pulled off his shirt and moccasins, loosened the string holding the pouch about his waist, rolled them into a tight bundle and placed it on top of the shed.

  “You know what to do, chérie.” He went over the side. “I can stay down for a count of thirty,” he said to Eli before both men sank under the water.

  With her back to the shed and the heavy gun in her hands, Maggie waited, her eyes roving from the place where Light had gone under to the men on the deck.

  “Vat ve got iss Indian mitt book learnin’.” Kruger laughed nastily. “Are ya figgerin’ ta shoot me if yore man don’t come up?” His lust-filled eyes traveled over Maggie.

  “Leave her be,” Paul snarled.

  “Dem snakes likes to viggle in and outta timbers on the bottom of the boat. The Indian iss liable to get hisself snake bit.”

  “Shut up, Kruger.”

  “Ever see a man bit by a vater snake, pretty fraulein?” Kruger moved a step closer to Maggie. “Dey swell all up like a toad—”

  “Hush your mouth!”

  “Don’t mind him, Paul,” Maggie said quietly. “He’s just a talkin’ t’ hear his head rattle. He’s not scarin’ me a’tall. Snakes is scared of what they don’t know, and I don’t reckon they’ve ever seen a man under a boat before.”

  Eli came up and took several deep gulps of air and went back down, and a few seconds later Light came up to hold onto the side of the boat and breathe through his open mouth. His eyes went to Maggie and she nodded that she was all right.

  “Anything we can do up here?” Paul asked when Eli came up for another gulp of air.

  “Cover the hole if she breaks loose.”

  For the next half-hour Eli and Light took turns struggling to drive the saw through the tough, water-soaked tree limb beneath the boat.

  Then the completely unforeseen happened. The limb, when partially cut through, bent und
er the weight it was sustaining and wrenched out of the hole in the flatboat’s bottom, releasing the craft. The boat rose with its buoyancy, and the water on the deck leveled out and began to run outward through the hole made by the limb.

  The German hooted. “Verdammt! Tol’ ya I vas bess boat builder!”

  Light came to the surface.

  “Name of a cow!” Paul grinned, his white teeth showing through his black beard. “She’s going to float.” He took the saw from Light.

  “River’s coming up,” Light said and pulled himself up over the solid low rail. Cold had tightened the skin over his high cheekbones, and his voice was hoarse from swallowing river water.

  “Where’s Eli?” Paul, on his knees, bent over the low railing, peering at the surface of the water. “Where’s Eli?” Paul asked again anxiously.

  Light turned, looked down, and then stepped over the rail and slid back down into the river.

  Maggie waited beside Paul. Time seemed to go on forever. Light’s head broke the surface. He took a gulp of air and went back down. Paul flung a foot over the rail.

  “Wait.” Maggie put her hand on his arm. “Light will get him.” Something in her tone caused Paul to hesitate.

  Kruger came and hovered over Maggie to look over the side. She moved the end of the long gun until it was poking into his belly.

  “Move.”

  The bald-headed man laughed. “Ya effer seen a man vat vas drowned, fraulein? He look chust like vhite fish.”

  “Shut your blasted mouth!” Paul shouted and shoved Kruger with his foot.

  Kruger drew back his fist. “Vatch vat ya do, ol’ man!”

  At that moment Light’s head came up out of the water. He grabbed at the rail with one hand. His arm was around Eli’s neck.

  “Take . . . him,” he gasped.

  “Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” Paul was clearly distressed. He leaned down and grasped the limp body under the arms, but it was too heavy for him to lift over the rail.

  While Light was climbing over the rail, Kruger, with his massive strength and a snort of disgust, hauled Eli up and unceremoniously dumped him on the deck. Eli lay there gray and lifeless.