The Heart's Stronghold

by Amanda Barratt

  She pulled her cap in place and wiped her brow with the back of her hand. The lieutenant studied her with less embarrassment and more amusement than before.

  “What?” The word was clipped, just like her pride. “It is not as easy as you may think.”

  “I commend you on your effort, Miss Van Der Berg.” He gave a playful bow with one arm across his waist, and the other opening wide as he grasped his spear. “Now, tell me what you did wrong so I can get it right.” His posture crumbled with boyish laughter, his dark hair falling forward along his sunburnt brow, and his eyes danced like they welcomed her to join in.

  What? At her expense?

  But he bounded toward her in the current, winked, and gave her a slight nudge with his elbow, whispering, “I am quite impressed, truly.” Aware of his nearness in this sincere gesture, she stepped back, knocking into her father.

  “Steady, Sabine.” His deep laugh echoed across the river.

  The lieutenant’s bright smile was ever shining in Sabine’s direction. He reached out his hand to her, and she begrudgingly accepted it.

  “There you are,” he said as she became steady again, allowing her hand to fall away from his. Her cheeks burned with humiliation, even though delight rolled within her unlike anything she’d ever known.

  “Thank you,” she offered meekly.

  He began to wade away, searching the waters with a bent head. “So, you just spy one and catch it?”

  “Something like that.”

  Sabine had never been made the center of such lighthearted attention.

  Her father was only mildly encouraging of their merriment. A good Dutchman, he held work like fishing in high regard and pursued it with diligence. He’d employed child’s play only when Sabine was a girl. They had splashed about these very waters and held jumping contests on occasion. Whoever jumped farthest from the bank into the water triumphed.

  A nostalgic rush of such a time invaded Sabine. Lieutenant Bennington seemingly fished out the rare lighter side of Papa on this summer day. This did not bode well for her persistence that no match should be made. She wondered if Papa’s choice for her might bring joy not only in a marriage but to her entire family.

  Her nerves frazzled with what she had just considered. While the fort might change the land she loved, marriage would change every ounce of her life. Much of that change was cloaked in the unknown. She knew very little of matrimony.

  Sabine laid her eyes on her father, trying to surrender her thoughts to the simple pleasure of his cheeriness. While her frayed nerves settled, Sabine contemplated one of the strategies she learned from her father—never leave a challenge without a good rebuttal.

  Perhaps the handsome man’s merry play was in dire need of being reciprocated.

  Sabine would, of course, return the favor.

  She lowered, dipping her hand into the moving waters, wiggling her fingers against the cool drink. “Oh look, Lieutenant.”

  He swiveled around with his spear raised. As swift as an oar, her hand paddled the water up and splashed him, giving him such a start that he stumbled backward and landed on his backside, knees poking up on either side of his face and his mouth screwed up as droplets trailed like tears down his cheeks.

  Father howled. “I think she’s gotten the last laugh, sir.” He helped the soaked fellow to his feet.

  The flash of a dare from the lieutenant’s bright eyes set off a drumroll in Sabine’s chest. His good nature shone through his chagrin, and their smiles grew in unison.

  “The water is refreshing.” Lieutenant Bennington licked a droplet from his lip. “Perhaps I shall go for a swim after my catch.”

  “If we catch any at all,” Sabine interjected. “You’ve gone and scared all the fish away.” She pretend pouted, then dragged her skirts through the current upstream. The skies darkened, and thunder roared from several miles away. “I’ll find a better spot—” She halted. Beyond the last stand of white pine, a canoe traveled downstream. “Someone is here.” Sabine began walking toward the bank, and her father came around her side—his usual defensive move when they were visited by strangers. The lieutenant’s reflection appeared from behind, just beside her own.

  A man with a golden beard and a broad-brimmed hat sat between two native men. “Ho there!” the man shouted with a raised hand when they neared. “Is this Oswego?”

  Mr. Van Der Berg dipped his chin. “It is.”

  “Wonderful.” His face nearly burst with a sort of relief. “My guides have been ever patient with my apprehension in this wilderness.” He gave an apologetic smile at both of the men beside him then continued, “I have news for a Lieutenant Bennington.”

  Jacob’s heart plummeted. “I am he.” He stepped around Miss Van Der Berg as the two native men jumped out of the canoe and brought it to the bank, placing it upside down on solid ground. A foreboding clap of thunder shook the sky.

  “We are an hour away from the post.” Mr. Van Der Berg surveyed the heavens. “I do not think we will outrun the storm.”

  “There is no shelter nearby?” The tallest of the two guides spoke English well.

  Sabine reached the river’s edge. “Come, there are good trees yonder.” She lifted her drenched hem, found her clogs, and began up the bank. “We can use our fishing spears.” The two guides fell into step with the woman and marched off to the wood.

  Jacob cast an unsettled glance at Mr. Van Der Berg. “Does she know those men?”

  “I am not certain,” Mr. Van Der Berg replied. “But she knows the custom for an exposed moment such as this.” He looked upward again, scrunching his nose. “I felt a drop.” He did not express one ounce of concern as his daughter left with strangers.

  They jogged over to the stand of trees where Sabine stalked around the littered floor beneath the canopies. The guides cut the bark of a tree. They sliced it several feet up and around the trunk, then dragged their daggers downward. The tallest man unwrapped the bark like the swaddling clothes from an infant—carefully so. They moved on to another tree. Sabine emerged from the wood and found an open area, tossing two stout sticks to the side and sticking two fishing spears in the earth. The shorter guide took the two sticks that Sabine had found and placed them opposite each spear, about five feet away. Securing the bark across the poles, they ushered everyone beneath the shelter just as the thunder cracked, releasing a downpour.

  There was hardly room for everyone. They sat side by side, Sabine between Jacob and her father, and the messenger on Jacob’s other side. The two guides faced them cross-legged, their backs surely grazed by the rain.

  “Please, tell me your message.” Jacob spoke in a low voice to the man who introduced himself as Mr. Clive Kimble.

  “Sir, it is in my pack, which is beneath the canoe.”

  “Who sends you?”

  “A Mr. Davis.”

  Jacob’s chest tightened. Mr. Davis was his uncle who cared for his daughter. Was it now time? The wall was not secure, and the bastions—nonexistent. He lowered his head and began to pray.

  Sabine leaned into him and muttered, “Is something the matter?”

  He clamped his teeth, as if he could crush the welling fear with his jaw. If only he could. “My daughter. She is in—” Her hand cupped over his forearm. He met her concerned gaze. Large eyes, swimming like green seas, captured his panic and tossed it away for a brief breath, until he continued, “Danger.”

  “Danger?”

  “Yes.” He bounced a look to each person beneath the crude shelter. The rain thrummed like tiny Iroquois drums above them, and anticipation shook in everyone’s stare. “My uncle promised to send word once it was time. I fear the time is now. If I do not help my daughter, her mother will steal her away.”

  Chapter 6

  Once the rain subsided, the messenger joined Sabine, her father, and Jacob while the guides disappeared to hunt in the wood. The lieutenant’s shocking situation clung to the air like thick humidity. Jacob fell behind, reading the letter of his daughter’s stra
nge predicament of being unsafe in her mother’s care. Yet he did not explain further, seemingly overcome and unwilling to divulge any details.

  Sabine and Moeder prepared the meal without fish that evening since the guides promised venison.

  “That Mr. Kimble seems too timid to want to claim his part as a trader. I could tell by his feeble laugh.” Moeder ground the cornmeal at the board table while Sabine peeled some squash.

  “I do worry more for Lieutenant Bennington. He refused to speak the rest of the way.”

  “To warn a father that the mother is after his child? How strange.” Moeder clicked her tongue. “I am sad to say, you were right, Daughter, to resist a match to that man. He seems a poor match, indeed, what with such a soiled past.”

  Sabine was conflicted by her own resistance, not to the match, but to her mother’s newly stated opposition. Sabine should be relieved, but she was not. Her heart had entertained the match during their fishing escapade, and now it skipped a beat at the thought of secretly entertaining it again.

  The knife nearly scraped her finger as she halfheartedly peeled the squash. Shaking her head, she turned the conversation away from the lieutenant. “Mr. Kimble might be a weak sort of fellow, but he did bring several sacks of flour, wanting a more than fair price for them. And enough rum for the entire British army, I suspect.”

  “It is a shame that the precious furs are traded for such stuff.” Moeder’s knuckles were white as she pressed down on the pestle. She stopped and pinched the meal, rubbing it between her fingers. “Feels right.”

  “Looks right too, Moeder,” Sabine confirmed.

  When they continued their preparation by the fire, the guides arrived, offering a hunted doe for the feast. The newest men to Oswego, the wall builders, circled close as they observed the tallest guide clean the creature in methodical, steadfast movements. The other guide gathered the portions and placed them on a spit. Then he crouched beside the fire and began to slowly turn the spit.

  Conversation rumbled, but Sabine and her mother sat without a word, ready to serve their basket of corn biscuits and pot of boiled squash. Finally, they feasted, Sabine keeping a discreet watch on the officers’ blockhouse. Would the lieutenant join them?

  “I am concerned, Moeder. I do hope that he is not sick with worry,” she muttered above her barely touched venison. The guide spied her from across the clearing, and she managed a bite with a smile. ’Twas perfectly cooked.

  “Perhaps you should make him a plate,” Moeder suggested. “But do not stay long. I want to return home before they smoke.”

  Sabine ate with more fervor to be sure to compliment the cook with an empty plate. She crossed to the other side of the fire and curtsied to Lieutenant Wilson. His attention remained beyond the clearing, toward the mouth of the river. “Excuse me, sir, is Lieutenant Bennington not well?”

  He acknowledged her with a blank stare, smacked his lips together, then shrugged. “I am not his keeper.”

  The older man’s demeanor had declined over the past several months. The aftershock of that midnight disturbance this past autumn skirted up Sabine’s spine. She prayed for his peace. This was a friendly land and was secure with or without a fortification—as long as their neighboring French would leave them alone. Maybe the fort was necessary, not as a defense, but at least as a permanent presence in this place.

  Sabine carried a plate down to the blockhouse and knocked on the door.

  Jacob answered. “Good evening, Miss Van Der Berg.”

  “I thought you might be hungry.” She could hardly make out his features with the lamp lit within and the darkness of night falling around her.

  “That is kind of you.” He joined her in the cool night, standing so close to her that she stepped back to give him room. He took the plate, brushing her fingertips.

  Sabine ignored her tingling skin and folded her hands at her waist. A low hollow tone floated toward them, followed by a cascade of notes from a flute. The familiar sound of a feast danced around Sabine’s heart. The guides offered music not so different than the nearby village.

  While her mind ignited with the soulful ballad, her heart twisted about, trying to root her to this very spot. “I must return. Moeder does not care to be around the pipe smoke.” Her mind won the battle. “However, I am sorry about your news today.”

  He shoveled in a jagged breath, observing the fire. A fragile dust of pink light shone upon his chiseled profile. “It must seem strange to you. I never thought I would be part of such a scandal.”

  Scandal? Even here, beyond all the streets and buildings and disease Moeder had described, Sabine understood the word scandal, and could not fathom the lieutenant being part of one.

  “Sir, you have further plucked my curiosity—”

  “Or is it disappointment?” He fired a gaze at her through the fast approaching darkness.

  “Disappointment?” She balled her fists, only to keep them from slamming against her flaming cheeks. Disappointment met her most because of her mother’s new disapproval, therefore proving Sabine’s affection for the man.

  He strode over and sat on a barrel amid a pile of crates, trunks, and tools, and cradled the plate in his lap.

  Straining her eyes, Sabine could make out that Moeder remained near the festivities, and much to her relief, Papa sat beside her. She was not alone, nor had she stood up to leave. Together her parents appeared to enjoy the melody.

  “Miss Van Der Berg, will you join me?” Jacob’s voice was warbled, as if he spoke around a bubble that threatened to burst into a magnitude of weeping. She understood this. She’d heard such phenomena during Moeder’s lowest returns to the valley. “Please, I must explain.”

  Sabine drew near to him. He rummaged in a trunk at his feet and found a candle and lit it. In the soft glow, Sabine found another barrel to sit on and lowered herself to his eye level, their knees nearly touching. She gazed up at the glitter in the sky, scorning the turbulence in her stomach. She prodded, “Your daughter is in danger?”

  If ever a groan was loud enough to summon a wild bear to the party, it was this outburst in her mind. Her heart defeated her good notion to keep silent.

  “I fear that is so.” His serious tone sliced through her humiliation.

  “Your former—”

  “Former wife? Yes. You see, the woman ran off to America with another man. I granted her the divorce she sought, against every fiber in my heart. Whatever was left of it.”

  “And your daughter?”

  “Ah, my sweet Amelia. She was a young thing. Clinging more to her nurse than her mother. And, the shame of it all, her mother hardly cared.”

  The music turned happier, accompanied by hollering. The men were up and about, following in the stomping steps of the tallest guide.

  She leaned on her elbows, feeling stuck in a contrast of merriment and sorrow. “I am so sorry, sir.” Could she even comfort such a man as this? She knew nothing of love, and even less about falling out of it.

  “Please, call me Jacob”—he pushed the food around with a small knife—“at least when my men are out of earshot.” A soft laugh puffed from his lips. “The letter today claimed that Amelia’s mother would like to take her back to England because she’s found a household position for her while the household’s master awaits her coming of age to marry.” His voice held no jest.

  “She’s but a girl,” Sabine blurted.

  “She is. That is why I must protect her.” Jacob’s words were gruff, slicing.

  The shuffling around the fire grew louder, the flute was a high-pitched pulse, abounding but incomplete without a beating drum. Surely they would end the unbalanced song. She did not want to remember the dismay on Jacob’s face every time she listened to the familiar instrument.

  The music faded, and the men took seats around the fire. Pipe smoke rose up to dance with the flames licking an empty spit. The peaceful night tugged at Jacob’s desire to creep out of his misery and only indulge in the next breath with the beautiful Sa
bine beside him. They sat in silence, allowing the confession of his tragedy to buzz and fade from their ears.

  “Are there many nights this festive in Oswego?” Jacob asked.

  “Yes, many.” Sabine fiddled with her apron’s hem. “I cannot imagine any other life.”

  “How long have you lived here, Sabine?”

  “Since I was four years of age. My papa wanted his own land while weaving his baskets and making a homestead. And Moeder despised the disease and walled-in life of the colony.” She lowered her head and entwined her fingers. “The irony of all of it—Moeder did not escape disease. An early tradesman came down with a fever his first day at the trading post. Moeder tended to him out of her own goodwill. The same illness stole her sight away.”

  “That is terribly ironic.”

  “I remember the day she recovered enough to walk. Papa tried to help, but she refused, caught her hip on the table, and crumpled to the ground.” Sabine’s shoulders straightened, her hands now grabbing at her knees. “Her sobbing accompanied many of my hours. So many that I escaped outdoors and spent time with the children of the native tradesmen during trade days. Papa and I learned much from them, and they became our next of kin in a way.” She smiled. The candlelight revealed moisture glistening on her cheeks. “Trade days were a bright reunion, the light toward which I walked in a seemingly bleak in-between.”

  “If I did not hear the words from your mouth, I would hardly believe your suffering. You are a strong person. One who has captured my—” His compliment was too forward. Much too transparent. He continued, “My respect.”

  “Sir … I mean, Jacob—” Anticipation hummed between them as she tested the use of his name on her tongue. A roar of excitement woke up delight he’d not felt in a very long time. She dropped her gaze and admitted, “I must be strong. I fear that if I’m not, we’d slip backwards again.”

  “Your fear is ironic too.” He leaned onto his lap, nudging his plate with his elbow, resisting the urge to hold her hand. “I have hardly seen fear produce such strength.”