Courting Morrow Little: A Novel (35 page)

Shivering again, she felt a second blanket cover her shoulders
as Red Shirt sat down beside her. His gaze was keen, almost
dissecting, as if trying to judge how weary she was.

"I'm better now;' she told him, pulling the blanket closer. "Come
morning I'll be able to travel, and I promise not to slow you."

He lifted the bark lid off the kettle. `And I promise not to
push you. As a husband, I have much to learn:'

Taking a spoon, he stirred the pot's contents and offered her
a taste. She grimaced and drew back, afraid of offending, yet
he looked almost amused. Embarrassed, she blurted, "I feel so
tired ... so weak"

His gaze slid from her to the fire. "You're many things, Morrow, but not weak. I wouldn't take a weak woman as my wife"

Solaced, she reached for a bowl, filling it and passing it to
him. He took a bite before returning it to her. She swallowed a
spoonful, surprised the porridge was so good.

"Takuwah-nepi," he told her. "Bread water"

She tried to smile. It tasted like cornmeal mush but better,
with dried berries and molasses mixed in. "I didn't know you
could cook." Suddenly famished, she ate a second bowl and
reached for a third, but he caught her wrist. "Too much will
send you back to the bushes"

He was right, truly, but she felt chided like a child. In her confusion she tipped the pot over, and the rest of the porridge spilled
out. He righted it without a word, but her humiliation was complete. Though she worked hard to stem her swirling emotions, her
chest hurt so from the effort that she finally burst into tears.

He pulled her into his arms, his mouth warm against her hair.
"You're missing your father."

She was, but it was more than this. How could she share her
near constant fear of soldiers following them? "I-I am missing
Pa, but I must be strong:'

"Why? When your heart hurts, you weep. If you stop weeping, I will wonder" He leaned forward to place another stick of
wood on the fire, his hold on her never lessening. "I know what
it's like to grieve"

"Your mother, you mean?"

He nodded. "There have been others"

Many others. She knew without asking, reading the hard lines
in his face. Her mind began leaping back across the long, lonesome months without him, their only tie the fur cape he'd sent
by way of Trapper Joe. "I can't believe I'm here with you now
after all that's happened. I thought-after you left last winteryou weren't coming back."

"I wasn't sure I should:" He looked down at her, pensive. "I
wanted your happiness-I wanted to see your father at peace. I
wasn't sure I could give you either. I'm not sure I can now'

"What do you mean?"

"I live a hard life. Your father was concerned about how you
would weather it. He asked me to be careful with you"

The honest admission grieved her. Pa always treated her like
fine Philadelphia china. Now, away from the isolated life they
led on the Red River, she sensed he'd been wrong in doing so.
"I know I'm not strong. I've hardly been away from the cabin
or Aunt Etta's dress shop. But you can't spend your life being
careful with me. I'll be a burden, not your wife:"

"Being careful suits me, Morrow, like being tender suits you"

She stared into the leaping flames, pondering it all. He'd always been so gentle with her, right from the very start. Pa needn't
have worried on that score, she thought.

"Did your father tell you about the holy words ... my promise?" he asked. Her forehead furrowed in question, and he said,
"Deuteronomy 24:5"

She reached for a saddlebag and unearthed Pa's worn black
Bible. The sight stirred her so much she nearly put it back. But
the leather cover was warm in her hands, the printed page a
familiar friend. The holy words, he'd called them. She leafed
through the thin pages to the stated verse. "When a man hath
taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be
charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year,
and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken"

I promised your father ..' he began.

She looked up, a catch in her throat.

"I promised him I would do that very thing'

"Pa made you promise?"

"He didn't make me, Morrow. I gave my word willingly
enough"

The silence deepened, and she found herself wishing he'd lie
down with her and erase every cold, lonesome moment they'd
spent away from each other. The starry beauty of the night
seemed to call for it. But if he didn't do so soon, she'd be fast
asleep and he'd have to carry her to bed again.

As the night deepened and the fire shifted and settled, he
ended up doing just that.

As they traveled, Morrow began to see how sheltered she'd been.
Shackles she didn't know she had seemed to fall away as the whole
wide world opened up to her. Did Red Shirt purposefully take her
on the most beautiful paths just to see her mouth hang open and
her eyes grow wide? She sensed his pleasure as he introduced
her to all he'd known since childhood, mountains and rivers and
valleys new to her but as beloved to him as old friends. Sometimes
she rode on the mare leading the packhorse, then she'd walk, her
eyes on Red Shirt more than the woods. He steadfastly watched
their surroundings, alert to any movement or sound.

When at last they came to the Ohio River rapids, Morrow
felt a sense of awe unknown to her before. On its north bank,
she felt small as an ant, the far shore like a distant star. This was
the Falls of the Ohio-the spectacular run of rapids she'd heard
about her whole life. Here the rushing water surged through slick
shoots to the final falls where it poured like a giant pitcher into
a wide, tranquil basin below. Perfect for swimming, Red Shirt
said. Together they stood on a rock ledge some thirty feet above
the water, with Morrow wishing it was June, not November.

She shivered and took a step back from the cliff's edge, watching as he dove off the ledge, straight and smooth as an arrow
being released from a bow before being swallowed up by the
waters below. She dropped to her hands and knees, awed and a
bit dizzy. She'd spent her whole life not doing such things, while
he'd spent his whole life doing them and doing them well.

Red Shirt waited below, arms open wide. She felt a frantic cry
escape her as she jumped into sheer nothingness. The impact of
the water was stinging, then bloodcurdling cold. But he was there,
just like he said he'd be, and she relaxed in his warm arms.

"I can jump but I can't swim, she said, recalling her near
drowning.

His half smile told her he didn't need the reminder. "I'll teach
you.

She shivered as he straightened her shift about her shoulders.
"Not in winter."

"The water's warm"

Her eyes widened. "Warm?"

"For November. Soon it will be ice"

I suppose you swim in that too."

Longingly she looked to the south shore where smoke plumed.
He'd wisely made a fire and shelter where their blankets and her
clothes and shoes waited. They'd come to the falls just past noon,
completing ten days of travel. But crossing the wide river in a
canoe he'd hidden on a previous foray had nearly proved her
undoing. If not for the confidence with which he managed the
horses and their belongings, she'd have been terrified. Setting
foot on the opposite shore brought a blessed relief.

For the first time since leaving the Red River, she felt somewhat safe. She no longer asked how much further they had to
go, since the question seemed only to amuse him. "Counting
your steps only makes the journey longer," he'd said.

Now he turned her around to face the river as it angled south,
pointing out things she'd overlooked. An ambitious beaver dam
sturdy as a bridge spanned the rushing water, and beyond it
spilled yet another gentler falls. The beauty sent goose bumps
all over her.

"The sky speaks of snow, he said, studying the gathering
clouds.

She looked up, a little thrill filling her at the prospect of being
snowed in with him in so pristine a place. "Seems like all the
people in the world have fallen off and it's just us two. Like
Adam and Eve;' she said.

Despite the near-constant fear that shadowed her, not once
had they seen any sign of another soul, either Indian or white,
though the woods teemed with animals and the trees shook
down their last stubborn leaves, making a colorful carpet for
walking.

"At first light we head west, he said. "Soon you'll see the
smoke from my father's camp:"

The mention of Surrounded made her glad, yet the prospect
of entering an Indian town for the first time filled her with
dread. They would stop briefly for fresh horses and provisions,
he said, but they'd not linger long, for it was necessary to cross
the Mississippi before it froze and became impassable.

Morrow sat by the fire wrapped in a blanket, drowsy and
content, and studied him. Red Shirt stood along the river's
edge where large white rocks created shallow pools in which
sharla-river trout-swam. In the afternoon he'd fashioned
a fine hickory spear, securing a sharp flint tip to one end and
binding it with sinew.

She found it hard to look away from him simply clad in buckskin breeches. Her eyes trailed from his thickly corded chest and
smooth stomach to his bare feet. With one hard arm poised and
ready to release the spear, he looked like a marble statue from
one of Pa's history books. She couldn't take her eyes off him,
couldn't tell how many fish he'd caught or how long he'd been
trying. The twilight deepened as she studied him and wondered
wistfully how many women he'd said no to.

"Morrow," he called over his shoulder.

She got to her feet and trod over frozen stones to see a fine
catch of fish lying on a smooth rock. Pa had never liked to fish nor cared much for the taste, so they'd had little occasion to
eat them, but Red Shirt showed her how to clean them and
cook them in the coals, peeling the charred skin and backbone
away when done. Of all the meals they'd shared, this one was
the most spare. Just baked fish and little else. But somehow it
seemed like the most sumptuous fare.

He met her eyes and said, "You're not so tired tonight. I think
this side of the river agrees with you"

She smiled, wondering if he'd sensed how truly thankful she
was. Getting up, she went to the river to drink, and he followed,
the moon shiny as a pewter plate over their shoulders. She recollected only a few times in her life when she'd been out under
the stars and not under the close eaves of the cabin. Free as a
bird she felt, roofless and without walls.

He picked up a stone and skimmed it over the water's silvery
surface. She watched him closely from the bank-she couldn't
help it. Under Pa's watchful eye, she'd never had the privilege.
Would she still be this smitten in ten years? Twenty? Here the
privacy was profound. Almost hallowed. Yet he hadn't so much
as kissed her since the ceremony at the cabin.

A second rock skimmed the river, and she sighed. His arm
came down and he turned to her. "Are you missing home, Morrow?"

Thoughtful, she met his steady gaze. "No ... I'm missing
you.

He came to her and rested his hands on her shoulders, tipping
her head back so that cold moonlight spilled into her eyes. "How
can you miss me when I'm standing here beside you?"

"I-I don't rightly know," she said, feeling she'd stepped off a
safe path onto perilous ground. "Aren't you ... missing me?"

His handsome features turned perplexed. "You think I .."

The ensuing silence returned her shyness to her tenfold. A tiny
knot of alarm bloomed in her chest, and she looked at her feet. Perhaps she'd trod too far, but all she wanted was the comfort
of his arms. Couldn't he sense that? Must she spell it out?

Gently he framed her face with his hands and brought her
head up. "Morrow, you're mourning"

Mourning. A startling realization stole over her. He was telling
her he wouldn't touch her so soon after Pa had passed, that she
needed time to grieve. Tears shone in her eyes, and she blinked
them back. How different he was from Robbie Clay and Major
McKie. They would have had their way with her whether she
was grieving or not.