Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (18 page)

“It’ll cool off toward evening.” Daniel took off his hat, placed it on the ground beside him, and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He sat with his elbow on his bent knee and ate slowly while staring off down the road.

“Daniel?” Mercy waited until his eyes turned to meet hers. “I didn’t like it one bit, what Belinda said about me.” She tilted her head and raised her chin a fraction. “It was rude of you and Belinda to talk about me as if I weren’t there. She was mighty quick to name Lenny and Bernie trash because of . . . how they look.”

“Didn’t you do the same?”

For a moment she was incapable of replying. There was a tightness across her chest and a fullness in her throat, and she couldn’t utter a word. He was looking directly into her eyes as if he were seeing straight into her inner self. She lowered her lashes and bit her bottom lip, knowing that what he said was true.

“Yes,” she said, her voice shaky. “But I was wrong to judge them so hastily. I realize that now. Not because they are my brothers but because Mamma taught me to give respect and consideration to others, even if they are different. I didn’t appreciate hearing Belinda’s remarks.” Mercy’s voice firmed. “And I don’t want
pity
from anyone.”

“You were there. Why didn’t you speak up and say so?”

“Speak up?” She met his gaze and blinked. “The two of you were having a private conversation.”

“Not as far as I was concerned. You ran off in a snit when you heard something you didn’t like. Next time stay and take up for yourself.”

“Well, for goodness sake! What did you expect me to do? Pull her hair out? I wanted to!”

He lifted his shoulders, and his face broke into a grin. He looked at her for so long, her face began to redden. She was grateful when Lenny and Bernie came back up onto the road and drew his attention from her.

“Lenny,” Mercy called when the brothers settled down on their haunches beneath a persimmon tree. “There’s plenty of food here. Come have something to eat.”

“We ain’t hungry.”

“You must be. There’s enough meat and bread for all of us.”

“We don’t want none. We ain’t beggars.” Bernie had taken off his hat and was poking a bluejay feather in the band around the crown. More than ever, his thick, straw-colored hair looked like a sloppy haystack.

“For crying out loud! I’m
offering
the food to you. That’s not begging!”

“It’s his grub, ain’t it?”

“Well, yes, but what difference does that make?”

“Hit makes a heap ta us. We’ll shoot us a bird along come suppertime.”

A look of exasperation came over Mercy’s face. She grabbed several slices of bread and a couple pieces of chicken and started to get up. Daniel’s hand on her arm stopped her.

“If they’re too stubborn to come be sociable, let them go without.”

“But . . . we’ve got plenty.”

“You heard what I said, Mercy. Sit down.”

“I don’t like for food to go to waste.”

“It won’t go to waste. Eat up so we can go. It’s only a few miles to the ferry. I’ll ride ahead and make sure it’s there when you get there. There’s an inn about twenty miles south of New Harmony where we can stay. We’ll have to hustle to get there before dark.”

Mercy sat down and nibbled at her food. Daniel watched her as he drank from the cup they shared. She was hurting. Belinda had been cruel, and he told her so in no uncertain words after Mercy had left them. But he would not always be with Mercy, and she was going to have to get used to holding up her head and fighting back. It had angered him that she had broken and run. He had fully expected her to turn on Belinda like a spitting cat and tell her to shut her gossipy mouth.

“Are you sorry that you came with me?” Mercy asked, and quickly turned away from him so that he wouldn’t see the anxiety in her face. She wrapped the bread in the cloth and put it back in the basket.

“No.”

“I don’t seem to be doing anything that pleases you.”

“Leave the Baxters their pride, Mercy. They’ve had to swallow having me along. Let them get used to it. You invited them to eat and they refused. Either they are going to accept us or continue being hostile. It’s up to them.”

“And Belinda?”

Daniel stood abruptly. “We’d better get to moving. Do you want another drink before I take the jug and basket to the wagon?”

“No thank you.”

Mercy shook the leaves and dried grass from her shawl and folded it over her arm. She moved behind the screen of hazel bushes and grapevines so that she could relieve her full bladder. She was puzzled by Daniel’s manner. If she had stayed to defend herself against Belinda’s catty remarks, she would have made a fool of herself and embarrassed him. It was plain enough that he had a fondness for Belinda’s little boy. Had he brought the sugarhards thinking he would stop at the homestead? He had already made arrangements with Mike to give Homer licorice when he came to the store. Did Daniel remember his longing for male companionship when he was a little boy? So many questions floated around in Mercy’s mind that she drew in a deep, pained breath and moved out from behind the bushes.

Zelda was hitched, and Daniel was waiting to help Mercy up onto the wagon seat. She placed her hand in his without looking at him. The hand that had clasped hers many times before felt warmer and stronger to her now that she was aware of him in a completely different way. Her thoughts in disorder, she set her foot on the spoke of the wheel, and as she reached to grasp the rail to pull herself up, her foot slipped. With a cry she fell backward.

“Oh! Oh!” She gasped, flinging her arms in an attempt to catch herself.

Daniel caught her in a tight embrace when she tumbled against him. The force of her unexpected body caused him to backtrack a few steps. When he had regained his balance and stood holding her, sudden laughter burst from her lips. He watched in fascination as the sky-blue eyes sent shards of sparkling sunshine that penetrated his very soul. He heard himself laughing too. A deep, rumbling, uncontrollable sound. Her face was close to his. He could smell the warmth of her womanly body. Christ! She was his love, his own sweet woman. He wanted to hold her forever, kiss her, make love to her.

“You wouldn’t have thought it so funny if I had dropped you on your behind,” he heard himself saying while his eyes devoured her face, and he wondered if ever a man in love had had the problem he now faced.

“You haven’t held me like this since I lost my shoe in the river and you had to carry me home because my foot was bleeding. I was ten or eleven and thinking I was a young lady. You complained all the way.” Her lashes fanned down, then lifted over mischievous, laughing eyes. “You said I was a stupid child and that I was muddleheaded.”

“I remember,” he said softly, his eyes holding hers.

The pulse in Mercy’s throat throbbed, and suddenly it was hard to breathe. She had a fierce desire to encircle his neck with her arms, but one of them was pinned between them, and the other clutched her shawl.

“I’m still muddleheaded, Daniel,” she whispered.

“Yes, you are,” he said with a grin that deepened the creases on each side of his mouth. He took the two steps necessary to reach the wagon and lifted her so that her feet were in the space in front of the seat. “I think I’ll add ‘clumsy’ to that.”

“What an unflattering thing to say,” she snapped, but she was smiling because his twinkling brown eyes were teasing her all the way down to her toes.

“I’ve never been accused of having a way with words.” He put the reins in her hands. “I’m going on ahead to the ferry, like I said. I’ve all ready told Lenny. They’ll be with you.”

“No doubt about that,” Mercy said dryly. “I don’t think I could shake them if I had the plague.”

Half an hour later, Mercy came to the place where the riverbank had been cut away and a long log ramp had been laid. The ferry was tied to the dock, and Daniel was waiting to lead Zelda onto the gently rocking raft that would take them across the Wabash. After the horse and wagon were secured, Mercy got down off the seat to stand at the rail.

Lenny and Bernie had stopped on the riverbank. Daniel walked up the log ramp and called to them.

“Come on aboard. We’re not waiting for you.”

“We ain’t crossin’ here,” Bernie said.

“Why not?”

“We can cross on down a ways,” Bernie said to Lenny, ignoring Daniel. “We ain’t takin’ no handouts from the likes a him.”

“Hush up. I’m thinkin’.” Lenny spit a stream of tobacco juice into the dirt, churned into powder by the traffic coming to the ferry landing.

“Suit yourself. Your fare is paid.” Daniel shrugged and walked back onto the ferry.

“Ain’t no use getting wet if’n we ain’t got to,” Lenny said.

“I swear! Ain’t ya got no pride a-tall?”

“Yeah, but I ain’t wantin’ ter drown, neither. The waters is up since we crossed afore.” Lenny followed Daniel onto the ferry.

“I ain’t a-likin’ it,” Bernie protested, even as he slid from his mule to lead it onto the rocking craft.

Lenny tied his mule to the side post where Daniel indicated, but Bernie defiantly moved past him to the front of the boat.

“Tie that mule to the side post or get off,” the ferry operator yelled as the raft tilted and rocked.

Bernie snorted, cast Daniel an angry look, and reluctantly tied his mule to the side post.

When all was secure, Daniel took a stout pole and helped the ferryman push the raft out into deeper water. A thick rope running through a pulley lashed to an oak tree ran to the other side of the river. The ferryman began to turn the windlass. He had wide shoulders and thick arms. He strained against the crank and finally the rope began to move through the pulleys and the wide log raft was pulled out into the river toward the eastern bank.

Mercy had crossed on the ferry many times. It always reminded her of Mr. Washington’s ferry, which had been farther upriver, closer to Quill’s Station. Mr. Washington, George’s father, had been a huge freedman who wore his hair cut in the fashion of the Mohawks. He had large silver rings swinging from his earlobes and a small one from his nostrils. He would set Mercy a-straddle his neck and gallop like a horse. She would scream with laughter and hold on to his topknot. Sugar Tree, his Shawnee wife, would scold and caution him to be careful. Mercy thought now that she couldn’t have had a happier childhood. What kind of childhood memories would she have, she asked herself, if Farrway Quill had not found her?

“I always think of Mr. Washington when I cross the river,” Mercy said to Daniel when he came to stand beside her.

“So do I. Life was a lot less complicated then. We only had the Indians to worry about.” He smiled down at her, and she returned his smile.

They stood silently. Mercy was aware of Daniel in a way she never had been before. His arm touched hers and she wanted to lean into it.
How can I be so happy
? she thought.
My life has been turned upside down since the Baxters found me.
It did one thing for her, she decided. It made her realize how much she loved Daniel. Her thoughts shifted to how capable he was, how dependable, how wonderful, how . . . handsome. No other woman will have him, she vowed. She had been a fool to run away and leave him with Belinda. That was a mistake she would not make a second time.

Together they watched the waterfowl swarm up as they approached the other side. Mercy could feel the warmth of Daniel’s arm against hers, and the warmth of the telltale blood that covered her neck and face. She bent her head and occupied herself with watching the water that lapped at the side of the craft.

“Stay here.” Daniel’s hand was on her arm for just an instant. “Hold on. I’ll help ease the raft up to the ramp.”

As soon as the raft bumped the log landing, Daniel tossed a thick rope around the stout post set on the shore. The ferryman left the windlass and secured the other side. When they were ready to disembark, Mercy climbed upon the wagon seat, and Daniel led Zelda up the ramp and onto the hard-packed landing.

They headed south at the fork in the road. Daniel led the way, urging them to move along briskly. Toward late afternoon, after only one stop to water and rest the horses, Mercy’s arms felt as if each were trying to lift a hundred-pound weight, and the seat that had felt so soft that morning was now hard and uncomfortable.

They passed a number of homesteads. The women came outside, each usually with a child in her arms, and waved as they passed. Most of the homesteads were neat and well planned, with a goodly number of acres cleared and planted. A few were ramshackle affairs with crops planted amid tree stumps and a woodpile that consisted of a deadfall pulled into the yard, and chopped as the woman of the house needed it. Several log houses or barns had been burned out. Fire was the dread of all. It was usually caused by a hastily, carelessly built fireplace, or an overturned candle.

The sun sank behind the thick grove of trees to the west. As the air became cooler, Mercy wrapped her shawl around her. The silence of the deep forest seemed strangely oppressive. Birds fluttered in the newly leafed trees. Otherwise the stillness was unbroken. It was almost dusk when Daniel reined in so that the wagon could come alongside.

“The inn is up ahead.”

“Thank goodness.”

“It isn’t much, but it’s lodging.”

Peering through the gloom, Mercy saw a good-sized barn with a rail fence attached. Beyond that, sitting close to the road, was a long, narrow log building. Mercy sighed, thinking of a comfortable resting place for her aching limbs. They passed the barn and stopped in front of the inn. A chill of disappointment came over her. It was as uninviting a place as she had ever seen. Signs of neglect were everywhere. A heavy cloth was nailed over a broken window, the cross pole was missing from the hitching rail, an empty watering trough lay on its side. Through the open door they could hear loud and boisterous voices. On a shingle above the door a crudely printed sign hung by one leather strap:
BED AND EATS
.

“It’s hardly the place I remembered,” Daniel said, frowning.

“Welcome, folks!”

The man who appeared in the doorway was wiping his hands on the once white cloth tied about his waist. He was an odd-looking person, rather slight and short in stature. His large, prominent features were overshadowed by a shock of coarse yellow hair that gave him a wild and savage look, especially as his hair and his complexion seemed almost one color.