Midwife of the Blue Ridge (15 page)

lorene zeit.”

The son tore his eyes away and worked again with fervor.

With a swift shift from stern to friendly, Elder Willie explained,

“You see? I say him, ‘Time vaste ist time lose.’ He good boy, my

Vilhelm. Good verker—so strong, like Papa.” Willie punctuated

this proclamation with one last bang of his hammer and dropped

the bar into a cooling tub. Yellow-hot iron hit the water with a

hiss and a pillow of steam rose to collect among the roof timbers.

He stepped around the forge, massive arms akimbo, and looked

Maggie up and down. “You strong girl. Good verker?”

“I’m no’ afeart to dirty my hands, if that’s what yer after.”

“Yah, good vide hips I see . . .” He wagged his mastiffl ike

head, smiled big, and gestured with a flip of his snaggle-nailed

thumb. “My Vilhelm—he vant voman.”

“What?” Maggie glanced over, catching Willie the younger

engaged in open leering appreciation of her backside.

“Yah, yah.” The father nodded, smiling. “Vilhelm needing

voman—vife.”

“Aye,

well . . .”—Maggie took a step

back—“good luck t’

him.” She turned on her heel and marched a quickstep back to-

ward her basket, raucous man-laughter ringing in her ear.

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
101

Naomi had warned her about the scarcity of marriageable

women on the frontier, but Maggie never expected such overt inter-

est. She set the heavy toddler on his feet and retrieved her basket;

not wanting to interrupt Seth, who was engaged in fi erce barter

with the cooper, she allowed Battler to take the lead. Tugging her

hand, Battler pulled Maggie away from the Willies and toward the

gunshots and applause coming from the unfinished end of the fort.

Just beyond the opening in the stockade wall, a group of men

were gathered in a horseshoe around a rifl eman. Skirting the pe-

riphery of the crowd, Maggie strained on tiptoes to see the man

take aim. A shot rang out, resulting in cheers from a few, groans

from most, and the busy exchange of curses, coins, and fl asks.

Battler whimpered and clutched at Maggie’s skirt, trying to sclim

squirrel- like into her arms.

Winnie and Jack waved to Maggie from a row of children

perched like so many sparrows atop a huge felled pine tree.

“C’mon up,” Winnie called. “You can see best from here.”

Maggie set her basket on the ground, swung Battler up, and

scrambled onto the big log. She settled between Winnie and Jack

with wiggle-worm Battler on her lap and enjoyed a clear view of

the contest.

A smile crossed Maggie’s lips when the next marksman stepped

up to toe the line scratched in the dirt. The shooter’s attire was

an absurd combination of moccasins and fringed leggings topped

by the scarlet jacket of a British infantryman. A sad periwig des-

perate for curl and powder sat askew on his head, while long

black braids dangling with silver charms and feathers trailed

down his back. The crowd hummed to quiet as the man leveled

his weapon and took aim. He pulled the trigger . . .
POW-

thunk.

Maggie peered downrange. “What’s he shooting at?”

“See the girdled tree down yonder?” Jack pointed to a tree

about fifty yards from where the shooter stood, a tree whose

bark had been stripped midtrunk to deaden it for clearing.

102 Christine

Blevins

“Aye . . . so they must hit th’ tree . . .” Maggie was impressed.

“Not the tree, silly.” Winnie laughed. “The nail—they aim to

hit the nail that’s pounded into the trunk.”

“Yer jokin’!” Maggie could barely make out a black spot on

the bare wood. “That’s an impossible shot.”

A man sprinted out to the tree with a claw-end hammer. He

shouted back,
“Scant inch!”
and jerked a six-inch iron nail from

the tree, and then banged it into a new position.

“The Indian hit less than an inch away,” Winnie said.

“A Red Indian?” Maggie took a second look at the fair-skinned

young man as he stepped aside to make way for the next

shooter.

Jack said, “He ain’t no Indian. Simon Peavey’s naught but a

white lad gone renegade.”

“Well, Indian or no, so far Peavey’s shot hit closest to the

mark,” Winnie said.

Jack gave his sister a shove. “Pah! Tom can beat that shot. If I

had any, I’d put my money on Tom.”

Tom Roberts stepped out from the crowd and Maggie’s heart

thumped into her throat. She drew a deep breath and blew it out

slow. The fl utter of Battler’s cowlick tickled her nose.

There stands as pretty a man as ever I saw.

Several days’ stubble and the slant of a broad-brimmed hat

shadowed his face, diminishing any boyishness with considerable

dash. Amid the backdrop of buckskin and walnut-dyed home-

spun, Tom gleamed in a shirt of sun- bleached linen with a cravat

of the same looped into a loose knot at his throat. Rather than

breechclout and leggings, Tom sported black woolen breeches

and leather boots polished to shine like British artillery.

Holding his rifl e waist-high, pointing downrange, Tom pushed

the hammer forward. He clicked open the frizzen and primed the

pan with a slight measure of powder tapped with precision from

a miniature horn procured from his pouch. He snapped the friz-

zen shut and stepped to the line. Pushing his hat back slightly, he

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
103

turned into shooting stance and Maggie caught his eye. With a

nod and a smile her way, he licked the tip of his thumb and

swiped it across the sight. The crowd hushed to silence. Maggie

gripped Battler tight. Tom fit the stock firm against his shoulder

and squeezed the trigger—
POW-ponkk!

Tense silence was maintained while the target man trotted

down to the target. Cupping hand to mouth, he shouted,
“Hit

the nail on the head!”

The crowd huzzahed and swarmed Tom with handshakes and

slaps on the back. One man, brandishing a fistful of winnings,

shouted, “Yer an able man with that weapon, Roberts.”

“Yep . . . that’s what all the gals tell me, anyway,” Tom re-

torted, much to the guffaw and delight of his comrades. He

looked up at Maggie and winked. She bit her bottom lip and

squirmed in her seat.

Tom stepped back to reload. He kept his eye and smile on

Maggie, seating powder, ball, and patch down the rifl e barrel

with three hard strokes of his ramrod. An unbidden tremor

twirled up from the base of Maggie’s spine. She shivered and re-

sisted fanning her face.

Simon Peavey stepped to the line. According to Winnie, he had

one chance to either match or best Tom’s shot. Peavey’s nervous

hands belied his stoic countenance. Priming the pan, he spilled a

stream of powder onto the ground and seemed to rush his aim. The

crowd was still engaged in a frenzy of wagering when he squeezed

the trigger. The hammer fell, fl int struck steel, igniting the powder

to flash in the pan, but there was no report—no shot—a misfi re.

“Merde!”
Peavey swore, shifting the angle of his grip to pick

with annoyance at the touchhole on the fl intlock mechanism.

The gun discharged. Peavey yelped, dropped his weapon and

his knees to the ground, his face and neck peppered with a fi ne

spray of black powder that had exploded through the touchhole.

Face in hands, he moaned. Blood dripped through his fi ngers,

landing in the dirt like a scatter of soft buttons.

104 Christine

Blevins

“Winnie, mind Battler.” Maggie hopped down and pushed her

way through the crowd. She knelt beside the wounded man. “Bring

me some water!” Maggie placed a hand on his shoulder. He growled

and shrugged her off, but she persisted. “Let’s have a look, lad.”

“Leave that renegade trash be, girlie. It’ll soon scurry back to

whar it come from.”

Maggie glanced up at the sniggering crowd. She couldn’t tell

which of the anonymous faces had uttered the unkind remark

and she had no time to remonstrate with them. Someone shoved

a canteen in her hand. She doused the right side of Peavey’s face

with cool water. This brought immediate relief. His shoulders

eased, and he dropped his hands and settled back on his haunches,

eyeing Maggie with fi erce distrust.

He was younger than she fi gured—twenty-five years at most—

and his youth and her curiosity made it easy to ignore his glare.

She had never before seen a powder burn.

The compound tang of sulfur, scorched flesh, and burned hair

hung in the air—and no wonder—for his brows and a portion of

the silly wig he wore were singed completely away. Bright blood

continued to seep from a rent in his cheek. His forehead and eye-

lid were inflamed and stippled black with hot grains of powder

embedded into his skin. Maggie reached out to gingerly pick at

one. Simon Peavey sucked air and winced.

“And yer eyes?” she asked.

He shook his head and grunted, “Shet ’em in time.”

“Yer lucky tha’ . . .”

Jack pushed through the crowd with her basket. Maggie

flipped it open and crinkled her forehead as she began poking

through her things, studying Peavey’s face and her remedies,

mulling over the best course of treatment.

“Don’t waste yer worry on that down-gone wastrel, missy,”

one man advised.

“A decent woman would never bother with that dirty, no-

account—”

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
105

“Like buzzards on a carcass,” Tom Roberts said, pushing

through the crowd. “Y’all move along now—go on about your

business and leave the girl to hers.”

Tom stood glaring until the crowd muttered itself back into

the fort. He turned and dropped a clump of uprooted greenery

onto Maggie’s lap and went down to one knee to examine

Peavey’s face.

“Why, you’re as freckled as a turkey egg.” Tom laughed.

“And you’re an auger-eyed son of a bitch,” Peavey replied with

painful half smile. “Good shootin’.”

“Poking and peering down the flash hole after a misfi re.” Tom

tsked. “You ought know better, Simon.”

Maggie said, “Spare him the sermon, Reverend, and lend the

lad a scoof from yer fl ask.”

Tom fished through his pouch and handed over a bottle.

Peavey dosed himself while Maggie inspected the plants lying

across her lap, clumps of dirt and clay still clinging to the roots.

“Soldier’s woundwort!”

“Naw, that there’s yarrow,” Tom corrected.

“Aye, ’tis called yarrow in the lowlands.” She set the greens to

the side and pulled her heavy mortar up from the bottom of her

basket. “I couldna have wished for anything better to stanch and

seal a bloody wound. ’Twill ease the burn as well.” Maggie

stripped the feathery leaves into the bowl. Kneeling in, working

the pestle with the strength of her shoulder, she mashed the

leaves into an oily paste, reciting:

“Thou pretty herb of Venus’s tree,

Thy true name is Yarrow;

Now who my one true love must be,

Pray show me thou tomorrow.”

Tom laughed, and this time it was Maggie’s turn to wink. “Ol’

wives claim a spray of yarrow under yer pillow and that verse

106 Christine

Blevins

aloud will bring a vision of yer true love.” She scooped some

salve onto two fingers and held them to Peavey’s nose for a sniff

and giggled. “Reeks a bit like an ol’ wife, no?”

Simon shrank back, squinty with skepticism.

“Och, he’s givin’ me the gimlet eye.” Maggie sighed, and

turned to Tom. “Tell him, Tom. Tell the lad how I repaired yer

cracked noggin.”

With solemnity, Tom ran two fingers down the purple-and-

white-beaded strap of his pouch. “On my honor, the gal has

strong medicine.”

Peavey pondered this statement for a long moment, then settled

into a comfortable cross- legged position. Maggie applied the salve

with a gentle touch and he bore the treatment in stony silence.

Maggie piled her things back into the basket, stood up, and

wiped her hands on her skirt. “Mash yerself a salve when ye need

relief. Keep the wounds clean, aye?” She handed him a muslin

packet identical to the one she had given Tom several days be-

fore. “Willow bark tea—’twill ease the pain.”

Tom hoisted the young man up to his feet. Peavey shouldered

his weapon and, without a word, walked off.

Maggie watched Simon slip into the forest. “Now, that one’s

an oddling for certain.”

“That fella’s a crack shot and expert tracker.”

Maggie brushed away toddicks of dirt clinging to her skirt.

“The others dinna seem to care for him much.”

Tom shrugged. “They suspect Indians.”

“But the lad’s white . . .”

“Naw.” Tom leaned on his rifle, his hands rough against the slick

oiled barrel. “Simon’s an unfortunate caught atwixt two worlds and

he can’t seem to find a fit in either. He’s had a hard life—younger

than Jack when he witnessed all his folk massacred.”

“Who massacred them? Th’ English?”

“The English!” Tom laughed. “No . . . I’d say more likely the