An Uncommon Woman Read online

  “Colonel Tygart.” His host—and uncle—was before him, a blushing belle on each arm. “More of your admirers wish to meet you.”

  Clay inclined his head. Gave a small bow. If she’d lived to see it, his aunt would be pleased her training had taken hold. The young women looked at him coyly, each fluttering their fans hard as a hummingbird’s wings.

  “I was captivated by your speech,” said one. “We only glean the scantest bits from newspapers and broadsheets of exploits in the West. Never have I heard a firsthand account such as yours.”

  “No doubt your call for men and arms along the border will be heeded after so rousing a message,” said the other, touching his coat sleeve with the tip of her fan. “From a true hero of the Seven Years’ War—and a former captive. How horrifying!”

  “I didn’t mean to paint so grim a picture,” he returned, “given I lived to tell the tale.”

  “I’m sure you’ve spared us the most distressing details as any gentleman would. My only wish is that you looked more the part.”

  Bemused now, he smiled. “Greasy buckskins, feathers, and the like?”

  They giggled like schoolgirls, though his uncle remained unsmiling. His Quaker kin still found it hard to make peace with his straddling both worlds. And his forsaking their faith had widened the rift. Though he’d been back among the whites for as long as he’d been with the Indians, he retained an Indian taint.

  “I regret hearing that the abundance of game grows less and less the farther colonists push west, the prized elk and buffalo foremost.” His uncle’s thoughtful comments surprised him. “Though I’m glad the predatory wolves are not the threat they once were.”

  “Wherever you hear the ring of an axe you’ll find it so.” Could they hear the lament in his voice? “But there are still deer and bear aplenty. And panthers are just as much a danger as the wolves.”

  The dining room doors were being opened, a long table a-glitter with candlelight. Offering each lady an arm, Clay started a slow walk across the carpeted floor, aware of too many appraising glances. His senses, honed sharp by his past, provided ongoing entertainment. He took note of the beauty patch, big as a tick, on the chin of the mayor’s wife. The missing gilt button on one gentleman’s waistcoat. A servant’s bruised eye and tarnished buckle. The failed soufflé at supper.

  While tolerating some aspects of civilization, others he embraced. An overburdened table was one of them, laden with Philadelphia’s beef and pork pies and hearty northern fare. Many a winter he’d scraped by on wild game and roots. The ravenous frontier was as much a force to be reckoned with as the treacherous frontier.

  Soon he’d be three hundred miles to westernmost Virginia and Pennsylvania’s borders, with a tattered, winter-weakened militia in dire need of powder, mustering, and more, and the back settlers, as they were called, in need of defense.

  As he took his place around the elegant table, he pondered all he hadn’t said in his honest speech about British America’s embattled borders. Best save that for a more hardened audience.

  Packhorses and provisions. Indian trade goods. Powder. Bullet lead. Rifle pouch. Flint and steel. Salt. Clay surveyed the growing heap and the pawing horseflesh before him. The journey out was always more comfortable than the journey back. For now, he familiarized himself with his stores, gotten from a list he’d made that would be paid and supplied by the colonial treasury.

  He had no need of a guide as so many did—those who were unfamiliar with the backwoods and the deer or buffalo paths connecting stations and settlements. Seasoned bordermen knew to avoid the treacherous Indian trails that ran the depth and breadth of the frontier, spiderwebbing in every direction.

  “We’re going to ride to Pitt in fine style.” The jovial voice cut into Clay’s musings as his longtime partner descended the mercantile steps. A man who, if pressed, could likely outwit him and every other borderman Clay knew.

  Jude Early looked at the line of horses and provisions that needed loading, then cast a baleful glance at the spring sky as the Quaker merchant appeared behind him, list in hand. “Think we’ll clear Philadelphia by the forenoon?”

  “If we cut to the chase,” Clay replied, settling a packsaddle into place.

  He’d thanked his host, bade farewell to his city kin, and prepared himself mentally for what lay ahead. Barring mishaps, he reckoned on seeing Fort Tygart by May. The backcountry, that region of particular concern to the king and colonial government, would be aflame with Indian raids after a long, white winter.

  Lord willing, he and Jude and Maddie would reach Fort Pitt first, then drop down some hundred miles to the war-torn Monongahela country. There his unseen, picketed namesake stood on an overlook above the Buckhannon River, smack in the middle of what he himself considered the ring of fire that was western Pennsylvania, northwestern Virginia, and the Ohio.

  “Colonel Tygart . . .”

  He stilled, catching Jude’s bemused expression before the genteel voice turned him around. All thoughts of the journey ahead vanished.

  “Miss Penrose.” Of all the women who’d graced his host’s parlor, she was, like the Monongahela, most memorable. Not that he’d tarried on that fact.

  “Pardon the surprise, but you left the other night before I could bid you goodbye.” Her smile was coy beneath her wide-brimmed, beribboned hat. In her mitted hands she held a folded paper. When his gaze landed on it, she held it out to him.

  Full of the wilderness as he was, he easily caught the fragrance of some cultivated scent he couldn’t name. Lavender?

  “I’m hoping we can keep a correspondence. You are a man of letters, and I . . .” She paused, the intensity of her green gaze not lost on him. “I am not impartial to the post.”

  “Obliged.” He stifled a rueful smile, the fragrant letter betwixt his callused, dirt-brown fingers. “But lest you wait too long for a reply, a reliable post is yet to be had where I’m headed.”

  “How many months will you be away?”

  His shoulders lifted in a slow shrug. He rarely talked details and dates. The wilderness wouldn’t let him. “As the good book says, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live, and do this, or that.’”

  “Are you a Scripture-abiding man, Colonel Tygart?”

  “I purpose to be.” The half-truth stung, but she gave him a smile nonetheless.

  “I shall pray for you then, in the hope that we shall meet again.”

  He gave a noncommittal nod, loosening the subtle cord she’d attempted to tie him with.

  “Godspeed, Colonel Tygart.” She turned away with her maid and swept down the cobbled street, skirts trailing.

  The shop merchant stood on the top step and guffawed, having surveyed the exchange with no small amusement. “Are the flowers of the frontier so much fairer than our city sirens, gentlemen?”

  “Best ask Colonel Tygart, sir.” Jude’s grin widened, a flash of brilliant white in his dark face. “Seems like he attracts attention where’er he goes, even in buckskins.”

  “Oh?” Kneeling, Clay resumed checking and tying and buckling. “I’ve been too preoccupied with staying alive to notice.”

  “Truth.” Jude ran a hand down a packhorse’s withers. “Besides, there’s precious few frontier flowers beyond the mountains, and too many menfolk.”

  “Glad I am of the comforts of the city then.” With another cackle, the merchant stepped aside as Jude’s wife stepped out the mercantile door, arms overflowing.

  Jude gave a good-natured groan as Maddie approached, pleasant determination on her face. But Clay felt a warmth and appreciation for any feminine graces she brought to the grit of the trail. Maddie was, in her own way, as necessary as Jude. Owned by an English officer who’d fallen during Braddock’s defeat, they’d aligned themselves with Clay soon after. Maddie had been a laundress, Jude a hostler. When Clay had almost died from a case of fever, Maddie had nursed him back to health. In turn, he’d saved her and Jude from a deadly ambush. Together they’d returned to eastern Pennsylvania wit
h the tattered army, having formed a lasting if unusual friendship.

  “Looks like you raided the shop, all right. Anything left?” Jude took an accounting as she began tucking things into saddlebags. “Thread. Scissors. Hairbrush and dressing glasses. Tea leaves. Loaf sugar.” He lowered his voice discreetly. “Ribbon garters. Petticoat. Hooper’s Female Pills.” He opened a small sack. “Candied . . . ginger?”

  Maddie smiled patiently. “Husband, don’t you want something else to chew on besides that foul tobacco?”

  With a chuckle, Jude returned to his own packing.

  “Saved this one just for you.” Clay gestured to a well-fed mount, a young mare that nickered softly as Maddie approached.

  Maddie thanked him, her pleasure plain. Despite her frontier garb and manly felt hat, she was decidedly feminine. Childless, she and Jude preferred the wilds just as Clay did but for far different reasons. Clay didn’t have the worry of slave catchers on the prowl for freed blacks to seize and then sell into captivity. At least on the frontier, dodgy as it was, they owned their personal freedom.

  By the forenoon, they’d left Philadelphia far behind. Farms and fences spread on both sides, but only occasionally did they have to maneuver around a fence line. ’Twas like a long march, a drill he knew by heart. The Forbes Road, cut into the lush Pennsylvania landscape by General Braddock, led west to Fort Pitt. But first countless waters to cross, mountain ranges that tested stamina and sanity, signs of life diminishing as the wilderness opened up, crowned by the magnificent Alleghenies.

  His stallion, Bolt, settled into a steady rhythm once they were free of the city. Clay couldn’t deny the stirring in his own blood the closer they came to the borderlands, the farthest reaches. No matter the wood gnats or the spiking heat or the prospect of eating pemmican for endless days and nights, the wilderness was in his marrow, pure and simple. Bone deep.

  Maddie yawned an hour past dusk, drawing Clay’s notice. “Look to make camp,” he said.

  Men had little care for where they bedded down, at least in warm weather and free of danger. Maddie had a gift for choosing a winsome spot. They spent a good quarter hour unpacking what was needed for the night, the hiss of a kettle and sizzle of a frying pan accompanied by the spring chorus of tree frogs.

  Feet to the fire as spring’s chill crept in, Clay cleaned his rifle, thoughts adrift till Jude said, “Been a while since we saw Fort Pitt. Wonder if it’s as wild and raw as ever, what with the Indian traders and the like.”

  “No doubt,” Clay said.

  “We best lodge at Semple’s.” Maddie stirred the meat and potatoes with a long wooden spoon. “Respectable and tidy.”

  Nodding, Jude reached into the skillet for a pinch of supper and earned a rap on the hand. After a wink at his wife, he glanced at Clay. “Who’s the commandant at Pitt here lately?”

  “Captain Edmonstone of the 18th Royal Regiment.”

  “Reckon the fort that bears your name along the Buckhannon River is big as Pitt?”

  “Reckon not.” Clay cracked a smile and put away his rifle. “More the size of a privy.” At their amusement, he added, “No reason to name a fort Tygart. Better to call it after some fallen hero.”

  “I’d rather honor the living than the dead,” Maddie said matter-of-factly.

  Jude nodded his agreement as they commenced eating. “So, Colonel Tygart, what sense do you make of the colonial government opening a land office at Pitt? Ain’t that in violation of the Indians’ treaty rights and the king’s proclamation that forbids all settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains?”

  “Forbids? Rather, ‘at least for the present, and until our further pleasure be known.’” Clay echoed the oft-repeated phrase of the king’s men. “The boundary lines are pushed further and further west treaty by treaty. ’Tis a twisted business.”

  Jude rolled his eyes. “Your red blood is plenty affronted, I reckon. I seen how your hackles rose at the sight of that newly plowed field which used to be the grandest forest we ever saw. The land grabbers keep moving west. Ain’t hard to understand why those settlers tomahawked along the New River not long ago got their mouths shoved full of dirt.”

  Clay said nothing to this. ’Twas a sore subject he didn’t tarry on long.

  Maddie’s voice raised a notch. “Let bygones be bygones, aye, gentlemen?”

  The steady chirrup of crickets replaced conversation. Rolling up in a saddle blanket to keep off the damp, Clay listened for Jude’s sawlike snoring and Maddie’s soft snuffling before an uneasy sleep claimed him.

  3

  By dusk Tessa and nearly everyone she knew had forted up within the walls of an unfinished defense that crowned the Buckhannon River bluff like a rude castle awaiting its lord and master. Settlement spies were sent out to determine the whereabouts of the warriors, settlers within Fort Tygart praying any hostiles had left the country. But where one settlement was spared, another was assaulted. Soon they’d hear of other raids, captives, stock stolen, if not their own. Such was the weft and warp of everyday life.

  “Could be worse,” Ruth Schoolcraft said as they kept to a stockade corner. Her gaze rose to the high pickets before falling to the wood shavings at their feet. “’Tis so new a structure ’tis not yet rank. And I’ve not seen you since Christmastide.”

  Had it been so long? Tessa marked time by chores and seasons. Being penned up in this place kept her from sowing the needed seed, accomplishing the next pressing task. The Indians, ever clever, understood that too. Masterful observers and raiders, they knew a bountiful corn crop carried settlers and their livestock through another winter. Flax kept them clothed, firewood warm. Nuts and berries were an added boon at table. The Indians did everything they could to disrupt that circle of survival.

  Ruth touched the faded ribbon of her cap. “Times like these make me remember things I’d rather forget. We’re nearing June . . .”

  “June, aye. You’re pondering Keturah,” Tessa murmured. “As am I.”

  Was it guilt that shadowed them? The fact that she and Ruth had been spared that long-ago spring day?

  Ruth shivered. “Seems like Keturah’s kinfolk should have stayed on here, not gone back overmountain. Their leaving seemed to say they’d lost hope she’d ever come back.”

  “I suspect their cabin was too empty without her.” Was it not the same with Pa gone, every glance about their homeplace bringing a barbed memory? His clothes. His tools. His pipe and tobacco pouch. How they’d grieved then and grieved still. Nothing felt safe. All seemed haunted. Keturah seemed but a haint too.

  “We were but twelve.” Tessa took her place at a loophole, tamping down the memory much as she tamped down the powder in her gun. “And now four and twenty.”

  So many years had passed. Would they always wrestle with the day’s details? If they’d stayed close to home, might Keturah still be with them? Once they’d seen the full strawberry moon, off they went berry picking, chasing after the first succulent fruit in the thaw of a lean winter. Giddy, mouths stained scarlet, they’d lost track of time and then one another, determined to fill their baskets the fullest. A foolish, hapless task.

  How quiet it had been that day. How innocent. Till the warm air was slashed open by a high-pitched, panther-like scream. Standing on a little knoll, Tessa saw Keturah’s basket tumble, berries spilling like red hearts every which way. If she’d but toted her gun that day, Keturah might be here now.

  “Sister, need any bullet lead?” Lemuel’s voice yanked her back to the present.

  She stared at him absently. “Nay.”

  Reaching out, he yanked Ruth’s dangling braid in passing. Ruth’s answering giggle grated. It seemed wrong somehow to make merry with such a dark memory hovering. Betimes her patience wore out with Ruth, moonstruck by anyone in britches. She dallied with all the unmarried men but never settled on one, earning her the reputation of fort flirt.

  As if sensing Tessa’s tetchy mood, Ruth moved on to help with the children now making a commotion in a near cabin,
as eager to be penned up as their parents were opposed. With their lighthearted laughter in her ears, Tessa tried to make peace with her surroundings.

  By day’s end there’d be noise, stink, gossip aplenty. Nary a speck of lonesomeness or a quiet corner to be had.

  She drew a deep, steadying breath, squinting out the loophole to the stump-littered clearing. A lone redbud tree clung to the cliff’s edge, its purplish blossoms showy as a Sabbath skirt.

  At least the fort was fresh hewn, the privies newly dug. Whoever this hero named Tygart was, she hoped he’d be pleased with the place that bore his name. Though they’d never met, she already knew the gist of him, of every enduring borderman. All were crafted with the same uncanny courage, that hard-bitten fearlessness. Not all men had it. Those who didn’t were soon run off or cut down. Cowards were not to be borne.

  Somebody within these walls said Tygart had eyes like a rattler, so intense was his gaze. A shiver coursed through her. If he had such eyes, she’d not look into them. Snakes were an abomination ever since Eden’s garden. Copper snakes and rattlers wound themselves amid her flax patch, an everlasting dread. A vicious snakebite had carried off her favorite cur, Absalom. She still visited his grave.

  “Come away, Daughter.” Ma was at her side, all but prying the flintlock from her hands. “We’re to sup with Hester.”

  With a nod, Tessa looked up at the rifle platform where men stood watch, all armed to the teeth. Yet not one contrary shot had been fired. For that they could be thankful. She might eat her supper in peace. No need for a feminine hand just yet till time came to spell one of the men when the fray turned exhausting. With Jasper overmountain, were her other brothers safely here? Amid all the homespun and felt-hatted men at dusk, ’twas hard to tell.

  Eyes down, she followed Ma through the melee. Folks were still coming in, the gates manned by no less than a dozen guns. The whine of new iron hinges nearly made her wince. Last time they’d forted up downriver the Indians had stormed the gates and nearly gained entry till a quick-thinking settler had poured molten tar on them. Their anguished howls stalked her for days.