Laden with firewood, she returned to the cabin to find Keturah cross-legged on the floor, playing with a kitten. Ma was busy shelling peas, the first from the garden. Bacon crowded a skillet, overriding the stale tobacco smoke of the night before. Overpowering everything was the last wintered-over cabbage from the straw-filled trench near the springhouse. Seasoned with onion, it could be smelled clear to the barn. All familiar, welcome sights and scents now made strange by the presence of the woman more Indian than white and the rattling presence of the man who’d brought her here.
In the lull of lost years, she’d forgotten how lovely her friend was. Once again Keturah’s beauty struck her hard. Beautiful in ways that she herself could never be. Fair. Flawless. The colonel intruded again. Surely a man like Tygart would find her plain as a sparrow in comparison. Maybe Tygart was as smitten with Keturah as her brothers were or had once been.
Ma looked up from her task. “Set Keturah a place between us, aye?”
With a nod, Tessa put utensils on the table, pausing at Pa’s place. A thin sliver of mincemeat pie remained, which she ate if only to clean and put away the dish. Colonel Tygart had even pushed in his chair, a courtesy rarely practiced by her brothers.
Tessa kept busy till supper, skirting Keturah as she played with the kitten and then walked about the cabin as if familiarizing herself with a place she’d once known well. If only Keturah would speak. Should she try to remind her old friend of English things? Say simple words? Maybe Keturah knew them, had not forgotten, but was holding back. Being around so many Swans might loosen her tongue in time.
When her brothers came into the cabin before supper even graced the table, Tessa bit back a smile. As if being first would garner a seat beside their unexpected guest.
Keturah settled between her and Ma, eyes down demurely as they all found their usual places, joined hands, and prayed. ’Twas Ross, most like Pa, who said grace.
“Lord, we would ask Thy blessing on this food. Bless it to the good of our bodies that we may be better prepared for the battles of life. For Christ’s sake we ask it. Amen.”
After so lean a winter, everyone wanted a fair helping of the first peas of the season. Their very greenness was odd at table after winter’s barren sameness of hog and hominy. Keturah ate sparingly, her continued quiet hardly noticed as the Swan men revisited the eventful afternoon.
“The colonel seems a right capable character,” Jasper said, murmurs of affirmation following.
“I never saw a gun-toting Quaker before,” Cyrus said. “No thees or thous to speak of neither.”
Jasper shook his head. “He’s no Quaker other than his roots and raising. Rifle-bred to the bone, sure to rile his Quaker kin. Word is he’s not on the best terms with them.”
“Militia musters when?” Ross asked, clearly dejected at all he’d missed. “Week’s end?”
“Saturday noon. Nominations will be made for office of captain and lieutenant.” Lemuel balanced his peas on his knife. “Frolic to follow.”
Tessa perked up. Frolic? A rare occasion to dress in their humble best and step a reel or a jig. With women so few, she never lacked for partners. It would be a fine time to don her new petticoat.
“Going to barbecue that white ox of Westfall’s,” Cyrus added.
Ma took note of this, setting her fork down. Westfall was their nearest neighbor to the north, a widower of some merit.
As bowls and plates emptied, Tessa listened to the usual manly banter—of the white bear with dark nose pads and white claws seen near Dog Run, of the proper way to roast a brace of turkeys, if the Ohio River was mightier than the Monongahela, why Fort Pitt had become little more than a spirit-sated gaol, of the spreading conviction that western Virginia belonged more to Pennsylvania, and how Ross had nearly sunk the ferry by overloading oxen the day before.
Discreetly, Tessa watched Keturah. She’d seemed reluctant to eat, waiting till the men began, and had shunned her fork, preferring to partake with her fingers. How was she handling all this male talk? Any jabber about Indians and Indian sign was altogether missing, thankfully.
To Tessa’s surprise, at meal’s end Keturah began clearing the dishes from the table amid the men’s pipe smoke and sated belching. Tessa stayed still, though Ma rose to do the washing.
“So, Sister, going to set your bonnet for Colonel Tygart?” Cyrus teased with a wink.
“What bonnet?” Ross joked of her perpetually bare head.
“Shush,” she chided, pushing away from the table.
“Spied you two talking before he left. A mite bold to sashay up to him that way.” This from Zadock, who missed little. “Hope you remembered to call him Colonel.”
“Aye, that I did.” She felt pinned by their stares. “I merely asked him to send round Keturah’s things.”
“Is that right?” Lemuel drawled. “You seemed to be taking your sweet time doing it.”
They hooted when she crossed her eyes, stuck out her tongue, and ended the matter.
Across the cabin, Keturah’s yawn had Ma making plans for bedtime. Would their guest sleep in the trundle bed? With a wave of her hand, Ma shooed the men to their blockhouse quarters, the door betwixt them and the main cabin soundly shutting. They took it without complaint, for Ma was above any teasing, though Tessa sensed they wanted to linger.
Her private corner was hers no longer. Yet she didn’t rue the loss except to feel a slight qualm when she got on her knees to pray before she snuffed the bedside light. Keturah’s searching look sent her thoughts spinning every which way but heavenward. Had Keturah forgotten to pray, at least the white way? Indians kept their own religion, their practices deemed heathenish by most.
After a hasty amen, Tessa rose reluctantly to crawl between cool linen sheets while Keturah regarded with suspicion the trundle bed that had been moved to Tessa’s corner. Pulling the bedding free, Keturah wrapped it round her and lay down upon the wooden floor, her back to the shunned frame.
Tessa felt a qualm. Needs be she should stay on her knees all night. A great many matters needed praying for.
Father, bring the Braams back or Keturah to them. Let it be a gladsome reunion. Help me befriend her again till then. And if it pleases Thee, let her look kindly on one of my older brothers who so need a wife.
10
The strong, greasy aroma of roasting beef invaded every corner of Fort Tygart. After so much venison, Clay welcomed the change. He’d been at the fort a week, the days a blur of inspections and meetings and forays in and out of its walls. Not one whiff of trouble that he knew of along the border other than a few warriors bent on personal glory stealing horses. But instinct told him their every move was being watched. His coming here had not gone unnoticed. Little happened at military outposts that bypassed the tribes. Every inch of ground the settlers gained thrust the Indians back. That he felt caught in the crosshairs of the conflict mattered little.
“Colonel Tygart, sir.” At the blockhouse door stood an express rider. “Dispatch from Fort Pitt.”
Clay motioned him in even as he sealed his notice about Keturah Braam for the eastern newspapers. Jude had returned Keturah’s meager belongings to the Swan homestead a few days prior, saving him the trouble. He himself expected the Swan brothers for today’s muster and the frolic to follow.