Love and Cherish Page 3

  “The Frenchie!” Seth spat out the word.

  “This ain’t yore business,” Mote sputtered.

  “I say it is.” The words were spoken quietly.

  “She’s our’n. Her . . . her old man gived her to us.”

  “You lie.”

  “Ya ain’t got no call to say we lie. She’s our’n I tell ya.” Mote shifted his eyes from the man to the dog and then to his companion, who shrugged his shoulders and came to a decision.

  “Come on, Mote,” the older man said. “The gal’s too stunted to be worth much anyhow.”

  “But Seth . . . we buyed her!” Mote protested.

  “We can get our plunder back from the pilgrim.”

  “I ain’t givin’ up on her!”

  “She ain’t no good to ya with yore throat tore out, ya stupid mule’s ass.”

  Mote hesitated, eyeing Cherish. “I was plannin’ on havin’ her and—”

  “Shut yore mouth up,” Seth said savagely. “Yo’re goin’ to get us kilt quicker’n scat.”

  “Ya ain’t heard the last a this. That woman’s mine.”

  “Then come get her.” The words were softly spoken as the end of the rifle turned.

  Staring at the end of the rifle and at the dog, Mote gave in.

  “I ain’t a-forgettin’ this,” he grumbled threateningly as he turned to follow Seth from the clearing. Eventually the sounds of their passage through the woods and their cursing the goldamned Frenchie faded.

  Cherish was unaware that she had been holding her breath until she let it out. She almost slumped to the ground in her relief.

  “Thank you, thank you.” Her voice came out in a choked whisper.

  The big dog came to her and looked at her with solemn eyes. She threw her arms about his neck and buried her face in the thick fur. The dog stiffened but stood still as Cherish’s tears came in great racking sobs. Gentle hands loosed her hold on the dog. Gentle arms lifted her up and held her while the grinding sobs wrenched her slight body. She clung to the warm human being and his hands smoothed the tangled hair from her face. Finally her shudders ceased and she slept the sleep of utter exhaustion.

  Cradling her in his arms, the man sat down on the grass. Where had this startlingly lovely creature come from? The dog padded over and stretched out beside him, eyeing him soulfully, head on his paws.

  “Well, Brown, what do you think?”

  The dog wagged his tail and inched closer.

  “You liked her, didn’t you? You didn’t move a muscle when she put her arms around you. Smart boy.”

  His answer was a low whine.

  “Maybe we won’t have to go to Harrodsburg after all. Maybe we’ve found what we’re looking for”—he glanced down at Cherish—“right here.”

  CHAPTER

  * 3 *

  The smell of burning wood roused her. Still half asleep, she lazily opened her eyes and found herself looking into the face of the brown dog, who was lying a few feet away, his big head on his paws and his eyes on her. Memory came rushing back and she turned on her side, pleasantly aware of a relaxed tiredness throughout her body.

  She was lying on a bed of soft ferns that had been covered with a blanket. Draped over her was another blanket that smelled fresh and clean. She sat up, eyes searching the clearing for the man. He was squatting by the stream cleaning a rabbit. When she moved the dog made a small whining sound; the man glanced over at her.

  Cherish judged it to be almost evening and was amazed that she had slept the day through. Tossing aside the blanket, she started to get up, then sank down again. Her feet were bare and clean. Embarrassment flooded over her. How could she have slept so soundly that the man could have removed her shoes and bathed her feet without her being aware of it?

  She tried to stand, but with a small cry she sank back down on the blanket. Her feet were swollen and the cuts on the bottoms shot pain up her legs. The lower part of her dress was crusted with mud.

  “I’ll be away for a few minutes, if you want to change your dress.” The man seemed to read her mind. He placed the three cleaned rabbits on a slab of bark and picked up his rifle and his axe. Indicating to the dog to stay, he walked into the woods.

  Cherish crawled to the end of her blanket and pulled the small pile of her possessions toward her. The dress, seed packets, gun, powder and shot, the comb, soap and the clean chemise were wrapped neatly in her shawl. Quickly she slid out of her soiled dress and slipped the clean one over her head. After taking down her hair, she combed it and braided it in one long rope. She hurried because she wanted to try standing again before the man returned.

  Setting her jaw against the pain she knew would come, she rose slowly to her feet. The pain was excruciating but endurable as long as she stayed on the soft fern bed. As soon as her feet hit the hard ground, it shot from the soles of her feet to her knees. She was unable to stop the groan that burst from her lips. Gritting her teeth, she snatched up the muddy dress, hobbled to the edge of the spring and plunged the dress into the water.

  The man returned and leaned his rifle against a tree, then dropped a load of small sticks beside the fire. He came to her and knelt down. Tears of frustration shone in her eyes. He took the dress from her hands and washed it in the flowing water. Still not saying a word to her, he wrung out the garment and hung it over a limb near the campfire.

  Unable to decide if she should try to stand or simply crawl back to the fern bed, Cherish stayed beside the stream. The decision was made for her. The man came and lifted her effortlessly in his arms. Holding her high against his chest, he carried her and gently lowered her onto the blanket.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  Cherish fought to keep back the tears. Not since her mother’s death had she known such gentle treatment—not even from her father and certainly not from her brother, Roy, who considered her more or less a millstone around his neck.

  “What are you called?” she asked suddenly, as he straightened and turned to leave her.

  Turning back, he looked down at her, the expression on his face one of quiet somberness. She wished that he would smile again.

  “I’m called a lot of things. Some call me Frenchie. The Indians call me Light Eyes, but most folks call me Sloan.” His voice was low and soft and his accent suggested that he was well educated.

  “Thank you for what you’ve done for me, Mister Sloan.” Cherish felt small and quite insignificant before this quiet but powerful man. “I’m Cherish Riley, sir, and I’m most grateful—”

  “Just Sloan, Cherish Riley. Sloan Benedict Carroll.” He turned away as if that concluded the conversation, then looked back at her. “When did you eat last?”

  “I don’t rightly remember,” she admitted. “I chewed on some jerky last night while I was running, but—”

  He stopped her. “You have a story to tell, Cherish, but first we’ll get some food into you.”

  She sat quietly on the blanket, watching his quick, sure movements as he strung the three rabbits on a spit and hung them over the fire to roast. It looked so easy for him. With a sense of shock, she realized that she was trembling inwardly and that the trembling had nothing to do with the fact that her stomach was empty, or that she had come through a very trying ordeal. It was being here with this strange man, with Sloan Benedict Carroll, that was causing her heart to gallop so madly. She couldn’t keep her eyes away from him.

  “Is there something I could be doing?” she asked, hesitantly, embarrassed that she should be sitting there doing nothing.

  “No. Stay off your feet until I can make some footwear for you.” Nodding toward her shoes by the fire, he added, “I don’t think you could walk very far in those. They’ll be stiff as boards by the time they dry.”

  Something in his flat, dry tone disturbed Cherish. She hadn’t stopped to think of the condition of her feet. She would have to walk out of this place to the Ohio, if she hoped to board a flatboat to take her home to Virginia. This man would help her, she was sure of that. Hadn
’t he already been her salvation? A shiver ran through her at the thought of what would have happened to her if she hadn’t met him before the trappers caught up with her.

  She started to speak and hesitated, uncertain how to begin.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said with a catch in her voice. She made a small appealing gesture. “I . . . I—” She let the gesture finish for her as her voice trailed away.

  “You’ve thanked me. But no thanks were necessary.” Taking a large tin cup out of his pack he walked to the spring, filled the cup with water and placed it on a flat stone near the campfire.

  Cherish watched him with an apprehensive stare. Abruptly he looked into her eyes and caught the shadow of despair there. The silence between them was uneasy, and Cherish felt strangely out of her depth.

  “Have you someone waiting for you? A man . . . a family?” His eyes had narrowed and were focused on her face.

  She gave a choked little murmur and shook her head.

  “Have you?” he insisted, unwilling to take the shake of her head for an answer.

  “My brother, Roy, and I were going to Harrodsburg to homestead.” She wiped her eyes with the bottom of her skirt. Her chin trembled when she continued. “We were traveling with some people named Burgess. Four or five days ago Roy went ahead to scout for another campsite and he . . . didn’t come back.” She couldn’t bring herself to voice her fear that Roy was gone for good and that she would never see him again. Instead she added, “I have only Roy and some cousins in Virginia that I’ve never met.”

  The man nodded. He seemed, Cherish thought, about to say something, but whatever it was he changed his mind and turned instead back to his cookfire.

  The meal was delicious, and Cherish ate hungrily. She thought Sloan’s expression softened as he watched her and she smiled at him, but he did not respond. She took her cue from him and ate silently, keeping her eyes turned away from him.

  When they finished, he placed one of the roasted rabbits on a piece of bark and carried it some distance away. Brown watched his every move but made no attempt to go to him until, with a slight movement of his hand, Sloan indicated he was to come.

  While the dog was eating, Sloan went to the spring and returned with three more dressed rabbits and proceeded to hang them on the spit over the hickory fire. He refilled the tin cup he had used for tea and set it close to the flames.

  “The water is to bathe your feet. We can’t afford to let the cuts fester.”

  “That’s a lot of meat,” she said, gesturing toward the rabbits.

  “I figure to have enough to last two days, maybe more, if it doesn’t spoil. When that gives out we’ll have to make do with the dried meat in my pack or set snares. I don’t want to use my rifle as we go deeper into Indian country.”

  Cherish’s heart began to pound. He had said “we.” That meant he was going to take her with him to the Ohio!

  It was dark by the time the meat cooled and Sloan packed it away. He picked up the cup of warm water, came to where Cherish sat watching him and sank down beside her. As matter-of-factly as if he were attending a small child, he raised her legs and placed them across his lap. By the light of the campfire, he examined her feet closely.

  Nothing had ever happened in Cherish’s life before to prepare her for such intimacy. She felt warm color flooding her cheeks and tried to look away, but her eyes were drawn irresistibly to the dark head bending over her feet. Unconsciously she shrank from him. Seeming not to notice, he placed one hand on the calf of her leg while he reached into his pack with the other and extracted a tin. With painstaking care he smeared a thick salve on the bottoms of her feet.

  “Now,” he said, looking at her for the first time since he had begun. “We need clean cloth for the bandages and your clean shift will do nicely.”

  “No!” she gasped.

  “Oh, yes.” He rummaged in her shawl for the chemise, drew it out and proceeded to tear strips from the bottom.

  At the sight of his big hands handling her intimate undergarment, Cherish’s cheeks flamed. She drew in her breath and closed her eyes tightly. She wasn’t sure but she thought she heard him chuckle, and suddenly she was furious. Her eyes flew open.

  “Don’t you dare laugh at me,” she stormed.

  “So, the kitten has claws after all.” He had a grin on his face when he turned to look at her.

  “I just don’t like to be laughed at,” she said stiffly, grateful for the darkness, knowing her face must be beet-red.

  “Accept my apologies, Cherish Riley, and tell me your story while I make some footwear for you.”

  Taking an animal pelt from his pack, he measured her foot and marked the skin with his knife.

  Cherish remained silent, her confusion and embarrassment not allowing her to speak.

  “Go on,” he urged. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “Wh-what do you want to know?” She managed to get the words out, although they wanted to stick in her throat.

  “Tell me about your home in Virginia. Did you live in the mountains?”

  “At the foot of the mountains,” she said. “In a cabin with a big stone fireplace and a spring at the back. I didn’t want to leave my home, but after Papa died, Roy couldn’t get clear title to the land. Besides, he wanted to come to Kentucky. He had no choice but to bring me with him.”

  The words came easily after that. Cherish found herself talking to Sloan as she had never talked to anyone before. She told him about her mother, a gentle-born woman who had fallen in love with her father—a farmer—and married him although he was beneath her station in life. She had taught Cherish to read and write and had instilled in her the manners of a lady. When she died, Cherish, only ten, had carried on in the ways her mother had begun.

  But tension crept into her voice as she told about joining the Burgess family, about Roy going out to look for another campsite. She told of her anxiety when Roy failed to return, and about overhearing Jess Burgess sell her to the two trappers. Then she told of her flight through the woods.

  “It was five days yesterday since Roy left. Do you think he’s dead?” Cherish finally voiced the fearful question.

  By way of an answer, Sloan reached into his pack and brought out a leather pouch. He dropped it in her lap. She felt the weight of the bag and heard the clink of silver before she looked down at it.

  “Would your brother have been carrying that?” he asked.

  “Why . . . yes.” She picked up the bag and examined it closely. “I sewed it for him myself. But where—?” Her frightened eyes met his. He reached out and clasped her two small hands in one of his.

  “I took it off a man I buried yesterday,” he said gently. “I found him floating in the river. From the look of things, he tried to raft across and capsized. A blow on the head either killed him or knocked him unconscious, and he drowned.” He saw the trembling lips, the eyes swimming with tears, and his arms went around her, drawing her to him. “I’m sorry, Cherish.”

  Cherish wept. She wept for her young and foolish brother. She wept for the cabin in Virginia, for her mother and father. And she wept for herself now alone without close kin. The fire burned low and they continued to sit on the fern bed. It seemed odd to be sitting there, cradled in the arms of a man she had met just that morning, yet she had never felt so safe in all her life. How could she feel this way about this big silent man?

  She drew away from him, suddenly self-conscious. He picked up her shawl and wrapped it about her shoulders to protect her from the cold night air.

  “We have to talk, Cherish,” he said quietly.

  “Yes, I know,” she whispered. “I’ll use the silver in Roy’s pouch to pay my passage back to Virginia.”

  “And go to the cousins you’ve never met?” he asked.

  “No.” She paused. After thinking for a moment, she said, “There are neighbors near our home who would take me in.”

  “With some cloddy youth who wants to marry you, no doubt,” he said dryly
.

  “And if there is?” she said, resigned. “What else can I do?”

  Silence hung between them for a long moment.

  “You can’t make it to the Ohio alone.”

  “You won’t take me?”

  “No,” he said flatly.

  “Not for this silver?” She held out the pouch.

  “No.”

  She stared at him in disbelief, hurt by his blunt rejection.

  “I guess I’ll have to make it on my own, then,” she said in a small tight voice.

  “You try it and you’ll meet up with men meaner than Mote and Seth.”

  “What else can I do?” she asked desperately, studying Sloan’s face in the firelight.

  “You can marry me.”

  At first Cherish wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. She tilted her head and stared at him, stunned.

  “Does the thought of marrying me leave you speechless?” he asked with a touch of irony in his voice.

  “I don’t know you. You don’t know me. Why would you want to marry me?”

  He stared into the woods, being careful not to look into the fire, wanting to keep his eyes accustomed to the darkness. His gaze came back to her.

  “I need a woman. A good woman to care for a child.”

  Cherish wished that he were not sitting so close to her. His nearness had filled her with a warm, tingling sensation she had never experienced before. Now a chill crept around her heart. Disillusion darkened her eyes, making them look enormous in her small pale face. It was not for herself that he wanted her. She didn’t understand why the thought hurt and a choking lump had come up in her throat.

  “How do you know that I’m a good woman?” she asked crossly.

  His eyes twinkled and dimples appeared in his cheeks briefly.

  “I would stake my life on it.”

  “Well, I’m not! I’m . . . a tart. So there,” she snapped before giving thought to what she was saying.

  He laughed. “You’re no more a tart than I am. You’re as good as you are beautiful and as untouched as the morning dew.” He laughed again, then added, “With claws like a young pussycat.”

  The intense silence that followed seemed to press around her, as though it would hold her prisoner until she gave an answer. Her face was hot and her lips felt stiff. It took every ounce of control to keep her voice steady.