A Place Called Home Read online

  Tears scored trails down Cissy's muddy face. Tad closed his eyes and simply held on. Livi hugged them closer.

  Minutes passed before they became aware of the bay mare's screams. The pain and panic in the sound sent shivers up Livi's back. Finally loosening her hold on her children, she stepped toward the edge of the cliff and peered over the embankment.

  The drop was almost sheer, all gray-white rock and crumbled earth. Livi jerked back reflexively. After a moment, she managed to edge up and take a second look.

  Thirty feet below, the packhorse had come to rest on its side at the base of a tree. She could see its ribs rising and falling as if pumped by a bellows. From the angle of its legs, she judged at least one to be broken. Still, the beast flailed and twisted as if determined to rise.

  Cissy came up beside her. "Poor, poor horsy! What are you going to do?"

  What would David have done? Livi took a shaky breath. "I'm going down," she said at last. "Tad, bring your papa's pistol from my saddlebag."

  Using Cissy as a handhold, Livi eased over the edge of the ravine. The undercut bank had given way, and loose dirt rolled beneath her boots. Grabbing roots and branches, she worked her way across and down the slope. It was a slow, dirty business, but at last she reached the little bay.

  Up close, she saw the blood on the ground where the mare's stark white ribs protruded through her hide like shattered barrel staves. One rear hock was broken and the right foreleg lay limp and useless. Exhausted by its struggles, the horse rolled its eyes, frantic with pain. Livi fancied that there was trust in the bay's expression, as if she expected Livi to make things better.

  At that moment Tad came skidding down to join her. "How is she?"

  Livi shook her head. "There's nothing we can do for her. You'll have to put her down."

  She heard Tad suck in his breath and turned to look at him. His eyes had gone wide in his chalky face; they were blank with horror, blurry with tears.

  Until that moment Livi had simply assumed Tad would be the one to take care of this unpleasantness. Men did these things. Women weren't expected to.

  But Tad was not yet a man. He was big and brave for twelve years old. He was conscientious and determined. Since David's death, he had hidden his grief and shouldered responsibilities far beyond his years. But in wanting him to shoot a horse he had fed and curried and cared for, she had demanded too much.

  Her son's courage had a brittle delicacy about it, an untried purity. He wasn't ready to face such cruel realities, and suddenly Livi didn't want him to be.

  That she might have to shoot the horse instead appalled her, unnerved her.

  "Did you bring the pistol?" she asked at last.

  Tad extended the gun for her to see.

  "Are you sure it's loaded?"

  He nodded.

  "Thank you for seeing to that."

  Livi closed her fingers around the pistol butt. Though she'd held and fired it the night before, the weight of the gun surprised her. Or perhaps it was holding death in her hand that weighed so heavily.

  Before them, the horse struggled, strained to rise.

  "Now, if I just put the barrel to her head..."

  This was a living thing she was about to destroy. How could she bring herself to do that?

  Gorge filled her throat, but she forced it down. She refused to be sick in front of her son. Not over this, not when Tad would pay for her weakness with his guilt.

  "I can..." There was shame in the boy's face. "I'll try..."

  "It's all right, Tad," she assured him. "I'll do it. It was wrong of me to ask you."

  Beside them, the beast shifted again.

  Livi's palms were slick. Her breath came harsh and quivery.

  "It would help if you could hold her head. The last thing I want to do is miss."

  Tad moved to grasp the horse's bridle.

  Livi cocked the pistol and nestled the barrel above the mare's left eye. Was this the right place? Would this kill her?

  The bay puffed and blew. Livi tightened her finger around the trigger. Tad closed his eyes.

  With a blast and a flash, the gun went off. The concussion jarred up Livi's arm.

  Tad cried out.

  The horse went still.

  Livi sank back on her haunches against the hillside. There was a whining in her ears. Her hands tingled and went numb. She had never killed a living thing before, never deliberately taken a life. She'd even made David wring the chickens' necks. Around her the whining intensified.

  As if from a distance, she felt Tad slip the pistol from her grasp, felt him close his hand around her shoulder, gripping hard.

  From the road high above, Cissy was shouting. "Did you shoot the horse? Why did you shoot the horse?"

  "Because we had no choice, goddammit!"

  She should warn Tad against swearing at his sister, Livi thought as a wave of dizziness took her. She'd do it just as soon as she dredged up the energy. Instead she closed her eyes and waited for her heart to stop pounding in her throat, for her legs to stop quivering. That took a good long while.

  As her head cleared, she began to notice their belongings scattered here and there. A single leather book had come to rest between her feet. A pitcher lay shattered nearby. Her lace fichu fluttered in the breeze, snagged like a web in a bramble bush. Slowly she raised her gaze, seeing the contents of the horse's packs spilled across the face of the hill.

  Livi climbed unsteadily to her feet and surveyed the wreckage. Rubbing her forehead with the back of her wrist, Livi tried to think what should happen next.

  "We'll have to see to the horses on the trail," she finally said.

  "I climbed up and did that already," Tad answered. "They're all kind of wild-eyed, as if they understand what's happened. Cissy and I hobbled them so they wouldn't wander off."

  "Thank you." Livi managed to smile at her son. "If I remember correctly, there's a clearing back a mile or so. We can make camp there and gather up what's left."

  It took some time to prepare the campsite, to get a fire going, to ferry back what goods could be salvaged. They had lost not only a horse but also one of the precious packsaddles. David had made each one by hand, selecting branches that grew at exactly the right angle to span a horse's back, using hickory withe to weave the baskets on either side. Deep and commodious, each of the creels held more than a hundred pounds of goods, things essential for establishing a farm in Kentucky.

  Some of the goods the little bay had been carrying were irretrievably lost. Livi's best straw bonnet was smashed flat. Two tin candle molds were twisted and useless. They could find only one of Cissy's extra pair of shoes. Some of the bedding was indelibly mud-stained. Still, they were lucky they hadn't lost more.

  But with one less horse to carry the load, Livi faced the inevitable decision of what to leave behind. Some things were essential—gunpowder and shot, seeds and farming implements, quilts and blankets, iron kitchen ware, axes, knives for cooking and skinning, clothing for the children and herself. It was madness to leave food behind. They would run out of sugar and flour soon enough. She only prayed that the cornmeal would last until harvest.

  Livi fed several wooden bowls, a bucket, and her disassembled loom into the campfire, figuring she might as well make use of them. She drank a last cup of tea from one of the four china teacups painted with a Forget-Me-Not pattern. The cups and a matching teapot were the only "fancy bits," as David had called them, that Livi had allowed herself. But such things were superfluous in Kentucky—and they took up space.

  She asked the children if they could think of things they wouldn't need. Tad sacrificed a crudely painted checker board, a box of checkers, and a boat Reid Campbell had carved for him. He did his best to discard a slate and two of his schoolbooks. He didn't have Cissy's quick mind for letters and such, and he'd have been delighted to leave those things behind. Livi prevented that. After much knuckle-chewing, Cissy picked some rocks from the collection she'd been lugging around for as long as Livi could remember,
erected a monument at the edge of the trail and held a funeral for the little mare.

  Once Livi herself had tucked away David's most valuable things, his journal with instructions for crossing the mountains and finding their land, his watch and pocket telescope, she went through the rest of his things. She found a brass key she decided to keep, a pair of boots she knew would fit Tad eventually, and a waistcoat she'd made for David's birthday only three weeks before.

  With no small difficulty, they unloaded the heaviest of his blacksmithing tools and half the iron bars. They set aside his brass-buckled dress shoes, his embroidered frock coat and nankeen breeches. It was doubtful that he would have had use for such finery in the wilderness anyway.

  This is what makes it so difficult when someone dies, Livi thought. It's not just that they're gone, that you'll never see them, or hold them, or hear their laughter. For those who are left behind, dying doesn't just happen once. It's a series of losses that go on and on.

  The previous night, missing David had been like having a hole in her heart. Today she was forced to leave more of her husband behind. What would she give up tomorrow, she wondered, and the day after that? How long would it take for even her dearest and most precious memories to fade?

  As if to stave off the inevitable, Livi wrapped David's linsey-woolsey hunting shirt over her own mud-spattered gown. The garment was huge, hanging on her slender frame, drooping well down her thighs. But the moment the shirt settled around her shoulders, David's essence enveloped her. His warmth fell across her back, his scent drifting like a balm. Reassurance emanated from the sturdy cloth as if some last scrap of the man who had worn the shirt still resided there.

  Livi felt loved, protected, soothed, and she refused to deny herself the comfort she'd unwittingly discovered. Doubling the hunting shirt across her breasts, she belted it tight and turned back both sleeves. With its tough fabric and its broad, caped collar, the hunting shirt made an odd but completely serviceable garment for Livi to wear as they traveled. With a new sense of serenity, she continued with her chores.

  Between her and the children, they repacked the creels and set aside the goods they would tie to David's saddle in the morning. Though the night passed without incident, Livi slept very little. She lost her breakfast almost as soon as she'd eaten it and wept over the things they were leaving behind. But when she turned onto the road shortly after sunup, they headed west once more.

  Chapter 3

  The Block House lived up to its name. Livi and the children had seen it standing foursquare and resolute on a rise at the mouth of a wooded valley long before they reached the security of its walls. They clattered through the open gate just short of midday—a train of straggling pack animals, a slender woman worn weary by the miles, and two fair-haired children riding together, clearly out of patience with traveling and each other.

  A tall man with graying hair and a military bearing strode out of the main building as they rode into the yard.

  "Welcome to the Block House," he greeted Livi. "I'm Captain John Anderson."

  Livi nodded in acknowledgment. "I'm Olivia Talbot and these are my children, Tad and Cissy."

  "Have you come far?" the captain asked.

  "From Lynchburg," Livi replied.

  "Come all that way by yourselves? How long did it take?"

  "A bit more than a week." Livi could feel Anderson's assessing gaze slide over her. "We had some trouble."

  John Anderson perked up like a hound on point. "What kind of trouble?"

  The memory of David sprawled shattered and bleeding at her feet roared through Livi's head, drowning out any coherent response.

  Tad spoke up in his mother's stead. "Well, the roads haven't been the best," he began. "And we lost one of our packhorses day before yesterday. She got spooked and went over an embankment. Broke two legs."

  "Mama had to shoot the horse," Cissy added from where she was sitting behind her brother. "I made a funeral for her, too. Just like—"

  Under the drape of his sister's skirt, Tad reached around and pinched Cissy into silence. She sucked in her breath and punched him back.

  Her children's behavior jerked Livi free of her memories. As she drew breath to admonish them, Tad raised his head.

  "Is that stew I smell cooking?" he asked. "I swear I'm hungry enough to eat a bucketful."

  "As it happens, son," Anderson said, grinning at the two scrappy youngsters, "you've arrived just in time for our noon meal. You're more than welcome to join us. I can have someone see to your animals, if you like."

  "A hot meal sounds wonderful," Livi conceded, "but I'd just as soon see to the animals myself, Captain Anderson, if you think there's time."

  The big man seemed to approve of her concern.

  "Then go on around this building to the right. You'll see a paddock and the stable. Why don't you stow your goods in there for the time being?"

  Livi did as Anderson suggested, and she was pleased with the facilities.

  They had barely dismounted at the stable door when Cissy turned furiously on her brother. "Why'd you pinch me?" she demanded. "I didn't do anything to you!"

  Tad glared down at his little sister. "Because I didn't want you blurting out how Papa died."

  Livi turned to her son, saddlebags in hand. "Why shouldn't we tell these folks what happened? We can't very well keep your father's death a secret."

  Tad nodded in agreement. "No one would believe that a mother and two children just decided to set out on this trip alone. But I think we should be careful what we say."

  Livi came a step nearer. "Just what do you mean?"

  "I think what happened will go against us when we try to find folks to travel with. Pa said people band together to cross the mountains because they're afraid of the Indians. If people hear we've already had Indian trouble, how willing are folks going to be to let us join them?"

  "That's true," Livi admitted. "But, Tad, don't you think we need to warn these people about the Indians who attacked our camp?"

  "Don't you think if that raiding party was still around, Captain Anderson would know about it?" Tad reasoned. "Pa was killed five days ago."

  Five days? Livi found herself thinking. Was that all it had been?

  Those five days seemed like an eternity.

  "Reaching the land in Kentucky depends on being able to travel with a group, doesn't it, Ma?" Tad pressed her.

  "Yes."

  "Can we afford to scare them off? Give them one more reason to refuse us passage?"

  "I suppose not."

  "Then we can't tell anyone how Pa died."

  Livi nodded in agreement, amazed by the complexity of her twelve-year-old's logic.

  While Livi pondered, Tad addressed his sister, nestled at Livi's side. "You want to go on to Kentucky, don't you, Cissy?"

  The little girl chewed on her knuckle and stared up at him.

  "You want to see the place Pa picked for us to live? The creek with all the fish, Reid told us about?"

  Without removing her fist from her mouth, Cissy nodded.

  "Then you have to swear not to tell anyone what happened to Pa."

  Cissy looked to her mother for confirmation.

  Livi shifted the weight of her ambivalence and nodded. "That's right. We can't let these folks know your father was killed by Indians."

  "But what if they ask me?" the girl wheedled.

  "I'm sure they won't."

  "But what if they do?"

  Livi exchanged a long look with her son. "If anyone asks how your papa died, tell them he was sick."

  "Very sick," Tad put in.

  "But that would be a lie," Cissy insisted primly. "Papa told me never to lie to anyone."

  "Pa will forgive you for lying this once," Tad assured her.

  When had her son become so sanguine about lying? Livi wondered. Where had a boy his age learned that sometimes lies were necessary?

  Could two children keep such a volatile secret? Livi wondered. Could she go on without confiding her
fears and grief to anyone? Yet what choice did they have? If they were going to reach Kentucky and settle David's land, they had to find passage with other travelers going west.

  "If things were different, I wouldn't ask you to do this," Livi murmured, looking down into her daughter's dark eyes.

  The child answered with a nod. "All right, Mama. I'll do what you say, if you're sure Papa wouldn't mind."

  "You need to swear not to tell," Tad insisted.

  "Tad!" Livi gasped. Bending the truth to reach Kentucky was one thing. Swearing a four-year-old to secrecy was another thing entirely.

  "No, Ma, she has to swear."

  The little girl nodded, caught up in some childish ritual Livi had long ago forgotten. "What do I have to do to swear, Tad?"

  "Repeat after me... I promise—"

  "'I promise—'"

  "Not to tell anyone how my pa died—"

  "'Not to tell anyone how my pa died—'"

  "Until we get to Kentucky."

  "'Until we get to Kentucky.'"

  "Then cross your heart and spit in your hand," Tad instructed.

  "Tad!" Livi admonished second time.

  Cissy performed the appropriate ritual, and Tad did the same. He took her hand in his and pressed their palms together.

  Livi grimaced.

  "Now you've given me your sacred word," he told her solemnly. "You can never break it as long as you live."

  Cissy stared wide-eyed as if she had been part of something infinitely important. "Oh, I never will!"

  "Now," Livi muttered when they were done, "do you suppose I could have some help unsaddling these horses?"

  She and the children went about their task with newfound proficiency. After a quick wash at a basin in the yard and a few swipes of a comb, they joined Captain Anderson and a dozen or so others at the long plank table in the Block House's main room.

  Since its construction in the opening days of America's War for Independence, the formidable log structure and the meadow around it had become a gathering place for travelers headed to Kentucky. Built at the junction of the trail from the Holston River settlements and the road that ran the length of the Shenandoah Valley, the Block House was the final bastion of civilization on the fringe of the frontier.