0

McAllister’s Ford, Pennsylvania

THE ATMOSPHERE AT MCALLISTER’S INN was

unusually subdued this evening, due mostly to the inclement weather that kept all but the hardiest of the county’s citizen’s indoors. For the better part of three days, it had rained steadily, sometimes falling in a heavy deluge, at others nothing more than a miserably cold mist that not only soaked through the heaviest woolens, but dampened the spirit as well.

One of those most affected was a middle-aged woman overseeing the moving of the better pieces of furniture to the second floor. Barely five-feet tall and spare to the point of spindliness, she stood at the bottom of the Jacobean staircase that divided the foyer in half. “Be careful, there, Jacob!” she cried when a chair leg barely missed the ornate newel post. “If you put a scratch on that staircase, I’ll have your hide!”

Jacob Miller, a lad of about seventeen, swallowed nervously and hoisted the chair a little higher.

“Meg, you aren’t helping,” an elderly man said, coming out of his chair in the common room to advance on her. He was head and shoulders over her, and her flash-fire temper didn’t frighten him a damn bit. “Will you leave the lads alone? The water’s not comin’ in this time.”

She turned on Zeb in a flash. “And you’re the expert?” “Yes. As a matter of fact, I am. I’ve watched the river and

creek for twenty-five years. It makes me an expert.” Zeb McAllister, proprietor of the inn and county circuit judge, adjusted his waistcoat with a sharp tug. He was affluent now, and he dressed the part, with a black superfine coat and a vest shot with silver thread. Black pantaloons and boots lent him a dignified and serious air that befitted his position in the county. His heavy shock of silver hair and florid face kept him from looking like an undertaker. “Why don’t you put the kettle on and have some catnip tea? Maybe it’ll calm your Irish down a bit.”

“Don’t you take that condescending tone with me,” Meg warned, her eyes narrowing and her chin jutting.

“It’s not condescension. It’s fact. You’re as nervous as a cat this evening. What ails you? Can’t be the threat of high water. You’ve been here almost as long as I have, and you’ve always weathered it without resorting to murder. The rivers and creeks, they own this land, you know it as well as I do.”

“They may well own it, but that don’t mean I have to like it! As for your catnip tea, you can bloody well stow it where the sun never shines! Ow! Damn it!” Her face twisted in agony, and she clamped a hand to her jaw.

“Ah, now it makes sense,” the judge said, wagging a finger at her. “It’s not just your nasty disposition that’s tying your drawers in a knot, it’s that damned tooth again. If you weren’t such a coward, you’d let Sam see to it. He can yank it out for you, and in a minute or two, it’d all be over. Done it for me a time or two, and I’m still standing.”

“You’re too pigheaded to turn up your toes,” Meg said. “Easy with that painting Jacob! Honestly! He’s the clumsiest boy I’ve ever seen!” She watched anxiously as the painting, a hunting scene done in dark tones with a gilt frame disappeared up the stairway.

“Have it your way, then,” Zeb said. “Be a coward.”

She was a coward. The toothaches were bad, but the thought of Samuel Ruston putting his instruments of torture in her mouth was ten times more frightening. It would have to get a lot worse before she consented to such a thing.

As for her bad temper, she couldn’t put a name to what was bothering her. She only knew that for several days, she’d been anxious. As if she was waiting for something bad to happen.

Could have been the rain. She couldn’t swim, and did not like high water, but as Zeb had said, the streams owned this land. Their periodic encroachment was a fact of life in this place.

The rains came, and the streams rose. The water entered the low-lying houses, and covered the land. Residents sought higher ground, stayed with relatives in better situations, and waited it out. The water receded, and the clean up began.

The good side of it all was the silt deposits that enriched the earth. It was prime farmland, and crop yield was nearly always high. The bad side of it all was the terrible workload it created. It took a lot of extra hands and many hours of hard labor to evict the water and mud left in the aftermath. But if God were kind, Zeb’s prediction would be correct, and her fretting would be for nothing.

Meg’s sharp glance surveyed the leavings. A few wooden chairs, tables, and benches that the mud couldn’t harm. It would be a bloody shame if the shining puncheons were awash in crud, but a good scrubbing and drying-out, and it could be rubbed with beeswax and almost good as new. Ruined paintings and water-stained velvet upholstery couldn’t be salvaged.

There was so much in life that a good scrubbing couldn’t wash away—like the indelible stain Zeb’s only daughter had left on his good name. She’d cut a wide and destructive swatch through the county before she’d finally settled down, and her bent for high drama had affected them all, including Meg.

Though the little bitch still wrote her father once or twice a month, Meg hadn’t heard anything from Eben in four long years. It was as if he’d gone from the earth—ceased to exist. And maybe he had.

He’d stepped over the boundary of the civilized world and into the dark unknown. The tales Meg had heard, and the things she had read about struck the worst sort of fear in her heart. So much could happen to a man in the wilderness, and though Eben was a capable man, he was also reckless.

Outside the windows, the rain fell steadily. Meg stared at the water sluicing over the windowpanes and beyond, the darkness. She could hear the drumming of the droplets on the roof, and sent up a hassled prayer for anyone unfortunate enough to be traveling this night.

There was nothing to do now, but wait.

Making her way to the kitchen, she took down a bottle of whiskey and pulled the cork. Filling her mouth, she held the fiery liquor over her bad tooth, and let it dull the persistent

throb. Then, rather than waste a good dram of fine whiskey, she swallowed the rest and sat down on the bench by the kitchen’s field stone hearth.

The kitchen floor was flagstone, in the center of which sat a long plank table. Above the hearth copper pots and pans, and iron skillets hung, within easy reach, but neatly stowed. On the floor at her feet, Venom, Eben’s blue-tick hound lay sleeping, close enough to the flames that he could absorb the heat without putting his coat in peril. “This downpour don’t bother you none, does it, old man?” Meg asked the hound. “Not a worry in the world. So, why do folks go on about havin’ a dog’s life?”

Venom’s big hammer head never moved from his paws, but he did open his eyes to look at Meg, and his tail thumped the old brass spittoon.

“Sure wish I knew where your master was this hellish evenin’. Ever think of him? I bet you do. I do, too. In fact, a little too much lately. Every time the door opens, I half-expect

—but it’s a foolish notion.”

Venom drifted off again, and the kitchen grew silent.

She’d been unable to put Eben from her thoughts for several days. It had gotten so bad that she was dreaming of him at night. That frightened her, for dreams were often harbingers of bad things to come. She tried to put that thought from her. Her gran had had the Sight, but she, herself had never displayed the slightest sign of extraordinary talents.

She’d waited a day or two, and when no ill news came, she told herself that it was nerves. “Aye, just nerves. That’s all it is. And it’ll pass. It always does.” Emulating her canine companion, Meg put her head back against the rocker’s headrest and closed her eyes to nap.

THE HORSE TURNED FROM THE muddy road and headed for the welcoming lights in the distance. Weary beyond belief, the smaller of the two riders rested her cheek against her companion’s broad back. His leather shirt was soaked like hers, and clammy against her skin, and she shivered.

Wet.

Everything in Raven’s world was wet, and had been for what seemed a century. Only a few days ago, they’d ended their three-week stay at Sally’s, and the bright, Indian summer days, and cozy nights seemed like a dream.

The male body she huddled against took the brunt of the driving rain. He hadn’t said a word since morning. Raven suspected he was dozing, letting the mare have her head as she seemed to know the way as well as he did, though how anyone could sleep with cold runnels coursing down his collar was beyond her comprehension. As for her own rest, that was in question, for the ferry ride over the swollen river would invade her nightmares for the rest of her life.

The lights were close now, and Raven made out a large square building constructed from hand-hewn stone. It had a broad portico across the front, and a smaller one on the opposite end. It was by the large porch that he reined in the mare and handed her down. “You all right?”

Raven nodded, not trusting her teeth not to chatter. “Let’s get you inside. I’ll send out a boy to bed down the

mare once you’re safe and warm.” He guided her to the steps, and to the door, his hand riding on the small of her back.

Eben opened the door and she stepped inside. Every head turned as he propped his rifle in the corner and led Raven to the fire. “Sit down, sweet. I’ll be but a moment.”

She watched him walk across the room and enter a dark hallway. A heartbeat later, there was an ear-splitting screech, followed by a string of epitaphs, then silence. Curious, Raven followed. The passageway led to a spacious kitchen. Close by the hearth, Eben had his arms around an elf-like woman, who seemed about to swoon. “Yes, it’s really me, Meg. For Christ’s sake, and mine, will you sit down?”

“No! I can’t—oh, my! Zeb! Zeb, come here!”

“What’s all the fuss about, woman? Has the river breached its banks?” Grumbling under his breath about high-strung women, an old, white-haired gentleman brushed past Raven

without noticing her, and stopped a few feet away from Eben. The two men exchanged glances, but the older man said nothing.

Eben broke the tense and waiting silence. “Zeb. You look well.”

“Well, this is a surprise.”

“A very pleasant surprise,” Meg put in, though her employer did not underscore that sentiment. “My God, look at you! Haven’t you been eating? You’ve lost a good fifteen pounds!”

“I worked it off.” He caught sight of Raven and now he motioned her forward, putting a protective arm around her shoulders. “Meg, Zeb, this is Raven, my ward.”

“Your ward?” Meg said.

“It’s a long story, and if you don’t mind I’d rather wait a while to tell it. Raven needs a hot bath and a hearty meal in that order. We’ve been travelling in this mess all day.” He shifted his glance from Meg to Zeb. “That is, if you’ve room for us?”

Meg reached out and pinched Zeb, who finally answered. “Of course, there’s room. This is your home, Eben, and you are always welcome here.”

The words did not come easily, and Raven sensed that the tension emanating from Eben had to do with more than the fact that he was cold, wet, and weary. But whatever was going on between the two men was pushed into the background for the moment, and Raven was strangely relieved.

Once Meg was convinced that Eben was real, and not just a figment she’d conjured up, she quickly took the situation in hand, putting a kettle of water on to warm before she summoned a servant to help her. Nan took her time in getting there, and arrived straightening her skirts, several pieces of straw stuck to her dirty-blond hair.

“Lazy little witch, get upstairs and freshen a room for this child before she takes ill. And be quick about it.”

Nan made a moue at Eben, and purposely brushed against him as she walked by. “And what room shall I put her mister in, Miss Meg?”

“The one at the end of the hall, facing the hills’ll do just fine. Now, hurry, and tell Jacob he’ll be needed in a little while to help with the bath water.”

When the water was warm, Meg took Raven upstairs to a room on the left side of a wide hallway. It was more plainly appointed than the room at Sally’s, with lace curtains at the windows and a simple quilt spread over the four-poster bed. “Will you need help getting out of those wet things?” Meg asked.

“Thank you, but I can manage.”

“All right, then,” Meg said, rubbing her palms on her apron. “Chase the chill from your bones, and I’ll be back in a bit.”

DOWNSTAIRS, EBEN PULLED OUT A cheroot and held the tip to the common room fire. He’d gone to his bedchamber long enough to change into dry clothing. Meg had had Jacob Miller bring his old trunk from the attic, and his shirts and trousers still fit.

“Your arrival was a little unexpected,” Zeb said. He was seated at a corner table, a Bible open on the table before him.

Eben drew on the cheroot and smoke rose to wreath his head. “If it inconveniences you, I’ll take the girl and find other lodging on the morrow.” His relationship with the old man had been severely strained when he abruptly left years before, and it appeared that much hadn’t changed.

“And what about this girl, Eben? Who is she? And how does she come to be under your protection?”

Eben looked sharply up, his eyes narrowed against the stinging smoke. “And what is that supposed to mean? You think I’m unfit to look after her?”

“I think she might fare better in other circumstances.” “Raven is not your daughter, Zeb. Far from it.”

Zeb straightened. He looked imperious, unyielding—every inch the judge. And he was judging Eben. “I have not mentioned Ivory’s name.”

“You didn’t need to. It’s obvious what you were thinking.” “You have not answered me! How came you by this child?” “She is not a child, damn it!” he answered back, more

sharply than he would have if the judgment hadn’t stung. Deep inside, the judge’s accusation found fertile, guilty soil and sprouted. It was true that Raven might have fared better in the company of someone who’d been less taken with her, more self-disciplined, better able to resist his worst impulses. He ran the knuckle of his right thumb across his lips, the cheroot resting between his fingers still streaming fragrant smoke into the air. “My horse came up lame in Indiana Territory, and I stopped by a trading post to buy lodging for the night. And lucky for her that I did. Inside that post, an old Frenchman lay close to death. He begged me to take his daughter with me, to see her settled here, and that is exactly what I did.”

“So she has been under your wing for a week?”

Still that tone of accusation. Eben shifted uncomfortably. “A little more than that.”

“And now what?” Zeb questioned.

“She needs a wardrobe, shoes and the like, and I will see to it. As for the rest, I will need to think about it.”

“See that you don’t think too long,” Zeb told him.

It was a challenge, and it angered Eben. His expression darkened. “That sort of thing didn’t work when I was sixteen, and it sure as hell won’t work now. If you wish me to vacate your property then say so, but don’t try to tell me how to conduct my business.”

“What about your business? Have you stopped searching?” “I will never stop searching,” Eben said, flatly. ‘If Jase is

out there, I’ll find him.”

“Has it occurred to you that if he managed somehow to survive, that he’s been transformed into something no decent

white man could claim?” Zeb ran a thumb down the center of the interior spine of the Bible, where the pages parted. “Think about it, long and hard, boy, then let it go.”

“I’m not your boy, old man, and I will never let it go! Jase is my blood kin.” Eben drew in a deep breath. A few seconds passed and he got his anger under control sufficiently to resist shouting at his benefactor. The man had done well by him as a lad. He owed him respect, if nothing else, especially under his rooftree. “What I intend this evening is a hot bath, and something to fill my gullet, and maybe some sleep if my aching body will allow it. Anything more can wait till the morrow.”

Eben turned then, and went quietly up the stairs, leaving Zeb to the solace of his Scripture.