Read Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] for Free Online Page B

Elija, and help me with the baskets.”
    As soon as they went out the door, Amy slid her feet into heavy, fur-lined moccasins and put on Juicy’s old fur coat. She pushed her hair up into a wool cap and slipped out the back way. She had been cooped up too long in the house with too many people. She needed solitude, the scent of the woods, freedom.
    The setting sun transmitted rays of red and orange colors across the white snow that crunched beneath her feet. She cut through the woods, walking with her head up, as Juicy had taught her to do. The sights and sounds and smells of the woods made her realize how precious her freedom was; how much better this was than the prison walls of a cabin, and how much better than being tied to a dull man like Tally Perkins for the rest of her life.
    Her eyes grew misty, filled and spilled over.
    Amy came out of the woods and started down the road leading to Mr. Washington’s ferry. It wasn’t Mr. Washington’s now, but she still thought of it as his. The giant black man who built it had been killed during an Indian attack, and the ferry was now run by the Harmonists, members of a strict religious group under George Rapp who had moved in from Pennsylvania a year or two ago and established a colony just across the river on the Indiana side.
    She rounded a bend in the road and saw two riders coming toward her; the sound of their horses’ hooves were muffled by the soft snow. A man in a heavy wool coat and fur hat was riding a dun and leading a buckskin carrying a blanket-wrapped figure leaning on the horse’s neck. Probably a drunk, Amy thought with distaste. Down-and-outers moved through there all the time on their way to Vincennes. In the summer they came by boat; in the winter by horseback or on foot. If they didn’t have money to stay at the inn they would bed down in the barn. She moved off the road toward the timber and slipped her hand inside her coat where her knife was tucked in her belt.
    Amy had intended to turn into the woods again, but the men had seen her. She had no fear of them; but if they meant her harm, she could lose them in the deep thicket. She continued on along the edge of the woods a good two dozen feet back from the road.
    The man on the dun horse pulled up. He was big and had a black stubble of beard on his face. The horse moved restlessly as if wanting to go on. The man held him with a light hand on the rein.
    “Boy,” he called. “Is this Quill’s Station?”
    Amy nodded. There was something about his voice and the way he sat the saddle that kindled a spark in her memory. A deep frown wrinkled her brow.
    “It’s changed,” he said as if to himself. “Ruined. Hell! It’s a regular town.” He dipped his head at Amy, kicked the dun, and the horse moved on down the road.
    Amy stood for a full minute looking after him. A tingling started in her legs and moved upward as the knowledge of who he was slowly seeped into her senses. She froze, then her muscles tensed and she began to shake. Her heart stopped and then began again, thundering in her ears.
    “My God . . . it’s him!” She lost her breath. “Rain! Rain has come back!” She pressed a clenched fist tightly against her mouth to keep from calling out, and her eyes blurred so that she could scarcely see him as he rode on down the trail.
    Boy! He had called her boy! He hadn’t recognized her.
    Jubilation, fear and anxiety vied for possession of her mind. She had to get back to the house and out of her britches before she saw him again. She darted into the woods and ran as if she were being chased by a pack of wolves.
    Her heart sang, He’s back! He’s back! It’s Christmastime and Rain has come home!

CHAPTER
    Three
    Rain tugged on the lead rope, glanced at the boy who rode behind him, and moved the dun on down the road toward the settlement.
    Everything but the slow smoke that rose from a dozen chimneys was still in the cold evening. Quill’s Station was a convenient stop, he had heard, for