An Undisturbed Peace Read Online Free PDF Page B

his unspoken prayer, she put an arm around his waist and helped him into her home, where she stripped him, washed his wounds with all the care she’d given the horse, applying the same paste to those she reopened. Abe summoned every ounce of stoicism he possessed not to wince or groan while she worked on him and he was successful, although once or twice he sucked air through his teeth. “Now, tell me what happened that brought you to my door in this state,” she said once she put him to bed, naked under the animal skins. He sipped one of her healing soups from a clay bowl and felt oddly at home. He wanted to gather her in his arms but she was at the wood stove stirring more soup so he reported every detail he could remember instead.
    Marian took in all he told her in silence. She left to tend her animals and his. When she returned, she sat on the bed. He was nearly asleep by then, but through his fog of pain and longing, he heard her say, “I know who it was, torturing women and children, carting them away.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œIt was the hirelings of my beautiful white neighbors who want my people gone from these hills. That’s who.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œIt’s as regular as the seasons. The whites raid our villages. We raid theirs. This happens usually at the borders of our territories, but lately, they hire the most vicious warriors to advance deeper and deeper into our forests. First it was the low country, now the foothills. They think to ride over us into the mountains.”
    â€œThen you’re in danger, Marian. You must come back to my uncle’s town with me.”
    Marian laughed. “I’ve been in danger ever since I left my clan. I’ve been in more danger ever since I took over this cabin when the daughter of old Turkey Foot went to live with her new man in Tennessee. I will not go with you. I’ve fought white men off before. I will not leave the land.”
    â€œCome with me. I owe you this much.” She looked at him with her eyebrows raised and shrugged. Why? the shrug asked. Why do you owe me? He said, “For everything you’ve done for me today and for my horse.” Her expression went from questioning to something with a touch of exasperation in it. “Why would I not help two injured creatures at my door? Consider my debt for the gunpowder paid.”
    He reached for her and took up her hands, kissed them. He fixed his gaze to hers.
    â€œMarian. I fear you are underestimating the troubles around you. I heard those people. I heard the screams. I smelled the burning, perhaps of their very flesh. I want you to come with me. I am in love with you. I will take care of you forever.”
    â€œPeddler,” she said, because she could not remember his name, “I will not go with you. I do not love you. I do not even know you. Except now, I am beginning to see you are a fool.”
    The young lover was dumbstruck. His jaw flapped uselessly, as he had not words for her nor could he pull any out of his heart or mind or the thin mountain air. The sight of him, wide-eyed and robbed of speech, jaw flapping away, his lower lip dropping to expose pink gums, proved the point of her assessment. She shrugged, told him the soup had something in it that would make him sleep, as sleep would heal him, and prepared to leave the cabin for her daily chores of milking goats, working her fields, and hunting game. When finally he managed to shout, “Marian, wait!” she was gone.
    He tried to get up, but the drug in the soup made his limbs too stiff and there was nothing to do but close his heavy eyes and drift away.
    He slept like the dead. Had a fire, earthquake, or hurricane occurred, he’d have entered paradise yawning and confused. When he did wake, it was near noon the following day. The streaming sun opened his eyes. He was alone. His limbs were still stiff but less so. His clothes were at the foot of the bed, clean and