Courting Morrow Little: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

steps.
    He took her in head to toe with a surprised grin, as if making up for the time they'd been apart. "Well, I doubt I'd know
you if you hadn't answered to your name. The fort's all abuzzel
with news that you've come back. But I had to come over here
and see for myself."
    "I've not been home long," she said with a smile, hovering
on the last step.
    He pulled on his unkempt beard, eyes alight. "Well, it's high
time I showed you my son;' he told her. "We're calling him Elias,
or Little Eli, after your pa"
    She came forward, eyeing the bundle. "Pa told me the happy
news. He's hardly a month old, is that right?"
    Even before Morrow asked, Good Robe was offering her treasure. "You like?"
    Touched, Morrow took the baby, thinking him no heavier
than a feather pillow. The sight of his tiny face, eyes shuttered
in sleep, wee fists curled tightly beneath his chin, filled her with
wonder. "He's ... beautiful:"
    "Good Robe was a mite skittish about comin' over here, seein'
as how Aunt Sally turned her away," Joe said. "But I told her you
ain't nothin' like them other settlement women:'
    Morrow flushed. Just yesterday Pa had related in the most
genteel terms how Good Robe had walked miles to the fort
while laboring only to have the settlement midwife shun her.
She'd given birth on the trail going home, and after a frantic
hunt Joe had found her, alone but having safely delivered their
son. Morrow's heart twisted at the telling, yet she could hardly blame Aunt Sally either. The woman had lost a child in an Indian
raid and had worn her unforgiveness like a badge of bitterness
ever since.

    "Please sit down and I'll make you some coffee;' she told
them, passing the baby back to Good Robe and showing her
to a rocking chair. As she filled a small kettle with water and
measured coffee at the hearth, she heard the scrape of boots
on the porch.
    Pa came in, mouth curving warmly at the sight of them. "Glad
to see you, Joe, Good Robe. Is that my namesake there?"
    "Sure is," Joe answered. "I was just showin' him off to Miz
Morrow. But I got other business to discuss with you once we've
had some coffee:'
    Hearing the somber edge to his voice, Morrow felt a touch
of dread. Often, fresh from his forays into the woods, Joe would
bring back news of what was truly happening on the western
fringe of the frontier-not the slanted, tainted tales often told
by British and American officers and the local militia, but the
honest-to-goodness truth.
    She served Good Robe first, then took the men their coffee
on the back porch, where they sat with their pipes, enjoying a
rare rain. Even the birdsong had stilled, giving way to the gentle
slurring sound as the midsummer dust was dampened down.
Standing in the dogtrot and looking toward the river, Morrow
fancied she could smell honeysuckle, its sweet scent banishing
the lingering supper smells.
    She felt a bit awkward left alone with Good Robe. The Indian
girl spoke little English that she knew of, though Joe spoke her
tongue like he was born to it. They'd wed right before she'd
left for Philadelphia, Morrow remembered. Joe had supposedly swapped five horses for her in some Indian town across
the Ohio River. As the story circulated through the settlement,
its baseness hurt her somehow. The Almighty had created man and woman and called it good, Pa said, and a woman's worth
wasn't measured in horses. But to his credit, Joe did seem to
care for her.

    The sight of Good Robe rocking her baby was a welcome
distraction, given the intense if hushed tones of the men outside.
A sudden lull in their voices made her turn and look beyond
the back door. Fireflies winged about with tiny lanterns on their
backs, resurrecting a memory she'd rather forget. She sighed
and tried to put it down, but it came on anyway.
    When she and Jess were small, they'd catch a dozen or so
fireflies and imprison them in glass jars, but he'd cry after mere
minutes and beg to release them. Did he,