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

saying something to her father that she would regret later.
    It was Farrway who lifted Jubal out of the wagon and gently placed him on the pallet Liberty had made inside the low tent. He roused and his eyes sought Liberty’s.
    “It’s all right. He’s helping us, Jubal.” She covered him and gently turned his face toward the fire.
    “Libby . . . I’m sorry,” he gasped. “Don’t go back. Go on and find Hammond.”
    “We’re going to stay right here until you’re better. Then we’ll go to Hammond together.” She stroked his hot, dry forehead as if he were a sick child. He closed his eyes wearily.
    Farrway fashioned a curved piece of bark to funnel the plume of steam coming from the teakettle into the tent over Jubal’s face. He kept the fire built up and the teakettle filled while Liberty placed warm wet cloths over Jubal’s face at intervals so he could breathe in the warm dampness. Elija, grumbling that what they were doing was useless, crawled into the wagon and went to bed.
    At first it seemed Jubal was able to breathe easier. It was almost as though he were sleeping peacefully. Then he roused and Liberty knew he was delirious when he started babbling about his mother who died when Hammond was born and his father who despised him because all he wanted to do was make pots and jugs.
    “Don’t . . . Pa! Don’t break ’em. I done my chores! Please, Pa. I’ll work hard—” The words came from his cracked lips in gasps. “Libby asked me to marry her. Me, old Jubal Perry can have pretty Liberty Carroll for my wife. I’m old . . . I don’t know what to do. It hadn’t ought to be like this—Stith’ll crush her, make her old . . . worn out! I’ll kill him . . . oh, I wish I could kill him. We’d not have to go if I did.”
    “Jubal, dear, don't worry about Stith. Shhh. . . .” He tried to raise up and Liberty gently pushed him down.
    “He’ll put out my eyes! He said he’d put out my eyes so I couldn’t see Libby!” His eyes rolled back in their sockets and he struggled for breath through quivering lips. “She’s . . . sweet, and I can’t let him hurt her . . . If I was big and strong, I’d fight him . . . I want to, but I’m afraid—”
    “It’s all right, Jubal. You don’t have to fight anyone.” Liberty spoke soothingly and stroked the hair back from his face with her fingertips. “Don’t think about Stith. He can’t hurt us now. I’m here with you. I don’t care if you’re not a big, strong man. You’re a good man and the best potter in all New York State and this vast territory. You make beautiful, lasting things, and that’s more important than being able to fight. I’ve got your best pieces packed in my trunk. No one will ever have them. I’ll keep them forever and . . . ever—” A sob came up in her throat, and she choked it back. “Think about that clay dye you were going to make, Jubal. You said the madder plant would make strong red to go with your blue. Your jugs will be so pretty with blue and red stripes around them.”
    Liberty looked up at the tall stranger with tears clouding her eyes. “He dying,” she whispered.
    Farrway squatted down on his haunches. “Yes, ma’am.”
    She gazed at him blankly as if she had not heard clearly what he had said. She shivered.
    Farrway sat back on his haunches and studied the woman. The shock at seeing her standing in the firelight in her pantaloons, with hair as white as a cloud floating down about her shoulders and over her breasts had stopped him in his tracks. He had just come from the Shawnee village where he had visited his friend, John Spotted Elk, and the light-haired woman had been a sight to stop any man. He had been dumbfounded to see the lone wagon with a fire blazing. The road from Louisville to Shawneetown had almost been taken over by roving bands of cutthroats and robbers, not like a few years before when all one had to worry about was Indians. It had been his intention to give these people a warning and