Nancy Whiskey

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“No, that is all I imagine I am worth at such a task, since I have no doubt you will be an enormous amount of trouble and I shall make a poor job of it. So you may stay in Philadelphia for all I care, or follow us if you choose.”

With that, he led out his string of pack animals and proceeded northwest out of the city.

“Well, Daniel,” Trueblood said, drawing level with him, “you did not handle that very well.”

“Is she coming?” his brother asked apprehensively, without daring to turn his head.

Trueblood glanced over his shoulder. “Yes. She has fallen in between my string and Cullen’s. What would you have done if she had not? Gone back and taken her by force?”

“Oh, no. I thought I would leave that to you.”

“Such high-handed methods would never work with Nancy. She is used to being in charge.”

“Then she had best accustom herself to taking orders. Do not laugh at me.”

“I never laugh at you, Daniel.”

“Not so anyone would notice, but you derive a deal of amusement at my expense.”

“As you are so bent on arguing, I will frustrate you by agreeing completely.”

It was some hours before they had passed beyond the environs of the city and the close farms that supplied it Nancy gave a sigh of contentment as they left civilization behind for the sweeter air and breezier expanses of the country. After half a day’s travel they passed through stretches of cool forest, where the ponies’ shod feet thumped on the hard-packed road, the sound echoing off the leaves. Thousands of birds must be flitting about in the canopy, and the undergrowth, she was sure, hid all sorts of wildlife. As much as she was enjoying the new geography, she had the strangest feeling of foreboding, as if they were intruding where they did not belong.

When the serving girls had heard she was to travel to Pittsburgh, Prudence and Tibby had filled her head with tales of scalping and capture by Indians. Nancy tried to picture Trueblood in a killing rage, but she could not. He was too tame. She tried to picture being carried off by a war party, but the landscape seemed so benign. They were just foolish girls, after all. Daniel would never take her where there was any real danger.

She tried to picture being scalped, for the victims of such attacks were not always dead when this occurred, according to Prudence. They could, in fact, live some days in great pain, or even some years in great ugliness. That was the most appalling part. The horror, Nancy thought, was in being defaced, in being made ugly and in being made to long for death. She had only been thinking of war in terms of noble wounds. That headless sailor had put an end to any idea she might have that war was noble. Wounds would always be ugly to her now, and the foolish gossip of two serving girls had killed her complacency about their journey. Nancy had known fear on the ship but had found she could face it. She now knew that there were some fears she would carry to bed with her in her nightmares even if they were based in her own reality. These horrors had happened even if they had not happened to her. She empathized too much with the ghosts of those who had suffered. Even knowing she could still help the living did not lift her spirits.

They rested the horses at noon, but took time for no more than a few bites of bread and a drink of water. Toward late afternoon, when Nancy assumed Daniel would scout about for a likely campsite, he surprised her by pulling into an inn yard and negotiating with the proprietor for accommodations for them and their considerable string.

Over dinner—a hearty stew—he asked a subdued Nancy, “Are you still hungry? You may have anything you want from the groaning board, some fruit and nuts, or some cheese, perhaps.” Daniel motioned toward the feast that was to be had at a slight extra expense.

“Nothing. The stew and biscuit were fine.”

“If you are tired you can retire immediately, and we will make a late start tomorrow.”

She shook her head, realizing she had to drive off the demons that haunted her if she were to live in this land. “The country is quite lovely, but rather tamer than I had anticipated,” she said with mock bravado.

“And you are disappointed.”

“Well, yes.”

“What were you expecting?”

She decided not to confide the stories of the scalpings to him. “That it would be more difficult.”

“Perhaps we will run into rain. Would that make it difficult enough?” Daniel teased.

“I suppose. Perhaps it is the time of year. One really cannot expect too many hardships in September, unless of course we were to be attacked by Indians.” She glanced sideways at him.

Daniel laughed. “Always joking, Nancy. Why, such a thing has not happened in what, Trueblood—two or three—”

“At least four weeks.”

“Four weeks?” Nancy squeaked, as Trueblood mopped the last of the stew from his wooden trencher with his bis-’ cuit and filled his mouth with it. She stared numbly at him as he then flipped the wooden disk over and went to select a half chicken and a large cutting of cheese for himself. Cullen grinned and beckoned the landlord to refill their tankards.

“Four weeks,” Nancy repeated. “And people live out here as though nothing has happened. How can they bear it?”

“You are afraid!” Daniel blurted out in surprise, his intense blue eyes searching Nancy’s face.

“Yes, I am afraid,” she said pathetically. “But I suppose I will get used to that just like everything else.”

Daniel reached across the table and took her hand. “What I was going to say, when I was so rudely interrupted by my brother, was that such a thing has not happened for years around Pittsburgh. It is true that the Canadians are inciting the Indians to attack the more remote settlers’ cabins, but those are isolated incidents.”

“Oh, that makes me feel so much better,” she said resentfully.

“And you will not be at some isolated cabin in the middle of the back woods, but at an inn on a well-traveled road. To be sure, you have nothing to fear from any Indian but Trueblood, and that is only if he bores you to death with his doltish behavior.” Daniel nodded toward his brother, who was dismembering the chicken.

Nancy smiled at him and shook her head. Of course Daniel would never take her anyplace dangerous. She had been foolish to let those stories worry her.

When Daniel helped Nancy mount her bay mare the next day he noticed that she was smiling again and her hair was wet. As it dried it fell like a shimmer of gold about her shoulders. He started out at her end of the train so that he would be able to watch her without getting a stiff neck. But that only led him to contemplate an idyllic future with her, which he realized might be far from Nancy’s expectations. That she liked him he knew, but he was very far from winning her. During a rest he traded places with Cullen to clear his head. He must get his mind back on Dupree and the fomenting rebellion or he would never get this job out of the way. That was odd in itself, that he would be impatient with an assignment rather than intently thinking of nothing else.

At their noon stop Nancy demanded, “See here, I have been talking to Cullen and he informs me that you do not always travel this way.”

“What way?” Daniel asked, tearing off a mouthful of bread.

“From inn to inn as though you are on a tour. I wondered how you could make any profit if you were forever paying for food and lodging, especially Trueblood’s food. Cullen tells me you normally make your own camp and hunt game along the way.”

“I see no reason for you not to have a bed, if there is one to be had.”

“Considering the number of fleabites I have gotten I would by far rather sleep on the clean hard ground.”

“But you had warm water and a room to bathe in this morning. You won’t have that if we travel rough.”

“Yes, and now that I am free of vermin again I intend to stay that way. I can heat water as well as the next woman if you have a pot. Well, have you one?”

“Yes, at your disposal, Miss Riley,” Daniel said, tipping his hat.

“I expect we can make better time also, now that you will not be forever looking for an inn.”

“However did we manage without you, Nancy girl?” Trueblood asked.

“I have had quite enough of this delay”, Daniel said, getting to his feet and preparing to mount.

“Delay? You cannot pretend that I held you up, for I can make more than fifteen miles a day even if I walk.”

“How on earth would you know that?” Daniel asked as he lifted her onto her small mare.

“I practiced.”

“Practiced walking fifteen miles a day?”

“Twenty, actually. I had to be sure I could manage it, don’t you see? In case we should ever be on a forced march, or, God forbid, a retreat.”

“Well, do not let us hold you up, Captain Riley,” he taunted. “Would you like, perhaps, to lead the way?”

“The way, as you call it, is plainly marked and I suppose anyone could find it here. But I suspect it may become more convoluted when we reach the mountains. I am content for you to lead.”

“Content, are you?” Daniel glowered at her, then set off with his string of ponies, pretending not to care if anyone followed him or not.

“Child, if you knew how much you bother him,” Trueblood said with a chuckle as he brought his own string of ponies up level with her.

“I do know.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“When he is competent and in control, he takes me for granted. He may even forget I am here. When I throw him off his guard, he can think of nothing but me.”

“And how much he would like to give you the whipping you deserve.”

“Did he say that?”

“Somewhat incoherently, but that was the gist of it. Does it worry you?”

“No, for I do not think he really means it,” she said wistfully.

“You would never tolerate it.”

“No, of course not. But if we were married, there is not a great deal I could do about it.”

Not for the first time, Nancy left Trueblood with a puzzled frown. Normally when a woman said something nonsensical he merely thought she was babbling. But Nancy was an intelligent woman, and here she was acting as irresponsibly as a moonstruck girl…That was it! She was in love, and Daniel had not the slightest inkling. There was nothing new about that. Daniel only wanted women who were ineligible. If a woman fell in love with him, he had not the acuity to realize it.

Trueblood hastened to catch up with Daniel. “What do you intend doing about Nancy?”

“What the hell do you mean by that? I am delivering her to her father.”

“Well, Daniel, you have a reputation for impatience, especially with women. For using them rather hastily and leaving them in despair. If you—”

“Trueblood, what have you done? Have you fallen in love with Nancy?”

“In a manner of speaking, I have, but not in the way you imagine.”

“If there was ever a time to speak clearly, brother,” Daniel threatened through clenched teeth, “it is now!”

Trueblood blinked at him. “I mean that I treasure Nancy for her talents, her loyalty, her…hmm…”

“What?”

“There is something even I cannot fathom about her. Nevertheless, believe me when I say that if you mean to seduce her and leave her weeping, I will nip this affair in the bud.”

“I believe you mean it,” Daniel said in astonishment, taking in the determined set of his brother’s brows.

“It is the only thing you could do that would make me turn against you.”

“She has made an impression.” Daniel stared ahead at a twist in the road, trying to picture Trueblood not at his side. It was inconceivable.

“I think she would also make you an admirable wife. No other woman we have ever encountered has been at all suitable for you.”

“Is that why you relieve me of them so consistently?” “As I would remove a poison mushroom from your plate, for your own good.”