The Frontiersman’s Daughter by Laura Frantz Read Free Book Online

better for snakebite.”
    Up so high, Lael seemed to shed her burdens. Thoughts of Captain Jack were fleeting, if at all. She had less luck with Simon. The note remained in her pocket, perused in solitary moments when she relieved herself behind a bush or tree. With Ma Horn busy stuffing her head full of herbal lore, Lael felt she was back in settlement school again, only the learning was different and altogether more pleasurable.
    Unexpected riches bloomed around every bend. Golden ginseng. Velvety sumac. Indian peaches and pale red serviceberries. Lael would bend down a limb and stand and eat her fill before filling her basket. Once back at the cabin, they dried herbs and berries on strips of chestnut bark in the sun. A butter churn was filled to the brim with blackberry wine. Lael looked about in wonder as every barrel, bucket, piggin, and washtub seemed overflowing with nature’s offerings.
    Ma Horn never stopped until nightfall when she’d crack the cabin door and sit and smoke her pipe. Her rifle was ever near, a reminder of troubled times. Lael wondered if she used it for much other than meat. She didn’t know what one old woman and an older gun could do against even one Indian but held her tongue.
    Each evening Ma Horn would make a tonic, one for herself and one for Lael, and Lael would try to guess which herbs she’d used by the way they scented the room.
    “Take this basswood blossom tea,” Ma Horn urged. “It’s good for female troubles. I’ll settle for some clover. It’ll help me to sleep.”
    “But I don’t have any female troubles,” Lael said. “Leastways, not bodily.”
    “Well, fine and dandy, just drink it down anyway. It does a body good.”

    June melted into July. The woods were kiln hot, flowers and berries bursting forth before their time. Lael felt feverish and wondered how her mother’s garden fared. Up so high, Ma Horn had no garden to speak of. Most everything she ate she ate wild from the woods. Meat and meal were traded for her herbs, but when her larder ran low, she simply prayed and it was provided.
    “The Almighty knows what I need before I ask Him,” she’d say, “but I ask just the same.”
    Lael wondered if the Almighty knew she needed to stay atop Pigeon Ridge, out of sight and trouble. She missed home, but not Ma’s fractious temper. Once Pa came and left a sack of salt, but they didn’t see him, busy as they were gathering wads of wild grapes and Indian peaches to dry. Although he wasn’t there, she sensed he was often with her. Comforted, she clung to this whenever she felt afraid, when the shadows of twilight fell and she imagined she heard Indian drums in the distant darkness.
    As the days melted together they worked feverishly to harvest all they could, for it would keep them—and the settlers—in good health through the coming winter. When the gathering was done, they simply filled the hours a different way, distributing tonics and herb bundles all over the settlement. Once, Lael awoke to find Ma Horn gone, but by dusk she’d returned with a fresh ham to hang and a mess of beans as payment for a birth. Twins, she said.
    “Ain’t you ever fretful, Ma Horn?” Lael asked, staring pensively at the dark woods.
    But Ma Horn just chuckled, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. “If them Indians want my old hide, they can have it.”
    Lael found it hard not to laugh at the sight of her on old Soot, her black-clad legs thin as broom handles, one stiff petticoat rising above boots bearing silver buckles. With her black bonnet on her head, she looked dark and pensive. Like a crow, Lael thought.
    “I believe your pa’s fixin’ to come get you,” she said in early August. “I’ll sure be lonesome when you go. But before you do, there’s one last call we need to make.”
    The intensity of her tone made Lael wary. “Where to?”
    Ma Horn looked straight at her. “Your Uncle Neddy.”
    She felt her mouth go slack, then she recovered and looked around for the mule.