Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] Read Free Page A

held it to his feverish cheek. “I’m sorry I’m no help to you.”
    “You will be when you’re feeling better. We’ll get a fire going and I’ll make you some hot switchel.”
    “I don’t know, Libby. I don’t know if I can drink it.” His voice rasped and a severe fit of coughing seized him.
    “Of course you can. I’ll put in a dab of rum.” She spoke gently when his coughing subsided. “You’ll get well, and we’ll build us a place near the river where you can get the finest clay to make your pots. People need jugs out here, too. Maybe we can send them downriver to New Orleans. I’ll do the farming and we’ll have milk and butter and eggs to make the nog you like so much.”
    “I’m not much good to you, Libby.” His voice was so much like her father’s defeated voice that it frightened her.
    “Yes, you are. You’re going to get well, or I’ll . . . or I’ll snatch you plumb bald, Jubal Perry. That’s what I’ll do,” she threatened with a catch in her voice, hoping he would smile.
    He didn’t.
    “We’re going to have that place we dreamed about, away from Stith Lenning, away from all of those pissants back in Middlecrossing who thought a jug was a jug as long as it held their corn liquor.” She brought his thin hand to her cheek, one of the few gestures of affection she had ever shown him.
    “Is it still raining, Libby? I don’t know as I ever felt the cold and damp so much. I don’t know how Hammond has stood this country.”
    “It’s only a puny little old drizzle now. Tomorrow the sun will be out and will dry things off. Try to sleep, Jubal. Are you warm enough?”
    “I guess so. Are we keeping up? It seems like we go so slow and stop a lot.”
    “We’re keeping up. We’re all stopping today because of the weather. It won’t be long, Jubal, and you’ll see Hammond.” Liberty felt not a twinge of guilt for the lie she was telling. She would tell a hundred lies, she vowed, if it would ease Jubal’s mind.
    “I hope so. You’d better get out of those wet clothes or you’ll come down with the fever.” He wearily closed his eyes.
    Liberty looked at him for a moment. His mouth was agape as he struggled to get air to his lungs. The daylight that filtered through the thick forest made the interior of the wagon dark and gloomy and gave a yellowish cast to his face. She could not remember feeling more helpless or more alone. It was her fault they were there. Jubal had given up everything to try to keep her out of Stith’s clutches. She knew it wasn’t fear for his life that prompted him to leave Middlecrossing. He had taken a fatalistic attitude about Stith killing him. Now he would die and be left in this lonely place.
    She stroked his hot, dry brow and thought back to the day she had married Jubal. She had been sure Stith would back off and leave her alone, but that wasn’t the case. He seemed to be all the more determined. As the days, weeks and months passed, she was afraid to be alone even long enough to go to the outhouse. She talked it over with Jubal and they had decided to move West. Together they had reread the letters he had received over the last few years from his brother, Hammond, telling about the free land in the Illinois and Indiana country. He was a militiaman, and when Ohio became a state in 1803, he had been sent further west to posts along the Ohio River. At Limestone they were told he was at Louisville, and there they were told he was at Vincennes, so they had joined the party led by Hull Dexter, who promised to take them to the village on the Wabash River.
    Liberty allowed herself one brief moment of regret for the pain she had caused her gentle husband, then she squared her shoulders and climbed out of the wagon. She unhitched the oxen and staked them beneath the tree where they could reach the long, green grass. Elija and Amy searched for dry wood. They found some and piled it beside the wagon. Liberty dug punk from a rotten log, poured on a small