Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] Read Free Page B

amount of black powder, then struck steel against flint to make a spark. It caught suddenly, and she fed in small twigs until it blazed brightly.
    “How’s Jubal?” Elija asked without looking at her. It would take the rest of the day for him to end his pouting.
    “His cough is worse.”
    “He’ll choke is what he’ll do. Lung fever’s bad. Mighty bad. It dang near killed off the army at the Potomac. General Washington was in a fine kettle a fish, I tell you. Why, when I was a boy, my papa said—”
    “Get some more wood, Papa. Then we’ve got to build some sort of shelter so I can cook something hot for Jubal and Amy.”
    “Papa do this, Papa do that,” he grumbled. “Papa’s good enuff ta work, but he ain’t good enuff to listen to. And his advice ain’t worth a flitter.”
    “Advice is like croton oil. It’s easy to give to someone else.” Liberty tried to take the sting from her words by smiling at her sister as she took a load of wood from her arms. “Are you warm now?”
    “Uh huh. But I’m hungry.”
    “I’ll make some pap and lace it with molasses. It’ll be good for Jubal too.”
    “Won’t do no good. Won’t do no good a’tall.” Elija fed wood to the growing fire. “I told him it was foolhardy to come out here. I told him he ain’t the buildin’ kind a man. But it’s too late now.” He shook his head sadly. “Way too late.”
    Liberty suspended the kettle over the fire, boiled the water, and sifted in finely ground cornmeal. While it bubbled, she filled the copper pot with water to make tea and the switchel for Jubal. She went to the wagon to feed him before she ate, but he was asleep and didn’t respond when she called his name.
    They spent the rest of the morning looking for dry firewood, and most of the afternoon erecting a shelter. Elija complained about his back, and finally, with Liberty and Amy doing most of the work, the poles were set and a canvas that reached from the end of the wagon was stretched over them and tied down. The end of the canvas overhung the fire and helped throw the heat inside, dispelling the dampness inside the wagon.
    “There’s gotta be a town here somewhere.” Elija had thrown himself down by the fire and hadn’t moved for an hour. “Them tracks is rutted. Wagons aplenty has been headin’ fer somewhere. Hull Dexter might not a been tryin’ to hornswaggle us, Libby. He could a knowed we be ’bout there.”
    “Fiddle faddle! Of course those tracks are heading somewhere or else he wouldn’t be following them. And we’re not about there. Hull Dexter cheated us. He’s not scouting for us, hunting, protecting us from the savages. He left us to fend for ourselves because those ignorant louts thought Jubal had the flux. He refused to give any of our money back. He’s a rotten skunk, not fit for crow bait!”
    Liberty was bone-tired, her mind not on what she was saying. Her gaze fixed abstractedly on the dim trail that disappeared into the thick forest. She was feeling lower and more frightened than she had in all her life. They were in a dense forest with a coach pistol and a rifle to defend themselves. And Jubal was dying. He hadn’t wanted to eat. He had swallowed barely a spoonful of food. When she tried to force it into his mouth he had choked. Late in the afternoon he had become delirious and had messed on the bedclothes. She had changed them, taken the soiled covers back down to the rain pond and washed them. Now darkness was drawing near, and she stood shivering, not wanting to listen to her father’s dire predictions.
    “Bake your back for a while, Papa,” she said crossly. “I’ve got to get out of these wet clothes.”
    Elija grunted and turned his back to her. “Ya want that I whittle ya a whistle, Amy?”
    “If you want to.” Amy looked up at her sister and grinned. “He thinks I’m still a baby.”
    Liberty loosened Amy’s braids and spread her hair over her shoulders so it would dry. “If it makes him happy, let him