The Marriage Cure (10 page)

Sabetha thought it no more than weakness from his fever and he told her no different
.
He took a long drink of the water and settled down at the base of the tree, the trunk against his back sturdy and strong
.
Other memories rose, scenes from the hell stockade in Kentucky but he inhaled and sighed with relief
.
There was no stench here, just a familiar rich woodland smell of loam and plants
.
Above him, he could see patches of sky as blue as the Virgin Mary's cloak and soft white clouds scudding past on the wind
.
His breathing ease and he relaxed as he opened himself to the pleasure of being in these woods with this woman.

He felt it before he heard it, a slight vibration in the ground and he alerted, focusing on sounds more distant than the trilling of the cardinals, other warbling birds, and the chatter of squirrels.
His composure shattered as he heard the sound of men riding horses, more than one, and unless he had lost his senses, they rode toward this field.

With an eerie sense of the past becoming the present, he found his feet and went to Sabetha, who worked in innocence
.
Whoever came, whatever they wanted, he should be the one to face them with the same bravery his father displayed that last morning
.
Johnny snatched the hoe from her hand and sent her to the edge of the field.

His hands closed upon the smooth, well-worn wood of the hoe handle and he chopped at weeds, the skill not forgotten as the riders burst out of the thick trees into the far edge of the field
.
There were three men and four horses, settlers not soldiers
.
An older man, hair streaked with gray, rode just ahead of the other two and trailed a small pony behind him on a lead rope
.
Flanking him were two younger men astride.

“Do ye know them?” h
e said to
Sabetha through clenched teeth.

Her face was calm but her eyes wild as she shook her head
.
Like him, she must
be thinking of what he described happening
in that Tennessee cornfield twelve months ago.

The riders wheeled around the edge of the corn, narrowly missing the tender young growth and wheeled to a stop nearer Sabetha than he
.
Wary, he put the hoe over one shoulder and walked toward them.

“Howdy,
” The older, black-bearded man called out
.
“I'm calling on the neighbors
.
George
Payton and my sons, Frank and Mathias, Matt for short
.
We settled up on yonder flat lands to the north of you last fall.”

“We'r
e the Devaneys,
” Johnny said
.
“I'm Johnny Devaney
.
‘Tis good to meet ye
.
I didn't know anyone lived so near.”

“Yeah, we do,
” George Payton said, as he spit a long stream of tobacco juice
.
“We wouldn't have known of you either but that old man, Rawlings, come by, told us about the widow there and the Cherokee boy she had living with her
.
I reckoned you might be dead; he said you had a powerful bad sickness when he saw you.”

“Aye but thank
s be to God, I lived through it,
” Johnny said
.
His guts coiled tighter than a rattlesnake ready to strike
.
He
didn't
like Payton and he could not believe this was a simple neighborly visit
.
“The woman's a widow no more; she's my wife now.”

He dared not glance at Sabetha and prayed neither surprise or
joy was
evident in
her face
.
Although he had not made a formal declaration of love, she knew how he felt, as he knew her heart
.
He did mean to make her his wife; he just had yet to talk about the matter with her.

“Is she?” Payton said
.
“Well, hell, boys, it's a wasted trip then
.
These boys need wives and I thought mayhap we'd found one
.
Guess we're too late.”

“Ye are that,
” Johnny said
.

“Well, we
can still set and visit a spell,
” Payton said, directing his sons with a toss of his bearded chin to dismount
.
“Surely you have a bite to share with a neighbor.”

There was little choice
.
Frontier hospitality meant they would share a meal with the men and if they did not, the simmering hostility between them would fan into open conflict
.
Although he was not afraid, Johnny doubted he had gained enough strength to fight so he forced a smile.

“Aye
.
There's turkey cooked and she can
bake a cornbread to go with it,
” He looked at her and she nodded, slipping away along the edge of the field
.
“Let me finish this row and we'll go back to the cabin.”

Johnny doubted Sabetha would want the rather dirty men in her neat cabin so he settled them outside, directing them to tie their horses to the posts of the open barn
.
They sprawled on the ground, Payton talkative, his sons taciturn until she began bringing out turkey, hot cornbread, and butter
.
They fell on the food like starving animals during a hard winter, spilling crumbs down their already dirty garments and crunching bones between their few black teeth
.
He ate little, sitting in the shade feeling none
so
good as he had earlier
.
His brief stint in the field
had
tired him and the strain of entertaining these strangers weighed heavy on him
.
He caught Sabetha watching him and winked at her so she wouldn't worry.

Payton talked of coming to the rugged country, of his wife and ten younger weans at home, and of his home back in Georgia
.
Then he shifted the talk toward Indians and Johnny's already knotted stomach tensed.

“Ol' Man Rawlings said you were Cheroke
e,
” Payton said, picking a shred of turkey from between his teeth. “Are you?”

“I'm part,
” Johnny said, clenching his jaw so tight it hurt
.
“I'm more Irish, though.”

Payton nodded
.
“You looked like a breed, I thought
.
Heard about all them doings over to the Indian Nations?
No?
Why, it was the talk of the settlement
.
Seems like the Injuns who come first don't cotton much to them that come later so they're fussing and feuding
.
The new ones that Ol' Hickory sent are led by a near white man, Ross, and they say he wants to take over the whole Cherokee nation.”

“Do they?” Johnny asked
.
The beginnings of a headache throbbed at his temples and he had little desire to hear more.

“Yes, sir, they sure do,
” Payton said
.
The big, greasy man appeared to be enjoying torturing him
.
“They're holding them a big ol' meeting, thousands of Indians is coming in to the Fort Gibson
.
Sounds like a bad thing to me
.
Most of them Injuns are drunk and likely, there is going to be
a fight.”

A Dhia,
h
e thought.
And Davey right in the midst of that
.
He'll be too drunk to know what happens if he's not dead yet from either drink or fever.

Aloud, he said, “Ah, well, what's to be will be.
”

George Payton choked with laughter at that, and then pounded him on the back.

“You're a
philosopher, too, then, Devaney,” h
e crowed
.
“It m
ust be the Irish in you.”

Johnny nodded, willing them to mount up and go
.
He had endured more than enough of their company and he thought the man's sons were both asleep in the grass
.
May the ticks devour them, he thought, and chiggers too
.
The pressure in his temples burst into a full headache and he closed his eyes for one moment, wishing it would ease.

“We'v
e enjoyed your company this day,
” Sabetha said
.
“But it's well past noon and ye have a long ride home
.
My man is weary still and we've more chores to tend.”

He opened his eyes and grinned at her despite his pain
.
She walloped them in her soft voice, her polite words a fist to shake them loose
.
Her tactic worked, to his relief, as they began rising, stretching, and gathering up their odd bits
.
By the time they mounted and said a farewell, promising to visit again, he felt puny and glad to see the back of them.

“
Imeacht gan teacht ort
,” h
e called after them, with a wave of his hand.

Sabetha laughed and he would have laughed as well but his head was pounding and when she saw that he was not feeling at all well, her laughter faded and she came to him.

Sabetha Mahoney Devaney

She did not like the Paytons
,
and she knew Johnny liked them even less
.
His wary expression warned her that they were trouble in the making and Sabetha was glad to see them leave, laughing as he called after them in Irish to leave without returning
.
Such fools would never know he insulted them as they waved farewell
.

Her focus now was Johnny
.
He ate very little and she could see the weariness in him as he slumped, his shoulders down
.
His nerves were as taut as bowstring and when he rubbed his forehead, she knew he felt ill
.
Pain reflected in his dark eyes and she moved to help him raise, her hand grasping his arm.

“
Conas ata tu?”

“
Ta me tinn
,
” h
e said
.
“
Ta tinneas cinn orm
.”

“Ye're tired too,
” Sabetha said
.
It was no wonder he had a headache
.
Working in the field as he did, even for such a short time, sapped his returning strength and worry over the Paytons was enough to make anyone's head hurt
.
“If ye'd like to come rest, I'll brew some willow bark for ye.”

“Aye,
” Johnny
said, then spun away from her and bent over, retching up what little he had eaten
.
Then he put one hand over his stomach and groaned.

“Johnny?” Vomiting worried her more
.
She expected the fatigue and headache but not this
.

“I'll do,” h
e told her
.
“The food didn't sit well on my stomach, that's all
.
Being in the cornfield was too much, too like last year and then to hear about the trouble at Gibson, it sickened me.”

She had known the similarity of the riders coming to them in the field
upset him but now she understood it was more
.
“Ye're worried for yer brother.”

“Aye, I am,
” Johnny said
.

He would not lie down until he drank some water then sprawled across the bed
.
When she put a wet rag across his forehead, his lips flickered in a small smile
.
She touched him, afraid he might be feverish, but his skin felt cool
.
He dozed, a little, waiting for the tea to steep and then insisted on getting up to drink it, sitting afterward at the table.