"Pa?" A soft voice said.
"Rose, you need to get some sleep. I ain't hungry, though I appreciate it, sweetheart, I just can't . . ." He turned expecting to see his youngest daughter. His eyes opened wide in surprise.
"Jemima!' He said stunned to see her standing there.
"Pa!" She said and rising he wrapped his arms around her. "I'm so sorry, Pa." She said crying. Unable to speak, he lowered his head, burying his face in her shoulder. After a time, he lifted his head and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he spoke.
"Now, 'Mima. We don't know nothing yet, maybe she's . . ." He couldn't finish the sentence.
It had been two weeks since he'd awoken to sounds in the middle of the night, and sent Becky out in the winter night. They'd found nothing except that small piece of her robe. Everyone, the entire settlement, believed her to have been killed by a bear. They were pressuring him to have some sort of service and to put up a stone; "For Nathan and Rose's sake" They said. He adamantly refused. No doubt, someone had sent word to 'Mima.
"Pa, I'm just saying sorry because you are here alone. I'm not telling you what to think." She said softly. She had grown into a beautiful woman - married, the mother of three sons and two daughters. Her giant blue eyes still reminded him of Rebecca, just as they had the very first time she'd opened them, reaching out with tiny fingers that clung to his.
He sighed and sat back down at the table. Jemima removed her coat and sat across from him.
"You bring the youngin's?" He asked.
"No, just me." She said.
"Israel send word to you?" He asked.
"He came and got me." She smiled. "You look skinny. I'll fix you something to eat." She rose and went into the pantry. He sat at the table watching her. He could remember all the times he'd sat right where he was listening to Jemima and Becky cooking together. He wished he could travel backwards through time and be there again. The snug cabin made home by Becky's hands, the children laughing, all of them together. Invariably someone would come and he would have to travel somewhere. Becky would pout and then sigh accepting her fate, and he would leave. He wished now he'd never left; that he listened to her all those times. His heart was crowded with sorrow and regret.
"They think I'm being foolish, unable to accept things." He said sighing.
"Israel mentioned that." She said.
"They want me to put up a stone for Nathan and for Rose." He said.
"He mentioned that too." She said raising an eyebrow at him.
"You sound like your Ma. You look like her too, Mima."
"Now, I know you are dizzy from hunger! Ma's about as beautiful as a woman can get. I've spent all my life trying to measure up. There's only one like her!" She set a plate in front of him and resting her hand on his shoulder she said, "Eat something Pa."
"I'm not hungry. I just keep thinking there's something I'm missing. She couldn't just disappear." He looked off into the distance. "They say a bear got her. That's why we can't find her."
"I heard that too." Mima said softly trying not to think too hard about it.
"What do you think?" He asked her, his voice sadder than she'd ever heard it.
"I don't know, Pa." She said coming to stand beside him. "I can't really think about it at all. I'm just worried about you right now. They say you won't eat or sleep." Her blue eyes filled with tears. "If I try and think of Ma, I . . ."
He rose and wrapped his arms around her. "Hush, now 'Mima. What's your Ma always say?"
"God watches us all." Mima said and then she began to cry in earnest.
***DB***
"I don't suppose Pa will come home with her." Rose said softly.
"Rose." Katie Grace said admonishingly. "We can't spend time thinking like that. We don't know what happened."
"I know Ma would come home, unless something stopped her." Rose said looking up at her older sister.
Katie-Grace put her arms around her younger sister. "Come on, Rose. You can help me with supper." She led her into her small pantry. "Nathan, you can't pick Daniel James up like that. He's too little. You can just pet him gently, alright?" Nathan nodded from where he stood watching over his small nephew in his cradle.
"Where's Mama?" Nathan looked up at them his blue eyes wide. "I wish Mama were here. Where'd Pa go?"
"He went to see if he could find Ma, but don't worry, Mingo's with him. They'll be back when they can." Katie said. "Nathan, I bet Peter could use some help. Why don't you go see?" She watched her baby brother walk out the cabin door and wondered what he would remember of his mother if it all ended here.
"Breathe, Katie." Rose said and Katie realized suddenly she'd been holding her breath.
"I can't think of our lives without her at the center of it." She said softly. "Remember that panther?"
"Oh! That was terrible! It was huge!"
"She didn't even blink, remember. Grabbed the rifle, shot it and went right back to cooking."
"Remember that Christmas?" Rose smiled.
"We were all so sad without Pa and then she built that sled. How'd she know how to do that? And we were all laughing and screaming down the hills."
"Oh that was fun! She took as many turns as the rest of us. Remember? Her hair flying out behind her! We all laughed so hard. And poor Pa came home to an empty house!"
"Maybe Pa will find her. Maybe she just . . ." But Katie honestly couldn't think of a reason for her to still be missing.
***DB***
Mingo paused at the rise of the hill and took a long drink of water. He could see Daniel in the distance moving steadily forward. He had never seen his brother so determined and so unsure all at the same time. For over a month they had been traveling in ever widening circles around the fort, searching. He sighed.
"You keep a close eye on him." Chandrika had said when he'd left.
"I don't know how long we will be gone." He had said sadly his hand resting on her stomach where their fourth child quietly slept waiting to be born.
"It is alright." She said. "You will return when you return. This is no small trip. His heart will shatter and he must have his brother at his side, if he cannot have her."
"She is his heart." Mingo pulled her close to him. "Chandi, I don't know how he will endure it. If it were me . . ." He hesitated. "And I've only known you seven years. They've been together a lifetime." He held her tightly and looking down into her big dark eyes, he realized that she had begun to cry. He sighed bitterly. She and Rebecca had been like sisters from the very first minute they'd met.
"I'm sorry, Chandi." He said softly into her hair. "I didn't mean to . . ."
"I am prone to tears these days anyway." She said. "Rebecca always said that all it takes is breathing to make an expecting mother cry. And now, I have real reasons too. I want to weep for him, for me and for those sweet children. Poor Nathan, what will he remember of her?" She shook herself. "You'd better go, Mingo. He's waiting. He's likely to leave without you. I'll be waiting here. Don't waste any time worrying about us. The boys and I will be fine. We've got a whole tribe looking after us, and this child of yours will be here whether or not you see him born."
"Her." He said determinedly. "It could be a girl."
"Well, it hasn't been yet." She smiled and he had kissed her, and then forced himself to walk away from her towards a difficult journey.
Now, he stood watching the hunched shoulders of Daniel Boone, frontiersman and adventurer - at least that's what the books said of him. But today he was Daniel Boone broken-hearted husband. He caught up to his blood-brother, who had paused besides a small creek.
"There's still daylight." Mingo said to him. "We don't need to stop yet."
But Daniel still stood where he was, his toe at the edge of the creek. His face staring at the ground beneath him.
"Daniel?" He said and moved closer.
"How long are you going to wander around out here with me?" Daniel asked him, still not raising his head.
"As long as you need." Mingo said.
"But you think it's foolish, don't you. You think . . ." He turned then looking into Mingo eyes, and Mingo took a step back. Daniel eye's were filled with pain; hopelessness; grief.
"I don't know what I think. I can tell you what I hope for; what I wish for more than anything I've ever wished for in my life."
"Wishing won't make it so." Daniel said turning his face away. "Chandi's gonna have that child any day now, and you are out here with me, wasting . . . Becky'd be furious at me for that." He sighed. It was the first time that he had said her name during the entire time they'd been searching.
"Daniel," Mingo said putting a hand on his shoulder, but he could think of nothing else to say.
"Go on home Mingo. You've a family waiting. Don't make the mistake I did, and waste your days away from them. Go on. Don't miss that baby being born."
"Not without you." Mingo said. "I won't go home unless you do. You have a family waiting for you too."
"Becky was my family." He said bitterly. "She was the string that tied it all together. I can't go on . . ." He hung his head.
"And what would she say of that?" Mingo held Daniel by the arm. "She'd be furious with you. Don't you fear her temper even now? I do. I have no doubt that the good Lord, would allow her to send a storm so fierce your way, just to knock you into place. No, I won't risk her wrath, not even now. I'll go home when you do. Chandi knows I'm needed here. She told me so herself. I'll look as long as you need. We are brothers, and I . . ." He hesitated unsure of his voice. "I loved her too, Daniel." Daniel nodded his head, and wiping a hand across his eyes, turned away from Mingo.
"She loved you, too, Mingo. You understood her. Sometimes it made me jealous how much you understood her." Daniel admitted.
"I was always jealous of you." Mingo confessed. "Yadkin warned me to stay away from her. He said no woman could ever measure up to her, and it would make it impossible for me to ever find a wife. He was nearly right too. But Daniel, she only ever had eyes for you. You have always been everything to her."
They stood in the silence of the afternoon each man lost in their own memories. Daniel sighed and looked out to the horizon; the open lands of Kentucky had always filled him with hope and promise, but now it just seemed empty and meaningless.
"We'll head back in the morning." Daniel said sad and defeated. "I got no business dragging you out like this. And there's nothing to be found, is there?" He turned back to face Mingo again. "I'm going off by myself for a spell. I'll be back at dawn. You've no need to worry for me. I . . ." He was unable to speak. "I ain't never really cried in front of anyone, 'cept my 'Becca, and I feel like I got a torrent of tears ready to bust out." He reached out and clasped Mingo's hand. "Thank you, for traveling this path with me Mingo. You knew nothing would come of it, but took the journey anyways. You are a faithful brother. You always have been to me, and to her." And releasing his hand, he walked away into the darkness of the Kentucky wilderness.