Author: Elizabeth Grayson
Category: Western
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/elizabeth-grayson/page,15,76810-a_place_called_home.html
The association between Livi and the cow did not progress smoothly. Minnie kicked Livi the first time she tried to milk her and refused to give her bounty into Livi's hands. To make things worse, Minnie snapped at Livi whenever she had the chance.
"Do I look like clover, you miserable bag of bones?" Livi demanded, rubbing her shoulder after a particularly vicious chomp.
It took more than a week for Livi and Minnie to negotiate an uneasy truce. It was weeks more before Livi could make the butter "come," though she did take great pride in the first pale, watery lump she served up at supper.
No one could have expected the daughter of a plantation owner to easily assume the duties of a sharecropper's wife. Surely David hadn't. But Livi had.
During their courtship David had introduced Livi to facets of herself she had never known existed. He had helped her discover her beauty, her capacity for tenderness, and her joy in living. By holding up his love as a mirror, he had opened a world of possibilities.
Her failures at domesticity in those early days stole that fragile self-confidence and her burgeoning self-respect. Burning the dinner for the third night in a row, or not knowing how or where to wash their clothes, chafed Livi raw. It convinced her she was failing at the single most important task she'd ever undertaken—being David's wife.
When her efforts went awry, the condemnation Reid Campbell had voiced the day she'd married David rang in her ears: "Any fool can see you're too pampered, too fragile, too damn weak to be the wife that David needs."
And Livi was coming to believe him.
It was early spring of 1769 when Campbell himself stopped by on his way west. He arrived sporting well-worn buckskins and leading several packhorses, their creels filled with goods to trade with the Indians—more in his element than he had ever been in her parents' parlor. His fierce face seemed to glow with enthusiasm for his journey, while his cold eyes gleamed in judgment of Livi's many failings as David's bride.
Reid wrangled an invitation to stay the night. So he could see for himself how ill-suited she and David were, Livi thought. To confirm how right he'd been about her prospects as a wife. But by some small miracle, the squirrel pie Livi had baked was passably tasty, and even the dumplings were golden brown.
There! she wanted to shout when Reid quirked one dark eyebrow in her direction. I'm learning.
Still, she knew the meal was a fluke. For all David's praise and encouragement, Reid saw the truth—that she would never prove herself worthy of David's love.
After supper Reid produced a bottle of fine French brandy, and the two men went out onto the front porch to share it. Some trick of the wind carried their voices and wisps of David's pipe smoke in to her as Livi was washing up. For a time the two men talked about David's mother and brothers and sisters, most of whom were still settled on James Campbell's plantation.
"And what do you hear of Livi's family?" David asked.
She could hear the hesitation in Reid Campbell's voice. "They're well enough, I suppose."
"Well enough?"
"What do you want me to tell you? That they've gotten over the shock of Olivia marrying you? That they've forgiven her?" Reid paused as if he were shaking his head. "They say that when Arabella returned to the house and told her parents that Livi had gone off with you, Richard Chesterton called for the family Bible and blacked out her name. They say her mother saw to burning all her things."
Livi's knees nearly buckled when she heard. Did her parents hate her as much as that?
After a moment, David cleared his throat. "I thought in time they'd relent and accept that Livi and I love each other."
"I doubt Richard Chesterton's a forgiving man."
The two men fell silent for a time. Livi could hear the gurgle of a bottle, the faint clunk of glass against the edge of the wooden mugs. In the house, Livi took up her mending and settled by the fire.
"You said you'd come west with me this spring," Reid offered up at last, as if he had been waiting for the right moment to propose it. "You said we'd go together and explore Kentucky."
So this was the real purpose of Reid Campbell's trip, Livi realized. He'd come to lure David away.
"I said I'd think about it."
"The land you want is there, David. So unspoiled and beautiful it makes you want to dissolve yourself in the wind so you can be part of it." Campbell's voice throbbed low and compelling. "It's land that's ours for the taking. We could settle anywhere we want with no one to gainsay our choice."
"Except the Indians."
"You know the tribes will trade for the land. They'll sell it as cheaply to us as anyone."
"If it's even theirs to sell."
Livi knew that claims negotiated with the Indian tribes were under dispute all along the Blue Ridge.
"Think about it, David," Reid went on. "Where else can you afford to buy land? Where else can you find that many acres that aren't already played out? All you've ever dreamed about is a place to call your own."
"Sometimes a man's dreams change."
"And you've changed yours because you've taken a wife." Livi recognized the condemnation in Campbell's tone.
"Aye, I have."
"And you can't leave her."
"I won't leave her," David corrected him.
"Because she can't be left alone."
"Because I love her. I swore to be here to provide for her and because there's still a great deal for her to learn." Even put as gently as that, David's words stung. "I can't just hie off into the woods as if I've no responsibilities. And I'm especially responsible now that Livi's family has disowned her. I'm all she has."
"I said she'd be a millstone around your neck!"
Her cheeks burned knowing Reid had spoken nothing more than the truth. If she were a stronger, braver, more capable woman, she could urge David to go west. She was preventing the man she loved from fulfilling his most cherished dream.
A dream he hadn't seen fit to share with her.
Though she did her best to blink them back, tears dripped onto the fabric in her lap, shimmering like molten gold in the firelight. Angrily she stuffed the mending away and sought refuge in the curtained alcove where they slept.
Outside, she could hear the two men's voices rise with shared laughter that blended years' old camaraderie and understanding. Reid knew David far better than she, shared a common history, common dreams.
All she could ever be was David's wife. Until now, that had seemed a wondrous endeavor, one that could fill her days and nights to the end of time. Now she wanted more.
She wanted to know David as if she dwelled inside his skin, claim her place in every facet of his life, and share his dreams completely. She wanted to know her husband as well as Campbell knew him.
It was easy for her to see that to protect her, David was holding back. He had stories she would never hear, a part of himself he would never let her see. He harbored ambitions and hopes he would never discuss with her, because she was too dependent and weak.
She pulled the bedcovers over her head to block out the sound of the two men's voices. She hated the warmth and intimacy she sensed in their conversation. She hated the sacrifice David was making on her behalf. She hated Reid for making her see how badly she had failed the man she loved.
But most of all, she hated herself.
Reid rode out at sunrise, leaving behind a man who might well be clinging to his regrets and a woman who was once again uncertain of her place.
"You need to understand about Reid," David began as he and Livi stood together watching Campbell and his pack train disappear up the road.
I don't want to understand, Livi thought. Not any more than Reid wants to understand about me.
But when they returned to the cabin, where their half-eaten breakfast lay waiting, David insisted on explaining.
"We were born just six days apart—him in the big house at Riverbend and me in a cabin out back. Reid's mother had no milk, so my ma tended both of us. The first clear memory I have is
of Reid, of fighting over a painted wooden rabbit that someone must have given him."
Because David had given her no choice, Livi crossed her arms against her chest and resigned herself to listening.
"By the time we could toddle, Reid and I were inseparable. We played together every day, roamed through the fields and woods. It wasn't long before he was spending more time in our cabin than at the big house. Then Reid's mother died and after that, there wasn't anyone who cared enough to come and take him home at the end of the day.
"Two years later, James Campbell married a beautiful widow, fresh from England. It didn't take her long to convince Reid's father to send away the first wife's get—especially when it was a defiant, half-breed boy who'd hated her on sight."
David winnowed one hand through his already tousled hair. "Reid was only seven when they sent him off to school in Charles Town. The morning the carriage pulled away I cried into my mother's skirts; Reid sat as if he'd been turned to stone, too stubborn to admit he was scared to death."
In spite of herself, Livi felt a twinge of sympathy for Reid Campbell.
"I can only imagine what kind of school that was," David went on, "considering that Reid came home reading Latin, quoting Scripture and with his back scarred from being caned. His father told mine that once the older boys held him down and painted his face with ink because he was a savage."
David looked up, seeking compassion for his friend in Livi's eyes.
"Every time he came back to Riverbend," he continued, "it took longer and longer for Reid to find his place. Mostly that was in our cabin instead of in the big house with his father and stepmother. Shortly after my father was killed felling a tree, Reid got expelled from school for fighting.
"By then Reid's stepmother had whelped two children of her own, and she convinced the master that the company of his rebellious son would contaminate her darlings. It was Reid's grandfather, Andrew McTavish, who took him to live with his grandmother's people."
"How long was Reid with the Creeks?" Livi asked in spite of herself.
"Four years," David answered. "I didn't see him once in all that time. And when he came back, he was fierce and angry and aloof. A man in a way I wasn't yet. By the time the two of us found our common ground, he was ready to leave.
"Though he was only seventeen, Reid meant to make his own way in the world. He convinced James Campbell to give him a stake so he could trade with the Indians just as his grandfather had. But Campbell's wife insisted that Reid relinquish any claim he had to Riverbend in exchange for the money."
"But Riverbend is one of the richest plantations on the James River."
David shrugged. "Reid would rather be off exploring country no white man had ever seen than tend a farm."
"But he's been back to Riverbend," Livi murmured, thinking of her life-altering meeting with both David and Reid only months before.
"Just as I've been back," David answered. "But it's a young man's way to strike out on his own."
As understanding dawned in her, Livi reached to squeeze her husband's hand. In a way, she had done that, too. She'd turned her back on her parents' life to marry the man she loved.
"What I need you to understand, Livi," David said, clasping her hand more tightly in his, "is that Reid doesn't have any place where he belongs. He doesn't have anyone he can rely on except for me. And I need you to make him welcome."
Livi looked down at their linked hands. She loved David and she wanted to do as he asked. But she sensed the enmity between Reid and her would never change.
"I will do my best," she whispered.
Yet how could she befriend a man who'd told her on her wedding day that he believed she wasn't worthy of her husband's love? During his first visit to Lynchburg Reid had made it clear he resented Livi for making demands on David's time and attention, for holding his best friend back when there was a world beyond the mountains for the two of them to explore.
After that, Livi and David's life seemed patterned by Reid's comings and goings. In spring he'd ride west with goods to trade. In autumn he'd return, his packs filled with furs. Every time Reid rode in with tales of the rich valleys and endless forests, David's eyes would begin to glow with the lure of adventure beyond the mountains.
Perhaps if she were a better wife, she told herself, David would be content to stay home with her. Perhaps if she were a more sure and capable helpmate, she might be able to encourage David go exploring with Reid. If she were a braver and stronger woman, she might even consider settling beyond the mountains.
But she knew she couldn't survive in a place where animals roamed wild, where Indians raided and each day meant facing new hardships, new dangers. It had taken everything she had to come to Lynchburg, and she couldn't think about what it might cost follow David's dream.
When Livi grew round with their first child, her fears began to recede. This babe would give her a hold on David that neither Reid nor the call of the wilds could break. It gave her beloved husband a second reason to stay with her.
As fate would have it, Reid was in Lynchburg the night Tad was born. When the midwife escorted David into the bedroom of the new house beside the blacksmith's shop, not even Campbell's presence could keep Livi from weeping with elation as she presented David with their son.
"You did well, Livi." His voice was choked with emotion as he took the baby in his arms.
"I think we should call him Thadius," Livi offered, taking fresh joy in the love that flared in her husband's eyes.
"My father would be pleased to have such a namesake," he mused. "Thadius. Though we'll call him Tad."
At length Livi glanced beyond where her husband was holding Tad and saw Reid Campbell standing in the bedroom s doorway. There was jealousy in the depths of his sky-blue eyes—and bitter resignation.
David was wholly hers now. Even Reid conceded it. But life wasn't that simple.
"Don't you understand?" David all but pleaded with her mere days after Tad was born. Mere hours after Reid Campbell had ridden away. "I need land in Kentucky now more than ever. We have a son, Livi, a fine, strong boy. I must own land to make a real life for him, for you. For all three of us."
"I'm happy with what we have," she'd insisted quietly.
David looked down at the child in his arms as if he hadn't heard. "I want to give my son things I never had—property, a future, something to call his own. If I can secure land in Kentucky I can do that." He raised his gaze from his son's face and looked at her. "I've never really had anything to offer you, Livi. I need to have something to give our boy."
She turned away, terrified that he and Reid would concoct a plan to go west in spite of her. Knowing that even if they argued about this for fifty years, she would never change his mind or understand the hold Kentucky had on him.
It smoldered while David's black-smithing business flourished, simmered through three devastating miscarriages and two stillbirths. It seethed as talk of revolution kindled into war. Reid's visits fanned the flame, but it was not until Campbell rode in early in the spring of 1778 that the argument between David and her flared out of control.
With each report of the hostilities in Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania, with each rider who came thundering into Lynchburg with word of Indian atrocities against settlers in the west, David had grown more restless. He believed in independence from England and longed to do his part. Now Reid came with the bait to lure David away.
"George Rogers Clark is putting together a company of rangers to fight the British in the west," Campbell blurted out as he stormed into the house one evening, disrupting their supper. "Virginia is offering each man three hundred acres of Kentucky land in exchange for his service."
Livi saw the change in David's face and realized that she might well lose the battle for her husband's allegiance.
"David, I don't think—" Livi began, looking up to where he had risen to greet his friend.
David managed to keep his voice to a reasonable tone. "I'd like to hear Re
id out, Livi," he answered in a reasonable tone, "before I make my decision. This could offer an opportunity—"
"Or a chance to get yourself killed!" she shouted and jumped to her feet.
"Goddammit, Livi! Don't you understand we need to drive the British back into the sea? We need to secure the safety of the settlers beyond the mountains. Without the Redcoats swarming down from the north to stir them up, those Indians would leave the settlers well enough alone."
Livi had heard this speech before—from the recruiters who'd come to town, in the tavern and outside church, wherever men gathered. She'd heard it from David's own lips, but this time was different. This time David was convincing himself to go and fight.
Livi glanced from her husband to Reid. Judging from the light in those ice-blue eyes, Reid already knew he'd won.
Hot tears breached the rim of her lashes, tears she refused to let Campbell see her shed. Scooping Tad up, she rushed into the bedroom and slammed the door. While she wept, she could hear David offering Reid something to eat and drink, hear the low, persuasive buzz of Campbell's promises. She saw now that by leaving the table she'd forfeited any rebuttal she might have made.
Not that it would matter.
"Livi, we need to talk," David began when he came into the bedroom a good while later.
She continued her darning by the unsteady light of the betty lamp. "And why should we bother with that? You've made up your mind what you're going to do."
"Livi, I want you to understand—"
Her needle dipped in and out. "Understand what? That you're succumbing to the lure of adventure? The chance to hie off with Reid? The demands of this fine and glorious cause?"
"I have to go, Livi. If I believe in liberty, I must stand and defend our right to it."
Livi refused to look at him. "What you believe in is the promise of three hundred acres in your precious Kentucky."
He didn't deny it. "Don't you think it's important for our son to have a better life? Don't you believe he'll have a better future in a country with peace and freedom for all?"
She glared up at him. "Why have you chosen to fight now, when you've been perfectly content—"