Prairie Hearts Read online

  In the 1820s, Kentuckian Carrie Fletcher migrates with her brother and his family to central Illinois where she intends to continue to grow medicinal herbs and be a healer. Carrie loves being the spinster aunt to her nieces and nephews, taking care of her herbs, making calls on sick pioneers, and farming with her brother. But, shunning marriage and motherhood and donning her unique style of “mannish” dress for farm work rouse some who question her womanhood.

  When they arrive, the unending labor of cabin-building and clearing the prairie grasses for crops require they trade assistance with other pioneers. One of the first neighbors to call on them is Emma Reynolds, another herbalist, healer, and midwife. She and Carrie share herbs, seeds, and healing knowledge. Shortly after, Emma’s father, her sole relation, dies from lung fever, leaving a gap in her life that Carrie’s friendship fills.

  Together the two pioneer women deal with the harsh realities of pioneering. One man calls their healing potions evil and harasses them violently. The two strengthen their bonds and develop deeper feelings as they fight for their lives and the lives of the neighbors they care for.

  Can their newfound love endure the hardscrabble life of never-ending toil, sickness, injury, hunger, and death on the prairie?

  SAPPHIRE BOOKS

  SALINAS, CALIFORNIA

  Prairie Hearts

  Copyright © 2019 by JB Marsden. All rights reserved.

  ISBN EPUB - 978-1-948232-78-4

  This is a work of fiction - names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without written permission of the publisher.

  Editor - Heather Flournoy

  Book Design - LJ Reynolds

  Cover Design - Fineline Cover Design

  Sapphire Books Publishing, LLC

  P.O. Box 8142

  Salinas, CA 93912

  www.sapphirebooks.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition – August 2019

  This and other Sapphire Books titles can be found at

  www.sapphirebooks.com

  I’m greatly indebted to local libraries for resources on Illinois in the 1820s.

  As usual, thanks to the Sapphire Books staff, publisher Chris, editor Heather Flournoy, and copyeditor and formatter LJ Reynolds, plus others who assisted in getting this book to readers. They are great to work with. In addition, my writing coach Heather Flournoy got my head around character development that was lacking in the midst of so much world-building. I learned a great deal from her and thank her for her steady and wise advice.

  To my family, my sisters, and especially my wife Molly, go kind thoughts and much love for their support in my writing down on the farm.

  To my readers, you’re the best. You make writing worth it!

  The wind blew through Carrie’s open-faced shelter, her small fire spewed sparks toward her, and the canvas above her flapped and snapped, about to fly away. She hunkered down into the canvas back and drew up the wooly blanket closer around her shoulders. Her head hit the ground with a thud, and, exhausted as she was, she slept.

  She woke, headachy. The firepit had gone cold and a fine layer of rime frosted everything around her. She stuffed her frozen, stiff hands into the seat of her drawers. Her rump was just as cold. Her whole body shivered. Oh, for a soft pallet last night and warm fire this morn!

  She rose in the half light of dawn, stretched her arms and torso toward the just-pink sky, and shook out her hands. Groggy and stiff, her hips ached, but she would not grumble, not out loud anyway.

  They were barely on the way to Illinois.

  The Kentucky roads, passable so far, froze as solid as wood. She chewed hardtack for breakfast, not bothering to start a fire. Her traveling companions, her stepbrother James and his family, drove an ox wagon not more than a quarter mile behind her. Thank heavens she didn’t hear their camp last night. Or more accurately, hear the wail of the newborn babe, Permelia.

  Ten-year-old Joshua appeared out of her left vision, his dog Patch trotting alongside. “Morning, boy-cub.” She smiled wanly.

  He held out a small, lidded, tin bucket. “Here’s some coffee Momma sent for you, Auntie Carrie.”

  Carrie stopped, peaked under the lid, sniffed, then tipped it up and swallowed. “Hoo, boy. That’s good enough to warm me twice. Thank your momma for me, Josh. I’ll keep the bucket and collect nuts along the way.”

  Josh waved and he and Patch ran back down the track. Carrie sipped the piping hot coffee. It tasted of the civilization they left three days ago in Christian County, Kentucky. How good would a hot breakfast warm her now?

  Carrie liked her stepbrother well enough. James Stratton, son of her father’s second wife, claimed to be five years her elder, although he might be older, given he was a married man with five children and him never knowing to read or write. He favored his mother’s bulky body and dark hair. His stubbornness irked Carrie something awful, though. Otherwise, he was a steady man. Reliable. Hardworking. A crack shot with his rifle, a good hunter and provider.

  Carrie doted on James’s wife, though. Laura’s pretty face and her kind disposition drew her like a bee to honey. Laura mothered everyone around her, giving of her sweet nature when she tended child and adult alike. She was stubborn, too. Carrie witnessed knock-down-drag-out arguments between Laura and James, especially when he tried to lord it over them. Laura had a mind of her own, for certain. Carrie supported her pluck when she stood up to bossy James.

  Carrie trod slowly, leading her mare, Maisey, packed with her shelter and a little food. She’d stowed her few possessions along with the Strattons’ in the wagon. Her chest ached, missing her and James’s and Laura’s little enclave of two cabins and the land they worked together to provide for the four children. Five now, since Permelia’s birth last month. She had her comfort there in front of the crude fireplace many a cold night. More comfort than the cold, hard ground, waking up half frozen.

  She hoped they were doing right by trekking north. Pa homesteaded his Christian County land but, like many a neighbor, had never purchased it legally. They wanted to buy Pa’s homestead, but Kentucky land prices had begun to rise higher than their pocketbooks could afford in the last three years. James and she put their heads together and decided to follow Moose Mumford to Illinois. The wilderness prairie up north came at a much lower price. Now a few settlers pioneered up there, after Illinois was admitted as a state back in 1818. James met Jed Reid, who received a land grant in central Illinois after his service in the War with England in ’12 and sold it at a good price.

  She marched along, slapping her arms against her torso. Would March ever warm up?

  The forest through which she traipsed kept her wary of bear or bandit on the narrow track. Up in Illinois, Kickapoo natives had been given land in Missouri just last year, but reports of small skirmishes with settlers over hunting land still made their way to Christian County. Back home, she and James talked many nights after Laura and the children were fast asleep about the potential dangers of the country they were now headed for, and whether the dangers had passed.

  “I reckon the Injuns up there’ll be like our ones here. Mayhap we can share hunting with ’em,” James said.

  “I don’t reckon they’ll be like Bluejacket and his Shawnee clan.”

  “Moose says the Kickapoo have mostly cleared out.”

  “It’s the ones still around that fret me. They scalped a couple of pioneers last year, he s
aid.”

  Carrie calmed herself in the face of the rumors. Bandits here would not be Shawnee, but more likely desperate Americans looking for food. Her rifle lay ready across Maisey’s back and she fingered the Long Knife sheathed at her side. Wildlife would be danger enough. As they entered the uncertain dangers of Illinois when they arrived across the Ohio River, she would join her brother and all the others.

  She stopped at midday in the icy ruts, rolled her shoulders, and breathed in deeply the pines under which she sat. Carrie searched in her pack for some dry biscuits from yesterday’s breakfast. They tasted stale, and she washed them down with a swig of water.

  She jumped at rustling noises next to the trail and snatched her knife. A black-and-white animal bounded out.

  “Dang you, dog. You scared the living daylights outta me.” Carrie sheathed her knife and swept Patch away. “Get your own food, you little beggar.”

  “Oh, there he is.” Josh and seven-year-old George raced, panting, into the clearing where Carrie sat. “Sorry if he bothered ye, Auntie.”

  “Does your momma and poppa know you’re here? They are likely to get scared for you.”

  The underbrush crunched again.

  James pushed aside the tangled laurel bushes with his Kentucky rifle. “Here y’all are. I couldn’t find you. If you want to go hunting with me, boys, you gotta stay close by, ye hear?” James was gruff. He looked to Carrie. “You wanta come, too?”

  Carrie wiped the crumbs off her shirt front, leapt up, and reached for her rifle and shot bag. “I will.”

  “Laura will tie Maisey to the wagon when she gets this far on the track.” James turned to enter the woods again. Carrie and the boys rushed after him.

  They returned from their hunt to the location where she’d tethered Maisey when the sun darkened on the horizon, five rabbits hanging from the side of Josh’s buckskin bag.

  “She must be farther up the trace.” James pointed northward and tramped along briskly.

  When the hunting party reached Laura, they decided to camp together in the same clearing and share the rabbits for supper. James set up canvas-and-timber shelters, and Josh sought nuts with his younger brothers along the edge of the timberlands. Carrie reveled in the soft rabbit furs intended for hats, mittens, and booties. She shivered again, imaging a northern winter with deep snow and biting winds, and little food or warmth.

  Laura fed little Permelia and changed the wet rag. Two-year-old Gerta toddled from treasure to treasure on the clearing floor, scrutinized them carefully, and showed one in a pudgy hand. “Weaf.”

  Carrie took a moment from skinning the rabbits and smiled at her niece. “Leaf. Oak leaf.”

  “Oat weaf.”

  “Oak.”

  “Oak weaf.”

  Carrie ruffled her wispy brown hair. “Good girl.” She had a soft spot for Gerta, and rued the lack of time to play with her on the trail. Carrie cleaned the skinned rabbit fur for later use in the cold of Illinois, while Gerta continued to inspect the interesting things on the ground.

  “Thank ye, honey, for getting the rabbits ready.” Laura placed Permelia into a woven basket, covered her with a wool blanket, and knelt beside Carrie, wrapping her in a one-armed hug.

  Carrie blushed at Laura’s soft and warm touch. She never cottoned to men especially, wanting someone who looked at her like Laura did—with love and tenderness. “Glad to do it. I’ll go fetch firewood.” She scanned the nearby woods. Keeping busy might erase some of the loneliness that seemed to stalk her more and more lately.

  James and all three boys came bounding into the camp.

  The boys yelled and pushed each other. “Stop your caterwauling,” James brusquely admonished them.

  James had become grouchier than normal on the trip. Nerves. Carrie’s tight shoulders told of her own tension.

  “Look Momma, we got a whole basket of nuts,” George proudly said.

  “I helped,” four-year-old Samuel said, grinning.

  “You didn’t help much. You kept getting away from us and we had to hunt you down twice.” Josh grumped more like his poppa every day.

  “Did not.” Samuel stuck out his lower lip.

  “Boys, go put those nuts in the wagon and help Auntie Carrie find some more firewood. We need to stock up. Tomorrow we cross the Ohio River, if your poppa’s right about where we are on the trail. Then we need to batten everything down good. There’s a ferry, they say, but it costs money we don’t have, so I reckon they will take some game.”

  James said, “The closer we get to the rivers, the better the chance of bagging some deer. You boys’ll stay with your momma tomorrow while me and Auntie Carrie go hunting. George, you’ll be in charge of Maisey. Joshua, your job’s to look after Napoleon.”

  Laura said, “And Sam, you will stay in the wagon and look after your sisters.”

  “Both of them?”

  Laura laughed. “Aye. You will keep them busy by playing with them and, if ye are a good boy, I will let you read a book to them.”

  “Oh, goodie. Thank you, Momma.” Sam hugged Laura around her legs.

  Sammy loved books and could read well even at his young age. Carrie read to him and his brothers on cold nights. Reading to them in the new cabin sounded like home even if the trace looked nothing like home yet. Many days of trudging awaited them.

  Carrie piled an armful of kindling and larger wood under the wagon and went back to stretching out the two furs for cleaning. She took pride in the skill she developed in creating clean, useful furs.

  Laura led the ox wagon to the ferry landing at the conjunction of the Cumberland and Ohio Rivers. One other wagon and two mules laden with goods stood waiting for the flatboat ferry as it made its slow way the quarter mile from the Illinois riverbank and across the Ohio River to the Kentucky side.

  She waited for Carrie and James. They would go separately, one ferry for the wagon, the next for the horses.

  The boys sat sleepily by the side of the wagon and the girls both napped on top of the wagon loaded with their whole life. Sam cradled the baby. He had fallen asleep as well, all bundled under a blanket. She beamed at their peaceful faces. The young’uns’ dark circles under their eyes, slack in their clothes, and lumbering walk, as well as James’s slow trod, fretted her. Carrie, never one to complain, walked with a limp yesterday.

  She intended to make them rest a day once they crossed into southern Illinois. The boys’ clothes and James and Carrie’s homespun breeches needed patches. Both of them were hard on clothes, clattering through underbrush, catching themselves on briars, getting muddy along the mired-down track, and generally not watching themselves. Despite them not being related by blood, James and Carrie matched each other in many ways. Pig-headed, quiet, and hard for her to comprehend. But she loved them both, differently but fiercely nevertheless.

  James’s hard work and tenacity at whatever he set out to do eased her mind. Carrie matched him in her hard work, but hardly ever gave orders like him. She carried the burden of teaching the boys to read and write and even tackled some sums with them. With Carrie around, Laura had time to mother Gerta and little Permelia. Carrie, good soul, would do anything she asked. But, would Carrie ever find her a husband? Carrie sighed a lot of late when nobody looked her way and kept to herself. Laura’s heart went out to Carrie’s solitary life.

  Laura sat on the wagon, keeping an eye out for the hunters. Two ferries made landing and left without them. Finally, Carrie and James crashed from the riverside woods with a large, five-point buck swinging between them.

  Laura leapt off the wagon.

  George and Joshua woke. They all crowded around the buck that the hunters dumped onto the ground.

  “I reckon that should pay our way,” James said between gasping breaths. He and Carrie tugged the large deer over to the ferryman for payment and came back. “Any vittles? We’re powerful hungry.”

  Laura put out a small picnic on the ground. “Now boys, let Poppa and Auntie Carrie have first pick. You had somethin
g a little while ago, and you’ve been resting while they worked hard.”

  The boys looked up at her sheepishly. Gerta and Samuel woke in the noise of the hunters’ arrival and asked for help to jump off the wagon. Thankfully, Permelia slept on.

  “Umm, thanks, Laura.” Carrie crumpled onto the ground, stuffing biscuits and cheese into her mouth.

  James gulped down his food, then lay back on the blanket. “Holy heck, I’m beat. The woods ’bout near tore us up. Brambles and underbrush around all the cricks and both rivers.” He exhaled, burped, and closed his eyes.

  Laura’s tender heart gladdened with her plan to make them all take a day of rest on the morrow.

  The empty ferry arrived on the bank. Laura exhaled and bit her lower lip. She gathered Sam, Gerta, and Permelia and drove their loaded wagon onto it. “I’ll see you all in a little bit. You boys watch yourself in the ferry and mind Poppa. We don’t have time to go grabbing you from the Ohio River, now. And, Josh, keep hold of that dog. We don’t need Patch swimming down the river.”

  Josh spoke up. “I’ll watch ’em, Momma, don’t you fret.”

  Laura gulped. Her ma’s warnings about staying out of rivers ran through her mind.

  The ferry shuddered into the brown, racing water, swollen with early spring snowmelt. Laura gripped the wagon sides. The current tugged them downstream. The roping system held them on course, thank heavens. She held her breath when a large tree swept past.

  Sam and Gerta watched her, wild-eyed, from their perches on the wagon.

  It felt like a long time, but in only a few minutes they hit the Illinois shore with a bump. Grabbing little Permelia from her basket, she strapped her onto her torso using a shawl.