He dismounted and quickly moved to the buckboard to help her down, and then, as the sergeant hiyawed the horses off to the barn in the back, waited before advancing further, almost shyly, until she had mounted the steps and beckoned him into the house.
“Come along, Captain,” she said.
Sarah and Jacob, ever observant, were waiting on the porch stoop and watched Pickett enter after their mother. Following after him into the small, modest parlor, they stood expectantly until he noticed their presence, at which point Sarah stepped forward and asked to take his coat and cap.
Pickett obliged and, seeing wide-eyed Jacob, winked at him, then unbuckled his field saber and handed it over to the boy.
Jacob, duly impressed with this privilege, hefted the sword, three-quarters his own height, with a solemnity that made Pickett smile.
The children quickly returned from their task, hovering, until Emmy motioned for them to go upstairs to their rooms.
“Sarah, Jacob. Captain Pickett and your mother have some important business.” She turned to Pickett with an apologetic smile.
As Sarah was about to turn away, Jacob stepped forward. “Do you ever fight the Indians, Captain? My father has. In the war east of the mountains. He’s a colonel in the volunteers.”
Pickett knew about Isaac’s participation in the fight against Kamiakin. All the military in the region had been grateful for volunteerism after the Elliott Bay attack in the south of the Puget Sound, but the eager participation of untrained militia had caused its share of problems as well.
After a similar attack on Bellingham a few months later, Pickett repeatedly had to intervene to rescue innocent natives from lynching by angry settlers. There were decent citizens and ones who simply made a mess, he thought to himself, and wondered into which category Isaac Evers fit.
He squatted before Jacob, bringing his eyes level with the boy’s, then glanced up at Emmy and Sarah.
“Well, I heard that your father is a brave man, son. We try to avoid picking fights with the aborigines. I just try to keep order up in the North Sound.”
Emmy gave Sarah a look, and with that, Sarah took Jacob’s hand and pulled him away. “That’s enough, little brother.”
Sarah turned and watched Pickett carefully as she guided her brother up the staircase.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Pickett remained standing until his hostess sat down on the small parlor’s one soft-cushioned chair and then, after she motioned for him to be seated, placed himself opposite her on the divan, discreetly observing her motions and mannerisms.
It was evident to him that she was with child, although early enough in her condition that her posture and gait were not yet tentative. Emmy had finely cut lines and a smoothly curved back; sturdy but not overly broad shoulders; and strong, well-proportioned hands with long fingers, similar to the velvet- and lace-covered ones on the beauties he remembered from the cotillion ball celebrations in Virginia.
He thought of his two wives. Sally, his first wife, born of a wealthy family and well bred, had smaller hands than Morning Mist, but both women had a brown hardness to their touch, developed from the toil necessary to get along in their harsh environs. Emmy Evers had the same type of calluses as the other women, but somehow she had preserved the gentility of motion from her well-born origin. Her handshake was strong, firm and what he sensed was an unforced confidence.
Her face was finely featured with high cheekbones and bright, fiercely honest brown eyes that were fixed on his own in a way that discomfited him.
Some women’s eyes, he reflected, betrayed an angry self-pity and others a naïvety that made for contempt or tempted seduction. There was none of this in Emmy’s deep brown eyes. Rather, he found them hard to observe because of what her eyes pulled up to his own surface, overwhelming him in an instant.
He knew from the moment he met her that she would never let him get away with a lie.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
“So, Captain Pickett, it is apparent from the soft cadence of your speech that you are a Southerner, but not from the Deep South. I would guess the beautiful state of Virginia. Am I correct?”
Seeing a flash of appreciative affirmation in his eyes and sensing in him the melancholia she had witnessed in others during this fall season of quick-darkening skies that followed on mellow Octobers, she nodded over to the parlor window and the slate-colored seascape below.
“What does a Southern gentleman think of this sad green and gray?”
He followed her wistful glance and nodded.
“Astute, madame,” he smiled. “I would say that, to one who rode for a few but, at the same time, too many years in the Southwest and on the baked Mexican deserts, the color green has always provided a welcome contrast for me. The perpetual gray skies of the winters here, however, make one almost forget the definition of verdant and what a full palette of colors can do for one’s disposition.” After a pause, he continued, “I miss my home very much at times, particularly during this change of seasons.”
“I understand, sir. I understand.”
That commiseration established a bond between them, and for a few moments, neither spoke. Their eyes moved again to the window.
Then, for a short while they exchanged in a simple, formal banter, with short forays into each other’s perspective on a variety of subjects. They discussed each other’s vision of what constituted propriety, God’s purposes, and, as well, the destiny of their young country.
Because of his mannerisms, more than by the words he chose on the topic of political debate raging back East, she was not surprised when Pickett professed a deep disdain for slavery. She had found that, unlike other soldiers she had met, he worried for the welfare of the aboriginal inhabitants of the region.
She heard him use the word “unwitting” repeatedly in his description of the unfortunate peoples’ response to their rapidly changing living conditions. He was particularly vehement about his condemnation of how the
