Free The River of Souls by Robert McCammon

woman suddenly looked up from her book and saw him. She sat motionless for a moment, and then she waved. 
    Matthew took off his tricorn and waved it back at her. He intended for that to be all of the interaction, but Sarah Kincannon cupped a hand to her mouth and called out, “Where are you going?” 
    It struck Matthew that here might be a young woman in the mold of Berry Grigsby: a brightly-colored flower, adventurous and curious in her own way, intelligent and well-read and…yes, most likely quite bored with life on a rice plantation so far from Charles Town. He had a few seconds to make a decision, and he did. He turned Dolly off the road and across the meadow toward the young woman, who composed herself a bit by sitting in a more ladylike posture atop the boulder as he approached. 
    “Hello!” he said when he got nearer. “You must be Sarah!” 
    “I am. Do you know me?” 
    “I met your father in Jubilee.” Matthew pulled Dolly up short of the boulder, not wanting to frighten the girl by getting too close. “He told me you enjoyed books.” 
    “Oh, yes I do! They’re very wonderful.” She held up the volume for him to see. “This is poetry by Robert Herrick. Do you know his work?” 
    “Yes,” said Matthew, “I do.” The most famous of Herrick’s poems being an urging for virgins to make the most of time, to gather their rosebuds while they may for time was fleeting; he decided not to bring that into the discourse. He noted that Sarah Kincannon had removed her shoes, her stockinged feet crossed at the ankles and hanging over the boulder’s edge. The sturdy black shoes were lined up side-by-side. She smiled at him with a broad and very pretty face, her cheeks dimpled, her hair light blond and falling in waves around her shoulders. She had her father’s hazel-brown eyes, but in her face they were soft and sincere and…really…a bit dreamy. Matthew judged her to be about seventeen years old, and again she reminded him of Berry for the direct way she looked at him, and there was an earthy and extremely attractive component in her makeup. In that moment he missed Berry greatly, and sadly replayed in his mind their last scene together. 
    “I don’t see many strangers here,” Sarah told him. “Who are you?” 
    “My name is Matthew Corbett.” He felt as if he were introducing himself to half of the Carolina colony today. “And, as you may deduce, I’m not from around here. I’m from New York.” He said this with a bit of puffery that alarmed him as soon as it was spoken, for it was offered to further pique the girl’s interest. 
    “ New York? But what are you doing here?” She gave him a sly smile. “Lost?” 
    “Not yet,” he answered, “but the day is not over.” He swatted at the air to drive away the nettlesome insects, and noted that none seemed to be bothering Sarah. In fact, the flesh of her face and exposed arms glistened with some kind of ointment that must be keeping the biters away. 
    She seemed to read his mind, for she reached into a small brown leather purse at her side and brought out a purple-colored bottle with a cork in it. “Oil of fennel seeds,” she announced. “It does help.” She offered him the bottle, which he was glad to accept. He dabbed some on his fingers and wet his face, throat and the back of his neck, and was pleased to find the mosquitoes and other angry darters retreating from its not unpleasant aroma. “There,” Sarah said as Matthew gave the bottle back to her, “now they’ll leave you alone for awhile.” 
    “A little miracle,” said Matthew. 
    “No, just something Granny Pegg taught me. Oh…Granny Pegg is a woman on the plantation.” 
    “A slave?” 
    Sarah nodded. “We have many slaves. I mean…my father does.” A little darkness passed across her eyes but it was a summer cloud and lasted only an instant. “Charles Town must have the rice. It goes up for sale all along the coast. That makes the work very important.