I was feeling restless, and if I were to face the truth, I had been, since the night I met Jemima at the Governor's. She had stirred my spirits, in ways I could not even identify; somehow the images of the long horizons along the river, the mountain passages and the streams north of Boone's Lick had awoken some vision in me. But my training, although I had learned to ride and to shoot as any young man must, had also left me with a moral stricture to bend to my last, do well and make my way amongst the civilized men and women of the world.

So I turned to my duties, scribing wills, composing petitions to the Court, overseeing petty claims of ventures gone well or ill, either kind causing divisive ill-feeling amongst partners who started them in high hope and bonhomie. Celeste entered my life unexpectedly, but the depth of her look and the clarity of her voice again awakened something in my, something that yearned for a more direct and honest way of living, less cluttered with penmanship and subtle phrases. Like Jemima, she had the free running waters of distant rivers echoing in her blood. But had events not turned as they did, it was an echo I never would have harkened to, being intent in fulfilling what it pleased me to conceive of as "duty" -- a treacherous and shallow rendition of a fine and noble word, I am sorry to say.

She appeared, as promised on Thursday morning, and not alone. She had with her a slender and stately woman, of similar light but distinct Color, willowy and tall, perhaps 28 years old at a guess, whom she introduced to me as her daughter Sophie. I found another chair for Sophie, and as I was handing her into it, I noticed she had indeed, unquestionably, inherited her fine features from her young mother, including the large dark and unfathomably deep eyes; but one of hers, I could not help but see, was bruised and swollen nearly shut.

"Forgive me if I seem forward, Sophie, but may I ask what happened to your face?"

"It was my master who struck me.", she replied softly. The words were not completely out of her lovely mouth when her mother flashed out, swift as summer lightning striking down sin.   

"He is no master of yours, Sophie, and you must never say he is!" Celeste's eyes were fierce, and her daughter flinched.

"Yes, momma. But he says...."

"Never mind what that man says! You know he is a scoundrel and a rascal and no good!! If it had not been for the chance arrival of that preacher last week, you would be swelling today with his child in you! Hush!"

Sophie hung her young head in dismay.

Celeste turned her attention to me, and I can understand, from the depth of fire in her eyes, why Sophie qualied.

"You see what I have to deal with, sir. This man, who claims he is the executor and legal authority of Madame Helen's estate, has chosen to insist that we -- my children, myself, and my grandchild -- are chattel of his estate!! Like Chevalier, rot his soul, before him!! And he uses force on us at will to keep us imprisoned and his lash, and will not let us free!"

"And who is this man, Celeste -- what is his name, and what does he do?"

It was then I saw Sophie had inherited more of her mother's sand than I would have believed up to that point. She straightened from her chair and leaned forward, interrupting her mother, and stared me in the eye, her bruised and battered face a vibrant and outraged witness.

"His name is Lefrenier Chouvin. He is devil's spawn and I wish he would rot in Hell."

I felt again the wind of far places and realer people, and the whisper of far waters, echoing in my mind as I looked at her. Bruised, downtrodden and young, she stood straighter and spoke more clearly than anyone I had met in the fine dining room of the Governor's mansion,. except perhaps for Jemima Boone Callaway; and somehow, the fire of her young courage and her mother's fierce demand converged like rivers with the echoes in my mind, and I saw plainly where I would place my support.

Thus it was, in the spring of 1825, that I accepted their case, and that, by necessity, pro bono publico. And although that moment's decision changed my life forever, I would do it again today for the fire in that battered face.