by Lori Benton
Elijah looked at her with tenderness. “I wish he’d never left us, but I understand why he did. There was a time I’d have left, was I in possession of two hands to break free of my prison. But the want of a hand was my prison.”
Was. “You no longer feel so imprisoned?”
“There’s always a way forward for a man, no matter what’s been lost, if he’s strong of will, or of hope.”
Joanna remembered those words, or some very like them, overheard that day. “And faith,” she hastened to add. “If the Almighty has seen fit for you to go on living, there’s a reason. A purpose. Alex didn’t believe that.”
“Nor did I, for a time.” Elijah paused, then asked, “Do ye pray for him, Joanna?”
“Morning, night, and sundry times between.”
They continued to the smithy, where the hammer’s clang rang in the heat. Demas was at the anvil when they walked in. Wrapped in the leather apron Alex once wore, he paused the hammer. Elijah demanded his attention, coming to inspect his work.
Joanna turned to go.
“Miss Carey.”
Demas had uttered her name. Speared by it, she turned back. “Yes?”
“You be knowing where is Master Reeves now?”
“Away to the fields, last I knew.” It was the final day of harvesting. “Why?”
The crunch of boots outside the smithy reached her ears an instant before Mister Reeves himself entered, stride swift with purpose, jaw set.
Joanna flinched as he drew abreast of her, but he strode past as if he hadn’t registered her presence. She looked with alarm at Elijah, fearing he was the target of this advance, but the overseer ignored him as well. He thrust out a small leather pouch at Demas.
“What is the meaning of this?” Mister Reeves yanked open the pouch’s drawstring and tipped its contents onto the brick counter. Dried bits of leaf and bark fell, wafted by the forge’s heat. “Oleander,” he proclaimed, burning gaze fixed on Demas. “Found in your cabin.”
“Oleander?” Joanna echoed. It was poisonous—leaf, bark, flower, and root. They didn’t keep it at Severn.
Demas stood at the anvil, hammer in one hand, in the other the tongs gripping a length of iron, tip cooling from its cherry-red. He was braced, still as a shadow, as if he awaited enlightenment as well. Or needed none.
Mister Reeves turned on Joanna. “After you all but accused me of poisoning Captain Carey, I decided to discover the truth for myself. I’m aware you’ve noticed my checking his food—which I grant is the likely cause of your suspicion and why you set yourself and Azuba as guards at Captain Carey’s beside. I’d no proof to refute your suspicions until now. There it is,” he said, pointing at the oleander. “Your proof.”
“What are ye saying?” Elijah cut in, stepping nearer Joanna. “That Demas poisoned Captain Carey? With that?” He jerked his head toward the counter.
“Yes, Moon. That’s exactly what’s happened. What I want to know is why?” Mister Reeves swung to face his slave, features riven with betrayal. “What have you to say?”
Joanna expected a denial, but when Demas spoke it sounded more like warning.
“Phineas. Don’t do this.” His big hand clenched the hammer.
The specter of violence had arisen, wrapping them in unseen bands. Mister Reeves glanced at her, in his eyes something she’d never seen there. Fear. Then they hardened with a reckless gleam.
“Moses! Billy!” At his bark the head groom and one of the stable hands stepped into the doorway, obviously having lingered out of sight. “Take Demas to the smokehouse. The one where we kept MacKinnon. Miss Carey, your key, please.”
While Joanna gaped, the two slaves took one stride into the smithy but halted when Demas leveled a look at them.
“Help them, Moon,” Mister Reeves said.
Elijah ignored the command.
With a growl of frustration, the overseer lunged for his slave. Only then did Demas move, dropping hammer, tongs, and heated iron to the earthen floor. With startling swiftness, he stepped from behind the anvil into Mister Reeves’s path and swung a massive fist, catching him full in the face.
Mister Reeves dropped without a sound.
Demas put his head down and charged the slaves in the doorway. They leapt aside, then looked at Mister Reeves lying prone.
Elijah had gathered his wits. To the two in the doorway he said, “Best ye do make a show of it.”
They shared a look, then took off after Demas.
“Ye’ll see to him?” Elijah asked her, bending a nod at Mister Reeves, stirring with a faint moan.
She nodded and he left. She stood, shaken, staring down at her stepfather’s overseer as he made an abortive attempt to rise.
Dared she believe what just happened?
She forced herself to offer the support of an arm. Once on his feet, nose bloodied, he brushed her off. “Demas. Where is he?”
“He ran. Do you truly think he poisoned Papa?”
“I know it.” He headed toward the door, wiping at his nose, staggering a little, but there Elijah met him. Mister Reeves grasped his arm when he made to step past. “Did you catch him?”
“I hadn’t known that slave of yours could move so fast. He’s well away.”
“To where?”
“Making for the swamps, I suppose.”
For an instant Mister Reeves seemed poised to race after his slave. Instead he whirled toward Joanna, bleeding still. “I hope,” he said with cutting calm, “this puts to rest your suspicions of me.”
34
AUGUST 1748
It was the last meeting Pauling would hold at Blackbird’s lodge. After taking no harm from the canebrake’s venom, Blackbird deemed him worthy of his own dwelling, with the freedom to come and go as he wished. Longhair Clan hands had raised it in the Cherokee style, with a central fire and platforms built into the walls for storage and sleeping. Pauling had moved most of his belongings there—household gifts from those who heard his preaching.
If preaching was even the word for what Pauling was doing. Seated with his Cherokee flock beneath the pole awning, he talked for long stretches but invited question or comment. Though unaccustomed to interrupting a speaker, over time the Cherokees had grown easier with Pauling’s invitation to discourse, until the gatherings resembled an informal meeting of friends. Since the incident with the snake, twice as many were gathering to hear what he had to say. Even Runs-Far’s parents lingered at the edge, listening with furrowed brows.
Runs-Far had yet to return from his journey on Jemma’s behalf. Jemma, sitting now by the door-hide listening to Pauling, the bairn in her arms, was anxious for him.
“I have learned that the sufferings of this present life are hardly worth noticing when compared to the good things we will experience in His kingdom. Look around you at the mountains. The very earth the Almighty created is impatient for the redemption that is coming. It awaits it with longing, groaning in pain like a woman giving birth.”
As if to illustrate the scripture Pauling read, translating into Tsalagi, the Cherokee language, Jemma’s bairn was fussing. She’d fed him, patted his back, held him on her knees and played with his toes, but the instant she stopped, his whimpering resumed.
“And when we grow weary in waiting, the Spirit of the Almighty is with us, helping us to pray. It is all right if we do not know what words to use when our hearts are deeply pained with need. God’s knowledge of us goes deeper than our pain. His Spirit prays for us, always for our best, making good words out of our sighs and groans. That is why we rest in this assurance: God is a loving Father working the details of our lives into a good pattern, like a skillful weaver makes her basket.”
Pauling smiled, gaze shifting to the lodge’s doorway. Alex turned to see Blackbird standing there, observing the scene outside her lodge as Pauling addressed his listeners again.
As the Cherokees looked at one another to see who might speak first, Jemma’s bairn loosed a howl. Amid much laughter, she shot to her feet and ducked inside the lodge with her squalling son. Blackbird went in as well.
“What you say is true.” Pauling was replying to something one of his flock had said, as the laughter settled down. “We are promised that in this life we will have difficult times that test us. That is because there is a war being waged on this earth between our Father in heaven and our enemy, Satan. We are warriors in that battle! But listen, here is a truth to cling to in the fight: it is a battle already won. Do not lose sight of how our story ends. Or begins, one might say.”
Pauling had spoken of these things to Moon during his visits to the smithy. It made Alex remember the crowd gathered on the lawn at Severn, Joanna seated at its edge, drinking in this man’s words like a thirsty doe.
He’d asked Pauling why he didn’t return to Pennsylvania, once his status as a slave no longer prevented it. “Or to Severn,” he’d added, causing Pauling to look at him with speculation.
“To everything its season. A time for returning will come.”
“Ye’ve your wee flock of converts,” Alex had persisted. “But d’ye not see those who stand opposed? These people may well force ye to go—or worse—if ye dinna cease trying to change their ways.” He’d been thinking of Cane-Splitter, but there were others. Not all welcomed Pauling’s religion. “Take your freedom and go. I’ll see ye safe.”
Pauling had confounded him by proclaiming himself a prisoner still. “Christ’s prisoner. Not until I sense His release will I move one inch from this place, and certainly not for fear of my well-being. It’s by His mercy we’re kept. On that day appointed we’ll each pass from this life. Until then nothing may touch those who trust in Him unless He allows it.”
“Even a rattler,” Jemma had pronounced, convinced of what Pauling preached since the incident with the snake.
Nothing may touch those who trust in Him unless He allows it. What of all that had passed at Severn? Had such losses continued? Had Carey conquered that shadow that haunted him? Had Joanna committed herself to another sort of prison—marriage to Reeves, who had, Alex was all but certain, orchestrated the events that forced him to flee?
Anger washed over him as one of the Cherokees asked another question of Pauling. He shut out the discussion that ensued, shifting attention inward—and heavenward. Aye, I acknowledge Ye. I ken what Ye did with Pauling. Ye showed Yourself strong to these people through it, but what of Joanna? Are Ye helping her at all?
As he waited in brooding silence, a thought pierced. Had the Almighty meant to help Joanna through him? Had that been the prompting behind Pauling’s request he look out for her? I canna think there’s anything Ye’d have used the likes of me to do for Edmund Carey, or Joanna, even Moon, but…was there?
The stir of bodies rising recalled his attention. Pauling was on his feet, speaking to Runs-Far’s parents. Earlier Fishing Hawk had mentioned a hunt he was planning, extending Alex an invitation. Eager to venture beyond the town and explore the surrounding mountains, he’d accepted.
“Alex?”
He looked up into Little Thunder’s gaze. The boy beckoned.
Welcoming the distraction, he let Blackbird’s son lead him to the door-hide, knowing Pauling likely to be some time answering questions, praying for needs.
Little Thunder spoke in Tsalagi, forcing Alex to translate the words. Was Alex hungry? Did he want to eat now?
The Cherokees observed no formal meal times, but each fire had something on hand for whenever anyone wished to eat it.
“Aye,” he replied in English, which the child was picking up. “I do.”
They entered the smoky lodge. Near the central fire Blackbird sat weaving a basket, surrounded by her materials—river cane split, trimmed, soaked, and dyed in shades of red, black, and brown. She was exceptionally skilled at creating an ingenious sort of nested double basket, the two connected seamlessly at the rim, the outer a complex pattern of dyed canes.
He’d watched her weave before, as Jemma was doing now, keeping one eye on the bairn, who had finally dropped off to sleep. She looked up at his and Little Thunder’s entrance, warning in her gaze.
Alex put a hand to the lad’s shoulder and, when he looked up, pressed a finger to his lips. Little Thunder nodded. Alex caught the trailing end of Blackbird’s smile as he and Little Thunder settled at the fire and ate from a kettle of stewed corn.
“How far he go?” Jemma asked in Tsalagi, keeping her voice low as she ruminated about Runs-Far, which she did as frequently as she’d once chattered about finding these people. “Think he find woman who holds memory of my grandmother?”
Pauling entered the lodge in time to hear the question. “The Almighty is in control of all that concerns you, Walnut. Be content with the day’s blessings and wait on His plan to unfold. He will strengthen your heart.”
Blackbird looked to Jemma. “Probably he is right,” she allowed with a nod at Pauling. “At least in this—it does no good to worry over what cannot be changed. Yes?”
Jemma nodded reluctantly.
Pauling said, “I need only move my bedding and I will have properly set up house.”
Blackbird set aside her weaving and rose. “I have gift,” she said in English. She didn’t dig among her possessions long to find it, a stone pipe, bowl carved with the images of birds. A symbol of peace, though Pauling hadn’t brought peace to her life. Alex recalled the tense scene he’d witnessed after Blackbird’s decision to free Pauling became known. Though he’d been too distant to hear their words when Cane-Splitter and Blackbird met on the path near the lodge being raised for Pauling, the warrior’s gestures and the contentious language of their bodies had needed no interpretation.
“I have gift!” As though inspired by his mother’s generosity, Little Thunder darted to his sleeping bench and began pulling out baskets, searching for whatever he meant to give the departing reverend, growing agitated when he couldn’t find it.
Alex rose to help. “What is it ye wish to give?”
“Rock,” the child said, unhelpfully. Alex decided should he find a rock, the lad would know it for the right one. He reached for a narrow birch-bark container. Even as he saw what lay within, Little Thunder said, “No.”
It was another pipe, more ornate than the one Blackbird had given Pauling, the bowl carved with the figures of wolves, long stem wrapped in scarlet thread and hung with the flight feathers of redbird, blue jay, goldfinch, and that green bird abundant in the mountains Pauling called a parakeet. The gaudy feathers were rumpled, the threads frayed with handling.
Alex replaced the lid, noting as he did that Blackbird had seen.
Little Thunder found the stone he sought, half a rough orb with a cluster of purple crystals in its belly. Pauling accepted the gift with such delight it left the lad beaming. The reverend bade them farewell, took up his bedding, and left for his lodge.
As the door-hide swung closed, Little Thunder’s smile faded. He turned a wistful gaze on Alex.
“If Runs-Far find woman,” Jemma said, returning to her favorite subject, “she know my grandmother’s clan, I hope. What are we?”
“Is there a Talks-A-Lot Clan?” Alex asked.
Understanding his English, Little Thunder laughed. Blackbird hid a grin as she went back to her weaving. Her son went to his sleeping bench. Alex went out to where Blackbird kept firewood and fetched in an armful for the morning. He settled by the fire, at a loss for what to do with Blackbird occupied, Little Thunder dozing off with a full belly, Jemma busy with the bairn.
He missed Pauling, he realized with no little surprise as he watched the flames dance, the shift and whisper of the burning wood unequal to filling the v
oid the reverend’s absence left. He was reaching for a stick to poke at the whitened embers when Blackbird looked up from her weaving.
“I could tell you of that pipe. The one beneath where my son sleeps.”
“That pipe,” he said in his awkward Cherokee. “It is…” He searched for the word. “Uwoduhi. Beautiful thing.”
That pleased her, judging by the softening of her mouth. “I will tell you about the man who used it—that one’s father,” she added, nodding at her sleeping son, black hair tousled on the furs. “Bring it out. Look at it.”
Alex hesitated, surprised by the offer. Jemma widened her eyes, telling him clearly to get up off his haunches and fetch the thing. He did so, then seated himself beside her so she could examine the pipe’s carvings, finger the bright feathers dangling from the scarlet-wrapped stem.
“That pipe is all I kept of the man who was my husband,” Blackbird said. “I was happy with that man in my lodge, happy to bear his son. I had hoped…” Leaving the statement unfinished, she launched into a recounting of a hunt her husband had gone on, in the season when snow lay deep on the high slopes. She named the ones who’d gone with him, including Cane-Splitter. “That warrior is born to the same clan as my husband. Born to sisters, so they were as brothers.”
A pucker knit her brows. Alex had thought the tension between Cane-Splitter and Blackbird to do with his presence, and Pauling’s. Now he wondered if the true cause was something unrelated to their coming to Crooked Branch’s town.
“They went to hunt buffalo.” Blackbird gestured at the door-hide. “You have seen buffalo?”
She’d addressed the question to Jemma, who shook her head, rapt as a child hearing a bedtime story. “They big, ain’t they?” she asked, lapsing into English.
