by Sara Donati
“Kitty,” Elizabeth tried, and was rewarded with a sullen look. “Please tell me why you are angry with me.”
The younger woman never turned her gaze away from the men. “But I’m not angry with you in the least,” she said tunelessly.
Irritated, Elizabeth was tempted to let Katherine stew in her jealousy, but then she recalled how the scene in Mrs. Bennett’s parlor must have looked to her. I might as well try honesty, she thought, for it could do no more harm.
“Kitty,” she began again. “Richard made me an offer of marriage yesterday evening.”
A tremor ran over the other girl’s face, followed by a quick flow of color, but she didn’t speak.
“I didn’t accept him,” Elizabeth said. As irritating as Katherine could be, the urge to offer her some comfort was strong. She knew that it would be short-lived, if her plans came to fruition, but for the moment she wanted to help, if she could.
“Oh?” Katherine examined her mitt. “But I’m sure you will, the next time he asks.”
“Why do you think that?” Elizabeth said. “I haven’t shown him any encouragement.”
Katherine’s head turned toward Elizabeth in a slow, steady arc. Her blue eyes glittered, not with tears so much as anger and vexation.
“I suppose you are going to tell me that you want to remain a spinster,” she said with a small, bitter smile. “Your father may believe that—your brother seems to. But I don’t believe it for one moment.”
Elizabeth’s first urge was to protest that she did intend to stay single. That she had no intention or will to marry. The arguments for spinsterhood came to her easily; she had been perfecting them for almost ten years. But she could not tell Kitty what she was thinking; she was too young and too much involved to be trusted.
“I don’t believe that Richard and I would suit at all,” Elizabeth said gently.
Katherine gave a very unladylike snort. “Suit? You wouldn’t suit? What does that have to do with it?”
“I hope it has something to do with it,” Elizabeth responded. “If two people are to live together.” She had the distinct impression that Katherine was hurt by Richard’s offer to Elizabeth, and, nonsensically, affronted by Elizabeth’s rejection of him.
“I don’t see that you can be so fussy, it’s not like you have other suitors at your door. I would think Dr. Richard Todd would be a fine enough husband for you.”
She meant to hurt Elizabeth’s feelings, that was clear, and in fact Elizabeth was amazed and a little dismayed to find that Kitty disliked her so very much. But more than that, she was relieved. Thank God, she thought. Thank God, she really has no idea about Nathaniel.
“You and my father are of one mind on this,” Elizabeth said quietly. “I wish I were so sure. Tell me,” Elizabeth said, leaning toward Katherine suddenly and grasping her hand. “If you love Richard, why are you showing so much interest in my brother?”
“Because Richard is very good at getting what he wants,” Katherine said miserably, turning her face away, but allowing Elizabeth to hold her hand. “And Richard wants you.”
“Surely we can spare an hour and still be home before sunset,” Julian was saying.
Richard glanced at the sky and back toward the sleigh, and resettled himself in the saddle. “The temperature’s dropping,” he pointed out.
“Well, it won’t bloody well matter to us, will it? We aren’t the ones chasing a ball around on the ice barefoot. I’d like a chance to win back some of what I lost the day before yesterday.”
The wind rose around them, riffling the grasses over the frozen marsh, but Julian seemed oblivious to the weather.
“It’s a damn exciting game, this lacrosse,” Julian added. “I don’t wonder the Indians call it Little Brother of War—a full-fledged battle couldn’t make men move as fast, I’d warrant. I bet Lizzie would like to see it.”
Richard had been letting Julian ramble on, but now he laughed. “I can’t imagine that.”
“You don’t know her very well, do you?” Julian said dryly. “Lizzie was the most awful tomboy. Drove the aunt distracted, pulling her out of trees and off horses. She was a better jumper than I ever was, until Merriweather found out and put a stop to it. And then she’d go off for walks and be gone for the day.”
“Elizabeth? Your sister?” Richard shook his head. “I can’t see it.”
“Oh, yes, she’s a great one for sport, at least she was until she started reading. Although I don’t know what she’d make of the dancing.”
Richard’s face stilled. “You were at the longhouse for the dancing?”
“I spent the whole day. Don’t look at me like that, old boy. Who wouldn’t be drawn in, with all the drums and that singing, the men leaping around with those masks—makes your skin rise. I enjoyed it, all except the prayers. They do seem to drag on, Christian or heathen. Say …” He turned in the saddle toward Richard. “Is it true what they say about the women?”
Richard kept his gaze focused on the horizon. “What do they say?”
Julian grimaced. “As if you didn’t know. They tell me old Sir Johnson had wives in every Mohawk camp. A generous people, if you get my meaning.”
“That was years ago,” Richard said dismissively. “Generosity wears thin if it’s taken advantage of.”
“Oh,” said Julian. “Damn shame.” Then he glanced back at the sleigh, and waved.
“Was there somebody in particular caught your eye?”
Julian shrugged. “Well, you’ve got to admit that Bonner’s sister-in-law is a rare one. Never seen the like. Many-Doves, they call her. At the dancing—” Julian broke off, and cleared his throat.
Richard sent Julian a sideways glance. “I thought your interests were elsewhere.”
“Kitty, you mean?” Julian asked, recovering his good humor with a grin. “I doubt much will come of that.”
“And why not?” Richard asked, in an affronted tone.
“Oh, well, the same reason you gave up on her, I suppose—Don’t look at me like that, it’s common knowledge, after all. She’s a nice enough girl, but there’s no money, is there? And that father of hers—a bit of a bore, too, if the truth be told.”
Richard squinted into the sky, over the horizon, and found everything more worthy of his gaze than Julian. “Take a care,” he said gruffly. “She’s tenderhearted.” Without looking Julian’s way, he asked quickly: “Has she said anything to you?”
“About you?” Julian shook his head. “Not a word, but she looks at you when she thinks nobody’s paying heed. I expect she’s giving Lizzie an earful. She’s in a foul temper this morning, after catching the two of you last night.”
“Nothing happened,” Richard said, scowling.
“But not for lack of trying, eh?” Julian laughed again. “I wish you good luck, at any rate. You’ll need it with Lizzie.” He pulled up suddenly. “There it is. Barktown.”
“I see it,” Richard said shortly.
Julian raised himself in the saddle to get a better look at the small group of cabins huddled around a single bark longhouse in the distance. “That’s all that’s left of the great Mohawk nation.”
“Those aren’t just Kahnyen’kehàka,” said Richard, his eyes moving over the throngs of people. “Every Iroquois in this part of the state comes to Barktown for Midwinter. They’ve got no longhouses of their own anymore. There couldn’t be more than forty Mohawk here, most of the time.”
“So why are these ones still here, then?”
“Because Sky-Wound-Round was the only one of the Kahnyen’kehàka sachems who sent his boys to fight with the colonials. Which is a shame,” Richard said grimly. “Because if he had stayed allied with Brant and the Tories, he would have had to move his people north, and there wouldn’t be a Mohawk left in New-York.”
There was a flicker of surprise on Julian’s face.
“Moses Southern tells me you lived with the Mohawk for years.”
“So I did. What of it?” Richard’s face had grown sudden
ly still.
“Well, then, you must know a damn sight more about lacrosse than I do. Your advice would be helpful when I lay my wager. Hold on,” he said, ignoring Richard’s protest while he turned his horse. “I’m going to talk to the girls about this.”
Elizabeth bounced up and down on her toes and stretched to get a better view over the heads of the crowds lining the playing field. Lacrosse, Julian had called this game. It was like nothing she had ever seen before.
Fourteen men dressed in nothing more than breechclouts, barefooted, their hair dressed with feathers and their faces painted, pounded up and down over the frozen marsh, steam rising from their sweating bodies. They ran and collided and struggled and ran again, their sticks flailing wildly. Each of them had his entire attention focused on the net that held the ball. It might as well be July, Elizabeth thought, for all the attention they paid to the weather.
All around the playing field Indians stood in groups, their heads moving in tandem as they followed the game. They did not look to be enjoying it, exactly; Elizabeth thought they might watch a battle from a safe spot with the same intensity and focus. The only playfulness she could see came from the children, who dashed up and down the embankment following the game, brandishing smaller sticks of their own, shouting to each other, evading the grasping hands of mothers and aunts.
There were whites as well, standing well apart, talking among themselves and laughing. They seemed to be mostly hunters and woodsmen, much like the men of Paradise. One of them was staring at Julian, Elizabeth noted with some discomfort. He was a great barrel of a man, a trapper by his dress. She didn’t wonder that they knew him here; it was obvious that he had spent an entire day earlier in the week. What trouble he had been brewing she could only guess at.
“My father would not approve,” Kitty said for perhaps the fourth time. “I should not be here.”
Julian took her elbow in one hand and Elizabeth’s in the other. “I’ll talk to your father, Kitty,” he said, pulling them along, barely able to mask his excitement. “This way,” he said. “Over here, you’ll be able to see better.”
Elizabeth followed her brother to a knoll, but kept her eyes fixed on the game. Now they were close enough to the field to smell the sweat as the players thundered past. With a little start she recognized Otter, his stick held across his body at an angle as he ran full-out for the goalpost. Wood clashed on wood as the others dodged and struck, trying to dislodge the ball from his net. He feinted left and then with a neat twist sent the ball flying toward the other side of the river, where another player leapt to scoop it out of the air with a flick of his stick.
“How do you know who plays together?” Katherine asked. The excitement of the game was having some effect on her, although she still scowled.
“You can’t,” Julian said. “They don’t mark themselves as Wolf or Turtle. You’d have to ask one of the Indians.” He was looking over the crowds as he spoke.
“Wait here,” he said suddenly. “I’ll be back in just a moment.”
“Julian,” Elizabeth said in a low voice. “I’m just going to look for Richard,” he mumbled as he stalked off.
“Don’t be long,” Katherine called after him, stepping in closer to Elizabeth.
“Remember your promise!” Elizabeth added, to which Julian waved a hand over his head without turning back. She realized that Julian’s vow was long broken, and prayed that he wouldn’t write scrips when his cash ran out. More uneasy than ever, she let her gaze wander once again through the crowds. There was no sign of Nathaniel anywhere; she could only hope that he would see her here on the knoll. She felt slightly dizzy with the tension of it all, and wished that they hadn’t stopped.
“Do you know any of them?” Katherine asked with a sideways glance.
Glad of this distraction, Elizabeth turned her attention to the game. “There—that player, the very tall one who just passed the ball, that’s Runs-from-Bears, from the Turtle clan.”
The players had thrown themselves into a ferocious huddle in pursuit of a ground ball. With a grunt of satisfaction, one—a smaller man, but sleek and flexible—managed to get the ball into his net and lope off with the others close on his heels.
Elizabeth tried not to stare at the players, at their naked chests or the hard-muscled thighs which flashed from under the breechclouts as they ran. Mr. Witherspoon certainly would not approve; she imagined the long and tedious sermon he might preach, and hoped that Kitty would keep this outing to herself at home. But it was a very strange situation for two single women to be in; the specter of Aunt Merriweather’s outraged face rose and was quickly put away.
There was a tugging at her arm, and she looked down.
“Hannah!”
Elizabeth was so pleased to see the little girl that she leaned down and hugged her, pressing a kiss on one cold cheek. Hannah smiled broadly at this greeting, and touched her fingers shyly to Elizabeth’s face.
“Come,” Hannah said, taking Elizabeth’s gloved hand, and nodding at Kitty. “Come.” She led them through a small group of old men who stood watching the game wrapped in blankets and fur robes, talking in low tones among themselves while they nursed long clay pipes. Their attention was fixed on the far end of the playing field, where the players were headed.
“Julian said to wait,” Katherine protested, even as she followed along.
“Julian is paying us no mind at all,” Elizabeth pointed out.
The village itself was a little collection of log cabins set in a frozen circle of fallow cornfields. At the center of all this stood a longhouse. It was about the length of four cabins, constructed entirely of bark lashed together with rope of braided roots. Tendrils of smoke rose from vents in the roof, but there were no windows. A door faced the east and the playing field, hung with a tremendous bearskin worn hairless and almost transparent at the edges. Above it a turtle had been drawn in red paint on the bark.
On a prominent spot between the lodge and the playing field, just before the remains of a great fire, an old man sat on a blanket. In front of him was a great pile of goods: bundles of pelts, a very old flintlock musket, a collection of knives, an axe head without a handle, a bullet mold, a waistcoat of brocade, pieces of calico in various colors, a brace of rabbit, striped blankets, a lace shawl, glass and metal beads laid out carefully, a tied bundle of tobacco, a statue of the Virgin Mary, and a copper kettle. In a semicircle around the old man and his treasures, a group of women stood watching the game. Elizabeth was relieved to see Falling-Day and Many-Doves coming toward them.
“Please,” Falling-Day said, her dark eyes bright with welcome. “You honor us by coming to watch baggataway on the last day of Midwinter. Please sit.” She was gesturing to another blanket.
“We can only stay another few minutes,” Katherine said to her, distantly. “We have to be going very soon.”
Elizabeth took Katherine’s arm, squeezed it hard.
“Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness,” she said. “But we would really like to watch.”
They joined the women, who nodded at them impassively with hooded eyes before they turned back to watch their sons and brothers and husbands.
The old man was certainly the most ancient human being Elizabeth had ever seen, older even than Chingachgook. One of his eyes was covered with a milky gray substance, and his long hair had thinned to a baby-fine white. But he watched the game with a keen interest and awareness that made it clear that he was not feeble.
“That is my great-grandfather,” Hannah whispered to Elizabeth. “He is the clan elder here, he looks after the wagers.”
“What is your great-grandfather’s name?”
“Gau’yata’se,” Many-Doves answered for Hannah, coming up beside Elizabeth. “ ‘Sky-Wound-Round.’ And that is my uncle.” She indicated another older man, who paced the edge of the river. “He is the keeper of the faith, called Bitter-Words.”
Elizabeth watched as Bitter-Words raised a turtle’s-shell rattle above his head to
the rising cadence of his song. His whole body moved with the rhythm, and each step was accompanied by the music of shell necklaces and strings of animal teeth hanging from his neck and wound around his waist and knees. On his head was a complex headdress in the likeness of a fox.
There was a gasp from the crowd and Elizabeth turned to see the small, lean player darting from one end of the field to the other, leaving his pursuers behind to send the ball flying; it made contact with a large boulder with a satisfying smack. There was a rustling among the observers and a great deal of more animated discussion.
“Did he score?”
“Yes, the Turtle clan have made their sixth goal,” said Hannah, with a small frown. “Now the Wolf and the Turtle are both within one point of a victory.”
A woman broke out of the crowd with a terrible scowl on her face and stepped out onto the ice, waving her fists in the direction of the players and upbraiding them loudly.
“My cousin,” Falling-Day explained to Elizabeth. “She is clan mother here. Her son plays for the Wolf, and she don’t think much of his performance today.”
