by Aaron Galvin
Bishop shakes his head. “It were Andrew that heard of it when delivering furs into Sudbury. Met his future bride there too.”
I blink my surprise. “A bride?”
“Aye. He means to fetch her come the spring. In truth, yer brother and I are glad of it. Lives with his nightmares, that one. Aye, and tries to drown them in whiskey.” Bishop strokes his beard. “For a time, we thought to find Andrew drowned in the river, or else dead in the wild. He yet drinks more than most, but less of late.”
“A woman’s touch,” I say, grateful Andrew has found love at long last.
“Aye,” says Bishop. “If only the same could be said of Priest, eh?”
I do not deny his claim. Not only would Bishop know it a lie, but it be one that would taste sour on my tongue.
“Tried to warn them both, I did.” Bishop sighs. “He is a wild thing. A wolf with no pack.”
“He has a pack,” I say quickly.
Bishop grins. “Aye. But ye don’t think to tame him like yer sister. Only run free at his side, ye mad she-wolf.”
He chuckles anew then fights off another fit.
“I’d run with ye both, if I could, lass. Me spirit’s willin’, though me bones say no. But if I could…” His voice quiets, his gaze drifting toward the fire. “If I could, I’d see me one last battle ere the banshee shrieks me name and sings me the final song.”
I place my hand upon his arm. “I shall take comfort that it be awhile before she comes for you.”
Bishop grunts. “Who can say when she comes for us all? As for me, I think me time comes soon.” He pats my hand. “Less’n ye find one of the wee bastards to wish her away that is.”
I laugh at that. Then settle in beside him, the pair of us relating old memories and happy times. His tiring sooner than I hope saddens me, and so we sit in silence a long while, listening to the logs crackle.
Several times I look sideways at him and think time a cruel trickster, all while giving thanks it lends me more to spend with him. Tears sting my eyes at the thought of how many nights I sat upon Bishop’s lap, listening to tales of his homeland and the mysterious creatures residing there.
But today it is his mention of the Mathers that stirs my mind, willing me recall the life before.
I fight such memories off, reminding myself to focus on my time with Bishop while I can. When his head nods, I rise and gather up the bearskin hide upon his bed. I place it over him. Then I stroke his hair back, kiss his brow, and take my leave.
The sun warms my face as I step off the porch.
Across the yard, George has opened the cabin holding his goods. He and some braves stand inside, exchanging pelts for rifles, clothes, and pot ware. Others gather beside a wagon laden with similar goods, trading with a burly stranger.
The bearskin coat the stranger wears fits him well. Some might mistake such girth for laziness and think him slow. His easy squat to survey the pelts our braves lay at his feet tells me otherwise.
My grin fades when he looks up, his deep-set eyes squinting in study of me, even as he ambles over.
I meet his stare, thinking on Father’s teachings that I must never look away.
“You are a fierce one,” the trader says to me in the French tongue. “Unlike my wife.”
“Where is your wife?”
“She keeps to the kitchen, like a proper wife should.” He smiles at me, his teeth black and rotted. He motions to his wagon. “Won’t you come see what goods I bring to trade?”
“I need no goods,” I say.
“Ah, but every young lady requires something. A pretty dress, perhaps, or a bit of ribbon for your hair. Come.” He moves to place his arm around me. “Let me show you—”
I pull my long knife from its sheath, stick the blade to his groin, and feel him hesitate.
“I have no need of your goods, Frenchman.” I say to him. “Nor will you find me meek like your wife.”
“Aye,” he says, wincing. “You are a savage squaw.”
“No. My father taught me the ways of the shadow. And like a shadow, you may never touch me.” I lean closer to him, whisper. “Test me again and I take what little stones your mother gave you.”
He groans when I pull the dagger away, falling to his knees, clutching the small wound I left him.
Braves crow at the sight of the French trader upon my stepping away. Kneeling, I wipe the point of my blade on the grass to clean it, then sheathe the dagger again in my belt and start toward George and Hannah’s cabin.
A woman stands upon their porch. Near thick-bodied as the Frenchman, I put her age near fifty and five by the grey in her elsewise russet hair. Her cheeks hang heavy off her jowls, and she frowns at me. Then she disappears inside the cabin, leaving me wonder if I must make ready for a different bout.
-2-
I enter my brother’s home and bask in the cooking smells—pies resting on the open windowsill to cool, baked cornbread, and venison stew bubbling inside a black kettle.
Hannah does not hear me come in; she busies herself about the hearth.
The large woman I saw outside notices though. She glances up and away as soon as our eyes meet, resuming her task of shucking corn.
“Rebecca,” Hannah says. “I have a task for you.”
She carries a slew of dead coneys to the opposite end of the table.
She sets them before me. “Would you mind skinning these? You have ever been more skilled at it.”
“I shall need a bucket,” I say. “My brother should have gutted these in the field for you.”
“Aye, and I should have had my husband’s hide if it were him who brought them.” says Hannah, fetching the bucket. “But they be Andrew’s kills.”
I snort at that, but keep my quiet at how easily Andrew might have cleaned the lot of these had he stopped to think for a moment. Instead, my gaze strays toward the stranger.
Hannah takes note of my cue. “Ah, how rude of me,” she says. “Rebecca, this is my dear friend, Mary Desmaris.”
Mary nods in simple acknowledgement, but will not meet my eye.
I know not what to say to one who acts so queer, and I stumble for conversation with her.
“Mary is often shy when meeting new folk,” Hannah says. “But you will be hard pressed to find another who works as hard as she. Is that not right, Mary?”
“Aye.” Mary mutters.
I pluck my dagger free, and sit to the table. Laying the first coney on its back, I spread its hind legs and dig the tip of my dagger into its soft belly with careful regard not to slice the intestines. I run the blade up the animal’s chest and neck, gutting its insides and allowing them fall in the bucket at my feet where they land with a loud splat.
“You are good with a knife,” says Mary quietly. “Practiced.”
“Aye,” I reply. “My father saw to that.”
“A wise man, no doubt,” she says.
I only nod in reply and then loosen the coney’s skin from its bones.
“Priest is indeed a goodly soul.” Hannah fills the silence betwixt Mary and I. “Whatever your brother may say, I think it good you look to Priest as a father.”
“An adopted father, eh?” Mary asks.
I look on Mary as I tear the pelt free from the coney and toss it aside for George to keep if he should wish.
“Well, adopted or no,” says Mary, resuming her task. “It be no small blessing to have such a good man around at all, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Aye,” I say. “I am among the fortunate. He has learned me many things.”
“My own father taught me but one. Before his death, that is.”
Hannah beams. “Hard work, I should say.”
“Obedience.” Mary twists an ear of corn. She looks on the skinned coney then offers me a small smile. “It be a goodly thing, your father teaching you the ways of a blade. Better still he taught you how to handle men who would show disrespect.”
I follow her gaze out the window.
The French trader yet clutche
s his groin as he leans upon his wagon. The sound of corn ears, cracking and twisted off, calls my attention. Grimness besets Mary’s face as she carries out her task.
“He is your husband then?” I ask.
“Aye,” she says. “And I am fortunate to have him.”
Her tone makes me dubious of her words, yet I keep my quiet, not wishing intrusion upon her privacy. I instead turn my attention back to my task.
“It is a rare sight to see a girl such as you living among the natives,” says Mary. “How came you to be among them?”
Hannah looks on me, and I wonder if she fears I might shrink from such a question.
“Forgive me,” says Mary at my lingering silence. “My mind has ever been a curious one and often times when it should not be.”
“There is naught to forgive,” I say. “I have no fear of words.”
Hannah smiles at me. “Your brother often says the same. A family motto, I think it.”
“Perhaps.” I turn my attention back to Mary. “I remember little from our life before. Most of my memories hail from the wilderness. The father my brother and sister speak of would never let me venture into the woods alone. He feared natives would take me, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Mary snorts and points at my attire. “Little good that did.”
Her words coax a smile from me. “Aye.”
“I heard different,” says Hannah. “George says you were ever a mischievous and willful girl. No doubt your father forbidding it enticed you.”
I shake my head. “I only recall the freedom I was given after he was taken from this world. My spirit blossomed the moment I stepped into the woods. Time has only deepened my roots.”
“And the natives,” says Mary. “They accepted you among them with little qualm?”
I bristle at her tone. “Why should they not?” I ask. “We showed them no anger and gratefully accepted the aid they offered.”
Mary shrugs. “I have heard many a story of their savagery. Scalping and cannibalism and such tales as are best left unsaid.”
I set my knife upon the table and study her face. “You are a Christian, no?”
“Rebecca,” says Hannah.
My sister-in-law speaks my name carefully, her voice pleading in hopes I will give up my claim. I ignore it. “Are you a Christian, Mary?”
“Aye,” she says.
“Does your god not ask you take eat of his body and drink of his blood in remembrance of him?”
Mary gives me no response, her chin dipping toward her chest, her gaze unable to meet mine.
“Perhaps you should not so quickly judge what you have heard of my people,” I say. “And know this also—the natives did not bring scalping into these lands. That were a custom brought over from across the sea. My people honor all living things…even our enemies.”
I pick up my knife and stick its blade into another coney. “Should I tell you what works I have seen from white men?”
“No,” says Mary quietly. “Of those I have witnessed enough with my own eyes.”
I look away from her and see Hannah’s disappointment plain. I remind myself I am a guest in her home. Quelling the anger pulsing in me at Mary’s claims, I finish the bundle of coneys in little time.
I take up the bucket of entrails, and carry it outside to feed the dogs.
They find me quickly, the lot of them wiggling their tails, begging me give over the meal.
I make them follow me to the barn, their yips entertaining me as I toss the remains into the grass. As the dogs feast, my attention turns to overhearing conversation from the men, the wind breezing through my hair, and the cooking smells wafting across the yard. I delight in all of them.
A whinny from the stables calls me over.
I find my father’s stallion, red with a blaze of white upon its chest. Though old and half-blind, I think he must feel my presence for he saunters toward the fencepost and again whinnies at me.
I set the bucket down, leaving it for one of the dogs to lick clean. I approach the pen and climb the fencepost.
The stallion snorts at my touch, yet I do not pull away. Father taught me long ago not to show any beast fear. Only respect.
I place my cheek against the stallion then stroke his jaw and clap his broad neck.
“I’ve missed you sorely, old friend,” I say.
“Hello, Rebecca.”
Andrew Martin leans against the barn, his hair unwashed and face unshaven. His hollow eyes look on me, and no little urge to reach for my dagger pulses in me as he takes a drought of the small keg in his hand. He wipes the wet remains away with his stained sleeve.
“Been a long time,” he says. “It seems you were a little girl last time I saw you here.”
I loathe the way Andrew looks at me, his eyes wandering from my face to my chest.
“But you’re not anymore,” he says. “Are you?”
My palm rests on the hilt of my dagger. “No, I’m not.”
“You yet enjoy playing with knives, I see.” He takes another swig of his keg. “I suspect Jacque Desmaris counted himself lucky for your arrival today, that is before you near castrated him. He and his cow wife planned to set out on the morrow. Mayhap they’ll leave tonight now that you prowl the trade post.”
My fingers quiver at the slight Andrew gives the Frenchman’s wife. I quell them by turning the conversation. “I hear you plan to take a wife.”
“I do.” He kicks at the dirt. “After all, I could not wait a lifetime for you to change your decision.”
“And I did not expect you to.”
His face darkens at my words, yet I do not take them back.
“My good wishes to you and your bride to come,” I say. “May I ask her name?”
“Susannah Barron.”
“A goodly name,” I say.
“Aye,” says Andrew. “And one her father does not wish her to give up. He claims he would not have Susannah live in the wilderness, but I know the truth of it. He does not desire a poor drunkard for a son-in-law.”
Andrew chuckles at that, a sound I like not at all.
“I cannot blame him there. Indeed, it seems no one wishes to have me, Rebecca,” he says. “None but your brother. And he keeps me out of pity alone.”
“My brother does not—”
“He does.” Andrew insists. “And for the love I bear him and your family, I cannot make an end of my suffering. I know not how you and George put aside such memories of that night so long ago, but I would be rid of them for good and always if I were able.”
He drinks again of the keg, sniffling as he wipes the dregs from his lips.
“I wished you for a wife once. Thought your goodly spirit might rub onto me also.” He shakes his head. “I understand now that a whole heart cannot mend a broken one.”
“Andrew—”
“Susannah taught me that,” he says. “Told me, together, the halves she and I hold between us will make one whole at least.” He pauses, struggles to meet my eye. “Forgive my earlier rudeness, I beg you. I had not thought on what to say when first I saw you land upon the shore.”
“There is naught to forgive, Andrew,” I say. “I am happy for you and will gladly tell your bride the same when meeting her.”
“No.” His voice shakes. “I would not have you meet her.”
I step back. “Why?”
“Susannah has taught me much, and I am glad to take her for my wife,” he says. “But it will forever be you to hold my heart, Rebecca. Ruined and broken though it may be, it is yours. For now and always.”
I know not what to say to his confession, even as he looks on me for a response.
“You have learned much from Priest,” says Andrew. “His quiet way ever did unsettle me. Perhaps I should count myself more fortunate for Susannah’s father. For all the verbal threats he gives, his words do not fright me half as much as your adopted father’s silence.”
Andrew’s words coax laughter from me, and he grins.
“Do not think lon
g on my drunken ramblings. I find whiskey the only way to loose my tongue around you.” Andrew licks his lips and hesitates to speak. “But I would not have you think poorly of me for it.”
“I will not,” I say.
Andrew points at the trading cabin and George waving at him. “It seems your brother has need of me after all. Will you come with me, Rebecca, and share the day? No doubt your cunning mind will find ways for all to profit.”
“Aye. I should be glad to.”
My people and George welcome us among them as we continue the day in trade.
Ciquenackqua alone seems unpleased at the sight of me, and more so when he gives over the pelts owed me for defeating him in our race. “I would win these back from you,” he says.
“Why should I risk losing what I’ve already earned?” I ask. “And especially when you have no more pelts should I win.”
He frowns. “Should the ancestors favor you, I will find something of value in trade.”
“Very well,” I say. “What game should we play?”
“No game,” he says. “A wager only. I tire of the claims your aim is equal to Black Pilgrim’s.”
Deep River steps to my side. “They are no claims, young one. I have seen her aim proven.”
“Then let her do so in front of all here today, rather than it be said she took such prey, alone in the woods, with a single shot,” says Ciquenackqua. “My father often says we men are liken to beasts of the forest, fleet of foot and clever also, but only a true hunter may take down a bird in flight.”
He raises his hand, showing me a wooden orb used for our stickball games.
“I will fling the ball, and I offer you a single shot to put your arrow through it,” he says. “I wager the ball falls back to earth untouched.”
I nod, and cheers rise from the men as they back away to grant us space.
Ciquenackqua looks on me oddly. “Why do you not nock your arrow?”
“Fling the ball,” I say, my tone steady and even.
Ciquenackqua grins then heaves the ball high in the air.
The ball soars above us, my eyes never leaving it. The holes we carved into the sides make it sing, and I tune my ears to its song when the sun’s rays blind me. When it falls at the last, I run to catch it.
