by Aaron Galvin
He trembles in my arms.
“I’m cold, dear,” he says. “So very cold.”
I leave his side and find his bearskin, lay it gently over his body up to his shoulders.
Bishop smiles at my touch and his gaze wanders before settling upon my face. “Are ye the banshee?”
I rest my forehead upon his, my body racked with pain, my spirit breaking.
“Come to sing me home at long last?” Bishop asks.
I pull away, knowing what I must do.
“A-aye,” I say, stroking his hair. “I am the banshee.”
He grunts. “Funny, that…thought ye’d be older. Ugly. Instead ye…ye look like me favorite granddaughter…R-Rebecca.”
“Do I?” I sputter the words.
“Aye,” he says. “Will ye grant me one last wish, love?”
“Any—anything.”
“Sing,” he says. “Sing me to sleep. Then take me home…I’d have me a pint with St. Peter…and see me poor Annie again.”
My mind struggles to think of a song. I stare into his grizzled face, and sing the one I know best. The one he sang to me many a night when I would cry out for my mother and father, frightened that Hecate and her witches would come take me also. I open my mouth, and then begin his song.
Come, fair lass, just you and me.
We’re bound for them colonies, far o’er the sea…
“Aye, sing,” he says softly, his head nodding. “Just sing…”
I wet my cracked lips and continue, though my throat runs dry.
‘Augh, no,’ she said. ‘You stubborn old fool.
I’ve heard of those lands, and them savages cruel.’
So the Lord took pity and sent me some cheer,
Reb—
My voice quavers, and I fight to continue his lullaby.
Rebecca’s her name, the pretty little dear.
‘Come, lass,’ says I. ‘Let you not fear no witches.’
Your grandpappy’s here—
His head dozes upon my arm as he breathes his last breath.
My tears fall upon his brow, my voice catching in my throat.
And he’ll kill them bitches.
I collapse upon Bishop, my chest heaving as I take in his smell, willing him hold me one last time, knowing it can never be again.
Mercy groans upon the floor. “Kill me…”
I do not stir from Bishop and cannot rightly guess how long I sit with him, only that I recognize my body and soul numb when the sound of footsteps crosses upon the porch.
Ciquenackqua’s face turns ashen seeing me with Bishop. “Rebecca, I…”
“Leave me…”
“We are surrounded.”
I glance up and, seeing Ciquenackqua serious, I lay Bishop’s head gently upon the floor and leave his side to learn the truth of Ciquenackqua’s words. Stepping over Mercy’s hand that reaches out for me, I peek out the open door.
Near a hundred native braves encircle the trade post, all of them armed.
My mind warns I should be afeared at such a sight.
I sweep the thought aside with numbness, leaving Ciquenackqua to stand upon the porch as I reenter the cabin. I look on Mercy, then to Bishop, and finally on the Wyandot hostage. The ringed-tail tattoo upon his chest draws my attention, turning my thoughts to my manitous and the path it has led me down.
“Rebecca—”
I point to the Wyandot hostage. “Bring him outside, Ciquenackqua.”
I kneel beside Mercy, grip her hair in my hand and jerk on it that she might look up and know me.
“Do it,” she says. “Kill me.”
I stare into her eyes and, at long last, I understand the silence with which Father shields himself. Knowing now he wears the mask not out of mourning, but hate. Strong enough it needs no words to convey.
I yank Mercy to her feet, and lead her out, forcing her on even when her wounds stumble her.
“Come,” I say to her, my voice steady and cold. “I will not be slowed by a cripple.”
“Rebecca, wait,” she says.
The sight of George yet clutching Hannah’s body bids me hasten Mercy along faster.
I lead her to the middle of the yard where Creek Jumper stands, watching the braves around us. He squints in wonder as Ciquenackqua and I lead our hostages toward him, halting together that all might witness.
“You don’t know…what you’re doing,” says Mercy. “Hear me, Rebecca. I—”
“Are those your people?” I ask the Wyandot hostage, pointing to the braves around us.
Creek Jumper repeats my words in the foreign tongue.
I need not hear the hostage’s reply to understand my assumption right.
“The Wyandot are not our enemy,” I say, raising my voice loud for all to hear. “Nor are the Iroquois. My enemy is the white devil in Boston, the Reverend Cotton Mather. He who sent this woman and her kind to kill my family.”
Creek Jumper repeats my words in their tongue, and the braves look upon one another when he finishes.
I cut the Wyandot brave free of his bonds, then push him away.
He looks on me oddly, as if suspecting a trick.
Instead, I face those surrounding us.
“We give this man back to you. Let him speak the truth of my claims, for I would not war against you this day.” My voice rises as I walk to Mercy. “But I will slaughter any who comes against my family!”
I kick Mercy to her knees. My fingers close tighter around her hair, my nails digging deep in her scalp. I yank her head back and look down into her eyes, bringing the edge of Father’s dagger to her forehead.
“A kindred spirit indeed.” Mercy spits the words, her eyes wild and defiant as they stare up into mine.
I glance up at the Wyandot warriors. Feel them watching me, waiting.
“No.” I stay my hand, though feeling the blade hesitate upon her scalp. “I am not like you, not a savage, nor butcher of innocents. I am of the people.”
“Your people are weak,” she says. “And will be wiped from the histories.”
“Perhaps,” I say. “But you will never see it.”
I lower my dagger to her throat, and feel her tremble.
“Rebecca, no—”
I scream her quiet, shutting my ears and senses to Mercy and everything around me. I live in my pain and lose myself to the blood lust and hate for all who took those I held dear.
When my senses return, Mercy lies dead at my feet.
I look to the braves, and observe not a few nervous glances among them.
“I am the daughter of Black Pilgrim!” I shriek at them. “And I do not fear. Let you learn the strength of my spirit.”
I issue a war cry, long and sharp, meeting their stares, my gaze unwavering.
“Come for me.” I wave Father’s dagger at them. “Come and learn well what befalls those who cross us. Or befriend us now and let me end this white devil who plagues us!”
The hostage we released returns to his people. My blood no longer runs hot at the idea of a fight. Emptiness engulfs me.
“What should we do if they come down on us?” Ciquenackqua asks.
I look on him blankly. “We die.”
I stand by my companions and wait.
But the Wyandot do not come upon us.
Instead, they slip away, back into the wilderness, disappearing.
“Do they mean to trick us?” Ciquenackqua asks. “Where are they going?”
Creek Jumper steps forward, the bones in his necklace rattling. “They find us worthy of life.”
“No,” I say. “They know us already dead inside.”
I leave my companions, and walk to Mercy’s body. As I look into her eyes, I will the hate in me to return, the desire to mangle her body further.
Nothing rises in me. Nothing stirs.
Not until my ears prick at the sound of women’s voices, coming from the woods.
I hesitate, swearing someone calls my name.
“Who is that?” Ciquenackqua a
sks.
A native woman runs from the wilderness toward us, her raven hair streaming behind her.
“Numees…” I say.
I sprint toward her, noticing others follow her from the woods. Women and children, a few of Ciquenackqua’s younger friends, and all familiar faces.
I beat both Ciquenackqua and Creek Jumper to the survivors of our village.
Numees and I crash into one another, embracing, weeping, touching each other’s faces as if we both doubt the other real.
Ciquenackqua runs past us, lifting his mother off her feet as he reaches her. He twirls her around and cries as he sets her gently back to earth.
“Mother,” he says. “Mother, Father is—”
“You are alive, my son,” she shushes him. “That is all that matters now.”
Creek Jumper kisses his wife. She touches his wounds, her face pained at the sight of them. He merely shakes his head and draws her close.
“Rebecca,” says Numees. “I thought to never see you again.”
“And I you.”
I embrace her again. I look around those from my village, searching for one other face and not finding him.
“Numees,” I say. “Wh-where is my father?”
Her hesitation stabs at my heart.
“After learning of your escape, Two Ravens and his men dragged your father to the river.” She shakes her head. “Two Ravens returned—”
I wilt in her arms, falling to my knees.
“Your father did not.”
My body heaves at her words, and I feel her presence beside me, comforting me with her hand upon my back.
I shrug it off, all my happiness at seeing her and the others alive stolen in an instant.
I climb to my feet and return to Bishop’s cabin alone. I shut my eyes to the remains of Mercy’s bindings upon the floor and the wrecked household, my focus drawn upon the man who told stories to make me laugh and learned me that I was safe in his presence.
I lie beside Bishop and wrap his arm about me. Then I weep as I have never done before. I clutch his limp hand, wish it would squeeze mine back and comfort me one last time.
But he is gone.
And he would be cross with me for wailing at the loss of him and Father. I know he would instead bid me rise up and take my vengeance upon those who hurt the ones I love, rather than submit to grief as Sarah did.
But Bishop says nothing.
And I have not his strength, nor can I bear the thought of giving he and the others up yet. Instead, I fall asleep at his side, dreaming of happier times.
I wake to afternoon and reality.
“Rebecca.”
I look to the doorway and see Creek Jumper.
“Come,” he says. “We must help him down the spirit path now.”
“No,” I say, looking on Bishop’s grizzled and scarred face. “He would not wish us bury him, nor us abandon him upon a rack for the crows to pick at.”
“Then what?”
“We will burn him.” I say. “That his spirit might fly home and look on it one last time. Then I will bear his ashes away.”
-19-
Dusk settles in as I wander away from the trade post and down toward the river.
I pass through the opening once separating George’s barn from the trade cabin. Now there be little of both. Glancing back, I see even his and Hannah’s cabin smoldering, a blackened husk of the bright home I remember it being.
An east wind blows smoke and the scent of death toward me where a mound of witches and braves yet burns as Ciquenackqua and Andrew throw the remaining corpses into its flames. Andrew catches me watching and hangs his head, shows me his back.
I struggle with my feelings. Not knowing whether to hate him for his earlier actions, or be thankful at least he yet lives with so many others dead. I decide not to dwell on such thoughts, turning my attention instead to the Wah-Bah-Shik-Ka and the lone figure seated upon its banks.
The memory of George carrying Hannah’s body away from their home remains fixed in my mind, how my brother walked past me as if none of us existed in the world.
George sits now beside a fresh mound of dirt, its top smoothed over, and bearing a wooden cross at its head. He does not even glance over his shoulder as I approach, his gaze on the setting sun.
I sit cross-legged next to him, listening to the tireless river flow, and losing myself to its dispassionate thought of our grief.
We sit together in silence as the sky turns purple. My thoughts dwell on Father again, and the value in such a quiet manner. I find it comforting at such times as now when no words can right the wrongs, nor heal any wounds. That being present alone suffices.
“Thank you,” says George finally. “For saving her.”
“I am only sorry I did not reach her earlier.”
“It is enough you rescued her body from the fire.”
My brother’s chin drops, his cheeks glistening with the final rays of day.
“Strange,” George says. “Hannah and I would lie out here many a day and night, looking up at the sky. Talking of nothing, or our children to come, or else looking up the river and wondering when we might see your canoes approaching.”
He pats the mound beside him.
“I thought it right to place her here,” he says. “Here where she might listen to the river while I am away. She ever loved its song.”
“Aye,” I say. “She often said as much to me when we would fish upon this shore.”
George smiles. “I remember a day you pushed her in.”
“Aye, and I recall you throwing me in after her for my doing so.”
We chuckle at the shared memory before the sadness returns to claim us both.
“I have been long questioning myself if it were wrong of us to think we might escape our father’s sins,” says George. “And how grievous the acts he committed must have truly been for God to punish our family so.”
He wipes his nose and clears his throat.
“Then I realized this be no work of God, nor punishment from Him either.” George shakes his head as he looks on Hannah’s grave. “This be the evil works of men. I were wrong to think we might escape it and now my dear wife has paid for my mistake.”
“If you were wrong,” I say, “so were we all.”
“Aye. Wrong to believe they would let us alone. They allowed us peace that we might forget them for a time only so it would pain us all the more when stolen again.” George looks at me. “But now I would steal it from them, Rebecca.”
My mind races with assumptions to his meaning.
“We made a promise to Mercy that we together should go to Boston if surviving the night. I will see that vow carried out now.” George’s voice drips with hate. “And on my wife’s honor, I will not quit until this is ended.”
Tears fill my eyes at the conviction in his voice. A call for vengeance and blood stirs within me. “Nor will I.”
George puts his arm around me, draws me close.
I lay my head on his shoulder, feel him kiss my brow.
“Do not mistake my grief for the happiness at seeing you yet live, sister,” he says. “I should have ended myself also if I had found you among the dead.”
“And I you,” I say. “We are all that is left now, brother.”
“We will be enough.”
“Aye,” I say. “We shall be.”
I look up at the stars, watching them twinkle and make themselves known.
I chuckle at a memory, though George looks on me oddly.
“What?” he asks.
“Bishop told me once that stars were the spirits of good men and women looking down on us, showing us their goodly light. Guiding our way and warding off even the darkest of nights.”
“Aye,” says George. “I am sure he is one of them now.”
“No, he is not.” I burst out laughing, an odd sound to draw even a smirk from George. “He told me never to look for him in the night sky after he were dead. That watching and guiding from above sounde
d a tedious afterlife to him.”
“To him, I think it might well have been,” says George.
“Aye. He said ghosts had more sport.” I laugh anew. “And that I should think of him whenever something bumped in the night.”
George joins my laughter, the pair of us wiping our tears away at the notion of Bishop’s spirit living on, only to fright us.
My laughter fades as I glance back up the hill, hating the task that remains, knowing I must face it.
“We mean to burn his body,” I tell George. “I thought you might wish to join us.”
“Aye, I will be along,” he says. “Let you go for now though. I would sit alone with my wife a bit longer.”
I stand to take my leave of him and send up a silent prayer that the ancestors guide Hannah’s goodly spirit and welcome her among them.
Climbing the hill alone, I look on Bishop’s funeral pyre built in the middle of the yard.
My people gather around it.
I pause seeing Ciquenackqua and Andrew lift Bishop’s bundled body atop it.
Then a tittering hails from what remains of the barn. Walking toward it, I find my father’s stallion waiting at the fence line and, sitting atop the post, a raccoon.
The ringed-tail chatters at me, its eyes reflecting the glow of the torches my people hold.
I stare at the black mask painted across its face, thinking on all I have learned. The path it led me down and where it leads me next. More important still, the masks I have yet to learn and which will suit me best.
Turning away from my manitous, I find Creek Jumper waits for me near the pyre, holding a lit torch.
I join him in the middle taking hold of the torch and stepping close to the pyre, looking up at Bishop’s wrapped body.
“Goodbye, Grandfather,” I whisper, allowing the flame to kiss the kindling. “Fly home knowing you are avenged.”
The fire catches, and I back away as its flames snake up the four posts, licking Bishop’s body, growing in brilliance as it takes full hold of the pyre.
Creek Jumper offers up his voice, singing one of the ancient songs. The others in my tribe add their voices to his.
I keep to Father’s quiet way, masking my grief and hate with silence.
Still, I live in the power of their words and the unison of their voices, delighting in the knowledge I am not alone. I know these around me are family also, and will stay at my side all night if I have need of them.
