Blackbird

by Henderson, Nancy

  “Song’s child is not mine. I told you both that.”

  “That is not the point,” Song snapped.

  “Then what is the point?”

  “The way you are treating Katherine.”

  “Have I ever raised a hand to her?”

  “You should, if you ask me,” Zachariah interrupted. “Women are no good.”

  Star cast him the same look as she was giving Adahya. Zachariah cringed.

  Adahya ran his hands through his hair, suddenly exhausted. Women. He did not understand the lot of them. And Katherine was the worst. She had been so passionate last night. He had thought she understood about Song, forgiven him perhaps. He had thought her anger for him had disappeared. Apparently, sharing his bed meant nothing to her.

  He sighed again. “If Katherine wishes to leave, I will go with her.”

  “Leave?”

  “Where would you go?”

  Two Guns and Zachariah spoke at once.

  Adahya had no idea. The very fact that he had spoken such a thing shocked him. Katherine was not happy. He had known it from the very first day he had brought her here. He would build her a white man’s cabin to live in if she wished. He would even live in a city with her if need be. He would not lose her.

  Adahya looked at his family all staring back at him as if he had lost his mind. “There is land in Canada.”

  “Your family is here!” Two Guns’ voice echoed off the bark wall. “You are not going anywhere!”

  Grandfather’s feeble hand gripped Adahya’s. “A man cannot survive without his family.”

  “Grandfather speaks the truth,” Star added.

  “Song is a threat to Katherine,” Adahya reasoned. “She--”

  “Song will stay with her family and have her child,” Star interrupted. “I know your Blackbird, and she is much too strong, even for Song. The only person she feels threatened by is you.”

  “I told you I have never hit her--”

  “You made vows to Song, and you took Katherine captive.”

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “That has everything to do with it! You just took Katherine and ordered her to live with you. You have offered no promises, no words of love. Katherine is a Christian. She needs Christian vows. Of course she is angry.”

  Star went on, and Adahya closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. Yes, he had made vows to Song, but they had been false. Empty promises that had brought him nothing but heartache. Star did not know what she asked of him. To say vows before a woman who had been betrothed to him was one thing, but to say them to Katherine--

  Katherine had never asked him for vows. She had asked if he loved her, yes, but she had never asked for a marriage binding. Surely if she wanted to hear vows from him she would just come out and ask him like she did everything else.

  He watched Star as she rummaged through a large quilled pouch. She withdrew a white man’s book of god, a gift from the men who had baptized her at Fort Hunter. She took a pewter ring from a ribbon attached to the inside cover and dropped it in his palm. “Now stop this talk of leaving and do what is right.”

  * * *

  KATHERINE loaded her arms with pots and headed toward the river for water. It had been hours since she had thrown Adahya out of the lodge, and she began to wonder if he would come back at all.

  Logical reasoning told her she should escape. Now would be the perfect time. But another part of her wanted Adahya to come back begging her forgiveness. She wanted him to take her in his arms and show her the pleasure he spoke of after a woman’s first time with a man.

  But he was no where to be found.

  She wondered for the hundredth time if he was with Song. Even if the child was not his, he must feel obligated to her on some level. Katherine had never felt jealous of another soul, now the emotion crept upon her with the force of a thousand stampeding horses. Song was flawlessly perfect. Even her pregnancy complimented her.

  Still, if Adahya wanted Song, he would willingly allow Katherine to leave here. When she had asked him today if she could leave, he had become furious. Like a fool, she had told him to go back to Song, and then just watched him stormed off.

  Perhaps he had gone to her after all.

  She was so obsessed in her thoughts that she did not see Song until she had practically run into her.

  Song must have been bathing at the river, for her hair was wet and combed back. Her doeskin dress was bleached nearly white, and against her dark skin it cast a stunning aura about her.

  Katherine was reminded of the story about the Indian princess which Mama used to tell her. Only in her story the princess smiled sweetly.

  This one was glaring at her as if she were a bug she wanted to squash.

  Katherine stepped back.

  Song’s eyes appraised her from head to toe. When they came back up to glare at her, they were full of disdain. “So this is Adahya’s Blackbird,” she ridiculed in perfect English. “You’re just as ugly as She-who-commands said you were.”

  Katherine raised her chin, refusing to let the insult affect her. She went to the river’s edge and began filling her pots. She knew Song had followed her even before she spied the pair of shapely dark calves standing beside her.

  “You’re just his fancy for the time being, you know,” Song said with a sadistic grin. “Adahya won’t stay with you.”

  Katherine straightened. She pictured Adahya with this woman, pictured him kneeling down before her, asking her for her hand in marriage. She had no idea how his proposal had really occurred, but Adahya must have been gallant and romantic and--

  And more loving than he had ever been toward her.

  Katherine hated her jealousy, and she clenched her teeth, determined not to let Song intimidate her.

  Song tossed her hair over one shoulder and laughed. “You little fool. You really believe Adahya loves you!”

  “You have no idea what I think. And furthermore, you don’t know a thing about me.”

  “I know you must be a little whore.”

  “You are the one who came back carrying an Onondio’s bastard,” an all too familiar voice interjected. “I believe that makes you the whore.”

  Katherine turned to see Adahya coming up behind her. He quickly blocked the distance between her and Song.

  Song brought her hand up to strike him, but he blocked it with his arm. She spat in his face instead. “I don’t know what I ever saw in you,” she spoke in Mohawk.

  “Obviously nothing,” he hotly shot back. “You saw nothing in all the men before me, and you saw nothing in the man who got you with child.”

  Katherine watched the exchange between them. She thought Song would try to hit him again. Instead, she stormed back to the village.

  Something light and hopeful stirred in her breast as she watched the beautiful woman huff away. Adahya turned around, and she hid her grin.

  “I don’t need you to fight my battles.” She suddenly remembered she was angry with him, and she wanted to remind him of it.

  She had expected him either to take her in his arms or start another fight with her. To her surprise, he silently turned and headed back to the village.

  He had defended her, and she had treated him coldly in return. An unsettling melancholy settled over her as she watched him disappear through the stockade gate. If she had any sense at all she would just run away right now and forget this life ever existed.

  But she could not forget. Adahya was a part of her just as the air in her lungs was a part of her. She could not leave yet, and she could not go another day with him angry with her.

  She followed him back to the village. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found him back inside his lodge.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  KATHERINE brought her water pots inside, poured some water into a kettle, and hung it over the fire to heat. Adahya acted as if she were not there, just sat there laying out his weapons before him.

  She eyed the lethal-looking objects. At times she found
it difficult to remember that he had killed people with his bare hands. Now as she watched him sharpen the blade of an ax large enough to chop someone’s very head off, she could think of nothing but.

  She swallowed hard. “What are you doing?”

  He looked up, his chin raised in what looked like defiance. “In a few days I will council with Broken River and the elders. I must be ready to leave for war if need be.”

  Katherine nodded, recalling him speak of this meeting. Broken River, the sachem of the village, sought peace with the British and the Colonials. But the warriors, Adahya included, sought to convince him and the elders that neutrality was not possible. This difference of opinion between the elders and the warriors was growing to a feud which would threaten to tear their nation apart.

  Adahya put the ax aside and reached for her hand. Katherine grabbed it, grateful for the single note of affection that he was offering.

  “Do you want to talk about Song?” She ran her thumb down the calloused patches of his palm.

  His brow furrowed for a moment as if his thoughts pained him. Slowly, his stoic face softened to genuine appreciation. “There is nothing to talk about.”

  “I think she regrets treating you like she did. I think that is why she is so angry now.”

  “I do not care why she is angry. I want nothing to do with her, and I want to speak of her no more.”

  Slowly, he pressed his lips against the palm of her hand. The act was innocent enough, but his tenderness sent a torrent of heat rushing through her.

  She knelt before him, boldly wrapping her arms around his neck and kissed him as if they had not spent the day fighting. He returned the kiss with equal passion. When she broke away, her heart was racing.

  “So you are no longer angry with me?” he spoke against the flesh of her throat. His hands pressed her body against his and massaged figure eights along her backside.

  Katherine shook her head. “I didn’t know where you had gone today. I-I thought--”

  “I’m sorry.” He softly kissed her eyes. Her nose. Her forehead. “If you wish to live somewhere away from Song, away from here, we will.”

  Katherine stopped kissing him and pulled back. She had no idea where that had come from. “Why would you do that? Why would you leave your people?”

  “Because I do not wish to lose you. I told you that.”

  Adahya had ordered her to stay with him, threatened her with the consequences if she left him, but he had never told her he did not want her to leave. The admission left something warm and genuine inside her, and she suddenly forgot why she ever wanted to leave him in the first place.

  “I don’t want to take you away from your family.” She ran a hand down his course jaw line. “You need them.”

  He laughed softly.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You sound like my family.”

  Katherine smiled. In a way, she was beginning to think of herself as part of his family and he hers, but she refused to admit that for reasons of which she was not exactly certain.

  When he kissed her again, she responded with an eagerness that surprised her. Her legs which had once been tightly held together were not straddling each of Adahya’s.

  His mouth left hers to trail kisses down her neck. His hands were under her skirt, massaging her bare buttocks, pressing her into him.

  “You are so beautiful,” he groaned against her ear.

  “So are you.”

  He chuckled as if she were joking.

  “You are. I thought you were handsome the first moment I saw you.” She winced at the admission and regretted her habitual forthrightness.

  He laughed again and playfully nipped at her jaw line.

  “It’s true.”

  “You were scared to death of me, Chogan.”

  “Yes, but I still thought you were handsome.”

  He kissed her again, and she quickly lost herself in his passion. She hurriedly worked the laces of her bodice free, and he kissed the valley between her breasts. She groaned as his tongue circled one areola.

  “Do you like that?” he whispered then gave her other breast equal attention. “What about this? Do you like this one kissed as well?”

  Katherine arched toward him. She cradled his head to her breasts. Adahya was stealing something of her every time he touched her. Did he realize it? Every touch. Every kiss. He was taking a part of her soul and leaving behind an empty void that only he could fill.

  Her hands trailed down the corded muscles in his shoulder, down his side, to his hip where she found the ties of his breechclout. She tugged the leather cord, and it fell away.

  “I see my Blackbird is eager.”

  “And you’re saying you aren’t?”

  He eased her down on her back as his answer and slid her skirt down over her hips and tossed the garment aside. He stretched out beside her, his legs tangled in hers, his body half covering her. He kissed her again, his tongue slowly exploring her. She moved beneath him, wanting more of him, desperately craving the pleasures found between men and women that he spoke of.

  “I will make it better for you this time, Chogan,” he promised as he moved above her.

  “Just hurry.”

  Adahya found his place between her thighs and cautiously entered her.

  Katherine drew in her breath, expecting to feel pain yet surprised that she did not. He moved inside her as if she were made of glass. He cradled her head against his shoulder, all the while whispering soothing words in his native tongue. He stroked her slowly, deliberately, as if he gave no thought to his own pleasure.

  He was an excellent teacher, and she soon found his rhythm. She arched her hips to his every thrust, and gradually something beyond words grew from a tiny whisper to a raging, uncontrollable torrent. At first she did not recognize where the sounds came from, but then she realized it was her own moans of pleasure.

  They both tensed at the same time. Katherine dug her nails into Adahya’s shoulders as she cried out. She relaxed beneath him, cradling his head to her neck as their breathing returned to normal.

  “What was that?”

  Adahya laughed softly against her neck. “That, beautiful lady, was a gift from Hawenneyu. He had blessed us. He has made us a match to always be like this.”

  * * *

  AS the days passed, Katherine slowly began to realize that she served a purpose with the Mohawk people. And that purpose was to teach the people how to read and write.

  Star became her second student, and soon after, Katherine was teaching fourteen others, including Adahya who she found was a constant distraction to her and an unruly student. He would often take her somewhere quiet to study, and they would always end up tangled in each other’s arms on the forest floor instead of working. It was on his fifth lesson that she accused him of not wanting to learn at all. Adahya had innocently explained that he was using his time to teach her lessons of his own.

  Katherine was just as much to blame. She could not seem to get enough of him. Stares always led to touching, and touching always led to--

  Perhaps Adahya’s presence in her life was God’s will. She cared for him a great deal and wondered more and more if perhaps she loved him. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to stay here with him, to grow old by his side. His people were gradually accepting her, all but his mother who still refused to speak to her, and she could see a life here, a future with them.

  She also began to think about her work with swaying these people to the Colonial cause. She still had Joshua’s documents, and she thought again of going to Fort Ontario, that perhaps that too was God’s will and his reason for her presence here. But when she had asked Adahya to take her, he had become furious. She knew it was because he thought she still loved Joshua.

  She was sitting in the center of the village teaching Sunshine to write her alphabet when the commotion began.

  The village was immediately ablaze with chaos. Not knowing what was happening, Katherine pushed her way through
the crowd gathered at the head of the village.

  More than a dozen redcoats came through the stockade gate. Three in front wore white wigs and gold-trimmed jackets with epaulettes on the shoulders. Officials, she assumed. One of them held a wampum belt in his hand. These belts made from strung shells were the Iroquois symbol of peace. Highly coveted, only the few who earned the respect and brotherhood of the Hodenosaunee possessed them.

  These were John Butler’s men, no doubt. Katherine wondered if Colonel Butler was among them, but she had no idea what he looked like.