by Lori Benton
Clare would sooner become Shawnee herself than leave either of her children behind. But she had an advantage over Mary: a man willing to stand between her and these savages. To be her advocate. One who, presumably, was doing that advocating while she stewed in this bark lodge, staring down a mountain of uncertainty, in the shadow of which she must find a way to survive. For now.
Crossing the space to Pippa, she looked down at her sleeping daughter, thinking of Wolf-Alone and how he’d exploited her fear of losing another child to distract her from Jacob. Now here she was, virtually a prisoner in his lodge, surrounded by his possessions—including a crude puncheon table with block chairs drawn up to it, very like what one might find in any settler’s cabin along the frontier, if cut lower to accommodate the sloping roof.
But this was no hewn log cabin. Sturdy peeled poles, forked at the top, framed the structure at each end, two rising like slender pillars in the center. A long pole laid across their forks, tied with rough fiber cordage, formed the apex of the roof, against which more poles were bent and tied to complete the oblong frame. Flat sheets of bark, secured over the frame, created a surprisingly snug interior.
Her belly gurgled, making her aware of hunger. Ought she to pry into the baskets stacked about in hopes of finding something recognizable to eat?
Before she could act upon the thought, a rustle at the door-hide had her tensing, thinking it would be Wolf-Alone returning or Mr. Ring, though she hadn’t expected him back so soon.
It was neither man. The hide pushed inward, and a boy, five or six years older than Jacob, poked his head within. Sunlight streamed across his tousled hair, which wasn’t the black of an Indian’s but a light brown ribboned with paler streaks. His face, while brown, looked to have gotten that way from the sun, not by birth.
The boy blinked, gaze adjusting to the dimness within, and in a cautious voice only someone inside the lodge would hear said, “Wolf-Alone? You here?”
Shock held Clare mute. The boy’s English, heavily accented but unmistakable, was a peal of thunder in her brain.
The boy pushed his way into the lodge and stood, poised at the edge of the smoke-hole’s light streaming down. Before Clare could summon speech, he looked her way and nearly jumped straight off the ground.
They stared at one another, agog, until finally the boy spoke. “You English lady?”
“N-not English. I’m a Virginian.” Clare took a step nearer the boy, wanting to be sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks. “Are you English?”
His features weren’t remotely Indian. His hair was light. So were his eyes. A striking golden brown that seemed…familiar. “You’re white, aren’t you? Who are you?”
It was almost comical, the way the boy’s color drained at the mention of white. He stepped back from the smoke-hole’s light and said something in Shawnee, shaking his head.
Sensing imminent bolting, Clare smiled in reassurance. “Come now, young man. You’ve already given yourself away. Stay and talk to me, would you? You’re a friend of Wolf-Alone’s?”
The boy’s eyes were wary, yet he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze from her face, her braided hair, her full-skirted gown with its waist already fitting her trimly again.
He didn’t answer her questions.
“My name is Clare. What is yours?” She nearly sighed in relief the instant she saw curiosity outweigh the boy’s wariness. Pointing at his narrow chest, he said something in Shawnee. Clare shook her head. “What does that mean in English? Do you know?”
“It mean…Little-Cat-That-Scratches.”
Clare couldn’t help smiling at the whimsical name. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Little-Cat-That-Scratches.”
The boy had slender brows, a little darker than his hair. They drew together as he pointed to himself again. “Little Wildcat. Easier you say?”
“Much easier, Little Wildcat.”
The boy’s frown deepened. He thrust out a jaw surprisingly firm. “No more little. Almost man grown.”
This time Clare bit back the smile, nodding gravely. “Ah, yes, I see. Shall I call you simply…Wildcat?”
The boy flashed a grin. With the issue of his name settled to his satisfaction, he tilted his head, studying her with interest. “You…Wolf-Alone…his woman now?”
“His…? Oh goodness, no. I’m no one’s…” She remembered in time she was meant to be someone’s wife, at least as far as these people were concerned. Was she truly going to play along with this charade?
If it helped get Jacob back…
“I’m the—the woman of Jeremiah Ring. Do you know him?”
“Ring?” The boy nodded. “But he is—” A complicated string of syllables flowed from his lips. When she stared blankly he laughed. “How to say name…Big-Cat-Looks? No…Panther-Sees-Him!”
Clare wondered why it had never crossed her mind that Mr. Ring would have another name among his adopted people. A Shawnee name.
“Panther-Sees-Him?” She suspected a story lay behind the name. She considered asking, but just then Pippa made a noise in her sleep and kicked, distracting the boy.
“Baby?”
She wondered where he’d been earlier, during the scene of her arrival. Not among the crowd they’d drawn, else he’d not have been surprised at Pippa’s presence. “Would you care to see her?”
Needing no more invitation, Wildcat moved to the bed platform and bent over Pippa, who went on sleeping, unaware she’d become the center of attention. Clare knelt beside the bed.
Wildcat crouched beside her. “What name?”
“Her name is Philippa Joan, but Mr.—Panther-Sees-Him—calls her Pippa.”
“Pippa.” The boy repeated it, all but cooing over the baby.
Clare was startled by the ache of tenderness the child stirred, the deeper ache of grief, for while his presence was some comfort, screaming through her mind was the thought that somewhere someone probably longed for this boy, worried for him, grieved for him.
“Who are your parents, Wildcat?”
Showing no disquiet at her question, the boy went on gazing at Pippa’s sleeping face. “Wildcat father Split-Moon. Mother…gone.”
Gone. Had his Shawnee mother died? Looking at his face in profile, the stiffening of his mouth, she sensed it was so, and not long ago. Desire to gather the boy in her arms nearly overpowered her. She fought the urge, knowing he thought himself a man—almost. “What was your name?”
“I say. Wildcat.”
“And it’s a good name. Truly. But I meant what was your name before you became Shawnee? When you lived with your white parents?”
Wildcat glanced sidelong at her. “No white parents.”
“But you had them. Everyone has a mother, even if…they get another later.”
“No—yes! But no…memory?” Wildcat looked at her, questioning his choice of words.
“You don’t remember your parents? But you speak English still. Surely it cannot be so long since you last saw them.”
“It much long. Not know me before Wildcat. Before this.” He made a gesture meant, she suspected, to indicate the town surrounding them, ending with that finger pointing at his chest again. “Not know before.”
His explanation was clear enough, but it begged a question she couldn’t contain. “Then…did someone teach you English?”
Wildcat started to reply, then shook his head as if he didn’t understand the question. But she saw the flash of awareness in his eyes as they darted toward the door-hide.
“I go.” He was making for that hide before she could get to her feet, but stopped short and turned to her, like a child belatedly remembering his manners. “Good-bye, Clare-wife.”
He ducked outside in a flash of sunlight quenched by the falling hide. Just beyond it he spoke again.
“You back!”
A man’s voice spoke in reply, sounding for all the world like a gentle scold, but the words were Shawnee, the voice too muffled by the door-hide to recognize.
Jeremiah Ring,
she hoped.
The boy switched to Shawnee, and the two exchanged a few more words before the hide moved again and a man’s large figure pushed within.
Wolf-Alone. Clare’s heartbeat quickened with surprise and dawning understanding.
Wolf-Alone looked at her briefly, then turned to drag in the pack he’d carried from Wakatomica. He set about pulling items from it and putting them away beneath the other bed platform.
Clare sat on Mr. Ring’s bed and smoothed her hand over Pippa’s downy head.
“Please try to be quiet. The baby is sleeping.” She watched the Indian closely, but while he glanced at her to acknowledge she’d spoken, he didn’t look at Pippa or show he’d understood. “Did you find Falling Hawk? Or see Jacob?”
This time Wolf-Alone didn’t so much as look her way.
She thought a moment, then said, “While you were gone I had a visitor. Maybe you saw him leaving? He called himself Little-Cat-That-Scratches.” She put a smile into her voice. “Then he said he’s nearly a man grown—no longer little—and he wishes instead to be called Wildcat.”
Wolf-Alone was reaching into his pack, his face turned in profile, but the pull of his cheek muscles into a smile would have confirmed her suspicion even without his involuntary, “Huh.”
Clare felt a surge of triumph, followed by outrage.
“He speaks English surprisingly well,” she continued, jaw muscles tightening over the words, “for one who claims to have no memory of his white parents. But I suspect that’s no surprise to you.”
Wolf-Alone froze, hand inside the pack. Slowly he faced her, features catching light from the smoke-hole, and she realized with surprise why Wildcat’s eyes had looked familiar. They were nearly the same shade as Wolf-Alone’s.
“You taught him, didn’t you?”
The Indian said nothing at once, as if he needed time to decide whether to acknowledge the accusation or go on pretending ignorance.
Confident in her deduction, Clare was content to sit and glare and wait for it.
A deep-chested sigh flowed out of Wolf-Alone as he sat back on his haunches, lips twisted in what might have been a rueful smile; it faded quickly. “Yes ma’am, I taught the boy. But that’s a thing between him and me. Not even my brothers know of it.”
Clare gaped. Wolf-Alone spoke English like one born to it. More precisely, one born to it in Virginia. What he’d actually said was slower to register. “Not even Mr. Ring knows you speak English?”
“He doesn’t, for a fact.” Wolf-Alone’s gaze hardened, holding hers. “It’s going to stay so. You hearing me?”
Clare was hearing him, though the need for secrecy was mystifying. Wolf-Alone stood, waiting for her to speak.
“If that’s what you want…I suppose I’ll keep your secret.”
“I’m looking for more than suppose.”
“All right then. I promise.”
“Good.” With no further explanation, Wolf-Alone pushed aside the door-hide and left her again in solitude, save for Pippa, who’d slept through it all.
“Well,” she said, and remembered the scolding she’d meant to give the man over his recklessness with her daughter. As if she’d ever find the courage to do any such thing now.
It took Falling Hawk, at Jeremiah’s urging, two days to persuade their sister to come back to Cornstalk’s Town and listen to Clare’s petition for Jacob’s return. The place of meeting chosen was the neutral ground of Falling Hawk’s lodge, though as they took seats around the central fire, Jeremiah sensed their brother’s sympathies still rested with Rain Crow. Not for the first time he wished for the wisdom of King Solomon, when presented with a similar dilemma of two mothers claiming one son.
“What would you have me do, Brother? Take my knife and cut the boy in two?” Falling Hawk had demanded, unknowingly echoing Solomon’s revealing decree.
“I would have you do no such thing,” Jeremiah had said. “Only listen to the words of the woman I have brought here. Help me persuade our sister to listen. That is all.”
“Our sister’s heart has found the sun after a long night of sorrow. You would make it dark again?” His brother’s pained eyes had flicked to him, not quite accusing but coming near it.
“Never willingly.” Yet the impossibility of the situation being resolved to everyone’s content had burned in Jeremiah’s chest. “What of the one who bore that child, who had him stolen and wants him back? What of her sorrow?”
Falling Hawk closed his eyes, as if to gather patience, then met Jeremiah’s gaze. “I am glad my brother has at last taken a wife. I know you have walked through your own darkness. But why did it have to be that woman? Why the mother of a child who is now Shawnee?”
Jeremiah was tempted to ask his brother why he had to be at Yellow Creek when Logan and his warriors brought Jacob Inglesby there, why he had to be the one to take him—to their sister of all people?
“I found the woman and made my promise to help her before I knew of your connection to the boy. To her, the boy is her son. He will always be her son. You understand this?”
“I understand,” Falling Hawk said. “But you have been Shawnee long enough to know the boy is now Rain Crow’s son in her heart and in the eyes of the People. As you and Wolf-Alone are the brothers of my heart.”
For all its calculation, it had been an expression of honesty. Falling Hawk had welcomed him into his family without reservation. Jeremiah owed the man his loyalty as well as his affection and consideration. But something had happened those days on the trail from Redstone, finding Philip Inglesby dead, then Clare alone in dire straits. A bond had begun with Pippa’s birth. He hadn’t expected to fall head over heels in love with that baby girl or to feel something more than obligation for her mother as well.
For a time Falling Hawk had looked toward the creek where their sister had vanished. At last he’d said, “I have not forgotten how you came among us. I see why your heart would be to help this woman, even if she were not your wife. You see yourself when you look at her.”
It was what Wolf-Alone had said to him on the trail. Jeremiah didn’t refute it.
Falling Hawk had sighed, as though resigning himself. “I will talk to our sister. I will see what she is willing to do.”
Listen. That was all Rain Crow was willing to do. It was more than she was obliged to do, and Jeremiah was thankful.
So was Clare, but as Jeremiah seated himself to her left at Falling Hawk’s fire, he was concerned by her pallor, the sheen of sweat beading her brow. In a sling across her front Pippa slept, fed and cleaned, unaffected by the tension of those around her. Wolf-Alone, who’d joined them as part of Falling Hawk’s family, took the space on Clare’s right. But it wasn’t Wolf-Alone she looked to for reassurance. Firelight deepened the green of her eyes, but the dimness of the lodge didn’t hide their anxious appeal as she met his gaze.
“Will Jacob be there?” she’d asked when he told her of this meeting.
“Not likely.”
Sitting on the bed platform, she’d touched her cheek where Rain Crow had struck her at their meeting. “What will you say to them? To her?”
“I’m going to introduce you formally—as my wife. Then you’re going to speak to them.”
Clare’s face had gone ashen. “But I don’t speak Shawnee.”
“Falling Hawk speaks English well enough.” Rain Crow even better, though his sister balked at uttering the language now. “I’ll interpret anything that’s said to be sure everyone takes everyone else’s meaning rightly.” When Clare still hadn’t looked convinced, he’d added, “It’s best they hear you speak, Clare. It’s in their coming to know you that we have any hope of my sister relinquishing Jacob.”
“Relinquishing?” Clare gripped the edge of the bed’s frame, knuckles white. “Do you mean she’ll be allowed to keep him unless she gives him back voluntarily?”
“I don’t know. Just tell them your story. If that’s well received, tell them what it is you want them to do.”
&nb
sp; “How will I know if it’s well received?”
“You’ll know. But look to me if you need guidance. I’ll be right beside you.”
He’d no idea where things would go should this effort fail to soften his sister’s heart toward Clare. He’d need to make certain of the Almighty’s leading before rushing ahead with another plan toward that end. That kind of waiting was hard to master when the need was great, the desire pressing.
Looking at her now, furtively watching the faces of those around her—all but Rain Crow gathered—he knew a pang of doubt about Clare’s patience.
As the silence lengthened, awkwardness mounted. Falling Hawk cleared his throat, flashed a look around the incomplete circle, but didn’t speak.
Falling Hawk had never split or stretched his earlobes, as many Shawnee men did, but wore several copper bands on his lean brown arms. Crosses-the-Path, who’d pinned every trade brooch she owned to her calico shirt and donned every bangle and bead necklace in honor of this occasion, sat quiet by his side, stealing curious glances at Clare and the baby.
With her one free hand, Clare gripped a fold of the petticoat she’d tucked around her knees, twisting the worn fabric until Jeremiah feared it would shred. He needed to get her something else to wear. He’d appeal to Crosses-the-Path and hope Clare would be agreeable to whatever she could find.
He was starting to think his sister had changed her mind about this meeting when the buffalo hide shifted and she entered with a flash of sunlight.
The strong bones of Rain Crow’s face, her slender frame and regal bearing, made her a woman most people looked at twice. She wore the black sheaf of her hair in a braid down her back. Unlike Crosses-the-Path, she hadn’t bedecked herself in finery for this meeting, as if she wished to show it was to her of no significance. Pausing inside the lodge doorway, she swept them with a gaze that skimmed over Clare as though she wasn’t there, before she crossed to the empty place at the fire and sat gracefully beside Falling Hawk.
Jeremiah saw no sign of Falling Hawk’s pipe and realized his brother intended to forgo the ritual of smoking.
Falling Hawk cleared his throat again and spoke in Shawnee, looking at them each by turn, his gaze when it reached Clare carefully inscrutable. When at last he gave a nod, Jeremiah turned to Clare, tense beside him.
