The Wood's Edge

by Lori Benton

  Seated in the snug, green-paneled room behind the office, Lydia came to the point. “I propose taking on Anna as my apprentice. Provided we have your blessing, of course.”

  Anna stared, along with Papa. Then she leapt to her feet. “I thought you only meant I should accompany you if I happened to be in town during a confinement. You want me for an apprentice?”

  “If I’m not being too precipitous?” Lydia asked, her smile dimming just a bit. “I meant soon to find a younger woman to train beside me, but I confess for a while now I’ve hoped it could be you.”

  That Lydia should place such confidence in her left her struggling for words. “I—I want to be, but I don’t know whether I’ve the passion for it you do. I wouldn’t want to disappoint…”

  Lydia reached for her hand. “Dear girl, you could never do that. But is this something you’d like to try, at least?”

  “I do want to try.” She turned at last to Papa, sitting in his chair like one stunned. “Papa, may I? Please?”

  His mouth moved, but at first no words came.

  “You’ve taken me quite unawares, the two of you.” His gaze sought Lydia’s. “I take it you’d wish her to live in town with you.”

  Anna drew a sharpened breath. Live in town? Away from the farm?

  Two Hawks. She’d gone to the woods frequently the previous year, hoping he would be there, but had seen him only twice. Both times without his father. She’d hoped with spring’s coming to once again find him waiting for her across the creek. She’d missed him.

  “We hadn’t discussed that detail,” Lydia said, noting her hesitation. “I wanted to know your mind on the matter first.”

  “I see,” Papa said.

  Their gazes shifted to Anna, who found herself in turmoil. All she could see in that moment was Two Hawks waiting for her at the wood’s edge, never knowing why she didn’t come, giving up on her. Never coming back…

  “Lydia…might I be your apprentice and still live at the farm? I could ride in with Papa when he comes to work and go home with him at day’s ending.”

  Papa stood and put an arm around her, drawing her to his side. “I’d determined to put a brave face on it, but I own the thought of you no longer under my roof wasn’t going down easy. I’m touched you feel the same.”

  Smiling at the two of them, Lydia rose. Anna couldn’t meet their gazes. Truly she didn’t want to live away from Papa, but thought of never seeing Two Hawks again had filled her with an alarming desperation—near to what she’d felt at William’s leaving.

  Papa gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Well now, what say you? Shall we give the arrangement a trial? Say, three days in the week to begin with?”

  Lydia agreed. “It suits splendidly for a beginning.”

  Papa’s eyes shone down at Anna. “However did you grow up without my noticing?”

  Breathing easier, Anna tried to suppress a smile. “I’m not so grown.”

  “Fifteen.” Papa said it as if he mistrusted the number.

  “There’s another matter I meant to discuss with you, Reginald,” Lydia said. “If you’ve a moment more to spare.”

  Sensing she wasn’t vital to whatever that discussion entailed, Anna—content to speculate happily on all that was to come—left them to it and drifted to the outer office. A window fronted the quay. She found a place where she could see Captain Lang and his crew loading the last of their cargo and found herself watching the blond-haired young man who’d smiled at her so boldly. Behind her in the sitting room, Lydia was telling Papa about her decision to sell the shop.

  “Look you, Lydia…would you permit me to buy it?” Papa replied. “Not just from you, but for you?”

  Anna turned her back on the window, more interested in this development than the scene out on the quay.

  “Reginald…I didn’t mean to ask that of you.”

  “Nor have you, see. I know what that shop means to you. One day, when you’re able, you may buy it back from me. If you wish to.”

  A beat of silence passed before Lydia responded. “You’ll never know how touched I am by your kindness, but I mean to let it go. That is my choice.”

  There was no bell above the office door, but Anna heard its opening. Captain Lang entered with a gust of cold, dank air. “Miss Anna,” he said, and stepped to the sitting room door.

  “Ready?” she heard Papa say.

  “Squared away.” The captain moved inside the sitting room, out of Anna’s view. Standing by the office counter, she jumped at the sound of an indrawn breath behind her.

  “I’m told your name is Anna,” said a brisk New England voice.

  She whirled to find the young blond crewman, dressed in a coat of sturdy plain cloth. He wasn’t tall, barely taller than she. She raised her chin, not wanting him to see he’d startled her.

  “I saw my chance at meeting you and had to take it,” he said, though in apology for his familiarity or in defense of it, Anna couldn’t tell. He doffed his hat and made her a bow. “Sam Reagan, from Connecticut. Your most obedient servant, Miss Aubrey.”

  She made him a slight curtsy. “Actually, my name is Anna Doyle.”

  That ruffled his smoothness. “I thought…Capt’n says you’re Major Aubrey’s daughter.”

  “I am.” Anna was smiling at the young man’s confusion when Captain Lang emerged and fixed him with a glare she was thankful wasn’t aimed at her.

  “Reagan. Let’s go.” There was warning enough in those snapped syllables, yet Sam Reagan didn’t heed it directly. Recovering his aplomb, he cast her a lingering grin that lit his hazel eyes.

  “Charmed to make your acquaintance, Miss Doyle.” He sketched another bow, replaced his hat, and followed Captain Lang onto the quay.

  Though put off by such brash Yankee manners—as Papa would doubtless wish her to be—Anna moved to the front glass to watch young Mr. Reagan board the lead bateau and, with the rest of the crew, push off with his pole to begin the tedious trip upriver. Mr. Reagan looked straight at her—and freed a hand to wave.

  Anna drew back from the glass. Only then did she realize Papa and Lydia hadn’t emerged as well. She made to return to the sitting room but stopped upon hearing her name uttered.

  “…good for Anna, spending more time in town.” Papa’s voice was pitched so low she knew she wasn’t meant to hear. “But I don’t want her mingling with the rougher sort who come through this office, see. I know you’ll look after my girl.”

  “As if she were my own.”

  Papa’s voice warmed. “I remember…You were hardly more than a child yourself, but you loved her from the start. A thing we’ve always had in common.”

  “Yes.” Lydia imbued the word with such affection that Anna felt her heart swell. How blessed she was to have Papa and Lydia. And Mr. and Mrs. Doyle, who were like the grandparents she’d never known. And William…though far away. And Two Hawks.

  “You’d have made a wonderful mother,” Papa said. Silence fell, awkward and startled. “Lydia…look you, that was thoughtless of me. That was—”

  “The single loveliest thing anyone has ever said to me,” Lydia cut in, the words thick with pain and sincerity. “Don’t wish it unsaid. Please.”

  As she waited for whatever would be said next, Anna had the strangest feeling—a disconcerting loss of bearing, as if a path she’d followed all her life had just vanished in a sweeping fog and she didn’t know where next to place her foot. Strangest of all, she sensed Papa and Lydia felt it too.

  She held her breath.

  “I won’t then. And I thank you, for all your care of Anna these many years.” There was a tenderness in Papa’s voice she’d never heard him use with anyone but her, and maybe that was why the thought went through her head that if only Papa wasn’t married to Mrs. Aubrey far away in Wales, Lydia might become not just her mentor, but her mother…

  She clapped a hand to her mouth, as if the selfish notion—appallingly disloyal to Mrs. Aubrey and Jacob van Bergen in his grave—might leap off her to
ngue and horrify Papa and Lydia.

  20

  Thunder Moon 1772

  Since his father’s leaving, it had fallen to Two Hawks to provide meat for his mother and to trap for winter furs. Now spring had come, and he must bring in deerskins for trade as well as meat. That was why he woke on a mist-shrouded, rain-dampened morning in the hunting camp he’d made for himself, instead of in the woods near the Aubrey farm, where he wanted to be.

  It made his chest tight, thinking of Anna Catherine coming across the creek to look for him, so he tried to put her from his mind. He thought instead of his empty belly and what he must do to fill it. He thought of his mother waiting. He thought of the new rifle he’d gotten by trading some of the furs his mother prepared that winter past. At last he could hunt with something besides arrows; Stone Thrower had taken his gun with him when he left Kanowalohale. Game was so scarce even so, they rarely had any meat, and once again the summer crops hadn’t produced enough to see them through the winter.

  His rage against his father had cooled to ashes. If he could, he would go and find his father and beg him to return. But he couldn’t go. He had to get a deer while he still had strength left to do it.

  He began a prayer, soft as the mist draping the budding forest sloping away in tangled aisles from his camp. He prayed for good hunting and steady hands so his dwindling supply of lead and powder wouldn’t be wasted. He prayed for there to be something to kill. He’d take a turkey and be glad, never mind he needed deerskins almost as much as he needed meat.

  Two Hawks was no longer certain to whom he prayed. It was a muddle now, which god was the true Great Spirit and how a man ought to pray. As the mist drifted and his nose ran with the chill, he said the words a brave hunter should say, but the heart in him was curled up cold and afraid.

  He broke his camp in the lee of a downed tree. He still had a little parched cornmeal in a pouch. He ate a handful standing by the place he’d slept, wanting to gulp it all. He drank from a nearby spring, much water to make himself feel full. As he wiped his mouth, he thought of his mother praying for his success. Praying to Jesus. He didn’t know if it would help, but the thought gave him a spark of warmth. Enough to face the day.

  He made sure he’d taken up all he’d lain down with—shot bag, blanket, bow, quiver—then gripped the rifle and started out.

  Dogwoods showered white petals among the dripping trees Two Hawks trudged beneath, the spark in him grown fainter than the trail he followed. The days had blurred together. He remembered crouching in a thicket along a deer trail, near where it crossed a creek. Two does had come along it, one early, one when the sun was higher. He’d shot at both and missed both. The heavy rifle had wavered in his hand. He was worn down with hunger, though he’d found a few new cattail shoots, some cress…that morning? yesterday?

  One lead ball remained to him, loaded in the rifle’s barrel. He was almost sure he was going to use it soon. Not to kill a deer but to save himself from the hunter stalking him.

  What made him look back when he had, he couldn’t say. There’d been no sound beyond the rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker’s knocking and the creak of wind-rubbed branches. But he had looked back, just before the trail dropped into a bowl-like hollow, and seen the great tawny cat slinking after him through the brush.

  With his heart a gourd rattle in his chest, he’d plunged down the trail and sprinted to the center of the hollow where the trees were old and wide-spaced. He raised the rifle back toward the place where the trail crested and waited.

  The panther appeared above the rise.

  Two Hawks gulped a breath, willed his trembling arms still, then squeezed the rifle’s trigger and fired his last shot. The flash in the pan…the roar…the cloud of stinking smoke…the kick…and far beyond it the panther falling down the incline into the hollow, twisting, rolling, crumpled.

  Too weak to hold the rifle, he planted the stock in the springy turf and leaned against the weapon. He hadn’t missed. But he’d have to hunt with his bow now, and an arrow didn’t always bring down a deer, only wounded it, making a hunter trail it far before it finally fell, whereas a ball made a wound more likely to…

  Two Hawks stiffened. Had the panther’s tail twitched?

  The tail rose again. Higher. The panther rolled onto its side, got to its feet, and came toward him. Two Hawks threw down the rifle, dug his feet into the leaves, and ran like the wounded deer he’d been imagining.

  As he ran, the futility of it crashed down on him. Why run? Why fight so hard to live when all the forces of the spirit world and this one combined seemed bent on snuffing him out? Why not let the cat kill and eat him? If he couldn’t get meat, let him be meat.

  Two Hawks stopped and turned, heaving in what would be his final breaths. The panther stopped, lowering into its crouch, wary of him as a man, a hunter, not knowing yet that he was neither. Dropping to the ground, Two Hawks crossed his legs. At his knee he laid his hatchet, his quiver and bow, while the cat began its stalk, gaze fixed on him. It was very big.

  When it was within an arrow’s shot, Two Hawks thought about singing a death song. He had no exploits to sing about. He’d never plucked his hair for war. Never fought to protect the People. He hadn’t even been a good son. He hadn’t stood between his father and his mother when she needed him to.

  Into his mind poured the image of his mother, wailing with ashes on her face when she learned she’d lost another son. Would she be ashamed to know he’d given up the life she counted precious?

  Another thought shot like a spear through his vitals. I will never see Anna Catherine again.

  Then he knew. He was going to have to do the harder thing and live. Or try to live. He had seconds before the panther made its rush and the decision would be made for him.

  With one hand he snatched up the bow, still strung taut, and with the other swiped an arrow from its quiver. His hands knew this weapon. He didn’t have to think about all the little steps, as with the rifle, leaving room for the memory of Anna Catherine praising his strength to flicker like new-breathed flame behind his eyes. He set the arrow, drew, and let it fly. It struck the cat through the neck as it made its leap. The heavy creature clawed dark furrows through the leaf mold as it writhed, giving out a gargled scream through its pierced throat.

  Two Hawks had another arrow in hand, with no memory of grasping it. His thoughts were still of Anna Catherine. Her hair that he wanted to see unbraided again. Her green-brown forest eyes. How she treasured his brother’s letters…

  He sent the second arrow into the panther’s heart. In its thrashing, it came near enough for him to touch before it died. Two Hawks could feel the warmth of its hide, smell its blood, see its spirit fly from its eyes.

  “There, Brother,” he said to the twin he knew only through words on paper. “Let me hear you boast of doing that.”

  On the heels of those words a sound came out of him, one he’d not heard from his mouth in many moons.

  He laughed.

  And then he couldn’t stop. Soon he was crying tears with the laughter. Then it was no longer laughter but wrenching sobs that hurt his ribs. The bow tumbled from his hand, which shook now. All his limbs shook. His teeth chattered. He’d almost let that panther eat him. Where would his soul have gone if he had? Kirkland’s burning hell?

  He had no strength. Not even to stand. After all he would sit there and wait to die, and it would be a long death instead of the quick one he might have had.

  Covered over in defeat, he sat by the dead panther, enveloped in the tang of its musk and blood. He drew his knees to his chest and put his head on his arms, too ashamed to sing.

  He was still waiting to die, some moments later, when the rustle of moccasins passing through leaves reached his ears. His head snapped up, and he reached for his rifle. It was nowhere to hand. He’d dropped it when he ran.

  A man was coming through the hollow, winding between the trees. A warrior with a crested scalp-lock, shouldering a burden—and carrying Two Hawks’s rif
le. The man had a limp. He neared, frowning at the panther, at Two Hawks sitting beside it. He studied Two Hawks’s face as if trying to see in it another face, or a younger version of the same face.

  The instant the limping man’s brows shot high, recognition sparked in Two Hawks’s mind. This was the man who looked after them when his father went away to fight with Pontiac. The man his father pushed into one of his own traps and crippled.

  It was Bear Tooth.

  “I heard your rifle fire and came to see who else was in these hills hunting.” Bear Tooth looked down at Two Hawks, sitting beside the dead panther. “I never thought it would be you.”

  Two Hawks’s heart beat dull and heavy, hurting with a mixture of relief and humiliation. But all he could think about was the deer meat Bear Tooth carried, freshly butchered and wrapped in its hide, tied high on his shoulders with straps. “It is good to see you…brother.”

  An expression Two Hawks couldn’t read flinched across Bear Tooth’s face before his lips drew back in a smile. “You have grown into a hunter,” he said, black eyes assessing the panther. “You killed it with arrows? Sitting there like that, you killed it?”

  Pride in the accomplishment flickered. Two Hawks was glad someone who had been important to him had come to witness what he’d done. But why did Bear Tooth just stand looking at him?

  “I shot it first with lead,” he admitted. “But it did not die of it. That is my rifle you carry. I dropped it when the panther chased me.”

  So many words left him exhausted, dry-mouthed. Bear Tooth didn’t seem to notice. He raised the rifle in his grip, admiring it. “A hunter should not throw away a rifle like this. They are hard to come by.”

  “I did not throw it away…” Or he had not meant to. Two Hawks tried to remember how it had been. He’d fired it. The panther had fallen. There’d been no time to load again. Nothing to load had there been time. He couldn’t make the words to say all that come together on his tongue.

  Bear Tooth peered down at him, frowning. “You do not look well.”