by Lori Benton
Two Hawks knew. He’d always known. That was why he came to the wood’s edge. Not for her. He’d come because of William. His brother.
A pressure like a fist squeezed her heart.
Lydia had paused, looking as thoroughly wrung from the telling as Anna felt at hearing it. “But, Anna,” she said now. “How is it you know? Reginald never told you?”
Anna pressed her fingers more firmly to her trembling lips. No one had told her anything. No one. And what was she to tell?
Secrets. She was choking sick of them.
Removing her hand, she gulped a breath and told Lydia everything, starting with the day she was eleven and missing William like her heart would tear out of her chest and go flying to Wales—the day she and Lydia walked to the creek and she’d ended up racing off in tears, running for the waterfall where she’d longed to find William and instead found Two Hawks.
She spoke faster, grinding out how Two Hawks came to see her over the years. How she shared William’s letters. How Two Hawks learned to read them for himself. How they played together and picked berries and shot arrows and grew up. How a bear almost attacked them. How Two Hawks prayed with her and her heart opened to God. And to him.
That was the hardest part to tell, because now she wasn’t certain if anything she’d believed about him was true. “Two Hawks told me, just days ago, that he had a twin brother taken at their birth. Taken from his mother’s side by a British officer who put a dead baby in his place. But he never said it was William. It wasn’t until I saw William—saw how much he looks like Two Hawks—that I ever imagined Papa was that officer.”
She had to stop, breathe, steady herself. Only there seemed nothing solid left to cling to. “Why? Lydia, why did Papa do it?”
“Grief can work a twisted logic on the mind.” Lydia’s answer came so readily that Anna knew she’d thought about it dozens, if not hundreds of times. “We cannot imagine the horrors he and Heledd endured inside that fort. Then to have his newborn son die—”
“I’m sure it was terrible. I understand that. But, Lydia, he took a woman’s baby. Her name is Good Voice. William is her son. Surely he is.”
“Good Voice,” Lydia whispered, her gaze on Anna pained. “Please don’t misunderstand me, Anna. I’m not excusing Reginald. But I’ve had time to reason through why he may have done what he did.”
“Then why are you upset with him?” Wariness came into Lydia’s eyes. “Oh, Lydia, don’t deny it. You’ve hardly spoken to each other in days, and…” Anna bit her lip. Perhaps because her heart was already so raw, clutching at anything that hinted of wholeness, of truth, she asked, “Do you love Papa?”
Lydia hesitated only a moment. “I do. I love him very much.”
A week ago those words would have filled Anna with happiness. Now…
“Knowing all this time what he did?” Feelings of anger and grief, pity, compassion, encompassed a sense of loss so devastating she could hardly begin to comprehend it. Good Voice’s and Stone Thrower’s. Papa’s. Two Hawks’s. William’s. Her own. “He’s made Two Hawks’s family suffer and grieve—shouldn’t he be held accountable for that?”
Lydia’s mouth trembled. “Anna, I can’t know all the workings of your father’s heart and mind—how I wish I did—but I’ve watched him over the years, and it seems to me he has punished himself ever since he took William from that fort. He’s kept those around him, even the Almighty, I think, at arm’s length. It would explain so much—the strain between him and Heledd, and why he never attends meeting, and why he won’t let himself return my affections when I know he—” She faltered, then amended, “At least I think he feels…”
“He does. I’ve seen how he looks at you when you aren’t looking at him.” She watched joy, regret, frustration play over Lydia’s face, and was saddened at the thought of Lydia loving Papa and Papa loving Lydia but refusing them both happiness because…
She frowned. “Lydia, how do you know that’s why Papa won’t return your affections?”
Lydia’s face flamed a deeper red than Anna had ever seen her blush. “Because I went to him and all but asked him to marry me.”
Anna gaped. “You did? When?”
“Before he left for Albany, for William. We met in town, then walked together down to the Binne Kill, and for a moment I thought…” Lydia’s face clouded with memory. “I saw it in his face, Anna, clear as though he spoke the words. He wanted what I was offering—my heart, my life, everything.”
Anna thought her heart would wrench in two. Papa. She bit her lip, willing back a fresh surge of tears as Lydia went on.
“I’d never seen such a look of joy on his face. And then it was gone.” Lydia snapped her fingers. “Like a candle snuffed. He’d remembered.”
“Fort William Henry?”
Lydia nodded. “In his heart, I believe Reginald never left that wretched fort. I can only conclude he fears that one craven act will forever define him, that if it was known, he would lose what he has—your love and William’s, the respect of the Doyles and Captain Lang. And the friendship he and I have enjoyed.”
Anna reached across the table to grasp Lydia’s hand. “But he’s lost that—your friendship.”
“For my part, he hasn’t. I went to him that day hoping he would trust me. That we could break open that festering wound and find healing at last. Together. But he wouldn’t even show it to me.” Lydia gripped her hand, eyes shimmering. “I don’t believe he feels himself deserving of happiness, and so he goes on denying himself—crucifying himself for his own sins. Maybe he thinks he’s atoning.”
Anna drew back from Lydia and put her hands to her face, rubbing her fingertips hard across her eyelids. Did Papa deserve happiness? What about Good Voice and Stone Thrower? What about Two Hawks?
It was too much.
“There’s one thing I haven’t told you yet, Anna,” Lydia said. “You’ve already asked the question. I know why Reginald did it. It was for Heledd.”
Anna lowered her hands. “How do you know that?”
“He told me, when he was fevered. I should have stopped him, I know. I was young—younger than you are now.” Lydia rubbed her temples as though they hurt her. “I’ve had long to think about this, and what I think is that Reginald feared to tell Heledd their son was dead, feared her mind couldn’t bear it. Knowing her as I did, he was probably right. He must have seen the Indian woman—”
“Good Voice,” Anna cut in.
“He must have seen she had two babies. It was wrong,” she hurried to add. “Of course it was wrong. But in that moment, telling Heledd the truth must have seemed unbearable.”
Anna shook her head. “But it didn’t work.”
Lydia frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Giving her William. It didn’t save Mrs. Aubrey’s mind. Not after what happened when they left the fort. The massacre.”
“I don’t know,” Lydia said. “I never knew Heledd before Reginald brought you to live with us. I do know he loved her. And I can understand how love could drive a person to do something they might later regret. Like keeping secrets.”
“Keeping secrets isn’t the same as doing what Papa did!”
“Anna—” Lydia’s voice broke. “Don’t judge your father too hastily. Please don’t. He once called you the one pure thing in his life. Whatever else he’s done, he’s loved you from the moment he rescued you on that road to Fort Edward.”
Anna winced, the image of Papa’s scarred cheek flashing across her mind. The one pure thing? Oh, Papa. She didn’t know what she felt, or whom she felt it toward. Her life was crumbling before her disbelieving gaze, reshaping into something unrecognizable.
“Do you think Mrs. Aubrey knew?”
“No,” Lydia said. “I doubt her mind would have allowed her even to suspect it. William was her only consolation. Until she returned to Wales.”
And there was yet another appalling thought. William…thinking all this time he was an Aubrey, a Welshman, when he was really the br
other of Two Hawks. The son of Oneida parents.
He had to be told the truth. Hadn’t he?
What if someone told her that Papa hadn’t saved her, orphaned on that wilderness road, but stolen her from living parents? Parents who still grieved her loss. Would she want to know that? What would she do with such knowledge? Thought of telling William what amounted to the same was enough to make Anna quail. What if he hated Papa? What if he wanted nothing more to do with him? With any of them? What if she lost him in telling him the truth? But he had parents, a brother…
Two Hawks. She needed to find him, make sure beyond all doubt what they had pieced together was the truth. But it had to be.
Or ought she to warn Papa first? Tell him about Stone Thrower. Her earliest memories of the tall Oneida warrior came vividly to mind, the rage, the anguish, the dark intent she’d sensed from him—perfectly understandable in light of this terrible revelation.
But Stone Thrower was Caleb now. A Christian. Papa couldn’t still be in danger, could he?
“Doesn’t the Bible say the truth will set us free?” she implored.
“There is only one Truth with the power to set souls free,” Lydia said. “Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The truth of another’s sins? Only God knows what will come of—”
“Anna!” a deeper voice called through the house.
She and Lydia shared one half-panicked glance before William’s tall frame filled the kitchen doorway. His tailed hair was disheveled. The knuckles of his right hand were scored and swollen. Anna saw no further evidence of his fight with Sam, save the remorse in his gaze.
“Anna…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Anna lifted a hand to her face as though she might hide behind it. Did William think she’d been crying over his scuffle with Sam? It was hard to remember back to that scene on the quay. A quarter of an hour since? It seemed days.
“I know, William.” His name trembled on her lips.
“You do?” William’s brows shot up. “Mind you, I thought I was defending your honor. You’re not angry with me?”
“No. I’m not angry.”
“Oh. Well then.” Her answer had disconcerted him, but her tongue felt stuck to the roof her mouth, preventing her saying more. “I wanted to be sure you were all right, see…before Sam and I head to the tavern for a pint.”
She gaped at him. “You and Sam?”
“Aye.” His face colored as he gave her a rueful smile. “Father gave us a dressing down, then we fell to talking for a bit, Sam and I—he sends his apologies too, by the way. He’s waiting for me on the street.” William shrugged, as if unable to better explain. “But look you, Anna. I’ll not go if you’d rather I didn’t.”
How jarring it was now, hearing Papa’s manner of speaking coming out of William’s mouth. She looked into his earnest blue eyes, thought of marching him up to his room and telling him everything…and to her chagrin made the choice Lydia must have made a hundred times.
“There was no good reason for you to hit Sam. He doesn’t mean anything by his flirting. He was just being…Sam.”
“I tell you, I know now.” William held her gaze, tender, conciliatory. “So you don’t mind if he and I…?”
“Not if you don’t. Is—is your hand all right?”
“What? Oh.” He glanced down at the appendage, made a fist, and grinned. “Better than his jaw.”
Half in a daze, Anna rose and followed him to the front door, where he turned and said, almost as an afterthought, “You’ll want to be packing your things, Anna. Father says we’re going home to the farm directly. Now I best hurry if I mean to have that pint.” He opened the door, and there was Sam with his bruised jaw, waiting in the street. He waved to her. She raised a hand, weakly, and watched them head off together, looking for all the world like becoming friends.
“I don’t understand men,” she murmured. “I just don’t.”
Lydia had followed her from the kitchen. “If ever you manage it, my girl,” she said, a welling of sympathy in her gaze as she shut the door, “be so kind as to enlighten me as well.”
31
It took less effort than Anna had expected to delay a visit to the waterfall. Mrs. Doyle, in her eagerness to shower William with nine years’ accumulated attention, did most of the delaying for her. Mr. Doyle, while less transparent about it, was keen to reacquaint William with Papa’s land and livestock, including the new saddle horse Papa had acquired, a homecoming gift.
“Ah, she is a beauty,” William said as he stroked the mare’s dappled neck, his face aglow with appreciation, making Papa look happier than Anna had seen him since the day of William’s arrival.
The sight wrung her heart in a dozen directions, even as William turned to her, smiling. Her mouth mirrored his, but she mustn’t have been wholly convincing. Papa gave her a curious glance.
William, distracted by his new horse, noticed nothing amiss.
The moment passed but not Anna’s dismay. It churned within her as she trailed William from house to field to barn, unable to prevent her gaze straying to the undulation of trees beyond the sprouting corn.
If Two Hawks waited, there was no telling.
On his second morning home, William rode into town with Papa. Anna tidied the kitchen hearth, wiping the pewter dishes and putting them in the hutch. Mr. Doyle went to the barn. Mrs. Doyle drifted off to other chores. When the kitchen door closed behind her, Anna put the last plate in its place and went to fetch her gathering basket.
He wasn’t among the beeches. Or in the clearing. Afraid her voice would carry too far, Anna refrained from calling his name as she started up the hill. But as she neared the shelf of rock over which the spring flowed, the hedge of rhododendron screening the cave higher up rustled. Two Hawks emerged, his face lighting up at sight of her.
“Shekoli, Anna Catherine. At last you—”
“Was it Fort William Henry?”
She’d cut him off before he could extricate himself from the cave’s low entrance. He did so as she reached him. He wore only breechclout and moccasins. His eyes were grave as they sought hers. “I have waited long for you. I did not know what to think when the days passed and you did not come.”
“Two Hawks—was it Fort William Henry where you were born?”
A moment more he looked at her, his gaze unreadable. “It was.”
“Why did you never tell me?”
His long legs seemed to fold beneath him. He sat at the cave’s mouth and held out a hand to her. When she didn’t take it, he let it fall. “I told you some of it when last we met.”
“You should have told me everything!” She laced her arms across her chest, fighting back the urge to cry. “There I was in the room with William, unable to believe my eyes, trying to behave as if I hadn’t just had my world overturned.”
“He is home then.” A spark of joy lit Two Hawks’s eyes, then he bowed his head, lacing his hands behind his neck, and groaned. Abruptly he pushed himself to his feet. “I am sorry it was hard for you, these last days. It has been much hard for me, for my parents. For a long time.”
His words cut through her anger, breaking it in pieces along with her certainty that she ought to be feeling it at all, at least toward him. But what about them? Did he feel anything for her—for her own sake, not because she was his link to William?
“Have you told my brother?” he asked, jerking her thoughts sideways with his query. “Told him who he is?”
“No. I had to be sure. I just…I couldn’t…I don’t…” She was lost for words. Her hands were shaking.
“Did you tell Aubrey that you know?” Two Hawks asked her, and she realized now he was calm. Perfectly calm.
“Of course not. If I couldn’t tell William until I was sure, I couldn’t bring such a charge against Papa.”
During a final hurried conversation in Lydia’s room, they’d agreed to wait until that last scrap of doubt was obliterated before confronting either William or Papa. It was gone now. She star
ed at Two Hawks’s bare chest, stricken by the distance she felt between them. Yet even when Two Hawks drew near and put his arms around her, it wasn’t bridged.
“I am sorry. I did not want you to bear this burden of my family, all those years when there was nothing to be done about it.”
Slowly her fists unclenched and spread against his chest. Then she was holding him, breathing in the clean smell of him, saying through her tears, “I wish you had let me bear it. William is my family too. Isn’t he?”
Through the linen of her cap, she felt him kiss the top of her head, felt the press of his jaw as he laid it there. “That is going to be for William to decide.” He stroked her back, his voice rumbling beneath her ear. “I am sorry to cause you this pain, when what I want is to bring you joy.”
“But you do bring me joy,” she protested, in a voice so thick with misery they pulled apart and, despite everything, shared a watery smile.
Amusement was swift to pass. She stepped away from him. “I only wish I’d been the one you were coming here hoping to see all these years, instead of William.”
She hadn’t meant to admit to such a selfish thought. Hearing it, Two Hawks’s brows nearly met over his nose. He took her hand in his. “Listen to me. Long ago, when we were small, you told us William was gone across the great water, that he would not come back for many years. Still I came here, yes?”
“You did,” she admitted.
“Why do you think I did so?”
She bit her lip, knowing what she wanted the answer to be. “To hear of William.”
“It is true I came because I wished to know of my brother, but it is also true that I wanted to see my friend, Anna Catherine, who has become Bear’s Heart, the woman I love.”
The woman I love. It was all she could do to keep from melting at his words. She marveled that he could love her, the daughter of the man who tore his family asunder, who caused them such pain.
And yet…had Papa never taken William, I would never have known either of them. Never loved either of them. That was the last thought in her head before Two Hawks took her face between his hands and kissed her. It was gentle at first, almost a question, but when she didn’t pull away it deepened with a stirring need. But is my love strong enough to prevent my losing either of them?
