by Lori Benton
She wiped her nose and said, “Oh, Papa. I don’t want to quarrel.”
He touched her cheek, brushing away a tear. “Nor do I, my girl. And I’m sorry for it. More than you can know.”
She stilled beneath his hand. Hope bloomed in the eyes more brown than green in the lantern light. “But I do know, Papa.”
Relief bled away. He dropped his hand to his side. “No, Anna. You cannot possibly know. There are things beyond your scope of understanding, and for that I am glad.”
Her face was stubbornly earnest. “Lydia explained it to me.”
“Lydia.” Her name came rough to his lips. “What does Lydia know of this? Has she been here to the farm? Did you tell her?”
“She already knew, Papa. She’s known about William for years.”
The admission hit him with a doubling force. “How could she know?”
“You told her. That last time you were fevered from your wound, and she came here and tended you.”
He told Lydia? All those years ago? An instant’s scouring told him well enough he had no memory of doing such a thing. “Do you tell me the truth, Anna? This isn’t some ploy to get round me and across that creek to—”
“I’m not lying!” She was tearing his heart out again with her wounded eyes. “Lydia kept your secret all these years and would have gone on keeping it forever if she hadn’t realized I’d guessed it too. I had to tell her, Papa. It was too much for me.”
And he it was who’d laid that burden on her. Reginald grasped hold of a slat in the nearest stall. Lydia…
“She was sure you didn’t remember. You were out of your head with fever when you told her about Fort William Henry, about Good Voice and William.”
Reginald winced as an image of the woman with her golden braid rushed in, a face frozen young in his mind, no older than his Anna was now. He gripped the stall so hard his nails dug into the wood. “I’ll have no more talk on this, Anna. Go now and pack your trunk. In the morning I will take you to Lydia and—”
He broke off at the scuff of a boot at the barn doorway, the blow of a tired horse. He hadn’t heard William’s coming.
Anna whirled round to see what Reginald had already taken in, the bruise spreading dark across William’s left eye. The scored knuckles of the hand that gripped his mare’s reins. The burn of his bewildered gaze, taking in the two of them.
“Let her speak, Father. What is it about the fort where I was born that has Anna in tears and you banishing her to Lydia’s? And who is this other she named—this Good Voice? What has she to do with me?”
35
“William—” Anna’s thoughts spun faster than she could grasp them: William was here; he’d heard what she’d said; he was injured. “You’re hurt!” She took a step toward him. He stopped her with a look.
“The price of being Sam’s friend,” William said, his voice tight, impatient. “I managed to extricate him from the brawl with limbs intact.”
“Brawl? How badly are you hurt? Come up to the house and—”
“Never mind it, Anna. You claimed to be ill, now here you stand looking hale but miserable, and I’m thinking Father is the cause of it.” William’s gaze flashed back to Papa. “What is this upset between the two of you? I’ll have the truth of it now.”
Behind her Papa made no answer. He’d been silent this whole time. She thought to turn and seek his guidance, permission, something…but couldn’t take her eyes off William standing there looking so much like his brother that longing pierced her—longing for Two Hawks to step out of the cornfield, to come and stand beside her. Help her find the right words.
At last she tore her gaze away. In the lantern light Papa’s face appeared that of an old and broken man, hollow-eyed, haggard. He moved a step nearer and the shadows shifted, leaving only the brokenness.
“Let us do as Anna wishes,” Papa said, a hint of desperation in his voice. “Go to the house. We’ll speak of it there.”
William was immovable. “We’ll stay as we are. Tell me what Anna meant by what she said. What about that fort where I was born can have her so upset? What is all this to do with me?”
Papa came forward to stand even with her, as though her nearness could lend him strength. She had no strength to lend, only a fraying hope that the brother she cherished wasn’t about to be obliterated before her eyes.
“William, do not make me say this,” Papa said. “For your own sake, I am begging you.”
“My sake?” William challenged. “I’m thinking it is for your sake that you would have me pretend I didn’t hear what I did. We do not move from this spot until you tell me.”
Anna looked to Papa and saw that everything Lydia had told her, there in her kitchen when they’d confessed their secrets, was true. Regret and guilt, fear and dread, half a lifetime of it, ravaged his eyes, his face. Her mind flashed back to that night of her birthday, years ago, when she’d found him sitting with William’s letter in his grasp, looking as if the weight of the world was upon him. She’d thought it had to do with the things William had written about his mother and her. No doubt it had, but it was more. So much more. The memory of other moments like it came rushing back to her, of the heaviness that clung to him, weighing him down, noticed in passing but never understood.
Let William see. Let him be merciful. It was the only prayer she had time to fling heavenward before Papa resigned himself in the face of William’s implacable demand.
“William…you are my son,” he said, the words rough as gravel on his lips. “But you were not born to me.”
There was silence in the barn, a breathless, hair-raising stillness like the pause between lightning and thunderclap.
William’s head reared back. The eye that wasn’t bruised flared wider. “You…are not…my father?”
He spoke the words with frightful care, as though in a language barely comprehended. Whatever he’d thought was the matter between them, he hadn’t been prepared for this. Anna had prayed for mercy, but who could be prepared for this? She ought to have waited at the house, not come down to the barn to persuade Papa of his danger, that it was too late to bury the truth.
It was buried no longer. God help them.
“Not by blood,” Papa said, the words dredged out of him as if by great force. “I am not.”
The color bled from William’s face. His throat worked, forcing down a swallow before he said, “Mother?”
Pain wracked Papa’s face. “Heledd wasn’t the mother who birthed you, no.”
William closed his eyes, grimaced, then opened them. They were blue as glass even in the dimness where the lantern’s glow met the crowding dark of night. Blue and shattered. “Who then? Who is my mother?”
No sound left Papa’s lips now. His jaw was set like a man enduring a slow and terrible wounding.
“I’ll tell it,” Anna whispered, pain for them both a strangle in her throat. “If you want me to—”
William had turned his gaze sharp on her, but Papa’s hand on her arm held her silenced.
“No, Anna. This is for me to do.” He released her and to William said, “You were born to another woman at Fort William Henry. A white woman taken from a band of Indians before the siege. She was held in the fort until it fell to the French. You were born to her the same hour my son—mine and Heledd’s—came into this world.”
Anna realized she was clenching her ribs, squeezing them as if to keep the tension stretching inside her from snapping her in two, her gaze fixed in silent pleading on William, who was shaking his head like an ox stunned by a blow.
“There is no sense in what you are saying. You had a son, but he isn’t me? Where is he then? Who is he, and why am I in his place?”
She reached for Papa, but he didn’t notice her clutching hand. He stood remote, accepting no comfort, no support. Anna let her hand fall.
“But an hour after his birth,” Papa said, “he died, that son of mine. I took you from your mother’s side, she asleep and unknowing, and put him in the pla
ce where you had lain.”
Anna had no memory of crossing the space between them, only of looking up into William’s stunned face—the bruise dark against his pallid skin—at his eyes staring at Papa as if from some great distance. Her fingers touched his coat sleeve, but William didn’t break the stare that locked his gaze with Papa’s.
They stood alone, separated from her by a veil transparent but impenetrable.
“It was moments before the British evacuated the fort,” Papa was saying. “And the French took possession. In that confusion no one knew what I had done—”
“How?” William cut in. “How could she not have known?”
Anna knew who he meant. So did Papa.
“Heledd was half out of her mind with the fright of the siege and overcome by the birthing. She barely saw…him before she slept, never knew he died beside her. I took his body into my arms still warm and walked out into the casemate. I was looking for the courage to tell her of it when I saw you. And her. Your mother.”
William’s silence was terrible. The sounds of the stock in their stalls and the trill of insects outside the barn could make no dent in it. It was the ringing stillness after cannon-fire, reverberating in Anna’s soul.
“She knew. My real mother.” William at last looked down at Anna. “Is that who you spoke of before? What did you call her?”
“Her name…” Anna’s mouth was almost too dry now to speak. “Her name is Good Voice.”
William scowled. “What sort of name is that?”
“Onyota’a:ka—Oneida. Good Voice is white, but she’s been Oneida as long as she can remember. She—”
The horror dawning on William’s face stopped her cold. “He said…she’d been with Indians? But how is it you know this?” He drew back a pace, crowding his mare, who tossed her head and danced. He dropped the reins and stamped a boot on them, holding her fast. “How is it you know, Anna, and I do not?”
The words thrust at her like blades, pushing her away even as they demanded answer. Pushing her away as he was pushing Papa. “Because I know them. Your family. At least I know your brother.”
“Brother?”
“Your twin. His name is Two Hawks. He’s also called Jonathan…”
She trailed off as William, looking sick with the shock of it, gazed down at his lifted hand, fingers spread in the lantern light. Softly he said, “So that is what I am? An Indian. A half-breed.”
“You are my son!” Papa started for William, who snatched his horse’s reins from the ground and backed the mare onto the track.
“I am not, though, am I? You’ve said as much.” Before Papa could reach him, he vaulted into the saddle. “There is none of it true. Wales, Oxford, this place—my name. None of it is mine.”
Anna pursued him. “William, no. Please, just listen—”
“How long have you known of this, Anna?” William swung the horse away as she grabbed for his foot. She staggered back, hardly aware of Papa rushing past her, trying to catch William as she’d failed to do.
Eluding him as well, William heeled the mare into a gallop back along the lane. They vanished in the dark, reappeared briefly in the glow of a candle burning in the cottage window, then the night swallowed them, save for the drumming of hooves headed for the Schenectady road.
Mr. Doyle came down from the cottage, having heard William’s horse thunder past. Anna’s head was banging, her throat thick with grief. The lifting of a hand to brush at tears felt like pushing through deep water. It had all gone wrong. So terribly wrong. Was it her fault? She’d chosen the time and place to confront Papa. It must be her fault.
“Get you up to the house, Anna.”
She jerked her head up to find Papa astride his horse, Mr. Doyle swinging onto the back of another. She’d heard them talking but hadn’t really noticed they were saddling the horses. “Papa, I’m sorry…”
“Go you now,” he said, closed to her, unreachable still. “I will watch to see that you do. Maura will come to stay with you.”
She didn’t think to add to be my guard until later. For now all she saw was Papa’s face looking years older than it had before William’s flight. She didn’t think a shift of light would be enough to change it back now.
Mrs. Doyle had asked a dozen questions. Anna, too stunned and upset to be coherent, tried to answer them but ended up dissolving in tears. At last Mrs. Doyle took pity and, despite her own fretting, sent Anna off to bed.
Anna went gratefully to her room but with no intention of sleeping. She couldn’t know how wide a margin of time lay between Mrs. Doyle finally nodding off to sleep in the sitting room and Papa and Mr. Doyle’s return. Hours? Minutes?
It was nearing midnight before she extricated herself from the house. Through rustling cornstalks, across the chattering creek, into the inky whisper of the beeches, she never allowed herself to think that Two Hawks mightn’t be there. She needed him to be there.
The beeches opened to the clearing. By starlight she saw her way to the hill rising dark where the spring flowed down. She made a racket of falling stones as she climbed, heedless of stealth. When she was not quite to the height of the waterfall, a voice called to her from above. She scrabbled to a halt, the better to hear it.
“Bear’s Heart?”
Relief brought her near to tears. “Two Hawks!”
They met at the level by the fall. Wordless, she reached for him and felt his arms enfold her, pressing her close.
“I have waited days for you and am glad you are come. But you have never come in darkness. What is wrong?”
“Everything!” All but drowning in her sense of failure, she told him how William had learned the truth and then ridden off into the night, devastated, angry. “Papa and Mr. Doyle went after him. If they return and find me gone, it might make matters worse. I don’t know. I’ve already made a ruin of it!”
Two Hawks held her again and stroked his hand down her braid.
“Though I am sorry for this pain, Creator saw what would happen this night. He has a plan for us.”
She felt the wild beating of his heart, knew he was far from calm, despite his words. As if he sensed her thoughts, he held her from him.
“I have long thought about how it would be if I was the one taken, only to learn the truth all these years later. What would I think? What would I say? I may have done worse than what William has done.”
Anna wished it wasn’t dark. She wanted to see his eyes, which barely caught the starlight as he looked down at her. As if her fingers could make up for what the darkness denied, she touched his face. “I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t know what to do. I’ve missed you.”
“And I you.” He bent his head and she lifted hers, inviting him to kiss her. Before their lips could touch, the scuff of movement above them startled her. She clung to Two Hawks, fear racing up her spine. Was it Stone Thrower?
A figure was climbing down the rocks, a slender person moving with grace and care, a long braid swinging in the starlight like a panther’s silvery tail.
Two Hawks’s hand squeezed her shoulder, reassuring. “Né: ka’í:k aknulhá. Here is my mother come to meet you.” His voice had taken on a formal note that mingled respect, pride, affection, and a sudden shyness. “Here is Ha’tiyo, Good Voice of the Turtle Clan, also called Elizabeth.”
Though it was dark, Two Hawks stood back to give Anna Catherine and his mother a chance to fix upon each other without him as distraction. His nerves were strung bow-taut.
“Good Voice.” In Anna Catherine’s whisper, he heard the same shyness afflicting him. Also much feeling rushing from her through her words. “I’ve wanted long to meet you.”
He wished this moment was happening under the sun so he could see the small signals of their eyes and lips, to know how they were looking at each other, what they were thinking.
Anna Catherine wore a cap. The white of it glowed in the starlight. It seemed to draw his mother like a moth to a flame.
“You are the woman my son loves?
You are Aubrey’s daughter?”
“Yes,” Two Hawks said, eagerness betraying his nerves. “This is Anna Catherine.”
His mother’s face turned his way, the angle of it hinting at amusement. Then Good Voice reached out her hands. Anna Catherine lifted hers. As they clasped, his mother said, “The woman both my sons love.”
Anna Catherine froze, held in greeting. “Yes,” she said, her voice breaking as she added, “But he—William—is angry with me now.”
“Two Hawks has told me much of you. You have been true in your heart to the son born first to me, as a sister is true. He will remember that.” His mother held Anna Catherine’s hands and looked at her as if the darkness was no barrier. “We have each nurtured one of my sons, in our different ways. I think it is true we each have loved them both.”
“Good Voice…I’m so sorry, for all of this.”
He could tell Anna Catherine was crying. He could also see their hands, joined where the starlight fell between them. A bridge formed of slender fingers entwined.
“As am I,” his mother said. “I heard what you told my son, that his brother has fled. Will Aubrey bring him back to that house across the fields?”
“He means to. He’s looking for him. But William can be stubborn.”
Two Hawks grunted. Good Voice looked at him. “As can be his brother,” she said. “Has he been a good father to my son, that man you call Papa?”
“He wanted to be. I know he tried to be. But now I know what has stood between them all these years.” Anna Catherine hesitated, then said, “Papa wouldn’t listen to my pleas for his safety. Where is Stone Thrower?”
Two Hawks stepped to Anna Catherine’s side as Good Voice let go her hands. “My father does not yet know William has returned. He has gone to German Flatts, to the council there with Schuyler. There is time for us to decide what is best to do.”
