by Lori Benton
Come at last to the end of her words, Lydia wanted nothing more than to put her head on the table and cry. It was all she had to say, but it wasn’t enough. Else she’d said it with too little tact. With a sinking in her soul, she watched Reginald’s face harden.
“Where was God when I called to Him inside that fallen fort? Where was God when I held my son dead in my arms and cried to Him?” He held up a hand when she would have spoken. “No. Answer me only this—if you will have her, I will send Anna to you, not for a few days but to live. There is her safety now I must consider.”
“Her safety?” He must fear William’s Oneida family meant him harm. Had Anna not told him everything? Had she not said that she and Two Hawks were in love? Or was that the threat to Anna he most feared? “Of course I’ll have her, but—”
Reginald stood, screeching the bench across the flagstones, wincing in pain at the movement. “I’ll bring her myself. Before nightfall. I’m bound for the Binne Kill to speak with Ephraim. I’ll be leaving my affairs in his hands for a time. I must overtake William before he enlists.”
“Overtake him? How?” He was in pain just standing there.
“I’ll take a bateau up the Hudson River.”
“In the middle of a war?” Lydia pushed to her feet, wishing she’d the strength to tackle the man, restrain him until he came to his senses. “Reginald, you have to let William go. Trust him to the Almighty…”
He’d turned away as if she wasn’t speaking, limping for the door. There he stopped, not turning to look at her as he spoke a final time. “There is sin that is past forgiving, Lydia. I have always feared it was so.”
Why couldn’t he see how wrong he was? The question had long since translated into prayer, an endlessly repeating refrain as Lydia saddled the horse and rode for the Aubrey farm. Anxiety had staved off her exhaustion. The need to reach Anna drove her as she turned her horse down the lane between the cornfields. Under a westering sun she dismounted. There was no sign of Maura in the yard, no indication Rowan was about. She looped the reins to a length of rail fencing and crossed to the house, but hadn’t raised her fist to the door before it flung wide and Anna was pulling her inside.
“Oh, Lydia. I prayed you’d come. Two Hawks and Good Voice are waiting, but I couldn’t keep William from leaving, and now Papa is angry and the Doyles are shut up in their cottage, and it’s all my fault—everything!”
Lydia shut the door and led Anna into the kitchen, where they sat at the worktable, gripping hands. “Don’t take such blame onto yourself. You could no more control how William and your father are contending with this than you could have prevented it happening in the first place.”
Anna wiped at her tears—the poor girl looked to have been crying for days—and stared at her through pools of misery.
“Would it have been better for Reginald to have found an angry warrior on the doorstep demanding his son back, with no warning at all?”
Anna shuddered. “No.”
“Can you conceive of a good way for William to have learned the truth?”
Again, the answer was no. “But have you seen Papa?”
Hope rose in Anna’s eyes when Lydia confirmed she had, only to dim as Lydia recounted their conversation. “He knows of William’s plans and means to follow him. He’s gone to the Binne Kill to talk to Captain Lang.”
Anna closed her eyes, shoulders sagging. “When William left, he was angry with me. He asked me to come with him to Canada.”
“Did you tell him about his brother and you?”
Anna’s face bloomed pink, but she gave her head a shake. “No. He thinks I stayed because I chose Papa over him. Lydia, what do I do? I cannot leave Two Hawks and Good Voice wondering what’s happening. William was so close, and now they’ve lost him again. It’s too cruel.”
Fatigue was catching up with Lydia, buzzing at the back of her head again like a swarm of agitated bees. “Two Hawks is there now, across the creek? And his mother with him?” That fact was late in registering. It did so now with startling impact. “William’s mother is here?”
Anna took her hand, the light coming back into her face. “Yes. She prayed with us. And Lydia, the most amazing thing…She’s forgiven Papa.”
Lydia felt hope flare, fragile as a new-struck spark. “She told you so?”
“Yes. And there’s something else you should know. Maybe you already do. While she’s Oneida in every other way, Good Voice is white.”
Of course she was, Lydia realized. She’d have to be for William to look as he did. “What about their father? Is he there? Has he forgiven Reginald?”
Anna’s face dimmed, shadowed by fear. “Stone Thrower went to General Schuyler’s council in German Flatts. They’re worried he’ll discover where they went and come after them. And Papa.”
“And Reginald has it in his head that he must go after William.” Lydia paused, trying to think her way through. Surely the Almighty had a plan for them through this tangle. Please.
“Go across the creek, Anna,” she said at last, seeing but a step of the way forward. “Go as quickly as you can. Bring William’s family here. I’ll stay in case Reginald arrives first.”
“I was hoping you’d think that best.” Anna was already rising to go. She wavered long enough to ask, “But…the Doyles?”
“Are they here? Then I’ll speak to them while you’re gone fetching Two Hawks and…or is it to be Jonathan? What am I to call him—them?”
Something near a smile brightened Anna’s face. “I guess you can ask them when you meet them.”
“I will,” Lydia said, with a nervous twisting in her belly. What would Reginald have to say to her when he returned to find the woman whose child he stole—and that child’s brother—sitting at his kitchen table? “You do trust this woman, Good Voice? You trust her, about Reginald?”
“As much as I trust Two Hawks,” Anna said. “And you.”
Lydia stood in the doorway and watched Anna head for the track toward the creek, hope speeding her like wings. “May I prove worthy of it,” she whispered, then turned her gaze to the cottage across the yard, in time to see a face behind the window glass hastily withdrawn.
38
Anna raced across the stretch of ground between the farthest cornfield and the creek. The terrible consequences of confronting Papa with the truth had paralyzed her with doubt, but no more. Lydia’s arrival had been the shove to set her moving again. Though the day was cooling, sweat trickled from her temples, stinging her eyes. She couldn’t run like this the whole way, ribs aching beneath suffocating stays, but she’d run as far as she could.
She reached the footlog, which she’d crossed countless times. Only once before had she done so running—the day she met Two Hawks. Then she’d been light and small. She was taller now, and not thinking about where she put her feet. She didn’t feel the old log give until it crumbled under her. She staggered into flowing water, shallow but bedded with stones that caught her foot while the rest of her sprawled onto the bank.
Pain twisted through her ankle as she fell.
Though she knew the Doyles were within, Lydia’s knocking had fallen on deaf ears. Neither opened the door to her. There was nothing for it but to stable her horse and retreat to the house to await Anna’s return with William’s Oneida kin. The minutes ticked by, marked by the mantel clock in the sitting room, the moving slant of sun on the floorboards, and her pacing from window to window.
It was Reginald who arrived first. The sun was beginning to set when she heard his horse coming down the lane, a tired, lagging pace. She stepped into the yard to meet him, thoughts a swirl of dread and hope and half-formed explanations. He straightened in the saddle upon seeing her, and despite everything that should have quelled it, her heart sang out with longing that this should be a thing between them each day, for all their days, her standing in the yard to welcome him home. Then he rode near enough for her to see his haggard features, burnished by the sun’s westering light. He showed no surprise at fi
nding her there. Nor did he look pleased.
“Where is Anna?” His voice, roughened when last she heard it, grated now like sand scrubbed over floorboards.
“She’s gone across the creek, to fetch William’s mother and brother.”
For a second he stared at her, mouth open, hooded eyes blank. Then he wrenched a leg over the horse and, with an audible pop of his bad hip, dismounted. In seconds he had her by the arm. “How long since?” When she hesitated, he gave her a shake. “Lydia—how long?”
“A bit too long actually.” Seeing the alarm her words kindled, she hurried to douse it. “She’s likely having to convince them to come. She trusts them, but—”
“I trusted you—foolish woman! What if he is there?”
Stung by the words, Lydia fought to make sense of that last. “You mean their father? But he isn’t. Not yet.”
She doubted whether Reginald even heard her. “They’ll take her. When they learn William is gone, they’ll take my Anna instead—or worse!”
Shoving her away, he tore off down the track between the fields, heading for the creek. Without the horse. Without rifle or pistol. The limp in his gait was enough to break her heart.
“Anna means to bring them here!” Lydia shouted, but he didn’t so much as slow his hitching stride. Sending up a wordless prayer, she ran after him.
Anna felt a fool—so careless—wasting precious time hobbling through the beeches, then across the clearing, pain shooting through her ankle with each step. She was spared the hill. Only seconds passed after she called his name before Two Hawks appeared among the rocks above. He and his mother descended the steep path, Good Voice looking beyond her and then back with expectant eyes. In the slanting light of evening, they were the exact shape and hue of William’s.
She stood with her twisted ankle favored. Two Hawks took her by the arm. “You are hurt?”
She slipped her arm around his waist. “I fell crossing the creek. It’s only—” She’d meant to say a bit sore, but a test of her weight on the foot made her gasp.
Good Voice was standing a little apart, watching them, braced and still. Anna saw she was a handsome woman, with a face both strong of bone and delicate of feature, blown by strands of blond hair caught in a breeze coming off the river. “My son has not come with you,” she said, hiding admirably what must be crushing disappointment.
“He returned home, just before dawn. I tried to stop him leaving again.”
She felt Two Hawks stiffen. “He has gone? Where?”
“To Canada, probably to join the British army.” Into their stunned silence, she added, “Papa means to go after him. Lydia told me so. She’s at the house.”
“That is the woman who teaches her healing,” Two Hawks told his mother.
“We think it best you come to the house with me, meet Papa when he returns, talk to him.” She appealed to them both. “Will you come?”
It didn’t take long for them to agree—though it seemed an eternity while their gazes held, searching, speaking. “What else is there to do,” Two Hawks said, “but return to Kanowalohale?”
Good Voice nodded, sorrow and wariness in her eyes. Anna ached for words to reassure her, knowing that even with Lydia on their side, Papa might turn William’s kin away, refuse to see them. Or worse, treat them with hostility. She prayed his heart would soften as they started across the clearing, Two Hawks supporting her as she limped.
It soon grew clear they had a more immediate problem. At the rate she was moving, it would be nightfall before they reached the house. Two Hawks swept her into his arms, grunting with the effort, and carried her forward into the rays of sun streaming threads through the tops of the trees. Good Voice came behind, looking at them as if unsure what to make of her, cradled in her son’s arms. The warmth of him radiated through his shirt. Though Anna’s impulse was to turn her face into his neck, draw from him the strength she’d need to face Papa, shyness in front of Good Voice prevented her.
“It’s too far to carry me,” she began in protest, when across the clearing a figure emerged from the beech wood and staggered into the open.
Papa.
Good Voice made a noise like an indrawn hiss. Two Hawks stopped, arms tightening around Anna until she felt his heart beating hard and fast.
Papa saw them and halted. “Anna!” Panic strained his voice as he lunged forward again. “Let her go!”
“No…Papa!” Anna cried in a burst of understanding. “He thinks you’re taking me away. Put me down!” Two Hawks set her gingerly on her feet. She clutched his arm, watching Papa approach, his limp pronounced. He carried no weapon that she could see.
“Let me talk to him.” She took an awkward step forward, wincing.
Good Voice stopped her with a touch and a flash of resolute eyes. “I will go and meet him. As it should be.”
Two Hawks took Anna’s arm and pulled her to his side. In that instant, Good Voice was striding forward to meet Papa. “Pray, Bear’s Heart. Pray to God with me.”
She heard him praying, but her own mind was frozen, wordless in its appeal.
Papa had halted in the center of the clearing, seeing Good Voice marching toward him. She moved with the stride of a younger woman, her long braid shining in the light that arced a golden path from her feet to his. Papa’s gaze jerked past Good Voice, flying to her and Two Hawks, then back it snapped to the woman bearing down on him. When she was but a few yards off, his face constricted. He sank to his knees as though felled by an arrow, launched from an unseen bow.
Good Voice halted briefly, then proceeded on. So focused were they on each other, Papa and Good Voice, that neither looked away when Lydia emerged from the beeches.
She wasn’t the only arrival. Across the clearing to the west a shout arose. A man’s shout, speaking words in a language Anna knew for Oneida. A tall, broad-chested figure strode from the wood’s edge, moving with purpose. Though it was years since she’d seen him, Anna knew him at once. Stone Thrower, bronzed face shining in the fading sunlight, black hair grown long and full, tied with feathers, flowing behind him. He strode across the clearing, war hatchet gripped, shouting at Good Voice and Papa.
Beside her Two Hawks groaned out a word she knew meant Father. “He is fulfilling his dream. He must not.”
The words, inexplicable to Anna, were uttered in a moan of distress. What dream did he mean? She clamped his arm in desperation. “Go. Help. Please, go!”
The support of his arm slid away, leaving her to find her own balance. Two Hawks was loping, stride quickening until he ran full out. But he wouldn’t make it in time.
Papa saw Stone Thrower bearing down on him and lurched to his feet, twisting to favor his lame hip. The pain must have been great, for he staggered back to a knee, hands to the ground to keep from sprawling.
Good Voice lunged to get between Stone Thrower and Papa. Stone Thrower didn’t look at her but must have uttered some command for she hesitated, then let her husband pass. Fear pulled at Anna’s stomach, cleaving it to her spine, as Stone Thrower loomed over Papa. Helpless on the ground, Papa looked up into his face. If either man spoke, Anna was too far away to hear their words.
Good Voice must have heard her son’s pounding footsteps. She turned and raised her hands, palms flat in a command to halt. As if he’d run into a wall, Two Hawks stopped short.
An icy cold shot through Anna’s veins. Were they going to let Papa die? Had she misunderstood all this time? Had this been what they truly wanted? Revenge.
Papa bowed his head, hands going slack on his knees in submission. He was going to let it happen. He was going to let himself be killed.
“Papa, no. God, no.” She started forward, though it was too far—impossibly far. As she hobbled toward them, Stone Thrower raised the gleaming hatchet. Bending, he placed a hand on Papa’s head.
Swift movement at the corner of her eye drew Anna’s glance aside. Over toward the beeches, Lydia was running, not toward the center of the clearing but along its edge. Anna saw t
he blur of her petticoat but forced her gaze back to Papa—as a rifle roared to life. The crack of it fell like thunder from the clear sky. Anna jarred to a halt and watched, uncomprehending, as Stone Thrower dropped to his knees.
Good Voice and Two Hawks broke apart, both crying out. Good Voice rushed forward. Two Hawks sprinted toward the cloud of powder smoke drifting at the edge of the clearing near where she’d last seen Lydia. Still, it took a moment for Anna to comprehend that it was Stone Thrower who’d been shot. Rowan Doyle had shot him. He and Lydia were at the edge of the wood, grappling over a rifle. Two Hawks reached them, plucked the gun from both their hands, then ran with it back toward his father, who was on his knees with Good Voice leaning over him, gripping his shoulder. A dark patch was spreading down one deerskin legging.
Stone Thrower put out a hand, clutched at Good Voice, then firmly pushed her away. She stood erect, looking down into her husband’s face, then stepped back.
Hardly aware of her own pain now, Anna limped forward, trying to reach them. Why was Good Voice not moving? Why did she raise her arm to hold off Two Hawks, who staggered to a halt with the rifle that had wounded his father? They stood there looking down at Stone Thrower and Papa, both men on their knees, facing each other. Stone Thrower’s mouth clenched tight as he looked into Papa’s face. His fingers still gripped the hatchet’s long handle, though when he raised it again, it shook in his grip.
“Papa!” Anna cried as the blade came down—into the seeded grasses beside Papa, driven deep into the earth. Two Hawks hurried back to her, but she was already near enough to hear what followed
“Atahuhsiyost. Listen to my words, Redcoat.” Stone Thrower spoke in the deep voice she remembered, grated now with pain. “This hatchet you see…I bury it in the ground between us. I cover it with dirt. With it I cover every bad thing that has long been between us. I bury it out of sight, out of my heart, that it might cause no more grief to me…and to my family.”
