The Wood's Edge

by Lori Benton

  “May I see where you sleep?” Two Hawks asked.

  Though she feared the specter of William would linger even stronger there, she took up the candle and they crossed the passage to her room. Two Hawks halted in the doorway. Anna strode to the window. All was darkness beyond the reflecting glass. She set the candle on her desk and turned.

  Two Hawks took in the tiny space, desk, bed, press, trunk, and little else. In his long linen shirt, leggings, and moccasins, with his quilled sheath knife hanging at his chest and his black hair falling past his shoulders, he seemed to her a beautiful, exotic bird that had strayed into her familiar surroundings. Until she looked at his face, then it seemed the most natural thing in the world he should be standing in the doorway of her room.

  “William asked me to go with him to Canada.” The words were out before she knew she meant to speak them. Two Hawks didn’t move from the doorway or take his gaze from her. The silence gnawed at her composure before he spoke.

  “Did you want to go?”

  She let out the breath she’d been holding. “No.”

  “Iyo,” he said, and there was no mistaking his relief as he smiled in invitation. “I will not cross this threshold, but will you come here to me?”

  She went to him, trying not to limp. He raised a hand and stroked his fingers down the back of her head. She wore no cap, had lost it somewhere between the woods and home. His fingers brushed her neck, making her shiver with pleasure.

  “I love you, my Bear’s Heart.”

  She was drowning in his eyes. They pulled her to him, making her forget how to speak. Or breathe. At last she managed both. “And I love you.”

  His hand found hers, raised it to his lips. She closed her eyes as he kissed her fingers, then her open palm. His lips were gentle but far from tentative. A promise that made her heart beat with desire.

  “Then I am going to ask your father for you, to let me have you as wife. If that is what you also want?”

  “I do.” Anna knew an instant of utter happiness, before a thousand tiny arrows tipped in alarm pierced it through. “But Two Hawks, I don’t think now is—”

  “Hush.” Deep in his throat he was laughing softly. “It is much soon. My eyes are not so blind with wanting you that I cannot see that.” He pressed her hand, still tingling from his kiss, to his chest. “But I am going to court you, however it is done. Will you tell me how an Oneida man courts a white woman?”

  She had no idea. “We may have to devise it as we go.”

  “We will so. In a good way, with honor and respect.”

  Anna thought of Papa walking away into the darkness. “He’ll need time, Papa.”

  Two Hawks gave her hand a squeeze. “You have beaten a straight path to my heart. I will clear such a path to the heart of your father. With Creator’s help.”

  “And with mine,” Anna said, wrapping her arms around him. “I’m done with running away.”

  Two Hawks kissed the top of her head, then took her gently by the arms and put a space between them. “My Bear’s Heart, we must not touch like this again under Aubrey’s roof. Not without his blessing.”

  A sound like a whimper formed in her throat. She bit her lip, embarrassed to have been so transparent in her disappointment. But he was smiling. “It will not be easy. But it is right.”

  As if to put himself at a safe distance from her, he stepped backward into the passage. “You have made a good place for us. Shall we bring my mother up so she can rest?”

  The night was warm. Though the fire in the hearth had died, Reginald added no wood. He’d barely glanced at the silent Indian lying still in the bed when he entered the shadowed room. Now he kept his gaze on the taper he dipped to an ember in the ashes, quelling the tremble of his hands. Not even the aftermath of Fort William Henry’s fall could touch the ravaging the past hours had wrought upon him, body and soul.

  He set the taper in the remains of the one that had guttered before it, carried it to the press, then eased his aching frame into the bedside chair. From his waistband where he’d tucked them, he removed the three strands of wampum and laid them across the rumpled tick. Then he looked at the man in his bed.

  Stone Thrower had been watching him the while, dark eyes glittering with pain. On the press by the candle awaited the laudanum Lydia meant him to consume. But first—according to Lydia—he wanted to talk.

  Reginald waited for him to do so.

  “That one who shot me…” came the voice from his pillow. “What is he called?”

  “Rowan Doyle. He’ll be offering you no further harm.”

  “That is good to know.” The man kept an astonishing control over his face. It was hard to tell in the candlelight whether the glint in his eyes had anything of humor in it, but Reginald thought so. The Indian was intent on shattering the perception of him that had sustained two decades of nightmares. Perversely, Reginald was finding it hard to keep from scrambling after the pieces. It was easier to hate. To fear.

  He watched warily as Stone Thrower’s hand moved from his side, but it was only to touch the white beads. “These you put between us…I do not need to see them to remember the words that went with them. They were from my heart.”

  With them I wipe the tears from your eyes so you may see clear.

  Reginald’s tongue lay in his mouth, useless as a shattered hull.

  “If I could turn back the years,” he finally rasped out. “I’d walk past what was yours and never touch them. I’d leave them whole to find their way back to you.”

  Stone Thrower’s head moved on the pillow, nodding. “There was a time I also wished to turn back the seasons, to go back before I had done the wrongs I was ashamed of and choose instead not to do them. But that is not a thing we get to do.”

  “What would you have me do?” The question tore from him, spewing from his lips like bile, bitter, burning. He waited, longing for the Indian to pronounce some sort of sentence, penance, something.

  Stone Thrower said, “Years ago…my people took a child from the whites and made her Onyota’a:ka. That child grew…became my wife. From us a child was taken and made white. It is a thing to make one think.”

  Reginald put his head into his hands. He didn’t want to think. “I would give him back to you if I had him to give.”

  He heard the beads click, looked to see Stone Thrower’s fingers wrapped around their ends. “My sons are men now. They must choose to give or take themselves.”

  Reginald saw at last the grief and disappointment—long years of it—the man restrained. The broken pieces inside Reginald shifted toward it, slicing pain through him in all directions. “ ’Tis not from you that William is running, but from me.”

  It was hard to bear that gaze searching his, knowing it read more than he wanted the man to see.

  “Maybe it is from us both. You will go after him?”

  Reginald blinked, eyelids weighted with fatigue. “I’ll not face my son in a red coat, across the barrel of a musket.”

  The words thrust between them like a sword. My son. Had the Indian lunged up from the bed and set his hands to Reginald’s throat, it would have been the least he deserved, and no surprise. What did surprise was the look that rose into the dark eyes. Relief. As though the acknowledgment of his paternal bond with William was a thing the Indian had long wondered about.

  “Is that what you ask of me? To go after him? I tell you I will do it. I will find him—or die trying.” Maybe, if he managed it, God would look on him with as much mercy as this man confessed to look.

  “No. You will not.”

  In the wake of those words, emotions rose, ugly things surfacing through the morass of exhaustion. Affront. Jealousy. Anger. Humiliation. One by one they clotted in Reginald’s throat. One by one he swallowed them down.

  Stone Thrower watched it all with patient eyes. “You do not understand. You will not find him on your own, but together we may do it.”

  The hand Reginald long believed would end his life lifted from the b
eads and stretched toward him, brown and battle-hardened. He stared at it, prepared to refuse it. This calamity was of his making. He’d torn William from the life he should have lived, uprooted him so many times, little wonder the winds of war had blown him north to the British like a drifted branch. He alone should bear the burden of setting right his wrongs.

  And yet…there went his hand rising from his knee, as if another will lifted it. And there went his voice—what little remained—uttering words he’d never imagined he would speak, as across the white beads he clasped Stone Thrower’s hand.

  “Together then,” he said.

  AUTHOR’S NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Some years ago, while deep in research for a novel called Burning Sky, I read numerous accounts of the Haudenosaunee (the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy) and their experiences during the Revolutionary War. Those six nations are, east to west as they dwelled across what is now New York State, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Tuscaroras, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. My focus during that early research was on the Mohawks. But another nation, the Oneidas, kept snagging my attention as I read book after book and followed countless research trails online.

  Of all those nations long united under their Great Law of Peace, the Oneidas went against the majority of the Haudenosaunee and sided with the Americans during the Revolutionary War. Though some individuals managed to remain neutral, the rest, by and large, sided with the British. This brought about a breaking of a confederacy that had existed for centuries, amounting to a tragic mirroring of what was happening among the European colonies—a civil war. As I came to understand the tremendous pressure the Oneidas found themselves under during this time, the heavy price they paid for following their convictions, and the contributions they made to the founding of an American nation, I couldn’t resist attempting to tell their story, at least in part. That story outgrew the bounds of a single book, and has become the Pathfinders series, of which The Wood’s Edge is the first.

  During the 1760s–70s, more than one Presbyterian missionary was living, teaching, and preaching among the various Oneida towns and settlements. For narrative simplicity I chose to focus on Reverend Samuel Kirkland. His adventures among the Senecas before he settled with the Oneidas fit well with the story I wished to tell, as did his influence among the Oneida people, not only in sharing the gospel, but for his friendship with key warriors and sachems who in turn influenced their people’s choices during the Revolutionary War. Kirkland’s wife, Jerusha, and his assistant teacher, David Fowler, are both historical figures; the details of their lives presented in this novel are based on research, though Jerusha’s appearance is drawn from my imagination.

  Speaking of research, for the many threads of history that form the weft of The Wood’s Edge, I’m indebted to the following historians for their scholarship and writing, and offer this short list of titles to readers desiring to learn more about the Oneidas and other historical aspects of this novel:

  Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution by Joseph T. Glatthaar and James Kirby Martin

  The Oneida Indian Experience: Two Perspectives by Jack Campisi, Laurence M. Hauptman, editors

  The People of the Standing Stone: The Oneida Nation from the Revolution through the Era of Removal by Karim M. Tiro

  The Iroquois in the American Revolution by Barbara Graymont

  Life of Samuel Kirkland, Missionary to the Indians by Samuel Kirkland Lothrop

  Bloody Mohawk: The French and Indian War & American Revolution on New York’s Frontier by Richard Berleth

  The Siege of Fort William Henry: A Year on the Northeastern Frontier by Ben Hughes

  Fort William Henry 1755–57 by Ian Castle

  The Haudenosaunee have a culture rich in tradition and ceremony. Among these traditions is The Wood’s Edge, a ceremony used for greeting strangers who approached a town or village. Pausing at the edge of the surrounding forest, the visitors would wait until a delegation came forth to meet them. If found friendly, the strangers would be invited into the village as honored guests. As I’ve come to see it, the wood’s edge was a world between, a realm that existed as much in the minds and hearts of human beings as a clearing bounded by the spreading boughs of mighty oaks and chestnuts. At the wood’s edge strangers found welcome, minds were expanded, hearts deepened by the extension of friendship and hospitality.

  The process of a novel’s creation has its parallels to the wood’s edge. As always, many minds and hearts contributed to its creation and refining. My thanks to my editors, Shannon Marchese, Nicci Jordan Hubert, and Laura Wright, for their invaluable input. I’m so glad we’re a team. It’s an honor to work with you. And to Kristopher Orr, much joy and appreciation for the beautiful cover art that speaks deeply to one of this story’s central themes.

  I hope readers of my debut novel Burning Sky enjoyed getting a peek into the back story of Joseph Tames-His-Horse, one of the main characters from that book, as well as a larger look at a minor Burning Sky character, Daniel Clear Day. You’ll see more of these characters and other familiar faces in A Flight of Arrows, the second book in the Pathfinders series, releasing from WaterBrook Press in 2016.

  Until then, dear readers, you’ll find me online at loribenton.blogspot.com or on Facebook at www.​facebook.​com/​Author​Lori​Benton. I look forward to hearing from you!

  Blessings and happy reading,

  Lori

  READERS GUIDE

  1. Reginald Aubrey made a choice that would carry lifelong repercussions for everyone closely connected to him. Could you sympathize with him in this choice? Have you ever made a choice in the heat of the moment, big or small, only to look back later and realize it altered the course of your life?

  2. What was your perception of Reginald in the early chapters of the story? Did that perception change throughout the novel? For better or worse? Why?

  3. Lydia van Bergen is a woman of purpose. Although initially thwarted in many of her deepest desires (love, motherhood, vocation), how did she find fulfillment in these areas? Have you ever had a dream fulfilled in unexpected ways?

  4. Good Voice experiences one of the greatest heartbreaks a mother can know, the abduction and loss of her child. Yet she comes to know peace as she seeks healing and wholeness for her broken family. How was this possible? What do you think was her greatest test?

  5. Stone Thrower is a man plagued by dreams, to which he gives power—a power that long torments and imprisons him—according to the traditions of his culture. Have you ever allowed a harmful force or influence to have power over you? Was it something of which society or culture approved? What enabled you to break free?

  6. Lydia chooses to keep secret Reginald’s confession and her deductions about William. Would you have made the same choice? Why or why not?

  7. Two Hawks states, “If knowing God in my heart means losing a little of what it means to be Oneida—I do not think it means losing everything, as the sachems fear—I think it is only what must be remade in every man who comes to Creator through His Son, Jesus. White, black, red, and any other sort of man. If I have lost anything, what I have gained is a trade in my favor.” He is in agreement with Paul who states in Philippians 3:8, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” Have you given up something of significance, or something that defined who you were, because you sensed a higher calling? How did that affect your relationship with friends and family?

  8. Anna is a woman caught between the people she loves, her sympathies and heart torn two ways. How might this story have unfolded had she told Reginald, or Lydia, much sooner about the friend she was meeting at the wood’s edge?

  9. Heledd Aubrey is a tragic figure, traumatized by violence and loss, but was she sympathetic? Why or why not? Lydia believes Heledd never suspected William wasn’t her natural son. If you were in Heledd’s place, would you have wanted to know the truth?

  10. Of all the characters, William has had the least amo
unt of time to come to terms with the truth of his identity and Reginald’s deceit. Was his choice to run away from such devastating revelations one you might have made? Why or why not?

  11. The theme of finding God’s path through life is explored from many points of view in this story. Which character’s path did you find the most compelling or relatable? What caused you to connect? Which characters are still seeking that path, and what might be hindering them?

  12. Forgiveness isn’t always a feeling, but it is always a choice. Good Voice, Stone Thrower, and Two Hawks have chosen to forgive Reginald for stealing their son and brother. What were some of the challenges they overcame to do so? Do you think this choice will need to be made again? And perhaps again?

  13. Did Stone Thrower’s ultimate decision concerning Reginald, during the confrontation in the clearing, come as a surprise? Why do you think his last request of Reginald was not to go after William on his own?

  14. Two Hawks learned to speak and read English not only in hopes of communicating with his lost brother but also to serve his friendship with Anna. Do you think he is prepared for the task he has chosen—clearing a path to the heart of Reginald Aubrey and winning his blessing? What challenges might he and Anna face as the story unfolds in the next book?

  GLOSSARY

  ONEIDA/IROQUOIS WORDS

  a’sluni—white person

  Onyota’a:ka—People of the Standing Stone, the Oneidas

  hanyo—hurry

  tekawiláke’—two babies

  Haudenosaunee—the Longhouse People, the Six Nations of the Iroquois

  kutiyanéshu—clan mothers

  ukwehu-wé—an Indian person

  Tewaarathon—the little-brother-of-war game, played with stick and deer-hide ball, played traditionally to entertain the Creator; lacrosse

  Atahuhsiyost—Listen carefully

  sekoh—a greeting (Mohawk)