by E. B. Brown
“It is not for me to choose. Governor Wyatt decides who we bargain for. You must speak to him for this. I am sorry,” Winn said quietly.
John reached over and put the satchel in Winn’s hand.
“Take it anyway. Just give me yer word she is safe, I see it as even exchange.”
“I give you my word. And what of Dixon, what do you know of him?”
“He went looking for your kin, that Nansemond, Pepamhu. Said something about searching fer the woman Finola. I think he sought the Indian as a tracker. Lord knows, Dixon could ne’er track to save his skin.”
Winn stood up. He dropped the gunpowder onto the table. As much as he needed it, he would not take it. He thanked the gunsmith for his trouble and left the cottage, Marcus trailing behind.
*****
Marcus was quiet on the return home. Winn knew they did not find the answers he wanted, but he had enough to start the search so he considered it a day well spent. The sooner he could help Marcus find Benjamin, the sooner he would be out of their lives.
From the story John Jackson told, it seemed Benjamin was found lying senseless in the church at Martin’s Hundred. It was the same place Maggie and Finola had given him the Bloodstone and sent him back to his future time on the day of the Great Assault, the day the English referred to as a massacre.
Winn knew little of how the stones worked, only that the magic was dangerous, so he was not shocked to hear that something had gone wrong with his brother’s travel. Although his grandmother had tried to speak to him about the Gothi magic in his blood many times over the years, Winn had refused to hear her tales, denying any part of his white blood. He wondered exactly what part Finola played in all that had happened. She must have realized who Benjamin was, or perhaps she knew all along. Just looking at Marcus was like seeing an image of Benjamin, and Winn was certain his grandmother could not have mistaken it. Whatever secrets she held, she would account for them when he found her.
“The Pale Witch said you would return. She said on a night the stars fell from the sky, her son would come back to this time,” Winn said. He did not turn his head toward his father as they rode.
“She was a Seer. Our people feared her magic,” Marcus replied.
Winn nodded in agreement. “My uncle would not kill her, as he did the other Time Walkers. He feared her as well.”
“So where does she live? Do ye think Benjamin went searching for her?” Marcus asked.
“Yes. John Jackson said he searches for her. It makes sense that Benjamin would do so. He knows now he is a Time Walker, even if he is not very good at it,” Winn said, a grin tugging at his lips despite his annoyance. “My grandmother finds her own way. She refused to come live with us. She lives with a family outside James City, working at the trading post.”
“Ye don’t look out for her?” Marcus shot back, his voice rising. Winn snorted under his breath.
“When she has need, she makes it known. It has always been that way. She was banished when I was a boy, I did not truly know her until I lived with the English, and now…now she wishes to remain where she is. It is her decision.”
“How far is it?”
“Too far for a visit today. I will show you the way on the day you leave.”
Marcus said nothing, staring straight ahead as he rode. Winn wondered briefly if his father would search so faithfully for him, should the situation be reversed. He quickly dismissed the thought, his attention distracted as Chetan turned his horse in a tight circle and pointed ahead.
“Winkeohkwet! Look!” he shouted.
Over the tops of the evergreens, a cloud of black smoke wound up into the sky through the trees. It was coming from the same direction as their home.
They urged their horses into a gallop.
Chapter 7
Maggie
Maggie pulled up the moonflower vine at the roots. Pretty, but damaging, the things grew rampant around the base of the corn stalks in a twist of blue and green buds. It was only a small garden plot, yet if it survived to maturity without being looted or burned, she would be grateful. One could only eat so much Tuckahoe.
She flicked her braid back over her shoulder with a quick flip of her chin and squinted up at the sky. It was another humid day in the Virginia sun, and she would be glad to see it end. Soon the men would be home, and they would enjoy a well-deserved meal together.
Rebecca sat cross legged on the ground between the rows, patiently showing Kwetii how to pull up weeds. Teyas worked alone nearby. Usually Winn’s sister was the most productive of the group and today was no exception. Teyas was accustomed to such work, and although Rebecca made honest effort, the Englishwoman was simply not cut out for such things. As Maggie watched the blond-haired girl play with her daughter, she wondered if Rebecca would ever find such happiness of her own. Even two years past the massacre, she still seemed fragile, like a broken bird. Perhaps she would never recover from the trauma.
“Whoop! Whoop!” Ahi Kekeleksu waved his arms overhead, swatting at the black crows swooping in to pick at the corn. He raced down the aisle away from the women, taking his job as scarecrow most seriously. Kwetii giggled at his antics, and Maggie smiled.
The boy suddenly slid to a stop at the end of the aisle. The corn was not mature grown yet, and as Maggie stood to her feet she could easily see over the waving silk tassels to the direction the boy looked. Her breath hitched at the sight.
“Rebecca, take Kwetii to the house,” Maggie ordered. Rebecca looked up from her game with a confused frown.
“Why? What’s the matter?” she asked.
There were two riders with scarlet lined coats opened and flapping loose in the breeze as they galloped toward the settlement. Soldiers dressed in such disarray meant one thing: deserters. And deserters were even more dangerous than the law-abiding English.
“Teyas, take them and go. Hide in the house, you can all fit in the root cellar.” Maggie took her sister’s hand. “Please, take the children and Rebecca. I’ll send them away,” she insisted.
Maggie looked at Rebecca, standing wide eyed with Kwetii on her hip. She pressed her lips hard to her daughter’s cheek and grabbed Rebecca by the chin.
“Do as I say. Go to the cellar and stay there until I come for you,” Maggie demanded. Rebecca began to cry, but she nodded through her tears.
“I will stay with you,” Teyas said.
“No, go! There’s a better chance they’ll listen to me then you, and you know it.”
“Sister—”
“Damn it, Teyas, please! You can keep the others safe. I’ll deal with the strangers. Ahi Kekeleksu! Take them! Go!”
Not yet a man, even Ahi Kekeleksu knew the danger they were in. The warriors had all left early that morning for town and would not arrive home until nightfall, and as the only man left among them he stepped up to protect them. He grabbed Rebecca’s hand and barked a command at Teyas, and Maggie watched them hurry back toward the cottage.
The riders approached from the north, and she stood as if a barrier between them and those she loved. A mixed group of Indians and white women was an invitation for trouble. Rebecca was not strong enough to fight, neither in spirit nor body. Kwetii was completely vulnerable. Ahi Kekeleksu was full of heart with courage too big for his adolescent body. And Teyas, as strong as she was, she was the only one who had any hope of saving the others if Maggie could not send the soldiers away. She let out the breath she’d been holding once they reached the cottage and were safely inside.
She thought she felt the ground tremble beneath her feet, yet it might have been only the pounding of her pulse as she faced the deserters. Appearing even more unkempt as they came into close view, she held her ground and refused to flinch. They would expect some fading delicate flower and they would be sorely disappointed.
“This yer place, Miss?” the first one barked, none too politely. It appeared they would not waste time with pleasantries. He was a sallow faced man, his skin jaundiced over a scurvy twisted smile, the typic
al appearance of many of the English who were bereft of essential foods in their diets. She wondered if they deserted due to starvation, or if they were just disloyal dimwits who thought the grass was greener elsewhere.
“Yes, it is. I’m afraid you missed the path to town. It’s back the way you came,” she said. Her voice was loud and did not waver, even as the two men exchanged surly grins. The second man had the sleeves of his dull maroon coat rolled up to his elbows, the front hanging open like a slack jawed caricature. She noticed all the brass buttons were missing, likely sold or traded, marking them as men who had truly abandoned their honor. No loyal English solider would present himself in such a way.
“Aye. We know the way,” the first man answered. They dismounted and the scurvy marked man walked toward her. She held her ground.
“Then take it. You have no business here.”
The first man laughed. His teeth were brown nubs jutting from his gums.
“Ye have some new corn here, I think we might relieve ye of it. Does that spark yer pleasure, Mistress?” he smirked. He plucked a young ear from the stalk and broke it in two, sniffing it with his bulbous nose.
“Take it then and go. We have nothing else for you,” she said. At her words the first man perked up. She bit the inside of her lower lip when he reached out to her, taking the end of her braid in his hand. He studied it, then directed his gaze down at her clothes, his muddy brown eyes lighting up as he considered her. She wore her cotton shift belted over a short buckskin skirt, typical to the Indians who traded with the English.
“Yer dressed like a squaw? Where’s yer people now, squaw?” he taunted, pulling down hard on her braid. She jerked backward and he released her hair, but he snatched her arm before she could get further away. She saw the flash of a flame and the scent of thick smoke filled her nostrils as the corn was set on fire. It ignited quickly, so fast that she could feel the lick of the heat on her skin.
“Leave off ‘er, Milt! We have no time fer this! I don’t need any savages following us!” The other man snapped. Milt apparently had other intentions.
“Unhand me unless you want to lose those fingers,” Maggie said, her words brave even as she felt hope of escaping trickle away. He raised one brow at her threat, and then struck her square in the cheek with his closed fist.
She crumpled to her knees as her head exploded in throbbing pain and her vision began to swirl. Oh, Jesus, she thought. Please let the others be safe.
The first man protested as his companion grabbed her by the hair, jerking her head backward until she cried out.
“There, that’s better. Ye filthy whore, dressed like a savage.”
It hurt to open her eye yet she struggled to see her attacker even so, knowing his intention before she glimpsed it by the way he panted heavily and gripped her hair. She tried to scramble backward as he fumbled with his breeches, but he shook her, his fingers tangled in her braid. Unwanted tears fell onto her cheeks as she choked back a sob, the skin of her knees rubbed raw in the stony earth. She fumbled for the butt of her knife and found it tucked in the strap at her waist.
When his foul scent invaded the space near her face she lunged with the knife, stabbing him in the right side of his exposed groin. He screamed and bucked but she held on, twisting the knife deeper as blood began to squirt from the wound. The femoral vein, she thought. It could kill him quickly.
“She stabbed me! The whore sta—”
Milt’s words were cut off and he suddenly slumped down over her, his limp body pinning hers to the ground in a shower of pulsing blood and rancid odor. She pushed furtively at him, scrambling under the weight of his body, her blood soaked fingers slipping uselessly with the effort.
She heard the sounds of struggle yet could not see, familiar voices joining in with uttered threats and another sickening thud. The limp body was pushed off her and two firm hands pulled her up to a sitting position.
“Are you hurt?” Winn asked, shaking her by her shoulders when she did not answer. She stared blankly beyond him at the second man, felled by Chetan’s blade stuck in his temple.
Too much. It was all too much.
Death, danger, something at every turn. She had done nothing but mind her own business tending to her crop, yet somehow she sat bathed in a stranger’s blood and two men lay dead. Perhaps to Winn it was normal. To her, it was not.
“What are you doing out here? I told you to stay away from the fields!” he said through a clenched jaw. “Should I bind you when I leave, will that make you listen?”
She shoved away from her husband.
“I thought—”
“Let me see your wounds,” he growled.
“No,” she whispered. She pushed back with her heels and thrust away from him, away from the blood smeared over his chest, away from the gaping hole in the man’s neck where Winn had sliced his jugular as if gutting a pig. She swallowed down a moan and shrunk away as he reached for her, even as she knew she caused him grief.
Winn sat back on one knee and dropped his hand. She could hear her pulse pounding in her head, or maybe it was the impact of the blow she suffered, she did not know. All she knew right then was that she needed to make it all stop. She needed to get clean.
“Maggie?”
She shook her head and scrambled over to the creek bed, needing to get away from the snap of the flames as her crop burned higher. She crawled into the shallow water and closed her eyes as the cold stream flowed over her. The frigid water numbed her skin, a blessed, consuming sensation to block out the horror of reality.
She heard Winn speak softly to his brother, and the sound of his footsteps as Chetan took the path back to the cottage. She continued to let the water wash over her, sitting cross legged on the pebble flanked stream bed as she began to cry.
“My brave little Fire Heart,” he said, kneeling down beside her in the stream. She stared at her open palms, now faded pink as the current cleansed her skin. He slowly reached out to take her hands and when she did not resist he began to rub them clean.
She watched her husband through her clouded vision. His fingers were gentle upon her flesh, washing away the evidence, his hands firm and familiar on her body.
“I’m not brave,” she whispered.
He took her face into his hands, forcing her to look into his pained blue eyes. It was that which broke her, the dam of tears released by the strength of his touch, the certainty of his words a beacon to hold onto.
“Pishi, yes, you are,” he said softly in return. She allowed him to embrace her, trembling as he pressed her to his chest, her body shuddering with the effort of holding back her tears. He let her rage, as he had once promised he would, no move to stop her when she clutched his chest and hit him with closed fists to vent her despair.
“Why would they do such a thing? What is wrong with men in this time?” she asked, expecting no answer. After all, Winn was a man of his era, unique in many ways, but still a seventeenth century male. Could he ever truly understand how it felt to grow up in another time, then live constrained by centuries old mentality? As much as he tried to sympathize, she suspected it was something one would have to experience to truly appreciate.
“They were cowards, not men.”
She nodded and bent her head to his chest, relaxing her body into his. The pebbles beneath them in the streambed shifted with the weight of their joined bodies and their wet clothes stuck to their skin. They watched in silence as the fire consumed the last of the corn. It was a small crop and it would be finished burning soon.
“I’m ready. We can go now,” she whispered.
They walked beside each other on the path to the cottage, close yet not touching, no further words spoken between them.
Chapter 8
Makedewa
Makedewa urged his pony into a gallop toward the cottage, the thick smoke from the flaming corn field burning his eyes. He knew Winn and Chetan had found Maggie, yet he saw no sign of the others. Teyas, the children…or Rebecca.
&nbs
p; Rebecca. He would give anything to see a flash of her bright yellow curls, even if she were running away from him as she usually did. In the two years since he had saved her from the Great Assault it was a dance they lived, tenuous friends, yet he knew she still regarded him with suspicion. He did not blame her for her fears as she was wary of all men, and he was, of course, only a man. As his eyes scanned the cottage for any sign of movement, he felt a pang in his chest when there was nothing. Where were they?
“I’ll check the barn,” Marcus called out.
“I’ll see to the house,” Makedewa agreed. He dismounted and left his pony ground-tied. At the door to the cottage he paused, his palm sweating as he placed it against the door. It was ajar.
Silence greeted him. The hearth was cool with not even a wisp of smoke in the ashes, and that meant they had been out in the fields most of the day. One of the shutters, blown loose from its latch, banged against the window with each pass of the faint breeze.
Next to the cold hearth was a red ribbon. As he bent slowly down to retrieve it his hand trembled. It belonged to Rebecca. He had given it to her when they moved to the head right property, a gift he had traded his own copper bands for. He clenched the ribbon in his fist and briefly closed his eyes. As he stood up his eye caught something out of place. The latch to the root cellar stood askew, the rusted ring perched outward instead of flush to the floor. He covered the space in one stride and wrenched the trapdoor open, jumping back when a barrage of screams greeted him.
“It is only me!” he hollered, his voice hoarse as he looked down at them. Teyas clutched Kwetii with a hand over the child’s mouth, and Ahi Kekeleksu stood with his hands planted on his hips in front of Rebecca. The boy abandoned his warrior stance immediately at the sight of Makedewa, and they climbed out of the cellar as Kwetii burst into a fit of screams.
