by Ann Moore
There had been good things in Kansas: Grace had become an excellent cook and was able to put away money; after a rough start, Mary Kate’s schoolhouse had come under the direction of a worthy and enthusiastic teacher, and Mary Kate had inhaled knowledge with every breath she’d taken. Jack, too, had thrived in this frontier environment, though not in the way Grace might have chosen—no longer quiet and watchful, he had become outgoing to the point of unruliness, the beloved pet of every cowhand and gunfighter passing through town, who took delight in showing the charismatic little boy how to ride a pony and shoot a pistol. She cringed, remembering the day he’d fired it off in the hotel, attempting to rid the dining room of flies.
But Kansas itself had become more and more unruly as the battle heated up between those who wanted it declared a Free State and those who wanted to claim it for slavers. Violence had escalated as the two groups fought for control of burgeoning cities and towns; hangings and midnight attacks became common occurrences, and no one had felt safe anymore, especially the Negroes. When Lily, newly reunited with her husband—a runaway slave and wary of every white face that appeared on his land—had decided to move the family to Oregon, where land was still being given away by the hundred acres to homesteaders, Grace had realized that she, too, longed for a more peaceful existence and wanted her children out of the way of gunfire. Not only were the whites fighting one another, but the Indians—heretofore peaceful—were increasingly aggressive and, though Grace understood their anger at being pushed off their land, she had become afraid of them, as well. Toward the end of her time in Kansas, the Indians had often rode hunting parties close to town; Jack had loved them, had loved the whoops and hollers, the paint, the fierce expressions of the young braves, but Grace had read the stories of attack, of scalping and torture, of vicious slaughter. Sensational though they may well have been, she’d no longer slept through the night.
Along with hundreds of frontiersmen, including escaped slaves for whom Kansas was not nearly north nor west enough, Grace read eagerly of Oregon Territory’s rich, black soil and temperate climate, of fertile valleys, abundant wildlife, sweet mountain streams, and plentiful lumber for building. She’d thought that at the Willamette settlement, she’d be closer to Peter and to Liam; they would only have to sail up the coast, then upriver in order to see her. And so she’d sold up what little she’d accumulated, bought a wagon and oxen and supplies for months on the trail, and left with the Frees for Oregon.
Jack had complained bitterly about leaving Kansas, though he’d quickly become enamored of life on the trail; it must have seemed one long picnic to him, Grace often thought, with campfires, sleeping under the stars, being out in all weather day after day. She’d tried to keep him with her as much as possible, sometimes banishing him to the back of the wagon, where he huffed and pouted; more than one child had been crushed beneath a heavy wagon wheel or trampled by oxen; more than one had been burned by fire, gone missing off the trail, fallen into the river and drowned. Grace had needed to focus on driving the team each day, and keeping track of Jack was difficult; the chore had fallen to Mary Kate, who assumed it—as she did all things—with dutiful graciousness, at times tethering Jack to a long rope, the other end of which she belted around her waist. Jack had survived that overland trek because of Mary Kate’s constant attention to him. Grace picked up her daughter’s limp hand and pressed it to her cheek. If only you’ll be well, I’ll make it up to you, Grace prayed. If only you’ll be well, I’ll never move you again.
“That’s a mighty anxious face you’re wearing, Missus Donnelly.”
Grace looked up at Doctor Wakefield. “I can’t help it.” She bit her lip, determined that no more tears would come today. “What would we do without this one?”
“You’d carry on, ma’am, as so many have before you.” Wakefield’s cadence had the slow, steady swing of a South Carolinian. “But you needn’t bother yourself with that this time around. Far as I can tell, your daughter is on her way to recovery, though it may be some time before she’s back to her little girl ways.”
Grace nodded, unable to speak.
“You know, Missus Donnelly, we don’t usually permit family to sleep on the floor beside our patients.” The doctor eyed her trunk. “But Sister Joseph has said you are somewhat stranded at the moment, so I’ll make an exception until proper arrangements can be made. You’ll have to keep the little boy quiet, however.”
“Oh, aye, Doctor.” Grace stood up, mindful of her trousers, wishing she looked a bit more presentable. “We’ll stay well out of your way, and thank you. Thank you very much.”
Wakefield was startled by the warmth of her gratitude, by the keen light that shone in her eyes despite her very obvious fatigue.
“Well, it’s my pleasure, Missus Donnelly, I’m sure. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must see to my other patients.”
He left her, and Grace sank again onto the stool. She’d been afraid that his news would not be good, afraid that he wouldn’t let her stay with Mary Kate, or that she’d be allowed, but not Jack, and then what would they’ve done? Her thoughts were interrupted by the shrill whinny and thud of an excited horse kicking hard against its stall. Oh, Jack, please behave. She was not very good at disciplining the boy, though she knew it was necessary if he were ever to become self-disciplined; her admonishments were too little, too late, and she feared she would fail him. Her inability to be firm with him lay, she knew, in the fact that he was, in fact, a miracle—the infant she’d been forced to abandon, the baby she’d thought dead, only to hear that he was alive and safe in Ireland, and that her friend Julia Martin would bring him to America, to Grace, his true mother.
During the months that Julia had stayed with them in Boston, Grace had never questioned her about keeping Jack. So much had been lost during the great hunger and the struggle for a free Ireland; women, perhaps, had suffered the most. And Julia had loved Jack’s father, had loved him more than anyone would ever know—anyone but Grace, to whom she’d confessed as much in Liverpool before Grace and Mary Kate set sail. Grace alone knew all that Julia had lost, and so she would not listen to Julia’s desperate apology, stilling her instead, then thanking her for keeping the boy alive through the worst of it. If not for Julia—Grace had pointed out—Jack could not have survived; at the very least he would have been blind. It was Julia who’d taken him to London, to Nigel Wilkes, the only surgeon willing to try his hand on so young a patient. After Jack had recovered and been fitted with the little spectacles that gave him such a misleading air of scholarship, Nigel and Julia had married. The Lord does His work in ways mysterious, Grace acknowledged. With her husband’s gentle encouragement, Julia had determined to right the situation and had set about locating Grace, after which she and Nigel sailed to America with the little boy they loved as a son.
While Nigel had worked with physicians in New York City, Julia had remained in Boston, slowly distancing herself from Jack, spending more and more time in New York, until—the following spring—she and Nigel had gone back to London. Soon after that, Grace had made her decision to remove the family from Boston, in part so that Jack’s old life might fade as if a dream.
And, always, there had been the hope that Grace might gain news of her brother, Sean, who by all accounts had joined up with the Mormon wagon train heading to Utah Territory. She had yearned to find him, hoped that he might be persuaded to join them again. A pitiful hope, she thought now, shaking her head and thinking of her brother, a charming man of serious convictions and fanatical commitments. He’d be married to Marcy Osgoode by now, she reasoned; perhaps he even had children. She looked down at Mary Kate, at the freckled face that was so dear to her; if Sean could not be with them, then she hoped he was married and happy and raising a child of his own.
There was a bang as the back door to the ward slapped open and Jack bolted in, cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling, entire body aquiver.
“Mam!” the boy called, and Grace stood immediately, finger to her lips as a warnin
g to be quiet.
“Sorry, Mam,” he whispered loudly when he’d reached her side. “The horse was grand, Mam! Really grand! Sister Joseph says I can feed him after I rest.” He frowned. “Do I have to rest, Mam?”
“Oh, aye.” That was a very good idea. “Doctor Wakefield says we can stay by Mary Kate, but we’re to be still and good, and close our own eyes twice a day.”
Jack nodded soberly and Grace was impressed; clearly, the boy wanted to remain with his sister, no matter the cost of a nap. They fashioned a rough nest out of their cloaks, then sat down, leaning against the battered trunk. Grace peeled first one apple and then another; Jack yawned, and slowly his eyes began to close.
“Shall we stretch out a bit, then, son?” Grace was becoming drowsy, too, in the warm pool of sunlight that fell upon them from the high windows.
“Aye.” Jack took off his spectacles and handed them to her. “Will you tell a story, Mam?”
“Sure, I will.” She smoothed the hair off his forehead, looking down into the dear face. “Which one’ll it be, then?”
“You know.” The little boy pulled off his boots and lay on his back, hands under his head, ankles crossed. “Go on, now,” he urged softly, his eyes closed. “‘Long ago in Ireland …’”
Grace’s throat closed immediately, and she wondered if she were destined to spend the rest of her days fighting tears. She tipped her head back against the trunk, then closed her own eyes and—without even trying to conjure him up—saw him there, the young man she’d loved, so real she could almost feel him. He grinned, then threw his head back and laughed in that way he had that always lightened her heart; she listened to the echo of his laughter and felt it strengthen her now, felt her spirit rally in the face of the courage he’d shown his entire life. She took a moment longer to remember him, to love him, and then she cleared her throat.
“Long ago in Ireland … there was the bravest warrior that ever lived. He was a hero to his people, and they sing of him in every lane. His name was Morgan McDonagh …”—Grace paused, a hand atop the head of her son—“and he was your father.”
Two
McDonagh plunged his bloody hands into the icy creek, glad for the shock of it, for the blinding brilliance of morning light reflected full force in his eyes, for the smell of the damp earth on which he knelt, his hands on fire in the freezing water. Since leaving Ireland, he’d had many days when he’d felt more dead than alive, but this was not one—this morning saw him profoundly grateful for his life, for all their lives, after the long and terrible night.
Fingers numb, he scrubbed the blood off his forearm, then probed the slashes that lay beneath, relieved to see that they would not require stitching. More serious, he knew, were the puncture wounds in his shoulder, and for these he would need the help of the boy. Stiffness was setting in, causing him to wince as he reached again into the river, gasping as it rinsed away the fog of exhaustion as well as sweat and blood. He tipped his face into his good shoulder, drying cheek and brow on the shirt, and saw that Nacoute now knelt beside him at the water’s edge, staring into it, seemingly numb, though no water had touched his young hands. Moving slowly, knowing the boy to be wary of a man’s touch and especially jumpy in the aftermath of last night’s violence, Morgan took Nacoute’s chin in his hand and turned the boy’s face toward him. The gash on Nacoute’s left cheek needed stitching, but perhaps it was too late; the blood had caked and dried next to a nose, bloodied and swollen, beneath an eye, blackened and oozing. There was a host of evidence of the beating he’d received, from the imprint of knuckles and belt welts to the knife slashes along his arm. In Morgan’s urgency to save the boy’s mother, whose wounds were far worse, there had been no time to deal with these injuries, though they must have been painful. He raised his eyes to the boy’s again and met Nacoute’s unblinking intensity, hiding nothing; if there was any truth to any question to be had in that gaze, let the boy find it, he thought, for God knew he’d no answers himself.
“Come on, boy.” Morgan rose wearily from his haunches. “We’ve work still to do.”
He picked up the two wooden buckets at his feet, filled them with river water, then started back toward the small cabin, trusting the boy to follow as he always did.
Nacoute rose gracefully, lean and handsome like his mother, and, glancing back over his good shoulder, Morgan caught a glimpse of the man, the warrior, he would become. At fourteen, Nacoute was easily as tall as Morgan though his build was still slight; what softness of youth had yesterday existed was gone now, erased completely by an act of brutal killing—self-defense or no—that left a sharpness honed by the weight of an act that could never be undone. Nor did Nacoute wish it to be undone; Morgan could see it in his eyes—the watchful eyes of one who cannot speak but does not miss a word of those who can—the boy was not sorry, just unsure. The world was a different place to Nacoute this morning. Morgan understood; he, too, had killed men.
“’Twill be all right,” he said when the boy touched his arm. “We’ll make a plan.”
Again he wished he had more than just a few words of Mi’kmaq, or even French, which he knew the boy understood from living with the trapper. He thought of Remy Martine—dragged off and buried in the woods, no sign left of him but a large, sticky stain on the cabin floor. He glanced at the sun, now higher in the sky.
“Someone’ll be along soon. We’d best clean up.” Morgan spoke as he always did, as if the boy understood.
Nacoute nodded and walked a little faster.
They hesitated only a moment outside the cabin door, Morgan glancing along the footpath that led to other cabins in the settlement, including his own, Nacoute’s eyes following the trail where they’d carried the big man into the bushes, then deeper into the woods. There was a scuffled path through the dirt to the edge of the clearing and a pronounced demarcation where they’d dropped the body; Nacoute put down his pail, picked up a large fir bough, and quickly swept the area free of tracks. Morgan nodded his approval, then pushed open the door, securing it so that they had light enough to scrub the floor. He carried the buckets in and was looking for the scrub brush when the woman moaned and became restless. Morgan hurried immediately to her side, soothing her, so that she would not break the stitches.
“Shhh, Aquash. Hush now.” He pushed the hair off her face, tried to smile reassuringly.
Her eyes searched his wildly as she struggled to sit up.
“Nacoute!” she called. “Nacoute!”
“Come here to me, boy.” Morgan motioned him over. “See there, woman; he’s fine. A bit worse for wear, but he’ll live.”
Nacoute took his mother’s hand and listened carefully as she spoke to him, responding with a series of gestures, subtle facial expressions, twitches, and nods—their own special way of communicating: she in Mi’kmaq, he with the physical language of the mute. When she put her hands to her breast, Morgan knew what she was asking and went immediately to the wooden cradle near the hearth, put there for warmth though the fire had died down hours ago. The infant girl lay awake, eyes calmly open and still. He picked her up gently and carried her to her mother, watching as Aquash swiftly undid the swaddling clothes, then checked the infant’s arms and legs, her tiny back and shoulders. Near her mother, the baby was reminded of food and began to mewl. Aquash opened her tunic and put her daughter to breast.
“Henri?” Aquash looked up at Morgan, fear in her eyes. “Remy?”
“Remy is dead,” Morgan told her. “Buried. Fini.”
She looked up at her son, who nodded, and then she spoke to him at length, pausing to let him confirm or deny. Morgan watched Nacoute’s hands and guessed they were reviewing the events that led up to Remy’s death. Aquash repeated the name “Henri” several times, and Morgan understood that they were worried about being discovered. Henri DuBois was Remy’s right-hand man in camp, though even Remy himself did not trust the man much. Morgan had his own reasons for loathing DuBois—DuBois and Martine both, if truth be told.
Aq
uash was growing more agitated now, and Morgan shushed her again, though he knew she had every reason to worry. It would make no difference that Nacoute had been defending himself, his mother, and his baby sister—Remy Martine was admired and feared in this quarter: he’d been here the longest, had the greatest wealth and the most knowledge, was the trapper most sought out by rich European buyers. He’d also married and brought back to camp a beautiful woman, a Mi’kmaq for whom he’d traded with her family a year’s worth of supplies, even agreeing to take on her young, mute son because they were so close and he would be a comfort to her during the months Martine trapped.
As settlement lore stood, Remy was a generous man who indulged his beautiful wife by letting her keep her son too long at home; he’d been repaid with a stubborn, sullen boy who ate his food and lived in his cabin but refused to work by his side. Martine had dragged the boy off repeatedly, as the story went, but Nacoute always ran away at the first opportunity and returned to his mother, whom he refused to leave alone in the camp even though it meant a severe beating when his stepfather returned. Martine had finally given up, and there was no love lost between boy and man; Remy beat him regularly, but Nacoute stubbornly refused to leave his mother. It made no difference that he hunted in the surrounding forest and fished the river, putting more food on the table than Martine ever did himself, or that he kept the cabin in good repair and made himself scarce when Remy was home, living in the forest or—later—on the floor of Morgan’s cabin. He had earned the contempt of Remy Martine, which made him fair game for any of the other trappers or their sons who wanted a bit of sport.
What Martine did not know was that Nacoute stayed in camp to protect his mother; Morgan had witnessed the boy interrupting that kind of sport more than once, and it did not endear him to those who wanted a taste of the beautiful Aquash. He had not understood why Aquash kept quiet about the assaults until he heard the story of Martine’s first wife—raped by men in the camp, she was no longer good enough for Remy and one day turned up dead on the riverbank. Leaving Nacoute on his own in this world of strangers was probably Aquash’s worst nightmare, Morgan figured, so she simply endured, and as the boy grew up and realized what was happening, he became his mother’s silent defender.
