by Lori Benton
She blinked up at him, overwhelmed with loss. Of all the places on the farm, that clearing, that creek, that cave held her sweetest memories.
“I came here this morning to feel near you. I’m glad I did, because here you are, and we’ve had these moments together, stolen though they be.”
Two Hawks drew her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “One day we will no more steal them,” he told her, the words suffused with longing. “Father in Heaven—and yours on earth—willing.”
2
We picked up the trail of the spies near Cherry Valley and followed them back the way they came, into the west.”
Two Hawks sat at the table in the Aubreys’ kitchen, giving his account of the past half moon to those gathered to hear it, but inwardly he was agreeing with Anna Catherine. It was good they’d had those moments alone at their meeting. With her father’s Irish servants, the Doyles, and his own parents watching him, listening closely to all he said, he was finding it hard to know where to put his gaze. It wanted to feast on Anna Catherine. He summoned the will to make it fast.
“We found them camped on our border,” he said, casting his mind back to the morning he’d crouched on a ridge while a gray dawn teased color from the surrounding forest and rain pattered through yellow leaves with a noise like shaking gourd rattles. At the foot of the ridge, a clearing stretched, hummocky with grasses. Beyond was the camp of the spies they had tracked…
The icy rain had needled his face as he’d hunkered into his blanket and tried to mimic the indifference of his companions. Like Two Hawks they were Onyota’a:ka—Oneida—and scouts. They were also warriors, a title Two Hawks, at nineteen summers, couldn’t claim in truth. One of them was Skenandoah, elderly war chief of the Wolf Clan, still hale enough to watch their western border for British spies. Those spies came to learn what the Americans were doing in their forts along the Mohawk River or in settlements dotting the wilderness around it. Settlements like Cherry Valley, the place the third scout called home. He was much younger than Skenandoah but older than Two Hawks. To his Oneida mother’s Wolf Clan he was Ahnyero; to his white father he was Thomas Spencer.
During the previous moon had come word that the loyalist Sir John Johnson, who’d fled to Montreal that summer past, had landed in the west at the lake fort of Oswego with hundreds of Tories bent on wreaking vengeance against the rebel neighbors who drove them out. Ahnyero had traveled deep into neighboring Onondaga land to see if this was true. It was not. Then word came from Ahnyero’s kin at Cherry Valley. Someone was spying there, lurking in the mountains. This rumor proved true, which was why they huddled on that ridge waiting for the spies—British-allied Mohawks—to break camp and continue their westward journey.
Two Hawks had grown impatient with their passive watching. Why not capture these spies, take them to Colonel Dayton at Fort Stanwix? Make them tell the whereabouts of Sir John Johnson and his Royal New York regiment, which wasn’t at Oswego making ready to attack but was somewhere?
Make them tell where Two Hawks’s brother could be found. The last anyone knew of William Aubrey, he’d fled north to join Johnson’s regiment of angry, homeless Tories.
They were two-born-together, he and William, though William had been born looking as white as their mother, Two Hawks brown-skinned like their father. Stolen by a redcoat officer the day of their birth, Two Hawks’s twin had remained lost to them for years, until a chance meeting alerted them to his whereabouts…only to find William gone out of reach again, taken across the great water to a place called Wales by the woman who thought herself his mother. A terrible loss to bear a second time. Until Creator gave someone to heal that pain. Anna Catherine…
Crouched in the chill and wet, Two Hawks set his teeth with longing. Anna Catherine had a way of filling up his mind, driving out other concerns. Even his concern for William, who had returned from Wales and learned at last who he was. Not the son of Reginald Aubrey, a Welshman, but the son of Good Voice of the Turtle Clan and the Bear Clan warrior Stone Thrower.
He-Is-Taken of the Onyota’a:ka.
Beside him Ahnyero stirred, the cloud of his breath thickening. Two Hawks’s gaze flew sharp across the clearing. Movement was visible through the rain-darkened trees. The Mohawk spies were breaking camp. He leaned toward Ahnyero, blankets brushing. “Do we follow?”
Ahnyero’s mouth tightened. “Wait.”
The warriors across the clearing moved out in file, headed west into the forest of the Onondaga.
“Let them go,” came the creaky voice of Skenandoah. “We have seen they watched the fort at Cherry Valley. We know it is of interest to them.”
Two Hawks could not hold back protest. “Grandfather, they will tell what they saw in Cherry Valley.”
“They will tell that whether or not we catch them,” the old warrior replied, meeting Two Hawks’s impatient gaze. “They are Kanien’kehá:ka. We will not raise weapons against brothers. The Council fire at Onondaga burns. The Great Peace holds.”
The Great Law of Peace had bound the nations of the Haudenosaunee for many lives of grandfathers going back, even through the last war the whites waged with each other, French against English. All the nations—Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora—hoped it would hold through this one between the Americans and their Great Father the King, though not all had the same vision for that hope. While the Oneidas and some Tuscaroras felt strong ties to the Americans, the Mohawks were for the British, who were doing their best to entice the western nations—Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas—to side with them.
“We still stand to the side in this fight,” Ahnyero reminded him. “It isn’t the time for taking prisoners. Or for killing.”
Not yet. The unspoken words hung in the chilling dawn, heavy as the dripping foliage.
“Pray to Creator not ever. But now we will be watching Cherry Valley too. These spies were not careful enough. We are warned.” Skenandoah pushed back the blanket from his head, baring the white scalp-lock that hung feathered from his crown. He was first to rise. “The preacher will want to know these rumors are true.”
Two Hawks stood, spirits sinking. They were going back to Kanowalohale to make their report to their minister, Reverend Samuel Kirkland, who would send it in a letter to General Schuyler in the east and Colonel Dayton at Stanwix, the fort at the Carrying Place between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek. Going without the one thing Two Hawks hoped to gain, word on the whereabouts of Sir John Johnson. And William.
“I ask you both to return and tell Kirkland that these rumors are true ones,” Ahnyero said. “I will press on—to Oswego, if that is where these spies are bound. I will go among them and learn if I can why they pay attention to Cherry Valley.” Dressed in the quilled leggings and breechclout of a warrior, Ahnyero could pass among any gathering of Indians without drawing suspicion. “But whatever their business, we will watch for it, as our elder has said.” He met Two Hawks’s frustrated frown and his mouth curved just a little. “Be easy, brother. It is more likely I will find out what we need to know if I go alone. But I will also learn what I can of Johnson’s regiment.”
As Skenandoah and Ahnyero exchanged words of parting, Two Hawks felt the sting of the scout’s unspoken words: he was too inexperienced a spy himself to go among the British or their allies. He voiced no protest, but when the old chief stepped away, he drew near Ahnyero again. “Before we part, I wish to speak to you about a thing.”
“Your brother?” Ahnyero asked.
“No. Other things.” Things like…how did a man live in two worlds without being torn apart in his soul? How did he find a path to the heart of a white man whose daughter he loved and wanted to make his wife? Ahnyero had done the first—he used the blacksmithing trade learned from his father to serve both peoples, moving across borders with a seeming ease that made Two Hawks grasp at hope and glimpse a future he might share with Anna Catherine. Perhaps he had some knowledge of the other.
Ahnyero snaked a hand from his blanket and gripp
ed Two Hawks’s shoulder. “The scouting does not end today. When we meet again, we will talk. For now, see our grandfather safe home.”
Swallowing disappointment, Two Hawks glanced toward the old warrior already trudging up the ridge at their backs. “I think that one means never to need a young man looking after him.”
The scout grinned, then left to follow the spies westward. Two Hawks watched him slip around the clearing’s edge, never breaking cover.
“O-kee-wa’h, brother. My prayers go with you.”
Ahnyero was right. They had time yet to talk about what weighed on Two Hawks’s heart, because another thing needed to happen before he had a hope of becoming a man of two worlds: Anna Catherine’s father was going to have to permit him to try.
“Ahnyero followed them from there,” Two Hawks said, coming to the end of his recounting, every word of which Anna had hung upon, trying not to stare too much at his moving lips since Two Hawks was doing an admirable job of not allowing their gazes to meet. “And for now that is all I know.”
His father, Stone Thrower, sat across the table from Anna, crutches propped nearby. Earlier, watching him come up from the barn where he’d been helping Mr. Doyle with the stock, Anna had realized he was ready to discard the props he’d needed the past few weeks. She’d also noticed the ease with which the two men now worked together. An understanding between Mr. Doyle and Two Hawks’s father had formed during Papa’s absence. An amazing development, since it was Mr. Doyle who’d shot him—in a misguided attempt to protect Papa.
Two Hawks met her gaze for the first time since entering the house. “If they could get as far as Cherry Valley, those spies, then to cross the Schoharie River and reach this farm unseen is no hard thing.”
“And that settles it,” Mrs. Doyle announced, Irish accent thick as the porridge in the bowl she plunked on the boards under Anna’s nose. She set another in front of Two Hawks and stood back, hands on ample hips. “You’ll not go across that creek alone again, Anna—never mind scourin’ the countryside for your bits of leaves and grasses.”
“But those spies were seen,” Anna protested. “And left without harming anyone.”
“This time,” Stone Thrower said.
Two Hawks started to reach across the table toward her, then pulled his hand back. Only his dark eyes reached. “Do not cross the creek alone. You will make my heart easier if you don’t. All our hearts,” he added.
Seated at the end of the table, Mr. Doyle cleared his throat. Stone Thrower’s spoon scraped his bowl. Two Hawks was waiting for a response from her, too much of his heart in his eyes. Warmth flooded Anna’s cheeks. Reluctantly she nodded. “And there’s no word of Sir John’s regiment?”
Two Hawks shook his head. “I have no news of William. Yet.”
Silence fell as Mrs. Doyle moved the kettle from the heat. Into that silence dropped the unvoiced question: What if Johnson’s regiment was part of the force said to be ready to attack on Lake Champlain? The force General Arnold was meant to repel with his hastily assembled navy.
“It is your day, yes?”
Anna looked at Good Voice, who’d taken a seat beside her with porridge and tea, wearing a short gown and petticoat Mrs. Doyle had altered to fit. Her blue eyes held the same troubled uncertainty that twisted Anna’s heart; still she smiled at Anna, who replied, “I’m twenty today. That sounds old to me.”
“It is the oldest you have been, so to you it seems so.” Two Hawks’s mother stared at the food before her. “My son’s return makes you glad?”
“It does.” Only with his mother—and with Lydia—did Anna need not pretend her feelings for Two Hawks, and his for her, were anything but consuming. Good Voice, it turned out, had known of their love long before Anna met her. She seemed accepting of it, but sometimes Anna saw a shadow in the woman’s eyes when she caught her son looking at Anna. “Stone Thrower seems ready to cast off those crutches. You’ll be anxious to return to Kanowalohale?”
She’d lowered her voice to ask the question, but Stone Thrower overheard. “I could not run the distance as does this son of mine,” he said, with an amused glance at Two Hawks. “But I am ready to make the journey.”
“You’ll go before the major returns?” Mr. Doyle inquired.
Stone Thrower shared a look across the table with Good Voice. “We will wait for Aubrey’s return. A little longer.”
As if on cue there came a knock at the kitchen-yard door. Joy flared in Anna’s chest before she realized Papa wouldn’t knock. The latch sounded and the door opened a few inches. Lydia van Bergen’s capped head came into view.
“Good morning,” she greeted one and all cheerily. “Mind if I join you?”
Anna rose as Lydia entered and enveloped her in an embrace chilled from her ride from town. Anna had lost count of the births she and Lydia, as midwives, had attended together and the hours spent working in the kitchen of Lydia’s house inside Schenectady’s old stockade—a kitchen transformed into an apothecary workshop. Though Lydia, daughter and widow of apothecaries, didn’t claim the title in an official capacity, people came to her for the treatment of ailments beyond the parturient.
“Happiest of birthdays, my girl.” Lydia held her by the shoulders to gaze at her with warm affection. At nearly thirty-two, Lydia was strikingly lovely with her black hair and blue eyes set against pale skin, her smile so wide it lit a room.
“Hang your cloak,” Mrs. Doyle said from the hearth. “I’ve a serving o’ porridge left in the kettle. Come. Sit you down and eat it.”
“You must have been away afore dawn,” Mr. Doyle said, unfolding his long frame from the table to make room.
“Nearly so.” Lydia hung her cloak on a peg by the door but lingered there. “I’ve my mare hitched outside.”
Mr. Doyle said, “You’ll find her down to the barn when you want her.”
Anna was halfway to the table when she realized Lydia still hadn’t followed. She’d caught Mr. Doyle by the sleeve as he made to pass. He bent his lofty head to hear something she whispered into his whiskered ear. The old man appeared to stifle a grin, then nodded and went out the kitchen door.
Stone Thrower followed, forgetting his crutches.
“Have you news of Papa?” Anna asked, as Mrs. Doyle set out the porridge.
Lydia hovered at the door. “I went down to the Binne Kill last evening to speak to Captain Lang. No word yet, I’m afraid.” Ephraim Lang was Papa’s partner in the trade he did with the forts, settlements, and Indian towns upriver, facilitated by the bateaux Papa built at his boatyard on the Binne Kill, the town’s riverfront. Captain Lang had stayed in Schenectady to look after the business in Papa’s absence. “I’d hoped more than anything to bring you such news today. But since that isn’t to be…”
Lydia turned toward the opening door. A large parcel wrapped in canvas was handed in to her by Mr. Doyle, and the door shut. Lydia carried the parcel to the table and stepped back, face alight with expectancy. “For you, Anna. And high time.”
Anna trailed her, awash with surprise. “What is it?”
“Open it.” Mrs. Doyle wore a smile so broad Anna guessed she was privy to whatever the contents might be. Two Hawks, Good Voice, Lydia, and Mrs. Doyle all watched as Anna untied the string, unwrapped the careful layers of canvas, and gasped.
“My own medical case? Truly?” The large square case was constructed of polished mahogany. Anna opened the lid to find four rows of glass bottles capped in pewter. The front rows were part of a section that opened at the center on side hinges to reveal multiple sets of drawers for ligaments, instruments, pillboxes, and more, each with a tiny brass knob. “Lydia…where did you find this?”
“Captain Lang had it in a shipment from Albany. It wasn’t bespoke, so he said it was mine if I wanted it. It isn’t new…”
“It’s perfect.” Anna opened the drawers. “And you’ve stocked it. Lydia, thank you.”
While Lydia ate her porridge, Good Voice and Two Hawks examined the case with Anna, fingering
the glass bottles, asking after their contents, until Two Hawks stifled a yawn. With the excitement of his return abated and food inside him, he was beginning to look as though he’d journeyed the night through—which, he’d admitted, he had.
“Go on up and sleep,” she bid him softly while Lydia and Good Voice chatted over the medicines and Mrs. Doyle busied herself scraping bowls. He did so, headed for the room that once was William’s, leaving her with a sleepy smile that all but melted her into a puddle of longing.
Good Voice rose to help Mrs. Doyle with her work—they planned a special dinner to celebrate Anna’s birthday—leaving Lydia and Anna alone at the table.
Lydia studied her fondly. “I’m glad you like it. I’d hoped to tuck in a letter from Reginald before I wrapped it, if only one had come.” Lydia longed for Papa in the way Anna longed for Two Hawks. Now at last there might be a chance for them, if Papa could find his way back from decades of regret and guilt that had raised so many walls around his heart.
“The day isn’t over yet,” Lydia added, visibly brightening.
Though her well of hope seemed bottomless, the day wore on and there came no sound of horse’s hooves on the lane. Even if he hadn’t come to terms with Stone Thrower and Good Voice’s forgiveness, and his tolerance for Two Hawks was as fragile as ice, and he’d have brought those tensions with him had he walked into the room, Anna longed to feel Papa’s arms around her, to kiss the scar that crossed his cheekbone, the one he’d taken in rescuing her, that marked the joining of their lives as father and daughter.
But would his homecoming only serve to drive Two Hawks away? Was she going to have to choose between them?
3
October 11, 1776
