by Lori Benton
Staying hidden no matter what unfolded was a thing he didn’t think he could do, now he saw his father alone among the Senecas. Not if they offered violence. Stand and do nothing while these warriors murdered his father and Anna Catherine’s father? Already some menaced, edging nearer Stone Thrower. The blood of their fallen cried loudly in their ears. His father would need to balance his words on a knife’s edge.
“What concern have you with us?” the chief warrior demanded. “I do not remember you from the camp at the fort.”
“I am Stone Thrower,” his father said. “Born to the Bear Clan of the Onyota’a:ka, and my concern with you is for that one you hold captive.”
The warriors standing in front of Anna Catherine’s father stepped aside, revealing their prisoner on his knees, hatless, coatless, tattered. His face in the firelight was tensed with pain, one side of it bloodied. Two Hawks could see his surprise at sight of Stone Thrower, but he didn’t cry out or plead with his captors.
“What do they say?” William demanded to know.
“Our father makes claim on Aubrey.”
“What mean you? What claim?”
Two Hawks grasped his brother’s arm to silence him. “Let me listen, Brother.”
His father’s voice reached them. “I would speak for this prisoner before he is harmed. There is a thing I have to say of him.”
As Two Hawks interpreted their father’s words, a wave of disapproval swept across the clearing—the Senecas disputing such a claim. The chief warrior’s voice rose above the murmurs. “What cause has one of the Onyota’a:ka to come among us speaking as a friend, a brother?”
Stone Thrower didn’t hesitate. “I am both of those things to you, men of Ganundasaga. Some may remember that once I lived among you, hunted with you—or with your fathers, you younger men. I fought beside my Seneca brothers when you answered Pontiac’s call to go against the British at their lake forts. I ask you to remember this and let me speak to you now as a man speaks to his friends. Will you hear me?”
Two Hawks tensed as the chief warrior stepped closer to peer into Stone Thrower’s face in silence for a long moment before turning again to address his warriors.
“I do remember this one. I was young in that time of which he speaks, but I saw my first battle with Pontiac. What he says is true. He fought with us then. And fought well.”
“But now?” Another came forward. “Did he fight for us in the ravine? Or for the Americans?”
The truth was Stone Thrower had fought for neither and against both in attempting to find William, but he was not given time to say so.
“That is a matter we will consider,” the chief said, raising a hand. “He is one man alone, come to us in peace. We will hear him.” He turned again to Stone Thrower, and despite his words, there was hardness in his tone. “Say what you have come to say about this captive, before we decide his fate this night.”
At the edge of the wood, Two Hawks let out a breath and told William what was being said. “Now our father is telling our story. He is telling of our mother, and of us, and why he makes a claim on Aubrey.”
“But why will they care? What difference can it make?” William asked, sounding as bewildered as any white man might be standing there beside him. Two Hawks’s mind was a jumble. How could he explain in a few words the ways of a people his brother had never known?
“Our father has some right to vengeance against Aubrey for what he did, taking you from us.”
William’s voice held an edge of panic. “But he said he forgave!”
“He did that hard thing, yes. But these warriors do not know this.”
While his father spoke of that long ago day at Fort William Henry, Two Hawks’s gaze went again to Anna Catherine’s father. While on the trail of the Senecas, his father had told them more of the change that had happened in Aubrey’s soul. Two Hawks thought he was seeing evidence of that change. There was peace in Aubrey’s face as he knelt among those who meant him torment and death. Though Two Hawks did not think Aubrey understood the words being said, he seemed to know he was listening to a tale of a shame no longer his to bear.
“This is the man?” the war chief questioned, gesturing at Aubrey when Stone Thrower finished speaking. “He is the one who stole your firstborn and kept him from you all these years?”
“He is,” Stone Thrower said. “Now I ask you to give him over to me, that I may take him from this place to the mother of that lost son, who waits for me.”
At this, a warrior who hadn’t yet spoken stepped forward. “I also am one who remembers you and the tale of your sons, of the one twin stolen at his birth. Now you say this is the man who did this thing and you ask us to give him to you, but here is a thing I would ask. If we do this, what will heal the grief of our women when they hear of the sons and husbands who have died fighting the Americans? We were promised an easy victory and much spoil. Now you see even those things we had were taken by soldiers from the fort. Many warriors lie dead on the ground behind us. What is to cover our sorrow? We have but this one prisoner!”
More than one voice cried out in agreement at this. A warrior made a lunge for Aubrey, club raised to strike him. Two Hawks had an arrow to his bow but checked when the war chief shouted for his men to stop. He stared hard at Aubrey, then motioned to Stone Thrower, giving him the chance to answer the challenge.
Two Hawks lowered the arrow, trembling now, praying from the depths of his soul for his father’s next words to be wise ones.
“I understand well your sorrow,” Stone Thrower said. “Your hearts are on the ground, and your grief needs covering. But, my brothers!” he cried, his voice strengthening with conviction. “Do you think killing this one man, or bringing him back for your women to torment, will do this needful thing? I tell you it will be as a drop of rain to one dying of thirst. I know this, for no matter how many enemies I killed in the years I hunted for that man there, no matter how many scalps I took with Pontiac, it was never enough to fill the emptiness in my heart or heal the pain of the mother of my sons. I will tell you what, and who, will cover that grief. His messenger came to you once. Though many of you spurned his words of peace with Creator, a few began to walk the Jesus path. It is He who—”
“You speak of Kirkland!” one of the older warriors interjected. “We made that missionary flee Ganundasaga like a dog with its tail tucked.”
“Your talk is like his,” said another. “That of a weak man who flees his enemies in the night. I can hear no more of your words!”
The war chief stood with arms crossed and waited to see what Stone Thrower would say to that. Their father’s back was to them, but Reginald Aubrey was looking straight at Stone Thrower. He gave the smallest of nods, encouragement to the man he must know was fighting for their lives, even if he could not understand his words.
“I was already a weak man when you first knew me,” Stone Thrower replied. “So weak I forsook my wife and son, forgot how to be a man of the People. So weak all I could think of was killing that man you have bound as your prisoner. But Heavenly Father has made me strong—strong enough to forgive that man.” He flung an arm toward Aubrey. “He was not in that ravine to fight you or those British who enticed you with their false promises. He was there to help me find the son he took. He wished only to restore my son to me. This hard thing he did, risking his life. We together found my firstborn in that battle. That son is with me, he and his brother, and now your eyes will see them, two-born-together united at last.”
Ignoring the murmurs of startled protest rising around him, Stone Thrower turned his back on the Senecas and faced the place where his sons hid, the one furiously whispering to the other of all that had been uttered.
“My sons!” he called out. “Come out to me now. Let these warriors see you together under the eyes of Creator!”
43
They stepped from the trees in answer to the summons, sharing a glance as they passed into the firelight’s edge. Mirrored in his brother’s eyes were the c
onflicting emotions roiling in William’s soul: fear and determination, uncertainty and wonder—at a Presence at work beyond that of flesh and blood.
That sense of flesh and blood alone was all but overwhelming. The brother beside him, the father who’d called them forth…they were his, and his heart was leaping like a crazed thing, swelling with a joy that had taken him unawares. Joy mingled with the dread of losing what he’d just found. Two Hawks had presumed their father meant to trick the Senecas into thinking he desired vengeance against Reginald Aubrey, that he had the higher claim on him as a prisoner. What was Stone Thrower doing now, talking of forgiveness and calling them forth?
The Senecas murmured as they watched them come into the fire’s light. A few warriors strode forward as he and Two Hawks halted beside their father, but only the spokesman came near enough to look into their faces, frowning.
“These are your sons? Two-born-together?”
Two Hawks, shoulder pressed to William’s, murmured what the man had said, but William could read that pull of brows, the indecision in the hard eyes darting between their faces. William’s gaze shot past the Indian to see Reginald Aubrey looking back at him with longing, plain through his mask of blood.
Father. A buzzing erupted in William’s head. The spot where he’d been struck throbbed, bone and bruised flesh echoing his heart’s pounding.
“One son raised among the People, one raised white,” Stone Thrower was saying, the unfettered pride in his voice crashing over William before Two Hawks translated the words. “These are my sons.”
Father. If their fate teetered on a knife edge among these Senecas, another blade cleaved William’s heart. He stood upon it, fixed to topple, but couldn’t say upon which side he would fall. Only his brother’s voice, providing clipped abridgement as the debate went on, kept him balanced on that edge.
“They are warriors,” one of the Senecas who’d objected to Stone Thrower’s presence from the beginning spat. He jerked his chin at Two Hawks. “That one I remember from the battle.”
Stone Thrower moved a half step nearer Two Hawks. “This son of mine was in the battle also to find his brother. If he was forced to defend himself while doing so, it was not done gladly. Nor was it with joy that I went into that ravine. But to find my lost son, it was needful.” Stone Thrower searched the faces of the Senecas, who gave him back his stare with varying levels of hostility. “Where is he who took the prisoner? Let him say what his eyes saw in that moment.”
The warriors exchanged looks. None came forward to claim the taking of Reginald Aubrey.
“Some are hunting and may not return this night.” The chief warrior waved the matter aside. “If we let this man go with you, what will you give in exchange?”
William blinked at the gazes leveled at them as his brother whispered the war chief’s demand. They had nothing to trade for a man. Except another man. And Stone Thrower knew it. Two Hawks was staring at their father, who was looking between them with a gaze both tender and sorrowful. William felt the breath sucked from his chest as a horrific comprehension began to dawn.
Then a new voice shouted from the darkness.
Every face turned to see who now approached, a gray-haired warrior carrying the wrapped pieces of a butchered deer across wiry shoulders, wearing a coat William recognized as Aubrey’s. Two Hawks leaned close to translate what the Indian was saying as he approached, but William only half took it in. He was frantically reading expressions, trying to discern the look of cautious relief on the face of Reginald Aubrey, that of recognition on Stone Thrower’s as he held out a hand to the old man who slung the deer meat to the ground and clasped the proffered arm.
His name, Two Hawks told him, was Blue-Tailed Lizard. “He is the one who laid hands on Aubrey during battle,” his brother added, voice stretched with hope now as well as apprehension. “Our father is telling him why we are here, what this is about.”
William struggled to understand. Was this man their last chance of getting out of this, the four of them alive and whole?
Blue-Tailed Lizard listened patiently to Stone Thrower’s words, then looked long at William, at Two Hawks, then at Reginald Aubrey. His puckered lips pursed tight, curving downward in displeasure. But a glint of something else showed in his hooded gaze. Curiosity? Speculation? Or was it calculation?
William’s gaze snapped from warrior to warrior, watching eyes, hands, tensed for one of them to lose patience and reach for a blade. Amid the thickening tension, the chief warrior said something Two Hawks didn’t translate.
Blue-Tailed Lizard shook his head. “What this warrior has told you about his sons is true. I know this to be so, for it was in my lodge he dwelled when he lived among us at Ganundasaga. At that time I followed the words of the missionary. I even helped persuade this warrior to follow Kirkland’s Jesus. You know that after a time it became a hard path to follow, tangled and overgrown. I lost the path and did not try to find it again.”
The old man put a ropey hand to Stone Thrower’s shoulder, then turned to his Seneca companions. “Perhaps I was not clear sighted enough to stay on the path this man has walked. Look well on him. Here he stands with the son he lost twenty summers past, a son restored to him and to the one born with him.” With his other hand he gestured toward the fire, where Reginald knelt. “And there is the one of which this man always spoke about in those days—the redcoat officer who took his son.”
Turning again to Stone Thrower, he asked, “And it is your wish he not suffer for it?”
“He has suffered enough,” Stone Thrower said, swallowing visibly over the words as though they came with an upwelling of grief. “I do not wish him to suffer more.”
The old warrior searched Stone Thrower’s resolute face, his own eyes narrowed to slits. William waited, sharing a glance with Two Hawks, gone ashen faced in the fire’s ruddy light, as if he saw more clearly the direction this talk was headed, and it dismayed him.
William was completely at sea now. The old warrior’s words of their father had seemed to offer hope, at least the way his brother translated them. What was causing Two Hawks such bleakness of expression?
“I was coming now to make my claim on the prisoner,” Blue-Tailed Lizard went on. “I thought to keep him alive for my women to kill—or to let you here do it, if that is what seemed best.” The old warrior’s grip on Stone Thrower’s shoulder tightened. “But I have heard this one’s speech and it has changed my thinking. He has forgiven that one there for the taking of his son. This we all have heard. What is more, there is that son restored to him. What need has he now of vengeance? But our dead are still dead. Even so I will do as he wishes. I will give that one,” he said, bending his chin again toward Reginald Aubrey, “to the mother of these young warriors of his to do with as she pleases.”
Shouts of protest started up from all quarters before Two Hawks could finish translating. William, daring to hope, wrenched his gaze from that gnarled hand clasping his father’s shoulder and turned to his brother, who finished in a barely comprehensible rush, his last words swallowed by a groan.
Stone Thrower, hearing it, caught his second-born’s gaze, his own resolved, yet his eyes…such deep wells of sorrow and regret. The relief that had surged so briefly through William crumbled like dust. Something was wrong. He turned frantically to his brother for explanation. Before Two Hawks could say a word, the chief warrior held up his hand for silence.
“This warrior, our elder, has a voice in this matter. It is true he was first to lay hands on the prisoner. Let him finish speaking if he has more to say.” He nodded to the old man to continue.
“I do have more to say, so listen.” To the angry warriors, Blue-Tailed Lizard said, “A man is free to choose his path. The Jesus path this warrior has chosen may seem a strange one to you, even foolish, but for him it would seem it is good. Strong. There are words that go with this path, and some of them I have not forgotten. I will speak them to you, but first there is this I must do.”
Blue-Tail
ed Lizard released Stone Thrower and crossed the firelight to Reginald Aubrey, shouldering younger warriors aside. No one raised a hand to stop him. Taking hold of their prisoner’s arm, the old man hauled him to his feet. He waited for the prisoner to steady himself on legs that wobbled, then reached inside the coat he wore and took out three strings of white beads.
Wampum, William thought, mystified by their significance.
“These I found in the coat I took off this one,” he said, turning in the firelight to address Stone Thrower. “You know them?”
Stone Thrower had taken an involuntary step toward them but was stopped by a motion from the chief warrior. “They belong to him,” he said, nodding at Reginald. “They were given by my hand for a sign of the friendship that is between us. Between his blood and my blood.”
Blue-Tailed Lizard put the wampum strings into Reginald’s bound hands, then marched him to stand before Stone Thrower.
“Now I will say the words of the missionary that I have not forgotten. These are the words: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ ” The Indian made a show of looking at Reginald, straight into his face. Then he did the same to Stone Thrower. “You have called this man friend. Are you willing to trade your life for his, to show your heart for your Creator Jesus is true?”
Two Hawks stumbled in his speech as he interpreted for William, as if his lips had gone numb over the words. Their import—and compelling force—sank into William’s heart. Two Hawks turned to him a devastated gaze, even as their father gave his answer.
Two Hawks didn’t interpret it. There was no need.
A moment of utter silence followed, broken only by the fire’s sputtering. Then around them rose the triumphant screams of warriors who wanted blood and were certain now that they would get it.
44
As eager yelps and screams rose around him, Reginald clenched the white shell beads until they bit into his palms, chilled to his marrow not for the terror of impending violence against himself—though he still expected it—but for the growing sense that he was no longer the only one in mortal jeopardy. He’d understood nothing of what had passed between Stone Thrower and these Senecas, save what could be interpreted through body language, but now all gazes were fixed on Stone Thrower; in most of them bloodlust welled. All save William’s and Two Hawks’s. In their eyes he read horror, denial, desperation.
