Lord of the Wilderness

by Elizabeth St. Michel

  “Oil?”

  Ojistah produced a clay pot. “Sunflower.”

  While the medicine woman poured, Juliet lifted her hands, palms up, and slicked the greasy substance over her hands and wrists. She spoke to Evening Dove as Ojistah translated.

  “Princess Evening Dove, I know you are in much pain but what I’m going to do will bring more pain if I’m to bring your child into the world. You may scream all you want.”

  The princess’ eyes widened. She shook her head viciously, uttering obscure words Juliet did not understand.

  “No!” said Ojistah. “It is a disgrace to show pain and fear and shame her husband.”

  This world of theirs was mad.

  “Give her that stick to bite,” Juliet ordered.

  Juliet gritted her teeth and with one hand on the upper belly, she reached up toward Evening Dove’s womb. With her other hand, she probed around the membrane, praying she’d not injure the baby. Her fingers slid stickily. Her heart pounded in her ears.

  She exhaled when she identified the foot. The foot slipped from her grasp. Juliet scrunched her eyes shut, seized the foot and flexed and grasped, and gently pulled. The membrane broke and the musk of Evening Dove’s water gushed out. One foot emerged. Good. Juliet used the next contraction to pull and turn until the buttocks appeared. She reached up and grabbed the other knee, straightened the leg and pulled out.

  Evening Dove thrashed and moaned, clamping hard on the bite stick. She did not yell or scream. Juliet knew she hurt her terribly and marveled at the Indian woman’s dignity compared to the hundreds of births she’d assisted of European women.

  Juliet turned the baby back, the shoulders presented and she removed one arm, and next rotated the baby again to allow the other arm to be pulled out. Beads of sweat dripped down her forehead. She twisted the baby again until it was face down. Placing her hand under the baby’s slippery body, she held her other hand securely on the infant’s neck.

  When the next contraction came, Juliet shouted, “Push.”

  She lifted the baby up and the head was freed.

  When the infant burst through with angry wails, demanding the world to know of its arrival, all the pain and violence of childbirth lay forgotten. Juliet cried out with wonder and the other women did, too. Joy swirled, whirling and weaving like threads of a great tapestry around them, ending enmity and uniting them in an overwhelming ocean of affection.

  Juliet wiped the newborn’s eyes and nose clear, and Ojistah cut and bound the cord. She gently laid the infant on Evening Dove’s chest and basked in the love between mother and child meeting for the first time.

  When the afterbirth was delivered, Ojistah explained to the women the use of herbs and packing Morning Dove with moss to stem the bleeding. Ojistah wrapped the babe in doeskin and nodded for Juliet to follow her. They emerged from the tent, as the first fingers of dawn shone in a brilliant display across the morning sky. Breathing a sigh of relief, Two Eagles, Mary, and Joshua stared in disbelief at the infant.

  “You have a son,” said Ojistah.

  Worn and ragged, the chief smiled proudly, tears in his eyes as he lifted the child into his arms. “Thank you, Ojistah.”

  “Thank White Woman with Hair of Fire. Her medicine is stronger than mine. It was she who brought your child onto this earth and saved your wife.”

  He stood in awe of Juliet, and pulling the blanket from his raging son, touched the infant’s soft black hair, his little fingers and toes. The chief said, “You will be under my protection. You may go.”

  But it was the undisguised pride in Joshua’s blue eyes that caused Juliet’s heart to skip. He put his arm around her, pulling her close, the brush of his evening beard against her cheek, and comforting. His deep voice vibrated through her soul. “You are magnificent.”

  The chief’s sisters ducked out of the lodge, pointing and exclaiming to the east where it rained across the distant hills. A beautiful rainbow arched across the valley.

  Ojistah whispered in reverence, “A great sign given by our Creator, one that has not been seen for many generations…this child…what greatness will he bring?”

  One of the sisters took the baby and returned to the birthing lodge. At the nod of the chief, his other sister led Ojistah, Juliet, Joshua, Two Eagles, and Mary to the river.

  Ojistah pushed a hemlock branch back, allowing Juliet to pass, and then took her arm in hers. “In my life, I have had a series of visions, ranging from sadness to inspiring. I have seen the pale-faced people arrive in gigantic canoes with spreading white wings. Motivated by insatiable avarice, these pale-faced people have rapidly grown in strength and power and without remorse continue to encroach on the land of the red men, who are weakened by disease, firewater, and extended warfare against British, and the “long knives” of Americans. There will be no peace for the Mohawk.”

  Juliet stopped. “Ojistah, I am a woman of peace.”

  Ojistah’s hand, large and heavy and smelling faintly of bear grease, cradled Juliet’s cheek with a gentleness reminiscent of Moira. How she craved that long-ago warmth. “The deep part of your spirit resonates.”

  Juliet was about to speak when Ojistah shushed her. Motionless now, her eyes glazed over and once more she appeared to slip away, deep into a secret realm of intuition and vision.

  A flock of crows lifted in the air and a great powerful wind swept down from the top of the mountains, blowing up and over them, swirling treetops and spewing the scent of leaf mold and pine. Juliet stayed rooted. The rest of the world melted away, leaving her and Ojistah swaying.

  “I see blood and fire, loss and reunion, and a love so great neither time nor death can destroy it.”

  The harshly whispered words streamed hot like the sun’s rays upon a forest floor.

  “You are a woman of great love and the power of that love will conquer every single opponent, and again through your daughter, and her daughter.”

  Ojistah’s callused thumb rasped in a circle on Juliet’s cheek. Deep inside Juliet, something stirred and shifted, grew warm like an ember fueled by the breath of a zephyr. She sensed a bright mystery in Ojistah’s words, and for all that they were but ambiguous prophecies, they fixed themselves in her heart.

  Ojistah glanced over her shoulder to Joshua, trailing behind, and then her dark eyes, clearer at the moment, locked with Juliet’s, veiled pools of black confronting deep blue eyes. “I know—” Lifting her head, she glanced to the rainbow, and said, “This is an unusual time. My visions come one after another. You should know Two Eagles’ mother, Waneek, is my twin. She is expecting you.”

  Juliet stared at Ojistah. A twin? But Juliet was on her way to her cousin and through him, on to England. “I’m going to Fort Oswego.”

  The medicine woman’s blunt finger slid across the curved line of Juliet’s cheek, edging along until it encountered her chin. The gleam in her eyes held an inner light. She padded down a slender trail, her moccasins rendering no sound on a moss-covered path. “You will give my sister my best wishes.”

  “I don’t understand,” Juliet ran to keep up, mystified by the medicine woman’s confidence she’d meet her twin. Two Eagles drew up beside her and grunted as if her words were no great feat.

  At the river’s edge, a lightweight canoe fashioned of birch bark and light of weight had been loaded with fur packs and foodstuffs.

  “Onontio and his friends are going to cause trouble. I put medicine in their cups to make them sleep. This is our fleetest canoe, swifter than the clunky dugout,” said Ojistah.

  “I thank you for the gifts,” said Joshua.

  The chief’s sister held the craft while they boarded. Ojistah pushed the other canoes belonging to tribal members out into the river where they floated away with the current. “No one will follow you.”

  “You are at risk, Ojistah,” said Juliet.

  She shook her head. “The chief has ordered your safe travels.”

  Chapter Twelve

  His arms ached, his thigh smarted
with his movement, and so did every bruised muscle in his body. He required sleep but that was not to happen. His loaded long rifle and two dragoon pistols rested on the bottom of the canoe along with his powder horn, ammunition bag and tomahawk. Thanks to Ojistah there was plenty of shot and tinder. His knife was sheathed in his belt.

  With an early start granted by the chief, he had to put as much distance as possible from Onontio’s threat. Twice the War Chief lost and would not forget the great insult. He’d follow their trail and exact retribution. Still weak from his wounds, Joshua had no intention of meeting up with Onontio and his following. Outnumbered for sure, the results would be bleak. Yet, if there was trouble, he and Two Eagles would fight to the death.

  What concerned him was Snapes, Butler and the build-up of hostile forces against the settlers. By the waning of last night’s moon, he had four weeks, but therein lay the conundrum—running south to warn the forts and settlers or take the two women to Fort Oswego in the opposite direction. His greatest hope was running across a Patriot committed to forwarding the significant intelligence.

  The scent of woman assailed his senses, and he sucked it in as if it would cure the pounding in his head. Juliet was braver than any woman of his acquaintance. The English women he’d known strove for male attention, driven to make a good match at their debut. Like so many colorful flowers, if confronted with an Indian, they would have fainted dead away. Juliet personified strength, reliability and loyalty. She had survived the Hayes’ insufferable treatment, and humiliation at the hands of Onontio and the Mohawks. She went up against him and delivered the chief’s son, despite the danger and his warnings.

  She was gentle and kind and not meant for this godforsaken patch of earth that reaped violence and bloodshed. Her journey through life and his dedication to the Patriot cause were diametrically opposed.

  Yet in a small way, by saving Juliet, he had made up for not protecting Sarah. To live his life without the lodestone of guilt? His jaw hurt from clamping his teeth. If only that remorse could be purged.

  There was nothing left to remember Sarah now except her handkerchief and a crass letter left by her murderer. His life since her death a year before still left him feeling as if she were nothing but a dream. For him, what happened in the past expanded over the present, and understanding the past defined the future. Who was he fooling anyway? He could not allow Juliet into his heart. With his mission, he could not protect her.

  Yet Juliet was like the river he dipped his paddle into—clear and pure, yet the depths, mysterious and impenetrable. The culture of her speech and mannerisms could pass for nobility in any well-established family in England. Why would a woman of noble birth be slaving away in the wilderness? Was she bastard born? The pieces didn’t fit.

  “So the laughter-loving, sweet-smiling Aphrodite dared to mingle her goddess nature with a mortal man and ventured to America,” he said because he was in the mood to provoke the she-dragon and learn more of her.

  She turned to him, nostrils flaring. “You think it was by choice? I was kidnapped and expedited by a corrupt judge with illicit warrants, and sold into indenture. Mary and I were forcibly herded onto a ship, crowded into horrible conditions below deck with unemployed, criminals, rootless dissidents, troublesome youths swept up from the slums, and children sold by their parents for a seemingly better life.”

  Given that her emotions were running high with the Indian village and the birth, Joshua let her vent.

  “Our shipmates told us there were gangs of kidnappers, working to supply colonial hunger for labor, even so low as to discuss their targets in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Operating their flourishing business, these gangs had accomplices, strong-armed men and fences, dealers in stolen goods, ships’ captains, merchants in England and America with corrupt officials and magistrates. Once caught, there was no going back, stuck like the tar on the keels of the ships that brought us here.”

  Juliet continued her explanation. “Exiled and sold for seven years, we learned absolute obedience. Defiance was rewarded with whippings, branding and chaining. We became chattels, objects of personal property with few or no rights.”

  Caught between the giant arms of oaks stretching across the water, leaf-dappled sunlight slashed across her face. He knew of these practices and felt sorry Juliet had been trapped in the scheme. General Washington had also been concerned and desired to have indentured servitude abolished. “Slavery is a weed growing in every soil. The man who is the property of another, is his mere chattel, though he continues a man.”

  “You know Aristotle?”

  He shrugged. “A smattering of the philosophers.”

  Juliet turned and narrowed her eyes on him. “How is it you are so knowledgeable growing up in the wilderness?

  Careful Joshua. She is bright and discerning. “Books are my friends, my sweet Juliet. Erudition is the reward of reading.”

  How little he knew her. From sitting behind her, he identified every gesture, look, habit—each hair on her head, this woman, his wife he did not claim. Yet he knew nothing of her or her family and past. They had many days of canoeing and overland portages to get to Fort Oswego where her cousin commanded. A slow smile began to build with the lingering satisfaction that time would allow to know more regarding her.

  “Are we in danger?” She caught him scanning their surroundings.

  They were in danger. He kept a keen eye behind him and appreciated Two Eagles did as well. Not necessary to alarm her.

  “Tell me of your life in England.”

  Juliet sighed. “After Moira died, I had a hard time coping. To grasp that I and the mice in the walls of my little cottage were the only ones still breathing. I had no one else. I tried to tell myself life doesn’t stop because you lose someone you love. Even if it’s another part of you. Told myself time has a way of obliterating old hurts, and one day I’d wake up and I’d be happy again. Only it never happened.”

  Juliet an orphan? She had said her mother died during childbirth and there had been no mention of her father. “Who is Moira?”

  Juliet eased against the fur packs Joshua had positioned for her comfort. Despite her turmoil, the river was fair to look upon, so fine and broad, quiet and peaceful, giving no hint of storm or perilous wave. “My nanny who was like a mother to me.” She shifted. “After Moira’s death, Mary disappeared, and no one knew where. She had been my one solid friend from when we were very young. Being alone was darkness for me.”

  Mary had abandoned her death-grip to the gunnels and fallen asleep in the bottom of the canoe behind Two Eagles. Every once in a while, the normally stoic Indian would turn his gaze on Mary.

  The hills were ablaze with the showy pink and white crown of dogwood. From the heavily wooded banks great bass trees bloomed with blinding snowy blossoms, promising a tantalizing bid for honey bees and the assurance of sweet nectar. As they skimmed along the water’s surface, a calmness settled over her, traveling farther from Tionnontigo and the warmth of the late spring sun on her face.

  “How did you and Mary become friends?”

  Ducks scattered among the reeds growing near the bank’s edge. Juliet weighed telling him. Since her friend was sleeping, and because she had long kept secrets trapped inside, she said, “Mary and I have been friends from when were very young. One day, I went to Mary’s home. Her father, Vicar Abram slammed the door in my face, shutting me out, and would say nothing. Upset and confused I knocked every day for a month. He refused to answer the door.”

  “I would have broken down the door to get answers,” said Joshua.

  She smiled, picturing him doing just that. “Vicar Abram wore his own righteousness as an impregnable suit of armor. Devout in his conversations with the Almighty, he met his congregation with evangelical fervor and piousness, stressing God was at his elbow. Yet, his forceful preaching on love and forgiveness were hypocritical when it came to his lone child. He had turned his back on her when she needed him the most. For that act of hypocrisy and cruelty, I can nev
er forgive him.”

  She liked how Joshua listened to her. He was a man of contradictions…tenacious, principled and honorable. He was also self-righteous and relentless.

  “I worried of Mary’s whereabouts, and her father’s strange behavior. Months eclipsed and a carriage pulled up to my cottage. A man begged me to assist a woman in childbirth. Since this was my trade, I agreed. I traveled a great distance, and I grew alarmed. Despite my relentless insistence to our destination, the men remained determined not to give me any information.”

  “At last, I arrived at a manor where I was rushed inside. A frantic, middle-aged gentleman, Baron Bearsted begged me to save the baby, which I thought was strange because he didn’t include the mother’s safety. He whisked me into a room. To my shock, I found a very pregnant Mary in desperate labor. For hours, I used my skills to save her and the baby. The child emerged into the world a stillborn, and I cried not saving Mary’s child.”

  Juliet glanced again to Mary. “Then to my complete horror, Baron Bearsted flipped his anxious concern to cruel taunts and his scheming. How he relished Mary’s father throwing her out of the house so he could enjoy nights of sexual pleasure from her young body—and since his wife had supplied him with daughters, he required an heir.”

  He bragged how he seduced Mary, to supply him a son with designs to steal her child and present it as his own. How he gloated over Mary’s baby, glad the child she gave birth to was dead. He had no use of a bastard daughter and the dead baby saved him from having the child meet a fatal accident.”

  At her words, Joshua stroked deeper and harder. She could almost feel the furious power in Joshua’s shoulders as they moved ever faster through the water. “Then Baron Bearsted ordered his men to move Mary to a wagon. Her hemorrhaging was terrible, and fearing her death, I threatened to go to his wife and reveal his brutality.”

  She heard a grunt from the bow. Did Two Eagles grip his paddle tighter? “My threats were hollow. For coin, there would be no witnesses, and my pleadings as to who I was and the truth of Baron Bearsted’s treachery fell on deaf ears. I believe Mary’s father and my uncle were never contacted, and no doubt if they were, they’d never help. With illicit warrants, a dishonest magistrate accelerated out voyage to America and slavery was determined.”