by Lori Benton
Perhaps he could remove one of the distractions pulling at him. Or get a better grip on it. “This morning Jamie reminded me what happened here with ye and Willa,” he said as a solitary raven’s harsh cry issued from the trees above them. “In part because of Aram Crane.”
He noted the tensing of Joseph’s broad shoulders as they passed through a sunlit patch. “That is one man I regret . . .”
Ruaidh’s hoof kicked a loose stone on the trail. Its rattle covered whatever Joseph said, if he had even finished the statement. “What d’ye regret?”
Joseph glanced back. “I was going to say I regret never killing the man, but it is not true. I would have taken his life if forced to it. But I do regret his escape, for all the harm he has done since.” He walked on, leading his horse. “You have seen the man. I remember you said so.”
Around them the forest had awakened with birdcalls. Up ahead came the crashing of a deer bounding away, startled by their voices.
“And not just the once, last autumn,” Ian said. “I saw him again in June.”
They had reached a rock outcropping Matthew had described, its contours shaped like a turtle’s head, skirted by the trail, the final landmark to show the way to the place they sought. From there the trail ascended along a ravine to where Hector Lacey had built a ramshackle cabin, squatting on land Judge Cooper might well own.
Joseph halted his horse. Gripping his rifle, he bent to study the trail. “Here are marks of Neil’s horse heading in, not out.” He stood and faced Ian, who had halted the roan. “Where did you see Crane this time? Cooperstown again?”
Ian planted his rifle’s stock on the path and told of his last visit to William Cooper’s village at the foot of Otsego Lake, of thinking himself followed on his way to Cherry Valley, then spotting Crane at the inn where he stopped. “I slept in the stable, on my guard. The man didn’t trouble me in the night, but he was still there come the morning.”
“What did he say to you?”
“Not a word. But he made a point of staring me down as I rode out.”
Unease gathered on Joseph’s brow. “This was in June?”
“Aye. I’d paid off my land and was heading east to meet Seona and the others in Albany. I haven’t seen Crane since I rode from Cherry Valley but . . . have ye spoken yet to Matthew about the man?”
“I have,” Joseph said, his tone making it clear he had been appraised of the recent suspicions involving Matthew’s traps. “But why would Crane take such interest in you?”
Ian debated telling him more. This was a man deeply trusted by both Willa and Neil. One Ian wanted on his side, should Crane prove a threat to something beyond his peace of mind. “As it happens, I’d come into possession of some gold. Not coin. The raw thing, straight from the earth. I used it to pay off my land. I’ve reason to think word of it’s gone round in Cooperstown.”
“And to Crane’s ears? Matthew did not speak of gold to me.”
Good, Ian thought. He said, “He’s still worked up over Crane, wanting to go after the man?”
“No more than I.” Joseph gazed along the winding path leading past the outcrop. “I will stay near Shiloh for a time, I think.”
“Because of Crane?”
“I have my reasons,” Willa’s brother said, features inscrutable as he turned to Ian. “Crane is one.”
Matthew, no doubt, was another. Joseph wouldn’t want him getting reckless notions about Crane any more than Neil and Willa would.
They started up the final ascent to Lacey’s cabin. They were higher in the mountains than Ian had yet been, even hunting. The creek running noisily below the steep ravine on their right precluded conversation. On their left the equally steep but forested mountain rose another few hundred feet. In the distance, through the scrim of trees along the ravine’s edge, could be glimpsed the higher peaks of the Adirondacks, stretching northward.
At last the slope on their left curved away, and a tight but nearly level spot between it and the ravine opened. They had no more than glimpsed the mossy roofline of Lacey’s cabin, half-hidden behind a ragged patch of corn, before out of that corn, Neil MacGregor emerged, leading his old horse, Seamus.
“Joseph!” Startled by the sight of them, he drew up short. “Ian? Is it Willa?”
Ian was quick to reassure. “Willa’s fine. But, aye, the bairn’s come. A girl.”
Astonishment, then a blazing grin, broke over Neil MacGregor’s tired face. “The Almighty be praised—though I wish I’d been with her. Was Goodenough? She wasn’t alone?”
“I arrived after you left for this place,” Joseph said. “We must have just missed each other on the trail. Willa sent me to this one’s farm—” he nodded at Ian—“to bring the one there who is a midwife. All is well. The girl is called Josephine.”
“That’s right. We’d agreed on the name for a daughter. ’Twas to be Joseph otherwise.” Neil’s grin doubled. “I’ve another wee lass. Maggie will be pleased.”
Joseph granted one of his rare smiles in return. “She is.”
“What about here?” Ian asked, finding their joy infectious. “Did ye manage to talk the old codger down from his hermitage?”
“Stubborn goat,” Neil said, still grinning. “I came here on account of feeling something was amiss. An impression from the Lord, I take it now. Lacey cut his foot chopping wood and the gash wasn’t healing. I caught it in time to save the foot, I think, if he’ll stay off it long enough. I’ll come back in a few days and check. But never mind it now.”
“Aye,” Ian said as he and Joseph turned their mounts to head back down the ravine. “Ye’ve a daughter to meet.”
31
September 1797
Though most of the faces lit by the fires burning in the cabin-yard were different than in years past, Seona felt as if she had lived moments of this corn shucking before. The MacGregors were there, including Willa and baby Josephine, on her first outing. Joseph Tames-His-Horse had come, as had the Keppler clan from the mill, with Lemuel Waring in tow. But the biggest difference was having two of her own to look after. Thus far Seona had scarcely gotten her hands on an ear of corn with the children flitting between fires, from one group of shuckers to another, all filling up baskets and barrels with the field’s bounty, mounding up husks for winter feed.
“Let me watch them, Seona,” Catriona called, getting up from the smallest fire—with Maggie and Anni Keppler’s daughter—to intercept the pair. “Come here you two. It’s time you learned to shuck corn.”
“Now that we’ve taught you.” Maggie grinned at Ian’s sister. “But the best way to learn is to teach.”
“Auntie Catweena!” Gabriel cried, clutching at her skirt. “Take us to see G-B!”
“Yes, Auntie. G-B!” Mandy chimed, jumping in place, brown curls flopping.
They hadn’t lost their attachment to the orphaned bull, recently introduced to the other weaned calves. With G-B no longer in the old stable, the children were strictly charged that someone accompany them down to the pasture to see their favorite baby bull.
“In a bit,” Catriona promised. “Now it’s time to shuck corn. You can do just one ear apiece. Next year, when you’re bigger, you can do two.”
“I’m big,” Gabriel insisted. “I can shuck two!”
Seona gave Ian’s sister a grateful smile and took her chance to sit at the fire where her mama held baby Josephine in the crook of her arm while Willa, Naomi, and Anni Keppler shucked corn around her. “You’ve had that baby long enough,” she said, settling on the log Lily shared with Willa. “It’s my turn.”
Seona looked to Willa, busy filling up a basket with the stalk-dried ears. When she nodded, Seona took the baby in her arms, amazed how compact and solid in her wrappings she was, how soundly she slept amid the noise they were making, especially over at the largest fire where the men and a horde of gangly boys were busy working, though not without outbursts of ribbing over matters Seona only half heeded. Of that group, Ian was seated nearest their fire. More than
once Seona had caught his gaze fixed on her while she followed Gabriel and Mandy or helped Naomi, Lily, and Anni set out cider and supper for when one or another took a notion to eat.
She liked hearing Ian’s voice raised among the other men’s, giving and taking his share of the fun. It reminded her of the shucking four years past when he found the red ear. John Reynold and Charlie Spencer had made him blush with their teasing and she had thought—for a heart-stopping instant—Ian would ask her for a kiss in exchange for that pretty ear of corn. In front of everyone.
He had asked tiny Ruthie Allen instead.
For the past little while the younger males had seemed bent on teasing Matthew. Over what, Seona wasn’t sure. Matthew was taking it stoically while Willa’s clan brother watched it all, face inscrutable as he worked—about as deftly as Catriona was managing.
“He has never shucked corn before,” Willa said, following Seona’s gaze. “I am surprised he was willing.”
“Mohawk men don’t shuck corn?” Lily asked.
“Not if they keep the old ways. My brother grows broad-minded in his old age.”
Seona thought Joseph Tames-His-Horse far too striking a figure to be called old. Especially with the firelight burnishing those long-muscled, tattooed forearms, bared by shirtsleeves turned high. As if he heard Willa’s comment, despite the noise the young men were making, he glanced their way and noticed them staring. Seona caught a flash of white teeth before he looked away.
“Still sharp-eared,” Lily murmured.
The sound of Gabriel’s voice at the neighboring fire reached Seona: “Please, Auntie! Can we see G-B now?”
“Let me finish shucking this pile; then we’ll go.”
Seona turned a quick maternal eye on her boy, but Gabriel settled back to tugging at the husks of an ear laid across his knees.
Willa’s daughter gave a tiny burp in her sleep. Seona dropped her gaze to the baby, whose cap of fuzzy hair promised to be her mother’s shade.
Her attention was soon drawn back to Ian’s sister. Maybe seeing her with Maggie made it dawn on Seona that Catriona had spent most of her days at their farm lately. Not their neighbors’. She wondered why. Nothing appeared amiss between her and Maggie, that Seona could see.
Lily, who had taken up the task of shucking with practiced ease, leaned her shoulder against Seona. “Wanting another?”
Jarred from her thoughts, Seona asked, “Another what, Mama?”
Lily nodded toward Willa’s baby. “One of those.”
Seona started to say she did, eventually, but caught Ian, across the yard, watching her holding the baby. Seemed she read the same question in his eyes. And more.
Soon as the corn’s in the crib. It was all but there now. She felt his longing, and her own, down to her bones. Then Josephine MacGregor awoke in her arms, looked up at her with startled eyes, and screwed up her tiny features in a wail.
Seona laughed.
Anni Keppler, who had been talking to Naomi, said, “I was going to ask for a turn with her, but it’s you she wants now, Willa.”
As Seona handed over the baby to Willa, the noise at the men’s fire erupted in volume, this time led by Ian: “What—ye’ve never heard about the red ear? Not a one of ye?”
Other conversations around the fires ceased as all craned to see Matthew, the center of attention, an ear of corn newly shucked in his grasp. Instead of the usual yellow or white, it was mottled in shades of red.
“What of it?” Matthew asked warily.
Ian laughed. “In Carolina it’s tradition. Any man who shucks a red ear may ask the woman of his choosing for a kiss, in exchange for it. So who is it to be?”
The center of jovial taunting, Matthew stared fixedly at the red ear. He didn’t so much as smile, which Seona thought strange. Strange as well there had come no sound of giggles from the eligible young women present.
Matthew never looked their way. He thrust the ear at his youngest brother, seated on the log beside him.
Liam MacGregor, barely eleven years old, gaped at what was thrust into his hands as at something ten days dead. “Let a girl kiss me for this?”
He shoved the ear down the line at Jamie, old enough to entertain the idea. He shot a half-shy look at the girls, then lost his nerve. Blushing furiously, he handed off the red ear to Lem.
Seona glanced at the girls to see how they were taking this play and caught the distress on Catriona’s face, which she tried to hide by turning a pasted-on smile to the children, watching the goings-on at the men’s fire.
“Ready to go see G-B?” she asked with a false brightness lost on the little ones, who jumped up with instant zeal. Maggie said something to Catriona, who shook her head furiously, took her niece and nephew by the hand, and led them off into the beech shadows, down through the dark toward the pasture.
The crowd at the men’s fire had closed off sight of Matthew. Half the boys were in a tussle over the red ear now—whether to claim it or be rid of it was anyone’s guess. None had noticed Catriona’s departure.
Matthew sat with shoulders rigid, gone back to husking corn.
“Mama?” Seona began, but Lily was already nodding, handing her the shawl she had set by earlier.
“I think ye should.”
She found them at the paddock on the near side of the pasture, where the weaned calves grazed, watched over by their mamas on the other side of the fence. Gabriel and Mandy were pressed to the rails, petting G-B. Catriona stood nearby. They were shapes in the moonlight until Seona neared with a blazing pine knot taken from the fire. Catriona averted her face, wiping at her cheeks.
“Mama,” Gabriel said, turning toward the light. “Pet G-B.”
“All right, baby.” Seona gave the calf a scratch between the ears, then turned her attention to Ian’s sister. “What just happened back at the fires?”
Catriona raised a hand to muffle a sob. The children didn’t notice, laughing over the calf, which was licking Mandy’s face. Seona hadn’t seen Catriona this upset since Boston. Her heart gave a squeeze.
“I think you know—or guess,” Catriona said. “Maggie isn’t the only reason I spend so much time at the MacGregors’. Spent, rather.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
At first it seemed Catriona wouldn’t or couldn’t. She pressed her lips tight, then in a pained whisper managed, “I love him.”
“Love?” She had spoken louder than intended, but the children were oblivious.
“Will you put the torch out?” Catriona asked, eyes welling again.
Seona dropped it on the ground, whipped her skirts aside, and gave it a stomp to put out the flame. Away from the fires, the risen moon shed light enough to see each other.
“It’s not like Boston,” Catriona said, the nearest she had come to mentioning Morgan Shelby since they left that city.
“I don’t expect it is. Matthew MacGregor is another sort of man. A good man. Still . . .” Seona thought of that Freneau poem and its fanciful notions of Indians on the frontier.
“I know what you must be thinking,” Catriona said, frustration in her tone. “That I’m just infatuated with my own ‘copper-coloured boy.’ It’s not like that either.”
This was going to take some talking through. “Gabriel, Mandy,” Seona said, “you two stay right here and talk with G-B. I need to speak with your auntie. All right?”
Mandy spoke for the pair. “All right, Mama.”
Not yet over that warm, sweet feeling she got whenever Mandy called her Mama, Seona took Catriona by the arm and moved her a few paces down the fence, still within hearing of the children’s voices. From the pasture one of the cows lowed. In the distance she could hear the others at the shucking, glimpse the light of fires through the trees. She wrapped her shawl more warmly about her shoulders.
“Does Matthew not feel for you like you do him?”
He had refused to seek a kiss, finding himself in possession of a red ear. Or had he not wanted to make a display of his affection
s in front of a crowd?
“He does.” Catriona’s sigh was bone-deep. “I wish I could tell you the moment I knew I loved him, and he me. Neither of us can recall. It started with the horses. What else?” she asked with a small laugh. “He’s so wonderful with them, but you know. You’ve seen.”
“He’s right impressive.”
“Isn’t he?” Catriona’s voice warmed with admiration. “I thought I understood them, but what he does, how he does it—it’s like he reads their souls. I couldn’t get enough of watching him work with Colonel Waring’s colts. In the beginning I had a perfect flood of questions, but he was happy to answer. He let me in the paddock to work with him after a while. We’d go riding together on the days Maggie was teaching . . .” Her voice caught. “Then that day happened.”
“What day?” Seona asked.
“The day we found the school cabin broke into. That’s when everything changed. Matthew changed.”
“I mind he was angry. But why did it change things for you and him?”
Behind them in the darkness, the children giggled.
Catriona sniffled. “At first I didn’t notice. I was too focused on Maggie. But after that day Matthew grew distant. He avoided being alone with me. Finally I caught him in their stable grooming one of the horses when no one else was near. I asked him to tell me what I’d done wrong, how I’d upset him.”
“Did he tell you?”
“I hadn’t done anything. He told me he loved me and wanted to ask me to marry him—but he wouldn’t. Marriage to someone like him wasn’t the life for me. Because he’s Mohawk, and I should understand that without his having to say so after what happened at Maggie’s school—” Catriona’s voice choked off.
With one ear tuned to the children, Seona put her arms around Ian’s sister and listened while she told the rest in snatches, how Matthew had used what happened at the school as evidence of what Catriona would face if they married. He couldn’t do that to her nor bear to watch her love die in the face of such bigotry.
