Shiloh

by Lori Benton

  Was there another way inside the structure? No, just the door in front.

  Where was Hector Lacey? Dead, alive in the cabin, fled, who could say?

  Had Matthew been spotted? Of course not. He had been careful!

  “What of Uncle Joseph, didn’t he come with you?”

  It was a question Ian wasn’t sure how to answer. Instead he asked, “Did ye not see your da as ye came up the trail?”

  “I lost the trail when the rain picked up. I guessed Crane was headed here. I came at the cabin from the quickest way I knew. My horse is there.” Matthew waved up past the rocks. Apparently there was another approach to the place. “Why would I have seen Pa? He talked of visiting Lacey, but he wouldn’t have in this weather.”

  “Aye, he would. We found him caught in one of Crane’s traps. Joseph took him to Lily to tend the wound.” The lad’s stunned and shaken face decided it. Ian was telling him no more, certainly not how gruesome a wound it had been. “Joseph’s coming back . . .”

  A desperate determination darkened Matthew’s gaze.

  “Ye know he will,” Ian said, meaning to head off whatever reckless plan the lad was forming. “He has as much cause for taking down Crane as I.”

  “We all do. And that’s useless to me.” Matthew jerked a nod at his rifle, propped against the stone. “Your powder dry?”

  “We’re not shooting at the cabin with Gabriel and Catriona inside.” Or Lacey. The old man might be a prisoner in there too.

  Matthew drew his tomahawk. He narrowed his eyes at the one thrust into Ian’s belt. “Can you use that?”

  “I can.”

  “To kill a man?”

  “If I must—listen. Crane will come out. Ye saw the note, back at the school? He means to collect his gold.” Ian slipped a hand beneath his cape and took out the parcel Seona had given him. Hunched to shield it from the tapering rain, he unfolded the leather. They peered at the meager scattering it contained. He had advised John to send a little gold at a time in case it should go astray. Advice he regretted now.

  Matthew wiped at the moisture trickling down his face. “Will that satisfy the man?” he asked doubtfully.

  “I don’t know.” Ian folded the gold away and stowed it again. “I have to try—some way that won’t further endanger anyone.”

  “Except Crane.” Matthew’s nostrils flared. “What if we don’t count on the gold or Crane to give them up for it?”

  “What? Ye mean, use it to lure him out and—?”

  “Put a blade through him. Or two.” Matthew was quivering as if on the verge of rushing the cabin in an onslaught of destruction.

  Ian grabbed his arm, squeezing hard. “That’s my son in there. And my sister—who loves ye, in case ye’ve forgotten.”

  Matthew pulled free. “I know whose lives are at stake and I . . .” His face contorted, regret sparking in his dark eyes before determination hardened them again. “I’ve been an idiot about Catriona. I know that. But this is something I can do. Let me help.”

  “I mean to, if ye’d hush and let me tell ye.”

  Matthew pressed his lips tight, then jerked his head, nodding.

  Ian shoved out a breath. “Right then. Here’s how it’ll go. While ye come at the cabin from behind—quietly—I’ll circle back and come straight at it through the corn, like I’ve just come up the trail. I’ll call Crane out, let him know I have the gold he wants. He’ll come out to me if he thinks I’ve come alone. If he does—”

  “When,” Matthew cut in.

  “Get round the cabin. Wait until his back’s to ye and I have his attention. Then slip inside.” Seeing the lad’s eyes brighten, he added, “I mean it. Wait until ye know Crane has come out to me. If ye get into the cabin, clean your pan and—here, take my horn, that powder’s dry at least.” He slipped his powder horn from beneath the sheltering cape. “Take aim at Crane in the yard. If ye get a shot . . .” He debated briefly, thinking of Joseph coming up the trail into the line of fire. “Take it,” he finished. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I won’t,” Matthew said with a bloodthirsty grin.

  “Follow the plan, aye? Watch for snares as ye go.”

  They went their separate ways, but Ian had barely reached the lower cornfield when his plan of rescue went awry. The cabin door banged open. Gaps between the shriveled cornstalks were wide, but too many stood between Ian and the cabin to gain a clear view. Presuming it was Crane, he strode ahead through the corn, mouth opening to reveal his presence.

  From behind the dilapidated cabin came a ringing whinny. Seconds later Crane’s saddled horse trotted into the yard. Ian was close enough to see it—a rather lovely black mare—and Crane, standing startled as the horse came at him.

  Matthew had created his own distraction.

  Swearing and lunging for the mare, Crane slipped in the muddy yard. The horse bolted for the cornfield, straight at Ian. As he assessed the oncoming mountain of horseflesh—and what to do about it—he caught sight of Matthew rushing from behind the cabin to plow into Crane, taking him back down into the mud before he regained his balance.

  Ian nearly dove from the mare’s path, then remembered the snare back on the trail, where the earth had fallen away. He stepped forward, hand and rifle raised, a flimsy barrier. “Easy, pretty lady. Easy . . .”

  The mare, slowed by the crowding cornstalks, hesitated long enough for Ian to grasp a trailing lead. The mare halted, snorting and quivering. She was rain-draggled and in need of better shelter, but he stroked the sleek black face, let her blow nervous breath warm across his hand, all while a struggle was unfolding in the yard.

  Fighting for calm, he turned the mare back toward the cabin, hearing shouts, grunts . . . an outcry.

  Pointed in the right direction, Ian gave the mare’s rump a slap. To his relief she trotted back toward Crane, who stood in the yard over Matthew’s still form, in his hands a pistol he must have used as a club. There had been no firing. Matthew’s tomahawk was on the ground.

  Crane faced the cornfield from which his horse emerged. “Who else is there? Cameron?”

  His name on the man’s lips chilled him deeper than the rain had done. His mouth was dust-dry as he said, “I’m coming out to ye—to talk!”

  Crane’s gaze fixed on the sound of his voice. “Come out then. Hands and rifle where I can see.” Rifle lofted high, Ian walked out of the stalks into the slanting yard fronting the squat little cabin. Crane raised the pistol. “Rifle on the ground. Don’t even touch what’s hanging from your belt.”

  A few strides from the man, Ian halted. Slowly he lowered the rifle to the earth, then straightened to stare down the pistol’s barrel. “My son, my sister—are they in there?”

  Satisfaction flickered in eyes Ian had not forgotten since that morning in Cherry Valley. Eyes like a hungry wolf. “They are.”

  “If I shout, will they hear me?”

  “They will. You won’t hear them.” Aram Crane’s mouth worked in a nest of graying beard, tongue licking lips. “I assume you brought something to trade?”

  Ian kept the gut-churn of fear out of his voice as he called, “Gabriel! Catriona! I’m here, loves! Ye’re coming home with me!”

  There was no response. With no way of knowing if Crane spoke the truth, he ground his teeth and said, “I have your gold. I’m going to reach for it.” He untied his cape and let it fall, then eased the folded leather from his coat. Crane’s eyes lit on it. “Ye’ll take this in trade for my kin?”

  “And him?” Crane sneered at Matthew, who hadn’t stirred. Blood trailed over his face from a gash somewhere on his scalp.

  Ian’s heart slammed. Shaking now with his own bloodlust, he feigned indifference. “I’ve come to bargain for my kin. Take what I offer and give back what’s mine.”

  If he lived, that lad bleeding on the ground might well be his kin one day.

  Crane took a step forward, pistol unwavering. “Show me what you think they’re worth.”

  While her mama fought to sa
ve Neil MacGregor’s ravaged foot, Seona gave baby Josephine to Maggie, who was watching over Mandy in the kitchen, then fled the house to find herself, pelted with rain and muddy-hemmed, in the MacGregors’ spacious stable, where she let a sob slip free.

  Ally, Jamie, and Liam all but leapt from the boxes they were mucking to stand in the aisle, staring. Tears tracked Liam’s face. Jamie was red-eyed.

  Pitchfork in hand, Ally studied her a moment, then said, “Joseph and Ian gonna get them back, Seona. Mister Neil . . . he’ll be all right, like I been telling these two. God’s working it out.”

  Hearing such simple faith expressed, Seona burst into tears. “Ally . . . I don’t know.”

  Ally set aside the pitchfork and came to stand before her. “We all praying, ain’t we?” Behind his back the MacGregor boys bobbed their heads. “You come to pray in here, Seona? We can let you be.”

  Tears clotted in her throat, pulled taut her mouth. Though she couldn’t reply, still they went, leaving her with the horses . . . and a dark presence that clutched at her, tormenting. She stood in the stable doorway, watching rain strike puddles in the yard, making tiny rings that vanished as others took their place. The sky was bruised but the thunder had stilled.

  Across the yard the house stood strangely silent for what she knew was going on within its walls. Her mama was surely praying with every breath she drew as she did what she could to mend broken flesh and bone. Willa and Naomi would be fighting beside her, Malcolm somewhere near, interceding for everyone. Even Ally was praying, while Seona’s soul floundered, mired in fear.

  When had she last sensed the Almighty’s presence? Felt His love? What had happened to her faith? Her hope?

  Spying a bench inside the stable doorway, she collapsed on it and said her baby’s name over and over. “Gabriel. Gabriel . . .” Her hands rubbed her thighs until her fingers brushed the lump in the pocket beneath her petticoat. The piece of maple candy she had meant to give her boy. She bent at the waist, arms encircling herself.

  “Please, God. Please, God. Please, God, don’t take him. Or Catriona. Bring them back. Joseph, Matthew . . .” Ian. His name screamed inside her but wouldn’t pass her lips. “Be with Mama; guide her hands . . .”

  She faltered. Her prayers seemed to rise no higher than the stable roof, collecting in the dusty rafters. “Do You even see us? See me?”

  “The Almighty sees ye, Seona. So do I.”

  She leapt up, turning to find Malcolm at the stable door, leaning on his cane. She wiped at her streaming nose. “Did Ally send you out?”

  Malcolm made his way to the bench. His trip across the yard had taken longer than hers. His shoes were mud-caked. Rain patched his coat. Moisture trickled from his lambswool hair down his wrinkled brow into his beard.

  The bench was wide enough for two.

  “I heard ye pray for all in need this day,” Malcolm said, planting the cane between his knees. “All but the man ye’re set to marry, who’s off facing down the one that’s brought us harm.”

  “Didn’t I?” She stared out the stable doors, feeling Malcolm’s scrutiny.

  “Ye’re verra disappointed in Ian, I think.”

  She saw no reason to dissemble. “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Aye. Was I looking to him as my savior, instead of the Lord Jesus.” Malcolm placed a hand over one of hers clenching knots in her petticoat. “Seona, is it Ian ye feel betrayed by or the Almighty?”

  The question unleashed a torrent. “Maybe I betrayed my own self. I thought making the choice to come here would be the hardest thing—but I ain’t ever known fear like this.”

  Malcolm’s hand gave hers a squeeze. She unclenched her fingers and twined them with his, feeling swollen joints between her own. They sat in ringing silence for a time, Seona hoping he would say something to make sense of the war in her soul.

  “I’ve come a goodly way in my Bible reading,” he said. “And I’ve noted a thing worth pointing out to ye. There’s a particular commandment given us in Scripture o’er and again. Maybe more than any other. D’ye ken what it is?”

  Seona wanted to let go his hand, to rise and pace and scream. She hadn’t read the Bible since leaving Boston, save for helping Malcolm with his efforts. Ian had his own Bible, which he had said she was welcome to read, but there had been precious little time with all the work needing done, two little ones to tend.

  She half choked on her feeble answer. “I haven’t the faintest notion.”

  Rather than reprove her lack of knowledge, Malcolm smiled. “Nor did I ’til lately. It took reading the Scriptures through for me to see it. But from the time of the Old Testament to the New and surely still, the Almighty has been telling His beloved the same thing. ‘Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.’

  “‘Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.’”

  She was weeping again, eyes burning, a swelling in her throat. The stable, the wet yard, the house beyond blurred as Malcolm went on.

  “‘But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.’

  “‘Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God; believe also in me.’

  “‘Be anxious for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’”

  As the words washed over her, Seona’s tears flowed. No longer burning. Cleansing, like rain. And then she heard it. Or thought she did. The voice her fears had too long muffled. Thou art Mine.

  “I am my Beloved’s,” she mouthed, then sniffled, blinked teary eyes, and in no small wonder asked the man beside her, “You set all that to memory?”

  “Scripture bids us meditate on the Almighty’s words to us, get them down inside us,” Malcolm said. “Then let your request be made known to Him and get the peace He promises.”

  She needed that peace as she needed air.

  “Just now, though,” Malcolm said, “I’d tell ye a thing about the verse from John’s gospel that says, ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’ D’ye ken what Jesus was talking about, what made Him say those words?”

  “I wish I did,” she said, voice thick from weeping.

  “He was talking about His death. Which tells me something ye’ve maybe lost sight of.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If Jesus could say those words facing the cross—and never think He wasna afraid of the suffering to come—then ye and I can do the same in the face of our own suffering. We can choose to let fear come in, take root, and master us, or we can choose to guard our hearts and give fear no purchase there. No power to rule our words and deeds.”

  Malcolm paused. Seona waited, raw and bleeding as the wound her mama was tending. Her words and deeds this day had been unguarded, to say the least. Ruled by anger, fear, maybe even spite. She had chosen to take the children into Shiloh, knowing Ian hadn’t wanted her to do so. It was down to her decision that they were even at that school cabin.

  “There will always be fears, Seona, for as long as we live in a fallen world. They stalk us. They roar. Make it hard to hear the Almighty, see His hand at work. But ye’ve the power to refuse fear a welcome into your heart. Ye’re the master there. No one else.”

  Seona looked at Malcolm. Really looked as she hadn’t in some while. Worn from a life of toil. Frail with years. Master of his heart. “You’ve always known that, haven’t you?”

  Malcolm shook with gentle laughter. “Not always. I learnt it, like all must do.”

  He sobered, and she saw that while he felt concern for those they loved in peril, his peace went deeper. His trust
in the Almighty’s love and strength was unshaken. He reached again for her hand, stared at it clasped in his own.

  “I’m an auld man, mo nighean, my life all but spent. I willna always be here to remind ye o’ these things. ’Tis time ye find the courage to fight for your own heart. For Ian’s and your bairns’. Ye must remind them they’ve a mighty Warrior in the battle for their souls. Jesus.”

  “I haven’t been doing my part.” She had busied herself with so much doing and let her faith go unnourished. But it went deeper than that.

  What was it Malcolm had said? That he would be disappointed in Ian too, if he had been looking to him as a savior. An impossible promise, her mama had called Ian’s vow to keep her and the children safe from all harm. They were right, both of them. She had put a burden of expectation on Ian that no man was made to carry, but he had tried to bear it, bound to her by chains of love. How had she not seen it, she who had known the burden of slavery?

  “When Ian’s back,” she said with sudden conviction, “we need to find a time—I don’t know when but there’s got to be a when—to just . . . plunge ourselves into the Word. Mandy and Gabriel too. I don’t know if we can dive as deep as you been doing but . . .”

  Her words trailed off. Malcolm was looking at her, fair to beaming. It jarred her into realizing she had uttered plans for their future as if Gabriel was coming back, as if they were going to watch him grow up with his sister. She and Ian, together.

  I Am My Beloved’s.

  “I don’t want to be afraid anymore, Malcolm.”

  Malcolm gave her hand a little shake. “Ye can feel afraid, Seona, and still trust the Almighty is working things for your good. Let Him be the first one ye lean into—not me or your mama or Ian. Remind yourself of all He supplies. Peace, wisdom, mercy, grace, hope, strength in time of need. Ye’ve already guessed how ye find those things. How ye find the One who is those things.”

  “Reading His Word,” she said.

  “Every day. Talking to Him about it as ye read—and after ye’ve closed His book. Your heart is a garden and His Word the seed. It’ll grow there if ye sow it.”