“Papa said your sister must have added to our bulbs.”
“Perhaps. But after that valley I walked, the surprise of those white flowers marked a season of forgiveness.” Her mother’s lips trembled, and a tear slid down her cheek. Every year Sabine heard the story, and every year her mother cried.
Papa had told Sabine that Moeder was repentant for turning her back on God out of anger after she lost her sight. She’d entered a valley of spiritual darkness at the onset of physical blindness.
Father compared her to Job. But Sabine often wondered if she was more like the Savior’s friend, Mary—weeping because Jesus showed up too late.
When Moeder was at her lowest, a new flower bloomed among their colorful tulip patch. A white variety. Father was perplexed by this new crop, but Moeder took it as a sign. She realized the beauty wasn’t in the seeing but in the knowing—not just appreciating His creation by sight, but knowing Him fully in her heart.
They began to wade through wild grain. Sabine grabbed her waiting basket without letting go of her mother’s arm. “I believe Apenimon’s child is due soon. Perhaps the best tulips will go today as well.”
“What are their colors?” Moeder turned her attention to Sabine’s face, her glazed eyes unable to hold steady on any one point.
Sabine glanced away with a sweeping intake of the masterpiece of their world. “They are the pinks, Moeder. Full and perfect, with identical petals.”
“Ah, that is perfect. A sure sign for our friend Apenimon.” Moeder squeezed her arm. “Pink is a color of health. Like your cheeks as a child. Full of health when I’d watch you on the shore, Sabine.”
“Ho, there!” Papa called out across the water, his usual greeting when the canoe reached the shore. He splashed into the lapping waters and assisted Apenimon with his vessel. The familiar rumble of conversation mixed with hearty laughs stirred anticipation in Sabine’s heart.
“This is the best day, Moeder.”
“It used to be better.” Moeder stabbed the ground with her stick.
“Do not worry. I shall tell you everything, as I always do.”
Once they reached the trading place, smoke from the large crackling fire shrouded the Wyatt brothers’ cart filled with powder, cloth, and various wares from Albany.
“I smell the roast,” Moeder whispered, breathing in deeply as if it were her only chance to savor the scent.
“Everyone is here. Apenimon’s friends are just now arriving around the bend.” Three more canoes crawled along the peaceful waters.
They exchanged goods as the waters lapped like an ocean under a cloudless sky. Once the vermillion sheen splayed from a hidden horizon past the bend, their trade business melted into merriment. Meat roasted, and a whistling flute played a jovial tune—happy enough that Sabine’s serious mother tapped her hand on the top of her guiding stick.
Beyond the flame of the roasting fire, a man strode toward them.
“He’s wearing the British uniform. Perhaps from Albany.” Papa waved as he went out to meet the man.
Apenimon adjusted his red covering over his shoulder after he placed his final wares in his canoe. “I must return soon.”
“Come, I will show you the flowers.” Sabine scooped up her empty basket.
“One day I would like the white ones, Sabine.” Apenimon’s usual comment during this time of year. “White is a color of peace. My tribe’s greatest value.”
“You will have to take that up with Moeder.” Sabine repeated herself with the same suggestion every year also.
“Such a waste to let them sit without being seen.”
“Ah, but she sees them in her heart.” Sabine laid her hand on her own beating heart. Apenimon chuckled, and she raced ahead, keeping a sideways glance in the direction of the stranger. The man removed his hat, releasing a wave of chestnut locks as he nodded to her father and then hesitated, spying Sabine across the rippling plain. She diverted her attention to her clogs as she traipsed toward her garden. Apenimon trailed behind her.
“That man is staring at you,” he sniggered.
“Perhaps he’s staring at you,” she retorted with a playful smirk. But her gaze crashed into the man’s line of sight. He tipped his hat in her direction.
She pressed her hand to the laces of her bodice involuntarily, trying to contain a frenzy of unexpected flutters. She’d never experienced this feeling before. How could the attention of one man bring about such a disturbance within her?
Had Sabine discovered a layer to her flesh she’d never known? She looked away from the handsome stranger, uncertain that she could allow him to have such an uninvited effect on her.
An exhilarating current rushed through Lieutenant Jacob Bennington’s veins. Even if the longstanding Lieutenant Wilson of Fort Burnet did not appreciate an equal peer, Jacob was glad to be in this territory. He was one step closer to life with his little girl.
This evening, Jacob could not keep his eyes off of the exchange between the Dutchman’s daughter and that native. There seemed to be some kinship between them. Mr. Van Der Berg offered him a roasted turkey leg and a mug of ale.
“Your daughter speaks their language?”
“Aye. Apenimon also knows English. Sabine began learning his language not long after she learned our own. And any French she knows is also from Apenimon.” His face was lit with some sort of admiration. A father’s pride. Jacob knew that feeling well, and his heart ached for little Amelia.
As he ate his dinner, he listened more than spoke. He was there for a purpose and soon wondered at this odd family settled in the shadow of Fort Burnet. They seemed more allied to the natives than even the twenty men who’d been stationed under Governor Clark’s appointment. Perhaps they would be key in solidifying a secure loyalty to the British.
After they said farewell to the natives, Jacob was able to find a moment to speak with the trader’s daughter.
“It seems that my crew and I are here for such a time as this,” he exclaimed, holding out his hand to help escort her around the dying fire. Her father gathered up their newly traded furs. Her mother gripped tightly to her father’s arm. The blind woman seemed to scowl more than smile. But her daughter held a different expression of neither bitterness nor joy. Her eyes flashed with skepticism in the silvery moonlight.
“Such a time as this?” Her hand slipped away as soon as she was steady on her feet and she retrieved her lamp. “There is nothing we need, sir. All is well for us. What is it that you speak of?”
“You do have quite a life here, one that is nothing like the stories told in Albany of the ruthless savages and the reckless adventurers of this wild place.”
She examined her parents. Her father began to douse the fire. “Why yes, civilized gentleman, we are reckless indeed.” By her own lamplight he saw her eyes roll and her disapproval grow deep in the tweaked corner of her mouth. “What exactly is your business here, besides spying on what Governor Clark believes is his reach?”
Jacob resisted a guffaw at such an ornery attitude in this woman. “Progress.” He pulled his shoulders back and surveyed the broad shore and the dark canopy of sky above. “Do not worry about my business. It is an inevitable task to which I am assigned. Once it is complete, my life shall begin.” He laid his eyes upon her. “But until then, Miss Van Der Berg, your work is much more intriguing to me.” He nodded toward the sound of distant lapping of oars on the water. “Tell me, how difficult was learning to speak those men’s language?”
“To me, it is no more trying than leading a blind soul along this land. You listen, learn, and adapt. Do you care to speak with them?”
“They are important as to why I am here.”
“Ah, as am I, so you say. It seems like you are more in the business of depending too much on strangers than doing what you will to get on with your life.” She held up her light, and its sheen bounced weakly off the neat logs of their cabin in the distance. “Do not depend on us, sir. We are settled. I pray your business here is swift and we can
all return to life as we have lived it.”
Chapter 2
The morning light seeped above the eastern edge of their world. Sabine placed a fur on Moeder’s lap. The woman sat on the porch, erect like a soldier.
“What do you hear?” Sabine knew well the posture of her mother’s listening. Their early morning watches mostly began this way—Moeder propped in her rocker, waiting for the hot spiced tea Sabine prepared over the fire. Unless the porch was piled with snow in the winter, they hardly missed a sunrise.
“I hear the sandpiper. The heat must be coming.”
Sabine wrapped Moeder’s fingers around the wooden mug then sat on the stool next to her, cradling her own mug in her lap. “A good morning for such a prediction. The milkweed is in full bloom, the sky is clear, and the sun is bright.”
“What else?”
“A mirror to the heavens. Not one crease or stain.”
“Perfect, is it?”
“Aye. Like your first day.”
“My first day.” Whimsical tones bleated from her scratchy throat. “I walked beside the cart, my back sore from sitting. You were curled up on the floor between the bags of flour and sacks of bulbs. The vastness of the green and the towering trees along the crest whispered home to me. Untouched, with no filth in the streets or crowds of people. Purely God’s garden. The only place I’d choose to see for the last time.”
And she had. The greens and silvers and tall trees guarding the western edge of civilization colored her final views.
“The painting in your mind has not one flaw, Moeder. All is the same, all is—”
The loud bellow of men shook the quiet morning.
“Is that the men from Albany?”
“I shall see.”
Sabine set her mug on her stool and stepped into the early light. She snaked around the water barrel and approached the corner of their square home. On the riverbank several men dragged their batoes and canoes toward the existing fort.
Lieutenant Bennington appeared at the entrance, adjusting his coat and straightening his hat. He waved a hand to the men, then took long, confident strides toward the Van Der Bergs’s garden.
Sabine matched his gait and met him at the corner.
“Good morning, sir.” She curtsied. Pushing open the knee-high gate, she planted herself between the remaining blooms of tulips and the curious lieutenant. “The garden is a fine place to start for breakfast, but Father will have fish roasting in no time.”
Lieutenant Bennington rubbed his jaw. “ ’Tis a fine morning. And this is a fine garden.” “Fine” seemed an understatement to Sabine. The garden stretched twice the width of their home and marched along the wooded border with towering blackberry shrubs, rows upon rows of corn, all guided by the hand of Apenimon’s mother. The garden was a world in itself—a broad and established covenant between the Van Der Bergs and their friends, the Iroquois. “You are right, Miss Van Der Berg—I believe your father’s bounty will be far more satisfying than what the soil might provide.” He studied the entire length of the western fence and then turned his attention to the span of the northern fence—the pickets that bordered all four varieties of colorful tulips, now lining the barren ground after their trade. “I wonder, how attached are you to this plot?”
“Excuse me?”
“We are staking out our walls to expand the fort, Miss Van Der Berg. It makes the most sense that our western wall sit right about—” He narrowed his eyes in the direction of their cabin. “Here.” His chopping hand sliced the air above their garden fence.
Sabine’s mouth fell, and she only stared at him.
“The cabin will be safe within our walls.”
She clamped her mouth shut, her mind whirring against his audacity. “Sir, we have lived a peaceful life. There is no need to be walled up against—”
“Walled up? Nay, only protecting you. This cabin is in quite a vulnerable position.”
His charming smile and puffed chest appeared to express an undercurrent of heroism—a trait that Sabine recalled from Moeder’s bedtime tales. Yet Sabine was often perplexed by the simple ending of being swept off one’s feet by another human being. She preferred Apenimon’s true stories about peace treaties among the tribes, where each member was cared for and caring for the other.
“Sir, we have not had one encounter that would require help from you, the governor, or even the King himself. I beg you to reconsider swallowing up our plot.” She choked back a strained tone of panic. “My mother—she has come to terms with her blindness because nothing her eyes have once seen has changed. There is great comfort in that. She is content in her mind’s eye.” Sabine’s heart clouded with the memory of gloomy bouts of Moeder deep in agony over her lost sight. “That has not always been the case.”
Lieutenant Bennington’s eyes glazed. “There is nothing in this life but change.” The low rumble of men’s voices carried from beyond the old fort, and Moeder’s rocking chair creaked in the distance. But all the sounds were fading against the loud pounding in Sabine’s ears.
“This is not negotiable, sir.” Sabine crossed her arms. “We will not be part of your—”
“Sabine!” Apenimon called from the forest’s edge. He stared at the lieutenant but waved his hand for Sabine to come closer.
“Pardon me.” She lifted her hem, stepped around the bean plants, and exited through the far western gate. Her conversation with Lieutenant Bennington clawed at her as she hurried toward her friend. She had turned her back on the first danger she’d ever known.
“What does that man speak with you about?” Apenimon continued to stare beyond her. He was her good watch.
“They come to build a fortress.”
“Here? With Niagra just beyond the bend?”
“The British must match the French, I guess.”
Apenimon now shifted his gaze to Sabine. Ashen circles encompassed his brown eyes, and while he searched hers for an explanation, she blinked several times and concerned herself with his visit. “Is anything the matter?”
A dance of sunlight seemed to brighten his face, and he hooked his thumbs on his leather belt adorned with shells. “He has come.”
Sabine’s heart leapt. “He has?”
“Yes!” Apenimon tossed his long ebony braid behind his shoulder and laughed toward the heavens. “Come, come.” He retreated into the wood, skipping between the hickory trees, casting a longing in Sabine’s direction that she could not resist. She turned around, waved a hand at Lieutenant Bennington, and added, “Please wait, and we shall settle the matter soon,” then ran up to the lean-to and traded her wooden shoes for her moccasins. Gathering her skirt in one hand so it would not catch on any fallen branches or block her view of any forest creatures, she began running after Apenimon.
Only when they came to the walls of the village did she realize they were being followed.
Jacob caught Miss Van Der Berg’s eye as she approached a tall timber palisade atop a terrace. The entrance was flanked by tulips—her tulips. Smoke snaked beyond the fortification, and the sounds of drums and voices mingled with birdsong and forest rustling.
“Miss Van Der Berg?”
She paused. “You followed me.”
Several native women appeared from rows of crops at the southern edge of the palisade. Miss Van Der Berg waved to them, and they returned to their work. Yet their heads turned his way more than once, and their scrutiny burned like the scorching sun.
He scrambled up the terrace. “Perhaps your aversion to protection has given you a reckless abandon, Miss Van Der Berg. I warn you that this type of behavior will not sit well once we are built up.”
She ran her hand along the wooden wall. “Sir, there is no danger here. These are our friends. Lieutenant Wilson should have informed you.”
Her friend Apenimon, who’d appeared earlier, now stood at the entrance. He wore a hide draped on one shoulder, and the other was muscular and bare. His words to Miss Van Der Berg were unintelligible to Jacob. The woman replied w
ith the same tongue, then signaled for Jacob to follow.
A rush of excitement burst in his chest. The simple task of expanding their presence in this region was unexpectedly cast aside in Jacob’s loyal heart to Albany. He would mingle among the men he’d only heard about from traders who bragged about their expeditions. Before his arrival to America, he’d heard tall tales of these people from sea captains. Witnessing the secure alliance with the Iroquois among the settlers of Oswego would be a prized account in his first letter to the governor.
When he stepped inside their fortress, the wafting smell of roasting meat warmed his nostrils. Miss Van Der Berg and the native crossed a clearing flanked with lines of beaver skins and dyed textiles. They approached a long, narrow dwelling that spanned the entire width of the clearing. The roof was curved, and neat rows upon rows of bark and sticks deemed the structure securely built. A child appeared in the doorway and ran up to Miss Van Der Berg. The young woman held out her hand, and the child took it, swinging her arm back and forth.
With eyes only upon the boy, she said, “You should wait outside the longhouse, Lieutenant. I will tell the clan mother that you are a friend.”
A sweaty film coated the back of Jacob’s neck. Clan mother? He wondered where the chief might be and if he should have a proper introduction so as not to stir up unnecessary hostility. But Apenimon very nearly ignored his presence. When Miss Van Der Berg disappeared inside the building with the child, Apenimon just stood at the entrance, his eyes diverted to the ground just beyond Jacob’s boots.
He was being guarded.
During the next half hour, men brought fish to a central fire, speaking to Apenimon at the entrance of the longhouse. They stared at Jacob with arms crossed, and then each man spoke a word—Jacob assumed their names, and his assumption was confirmed when Apenimon spoke his also. He studied Sabine’s friend, wondering if he would speak English. Mr. Van Der Berg had mentioned that he knew English, and French, but all he spoke was his name. The men looked at each other, smiled, then offered the same cordial expressions to Jacob. He returned the pleasantry but felt nervous in his vulnerable position. Miss Van Der Berg appeared again, her face red with elation, demystifying his anxiety. Apenimon relaxed, and the two conversed. She signaled for Jacob to follow her once again, and they left the settlement. Two men nearly plowed into them. They were both adorned in a mix of native hide and the blasted French uniform. One approached the palisade and conversed with a young man at the entrance. The other tipped his hat to Miss Van Der Berg and said, “Bonjour, mademoiselle.” He eyed Jacob. “Il est votre ami?”
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