She thought she felt the ground tremble beneath her feet, yet it might have been only the pounding of her pulse as she faced the deserters. Appearing even more unkempt as they came into close view, she held her ground and refused to flinch. They would expect some fading delicate flower and they would be sorely disappointed.
“This yer place, Miss?” the first one barked, none too politely. It appeared they would not waste time with pleasantries. He was a sallow faced man, his skin jaundiced over a scurvy twisted smile, the typical appearance of many of the English who were bereft of essential foods in their diets. She wondered if they deserted due to starvation, or if they were just disloyal dimwits who thought the grass was greener elsewhere.
“Yes, it is. I’m afraid you missed the path to town. It’s back the way you came,” she said. Her voice was loud and did not waver, even as the two men exchanged surly grins. The second man had the sleeves of his dull maroon coat rolled up to his elbows, the front hanging open like a slack jawed caricature. She noticed all the brass buttons were missing, likely sold or traded, marking them as men who had truly abandoned their honor. No loyal English solider would present himself in such a way.
“Aye. We know the way,” the first man answered. They dismounted and the scurvy marked man walked toward her. She held her ground.
“Then take it. You have no business here.”
The first man laughed. His teeth were brown nubs jutting from his gums.
“Ye have some new corn here, I think we might relieve ye of it. Does that spark yer pleasure, Mistress?” he smirked. He plucked a young ear from the stalk and broke it in two, sniffing it with his bulbous nose.
“Take it then and go. We have nothing else for you,” she said. At her words the first man perked up. She bit the inside of her lower lip when he reached out to her, taking the end of her braid in his hand. He studied it, then directed his gaze down at her clothes, his muddy brown eyes lighting up as he considered her. She wore her cotton shift belted over a short buckskin skirt, typical to the Indians who traded with the English.
“Yer dressed like a squaw? Where’s yer people now, squaw?” he taunted, pulling down hard on her braid. She jerked backward and he released her hair, but he snatched her arm before she could get further away. She saw the flash of a flame and the scent of thick smoke filled her nostrils as the corn was set on fire. It ignited quickly, so fast that she could feel the lick of the heat on her skin.
“Leave off ‘er, Milt! We have no time fer this! I don’t need any savages following us!” The other man snapped. Milt apparently had other intentions.
“Unhand me unless you want to lose those fingers,” Maggie said, her words brave even as she felt hope of escaping trickle away. He raised one brow at her threat, and then struck her square in the cheek with his closed fist.
She crumpled to her knees as her head exploded in throbbing pain and her vision began to swirl. Oh, Jesus, she thought. Please let the others be safe.
The first man protested as his companion grabbed her by the hair, jerking her head backward until she cried out.
“Oh, a brave one, are ye?”
She tried to scramble backward but he shook her, his fingers tangled in her braid. Unwanted tears fell onto her cheeks as she choked back a sob, the skin of her knees rubbed raw in the stony earth. She fumbled for the butt of her knife and found it tucked in the strap at her waist.
When he tried to yank her to her feet she lunged with the knife, stabbing him in the right side of his groin. He screamed and bucked but she held on, twisting the knife deeper as blood began to squirt from the wound. The femoral vein, she thought. It could kill him quickly.
“She stabbed me! The whore sta–”
Milt’s words were cut off and he suddenly slumped down over her, his limp body pinning hers to the ground in a shower of pulsing blood and rancid odor. She pushed furtively at him, scrambling under the weight of his body, her blood soaked fingers slipping uselessly with the effort.
She heard the sounds of struggle yet could not see, familiar voices joining in with uttered threats and another sickening thud. The limp body was pushed off her and two firm hands pulled her up to a sitting position.
“Are you hurt?” Winn asked, shaking her by her shoulders when she did not answer. She stared blankly beyond him at the second man, felled by Chetan’s blade stuck in his temple.
Too much. It was all too much.
Death, danger, something at every turn. She had done nothing but mind her own business tending to her crop, yet somehow she sat bathed in a stranger’s blood and two men lay dead. Perhaps to Winn it was normal. To her, it was not.
“What are you doing out here? I told you to stay away from the fields!” he said through a clenched jaw. “Should I bind you when I leave, will that make you listen?”
She shoved away from her husband.
“I thought–”
“Let me see your wounds,” he growled.
“No,” she whispered. She pushed back with her heels and thrust away from him, away from the blood smeared over his chest, away from the gaping hole in the man’s neck where Winn had sliced his jugular as if gutting a pig. She swallowed down a moan and shrunk away as he reached for her, even as she knew she caused him grief.
Winn sat back on one knee and dropped his hand. She could hear her pulse pounding in her head, or maybe it was the impact of the blow she suffered, she did not know. All she knew right then was that she needed to make it all stop. She needed to get clean.
“Maggie?”
She shook her head and scrambled over to the creek bed, needing to get away from the snap of the flames as her crop burned higher. She crawled into the shallow water and closed her eyes as the cold stream flowed over her. The frigid water numbed her skin, a blessed, consuming sensation to block out the horror of reality.
She heard Winn speak softly to his brother, and the sound of his footsteps as Chetan took the path back to the cottage. She continued to let the water wash over her, sitting cross legged on the pebble flanked stream bed as she began to cry.
“My brave little Fire Heart,” he said, kneeling down beside her in the stream. She stared at her open palms, now faded pink as the current cleansed her skin. He slowly reached out to take her hands and when she did not resist he began to rub them clean.
She watched her husband through her clouded vision. His fingers were gentle upon her flesh, washing away the evidence, his hands firm and familiar on her body.
“I’m not brave,” she whispered.
He took her face into his hands, forcing her to look into his pained blue eyes. It was that which broke her, the dam of tears released by the strength of his touch, the certainty of his words a beacon to hold onto.
“Pishi, yes, you are,” he said softly in return. She allowed him to embrace her, trembling as he pressed her to his chest, her body shuddering with the effort of holding back her tears. He let her rage, as he had once promised he would, no move to stop her when she clutched his chest and hit him with closed fists to vent her despair.
“Why would they do such a thing? What is wrong with men in this time?” she asked, expecting no answer. After all, Winn was a man of his era, unique in many ways, but still a seventeenth century male. Could he ever truly understand how it felt to grow up in another time, then live constrained by centuries old mentality? As much as he tried to sympathize, she suspected it was something one would have to experience to truly appreciate.
“They were cowards, not men.”
She nodded and bent her head to his chest, relaxing her body into his. The pebbles beneath them in the streambed shifted with the weight of their joined bodies and their wet clothes stuck to their skin. They watched in silence as the fire consumed the last of the corn. It was a small crop and it would be finished burning soon.
“I’m ready. We can go now,” she whispered.
They walked beside each other on the path to the cottage, close yet not touching, no further words spoken between them.
Makedewa
Makedewa urged his pony into a gallop toward the cottage, the thick smoke from the flaming corn field burning his eyes. He knew Winn and Chetan had found Maggie, yet he saw no sign of the others. Teyas, the children…or Rebecca.
Rebecca. He would give anything to see a flash of her bright yellow curls, even if she were running away from him as she usually did. In the two years since he had saved her from the Great Assault it was a dance they lived, tenuous friends, yet he knew she still regarded him with suspicion. He did not blame her for her fears as she was wary of all men, and he was, of course, only a man. As his eyes scanned the cottage for any sign of movement, he felt a pang in his chest when there was nothing. Where were they?
“I’ll check the barn,” Marcus called out.
“I’ll see to the house,” Makedewa agreed. He dismounted and left his pony ground-tied. At the door to the cottage he paused, his palm sweating as he placed it against the door. It was ajar.
Silence greeted him. The hearth was cool with not even a wisp of smoke in the ashes, and that meant they had been out in the fields most of the day. One of the shutters, blown loose from its latch, banged against the window with each pass of the faint breeze.
Next to the cold hearth was a red ribbon. As he bent slowly down to retrieve it his hand trembled. It belonged to Rebecca. He had given it to her when they moved to the head right property, a gift he had traded his own copper bands for. He clenched the ribbon in his fist and briefly closed his eyes. As he stood up his eye caught something out of place. The latch to the root cellar stood askew, the rusted ring perched outward instead of flush to the floor. He covered the space in one stride and wrenched the trapdoor open, jumping back when a barrage of screams greeted him.
“It is only me!” he hollered, his voice hoarse as he looked down at them. Teyas clutched Kwetii with a hand over the child’s mouth, and Ahi Kekeleksu stood with his hands planted on his hips in front of Rebecca. The boy abandoned his warrior stance immediately at the sight of Makedewa, and they climbed out of the cellar as Kwetii burst into a fit of screams.
Teyas pecked his cheek with tearful thanks, but it was Rebecca who held his gaze. She was covered in dust from the cellar, her cheeks stained with tears, yet her pale eyes bespoke something he had never seen in her before. When she cleared the last step and threw herself into his arms, he held his hands wide, afraid to touch her. He could feel her heart pounding against his chest and the tremble of her body as she cried. Her fingers clutched his skin almost painfully and it was all he could do to soothe her as he slowly placed his hands around her back. He was not the sort of man to comfort a woman, and in truth he did not know how. Yet for her, he wanted to try.
“Is Maggie safe?” she asked, her face buried in his shoulder. He nodded, words slow to form as he struggled to speak. She was filthy, but the brush of her soft hair on his skin and the scent of her sweet soap caused him to tremble as well. The last time he had held her so close she had been wounded and he had carried her into the cave. In the time since then he had ached with longing to hold her again, never truly believing it would ever happen.
“Winn and Chetan see to her. She lives,” he murmured, his voice strained.
“Did they hurt her?” she whispered. He suspected her meaning, and although he did not know the answer for certain, he shook his head.
“No. She’s fine,” he lied.
Kwetii wailed louder. Teyas bounced the child on her hip and pointed out the window.
“See? There they are, little one, it is fine now,” Teyas said.
Marcus and Chetan walked toward the house, and they could see Winn and Maggie on the trail as well. Ahi Kekeleksu raced out to meet them, greeting their return with a string of uttered war cries. The intent of the boy’s screams meant victory, a hollow utterance in the face of what might have happened.
Rebecca suddenly stiffened and looked up at him, then ducked her chin and backed away. He knew it might be a mistake but he took the chance, catching her fingertips in his hand as she tried to flee. He saw the panic there in her face, her sweet features creased with confusion, but she did not pull away. He opened his other hand where he clutched the red ribbon.
“Here,” he said. He reached around her shoulders, taking care not to touch her further as he tied her hair back at the nape. How he wished to run his hands over her face, to feel her heart beat against his once more. He saw the pulse throbbing below her jaw and the way her eyes widened, and he dropped his hands.
“Go. See Maggie,” he grunted.
She ran out of the cottage, her skirt flapping behind her as she followed Teyas to the others.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 9
Maggie
The sweet burning scent of pepper and fresh boiled meat made Maggie’s stomach ache as she put a spoonful of broth to her lips. It tasted good and would feed them all well later that day. Although she used the last of their precious spice to enhance the flavor of the small amount of venison, it had to be used up. They simply would not have space to take everything with them on their journey south. At least if she used up their meager supply of luxuries, it would not feel so wasteful leaving them behind to scavengers.
The others left her alone most of the morning. Teyas knew her well, and knew when she needed time for reflection. Maggie was accustomed to handling events in stride. Killing, maiming, assault–just another part of living in the time she had chosen as her own. Yes, she had grown adept at dealing with it all, yet sometimes she still needed a bit of space for her own thoughts.
Winn obviously had no such compulsion. She looked up as he entered the cabin. Thankfully, he was alone.
“Is Kwetii with Teyas?” she asked. He dropped his knife onto the table, making a small pile of weapons when he added his bow.
“Yes. They help break down the yehakins.”
“Oh,” she answered.
She bit her lower lip, uncaring of the sting, needing the pinch of reality to bring her back to her senses. Winn had decided they were leaving and once he made his declaration there was no arguing with him. He no longer held the title of War Chief, long lost since his village disbanded after the massacre, yet his every word was still viewed as law by his family. She would not presume to know everything of the ways of his world, but she could not sit silent without voicing her concerns.
“Can’t we wait? At least until spring?”
He sat down on the bench and leaned back against the table. She handed him a pewter mug filled with cold water which he placed to his lips, watching her over the rim as she fidgeted. She crossed her arms over her chest, her foot tapping nervously on the floorboards.
“We must leave now to settle before winter. You know this,” he replied. “I need to see you settled, so I can bring the Paspahegh to safety as well.”
“You’ll have them settle with us?” she asked. There were a dozen odd Paspahegh left that Winn worried about, struggling to remain independent of the conflicts with the settlers. The group had refused to settle with Maggie’s family so close to the English, so leaving their home was meant to ease all their lives. Joining with a larger village would be beneficial to them all.
“If they will. Why do you worry on this?”
“I just wish we could stay in one place, that’s all.”
She pressed the flat of her palm to her aching belly. Her appetite had been erratic since weaning Kwetii, only recently returning over the last few weeks. Although she loved the thought of another child, the reality of enduring another birth when their lives were so uncertain made her afraid. Even if they tried, she was unsure if she were even capable. Her weight had dropped as their food supply dwindled and her menses only came sporadically. They were suffering nearly as much as the English when it came to food. Winn was right; they needed to move on if they were to survive.
He took her hand and pulled her to sit on his lap.
“I think you will like the Nansemond. I have many friends among their
people.”
She settled against his chest.
“Will you still help your uncle?”
He sighed.
“Yes.”
She wanted to argue, but held her tongue. Winn believed remaining loyal to his uncle helped keep them safe. As emissary to the English, he served as a translator and negotiator when either side had need of such. Tensions were past breaking with the English, and she had to admit Winn knew what he was doing by remaining cordial with both sides. Winn tried to limit the dealings as much as possible yet the connection gave him standing in both communities and generally kept them safe from harm, at least most of the time. Incidents like the interaction with the deserters were something that could be neither predicted nor avoided.
“Will it take us long to get there?” she asked.
“If we leave with the sunrise, we should find them by nightfall on the third day. Perhaps more, if the women tire and we must stop.” The corner of his lip turned up in a sly grin. “Your bladder is the size of a walnut, so you tell me.”
She poked him in the ribs as she giggled.
“Only from having your daughter!”
His hand slipped down over her belly as he laughed, one eyebrow raised slightly in question. She shook her head.
“No, it was nothing,” she said softly. She knew he questioned her diminished appetite and occasional bouts of nausea over the last week, but she was certain it was nothing more than weight loss and hunger pangs. Discussing such things as the arrival of her period was still a taboo subject for her, so she was glad when he took her word for it. There was no little Winn brewing in her womb.
“Oh. We must try harder, then, ntehem,” he said. His voice was low and throaty, his breath against her neck sending a shiver down her back. He kissed her ear very softly, his hand caressing the base of her spine as he held her close. It was easy to forget everything when he touched her. His fingers pressed into her flesh, branding her with the magic of his touch, as his lips brushed along her jaw where her pulse beat madly. His heartbeat throbbed under the palm of her hand, steady and sure, her anchor to reality as it all seemed to explode around them.
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