A Breath of Snow and Ashes (114 page)

She couldn’t prevent a similar shiver, looking at the massive creature. It towered above them, grim and awful, and only her knowledge of what it was kept her from wanting to cower and run.

“It’s real,” she repeated, as much to reassure herself as him. “And it’s dead.
Really
dead.”

“How d’ye know these things?” he asked, intently curious. “It’s auld, ye say. You’d be much further away from—that”—he jerked his chin at the giant skeleton—“in your own time than we are now. How can ye ken more about it than folk do now?”

She shook her head, smiling a little, and helpless to explain.

“When did you find this, Ian?”

“Last month. I came up the gorge”—he gestured with his chin—“and there it was. I near beshit myself.”

“I can imagine,” she said, stifling an urge to laugh.

“Aye,” he said, not noticing her amusement in his desire to explain. “I should have been sure that it was Rawenniyo—a spirit, a god—save for the dog.”

Rollo had climbed out of the stream, and having shaken the water from his fur, was squirming on his back in a patch of crushed turtlehead, tail wagging in pleasure, and clearly oblivious to the silent giant in the cliff above.

“What do you mean? That Rollo wasn’t afraid of it?”

Ian nodded.

“Aye. He didna behave as though there were anything there at all. And yet . . .” He hesitated, darting a glance at her. “Sometimes, in the wood. He—he
sees
things. Things I canna see. Ken?”

“I ken,” she said, a ripple of unease returning. “Dogs do see . . . things.” She remembered her own dogs; in particular, Smoky, the big Newfoundland, who would sometimes in the evening suddenly raise his head, listening, hackles rising as his eyes followed . . . something . . . that passed through the room and disappeared.

He nodded, relieved that she knew what he was talking about.

“They do. I ran, when I saw that”—he nodded at the cliff—“and ducked behind a tree. But the dog went on about his business, paying it no mind. And so I thought, well, just maybe it’s no what I think, after all.”

“And what did you think?” she asked. “A Rawenniyo, you said?” As the excitement of seeing the mammoth began to recede, she remembered what they were theoretically doing here. “Ian—you said what you wanted to show me had to do with your wife. Is this—” She gestured toward the cliff, brows raised.

He didn’t answer directly, but tilted his head back, studying the jut of the giant tusks.

“I heard stories, now and then. Among the Mohawk, I mean. They’d speak of strange things that someone found, hunting. Spirits trapped in the rock, and how they came to be there. Evil things, for the most part. And I thought to myself, if that should be what this is . . .”

He broke off and turned to her, serious and intent.

“I needed ye to tell me, aye? Whether that’s what it is or no. Because if it was, then perhaps what I’ve been thinking is wrong.”

“It’s not,” she assured him. “But what on earth have you been thinking?”

“About God,” he said, surprising her again. He licked his lips, unsure how to go on.

“Yeksa’a—the child. I didna have her christened,” he said. “I couldna. Or perhaps I could—ye can do it yourself, ken, if there’s no priest. But I hadna the courage to try. I—never saw her. They’d wrapped her already. . . . They wouldna have liked it, if I’d tried to . . .” His voice died away.

“Yeksa’a,” she said softly. “Was that your—your daughter’s name?”

He shook his head, his mouth twisting wryly.

“It only means ‘wee girl.’ The Kahnyen’kehaka dinna give a name to a child when it’s born. Not until later. If . . .” His voice trailed off, and he cleared his throat. “If it lives. They wouldna think of naming a child unborn.”

“But you did?” she asked gently.

He raised his head and took a breath that had a damp sound to it, like wet bandages pulled from a fresh wound.

“Iseabaìl,” he said, and she knew it was the first—perhaps would be the only—time he’d spoken it aloud. “Had it been a son, I would ha’ called him Jamie.” He glanced at her, with the shadow of a smile. “Only in my head, ken.”

He let out all his breath then with a sigh and put his face down upon his knees, back hunched.

“What I am thinking,” he said after a moment, his voice much too controlled, “is this. Was it me?”

“Ian! You mean your fault that the baby died? How could it be?”

“I left,” he said simply, straightening up. “Turned away. Stopped being a Christian, being Scots. They took me to the stream, scrubbed me wi’ sand to take away the white blood. They gave me my name—Okwaho’kenha—and said I was Mohawk. But I wasna, not really.”

He sighed deeply again, and she put a hand on his back, feeling the bumps of his backbone press through the leather of his shirt. He didn’t eat nearly enough, she thought.

“But I wasna what I had been, either,” he went on, sounding almost matter-of-fact. “I tried to be what they wanted, ken? So I left off praying to God or the Virgin Mother, or Saint Bride. I listened to what Emily said, when she’d tell me about
her
gods, the spirits that dwell in the trees and all. And when I went to the sweat lodge wi’ the men, or sat by the hearth and heard the stories . . . they seemed as real to me as Christ and His saints ever had.”

He turned his head and looked up at her suddenly, half-bewildered, half-defiant.

“I am the Lord thy God,”
he said.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
But I did, no? That’s mortal sin, is it not?”

She wanted to say no, of course not. Or to protest weakly that she was not a priest, how could she say? But neither of those would do; he was not looking for easy reassurance, and a weak-minded abnegation of responsibility would not serve him.

She took a deep breath and blew it out. It had been a good many years since she’d been taught the Baltimore Catechism, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you forget.

“The conditions of mortal sin are these,” she said, reciting the words precisely from memory. “First, that the action be grievously wrong. Secondly, that you know the action is wrong. And thirdly—that you give full consent to it.”

He was watching her intently.

“Well, it was wrong, and I suppose I kent that—aye, I
did
ken that. Especially—” His face darkened further, and she wondered what he was recalling.

“But . . . how should I serve a God who would take a child for her father’s sins?” Without waiting for an answer, he glanced toward the cliff face, where the remains of the mammoth lay frozen in time. “Or was it them? Was it not my God at all, but the Iroquois spirits? Did they ken I wasna really Mohawk—that I held back a part of myself from them?”

He looked back at her, dead serious.

“Gods are jealous, are they no?”

“Ian . . .” She swallowed, helpless. But she had to say something.

“What you did—or didn’t do—that wasn’t wrong, Ian,” she said firmly. “Your daughter . . . she was half-Mohawk. It wasn’t wrong to let her be buried according to her mother’s ways. Your wife—Emily—she would have been terribly upset, wouldn’t she, if you’d insisted on baptizing the baby?”

“Aye, maybe. But . . .” He closed his eyes, hands clenched hard into fists on his thighs. “Where is she, then?” he whispered, and she could see tears trembling on his lashes. “The others—they were never born; God will have them in His hand. But wee Iseabaìl—she’ll not be in heaven, will she? I canna bear the thought that she—that she might be . . . lost, somewhere. Wandering.”

“Ian . . .”

“I hear her, greeting. In the night.” His breath was coming in deep, sobbing gasps. “I canna help, I canna find her!”

“Ian!” The tears were running down her own cheeks. She gripped his wrists fiercely, squeezed as hard as she could. “Ian, listen to me!”

He drew a deep, trembling breath, head bent. Then he nodded, very slightly.

She rose onto her knees and gathered him tight against her, his head cradled on her breasts. Her cheek pressed against the top of his head, his hair warm and springy against her mouth.

“Listen to me,” she said softly. “I had another father. The man who raised me. He’s dead now.” For a long time now, the sense of desolation at his loss had been muted, softened by new love, distracted by new obligations. Now it swept over her, newly fresh, and sharp as a stab wound in its agony. “I know—I know he’s in heaven.”

Was he? Could he be dead and in heaven, if not yet born? And yet he was dead to her, and surely heaven took no heed of time.

She lifted her face toward the cliff, but spoke to neither bones nor God.

“Daddy,” she said, and her voice broke on the word, but she held her cousin hard. “Daddy, I need you.” Her voice sounded small, and pathetically unsure. But there was no other help to be had.

“I need you to find Ian’s little girl,” she said, as firmly as she could, trying to summon her father’s face, to see him there among the shifting leaves at the clifftop. “Find her, please. Hold her in your arms, and make sure that she’s safe. Take—please take care of her.”

She stopped, feeling obscurely that she should say something else, something more ceremonious. Make the sign of the cross? Say “amen”?

“Thank you, Daddy,” she said softly, and cried as though her father were newly dead, and she bereft, orphaned, lost, and crying in the night. Ian’s arms were wrapped around her, and they clung tight together, squeezing hard, the warmth of the late sun heavy on their heads.

She stood still within his arms when she stopped crying, her head resting on his shoulder. He patted her back, very gently, but didn’t push her away.

“Thank you,” he whispered in her ear. “Are ye all right, Brianna?”

“Uh-huh.” She straightened and stood away from him, swaying a little, as though she were drunk. She felt drunk, too, her bones gone soft and malleable, everything around her faintly out of focus, save for certain things that caught her eye: a brilliant patch of pink lady’s slipper, a stone fallen from the cliff face, its surface streaked red with iron. Rollo, almost sitting on Ian’s foot, big head pressed anxiously against his master’s thigh.

“Are
you
all right, Ian?” she asked.

“I will be.” His hand sought Rollo’s head, and gave the pointed ears a cursory rub of reassurance. “Maybe. Just . . .”

“What?”

“Are ye . . . are ye sure, Brianna?”

She knew what he was asking; it was a question of faith. She drew herself up to her full height, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“I’m a Roman Catholic and I believe in vitamins,” she declared stoutly. “And I knew my father. Of course I’m sure.”

He took a deep, sighing breath and his shoulders slumped as he let it out. He nodded then, and the lines of his face relaxed a little.

She left him sitting on a rock, and made her way down to the stream to splash cold water on her face. The shadow of the cliff fell across the creek and the air was cold with the scents of earth and pine trees. In spite of the chill, she remained there for a while, on her knees.

She could still hear the voices murmuring in trees and water, but paid no attention to them. Whoever they were, they were no threat to her or hers—and not at odds with the presence that she felt so strongly nearby.

“I love you, Daddy,” she whispered, closing her eyes, and felt at peace.

Ian must be better, too, she thought, when she made her way at length back through the rocks to where he sat. Rollo had left him to investigate a promising hole at the foot of a tree, and she knew the dog wouldn’t have left Ian, had he considered his master to be in distress.

She was about to ask him whether their business here was complete, when he stood up, and she saw that it wasn’t.

“Why I brought ye here,” he said abruptly. “I wanted to know about that—” He nodded at the mammoth. “But I meant to ask ye a question. Advice, like.”

“Advice? Ian, I can’t give you any advice! How could I tell you what to do?”

“I think ye’re maybe the only one who can,” he said with a lopsided smile. “You’re my family, you’re a woman—and ye care for me. Yet ye ken more even than Uncle Jamie, perhaps, because of who—or what”—his mouth twisted a little—“ye are.”

“I don’t know more,” she said, and looked up at the bones in the rock. “Only—different things.”

“Aye,” he said, and took a deep breath.

“Brianna,” he said very softly. “We’re no wed—we never shall be.” He looked away for an instant, then back. “But if we
had
been marrit, I should have loved ye and cared for ye, so well as I could. I trust you, that ye’d have done the same by me. Am I right?”

“Oh, Ian.” Her throat was still thick, raspy with grief; the words came out in a whisper. She touched his face, cool-skinned and bony, and traced the line of tattooed dots with a thumb. “I love you now.”

“Aye, well,” he said still softly. “I ken that.” He lifted a hand and put it over her own, big and hard. He pressed her palm against his cheek for a moment, then his fingers closed over hers and he brought their linked hands down, but didn’t let go.

“So tell me,” he said, his eyes not leaving hers. “If ye love me, tell me what I shall do. Shall I go back?”

“Back,” she repeated, searching his face. “Back to the Mohawk, you mean?”

He nodded.

“Back to Emily. She loved me,” he said quietly. “I ken that. Did I do wrong, to let the old woman send me away? Ought I to go back, maybe fight for her, if I had to? Perhaps see if she would come away wi’ me, back to the Ridge.”

“Oh, Ian.” She felt the same sense of helplessness as before, though this time it came without the burden of her own grief. But who was she to tell him anything? How could she be responsible for making that decision for him—for saying to him, stay, or go?

His eyes stayed steady on her face, though, and it came over her—she was his family. And so the responsibility lay in her hands, whether she felt adequate to it or not.

Her chest felt tight, as though she might burst if she took a deep breath. She took it anyway.

“Stay,” she said.

He stood looking into her eyes for a long time, his own deep hazel, gold-flecked and serious.

“You could fight him—Ahk . . .” She fumbled for the syllables of the Mohawk name. “Sun Elk. But you can’t fight her. If she’s made up her mind that she doesn’t want to be with you anymore . . . Ian, you can’t change it.”