A Flight of Arrows (38 page)

William blinked at him, mouth agape. “Why?”

If their father was taken aback by the question, he hid it as he looked searchingly at William. “Is this not a thing you wish me to do?”

Two Hawks, who very much wished to find Aubrey, said, “We must try—”

Stone Thrower put a hand to his shoulder, silencing him, still addressing his brother. “I have forgiven Aubrey for taking you from us. He also has repented in his heart of this bad thing. He is making his peace with Creator over it—inside that fort he started on that good path. Since then we have fought side by side. I will not abandon him, though he bid me do so.”

William absorbed this in stunned silence, then seemed to come to some conclusion; resolution gripped his features. “Why then do we linger? The Senecas who took him may still be at their siege camp, at the fort.”

Two Hawks tensed, surprised by his brother's eagerness for action, ready himself to more than match it. But William had taken that blow, was clearly still in pain and weakened. Was he able to leap up and rush from the lodge? Two Hawks looked to their father, who didn't argue over whether William was fit for such a journey.

“I knew the face of one of those who took Aubrey captive,” Stone Thrower said. “It may be he will remember me. You,” he said to Two Hawks, “stay with your brother and wait for the women to come. I will go to the Senecas at the fort and find that one I—”

“I go with you!” Two Hawks said, and meant it. He would not be pushed aside again. Not this time.

“And I,” William added as emphatically, surprising them by lurching to his feet and staying on them. “I'll not be left behind.”

August 6, 1777

Kanowalohale

N
ot until the violent rain that drove them inside the lodge, when Good Voice mentioned in passing that the girl's mother was worried, had Anna owned to knowing where Strikes-The-Water had gone—after Clear Day. With intention, Anna thought, of joining the battle if there was one. Hearing this, Good Voice had sat quiet in thought, then said, “If armies come together at that fort, wounded may be brought to Oriska. If not, we will get news there. We need not wait for it to find us here any more than that one has done.”

With Lydia's consent, they'd gathered belongings and medicines, waited for the rain to taper off, then saddled the horses. They set out on the trail to the town near the Mohawk River where they hoped to find Clear Day and Strikes-The-Water. Perhaps even Two Hawks and Stone Thrower.

Evening was coming on when a rider on a lathered horse met them on the trail. Good Voice knew her: Two-Kettles-Together, wife of a warrior called Honyery. She brought word of ambuscade and battle, terrible and desperate. White men had killed one another. Red men had killed one another. Whether Two Hawks or Stone Thrower were among those killed she didn't know, though she'd seen Two Hawks in the fighting early on. Streaked with grime and blood, she was riding out to spread the news: the British and Senecas had retreated to the fort with their wounded;
Herkimer's militia and Oneida warriors limped eastward, bringing off their wounded to Oriska. The fort was still besieged by St. Leger's army.

Who had won the battle she couldn't say. “Maybe no one. So many dead.” Two-Kettles-Together rode on to Kanowalohale, leaving them to press on toward Oriska with a mounting dread of what they would find there. Or fail to find.

Soon after, as fireflies were winking in thickets, Strikes-The-Water appeared around a bend in the trail, on foot and running. The moment she saw Good Voice, she called out in Oneida. Anna deciphered enough to grasp what was shouted: “He is safe! Your son—both your sons. They are together at Oriska with your husband and his uncle. They sent me to bring you to them!”

Their hearts lifted as if on eagles' wings, but they arrived at the village only to have those same hearts dashed to the ground. Stone Thrower, Two Hawks, and William were gone. As Clear Day explained why, Anna feared she would follow her heart to the ground with the shock and dismay.

“Reginald…?” Hearing her father's name uttered on a devastated gasp, she turned to see that Lydia had beaten her to it.

Private William Aubrey brushed at his grubby regimental coat, turned green side out now. Realizing the pointlessness of such action given the general state of things, he desisted and stepped from the shadowed forest into what remained of Sir John Johnson's camp. A sea of ravaged tents lay in crumpled heaps, torn and burned. Battle-weary Yorkers sifted the wreckage. A few fires were lit despite the lack of provisions; much of the regimental baggage had been stolen. Around the fires clustered men nursing wounds and grievances, spent from battle, dispirited and brooding. Some wept openly while others stared with blank and haunted eyes. Few looked up to note William's passing. Making no attempt at concealment,
he strode through camp catching snatches of complaints as he passed, confirming what his father and brother had told him as they made their way in dusk-fall from Oriska. Stanwix's second-in-command had led a sortie from the fort on the heels of that torrential rain. Lieutenant Singleton and the other wounded were now prisoners within its walls. The brigade's stolen flag and regimental colors hung beneath the fort's flag. An open taunt.

William dismissed a wrench of indignation at the disgrace. He was in the camp for two reasons, one of which lay before him now—his own mess tent, plundered and empty. He'd come for the Welsh bow, but other hands had been before him.

As he stood reconciling himself to the loss, the night erupted with a sound he hadn't heard since the blow that knocked him senseless. From the southwest, where their camp lay, the howls of enraged Indians lifted the hairs at his nape.

“Is that ye, Aubrey?”

He spun round. Robbie MacKay stood behind him, bundled canvas in his arms. In the flickered glow of the nearest fire, Robbie's face was haggard. He'd a gash across one cheek that would scar badly, but seemed otherwise whole.

“I'm glad to see ye made it, Aubrey. I lost sight o' ye and feared the worst.”

“As did I, for a time.” William gave the story they'd agreed upon should he be asked; left wounded on the field, he'd escaped the ravine and made his way back on his own—a reality doubtless unfolding a hundred times over as they spoke. “I've lost my musket, everything else it seems.” He gestured at the tent's remains. He wouldn't speak of his second errand. Not to Robbie, whose gaze went to William's bared head, hair still crusted with blood.

“Come awa' then, we'll get ye looked after. I'm helping wi' the wounded.”

Wounded William was, though he'd made light of it. They'd tried to leave him at Oriska with the old man, his father's uncle, but he'd refused. He heaved a breath through his nose. “I don't need tending, see. I'll be fine.”

Robbie raised an appeasing hand, mistaking the exasperation as aimed at him. “Oh, aye. As ye wish. I'm just glad to see ye living.”

It would likely be the last time, if William left that camp again. And he would leave it, whether or not he found Reginald Aubrey among Johnson's prisoners. Somewhere in the dark between Oriska and this moment he'd made his choice—never mind which side of his coat was facing out.
Father, brother, uncle. Mother
. And Anna nearby as well. He didn't know where he belonged as yet, but it wasn't in an army coming to annihilate them all.

“Robbie, bide a moment.” The youngest MacKay turned back, swaying a little. “Did Captain Watts make it out of that ravine?”

Grief shadowed Robbie's beardless face. “They think he's dead. Maybe captured. We dinna ken.”

William felt a churning in his gut. Watts was a good man. “Campbell?”

“Him? Dead sure. Saw wi' me own eyes.” There was no sorrow for Campbell in his expression, but Robbie went a whiter shade of pale as he spoke; the shouting from the Indian camp had reached a crescendo. A furious sound, mixed with grief. “Whatever ye do, Aubrey, keep awa' from that lot. Pray they dinna turn on us next.”

William's confusion must have shown.

“Right. Ye wouldna ken. Their camp was looted worse than ours—clothes, silver, wampum bundles, blankets. Their shelters are burned, their women and children chased awa'.” Robbie's gaze went over him. “Find yourself a firearm if ye can, and mind it weel tonight.”

William had a firearm. On the long trek back they'd stumbled upon corpses fallen in the wood. One had had a rifle by, half buried in leaves. It
was in his brother's keeping, back in the thicket where his twin and their father awaited him. Likely with thinning patience. He must do the other thing for which he'd ventured back into this ravaged camp. Find where Johnson had put his prisoners and see whether, by some miracle, Reginald Aubrey was among them.

“I'll do that, Robbie,” he said, and turned away.

Their father had waited until his brother headed for the Royal Yorker camp before revealing the rest of his plan—to go alone into the Seneca camp to look for Reginald Aubrey while William searched among Johnson's prisoners. Alarmed by the tumult issuing from that camp, Two Hawks had argued against it, but Stone Thrower was as stubbornly set as William had been at Oriska. Now they were each alone, Stone Thrower off to the howling Senecas, William to his regiment, Two Hawks awaiting their return, uncertain if his father would make it back alive or if his brother would choose to return.

Two Hawks recalled his brother lurching to his feet, determined they not leave him behind, his father's usually stoic face cracking like an eggshell, all his heart for his firstborn—pride, fear, hope—leaking through. He'd agreed to William's coming, though Two Hawks suspected he had a plan in mind should William prove too weakened by his injury to continue—sending him back to Oriska with Two Hawks's help. But his brother had seemed to gain in strength as they made their way back along forest trails in the falling night, skirting the terrible ravine.