A Newfound Land (34 page)

Chapter 41

It was only for Jenny’s sake that Matthew didn’t throw them out. Ian had given him a quick recapitulation of events while in the privy, and Matthew stood in the doorway and scowled at the Leslies, wishing them gone. Besides, he had other matters to attend to now that he was finally home; foremost among them his wife. He wasn’t sure if it was his glares or the silent presence of the Indian woman that did it, but finally the Leslies caught on and left – none too soon in his opinion.

“What were you thinking of, inviting them to breakfast?” Matthew fell full length across their bed.

“I hoped they’d say no, what with the dangerous heathen still being here,” Alex said.

Matthew drew his brows together. Dangerous? The woman was still in a bad way. He yawned and stretched luxuriously before rolling over on his side to look at his wife. “Your generosity towards Thistledown will serve us well.”

“That’s not why I did it.”

“Nay, of course not, but all the same.” The situation had escalated beyond the point of no return, and he had no doubt in his mind that the coming years would be full of fear and strife. Fools – on both sides – hotheads eager to prove themselves men by slaying a man or two, and the incident some time back when the local militia had killed fourteen Susquehannock in their sleep had not much helped. He shivered and turned to cast a look out of the window. How was he to keep his family and home safe? Tomorrow; he would address that issue tomorrow.

“My back,” he said. “Can you perhaps give me a wee massage?”

Alex helped him out of his breeches and stockings and wrinkled her nose. “Long time since you saw a bath tub, Mr Graham.”

“Aye,” he agreed sleepily, “a very long time.” She patted his bare rump and promised she’d be back with hot water and some towels.

He was almost asleep when she returned, submitting to her ministrations with pleased “mmms”. Only once he was reasonably clean did she pour some oil into her hands and begin to work her way up his back.

“I nearly killed Jones,” Matthew said out of nowhere. “It was that close that I shot him, and no one would ever have known.”

“So, why didn’t you?” Alex concentrated on his right shoulder, making him hiss in protest when she sank her elbow into a particularly sore point.

“Too easy,” he said through gritted teeth. He protested when she used the same elbow technique on his buttocks, but she ignored him, telling him not to be such a baby.

He rolled over on his back once she was done. “He near on shat himself. There he was, taking a wee turn round the camp, and suddenly I pop up before him, pistol in hand.” His fingers had itched with the need to squeeze the trigger, blow a hole through Jones. “It was almost enough to see him so frightened – almost, mind.”

He yawned, overwhelmed by weariness now that he was home safe in his bed, and turned towards her, pillowing his head on her lap. One part of him wanted to bed her, while the other, cock included, suggested it would be best to sleep. He yawned again and nestled closer, all of him relaxing when her hand came down to rest upon his head.

*

Three days later, Qaachow appeared in their yard at dusk, a wild-eyed, desperate Qaachow, far from the controlled man Matthew recalled from their previous meetings.

“My wife!” He gasped. “The village…raided, all dead, so many dead, but my wife, my son—”

“They’re here,” Matthew said. “They’re both fine, aye?”

Qaachow looked about to weep. When Alex came through the door with the Indian wean in her arms, he rushed towards her, coming to a halt when Thistledown followed Alex outside. Two pairs of dark eyes that met, two sets of legs that moved of their own accord, two bodies that for a few seconds fused into one – until an aggravated squeal from the wean had Thistledown turn with a worried frown in the direction of her son.

“Thank you.” Qaachow held his son as if he never intended to let him go.

“You’re welcome,” Alex said. “I’ll fetch you some food; you look as if you could do with it.”

Qaachow bowed in reply, and Matthew was left standing alone with him, two men with weans in their arms.

“Foster brothers.” Qaachow nodded in the direction of Samuel. “Our son and your son.”

Foster brothers? Matthew looked down at his sleeping son, not sure he liked the sound of that.

“I will come for him,” Qaachow said. “When your son is ready to be a man, I will come for him and take him with me that he may do the rites of manhood with my own son.”

Matthew had no idea what to say. It behoved him to keep this man as his friend – in particular given the present situation – and it was obvious Qaachow felt he was presenting Matthew with a gift, a most precious one at that. Strange images of painful initiations popped through his head and made him tighten his hold on Samuel. Before him, Qaachow stood waiting, an avid look on his face, and to his own surprise Matthew nodded. At Qaachow’s insistence, they clasped hands – a formal handshake that felt as binding as a blood vow.

Alex returned with food and drink, she laughed and talked, and all the while Matthew stood silent to the side, his son a heavy weight he couldn’t bring himself to let go. He saw her throw him a look, a concerned frown on her brow, and no sooner had the Indians departed than she came towards him. What he wanted to do was to turn and run; what he did was lead her to their bedchamber and tell her.

“You did what?” Alex stared at him, sinking down to sit on the bed.

“You heard,” Matthew replied, adopting a casual tone. “It will serve Samuel well to have friends among the Indians. So I gave him my word that he can have my son for some time.” And, in exchange, Qaachow had promised Matthew that the home of his – Qaachow’s – foster son would not be harmed by his brethren.

“And for how long will he be gone?” Alex asked with a quaver.

“Some months? A year?” Matthew shrugged. “But not yet; not until he’s twelve.” He twisted at the thought: his son, alone in the woods with Indians.

“No,” Alex said. “I won’t let him. How could you promise him that?”

Matthew fell to his knees beside her. “What was I to do, lass? We need Qaachow’s goodwill. Besides, it probably won’t happen. By the time wee Samuel is old enough, Qaachow will have forgotten.”

“You think?” She gave him a doubtful look.

“I do,” he said, praying that in this he be proved right.

“Oh well then, that’s okay,” Alex mumbled, clutching her son to her chest.

“Qaachow is taking his tribe further north of here. He may never return. But he has left us well protected.”

“He has? How?”

“Word of mouth. There’s not an Indian living within a hundred miles from here that hasn’t heard that you took in his dying wife and saved both her and his son.”

“Oh.” She brushed her nose back and forth over Samuel’s head. “I still don’t like this foster brother business.”

“Neither do I.” Matthew ran a finger down his son’s cheek and gave Alex a reassuring smile. “It won’t come to anything.”

“Of course it won’t. He tries to take my boy and I’ll rip his balls off.”

He laughed. “I’m sure it won’t come to that.”

Alex hadn’t said much for the last half-hour, eyes turned inward as she nursed Samuel and put him to bed. She undressed down to her shift, washed and moved over to sit before the looking glass, removing her cap from her hair.

“Let me.” He covered her hand with his. She sat still while he unpinned her hair to fall down her back. He brushed for a long time, her hair crackled with static electricity, and still he brushed, slow long strokes that brought her hair alive into dark browns and deep reds and here and there the odd glint of lighter hair, a polished bronze. The dash of grey by her temple had expanded, and there was a sprinkling of grey all along her hairline. He set his chin on her shoulder and smiled at their mirrored image.

“A wee bit more worn, the both of us,” he said.

She nodded and dipped her hand into one of her jars, rubbing sweet-smelling grease all over her hands and arms. She applied oil to her face and neck, and in passing rubbed some into his face as well.

“Do you mind?” she asked once she was done, raising her hand to his face.

“Mind? That we grow older together, you and I?” He laughed softly and bit her ear. “It seems far better than the alternative. Besides,” he added, cupping her breasts, “we’re not old yet, are we?” He undid the lacings of her shift and eased it off her, studying her in the candlelight.

Eight children hadn’t passed unnoticed, and she was rounder of hips, but he found that attractive. Her arse was still firm and high, and her breasts, despite being so much in use, retained their overall shape, even if they were heavier. Strong, shapely legs, skin that shimmered in the soft light of the candle, eyes that regarded him from under half-lowered lashes… A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, her tongue darted out to lick at her lips – such delectable lips. He looked down at his cock, poking at the cloth of his shirt. No, he wasn’t old, not at all; and his wife was warm and welcoming, her body so familiar and yet at times so unknown, with so much left to explore.

*

With her houseguest gone, Alex found the time for an overdue visit to the graveyard. Pale blue skies sparkled above, a couple of sparrows squabbled in the closest mock-orange, and under one of the pines she found a little stand of ferns, only lightly dusted with snow. She broke off a frond and placed it on Magnus’ grave, thinking that as a botanist he couldn’t complain about this his last resting place; so many trees around him, and she could hear the awe in his voice as he craned his head back to exclaim at the height of the closest chestnut.

“Do you miss him?” Ian’s voice cut through Alex’s reverie, making her start. She brushed Magnus’ headstone free from snow and let her fingers trace his name.

“Yes.” She held her skirts up high as she made her way back across the snowy graveyard. “Mostly, I think it’s realising that I never really knew him, and now I never will. And you? Do you miss your mother?”

“Aye, at times…” Ian helped her over an icy patch, and threw with his head in the direction of the river. “Walk?” Alex nodded and fell in beside him.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” she said, reverting to her previous thoughts. “How ultimately you don’t know them; not your parents, not your children…”

“You know me,” Ian protested. “You know all my siblings.”

“I do?” Alex shook her head. “I know you as children, but will I ever truly know the adult? I don’t think so. You really only ever know yourself, and many people don’t even achieve that.”

“And Da? Don’t you know him in and out?” Ian teased.

“It’s more the other way around: he tends to brag he reads me like an open book.”

“And does he?”

Alex grinned. “Sure, when I let him. Seriously, some of us are lucky enough to meet that soul mate, that one in a million man or woman that slots seamlessly into you, knows all your quirks and secrets.” She looked over in the direction of the closest shed, raising her arm in a wave to Matthew, who waved back from where he was sitting on the roof. “That’s how it is with me and Matthew.”

“Do you know immediately?” he asked, and Alex heard the controlled yearning in his voice. She threw him a quick look and chewed her cheek. Ian talked much more with her than he did with his wife.

“Not always,” she lied. “Sometimes it takes years. And as I said, it’s very rare.

“Have you read it yet?” she asked a bit later. Ian had, to his surprise, had a letter from Luke.

“Aye, very short, but a good letter all the same – he even sent his regards to Da.”

“Wow.” She sighed. “Such a waste, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“Matthew and Luke; brothers should love each other.”

“Too late for that, too many sharp words, too many ill deeds.”

“Yeah.”

Matthew had sent off a stilted note of condolence to Luke, and received an equally stilted reply, and then there was nothing more to say. There was no vocabulary between the brothers to express anything other than hatred, no words to help them find their way back to each other should they want to. Which in Alex’s opinion was doubtful to begin with, however much Matthew insisted he was willing to try.

“Malcolm senior really screwed up,” she said.

“He did?”

“Well, he started all this, didn’t he? The day he threw Luke out on his ear after finding him with Margaret.”

“Luke shouldn’t have bedded her.”

“Probably not; they were too young. But he loved her. That’s something that none of us can ever take away from him.” She scooped up a wad of snow and shaped it into a snowball, sending it to land with a dull thud against a tree. “She wasn’t good enough, far too poor to be the wife Malcolm wanted for his younger son.”

“But he allowed Da to wed her.”

“He didn’t need a rich wife; he was the heir, remember? So in that case her gorgeous looks were considered quite enough.”

Ian came to a halt. “You’re jealous!” He ducked to avoid the snowball she sent flying in his direction. “How can you be?” he asked, bending down to arm himself.

“Because,” she replied, and hit him squarely in the head with her next projectile. She darted away from him and grinned when his snowball missed her by a foot or so. “She was very beautiful, and we were alike enough for everyone to see she was prettier than me.”

Ian fell backwards into the snow, laughing.

“What are you doing?” she asked with irritation.

“A snow angel,” he said between gusts of laughter, waving his arms up and down.

*

“Did you ever love Margaret like you love Mama?” Ian asked Matthew as they hefted yet another heavy log onto the wood pile. Matthew grunted, busy avoiding getting his fingers squashed.

“No.” Matthew pulled off his glove to study his skinned knuckle. “Never.” He looked defiantly at Ian, receiving an amused stare in return.

“Alex and I…” Matthew stared off in the direction of his home. Winter dusk was falling, and he smiled when he saw Alex come out to help Ruth and Sarah light their snow lanterns. From the way she was jumping from side to side in the snow, he could tell she hadn’t bothered with pulling on her boots, wee daftie that she was at times. “...we just are,” he finished. “Mind you,” he said, bending down to grip the next log, “she isn’t always easy – very opinionated and all.”