A Wild Yearning (50 page)

For a brief moment the agony faded and lucidity returned and in that moment he felt guilty for wanting to die. He would be leaving his children, a wife. But the guilt was small compared to the fierce yearning to have the unbearable pain stop... and the joy, the incredible joy and anticipation at the knowledge that soon, soon he would see his Mary. They would be together again. This time forever.

Bells. In the far distance he heard bells. How odd, he thought, that there would be bells in heaven. The blue sky overhead began to blaze with white light and the ringing grew louder. The white light was cold, very cold. But he didn't mind because the cold was numbing the fiery pain in his belly. Soon, he thought, soon, soon...

"Mary..."

Ty heard Nat's roughened whisper and glanced down, words of reassurance on his lips. Words that died when he saw the open, lifeless eyes.

The stockade's warning bell carried far on the clear spring air. Settlers from the other nearby farms streamed out into the road on foot, horseback, and carts. They carried with them the things that they would need for a long siege. The oxen were not known for being fleet of foot, but the road was muddy and deeply carved with ruts and the sled moved easily over it. Soon the Merrymeeting green came into view, then the mast house, the Bishops' manor house, the meetinghouse and parsonage, and finally the stockade.

The palisade gates were open for the streams of refugees, but men prowled the sentry walks, rifles pointing into the surrounding wilderness forest. Inside the walls the stockade resembled an anthill that had been knocked over, with people scurrying in all directions, seemingly to no purpose.

The blockhouse door banged open as Ty drove through the gates and Delia stumbled out. She paused on the threshold, her gaze flying first to Nat's lifeless body on the sled and then to Ty's face. He could hear screams coming from inside the blockhouse—Meg crying, "Let me go!" over and over.

He met Delia halfway. He longed to take her into his arms, but he was afraid she would misinterpret his motivation. Instead, he tried to give her comfort with his eyes. "He died on the way here, Delia. I tried, but there never really was a chance."

She reached up and stroked his cheek. "Thank you, Ty," she said softly. And then she went to Nat.

The sun went down and it grew cold. In the windows of the sheds beneath the walls, lacy white ferns of ice grew in the corners of the windowpanes. The moon came up, round and white, like a hard-packed ball of snow. It bathed the surrounding forest in a bright, silvery light.

A scout had returned just before sunset. He had seen the Abenaki war party—over two hundred strong. They were stopping to raid a few isolated farms and trappers' cabins along the way, but there was no doubt Merrymeeting was their main objective.

Tyler Savitch, Colonel Bishop, and Sam Randolf were grouped around the cannon. The weapon's long, black nose pointed menacingly east, the direction from which the Penobscot Abenaki were expected to come.

His face looking ruddy as a scrubbed beet in the torchlight, Colonel Bishop glared at the cannon as he heaved a dubious sigh "Are you sure this thing'll fire, Sam?"

"Hell, no." Sam kicked so hard at one of the spoked iron wheels, he almost knocked his hat off. "For all I know, the damn thing could be no more use than a lace-trimmed nightie. But, aye, I think she'll fire."

The colonel stared over the pointed palisade walls, into the dark, empty night. He pulled his thick lips with his fingers. "We've only shot enough for two rounds. Depending on their numbers, we might not be able to kill enough of them by firing only twice."

"We don't need to kill all that many of them," Ty said. He wrapped his hands around a couple of the logs, and the tendons in his wrists stood out, belying the relaxed tone of his voice. "The threat of the cannon should be enough." He tried to explain the Abenaki method of fighting a war. "They don't believe in dying gloriously on the battlefield. To them the object is to kill as many of the enemy as they can while surviving themselves to fight another day. They don't see running off as a reflection of their courage, so if killing us looks to be too costly, they'll simply fade back into the wilderness and strike somewhere else."

Colonel Bishop's hand fell heavily on Ty's shoulder. "I hope to God you're right, Doc. When do you think they'll hit us?"

"Tonight sometime. Most likely just before dawn."

Ty moved down the sentry walk, away from the cannon. He carried his rifle in the crook of his arm, primed and ready to fire. He would use it when the time came because he didn't want to die and he didn't want Delia to die. But he also knew that every time he pulled the trigger, every time he saw an Abenaki fall, he would feel terror that it was Assacumbuit, his father, whom he killed.

He felt more torn than ever before in his life, more torn than during those first frightening, lonely months after Assacumbuit had brought him to Wells and turned him over to his grandfather. Was he Tyler Savitch, the Yengi physician? Or was he Bedagi, son of an Abenaki sachem? Now, as then, the choice seemed to have been made for him. He was Yengi by blood and so that was the life he must live, the life he must fight and now kill for.

He leaned sideways against the rough wooden wall and looked up at the sky. It glittered with stars and the broad band of milky light wove across it, like a fat, luminescent eel swimming just beneath the surface of a black lake. The Abenaki believed the Milky Way was the star trail to the spirit land. If the men of Merrymeeting had their way, there would be many an Abenaki warrior on that trail come morning.

"Ty...?"

He straightened and turned slowly around. She came to him, his love. The skin around her eyes was drawn and pale. Her mouth trembled. Silently he opened up his arms and she came to him.

She leaned against him, her cheek to his chest, and heaved a deep, sad sigh.

"How are the girls taking it?" Ty asked.

Her arm wrapped around his waist, she burrowed deeper. "I don't think little Tildy really understands. But Meg... she cried herself to sleep. Why did he have to die, Ty?"

"We didn't wish his death," he said, answering her unspoken thought. He supposed some guilt would always be there, for the both of them, because Nat's dying had given them back their love. No, they would have always had their love. Nat's dying had given them back their future, and their joy.

He tensed his arm, hugging her to him in silent understanding. After a while, a long, long while, she raised her head.

She traced his lower lip with her finger. "I love you, Tyler Savitch."

They poured out of the woods in the wavering gray light of false dawn, their bloodcurdling war cries cracking and splitting the frigid air.

Sam Randolf held the slow match to the powder in the top of the breech. Colonel Bishop stood beside him, his hand raised in the air. "Wait, wait," he said softly. "Let them get closer. Make it count, Sam, make it count..." He chopped his hand down. "Now!"

The cannon exploded, discharging a load of musket balls, nails, and other bits of scrap iron into the swarming mass of Indians and scaling ladders. The shot boomed like thunder across the sky, bouncing over the water, and stinking black smoke choked the air. The war cries turned to screams.

Coughing from the smoke and cursing as his flesh came into contact with the hot metal, Sam Randolf swung the barrel around to load the second shot.

But Colonel Bishop's hand fell on his arm, stopping him. "Never mind. Look, the doc was right. They're running!"

Sam whooped. "We licked the pus clean outta them with just one shot!" he cried. Then he reloaded the cannon anyway and everyone waited in tense silence, in case the Abenaki were of a mind to come back.

Ty didn't wait. He climbed down from the sentry walk and emerged through the palisade gates, into the clearing, where a dozen bodies sprawled like scattered bowling pins.

He went to see if any still lived. And if he knew them.

Tyler Savitch stuck a carrot into the middle of the snowman's face, then stepped back, the better to survey the overall effect. Unfortunately, the carrot was withered and gray and bent in the middle. It gave the snowman a slightly sinister cast.

Tildy giggled, tugging at the fringe of Ty's buckskin coat. "He looks silly. That snowman looks silly with that nose."

Ty glanced down at his adopted daughter. A smile of pure joy played around his mouth—a smile it seemed he had been wearing without respite for the last eleven months. "I'm afraid I must agree, little one," he said, imbuing his voice with the proper degree of gravity. "Perhaps we ought to go inside and think what to do about it over a noggin of hot chocolate."

Tildy ran back toward the house, shouting in her excitement and frightening a rabbit that had hopped, twitching cautiously, into the clearing. Although a late March blizzard had dumped deep drifts over the land, the little girl moved easily on the path that Ty had shoveled just that morning.

Ty was proud of the house. It was a full two stories tall, newly built last spring. They'd had a raising bee the week right after their wedding. Ty had teased Delia, saying he was building the house big enough for
all
their children—Meg and Tildy and the dozen babies he planned to give her.

Ty had just started after Tildy when the door flew open and Meg came hurtling out. Her hair blew in wild brown tangles around her face and she clutched at her flour-dappled apron with two tight fists.

"Dr. Ty! It's coming! The baby's coming!"

For a moment Ty stood frozen, utterly incapable of moving. His heart slammed up into his throat and he couldn't breathe. He'd long ago lost count of the number of babies he had delivered, yet suddenly he was as frightened as an apprentice physician on his first case.

"Dr. Ty!" Meg cried again.

Ty almost slipped on the packed snow in his haste to get inside the house. He sent Meg and Tildy upstairs to play, then threw open the door to the keeping room, sending white clouds swirling into the air from the pie dough that lay amid a dusting of flour on the table. He tripped over a broom left lying in the middle of the floor and almost fell into a washtub full of soaking copper pots. For the past two days it seemed Delia had been caught up in a frenzy of wifely activity and it was driving Ty crazy because he was terrified she would strain herself or hurt the baby.

But at the moment she sat fairly quiet on a stool before the fire, cursing like a tavern wench at the knots in the embroidery of a sampler she was trying to fashion... looking radiantly beautiful and immensely pregnant.

She glanced up and laughed at the expression on her husband's face. "Now don't you go getting all nervous on me, Tyler Savitch. I'm scared enough as 'tis without my doctor having a fit of the vapors."

He had hurried over to kneel beside her, rubbing his hands over the monstrous mound of her stomach. "When did you feel the first pain? Was it just now?"

She caressed his bent head. "Oh no," she said calmly. "Sometime after breakfast, I think."

"Christ, that was hours ago! Why didn't you say something?"

"I thought I was only having a touch of indigestion from that lumpy porridge you fixed us this morning."

There was a note of hysteria in Ty's laughter. He heard it and tried to calm himself by tensing his jaw so hard he appeared to be scowling. Straightening, he kissed her roughly on the mouth. "I've never had a fit of the vapors in my life," he stated, and hoped she didn't notice how his hands trembled. "Only women get those."

"Hunh. You men think—" Suddenly a spasm of pain twisted her face and her whole body contorted.

"Jesus," Ty groaned. For a moment he almost thought his stomach had cramped in sympathy.

"That was a big one," Delia said, panting, a moment later.

He smoothed the hair off her damp forehead. "That's good, Delia-girl. Don't fight them." He gave her a shaky grin. "I'm doing enough of that for the both of us."

He helped her into the room he had prepared downstairs, undressing her and seeing her settled onto the birthing chair. He examined her and saw that it would not be long.

The contractions were coming at regular intervals and only a few minutes apart. Delia gasped and tensed with each one. Ty wished he could have the baby for her; he hated the pain women had to suffer to bring children into the world.

"Why don't you go ahead and holler," he said, sitting beside her and picking up her clenched hand to plant a kiss on her white knuckles.

Stubborn and gutsy to the end, Delia shook her head, biting her lip hard as another contraction racked her. He was filled with such love for her. And such fear.
I
won't lose her,
he swore to himself to quiet the erratic beating of his heart.
She's strong and healthy. Women have babies every day. I won
V
lose her.

"I love you," he said. "Oh, Delia, Delia, I love you, girl."

Pretending a professional detachment he didn't really feel, he talked her through it, telling her when to push and when to relax. A long two hours later, Ty's firstborn child emerged from his wife's womb and into his steady hands. The baby was slick with blood and crying lustily, and he held this tiny scrap of humanity,
his
baby, and stared at it with wonder and awe. Tears of an incredible, piercing joy flooded his eyes. For the first time in his life Ty thought he truly understood the meaning of the word "blessed."

Ty lifted his head and looked into his wife's eyes, eyes glazed with pain and shining with triumph. He held the baby up so that she could see. "We have a son, my love. A beautiful, perfect son."

Delia was too exhausted to do more than smile, but that smile said it all.

Ty had Delia in bed and the baby all clean and swaddled, and he was just about to put him in his wife's arms when the door creaked open and two little heads poked around the jamb. "We heard a baby crying," Meg whispered,

Ty grinned proudly, showing off his son. "Why don't you girls come in and say hello to your new little brother."

Tildy stared at the baby, her brow creased in disappointment. "But he's so teeny. How're we going to play with him? And he's funny-looking, too. All wrinkled and purple like a prune."

Meg thumped her sister in the side with her elbow. "Shush up, Tildy Parkes. That wasn't nice." But Ty could tell from the look on Meg's face that she shared her sister's opinion and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

Delia beckoned the girls to the bed, where she kissed them in turn. "He'll be big enough to play with in no time," she said, her voice weak, but her face glowing with happiness.

"But he doesn't even have any hair," Tildy protested, still unconvinced, and Delia and Ty shared a smile.

"His hair, like the rest of him, will grow," Ty said. He herded them toward the door. "Now why don't you girls do me a favor and go fix us some supper and give your ma a chance to get some rest. Having a baby is hard work."

The girls reluctantly left the room and Ty stretched out on the bed beside Delia, their sleeping son cradled between them. Now that it was over Ty thought he just might sleep a month himself.

Delia rubbed her finger across the tiny features, laughing softly. "I do hate to admit it, Ty, but he does in a way resemble a prune."

"He's beautiful," Ty insisted.

She turned her head and met her husband's eyes and her face grew serious. "I know you wanted a girl. Are you disappointed?"

"Of course not. Besides, if we have a dozen of them, one is bound to end up being a girl."

She tried to scowl at him, but her lips betrayed her by quivering. Ty kissed them.

"I would like to call him Willy, after Anne's son," she said. "And we'll ask her and the colonel to stand as godparents."

Ty smiled his agreement. "And next year we'll take him up to Norridgewock and introduce him to his grandfather."

"Oh yes, Ty! Assacumbuit will adore him. Remember how he kept wanting you to take Elizabeth as a second wife just so he could acquire another grandson?"

Ty thought of his father. Assacumbuit would be pleased to have another grandson. And proud. There had been intermittent fighting all summer and fall between the Abenaki and the settlers. But Ty had found his peace in Delia and he knew now he would always belong to both worlds.

Delia was so quiet he thought she slept. He leaned up on one elbow to study her beloved face. She was so beautiful, his Delia, so strong, and he loved her so. "Damn," he muttered as more embarrassing tears filled his eyes.

A smile curled Delia's lips and her lids fluttered open. "Thank you, Ty," she mumbled behind a big yawn.

His arm tightened around her. "What for? You did all the work."

"For giving me a baby. Your baby. And for loving me."

"Aw, Delia, Delia." He said her name with wonder and with joy. And he kissed her with passion and love and tender promise.

She spoke softly as she drifted into sleep and he lowered his head to catch her words...

"I do love you, Tyler Savitch."