Judith E. French (18 page)

“I want you to untie yourself and go to the house,” he continued, as though she’d not spoken. “They tried to burn it, but the storm put out the fire. Hide in the chimney. Don’t come out, no matter what you hear. Wait until the war party is gone, then go to the Shawnee village and find Moonfeather.”

“Go to the village? When the Shawnee came here and—”

“These aren’t Shawnee, Cailin,” he said harshly. “These are Iroquois, Mohawk to be exact, come down from New York for scalps and booty. The Iroquois are blood enemies to my mother’s people.”

“But Kate told me the Iroquois have a treaty with King George. They’re friendly—”

“Kate is a fool if she believes that. The Iroquois have spent the last three hundred years trying to make slaves of the Delaware and the Shawnee. They are friendly all right—to their own interests. And they’ll slaughter English settlers or soldiers with as much enthusiasm as they will the French. Go to the Shawnee. You’ll be safe with them.”

“You expect me to leave you—”

“I do.”

“Nay.” It was unthinkable.

“You can do nothing for me but live.”

“I don’t want to live without you,” she whispered brokenly.

“Everyone is dead. Men, women, they’re all dead.”

“But they kept us alive,” she argued. “Why—”

“They kept us for sport. You don’t have much time. If you run, they’ll track you down, but they’d never find you inside the chimney. Now, get into that damned hole in the bricks and stay there.”

“I can’t leave ye,” she pleaded. “Why should I—”

“I understand a little Mohawk, Cailin. At dawn, they mean to head north to their own hunting grounds. But before they leave, they intend to burn us both at the stake.”

I
t was mid-afternoon on the following day before Cailin ventured from the priest’s hole in the chimney. She was torn between not knowing Sterling’s fate and the overwhelming dread that she would find his mutilated body waiting for her. Her feet were swollen and so painful that she could hardly walk on them, and she was plagued by thirst and hunger.

She’d not heard any sounds of humans for many hours. Overhead, a mockingbird perched on the chimney and chirped a saucy refrain. Cailin could wait no longer. With bated breath, she climbed down into the blackened hearth and crept across the great room floor.

The door stood open. Trembling, Cailin forced herself to step outside. No amount of self-control could stop the single scream that ripped from her throat when she saw buzzards flocking around the sprawled bodies in the yard.

“No!” she cried. “Leave them alone!” She ran at the scavengers, waving her arms like a madwoman. She didn’t stop running until she reached the river and waded into it. She dropped to her knees and drank, trying to ignore the stinging in her feet.

And then she realized she’d seen nothing that looked like a torture stake. Laughing hysterically, she retraced her steps, .going from body to body, identify- , ing each man. She found Joe and Isaac’s mutilated remains and those of Phoebe’s husband. But there was no sign of Jasper or his mother ... or of Sterling.

She ran to the cart. On the side where she’d been tied were the remains of the leather thongs that had held her to the spokes of the wheel. On Sterling’s side, she saw nothing but muddy earth and fresh hoofprints mingled with the marks of moccasins and the deeper indentations of Sterling’s boot heels. And a short distance away, she saw what looked like a single pawprint.

Cailin’s mind reeled. Sterling couldn’t walk. Was it possible that the Mohawks had carried him away on horseback? Did that mean that they’d changed their plan to burn him ... or did it mean simply a delay in the execution?

She couldn’t accept that possibility. For whatever reason, her husband was alive, and he would remain alive until she saw his dead body with her own eyes.

She went to the well and leaned over to lower the bucket ... and found baby Jasper.

Rage brought her back to full sanity. She hadn’t the strength to bury all the dead, but she’d be damned if she’d leave Jasper in the bottom of the well. Getting him up took nearly an hour. Finally, when all else failed, she used a branch to make an open loop in the end of the bucket rope and snagged one tiny leg.

She wrapped him in the remains of her cloak and made a deep nest for him in the garden. The pippin apple would do for a headstone, and rocks would keep the scavengers from his remains. She tried to pray, but her words sounded hollow. An innocent child would have no need of her prayers to find God’s mercy. In the end, she commended his soul to the Lord and sang an old Scots lullaby that Corey had always liked to hear at bedtime.

Then she set about dragging Sterling’s people into the house. It was nearly dusk when she rolled the last one over the sill. The stuffing of feather ticks provided the tinder, her remaining furniture the fuel. Using flint and steel, she struck a spark. When the cabin was blazing, she turned away and began to follow the river west.

 

Moonfeather had told her that the camp was two days’ march; it took Cailin three and a half. She’d been unable to get her shoes on, so she’d walked the distance barefoot. And by the time a Shawnee hunter found her, she was out of her head with fever and exhaustion.

Cailin was only partially aware that a man had plucked her from the shallows of the river and was carrying her into the village. And when Moonfeather’s face hovered over hers, Cailin wasn’t sure if she was real or a dream.

“We were attacked,” she whispered hoarsely. “Mohawks. Sterling ... said ... Sterling said they ... were Mohawks.”

“Is he alive?” Moonfeather demanded.

Cailin nodded. “I think so. He said they were going to burn him, but they didn’t.”

• “They took him captive?” the peace woman asked.

“Aye. I saw hoofprints in the mud. He couldn’t walk. He was bitten by a snake.”

“Do you know what Mohawks they were? Of what band? Did Sterling tell you a name?”

“Ohneya. One man’s name was Ohneya. I think he was the leader.”

“Ohneya.” Moonfeather’s brow furrowed. “This one has heard of Ohneya. He is a war chief ... a man who has taken many scalps.”

“Aye. I saw him take another.”

“How many dead?” Moonfeather asked.

“All of them ... all of them.” Cailin seized her hand and peered into her face. “Even Jasper. He was a baby ... a baby. He was crying, and then ... ” She shook her head. “It’s nay right. Not a wee bairn.”

The Indian woman touched her cheek. “Nay,” she agreed softly. “It’s wrong to hurt a child, white or red. Children belong to the Creator.” Her great liquid brown eyes glistened with moisture. “You’re certain Na-nata Ki-tehi—Sterling—wasn’t killed? Ye couldn’t have missed his body?”

“Nay. We have to find him before—”

“We will call a council,” Moonfeather assured her. “Now, you must eat and sleep. Your feet are badly injured. Rest now, you are with friends. We will care for you.”

“But Sterling,” Cailin insisted. “Sterling is—”

“He is Shawnee,” Moonfeather said. “He belongs to us, and we look after our own.”

 

Cailin lost track of time. Night came and then morning ... or was it afternoon? She could see the dappling of sunlight play across the hard-packed dirt floor of the hut. She slept on a wide, soft bed. And when she lay on her back and looked up, a roof of bark curved pleasingly overhead.

Any fears she might have had of being helpless among the Indians soon faded. Gentle hands spooned soup into her mouth and covered her with a light blanket in the night. Anxious copper-skinned faces stared back at her whenever she opened her eyes—some old and wrinkled, some young. But every face showed only compassion. And if she couldn’t understand the soft, lisping words, she needed no translator to tell her that her visitors were offering comfort.

At first, Cailin was conscious of a throbbing agony in her feet that lessened when someone bathed them and rubbed ointments into the blisters and sores. She heard Moonfeather’s assurances that she would be all right, and came to accept the steady beat of drums above the rushing sound of the river.

Sleeping and waking, Cailin smelled the unfamiliar scents of dried herbs and the contents of mysterious baskets hanging from the hut framework. Delicious odors of corn cakes baking on flat rocks drifted through the open doorway. It seemed as though all she did was eat and sleep, lulled by the rhythm of the peaceful village. ’,

Until she opened her eyes to find a white man standing over her, holding her amulet. Cailin sat bolt upright.

“Easy, easy, child,” he cautioned. He let go of the necklace and moved back. “I’ll nay harm you,” he said.

Nearly buried beneath the fine speech of an English gentleman, Cailin heard the Scot’s Highland lilt. “Who are ye?” she demanded.

The smiling man was no longer young; his hair had turned an iron-gray, and his face was lined with experience. But his shoulders were still broad, and he was still handsome enough to turn a woman’s eye.

“Do I know ye?” she asked.

Moonfeather entered the wigwam and pulled the I doorflap closed. “Someone special has come to meet ye,” she said.

“I can see that,” Cailin said, sliding her legs over the side of the platform. She was decently dressed, she was glad to discover. In place of her ragged shift was a robin’s-egg-blue dress of cotton with a darker blue underskirt. “What I’d like to—”

“What is your name?” the stranger asked her. “I know you’re the wife of Sterling Gray, but what was your maiden name, and where exactly were you born?”

“What business is it of yours, sir?” she replied.

“Your mother. Who was she?”

“I’ve no Wish to play your game,” she replied sharply. Something was not right. Nervously, she glanced at Moonfeather. Sterling had said that she could trust Lady Kentington, and Cailin’s own instincts agreed.

The peace woman smiled reassuringly. “Na-nata Ki-tehi, who you call Sterling, told me that your necklace was a family heirloom. Do you know where it came from?”

Cailin clasped the amulet. It felt curiously warm to the touch, almost alive. Oddly, the sensation was not disturbing; instead, it made her feel safe. “I don’t understand why you’re so interested in my pendant.”

“The Eye of Mist,” the gentleman said. “It has great power—I wonder if you realize how much.”

She looked into his face. His cheeks were stained with tears.

“The Eye of Mist is Pictish gold,” he continued. “According to legend, it must be handed down from mother to daughter. I only wish you to tell me if it came from your mother’s family of—”

“It was a birth gift from the man who sired me,” she snapped. “A man I have never seen, but one who wished me ill.”

“Nay,” he answered huskily. “Never that.”

“If ye ken so much about the necklace, then ye must know that it is cursed,” Cailin said.

“And blessed,” Moonfeather put in.

Cailin stiffened with resentment. “I’ve seen little of the blessing.”

The man covered her hand with his. “The blessing is that ye will be granted one wish. Whatever you ask you shall have—even unto the power of life and death.”

“Who are ye?” Cailin demanded, snatching her hand away. “And how can ye ken so much of my affairs?”

“I am Cameron Stewart,” he said. “And you are the child I got on the fairest lass in all the Highlands, my cousin, Elspeth Stewart.”

“Ye lie!” Cailin felt the blood drain from her face. “It canna be.”

“It is, child,” he said. “On my mother’s soul, I vow it’s true. You are the babe Elspeth and I conceived, and she brought forth and raised alone.”

“You lie. My mother’s name was not Stewart when I was conceived,” Cailin protested hotly. “My mother was the wife of another.”

“Not the wife, but the widow,” Cameron corrected. “And she was in danger of losing all she had to her husband’s family because there was no lawful heir.”

“Do ye tell me that yours was a love match? You and your
cousin
?” It was easy enough for Cailin to believe her mother could do such a thing—she was ever an easy piece with an eye to her own best advantage. Elspeth had been widowed young, birthed Cailin ten months after her husband’s funeral, wed another, and buried him before she became Johnnie MacLeod’s wife. Jeanne had been born somewhere in between. She wasn’t Cameron Stewart’s or Johnnie’s child. Where her sister had come from, Cailin had never had the courage to ask her mother.

“Second cousin, twice removed, lass. You’re not the result of incest, just of two old friends who wanted to right a wrong and keep a lady from losing her home.”

“By making a bastard.”

Cameron chuckled. “Hard words, lass. Hard words. The Shawnee have a kinder way of speaking.”

“That’s true,” Moonfeather said. “Among my people, there are no illegitimate children. Descent comes through the mother. Clan and kinship are reckoned by maternal blood. Fathers come and go, but mothers are as true as rain.”

It was Cailin’s turn to scoff. “It’s plain ye never knew Elspeth. She was true—to herself.”

“Be not so harsh on her,” Cameron said. “She was always a lighthearted lass, and she loved where she pleased. But she cared for her children. When I learned of your birth, I sent the necklace and silver for your raising. I offered to take you, but she refused. She said you were hers, and she’d keep you.”

Cailin shook her head in disbelief. “For all this love between you, ye never thought to marry her yourself?” she asked sarcastically.

“I had a wife at the time,” he replied.

“So you cheated on her as my mother cheated her dead husband?”

Cameron laughed. “Her husband had little need of what we shared. And as for my wife, Margaret and I were wed when I was sixteen and she ... Well, let me say that she was older and that it was a marriage of convenience.”

“Convenient for you, sir,” Cailin shot back, “if you could forget your vows so easily and make a child with the likes of Elspeth Stewart.”

“My lady wife was a good woman who had the misfortune to be born different. Our arrangement was an honest one and—”

“She and your father had not shared a bed in many years when you were conceived.” Moonfeather put in delicately.

“How do you know so much of his affairs?” Cailin asked the peace woman.

“Suffice it to say that she does,” he said. “I have no secrets from Moonfeather.”

“So I am to accept you as my long lost father,” Cailin said. “Miraculously restored to my side in my hour of need, here in the wilderness. ’Tis the stuff of children’s fairy tales, sir.”

“True, nevertheless.”

She scoffed. “And you happened to be driving by in your coach ... from London?”

He sighed. “You have the right to be upset. It’s a lot to hear, and from what Moonfeather says, you’ve been through a terrible ordeal. I left London before you were born. I have several plantations on the bay. I came to the Colonies to be near ... near family.”

“I know of the amulet,” Moonfeather said. “I knew he would want to see you. I wrote to him soon after I met you.”

“I would have come sooner,” Cameron said, “but I was in Williamsburg on official business. I just received the message.”

“Now you’ve seen me, now what?” Cailin asked. It was impossible to think of this man as her father. She’d known the name Cameron Stewart for years. She’d known that he’d sired her. But Johnnie MacLeod was her real father, and nothing could change that fact.

“I’m nay such a fool as to expect you to fall into my arms, lass,” he said. “There are too many years between us. I should have come to you—or at least written. I did not, because I didn’t know if your mother had told you the truth or not. If you had a full life, I didn’t want to interfere. Now, it seems, I can be of some real use to you.”