The Wood's Edge Read online

  Medicine from the place where first they’d crossed the faint trail of He-Is-Taken. That thought gripped her with its power. What sort of place was this apothecary? Did it have medicine for the soul as well as for the body? That’s what she needed. What Stone Thrower needed. A healer for the soul.

  “He will not know me,” she said. “He will call that redcoat father. Maybe he calls one of those women you saw mother.”

  Clear Day said, “We could tell my nephew what I have told you. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe he only needs to find He-Is-Taken to be made whole again.”

  But Good Voice couldn’t decide, and Clear Day didn’t press her to do so.

  Three sleeps after Hanging Kettle’s visit, when it was clear Bear Tooth’s ankle was at last going to heal enough that he would not die of the wounding,

  Stone Thrower returned. He came with a bundle of furs so big Good Voice knew hunting was all he’d been doing, not getting drunk at the Carry or roaming the settled borders looking for their son.

  Bear Tooth, on his feet with the aid of a stick crutch, all but bolted from the lodge after Stone Thrower entered. Two Hawks hesitated, then ran out after Bear Tooth, calling his name.

  “Is he to be your husband now, even if he is your clan brother?” Stone Thrower sneered at the swaying door hide. “A father to my son? Should I find some other fire to sleep at?”

  No greeting. No words of concern for her or their son or the man he had—according to Stands-To-The-Side—pushed into the trap that nearly cost him his foot. “Bear Tooth needed my help,” she began, but Stone Thrower cut her off.

  “You are always helping! Everyone but me. Me you help not at all.”

  “Those are not true words,” Good Voice said, wounded. “I give you food from my fields, a roof over your head, a fire to warm you—when you return to it. A wife should have to remind a man of these things?”

  Stone Thrower waved aside her question, his face set hard against her. “All these years that redcoat goes about living and breathing and calling our son his own, or his slave, or maybe he’s sold him to someone else and forgotten him. But no one does anything to help me kill that man!”

  Killing. Killing. Were they back to this again? Good Voice longed for Clear Day and his white strings of wampum, longed to hang those strings before her husband’s face and plead until he took them. “And if you killed that man, what then? Do you think his people, whoever they are, will do nothing about it?”

  Stone Thrower snorted. “Let them try. They will never find me.”

  “Do not speak foolish words,” she snapped. “You know when whites are angry with us, they do not care which Indians they kill. They find Indians who have done nothing to them, and those they kill in vengeance. Is that what you want?”

  Stone Thrower closed the distance between them, looming over her with fists clenched. “So my wife thinks I am a fool. She would rather have another at her fire.”

  As often as she’d seen him drunk and raging, getting into quarrels and fights with other warriors, he’d never tried to intimidate her with his size and strength. For the first time, fear of her husband coiled like a river eel in her belly, cold and slithering, making sweat mist up on her flesh. But indignation was a burning in her throat. She took her strength from that and stood before him, refusing to cower.

  “If that is what you think, then you are a fool. Bear Tooth will never be a husband to me. But if I want him to live in my lodge, that is my right.”

  Stone Thrower blinked down his nose, the look in his eyes shifting from anger to puzzlement, as if he couldn’t understand how they had come to this ugly place.

  Good Voice pressed on. “Especially if you pushed Bear Tooth into that trap on purpose. Did you? Is that why you ran from the hunting camp? Did you mean to do it?”

  The instant she saw his flinch, she knew. He had lost his temper that day, but he had never meant to hurt Bear Tooth so badly. She could see it in her mind now, as though she stood in the forest with them. Stone Thrower letting jealousy become his master, accusing Bear Tooth, shoving Bear Tooth, not seeing the trap until it was too late…Bear Tooth stumbling backward in the snow…

  Shame and regret rippled the fire-shadowed contours of her husband’s face. “You think I meant to do it?”

  “That is not what I think.” It was the truth, but it came too late. Still she pointed at the venison simmering in a pot. “Come. Eat. There is stew…”

  Stone Thrower paid no mind. Shaking off regret like a horse shedding flies, he stalked around the lodge, snatching up a pair of leggings, some lead and powder, a ruffled trade cloth shirt. He stuffed the belongings into his pack and pushed past the door hide.

  Outside the lodge came a woman’s startled cry. The hide swung inward and Bright Leaf entered, her face showing displeasure and a hint of fear. “He is back and gone in the same day? Did you tell him of the baby?”

  At first Good Voice thought her aunt knew what she talked about days ago with Clear Day, but Bright Leaf was looking at her belly. She meant the new baby, started at the hunting camp the night she and Stone Thrower were together. She’d already missed a time in the women’s hut. She sat down on her sleeping bench, wondering if the life inside her had heard the bad words its parents had said. “There was no time.”

  Nor had she told him about the farm near Schenectady, the boy, and Aubrey. Perhaps she should have blurted one of those things as he was stepping out of the lodge. Perhaps…

  “If you do not put that man’s things outside for him to see when he comes back—if he comes back—I will never understand it,” Bright Leaf said. “And you had better tend that stew.”

  Her aunt went out abruptly, leaving Good Voice alone with a bubbled-over stew burning in the embers.

  Long after Stone Thrower left, Bear Tooth came to say his uncle had asked him to come home. Good Voice hated seeing him go this unhappy way but made no protest. She wished she’d never followed Bear Tooth to his hunting camp. It hadn’t been necessary after all, and it had brought such harm.

  Deep in the night, while Two Hawks slept, she rose from her bench, put wood on the fire to drive back the shadows, gathered up every piece of clothing and weaponry, every tool and adornment she could find that was Stone Thrower’s, and piled them beside the door hide.

  Standing cold in the fire-glow, Good Voice stared at the pile and could not find a thread of hope to cling to, even knowing that, at long last, He-Is-Taken was probably found. She took a step toward the pile, intending to shove the whole of it past the door hide and into the packed snow outside.

  A voice stopped her. Not a voice one could hear with the ears. But something like a voice—in the silence of her mind—told her to go back to sleep. That was all. Sleep.

  Too drained to do anything else, Good Voice turned her back on the pile beside the doorway. Perhaps morning would tell her on which side of the door hide it belonged.

  12

  Late September 1765

  Down the track between the Aubreys’ browning cornfields Lydia rode, bearing news that oughtn’t to be delivered on such a brooding day, with sagging clouds and arrowheads of geese passing overhead like mournful heralds. Such news should have been attended by a sky so blue it hurt the eye, air so clear it brought the low hills looming near enough to kiss.

  She didn’t pause at the big house but rode to the cottage beyond. For all that she’d tried to befriend Heledd Aubrey in years past, the woman’s indifference and discontent had finally outmatched Lydia’s resolve—which hadn’t prevented her visiting Anna, William, and the Doyles whenever time allowed.

  Poor Heledd. The burying ground now held four of her and the major’s babies, all carried full term, all dead within their first few days. Except the last. That little boy had lived three months, long enough to give his parents hope and doubly break their hearts.

  Lydia smelled the hot tallow before rounding the cottage to find Maura Doyle and Anna in the yard, dipping candles over a warming fire. Anna, half her mass of honeyed hair
escaped from its plait, pink-cheeked from the fire’s heat, held aloft a stick of freshly dipped tapers. “Lydia!”

  Maura straightened from hanging another rack on a drying frame. “Careful, child. Knock those tapers against the rim and you’ll be strippin’ them to start again.”

  Anna dipped the tapers, giving them a critical stare. “Done?”

  “Done.” Maura took the candles from Anna, pausing to greet Lydia before she took them to the drying rack.

  Lydia dismounted. Brushing down the striped skirt of her riding gown, she walked the horse near. “I come bearing news.” Her stomach fluttered at the words.

  Maura caught her eye with a knowing look. Surprised, Lydia realized the major must have already heard her news and told the Doyles. Lydia slid a querying glance at Anna, but Maura shook her head. “Dip you the one more stick, Anna, then go have your visit with Miss Lydia.”

  A fortnight shy of nine, coltish in homespun petticoat and jacket, Anna grinned with mischief in her eyes. “What of the washing? That’s next and you need my help. You said so.”

  “Is it arguin’ for more chores you’re after?” Maura said in mock reproof. “Fetch that last stick and be done.”

  The gelding tossed its head as the girl dashed to retrieve the rack draped with twisted wicks. Lydia slipped an arm beneath the horse’s neck, giving its broad cheek a caress. “Is William at his studies?”

  Maura nodded, with a glance at the big house’s ivy-framed windows. For the past two years, the Aubreys had employed an English tutor for William. “The lad’s at it four hours a day now.”

  “Six on Fridays.” Anna gave a pitying shake of head that resulted in a further unraveling of her braid.

  “Do you mind so much having learnt to read and write?” Lydia asked her.

  Anna held the wicks over the steaming pot, making sure each hung straight before dipping. “No, but I couldn’t sit to it as William does. So much reading will cross his eyes.”

  Holding the gelding’s reins in one gloved hand, Lydia peered inward at her nose. “I’ve read dozens of books and nothing of the sort has happened to me.” Anna dissolved in giggles. The half-dipped tapers swung on their stick and a chunk of her hair slid into the tallow pot. “Persinette, Persinette, put up your hair!”

  “I’ve a mind to crop it to her ears.” Maura swept the half-braided sheaf behind Anna’s shoulders, holding it there. “Keep amusin’ her so and she’ll be dipped for a candle herself.”

  Lydia relented. “I promise to be dull as porridge the rest of the day. Come find me when you’re through, Anna.” She turned the gelding toward the stable. “And bring a hairbrush!”

  Perched beside the spill of creek water at the wood’s edge, Lydia glided the brush through Anna’s abundant hair, working out tangles and stiffened tallow. It was a sumptuous blend of shades, from fawn brown at her nape lightening through every shade of gold imaginable to streaks of pale wheat at the crown. It was longer than Lydia’s would ever be, already skimming the child’s hips. “You’ll never have need of a shawl, my girl. Just loose all this hair and you’ll be set.”

  Anna bent her head as Lydia sectioned her hair and began weaving a thick braid. “Is it bad news you bring?”

  “Not at all.” Behind her back, Lydia bit her lip. “I’m going to be married. In a month, after the banns are read.”

  Anna’s slender shoulders stiffened. “Married to whom?”

  “Jacob…Mr. van Bergen.”

  The girl slipped from Lydia’s hold and stood, snagging the brush out of her hand. It dangled, caught in the mass of her hair. “You’re marrying him? Why?”

  The child’s distress was plain, yet bewildering.

  “For one thing, he’s done me the honor of asking me.” It wasn’t the most satisfying of answers, even to Lydia’s ears. Jacob van Bergen was a good man, and he loved her—had loved her, he’d confessed, for years. But along with his name and his heart, he offered her something else of priceless value—Papa’s shop, which he all but ran himself now, and in which he’d agreed to her working alongside him. And she liked Jacob. Admired him. Even cared for him. He knew that was as far as her feelings went but wanted her regardless.

  Feelings. Heat prickled Lydia’s face. She’d been careful over the years to conceal what she felt for Major Aubrey, feelings she’d never been able to fully banish, not for all her trying.

  If anyone had noticed how rattled she’d been that day, three years past, when she extracted the bit of fabric that had long festered the major’s wound, such was explained by her reckless treatment—an attempt that caused George McClaren equal parts pride and consternation.

  What she’d risked in treating the major had been nothing to discovering her long-esteemed hero possessed feet of clay like other men, and, like other men, had sinned. Grievously. At first her mind had rebelled against the notion that this man she’d adored since girlhood could be capable of stealing a baby, deceiving his wife into thinking it was their own. But as she brooded over—and over—what the major had said, adding every passing observation she’d made of William’s person, she became convinced of its verity, despite the many questions it had raised. Then in crushing, bitter waves had come the disillusionment, the indignation, the grief. How she’d pitied Heledd in those days.

  Weeks later, recovered at last, the major had come to the shop to commend her, clearly with no recollection of his confession. Only then, seeing him face to face, had she recalled the brokenness and guilt that had attended that devastating utterance. For a time then, the suffering his sin, borne so long in secret, had caused his soul—perhaps Heledd’s too—was all she could fix upon.

  It was too great a burden to bear. She began to pray about who she might tell. Papa? The Doyles? Heledd? For weeks she prayed, seeking the Almighty with an intensity heretofore unknown, until one thing grew clear. God had placed upon her a restraining hand. She was to share the major’s confession with no one. Yet in that time of seeking, God had granted her strength to bear the knowledge in silence. She’d learned to bring her questions to her Heavenly Father, to seek solace and clarity from Him and no other. Through it all, her girlish infatuation for the major had been remade, its rough edges smoothed, its shallow waters deepened into a compassion that transcended failings.

  As for those romantic notions—she was self-aware enough to admit they still existed—she’d learned to bring them to God as well, whenever they flamed up. And if the notion of marriage apart from the major felt at times ill-fitted, like a gown donned before its final sizing…what was she to do? Refuse to live her life because the one she wanted to share it with was forever out of reach?

  “Anna,” she said now. “Don’t you like Mr. van Bergen? He likes you a great deal.”

  Tears gathered in Anna’s eyes. “I like him.”

  “Then why has this upset you so?”

  “Because—I’m going to lose you!”

  Anna flung herself at Lydia, who held her as the child cried in her arms. “What? Why would you lose me?”

  Anna’s words came like hiccups between sobs. “If you—have a husband—to care for—you won’t—have time—for me.”

  “Of course I’ll have time for you, goose. It’s not as though so much will change.” Lydia blushed as she spoke, though the girl couldn’t see her face. “I’ve cooked and cleaned and mended for Jacob and Papa for years. I shall go on doing so. It’s mainly my name will change.”

  Anna pulled back from her, eyes brimming pools. “Like mine was changed when Papa saved me from the bad Indian?”

  Lydia touched the girl’s wet cheek. “A little like that.”

  “Anna! Lydia!” At the breathless shout, they looked to see William starting the climb up the hill. He reached them in a scrabble of tumbling stones, panting. “I asked Mr. Blakeley to release me early. He wouldn’t—the old toad.”

  “Poor William.” Lydia refrained from tousling his hair, knowing he felt himself too old for it. “Mewed like a hawk while we’ve been free as th
e southbound geese.”

  William looked up at the dark skein even now crossing from north of the river, honking as they went. “Still I’d rather be a hawk than—” Noticing Anna, tear-streaked and runny-nosed, William broke off. A crease appeared between his brows. “What’s the matter?”

  Lydia took a kerchief from her sleeve and gave it to Anna, who tidied herself while Lydia shared the news of her impending marriage. “Anna took it to mean I’d no longer be able to visit you.”

  “Anna.” William rolled his eyes. “Lydia would no more marry a man who wouldn’t let her do as she pleased than would you. And you’ve a brush stuck in your hair. Did you know?”

  Anna sniffled. “I know.”

  He plunged his hands into Anna’s hair and worked the bristles free of the strands entangling it. “Turn around.”

  Anna complied, and William set to brushing out the snarls, working at a stubborn knot with such delicacy that Lydia knew he’d done it before.

  “Glad I’m not a girl. This is too much hair to bother with…even if it’s pretty.”

  When Anna turned, she was smiling. Before he could dodge away, she wrapped her arms around the boy. “I love you, William.”

  Over her shoulder, he pulled a comical face. “That’s because I’m lovable. Everyone says so.”

  “Not Mr. Blakeley!” Anna sprang away. William started after her but caught Lydia’s eye and checked, handing her the brush.

  “Sit down, Anna. Let me finish with that braid.” Lydia had known since the two had toddled about the McClarens’ home that Heledd’s dislike of Anna hadn’t soured William’s heart toward the girl. If anything, it had sweetened it. She’d seen the pair grow closer as, one by one, William’s brothers had failed to thrive. But she’d never seen such a demonstration of tenderness between them as moments ago.