The Wood's Edge Read online

  Anna sat beside him, holding William’s letter. “Nor last, remember?”

  “True. First time only you run—scared little a’sluni girl.”

  Anna twisted her mouth but supposed she had been a scared little white girl—then. “And the second.”

  The day after that first encounter, she’d summoned the courage to return to the clearing. She’d waited, heart pounding…until out of the forest the boy she would come to know as Two Hawks had stepped. Alone. She’d suspected the other Indians were nearby, though they didn’t show themselves.

  She and Two Hawks hadn’t said much to each other. His English wasn’t good. She’d asked him simple questions, learned his name and that the other Indians were his father and his father’s uncle. Then Two Hawks had repeated the question from the day before: who lived in the big house across the fields?

  Knowing no reason why she shouldn’t, she’d told him about Papa and the Doyles. And William. At first his eyes had seemed to burn with excitement when she mentioned William. He’d looked toward the wood, revealing where the grown Indians hid. But his gaze cooled when she told him William was gone with his mother across the sea to Wales. Perhaps because she cried in the telling, the pain of it still raw, Two Hawks had looked crestfallen too. He’d asked if William would come back—sounding as if he cared about the answer.

  “He promised to,” she’d said, wiping her tears. “Someday.”

  A voice had called from the wood, startling them.

  Anna had nearly wet herself when the big Indian, Two Hawks’s father, came rushing out of the brush toward her, but he was stopped again by the older Indian, who moved quick for a man with gray hair. He caught Two Hawks’s father and jammed a fist into the center of his chest. In his fist were beads, three strings of them hanging down, all white. He seemed to want Two Hawks’s father to take them, but he wouldn’t. He gestured their way, uttering guttural, angry words. The older Indian said firm, harsh words. Two Hawks said pleading words. His father sent a glance of anger—or was it anguish?—toward the farm. He shoved the white beads away and stalked off into the forest.

  Two Hawks had looked at her with eyes full of alarm and whispered, “Run.”

  She’d run.

  “Good you not run this time,” Two Hawks told her now, his eyes teasing. “I like see your face, not only back, all that hair swinging.”

  She’d braided her hair properly that morning, though she’d forgotten her cap. As far as she could remember, she’d had it braided last time too, back in spring, when he and his father had lingered in the woods for days before she happened across the creek to find them waiting. It had frightened her to see his father, especially since the older Indian hadn’t been with them. But the man had behaved himself, even spoken to her civilly, though he’d remained tense and forbidding. She’d learned his name was Stone Thrower.

  She’d asked how often they came there to the little creek, how long they waited to see her, and did they ever give up and go away again? Two Hawks admitted to having waited in vain one time only, but she’d vowed to be more diligent in visiting her favorite place. Even though Stone Thrower still unnerved her, she liked seeing Two Hawks.

  Their village, a place called Kanowalohale—it meant head on a pole, Two Hawks told her—lay far to the west, not many miles from the portage trail between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek, where the old fort called Stanwix stood moldering. Papa had been there many times, though she’d no idea how long it took to travel there on foot. Days, she imagined. Nor was she sure why Two Hawks and his father came so far to talk with her. She was no one special. Just a girl on a farm. But she was terribly curious about them.

  She looked beyond Two Hawks, to the forest skirting the hill. “Where is your father?”

  Teasing fled the boy’s eyes. Dark lashes swept his cheekbones as he lowered his gaze. “I come alone.”

  Anna chewed her lip, wondering. The last time she’d seen Stone Thrower had been brief. He’d asked one question—had William come home? When she’d explained that it would be a long time—years—before that day arrived, Stone Thrower had grown sullen and gone away.

  Two Hawks had stayed behind, looking upset. When she’d pressed him for why his father seemed so unhappy, he’d said, “It not for me to tell,” but looked at her with longing, as if he wanted to tell. “He drinks the trader’s rum again. My mother unhappy.”

  Distracted by this first mention of a mother, she’d asked about her. His mother’s name was Good Voice. No more was said that day of his father.

  Anna wished now she’d been more persistent. It seemed things with Stone Thrower hadn’t improved. Two Hawks kept his eyes on the forest spreading out from the hill in clumps of gold and scarlet. A breeze kicked up, making the leaves of oak and maple, beech and hickory flutter on their stems or let go to drift on the air like sparks.

  “My father’s uncle has new name,” Two Hawks said abruptly. “He is Daniel now. Daniel Clear Day. He did this for Jesus.”

  Anna stared, slow to comprehend. “You mean he’s a Christian?”

  Two Hawks picked at the colorful quillwork someone—probably his mother—had sewn onto his legging. “There is a man with us. Kirkland. He talks Jesus. All the time.”

  “The Reverend Samuel Kirkland?” Anna had heard of the Presbyterian missionary. He was getting to be known in the way Sir William Johnson was known, as a man who spoke for the Indians. The Oneidas, anyway. Two Hawks didn’t sound pleased about him. “What does Mr. Kirkland say?”

  Two Hawks gripped his knees, scowling. “He say no person is good, even if they do no stealing or falling down drunk. He say only Jesus lived good. He say the way to have good heart is through Jesus who is Savior and Shepherd and Vine—and other names I forgot.”

  Nothing he’d said sounded wrong to Anna, however strangely worded. “What do you think about it?”

  Two Hawks made a noise of dismissal. “The Master of Life has watched over us always. Is he the same as Kirkland’s Jesus? If so, why do we not know of him? Why do we not have the book?”

  “The Bible? I don’t know.” Anna wished for better answers, or any answer at all. Mrs. Doyle had made sure she said her prayers every night as a girl. The Doyles still took her to meeting with them every Sabbath; Papa stopped going when Mrs. Aubrey and William left. Though she put herself to bed in her own room in Papa’s house now, she still prayed every night. For William and Papa, the Doyles, Lydia…

  If anyone talked of the Almighty as though He were truly listening it was Lydia, who often prayed for someone sick in the shop, for neighbors, for William and his mother far away in Wales, for Papa, for her.

  “What of Aubrey?” Two Hawks asked, turning to look her in the eye. “Is he Christian, like Kirkland?”

  Anna felt a twinge of unease. Whenever Two Hawks or Stone Thrower mentioned Papa, their voices took on an edge, sharp as a hatchet blade. She’d yet to find the courage to ask why. She wanted to say that of course Papa was a Christian. But had Papa ever talked to the Almighty in her hearing? Anna couldn’t think of a time, not even at meals. She knew he had a Bible; once she’d gone into William’s room, opened an old chest, and found it there. Papa’s name was inscribed inside it, but she’d never seen him read it, though many of its pages were marked as though he once had.

  She sometimes wondered if something bad had happened to Papa. Something that hurt him. Not like his hip, where that musket ball had hurt him. In his heart. Sometimes it seemed to her as if a weight dragged at Papa’s soul, the way his hip slowed his stride.

  “He must be,” she said, banishing her doubts. “He just doesn’t talk about it all the time, like Reverend Kirkland.”

  “I saw a warrior always drunk on trader’s rum, his wife and children hungry, give his heart to Kirkland’s Jesus and become a man again. His children eat now—but he plows dirt to feed them.” Two Hawks’s mouth puckered like he’d tasted soured milk.

  Anna frowned at his obvious disdain. “What’s wrong with that?”

/>   “Scraping dirt for planting is women’s work, given to them to do. Man’s work is hunting, fighting enemies. Protecting the people.”

  The insult stung. “Mr. Doyle is a farmer. So is Papa. They’re both men. And Papa builds boats. Is that also wrong for a man to do?”

  “A man may build a canoe without shame.” Two Hawks glanced at her. “Aubrey does this?”

  “They’re called bateaux. Some of your men—Oneida men—make wages portaging bateaux and supplies, at the Carrying Place.”

  For a moment Two Hawks had looked interested, but at her mention of the Carrying Place he firmed his mouth again. “Bateaux come there with trader’s rum.”

  “And other things,” she hurried to add. “Good things. Kettles and knives, blankets, mirrors, beads—”

  “Trinkets,” Two Hawks cut her off, dismissive.

  Anna didn’t like the contention that had crept into their exchange. It had never happened before. “Isn’t it better to be a farmer who feeds his family than a warrior who lets them starve?”

  She wished those words back instantly, certain they would wound. But Two Hawks pulled his brows tight in thought, then said, “Anna Catherine…best is a warrior who does not drink demon-rum. That is Kirkland word for it. That one thing he say true.”

  “Maybe other things he says are true?” Anna put her hand over his and did what she hoped Lydia would do had she been sitting there. “Would you mind if I prayed for Stone Thrower?”

  The hand beneath hers twitched. It occurred to Anna this was the first time she’d ever touched him. She slid her hand away.

  “Pray if you will.” Perhaps so she wouldn’t do it right then, Two Hawks pointed to her other hand. “You have letter?”

  Anna grinned—she couldn’t do otherwise. “It came yesterday.”

  Two Hawks pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, suddenly shy. “You say marks for me?”

  She’d read from one of William’s letters last time she’d seen Two Hawks. He’d seemed fascinated by it. “William wishes me well on my birthday,” she said. “He misses me—so he says—but I think he misses the horses more because he asks more about them than about me.” She scanned the letter. “He doesn’t know what university he’ll attend once his tutoring is complete, but he’d like it to be Oxford. That’s in England. He’s learned to read Greek and a little Hebrew. And he talks about the factor’s two dogs…bigger than our wolves here, he says.”

  “That is big dogs,” Two Hawks murmured.

  Anna smiled, her gaze still on the letter. “Here’s a part I think you’ll like: ‘Mr. Davies’—that’s the factor—‘is accomplished with the ancient Welsh war Bow and has taken to showing me the Art of shooting it several days out of the week, and though he may be speaking to my Vanity says I show some natural Inclination. In any case ’tis a Grand Diversion from dusty Tomes and lures me out into the Hills…’ ”

  Anna glanced at the bow and quiver slung across Two Hawks’s back. He saw where her gaze had gone. “This Welsh bow…it like my bow?”

  “I’ll ask William if you’d like. Maybe he’ll make a likeness of it for you.”

  “Yes,” he said, before wariness leapt to his gaze. “You put me in marks?”

  She wrote to William about everything that happened on the farm but had never mentioned Two Hawks or his father, as she’d never mentioned them to Lydia, Papa, or the Doyles. She’d started to tell Lydia once but found she couldn’t bring herself to do it. What if Lydia was afraid or objected to their friendship? What if she told Papa and Papa made her stop coming to the wood?

  “I never have,” she said, and the set of Two Hawks’s shoulders eased.

  “Is more?” He brushed a fingertip over the letter resting on her lap. She felt his touch through the paper. Disconcerted, she dropped her gaze and began reading before realizing it was a portion she’d meant to keep to herself.

  “ ‘Mama is happy. ’Tis as though for her the years in New York never were. I wish it was not so. I wish more she had treated you kindly. She is as much your Mother as Papa is your father, or she should have been. I hope it hurts less now. And you know you might have taken my old room instead of that Cupboard of a space next to—’ ”

  “What means?” Two Hawks cut in. “Mother not kind to you?”

  William might hope otherwise, but whenever Anna thought of the woman, there still rose up that puzzled shame she’d always felt when she failed to please Mrs. Aubrey.

  “William’s mother. She and Papa couldn’t agree about me.” Two Hawks tilted his head, clearly no better enlightened. “Papa wanted to keep me. Mrs. Aubrey didn’t. So I lived with the Doyles in their cottage—the little house behind the big one—until William and his mother left. Then Papa said I should come sleep under his roof.”

  She could see Two Hawks still didn’t understand, but he asked, “William want to leave you? Or no?”

  “No…Yes.” She faltered as a memory rose up sharp in her mind.

  “I hate him!”

  William’s jaw was clenched so tight, Anna barely heard the words he’d hissed over the chatter of the creek slipping over the stone beside them. It was the last time they would sit together in her favorite place, and he was spoiling it. Spoiling this last memory with his shocking words. “William…don’t say that.”

  William made his hands into fists. “Why won’t he go with me and Mama? Why cannot the Doyles look after things here the way that factor does in Wales?”

  Anna opened her mouth to tell him why but couldn’t find the words. Instead she said, “The Binne Kill…”

  Anger twisted William’s mouth. “I hate those boats!”

  “Do you hate me?”

  “What? No…” His face blanked, then his brows pulled together in a flinch. There it was. He understood at last why Papa was staying. Not just for the life he’d built in New York, the Binne Kill, his boats.

  William gazed at her, stricken. “Is this how you’ve felt all these years? About Mama? But you don’t hate her, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Anna’s heart wrenched, watching William struggling to understand, struggling not to hate Papa, who he felt was rejecting him in letting him go, the way his mother had rejected her by refusing her a place beneath their roof. Or in her heart. “How can I hate someone who loves you?”

  A single tear rolled down William’s cheek. Anna wanted to touch it, for it seemed a precious thing. But William brushed it away roughly, and afterward there was no more to say.

  Two Hawks was quiet, his smooth brows drawn. Anna waited, wondering what trail his thoughts had taken while hers had wandered back to the last time William sat where he did now. After a moment he looked at her, still frowning. “Aubrey’s woman not want you for daughter? But wanted He—William—for son?”

  Anna’s heart squeezed with the old pain. “William is her son.” The only one who’d lived.

  Two Hawks’s expression blanked, leaving him looking for an instant like a boy carved of wood. Then the frown returned. “You not born to her?”

  “No.”

  “Born to Aubrey?”

  “I’m his ward.”

  Two Hawks shook his head. “I not know ward.”

  Anna started at the beginning and told him how she came to be the daughter of Major Reginald Aubrey. Two Hawks was attentive—intensely so—as she talked of Fort William Henry’s fall. She enjoyed seeing people hear the story for the first time, watching their gazes slide with admiration to the scar on Papa’s cheek. Papa wasn’t there to be admired, still…Two Hawks’s reaction was different from any she’d ever witnessed. As she spoke, his color blanched as much as his tawny skin allowed.

  “He is the one.”

  “One what?” Anna asked. But Two Hawks’s face closed up, and she knew she wouldn’t get an answer. Two Hawks wasn’t like William, who’d told her everything in his head almost as fast as it came into it.

  Hearing the lowing of a cow, she peered through the trees
fringing the creek. The mist on the river had burned away. The sun was high, the morning wearing on. “I promised to help Mrs. Doyle ready dinner for the men.” On impulse she added, “Come with me. Meet Papa. See where I live.”

  Two Hawks stood. “No. My father…He not hunt now as we need. I must hunt.”

  He was only thirteen, yet it sounded as if the care of his family had fallen on his narrow shoulders. Or was it just an excuse to leave her? She wished his visit had ended better.

  “Good-bye then,” she said, hoping it wasn’t the last.

  “O-kee-wa’h. Good-bye for now.”

  Two Hawks smiled, and the restraint between them lifted. She wanted suddenly to touch him again, but like a deer he sprang back up the rocky slope. Anna watched him vanish among the rhododendron, then folded William’s letter and started home.

  Warm under quilts, Anna stared at the shadows of her room—cupboard, William called it—no nearer sleep than she’d been hours ago. She’d have lit a candle to read his letter again, but she’d given the missive to Papa before retiring to bed. Surely he was asleep by now. Might he have left it lying somewhere?

  She rose and donned a shawl over her shift. Moonlight shown bright enough through the windows to forgo a candle. Below stairs, Papa’s door was open. Anna tiptoed past it, only to spy the flicker of firelight in the front room.

  Papa sat in his wing chair near the hearth. In his hand was William’s letter, but he wasn’t reading it. He held it limply, elbows on his knees, shoulders bent. She crossed the room and knelt beside him. “Papa? Is that William’s letter?” She’d doubted it for a moment—there was nothing upsetting in the letter. But as Papa straightened in surprise, she saw it was the letter.

  “Anna. Awake at this hour? Even birthdays must come to an ending, my girl.”

  She lay her head against his knee, hair spilling on the floor. After a moment his hand rested on the crown of her head.