The Wood's Edge Page 16

  “I love you, Anna. You know that, do you not?”

  His voice was thick with emotion. She raised her face to see something like anguish in his eyes and remembered what William had written about Mrs. Aubrey. Was Papa upset about that? She was too far away to kiss his scar, but she looked at it and he smiled as though she’d done it.

  “You were mine, see. From the moment I picked you up off that road. My daughter, as much as if you were born to me.”

  “As much as William is your son?”

  Papa’s voice cracked as he said, “More so.”

  She hadn’t meant to ask that, was mortified it slipped out—as mortified as Papa looked now.

  “How can I be more? Oh…because I’m here and William isn’t?” She rose and settled on his lap so she could twine her arms around his neck. “You must miss him more than I do.”

  Strong arms encircled her. A gentle hand stroked her hair, fallen in a tangle over both their laps. He snagged his fingers in it. She said ouch and then giggled at his look of dismay. She kissed the crown of his head. The thick, curly hair he still kept cropped unfashionably short tickled her nose. He smelled like corn chaff.

  “I love you, too, Papa.”

  A smile reached his eyes at last. “You’re all the brightness in the world to me, my girl. Now get you to bed before that blazing moon has our rooster rashly commencing the morn.”

  “You, too, Papa. You had a long day.”

  She left him the letter. He seemed to need it more than she.

  17

  Storing Moon 1770

  The sun was bright, the sky a radiant blue. Good Voice straightened her back, raised the smoothed wooden pestle, and thumped it into the stump bowl, crushing parched corn into meal.

  While she filled the cool autumn air with rhythmic pounding, Two Hawks sat beneath the lodge arbor attaching some of his hoarded metal arrow points to new shafts. Each of those points had killed rabbits, squirrels, and pheasants, now and then a turkey. He was turning out to be as good a hunter as his early skill with the bow had promised, though he longed for a musket like his father’s—better still a rifle—which wasn’t being put to best use since…

  Do not think the worst, she admonished herself. Stone Thrower had taken the summer’s deerskins to the traders at the Carry and was long in returning, but maybe he wouldn’t drink or gamble them away and return with nothing to show but an aching head.

  Clear Day still hunted, but Clear Day’s eyes weren’t sharp now and he often came back empty-handed. Two Hawks was taking up the slack. Or trying to. The more his father forgot his place as a man of the People, the more Two Hawks seemed determined to assume the role.

  Pausing the grinding to rest her shoulders—she was just past two-and-thirty summers now and did not feel as young as she once had—she looked at her skinny, big-kneed son. He spent less time these days with the teacher, Fowler, though he’d gone to him that morning.

  “You learn much words from the teacher?”

  She’d asked the question in English. He looked up, but she couldn’t read his expression for the arbor’s shade. “Some,” he said and dropped his gaze to his work.

  Usually he was eager to tell her all his new words, trying them out in his voice that lately would crack, plunging without warning, then soar again, circling the edges of manhood like the hawks for which he was named. “Tell me,” she prompted.

  Two Hawks’s hands stilled on the shaft he’d been tipping. He raised a troubled brow. “That one who is wife to the missionary, she asked about you today.”

  Good Voice raised the pestle and slammed it down again. Some moons ago, Samuel Kirkland had gone back east and returned with a wife called Jerusha. Good Voice found herself torn about it.

  Two Hawks had obeyed his father in this one thing: he stayed away from the missionary, only learning English so he could speak it—to his brother one day, he said. Good Voice thought it was also so he could speak to the redcoat’s daughter, whom she suspected he was still going to visit from time to time, though in this he did not obey his father. She was careful not to ask him about it.

  When Two Hawks, Clear Day, and Stone Thrower returned the first time from Aubrey’s farm to tell her they’d been too late, that He-Is-Taken was gone out of their reach again, she’d thought the guilt and disappointment would crush her. She had been glad she’d chosen to wait for them in Kanowalohale, once the decision was made to follow Kirkland’s advice and tell Stone Thrower that Clear Day had seen their son.

  Only one thing to come from that encounter with the girl, Anna Catherine, was good. Stone Thrower hadn’t killed anyone. He’d wanted to, but Clear Day had made Stone Thrower promise he would do no violence before he agreed to show him the farm where He-Is-Taken lived.

  Clear Day had wanted Kirkland to go along, to speak for them if it came to speaking, but Stone Thrower had refused to have him. Stone Thrower’s plan had been to go to that place and watch it, wait until those children Clear Day had seen came out to play. When they strayed near enough the wood’s edge, Stone Thrower meant to dart out and take the boy, get him away so he could see his brother, see he had a twin called Two Hawks, see what he truly was, then bring him back to Good Voice.

  But they’d found only the girl. Stone Thrower had wanted to take her instead, but Clear Day hadn’t let him do it. Clear Day had brought along the white beads. What he hoped to do with them Good Voice hadn’t known. If Stone Thrower wouldn’t take them and be consoled about their missing son, did Clear Day think his nephew would offer them in peace to the redcoat who took that son?

  To her surprise, Stone Thrower hadn’t blamed her, or Clear Day, for not telling him where their son could be found sooner than they had. He blamed the missionary for how it had turned out. No amount of reasoning that Kirkland had nothing to do with Aubrey’s wife taking their son across the sea could soften his heart against the man.

  “If not Kirkland,” Stone Thrower flung back, “then his god has done this bad thing. What sort of god keeps taking a son from the parents who want him back?”

  Maybe Two Hawks felt the same. He spoke no bitter words, but he had no interest in hearing words of Heavenly Father. He was a watchful boy. Surely he could see the division Kirkland was causing between those who followed Jesus and those who clung to the old beliefs. A division Good Voice thought needless in some ways.

  Kirkland seemed to think that following a Jesus path meant one had to follow a white path as well. She wished she had words to speak her heart about such matters, because she didn’t agree. Why couldn’t they have their Green Corn Festival, and their Giving Thanks Festival, and all the other ceremonies around the circle of the year, and give their thanks to Heavenly Father? Why couldn’t they dance to Him, or beat the drums, or send their prayers up with pipe smoke?

  Or maybe Two Hawks sensed the division in their own family—light and darkness dwelling under the same roof—though of the two of them who’d given their hearts to Heavenly Father, only Clear Day had confessed to it.

  That had been an ugly scene between Stone Thrower and his uncle—one that happened soon after they returned with their bad news of He-Is-Taken. The two had spoken little since then, so Good Voice dared not admit her own heart’s change.

  Nor did she dare follow her heart about Jerusha Kirkland.

  She’d watched the woman from afar, seen how she adapted to many of their ways as her husband had before her. How those women who worshiped Heavenly Father were welcomed into her home. Good Voice ached to be among them. To know a woman who understood what it meant to have faith and walk in the light and wait on the Lord and other stirring words she’d heard Kirkland use those times she contrived to pass near when he taught the people.

  Now the woman was asking about her.

  “What does that one say of me?” Good Voice asked, breathing hard around the words as she went on with the grinding.

  “She has asked more than one time—she catches me as I am leaving Fowler’s lodge—whether you are born of t
he People or…?”

  Good Voice brought the pestle down crooked but caught it before it bounced out of her grip. That wasn’t good, that question. Maybe it was best she stay away. Maybe the woman would prove more meddler than friend. “What do you tell her?”

  “Nothing.” He’d spoken of Jerusha in a defensive tone. Now curiosity replaced it. “Were you born of the People?”

  “I was not.” She’d assumed he must have realized it long since, though the fact she was born to whites wasn’t a thing anyone mentioned. Perhaps, like most children with their mothers, he’d never seen her as a person unto herself, with a history that started long before his own began.

  He was waiting for her to say more.

  “I do not know the people to whom I was born.” She’d no memory of that mother and father, not their faces or their names, or the name they had called her. She’d been taken in a raid from the place the whites called Penn’s Wood when she was two summers, maybe three, and given to a couple whose warrior sons had all been slain by settlers and themselves driven from their home on the Susquehanna, to live in Kanowalohale. They’d had a daughter too, one who died a girl. She’d been given the name of that girl, Good Voice. Her memories started there.

  Those parents died soon after she and Stone Thrower married, leaving her with Bright Leaf, her mother’s sister, who was also her mother in the way of the Haudenosaunee.

  “I am sad my brother is being raised white,” Two Hawks said after she finished her story.

  “I thought you liked that a’sluni girl.”

  Two Hawks’s expression softened. “She is good to see and talk to.”

  Good Voice was surprised by her son’s unguarded words. Stone Thrower had made it clear his visits to Aubrey’s land were done. Good Voice knew it drove daggers into his heart and brain to see that girl and listen to her talk of their son. He’d forbidden Two Hawks to go there without him.

  This was the first her son had openly acknowledged his visits. She was glad he trusted her with the knowledge, but in truth it worried her, his sneaking off alone all that long way, three days of travel—maybe less for Two Hawks, who probably ran most of it—through wilderness with farms and settlements springing up like mushrooms after rain.

  “Is that why you still learn English, to talk better with her?” Speaking openly of the girl reminded her that He-Is-Taken was unimaginably far away. William. That was how her firstborn was called among the whites. Was it a good name? Strong? Maybe, now that it was made open, she should get her son to repeat what that girl told him. Maybe it would be good for her heart to know about this William. Her son.

  “It is one reason.” Two Hawks looked at her, perhaps to see whether she was angry with him for disobeying his father. It could take a little coaxing now to get out of him what he was thinking. Not like when he was small.

  Good Voice missed those days, wished she’d had more babies after the last one born too soon. But it was long since she’d wanted to share Stone Thrower’s bed in that way. He lived in her lodge, ate at her fire, but was hardly a husband anymore.

  Two Hawks got to his feet. “I am going hunting,” he told her.

  “Alone?” She suspected he hunted alone when he meant to see the girl.

  “With someone. He is waiting.”

  “Ah?” When he didn’t say who was waiting, Good Voice decided not to ask, though it was hard. “Good hunting then.”

  Her son smiled and went into the lodge for his bow.

  After Two Hawks went off to meet whoever he was hunting with, Good Voice stopped grinding corn, overtaken by an impulse. She didn’t pause to question it, knowing she’d talk herself out of it if she did. She put the meal she’d ground into a hide bag and set off toward the missionary’s lodge.

  Not since she crouched in darkness beneath the window two years past had she been back there. The heart that cracked open then was banging now as she came boldly in daylight and knocked on the door. Ten heartbeats later, Jerusha Kirkland opened the door. She was a small woman, young, with brown hair and eyes that widened at seeing who was at her door.

  “It is you,” said the missionary’s wife, in careful Oneida. “Two Hawks’s mother.”

  “I am that one’s mother.” Feeling heat wash through her, Good Voice thrust out the bag of meal and in English said, “I bring—this—you.” She shook her head, frustrated. “My English much bad.” It was better than that poor attempt, but she was rattled.

  “Thank you, Good Voice,” Jerusha Kirkland said, taking the gift of meal and answering in her native tongue. “And your English is fine, much better than my Oneida.” She laughed, a pleasant sound. It made something tight inside Good Voice uncoil.

  Other women’s voices reached her. The missionary’s wife already had visitors. Good Voice started to step away, but Jerusha put a hand to her arm. A very white hand.

  The woman hesitated but only until Good Voice raised her eyes again. These the other woman searched. What did she see? The longing that had come over Good Voice, strong enough to drive her across the village to do this frightening thing? To offer trust.

  “Some of the women are here,” Jerusha said. “We’re talking about the book of Proverbs, and I’m entertaining one and all with my attempts to speak your language. Will you join us?” She opened her door wide.

  Good Voice hadn’t caught every word the woman just said, but it was clear she was being invited to enter. With a look over her shoulder at the pines that secluded the cabin, and a heart pounding again like the pestle that had ground the meal in Jerusha Kirkland’s grasp, Good Voice stepped across the threshold.

  Two Hawks admired the rifle his new friend was aiming at a yellow leaf clinging to the lowest branch of a chestnut, some fifty paces away. The long leaf danced and fluttered in a chill breeze, smaller than the white tail of a deer. Tames-His-Horse lowered the rifle without firing. Shooting a target when they needed meat would warn every animal within hearing there were hunters in the wood. Grinning at the other boy, Two Hawks raised his bow and sent an arrow flying. It took the yellow leaf with it in its passage deeper into the wood.

  “You are good with that bow,” the other boy said. “But you should get yourself a rifle. Bring home bigger game than rabbits, eh?”

  Tames-His-Horse was a Wolf Clan Mohawk from up north on the St. Lawrence River. Though barely sixteen summers, he was the tallest Indian Two Hawks had ever seen but so skinny he looked like a giant stick bug walking around. He’d come to Kanowalohale to be with his father’s people for a while. Two Hawks had met him while learning English with Fowler.

  “I could get a deer with this bow.” Two Hawks tried not to sound boastful because it was a thing he’d yet to do. Maybe hunting with Tames-His-Horse would bring him that lucky kill. The Mohawk was a good hunter and didn’t mind hunting with a younger boy. But there was another reason Two Hawks had asked him to go hunting.

  Since coming to Kanowalohale, Tames-His-Horse had been having dreams—dreams that were coming true, with no help from him or anyone else. Like that dream he’d had of a flood overtaking the town. Sometime later beavers—an animal so hunted it hadn’t been seen nearby for years—moved in and dammed Oneida Creek, and a heavy summer rain caused it to overrun its banks in the night, near some low-lying lodges on the outskirts. One of those had flooded, but the woman whose lodge it was got her food stores and belongings out in time because she’d heeded the dream and watched the creek.

  Not all Tames-His-Horse’s dreams warned of bad things. Once he dreamed that a woman in his father’s clan had born a girl child. This woman had been married three times, with no babies to show for it, and was almost past the age she could expect to have a child. But sometime after that dream was told to her, she discovered that at last a child was on the way. No one knew if it would be a girl, but many were laying wagers on it.

  Two Hawks wanted to talk about his father’s dreams.

  They’d been stalking deer for two days, following game trails to watering holes they both knew. Ne
ither had yet to kill a deer, but they were enjoying the hunt. Two Hawks had shot a rabbit the evening before, which they’d shared over a companionable fire.

  They walked together down the arrow’s path, hoping to recover it, and since the sun was high in the sky and the chances of finding deer before evening low, Two Hawks decided now was the time to bring up that other matter.

  “If I tell you a thing, can you keep it to yourself?”

  Tames-His-Horse, who’d been scuffing a moccasin through leaves, searching the place where they thought the arrow must have landed, looked over at him. “I can do that.”

  “It is about dreams.”

  The Mohawk’s brows rose. “Mine? Or yours?”

  “Neither. I have dreams, but I never remember them. Not like you.”

  “Be glad you do not.”

  Two Hawks wasn’t sure what to say. Did Tames-His-Horse not like having dreams that came true? They brought him attention, but maybe that wasn’t always a good thing.

  “My father has dreams. Ones no one wants to help him see come true.”

  Tames-His-Horse hadn’t heard the story of Fort William Henry. It wasn’t much talked about now, only sometimes when people shook their heads at his father’s bad behavior, giving the tired old excuse.

  “My father dreams of killing that redcoat,” he said, after finishing the story of his lost twin. “All these years later he is still dreaming it.” Two Hawks frowned over memories of his father shouting in the night, waking from the dream to seethe and rant about it. But that redcoat wasn’t just a monster from a dream now. Two Hawks’s mouth went dry at what he was about to ask. “Do you think my father’s dream should be made to come true?”

  His heart beat heavy as he thought of Anna Catherine.

  Tames-His-Horse frowned, looking as if he was going to think about it for a while before he answered.

  Stifling impatience, Two Hawks busied himself scouring the surrounding wood. Leaves lay scattered bright on the ground, yellow, ochre…red as spilled blood. Maybe it hadn’t been good to ask this Mohawk. Yes, he had dreams that came true, but he wasn’t an old man, not a sachem wise with years. He’d half decided the older boy didn’t intend to answer at all when Tames-His-Horse spoke.