An Echo in the Bone, Page 55

  “This house—it belonged to a cousin of our mother’s. He was a widower, and childless. He had willed the house to Denzell, though when he heard about our being put out of meeting, he wrote to say that he meant to alter his will. By happenstance, though, he caught a bad ague and died before he could do so. But all his neighbors knew, of course—about Denny—which is why…”

  “I see.” It seemed to William that while God might not be logical, He seemed to be taking a most particular interest in Denzell Hunter. He thought it might not be mannerly to say so, though, and inquired in a different direction.

  “You said the house was sold. So your brother—”

  “He has gone in to the town, to the courthouse, to sign the papers for the sale of the house and make arrangement for the goats, pigs, and chickens. As soon as that is done, we will… leave.” She swallowed visibly. “Denny means to join the Continental army as a surgeon.”

  “And you will go with him? As a camp follower?” William spoke with some disapproval; many soldiers’ wives—or concubines—did “follow the drum,” essentially joining the army with their husbands. He had not seen much of camp followers yet himself, as there had been none on the Long Island campaign—but he’d heard his father speak of such women now and then, mostly with pity. It wasn’t a life for a woman of refinement.

  She lifted her chin, hearing his disapproval.

  “Certainly.”

  A long wooden pin lay on the table; she must have taken it from her hair when she removed her cap. Now she twisted her damp hair up into a knot and stabbed the pin decisively through it.

  “So,” she said. “Will thee travel with us? Only so far as thee may be comfortable in doing so,” she added quickly.

  He had been turning the notion over in the back of his mind all the while they had talked. Plainly, such an arrangement would have advantages for the Hunters—a larger group was always safer, and it was apparent to William that, his revelation notwithstanding, the doctor was not a natural warrior. It would, he thought, have some advantage to himself, as well. The Hunters knew something of the immediate countryside, which he did not, and a man traveling in a group—particularly a group including a woman—was much less noticeable, and much less suspicious, than one alone.

  It dawned on him suddenly that if Hunter meant to join the Continental army, there might be excellent opportunity of getting close enough to Washington’s forces to gain valuable intelligence of them—something that would go a long way toward compensating for the loss of his book of contacts.

  “Yes, certainly,” he said, and smiled at Miss Hunter. “An admirable suggestion!”

  A flash of lightning stabbed suddenly through the slits of the shutters, and a clap of thunder crashed overhead, almost simultaneously. Both of them started violently at the noise.

  William swallowed, feeling his ears still ring. The sharp scent of lightning burned the air.

  “I do hope,” he said, “that that was a signal of approval.”

  She didn’t laugh.

  THE BLESSING OF BRIDE AND OF MICHAEL

  THE MOHAWK KNEW HIM as Thayendanegea—Two Wagers. To the English, he was Joseph Brant. Ian had heard much of the man when he dwelt among the Mohawk, by both his names, and had wondered more than once just how well Thayendanegea managed the treacherous ground between two worlds. Was it like the bridge? he thought suddenly. The slender bridge that lay between this world and the next, the air around it assailed by flying heads with rending teeth? Sometime he would like to sit by a fire with Joseph Brant and ask him.

  He was going to Brant’s house now—but not to speak with Brant. Glutton had told him that Sun Elk had left Snaketown to join Brant and that his wife had gone with him.

  “They are in Unadilla,” Glutton had said. “Probably still there. Thayendanegea fights with the English, you know. He’s talking to the Loyalists up there, trying to get them to join him and his men. He calls them ‘Brant’s Volunteers.’” He spoke casually; Glutton was not interested in politics, though he would fight now and then, when the spirit moved him.

  “Does he?” Ian said, just as casually. “Well, then.”

  He had no particular idea where Unadilla was, save that it was in the colony of New York, but that was no great difficulty. He set out next day at dawn, heading north.

  He had no company save the dog and his thoughts, most of the time. At one point, though, he came to a summer camp of Mohawk and was welcomed there.

  He sat with the men, talking. After a time, a young woman brought him a bowl of stew, and he ate it, barely noticing what was in it, though his belly seemed grateful for the warmth and stopped clenching itself.

  He couldn’t say what drew his eye, but he looked up from the men’s talk to see the young woman who had brought him the stew sitting in the shadow just outside the fire, looking at him. She smiled, very slightly.

  He chewed more slowly, the taste of the stew suddenly a savor in his mouth. Bear meat, rich with fat. Corn and beans, spiced with onions and garlic. Delicious. She tilted her head to one side; one dark brow rose, elegant, then she rose, too, as though lifted by her question.

  Ian set down his bowl and belched politely, then got up and went outside, paying no attention to the knowing looks of the men with whom he’d been eating.

  She was waiting, a pale blur in the shadow of a birch. They talked—he felt his mouth form words, felt the tickle of her speech in his ears, but was not really aware of what they said. He held the glow of his anger like a live coal in the palm of his hand, an ember smoking in his heart. He had no thought of her as water to his scorching, nor did he think to kindle her. There were flames behind his eyes, and he was mindless as fire is, devouring where there was fuel, dying where there was not.

  He kissed her. She smelled of food, worked skins, and sun-warmed earth. No hint of wood, no tinge of blood. She was tall; he felt her breasts soft and pushing, dropped his hands to the curve of her hips.

  She moved against him, solid, willing. Drew back, letting cool air touch his skin where she had been, and took him by the hand to lead him to her long-house. No one glanced at them as she took him into her bed and, in the half-dark warmth, turned to him, naked.

  He’d thought it would be better if he couldn’t see her face. Anonymous, quick, some pleasure for her, perhaps. Surcease, for him. For the few moments when he lost himself, at least.

  But in the dark, she was Emily, and he fled from her bed in shame and anger, leaving astonishment behind.

  FOR THE NEXT TWELVE days he walked, the dog by his side, and spoke to no one.

  THAYENDANEGEA’S HOUSE STOOD by itself in large grounds, but near enough the village to be still part of it. The village was much as any other, save that many of the houses had two or three grindstones by the step; each woman ground meal for her family, rather than take it to a mill.

  There were dogs in the street, dozing in the shadows of wagons and walls. Every one sat up, startled, when Rollo came within scenting distance. A few growled or barked, but none offered to fight.

  The men were another matter. There were several men leaning on a fence, watching another with a horse in a field. All of them cast glances at him, half curious, half wary. He didn’t know most of them. One of them, though, was a man named Eats Turtles, whom he had known in Snaketown. Another was Sun Elk.

  Sun Elk blinked at him, startled as any of the dogs, and then stepped out into the road to face him.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He considered for a split second telling the truth—but it wasn’t a truth that could be told quickly, if at all, and certainly not before strangers.

  “None of your business,” he answered calmly.

  Sun Elk had spoken to him in Mohawk, and he’d answered in the same language. He saw eyebrows rise, and Turtle made to greet him, clearly hoping to avert whatever storm was in the offing by making it clear that Ian was Kahnyen’kehaka himself. He returned Turtle’s greeting, and the others drew back a little, puzzled—and intere
sted—but not hostile.

  Sun Elk, on the other hand… Well, Ian hadn’t expected the man to fall on his neck, after all. He’d hoped—insofar as he’d thought about Sun Elk, which was very little—that he’d be elsewhere, but here he was, and Ian smiled wryly to himself, thinking of old Grannie Wilson, who had once described her son-in-law, Hiram, as looking “like he wouldn’t give the road to a bear.”

  It was an apt description, and Sun Elk’s disposition was not improved either by Ian’s reply nor by the subsequent smile.

  “What do you want?” Sun Elk demanded.

  “Nothing that’s yours,” Ian replied, as mildly as possible.

  Sun Elk’s eyes narrowed, but before he could say anything else, Turtle intervened, inviting Ian to come into his house, to eat, to drink.

  He should. It wasn’t polite to refuse. And he could ask, later, privately, where Emily was. But the need that had brought him over three hundred miles of wilderness acknowledged no requirements of civility. Neither would it brook delay.

  Besides, he reflected, readying himself, he’d known it would come to this. No point in putting it off.

  “I wish to speak with her who was once my wife,” he said. “Where is she?”

  Several of the men blinked at that, interested or taken back—but he saw Turtle’s eyes flick toward the gates of the large house at the end of the road.

  Sun Elk, to his credit, merely drew himself up and planted himself more solidly in the road, ready to defy two bears, if necessary. Rollo didn’t care for this and lifted his lip in a growl that made one or two of the men step back sharply. Sun Elk, who had better reason than most of them to know just what Rollo was capable of, didn’t move an inch.

  “Do you mean to set your demon on me?” he asked.

  “Of course not. Sheas, a cù,” he said quietly to Rollo. The dog stood his ground for a moment longer—just long enough to indicate that it was his idea—and then turned aside and lay down, though he kept up a low grumble, like distant thunder.

  “I have not come to take her from you,” Ian said to Sun Elk. He’d meant to be conciliatory, but he hadn’t really expected it to work, and it didn’t.

  “You think you could?”

  “If I dinna want to, does it matter?” Ian said testily, lapsing into English.

  “She wouldn’t go with you, even if you killed me!”

  “How many times must I say that I dinna want to take her away from ye?”

  Sun Elk stared at him for a minute, his eyes quite black.

  “Often enough for your face to say the same thing,” he whispered, and clenched his fists.

  An interested murmur rose from the other men, but there was an intangible drawing away. They wouldn’t interfere in a fight over a woman. That was a blessing, Ian thought vaguely, watching Sun Elk’s hands. The man was right-handed, he remembered that. There was a knife on his belt, but his hand wasn’t hovering near it.

  Ian spread his own hands peaceably.

  “I wish only to talk with her.”

  “Why?” Sun Elk barked. He was close enough for Ian to feel the spray of spittle on his face, but he didn’t wipe it away. He didn’t back away, either, and dropped his hands.

  “That’s between me and her,” he said quietly. “I daresay she’ll tell ye later.” The thought of it gave him a pang. The statement didn’t seem to reassure Sun Elk, who without warning hit him in the nose.

  The crunch echoed through his upper teeth, and Sun Elk’s other fist struck him a glancing blow on the cheekbone. He shook his head to clear it, saw the blur of movement through watering eyes, and—more by good fortune than intent—kicked Sun Elk solidly in the crotch.

  He stood breathing heavily, dripping blood on the roadway. Six pairs of eyes went from him to Sun Elk, curled in the dust and making small, urgent noises. Rollo got up, walked over to the fallen man, and smelled him with interest. All the eyes came back to Ian.

  He made a small motion of the hand that brought Rollo to heel and walked up the road toward Brant’s house, six pairs of eyes fixed on his back.

  WHEN THE DOOR OPENED, the young white woman who stood there gaped at him, eyes round as pennies. He’d been in the act of wiping his bloody nose with his shirttail. He completed this action and inclined his head civilly.

  “Will ye be so good as to ask Wakyo’teyehsnonhsa if she will be pleased to speak wi’ Ian Murray?”

  The young woman blinked, twice. Then she nodded and swung the door to—pausing with it halfway shut, in order to look at him once more and assure herself that she’d really seen him.

  Feeling strange, he stepped down into the garden. It was a formal English garden, with rosebushes and lavender and stone-flagged paths. The smell of it reminded him of Auntie Claire, and he wondered briefly whether Thayendanegea had brought back an English gardener from London.

  There were two women at work in the garden, some distance away; one was a white woman, by the color of the hair beneath her cap, and in her middle years by the stoop of her shoulders—perhaps Brant’s wife? he wondered. Was the young woman who had answered the door their daughter? The other woman was Indian, with her hair in a plait down her back but streaked with white. Neither one turned to look at him.

  When he heard the click of the door latch behind him, he waited a moment before turning around, steeling himself against the disappointment of being told that she was not here—or, worse, that she had refused to see him.

  But she was there. Emily. Small and straight, with her breasts showing round in the neck of a blue calico gown, her long hair bound up behind but uncovered. And her face fearful—but eager. Her eyes lit with joy at the sight of him, and she took a step toward him.

  He would have crushed her to him had she come to him, made any gesture inviting it. And what then? he wondered dimly, but it didn’t matter; after that first impulsive movement toward him, she stopped and stood, her hands fluttering for an instant as though they would shape the air between them, but then folding tight before her, hidden in the folds of her skirt.

  “Wolf’s Brother,” she said softly, in Mohawk. “My heart is warm to see you.”

  “Mine, too,” he said in the same language.

  “Have you come to speak with Thayendanegea?” she asked, tilting her head back toward the house.

  “Perhaps later.” Neither of them mentioned his nose, though from the throbbing, it was likely twice its normal size and there was blood all down the front of his shirt. He glanced around; there was a path that led away from the house, and he nodded at that. “Will you walk with me?”

  She hesitated for a moment. The flame in her eyes had not gone out, but it burned lower now; there were other things there—caution, mild distress, and what he thought was pride. He was surprised that he should see them so clearly. It was as though she were made of glass.

  “I—the children,” she blurted, half turning toward the house.

  “It doesna matter,” he said. “I only—” A dribble of blood from one nostril stopped him, and he paused to wipe the back of his hand across his upper lip. He took the two steps necessary to bring them within touching distance, though he was careful not to touch her.

  “I wished to say to you that I am sorry,” he said formally, in Mohawk. “That I could not give you children. And that I am glad you have them.”

  A lovely warm flush rose in her cheeks, and he saw the pride in her overcome the distress.

  “May I see them?” he asked, surprising himself as much as her.

  She wavered for an instant, but then turned and went into the house. He sat on a stone wall, waiting, and she returned a few moments later with a small boy, maybe five years old, and a girl of three or so in short plaits, who looked gravely at him and sucked her fist.

  Blood had run down the back of his throat; it felt raw and tasted of iron.

  Now and then on his journey, he’d gone carefully over the explanation Auntie Claire had given him. Not with any notion of telling it to Emily; it could mean nothing to her�
�he barely understood it himself. Only, maybe, as some shield against this moment, seeing her with the children he could not give her.

  “Call it fate,” Claire had said, looking at him with a hawk’s eye, the one that sees from far above, so far above, maybe, that what seems mercilessness is truly compassion. “Or call it bad luck. But it wasn’t your fault. Or hers.”

  “Come here,” he said in Mohawk, putting out a hand to the little boy. The boy glanced at his mother, but then came to him, looking up in curiosity to his face.

  “I see you in his face,” he said softly to her, speaking English. “And in his hands,” he added in Mohawk, taking the child’s hands—so amazingly small—in his own. It was true: the boy had her hands, fine-boned and supple; they curled up like sleeping mice in his palms, then the fingers sprang out like a spider’s legs and the boy giggled. He laughed, too, closed his own hands swiftly on the boy’s, like a bear gulping a pair of trout, making the child shriek, then let go.

  “Are you happy?” he asked her.

  “Yes,” she said softly. She looked down, not meeting his eyes, and he knew it was because she would answer honestly but did not wish to see if her answer hurt him. He put a hand under her chin—her skin was so soft!—and lifted her face to him.

  “Are you happy?” he asked again, and smiled a little as he said it.

  “Yes,” she said again. But then gave a small sigh, and her own hand touched his face at last, light as a moth’s wing. “But sometimes I miss you, Ian.” There was nothing wrong with her accent, but his Scots name sounded impossibly exotic on her tongue—it always had.

  He felt a lump in his throat, but kept the faint smile on his face.

  “I see you dinna ask me whether I’m happy,” he said, and could have kicked himself.

  She gave him a quick look, direct as a knife point.

  “I have eyes,” she said, very simply.

  There was a silence between them. He looked away but could feel her there, breathing. Ripe. Soft. He felt her softening further, opening. She had been wise not to go into the garden with him. Here, with her son playing in the dirt near her feet, it was safe. For her, at least.

  “Do you mean to stay?” she asked at last, and he shook his head.

  “I am going to Scotland,” he said.

  “You will take a wife among your own people.” There was relief in that, but regret, too.

  “Are your people no longer my own?” he asked, with a flash of fierceness. “They washed the white blood from my body in the river—you were there.”

  “I was there.”

  She looked at him for a long time, searching his face. Likely enough that she would never see him again; did she seek to remember him, or was she looking for something in his features, he wondered?

  The latter. She turned abruptly, raising a hand to him to wait, and disappeared into the house.

  The little girl ran after her, not wanting to stay with the stranger, but the little boy lingered, interested.

  “Are you Wolf’s Brother?”

  “I am, aye. And you?”

  “They call me Digger.” It was a child’s sort of name, used for convenience until the person’s real name should declare itself in some way. Ian nodded, and they remained a few minutes, looking each other over with interest, but with no sense of awkwardness between them.

  “She who is mother’s mother to my mother,” Digger said quite suddenly. “She talked about you. To me.”

  “She did?” said Ian, startled. That would be Tewaktenyonh. A great woman, head of the Women’s Council at Snaketown—and the person who had sent him away.

  “Does Tewaktenyonh still live?” he asked, curious.

  “Oh, yes. She’s older than the mountains,” the little boy answered seriously. “She has only two teeth left, but she still eats.”

  Ian smiled at that.

  “Good. What did she say to you of me?”

  The boy screwed up his face, recollecting the words.

  “She said I was the child of your spirit but I should not say so to my father.”

  Ian felt the blow of that, harder than any the child’s father had dealt him, and couldn’t speak for a moment.

  “Aye, I dinna think ye should say so, either,” he said, when words returned to him. He repeated the sentiment in Mohawk, in case the boy might not have understood English, and the child nodded, tranquil.

  “Will I be with you, sometime?” he asked, only vaguely interested in the answer. A lizard had come out onto the stone wall to bask, and his eyes were fixed on it.

  Ian forced his own words to be casual.

  “If I live.”