The King's Mercy

by Lori Benton

  “Much big,” Blackbird replied in kind. “Tall.”

  “Tall as him?” Jemma nodded at Alex.

  Blackbird’s gaze ran the length of his legs, stretched out before the fire. “Some maybe—big bulls, at hump behind head.”

  “They’ve a hump?” Alex asked. “They’re not like cattle, then? That’s what I thought they must be, judging from the hair on yon hide.”

  “Bigger than English cow. Wooly head, horns curved.” She put her fists to her temples, forefingers crooked, then ducked and made as if to thrust those finger-horns at Jemma. Alex grinned at her rare antics, then gazed at the door-hide, trying to grasp the immensity of the creature it once covered.

  The hunters, Blackbird went on to say, had found a trail through the snow with fresh sign of buffalo. Only one, but one would have been plenty. It led them far, over a pass, though from the sign it left, they were drawing nearer as the day waned. But they weren’t the only hunters on that mountain looking for meat. Tuscaroras were hunting too. The bands met uneasily, but when the Tuscaroras learned the Cherokees were tracking a buffalo, they asked to join the hunt and divide whatever meat might be clinging to those bones at the end of a long winter.

  “That meant less for everyone, but the Tuscaroras had women and children starving. The man who was my husband agreed, though Cane-Splitter says he did not wish the bands to join. In this he was out-voiced.”

  Together the bands followed the trail, winding down off the high slopes until they came to a slope, steep and stony, and could finally see the beast. The one they followed had joined a small herd. Enough meat for all!

  The hunters made a plan and began their stalk, moving in cover to the left and right of the herd, getting close enough to be sure their musket balls hit their marks. One in the group with Blackbird’s husband missed his footing and dislodged a stone, which started a rock slide that made the buffalo run farther down the slope. The hunters gave chase.

  “Then a bad thing happened. Cane-Splitter saw it, for the man who was my husband was running ahead of him with a Tuscarora hunter.”

  Jemma was clenching the pipe, gaze fixed on Blackbird. Alex gently took it from her and set it back into its birch box.

  “My husband and that Tuscarora leapt a fallen tree,” Blackbird continued. “When they landed the Tuscarora stumbled. He fell against my husband and both went down. Cane-Splitter leapt over them but slid a way in snow before stopping to look back. The Tuscarora was accusing my husband of tripping him so he would not be first to reach the buffalo. My husband said it was not so, but the Tuscarora would not listen. He was very angry, maybe crazed from hunger too, for he drove a knife into my husband’s belly, then across his throat. The other hunters were running, shooting at the buffalo, and did not see. The Tuscarora saw Cane-Splitter coming to kill him next and ran into the trees. Cane-Splitter gave chase but did not catch him. That is how he tells it.” Blackbird nodded at Jemma, adding, “That is why when we found you with this girl, we had the scalps of some of those Tuscaroras hanging from our belts.”

  “That is how he tells it,” Alex repeated, then in English asked, “D’ye not believe Cane-Splitter’s tale?”

  “Believe?” Blackbird’s eyes glittered in the dying firelight. “On the strength of his telling, I went on the warpath, when my mourning was passed. I had my vengeance.”

  “Then why d’ye sound…” He’d meant to say unconvinced, but was startled by a knocking outside the lodge. Thinking it Pauling returned for company, Alex rose. The knocker called out, a male voice, not Pauling’s.

  “Walnut? You there? Come see!”

  Jemma’s head whipped up. “That’s Runs-Far!”

  Alex pushed aside the hide to reveal the lad, teeth agleam in a grin so broad the night couldn’t diminish its blazing. The raised voices had awakened the bairn. Jemma scooped him up.

  Runs-Far came into the lodge at Blackbird’s gesturing. Someone came with him. A child, Alex thought, until firelight revealed a long white braid and deeply lined skin stretched over the bones of a round face. It was an old woman, straight-backed and diminutive.

  She stopped inside the lodge, gaze fastening on Jemma. Runs-Far put a hand on her shoulder and said in Tsalagi, “I bring you this grandmother called Shelled Corn. She is not the one I went to find. I did find that one, but she told me of this one. I had to go another long distance for her, who is also one who remembers your grandmother because…”

  Runs-Far paused for breath, face shining as he gazed at Jemma. “Because she is the sister of the one who was your grandmother.”

  35

  SEPTEMBER 1748

  Clad in a breechclout, Alex balanced on the end of a rock slanting from the river’s flow, bow in hand, and waited for Runs-Far to take his shot. The lad spotted a trout undulating with the current, half-concealed by a shelf of the rock he perched on downstream. Careful not to cast a shadow on that cloudless day, Runs-Far raised his bow and sent an arrow slicing through the water. He crouched, plunged an arm deep, and hoisted the speared trout, rainbow scales glistening. He pulled it off the arrow and tossed it onto the bank beside three others.

  Little Thunder, sharing Alex’s rock, refrained from shouting so as not to scare off other fish but did a dance in celebration of Runs-Far’s latest catch.

  Blackbird’s son found it hilarious that it had taken Alex days to catch his first fish. Alex had been hunting with Fishing Hawk but had lacked any weapon save a spear. Runs-Far had consented to teach Alex the skill of bow fishing, now he was back and Jemma united with her Cherokee kin.

  Shelled Corn, who had no daughters, only sons long since married into their wives’ clans, had become Jemma’s mother in an adoption ceremony held the previous day, during the same gathering that saw Blackbird instated as Ghigau.

  Jemma’s bairn finally had a name—Blue Jay, bestowed on him by Shelled Corn.

  “Good thing we’re Deer Clan,” she’d told Alex during the feast in the council house marking Blackbird’s elevation to Beloved Woman. “Since I mean to marry Runs-Far and I couldn’t if I was Longhair Clan.”

  Bedecked with silver, beads, and quills—Shelled Corn had brought a horse laden with goods—her amber hair oiled and plaited into short braids, Jemma hardly resembled the girl who’d haunted Severn’s smithy.

  “D’ye mean to marry him tonight, mo nighean?” he’d asked, only half-teasing.

  “No,” she’d admitted. “It’s up to his parents to make the offer to Shelled Corn…my mother,” she’d added with a note of wonder. “That’s how they do.”

  Jemma had moved into a lodge with Shelled Corn and Blue Jay, leaving Alex all the more certain he must decide what to do with himself. He could survive anywhere far enough removed from Severn, but he needed a purpose beyond survival. He needed what Jemma had found—a people.

  Shaking away memory of the ones he’d left behind, he grasped the purpose of the moment, trying for another fish. He’d caught one to Runs-Far’s four, but had another sighted. He steadied his stance on the rock as the river flowed past. The trick was allowing for the water’s refraction, knowing where the fish truly was despite appearance. He drew the bow, adjusted his aim, and let fly the arrow—biting back a shout as he drew up a speared trout the length of his forearm.

  “One of the grandfathers!” Little Thunder exclaimed, then clapped a hand over his mouth as Runs-Far nodded his well done.

  When he went to toss the heavy fish onto the bank, Alex saw Blackbird at the riverside, watching. He’d barely seen her since last night’s ceremony. She’d given him new clothing in honor of the occasion, a quilled deerskin shirt, leggings, and moccasins. He wasn’t certain what she meant by the gift, other than not wishing him to go about in the clothes he’d come to them wearing, admittedly falling to rags. He was determined to repay her in hides, once he got them. He would leave on the morrow with Fishing Hawk’s hunters, this time ventur
ing days away in hope of finding buffalo.

  For now he had the trout.

  Leaving Runs-Far and Little Thunder on the rocks, he donned his shirt as Blackbird came down the trail. She hadn’t slept in the lodge last night, but had returned as Runs-Far arrived for the fishing, clearly in need of sleep. She still appeared tired from the night’s festivities, but something was on her mind. Straight as an arrow, she shot to the point.

  “Walnut has mother now. She has clan. You stay too? Or go?”

  She’d spoken English. There was no pretending he hadn’t understood. Alex slipped on his moccasins and took up his bow and the fish. “Aye, let’s talk.”

  Blackbird led the way up a worn footpath, returning greetings to those they passed. Some of those greetings were for him, good-natured congratulations for his fishing success. Many of these people, especially those who came to hear Pauling teach, had accepted him as though he’d decided to stay.

  Autumn was come, with the first hint of what promised to be a conflagration of color on the slopes. Winter would be hard on its heels. There would be snow, he was told, not the mild rains of the low country. Hard and lasting frosts, not the occasional dusting. Either he left them soon, or he’d be staying the winter.

  The buffalo hide fell across the door. Blackbird faced him in the lodge’s fire-lit shadows.

  “I knew you for a warrior when we found you standing over that one now the daughter of Shelled Corn. She is not your blood, but you were ready to die for her. You are strong, and your heart is good.” She spoke Tsalagi, forcing him to heed her eyes, her mouth, the language of her body, while his own felt vibrant and warmed by her generous words. “You are not a warrior of The People, but you could be, if you wish it.”

  Her bluntness set his heart going at a strong rhythm. He put down the fish, then his bow. “Ye’d adopt me, do ye mean?”

  He’d spoken English; she blinked at him, needing a few seconds to be certain of his meaning, then shook her head. “I do not want you for a son, Alex MacKinnon.”

  She hadn’t often spoken his name. It sounded strange on her lips. “What, then?”

  Blackbird held his gaze. “Little Thunder needs a clan uncle to teach him. I would take you for a brother, if it pleases you.”

  Not husband. He was relieved and, perversely, faintly disappointed. He kept his voice light. “Little Thunder could well teach me.”

  Her gaze was sober, searching. “You do not wish to be Aniyunwiya?”

  It was the question he could no longer dodge. If he could have driven Joanna Carey out of his heart and said an unwavering yes, he’d have done it then.

  “Ye do me honor in the asking,” he said. “And what ye ask is of worth to me. Truly, it is. But I canna give ye answer yet. I go tomorrow with Fishing Hawk and the warriors. Would ye grant me the days of hunting to think on what I mean to do?”

  She didn’t answer at once, as though waiting for him to say more. When he didn’t, she nodded, but he could read the disappointment in her eyes. “If you are done fishing,” she said, “will you go into that part of the field that is mine and bring in the pumpkins, if any are ripe?”

  * * *

  Alex headed for the field, no longer in the mood for fishing, his mind consumed with what had passed between him and Blackbird. Had her proposal of adoption made it impossible to remain unless he accepted? Perhaps he should speak to Pauling…

  That was his last thought on the matter before the cawing of ravens distracted him. Dozens of the large birds dotted the field ahead, hopping among the drying cornstalks and sprawling vines. Well within the borders of the field a herd of deer grazed.

  He looked to the scaffold where an elder should be perched, hurling stones and shouting at the birds and deer. A humped shape was visible, wisps of white hair blowing in the breeze.

  The scaffold wasn’t much higher than the crown of his head. He grasped its edge and hoisted himself up.

  The woman lay on her side, facing away from him, a hand extended toward her basket of stones. She hadn’t stirred despite the shifting of the platform as he’d mounted it.

  “Grandmother?” The old woman—the same who’d called him a big white grub—didn’t stir. He gave her a gentle shake. Her limp body rolled over, revealing sightless eyes in the wrinkled face. A feathered arrow protruded from her chest.

  She was no stranger to him now. He knew her name was Wild Goose and that she was Wolf Clan. He knew she’d outlived three husbands, borne seven children, some who lived in Crooked Branch’s town with their children. He also knew she was past helping. He didn’t recognize the arrow’s fletching. Probably wouldn’t unless it was Fishing Hawk’s or Runs-Far’s. Each warrior fletched his arrows according to his fancy. But something about this one set it apart from those he’d seen.

  Her body was still warm.

  He’d barely registered the observation when another arrow whirred past his head. Alex flattened and dropped over the platform’s side. Hunkered low, he started through the cornstalks, tracing the arrow’s path from the woods.

  The deer had fled, the ravens risen skyward in a harsh cacophony. He’d left his bow in Blackbird’s lodge. He’d no weapon on his person save the hunting blade he drew as he ran. By the time he reached the wood’s edge, the shooter of arrows had fled. Alex found where he’d hidden, the disturbance of leaves where feet dug deep to spring away.

  A coward’s act, killing a helpless old woman from a place of hiding. Alex was neither old nor helpless, and he felt the violation of this death as keenly as if Wild Goose had been his own granny.

  Behind him rose a shout. He spared a glance to see Cane-Splitter on the scaffold, having found his dead clanswoman. The warrior spotted Alex at the forest’s edge, but there was no time to wait. He tore into the woods after the shooter, following a trail of churned pine needles and leaves. In seconds he no longer needed the trail. He heard his quarry ahead, the crackle and thud of feet, the heave of labored breath.

  Alex glimpsed his prey climbing through the forest toward a ridge ahead. Not a large warrior but hard-muscled, lithe, painted for war, a quiver across his back, bow in hand, club thrust through a sash. The warrior glanced back, saw him ascending, coming fast—and tripped on a root. He tumbled down the slope practically into Alex’s arms.

  The Indian twisted and kicked, catching Alex in the chest with a foot before scrambling away again. Alex grabbed the bole of a tree and clung, using it to heave himself forward. His fingers closed round an ankle. He yanked with all his might.

  They both fell downslope, rolling and tumbling, and landed in a shower of leaves and twigs on a level spot in the terrain.

  The Indian was bleeding. Alex’s blade had scored the warrior’s thigh in the clutching fall. The warrior rolled into a crouch, bow lost, club brandished.

  It had a spike embedded in the ball.

  Despite the war paint obscuring his features, Alex knew he’d never seen this Indian before. He took in the differences in the warrior’s scant clothing, the adornments in his scalp-lock, on a level deeper than conscious thought. A Tuscarora?

  Astonishment, perhaps a tinge of fear, twisted the warrior’s countenance as he took in Alex’s size.

  “Aye, try me, then—face to face like a man.” No understanding of the challenge lit the Indian’s gaze, but he accepted it nonetheless, rushing Alex with a whoop.

  The fight was over with startling swiftness. The Indian was no match for Alex’s size or the strength he’d gained at Severn’s forge, but when he had the warrior disarmed, the spiked club hurled away into the leaves, the Indian wrested a hand free and stabbed his fingers at Alex’s eyes. Closing them by reflex, he felt the man, half-pinned beneath him, struggling fiercely to slither out of his hold. He fought those fingers, detached them from his face, the knife still in his grasp as they fought.

  How it happened exactly, Alex could never say. As he o
pened his eyes again, the warrior cried out and blood was spurting from a gash across his neck. Then footsteps came, hard and fast. A shrill cry drowned the dying man’s gurgling breaths. Something slammed into the back of Alex’s head.

  He lay with his face in forest duff. Moccasined feet moved in his vision. He was prodded. Dragged. He saw faces but didn’t know them. Then there was firelight and his skull was throbbing as though his brain meant to crack its way through to freedom.

  He rolled onto his side and vomited onto a reed mat. Someone uttered a protest when he sat up, reaching as if to push him back down. Other hands came at him. He fended them off, blinking in the firelight of Blackbird’s lodge, surrounded by faces he knew.

  Jemma. Blackbird. Pauling. Memory rushed in. The cornfield. The arrow. The old woman. The warrior.

  “Did you find the woman dead?” Blackbird asked. “That is what Cane-Splitter is saying.”

  Cane-Splitter. “Aye. He…he came after me?”

  “He said he reached you as you slew the one who killed his clan elder,” Blackbird said. “He is angry. It was his place to do it, not yours. But I am thinking you did not know he was coming to check on her. Is this what happened?”

  Alex looked away from her into the worried gazes of Pauling and Jemma. “Was it him hit me?”

  “Cane-Splitter?” Pauling said. “No. He reached you in time to save your life.”

  “He didna save me. I killed that Tuscarora…if it was a Tuscarora.”

  “It was,” Blackbird said flatly. “One who hunted with my husband that day. Cane-Splitter knew him. But there were two. It was the second who hit you with his club.”

  “He’d have finished you,” Jemma interjected, round-eyed. “If Cane-Splitter hadn’t scairt him off. He wanted to chase after that one but saw you weren’t dead, so he brought you back instead. Crooked Branch is talking to him now.”

  “Was it reprisal, for what your band had done when ye found us?” Alex asked.