“I suppose she misses her children,” Sarah said.
“She should have thought of that before she took another man to bed,” Mrs Parson snorted.
“Mama, Mama!” David came leaping up the hill, a thin length of maple brandished as a sword over his head. “Samuel says that d’Artagnan wasn’t truly a musketeer, not like the other three.”
“He’s right,” Alex replied with a smile, “at least to begin with. But, over time, he became an officer of the Musketeers, I think.” At times, she regretted having told them this story, and even more because her whole family, adults included, often demanded a retelling.
“Ha!” David turned triumphantly to his two younger brothers and his nephew who had tagged him up the hill. “You see? I was right. It’s d’Artagnan who’s the best musketeer.”
“That wasn’t what I said,” Alex said. “I said Samuel was right.”
Samuel gave her a fleeting smile and rushed off in pursuit of the others, calling loudly that if he wasn’t to be d’Artagnan then he preferred to be Buckingham, albeit that he was an Englishman and a royalist to boot.
“Royalist?” Alex sank down to sit. “The Three Musketeers was before the Civil War.”
“And so it follows that the Duke of Buckingham was indeed a royalist, no? Not that I hold it against him, seeing as he didn’t know there was an alternative.” Mrs Parson had gotten to her feet and was following the heated swordplay further down the slope with keen interest. “That young David, he would make a right fine soldier. Cuts a dashing figure, no?”
“Not on the books,” Alex said. He would be boarding with his aunt and uncle for the coming two years, to study at the recently opened grammar school in Providence with Minister Allerton, and then Matthew thought to apprentice him to the gunsmith in Providence. Alex wasn’t too enthused, and neither was David, but when Alex asked him what he really wanted, he just shook his head and looked away.
*
“Walk?” Matthew said after supper, holding out his hand to Alex.
“Swim,” she said, tugging at her bodice.
“Aye, it’s a trifle hot,” Matthew said.
“Sweltering is the word I’d use.” Alex flapped her hands at the clouds of midgets that hung like a trailing veil around their heads.
“Good weather for the wheat. Just a few more days and then we start bringing it in.” A good year, he nodded to himself, with cartloads of timber ready to sell, the hay already in, and the crops standing golden in his fields. He sniffed the air and scanned the horizon for any signs of rain. Not a cloud; only this infinite span of clear sky that was now shifting from palest white to the deep violet of a summer night. He held Alex’s hand and ran his finger over the single adornment his wife had ever had from him: a dark sapphire in a heavy band of gold – her wedding ring. Not that she needed anything more, but at times he wished he could have given her pearls and bracelets, precious gems to decorate her hair with.
“What?” she asked perceptively.
He opened his mouth to tell her but decided not to. Instead, he would buy her something nice once he had the harvest in and sold. Mayhap he could ask Kate to help him choose something – without Alex ever finding out, of course.
They collected people on their short walk down to the water: Adam skipped up to take his mama’s hand, David and Samuel came sprinting after them, Sarah called that she was coming too, and suddenly the whole household was on the move towards the river, the children exuberant and chattering, the adults grumbling about the midges and the heat.
“Next time, we take a huge detour,” Alex mumbled to Matthew. She looked at their milling family and rolled her eyes.
“A bloody tribe,” she said, making Matthew laugh. “Look at all these people!”
*
Much later, Alex sat back on her heels and patted Matthew on his reddened rump. “All done.”
“Uh.” He stretched lazily. His whole back was tingling after her thorough ministrations, blood flowing freely through muscles that tended to stiffen more and more. He rolled over on his side, his eyes heavy as he hung somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. Alex lifted her fingers to her own lips first and then pressed them to his.
“Sleep,” she suggested, pulling the sheets and quilts up around him.
“Nhhh,” he agreed, but he kept his eyes slightly open, watching Alex as she went about her evening ablutions. She cleaned her teeth as carefully as she always did, rinsed her mouth with peppermint water, and shook out her hair. Matthew smiled at how she scrutinised her face in the wee mirror, fingers massaging her skin. On the small table lay a copy of the Aeneid, and Alex flipped it open to where they’d left off latest.
“Bloody man,” she muttered, as she always did when she read how Aeneas left Dido behind to embark on the last leg of his journey to Italy.
“He had no choice,” Matthew mumbled. “He had to go; his fate was calling to him.”
“Huh,” Alex snorted and closed the book before blowing out the candle. “Typical male.” She slipped into bed.
“Typical male?” Matthew snuggled up close. “You don’t think women have fates to fulfil?”
“We don’t have time to,” Alex said with certain acidity. “We drown in the day to day.”
And yet you were fated to fall into my time, he thought, his hold on her tightening. Fated since you were born to be mine. But he didn’t say anything. He just kissed the side of her neck.
*
Somewhere in the early hours before dawn proper, Matthew woke, eyes flying open. The dogs were barking, there was a distant yipping, human voices raised in fear, and what was that smell? Fire! But not anywhere close, he calmed himself, scrabbling for his clothes, not any of the buildings.
Alex sat up and blinked, her hair standing in tufts around her face. And then she was on her feet, racing after him through the door with a shawl thrown over her shift and nothing much else.
“Indians?” she gasped.
Matthew didn’t reply, running barefoot towards the burning wheat fields.
He twisted in helpless frustration as he watched his crops go up in smoke. Not all of them, thank heavens, he had other fields further off, but this was at least half of it. Nothing left to set aside, he thought bitterly. But how? Indians had never done something like this before. The night breeze flowed from the river to the house, and he could see where the fire had taken hold at the furthest edge to spread upwards. Here and there, he could make out islands of unharmed wheat standing high against the scorched ground that surrounded them.
His sons were already digging, creating channels of damp earth to contain the fire, keep it away from the pastures and the beasts. Ian had crawled in among the animals to soothe them, and there was John and Sarah and Naomi and even his Alex, all rushing to help with the digging. But he stood rooted to the spot and watched the conflagration sputter out and die.
“Da?” Ian’s sharp voice broke through Matthew’s paralysis. “Da? Come here, aye?”
Not Indians, Matthew stated a few minutes later, staring down at the dead cow. The poor beast had been disembowelled, the heart skewered with a knife and prominently displayed. No, this bore all the hallmarks of the Burleys, a taunting example of how close as they could get without anyone noticing. Matthew met Ian’s eyes over the carcass and nodded imperceptibly. War, this was war, and the Burleys were going to die. It was years since Matthew had felt a rage such as this: a slow, seeping blackness that welled from deep in his gut and spread to layer everything inside of him. Ian stiffened, his hand closing on the handle of his dirk, and Matthew knew that Ian was choking on bitterness. It wouldn’t be him riding off beside Matthew to hunt the Burleys down – he no longer could.
“You’re needed here,” Matthew said.
“I’m of no use.” Ian turned away into the forest, limping heavily as he ducked out of sight.
It wasn’t until dawn that they found the man. Spread-eagled and very dead, the white man was tied to two saplings, his face towards the rising s
un. His shirt was stiff with drying blood. In death, his dull eyes stared at nothing at all, and the ground beneath him was dark with blood and excrement.
“So it was Indians you heard,” Mark commented to Matthew as he sliced the thongs that suspended the man in the air.
“Aye, it would seem so,” Matthew said. “Interrupting the Burleys before they could do us more mischief or harm.”
Alex’s hand was suddenly in his, a small lump of cold fear that he tried to rub some warmth into with his thumb. He didn’t want to look at her, didn’t want to see in her face what he was sure she could see in his. This was Qaachow’s work, a silent reminder that his men were close and kept the Grahams safe – at a price, of course.
At times, Matthew wished Alex had never saved the Indian wean, but what was she to do when she found Qaachow’s starving son? Leave him to die? In gratitude, Qaachow had pronounced Samuel his foster son, but what had once seemed but a cordial gesture had over the years become something of a threat, with Qaachow making it very clear that he intended to claim on Matthew’s promise and take Samuel with him to spend a year amongst the Indians.
Three times over the last few years, Qaachow had come by to visit, and every time his eyes had hung hungrily on Samuel. Matthew scuffed at the ground. Alex tightened her hold on his hand, a silent presence beside him that was begging him to say something reassuring, lie even. But what was there to say? There was nothing he could do. For years, his family and his home had been kept safe by the vigilant presence of Qaachow and his men, and all because Samuel was the Indian leader’s foster son.
“We could send him away,” Alex said once the morning regained some semblance of normality. “If we send him down with David to Providence, well then, he isn’t here, is he?”
Matthew grunted. He doubted they’d get very far from home before they found themselves surrounded by a band of Indians.
“But we must try,” Alex said.
Matthew sank his knife into the tabletop and turned towards her with a heavy sigh. “I’ve promised, Alex. And somehow Qaachow will come for Samuel. I don’t think it will help the lad to be abducted by force.”
“So we just let him go?” Alex breathed, her eyes very vulnerable.
“Aye, lass. We just let him go and put a brave face on it. An apprenticeship if you like, and then he’ll come back to us.”
“I don’t think I can,” Alex said.
“I don’t think I can either, but we don’t have much choice.” He kissed her bowed head and stood up, returning his knife to its customary place in his belt. “It isn’t yet. Samuel is only ten. Qaachow said twelve.”
*
In the passageway between the parlour and the kitchen, Samuel sank down to sit huddled on the floor. They didn’t want him to go, and yet they would turn him over to the Indians. It made his stomach shrink down to the size of one of Mama’s prunes. He was only ten, he reminded himself, not yet twelve, and mayhap he could run away before. His Indian foster father intimidated him. He didn’t want to go with him; he wanted to stay here, at home with Mama and Da and his brothers. No choice. His da was hogtied by his promise. He dug his fingers hard into his eyes to stop himself from crying, and counted slowly up to a hundred before getting back to his feet. Not yet, he reminded himself, not yet, and mayhap, if he was lucky, Qaachow would die before.
Chapter 11
It was a horrible job to slaughter one pig, let alone six. Alex used the back of her hand to push a stray lock of hair out of the way, and looked with disgust at her blood-spattered apron.
Two days straight, they’d been at it, with Ian in charge of the actual killing, gutting and draining while she supervised the flaying and the cutting up. Dismemberment, she grimaced, looking down at the bucket full of those parts they wouldn’t be using themselves. The dogs had been pacing around in anticipation for hours, and from the pig pen she could hear the sow grunt and scrabble, the quivering snout signalling she expected her share as well.
“They’re your babies,” Alex said sternly, making Ian laugh. The sow just wagged her little curled tail all the harder. “If we sell all of it, it’ll make up some of the shortfall from the wheat.”
“Some, but not all. We also have timber to sell, and cheese and honey, but it’s still a big loss.” Ian stretched this way and that, seemingly not that incapacitated despite the day’s heavy work.
Alex closed the door on the smoking shed, and for an instant rested against it. All of her hurt; from her hands to her arms to the lower region of her back, but at least now it was all done. Bristles, skin to be cured into leather, lard, the hams meant for smoking already lying in brine inside the shed, and here came Agnes to carry back the last bucket of clean intestines for the sausage making which Alex had delegated to Mrs Parson. Tonight, when the men came back, there’d be ribs for a late supper, barbecued under the expert eye of Naomi in celebration of Agnes’ and John’s newborn daughter.
Alex threw a look to where Ian had propped up his loaded musket. Further up the slope, Sarah was sitting with a musket over her knees, and even Alex was armed – rather uselessly, as she seriously doubted she’d be able to hit anything with the cavalry pistol she’d placed some yards away. For the last few weeks, Matthew and three of his sons had scoured the woods, looking for any trace of the Burleys, but it would seem the Indians had done a good job of scaring them away. Thank heavens for that, Alex thought, her eyes sliding over to where Samuel sat very alone, fondling one of the cats.
“Damn those Burley bastards,” she said out loud. She didn’t want to be constantly on her guard, hated that those accursed brothers should have the power to restrict their lives this way.
“Aye.” Ian’s face tightened into a black scowl.
Alex rolled her eyes. Ian had major problems accepting the fact that he couldn’t take part in the ongoing Burley hunt. “Consider the alternatives,” she said. “You could have died, or been confined to your bed.”
“Or I could still be whole.”
“Yes,” she said, cupping his cheek. “Yes, Ian, you’re right. But at least you’re still here, with us.” With me, she meant.
Briefly, he covered her hand with his. There was the slightest of nods and a weak attempt at a smile before he went back to his work.
She straightened up and shoved all thoughts of the Burleys firmly out of her head, just as she had outlawed all those frightening images of a hurt or dying Matthew that popped up every time he rode off, grim-faced and emerald-eyed, his hand on his musket. No, she would concentrate on trivia instead, like the coleslaw she was making for tonight.
She had just covered the earthenware bowl full of shredded cabbage, carrots, onions and her secret dressing when a group of men rode into the yard. For an instant, she was convinced it was the Burleys, but then she saw Ian limp across the yard towards them, empty-handed, and relaxed.
She peered through the thick window glass: the Chisholms – and the priest! In a very bad way, she might add, seeing the slight man loll back against the man riding with him. Mrs Parson was already outside, shooting questions with the speed of a machine gun while her arm waved in the direction of the kitchen. Alex sighed and poured hot water and salt on the table, scrubbing it in preparation for its double duty as operation theatre.
“Oh dear.” Alex swallowed, placing a finger on the swollen lower extremity. The priest yelped at her light touch, his skin tight as a drum over something that seemed to be seething inside. It stank: a heavy, putrid scent that made Alex want to gag.
Mrs Parson frowned, her nose almost touching the wound. “When did this happen?”
“A week ago? Ten days?” Martin Chisholm shrugged to show he didn’t quite collect. “A scythe.”
“Aye, I can see that,” Mrs Parson replied. “Lying about, was it?”
“No,” Paul, the other Chisholm brother, replied snappishly. “But he’s a clumsy man and has clearly never wielded one before.”
Mrs Parson straightened up and handed a leather strap to Paul, who coaxe
d it in between the clenched teeth of the semi-conscious priest before beckoning Alex closer. “You cut.”
Alex nodded. Normal repartition of labour these last few years, ever since Mrs Parson’s hands had begun to tremble continuously. Betty was already pulping garlic and bee balm into a green mash, the battered kettle was whistling with boiling water, and Mrs Parson rinsed out a bowl, added handfuls of salt, lavender, bee balm and St. John’s wort before pouring hissing water over it all. The priest had time to sniff appreciatively before the sterilised knife sank into his leg.
“Worse patient I’ve ever had,” Mrs Parson said once it was over. Alex agreed. The man had bucked like an unbroken horse on the table, and the knife had cut far too deep, much, much too deep. Blood and pus had spurted wildly, and only Martin’s quick reactions, throwing himself across the priest to pin him down, had allowed some modicum of control over the situation. Now, the shin was stitched from ankle to halfway up his calf and wrapped in bandages that seeped green from the mash with which they had covered his leg.
“We may need to open it again,” Mrs Parson sighed.
“Let’s hope that won’t be necessary, and, if it is, someone else will have to cut.” First the pigs and then this. Alex felt like Sweeney Todd.
*
Matthew returned home after yet another wasted day spent chasing after the Burleys – everything pointed to the accursed brothers having left the area, and although relieved, it also made Matthew seethe. He needed to find them, kill them, for his family to be safe. He was not overly pleased to find Father Carlos Muñoz installed in the small room just off the parlour, not that he had anything against the man as such – except for the obvious fact that he was a papist priest – but he could see how affected Alex was by his presence, eyes gluing themselves to the heart-shaped face, the soft curls and the long, dark lashes. Her lost son, he realised. In everything, she was imagining it was Isaac sitting before her.
Nor did he like the fact that they conversed in Spanish, effectively excluding him from the discussions. After a whole evening attempting to decipher what was being said, he’d had enough.
Revenge and Retribution (The Graham Saga) Page 9