by Shawnee Moon
Ohneya grabbed her hair and yanked back, slashing down with his knife to cut her throat from ear to ear. She scooped up a handful of sand with her left hand and threw it full into his grotesque face. He howled in rage as the sand blinded his eyes.
Cailin twisted away. His steel blade missed her jugular and sliced a fiery trail of pain across the upper section of her right arm. Ohneya drew back his arm to strike again.
Then he shuddered and fell forward heavily on top of Cailin, Sterling’s tomahawk buried between his shoulder blades. He convulsed twice and gave an agonized groan. Sterling seized him by the shoulders and dragged him away. The Mohawk’s body sprawled across the back of the cave, his sightless eyes already glazing over.
“Are you all right?” Sterling demanded as he pulled Cailin to her feet. He saw the blood running down her arm and swore a foul oath.
Drawing his own knife, he cut a strip of cloth from Ohneya’s shirt and wrapped it tightly around her arm. “It’s not deep,” he said. “It’s a good thing you yelled your head off.”
Her teeth were chattering. “Next time ... next time, don’t be so slow.”
“That bastard.” Sterling put his moccasined foot in the center of Ohneya’s chest and took hold of the Mohawk’s scalp lock.
“No!” Cailin cried. “Don’t.”
Sterling glanced back at her and sheathed his knife. “For your sake, woman,” he agreed. “But he deserved to lose his soul. Without his scalp, they wouldn’t let him into heaven or hell—or wherever Mohawks go when they die.”
“No more blood,” she begged him. “We’ve seen enough bloodshed.”
He nodded.
“Now what?”
“Now, Highlander, we start running again, north, out of Mohawk country into Canada. We’ll have to cross the St. Lawrence River and swing west around Lake Ontario. Losing their war chief on top of Bear Dancer’s death will slow the Iroquois down for a week or so. But once they elect a new leader, they’ll call in the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca. The entire Iroquois Confederacy will be hot for our scalps.”
“Couldn’t we go to some French settlement and—”
He uttered a sound of derision. “Not if you want to stay alive. The French would be quick enough to trade us back to the Iroquois. They’re as eager to court favor with the Five Nations as the English are.” He enfolded her in his arms. “I’ll get us home in one piece,” he promised her softly. “It just may not be as quick as you’d hoped. I believe the Ottawa will help us. They’re Algonquian-speaking and not at war with the Shawnee; at least they weren’t the last time I heard. If we have to, we’ll go west to the Menominee. They’ve been our traditional allies, and they’ll welcome a sister of a Shawnee peace woman.”
“So we go south to the Chesapeake by walking north and then so far west that the maps don’t show anything but emptiness.”
“Something like that,” he admitted. “Trust me.”
She sighed. “That’s what got me into all this in the first place.”
The first crimson and gold leaves of autumn floated down around their shoulders in an Ottawa fishing camp in Canada. As Sterling had said, the two had found refuge among the northern cousins of the Shawnee after weeks of forced marches and near starvation.
The Mohawk had hunted them fiercely. Twice, they’d nearly escaped death by ambush. Cailin had lost track of how many warriors Sterling had killed. She had shot three, and one—she was certain—she’d finished off. She’d seen his war-painted body sink in the St. Lawrence River.
The Ottawa had confirmed Sterling’s suspicions that the French would betray them. One hunter had told of being offered a reward of fifty pounds for Sterling’s head. She was worth thirty pounds, a detail he teased her about over and over.
An old squaw, Kills Birds With a Sling, made a dye of walnut hulls for Cailin’s hair and skin, and dressed her from head to toe in an Ottowa wedding dress and moccasins Kills Birds had sewn for her granddaughter. Sterling traded his extra flintlock pistol for the clothing, and the elderly woman’s son and daughter-in-law let them stay until Cailin was rested enough to resume the journey.
It had been Sterling’s idea to try to follow the northern shore of Lake Ontario south and west, either crossing Lake Erie by canoe or circling it to reach the Ohio country. The Huron, or what was left of them, prevented any attempt at that option. Smallpox had broken out among the tribes, and animosity was running high toward strangers of any nationality. Instead, the two continued west, passing from village to village, guided by hunters or traveling family groups.
The pace was no longer urgent, and Cailin found inner peace in the days and nights of walking though the vast timberlands beside her husband. They were no longer Sterling and Cailin, an Englishman and a Scotswoman, but the Shawnee Warrior Heart and his Delaware Indian wife Sweet Spring. Not even the occasional glimpse of a gray furry shadow moving through the trees or the far-off howl of a wolf disturbed her.
To her delight, Sweet Spring found that she had a talent for learning languages. Soon she began to understand basic phrases in Algonquian and even to venture a few words in return. Their lives were surprisingly simple and carefree. By day, they walked. At night, they sat beside a campfire with new friends and shared food, gossip, and laughter. Each night, Sweet Spring slept in her husband’s strong arms. And each morning, she became more aware of the new life she carried within her.
None of their hosts believed that Sweet Spring was really Indian, but it didn’t matter. She was invariably shown a warmth and hospitality that she had rarely known, even in the bosom of her own Highlands. Once she stopped looking at the native peoples through Scottish eyes, she became captivated by their kindness, their generosity, and the love they showed toward their families and friends.
The autumn days slipped by like beads on a string. And as Cailin became more absorbed with her coming babe, she put the end of the trip out of her mind and concentrated on living each hour to the fullest.
Sterling was a tender and passionate lover. He watched over his wife with compassion and unending patience. Sometimes, they talked late at night when the sky rang with the mournful calls of wild geese flying south. Cailin loved these times most of all, when they were alone in a blanket, sharing silly jokes and planning for the joyful arrival of their son.
In late October, Cailin woke to find the forest white with snow. The first dusting melted by mid-afternoon, but the temperature dropped day by day. Sterling exchanged a Huron knife for a woman’s cape of otter skin, and an Ojibwa hunter gifted Cailin with high moccasins of fur and a pair of child’s snowshoes.
Soon winter came to grip the north country in earnest. The last canoe passage was fraught with danger from chunks of floating ice and stretches of frozen water too thin to support human weight. On Christmas Day, Cailin and Sterling were welcomed into a Menominee village by the young chief, Coiled Plume, and his laughing wife, Heron.
In less than an hour, Sterling and Cailin were treated to a feast of roast duck stuffed with onions and wild rice and escorted to a spotlessly clean wigwam near the center of town.
“You must be very weary,” Heron said in a mixture of English and Algonquian. “My sister and her family are away for the winter. She would insist that you care for her home and keep the crows from nesting on her hearth.”
“Yes,” Coiled Plume insisted. “Tomorrow, will be time enough for talk. There is much this man would ask you about the English soldiers and the price of beaver in the east. Tomorrow, we will smoke a pipe and share hunting stories. You must consider our village your own for as long as you like.”
When they were alone in the wigwam beside a crackling fire, Sterling looked into Cailin’s tired eyes and took her stiff fingers in his. Rubbing her chapped hands to warm them, he promised that she could rest there until the birth of the child. “Coiled Plume assures me that there is plenty of meat, and the elk are numerous this winter. We will go no farther until the spring thaw.”
Cailin nodded. It
was time to stop, time to wait. The wigwam was snug and cozy, and her belly was full of hot food. Curling up on a thick bearskin rug, she put her head in her husband’s lap and closed her eyes. Not even the baby’s vigorous kicking could prevent her from drifting off into a deep sleep. She dreamed of a hillside of purple heather and the shrill coo of infant laughter.
Cailin was watching Heron prepare a porridge of wild rice and dried berries when her first labor cramp hit. Cailin’s back had been aching since the night before, but she attributed the pain to a spill she’d taken on ice the morning before. It hadn’t been a bad fall, just enough to shake her up. She’d not even mentioned it to Sterling before he left to hunt deer with Heron’s husband and several other Menominee braves.
Cailin clasped her swollen middle and sat down. “Oh,” she gasped. She let out her breath and waited. After a minute or two, she relaxed and shrugged. “It’s nothing,” she said in English to her friend. “I just—”
The next cramp seized her and doubled her up.
“We make ready for little one,” Heron said.
“No, it can’t be,” Cailin insisted. “This is late January. I didn’t expect the baby for another three weeks.”
Heron chuckled. “Heron birth two. Baby come when baby come.” Putting a sturdy arm under Cailin’s shoulder, she helped her back to her own wigwam.
“Sterling said they wouldn’t be back tonight,” Cailin said as she sat down on her sleeping platform. Another pain rocked her, and she felt light-headed. She had known that childbirth was uncomfortable, but she hadn’t thought that labor would come on so swiftly.
“Heron go for Pine Basket. She wise. Bring many children into world. Pine Basket have ...” She used a word that Cailin couldn’t understand but suspected meant a particular herb. “Make hurt less,” Heron finished. Then she smiled and squeezed Cailin’s hand. “No have fear, Sweet Spring. Tomorrow, you be happy with little one in your arms and proud husband.”
Minutes passed, and the contractions came harder. Her water broke, soaking her legs with birth fluid.
Old Pine Basket was pleased. She stirred a handful of powdered root into a pot containing a few cups of water, and insisted that Cailin drink the warm, bitter liquid. Then she ordered the patient up on her feet. With the aid of two other women, they kept Cailin walking back and forth. “Earth pull child,” she explained. “Mother sing, dance. Tea stop pain.”
Pine Basket’s brew did ease the pain. The contractions continued all afternoon and into the night. When Cailin could no longer walk, they stripped off her clothes and laid her on the smooth underside of a clean bison robe.
Sometime after midnight, the contractions slowed. When dawn came, the child had moved no farther down the birth canal, and Cailin was growing frantic.
The sun was high in the cloudless heavens when the hunting party returned. When Sterling reached Cailin’s side, his face was bleak with worry.
She had not screamed when Pine Basket’s tea no longer blocked the pain, but she couldn’t help crying out when she saw Sterling.
“Shhh, shhh,” he soothed. “I’m here.” Seeing Cailin like this was a shock. Her hair was soaked with sweat, her lips were swollen and bleeding from being bitten, and her strained features revealed the agony she was in. “I’m here, and everything’s going to be all right,” he promised her.
“Dinna leave me,” she pleaded.
“I won’t leave you.”
“You should not stay,” Heron warned.
The other women were clearly disturbed by his presence. “They say that a man at a childbed is bad luck,” Pine Basket mumbled.
“That’s crazy,” he said. “I wish I could take this pain from you, Cailin. Since I can’t, the least I can do is to give you someone to hold on to.” He took her hands and held them. Something was wrong. He felt it in his bones; he’d suspected it for hours. That’s why he’d hurried home instead of staying out to try to bring down a few more deer. And now that he was with Cailin, he had no intention of being hustled off by a gaggle of women.
Heron frowned and whispered something that Sterling couldn’t catch. Then she tapped his arm.
“Dinna go,” Cailin said.
“I’m not,” he assured her.
Heron tugged at his hand.
“I’m just going outside,” he said to Cailin. “I’ll be right back. I need to wash the deer blood off.”
“Come back,” she gasped. “Please.”
Outside, he glanced at Heron. “What is it?”
The Menominee woman shook her head. “Bad. Very bad. Pine Basket say baby is turned.” She motioned with her hands. “Not headfirst, but back and bottom.”
“A breech birth?” His pulse quickened. He was no expert in midwifery, but even he knew that a breech birth was a difficult one, often ending in death for the child.
Heron shook her head. “Baby stuck. No come. If child no turn by self, baby die, mother die.”
Sterling refused to accept what she was saying. “That’s crazy. Can’t you turn the child like you’d do a calf?”
Heron burst into tears. “Baby caught like beaver in trap. Pine Basket want to kill baby.”
“What? What did you say?”
“Kill baby. Save mother.” She wiped her tear-streaked face. “Pine Basket say, no choice. Baby will die. If she kill baby now, mother have chance have another baby.”
“You’re telling me that you want to kill our child, and that I may lose Cailin—Sweet Spring—as well?” Hot fear spilled through him. “Not Cailin,” he swore. “I won’t let her die. Not for a hundred babies.”
He entered the wigwam with a sinking heart. Heron whispered to the women, and they all filed out, leaving him alone with his wife. He knelt beside her and took her hands.
“What is it?” she demanded of him. “The baby’s not dead?”
He wanted to lie—to tell that it was so—to take the easy way out. But he couldn’t. He’d hurt Cailin too many times. If he betrayed her now, she’d never forgive him. “The baby’s alive,” he said, “but the women say that it’s breech.”
“I was born breech. That’s nothing,” she protested weakly. “My mother birthed me and two more.”
“Heron believes that Pine Basket knows about such things. She says that this baby will die ... and ... ” A lump rose in his throat and choked him. “They want to take the child, Cailin ... to save your life.”
“Take it?” Another contraction seized her, and she arched her back and dug her nails into his hands. “What do you mean, take it? They want to murder my baby?”
“They say it’s a matter of time ... that the babe will die anyway.”
“And ye’d let them?” Her eyes caught the reflection from the glowing hearth and blazed like firebrands.
“I can’t lose you, Cailin.”
“No! No, I tell you. I don’t care if I die. This is our child. I’ll have it, or we’ll die together.”
Sterling put his arms around her and hugged her to him. “Think what you’re saying,” he begged her as tremors of emotion wracked his frame. “We can make another babe.”
She stiffened again. And when the pain had run its course, she whispered to him. “No. I’ll nay agree. And if ye truly love me as your wife, you’ll stand by me in this, Sassenach.”
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the center of her palm. “I’ll stand by you, Cailin, but if you die on me, I’ll—”
“I won’t die, damn it,” she gasped. “I won’t.” She reached up and clutched the amulet around her neck. “This is magic, remember,” she said. “Whoever possesses the Eye of Mist has one wish. You remember, don’t ye?” she begged him.
“I remember, Highlander.” He’d never been a man for tears, but her image wavered in front of him as his eyes filled with moisture.
“The power of life and death,” she murmured. “If there is a God up there, He won’t blame me.” Her fingers tightened on the golden pendant until her knuckles turned as white as tallow. “I, Cailin MacGreggor
Gray, call on thee,” she declared with the last of her strength. “Save my baby’s life.”
“Magic can’t work unless you believe it,” he said.
“I believe,” she insisted. “Damn it. I believe in the amulet—in ghost wolves and fairies too, if that’s what it takes to save our baby!”
Again, the pain came, and Cailin struggled to keep from screaming. “He has to live,” she whispered hoarsely. “He must.”
Heron entered the wigwam and moved to Sterling’s side. He glanced at the Menominee woman. “She wants to keep trying,” Sterling said. “She won’t give up.”
The Indian woman handed him a cup of water and a cloth. He used it to moisten Cailin’s lips, and she nodded gratefully.
Heron put another log on the fire. The rest of the women came in. Pine Basket conferred with her companions and went to Cailin’s side. “Up,” she said in Algonquian.
“No!” Cailin cried.
Heron laid a hand on Cailin’s head. “She will help you,” she said. “No one will hurt your little one. Let us help you.”
“Sterling!”
“Pine Basket only wants to get Sweet Spring on her feet again,” Heron said.
“Not them,” Cailin said to Sterling. “You.”
He assisted her to her feet, and they began to walk in a small circle around the wigwam. Old Pine Basket tossed a handful of leaves onto the coals and began to chant. Heron took Cailin’s other arm.
After the space of an hour, Cailin suddenly dropped onto her knees and groaned. “Something—something ...” she managed.
Heron motioned to the sleeping platform. Sterling gathered her up in his arms and laid her back on the bearskin. Pine Basket peered between her legs and began to laugh.
“Hold her hands. Now!” Heron ordered.
Sterling did as he was told.
Cailin took a deep breath, strained, and pushed with all her might. And the bloody infant slipped out, feetfirst, into the old woman’s wrinkled hands. “A little warrior!” Pine Basket proclaimed. “A man child.”