by Burning Sky
Anni’s fingers clamped down on Willa’s again. Willa waited out the seconds before the contraction loosened its hold. “But why has Neil not come to tend you? He’s the physician, after all. Where is he?”
Anni’s eyes blanked. “You don’t know?” She sat up, curling into the next swift pain, hands pressing the sides of her rounded belly. The pains were coming very close together.
“Mama? The water’s boiling.” Samantha hovered in the doorway, wringing her little hands. “What should I do about it?”
“I … have no … idea,” Anni got out between breaths. Willa thought Anni was answering her daughter, until she added, “Dr. MacGregor left Shiloh—days ago.”
Willa pushed herself off the bed and stood. “He’s gone?”
The news, once she’d made of it what sense she could, left her hollowed, adrift, as if her last mooring had been yanked free and she was being swept away from what little in her life had been sure and safe.
Neil had left them again, without even a farewell.
What right had she to expect one? None at all, after all she’d done to push him away. And yet … her efforts to do so had been in vain. She knew it now, knew it clear past denying—as clear as the path he had made to her heart.
Her mouth shaped words, but she barely recognized her voice as she spoke. “Is that why you sent Francis for me?”
Anni blew out a gust of breath. “Sent him? I haven’t seen Francis in days.”
Anni’s eyes cleared briefly of pain, but Willa knew her own had clouded as unease rose to fill her. Something was wrong here—beyond the hollow loss of Neil’s departing. Her thoughts were too scattered, too distracted, to put a name to it, but something did not add up. If Anni had not sent Francis, then why—?
“Why did you have to be such a pigheaded fool, Willa?”
The sharpness of Anni’s voice, as much as her words, struck Willa like a splash of cold water. “What?”
“Dr. MacGregor was a good man, and he loved you.” Anni’s face was screwing up again, not with her words, but another pain coming. “We could all see it. Why couldn’t … you?”
Before Willa could untangle all the words inside her clamoring to get out—I could see it, of course I could see it, and hear it and feel it too, but I was too afraid to trust it, to put my heart unshielded into his hands and the hands of the Almighty, one more time; and now it is too late—the drumming of feet sounded on the cabin porch.
“Mama! Miss Leda can’t come. Mr. Gavan’s leg took bad, and she’s taken him in a wagon down to German Flats. Mr. Keegan told me.”
Anni moaned. “Oh, I forgot about poor Gavan.”
So had Willa. Richard had told her. He hadn’t told her about Neil leaving.
But he knew. She remembered now, his asking her about Neil. What had it been? Whether she had seen him lately? Had word from him? Had he been fishing to see if she knew he’d left?
She ought to have followed her first instinct and gone to Leda right away. Now she felt ashamed that she’d stayed on her farm in fear. Was any decision she’d made since the spring not founded on fear?
“It’s all right, Sam.” Anni reached from the bed, trying to comfort her children, trying to catch her breath.
Willa shoved aside the condemnation bearing down on her, knowing it would be there waiting when she had time for indulging in regret, and took Anni’s small son by the shoulder.
“Sam, you must run again. This time go to Colonel Waring’s for Goodenough. Tell her to bring you on a horse, because the baby is coming fast. Go now.”
The boy groaned, but went, and Willa was left with her thoughts in a spin. Neil MacGregor had left Shiloh. She would have to tell the children when Anni’s childbed was past. She would have to look into their faces and explain it to them.
The children.
She had chased concern for Anni all the way from her cabin, but now that she was here, concern flew straight back along that path and hovered now with Francis, who had lied to her, and the children she’d left him to watch over.
“I will stay with you, Anni, until Goodenough comes. Then I must go.”
THIRTY-FOUR
It was late in the season for deer flies. Were it not for one determined specimen convinced that his blood would make a fitting supper, Neil MacGregor would have called it a perfect day: warm enough with the sun in his face to ride in shirtsleeves, the air clear beneath a sky patched with clouds like billowing sails. Trees along the river’s north bank wore autumn’s first scarlet, and the near-to-setting sun bathed the whole of the Mohawk Valley in gold.
Still it was the news he carried across the pommel of his saddle, tucked in the breast of his shed coat, that buoyed him so he hardly noticed the accumulated aches of his swift journey to Albany.
Though he’d still some miles to go before he’d reach German Flats, near the mouth of West Canada Creek, he decided to press on; a full moon was rising, promising light. By next nightfall, God willing, he’d be riding into Willa’s cabin yard. Guiding the roan past another of the rock outcrops that dotted the river’s bank, he thought the Almighty would be willing, having thus far blessed his hasty venture beyond all Neil could have asked.
A dozen times he’d imagined handing Willa the packet of letters Dieter Obenchain had written during the war. Would she thank him? Or would she be riled at his taking liberty with her affairs after she’d so firmly set him at arm’s length?
By now, Gavan MacNab would have delivered his letter. Had it made any difference to her?
Over and again he’d prayed it had, knowing he’d done what he could. He’d have to trust the Almighty Lord for whatever came of it. And not only concerning Willa.
While in Albany he had, with the help of Tilda Fruehauf, composed a long-overdue confession to Benjamin Rush, detailing the extent of his injuries after Cherry Valley. Along with the letter, he’d sent the work thus far completed, with the promise of more to come in spring. He’d made it clear he desired to finish what he’d begun, but that the Almighty had given him another task to see finished first, and he must be about it.
He touched the pocket of the coat draped across his lap, remembering the startled face of Tilda Fruehauf when she opened her door and he explained who he was, why he’d come; how she in turn had astonished him with her news of—
A pain like a needle’s jab at the base of his neck jerked him from the recollection. Instinctively he ducked, slapping at his neck. “Blasted fly!”
His hand came away bloody, as his ears half-registered a report that seemed to strike the hills across the river and come rolling back in echo.
Musket fire. A hunter up in the hills behind him?
His mind filled with thoughts of venison steak as his stomach growled for supper. Wishing the hunter luck, he grasped the brim of his hat to ward off his biting nemesis, just as somewhere, closer than he’d thought at first, the hunter took another shot at his prey.
The deer fly made a buzzing pass at his head, this time striking his hat, which he’d have lost had he not been grasping it.
He halted Seamus and yanked off the hat to swat it wildly around his head—and stared at it instead. There was a hole through the felted brim where its sides met at a point. There’d been no hole when last he donned it, and surely a deer fly couldn’t have …
With a fierce twisting in his wame, he kent it was no deer fly seeking his blood; whoever held that musket wasn’t shooting at supper.
He wheeled Seamus, the horse beginning to quiver in reaction to his alarm, and looked wildly at tree and rock for cover, though he’d no idea from which direction he was being shot at. A stream came down just there from the higher hills, cutting through a small wooded draw. He turned the roan’s head in that direction.
It took no more time than that for the shooter—wherever he hid—to reload the musket and fire again. And this time hit his mark.
He was soaking wet, staring up through sun-dazzled water at a fleet of passing sails. He blinked, blinked again, realize
d he wasn’t breathing. Couldn’t breathe. He’d fallen. Fresh in his mind was the impact of striking—what had it been? Ship’s deck? Water? Of course, water. He was bone-cold wet. He was in the sea. That’s why he couldn’t breathe. God Almighty, he was drowning!
Man overboard screamed inside his head as panic sank hooks into his flesh. The will to live shot a current through his chest, which heaved and filled his lungs with … air. Not water. But there was water everywhere, cold water flowing around him.
Neil MacGregor sat up, and two facts became apparent.
First, he’d been lying on his back in the creek that tumbled from the hills; it wasn’t sails on a sun-dazzled sea he’d seen, but clouds through an overhang of yellow leaves.
Second, he’d been shot. The creek’s flow had made a broad pink stain of it, but already his shirt was blooming fresh crimson. The water’s chill had numbed the pain, but it was building now, a white-hot scream in his flesh. He couldn’t move his arm—the right arm again, dash it all—and could not bring himself to turn his face to see torn flesh, bone, whatever damage might show.
Why had he been shot? And where was Seamus?
He heard a snort, the thud of hooves, curses. Neil clamped his lips tight and turned to look behind him. Some half-dozen yards off, a man with a musket slung across his back clung to Seamus’s reins, digging through the bags behind the saddle.
He’d fallen victim to a highway robber.
Thought came in desperate snatches. Let the man take what he wanted. Anything. Even Seamus. But not the letters. Willa’s letters.
He thrashed about in the creek, trying to get to his knees. The man rifling his saddlebags turned.
It was Aram Crane.
Through pain and shock, Neil struggled to grasp what was happening. This had to be Richard Waring’s doing. That stolen letter must have mentioned the proof Willa needed to keep her land from confiscation—her father’s letters. Waring had been watching the post ever since for their arrival. And watching Neil more closely than he’d ever suspected. So closely he’d guessed the reason for Neil’s journey and sent Crane to stop him. Or steal the letters that were Willa’s only hope.
The letters. They were still in his coat. But where—?
Both men saw it in the same instant. The coat lay where it had fallen from the saddle, tails trailing in the creek, just beyond Neil’s reach.
Crane abandoned Seamus and lunged for it as Neil fell across the shallow stream, making a grab. His left hand closed on a sleeve as Crane reached him. With his face half in water, he saw only the man’s feet. They were shoeless, torn and bleeding.
“There’s where you put them? Give them over to me, and I’ll tell Waring you got away.”
“You’ll have to kill me!” With only the one hand free to swing or hold fast the coat, Neil couldn’t do both. Crane’s ginger-bristled face showed no fear, only irritation, as they struggled over the garment.
“Have it your way.” The man swung his musket to hand and slammed the butt of it into Neil’s head. The shock of the blow made him lose his grip on the coat. Crane tore the garment from his grasp and lurched away, running on bleeding feet for Seamus, who’d edged as far from their struggle as the terrain allowed.
Neil fell back into the creek, lay there until the pain in his arm and head receded enough that he could move, then rolled onto his side, scrambled to his knees, pushed to his feet. He staggered after Crane, streaming blood and water. The man had reached his horse. He wasn’t going to catch him in time.
His shout was an inarticulate groan.
Seamus, unnerved the more by the stranger rushing at him, wheeled from Crane’s reach and lashed out with his hooves, catching the man a glancing blow to the chest. Crane fell back hard.
The blood was coming down Neil’s arm, running in rivulets, and he still couldn’t move it. He staggered when he reached Crane, who’d had the breath knocked from him but had got it back and was sitting up. A wave of dizziness slammed Neil as he bent for the coat, but he was moving now without thinking, his body obeying the instinct to save the letters at whatever cost. With his left hand, he snatched up the coat and felt the brush of grasping fingers as he spun away, making for the horse he prayed would stand still for him.
Seamus did stand still, though the roan whinnied loud in agitation as Neil slung his coat across the horse’s withers and somehow swung himself into the saddle, where stars burst across his vision and his arm blazed like fire. Crane was on his feet, yelling, cursing, but to no avail. Neil kicked the roan into a canter, and in moments they’d left the man behind, shoeless and afoot.
Neil rode a mile at a jarring gallop, clutching his coat to his chest, before he dared slow Seamus enough to check on the letters, his heart hammering in fear that in the scuffle and flight they’d slipped from that inner pocket and were strewn now along the road.
They were there, still bundled and intact, though he smeared them with blood before he had them tucked away again, breathing out a shaky prayer of thanksgiving. His right arm and hand were drenched in scarlet.
Finally he looked at the wound, or what could be seen of it through the torn, blood-soaked sleeve of his shirt. The ball had passed through his upper arm. He saw no bone protruding, but it was bad. Broken this time, he was certain.
His heart gave a ragged thump against the wall of his chest, and another wave of dizziness had him clenching Seamus’s sides with his knees. He looped the reins high on the saddle and kept the horse moving at a walk while he struggled out of his shirt and got the garment tied around his upper arm, as snug as he could make it.
By the end of it, he was shuddering with chills and fighting to stay in the saddle, but he thought he’d slowed the bleeding some. Enough to make it to German Flats? It was miles still. But maybe he needn’t make it that far. There were outlying farms, taverns, smaller settlements, but the sun was down and dusk falling, and it would soon be dark. He couldn’t stop because Crane could be coming behind him still, hoping he’d wounded him badly enough that he might not make it far.
Lord, I’ve come so far. And she’s tried so hard. Please … just a little farther.
Pain burst through the bones of his brow and cheek, and he dropped the reins to trail on the road. He’d fainted forward into the hard arch of Seamus’s neck. The horse’s gait lurched. Neil tried to straighten again, but settled for dropping his good arm around the roan’s neck. A good horse, Seamus, kicking Crane like that … more than made up for leaving him months ago when he’d fallen from the stone on Willa’s land.
He was falling again now, falling with his coat still clutched to his chest. His last glimpse before he hit the earth was a feeble glow of light, as of a door in the distance opening onto the dusk.
He tried to shout, lying on his back in the road, or was he in the laurels? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t know if he’d managed the shout either.
There was a faint sound as if from far away. A voice?
God Almighty, dinna let it be Crane …
It was his last thought before a roaring like the crash of waves came down, and he half-believed he was in the sea again, with the cold and dark closing over him.
“Dr. MacGregor was wrong,” Samantha Keppler pronounced, leaning against the bed frame as Willa severed the second newborn’s cord and laid him on the quilt beside his brother, older of the two by five minutes. She caught a glimpse of Anni’s expression—as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry—before turning to greet the arrival of Goodenough, behind her a flushed and anxious Charles, back from his trip down creek.
Goodenough’s gaze fastened on the babies nestled against Anni’s side, and her smile came full and gleaming. “Lord help us. Mister Neil was wrong.”
“We know.” Samantha’s small face pulled into a pout. “I have two more brothers, when all I wanted was one sister.”
“Brothers?” a voice whooped, and a disheveled, sweaty Sam squeezed into the room.
Charles and Goodenough crowded with the children aro
und the bed. Anni’s brow was kissed, the babies’ fingers and toes counted, a flurry of questions asked and answered. Willa dropped the afterbirth the twins had shared into a bucket, cleaned her knife and returned it to its sheath at her neck.
Her words cut through the happy chatter. “I left the children. I must go now.”
All through the birthing, dread had kept its hold on Willa. Even now, it was all she could do to stand there and take her leave with civility. She took in their faces—Charles’s relief; contentment beginning to beam through Anni’s stunned fatigue; Goodenough with her brows starting to pucker.
“There something wrong, Miss Willa?”
“Maybe not,” she said, though her heart jumped with foreboding. “But I should get back.”
Goodenough was already in motion, reaching for the bucket with the afterbirth. “You go, then. See to your own. I’ll be staying the night.”
She was almost to the door when Anni called, “Willa? Thank you.”
Willa looked back at Anni’s face framed by sweat-dampened hair, husband and children safe and accounted for around her bed. Anni had called her a fool while in the grip of labor. Even though clearly Anni regretted that utterance, words more true couldn’t have been spoken.
She tried to smile to show all was well between them. Then she was in the yard, Anni’s travail shoved from her thoughts, her entire being focused on the boy and girl she’d told to stay inside the cabin no matter what. And on Francis, who’d told her Anni sent for her when she hadn’t.
The sun was nearly set, but there was light enough to see her home if she hurried. Before she reached the path her feet had worn in another life, she was running.
She smelled the smoke before the trees thinned to show the lurid dance of firelight in the yard, and the dread that had smoldered during Anni’s labor burst into a conflagration of terror. She’d left her carrying basket at Anni’s cabin and so ran unhindered through the falling dusk to burst from the woods into the yard, mouth open in a silent scream, no breath to give it voice. Half the cabin was engulfed in hungry flames.