Finally the Miko nodded. "The council is willing to accept Raven Flight's life in place of the child's."
Though his eyes burned bright, Reid seemed to be breathing easier. "I have returned to the Creeks as a Creek. If the Master of Breath requires my death, I freely give myself."
Voices rose in a clamor around the square.
"So be it," the Miko shouted above the tumult. "The child will be returned to his mother. They will be allowed to go in peace. In your son's place, Ravens Flight, you will be sent to serve the Master of Breath."
Livi raised her gaze to where Reid stood tall and spare in the center of the compound. His hair lifted in the wind. His clothing fluttered. The sun shone warm and golden on his face.
"I freely give myself!" Reid shouted the promise to the sky.
Livi had always feared the wildness in Reid, the savage lurking in the depths of those bright, clear eyes. In these last months she'd also come to recognize the honor in him, the strength and the love. No other man would have paid such a price for the life of a child that wasn't his. No man in broadcloth and lace could have stood up to this tribe with such courage and selflessness.
In his actions Livi saw in how much he loved her and her children. But if she loved him, too, how could she take the baby Reid had bought with his life and walk away?
Yet how could a mother refuse his sacrifice?
As tears coursed down her face, Livi saw that was exactly what Reid expected of her. Leaving this place with Little David might prove harder than burying David, harder than struggling to bring this last child into the world, harder than shooting Weems. But she would have to accept the gift he was giving her because it came at so high a cost.
Only when Bright Bird nudged Livi did she realize that arguments had erupted around the square. Voices were raised and men were jumping to their feet in consternation.
Shaking off the restraining hands of his friends an old man rose. "I believe that we are wrong to sacrifice such a man as this. How can our tribe grow stronger if we kill warriors of such strength and nobility?"
"Who would expect a man with blood of the whites in his veins to behave with such honor?" another shouted.
A third spoke up. "I say Ravens Flight has proved himself willing to do what is best for his people. Surely the Master of Breath would rather this man honor Him with his life than pay tribute with his death."
Livi could hardly believe what she was hearing.
Red Hand's voice rang with outrage. "But Ravens Flight has never taken responsibility for what he's done. If he profaned the disks, he deserves to die. "
"But have the disks been profaned by Ravens Flight's stewardship?" one elder asked.
The Miko turned to the Holy Men. "You have examined the disks. Do they still have the power to protect our people?"
As he rose to answer his chief, Livi recognized another of the men who had been at the cabin. The white paint on his face made his expression impossible to read.
"The power of the plates," he said deliberately, "is undiminished by their years with Ravens Flight."
"Then if Ravens Flight grieves for his mistakes," another inquired, "why must we ask more from such a man?"
One by one, men in each of the sheds rose to speak, leaders, warriors, and administrators of the towns along the river.
Red Hand had to shout to make himself heard above the others. "Surely the men of this Council can see that they are wrong in their judgment. Surely they can see that Ravens Flight deserves to die!"
One by one, the people in the square fell still.
"What's happening?" Livi whispered to Bright Bird.
"It is no longer Red Hand's place to speak. The decision is being made. By continuing to argue, he dishonors himself. This is our way."
Still others spoke, expressing their approval.
"Though objects of such importance to the chiefdom should have been returned sooner, I believe that Ravens Flight's heart is pure."
"By his willingness to give his life to save another, Ravens Flight should be spared his sacrifice."
"But he deserves to die!" Red Hand shouted.
One by one, the men in the sheds glanced at Red Hand then turned away.
At the Miko's nod, two warriors came to where Red Hand was still gesturing and shouting and escorted him from the square.
With a shiver of relief, Livi let out her breath.
When they'd all had had their say, the Miko rose.
"By decision of the Council we thank you, Ravens Flight, for returning the sacred plates that were lost to us. We appreciate that you kept them safe. Now take your wife and son. Teach the boy the ways of the Creek, and return among us when you can."
Livi wept silently as the Indian woman approached where Reid was standing. Giving Little David a few gentle pats, she relinquished him into Reid's big dark hands. Holding Little David with all the tenderness he had on the night he was born, Reid wrapped the boy close against his heart.
Then all at once, the square ground was filled with people singing and rejoicing.
Livi fought her way toward where Reid stood holding her son, but Bright Bird drew her away. "Now that Ravens Flight has had his victory, you must let him come to you. This, too, is our way."
Though everything in her demanded she rush across the square and claim her child, Livi knew that in these matters Bright Bird was far wiser than she. When Livi looked back one last time, Reid was holding the baby close. And beside him, smiling and watching over them like a benevolent spirit, was a wizened old man.
* * *
Reid hadn't expected to walk away from the council square with the sun in his face. To be the one to carry Little David through the village and deposit him safely in his mother's arms. To see the wonder in Livi's eyes as she bowed her body around her child and wept for his safe return.
He hadn't expected the fear that gripped his heart as he stood over them.
They were safe, Reid tried to tell himself. He'd keep them safe. He had offered his life to keep them safe. Seeing such tangible proof that he'd succeeded should have brought at least a moment of ease. Instead Reid shivered, knowing the reunion of mother and child was the result of a reckless plan and the whim of fate.
He eased away from the reunion, out the door of the smoky lodge and around the corner of the house. Once he was well out of sight of the women cooking in the courtyard, he braced his back against the wall and slid to the ground.
He'd almost lost them. He could admit that here, where no one could see his ravaged face, his shaking hands. If the Council had given credence to Red Hand's arguments, if it had voted differently, he would have lost Livi, too. She wouldn't have allowed her baby to be sacrificed. She would have fought and died to save him.
Reid knew he had done everything he could to protect them by offering his life in the baby's place. What would he have done if that hadn't been enough?
He clenched his fists in his tangled hair and sucked down air as if he could never get enough. His heart beat raw inside him. Livi and the children and that cabin had come to be the world to him. They were the place his heart called home. He would rather have given his life a thousand times than face what might have happened in the council square.
He'd been afraid for Livi and her children before. But somehow he had managed with strength and will to keep them safe. This time he'd faced an enemy he couldn't anticipate or control. This time he cared too much. This time he'd come too close to failing.
And what about the next time?
There were dangers in this wilderness he couldn't thwart—hunger and illness, fire, animals, and misfortune. He couldn't protect the people he loved from things he couldn't see or count or fight. He couldn't keep them safe from things that were nebulous and undefinable, shrouded in an unpredictable future. Yet he couldn't bear to lose Livi or the children.
He'd known that kind of loss. Soaring Eagle was gone because of his carelessness. David was dead because he had misjudged the English soldier's treachery
. Reid couldn't let himself make another mistake.
There couldn't be a next time. He couldn't let there be a next time. And if there was a next time, he couldn't stay around to watch the people he loved die.
The restiveness came with the force of a whirlwind, so strong he felt battered by it, suffocated by the town, these people, this life. Anxiety ran so hot in him that his skin itched and his muscles quivered. Panic rose in his blood. He yearned to run so far and so fast that he could outpace his fear.
He craved a dose of solitude. He craved the open country where he could breathe.
It's time to go.
Driven by an overwhelming need to get under way, Reid returned to Blue Feather's lodge. He donned his breeches and hunting shirt and boots, gathered up their guns and the food he and Livi would need on the trail. He arranged for their horses to be brought around and sent word for Livi to prepare herself.
"Are you in such a hurry to leave, osuswa?" Blue Feather asked when he returned to the lodge and found Reid in the midst of preparations. "Can you not stay with us a little while longer?"
"The baby has been returned to his mother," Reid said jamming his breechclout into one of the saddlebags. "There is nothing to keep us here. Livi has other children to see to once she gets back to the cabin."
Reid could feel the sear of the old man's gaze pass over him, and took care not to meet it with his own. Still, Blue Feather's scrutiny was telling and deep.
"Are you so afraid of losing yourself, Ravens Flight," the old man finally asked, "that you cannot accept the love that others would give you?"
Blue Feather's words made the air in the lodge seem unbearably close. They made Reid's hands tremble and his muscles coil.
"Of course I'm not afraid."
Blue Feather hesitated just long enough to make it clear he knew Reid was.
"Then you will accept the gift I have to give?"
Reid didn't see how he had any choice.
The old man went to the bed nearest the fire and took down his bear-claw medicine bag. It was where a man kept his most sacred objects—his ceremonial pipe, his tobacco and herbs, his most powerful fetishes. Reid knew that the objects that belonged to a man of Blue Feather's wisdom would be potent indeed.
Reid wasn't sure he wanted something that might bind him more tightly to the tribe by the old man's magic, but the challenge had been issued and he could not turn away.
As Reid watched, Blue Feather took out a smaller bag that was exquisitely stitched with the shapes of flowers and birds. The old man drew a flat, semi-circular, object from inside. When he turned, Reid could see it was a whelk-shell gorget.
"This belonged to your grandmother when she was a girl," the old man said. "After she married your grandfather and went away, she wore it every day to remind her how strongly she was linked to her clan, to the tribe, to her life here in the village. Her last request was that the trader McTavish bring the gorget to me. I have kept it all these years, knowing that in time I would know to whom it should belong.
"I believe Light of Dawn would wish for you to have it, to remind you of where you come from and that there are those among the Creeks who love you still." Blue Feather raised those wise, ancient eyes to look into Reid's face. "Will you take this gift from me, osuswa? Will you make a commitment to the parts of yourself you have long denied?"
Reid looked down at the graceful symbol etched into the pearl-gray surface of the shell, at the details of the bird's flowing plumage, at the ring of encircling symbols that represented truth and fidelity and courage. If he accepted Blue Feather's gift, he would renew his connection here, not just to his grandmother's clan, but to the tribe, to the whole Creek nation. But then, hadn't he done that by coming here, by addressing the Council, by returning the disks? Hadn't he courted—and received—the acceptance he'd been seeking all his life?
Reid had to swallow before he could answer. "I would be honored to accept this gift from you, potca, and wear my grandmother's necklace all my days."
The old man nodded in acknowledgment of his words, and Reid bowed his head so Blue Feather could reach around and fasten the necklace's carved bone clasp at the back of his neck. The old man settled the shell gorget at the base of Reid's throat and straightened the long, spun strands of buffalo hair.
"It is done, osuswa. You are one with us again—in your heart and in your head—just as you have always been in your blood and in your bones. Now I know that though you leave this place, you will return. You are part of us, as we are part of you."
Reid felt both damned and redeemed by accepting the necklace. "I thank you for this, potca. I thank you for your wisdom and your help in returning the sacred disks."
The old man nodded. "But there is more, is there not, osuswa?"
"More?"
"More that you love, more that you fear?"
Reid thought of Livi, of Tad and Cissy and Little David. He thought of the commitment he didn't have the courage to make.
"No," he answered.
"There is a vision," the old man prompted him.
Reid let out his breath. "Of leaping from a cliff."
"In the vision you have already leaped, Ravens Flight. There is nothing left but to let yourself fall," the old man said. "Or to choose to soar as eagles do."
Reid stepped away, strangely shaken by Blue Feather's words. Before he could consider how he should interpret them, the old man was speaking again.
"Come back to us, Ravens Flight, just once again before I am called to the World Beyond. And bring your son, this child of your heart, and the others you will father in the years ahead."
Reid wished what Blue Feather said was true, that he would have sons of his own one day to hold and teach and nurture. He wished he were the kind of man who could embrace a home and family.
I wish that I was David.
But he was not. Reid had accepted long ago that he could never be what David was, never have what David had. He'd been reminded of that again today.
The fear prevented it.
The restlessness prevented it. Even now, the lure of lands not seen and worlds not yet explored left him trembling inside.
Reid grasped Blue Feather's forearm in the age-old gesture of farewell and felt the old man close his own knobby fingers around Reid's wrist.
"I will try to return to the village, potca," he promised softly. "But for now, I need to gather Livi and the child and take them back to where they belong."
"Take them to the place that is your home, osuswa. Make a life for them there."
"I will try," Reid whispered, though even as he spoke, he knew that keeping the promise was impossible. "I will try."
Chapter 26
Spring awoke in the mountains and the woods as they rode north. The hills ruffled with lacy redbuds, and ravines brimmed with budding dogwood trees. Violets ran in the shady vales at the edges of the creeks. Trillium shone like fallen stars on the pale, fresh green of the forest floor. The air chorused with birdsong.
Livi turned her face to the sky and reveled in the renewal and rebirth. She held her son tucked safe in the crook of her arm. She was headed back to a home and a life she'd wrestled from land she once thought she hated. She was loved by a strong and extraordinary man who had come to stand beside her in David's place. A year ago she would not have believed that the heartache and the fear and the grief could give way to contentment that ran so deep. Yet they had, and she clasped the joy to her like a prize.
Livi wasn't sure when she began to sense that Reid didn't share her delight in the world around them. She caught a hint of his reserve in the way he shifted his gaze away when she looked up. She heard it in his voice when he spoke her name, felt something vital missing from his touch.
As they moved deeper into the rugged hills, back toward the cabin where Tad and Cissy and Eustace waited, Reid's withdrawal became more pronounced. He spoke in monosyllables. He made excuses to head off into the woods as soon as they'd made camp. He kept watch through the night, sleeping
in snatches where he sat instead of curling into the blankets with her and the baby.
She worked to span the distance between them. She questioned Reid about the country they were riding through. She asked his help in tightening the cinch on her saddle or spreading their blankets for the night. She made certain he carried Little David at least part of the day, hoping his love for the baby would breach the wall he'd inexplicably erected around himself. But nothing broke him. His detachment made Livi afraid, and the world that seemed so bright and filled with promise went suddenly dark.
There was a time when Livi would have waited for Reid to explain, but she refused to do that now. That evening, just as they finished making camp, Livi caught Reid's arm.
"Please, Reid, can't the hunting wait a little while?"
"Only if you don't want anything for supper."
"Then I'd as soon eat corn and jerky than go another day without having my say."
He watched her warily then tightened his grip on his rifle as if he meant to leave in spite of her. Instead of allowing that, Livi cast a glance at the blanket where Little David was sleeping and headed toward the fire. She settled on a log a few feet away. Reid relented, put his gun aside, and took a place on the ground beside her.
She reached across to claim his hand.
At first he resisted, but she pressed her thumb into the hollow of his hard palm and curled her fingers across the back. She could sense the tension in him, the determination, and the power. And the fear.
She didn't know why he should be afraid.
"I wanted to thank you," she said after a moment.
"Thank me?"
"For taking me to the Creek village, for what you did while we were there. I wanted to thank you for speaking before the Council in our behalf, for getting Little David back." Her fingers tightened. "For offering your life in my baby's place."
A Place Called Home Page 39