Rachel dropped onto her belly and wiggled under the bush, and Elizabeth couldn’t resist giving the small, brown bottom a playful pat. The little girl giggled and kicked her bare feet.
“The story, Mama,” Jamie reminded her. Elizabeth picked up the familiar tale where she’d left off, but her thoughts today were as wayward as her children’s.
How beautiful she is, Elizabeth thought. How beautiful they both are. How perfect! Their backs were straight, their limbs sturdy, and their faces like tiny, bronzed angels. No one would ever mistake them for English children; their eyes were as black as currants, their hair as dark as any full-blooded Indian’s, but they were hers—flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood.
Today, both Rachel and Jamie were naked except for tiny doeskin breechcloths that covered their genitals in front and very little behind. Neither wore moccasins; despite the rough terrain, it was safer at their tender ages to go without foot coverings.
“A child with moccasins may wander away in the woods and be lost,” a Seneca grandmother had advised Elizabeth. “Without moccasins, stones may bruise their feet and briers may prick them, but they will not go far.”
Elizabeth had remembered the advice and followed it faithfully. The thought of losing one or both of her precious babies was too terrible to consider.
Her life as a slave of the Iroquois before her babies were born was not something she liked to think about. The men of the Iroquois Confederacy—the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, the Seneca, and the Tuscarora—rarely beat their wives; the women held high positions of honor in all six tribes. Iroquois women had far more freedom and status than English women. They sat on high councils, decided the fate of prisoners, and started and stopped wars.
But Elizabeth had never benefited from these powers. She wasn’t Iroquois; she was an English slave. Treated worse than the lowliest cur dog, she could be beaten, starved, ridiculed, or killed at her master’s whim.
Rather, at her mistress’s whim, she mentally corrected herself. Seneca wives ruled the house, as did all Iroquois wives. While, technically, she belonged to Yellow Drum, it was his chief wife, Raven, who determined Elizabeth’s daily fate.
When Yellow Drum had first brought her to this Seneca village, she’d been unable to speak or understand Iroquoian. No one would communicate with her in English, although many of the Seneca had a good command of the language. Raven had fed her only scraps; she’d given her a flea-bitten dog blanket to sleep on, and she’d kicked and hit her constantly.
In those first months Elizabeth had nearly lost her mind. All her life, she’d been sheltered and cared for. She’d had servants to make her bed, to dress her, to prepare her meals and to sew her clothing. Here, in the Seneca village, she was the servant. She was expected to skin and gut animals, tan hides, carry firewood, cook, and sew. When she’d arrived, she had been totally ignorant of these skills, but she’d learned fast. If she hadn’t, she would have died the first winter.
She’d been a lonely, terrified child, clinging to life because giving up had never been part of her nature. And then, when things had seemed the darkest, a miracle had occurred. She had swelled with child. Even before her son was born, Elizabeth had talked and sung to him. She’d carried him under her heart and known that he would bring light into her valley of shadow.
The morning a Seneca wise woman had placed Jamie in her arms had been the sweetest Elizabeth had ever known. He gave her a reason for living, and he brought happiness back to her heart. Rachel had been another blessing, an unexpected joy that restored her lost faith in the Almighty.
“The pony,” Jamie reminded her impatiently, breaking into Elizabeth’s reverie. “Tell about—”
“The pony!” Rachel shouted.
“All right,” Elizabeth agreed. “Let me see. It was a blue pony with yellow spots, wasn’t it?”
Jamie giggled. “Black, Mama. A black pony.”
Rachel nodded. “Wi’v a white nane and tail.”
“Mane,” Jamie corrected.
“Oh, yes. She did have a white mane and tail, but . . .” Elizabeth smiled. “I think she was a green pony.”
Jamie cast himself onto the moss and rolled over and over, laughing. Rachel squealed with glee, picked up a handful of berries and threw them at her brother. One struck him on the nose. He snatched one up and hurled it back. Rachel ducked behind her mother, and the blueberry hit Elizabeth’s chin.
Jamie grimaced. “Ut-oh!”
“Throw berries at me, will you?” Elizabeth teased. She picked two more from the basket and sprang to her feet. Jamie scrambled to get away while Elizabeth squeezed the berries so that juice dripped on to his neck and down his back.
Rachel jumped up and down, clapping her hands.
Elizabeth dropped onto the ground beside Jamie, and he rolled into her arms. She hugged him tightly, then kissed the tip of his nose. “Love you, love you,” she whispered.
“Me, too!” Rachel called. “Me, too!”
“Your little sister wants some,” Elizabeth murmured mischievously to Jamie. “Shouldn’t we give her berries too?”
“Yes! Yes!” he cried.
Elizabeth threw a berry at Rachel. Rachel jumped onto the log and danced along the length of it. “Can’t catch me!” she dared. “Can’t catch me!”
“Oh, yes, we can,” Elizabeth replied, flinging a squashed berry at her daughter.
Rachel bounced off the log and ran toward the basket.
“No! Not the basket,” Elizabeth cried. She crawled on hands and knees to grab the basket before her daughter could reach it. Leaping up, she tucked the container of berries into a forked branch high above the children’s heads.
Rachel wrapped herself around her mother’s knees; Jamie tried to climb up her back. Laughing, Elizabeth dropped onto the log. “I surrender, I surrender,” she gasped, as both children slid into her lap. She wound her arms around them and kissed the crowns of their heads. Their thick, dark hair was as soft as raw silk and smelled of mint and blueberries. “I love you,” she murmured. “Love you . . . love—”
“Ugly Woman! Ugly Woman, where are you?” called a harsh feminine voice.
“Ut-oh,” Rachel said.
“Ut-oh,” Jamie echoed. “Mother Raven.”
Elizabeth put a finger to her lips. “Shh, don’t tell,” she whispered.
Jamie shook his head. “We won’t.”
“Won’t,” Rachel agreed with a firm nod.
“Ugly Woman!” Raven shouted. “Where are you? I know you came this way!”
The children slid off her lap; Elizabeth stood up and retrieved the basket. She put her finger to her lips again and winked at Jamie. Then the three of them crept away in the opposite direction.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
eKENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 1994 by Judith E. French
Avon mass market edition: April 1994
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
eKensington is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.
Kensington Reg. U.S. Pat & TM Off.
First Kensington Electronic Edition: December 2013
ISBN: 978-1-6018-3095-1
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