Many Sparrows

by Lori Benton

  “My brother has stated the particulars of this situation as he understands it and that they’ve done as we asked. Our sister has come to listen to what we have to say. I’m going to introduce you to them now.”

  He held Clare’s gaze, then switching to Shawnee, said, “This woman is called Clare. She is my wife, and the mother of that one now called Many Sparrows, whom she calls Jacob. He was taken from her in the midst of much sorrow and loss, and I have promised to help her get him back.”

  Rain Crow stirred at this, lips pressed tight. She looked as if she meant to interrupt, but Falling Hawk made a sound in his throat and she subsided.

  She hadn’t so much as glanced at Clare.

  “I am heavy in my heart to learn my sister has adopted the son of this woman I promised to aid,” Jeremiah continued. “That my sister has found joy again is a good thing. It is what everyone who knows her has wanted for her. But it means this woman, Clare, has more sorrow to bear.” He looked deep into the eyes confronting him across the fire and poured all he could of compassion and regret into his gaze; Rain Crow dropped hers. The low-burning fire sizzled and sparked between them. “That is all I mean to say for now. This woman will speak to you as only a mother can.”

  In the silence that followed, Clare looked at him with alarm—perhaps because he’d spoken so briefly.

  “You may speak,” he told her after explaining all he’d said, wishing he could take her fear into himself. “Take your time. Stop when you need to gather your thoughts and I’ll interpret what you’ve said.”

  Clare drew an audible breath and lifted her gaze to those across the fire waiting warily for her to begin. Though her voice shook, she plunged in without hesitation, addressing Falling Hawk and Rain Crow.

  “Thank you for allowing me to speak to you about my son, whom you have here in this place, who was taken from me and whom I have searched long for and come a great distance and through much trouble and fear to find.”

  Jeremiah heard her swallow as she paused for breath. He judged it a good beginning, no doubt well thought out. She’d made no accusations. She’d acknowledged their graciousness and, without boasting, her own bravery and determination in finding her son.

  He put a hand over hers, still gripping the petticoat, hoping to signal her to silence. To his surprise she turned her palm to his and clutched his hand, nodding to show she understood.

  She waited while he translated her words. By the tautness of her grip, he knew she was bending all her senses to interpret every nuance of expression and posture of the one person who wouldn’t return her gaze.

  The tension strung between the two women was palpable.

  When Jeremiah nodded her to continue, Clare told of her plight in the mountains, of Jeremiah’s arrival as her daughter was being born. He found himself watching his brother and sister, who would understand much of what was being said before he translated it. Though their faces remained guarded, their gazes dropped to the sleeping infant Clare cradled while she spoke.

  He signaled with a squeeze of his hand for her to pause and let him put into Shawnee the tale of his delivering her baby.

  Clare next spoke of Wheeling, of failing to find Jacob, of her determination to go to Yellow Creek with Jeremiah and what they learned there.

  While she spoke, Falling Hawk raised his eyebrows and looked at Clare as if he might be truly seeing her at last, but Jeremiah could sense the rising tension in Rain Crow, see it in the set of her shoulders, the flash of her eyes, the pulsing at the base of her throat. Her agitation increased until Jeremiah could see her trembling from across the fire, as he translated the part of their story that happened in Wakatomica.

  “This woman has stood before the warrior who killed her children’s father. She has seen his scalp hanging from that warrior’s belt. He is the same who stole her son. That warrior is Logan.”

  Crosses-the-Path drew in her breath and looked at Clare with something near to admiration. Clare didn’t seem to notice. She was leaning forward in her attempt to see past the thin screen of smoke from the fire, to read Rain Crow’s expression—a mask of impassivity that cracked and shattered as Jeremiah finished and Clare drew breath to speak again.

  “When?” Rain Crow demanded in Shawnee, her gaze fixed on him. “When did you make that one your wife?”

  He’d felt Clare start as his sister’s voice cut through the wegiwa’s warmth. “In Wakatomica.”

  “That was how many days after you found her in the mountains?”

  “Why are you asking this?” Jeremiah replied, pricked with uneasiness.

  “You say in Wakatomica you claimed her as your wife,” Rain Crow replied. “But you both say you found her right after she lost a husband to Logan’s revenge. How is it she so quickly accepted you in his place? Has she no heart to mourn the man who was father to Many Sparrows?”

  Jeremiah’s heart plummeted as he grasped the magnitude of his misstep. Among the Shawnees, mourning for a spouse would normally last a year, though among Virginians it wasn’t uncommon for a widow to remarry within weeks of a husband’s death, nor unheard of to stand at the grave of one husband by the side of the next.

  Clare hadn’t understood his sister’s words, but their tone needed no interpretation. Rain Crow looked at her at last, and Jeremiah knew that look must sear.

  “If you have no heart for a man who was your husband,” his sister said, “to mourn him properly before you take another, why should I believe you have a heart for a son born of you? Find another and put him in the place of the one taken from you—who is no longer that person anyway. There is only my son, Many Sparrows. What more is there to say between us?”

  Clare must have been holding her breath through Rain Crow’s disparaging speech, for she all but gasped as she looked to him. “What did she say?”

  The words came barely whispered; she knew it wasn’t good.

  Jeremiah translated, his face hot with mortification. Around the circle now everyone allowed their grief, anger, or discomfort to show. Only Wolf-Alone appeared impassive, though Jeremiah could tell he wished this meeting to be over.

  “You needn’t answer, Clare. This is my fault. I’ll set it right. I’ll tell them—”

  “No,” Clare said before he could confess the lie. “I’ll answer.”

  Rain Crow looked at her with narrowed eyes. Clare leaned forward and spoke directly to her.

  “I do mourn my husband. Philip was trying his best to provide for me, for Jacob. For the daughter he will never know. He didn’t deserve to die as he did.” Tears welled, still Clare’s voice was firm, though Jeremiah guessed it was taking all her strength to make it so. “But I needed help. Not just someone to help me birth my daughter, but one who could help me find Jacob. I wouldn’t be turned aside from my purpose. I was going to find him or die trying, but Mr….Panther-Sees-Him wouldn’t let me go alone. And he made me see I was safer traveling as his wife.”

  She glanced at him, in the look a mingling of resentment and acceptance. He wanted to tell her again he was sorry, that she needn’t pretend to a thing distasteful to her, but she had no more attention to spare him. This had become a conversation between two mothers. The rest of them were merely witnesses.

  “He believes the Almighty brought us together on that trail,” Clare said. “I don’t know about that. I haven’t felt God’s presence or heard His voice in a long time. I hope what he says is true. I need it to be true.”

  Jeremiah’s heart leapt at her words. He hadn’t realized she remembered that conversation. He glanced across the fire at Rain Crow in time to see it in his sister’s face—the merest hint of the softening he’d hoped to illicit in her.

  Of all things. Was it Clare’s faltering faith that had pierced his sister’s defenses?

  Rain Crow pressed her lips together, then said in a voice stripped of its harshness, “My brother’s wife has spoken of…”

  A commotion of voices outside the lodge swelled, causing Rain Crow to hesitate, jarring each one arou
nd the circle to blink like sleepers rudely awakened.

  At a nod from Falling Hawk, Wolf-Alone rose and hurried to the door-hide. In seconds he was back. “Cornstalk and Nonhelema have returned. Silverheels is with them—he is injured.”

  Wolf-Alone said no more but slipped out of the lodge, leaving the rest gaping after him. Falling Hawk rose, looked down at Clare and in English said, “This to you important, and to sister, but that outside is important to all Shawnees.”

  Falling Hawk and Crosses-the-Path went out after Wolf-Alone. Rain Crow shot Clare an enigmatic look, then rose and followed, leaving Clare and Jeremiah alone.

  Clare looked stunned. “What is going on?”

  “Cornstalk and Nonhelema have returned. Their brother—he’s called Silverheels—sounds like he’s met with some injury.” All of them were back too soon for any talk of peace to have taken place in Pittsburgh. He started to rise, but Clare held onto his hand, detaining him.

  “What was your sister saying there at the end? She sounded less…angry.”

  “I don’t know,” Jeremiah said, though he had his suspicions and rued the untimely interruption. “She’s still angry with me.”

  “Was this all for nothing?”

  “Don’t think that way. I’ve told you this is going to—”

  “Take time, yes. But how much time?”

  Standing, he reached to pull her up. “I’m not going to leave it at this, but Cornstalk is here now. And Nonhelema. Maybe that’ll be a thing in our favor. For now let’s hear their news.”

  With one arm cradling Pippa, she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet, disappointment brimming in her eyes.

  Mr. Ring hadn’t released her hand, but under the circumstances she was thankful. He’d led her through the crowd gathered to meet the returning chiefs and warriors who had ridden in on horses still bedecked with the ornamentation of ceremony. Ribbons, fringe, and feathers fluttered in a breeze that bore the scent of coming rain as the sky, scudded over with clouds while they’d been inside Falling Hawk’s lodge, sagged low and threatening.

  These people were formidable on their own feet, but astride horses they were a daunting sight. Standing half-concealed behind Mr. Ring, Clare had no difficulty identifying Cornstalk, still mounted on his spotted horse as he spoke to the people. Gray threaded the scalplock hung with silver ornaments and feathers, and his broad face was lined with care, yet Cornstalk’s body was that of a warrior in his prime, lean and muscled, marked with tattoos, his voice strong and carrying.

  Murmurs rippled out from the center of the gathering as, she supposed, word of what their chief had said passed to those come too late to hear it for themselves. Cornstalk swung down from his horse and turned to aid the dismounting of a slightly younger man who resembled him in feature and whose torso was bound in strips of blood-spotted linen. But a third rider had been quicker to dismount, a woman who bore resemblance to both men.

  Nonhelema. It must be. But no one had thought to mention to Clare the most astonishing thing about Cornstalk’s sister. Nonhelema was as tall as her brother, who stood over six feet in height. Clare couldn’t take her gaze from the woman who, with a strength to match her height, all but lifted the wounded warrior from his mount and stood him on his feet.

  Someone in the crowd called out a question, to which Cornstalk replied while Nonhelema steadied their brother. Some among the people exclaimed in anger, others in dismay.

  “What is he saying?” Clare asked.

  Jeremiah’s reply was grim. “The peace talks never happened. They were just come to Pittsburgh when they were attacked.”

  They’d been escorting some white traders they’d met up with in Mingo territory, he explained, seeing them safe through country where Logan and his band roamed, striking whites indiscriminately in their vengeance for the killings at Baker’s post. The men of Pittsburgh, not bothering to inquire whether the Shawnees were friendly, had fallen upon the delegation at the gate of Fort Pitt. Silverheels had been badly wounded, though thanks to the help of Alexander McKee none of them were killed. Understandably outraged, Cornstalk, Nonhelema, and the war chief, Puckeshinwah, had called off the peace talks. The agents had secured an escort to take them back across the Ohio without further molestation.

  “Cornstalk says McKee was in a towering rage over it, but no undoing the damage done by a few reckless fools.”

  Nonhelema had her arm around Silverheels’s shoulders. The warrior was laughing at something said to him, the only indication of his suffering the tightness around his eyes. Nonhelema smiled at whatever her brother found humorous, though concern was in her gaze. Clare could well imagine her ferocity in the moments following his wounding. She’d never want this woman’s enmity, but if she could gain her sympathy, might the battle for Jacob be won—in one fell swoop, instead of the long, tedious, torturous, process Mr. Ring envisioned?

  Heart slamming at her temerity, Clare started for the woman, pulling easily from Mr. Ring’s grip, having caught him off guard. She couldn’t let Nonhelema out of her sights, though thought of addressing the woman set off a quaking in her limbs that woke Pippa, nestled against her in the sling.

  “Clare!” Just before she reached Nonhelema, Jeremiah Ring had her by the arm again. Clare turned in annoyance, and that quickly, Nonhelema and her brother moved away.

  She started to call after the woman, but Mr. Ring bent close and said, “Not the time.”

  Thoroughly awake now, Pippa let out a hungry squall.

  Not the time. Clare knew he was right. What had she been thinking?

  Not thinking at all. She’d been desperate beyond reason. For all her planning, preparing, hoping, praying, nothing had gone right this day.

  Blinded by disappointment, there was nothing to do but let Mr. Ring hurry her away to Wolf-Alone’s lodge, where at least she could give way to her tears without offending anyone.

  Inside the msi-kah-mi-qui, Jeremiah sat in council with Cornstalk, Puckeshinwah, and many of the warriors of both towns on Scippo Creek, even the wounded Silverheels who’d insisted upon being present though he was flat on his back, fevered, and watched over by his sister—a fierce, brooding eagle of a nursemaid.

  Perhaps Silverheels’s presence was a thing Cornstalk regretted allowing, for when all had heard of what happened in Pittsburgh, an alarming number of warriors had been in favor of joining Logan in his raids against the settlers south of the Spaylaywitheepi. While Cornstalk managed to persuade most of them that this would only drive their people closer to open war with the Long Knives at the cost of much life, a small contingent of the most militant warriors remained firm in their resolve.

  “We will go from this place to find Logan—or are we no longer a people with the heart to push back when one of our own is done such grievous wrong?” The warrior who stood as spokesmen for those who wouldn’t be pacified swept his hand toward Silverheels, on the edge of consciousness with his sister hovering, impatient for the council to end.

  Cornstalk accepted their decision. He had no power to force the warriors to remain at peace and had said all he could to persuade. At least for now.

  As the council broke up and the men dispersed, Jeremiah felt the looks cast his way. The warriors were no doubt wondering what he would choose to do, having returned to them at such a time with his own disturbance.

  Jeremiah had given hard thought to that question as he listened to the warriors debate. No denying the pull he felt to head east and warn McKee that what was once merely rumor was likely to become reality—Shawnees raiding south of the Ohio. But he couldn’t imagine what it would take to force Clare to leave this place without her son. Nor could he imagine leaving her and Pippa here without him.

  For himself, whatever else he did in the coming days, he was determined to remain neutral as long as possible on the issue of war between his peoples, having no desire to fight against either. Remaining neutral between his sister and Clare seemed a more treacherous and uncertain path to walk. Was the issue of Jacob I
nglesby, or Many Sparrows, going to force him to have to choose between them?

  Let there be some middle road.

  Cornstalk lingered in the council house, overseeing the removal of his brother to his lodge. Nonhelema paused to exchange words with Cornstalk, who turned and looked at Jeremiah waiting in the shadows.

  Jeremiah stepped forward as Cornstalk was momentarily left standing alone in a shaft of sunlight streaming from one of the openings in the high roof.

  “Panther-Sees-Him has traveled much of late and seen much,” he said as Jeremiah approached. “But now I am told he has also found himself a wife. A white woman.”

  Jeremiah nodded, wavering on the point of confession, but before he could do so, the older man spoke again. “She must be a notable woman for you to have met her and claimed her as your own so quickly.”

  “She is that,” Jeremiah said, finding he could agree to this without a speck of untruth in his heart.

  He proceeded to tell Cornstalk the story of his first encounter with Clare and their journey thus far, watching the principal chief for reaction all the while. But this was a man much experienced in keeping his counsel. He was unreadable.

  “I had hoped to get the boy back while he was still among the Mingos. The last thing I expected was to find my own sister had adopted him, and for this unhappiness I have brought her my heart is on the ground. But I have given my word.” Knowing the likely futility of it, he asked, “Would you speak to Rain Crow, persuade her to give the boy back to the one who birthed him?”

  Cornstalk pulled in his long upper lip, still giving nothing of his thoughts away in his countenance. But Jeremiah knew what they must be, on the heels of what had passed in that council house.

  “As you have seen and heard, I cannot even persuade all my warriors to do as I would wish them to do. How then can I tell a woman to give up the son she has adopted? Or,” he amended, “I can say the words, but if she does not wish to hear them, then she can take herself and that son away to live among others who will not tell her to give him up. You know this.”