by Lori Benton
Clare’s heart was in her throat, robbing her of speech. Mr. Cheramy must have taken her silence for mistrust. “You needn’t fear that I will harm your efforts to retrieve your son or do anything to make matters worse for you. For in this I and your Mr. Ring are in agreement—you would do well for the present to keep your distance from Rain Crow. That does not mean you cannot look upon your son, see that he is well. I will take you to a place where you may do so, though I caution you against approaching him or allowing yourself to be seen.”
Clare saw the man through a shimmer of tears as he took her shoulder in a gentle grip.
“Can you do this, ma chère—for now only to look?”
Only to look. Hidden with Mr. Cheramy at the wood’s edge while her son played with a band of Indian children on the fringes of another cornfield, Clare was doubting the wisdom of her choice. Seeing Jacob from afar like this, unable to touch him, speak to him, grab him and run with him and the baby on her back until they were far away, was agony, yet she couldn’t tear her gaze from the small blond figure, shockingly sun-browned, wearing only a breechclout and moccasins.
Now and then one of the children would dart into the field to chase away a bird or rabbit.
“The children guard the fields,” she murmured, recalling Crosses-the-Path’s words.
She heard laughter and knew it for Jacob’s—sweet music to her soul in one breath; with the next a piercing of grief and frustration. He was happy, but he was happy playing with those children. Was he happy with Rain Crow as his mother?
Even as she thought of her, the woman came striding into view from what must be the direction of the town. She called out in Shawnee, words Clare recognized. Many Sparrows.
She clapped a hand over her mouth. Don’t go to her, she willed her son. She’d only watched him for a moment. Not long enough. It could never be long enough. Not like this.
Jacob’s back was to the woman, his face in Clare’s view. She knew that stubborn look, that set of shoulders, stiff and slightly raised. Her son was ignoring Rain Crow.
Some of the children were pointing, speaking. Telling him his mother was calling?
Jacob’s shoulders slumped.
Clare tensed, willing her son to outright defiance, but Jacob left the other children and crossed the cornfield to Rain Crow, who smiled and held out her hand. He took it. They walked away together through the corn.
Clare felt her knees threaten to buckle.
Mr. Cheramy gripped her arm. “Come. I will lead you back.”
Pippa was making fretful whimpers as Clare stumbled after the trader, vision blurred, barely able to put one foot before the other. Mr. Cheramy took her by the hand and led her through the trees to the creek, where she found the will to speak.
“Is there anything you can do to help me leave this place with my children?” He’d all but offered it already. “Please, Mr. Cheramy.”
The trader regarded her with consideration. “It is not right for a mother and child to be kept apart. Let me think on this situation.”
Gratitude rushed in, but she needed more than his promise to think about helping her. “I am truly desperate. If there is anything you can do…”
Mr. Cheramy winced, as though pained by her unmasked need. “Here is how it is with me, ma chère. In three days’ time I am leaving the Scioto. I meant to go westward, but…I could change those plans. This I am willing to do for you, if you wish it of me.”
Taking her again by the arm, he ran his fingers down it until he’d clasped her hand in his. Gooseflesh rose where he’d touched her despite the sticky warmth of the day. She searched his eyes and read in them a look that both alarmed and heartened her. The man found her appealing.
“Wh-what are you saying?” Perhaps he wanted something from her she wasn’t willing to give? But what wouldn’t she give to have Jacob back, to be away from this place finally? To be safe.
Not that. Please, don’t want that. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Mr. Cheramy’s gaze softened. “All I am saying is this, that in the time I remain in Nonhelema’s Town I will befriend your son. I will speak to him as often as I can so that he is easy with me, so he knows me. Give me the three days for doing this and then, in the middle of the third night, I will bring him out of the town with me. I will meet you here on the bank of this creek—on this side. We shall leave all together, you, me, and your children. What say you to this, Madame?”
Once again the man had stolen her speech. Three days.
“I know we are not long acquainted, ma chère,” he said. “But you may trust me. There will come no harm to you or your children. This I promise you.”
She’d striven so long for this chance, the path blocked every way she’d attempted to pursue it. Suddenly, almost without trying, the way lay open before her. Surely she was meant to meet this man, the one who would get Jacob back for her.
“Yes! Oh, thank you. I…thank you so very much.” Tears choked her, keeping her from saying more.
Mr. Cheramy gave her hand a pat and released her. “Go now. On the third night I will meet you in this spot. Your Jacob will be with me. You can slip away in the night, you and the bébé, and not be seen or followed?”
“I can. I will.” Somehow she would manage it.
Pippa was starting to fuss in earnest. Clare turned toward the creek, thoughts spinning, but before she had a foot in the water, she looked back.
Mr. Cheramy was watching her go. She asked a question that had been nagging at her.
“Why will you not come into Cornstalk’s Town?”
Mr. Cheramy smiled, giving a lift of his shoulders. “About that, Madame, this is how it is. When I come to the Scioto for trade it is in Nonhelema’s Town I abide. I am, shall we say, unwelcome in Cornstalk’s Town these days.”
She dared not acknowledge the niggling of doubt that rose in the back of her mind.
“Unwelcome? Why?”
Mr. Cheramy brushed the matter aside. “A misunderstanding. It happened years ago when I was less skilled in the art of trading with Indians. With these people it is easy to offend, easy to misstep, no? Not so easy to regain their trust.”
“Certainement,” she said in heartfelt agreement and quickly removed her moccasins to wade the creek.
Logan had come to Cornstalk’s Town, still wearing Inglesby’s scalp on his belt. Jeremiah had spent much of that day in the msi-kah-mi-qui trying, along with Cornstalk and others, to persuade Logan to cease his raiding across the Ohio before more Shawnees followed his example and drove the nation nearer the precipice of war.
“It is too late to hold back what is coming; we are already over that precipice and falling,” Logan told them, gazing around the smoky council house at their furrowed brows and questioning stares. “Is it I who bring you this news?”
“What news do you bring?” Cornstalk inquired, though Jeremiah doubted he was the only one making a reasonable guess.
“The Long Knife governor, Dunmore, has sent word to his captains in the west to gather their men.” Logan’s eyes shone in the firelight, glinting like glass. Seated around him, his warriors, most wearing their own scalping trophies, leaned forward as one, intent on his words. “He means to come into this land. Will the Shawnees sit and wait for him to come and burn their lodges down around their heads? Shall Puckeshinwah, your war chief, or you, Cornstalk, do this?”
Answers to these questions were evaded with more questions, but they gleaned no further details from Logan about the Virginians. Logan didn’t know the intricacies of Dunmore’s plans, or didn’t care enough to recall them.
Could it be just rumor? Major Connolly at Fort Pitt had proven himself an embellisher and outright fabricator of tales of violence for the purpose of stirring up such a war.
Cornstalk sent runners eastward to find out.
Jeremiah left the council house knowing he would return to Pittsburgh to discover the truth for himself, if not for Clare. He doubted she could be persuaded to leave without Jacob.
He still didn’t know how he was going to get the boy back without doing irreparable damage to Rain Crow’s soul and to his relations with the only family he had.
He’d been honest about that with Clare early that morning when she’d confronted him, impatient for him to do something, letting her know that while he hadn’t given up, that he believed Jacob should be returned to her, he simply wasn’t certain how to proceed. So he was waiting.
It hadn’t gone over well.
“Waiting for what? For whom?”
“On the Almighty, Clare. He’ll show us the way. The best way. In time.”
She’d glared at him with the look of one betrayed, then left the lodge, and him, in a fuming temper.
Maybe it was time now. Time to cross the creek and have another hard conversation with Rain Crow. Or was he allowing himself to be pressured by these rumors brought by Logan?
He knew the voice screaming at him to do something, to set things to rights, clamoring for heedless obedience. He’d been in its grip before. He shut it out and listened for a quieter Voice.
And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
He didn’t hear a command to go left, right, or forward. What he heard was, Be still.
Words Clare did not want to hear. He’d sent Wildcat off a while ago to find her. Not to disturb her if she was working with the women, untroubled. Just to be sure her path didn’t cross that of the man who killed her husband and was still parading the evidence.
The boy had yet to find him again, but he assumed she was in no distress.
Though he’d encouraged her toward it, Clare’s absence from the wegiwa had left him uneasy even before encountering Logan. He’d wondered at that until admitting he simply missed her and Pippa. Upon leaving the council house, he’d hoped to find Clare inside the lodge, perhaps with a kettle over the fire.
The lodge was empty, the fire cold.
He ducked outside and set off through the village in the general direction of Falling Hawk’s lodge, searching for sign of her. Clare was free to come and go as she pleased, but he needed to be sure of her whereabouts. Seeing Logan would upset her—how could it not? He’d been relieved Clare chose today to go out into the fields with Crosses-the-Path. Falling Hawk told him his wife meant to give her a portion of the field to plant and work for him.
And for Wolf-Alone, he mentally added. But primarily a woman tended crops for her husband and children.
Despite the tension in the wegiwa and those times in the night when he heard Clare’s muffled sobs, there were moments, going about the business of living, when it felt like they were married. He liked those moments. Maybe more than he should.
Clare wasn’t his. He was a means to an end for her. Nothing more. Besides, he knew the dangers of letting down his guard. You opened your heart wide for life’s arrows to pierce it, and there were always arrows coming. Yet the heart, willful thing, could still long to bare itself to such attack, to take that terrible risk for the chance of such exquisite reward.
He paused near a lodge where an ancient grandmother sat on a buffalo hide watching him, for he’d spotted Clare coming along the creek path in his direction.
She didn’t appear troubled. In fact, her demeanor was a stark contrast to when she’d left the wegiwa that morning.
Radiant was the word that came to him. He caught his breath. Hearing a snort from the level of his knees, he glanced down. No mistaking the old woman’s amusement. Her features were all but lost in a maze of laughing wrinkles, dark eyes peeking like puddles in the cracked mudflats of a drying river.
Face warming, Jeremiah strode off to intercept Clare.
She was smiling when he reached her, though behind her in the cradleboard Pippa was anything but happy. The baby was working herself into a full-throated wail Jeremiah recognized for her hungry cry.
Looking unfazed by the noise, Clare greeted him with shining eyes, their green intensified by the newly sun-burnished hue of her brow and cheeks. A breeze was springing up to cool the day. A strand of hair escaped its braid to blow across her face, pale against her skin. It snagged against lips so full Jeremiah had to resist the temptation to brush it back simply to touch them.
She pushed back the strand, tucking it behind an ear. “Mr. Ring, I suppose Pippa isn’t the only one hungry by now?”
He was bereft of speech, until the baby’s angry cries jarred him back to his senses. “I can get something started while you tend Pippa.”
“Would you?” Clare started for the wegiwa, and Jeremiah followed, captivated by her change of mood, thoughts of guarding his heart spinning away into fragments.
Wolf-Alone came to the lodge long enough to eat with them, then went out again, giving Jeremiah a meaningful look, acknowledging their tacit agreement not to mention Logan by name. Clare was preoccupied, though whatever distracted her seemed a source of pleasure rather than concern. It couldn’t be Logan, still troubling Jeremiah.
Logan had had on his person a letter to Michael Cresap, whom he still blamed for the murder of his family. It was written for him by a white man his warriors had taken prisoner. Logan had allowed Jeremiah to read it.
To Captain Cresap. What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for. The white People killed my kin at Conestoga a great while ago, & I thought nothing of that. But you killed my kin again on Yellow Creek. Then I thought I must kill too; and I have been to war three times since but the Indians is not Angry only myself.
Jeremiah had offered to take the letter to Pittsburgh, where it might do some good toward convincing the Virginians that the majority of the Shawnees weren’t in favor of war.
Logan refused. He would leave the letter where he chose—some future scene of slaughter—once his vengeance was sated.
“It is too late to hold back what is coming.” Despite what Logan’s letter proclaimed, Jeremiah had witnessed more than one Shawnee warrior’s heart abandon hope for peace and harden toward war, hearing such words.
If war came and they were still on the Scioto, what was he to do? Let Clare and Pippa flee with the women and children should that become needful? He was willing to fight, but on which side? He’d be viewed a traitor no matter which he chose.
A gurgling squeal from Pippa banished such troubling thoughts. Seated cross-legged on his bed furs, Jeremiah looked to where Clare, pacing before the fire, was attempting to coax Pippa to sleep.
“Not having any of it, is she?”
“She’s wide awake,” Clare said around a yawn, patting Pippa’s back as the baby rode her shoulder, little hands pressed against Clare’s collarbone, head lifted. “And I need to mend a moccasin before I sleep.”
She turned, bringing Pippa’s gaze in line with Jeremiah. The baby gave him a gummy smile, a sight to which he unfailingly warmed. She had an expressive face for a baby, often playful, as if she knew more than she was letting on and it amused her.
“Want me to give it a try?”
“She still settles better for you, doesn’t she?” With an oddly wistful look, Clare gave the baby into his keeping.
Pippa didn’t protest the exchange. Full of milk, clean-clouted, she reflected her mother’s seemingly contented mood, which Jeremiah was finding contagious. He put their troubles—Logan, war, even Jacob—from his mind, stood with the baby in his arms, and took up pacing. Clare settled by the fire to stitch a gap in the seam of her moccasin with an awl and sinew he’d supplied.
“Did Crosses-the-Path teach you how to do that?”
Clare glanced up. “With Wildcat’s help. But I knew how to stitch a seam before today,” she added with a hint of a smile, even teasing in her tone.
He felt a rush of pleasure, though mention of the boy returned Logan to mind. “See Wildcat today, did you?”
“Early on.” Clare paused to cut the sinew with the knife she’d taken to wearing in a leather sheath around her neck, as Shawnee women wore—another item he’d supp
lied to her. “He went to the fields with us and watched Pippa for a while. Then he left to shoot arrows with some other boys.”
It was shortly after that, Jeremiah guessed, that he’d left the council house to find Wildcat and instruct him to intercept Clare if she looked likely to cross paths with Logan. Wildcat hadn’t let Clare know he had returned to watch her, else she probably would have mentioned it.
He’d make a good hunter, that one—already he showed promise of it, according to Wolf-Alone, who often took the boy with him when he hunted along the Scioto.
Pippa wasn’t settling. She held her head erect as she’d done with Clare, though it had a tendency to pitch sideways, bumping his jaw. The baby turned her attention to that jaw, twisting to put a hand to it, seeming to like the scratchy feel. He let her pat him awhile before pretending to nibble her fingers. She was too young to understand the game, much less engage with him, but he provided the requisite snarls and lip-smacks until he caught Clare watching him.
“Do you know anything about him?” she asked.
“About who?”
He’d tensed, thinking she meant Logan, but relaxed when she said, “Wildcat. Where he came from. Who he was. He claims to have no memory of it.”
Pippa took an interest in his ear, pressing her wet mouth to it. “I was here when he was brought in by the hunters who found him.”
“Found him?” Clare paused her stitching, giving him her full attention.
“On a homestead in the mountains, near the Yadkin River, down in Carolina. The people there had died in a cabin fire—or something of the sort. He was hiding in a barn with some kittens, all of them half-wild. He was maybe three years old at the time. There was no one around to claim the boy, he was hungry, so the hunters fed him, then decided to keep him.”
Firelight accentuated Clare’s frown. “There must have been someone, somewhere, who would have wanted him.”
Someone white, she meant.
“Just as likely the hunters who found him saved his life in taking him.” Pippa was gnawing gummily at his ear now. Snorting with laughter, he shifted the baby away.