by Lori Benton
“Who’s given my niece shelter all this while?”
“I have,” Ring told him. “In my brother’s lodge.”
“A Shawnee brother?”
“Born Delaware. Adopted, like me.”
“All right. Just so I understand—Clare and her baby girl lived with you these past months, under the same roof?”
A guarded look had sharpened in Ring’s eyes. He knew what Alphus was getting at. “And with my brother, as I said. Once I knew it wouldn’t be an easy thing getting Jacob back, I thought it safer if my kin, all the Shawnees, thought of her as my wife.”
Alphus wasn’t liking this. At all. “She make objection to that?”
The man didn’t look away. “Was she best pleased? No. But she saw the wisdom in it.”
“It was more to you, though, wasn’t it? More than a sham for her safety.”
“Clare…” Whether from thirst, exhaustion, or emotion, the man’s voice caught on the name. “For Jacob she was willing to do whatever she must, more than I’d have asked of her.”
That didn’t answer the question and raised a heap more in Alphus’s mind, but he decided to let that subject lie until he could speak to Clare about it, get her side.
Having received permission to accompany the army across the Ohio when they marched, Alphus wasn’t presently in command of anyone, save Ring. His men were part of the garrison left raising the fort at Point Pleasant. Geordie and the rest would be folded into another Augusta County company formed as the wounded recovered.
Alphus was now as single-minded as Andrew Lewis, though not to wreak vengeance on the Shawnees—unless Clare had come to harm in Ring’s absence, at their hands.
That was another rankling, making him pin the back of Ring’s head with his glare as they trudged along the Scioto Trail. He’d led Clare to the savages, then left her to go and fight against his own?
If he hadn’t needed Ring so badly, Alphus likely would have shot the traitor himself.
Colonel Lewis was determined to attack the Scioto towns, and not even a direct order from Governor Dunmore, received on the march, had served to alter his course. The fighting was over. Peace negotiations, Lewis had learned to his dismay, had been underway for days. The Shawnees had already agreed to the governor’s terms—to return all white prisoners and any African slaves they may have carried off; to cease hunting south of the Ohio; to no longer molest settlers traveling via that river; to give up their hunting grounds in Kentucky.
To return all white prisoners…
Jeremiah had felt a heaviness in his chest for Rain Crow as cheers and shouts went up from men around him, hearing of the capitulation, even as relief had swelled for Clare.
“What does this mean for her?” Alphus Litchfield had asked him, those steely eyes—green like Clare’s—drilling into him.
“Jacob will be given back. She’ll have what she wants.”
Was this the answer to their prayers? Or was this merely one small good thing the Almighty was working out of the tragedy of war and death?
Good for whom? For Clare, certainly. But what about his sister, what about her good?
Jeremiah closed his eyes, seeking the truth of that, seeking it in his past, in what he knew, by hard paths, of the Almighty and His ways. And he realized it was best for Rain Crow as well, no matter how much pain it brought. She would never find the wholeness she longed for in a child, just as he could never have found it in his wife and son had they lived. His sister must find wholeness where any man or woman found it at last. Where Clare would find it. Where he was working at finding it now. Not in another person, frail and failing as all were, but at the foot of the cross, in a love that had no bounds. A love that bled and died to clear the path to that deepest of relationships severed long ago in a garden somewhere far away. Man and his Maker. Or woman and hers.
Exactly when those prisoners, and some who weren’t prisoners but adopted sons and daughters, married wives and husbands, would be returned wasn’t clear. There was to be a grand council in Pittsburgh in the spring to confirm the peace agreement. Perhaps it would happen then. Perhaps in mere days.
And what of Falling Hawk? Wolf-Alone? Did they live? Was Clare with them, under their protection?
Loving and not knowing was never going to be an easy burden to bear, no matter how many times he bore it. He’d thought he’d learned how, years ago, thought he’d had some wisdom to impart to Clare about it. But it came down to this: crying out to the Lord and clinging to His promise that He was vigilant enough, present enough, loving enough, and good enough to deal with it all.
Still his flesh was urging him to do something. To escape, get out ahead of that army of Virginians and find Clare, Pippa, Jacob, and Rain Crow, before they were swept along in the flood of refugees that would already be headed northward, for surely by now Nonhelema’s Town, first in the army’s path, had been evacuated, perhaps burned before its occupants fled.
Cornstalk’s Town across Scippo Creek would be next.
Even if he wouldn’t have been shot for trying to run, his strength was failing, his wound wasn’t healing, and he couldn’t figure Colonel Andrew Lewis’s thinking.
The man had sent a message of defiance back to Dunmore via the scout, Girty. He wouldn’t halt his advance.
Jeremiah judged they were several miles south of Nonhelema’s Town when the first shot was fired. He felt a hand clamp his shoulder, then he was on the ground, face in the leaves, while Litchfield and the surrounding militia took cover and fired back.
Currently weaponless, he kept his head down.
It was a quick skirmish. The warriors—scouts he was sure, not a war party—had fired in warning, not to kill. The Virginians lost a bit of time but resumed their march when no attack materialized.
A mile or so on, another messenger from Dunmore found them, pausing the march again.
Thankful for the respite, though made as uneasy as the men around him by the obvious cross purposes of those meant to be leading this army, Jeremiah leaned against a nearby tree, trying to stay on his feet.
He must have dozed standing up; the suddenness of men stirring around him, cursing Indians, governors, and the very land beneath their feet, then the bark of orders getting them back in formation, brought him around bleary-eyed, dizzy, muzzy-headed. His fever was up.
“What’s the stir now?” he asked Litchfield, who grasped him by the arm and yanked him back onto the trail.
“Dunmore’s still ordering us to halt.” Face grim, the older man nudged Jeremiah forward with the barrel of his rifle.
It was another half-mile of staggering before Jeremiah realized the army was still moving toward the Scioto towns, not altering its course as twice—was it thrice?—ordered.
He risked a look back at Litchfield. “Colonel Lewis still not complying?”
Litchfield’s face was stony, those green eyes no little troubled. “It does not appear so.”
Jeremiah tripped over a root in the trail, pitched forward into the man in front of him, who turned and shoved him back into Litchfield. Clare’s uncle grasped him, kept him upright and moving, and by main effort Jeremiah focused on the bobbing ranks of militia moving ahead down the trail toward…
“Clare.”
He realized he’d said her name aloud only when her uncle spoke behind him. “We will find her.”
There was as much threat as promise in the words.
Just let me get her safe into his keeping, Jeremiah thought or maybe prayed—hard to know with his head swimming.
He wasn’t certain how he was going to do anything for Clare, not now. Did she think he had abandoned her? Had Wolf-Alone or Falling Hawk survived to let her know he’d been wounded?
Maybe it didn’t matter. I’m not the one she needs to trust. God in heaven, help her. Let her know You haven’t abandoned her or her children, no matter what she thinks of me.
He was stopped on his feet again and swaying before he realized the army had come to yet another ponderous halt
. He felt it around him like a collective groan. These men weren’t easy about Colonel Lewis disobeying orders, though most seemed in favor of inflicting as much harm upon Cornstalk’s people as could be managed.
Someone up ahead called back to those behind. “It’s him!”
“Him who?” Alphus Litchfield hollered back.
“The gov’nor hisself, ridden in with a body of guards.”
“Going to stop us?” someone asked.
“Let him try!”
“It’s orders. Lewis has to stop. This war’s over, such as it was.”
“They’re starting another up the trail—sounds like a proper row!”
In Jeremiah’s ears the voices swirled and blended, clashed and broke apart. Much closer to hand that gruff voice he’d come to know said, “I’m going to sit you down before you fall down, Ring. No knowing how long this’ll take, and I don’t aim to hold you up indefinitely.”
Litchfield got him to the ground, which was damp from a morning rain shower, then left to join the officers ahead on the trail to get what news he could.
Jeremiah drew his knees up and put his head down and didn’t raise it until he heard that voice again—a moment or an hour later he never knew.
“It’s the governor, come with a guard,” Litchfield was saying to all within hearing, “and it was a row right enough he and Colonel Lewis had, but the colonel is finally turning back. Lord Dunmore thanks us for our service, and we are ordered back to Camp Union on the Greenbrier. War’s over for us, though I reckon whatever’s getting started back east will keep us all busy for a spell.”
Jeremiah sensed movement around him. Men too stunned to speak, picking up their gear. Waiting to be told when to start retracing their steps.
He couldn’t retrace his.
“No,” he said when he felt that grip on his arm, urging him to his feet. “Clare.”
“I said we’d find her, and we will,” Litchfield said, as Jeremiah brought the man’s face into focus. “Most of this lot is headed back south, but not you and me. We’re going on with Dunmore and some of the officers to Camp Charlotte, on Scippo Creek. Lewis gave his permission, though Dunmore didn’t like it.”
Alphus Litchfield’s mouth quirked in something near a smile.
“Between you and me, Ring, and the shining sun, I don’t think Lewis is much bothered over what Dunmore likes or doesn’t.”
OCTOBER 24
CAMP CHARLOTTE, SCIPPO CREEK
The Northern Army’s camp on Scippo Creek was pitched six miles from Cornstalk’s Town. The Virginia governor’s troops had built council houses for the talks with the Shawnees; though many of the chiefs and warriors who took part in the talks lingered in the vicinity, including Cornstalk and Nonhelema, formal negotiations had ended.
With Wolf-Alone, Clare had attended those talks, on pins and needles until learning that as part of the terms of peace with the Virginians, the Shawnees were being forced to return their white captives. She would have Jacob back. If Rain Crow could be found. If someone would help her. If…
Clare forced her mind back from that twisted, fretful trail. How strange that without Jeremiah there to continually cast her care upon—her worry, her questions, her impatience, anger, fears—she was finding it easier, a very little easier, to cast that care first upon the Almighty. The One who asked for it. Who promised to carry it. Who called Himself good and claimed to have good plans for her.
Still her faith was a faltering thing. Lord, do You truly see us? Are You watching? I have the will of the governor of Virginia on my side. But that is nothing without You. Where is my son? Who will find him for me?
And where is Jeremiah?
There’d been no word of him, though Falling Hawk, recovered from his wound, had made his way to Camp Charlotte in hope, like Wolf-Alone and Clare, of somehow discovering Jeremiah’s fate.
Where? was the cry of Clare’s heart that wouldn’t be silenced, even as she and Wolf-Alone debated whether they should remain at Camp Charlotte or journey south to the Kanawha and see if they could get word of him there, once the talks had ended.
Then, still in the midst of the talks, had come news that Colonel Lewis was bringing the Southern Army up to them.
They’d thought at first Colonel Lewis meant to join his commanding officer at Camp Charlotte, until panicked reports of Shawnee scouts claimed Lewis was bent on retaliation for the attack upon their Ohio River camp. Messages from Dunmore to halt his advance had been ignored. It had taken the governor himself riding out to head off Colonel Lewis to stop him, and now, at last, Dunmore was returning with his body of mounted guards.
And a few more besides.
“I know it’s unlikely, but perhaps there’s news of Jeremiah?” Clare couldn’t help voicing the query as she and Wolf-Alone came up from their creek-side camp upon hearing of Dunmore’s return. She was thinking of another as well; maybe somewhere among that Southern Army, Alphus Litchfield was numbered. The Augusta County companies had taken part in the battle at the place they were calling Point Pleasant. Had her uncle raised a company? Had he survived the battle?
Jacob, Jeremiah, Uncle Alphus. All these male creatures of hers gone astray. The comparison to corralling cats might have afforded her amusement had the need to find them and see them safe not been so wrenching.
“You’re right,” Wolf-Alone said, walking a half-pace ahead of her. “It’s unlikely. But let’s see who comes now.”
As always when she showed herself, Clare caused a stir among Dunmore’s companies—a white woman in Indian dress, a baby in a cradleboard on her back, escorted by a singularly tall and fearsome warrior everywhere she went. No one knew what to make of her, but she waded in among those gathering near the governor’s marquee as he rode in on his trail-spattered mount along with his guard, some of whom carried extra riders.
“Do you see him?” she asked, knowing Wolf-Alone had the better vantage. Her heart banged hard with hope. “Jeremiah?”
“Of those I can see, none look like a prisoner.”
Clare pushed past a knot of militiamen in hunting shirts to get a better view of the new faces, but horses and men milled too thickly.
She would have to wait, perhaps approach the governor again. She’d spoken to him briefly of her plight the previous day; Dunmore had expressed appropriate levels of concern, though of course he couldn’t commit his troops to a wilderness expedition in pursuit of one Shawnee woman and a captured child. Nor had he any notion who had been taken prisoner by his Southern Army.
“Clare,” Wolf-Alone said, catching up to her and taking her by the arm. “Come away for now. You’ll have to—”
“Clare? Clare Inglesby!”
She’d turned to let Wolf-Alone lead her back to their camp when she heard her name shouted above the rumble of male voices.
“Clare!” Alphus Litchfield, trail-grimed and badly in need of a razor’s attention, thrust aside the same knot of militiamen she’d just waded through and before she could believe what her eyes and ears were telling her had engulfed her in a pungent, bear-hugging embrace.
“My girl! Here you are. He said you’d be, if you could convince his brothers to bring you here and if not maybe you’d have come alone. I didn’t half-believe him!”
The smell of unwashed male, the scratch of those lengthening whiskers. The solid embrace. The comfort and familiarity of that gruff voice. Clare’s heart nearly burst with joy.
“Uncle Alphus! I’m so relieved to see you. Who said I would be here? Jeremiah?”
She looked past her uncle’s shoulder, which stood not much taller than her own, to see him standing there watching their reunion—not looking well, but alive and on his feet.
Jeremiah Ring.
Not dead. Not dead. Not dead. The words resounded in her soul like a joyful bell as she pulled away from her uncle and, without a word, moved toward the man who had been her companion since he found her by the broken wagon and brought her daughter into the world.
Having no idea
whether that daughter was asleep or awake in the cradleboard on her back, she walked straight into Jeremiah’s arms and held him with a thankfulness, a tenderness, she might spend the rest of her life attempting to express and never manage to her satisfaction.
“Clare.” He trembled as he said her name, then took her face between his hands and looked at her.
She looked back at him, at the bruising faded around one eye, the healing of a cut across his mouth. She looked at that long face—gaunt now but bearded like she first remembered it—at the astonishing sweetness and longing bright in his eyes, and in that moment knew beyond all scrap of doubt that the Almighty had been with her every step of this journey into the unknown, providing for all her needs, small and great, there to comfort her in those times when she despaired, if only she’d stilled her soul enough to believe it, embrace it, drink Him in like water to her soul.
And not just with her. With Jacob. Jeremiah. Rain Crow. Even—she knew this though it went against all reason—Philip. The Almighty had been with him in his final moments, whatever he had seen, whatever he had endured. Just as He would always be with her, working for the good of her eternal soul, no matter how events unfolded from that moment.
As if she’d been viewing it all through someone else’s spectacles, ones not meant for her eyes, and had finally changed them for the proper pair, she could see it now. God’s hand in all these paths that had come together and split apart, only to converge again in this place. And he’d used this man to do so much for her. This strong, tested, faithful, treasure of a man.
“Jeremiah.” She touched his face, stroking her fingers down his beard. He was startlingly warm. His eyes, a little too bright, softened at whatever he was seeing in her face.
A throat’s clearing behind her made her aware of the scene they were creating. She turned to find her uncle gazing at them, a mixture of surprise and disapproval on that face she knew well.
“Is he your prisoner, Uncle?”
“He is.”
“Then I must insist upon taking custody, for I have need of him.”