The Cumberland Bride

by Shannon McNear

  The elders shifted. Thomas could see their discomfort even through the calm expressions they wore. Kate leaned closer to his side, doubtlessly reading Crying Bird’s intent, if nothing else.

  “That is not our way,” one elder said. “We do not burn those of our own people. And Eyes-of-Sky was, if nothing else, one of ours.

  “And the woman was taken in under the word of Flying Clouds. Even if Eyes-of-Sky does not claim her, at this point she is Flying Clouds’s daughter, and you should contend with him for marriage, if that is what you wish. But I think the woman herself would not choose you.” A chuckle arose from the assembly. “It is a hard place to be in, Crying Bird. I would say as well that you should lay aside your black thoughts.”

  If anything, Crying Bird’s look darkened. “You will be sorry someday when the white man has taken all our land. We gave up the hunting grounds south of the Spelewathiipi, and now they want everything to the north. Eyes-of-Sky is no different from those, helping this woman’s family occupy our lands. Keep her as ours, yes, but the land should be cleansed of her family and others like them.”

  Another rumble, this time more obviously discontented. Many wagged their heads, including most of the elders, but one elder, and several in the assembly, looked troubled and thoughtful at the words.

  The elder leading the meeting turned to Thomas. “You and your woman sit down. We will discuss this matter further.”

  “Perhaps it is best if they leave the assembly altogether,” another said. “They may wait at Payakutha’s lodge until we have come to a decision.”

  Thomas nodded, his heart sinking, and whispered for Kate to follow him. A path more or less cleared for them as they went and Flying Clouds followed behind.

  They burst out into the waning light of afternoon, and Thomas dragged a long breath into his lungs. “What is it?” Kate asked, soft but insistent, but Flying Clouds stalked past them, beckoning.

  Thomas shook his head and led her on, still holding on to her hand.

  They ducked inside Flying Clouds’s wegiwa, where Flying Clouds turned to face them. “I do not believe they wish to give in to Crying Bird’s anger,” he said without preamble, “but even if they judge in your favor, it will not dissuade Crying Bird or protect you from him. I am glad you have come, even if only for the sake of this woman here, but the winds have changed for our people and you no longer belong here. Unless you want to take up the tomahawk against your white brothers?”

  Thomas released a hard sigh. “I do not.”

  Flying Clouds gave a decisive nod. “Then you should take your woman and go. Now, while they are yet in council. I will gladly keep the gifts you brought to show your good faith, but for the sake of your life and this one—” He sent Kate an affectionate glance. “Love her well, my son. Be happy and do good to all men wherever you can. This has always been the best of the Shawnee way.”

  Thomas found he could hardly breathe, and his eyes burned. “Oh my father. You have been my only father these past years.”

  Flying Clouds gripped the back of Thomas’s neck and pulled him toward himself, forehead to forehead. “You are ever my son, Eyes-of-Sky. And if the years prove better for both of us, and you find it in your heart to come back—the door of my lodge remains open to you.”

  Watching the two men embrace brought tears to Kate’s eyes. She’d felt the rising tension of the assembly, then thought whatever Thomas had said had won their case. But when Crying Bird had risen, she’d not been able to shake a sense of apprehension.

  Thomas stepped back from Flying Clouds and swiped a sleeve across his eyes. “Gather your things,” he said. “We must leave right away.”

  She glanced at the older man, who looked at them both with so much sorrow in his eyes. “Would it be—permissible—for me to give him a farewell embrace too?”

  The barest smile lifted the corner of Thomas’s mouth, and he nodded, speaking in the Indian’s tongue. The older man chuckled then held his arms out. Kate stepped into his embrace, so strange and yet not. The rumble of his voice beneath her cheek was nearly as comforting as her own father’s.

  “He calls you daughter,” Thomas said. “And”—he made a sound that was either a choke or a chuckle as well—“he wished you to know that he thinks you a fine wife for me.”

  Well, that was something else to add to the long list of things she and Thomas needed to talk about later. She pulled away and looked up into the old warrior’s face. “Thank you for all your kindness. I will never forget.” And, as Thomas translated, she dropped another curtsy.

  Then she scrambled to pack—there was little enough, just what she’d brought in her pockets and the few items Flying Clouds and the women had supplied her with—and then the three of them slipped out of the wegiwa and hurried to where Ladyslipper was tethered with other horses. Thomas and Flying Clouds kept a steady but low conversation, and after he’d gotten Ladyslipper saddled, he turned and gripped the older man’s forearm for a long, lingering moment. Flying Clouds took hers as well, patted it with his free hand, then skimmed a hand across her head.

  Thomas mounted up then reached down to her. Flying Clouds offered her his clasped hands to step into, and between the two, she swung up behind Thomas, scrunching her skirt so she could straddle more easily. The deerskin leggings, which she’d barely begun getting used to, proved useful in that respect, covering her to midthigh.

  “Hold on,” Thomas said, and then they were away, faster than she could ever remember going on horseback, the forest blurring on either side of them.

  Closing her eyes, Kate clutched his waist with both arms, pressed her cheek between his shoulder blades, and prayed.

  They didn’t stop until dusk had overtaken them. Kate slid down, almost over Ladyslipper’s rump, and stood, legs trembling from the exertion of the ride, while Thomas dismounted and tethered the mare. He’d chosen a spot tucked high on the side of a hill, which provided cover while giving them a decent view of where they’d just ridden from.

  Kate brushed her clothing down then tiptoed away to find privacy. Thomas had said hardly a word since they’d left the Indian town, and she honestly did not know what to expect. Likely a return to his formerly taciturn self. Best she reconcile herself to that now.

  When she returned, Ladyslipper was unsaddled, and Thomas sat on the ground, back against a massive rock, their scant baggage beside him. He handed her a portion of jerky. “We dare not light a fire. Any distance we put between ourselves and the town is, at best, simply buying a little time.”

  Kate settled herself on the other side of the baggage and took the jerky. “You expect Crying Bird to pursue?”

  Thomas nodded shortly. Between bites he said, “Flying Clouds promised to deal with whatever difficulty came up with the elders, but Crying Bird—” He shook his head, tearing off another bite with his teeth.

  Twilight in the forest suddenly seemed more lonely, more menacing. Suppressing a shiver, she glanced around.

  “We should be safe enough for now,” he added.

  Working on her own bite, Kate watched him. He sat cross-legged, head down, one hand upturned and slack on his knee, cradling the chunk of jerky. Dark hair fell in strands over his shoulder, and those silver ornaments in his ears glinted even in the dusk. His voice remained low. “Flying Clouds thinks that Crying Bird might choose instead to give attention to the trouble brewing up at the new fort General Wayne has been busy building all winter.” He bit, chewed, glanced up at her, and swallowed. “I have need to angle down through Maysville, maybe to Boonesborough. We might be a little delayed returning to your family, but maybe following the trace will haste our way.”

  Kate thought through what he was saying—or rather, what he had not said. “You know the wilderness well enough to not have to follow the trace?”

  The corner of his mouth lifted briefly. “Aye, but it doesn’t serve my needing to find a certain man and speak with him.” He seemed to stare a moment at the jerky in his hand. “At least there we can find a ta
vern or ordinary and have a real meal. And not sleep in the open.”

  “This is just fine,” she murmured.

  After all that had taken place the last few days and the obvious sorrow of Thomas’s parting with Flying Clouds, how was she to address this unexpected melancholy? Besides minding her own supper, such as it was—and she’d had many a supper of only jerky on the hard journey north with Crying Bird and Grey Hawk, so it was naught to complain about.

  “My parents moved from Virginia to the Watauga Valley when I was about five.” Thomas spoke suddenly into the growing dark. “I remember little except a long road, steep mountains, and deep forests. We lived under constant threat of the Cherokee and Creek. My father spoke often of avoiding the war between the colonies and England, except that the British stirred the Indians to trouble—and still do.” He snorted. “My mama died of a fever just a few years later. Then when I was about twelve, word came from a British officer named Ferguson, threatening to lead the Carolina Tories over the mountains to slaughter us. Neither my pa nor the other men would stand for that, and they went to war against Ferguson.”

  He nibbled at the jerky, and Kate waited, spellbound. Of all the times she’d asked him to tell her more of his story, and he chose to do so now?

  “They made a slaughter of Ferguson and his men, but—Pa didn’t come back. In the meantime, my sister took in a Tory who’d run away after the battle and didn’t know anymore where to put his loyalties. She thought only to show him charity, but—he helped save our family through a Cherokee attack, and the two of them got married shortly after.” A genuine smile curved Thomas’s mouth for a moment. “He’s a good man, is Micah. And that’s partly why I stood up to speak for your pa when I did. Might say I learned to not judge a man for whatever his loyalties had been before.”

  She offered a smile. “And for that, I thank you. Papa and I both were grateful.”

  He bobbed a nod. “Anyway,’twas a couple of years after that when the Cherokee caught me out alone in the hills one day. They were on a raid just for taking captives—they do that sometimes, looking for folk they can adopt as their own to take the place of those who have been lost or died. Hard as that seems to understand, with the stories you hear—and some of those are true too. But I was a lucky one. A Shawnee brave saw me while we were staying in one of the Cherokee towns and bought me. Carried me north, eventually to the town we just left today.”

  “Flying Clouds?” Kate asked.

  Thomas nodded, head still down. He now clutched the jerky in his fist. “I had to run the gauntlet, of course, but they made it easy on me—and I ran fast.” He huffed a laugh then looked up at her. “Did you—”

  “I had to run it too. But I also realized at one point that no one was really trying to hit me, though a few switches landed across my arms and shoulders.”

  He winced, but nodded. “When it’s a captive they intend to burn or keep as a slave, the gauntlet is right terrible—but for those they’ve decided to keep, they don’t do much, just scare them, mostly.”

  Kate sat a little straighter. “Did they—bathe you?”

  Thomas laughed softly. “Aye, that was the other thing. Flying Clouds’s wife must have spent half an hour scrubbing me down. Reckon I’ve never been so clean, before or since. Then gave me new clothing after.” He sobered again. “They explain later it’s to wash away all the white blood, make you completely Indian. I didn’t know at first though. But they took such care of me, and with all the hurt of losing both my mama and pa—” He took a deep breath, released it. “I reckoned myself as good as dead to my sisters at that point. Gave myself up to being Shawnee.”

  “Right down to planning to marry a Shawnee girl?”

  He nodded slowly. “I cried near as hard as she did, having to leave her. Cried again before having to face my sisters again. And after enduring all their tears on my return, I decided there and then I’d never leave another woman to cry over me.” His gaze held Kate’s in the gathering dusk. “If I could help it.”

  Her throat closed at the memory of their last parting. “You couldn’t help it.”

  “I could have,” he said softly. “And it may not have been enough to save your family.”

  “That’s in the Lord’s hands alone now.” Despite the jagged fear that tore her all too often at the thought that they might not have survived.

  He just looked at her for a moment. “True enough. And I suppose, so are we. In the Lord’s hands, that is.”

  Kate felt her jaw loosening, and joy leaping up in her heart. Thomas, speaking such words of faith?

  After another deep breath, he went back to examining his jerky as if it were something vitally interesting. “So because of all that—despite what Crying Bird said about me having to choose—you must understand I’m not sure I’ll ever completely fit the white man’s world. Nor completely with the Shawnee either, but there’s still a good bit of that in me.” His gaze flickered to her and away. “I came back to my sisters to find it wasn’t home anymore, not really. No matter how glad they were to see me again. I’ve spent the last ten years wondering if I should just return to the Shawnee, but—” His voice broke. He cleared his throat and went on, quickly. “You saw how today went.”

  He’d promised to tell her. Told himself once they had a chance, he’d at least begin the telling of it all. But now, with her quietly watching him as she worked on her piece of jerky, it seemed too much. Too intimate.

  And maybe it was just the shock of everything—he recalled it had been weeks before he felt anything approaching being used to life with the Shawnee. Kate’s manner toward him now seemed cool and detached. She’ll have you, her father said, but how could he be sure that her flinging herself into his arms wasn’t simple relief at his arrival and not a sign of some deeper attachment?

  He looked over at her, clad in the loose, simple shirt and wrapped skirt that all Shawnee women wore, her golden hair in two braids over her shoulders. She was prettier than anything he’d ever seen, dressed out as an Indian woman. And on her feet—she still had those moccasins he’d given her. “Were you treated well?” he asked.

  She glanced up, her eyes wide and dark in the moonlit shadows under the trees, then nodded. “All things considered, yes. I did not expect that—their kindness. Even after what you’d said.” She nibbled the jerky. “Even Crying Bird and Grey Hawk weren’t as harsh as I thought they’d be, especially after we separated from the others.” She frowned. “There’s so much I wanted to tell you. Ask you about. And now…”

  So he wasn’t the only one. “We should sleep for a few hours at least,” he said at last. “We’ll make Maysville by nightfall tomorrow.” They could talk more on the way.

  For a moment she did not move. “So what did the council say? And what all did Flying Clouds say to you, at the last?”

  That also seemed almost too fresh to speak aloud. He reached for his blanket, and she did the same, wrapping hers about herself. “Lie down, and I’ll start back with when I left you.” He waited until she settled, then stretched out beside her about an arm’s length away, facing her.

  This girl, who just hours ago he’d been talking about making his wife. Who had clung to him during the ride south. Who even now gazed at him with expectation. And now he was nearly afraid to touch her.

  “I made it back to where we’d made camp just after sunrise,” he began.

  Those dark eyes widened. “You ran the whole way, all night?”

  “Aye. And your papa was none too pleased to see me show up without you.” He offered a rueful smile. “But when I made him see that I was their best chance of getting you back—”

  Something in her expression shifted. “And so you came up with the idea of asking to marry me.”

  The idea of—?

  Thomas levered himself up on an elbow. “It wasn’t like that.”

  She shut her eyes. “You don’t have to keep pretending now. I understand when we were back in the Indian town you thought to protect me, but—” Wit
h a huff, she rolled away from him and to her feet, nearly in the same motion.

  He scrambled to follow her. She ran maybe a dozen steps away then stopped, half hidden in shadow, her back to him and head tucked, still swathed in her blanket. He came to a halt as well, close enough to touch but not doing so.

  “Kate,” he breathed. “Your father liked to have killed me until I explained what had happened—how hard it was to make that decision to leave you. And even then—dear Lord, dying would have been easier, if I knew it might have spared you. But I had a good idea where Crying Bird intended to take you. And I’m the only one of all of us who knew how to get there.”

  She swayed a little but did not turn. “So was Crying Bird’s intent all along just to take revenge on you?”

  “I think he did feel real concern for Flying Clouds, and if he thought that was the best way to make me come…?”

  A moment’s hesitation, then she nodded, once. “And come you did.”

  “Aye. As I promised you.” He so wanted to just pull her into his arms—

  “And why…why did you kiss me, Thomas?”

  “Because…” He edged closer. “I wanted to.”

  She threw him a startled glance over her shoulder, then swung around, stepping back—but not as far as she could have. “You…wanted to.”

  “Aye.”

  Those soft lips parted and trembled. “But why? When have I ever been anything but a pest to you?”

  “When—”

  He needed to dig deep for the words to explain. She needed the words. Ah, Lord, help me… !

  Another huff. “See? You can’t think of a time.”

  And she would have turned away again, but he caught her shoulder and gave in to that crazy urge to gather her against him. She struggled, then stopped, half sobbing against his chest as he pressed his face to her hair and inhaled the smell of her—of woods, of horse, of whatever soap they’d used on her. “That day I pulled you from the river,” he said, “and I told you to stay with us. Do you remember that?”