by Laura Frantz
Ben interpreted and there was a thoughtful pause. “The seasons move my people forward. Nature is more reliable than the white man’s method—and shows the Creator’s splendor.”
She smiled in understanding, a bit awed by his eloquence. “Like the first leaves of spring, you mean. Or the coming of the first snow.”
He nodded and closed the face of the watch, only to flick it open again.
“You may have it if you like,” she said quietly.
At this, Ben seemed to balk. She looked at him and read stark displeasure in his face. Undaunted, she turned to the Shawnee and repeated, “A gift.”
Fumbling in her pocket, she withdrew a tiny key on a ribbon fob. “I nearly forgot. This is how you wind it.” Taking back the watch, she inserted the key into the silver facing and gave a turn, then held both out to him, murmuring again, “A gift.”
It was a full minute before Ben gave the translation. When at last he did, the Shawnee’s eyes shone with amused mischief. Leaning nearer Roxanna, his inky hair falling forward and obscuring his smiling mouth, he said in perfect King’s English, “Good trade.”
Hearing the words so plainly spoken, she felt such a swell of delight that she laughed. Clearly pleased, he removed a slender string of white wampum hidden beneath his buckskin sleeve and held it out to her. Taking it, the offering warm from his skin, she nested it in her palm, admiring its glossy perfection.
When she thanked him, Ben refused to translate. He seemed increasingly agitated, perhaps on account of the elbowing, grinning regulars who ringed the room, muskets at their sides. Were so many men truly necessary?
Turning back to him, wondering if Ben would cooperate, or if the Shawnee knew more English than he let on, she asked, “What is your name?”
Gesturing to his headdress, he filled the silence with more of his mellifluous Shawnee.
Ben stood in sullen silence, and she finally turned to him. “What did he say, Ben?”
“His name’s Five Feathers.” Beneath his beard glowed the red of blatant embarrassment. “And he says he knows who you are.”
“Oh?” She looked at him, expectant.
“The woman of the red-haired chief.”
The . . . what?
Heat engulfed her cheeks and touched the tips of her ears—she could feel its fiery journey all the way to her toes. An unmistakable titter went round the room and she pinned her gaze on Ben. “Please tell him I am not—”
But the words were lost as the blockhouse door opened. The ensuing silence told her just who had entered even before he’d circled the bench and stood before them. She kept her eye on a wide crack in the puncheon floor, unable to look at Cass, their midnight parting flooding her with fresh angst. Even as she studiously avoided him, she sensed he was taking in every single detail of the scene before him—from the timepiece in the Shawnee’s hand to the wampum in hers, the regulars’ rapt attention, even Ben’s bristling. He said nothing, and she realized that this was a subtle tactic he used to force others to fill the silence. Not surprisingly, Ben obliged.
“I’m afraid you’ve missed all the excitement, sir. Miss Rowan’s done more in ten minutes than we’ve done in ten weeks. If you’d waited a bit longer to come in, no telling what information the chief here might have given her.”
“Scrivener . . . chef . . . diplomat?” The quiet question seemed an invitation to look at him, which she would not do. “Miss Rowan’s talents seem without end.”
Heart pounding, she got up from the bench and turned her back to them, leaving Ben to confer with him in low tones before Cass dismissed the regulars and the Shawnee.
“I’m just saying our Indian appears to know more English than he’s letting on,” Ben murmured behind her. “He came alive when Miss Rowan gave him the pocket watch. Told her his name and everything.”
Ben’s whispered words seemed to point an accusing finger, and she felt upended once again. She heard Cass’s quiet dismissal of him and felt a sudden shadow fall over her. Slowly she turned to face him. He looked, she realized, like her father used to—before he gave way to one of his rare rages. Only the colonel would give her no quarter, she guessed.
Though his voice was low and calm, it was steel-edged and brooked no argument. “Miss Rowan, are you in the habit of dispensing personal possessions to savages?”
The accusation stabbed her, as did the slur. “Savages? Nay—”
“Aye, savages—one in particular who won’t simply take your watch but your life—and your virtue. I don’t want you within twenty feet of him.”
She hesitated, feeling dwarfed in spirit, struck by how stern he was when he’d been so tender with her in her cabin. “Perhaps he wouldn’t be quite so savage if he wasn’t treated as such.”
The freshly shaved jaw tensed. “He’s treated like any other prisoner according to the Articles of War, Miss Rowan.”
“I was merely showing him a kindness.”
“A kindness.” The words held a hint of mockery.
“Yes, a kindness.”
He leveled her with a look. “Then let your kindnesses be few and far between. You’re under my authority, and I’ll not have you gifting a sav—a man—who has been the death of countless settlers. Is that clear?”
She glanced away from him, her gaze brushing the orderlies’ backs as they performed their tasks across the room, no doubt straining to hear their every word.
“Do I make myself clear, Miss Rowan?”
She raised her chin. “Ask me politely, Colonel McLinn.”
Surprise sparked in his eyes, nearly thawing their coldness. Amusement and exasperation pulled at the corners of his mouth. She felt a little surge of triumph at catching him off guard.
“Miss Rowan,” he replied, his stern gaze unwavering, “I didn’t achieve the rank of colonel by being polite. Do I make myself clear?”
In answer, she simply smiled, softening her refusal to curtsey or salute or do whatever he expected of her. Breaking her gaze, he moved to his desk and said, “We’ll continue our conversation later. I have more pressing matters outside the gates.”
His terse tone sent fresh alarm through her. Before she could question him, his officers entered, their faces reflecting varying degrees of concern. Micajah Hale was at the front, eyes darting first to Roxanna, then the colonel, as if mulling how much to say. She took a chair along one wall, wondering if he would send her out.
The major spoke quietly, but she could hear every ominous word. “There’s a delegation of Shawnee waiting down by the river. They’re professing peace and say they want to see you.”
“How many in their party?” Cass asked.
“Thirteen,” Joram Herkimer replied.
“Thirteen men and one woman, you mean.”
Herkimer flushed at the oversight. “Aye.”
“Which suggests this is a peaceful party.”
Micajah balked. “With all due respect, sir, we don’t know that for sure. Up on the banquette, the men have seen some movement in the trees beyond the postern gate that suggests a far larger group.”
Herkimer added, “They’ve agreed to leave their weapons at the gate—the thirteen, anyway—if we let them in.”
Cass folded his arms across his chest. “Then let them in.”
Roxanna’s eyes fastened on him and stayed there, needing an anchor amidst the swirling undercurrents of tension. As his officers checked their weapons, he removed two belts of wampum from his desk—one a glossy, eye-catching black and the other a stark white—both far longer than the ones he’d displayed before.
At his direction, the orderlies flew about the room, moving chairs and tables, clearing his desk of all but the wampum. Turning toward the mantel, he took down a long clay pipe and some twists of tobacco in preparation for she knew not what.
There wasn’t a hint of unease about him, which seemed to riddle all his men. Sensing this was a significant event, she began to pray open-eyed and silently, thinking of the other Kentucke stations that had fallen und
er similar circumstances, remembering how many had been killed, the captives taken north. This might well be her final glimpse of him if things turned treacherous. Given that, heaven wouldn’t begrudge her one last look, surely.
He was impeccably dressed, the elegant lines of his inky stock folded about his neck, ruffled shirt peering past layers of weskit and deep blue coat, swallowtails falling in elegant lines around breeches and blacked boots. Another black silk ribbon caught back his fiery hair.
Just like the one she’d hidden beneath her pillow.
It seemed the only safe place, well away from Bella’s probing eyes and questions. She’d thought briefly of returning it to him, then tucked the thought away. He wanted no further reminder of their last liaison any more than she did, surely. And now with fresh anger simmering between them . . .
“Miss Rowan, I don’t want you present.” His Irish lilt reached to her across the room, polite and deferential and terribly distant.
She shifted in her chair. “’Twould seem, sir, that under the circumstances, you need a scrivener more than ever.”
“Meaning?”
Their eyes met. “Rather, you need every one of your men.” In case things turn ugly, she didn’t add.
He hesitated as if debating whether having her with him might be safer than having her away from him. “Very well. I want you over here, then.” Moving her Windsor chair behind the bulk of his desk, he waited for her to claim it and settle her lap desk on her knees.
She said with far more composure than she felt, “’Tis hardly the time to be telling you this, but I’m dangerously low on ink.”
Pulling out a drawer, he revealed a startling supply of his own ink alongside an ornate pistol. Handing her both the ink and the gun, he advised her to put the latter in her lap desk. “If matters turn treacherous, don’t hesitate to use it, provided I can’t defend you myself.”
“Is it—loaded?”
He nearly smiled at her naïveté. “Aye, Miss Rowan. And if you’re feeling timid, just pretend it’s me you’re aiming at and I’ll wager you’ll have no misgivings at all.”
18
Shivering, Roxanna replenished her ink and hid the pistol just as the door opened wide to admit a startling retinue. As the Shawnee party filed in dressed in flashing silver and calico, stroud and skins, she watched Cass in profile. He seemed to be assessing and categorizing each one, face firm but not unfriendly, hands clasped behind his back. She felt a swell of pride as respect overrode her fear, and she realized he’d placed her well in back of him to protect her if things went awry. For the moment it even softened her anger over their heated exchange moments before.
A half-dozen Indians faced him, ebony eyes rising from the belts of wampum—one denoting war and the other peace—to his grave, thoughtful face. But Roxanna was no longer looking at stalwart soldiers or stoic Indian chiefs. Astonishment peppered her like buckshot as her gaze came to rest on the first Indian woman she’d ever seen. For a few heart-stopping seconds, she realized every officer stood transfixed.
Even Colonel McLinn.
The woman stood wrapped in a red trade blanket, her lustrous hair spilling in an ebony waterfall to her knees. Finely sculpted features glowed tawny with health, and she kept her eyes down with a becoming modesty, the fringe of her lashes long and black. Small shells and silver rings glittered from the outer edges of her ears and mirrored the jewelry about her neck. Tall and graceful and astonishingly lovely, she seemed the daughter of a chief. Or perhaps a chief’s wife.
Cass drew his sword and laid it across the desk between the wampum belts. The stillness seemed excruciating to Roxanna as she sat motionless with her quill, sensing this was just the start of a long ceremony fraught with protocol. Perhaps she’d been rash to ask to stay on—but ’twas too late to change course in midstream.
Across from them, the tallest Shawnee came forward with an elaborate feathered pipe in his hands. Cass circled the desk to stand before him, and Ben Simmons retrieved a live coal from the hearth. Clouds of rich smoke perfumed the air between them, wafting back to Roxanna on a cold draft. The pipe was then passed to each Indian before Cass spoke.
“Since you have initiated this meeting, I want to hear why you have come. Did the bad birds of the British send you like they have sent so many of your warriors to fight their battles for them? Or are you here of your own accord to talk truth—and peace?”
Roxanna held her breath at such plain speaking, scanning the dark, impassive faces as Simmons translated.
The chief with the pipe spoke again, his face creased in thoughtful lines. “We do not come with British cannon or dressed as Redcoats, as you can see. The gifts we bring the red-haired chief are not from Detroit. We come to hear the truth of why the Bluecoats make war with their father across the great water and in turn make war on us. Since you have come into our country, we have had no peace. We have also heard you will soon cross the Ohio River and trouble us further, like the Long Knives before you.”
As she pushed the quill furiously across her paper, Roxanna was thankful for the frequent lulls in the translation, if only to rest her hand and try to make sense of the proceedings.
“I do plan to come into your country again, if only to find out who among the British are sending Shawnee into the Kentucke settlements to spill blood and take scalps,” Cass said. “My quarrel is not with you but the Redcoats. Burning your towns and destroying your crops is distasteful to me. I know the whole of your people are suffering because of the greed and evil of a few bad birds among the British. If you tell me who these Redcoats are, I will bypass the middle ground and go straight to them, sparing your people much turmoil.”
A second chief spoke, his wrinkled face bearing a hundred hard lines, his silver-streaked hair wrapped in otter skins. “We only know of the soldier chief Hamilton in Detroit. He is the one paying our young warriors for Kentucke scalps. You speak of someone else?”
“Aye, I do. I’ve learned that Hamilton has at least one British officer working among your people, particularly your young braves, bribing them with rum and muskets and goading them to violence. I mean to find out who that is.”
The next hours unfolded like scenes from a tedious play, and Roxanna’s hand cramped from holding the quill so tightly. She wished they would stop and smoke again but sensed this would not happen till meeting’s end, if then. Words flew like sparks between the colonel and the Shawnee—hot, colorful, alarming. Yet her grudging admiration for Cass grew. Not once had she caught him in a lie, though Indian politics, as Papa had often said, was fraught with deceit. Nor did he ply them with drink and gifts to bribe them.
As the clock struck four, the delegation passed outside, into light and fresh air. The Shawnee had brought Cass gifts so generous she was surprised. A fine black stallion prancing just outside the door. Pouches of the finest, most fragrant Indian tobacco. A heavily fringed deerskin coat with a stunning array of painted quills in an artful pattern across the back.
Standing by the shuttered window, Roxanna watched the exchange on the parade ground, aware of the beautiful Shawnee woman still in the room with her. The woman lingered by the hearth, eyes roaming over this strange domain of white men, much as Roxanna’s ranged over the colorful assortment of Indians outside. A bleak February sun was stabbing through the clouds, catching the copper of Cass’s hair so that it seemed to flame. He had since returned his sword to its scabbard but was still wary, she sensed, though amiable and assured in outward manner.
He swung himself up on the stallion’s bare back and, to the obvious delight of the chiefs, took off at a gallop and cleared the low-lying magazine that held Fort Endeavor’s precious powder stores. Dismounting beside the flagpole, he removed his uniform coat and gave it to the chief who’d served as spokesman for the group. The Shawnee donned it proudly, particularly taken with the proliferation of gilt buttons and ornate braid. Cass likewise shrugged on the deerskin coat, clearly as pleased with the gift as the Shawnee chief now sporting his.
The only sticking point in the whole affair, Roxanna reflected, was the Shawnees’ refusal to divulge who among the British was inciting their warriors to raid the frontier settlements. Discovering this was Cass’s burning mission, and he’d not once let up in trying to achieve it, using a clever arsenal of verbal tactics. Listening hard and transcribing till the pain in her wrist rivaled that in her head, she was tempted to believe the Shawnee truly didn’t know. Cass, she sensed, felt they simply weren’t telling.
The only significant piece of intelligence he’d elicited was that the British were planning a joint attack on the remaining Kentucke forts at some shadowy point in future, complete with cannon, in a concentrated effort to drive the settlers back over the mountains once and for all.
“And do your chiefs believe that the British, if successful, will return the hunting grounds of Kentucke to you?” he’d asked them with characteristic candor. “If so, the Redcoat lies are as thick as flies. They want this land as their own. After they drive the settlers out, they will drive you out.”
Simmons translated the forceful words, and there was a profound silence. Peace, peace . . . there is no peace. Unbidden, the Scripture came to Roxanna’s mind in all its desolation. Like the Israelites of old, the Shawnee would one day find themselves without a country once the British and Americans finished fighting each other.
Returning to her chair, she funneled sand back into a jar and looked at the now dried pages of shorthand. Later she would spend hours copying them into official transcripts to be sent to Virginia and beyond. She waited for the men to come back inside, acutely aware of the Indian woman as she walked about the large room, the fringe of her tunic swaying with every graceful step.
The trade blanket she’d worn like a cape now lay in a red puddle on the floor before Cass’s desk. Without it, she was even more astonishing, her doeskin dress snow white, the blue beadwork breathtaking. Her waist was wrapped in a fur belt, its slimness a startling contrast to the lush curves of her hips and chest. She looked, Roxanna thought with something akin to envy, like an overripe pawpaw waiting to be picked.