“And where? Is he here?” She threw a wild look out of the window at the pitch-black night outside.
“Nay, not as far as we know.” He concentrated on tracing the intricate woodwork with which he had decorated their bedstead, noting with detachment that his fingers trembled. “He was coming to tell us, Thomas, when he rode into the Chisholms. Thomas had it off one of his daughters’ husbands, how a man in Virginia was attacked some weeks ago, his horse stolen from him. His attacker stabbed him and left him to die in the snow, but fortunately a trapper found him and managed to stem the blood flow. He insists he was attacked by a man with black hair and the light eyes of a wolf, a man whose face was grossly disfigured. And he couldn’t talk properly…there was no tongue.”
Alex moved her mouth soundlessly. Fingers tore at the fringes of her shawl, and even from here he could see the pulse at the hollow of her throat.
“But he’s alone,” she said, “and one Burley we can handle, right?”
“One Burley, aye.” But Philip Burley – or it could be Walter, not that it made much of a difference – would never attempt full-fledged revenge on his own, and the woods were full of misfits, desperate men who would sell their souls for gold.
His brain grappled with this new, horrifying threat to his family. Thomas had suggested he turn to Qaachow for help, and mayhap that was not a bad idea, but how was he to find the Indian chief, his son’s adopted father? He looked at his wife and attempted a smile. “He isn’t at our door this minute, Alex.”
But he would be. If Burley was alive, it was but a matter of time before he came here, and then what?
“No,” she breathed, coming over to sit beside Matthew on the bed. He held out his hand and she rested hers in his, squeezing back with surprising strength when he closed his fingers over hers. In silence, they sat and held hands, both of them staring at absolutely nothing.
Finally, Alex turned towards him. “We can’t tell Sarah.”
“Nay, that we can’t.” If the notion of Burley made his guts twist and freeze, what would it do to his daughter? He pulled off his stockings and sat looking down at the gap in his left foot where the fourth toe should have been.
“He won’t hurt you again,” Alex said, following his thoughts.
Matthew smiled wryly. He hoped not. His back was criss-crossed by scars, on his buttock flamed a permanent brand, and his foot…
“He won’t,” Alex repeated, sounding very determined.
*
Come morning, Matthew had decided that his only option was to try and locate Qaachow.
“I think that’s an excellent idea.” Alex set down a bowl of porridge before him. He stretched himself for the butter and watched the knob melt into a puddle streaked with honey before beginning to eat. “After all,” Alex continued, “Qaachow won’t be thrilled to hear he’s back either, will he?” Nay, probably not. The Burley band had been a scourge on the Indian communities as well.
“But as yet we don’t know that he is – back, I mean,” Matthew said.
“No,” she nodded, eyes lightening with hope.
“But if he’s alive, he’ll come here,” Mrs Parson put in, throwing a look at the door.
“Yes,” Alex moaned, “he will.” She averted her face for an instant. “So when do we set out?”
“We?” Matthew regarded her with some surprise. “You won’t be coming with me.”
“Oh yes, I will.”
“You stay here,” he insisted, but she shook her head.
“And if you get lost? If you never come back, or get eaten by a bear or fall into a precipice, how am I to live not knowing what has befallen you?”
“And is it better that we both get eaten by a bear?” he said with a slight smile.
“Yes,” she replied and swallowed. “Yes, it is. I can’t live without you anyway.” And in her eyes stood a naked fear, a constant shadow ever since those days last May when she had watched him being dragged away by the Burleys to what she – and he as well – had assumed would be a long, protracted death.
“Ah, lass…” He collected her to him and kissed her unruly hair. “Bears hibernate.”
“I was citing examples,” she said, “and wolves don’t, do they?”
“You can’t leave Sarah,” he tried, throwing in one last desperate card. “She can’t, can she?” he asked, directing himself to Mrs Parson.
“She isn’t due quite yet, and I don’t think she’ll be birthing before her time. The babe is far too restless, not at all settled.” Mrs Parson narrowed her eyes at them. “But what will you tell her? That you just fancied a jaunt out into the unknown?”
“We’ll tell her I have a need to assure myself Samuel is safe,” Alex answered, “what with the dead Indians and all that.”
“White Bear,” Mrs Parson corrected, “that’s his name now.”
“Samuel,” Matthew and Alex bit back instantly.
“Aye, Samuel,” Mrs Parson said, looking sad. “Try to make it back within a week.”
*
They left early next morning, leaving an upset and confused Sarah behind.
“Why now?” she’d demanded of Mama. “Why can’t you wait another week or so, ’til after…”
“It may be three weeks more before the baby comes,” Mama had said, “and I just have to make sure your brother’s alright.”
Sarah had stalked out, slammed the door to her room, and refused to speak to either of them throughout the evening. But in the morning she had come and hugged them both, clinging like a limpet to Mama.
“You won’t leave me to do this on my own, will you?” she asked.
“I’ll be back in time,” Mama promised, kissing her brow before shoving her gently in the direction of Ian.
Sarah watched them ride away, biting her lip. Something was not right – she could see it in the way Ian and Mark followed their parents out of sight. She returned to the kitchen and sat down, regarding Mrs Parson sharply. She knew as well, Sarah could tell, even if the old woman tried to avoid her eyes by concentrating on the ubiquitous knitting that grew at a surprising speed from her hands. Sarah’s whole belly moved, a series of bulges that came and went, and Sarah sat very still.
“A healthy babe,” Mrs Parson commented.
“A Burley,” Sarah hissed. For some months of her pregnancy, she had thought she might be able to forgive the child for its fathers, but these last few weeks had made it all so much worse, the child an invasive presence that she could never avoid, a constant reminder of what had been done to her under a canopy of green, sunlit trees. She ran her hands up and down her arms in a comforting gesture and turned towards Mrs Parson.
“Should I be loading the flintlock?”
“Whatever for?”
Sarah’s body relaxed. “I’m going for a walk.”
“You do that,” Mrs Parson nodded, just as unperturbed. Sarah looked at her for some moments and then fetched her cloak. If it had been really bad, they would have stopped her going out.
*
It was a day of constant dripping, the heavy snow melting away under the rays of a brilliant spring sun. Matthew picked his way through the trees, trusting the mare he was riding to be sure-footed enough not to step into a crack or slip on a patch of ice. Alex was on one of their mules, a biddable beast that trotted along obediently.
Everywhere was the sound of water, from the drops that fell from melting snow overhead to the whispering little rivulets where water collected to run off dwindling drifts into creeks and hollows. Birds rustled in the undergrowth, here the flashing red of cardinals, there the more homely brown of a sparrow, and on a branch a cocky blackbird called that it was spring, and he was here and where were all the bonny lasses?
If it hadn’t been for the purpose of their excursion, Matthew would have enjoyed every step of the way, but as it was he was concerned for Sarah, worried that they might be set upon by Indians once they ventured beyond the established borders, or, worst of all, suddenly turn the corner to find themselve
s face to face with Burley himself.
“Magnus would have enjoyed this.” Alex broke their silence, gesturing at the surrounding forest, at the stands of as yet bare chestnuts that rose majestically sixty, eighty feet up in the air, interspersed with maples and sycamores and here and there groups of pine.
“Aye, he was mightily fond of trees,” Matthew said, smiling at the memory of his father-in-law.
“Well, he would be. He was a trained botanist.” She shook her head. “Actually quite a bad career choice in the future. No one really cares all that much about flowers and trees in the twentieth century.”
“Mmm,” Matthew grunted. He was never comfortable when they discussed her future life, the skin along his spine tingling every time he was reminded of the fact that his dear, very present wife was as yet not born. She wouldn’t be, not for another three hundred years or so, and still here she was, riding by his side with her skirts tucked tight around her legs, her nose reddening with cold.
Alex must have seen something of this on his face, laughing as she rode up close enough to pat his leg. “I don’t bite, and I’m very, very real.”
He smiled back at her and craned his head back to look up at the distant, pale blue sky. “No thunderstorms brewing, no perfect right-angle crossroads. You’re safe with me.” He regretted his flippant remark the moment it was out of his mouth, seeing her face pinch together in real fear.
“Not funny,” she said, and urged her mule past his mare.
He sighed. She’d been thrown from her time to this time in a gigantic thunderstorm, making her an impossibility, a person yanked out of one time to land in another, and he well knew that her constant fear was that one day time would yawn open and attempt to reclaim her.
Matthew put a hand on her reins and drew her mount to a stop. “I’ve told you. You belong with me. God meant for you to come tumbling down to me. He won’t take you away from me.”
“Huh,” she said, “it would seem He has tried now and then.”
“Or not. He’s ensured I’ve been on hand every time.” That was the right thing to say, he could see, almost smiling at how she relaxed.
“Yes, He has, hasn’t He?”
They turned to other subjects, conversing about Daniel, their minister son in Boston, and their eldest married daughter, Ruth, in Providence.
“It’s somehow so sad, isn’t it?” Alex said. “One of our girls lives through a pregnancy in constant terror, the other blooms with expectation.”
“Life isn’t fair,” he reminded her. “God ordains.”
“Sometimes He does a very crap job out of it, if you ask me.”
“He does as well as He can, I reckon.”
“You think?” She seemed about to say something more, but Matthew waved her silent. He held in his horse and looked about.
“This was as far as I came with them, back in January,” he said, looking to where the river rushed to their right. “They forded the water here and rode off due north-west.”
“Ford that?” Alex eyed the water dubiously.
“It isn’t deep, it just runs swiftly.”
“You can say that again,” Alex said. “White-water rafting comes to mind.”
He nudged his horse down towards the shore. It did look rather higher than he remembered it. He frowned, looking across the flowing, white capped water to the distant shore. “Flush with melting snow.”
“I can see that,” Alex said, “and I suppose that means it will be bloody cold.”
It was – cold and fast, but also quite shallow – and a few hours later they were far into the western woods, with Matthew notching trees on a regular basis.
“What?” she teased. “You don’t trust your inner compass?”
“Well enough, but why not take precautions if you can?” He glanced over at her and smiled. “If wee Hansel had done this instead of dropping breadcrumbs, they wouldn’t have ended up with the witch.”
“And God, what a boring tale that would have made,” Alex said, making him laugh.
Chapter 3
There were serious drawbacks to travelling through the woods in late February, the main one being that it was cold and damp, with not an inn in sight. It was almost dusk by the time Matthew decided to stop for the day, and after some scouting, he found a huge hemlock under which they made uncomfortable camp.
Alex slept badly and woke with a start to find Matthew already awake.
“We have company,” he said. Sure enough, the moment they stepped out from under the tree, they were surrounded by a group of Indians who regarded them with cautious reserve. Alex pressed closer to Matthew, but attempted a smile.
“Greetings,” Matthew said in hesitant Indian speech, “I am White Bear’s father.”
The name obviously meant something to them because the whole group relaxed. One of the men said something to Matthew who held up his hands in an apologetic gesture.
“I don’t know enough of your language,” he said in English, “but I must see Qaachow.” That name commanded respect, Alex saw, and after some moments of low-voiced debate amongst themselves, the apparent leader used his head to indicate they should follow them.
Several hours later, Alex was red with exertion, wet well above her ankles from walking in slush. The mule and horse were being led, and by her side walked Matthew, musket in one hand, her hand in the other.
“Bloody skirts,” Alex said, hoisting them up to wade over yet another spontaneous little burbling stream. “My toes are freezing.”
Matthew just grunted, his eyes flying from one side of the path to the other.
“What?” she asked.
“I can’t very well go notching trees now, can I?”
“Oh.” Alex scanned the endless forests that surrounded them looking for any kind of landmarks. A huge dead oak, there a boulder, trees, trees, trees…
She slipped in the mud up a steep incline, was steadied by Matthew, and together they crested the little hill that was the southern entry point to Qaachow’s village.
There was smoke coming out of the two longhouses, children were playing among the trees, and a band of dogs came to bark at them. Alex nodded a greeting at an Indian woman with thick long braids who nodded back, she smiled at three little girls that had come rushing at the sound of the dogs, and then she saw her son, tall and loud among the other boys.
Samuel was a foot or two in the air when he noticed them. The ball dropped to the ground, her son landed in a crouch, and instead of hurrying over to greet them as she’d expected him to, he disappeared into the protective shadow of the longhouse. It cut straight through her, a final rejection that she wasn’t sure quite how to handle. He’s mine, goddamn you, she thought angrily when she saw Qaachow making his way towards them, mine and you’ve stolen him.
She greeted her son’s adopted father politely enough and stood back a step to allow Matthew to talk to him alone. Not because Matthew expected her to, but because she had to collect her feelings. She peeked in the direction of the longhouse and there was Samuel, his hazel eyes seeking and finding hers. This time he smiled, a slow smile so like his father’s, and someone pushed at him from behind, saying something that made him blush before beginning to move in her direction.
*
White Bear was shocked to see his birth parents here, in his village. It was one thing to go and see them and for some days or weeks step into being Samuel again, a totally different thing to have them encroaching here, where he was only White Bear and nothing else. It somehow made him ashamed, not wanting his new family and friends to see these awkward white people, so obviously not at home in the wilderness.
Da, with his hair tied back, his patched winter coat and dark breeches, looked surprisingly ineffectual here, while at Graham’s Garden he was the undisputable master of it all. And Mama…well, she was pretty enough, even if she was much older than Thistledown, but her skirts were muddied to the knee, her thick winter cloak making her look fat and clumsy in comparison with his Indian mother.
>
She must have seen what he was thinking because he saw her look away, her hands smoothing back the hood and linen cap to uncover her thick dark hair, tied back in a soft bun. White Bear knew exactly how her hair would smell: of herbs and calendula, and if he were to rest his cheek against hers, her skin would release the scents of lemon and lavender. Soft, white skin, and hands that would rise to tousle his hair, the back of her fingers caressing his face.
“Mama.” He stood before her, but instead of giving him the expected hug, she clasped her hands together. He gave her a wary look. What was the matter with her?
“Son,” she replied with a careful smile. But she made no move to touch him, and he was strangely disappointed and secretly relieved, because he wasn’t sure he wanted Little Bear and all the others see her make a fuss over him. Indian mothers were conscious of their sons’ budding male pride in a way Mama had never been, hugging all her sons, no matter age, and kissing them as well. Still, it tore at him, this distanced greeting. Mayhap she no longer cared for him, he thought, and that made him reel with loss.
“Why are you here?” White Bear asked, and it came out like an accusation. He flinched at the hurt look in her eyes. He hadn’t meant it that way, he tried to show her, stepping even closer. She backed away, and Samuel groaned into life inside of him, because he didn’t want Mama to shrink from him, he wanted her to hug him.
“Your father has business to conduct with Qaachow,” she replied formally. White Bear threw Da a look, noting how serious he was as he stood talking intently with Qaachow.
“Bad business?” he asked.
Alex sighed and nodded. “You could say that again.” She gave him a flashing blue look. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have come,” she said with a biting edge.
Whither Thou Goest (The Graham Saga Book 7) Page 2