“You did your part, cousin,” Mark interrupted.
“Not much,” Charlie said, “and when that arrow struck Robert in the leg…” He closed his eyes. “A certain death, until that Indian you call Qaachow came down the hillside with his men at his back. It evened the odds, one might say.”
“Samuel was there,” Mark blurted. “It’s wrong, Da, to take him along! A lad, no more, to go raiding in the dark.”
“Samuel? Was he alright?” Alex asked Mark, grabbing at his sleeve.
“Well enough, not harmed as far as I could see.” Mark turned to face Matthew. “It’s war, aye? Qaachow means to avenge himself for the raids on his villages, for the stolen bairns, the killed men. And he will go after them with all the men he has – all, no matter age.”
There was a hissed intake of breath from Alex, no more. She stumbled, steadied herself.
“Qaachow will prevail,” Matthew said, taking her hand.
“But men will die and be hurt – on both sides,” Alex said.
Matthew opened his mouth to assure her Samuel would be kept safe, away from strife, but shut it again, slowly.
“Oh God,” Alex groaned, and wrenched herself free from Matthew’s hand, running off in the rain.
Matthew caught up with her just before the entrance to the graveyard. “You can’t think Qaachow would risk him.”
“He did last night. To them, he’s a man,” Alex stated in a colourless voice. “But to me, he’s still a child – my child.”
“To me as well, lass.” On the shelf in the room Samuel once had shared with David and Adam stood twelve horses, one for each of his birthdays, carved to spring alive out of the wood by Matthew. Twelve – and already burdened with weapons and the necessity of killing.
Alex wiped her eyes with her sleeve and stuck her hand into his. It was surprisingly cold, like holding a handful of water, and instinctively, his fingers began to knead, bringing blood back down to her icy digits.
“He’s due home in three weeks,” Matthew said, “and if the fighting still rages, he stays.”
“Three weeks?” Alex shook her head at him. “Anything can happen in three weeks!”
“Aye, I know that. But I don’t know where he is, do I?” Exasperated, he swept his arm across the deep blue green of the western forests. “Where do you want me to look? How can I find him in all that?”
He had known for a long time that Alex held him to blame for the loss of Samuel, but never had it stood plainer to read in her face. It tore at him, it savaged his innards, curdled his blood, to have his wife look at him as she now did, all of her reproaching him for the promise he once gave, for not having done as she said and send Samuel away before Qaachow could claim him.
She retook her hand and gave him a singularly blue look. “Let’s hope he isn’t killed before he’s due back.”
She might as well have skewered him with a red-hot poker. He had to wheel away from her to hide his face, stood for some seconds holding his breath as he willed the tears back. The dried leaves rustled underfoot as she came close enough to touch him, a hesitant hand on his back.
“I’m sorry, that was very much under the belt.”
“I’ll leave tomorrow,” he said and strode off.
“No, Matthew! Matthew, wait!”
He just increased his pace.
*
He rose while still dark and dressed in silence, not wanting to wake her. They had patched up as well as they could last night, but her unspoken accusation was like a thorn in his heart, a chafing irritation that had him sleepless most of the night, and by now he was too restless to remain any longer in bed. He was being unnecessarily foolish, he knew, and his rational mind was telling him to remain here, at home, as she had begged him to do last night, insisting that the woods were too dark and too cold, far too wild and dangerous for him to set out on his own – his own arguments, more or less. But their discussion had woken a fear in him, a driving need to ensure his son was alive, and so he felt he had no choice – not now, not after what she’d said yesterday.
He stood for a moment looking down at her, curled as always on her side, and wanted very much to kiss her but was too angry inside, and so he opened the door, padded down the stairs and out to the stables. He had his foot in the stirrup when he heard her open the kitchen door.
“Matthew?” she called. “Matthew? Please don’t…”
He sat up and rode off, without a backward glance.
*
He was back three days later, worn out from long days of riding, and equally long nights huddling under pines and hemlocks, doing without a fire so as not to attract undue attention from other wanderers. He had found his way back to Qaachow’s village and gaped at the destruction. The longhouses were burnt to the ground, the smaller buildings seemed to have been uprooted, and of the busy, comfortable place Alex and he had visited back in February there was absolutely no trace.
Trodden into the moss, he found a small doll, and where the longhouse used to stand he found the charred remains of a Bible – his Bible, the one he had given Samuel. For some hours he scoured the area round the village looking for something, anything, that would indicate where the former inhabitants had gone, but they had not wished to be followed or found, and so the forest told him nothing at all, unbroken branches swaying in the wind, thick moss hiding any sign of human feet. In his frustration, he stood in the clearing, arms spread out, and called his son’s name.
“Samuel!” he had yelled. “My Samuel!” The air reverberated with his voice, a raven cawed at this disturbance of the peace, and Matthew stood with his face upturned to the weak sun filtering through heavy clouds, and tried to will his heart into silence as he listened for a returning call.
“Nothing,” Matthew said as he dismounted.
Ian nodded. What had Da expected?
“And you were right,” Matthew continued, nodding in the direction of Mark. “The village is no more.” He looked about for Alex, but she was nowhere in sight. “Your mama?”
“Inside,” Mark replied a trifle too coolly.
Matthew lowered his brows for an instant.
“She isn’t very happy with you,” Ian said. “She hasn’t slept at all since you rode off, and she’s right, isn’t she? It was a daft thing to do.”
“I had to,” Matthew said curtly, irritated at being told off by his son. He coughed into the crook of his arm.
Ian regarded him through narrowed eyes. “Aye, mayhap. But you could have taken someone with you, and not left Mama to fear all kinds of untoward endings to you – alone in the wild.”
Matthew felt a twinge of shame, quickly suppressed. “She wished me to go.”
“Not like you did, not slinking off in the dark without telling her farewell.” Mark clucked at Aaron to lead him off into the stables, and Ian went with them, leaving Matthew to face his wife alone.
*
Alex frowned down at the result of her efforts. It didn’t look like the cabbage dish she recalled from long weeks spent with her Swedish grandmother, and it didn’t smell all that appetizing either. Not that she was all that interested in cooking, not now when her back was prickling with his presence, her nostrils widening in an effort to catch his scent, that lingering mixture of wood smoke, fresh water and newly turned earth.
She could hear him moving behind her, how the cloth of his breeches rustled when he shifted on his feet, the slight squeak of one of his boots, but obstinately she kept her face on the food, adding more butter and syrup to the layered cabbage and finely chopped meat before returning the closed pot to sit in the coals of the hearth. His breathing was loud and constricted, she could hear him swallow back on a cough, clear his throat, but still she kept her back to him. She was aware of his eyes on her nape, and then he was right behind her, close enough that his exhalations should warm her skin.
She had lived off her rage these last few days: anger at him for subjecting her to day after day of abject fear, anger at herself for having taunted him t
he way she did. She had imagined him dead in multiple ways: scalped, drowned, shot through the head, decapitated… And now he was back, safe and sound, and without a word she turned to bury her face against his damp coat, noting in passing that he had lost one button and that his lapel had an ugly stain – blackberry, she thought.
On the hearth, something hissed, and the smell of burnt syrup filled the air. Alex didn’t care. He was back, with her, his arms holding her to his beating heart.
Chapter 45
Samuel came home six days later on a makeshift stretcher, and Thomas was the first to see, exclaiming and rising to his feet from where he sat chatting with Mrs Parson in the warm, sun-drenched kitchen.
“What?” Mrs Parson who was surprisingly limber both for age and size was on her toes beside him, processing the scene before her in a matter of seconds. “Samuel, it’s wee Samuel!”
Alex was halfway to the door, alerted by Mrs Parson’s tone, and by the time she reached her son, the farm was in an uproar, people spilling out from cabins, storing sheds and stables. The Indians set the stretcher down and retreated, uncomfortable with all these white people, and only Qaachow remained, kneeling by Samuel’s side. Alex dropped to her knees, and a second later, Matthew skidded to a stop beside her, red and out of breath after his sprint from the barn.
Her son moaned. “Mama,” he slurred, “Mama.” Someone had bandaged his head, strips of rawhide holding a soft square of buckskin over his right ear and side. His shoulder…his right arm…Alex folded back the heavy pelt and gasped at the damage done to his son.
“A tomahawk,” Qaachow explained almost inaudibly, dark eyes never leaving his adopted son’s pinched face.
“How?” Matthew asked.
“We came upon them five nights ago, and we did them battle. They are all dead.” Qaachow brushed at the hair that fell over Samuel’s forehead. “He was a warrior among warriors, and I didn’t see, at first, that he was down. And when I did—”
“You swore you’d keep him safe, and you return him to me like this?” Alex didn’t dare to uncover his head, her hand hovering a scant inch over where his ear should be.
Qaachow made a helpless sound. “There was nothing I could do, and I brought him here as quickly as I could.”
“Five nights ago, you said,” Alex bit him off. “Where were you? In Virginia?” She motioned for Charlie and Mark to lift the stretcher and carry Samuel inside, placing the back of her hand against her son’s heated skin. “He stays. White Bear is no more.”
Qaachow bowed his head at the finality of her tone and rose to his full length, only a couple of inches shorter than Matthew. His face was etched with grief, his normally so erect stance curved under the weight of guilt. As far as Alex was concerned, she hoped he was drowning in it.
Alex hurried inside after the stretcher, and left outside were Matthew and Qaachow. Never had Matthew seen the Indian chief so distraught as he was today, and yet it was not enough.
“Was Little Bear unharmed?” Matthew asked, going unerringly for the jugular, and Qaachow shrank yet another inch or two.
“He remained with his mother.”
Matthew nodded thoughtfully. “But my son you considered old enough to risk.”
“He’s my son too,” Qaachow said.
“Nay, he isn’t. You chose when you left one behind and took the other with you to fight, and him not yet thirteen.” Matthew spat with precision between Qaachow’s feet. “You’ll excuse me,” he said with exaggerated politeness, “but I have a son to tend to.”
*
The kitchen was converted into a sickroom, a disturbingly small shape laid out on the broad oak planks of the kitchen table. Thomas was snipping through the bindings, talking all the while to Samuel who had opened his eyes but otherwise appeared unconscious. Ian returned with bottles of brandy and cane liquor, Mark was busy by the hearth, murmuring to Mrs Parson. And Alex stood immobile before her son, not wanting to see, yet knowing she had to.
Matthew gripped her hand for an instant, a warm, comforting touch, and pointed her in the direction of the basin full of steaming water and the lye soap. Alex almost smiled. In her family, cleanliness was firmly ingrained, and in particular when dealing with the sick or wounded.
Mrs Parson inspected the long slashing cut that began at the shoulder and opened the back of Samuel’s arm. Even Alex could see it had been cleaned and closed expertly, packed into fragrant herbs.
“Hmm,” Mrs Parson said, studying how the skin rippled in places. “Now, that I haven’t seen since I was a wee lass, and my fool of an uncle near on chopped off his foot. Right rare, even then to have a healer do such, but old Annie Campbell came from a family of healers, from mother to daughter since the first stone of Scotland rose from the sea, and she had insisted it would work. Which it did, aye?”
“What would work?” Alex asked, bending even closer. Oh my God! Her son’s wound was crawling with maggots!
“Leave it be,” Mrs Parson said when Alex looked round for her knife.
“Leave it? But they’ll eat him!”
“Only the sick parts, the dead flesh,” Mrs Parson said.
Thomas Leslie bent to peer. “I’ve seen that once or twice, and as I recall, it works.” He sniffed. “No smell of rot, no warning stripes of red on his skin.”
The arm was one thing. At least it was still there. The ear, however, was gone. Once again, Mrs Parson was of the opinion that the resulting wound had been well cleaned and that there was no need to disturb the lad by fussing further with it.
“And it’s no great loss, is it?” she said, giving Alex’s hand a reassuring pat. “He will still have most of his hearing, and once his hair grows out, you won’t even see it.” Alex gave her a long look. Samuel had big ears, and on the other side, the ear showed through the hair. But she was relieved all the same: two inches to the side and the tomahawk would have buried itself in Samuel’s skull.
*
Samuel slept for two full days, waking at intervals to eat and drink, use the chamber pot with Da’s or his brothers’ help, before being dragged back under to a world of whites and blues, safely anchored to life by his mama’s hand, so strong and warm around his own.
When he finally opened his eyes, the first thing he saw were his horses, prancing on the shelf above his head. The second thing was Da, asleep on the bed beside him, and Samuel turned on his good side to face him. He sniffed at the clean sheets and looked down at his shirt. Not his…it was too big, and when he lifted the sleeve to his nose, it smelled faintly of Jacob.
Samuel stretched his arm. It strained and hurt, and when he moved it backwards his shoulder protested. He opened and closed his fist, he straightened one finger at a time, and they all worked. He lowered his lashes and tried to remember what had happened. He’d had his bow in hand, an arrow on the string, and pain had exploded behind his ear, down his shoulder and arm. He must have gasped because suddenly Da’s eyes were wide open and close to his.
“You’ll live,” Da assured him, and Samuel nodded, dry-mouthed. One part of him was dead, and his Indian family would mourn the passing of White Bear, but he, Samuel, he was still alive. His tongue quivered with the need to say something in Indian speech and to hear Little Bear laugh in his ear in response. His gut closed in on itself in loss, and he curled himself around the pain. Da propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at him, and Samuel looked back, knowing that his eyes were the same shape and colour as those gazing down at him.
“Hungry?” Da asked, smiling down at him. Samuel nodded, wondering if he’d ever again sit beside Thistledown and help her turn corn over the open hearth.
It was a relief when David came home, riding with Julian, Ruth and Malcolm, because to him Samuel could talk unhindered, and they would lie close together in the bed once Adam had fallen asleep while Samuel tried to explain just how much it hurt. Not his ear, nor yet his arm, but something in his chest was hollow, a constant ache for his other people.
“But you’re back with
us,” David said.
“Aye.” He was, and he was glad, but also sad, because one part of him would always be White Bear, just as one part was Samuel. “I…how can I choose?” he asked his brother, although truth be told he no longer had a choice, did he? With his damaged arm, he would never have a place among the Indian men.
David gave him a brief hug. “I don’t understand, but I don’t like it that you hurt so much. Is there no way for you to be both?”
“No.” Samuel rolled away from him and held his breath to stop himself from weeping. Men do not weep, Qaachow always used to say, and for all that Samuel was wounded, he was still a man – man enough to have killed, man enough to have survived combat.
“Maybe Da—”
“No!” Samuel shook his head vehemently. “Da can’t help – no one can.”
Apparently, David didn’t agree. Three days before Christmas, Da came to find him, and suggested they take a wee walk. They walked in comfortable silence through the woods closest to the farm, and so deep in thought was Samuel that he didn’t notice when Da came to a halt until he bumped into him.
“There,” Da said, pointing to the further end of the clearing they were in. Samuel’s chest tightened, his throat swelled. “Go on, lad, it’s alright.” He gave Samuel a light shove. “Be home for supper, or else your mama will flay me.” With that, he left, and Samuel flew over the ground to where Qaachow and Thistledown, Little Bear and wee Hawk Tail stood.
One whole day being White Bear; one full day in which his Indian family showed him just how much they loved him and missed him.
“You’ve always got a place at my hearth,” Qaachow said as they made their farewells. “You’re my son too, White Bear, a most beloved son.”
“And you’re my father – you always will be,” White Bear said with a smile. “But for now, I stay here, with Da and with Mama. I think I must.” Ruefully, he indicated his arm.
“Maybe it’s for the best.” Qaachow sighed, and for the first time ever White Bear saw something akin to tears in his Indian father’s eyes. “For now, at least.”
Whither Thou Goest (The Graham Saga Book 7) Page 38