Shiloh

by Lori Benton

  Seeming agitated by his answer rather than reassured, Seona stood and started stowing the untouched food.

  “Seona, are ye all right?”

  Seona’s fingers trembled as she repacked the basket. She dropped a biscuit. It broke, scattering crumbs over trampled grass at their feet.

  “Never mind it,” Ian said when she bent to gather the pieces. “The gulls will thank ye. But ye didn’t answer my question.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, which was as true as when he said it about his bruised jaw. How could she tell him she wanted to leave Boston with him and wanted him to go and leave her and Gabriel behind, let them get on with this life they were finally settling into? How could she make him understand such a thing when she didn’t understand it her own self?

  What he hadn’t said held her tongue. He hadn’t said he longed for her. But saying so would be a slap in the face to Miss Judith’s memory, no matter what he was feeling. They had shied from that subject, putting Gabriel between them, though she was as torn about her baby as she was about her own heart. She wanted him to know his daddy, who had just renewed his promise not to take him from her.

  But there was only one way she wanted to be with Ian—without the ghost of Judith Cameron hovering between them.

  “Let me carry the basket.” He reached for it as he stood. “If ye don’t mind my walking back to the house with ye?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  The silence as they started down the path prickled with questions unspoken, until Ian asked that last she expected: “Would ye show me where Robbie and Eddie lie?”

  “No one’s taken you there?”

  “No.” There was much to read in his eyes. Sadness, hope, worry. Tiredness, too.

  Looking away to hide a rush of compassion, she took the lead.

  Ned and Penny’s sons shared a small stone set in the shadow of a weathered stone cross. In contrast, the boys’ names and dates were cleanly inscribed. Ian stood before it in silence, then said, “My grief at being parted from Gabriel is nothing compared to Ned’s.”

  His grief. Seona felt her heart squeeze. “Being parted from a child is always hard. But this thing with Penny leaving . . . I hope there’ll be a mending between those two.”

  “As do I.” Ian met her gaze. “Give me a moment with them?”

  He removed his hat. Setting it atop the basket beside him on the ground, he knelt in the grass before his nephews’ stone and bowed his head. Seona was reaching to stroke his hair before she caught herself and snatched her hand back. Hoping he hadn’t noticed, she moved to a nearby headstone and, word by painstaking word, made out what a woman called Mary, or her loved ones, had seen fit to inscribe below her name.

  Time, what an empty vapour t’is,

  And days, how swift they fly:

  Our life is ever on the Wing,

  And Death is ever nigh.

  The Moment when our Lives begin,

  We all begin to die.

  She promptly moved to a grave for another Mary and her husband, William. “‘They were lovely and pleasant in their lives,’” she read. “‘And in their deaths they were not dive . . . div . . .’”

  “‘Not divided.’”

  Ian had spoken so near she felt the warmth of his breath on her neck. Startled, she drew away to look at him. “I didn’t hear you come over. Was I disturbing you?”

  “I was finished.” He paused, then added with a tilt of his mouth, “I think it fine ye’ve learned to read so well.”

  A woman dressed in mourning black passed on the path. Seona watched her briefly, then asked a question that had pressed on her for a week. “Maybe you’ve some word of Esther, over at Chesterfield?”

  “Not aside from seeing her at Judith’s burying. Rosalyn and Lucinda had designs on taking Mandy from me. I left North Carolina as quiet as I could manage, and as quick. What of Thomas? Have ye heard from him?”

  She shook her head. “Not a word.”

  He gazed at her, brows troubled. She turned down the path. In only a step or two, Ian’s voice made her pause again.

  “Look at this one, Seona.” He pointed to another headstone, one belonging to a third Mary.

  Stop here my friends and cast an eye,

  As you are now, so once was I;

  As I am now, so you must be,

  Prepare for death and follow me.

  When she frowned at the morbid warning, he guided her back a step on the path. Another message had been scrawled in chalk along the monument’s edge.

  “Read that,” he said.

  Seona canted her head to make out the words. “‘To follow you I’m not content . . . unless I know which way you went.’”

  She clapped a hand over her mouth, but the giggle bursting forth couldn’t be stifled. Neither could Ian’s laughter. They mingled on the warm air, turning the heads of those within hearing.

  Seona didn’t care. It felt good to laugh with him. Good but fragile. Unless I know which way you went. “When will you leave?”

  Mirth fled Ian’s gaze, which held hers now in sober acknowledgment of another parting, as wrenching as the last. “Before the week is out.”

  So soon. Maybe he was thinking that too, for he kept talking, words tumbling from his lips.

  “It’s too late to get a crop in the ground this season but time enough to raise a cabin, a shed for the animals. I can purchase what we need for the winter. Most of our things are still packed. It won’t take long to gather the rest and be away.”

  A knot lodged in her belly, pressing up hard against her heart. “To where, exactly?”

  “Cooperstown, to begin with, south of the Mohawk River. I’ll find Judge Cooper, or his agent, present myself and his note. Then we’ll see.” He swallowed. “I’ll write Da, let him know where we’re bound once it’s settled. But, Seona . . . may I write to ye as well?”

  It felt like a rope tossed across a widening sea, a line to bind them. “You can,” she said, grasping it.

  A light sprang into his eyes. “Will ye write me back?”

  She pressed her lips tight but was so pleased he could ask it, assuming her ability to grant his request, that her grin would not be contained. Freeing it, she said, “I will.”

  12

  COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK

  August 1796

  Ian sat in Judge William Cooper’s study, shown there by Cooper’s wife, provided tea and a copy of a newspaper, while the family’s maid dashed out into the village that bore their name to find the judge and fetch him home. Mrs. Cooper had made some domestic excuse for leaving Ian to the paper’s company. He didn’t mind. The wait afforded a needful transition between seeing himself and his charges to Cooperstown and the next challenge: securing a home in which to settle them.

  They had come thus far in reasonably good health, barring a mild ague that made its rounds beginning with Mandy, and with little to hinder their progress beyond the exigencies of weather. Crossing the Hudson had unnerved Naomi, down with the ague and never keen on ferries at the best of times, but all had debarked safely in Albany. From thence they had traveled overland to the fast-flowing Mohawk River and the town of Schenectady, where the wagon required a wheel’s repair. While a local wheelwright completed the task, Naomi had recovered her health, Malcolm took sick, and Ian replenished a few stores, including fresh willow bark from a local apothecary.

  Repairs made, and with Malcolm resting in the wagon’s bed, they had continued westward along the river, past farms dating back to when the territory was Dutch-controlled. At a settlement called Canajoharie, they had left the river, veering southwesterly to cross more hills, sparsely settled by comparison. The road climbed through thick forests of hardwoods, passed the village of Cherry Valley, then lurched southward, crossing numerous small streams until, a fortnight and more after leaving Boston—with Ally shaking off that troublesome ague—they had skirted the base of a commanding ridge to find themselves at the foot of a blue-green gem of a lake, Otsego.

  The village
of Cooperstown spread along the lake’s southern shore, tidy in its layout, its gridded lanes seeming to defy every natural barrier. Many plots stood empty, save for rotting stumps, awaiting industrious hands to erect some future edifice. Others were occupied by tradesmen’s shops, homes, and taverns. Ian had settled his party at one of the latter. The horses had been stabled. Ally minded the wagon. Malcolm, Naomi, and Mandy rested in a hired room while Ian found his way to Judge Cooper’s Manor House—a two-storied structure buttressed by single-storied wings, dominating a main street—and into the man’s study, appointed with a glass-fronted, finialed desk of polished cherrywood that reminded Ian piercingly of his uncle’s, lined with books, all lost in the fire at Mountain Laurel.

  Afternoon sunlight from a pair of fine glass windows bathed the copy of the Otsego Herald open on his lap. He barely skimmed its pages. Relief at having come this far vied with the knowledge of all he had still to accomplish before snow fell.

  Setting the paper on the chair beside his hat, he crossed to a table pushed against the wall, its surface cluttered with maps. One showed the gridded streets of Cooperstown, the lake, and surrounding natural features. He noted the high ridge they had passed, grandly labeled Mount Vision, but hadn’t time to focus on the village itself before somewhere in the house a door slammed. Approaching boots thumped along a passage.

  Seconds later the study door opened and Judge William Cooper strode within. Blunt features amiably set, he fixed his gaze upon Ian, who made the man a bow and said, “Ian Cameron, your servant, sir.”

  Recognition wasn’t instant but full when it came. “Cameron? Ah, on the road from Philadelphia! My carriage overturned. You and your man offered aid—and the loan of a horse besides.”

  As tall and barrel-chested as Ian recalled, dressed in a finely tailored coat, brown hair in side-curls, the man strode forward with an outstretched hand. Ian met it with his own. “And ye made me a most generous offer in turn. I’ve come to avail myself of it, and your good grace.” From his coat he produced the note signed weeks ago in the parlor of the Blue Moon.

  Cooper nodded, accepting it. “So I did—so I did.” He glanced over the note and, seeming satisfied, said, “You’ve come round to seeing the benefits of settling here, I take it? Good news. Very good news, indeed.”

  “Aye, sir.” But lest the man assume he had chosen Cooperstown itself, a notion by no means resolved upon, Ian added, “At least, I’ve decided the frontier is where I belong.”

  “Frontier?” Cooper’s brows soared as he chuckled. “Had you seen what I did upon my first visit to Otsego’s shore, you’d not call Cooperstown the frontier now. But come,” he said, drawing Ian away from the maps to the finialed desk, which bore a decanter and glasses. “First a toast to your safe arrival from . . . Boston, was it?”

  Ignoring the tea his wife had provided, Judge Cooper poured them both a whisky. While they sipped, Cooper told of his first sighting of the tract of land that would become his township, from the top of the ridge christened Mount Vision on his map. “I was alone, three hundred miles from home, without bread, meat, or food of any kind. I caught trout in the brook and roasted them on the ashes. My horse fed on the grass that grew by the water’s edge. I laid me down under the stars to sleep in my coat, nothing but the melancholy wilderness surrounding me . . .”

  Ian gave courteous attention as Cooper recounted his initial exploration of the country, detailing how his heart had been charmed by its bounties, his mind enlivened with plans for future settlement. At last, whisky downed, the judge said, “Speaking of settlement, shall we get to it then, have a look at the map?”

  “Now, sir?” Ian asked, setting down his glass. He had thought of merely making an appointment for the following day. “Aye, I’d like that, if my arrival doesn’t pull ye from some other business.”

  “It does,” Cooper said dismissively. “Don’t let it trouble. I make it my aim to call regularly upon those to whom I’ve leased or sold town plots—and the nearer farms—to keep myself informed of their circumstances, discuss their political leanings, hear their complaints. The better to represent them in Congress, of course.”

  “Of course,” Ian agreed but was thinking had he not already decided himself better suited to farming than town life, this admission of paternalistic hovering on Cooper’s part would have convinced him of it.

  Oblivious of the conviction, Cooper steered him to the map of his much-lauded town, talking the while of various land concerns as Ian, for politeness’ sake, made a show of perusing the village site the man seemed determined to grow by persuasion, enticement, or sheer will. What grew instead was Ian’s enlightenment: Judge Cooper was a man mired in legal and financial complications arising from the numerous patents and deeds, payments and defaults, boundary contentions, sales, repossessions, and repurchases due to the steady stream of settlers pouring in, eager for land, of which Ian and his wagonful were but a few leaves borne upon the tide.

  When finally he stated his decision to focus his energies on farming rather than cabinetmaking, Cooper appeared crestfallen. The man, Ian was made to understand, believed one ought to be either tradesman or farmer, for to attempt both would necessitate neglect of one or the other. “Always at the most inopportune season for those depending upon him.”

  “Be that as it may,” Ian maintained, “I should prefer to secure for myself acreage enough to raise both crops and cattle. I’ll not abandon my trade, but it’s not to be the main source of my livelihood. What of those lands ye spoke of north of the Mohawk River? Herkimer County, was it?”

  Give William Cooper his due: the man didn’t long drag his heels in following Ian’s lead but recovered what seemed his natural enthusiasm to please. He unrolled the map of the requested patent, situated in the foothills of the Adirondack wilderness, which stretched north to Canada—as far removed from the man’s daily meddling as Ian could place himself and still partake of his offer.

  With another half-hour’s cartographic study, he narrowed his interest to two plots, a mere three hundred acres each. He was about to make his choice when a solitary tract on the map’s edge caught his eye. It was situated up along West Canada Creek, which flowed into the Mohawk River at a spot marked German Flatts. The acreage, larger than the others he was considering, lay some miles east of a village called Shiloh, along one of the West Canada’s feeder creeks. The southern reaches of the Adirondacks edged the tract to the northeast, to the south, the creek, Black Kettle. A small and nameless lake bordered it to the west. Its features promised good bottomland for cultivating, hillsides for grazing, even a spring near to a beech grove. A neighboring farm, west of the lake, was marked MacGregor.

  “What of this tract?” Ian asked, cutting Cooper off midsentence as he extolled the villages he was attempting to settle north of the Mohawk. “Shiloh . . . is that one of your settlements?”

  “Shiloh? No. That was settled before we won our independence.” Cooper frowned, a finger tapping his blunt chin. “If memory serves, I acquired that acreage some years back from its previous owner. I haven’t set eyes on it myself but doubt me the man ever farmed it. But look you.” He slid another map across the lonely tract along Black Kettle Creek. “Would you not rather consider a parcel lying close to one of my Herkimer villages? There’s more than one would suit . . .”

  Ian half listened, turning the name Shiloh over in his mind. Call it fancy or fanciful, but he was as taken with the name as with the details of the acreage waiting to be claimed. While Cooper spoke, Ian silently prayed—made the very name Shiloh a prayer—and waited, feeling a growing certainty he had found the place. He wished there were time to journey there and back before he secured it, but that not being the case . . .

  After swift calculation of his funds, including gold received from John Reynold before departing Boston, not yet converted to coin, he waited for Cooper’s next pause for breath, then made his best—indeed his only—offer.

  “The Shiloh tract is the one I want, sir. And never mind a shi
lling—I’ll pay ye half the land’s price, at the rate promised in your note, as down payment. In hard currency.” He swallowed and added, “By that I mean in gold. Today.”

  Judge Cooper’s reaction was a study in contrasts. Though clearly disappointed in Ian’s choice, he couldn’t conceal his delight at the influx of capital on offer. “Gold, did you say? Guineas?”

  “Aye, a few. But also gold unminted—if ye’ll accept such in payment.”

  To say the man was thunderstruck would not have been overstating things.

  “You’re telling me you’ve acquired gold, raw from the earth?” Cooper asked, one hand rising to grip Ian’s shoulder, eyes bright with speculation. “Now that I would very much like to see.”

  With the contents of Ian’s small leather pouch emptied upon the desk, William Cooper began to speak of financing his fall election to Congress and the grand hall he meant to replace the house in which the family presently dwelled. “Its building goes slower than my wife should like. But with this . . .” The judge’s eyes fairly glowed. “I regret you will not be joining us here but . . . well, I would say we’ve reached an agreement nevertheless.”

  Smiling broadly at Ian, Cooper proffered his hand.

  Within the hour a fair copy of the agreement was made, a witness summoned for its signing, and the sale of three hundred eighty acres of land on Black Kettle Creek near the village of Shiloh—along with a schedule of payment to result in Ian’s obtaining permanent title within three years—was a fait accompli.

  Cooper had concealed the exchanged tender before the summoned witness came. Once he had gone, the judge brought out the gold again and spread the larger flakes and nuggets on his desktop. While Ian tucked away his copy of the agreement and retrieved his hat, William Cooper poked with evident fascination at the ore.

  “You’re certain you didn’t obtain this in New York?” he asked, not for the first time.