by Lori Benton
Cradling a cup of cider at the tavern’s counter, Ian spoke over nearby conversations and a game of dice raising the noise level in the public room. “Mrs. Cooper seemed a mite thin, from what I recall. Is she unwell?”
“I’ve written Cooper repeatedly,” Kent said, “at Mrs. Cooper’s request, enjoining the man to come home before Congress adjourns. She has no wish to spend another winter here and pines to be gone before snow flies.” He shook his head. “She’d uproot them all and go back east, but I think it would break the younger boys’ hearts. Will, Sam, young James, they adore this country. It’s gotten into their blood.”
Ian was about to admit of being like-minded when the level of noise in the room spiked; the dice game had broken up in a quarrel. The loudest voice, slurred with drink, belonged to a wiry, slope-shouldered man, reddish hair and beard dulled by grease and gray. Another man, younger, scraped back a chair to stand facing the gingery drunkard. “Ye’re naught but a sore loser, Crane. We been casting these dice for years. Not a soul would back a claim they’re weighted in my favor.”
“Be off with you,” another man said, turning on the one called Crane. “Don’t play the game if you cannot take a loss.”
Gazing blearily around the taproom, the man Crane took in the faces turned his way, expressions ranging from irritation to open hostility. He snarled something too mumbled to catch, then snatched up a battered hat and slunk from the tavern, his steps surer than Ian would have expected, given the state of his speech.
A wafting of cold night air swept through the room, bending candle flames and shivering over the back of Ian’s neck.
“One good thing about winter coming,” Kent muttered at the banging door. “Snow will send that ne’er-do-well back up to his haunts on the Mohawk—at least until spring.”
Ian swiveled on his stool to face his companion. “Not an isolated incident, I take it. Who was that?”
“Aram Crane, and a sorrier excuse for a man I hope you never encounter.”
“The village drunkard?”
“Not ours, thank Providence. He’s been living half-wild in the hills north of the Mohawk for a decade at least, bothering folk up there. He comes down to Canajoharie, Cherry Valley, or Cooperstown—more’s the pity—a few times a year. At best he’s a nuisance. At worst . . .”
“A man to be avoided,” Ian supplied when Kent let the statement fizzle. He sipped his cider, thinking it time he returned to his hired room in a quieter inn and the bed awaiting him there. Even on Ruiadh it was a two-day ride back to Shiloh, pushing hard.
“If you would know my opinion on the matter,” Kent said, “it’s time for Judge Cooper to step aside from politics, let minds with deeper learning take the lead. His crude form of backwoods justice leaves much to be desired when men like Crane are free to roam, slapped on the wrist for their crimes.”
Crimes. Was Crane guilty of something worse than being a troublesome drunk? And what was Kent about, disparaging Judge Cooper when he lodged in the man’s house, managed his affairs, penned letters for his wife?
Ian set down his cup. “I wouldn’t know about the man as judge or congressman, but he’s been exceedingly generous to me. And as I’ve an early start to make in the morning . . .” Leaving coin on the counter beside the cup, he took up his hat. “I expect ye’ll see me again come spring. Until then, I wish both ye and the Coopers well.”
Though clearly disappointed by the abrupt leave-taking, Kent thrust out a hand. “All right, Mr. Cameron. At least now I know Cooper’s claim of the gold you paid for your land was more than his wishful thinking.”
Alarmed at the mention, Ian grasped Kent’s hand briefly, then made for the tavern door, clapping his hat on his head. Outside in the starlight, the air was chill, though not yet with the bite of winter.
With hands balled into fists, Ian strode from the tavern. Passing an adjacent row of shops, he cast a look back, assured to see no one had followed him from the establishment. Perhaps no one had overheard the mention of gold. He hoped Kent would keep his gob shut on the matter and share no further details.
“Let me go!”
The outcry shattered the peace of the village street as Ian turned back to watch his path—not quick enough to sidestep the small figure that bolted from between two shops. Ian caught the child by slender shoulders to steady . . . him, apparently, for lack of a petticoat.
“Lad? What’s got ye bothered?”
The boy struggled briefly, then stilled, face lifted. “Mr. Cameron?”
“Aye.” Ian squinted, at last recognizing Judge Cooper’s youngest son. “James, is it? What are ye doing out in the streets at this hour?”
“Nothing,” the boy said with the haste of the guilty. He looked back down the alley from which he had bolted. “That man—he asked did I have any coins in my pockets. When I said no, he tried to see for himself. I don’t! I only have—” The boy gulped back whatever he had been about to admit and asked, “Did you bring my pa more of that gold?”
“Hush now.” Ian’s grip on the lad tightened in warning. He heard the shuffle of someone still in the alley. It sounded like whoever had accosted the lad was retreating. “What are ye about, wee James? And what do ye have in your pockets?”
“I told you. Nothing . . .” Even as he said the word, from the vicinity of the boy’s breeches there came the shrill chirp of a cricket. Probably the season’s last—and destined for a sibling’s bed or hair or porridge bowl, come morning.
“Get ye home,” Ian said, grinning at thought of a day when—God willing—he might have such a conversation with Gabriel. “Afore some other rascal finds ye out.”
The boy darted into the night, in the general direction of the Cooper residence. Ian decided to follow, to be sure he made it home. He had barely reached the next gap between two darkened structures when a shadow stepped out, moving across his path. A shadow larger than a child’s.
Ian halted, hand brushing aside his coat, fingers curving around the handle of his belt knife, as out of the darkness came a voice he recognized, though it wasn’t as slurred as last he heard it.
“Cameron’s the name, is it?”
“Who wants to know?” Ian asked, though the man’s silhouette confirmed what his ears had already discerned.
“No one,” said Aram Crane, bumping Ian’s shoulder as he passed into the night.
12 November 1796
To Ian Cameron
Shiloh, New York
Dear Ian—
Mama and me laughed over your telling of Ally and that Cow you tried to catch until the tears rolled down our cheeks. It minded me of the Pig at Mountain Laurel—that Shoat John Reynold bought that kept running back to us. You caught it in the stable-yard, no help from any collie dog, but I am happy you had that smart dog of Mr. MacGregor’s to sort out your Cow problem. Mama says tell Ally that’s why we have each other, too, to help us think of all the things.
I did laugh about that Cow but later, thinking on it, I cried. I did not know what was making me sad when first I thought it funny, but Mama knew. She said that Cow come seeking her Calf was like you coming back to Boston for Gabriel. That made me cry more since you had to leave him again. Gabriel misses Mandy. He asks for her like he used to ask for Ned’s boys, back in Winter. He does not ask for Robbie and Eddie now. I do not want him to stop asking for his Sister.
It will be a fine thing to have a collie dog helping Ally with the stock. I reckon by now it is born. I like hearing about Shiloh and the doings there. You cannot tell me too much of that. Mister Robert told me what that Gaelic you wrote down that Neil MacGregor said means. “That which goes far from the eye goes far from the heart.” Maybe that is true for Cows but not for me. Is it for you? Is Gabriel still in your heart? He has a passel of new words since you left. He does not talk as clear as Mandy but is putting more of his words together now. I do feel a pang of sadness watching him grow, even though his learning makes me proud and I would not trade being his Mama for anything. Which makes me all th
e sorrier for your Brother, who had this joy, then lost it. Ned means to spend Christmas in Deerfield. We pray good comes of it.
I want to tell you what I should have wrote in my first Letter, that I pray for you and Mandy, Malcolm, Naomi, Ally, even your neighbors you have named. Every day. There is something else I want you to know. You asked in what way did your leaving hurt me. I thought surely you could guess.
I have sat here with my quill hovering over the paper, unable to set down what I meant to say about that. I do not know what can be done about this pain between us. Or maybe I do but am afraid of it. I am trying to be truthful. That is all I can bring myself to write for now—
Seona Cameron
Beachum Lane, Boston
15
SHILOH, NEW YORK
November’s chill crept with evening shadow through the doors left open to the MacGregors’ stable-yard, down the aisle to the second box stall, where the smell of frost and decaying leaves mingled with the pungent scent of puppies. Outside the box, in which Scotchbonnet’s litter of six nested in straw, Ian and Neil leaned against the latched gate. A fortnight shy of weaning, the puppies—black-and-white fluffballs all, save one brown-and-white—were old enough to tumble about the box with Jamie, Liam, and Ally, who had come with Ian to claim his promised pup.
“Ye’ve your choice of the males,” Ian told him, Neil having mentioned Colonel Waring, who owned the sire, had claimed a female before the whelping. “The girl pup is spoken for.”
“That’s still five of ’em!” Ally exclaimed, on his knees as the pups swarmed him with licking tongues and swatting tails. “They all as purty as their mama.”
Peering over the lower slats, boarded to contain her offspring, Scotch wagged her brushy tail.
Ian turned to share his amusement with Neil. Catching a shadow on the other man’s face, he pitched his voice low. “Ye’re satisfied with the work in trade?”
He hadn’t witnessed the stone-grubbing done in a newly cleared field the MacGregors meant to plant next spring, assuming all was well when Ally returned from his last day of work claiming his pup fairly purchased.
“What?” Neil blinked, then registered the question. “Oh, aye. The man works as hard as any two I’ve kent. It’s no’ that.” He drew Ian away from the puppies’ box, deeper into the stable. “Did ye ever meet the Colonel’s son Francis?”
“Francis Waring? No. Heard his name in passing, is all.”
Concern weighed Neil’s brow. “Aye, well. He’s been awa’ to parts unknown since afore Scotch’s pups came.”
“Parts unknown?” Ian echoed.
“It’s no’ a thing unusual for Francis. He’s . . .” Neil searched for words. “Prone to wandering the hills from time to time. Shy as a wild creature himself, more at home with the foxes than his own kin, ye might say. But he’s ne’er been gone this long a stretch, and it getting on for winter. Maggie’s gey worrit over him and—”
“Mister Ian?”
They turned back to the puppies’ box to see Ally on his feet, looking distressed.
“I done narrowed it down to two—the brown and the freckled. But . . .” The big man’s lower lip trembled. “Reckon it’ll be nip and tuck can I choose. I can’t handle thought of not choosing either.”
A grin pushed back the worry shadowing Neil’s face. “Och, Ally. No need for nip and tuck. Choose them both, if ye want.”
Ally’s trembling lip sagged. “Mister Neil . . . you mean it? I’d work double for ’em.”
“Ye’ve already worked enough for two.” Neil returned to the box to eye his sons. “Speaking of work—Jamie, Liam, there’s boxes to muck afore the rest of the horses are brought in for the night.”
With groaning compliance, the boys rose, shedding straw and puppies. The three exited the box, letting Scotch in without letting the pups out, a task requiring everyone’s attention. Not until the gate was shut did Ian catch sight of the stranger standing in the stable doorway, tall and imposing.
“Neil,” he hissed, registering breechclout and leggings, tomahawk and belt knife, long black hair worn loose. He was reaching for his own knife when his neighbor turned, saw the Indian, and grinned.
“Here ye are at last, man. Matthew was starting to think ye’d forgot him.”
Smiling in welcome, Neil MacGregor strode past Ian to greet the Indian with a hand to a lofty shoulder, as the boys came rushing from the stable’s depths with cries of “Uncle Joseph!”
Seated cross-legged before the hearth, the sleeves of his shirt pushed up to copper armbands—revealing tattoos encircling his forearms in a series of lines and elongated triangles—Joseph Tames-His-Horse still exuded an imposing air as he fiddled with a pipe slow to light from the glowing wood-splinter he held to its bowl.
While Ally had returned to the farm after choosing Nip and Tuck, as he had christened his pups, Ian had stayed and supped with the MacGregors and the Mohawk warrior, who, it turned out, was Willa MacGregor’s clan brother.
“We’re all Wolf Clan,” Maggie had said, smiling across the supper table. “Except Papa. He’s just a Scot.”
“Just a Scot?” Seated at the table’s head, Neil had pretended offense. “Need I remind ye, lass—MacGregors are a clan too. As are Camerons,” he added charitably with a nod toward Ian at the table’s foot.
“Even Jamie and I are Wolf Clan,” Liam had added, giving his older brother a nudge. “It comes through the mother.”
“So I’ve heard,” Ian had said, familiar with the notion of matrilineal clans. “But, Willa . . . how did that come to be?”
“I was fourteen when taken captive,” Willa explained, passing a dish of the spiced corn and beans called succotash. “From that islet in the lake, one day when I went there to read my book.”
“It was Pamela, by Mr. Richardson,” Maggie interjected, to answering grins around the table.
“It was a mourning raid,” Willa continued. “The warriors were seeking captives to adopt. I was taken north over the mountains to the Kanien’kehá:ka—the Mohawk—who lived on the St. Lawrence River, and given the name Burning Sky.” Willa gazed across the table at the tall man seated between Matthew and Maggie. “And met my brother.”
Above the bosses of his cheekbones, Joseph’s dark eyes teased, their corners creasing deep. “I found you in a cornfield, angry and crying and not much pleased to make my acquaintance.”
“Not at first,” Willa agreed. “I changed my mind soon enough.”
The story had gone on around the table, told by one and then another, how Willa lived twelve years as a Mohawk before returning to Shiloh. There she found her parents dead—accused of being Loyalists to the Crown, their farm confiscated and scheduled for auction—and Neil MacGregor lying injured on the border of her land. Neil had been passing through on his way into the mountains when he had taken a fall and broken his wrist. Willa had sheltered him. While he healed, she set about proving her parents hadn’t been Loyalists. All to keep her land.
It was during those days Joseph Tames-His-Horse had arrived on her cabin doorstep, seeking his missing clan sister. He had stayed for a time, doubting her choice to leave their people and live again as a white woman.
“And I wanted to be sure of this one,” Joseph added, canting his head toward Neil. “That he did not mean my sister ill.”
“Aye,” Neil said. “And ye managed to put the fear o’ God and man both in me, wi’ barely a word exchanged on the matter.”
With a rush of warmth for this family forged from brokenness, from loss and pain, Ian had longed for his own to be so. For Seona and Gabriel—Lily too, if she wished—to be present at his table, as they were already in his heart. He dared to hope in a future in which that vision could come to pass. But how?
After supper everyone save the boys, gone back out to the puppies, had seated themselves in the house’s common room, a parlor made to feel more rustic than refined with a set of elk antlers resting along the wide mantel and bear pelts draped over furnishings, not to mentio
n the packs, shot bags, rifles, and snowshoes arranged against the wall. Since his thirteenth year, Matthew had spent each winter hunting with his Wolf Clan uncle, who had come from his Canadian home with the Mohawk in Grand River to collect the lad. They were leaving come morning.
The fire crackled. The scent of woodsmoke filled the room, in which everyone save Ian had a project going. Maggie had a book open, preparing school lessons by candlelight. Willa sorted through a bushel of late apples. Neil sharpened a set of scalpels with a stone, while Matthew, on the floor next to Joseph, cleaned a musket.
Ian realized he wasn’t as surprised by the revelation of Willa’s past as an Indian captive as he might have been. He had heard its evidence in her speech, seen it in their fields—corn, beans, and squash grown together, those Three Sisters he had seen grown thus by the Chippewa.
He mentioned as much from his chair near the hearth, opposite Willa’s clan brother, who had been mending a winter moccasin before pausing to light his pipe, which appeared to be drawing to his satisfaction now. Ian half expected it to be passed around their circle, as he had seen done in the lodges up north—west, rather. He tended to forget how far north he was again living.
Joseph Tames-His-Horse raised his head. “Did you live among the Chippewa?”
“Aye, in a settlement of trappers and their families. My uncle’s a fur trader. His wife is Chippewa.”
Maggie looked up from the book open in her lap. “Do you have cousins like us? Like me and Matthew?”
“I do,” Ian said, then ventured, “But how did ye and your brother come to be here, not living with the Mohawk up in Grand River? If ye don’t mind my asking.”
Maggie’s gaze questioned her brother. “Shall you tell it or I?”
“You’re better with stories,” Matthew said.
“All right.” Maggie turned back to Ian. “It was Uncle Joseph who found us—though first we found his mare, left in a thicket while he was hunting. Matthew and I were on our own, orphaned, and seeking our mother’s people.”