by Lori Benton
I like being your Dearest—
Seona Cameron
Beachum Lane, Boston
9 April 1797
To Seona Cameron
Beachum Lane
Boston, Massachusetts
My Dearest Seona—
In a state of Nerves is precisely how I am rendered knowing you are coming to us. I will write to Da of the particulars of that Undertaking (you have Juturna and her dam, but perhaps another horse and cart could be procured?). I shall meet you on the Road, perhaps in Albany. But know that however the practicalities are arranged, you will not travel one step of the Journey unaccompanied by a trusted Guide, provisioned for every necessity—speaking of which, Naomi tells me Malcolm is desirous of a Bible of his own. On my next sojourn to Cooperstown, I may find one but feel the Gift would carry more substance did it come from our Family. Would you ask Da whether a Bible might be procured and bring it with you when you come?
I have read the few Lines you wrote countless times over, wishing for something more of your Heart, but it seems you have chosen to share such Sentiments in person. But did you not receive my second Letter? You make no mention of Catriona. What is afoot with that Sister of mine?
I have come into possession of some seasoned Maple which I deem suitable for Cabinetmaking and need to begin crafting some serviceable plenishings for our cabins—plural. Ally and I have, despite the muddiness of our thawing ground, begun building a second cabin for Naomi, Malcolm, and himself (and the Collies, who grow like weeds and are learning their Business among the Cows). So you see there will be room for all. I intend to build a proper House, this Summer if I can get wood enough cut and seasoned but more likely next. Much grubbing and tilling of earth remains to be done, readying our ground for its first Planting, before your arrival. Joyous Day!
I am the happiest of Men as I envision you here, sharing in this adventure of creating a Home, and could write reams on that giddy theme. I will restrain myself and seal this Letter and begin one to Da, remaining forever your Devoted & Faithful Servant—
Ian Cameron
Shiloh, New York
17
ALBANY, NEW YORK
June 1797
The abovestairs room in the public house, away from the busy river dock, was so like others they had hired on their journey thus far, Seona barely took note of its particulars as she laid Gabriel, heavy as a sack of stones and clammy with fever, on the quilt overspreading the bed. She had known something wasn’t right with him when they woke that morning in a similar room on the Hudson’s east bank, ready for an early river crossing, with hopes of reaching Schenectady by nightfall.
Seona had spent days dreading the Hudson. Wanting that broad river behind them, she had reasoned away Gabriel’s sleepy disinterest in breakfast, his crankiness. Well out on that choppy water, with her own belly surging to the ferry’s dip and sway, her boy had vomited down her petticoat. By the time they set foot on dry land, with horses, cart, and baggage accounted for, Gabriel had been hot and wailing in her arms.
With no sign of Ian waiting at the ferry landing, and no more thought in anyone’s mind of trying to make Schenectady, Ned Cameron had driven the cart up into the town of Albany, found the inn, and settled them in that room. If settled it could be called. Past wailing now, Gabriel was fretful and whimpering in his misery, blue eyes pleading, pricking Seona’s own with tears.
“I know, baby. It’ll be all right.” Lord, make it all right.
Voices reached her through the room’s open door, one her mama’s.
“Here ye are, girl-baby,” Lily said in her most comforting tone, coming into the room with Seona’s spare petticoat over one arm, simples box tucked under the other. Behind her came a girl, short and slender, no older than sixteen. She carried a pitcher and was aproned like a kitchen maid, which it turned out she was. She was also as black-haired and copper-skinned as Lily.
“Hannah Kirby,” she introduced herself, advancing into the room to pour water from the pitcher into a basin already provided. She set the pitcher to one side and bobbed a curtsy. “I’m at your service—between meals—to fetch for you and that little man of yours. Water’s heating in the kitchen,” she added, addressing Lily, who had set her box on a bench at the bed’s foot and was rummaging through it. “I’ll bring it up directly and you can brew your fever tea. Would he take a little sweetening in it?”
“Aye.” Lily set out willow bark, yarrow, mint, other herbs. “Maple sugar, if ye have it to hand.”
“Plenty—it was a good sugar boil this spring.” Hannah paused by the bed to peer down at Gabriel’s flushed cheeks. “You’ve traveled from Boston? That’s enough to take it out of anyone. How’s his breathing? I could chop onions for a poultice. Nothing like onions to loosen a chest.”
“No . . . thank you,” Seona said, grateful at least Gabriel’s breathing held no rattle. “I think it’s just the fever. He vomited once, as you can smell, but that might have been the ferry crossing.”
Hannah wrinkled her nose but smiled, making a dimple appear in one rounded cheek. “I’ll be back directly with the hot water.”
From her perch on the edge of the bed, Seona watched the girl leave the room, long black braid swinging to her waist. “She’s Indian.”
“I reckon she must be, or part.” Lily crossed the room to peer down at her grandson as Seona began to strip off his sweaty garments, which needed washing as badly as her petticoat. “Ye’ll want to bathe him. Hannah left cloths for the purpose.”
Seona took up one of the clean rags brought with the water and started bathing Gabriel to cool his heated skin. Like any child he’d had fevers of the milder sort in Boston, but she had dared hope they would reach Shiloh without having to deal with illness along the way. Somehow it struck a deeper chord of helplessness, caught halfway between the home left behind and the one they journeyed toward. Nothing familiar, the most basic tasks a hurdle to surmount. Everyone they met a stranger.
Lily, with her usual outward calm, measured willow bark and the other herbs for the tea, ready to steep it as soon as Hannah returned.
Gabriel tried to push Seona’s hand away when she touched the wet, cooling cloth to his brow. “Mama . . . no-o-o.”
“There, baby,” Seona said, wishing she could take his misery and bear it her own self. “I know you feel all over achy. Granny’s fixing something to make it better.”
“Aside from tea brewing,” Lily said, “not much to do but hope he sleeps. It’s surely just a spring ague. I’m surprised Catriona hasn’t come down with the like, ailing in spirit as she’s been.”
Seona felt her stomach churn as it had crossing the Hudson, but for different reasons. With so many letters crossing back and forth over late winter and into spring, some of them weeks delayed in reaching her, she had no way of knowing whether that last she wrote, giving Ian answer as to what had happened with his sister and that Morgan Shelby, had reached him in time to prepare him for their sudden change in plans.
Mister Robert had written to Ian of Ned’s happier news. In March, weeks after Ian’s brother returned to Boston, word had come that Penny, still in Deerfield, was with child. Intending to return to her, Ned had agreed to drive the cart Mister Robert had bought, at least across the Hudson River, before turning back for Deerfield, where he meant to remain until his child was born. Scarce three days later, Seona had dashed off another letter to Ian, full not of happy news but the distressing tale he had asked to know—all that had been going on with Catriona and Morgan Shelby.
I think while you were here last summer, Mr. Shelby was in New York, but already your Sister had got herself snared by the heart, despite my cautioning her against the man. Before you arrived from Carolina, she admitted to me how they chanced to meet and that she was trying to bring Mr. Shelby and Ned together to reconcile. She did not heed my Caution, only worked out how to be slyer about it. My understanding is that Mr. Shelby toyed with your Sister’s affections through the Winter, whenever he was in Boston—me
eting up with her in secret—until she was besotted enough to think he meant to ask your Daddy for her hand in Marriage. How she thought your Daddy would give his blessing, I do not know. I never did trust that man, not from the moment I set eyes on him. But let me tell the rest.
Mr. Shelby went away for most of April, then came back to Boston days ago and found your Sister to say he had married some rich woman in New York but wanted things to go on with Catriona as they had been—and more. That is when she finally saw him for the Rascal he is and told him she would be no Kept Woman, not to him or any man. Things might have settled down then and everyone gone on none the wiser if not for one of Catriona’s so-called friends happening to see them together that last time. That girl told another what she saw. You can guess what followed. In the span of a day her reputation was besmirched as soot . . .
Seona had written that letter to Ian because she’d had to, but it hardly bore thinking on even now—save for the one good thing that had come of the wretched business. When the truth came out and Ian’s parents confronted Catriona, things between Seona and Ned had gotten a needful airing too.
Until that point, Seona had been willing for Ned to guide them to the Hudson, despite not liking how he and Ian had parted. Then Ned showed up at the house, having heard the rumors about his sister and Morgan Shelby. Wading into what was already a right stramash between Catriona, Mister Robert, and Miss Margaret, Ned accused his sister of being “worse than Ian.”
Seona had no words. Catriona found some. “Then maybe I’ll just . . . go to Ian!”
She said it like one might declare they would go to the devil; then she burst into tears. Seona thought her mad enough to slap her brother for good measure. Not wanting to see things get so out of hand, she found her voice, shaking with anger of her own. “Ned Cameron, that is the last I will hear you speak against my baby’s daddy. You best clean your mind of jealousy and whatever else you have against Ian afore it eats you alive and you’re no good to Penny and that child that’s coming.”
Lily joined the fray then and led Seona out of it, saying Gabriel needed her upstairs. But later Ned found her and made an apology. He hadn’t even known why he said what he did, because he no longer believed the worst of Ian. “Ye were right about my being jealous. But I’m working on putting that to death.”
She had been glad to hear it, for while she had no idea how they would otherwise make it to New York safely, she had been unable to imagine traveling in company with Ned after what they had said to each other.
No one had taken seriously Catriona’s tearful threat to go to Ian. But she proved to be in earnest. Tales of her and Mr. Shelby—embroidered with shocking details that never happened—had made the rounds of her friends and acquaintances and would not be easily set to rights. There were those who would believe the worst no matter how the family came to her defense. Robert and Margaret Cameron had weathered such before, with Ian, but Catriona was young enough to believe her world had come crashing down in pieces, never to be fit back together.
Nor would they, Seona knew. Leastwise, not as they had fit before. Catriona, despairing, had begged of her need for a fresh start—in New York. “But, Catriona,” Miss Margaret had pleaded, “New York, ’tis sae far. What about Deerfield? Ned’s going back there.”
“Ned hasn’t his own place in Deerfield,” Catriona had argued. “And I couldn’t bear it, going to strangers, if they’d even have me. But Ian will. I know he’ll understand. Besides, Maggie MacGregor wants me to come. Please . . .”
Seona reckoned Mister Robert and Miss Margaret knew the moment it was out of their daughter’s mouth that New York was for the best. It was letting go their youngest, long afore they thought to do so, that wrenched—just as they had come to terms with bidding their only living grandson farewell. In the end they had managed it, though at what cost to their hearts Seona didn’t like to think.
Having enough to fret over at present, she shook the memories away. “What about our trunks, Mama? Are they safe?” Always before, Ned had taken the precaution of carting their trunks to whatever room they had hired for the night.
“Your trunks are still on your cart,” said Hannah Kirby, returning with a steaming kettle, a saucer heaped with maple sugar, and four cups on a tray. “Uncle’s keeping an eye on them.”
“Who’s your uncle then?” Lily asked as Hannah set the tray on the room’s table.
“The stableman here. He’s looking after your horses too. Anything else you need before I go to work in the kitchen?”
Assured that they were fine, the girl left them, shutting the door. Lily got busy brewing the tea. As she transferred the leaves to a cup and poured steaming water over them to steep, Seona rose to change her petticoat.
“I’d thought Catriona and Ned must be seeing to the horses, but I guess not. Where are they then?” She untied the soiled garment, let it drop to the floor, then stepped into the clean one. Or cleaner. Nothing she owned was truly clean after so many days of travel.
“They’re looking for Ian,” her mama said, crossing to the bed to sit with Gabriel.
Seona’s fingers fumbled with the petticoat ties. “Didn’t Ned say we’d made such good time so far that we’d more likely find him in Schenectady or somewhere on the Mohawk?”
What if Ian was already in Albany? She had made this choice to go to him, wanted to go to him, yet thought of seeing him again set her nerves dancing.
I can do all things through Christ. She had read those words in the Cameron family Bible before leaving it behind but had forgotten the rest of the verse. Retying her petticoat, she thought of the Bible they had brought along for Malcolm, wrapped in oilcloth at the bottom of a trunk. She couldn’t leave Gabriel to go fetch it.
What was wrong with her anyway, jumpy as a cat at thought of Ian? Maybe it was just as much about starting over again in a new place, with people strange to her—people who had no reason to accept the likes of her in the place a wife would claim.
Ian wanted her. That was the important thing, wasn’t it? He had never stopped loving her, though he had done right by Judith. Now he wasn’t married. She wasn’t a slave. Gabriel looked set to have his mama and daddy raising him and his sister together. So why was she growing more uncertain of what awaited in Shiloh the nearer she came to it?
She thought of Catriona, who had ridden beside her on Juturna for days, sunk in her misery—reminder that a heart might break in an instant, but it was a longer road back to wholeness. To trust.
You won’t let it all come to ruin again, Lord. Surely You won’t.
18
COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK
William Cooper, returned from attending Congress and in possession of one less parcel of frontier land, weighed the gold flakes offered in payment, measured out what was due him—the lion’s share—and returned the rest to the pouch Ian tucked into his coat. With the gold spread across his desk glittering in the window’s light, the judge bent over it, as fascinated as at their last encounter.
“Come now, Mr. Cameron.” Cooper raised keen eyes to scrutinize Ian in good-natured doubt. “Am I to credit your having obtained this ore beyond the bounds of our fair province? Never tell me you’ve been off rambling back to Carolina, leaving your land untended?”
Though they were alone in the room off the main hub of the man’s house, it was the one question Ian had hoped Cooper would refrain from asking. He hadn’t planned on paying off his land for another year at least, but having received the gold from John days before he meant to set out down the Mohawk River, he had decided to give himself those extra days to swing south to Cooperstown on the way and be done with the business. What remained of the gold, and whatever John sent in future, would go toward building a proper house for his family.
His family. The notion was enough to distract him from Cooper’s room spread with maps, ledgers, and legal papers—including the twice copied, signed, and witnessed land deed needing only to be divided, one half given into his possession, the other legally
registered.
Cooper picked up the largest bit of gold, a pea-size nugget, turning it to the light. “I’m more inclined to believe you had it in your possession all along but chose not to purchase the land from me outright—for your own good reasons,” he added. “Perhaps you held it back to make improvements?”
“That’s not it at all, sir,” Ian said. “Though I haven’t neglected my land. There’s a corn crop sowed, cabins raised, and my cattle are well-pastured.”
“Cattle, is it?” Cooper frowned, dissatisfied with the evasive answer. “Ah, well. I cherish hopes that beneath these hills slumbers a wealth untold. Alas, many an ore sample brought to me has proved false. Until yours.” His scrutiny sharpened. “I had the first of it verified—had to, you understand—in Philadelphia, last autumn.”
“Of course.” Ian smiled blandly. “I’ve not seen your lads about, sir. At their lessons, are they?”
Cooper blinked at the change in topic. “No lessons today. Over breakfast I heard the boys plotting to climb the ridge from whence I first glimpsed this country, up along the lakeshore.”
“Mount Vision.” Recalling his conversation with the man’s lawyer last autumn, he asked, “They’ve taken to the frontier, your lads?”
“Like pigs to slop!” Cooper exclaimed as he retrieved a knife from his desk. With a glance at the closed door, he added in a tempered tone, “Their enthusiasm for this wilderness is illimitable. If only my wife’s regard was half its measure.” He proceeded to slit the sheet of foolscap along its center fold, separating the copies of the deed. “The grand hall now in progress should better please her—brick, you know, not timber—if I can build it quick enough to hold her here.”