by Lori Benton
The safest thing to say would be I don’t know. But Seona did know. “She’d want us to take the blessings given us. Not refuse them.”
Ian shifted to face her, blinking. “That’s not what I expected ye to say.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know.” He laughed softly, no more than a breath, but it made her smile, hearing the words she had been tempted to say. “I do know that ye and I see the world through different eyes. Maybe we always will. But that doesn’t mean we cannot learn to look through the other’s, if we try.”
Ian pushed himself to his feet and reached down. She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. Thoughts of all that needed doing crowded into the peace they had found beneath the beech tree. Babies to tend. Water to fetch. The wash . . .
“How do we try?” she asked.
“With honesty.”
“It was easier in letters.”
“It was. But we’ll get there again. With practice.”
In his smile she glimpsed the rawness she was feeling. And the relief. She heard Gabriel’s laughter, somewhere off through the trees. Mandy’s too. She was about to head toward them, more by instinct than choosing, but Ian stopped her.
“Seona.” She turned back as a breeze chattered through the leaves overhead. A light like inspiration lit in his eyes. “Tell me one thing that’s true—a thing ye haven’t already said. One thing you need me to understand.”
She blinked. “Just one?”
He grinned. “For now, aye. One true thing. No need to explain or defend whatever it is. I won’t ask ye to. Just tell me something true.”
Again she didn’t let herself think overlong. “I feel like my soul is split in two. One half is a girl enslaved. The other is a woman free. Or trying to be.” Sometimes one, sometimes the other got the reins in her hands, but he could never know which just for looking.
He was studying her now, tenderness in his eyes. “It helps me to know it. And ye need to know that I love both, the girl and the woman.” He paused before asking, almost shyly, “Shall I tell ye one true thing of me?”
His features blurred as she nodded.
“I eavesdropped on your conversation with Malcolm, a bit ago.”
Seona burst out laughing, shedding tears.
Ian laughed with her, then sobered. “Ye spoke of Esther. I thought, if ye want, I could write to John Reynold, ask him to inquire. I don’t know can he learn anything but—”
“It can’t hurt to ask!” Overcome with gratitude, Seona did the last thing—of all the unlikely things this day had held—that she had seen coming when she opened her eyes to the morning. She took Ian Cameron’s face between her hands, drew down his head, and kissed his mouth for the first time as that woman who knew herself to be free.
28
That kiss did as much to bridge the distance between her and Ian as all the tears and talking had done. Two days later, in their cabin, Seona and Lily were cleaning up the children, all fed their breakfast, which Lily had brought across the yard so as not to crowd Naomi’s cabin. Ian found them there, washing up.
Mandy slid off Lily’s lap to scoot across the cabin. Ian scooped her into his arms, gave her cheek a smacking kiss, then licked his lips. “Somebody tastes like maple syrup,” he said, reaching for the rag Lily had been using to tidy his daughter.
“She won’t take corn mush without sweetening,” Lily said. “I miss a spot?”
Ian scrubbed the rag over Mandy’s cheek while she squirmed in his arms. “Got it. Outside with ye, wiggle worm.”
He swung her down as Seona finished with Gabriel, who grinned at Ian before darting after his sister. Lily rose and started after them but paused at the door when Ian spoke, her gaze on her grandchildren in the yard.
“Catriona plans to go into Shiloh today to help Maggie clean the school cabin. She wants to know if ye’d like to go along, Seona. I would,” he hastened to add, “but Ally and I need to expand the crib before we’re overcome with corn ready for it. Our yield looks to be more than I planned for.”
Seona made a show of wiping down the table, feeling the pull of his gaze. They had taken another walk along the lakeshore the evening before, with the children romping about. There was a pair of birds on the lake like Seona had never seen, with striking black-and-white plumage and eyes red as holly berries. They were raising a brood of fuzzy black chicks that rode around the lake on their backs. Loons, Ian called them. Their eerie cry gave her shivers, first time she heard it, but she had come to like the sound, especially on those mornings mist shrouded the lake.
Last evening had been sunny and warm. While they watched the children play in the golden light, they had talked about the house Ian meant to start on next spring. He had wanted to know all her wishes and wants. They had stolen quick kisses when the children weren’t looking and stayed out until the fireflies drifted bright along the edges of the cornfield, watching the children chase them.
It felt like they were a courting couple, getting to know each other again. All so different but familiar too. Her heartbeat knew this dance, though it sometimes made her blush, going through its steps this time for everyone to see.
Finally she looked up, crumbs wiped, not quick enough for Lily to note her hesitation. Still looking out into the yard, her mama said, “I need to visit Keagan’s store. I’ll go into Shiloh with ye, if ye want.”
“Ye could take the letter to John for me,” Ian suggested.
Lily left her listening post in the doorway. Seona dropped the rag and crossed to Ian. “You wrote about Esther?”
“I did.” His eyes lingered on her mouth. “I’ll mind Gabriel and Mandy. They can help me and Ally work,” he added wryly. “Go spend some time with Catriona and Maggie. And Lily.”
She bit her lip until a smile released it. “Mama’s welcome to come along, but I wasn’t going to say no.”
They stopped at the MacGregors’ for Maggie. Matthew joined them too, leading the roan colt he was done starting to the saddle, meaning to return it to Colonel Waring.
“Black needs more time,” he said as they rode the track into Shiloh. “Blue’s the more biddable in spirit. Aren’t ye, mo laochain?” he asked the riderless colt, keeping pace at the end of its lead, while Maggie and Catriona rode beside him.
Riding behind them with Lily, both astride Juturna’s dam, Seona saw Catriona’s gaze fix on Maggie’s brother and hang there as though startled at hearing the Gaelic endearment from the lips of one who looked nothing like a Scotsman.
Seona thought of Malcolm, her mama, even Willa MacGregor, whose way of speaking sounded different from any white person she had ever met. On account of living with the Mohawk, Seona supposed. No surprise her adopted half-Mohawk children might sometimes talk like their Scottish father.
We come to sound like who we’re nearest.
A body’s way of talking wasn’t all that got molded by kin and company. Ways of thinking, of viewing the world and others, could change. The color of a person’s skin was the only thing couldn’t.
Deep in her thoughts, Seona half listened to the talk between the trio riding ahead until a sudden outcry startled her.
“What? Matthew, look . . .”
Maggie’s voice jerked Seona from her ponderings to see they had nearly reached the place the track turned down past the mill and the school cabin that stood there. It wasn’t in the tidy state it had been in the day they arrived in Shiloh. The door listed, as if someone had wrenched it nigh off its hinges. The window was a dark square speared by shards of glass.
Maggie heeled her gray mare to a canter and reached the cabin-yard first, her brother and Catriona seconds behind. “Wait!” Matthew called, but his sister had dismounted and darted inside.
Seona and Lily heard further outcries as they all followed.
The school cabin was wrecked. Benches, tables, slates, books. In the center of the ruin Catriona stood, hand across her mouth, while Maggie stumbled about, touching the halves of torn books, tu
rning over broken benches as if looking for something whole. After a glance around, Matthew pivoted on a bootheel and headed for the doorway. He paused at his sister’s voice.
“Matthew? Don’t make a fuss over this.”
“Maggie . . .”
“I mean it. Don’t make it worse. I just want to clean it up.”
Matthew didn’t answer. One look at his face suffused with fury, and Seona and Lily stepped back to let him pass, then followed him out.
“Who would do this?” Lily asked his rigid back.
Matthew turned sharply at the question. “There’s a dozen ways people have made it known they aren’t pleased to have my sister teaching in this village. But not like that.” His dark eyes blazed. “I’m going to Colonel Waring. He needs to know of this.”
He strode toward Blue. The colt shied at his coming, snapping Matthew out of his rage. He halted, looking at the ground. Even from behind, Seona could see the steadying breath he drew, the easing of his stance.
Then someone else called, “Matthew? Is something wrong?”
They turned to see Anni Keppler coming up the track from the mill, a basket on her arm. She halted as the damage to the cabin door and window registered, her round face flushed bright. “Oh no . . . We didn’t hear a thing across the creek—of course we wouldn’t with the falls. Charles is away to German Flatts, so the mill’s been closed since yesterday. This must have happened overnight. Is it bad inside?”
“I doubt there’s anything worth salvaging,” Matthew said.
Anni glanced downslope toward the village. “We should ask Jack Keagan. Someone must know something.”
“No need. Besides, Maggie said she doesn’t want to make a fuss.”
“I want to make fuss,” Anni retorted, then frowned. “What do you mean there’s no need? You know who did this?”
“Maybe,” Matthew said. “Aram Crane.”
Seona did not recognize the name but Anni seemed to. She was wagging her capped head. “Crane? He hasn’t been seen near Shiloh in years.”
“He robbed my traps less than a fortnight ago,” Matthew said. “Pa thinks I’m wrong but I’m not. Ian Cameron suspects Crane followed him from Cooperstown up to Cherry Valley last month. And Francis . . .”
Startled at the mention of Ian, Seona was slow to notice Anni’s color had drained until behind her, Maggie spoke. “What about Francis?”
She and Catriona had emerged from the cabin. Matthew winced as Anni Keppler echoed the question, each word emphatic. “What about Francis?”
Matthew looked like a cornered critter deciding between fight or flight. Unlike the horses he knew so well, flight was not his way. He drew himself straight and said, “Francis saw Aram Crane robbing one of my traps.”
Anni’s mouth hung open.
Maggie, already on the verge of tears, asked, “Is that why he hasn’t come home? Did Crane frighten him . . . or . . . ?”
“No, Maggie, that’s not what I meant.” But the uncertainty in Matthew’s eyes stole whatever reassurance he meant to offer.
“Matthew,” Anni said, flush faded, face white and rigid. “How could you keep such knowledge to yourself all these months? Does my father even know?”
“I mean to tell him today—now.” Looking penitent but still furious, Matthew turned to his sister, who appeared more crushed by this news of Francis Waring than over her ruined school cabin. “Maggie . . . I’m sorry.”
“What if Francis got it into his head to try and catch Crane?” Features twisting with fear and grief, Maggie turned back toward the cabin.
“Go see the Colonel—now,” Anni told Maggie’s brother, as firmly as if Matthew were her child. “You’ll stay with Maggie?” she asked Catriona, who nodded and vanished into the cabin, from which drifted Maggie’s half-muffled sobs.
“This is a little something I put up for our blacksmith’s wife,” Anni said in a shaky attempt at normalcy, holding up her basket as she walked with Seona and Lily down past the mill into the village. They drew near the log building Seona recalled Ian pointing out as the trade store. “She bore their third child last night. A girl. Would you like to meet them when we’re done here?”
“Come just last night?” Lily asked, brightening with interest.
“Goodenough got there barely in time to catch her,” Anni said.
Lily frowned, then shook her head. “I reckon not. I need a bit of muslin for the children—new nightshifts. Then Seona and I should head back up to the school to lend a hand.”
Anni didn’t blink at her mama’s refusal, but Seona nearly stopped in her tracks in the store yard, under a big old oak tree. A brand-new baby and her mama wouldn’t spare a moment’s visit? After all that talk about her not wanting to meet folk in Shiloh?
But Seona held her peace as they passed through the door Anni held open. Inside, they were confronted with a counter, a wall behind it. To the right and going back a ways, shelves, casks, and tables held an array of goods, including bolts of fabric, which Lily made for. The place had a strong smell, a myriad of odors competing for the upper hand. Beeswax and leather, spirits and tobacco, cured hides and smoked hams.
A tall man of late middle years stood behind the counter. He nodded as they entered, blue eyes tracking Lily with curiosity—until Anni demanded his attention.
“Jack Keagan,” she said, indignation returning in force. “Have you any notion what happened to the school cabin? Or who, I should say.”
Mr. Keagan’s expression turned grim. “You’ve seen it then?”
“I just found Maggie MacGregor there, discovering it for herself. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“Every soul come through the door this morning has told me of it, Miss Anni, but not a one knew who did the deed.”
“Or admits knowing.”
“Aye,” Mr. Keagan acknowledged. “I’m sorry for Maggie. You know I got nothing against her teaching.”
Anni sighed. Seona thought she might mention her brother Francis or that other name, Aram Crane, but she didn’t. “This is Seona Cameron. She has a letter to post. You’ll be all right, Seona, letting Jack help you with it?”
Seona nodded and, as Anni crossed to her mama, swallowed down a surge of nerves and approached the counter, encouraged when Jack Keagan smiled. “I’ve a letter going out from Ian Cameron.”
“You’ll be his kin, lately come to join him?”
Seona nodded. Strictly speaking, she was kin to Ian already. “And that’s my mama, Lily,” she added, turning toward the women looking over the man’s stock of muslin.
Mr. Keagan took the letter bound for North Carolina, gazed at the direction on the cover, and snapped his fingers. “I’ve a parcel come for Ian Cameron. Perhaps you can tell him?”
“Or maybe I can take it?” Seona asked.
Keagan pursed his lips. “I make it a policy not to hand over the post to anyone but the addressee.”
Anni Keppler had keen ears. She abandoned Lily and returned to Seona’s side. “With exceptions now and then, Jack. Let Seona have the parcel and save Ian the trouble coming in to fetch it.”
Jack Keagan frowned. “Is she his wife at least?”
“She will be before long,” Anni said, at which Seona blinked, then nodded agreement when the man looked her way.
“All right then.” He handed over the parcel and named the postage. Seona hadn’t any coin on her person. Ian hadn’t thought she would need it sending a letter but couldn’t have anticipated receiving one. She felt a rise of panic. Then Lily was there, producing enough tender to pay for her yards of muslin as well as the parcel’s postage, from coin saved from her work in Boston. The parcel was wrapped in oilcloth and tied with twine, thicker than a letter but still small enough to slip into the pocket tied at Seona’s waist.
Outside the trade store Anni asked, “You’re sure you won’t call on our smith’s wife with me? It won’t be an imposition.”
“No,” Lily said again, her refusal firm. “But thank ye.”
&nb
sp; “All right but . . .” Anni turned to Seona. “What was it Matthew said about Ian? He saw Aram Crane in Cooperstown?”
“That’s what Matthew said,” Seona replied. “But it’s the first I’m hearing of it.”
Ian hadn’t shared anything about this Aram Crane, whoever he was. A man Matthew thought had been pilfering his traps—that was all she knew of him. Why would such a man have followed Ian, of all people, from Cooperstown? And why hadn’t Ian told them of it?
Back at the school cabin, Catriona had helped Maggie search for anything salvageable. Maggie clutched the results—a single primer. Telling them to leave the mess for now, she swung astride her mare and started for home. The rest mounted too, Seona riding behind the saddle this time, parcel in her pocket, bundled linen clutched under one arm.
Catriona cantered Juturna to catch up to Maggie.
Lily’s silence on the ride back puzzled Seona as much as her refusal to go visit the smith’s wife and baby. Clutching the newly purchased muslin, free arm around her mama’s waist, she leaned to the side to say, “What’s on your mind, Mama? The school or Ian and that Aram Crane person?”
Lily kept their mare at a walk, letting the other two outdistance them. “Both.”
“Anything else?” Seona prompted, certain there was.
“Just something I’ve noted,” Lily said. “Shiloh has no need of another midwife.”
“You reckon one is good enough?” Seona asked, trying for a little levity. Her mama didn’t respond to the play on words. “Maybe they do need another but just didn’t have one ’til now. Regardless . . . I need you, Mama.”
There was silence as the summer-heavy forest passed by either side, striped with sun and shade, the muggy air alive with birdsong and the buzzing of insects. The horse’s hooves clapped thirsty earth, raising little puffs of dust among the weeds.