by Lori Benton
“‘I Am My Beloved’s.’” She looked at him.
He smiled, hopeful. “I didn’t have those words engraved but they speak my heart for ye. I am yours. Forever. Can ye trust me to keep ye safe as well as to love ye? For as God sees me, I do love ye, with everything I am. More than even at the first.”
Her eyes were all the world. Wide and green and welling with tears. “You’ve told me so many true things. Can I tell you just one?”
“With all my heart I wish ye would.”
“I trust you. I’m choosing to do so.”
She held on to the ring while he kissed her. A long kiss, deep and stirring. Both were breathless when it ended. Smiling. A weight of stones had flown off his soul. She trusted him. Lord, let me be worthy of it. Don’t let me fail her . . .
Her attention fell back to the ring. “How do you keep finding things with morning glories on them? I still have the comb . . .” She looked up at him, eyes glistening. “Which finger do I wear it on?”
He took the ring and slipped it on the proper finger, pushing it over her knuckles, relieved when it fit. “I will lay down all I have and ever will have—my very life—before I let harm befall ye or our children.”
As she had once before beneath that old beech tree, Seona took his face in her hands and kissed him sweetly. When she stopped, she said, “I’ll tell you one more true thing, Ian Cameron.”
He kissed the tip of her nose and whispered, “What’s that, mo chridhe?”
“I never stopped loving you either.”
30
August 1797
Muggy July flowed into sweltering August. Rains came, sometimes with thunder. More often gently, soaking the earth without ruining the corn drying on the stalk.
Mandy and Gabriel frolicked between creek, lake, and beech wood.
Malcolm tended the garden and read his Bible, determined to make it from cover to cover while the Almighty lent him breath.
Naomi and Lily kept busy putting up what the garden produced—and with the milking, mending, churning, washing, and cooking, Seona helping when she wasn’t looking after the children.
Ally tended the cattle, walking among them each day, studying eyes and shaggy coats, the udders of nursing cows, noting their appetites and whether their calves grew strong. He and Ian worked at building a more substantial stable, harvested grasses for winter feed, leveled the site for the house, where Ian drove stakes into the earth, marking off rooms, then walked Seona through them so she could change the arrangement if she wished.
They talked of when they might wed and where. Shiloh had no minister, but there was one in German Flatts. “We could go there, soon as the corn’s in the crib,” Ian suggested, and Seona found blushing boldness to say, “If we can wait that long.”
Ian hadn’t blushed. He had kissed her soundly.
There was no more talk of Aram Crane. The idea of him—to Seona, a faceless haunt—was pushed aside whenever he came to mind, bringing fear that this life they were building was more fragile than she dared believe.
But no. Ian was strong. Capable. He loved her. She wrapped the strength of his promises around her heart like a shield.
Six days after Ian slipped the ring on her finger, Seona was in Naomi’s cabin with Malcolm and the children, at the tail end of breakfast. The rest had scattered to their business. Lily to feed Ally’s calf. Catriona to meet Maggie and Matthew and spend the day cleaning up the wrecked school cabin. Ian and Ally were down at the pasture. Naomi had gone to the yard to start a wash kettle boiling. Malcolm sat at the table with his Bible.
Seona had taken Mandy on her lap after Gabriel insisted on feeding himself the eggs and toast with strawberry jam she was coaxing them to finish. Mandy was a biddable girl, like Judith had been—which still brought a bittersweet reminder, though the child was calling her Mama now, and in her heart of hearts, Seona had embraced it.
“Girl-baby, did you help pick the strawberries Naomi put in this jam?”
Mandy had crammed a piece of toast into her mouth. Sticky-faced and chewing, she bobbed her head and swallowed her mouthful. “Afore you came, Mama. Afore he came,” she added, peering across the table at her brother, making a bigger mess of his food than she probably had at half his age.
Seona stroked the child’s silky hair, thinking it nigh long enough to put into braids. “Those blackberries over by the springhouse are ripe. We could have berries and cream with our dinner. Who’s gonna help me pick?”
Mandy bounced on her lap. “Me!” She narrowed her eyes across the table. “And Gabriel if he puts berries in the basket, not his mouth.”
Gabriel paused his chewing to grin at his sister, showing off a mouthful of eggs—most of which fell out onto his plate. He scooped them up and crammed them back into his mouth.
“Oh,” Malcolm said, frowning at his Bible, oblivious to the mess being made beside him. “Now there be a word I’ll no’ have come across.”
“Spell it for me,” Seona said as Mandy reached for her plate and neatly popped a bite of egg into her mouth.
Malcolm spelled the word, then sounded it out. “Luh-vie-ah-thon. D’ye ken what that is?”
Seona had opened her mouth to tell him she had no idea when from the yard Naomi let out a screech of fright.
Malcolm sat frozen, head erect. Gabriel stopped chewing, blue eyes gone round.
Seona swept Mandy off her lap and onto the bench beside her. “You two stay put at this table and I mean it,” she told the children. “Malcolm, keep them inside this cabin.”
She bolted for the door, thinking snake. Thinking panther, wolf, bear . . . never for a second what it turned out had Naomi cowering behind the kettle she was heating over the fire—an Indian in their cabin-yard, sliding down off a winded dun mare. A tall, broad-shouldered Indian with his black hair loose about his shoulders and his thighs bared by a breechclout and leggings tied with scarlet garters at the knee. He wore a faded-blue shirt, belt thrust through with tomahawk and knife, and sleeves rolled high, showing forearms traced with tattooed lines ending in points like claws encircling his wrists. Another knife hung from a leather cord around his neck. He didn’t touch the weapons as he strode forward, but Naomi lost her nerve regardless, making a dash for the cabin.
“No!” the Indian called. “Please.”
Seona stepped into the sunlight. Naomi, eyes rimmed in white, stopped and faced the Indian with her.
He was nearly upon them before he halted, hands lifted, palms out. “I am looking for Lily,” he said. “My sister is in need.”
For all his imposing stature, the Indian looked nearly as frightened as Naomi. Though he was lean and well-muscled, his movements lithe, he wasn’t young. Closer up Seona caught the glint of silver in his hair, lines fanning the corners of his frantic eyes. Still he radiated the power of a man in his prime.
His words penetrated her shock. “You . . . Are you Willa MacGregor’s brother?”
Relief flashed in the dark eyes. “Hen’en—yes. There is no one at my sister’s house to help. Everyone is gone away. I am to bring Lily. Where—?”
“I’m here!”
Seona turned to see Lily running from the stable, long braid flying, holding the canteen they used to feed G-B. Seona was startled by her mama’s swift appearance. So was Willa’s brother apparently. He stood gaping before he spoke again.
“My sister’s baby comes. She said you can help. Will you help?”
Lily reached them and, without evidence of fear, touched the Indian’s tattooed arm in reassurance. “Willa told us your name, but I’ve forgotten.”
“I am Joseph Tames-His-Horse.”
“All right, Joseph. Let me get some things. I’ll ride with ye.” Sparing of words, she ran for their cabin.
The Indian stared after her for a frozen second before jogging back to his horse.
Lily emerged from their cabin with her simples box. Joseph led the dun mare to meet her—a striking horse and comely, with its creamy hide a contrast to black mane and
tail, legs encased in dark stockings pulled high. Joseph swung onto its back and, letting Lily use the stirrup, hauled her up behind him as if she weighed nothing.
Seona and Naomi stood breathless in the cabin doorway, Malcolm and the children clustered around them peering out, watching as they rode past. With one arm her mama clutched her box. The other hugged the Indian’s lean waist.
“Come quick as ye can, Seona!” she called as Joseph Tames-His-Horse heeled his mount into a canter, long black hair blowing back across Lily’s shoulders.
Seona arrived at the MacGregors’ farm half an hour later to find Willa’s Mohawk brother pacing the veranda, while through an open window on the upper floor the air was pierced by moans.
Joseph Tames-His-Horse descended the stairs and took the reins of Seona’s mount. “I will tend her,” he said, clearly relieved for something to do.
“Thank you.” The man looked only slightly less frantic than at their farm. Perhaps her mama hadn’t wasted breath on reassurances.
Seona found them in a bedroom abovestairs. Sweaty hair braided, Willa MacGregor squatted over an oilcloth spread on the floor, straining and red-faced, while Lily gripped her arms. The baby’s head was crowning. Seona grabbed a short stool, put it behind Willa, sat, and slipped her arms under the straining woman’s sweaty shoulders, pressing her knees under Willa’s elbows to lend support.
Freed to catch the baby, Lily kept her focus on Willa. “All right. Give a push with the next urge, and we’ll have this baby out.”
Seona felt Willa bear down, grunting through clenched teeth. She braced against the force of it with knees and gripping hands.
Lily crouched low. “Head’s out. Cord’s up around the neck. Don’t push again ’til I see it’s not too tight.”
Willa groaned with the effort it took not to push. “Is she all right?”
Seona could picture her mama’s fingers feeling between the pulsing loop of cord and the baby’s tender skin. A cord around a neck was common enough, usually no worry . . .
“Aye,” Lily said, relief flooding her tone. “It’s not hindering. Let’s finish this, Willa. One more push should do it.”
It did. Seona felt the sag of Willa’s weight. She lowered her to sitting. Lily had the baby on folded cloth, unwinding the cord from its neck. Two loops, another around its arm, no hindrance to its first lusty cries. Seona got a look at its nether regions.
“You knew it was a girl?”
“Almost certain,” Willa replied, exhausted, exultant. “Maggie will be happy. And Neil, of course. The boys wanted another brother.”
“Won’t they be surprised to find a sister when they get home from fishing.” Lily looked up and smiled at Seona, a knowing in her dark eyes.
“You knew too, Mama?”
“I may have.”
Seona hadn’t thought of it in a while, how her mama always guessed right about the babies she caught.
After the baby was washed, the afterbirth delivered, Willa tucked up in her bed with her daughter, Seona and Lily tidied the room, then made their way down to the kitchen to boil water for washing and to fetch something for Willa to eat.
“See, Mama,” Seona said as she pushed soiled linen down into the kettle with a battling stick. “You’re needed here—by more than me.”
“I’m just relieved it went well,” Lily said as she sliced bread from a loaf set out on Willa’s table. “I was thinking all the way over about the last birth I attended. Rebecca Allen’s.”
Seona found a water pitcher and a cup while her mama buttered the bread and put it with a bit of cheese she found. They headed for the stairs, silenced by recollection of the harrowing birth that claimed the life of one of Mountain Laurel’s neighbors and the babe that died with her, leaving its surviving twin motherless. Had that sorrow weighed on her mama all this time?
As they ascended the stairs, through a window on the landing Seona glimpsed Joseph Tames-His-Horse coming back from the stable. “Her brother’s still out there waiting on word.”
They entered the room, warmer now than when they had arrived. Lily set the plate on the bed. Seona poured water and handed the cup to Willa, who drank deep.
“Can your brother come in? He was mighty worried.”
“He will not come in,” Willa said. “It is not the Mohawk way. But he will want to know he has a namesake.”
“Ye’ll call her Josephine?” Lily asked.
Willa nodded, beaming at her tiny daughter.
“I’ll tell him,” Seona said.
Straightening from smoothing the bedcovers around Willa, Lily said, “No, Seona. I’ll go.”
The rising sun speared golden rays through the fir and spruce foresting that elevation, higher than the ridge that bounded Ian’s farm to the north. They had set out at sunrise, he and Joseph Tames-His-Horse, after Jamie MacGregor arrived in the predawn asking if Ian would accompany Willa’s brother to fetch Neil home.
Gone before Willa’s labor began the previous day, Neil had ridden several miles north to visit Hector Lacey, the old man living alone in a squatter’s shack on a mountainside. Willa presumed Neil had found Lacey in some need, for he hadn’t come home.
“Pa stays overnight with folk plenty times, but he doesn’t even know Josephine’s been born,” Jamie had said. “Matthew needs to take the black colt back to Colonel Waring today, so Uncle Joseph’s going for Papa, but Mama doesn’t want him riding out alone.”
“Aye,” Ian had said as he saddled Ruaidh by lantern light, recalling Joseph’s history with the Warings—Elias Waring hadn’t held him responsible for his eldest son’s death, considering it self-defense, but had issued a warning, forbidding Joseph from showing his face in Shiloh again.
Ian had found Joseph astride his dun mare, rifle balanced across his thighs, waiting outside the MacGregors’ stable. After Matthew relayed directions to Lacey’s isolated cabin, they had headed north along a trail that passed a tall boundary stone set on a hillock grown with laurel, then on into the rising terrain. Though still the height of summer, the morning was cool. Ian was glad of his coat, knowing he would shed it soon enough.
At a point where the track allowed riding abreast, Joseph told him Goodenough had come to the house yesterday afternoon—at which point he had concealed his presence. “My sister says the woman was surprised to find the babe already come. I was glad I had only to ride to the next farm to find help.”
Though Seona had returned home after the birth, Lily had spent the night at the MacGregors’, helping Maggie care for Willa and the baby.
“She is a skilled midwife?” Joseph asked.
“Goodenough? From what I hear.”
“Lily, I meant. Goodenough gave place to her and went back to the village.”
“Lily is, too,” Ian said, uncertain how much the man knew of their complicated connections. “Seona could be as well, with practice.”
“That one is your woman?” Joseph said, gaze trained on the trail ahead.
“Aye. Soon to be my wife.”
“I did not think of Lily as one of the grandmothers when I saw her running to me at your farm. She is young.” They reached a split in the trail. Joseph halted his horse. “Here is where we head east to Lacey’s cabin.”
Ian took the lead. For a mile of twisting trail that wound up stony ridges and descended again, they rode in silence. Then a section of the path shot straight under trees wide-spaced. Joseph brought his mare alongside Ian’s roan.
The man cut a striking figure on horseback, handsome but stern of feature, black hair falling past his shoulders, rifle at the ready. He had been a warrior in his youth. Now he was a carpenter. He farmed, too, though Ian had the notion his kin did most of the work on their land at Grand River, leaving Joseph free to hunt and roam for furs and skins to trade. And to visit his adopted sister and her family.
“Lily’s also handy with a needle,” Ian said, picking up their earlier conversation. “But living out on the farm as we do, I don’t know she’ll have much call fo
r the skill, beyond the needs of our own clan.”
Joseph nodded, leaving Ian to wonder had it been a good thing for Lily, leaving a city like Boston, where her skills could have been readily employed. Seona said her mother once spoke of finding a place where they could be independent, surviving on those very skills. Yet Lily had come along to New York as Seona predicted she would. Was she happy with that choice?
The trail steepened as it climbed another slope. At its top, faced with a thread of trail along its crest, they decided to dismount and walk their horses from there.
“Shouldn’t be much farther,” Ian said as he shouldered his rifle, reassured by its familiar weight. “If I mind Matthew’s directions.”
“Another mile past the ridge where we would decide to dismount.” Joseph’s mouth twisted slightly at the accuracy of Matthew’s prediction. “He is glad for a new sister. Though not half as glad as little Pine Bird—Maggie.”
Ian recalled it was Joseph who found Matthew and Maggie—calling themselves by their Mohawk names then—alone, astray, in need of mothering, and brought them to Willa, who had been alone and, if not astray, in need of being a mother.
“Have ye seen your namesake?” he called ahead to Joseph, now in the lead.
“Lily brought her out to me. Twice I have held her.”
“Ye didn’t go in to see Willa?”
Joseph slowed his pace. “In my lifetime much has changed for the Kanien’kehá:ka. Still I see wisdom in our traditions. A Mohawk woman who bears a child is secluded for a time. No man comes near her. Only women. But I will see my sister soon.”
Ian wondered what Joseph would think if he told the man he had acted as midwife in his own son’s birth.
Talk of sisters made him think of his own. He had left Catriona sleeping in their cabin that morning but recalled she had come home subdued after returning from Shiloh to find baby Josephine arrived. She had eaten little supper, gone to their cabin, been asleep before he could discover what might be amiss.
It had been a hard thing that sent her westward. He realized he had counted on her friendship with Maggie to supply her solace. And if that wasn’t enough? So focused on the farm, on Seona, Gabriel, Mandy—and the unnerving distraction of Aram Crane—he had neglected his sister, who doubtless needed more than a roof over her head and food in her belly.