Shiloh

by Lori Benton

  35

  Ian had lain awake half the night, worry writhing in his gut, distress fisted around his heart. The worry was Crane. The heart squeeze was Seona. Alone in his cabin while the rain made a drumming on the shingled roof, he had told her of the camp Matthew ruined, the traps he and Joseph found. “Aram Crane’s, we think.”

  Seona had clasped her arms across her middle and paced his cabin—as well as one might a space crowded with bed frames and trunks. The fire he had poked to life in the hearth crackled like the tension in the air.

  “What does it mean? He’s trapping game? Trapping us?” She faced him, cheeks drained of color. “Ian, our babies play at that wood’s edge.”

  Seeing on her stricken face the vision he had had at sight of metal jaws beside the trail, he crossed the cabin, meaning to take her in his arms. She stepped back, warning him off with a hand.

  “How close were those traps? Did you find them all?”

  “They were a mile and more up in the hills. And no, I cannot say we found them all.” He knew they hadn’t.

  “How can we live, afraid to step past the cabin-yard? This doesn’t feel like freedom to me. This feels like . . .”

  Bondage. She didn’t say it, but he heard it clear. Thoughts whirled like dust devils, battering his heart with accusation.

  “If it’s Crane, I’ll find him. But I cannot go haring off to comb the hills for a man who might be hiding in a hundred places, leaving my work undone and ye unguarded.”

  She looked, if anything, more frightened by his reassurance. “You can’t guard everyone every moment of the day. Beside, you let a canebrake into the dairy shed, you don’t go on milking. You root it out, kill it afore it strikes.”

  The mention of snakes jarred. As did her not so subtle laying of blame. Aram Crane might have returned to harass the MacGregors had Ian never set foot in Cooperstown with his gold to tempt the man, but he had let this threat into her world. No one else.

  “I intend to, Seona. I’m not the only one wants the man caught. Joseph means to hunt him.”

  “Then let Joseph go after Crane. You stay out of it.”

  “Did ye not just say ye wanted me to go after the man?”

  “I did . . . just don’t go getting killed on top of everything. I don’t want to be a widow afore I’m married!”

  That made no sense. He had started to say so, but she fled the cabin, out into the rain. He had let her go. Neither of them was in a fit frame of mind for reasoned discourse. She hadn’t said it, not in so many words, but he couldn’t deny Seona was doubting him. And her choice to come to Shiloh?

  The rain had let up soon after. Ally had headed down to the lower pasture to check on the cattle. At dusk he returned, saying the herd was uneasy. “Think a panther may be creeping round out there. Best I keep watch? I got that musket Matthew lent me.”

  Thinking it as likely a man doing the creeping as a critter, he had told Ally to bring the herd to the upper paddock. “The collies will let us know if anything troubles overnight.”

  Nip and Tuck hadn’t sounded an alarm. No noises but the ordinary reached Ian from beyond the cabin as he lay staring at the roof’s underbelly. When the window showed a hint of dawn, he rose and slipped on boots and coat, thinking to make a start on the school furnishings. Perhaps when Joseph arrived, he would be ready to load the wagon and head into Shiloh.

  He paused beside Mandy’s bed. Sight of his daughter’s sleeping face, lit by dawn’s half-light, so hollowed him with dread he hurled a prayer heavenward. God Almighty . . . help me keep them safe.

  He took up a lantern, unlit, and opened the cabin door. Across the yard a growl arose. A low voice hushed it.

  Ian exchanged lantern for rifle and shut the door softly. Above the trees the eastern sky had paled. With the rain cleared, the sky nearly cloudless, he discerned Ally standing in the yard, collies at his knees. All three staring toward the stable.

  Ian heard what had alerted them. The kick of more than one hoof against timber. Muffled whickers.

  “Something there,” Ally said at his approach. “Horses troubled.”

  Ian cocked his rifle. “Keep the dogs back. We don’t want them tangling with anything.” Beast or man, he didn’t add.

  On their way to the stable they passed the smokehouse. Its door hung open, latch pried clean off. “Ain’t no critter done that,” Ally whispered as they paused, a dog tucked under each big arm, ears trained toward the stable as they squirmed to get free.

  “Hold them, Ally. I’m going ahead.” A warbler commenced a terse twitchety-twitch call in the beeches as he started along the paddock fence behind the smokehouse. The stable’s lines grew clear in the coming dawn. Its doors were open.

  A ringing whinny cut the air—Ruiadh’s. Then Ian was running full out, rifle at the ready, boots thudding the earth, and nearly collided with the figure that bolted from the stable as he reached it. It was light enough to discern the bearded face seared into his mind since Cherry Valley.

  “Crane!” he shouted, staggering as he whirled to follow the man fleeing through the beech grove. Toward Seona’s cabin.

  Fear sped his feet, but Crane didn’t pause at the cabin. He ran flat out toward the harvested field studded with cornstalk sheaves, its farthest reaches shrouded in a mist drifting off the lake. As Ian reached the field, the collies streaked past him, vanishing between the sheaves. The light was swelling, but the mist lay low and creeping. Crane was lost to sight as Ian churned his way over broken ground, half-tripping on scythed stubs of stalks yet to be plowed back into the soil.

  Ahead came a snarl. A high-pitched yelp. Behind came a pounding.

  “No!” Ally cried as they came upon the dogs, one on the ground, the other milling about, nosing his brother. In that light Ian couldn’t tell them apart.

  “Stay with them, Ally!” Ian ran on, hoping it was in the right direction. Catching movement to his left—Crane darting into the pines that grew between field and lakeshore—he corrected his course but hadn’t reached the trees before a rifle shot cracked. By instinct he flung himself behind the last sheave, though he saw Crane drop. Hit? Or taking cover?

  Not hit. Crane was up again, staggering into the trees as Joseph Tames-His-Horse came out of the gray, bearing down from the north end of the lake.

  “Hie, Joseph! I’m with ye,” Ian called, but Joseph was intent on his quarry, who had reached a horse left hidden in the trees. Crane was mounted before Joseph reached him. Using his spent rifle as a club, the warrior came at the mounted man.

  Ian didn’t see where Crane had the long knife stowed. There was no outcry, save Crane’s urging the horse into a gallop, leaving Joseph on his knees, clutching an arm. As Ian reached him, the warrior lurched to his feet. They looked after Crane, but Ian didn’t get his rifle raised and aimed before mist swallowed man and mount, as they vanished toward the ridge.

  “Let him go,” Ian said on winded breath, hating the taste of the words as he lowered the rifle and turned back to Joseph. “Ye’re hurt.”

  Joseph took his hand from his torn shirtsleeve. Red bloomed in alarming abundance.

  Ally came out of the mist, a collie cradled in his arms. “Mister Ian, Tuck’s hurt. I gotta get him to Lily!”

  “Joseph’s hurt as well!” Ian hollered back.

  “Neil will tend it,” Joseph said through his teeth and started back around the lake.

  “Ally!” Ian shouted before he followed Willa’s brother. “I’m going with Joseph. Keep watch ’til I get back.”

  Seona bolted upright in bed, a gun’s report echoing in her ears. She reached for her mama to find Lily swinging her feet to the puncheon floor. Seona scrambled out of bed and went to Gabriel, awake and blinking. “Mama . . . ?”

  “That was over by the lake,” Lily said, crossing to the window to peer into the gray.

  “One of the MacGregor boys hunting geese?” Seona hefted Gabriel into her arms. “There, baby. It’s all right.”

  “I hear shouting from over tha
t way,” Lily said.

  “Take him, Mama. I’m going to see.” Seona pried loose Gabriel’s clinging arms, then grabbed up her shawl and hurried out, feet bare on cold ground, hair curling loose down her back.

  “Take care, Seona!”

  Lily’s admonition trailed her into the yard, where other voices met her. Naomi and Catriona, holding Mandy, had come out of their cabins to look off toward the lake. Naomi started her way. “What on earth? Ally!”

  Seona rounded her cabin to see Ally coming at a run from the cornfield, something cradled against his broad chest. One of the collies raced ahead, streaking past her into the yard. The sun’s first light hit Ally as he cleared the sheaves.

  “Lily! Help.”

  Seona turned back, saw Malcolm in his cabin doorway. Catriona, Mandy, Naomi. Everyone but . . . “Where’s Ian?”

  Ally halted in the yard with his armful of bleeding collie. “Mister Ian helping Joseph!”

  “Joseph?” Lily had come outside, Gabriel on her hip.

  Naomi reached them. “Boy of mine, you tell what’s happening and tell it straight.”

  Ally sucked in a breath, big arms trembling. “We catched a Crane sneaking round, Mama—me and Mister Ian, Nip, and Tuck. Or that’s what Mister Ian called the man. We run him off into the field and went after. Collies got him first. He cut up Tuck afore we got to ’em. Then Joseph popped up from somewhere and shot at the Crane, but I reckon the Crane cut him too. Ian’s gone with him for Mister Neil to stitch up. But, Lily, you got to patch Tuck!”

  Seona was too stunned to move. “Aram Crane? He was here?”

  “Who we talking about?” Naomi demanded, staring from one face to another. “Am I the only one don’t know?”

  A glance told Seona she might well be. Catriona’s gaze held knowledge of the man. So did her mama’s and Malcolm’s. Seona guessed Maggie had told Ian’s sister. How her mama and Malcolm found out about Crane, she didn’t know. And who knew about the gold now?

  “How badly is he injured?” Lily asked. “Joseph, I mean.”

  Ally shook his head. “Don’t know. But Tuck . . .”

  Though she looked torn between helping the dog and racing off after Ian and Joseph, Lily swung Gabriel to his feet. “Bring him inside, Ally; put him on the table. Catriona, light some candles.”

  Catriona passed Mandy to Naomi to do as Lily bade. Everyone else hovered in the cabin doorway while Ally held his collie and Lily examined the wound. Though she heard Catriona explaining to Naomi who Aram Crane was, distantly aware that no one else seemed to know what cause the man had for snooping around their place, Seona kept hold of the children, crouched inside the door, watching her mama work.

  “Mister Ian bid me keep watch on everyone,” Ally said while Lily parted the fur on Tuck’s flank, following the bleeding gash. He raised pained eyes. “It bad?”

  “It’s clean, not too deep. A few stitches and a cleaning will do. Hold him now.”

  With the wound stitched, Tuck was able to limp out of the cabin. Ally went out with his dogs and his grandfather to discover the extent of Crane’s meddling.

  “Lord help us . . . guess we still need breakfast,” Naomi said and went out, too, leaving Seona and the children in the cabin.

  “Where’s Catriona?” Seona asked, having no idea when she had slipped away.

  “Dressing, no doubt,” Lily said. “We best do the same.”

  Seona stared at a spatter of Tuck’s blood on the table, another smear across her mama’s nightshift. Mandy and Gabriel clung to her shaking knees. Lily, she realized, had asked no questions about Aram Crane.

  “Mama, you knew—about Crane and the gold?”

  “Joseph told me—I overheard talk between him and Neil MacGregor whilst I was there, so I asked. I’m guessing Ian has it hid somewhere?”

  Seona nodded. “He was here, Mama—that man. I hoped at least on the farm we were . . .” She glanced down at the wide-eyed children clutching her shift. Safe, she didn’t add.

  Petticoat tied, Lily fastened a short gown. Still barefoot, she crossed to the table and took up her simples box. Instead of putting it away, she clutched it, staring at nothing.

  “Mama . . . what is it?”

  Lily looked up, worry in her gaze. “Maybe I should go.”

  Seona couldn’t believe her ears. “To the MacGregors’? With that man out there lurking?”

  “Bad man, Mama?” Mandy asked.

  “The bad man huht Tuck!” Gabriel said, little brows drawn fierce over frightened eyes.

  Seona put a hand on each of their heads, but dread made her voice shrill. “Neil’s tending Joseph, Mama—you heard Ally. And you can’t go off alone.”

  The cabin door opened. Ian’s sister came in, dressed for riding. “I’ve saddled Juturna. Come with me, Lily. Nothing will catch us on her.”

  “It’s time to end this, Pa!”

  Neil MacGregor, intent on his work in a room off the kitchen that served for a surgery, calmly stitched the gash down Joseph Tames-His-Horse’s left arm, while Matthew argued for riding after Aram Crane.

  “How long will we let that wretch roam free to kill and maim?”

  “Your uncle is hardly maimed,” Willa, watching the procedure, said. “It is but a scratch.” Despite her words—no doubt in part for the benefit of Jamie and Liam, crowded into the surgery door—tension weighed the look she shot Joseph, seated bare-chested on the examining table.

  Matthew turned to Ian, standing inside the door, hands stained with blood. “Will Ally come with us?”

  “He has his hands full with his wee dog. Crane wounded it.” He hoped that was all.

  “Matthew’s right, Pa,” Jamie said, looking scared but determined. “We gotta do something.”

  “Liam and Jamie,” Willa said, “there is work in the stable waiting. Go see to it.”

  “Aw, Mama . . . ,” Liam moaned, but his brother caught him by the arm and towed him away.

  Joseph inspected the long row of sutures down his arm. “You are done?”

  “Stitching, aye.” Hands as bloodied as Ian’s, Neil set aside a basin and red-stained cloths. “But sit ye still, big man. I mean to make a dressing and wrap the worst of it.”

  “Dress it, then let’s go,” Matthew said, taking up his brothers’ post at the door.

  An infant’s hungry wail heralded Maggie’s appearance, baby Josephine at her shoulder. “Somebody wants her mama.” She winced as her red-faced sister squalled in her ear. “And I hope you don’t mean to go anywhere,” she added, fixing brother, uncle, and neighbor in a sweeping glance. “I mean to set up my school cabin—if not today, then tomorrow. You’ve yet to finish the desks. I’ve covered the window, but there’s the door needing rehung.”

  Sharing a look with Neil, Willa took the baby and left the room to tend her. As the cries diminished, Ian noted Maggie’s face, grief-lined but set with purpose.

  Sympathy tempered Matthew’s scowl. “Maggie . . . hold off opening the school. Let us catch this villain first. It’s dangerous—”

  “Of course it is,” Maggie cut in. “But we can’t stop living our lives. Catriona and I don’t intend to. We’re going to teach. I need desks and a door that fastens to do so.”

  “I’m no’ as handy wi’ a hammer as these two, mo nighean,” her father said, nodding at Joseph and Ian. “But if my help can speed them along, ye have it.”

  How long was it, Ian wondered, since Neil had seen such a spark in his daughter’s eyes? There could be no question of quenching it.

  Maggie’s smile was a candle’s flaring. “I know, Papa. But weren’t you saying just last night you meant to ride out to check on old Mr. Lacey?”

  “Aye,” Neil said with a wave. “Tomorrow, most like. I could help today.”

  “You’ve other patients.” Maggie caught her brother’s gaze. “Please, Matthew. Will you help them?”

  Matthew compressed his lips, then loosed an exasperated sigh. “All right, but then—”

  “Then,” Neil sa
id, fixing his son with an uncompromising stare, “ye’ll go to Colonel Waring and get his blessing to raise as many men as will ride wi’ ye to go after Crane. The more the better.”

  Matthew’s scowl descended. “Pa . . .”

  “Satahonhsatat,” Joseph said in so commanding a tone Ian would have obeyed it had he grasped the word’s meaning.

  Matthew understood it. Still scowling, he gave a jerky nod. “I’ll saddle the horses.”

  He strode from the surgery as the last person Ian expected to see entered—Lily, with her simples box. Looking past her, Ian asked, “Has Seona come?” He didn’t want her seeing Joseph’s wound. She was already terrified of Crane. How was she now, knowing the man had trespassed on their farm?

  Lily shook her head, taking in the gash down Joseph’s arm. “Aram Crane did that to ye?”

  “He’s survived worse,” Neil said as Joseph reached for his bloodied shirt, crumpled on the table beside him. “I’ve sutured it, as ye can see. I mean to apply—”

  “Honey dressing’s good,” Lily blurted, still clutching her box. As all gazes settled on her, she lowered hers. “Ally said ye were injured, Joseph. I didn’t know how badly.”

  “Tsigalili.” A corner of Joseph’s mouth lifted as he raised his injured arm a few inches, the only evidence of the pain it caused a tightening around his mouth. “You see I am well enough.”

  The use of Lily’s Cherokee name caught Ian off guard, but Maggie asked, “Did you come alone, Lily, or is Catriona with you?”

  “We rode together,” Lily said. “I don’t think she came into the house.”

  “I’ll find her.” Brightening, Maggie went out in search of Ian’s sister.

  “Though I dinna suppose ye’ll pay me heed,” Neil was telling Joseph as he brought out honey from a cabinet, herbs to mix with it, “ye’d do well to give that arm a day or two to start mending before ye set your hands to anything reckless.”

  Lily glanced at Ian, question in her gaze. Thinking it best not to discuss the particulars of hunting their dangerous quarry in front of Seona’s mother, he nodded at Joseph. “Ye’ll find me in the shop. Take your time, aye?”