Scattered Seeds, page 23
Edward noticed stretch marks on her belly and looked away.
Lemuel seemed to sense his discomfort. “I told Clara she’d have a new gown in the spring.”
Henry, who looked everywhere but at the girl, said, “How will she bear the cold this winter? We have spare feedbags and a breechclout. She could sew them into a shirt for herself, mayhap something for the lad, as well.”
“I ain’t got money, not even paper notes of the province. From what you’ve said, it seems I’m better off than most, having been left in peace to harvest my grain, but I got no way to get it to market. Clara will not budge, and I can’t leave her alone with only the boy.”
Edward said, “If your grain holds until spring, we can take it wi’ ours to market. Until then, take the bags, or, at the very least, the breechclout.” He rubbed the lump on his forehead, careful not to disturb the new scab there. “I would be glad to be rid of it.”
“Much obliged, but we’ll get by. Looks like you ran into some trouble along your way.”
“Injuns, two of them.”
Clara slid what looked like a deer’s scapula under a corncake to flip it onto a trencher.
Lemuel handed the meal to Henry, along with a small jug. “Pour that on there. The trees by the creek are good for tapping.”
Henry took a bite and licked his fingers. “It’s lovely. Clara, ye’re a good cook.”
She waved away his compliment and ladled more batter onto the griddle.
Lemuel asked, “Whereabouts did you see these Injuns?”
Edward answered, since Henry’s mouth was full. “About two hours from the Juniata, where the creek makes a sharp turn and crosses a plain.”
“Sounds like the beaver flats.”
“Aye, there were signs of beavers there, wolves too.”
Lemuel’s neck stiffened. “Wolves? I’ve never seen any in these parts.”
“They’re here now. I’d put the stock in the barn at night.”
“We do anyway, though we have little to fear from the local tribe. They live about a mile up the creek.”
“That close?”
“Big Turtle will give you no trouble you don’t deserve. He’s Chief Kishacoquillas’s nephew. You ever heard of Chief Kish?”
“Canny say I have.”
“Chief Kish was a good man, a friend to the English. He lived a ways up the Juniata, near Arthur Buchanan’s place. Died last year at Harris’s. It ain’t his folk you need to be scared of. It’s the damn Delaware you have to look out for. These Injuns you saw . . . what did they look like?”
“They were painted black and red. One wore a turtle shell and the other a—”
“Copper gorget.” Lemuel smiled and nodded his head. “Aye, those are two of our locals, Black Snake and Yellow Hawk, sons of Big Turtle. I heard they were heading east to speak for Big Turtle at a council. A farce, if you ask me, but you can’t tell the Injuns that. For belts of shells and cheap kettles, they send their sons to war for their white fathers in France and England.”
“One of them is dead.” Edward pointed at his head. “The other gave me this.”
Lemuel blasted smoke. “Dead? Which one?”
“The one with the gorget.”
“Yellow Hawk? Jesus Christ, man, did you kill him?”
“We found them at the creek. The one was already dead, and I thought the other one was, too. Turns oot he was alive enough to nearly crack open my skull.”
“Believe me, if Black Snake meant to crack open your skull you’d be picking your brains out of the trees.” Lemuel set his pipe on the mantel. “Yellow Hawk, dead. I can’t believe it. This will hit Big Turtle hard. He’s only got two sons left now, Black Snake and Magi. I only saw Magi once, and from a distance, but Black Snake’s been by a time or two. Friendly enough.”
“Do ye speak their language?”
“A word or two, but there’s little need for it. Most of them speak at least a few words of English.”
“Then that heathen understood all we said,” Henry said from the corner. “Yet he did nae offer a word in English.”
Lemuel chuckled. “It’s a trick they pull, and a good one. They’ve learned by experience that men who judge them ignorant speak freely. They learn much by their silence.”
His expression turned serious. “I wonder who attacked them? Lots of distant tribes flowing through these parts on their way to council, so it could be just about anybody, but I’ll bet it was old Captain Jacobs.”
“Is he stationed at a fort hereabouts?”
Clara snickered and flipped another corncake.
Lemuel said, “Captain Jacobs ain’t stationed anywhere. He’s a Delaware chief, and a damn mean one. His real name’s Tewea. A settler gave him the nickname. Said he looked like a burly German he knew. The nickname stuck.”
Edward’s pipe had gone out. He handed it to Lemuel, who set it on the mantelpiece next to his own.
“Tewea,” Edward repeated, “Henry, was that the word Black Snake kept saying?”
Henry pushed the last bite of corncake through syrup puddled on his trencher. “Sounded more like Tota.”
Lemuel fell against the wall as if the floor had suddenly turned to a raft on rapids. “Are you sure?”
“Aye.” Henry shielded his mouth with sticky fingers. “The word was Tota.”
Lemuel gave a heavy sigh. “Tota is the Shawanese word for Frenchman.”
“There was an S-name, too,” Henry said, sucking syrup off his index finger. “Shinkusk? Shingask?”
“Shingas?” Lemuel’s voice was barely audible.
“Aye.” Henry slapped his thigh. “That was it.”
Edward leaned forward. “What does it mean?”
“It’s the name of the Delaware king, a man renowned for his brutality, even among his own kind. He turned after Braddock’s defeat. Supports the bloody French now.” He stared through the open doorway. “It’s one thing to have a few Frenchmen traipsing through, but if Shingas is with them, then we’d all better learn to see out the backs of our heads.”
Despite Lemuel’s assurances that the local tribe was peaceful, Edward was in no mood to test their hospitality, especially since Black Snake would recognize them and, perhaps, fabricate a story implicating them in Yellow Hawk’s death.
So, instead of taking the easy walk along the creek, they crossed it and climbed Turkey Ridge, nearly straight up, with the ox stumbling and practically crawling on its knees.
Edward carried the tomahawk, and Henry kept a death grip on the hammer. Both of them eyed the forest while monitoring their packs carefully. If the load shifted and the beast tumbled back down to the creek, it would die.
Henry and the ox crested the ridge first. “Look!” Henry pointed at something in the valley below.
Edward hurried as much as his painful hip would allow. In the far corner of the valley, two creeks converged at a verdant square. “That must be our field.” A wave of joy overcame him. He laughed and lifted Henry and his hammer off the ground, careful not to cut him with the tomahawk. “We made it, Henry! We made it!”
Henry chuckled, and Edward released him to inspect their distant field through watering eyes. “Och, Henry, imagine putting our feet up at our own hearth and sleeping under our own roof again.”
He looked back and saw a corner of Lemuel Tanner’s field. He turned to mention it when a branch swayed in the periphery of his vision.
The ox saw it, too. It bellowed and tore the rope out of Henry’s grasp, bolting away from five Indians who leapt from behind a cluster of stump sprouts. The vermillion-painted warriors charged, whooping their awful vibrato screeches and wielding clubs above their heads.
Edward threw the tomahawk with all his might. It somersaulted through the air and split the forehead of a man who fell like sawn timber, tripping two more warriors.
Two others sprang at Henry, who knocked one out with his hammer before losing his grip on the tool.
The remaining Indian attacked before Edward could move.
“Ooph.” Henry slammed against the ground, rolled onto his belly, and tried to crawl away.
One Indian grabbed his ankles and hauled him back to another who straddled Henry’s back and snatched his hair, flexing his neck at an unnatural angle.
“Henry!” Edward ducked under a thrown tomahawk and heard its blade sink into a nearby tree. He leapt toward Henry, but a warrior caught him by his shirt. The garment tore as he spun and grabbed a fallen branch from the ground and swung it. The end of the branch splintered against the temple of the man holding Henry’s ankles, and the warrior wilted to the ground.
Edward roared and grabbed the ball of a war club poised to strike Henry’s skull. He yanked it—and the man clutching it—off his son’s back.
Henry staggered to his feet and plucked the tomahawk from the tree. He blindly thrashed the weapon at a smirking man twice his size while Edward held another against the ground and pounded his greasy face until the man writhed no more.
Edward sprang off the nearly unconscious man and leapt for the warrior sparring with Henry. Midway there, the man he’d struck with the branch shoved him against a tree and knocked the wind out of him.
With no air to support his body, he could do nothing when the warrior he thought dead caught Henry by his neckerchief and a part of his shirt collar.
Henry twisted away, tearing the flimsy fabric in the process and sending him sprawling beside Edward, the tomahawk still in his hands.
The torc, now fully revealed, reflected the filtered sunlight.
The two conscious Indians dropped their arms to their sides and stared at the gold with their mouths agape until something behind Henry and Edward spread terror across their faces. All of them backed away slowly, defensively.
Edward peered around the tree.
There, with saliva dripping from quivering lips and bared teeth, an arc of wolves approached, their heads low to the forest floor. The animals stalked past them, seemingly unaware of their presence, and placed themselves, growling, with ears pinned down, like a wall between them and their attackers.
The warrior Edward battered wobbled to his hands and knees and reached for his club, which lay an arm’s length in front of him. A black wolf lunged and snapped its jaws within inches of the man’s face. He abandoned hope of retrieving his weapon, bowed submissively, and slunk away, trembling, on his hands and knees.
The warriors retreated, carefully dragging their dead and injured with them until the shadows of the forest devoured them and the woods returned to silence.
The wolves remained as though frozen.
Edward longed to look for the poor ox, whose fate he dreaded, but he feared any movement would bring the wolves upon them. They were hideous things, larger than their European counterparts, with matted coats, unholy yellow eyes, and stinking of blood and piss.
Beside him, Henry fingered the torc.
The black wolf whirled and stalked toward them, its ferocious jaws level with Henry’s throat. It halted about ten feet away, crouched, and licked its lips.
The fittest male, their leader. The kill would be his.
Edward eased his feet under his rump and prepared to shield his son. “When they go for us,” he whispered, “step on my back and climb the tree. They’ll eat me and go away.”
“Do nae talk so dumb.” Henry slid the tomahawk off his lap.
“By John Calvin’s holiest sermon, son, stop moving and do as I say.”
Henry leaned forward. “It will nae come to that.”
“Henry, sit still.” Edward’s heart hammered against his chest. “Stay still, for God’s sake.” Had the lad been struck senseless in the scuffle? He pulled on Henry’s bare arm, where a welt was already rising.
The black wolf prowled closer, its nostrils flared and glistening.
“It will nae hurt us, Father.” He tapped the torc. “The witch promised Somerled that dogs would serve and protect him and his forever.”
“This is no time to test—”
His own gasp severed his words as Henry reached for the wolf. Edward found his own streak of profanity then. “Jaysus Lord Christ, son of the one true God, Henry, sit still!”
With his eyes still on the lead wolf, he slapped at Henry’s outstretched arm, but Henry leaned away, and Edward’s palm thumped the ground.
The wolf stretched its neck far enough to sniff Henry’s fingertips, then whined and sprang away, disappearing with its pack into the forest.
For a long while, Edward strained to hear anything over his own heartbeat and panting breaths. When he was certain the wolves were gone, he wiped sweat from his brow and retched. Using the tree for support, he stood on trembling legs. “Where is your sense, Henry? Ye could have been killed.”
“Where’s the ox?” was Henry’s only reply.
Oh, shite, the ox.
“I’ll look for him.” Edward wobbled along a deer trail scored into the ridge, expecting to find the ox’s entrails at every turn. Instead, he found the animal shitting on their supplies, which had slid off its back when the beast became tangled in briars.
In the next hollow over, the wolves howled.
He shivered and wondered how he would ever enjoy a full night’s sleep in such a wild and terrifying place.
Chapter 36
Edward kicked over a stone in William’s field, exposing the rich loam. “Look at that. Wheat’s gonny grow sky-high here.” He pointed to the far corner of the field. “And there, imagine the beans and potatoes we can grow there.”
“We’ll have to burn it off and plow around the stumps,” Henry said.
The attack atop Turkey Ridge left his shirt in tatters, exposing his prominent ribs and a sizeable bruise on his flank. He wore his Sunday neckerchief—his old one was good for nothing now except threads and patches—and its pristine condition mismatched the rest of his attire. Edward stared at it and tried to remember when he saw it last.
Was it at the chapel?
“Father?”
Or was it at a wake?
“Father?”
Edward snapped out of his reverie. “Eh?”
“The stumps. I was saying we’ll have to plow around the stumps.” Henry eyed him curiously. “Are ye ill? Ye look like boiled shite.”
“I’m grand. Just tired and ready for a good night’s sleep.” But Edward wasn’t grand. He was done in. “The stumps, aye. Mayhap left o’er from the trees William used to build the cabin. We must be close.” In spite of his fatigue, his pulse quickened at the prospect of reaching their destination, at last. Rest lay in their immediate future, and he was glad of it.
“I was thinking, too, that we must be close,” Henry said. “The field’s good, real good. Rocky yet, but I’ll soon sort that. If we have a mild winter, we can build a byre, someplace to store the harvest until we can get it to market.”
His confidence in the torc’s protection unwavering, Henry no longer looked behind them.
Edward was less certain, but he happily allowed Henry any belief that comforted him and kept him walking.
They crossed the field where ears of corn nodded on stray stalks. Edward twisted one off and peeled away the husk. “Look at that.” He showed Henry the rows of kernels. “The ground seeds itself! I expected some seed on an ear, but not this much.” He counted no less than thirty such stalks, though wildlife had molested some. “There’s enough seed here for a decent spring planting. Had I known that, I would nae have bought seed corn.” His spirits soared with the unexpected boon. “I should nae be surprised. William ne’er did anything half-arsed. I expect the cabin will be as grand, when we find it.” He strained to see a building, or at least a path leading to one.
They intended to hustle the rest of the way across the field, but the ox had no knowledge of their proximity to the journey’s end and shared none of their rejuvenation of spirit. It only knew it was exhausted and aching. They’d pushed the beast to its limits, and an earlier misstep on a sharp rock left it with a painful slice between its toes.
Edward would be glad when the poor animal lazed in a corral, even more delighted when its wound scabbed over. Foot rot claimed many cattle. Little of their costly paste remained, thanks to him.
“There it is!” Henry pointed to a copse of pines, where a dismal structure crouched on a rise about twenty yards above the creek. A dead branch teetered on its roof, hurled there by a lightning strike, if its scorched end was any clue.
Edward shuddered to think what they’d be looking at if the branch had caught fire.
The cabin’s door hung open and crooked on a damaged strap, evidence of a break-in. His spirits fell, and he chased away mounting anxiety by reminding himself of his brother’s good judgment. William was no idiot; he would leave nothing of value within easy reach.
They tied the ox to a bough, then rushed inside their new home. William’s plow sat in the middle of the room, which was dim and reeking of old smoke, must, and pine. Some of the chinking between the logs had given way and poured in dusty peaks onto the planks near the walls. They would replace that immediately or suffer the constant whistle and chill of wintry drafts. The roof, made of birchbark shingles, leaked judging by the chronic water damage staining the floor.
A line of carpenter ants trailed up the walls past a spider as broad as Edward’s hand. In the corners, acorn caps and hickory nut hulls lay in piles. Leaves filled the hearth.
