A Flight of Arrows (42 page)

T
hey stepped from the trees in answer to the summons, sharing a glance as they passed into the firelight's edge. Mirrored in his brother's eyes were the conflicting emotions roiling in William's soul: fear and determination, uncertainty and wonder—at a Presence at work beyond that of flesh and blood.

That sense of flesh and blood alone was all but overwhelming. The brother beside him, the father who'd called them forth…they were his, and his heart was leaping like a crazed thing, swelling with a joy that had taken him unawares. Joy mingled with the dread of losing what he'd just found. Two Hawks had presumed their father meant to trick the Senecas into thinking he desired vengeance against Reginald Aubrey, that he had the higher claim on him as a prisoner. What was Stone Thrower doing now, talking of forgiveness and calling them forth?

The Senecas murmured as they watched them come into the fire's light. A few warriors strode forward as he and Two Hawks halted beside their father, but only the spokesman came near enough to look into their faces, frowning.

“These are your sons? Two-born-together?”

Two Hawks, shoulder pressed to William's, murmured what the man had said, but William could read that pull of brows, the indecision in the hard eyes darting between their faces. William's gaze shot past the Indian to see Reginald Aubrey looking back at him with longing, plain through his mask of blood.

Father
. A buzzing erupted in William's head. The spot where he'd
been struck throbbed, bone and bruised flesh echoing his heart's pounding.

“One son raised among the People, one raised white,” Stone Thrower was saying, the unfettered pride in his voice crashing over William before Two Hawks translated the words. “These are my sons.”

Father
. If their fate teetered on a knife edge among these Senecas, another blade cleaved William's heart. He stood upon it, fixed to topple, but couldn't say upon which side he would fall. Only his brother's voice, providing clipped abridgement as the debate went on, kept him balanced on that edge.

“They are warriors,” one of the Senecas who'd objected to Stone Thrower's presence from the beginning spat. He jerked his chin at Two Hawks. “That one I remember from the battle.”

Stone Thrower moved a half step nearer Two Hawks. “This son of mine was in the battle also to find his brother. If he was forced to defend himself while doing so, it was not done gladly. Nor was it with joy that I went into that ravine. But to find my lost son, it was needful.” Stone Thrower searched the faces of the Senecas, who gave him back his stare with varying levels of hostility. “Where is he who took the prisoner? Let him say what his eyes saw in that moment.”

The warriors exchanged looks. None came forward to claim the taking of Reginald Aubrey.

“Some are hunting and may not return this night.” The chief warrior waved the matter aside. “If we let this man go with you, what will you give in exchange?”

William blinked at the gazes leveled at them as his brother whispered the war chief's demand. They had nothing to trade for a man. Except another man. And Stone Thrower knew it. Two Hawks was staring at their father, who was looking between them with a gaze both tender and sorrowful. William felt the breath sucked from his chest as a horrific comprehension began to dawn.

Then a new voice shouted from the darkness.

Every face turned to see who now approached, a gray-haired warrior carrying the wrapped pieces of a butchered deer across wiry shoulders, wearing a coat William recognized as Aubrey's. Two Hawks leaned close to translate what the Indian was saying as he approached, but William only half took it in. He was frantically reading expressions, trying to discern the look of cautious relief on the face of Reginald Aubrey, that of recognition on Stone Thrower's as he held out a hand to the old man who slung the deer meat to the ground and clasped the proffered arm.

His name, Two Hawks told him, was Blue-Tailed Lizard. “He is the one who laid hands on Aubrey during battle,” his brother added, voice stretched with hope now as well as apprehension. “Our father is telling him why we are here, what this is about.”

William struggled to understand. Was this man their last chance of getting out of this, the four of them alive and whole?

Blue-Tailed Lizard listened patiently to Stone Thrower's words, then looked long at William, at Two Hawks, then at Reginald Aubrey. His puckered lips pursed tight, curving downward in displeasure. But a glint of something else showed in his hooded gaze. Curiosity? Speculation? Or was it calculation?

William's gaze snapped from warrior to warrior, watching eyes, hands, tensed for one of them to lose patience and reach for a blade. Amid the thickening tension, the chief warrior said something Two Hawks didn't translate.

Blue-Tailed Lizard shook his head. “What this warrior has told you about his sons is true. I know this to be so, for it was in my lodge he dwelled when he lived among us at Ganundasaga. At that time I followed the words of the missionary. I even helped persuade this warrior to follow Kirkland's Jesus. You know that after a time it became a hard path to follow, tangled and overgrown. I lost the path and did not try to find it again.”

The old man put a ropey hand to Stone Thrower's shoulder, then turned to his Seneca companions. “Perhaps I was not clear sighted enough to stay on the path this man has walked. Look well on him. Here he stands with the son he lost twenty summers past, a son restored to him and to the one born with him.” With his other hand he gestured toward the fire, where Reginald knelt. “And there is the one of which this man always spoke about in those days—the redcoat officer who took his son.”

Turning again to Stone Thrower, he asked, “And it is your wish he not suffer for it?”

“He has suffered enough,” Stone Thrower said, swallowing visibly over the words as though they came with an upwelling of grief. “I do not wish him to suffer more.”

The old warrior searched Stone Thrower's resolute face, his own eyes narrowed to slits. William waited, sharing a glance with Two Hawks, gone ashen faced in the fire's ruddy light, as if he saw more clearly the direction this talk was headed, and it dismayed him.

William was completely at sea now. The old warrior's words of their father had seemed to offer hope, at least the way his brother translated them. What was causing Two Hawks such bleakness of expression?

“I was coming now to make my claim on the prisoner,” Blue-Tailed Lizard went on. “I thought to keep him alive for my women to kill—or to let you here do it, if that is what seemed best.” The old warrior's grip on Stone Thrower's shoulder tightened. “But I have heard this one's speech and it has changed my thinking. He has forgiven that one there for the taking of his son. This we all have heard. What is more, there is that son restored to him. What need has he now of vengeance? But
our
dead are still dead. Even so I will do as he wishes. I will give that one,” he said, bending his chin again toward Reginald Aubrey, “to the mother of these young warriors of his to do with as she pleases.”

Shouts of protest started up from all quarters before Two Hawks could finish translating. William, daring to hope, wrenched his gaze from
that gnarled hand clasping his father's shoulder and turned to his brother, who finished in a barely comprehensible rush, his last words swallowed by a groan.

Stone Thrower, hearing it, caught his second-born's gaze, his own resolved, yet his eyes…such deep wells of sorrow and regret. The relief that had surged so briefly through William crumbled like dust. Something was wrong. He turned frantically to his brother for explanation. Before Two Hawks could say a word, the chief warrior held up his hand for silence.

“This warrior, our elder, has a voice in this matter. It is true he was first to lay hands on the prisoner. Let him finish speaking if he has more to say.” He nodded to the old man to continue.

“I do have more to say, so listen.” To the angry warriors, Blue-Tailed Lizard said, “A man is free to choose his path. The Jesus path this warrior has chosen may seem a strange one to you, even foolish, but for him it would seem it is good. Strong. There are words that go with this path, and some of them I have not forgotten. I will speak them to you, but first there is this I must do.”

Blue-Tailed Lizard released Stone Thrower and crossed the firelight to Reginald Aubrey, shouldering younger warriors aside. No one raised a hand to stop him. Taking hold of their prisoner's arm, the old man hauled him to his feet. He waited for the prisoner to steady himself on legs that wobbled, then reached inside the coat he wore and took out three strings of white beads.

Wampum
, William thought, mystified by their significance.

“These I found in the coat I took off this one,” he said, turning in the firelight to address Stone Thrower. “You know them?”

Stone Thrower had taken an involuntary step toward them but was stopped by a motion from the chief warrior. “They belong to him,” he said, nodding at Reginald. “They were given by my hand for a sign of the friendship that is between us. Between his blood and my blood.”

Blue-Tailed Lizard put the wampum strings into Reginald's bound hands, then marched him to stand before Stone Thrower.

“Now I will say the words of the missionary that I have not forgotten. These are the words: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' ” The Indian made a show of looking at Reginald, straight into his face. Then he did the same to Stone Thrower. “You have called this man friend. Are you willing to trade your life for his, to show your heart for your Creator Jesus is true?”

Two Hawks stumbled in his speech as he interpreted for William, as if his lips had gone numb over the words. Their import—and compelling force—sank into William's heart. Two Hawks turned to him a devastated gaze, even as their father gave his answer.

Two Hawks didn't interpret it. There was no need.

A moment of utter silence followed, broken only by the fire's sputtering. Then around them rose the triumphant screams of warriors who wanted blood and were certain now that they would get it.

A
s eager yelps and screams rose around him, Reginald clenched the white shell beads until they bit into his palms, chilled to his marrow not for the terror of impending violence against himself—though he still expected it—but for the growing sense that he was no longer the only one in mortal jeopardy. He'd understood nothing of what had passed between Stone Thrower and these Senecas, save what could be interpreted through body language, but now all gazes were fixed on Stone Thrower; in most of them bloodlust welled. All save William's and Two Hawks's. In their eyes he read horror, denial, desperation.

That told him all he needed to know.

Reginald's next thoughts came in fragments, spiked with terror, shock, and dismay. Figures moved in the firelight, erratic, bewildering. He tried to keep Stone Thrower in his sights, and William, and Two Hawks, who'd shaken off his shock and was beseeching his father, arguing with the old warrior who'd thrust the beads into his hands and left him standing there, discarded and forgotten.

A fresh slick of cold sweat washed down Reginald's face. He had made his peace with his own death. He'd been ready to face whatever came. But not this.

Two Hawks and Stone Thrower spoke urgently to each other, but their words were in Oneida, beyond Reginald's understanding with such tumult surrounding them.

“You needn't have done this!” he rasped in a half shout, trying to make himself heard before this horde of angry Senecas descended upon
them with more than screams. “I would have gone with them! Or died here!”

Though Two Hawks and William stood near, grasping at their father, Stone Thrower bent his full attention now to Reginald, features fierce with determination, his gaze filled with his unshielded heart. The force and fullness of it was unlike anything Reginald had ever seen—the acceptance, the urgency, the faith. The love. And not just for his sons.

“It is done,” he said to Reginald, grasping his arm with a strength unyielding. “There is no undoing it.”

Neither William nor Two Hawks had ceased their pleading for him to not do this thing. To find another way.

“My sons,” Stone Thrower said, cutting off their pleas, “if you do not take this one away now, get him safe from here, what I am doing will be for nothing and we shall all be killed this night!”

Again Stone Thrower turned the force of that luminous gaze on Reginald, looking into his eyes, strong hand gripping hard enough to bruise. “Listen to me. You must be a father to both of my sons now.
Our
sons. You must do this for me. For their mother. Be to me as a brother and care for my family.”

Blue-Tailed Lizard and the chief warrior were pressing close, pulling at them, wading in to separate them from their chosen captive.

“By Creator's grace and strength you will do this!” Stone Thrower shouted to make himself heard, and despite the declaration there was a note of question in the words.

“You have my promise!” Reginald knew his voice, broken with emotion, could never carry, but saw that Stone Thrower, gaze fixed on his lips, had read the words. There was time for nothing else. Nothing else Reginald might say could matter more. He'd have promised the man his life's blood had he asked for it, but that was a thing Stone Thrower was offering for him. For all of them. They must leave this terrible clearing, with all haste.

Two Hawks, not yet reconciled to that conclusion, reached for the blade at his belt. “Father! We will fight for you. We—”

“Do not fight!” Stone Thrower bellowed in English, perhaps for Reginald and William's sake, perhaps so the Senecas wouldn't know what they said, even as he was set upon by warriors with ropes to bind his wrists. “And do not seek me, my brave and faithful son! Only remember me. Remember our good God and—”

He was cuffed across the mouth and dragged backward, away from them, but they could not break the gaze that held him fast to his sons. To William he shouted, the words coming broken through bleeding lips, “I have loved you always, my bright arrow! Fly now to your mother's heart. She has waited long for you.”

Reginald witnessed the instant Two Hawks yielded to Stone Thrower's last command, saw the young man's heart cleave in two as his gaze wrenched from his father's in submission and farewell, fixing on him and William.

What followed seemed more dream to Reginald than reality. The wounding during the battle, the wearing march, the hunger, the strain of these last moments, had finally done for him. A searing pain jarred from his hip down to his knee, turning his legs to sponges. He thought he must have fallen…

Next he knew, he was moving through the darkness of a wood, supported between two sturdy young frames. He swooned again and did not rouse until the screams and shouts of Indians had fallen too far behind them to be heard.

But he would never forget the sound.

He woke on his back with his bonds loosed. Blood still caked his face, his hair. Above him stars winked through leaf-heavy branches. He could hear them talking low together, a little distance off. Stone Thrower's sons. His sons. Grief crashed down on him, crushing as a mountain.

“William,” he called, hoarse, feeble, urgent.

The voices stilled, but William didn't come. His brother did, touching him gently in the dark. “He is with us. Safe. We make a litter to carry you to Kanowalohale. Anna Catherine and Lydia are there, with my mother.”

Lydia and his dear girl…so near? Another mystery to unravel.

Two Hawks was still speaking, shock and grief shredding his voice, but Reginald couldn't make out the words. His chest felt as though it would rupture, torn between sorrow and joy. Stone Thrower had gone to an unspeakable death, but the lad his Anna loved was safe and whole. And so, at long last, was William.

William couldn't bear the sight of those shadowed figures, his brother bending over Reginald Aubrey. He'd heard the man call to him weakly, but he couldn't answer. Not now with his father, so briefly restored to him, lost, before ever he could be truly known. He stepped away into the deeper darkness of the forest, too stunned yet to grieve or to rage—or to face Reginald Aubrey. He wasn't ready. He didn't know what he meant to say. He needed…

A stick cracked behind him. They were a mile at least from that dreadful clearing, a mile through dark woods, and he'd thought they hadn't been followed, that they'd been allowed to leave as the old warrior had decreed.

Whirling, William raised his hands in time to grasp a figure coming at him, eyes catching a swift glint of starlight. Instinctively he clutched at what his hands found in the dark, half fending off attack, half restraining escape: slim shoulders and a long silky braid that brushed his arm.

“It is me, Strikes-The-Water.”

William felt a new shock sizzle through him. “It's
you
?”

“Ah.” Her breath stirred against his throat. “He-Is-Taken.”

He relaxed his hold but didn't let go. He'd held her only with his eyes—and that briefly—until now. “What are you doing here?”

“Finding you.”

Small, strong hands gripped his waist. For one startling instant, William nearly yielded to the wild urge to clutch her tight against him—for need of something, someone, to cling to lest he spiral away on the tide of grief even now surging up against the thin barrier of shock.

Then his brother called to him, alarm in his voice.

“Where is Stone Thrower?” the girl asked, pulling away from him.

“He isn't coming—but I'm glad you have.” Though his voice broke, William took Strikes-The-Water by the hand and led her into starlight.