Alerted by the sound of Ellen’s voice, Zara cracked open the dilapidated door and peered out into the blinding midday glare. A calm had settled over the clearing following the gusty winds of morning. With the sun’s appearance through the barren trees surrounding the camp, snow had begun to melt, trickling from the roof of the shed, dropping with an occasional thud from the weighty branches overhead. Jays squawked and chattered in the thicket, shattering the silence of the wood.
She had hoped that Ellen would come alone. Her heart sank when she spied Ethancaine walking side-by-side with his sister. He pulled a small hand sled through the snow, his rifle slung over his shoulder.
“Zara?” Ellen called again, shielding her eyes with her hand from the sun’s glare. “Are you in there? We’ve brought food as you asked. And blankets.”
Keeping herself well hidden behind its sheltering screen, Zara opened the door farther. “Only Ellen come. Ethancaine go away.”
Through a narrow breach between the boards of the door, she saw Ethancaine grow tense.
Ellen and Ethancaine exchanged a few words, then Ellen took the hand sled and continued on without him. He remained at the far edge of the clearing, head down as he leaned against the trunk of an old maple tree, his rifle cradled in his arms. After a moment, he drew himself up and disappeared into the thick grove of maples.
Zara backed away from the door as Ellen neared the shed. Pausing at the threshold, she shook the snow from her skirts and removed a bundle from the hand sled. She hesitated, drew in a deep breath and stepped inside, closing the door behind her.
Hands tight around the bundle, Ellen closed her eyes, as if drawing on some source of inner strength.
“I thank Ellen for coming,” Zara said softly, casting the older woman an oblique glance. “Come. Warm yourself.” She motioned toward the fire.
Ellen whirled, her face splotched with red, her eyes flaming. “I hope you have a good explanation! I’ll have you know that, had it not been for Ethan, I wouldn’t be here. I have better things to do with my time…not to mention a young child who’s confused and upset by what you’ve done.”
“I am so sorry.” Remorse constricted Zara’s throat. “I did what I had to do. Too dangerous for me to stay in the house now.”
“I don’t reckon you! It was all well and good yesterday. What could have happened so suddenly to change that?”
“You do not know?”
In truth, she had expected a greater understanding from Ellen. After all, they were both women. In spite of the differences in their upbringing, they shared that much in common! Any woman in her village would have drawn the one and only conclusion from her isolation.
Ellen stared and pursed her lips. “If I knew, surely I would not need to ask!”
“Do you not suffer the bleeding?” Zara could not prevent the note of wonder from seeping into her voice.
Ellen stared hard at her, as if the question were absurd. “Of course I…. What does that have to do with…?” She set the bundle on the bunk and slowly sank down beside it, a queer look blanching her face, her eyes wide. “Is that what they do? Force you into hiding…like some kind of leper?”
Zara furrowed her brow. “We not hide. We go freely.”
“But it’s…inhuman. How could you tolerate such treatment?”
“Is not like that. Not bad. Is worse to stay.” Zara regarded the woman closely. “You do not go away when your time comes?”
Ellen’s eyes widened. “Indeed I do not! Why ever would I?”
“Our orenda…our powers are great during moon bleeding. Must be careful who we look upon, who we touch.” Zara stifled a laugh. “Men fear us then. They fear our woman power. The power to create life. They can only destroy life. To look at them makes them lose that power, makes them weak. So, we go away. Keep our people safe.”
Ellen frowned. “That’s all very interesting, but you are not among them now. We don’t embrace such beliefs.”
Zara sat cross-legged on the floor at Ellen’s feet and looked up at her. “Is the only way I know. Is a good way.”
“What on God’s earth is good about it?”
“In my…” Zara closed her eyes to force the image away. “In the village where I lived, when women go to the hut, we do no work. No one can make us work…or cook.”
“What do you do there?” Ellen eyed her sceptically.
“We talk. We laugh. We sing, tell stories, share secrets.”
“You mean, it’s like a holiday? A holiday every month?”
“Yes, yes! Like a holiday.”
Ellen slipped from the bunk and sat on the floor facing Zara, a smile of disbelief brightening her features. “Every month?”
“And is funny! To see the men so frightened. Brave men—warriors and hunters. They walk past us like old women bent over with fear.” Laughing, she demonstrated the posture.
“I certainly wouldn’t mind a holiday every month!”
Their eyes met and held. Ellen’s smile warmed. How like Ethancaine she looked! Only softer.
“Then you will come back?” Ellen asked quietly. “Ethan made me promise to bring you back.”
Zara forced herself to look down at her hands folded in her lap. “I will come back when is time.”
“He said you had some sort of disagreement last night. He blames himself. He thinks you left on account of what happened.”
Zara slowly shook her head. “I speak words that cause him pain. But I do not go because of words.”
“Then you aren’t angry with him?”
Tears rose, stinging Zara’s eyes “Neh! Never can I feel anger for Ethancaine!” She paused, but her need to open her heart to Ellen proved stronger than her wariness. She leaned toward the woman. “I bring him much worry.”
“What makes you say that?” Ellen asked cautiously, her brow furrowed.
“I cause him much trouble. Much sorrow. My heart cries to see this.”
Ellen raised a hand, as if she would touch Zara’s face, but hesitated. “You are fond of my brother.”
Zara looked directly into Ellen’s eyes. “He is a good man. Kind and brave. Gentle and strong. Never have I known such a man.”
“Yes.”
“But he is troubled in his soul.”
Ellen’s face darkened. “What has he told you? Has he said anything…of the past?”
Zara shook her head. “He does not speak of it to me. When I ask him, a black cloud comes over him.”
Ellen rose ponderously, hands steepled under her chin, face pensive, and wandered to the fire. She stood for a long while in an uneasy silence. “Zara,” she said, her voice pinched. “I’m sorry to admit this, but, when you first came here, I was more than prepared to despise you.” She paused and turned back to Zara. A strained smile softened her features when she met Zara’s steady gaze. “It’s strange, considering who and what you are and all that’s happened, but I…I don’t. I don’t feel the least bit of animosity toward you. Against my will, I find I like you. A great deal. And it troubles me. You’re not at all what I’d expected. Not at all!” Again she paused.
Zara waited, a tremor of foreboding stirring in the pit her stomach.
Ellen sank down again on the bunk, head bowed over clasped hands, eyes closed. “To be quite honest,” she continued, struggling with her words, “I couldn’t understand at first why Ethan would even want to have anything to do with you. I couldn’t imagine him knowingly…. How can I say this?”
“Do not be afraid to speak the truth. I am not afraid to hear it.”
“You haven’t a clue, have you?” Ellen said thickly, wringing her hands. “You were just a child! You aren’t accountable! And yet….”
Zara stood, even though her knees threatened to buckle under the weight of a terrible new understanding. “You share this pain with him? It is yours as well as his?”
Ellen covered her face with a hand.
“Is it me?” The weight pressed unmercifully on Zara’s shoulders, forcing her to her knees at Ellen’s feet. Hesitantly, she reached out and touched Ellen’s arm. “Please, you must tell me. I wish to share it. I want to understand him. I want to help him.”
As she looked into Zara’s face, Ellen could not help but warm to the earnestness in the younger woman’s appeal. Tears shimmered, brimming in Zara’s eyes. But behind the tears, deeper than the words, her passion burned with a fervor that emitted a tangible force, a force of light and warmth…and fear. Ellen sensed the fear quivering through the fervor.
“Dear Lord!” Ellen whispered, overcome with the startling revelation that left her breathless. “You’re in love with him!”
Through her tears, Zara’s intensity deepened. “I would do anything for him.”
“I believe you mean that.”
“I would give my life for him.”
Ellen could not find the means to respond to such conviction, expressed simply and without a trace of agitation. Indeed, Zara’s face, as well as her voice, reflected a calm solemnity, her eyes steady. Truly, she meant what she had said! Only the tears, spilling silently now over Zara’s cheeks, revealed the depth of emotion missing from her voice and bearing.
“Oh, my dear!” Ellen breathed, fighting back her own tears. She opened her arms to Zara, and cradled her head in her lap. “You must know that nothing but pain can ever come of this…for both of you. Whatever he might feel for you, he would never allow himself to admit it.
“The trouble you spoke of…the trouble in his soul,” Ellen tightened her arms around the younger woman. “It does involve you. I wish to God it was someone else.” She glanced away, her eyes filling with tears.
“Zara…. Our father was murdered by the same Indians that took you. He died trying to rescue you. Ethan was there. He saw what they did to him.”
Ellen felt Zara grow tense. She felt a shudder ripple through her body. Pulling free of Ellen’s arms, Zara drew away and regarded her wide-eyed, a look of horror draining the colour from her face. She started to speak, but her lips trembled. She jammed her eyes shut.
“How sad it is for everyone,” Zara said in a hollow whisper, “that I did not die on that day.”
* * *
Ethan leaned against a tree set back from the edge of the clearing, arms folded across his chest, his rifle braced in the crook of his arm. Shadows lengthened with the advance of the day. The calm air grew colder. And still he waited. He shivered and stamped his feet to bring back the feeling to his toes, his unwavering gaze fixed on the weathered door.
He had come to the old maple camp in high hopes, but his faith in Ellen’s ability to make Zara see reason had long since dwindled. And so did his hope for reconciliation.
It was never meant to be. The previous night had made that much clear to him. Whatever feelings he had for Zara, he could never overlook their disparities. Not that the differences in themselves served as a barrier. Odd as it seemed, those differences were inherently Zara. They were as much a part of her as those leaf-green eyes, honey-coloured hair, and the pleasing smell of her. She simply would not be Zara any other way. Even her broken English held an undeniable charm. The way she spoke his name never failed to elicit tingles of warmth and joy inside him.
No, it wasn’t Zara. She was merely the spark that set him against himself…and her.
When at last the shed door opened, his heart leapt. He straightened up and started forward, only to stop when his sister stepped out alone. She shook her head and cast him a dejected look. Pulling the empty hand sled behind her, she made her way toward him. It was all he could do to prevent himself from rushing to intercept her.
“Well…?” he said as she moved past him, her head bowed. “What happened? Why isn’t she coming? Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“She’ll return in a few days,” Ellen said without looking up. “She gave me her word. Until then, she doesn’t want to see you.”
“I must speak with her!” He made a move to turn back, but Ellen caught his arm.
“Ethan, she can’t see you.” Her eyes mirrored the laboured effort to put her thoughts into words. “She won’t. There are things about her that…that won’t be changed. She will not change! She’s as much part of them as if she’d been born to them. She adheres to strange customs she will not renounce. Her ways are so heathen in nature that I fear she’ll forever be a stranger in our world.”
A tightness seized his chest. “What are you trying to say?”
Ellen closed her eyes. “Ethan,” she began softly, “what are your feelings for her?”
A shiver of apprehension pulsed through him. Truly, he could not say. And even if he could, he rebelled at the notion. “I…I want to help her,” he replied vaguely. “I’m responsible for her.”
“Not that your situation isn’t precarious enough, there are other…more delicate concerns I wish you’d have considered before undertaking this…quest of yours.” Ellen paused to take in his reaction.
“Such as…?”
“Her feelings for one. She’s not a child, you know.”
“What are you trying to say?” He shook her hand from his arm.
She turned from him in a burst of energy. “I wish you could make the whole situation disappear. I wish you could make her disappear!” She whirled back to Ethan, her face a jumble of mixed emotions. “Half the time, I’m worried senseless about you and what might happen if you’re arrested. And the other half the time, I’m torn, Ethan. I’m literally torn between liking her more than I ought, and wishing to God I’d never set eyes on her.” With hardly a pause to breathe, she added, “I told her, Ethan.”
“You did what?”
She took a step back and stared hard at him. “I told her about Papa’s death.”
* * *
The hour had gone past midnight, and still Ethan sat at the long, polished writing table in his father’s book-lined study, leafing through an old, dog-eared copy of Chippendale’s The Gentleman’s and Cabinet-makers Director. He rubbed his eyes, as the chimes from the case clock in the corner faded into an eerie stillness. The flame of the oil lamp at his elbow fluttered on the cold draft.
Despite the lateness of the hour, his nerves remained tightly strung, his senses jangling in a way that made sleep impossible.
The room had brought on uneasy feelings of wistfulness. He had stayed far too long. But he had no wish to leave. Not while his father’s benign presence remained strong among the books and the furniture, which Ellen had devotedly and diligently maintained over the years. Even the smell of the wood polish—linseed oil with a hint of alkanet root, his father’s preference—helped to strip away the years and bring his father close again.
By its silent undulations, the ill-smelling flame of the oil lamp seemed to beckon to him. In much the way a woman of the night might summon the weak-willed or profligate, the flicker of light held him spellbound, as the door to the past swung open.
The sky on that morning had been the colour of smoke, sooty and dense, like the ribbon of black smudge curling up from the wick of the lamp. A taste of snow flavoured the air, which hummed with a sense of foreboding as the tavern bell mustered the men to arms.
“…Indians raiding the settlements to the west!”
He and his father and Levi Sparks had assembled with the others on the green, from where they would join with other groups of militia in the hope of tracking down the marauding savages and bringing back the captives they had taken. Among them a young girl.
He had just turned seventeen and itched for a taste of battle.
But the abject devastation along the way had stuck in his belly like a knife. Charred remains of houses, bodies left lying where they fell. Pigs rooting among the corpses.
“If we come across these Indians,” his father had cautioned, “think with your head, not with your heart. Anger leads to carelessness. They’re clever at warfare and will use your anger against you.”
A site of recent carnage just inside a wooded tract. He’d nearly retched. Blood ran from the wounds of the newly dead. The bastards had killed and scalped a number of their captives. The men fell silent.
Two of the dead were women.
Fresh tracks in the soft earth led farther into the wood. Snow began to fall.
The group divided into two flanks in the hope of funneling the war party into an open space and surrounding them.
“Look out for yourself, Ethan.” His father waved to him.
He waved back to his father and watched him follow the trail not fifty rods to the north of the path taken by the Indians.
Ethan’s group circled to the south.
A quick volley of musket fire peppered the deadly silence. Men shouted. A solitary war whoop was followed by more isolated shots and shouts. Then silence fell, broken by sounds of thrashing through the brush.
Heart pounding, he followed the line of men and horses threading through the dense thicket. He gripped his musket tightly, his shoulders tense and strained as he scanned the area for signs of movement. He wanted to call out to his father, but could not summon his voice for fear of the answering silence. No one spoke. It was as if all felt the queasy pall enveloping the wood. As if everyone knew what they would find.
“Don’t go in there, Ethan!”
Levi held him in a bear hug. He struggled to free himself. “Pa!” A new and sudden strength charged his body. Even Sparks couldn’t hold him back.
His father lay sprawled on his back where he had fallen. Two others rested beside him. Three more men lay face down among the trees through which they had attempted to flee or to hide, their backs bearing the wounds from which their life blood flowed into the snow-dusted forest floor. All had been scalped.
The remainder of the group now filtered back to join their comrades. Some were bleeding, pale with fear and shaking.
“Pa! God in Heaven…Pa! No!”
He trembled with rage and tears. “Damn you, heathen, savage bastards!” Shaking his musket skyward, he shouted to the trees, his voice ringing loud as thunder, “Come back and fight like men, you cowards! God-forsaken devil scum! I’ll show you. I’ll—”
Levi grabbed him by the shoulders. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said through his teeth.
“They killed my father!” Ethan shook off Levi’s hands. He turned to the others standing around them in a tight knot. His eyes burned. “I’m not going back! I’m going after those bastards! No godless savage is going to be wearing my Pa’s hair from his belt. I’ll kill him first. I’ll kill them all! Who’s with me?”
Fifteen men joined him, among them the mixed-blood scout, Billy Summer Tree, and three experienced Indian fighters, leaving the rest to gather up the dead and wait at an abandoned mill some five miles back.
All evidence indicated that the band had headed southwest. And quickly, too. Experience warned them to proceed with caution, which they did, until dusk, when the trail ended at the Oaks Creek by a small Indian town near Clarkson’s Mill.
On a low, pine-covered knoll with a clear view of the village below, the men readied their weapons and darkened their faces with lamp black. A few whittled down pine boughs in preparation for torches.
Ethan’s hands shook as he loaded his musket with buck and ball, and sharpened his hunting knife to a razor edge. Come dark of night, he would have his revenge. He could almost taste it, bitter yet sweet, seasoned with the salt of his tears.
By the light of a near-full moon reflecting off the smooth whiteness of the snow and glimmering like pitch on the smooth ribbon of water, they crept to the outskirts of the little town. They concealed themselves among the tall reeds and the scattering of pines along the banks of the creek. All was ungodly quiet and still—and almost serene in the moonlight—with smoke curling up from the smoke holes in the roofs of lodges.
Too quiet.
A woman hurried across the square, from one of the lodges to another. A barking dog was soon hustled inside.
The night sky brightened as the moon rose over the treetops and the heavens glittered with stars.
“We’ll be puttin’ a few more stars up there before this night is through!” Gabriel Dobson, the old Indian fighter, spit out his chaw of tobacco as he fed the flicker of flame in his tinderbox. Soon the pine twists were lit, sputtering and spewing billows of black, resinous smoke.
Ethan held his breath as five men snuck up to the lodges at the edge of the village. Soon the night blazed with burning elm bark houses. As the men raced for cover, the occupants began staggering out in twos and threes, choking on the smoke. Shrieking like banshees.
A volley of musket fire ripped through the night. A cloud of sulphurous smoke rose like fog around them. The shadowy shapes fell to the snow. Wails of agony. Cries for help. More reeling bodies hurtled out of the burning lodges.
More shots. More bleeding forms dropped to the ground.
Dobson let out an Indian-like war cry and, charging his piece on the run, lunged into the confusion. The others followed with ear-piercing whoops, firing at anything that moved. Chasing down anything that thought to flee the carnage.
Ethan yielded to the heat of blood lust that invigourated his grieving heart. Through blinding tears, the world was on fire, and he was the scourge that brought on the conflagration. He was the wrath unleashing a terrible vengeance.
Shooting and reloading became an unconscious action. He didn’t need to think. Inured to the clouds of acrid smoke belching from the muskets and the smoke of the burning lodges, the screams and the wails, the thunder of musket fire, and the smell of blood, he charged into the thick of the action.
But there was no answering musket fire. No arrows. No fearsome war cries.
No one fought back!
As if a mist had dissolved from his vision, he found himself racing along the creek bank. A caustic smell burned his nostrils. A choking pain in his chest sent him staggering to his knees, gasping to breathe.
It was then he saw her running. It was then he understood.
Women and children!
They had been slaughtering innocents!
The woman stumbled and fell. She clawed her way through the snow toward a stand of sheltering pines. A swath of blood splotched the snow in her wake. She was dying, and still she drove herself on.
Ethan dragged himself up from his knees and ran to her.
Dear God! What had he done?
She twisted around to look up at him as he stood over her, her face bloodless and ghastly with fear. He knelt and reached out to her, but she recoiled, letting out a stifled cry.
“Forgive me!” Ethan gasped. “God in Heaven, forgive me!”
How young she was! No older than himself. Dark, pleading eyes glistened with tears and fear. Dark hair fell like a veil across her face, in her mouth. Blood on her face, on her breast. Blood on his hands, on the snow. Blood everywhere! And he was the cause.
A gurgling sound rose in her throat, along with her whimpering cries of distress. She cringed at his closeness. But she had not the strength to flee him.
So he hunkered down beside her, and he wept.
As if sensing that he would do her no further harm, the woman allowed her eyes to slide closed. An air of peace settled over her face. She mumbled a few arcane words, and with the last of her strength, raised her right hand. And made the sign of the cross over her heart.
He carried her back to the chaos that raged unabated in the flaming ruins of the little village. He set her down in the centre of the square and, throwing up his arms, he called on God to stop the carnage. He shouted and screamed. But the madness continued.
He raced through the slaughter, hurling punches at his comrades, wrenching weapons from unsuspecting hands. He hauled men from the backs of the dead and dying, but they were all deaf to his pleas. Caught up in the frenzy of blood lust, they had all gone insane.
“Tell them to stop!” He grabbed Levi by the throat. “For the love of God, open your eyes!” He hurled him to the ground.
And then he ran.
He ran until he collapsed and vomited on the pine-covered knoll, where the horses nickered and stirred. And he cried like a child until his throat ached and his eyes swelled from the tears.
In the hazy light of morning, he found himself alone on a tree-covered ridge, overlooking the smoldering remains of the village. Snow, light as down, fluttered from the sky.
After that, he had no recollection of where his wandering carried him or how long had he roamed. But no length of time would ever be long enough to cleanse the stench of blood and smoke from his being. No amount of time would erase from his mind the image of the woman he had killed.