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WHY DID MAC WANT TO see her?
“Tomas.” She turned to him. “I only visited with Sarah earlier. I do not think I said or did anything—”
“We will not know what it is he wants until we see him.” Thomas wove his fingers into hers and tugged her along.
Elizabeth lowered her still heated face and concentrated on the ground at her feet. Surely, the man had seen her wish that he kiss her over and over, till she no longer knew her right mind and she cared not what came after.
Indeed, she welcomed it.
I am such a fool.
They crossed Water Street. On the other side, he steered her away from the outdoor dining area and in front of the tavern. At the east end, they turned the corner and made their way to Alex West’s house behind.
Monsieur Mackintosh, water buckets in either hand, stopped before the house. “Where have you been?” Then, his gaze slipped to their joined hands. His mouth tightened.
Thomas grabbed one of the buckets but did not loosen his grip on Elizabeth’s hand. They walked past the house and rounded the corner.
A thin, wiry man with grizzled whiskers and a yellow checkered rag tied around his head stepped before him. So this was Watkins? And where was the other? A boy by the name of Masterson.
“Not now,” Thomas barked.
“But, Boss, ‘tis important.”
“And I will deal with it shortly, just wait here.”
The man reluctantly slipped into the shadows.
Inside the kitchen, candles and the fire in the hearth cast wicked, blood-thirsty shadows along the walls. A long center table divided the room in half. Objects tall, small, high, and low jumped and heaved grotesquely in the dim light.
“Sarah is not doing well.” Mac crossed the room and dumped the water into a large kettle set before an off-center fireplace. “The baby does not wish to come.”
Elizabeth’s heart sank.
Mac lifted the kettle upward and hung it on the hook. He swung the rod over the fire. He pointed at the bucket in Thomas’ hand. “That is to stay cold. You can put it on the table.” He turned to Elizabeth. “Colina says the birth canal is too small nor does it give way.”
“What has she tried?” Elizabeth asked.
“Oils. They have walked. She would not give me more specifics, but she did say she had tried everything she knew to do.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “Without wider passage, the babe will not come.”
Elizabeth fell to the table bench. Before her, hemlock and white willow bark lay ready for grinding.
Is my life now to be about losing people?
“Miss Johns, ye are no listening.”
“I am sorry. What?”
The man straddled the bench beside her. His hands gripped the edges between his thighs. “Did your father ever deliver babies?”
“Oui.”
“And what did he do at times like this?”
“He would sometimes cut an opening near the birth canal. It allowed the baby wider passage.”
“It sounds dangerous.”
“It is. The baby is right near where the cutting is done. There is a lot of blood and a risk of infection afterward. He would only do such a surgery in extreme situations.”
And if he had been home the night her mother went into labor, she might well have lived. But for what? To later be deported? To bury her own parents at sea?
To bury more children as babes?
“Would yer father have considered Sarah’s situation extreme?”
“It sounds so. But I am not certain where you would find such a surgeon here, nor if they would be willing to do such a thing.”
“I dinna intend to find someone.” A spasm crossed his face. “I intend for ye to do it.”
Her mind reeled. She sought words she could not find.
She hurled herself upward and stumbled from him.
“No!”
He reared to his feet. “If ye dinna try, she will die by morning.”
“But watching my father do such a cutting is not the same as me having done so.” She held her bandaged hand upward. “And do you see this? ‘Tis hardly usable at the moment.”
“You are right-handed, Miss Johns, and all I ask is that ye try. Why will ye no? Ye are more than willing to help anyone else that needs it, even when it puts yourself in danger.”
She looked away.
“I know I have been unspeakably harsh with ye, but I would nae have thought ye would have held your dislike for me against Sarah.”
“I am not doing so!”
“Then why will ye no try? If ye are afraid of me, I promise to lay nae blame at your feet if she leaves me. ‘Tis nae your fault she is with a child. ‘Tis mine.” An agonizing choke swamped his throat.
“You should not blame yourself either,” she whispered. “Men and women love each other. Babies are a result of that. ‘Tis God’s way.”
“Miss Johns.” His face hardened. “I wish ye to try and save my wife, but dinna speak to me of God again, for the Almighty . . .” He looked away. He draped his hands to his hips.
Just how much hatred filled the man’s heart?
He lifted his head. His teeth ground tight against the pain. “The Almighty has done nothing but take one person from me after another, and if Sarah leaves, it will be because I honored God and my marriage vows and loved her unto death. Literally.” His pained eyes searched her face.
Cher Dieu! Was it not hatred, but fear?
“Now, will ye at least try and save my family?”
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THOMAS’ BREATH LODGED in his throat. He well knew she would give someone the clothes off her back in the dead of winter even if she had nothing left for herself. And she and Sarah had grown only closer the past few weeks. So what was the matter?
Outside, Watkins paced before the door. Music played from beyond the tavern. People laughed and sang. One or two drunken voices rose above the others.
Elizabeth’s shoulders fell. She nodded. “But the pain will be great,” she whispered. “She must wish this as do you.”
“I go to speak with her now, but I am certain she will agree.”
The man was gone as fast as a quick breath of wind. Thomas reached for Elizabeth and pulled her to the table. “I know Sarah. She will wish this, so we best prepare.”
They set to stripping rags and boiling water. Thomas ground the hemlock bark, while Elizabeth worked, as best she could with one good hand, on the white willow.
And then, the grinding turned into crushing.
“Whoa, Lass.” Thomas grabbed her wrist. “Take it easy or it will be useless.”
The words tore from her. “If I lose Sarah . . . ‘tis bad enough people leave me, but to cause such at my own hand? Is everyone I love going to leave me?”
She shoved the mortar and pestle from her.
Thomas dove across the table top. He caught the bowl at the edge.
The pestle, however, crashed to the floor. Outside, a lone fiddler scratched a song into the night air. A gust of wind swirled around the kitchen.
She slammed her palms to the table. “I could not save my mother. I saved not my grandparents, nor Josué.” She choked. She reared to her feet and staggered to the window.
His fingers squeezed the bowl. His limbs shook with a need to hold her tight and wipe away her fear of being alone.
And yet, he moved not.
If I touch her again, I will never let her go.
He was nae certain what his plan would then be.
“And as if losing Sarah was not bad enough,” she whispered into the dark. “Who will save Monsieur Mackintosh? He will never forgive the Almighty.”
Her nails rattled against the pane.
God help him.
He jerked to his feet. He lunged across the kitchen. He wrapped one arm around her waist and another below her neck. He pulled her back against his chest.
“Ye canna control the weather, or wars, or government deportations, or seasonings. All ye can do is try and help Sarah. Nae one will blame ye if she leaves us, nor should ye blame yourself, and Mac is no your responsibility.”
She twisted in his arms. She lifted to her toes and threw her arms around his neck. Her breath brushed his chin.
His lips captured hers. The lass sighed. She wove her head this way and that. Her fingers brushed his neck and stoked more fires.
Footsteps pounded on the brick outside.
“I canna leave ye here tomorrow,” he groaned.
A knock sounded on the doorframe.
“I will have to somehow . . . I dinna know . . . we can speak tomorrow. First, ye tend Sarah this night.”
Mac stepped inside.
Elizabeth slipped free of Thomas’ arms and turned.
Mac shifted a narrowed gaze from her to Thomas and back to her. “Sarah is willing to do this.”
Something fired between her and Mac. Was it admiration? An understanding?
Whatever it was, it had knocked the relationship askew and into new, less hostile territory. Thomas was not sure whether to be grateful or annoyed.
Mac eased sideways. Elizabeth stepped between them and outside.
Mac turned to him. “Why is she so fearful to help? I have said I will nae lay blame on her. I know she cares for Sarah.”
“She has lost so many others, and she blames herself for things that are out of her control.”
Mac pierced him with a dark, weary glare. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
The man may as well have punched Thomas in the gut.
“And I suppose ye told her she should not blame herself?”
Thomas said nothing.
“I thought so.” Mac bobbed his chin. “Ye should take yer ain advice.” He, too, turned and was gone.
A throat cleared just outside. Thomas stepped into the threshold.
Watkins blocked his path. His fingers hobbled this way and that along the rim of his beaver hat. He looked left and right as if he were being hunted.
“Out with it,” Thomas sighed. “I dinna have all night.” He had to get the rags and hot water to Elizabeth. He needed to tell William and Hannah of Sarah’s condition and what Elizabeth was to do.
“’Tis camp, Sir.” Watkins lowered his voice. “Indians attacked us not two hours past.”
––––––––
THOMAS HELD THE LANTERN above his head.
The murky light cast its way around camp.
Or what had been camp.
Now, it was nothing but a mess. Tent canvas, some of it in shreds, whipped and thrashed in the promise of an oncoming storm. Storage trunks had been turned upside down. Lids had been ripped from their hinges. Food lay scattered. Fence rails, having been dislodged, lay strewn across the area. That meant pigs and cows, including Bessie, wandered aimlessly in the dark wood.
At Thomas’ side, Fingal nosed a chicken. The frightened fowl squawked and scampered off.
“How many were there?” he asked.
“Five. Maybe six.”
“And Masterson?”
“He lies over there.” The man pointed a crooked finger toward the north side of camp. Thomas lifted the lantern up and down, back and forth. He picked his way past clothes, dishes, and mounds of grain. The yellow yolk of more than one smashed egg flooded the grass blades.
“And tell me, Watkins, how was it ye were unharmed?”
“I hid under a patch of pine needles in the wood over there.” He pointed to the rise before them that overlooked the lupine meadow.
Thomas grunted. “That was an awful lot of pine needles.” For so few pine trees.
The man shrugged. “Had I shown myself I would have stood no chance against so many.”
He is lying.
But Thomas would deal with that later.
His gut churned. ‘Twas daring for so many warriors to come that close to Baltimore Town, much less right into camp. And why this night? ‘Twas not as if there had not been plenty of other nights for such raids.
He lowered the lantern before his waist. Masterson lay at his feet. A misshapen arm forked to the boy’s right. A few tufts of blonde hair poked from the rear of the boy’s head, but otherwise, the scalp was missing from the forehead down to the ears. Already, flies buzzed around the raw, open wound.
Fingal lay to the boy’s side and whined.
Thomas’ nerves twined tight. The boy had his whole life ahead of him.
And I am as to blame as if I wielded the scalping knife myself.
Why was it that now, when he no longer wished to kill, dead bodies piled up in his wake with the promise of more to come?
He set the lantern to the ground and turned. To his right lay a length of tent canvas still intact. He picked it up and lay it next to the boy’s battered body. He had Watkins pick up the feet while Thomas picked up the shoulders. They moved him to the canvas and rolled the tent around him.
“Whatcha gonna do with him, Boss?”
If he took the boy back to town, his mother would know how he died. Thomas could not inflict that sort of knowledge on her. Scalpings happened on the frontier near the Endless Mountains and beyond. They did not happen this close to Baltimore Town and to a young boy who simply wanted to help his mother with household expenses.
And the chaos, when word got out how he had died, would spread like wildfire.
“We will bury him here. Go find some shovels in all that mess.”
“But Boss—”
“I will make it worth your while. Now go.” Thomas heaved the body upward to his shoulder. “Meet me by the creek.”
Several hours later, well past midnight and nowhere near dawn, Thomas shoveled the last bit of dirt onto the grave. He placed a large stone at the head and a smaller stone at the foot.
He grabbed the shovel in one hand, the lantern in the other, and made his way back to camp. His bones ached. His eyes hurt with the need for sleep. He needed to get back to town before the storm broke over them.
He needed to find out how Elizabeth fared.
“Not a word of this to anyone, Watkins, especially as to how the boy died. I will let my family know tomorrow, but I want them to catch no wind of it before then.” They picked their way through the chaos. “I certainly do not wish the town to know, so you go back to your house and keep quiet.”
“Well, yes Boss, but perhaps a greater payment might help me remember to stay put. It might also help me to forget other things.”
Thomas ground his feet to a halt. He tossed the shovel to a pile of canvas, lifted the lantern upward, and eyed the man.
Six months ago Thomas would have tossed the light aside, caring now what it ignited on its way to the ground, and beaten the man within an inch of his life. He would never have even given him a chance to take back such words.
But tonight, no fight drizzled through his veins. He just needed time to determine what best to do with his family. Time to tell the others the danger they were up against. Time for Elizabeth to tend Sarah.
And he needed to work a new plan for his future.
He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He slipped a wad of bills free and shoved them toward Watkins.
“This is tonight’s pay and more. Ye should have no problem forgetting any of it.”
“No, Boss, I should not. In fact, Boss, my memory is now so poor that I have quite forgotten I found something else.”
Thomas frowned. The man was making little sense.
“Forgive me, but I did not wish to show it to you with the young lady around.” Watkins reached inside his jacket and pulled out a doll.
Thomas’ body iced over.
‘Twas the one Issy made for Elizabeth, only now the dress hem was unraveling. Cuts and lashes had been painted across the hands, feet, and face. The lace cap was gone. The hair had been ripped off and blood painted onto the scalp. A horrified scream had been painted over Issy’s stitching for the eyes and the mouth.
Watkins pressed it forward. “Ain’t ya gonna take it?”
Thomas grabbed the doll, but he could not keep it from trembling in his hand.
Gràdhach Dia ann air nèamh. What have I done?
He lifted a steely gaze to Watkins. “Not a word of this either.”
“Well, now, Boss—”
Thomas somehow managed to grab the doll with his fingers and hang onto the lantern at the same time. With his free hand, he grabbed the man’s shirt and lifted him upward. He slammed his back against the nearest tree.
Watkin’s eyes bugged forward. Shaky fingers scratched for a hold on Thomas’ wrist.
Fingal growled.
“I know not what kind of game ye twiddle at, but it stops now. If ye so much as breathe a word about the attack or speak of this doll, ‘twill be the last ye ever do. Am I being clear enough?”
“Yes. For sure, Boss.” The man’s head jiggered up and down. “I understand, Boss. You are the boss.”
“And while we are here, did someone hire you to botch this job this night?”
His eyes widened with a new fear. “Why, no Boss, ain’t no one done such.”
“Did ye know of the Indians coming this night?”
“No,” he wailed. “Of course not.” Thomas shoved him to the side. “Then off with you.”
The man pressed his worn hat to his head and dashed into the dark, Fingal close at his heels.Thomas shoved the doll deep into the pocket of his waistcoat. ‘Twas a good thing he had worn his cloak which would hide the bulge.
A quarter of an hour later, as the storm battled to free itself from the heavens, he sat before Tyler Masterson’s weeping mother. The woman, understandably, was beside herself with the heartache.
Thomas was not far from it himself.