3

Joseph slowed his horse as Andrew brought his alongside. “What news?”

“The raiders have crossed the river, and Mrs. Weber and her children have been taken to a neighbor. Mr. Reid will stay to see to her husband’s burial.”

Benjamin was a good man. “And the others?”

“Returning to their homes and fields.”

With the fair weather, everyone was in a hurry to sow their fields before the rains came. Or before raids became too frequent.

Andrew shifted his gaze to the girl, and his expression took on concern. “I think it best that Rachel be informed.”

“Why? So she can complicate everything?” Joseph shook his head. “Turn our backs, and the next thing we know they’ll be sitting down for tea.”

Andrew cocked a smile. “And we know how greatly you detest tea.”

“Precisely.” If Rachel got involved, she would step in and take over the situation, removing any control from him. Just as she had before.

“Then what do you propose?”

Joseph glanced down at the dark head of the girl in his arms. From the way she leaned into his chest, he couldn’t be sure whether or not she’d lost consciousness. “You ride in first and collect Rachel and the children. Take them home. I’ll wait out of sight with her, or…” The smokehouse was empty. “Stash her somewhere out of sight.”

The girl stiffened. It appeared she was still very much aware of what went on around her.

Andrew cleared his throat. “‘Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.’”

Joseph aimed a glare. Most days he didn’t mind his Scripture-spouting brother-in-law, but not when it pricked his conscience. “We’re not lying to Rachel.”

“Of course not.”

“Simply not informing her of certain details.”

Andrew chuckled.

“Fine,” Joseph said. “If you want me to, I shall tell your wife how you shot this poor little thing.”

The Mohawk maid straightened.

Joseph fought down a chuckle. She definitely understood him well enough.

“Rachel will not be willing to leave before seeing you unharmed—all your limbs accounted for. And I am sure James would like to have a few more minutes with you, as well.”

Joseph reined Hunter to a full stop at the edge of his land. Little James craved his father’s attention and presence. Most weeks, especially since the start of planting, Joseph only saw his children a couple of hours at a time. Sometimes a little more on Sundays, when he joined Rachel and her husband for meals and “church.” He needed to give his son what time he could. “The smokehouse, it is.”

~*~

“Keep quiet, and I’ll be back with food and bandages.” The solid door closed.

Hannah leaned into the closest wall. Not that any of the walls were far. If she stretched out both arms she could probably touch the opposite side of the tiny building that was at least tall enough for her to stand in. She gave the door a little kick and heard Joseph’s “Shhh”. Not that anyone near the front of the cabin would hear any racket she made.

Hannah kicked the door again. Not as solid as the ones Pa built, but of fine construction nonetheless. Her family’s homestead−or what remained−was less than a mile away, and she was stuck here in this tiny crate of a smokehouse. She couldn’t help but wonder if she would be left completely to Joseph Garnet’s mercy. From what she had gathered from conversation, Rachel was now married to the proper speaking gentleman−he was no frontiersman−and they had children.

Joseph remained on the Garnet farm, his marital state unknown…not that it should matter to her. And their father? No one had so much as spoken his name, and he hadn’t ridden with the others. Was he even alive? Or had this war claimed him too?

The whinny of a horse was joined by the murmur of voices. A few minutes later the steady thud of hooves and a sharp creak of an axle suggested a wagon’s departure. Soon there was only silence.

Hannah prepared herself for Joseph’s return. She would ask about his father. And then she’d question him about her brothers. If he returned. She couldn’t very well blame him if he wanted to forget her.

Hannah pressed her head against the ridged wood. Her arm throbbed in time with her heart and the pressure mounting within her skull. Thirst clung to her tongue along with the feeling of having swallowed sand. Gradually her legs gave out, and she slipped to the ash-littered dirt floor. She clamped her eyes closed against the sensation of burning. She’d been told tears were a sign of weakness…and she would never find Myles and Samuel by being weak.

Her brothers. What had become of them?

Samuel had been barely twelve. What would years in the Continental Army have done to a lad so cheerful, a contagious smile stretched across his face? He’d always seen the good in everything. But there wasn’t any good in war.

And Myles? Had he heeded his commanders, or made things worse for himself by trying to fight back? Her older brother was a man with too many passions. Too much like Papa. Even in his love for wood and talent of creating something beautiful from it.

But Pa was dead.

She had to believe Myles and Samuel had survived the war that had taken everyone else from her. Hannah pressed a hand over her moist cheeks. Perhaps she should be grateful Joseph hadn’t immediately returned. And she was. For a little while.

Silence and the throb of her wound stretched across unmarked time. Still, he did not come back. The sun, showing through cracks around the door, slowly slipped away. Dusk draped the valley with a blanket of blue before the door swung open and Joseph stepped in—tall and broad in all his manhood. A striking image in the fading light.

His voice rumbled in the back of his throat, words spoken under his breath, but she refused to look his direction. Not until her glower was back in place. She narrowed it at him as he stepped to her and stooped. Weariness fed her anger, making it easier to ignore how well he looked with the shadows angled across his clean-shaven face.

He’d rarely gone clean-shaven.

Without hesitation, Joseph scooped her up into his arms and hauled her out of the smokehouse.

How dare he? She wasn’t a brainless sack of cornmeal he could shove and haul from one place to another. “Let me down.” Hannah ignored the stab of pain though her arm as she squirmed out of his grasp. He tried to maintain his hold on her, but she aimed a swift kick to his shin, only to meet the thick leather of his boot with her soft moccasin.

He hardly faltered or winced. “So you do speak.” Joseph grabbed her good arm.

“When I have something to say.” She curbed her desire to fight him off again. His face already bore the thin gashes her fingernails had left from their first skirmish. Not the best way to convince him to help her.

Joseph tugged her toward the cabin. “I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that you speak the King’s English so well, with how loyal your people have become to him.”

He was right in a way. There had been much discussion between British officers, Otetiani, and the other leaders of the Mohawk people. She glared at the back of Joseph’s head all the same. “What do you know of my people?”

“I know I’m weary of burying good men. And women and children. And trying to put out fires.” He halted outside the door. “Perhaps you will answer me this. Why were you, a mere slip of a girl, riding with Otetiani’s raiders?”

She’d like to show him what a mere slip of a girl was capable of when angered. Her jaw ached, and she tried to relax enough to answer him. “I wasn’t riding with them. I was waiting for them.”

Joseph’s blue eyes became thin slits. “Why?”

“I…” Now wasn’t the time to explain to him about her cousin or her quest. Joseph was as weary and irritable as she. She wanted to speak with his pa, first. Hannah glanced around the farm bathed in long shadows. The barn looked much smaller than the one she remembered, and more land had been cleared, but the two room cabin appeared unchanged. “You live here alone?”

“I do.”

A chill dropped through her, and she tipped her face away. James Garnet was likely dead then. After all the death she had seen since the start of the war, she shouldn’t be shocked, but he’d been so kind. Especially to her. Perhaps because they had shared a love of horses and an adoration for his chestnut stallion.

“You have nothing to fear from me.”

Joseph’s crisp tone yanked her from memories of his father.

“So long as you behave yourself.” He led her into the cabin and the warmth radiating from the large stone fireplace.

Hannah straightened her spine−though Joseph remained a stately elm to the willow sapling she resembled. “Afraid I’ll burn you out?”

He pushed her into a chair, and then hefted a wooden pail onto the table. “Shouldn’t I be?” Water sloshed over the rim of a mug as he filled it. “Drink that.”

While Hannah’s parched throat thanked him, her stomach grumbled for something more substantial. Warmth rose to her face.

Joseph was too busy, however, pouring water into a basin and gathering rags. After a moment, he sat on the chair next to hers and shifted it until he faced her wounded arm. A tug on the ties of the handkerchief he’d used as a bandage pierced through the center of her wound.

Hannah jerked away. The last thing she wanted was his large hands inflicting any more pain. “I don’t need your help.” Yet, she did. Maybe she should tell him exactly who she was right now and ask what he knew of her brothers. How different could he be from his father?

“Good. Because I don’t have time for this.” Joseph stood and wiped his palms across the legs of his breeches. “I have seed to get in the ground. Two farms to plant. What am I supposed to do with you?”

Do with her? She was nothing more than a complication in his already busy life. But why should she mean anything more to him? He didn’t recognize her. And even if he did, it was not as if he had ever really looked at her—seen her as anything more than a nuisance.

Before Hannah could formulate a response, Joseph again pulled her to her feet. Once in the small bedroom at the back of the cabin, he aimed a finger at her. “Stay.”

She followed him as far as the door and watched while he collected the cloths and basin of water from the table. He deposited his load on the single wooden chest set against the wall holding a small window, opposite a large bed. Next, he returned with a bowl of what appeared to be a stew or soup. This time he closed the door behind him, leaving her again in solitude. With no answers.

At least she had food and what she needed to tend her wound. The soup was cold—probably made by Rachel while the men were away—but it filled her stomach.

A hammer cracked against the wall near the door.

The spoon dropped back into the bowl, and she set it aside.

More hammering. And then something heavy slid into place across the door. Joseph’s footsteps led away. The outside door closed. When the cabin fell silent, she tried the latch. It didn’t budge. She kicked the door, though the futility of the action did nothing for the sudden heat surging through her. Again trapped. Again helpless…and completely dependent upon that man.

Good thing for Joseph Garnet she was locked in here.

She wouldn’t always be.

What little light remained cast a glow through the window above the oak chest. The opening was narrow…but so was she.

Hannah looked to the solidly constructed chest. She would find out what was available to her before making any plans. A familiarity lowered her to her knees, and she ran her hand over the smooth top, then down the side where her fingertips found the sought-after grooves. She looked closer at the initials engraved into one of the sideboards. HC for Henry Cunningham. Papa had built this chest for the Garnets before tensions in the valley had compelled him to leave.

Why hadn’t her father taken their family with him? Had he truly believed them safe? Or had he even taken the time to consider what was best for his wife and children?

“Oh, Papa.” He’d been killed that next August at Oriskany. So close to home.

Hannah sat on the edge of the chest to clean and bandage her arm, before setting the basin and leftover rags aside.

Once she cleared off the lid of the chest, she lifted it and turned through several pairs of men’s breeches, shirts, and an old pair of shoes. Beneath these laid a quilt, sized for an infant. She pulled up the edge and peered under at the assortment of women’s gowns. Surely not Rachel’s—she would have taken hers to her new home. And none of these appeared too worn to be still in use.

Hannah withdrew a pale yellow gown and held it against her small frame. She’d never owned any fine gowns and had always envied Abigail Reid’s daughters in the frills she had sewn for them. Fannie had worn this one.

Hannah shoved the gown back into the chest. Had Fannie indeed won the heart of Joseph Garnet? And if so, where was she now? The room bore no other sign of a woman’s residence. Not that it mattered one way or another if Fannie had married Joseph. Hannah wanted nothing to do with the man. Only answers.

In a corner of the chest a smooth wooden handle and glint of iron peeked from under folds of dyed-blue homespun.

A pistol.