Chapter Twenty-One

With a stitch in her side from running, Catherine slowed her pace at last. She pulled her unbound hair over her shoulder and let it pool in her lap as she sank against a tree. She didn’t care where she was, only that she was away from Samuel Crane. Anger boiled inside her not just against him, but against herself for caring after all these years, and she could not say which was stronger.

A murder of crows exploded from the tree, leaving her with only her thundering pulse. She needed to be alone right now, and yet loneliness was the very demon she longed to slay. Samuel’s words replayed over and again in her mind, digging deeper with each repetition. Whatever Catherine had shared with him seemed like a farce, the home he’d built for them a stage set.

Furiously, she plaited her hair, pulling the three hanks tight. She felt betrayed all over again, but why? Samuel had broken their engagement years ago, and she had mourned and recovered from that loss. If betrayal was unmet expectation, a shattered trust, what had Catherine been expecting from him? With what had she entrusted him?

Tying a ribbon around her braid, she secured it with a yank and leaned against the flaking birch trunk behind her. She’d been harboring a tiny ember of hope ever since she had learned about Joel’s death and assumed it was the sole reason for Samuel’s absence. But he had fanned that hope into a bright flicker, however meager that flame. A look, a touch. No—more. He had confessed that he’d never stopped loving her, and this was the root that continued to trip her. Was it a ruse, another manipulation to ensure she would take him to Quebec? Or had they both been bewitched by danger and fireflies and memory?

Catherine buried her face in her hands and groaned with the weight of her shame. All this time, Samuel had a wife and children, one of them fully his own.

Samuel, a father! She reined in her imagination and hobbled her own desires. How she had longed for him to lead the family they were to build together.

Fatigue pulled on her body, mind, and spirit. She was dizzy with exhaustion and combusting with sadness and anger. No wonder he’d worried she wouldn’t take him north if she had known his secret.

Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt. Did she really only give when she expected to get back in equal measure? Did she consider all of life a trade?

It is. The whisper slithered through her. She rubbed the muscles in her shoulders, still sore from last night’s voyage, and considered that every action had a consequence, every cause an effect. If that wasn’t trade, she would be hard-pressed to give it another name. This was her business, her way of life. Which meant she should have known better. Samuel had allowed her to feel loved in return for her help. Had she agreed to help him solely for the chance to end the war, or had part of her done it for the chance to begin again with him?

Only one answer could explain her reaction to his news.

Bowing her head to her knees, Catherine’s fury slipped away. Gasping sobs heaved her shoulders. As much as she wanted to hate Samuel for what he had done, she couldn’t. But neither was she ready to face him again. If Christ was her rescuer, as Samuel had said, she needed Him to rescue her from bitterness.

Utterly spent, she curled onto her side on a bed of leaves, dappled shade her blanket, the hushing wind a song. Roots pushed up through the ground, but her body was too tired to protest. In the middle of a prayer, sleep carried her far away.

It was a merciful, dreamless slumber, the kind that made time disappear.

Then crickets pierced her consciousness, along with something else. A voice calling her name. With a start, Catherine awoke to shadows that told her hours had drifted past. She pushed herself up from the ground and stepped away from the tree.

“Catherine!” Thankful’s voice was muffled by distance.

Muscles stiff from her unmoving sleep, Catherine hastened back toward the cavern. It wasn’t long before she found Thankful walking near the creek behind it. “Catherine!” she called again, pushing branches out of her way.

“I’m here.” Catherine ducked under a low bough to meet her.

Tears streaking her cheeks, Thankful plunged toward her. “I was so worried.” She clung to Catherine in a fierce embrace. “Sam told me what he shared with you. I can scarcely believe it myself, so I can only imagine how you feel. I thought you’d decided to leave us.” She stood back.

Catherine picked an evergreen needle from Thankful’s uncovered hair. “I’d never just leave you. I confess, the notion of letting Samuel find his own way from here did cross my mind. He can walk, even if he cannot row.” She shrugged. “So can we.”

Thankful’s lips tipped to one side. “Ah, mon amie.” Understanding filled her voice. “I knew you loved him still. I am so sorry for—for—” A hemlock cone dropped to the ground beside her. “For all of it.”

A wedge expanded in Catherine’s throat. “So am I.” There was so much she could say, and yet she had no appetite for it. “He should have told me sooner,” she whispered.

The creek bubbled beneath an evening growing cool. “And what would you have done if he had?” Thankful asked.

Catherine shuffled through a drift of leaves. “I don’t know.”

Twigs crunched beneath their moccasins. Thankful’s hem caught and dragged them in her wake. “I hate to see you hurting.”

“I don’t understand why his news has affected me this way,” Catherine confessed. “He cast me aside years ago, but I recovered. How could I have been so foolish as to place him at the center of my affections again? I should have known better.”

Thankful picked her steps around moss-furred stones. “Loving someone is never a foolish thing to do, Catherine. But now that we know about his family, loving Samuel has to mean something different than it did before. It has to mean letting him go.”

“Again.” Another tear slid to the end of Catherine’s nose, and she caught it with the side of her finger. “I’ve had practice.”

The gathering twilight did not hide Thankful’s red-rimmed eyes, her swollen lids. “Don’t be harsh with yourself for feeling sad. And please, please don’t be harsh with Samuel for caring for Lydia and their children. He genuinely believed it was the right thing to do, though it cost him dearly to give you up. You may not believe that, but it would be wrong to persuade him to prove it.”

Catherine stilled. Arms crossed, she looked up at the cavern where Samuel waited inside. The entrance was partially hidden by trees and shadow, but the echo of the rambling creek bounced off its walls. “He has a family, and it isn’t us.”

A gentle touch on her shoulder softened the sting of that truth. “They wait and pray for his return.” Thankful’s voice blended with the water rippling behind them. “We could turn around now, leaving Samuel on his own, and you could put him behind you once and for all. Personally, I would consider it a relief not to face any Abenaki. I imagine it would be a relief for you not to face Sam. Is that what you want? To turn around?”

Options tugged at Catherine from both sides, and she followed each to its logical conclusion. Samuel still needed her help, and she still wanted to speed the end of the war. At least now there was no question that after Quebec, she and Samuel would part forever. With a great heave, she began rebuilding the wall around the remnants of her heart. In time, she knew the pressure would ease.

Leveling her gaze at Thankful, she squeezed her hand. “I’ll bear my burden if you will bear yours.”

Samuel emerged from the cavern. “I’m glad to see you. I thought you might—”

Catherine cut him off. “I know what you thought.” Bending, she picked a clutch of sorrel and forced her feet to carry her forward. “We leave as soon as it’s dark.”

Shortly after dusk, they were back on the river again. At least while rowing, Catherine could focus her energy on something else. Still, she couldn’t ignore him there at the stern, Thankful rowing between them. Catherine would rather steer the rudder herself, but with the rapids behind them, speed was more important than careful maneuvering, and Samuel’s shoulder needed more time to heal.

The wood creaked as he shifted his weight. She wondered if he was thinking of his wife. Lydia.

Catherine maintained her steady rhythm with the oar but focused on the heavens. Blazoned with colored light, they were a merciful distraction. Where the sky above should be black except for the stars, it looked like a giant warrior had slashed it with his knife. A ghostly green spilled and oozed from the line stretching across the horizon. Shafts of light rippled to a music only they could hear.

Catherine rowed toward the magnificent expanse, and Thankful and Samuel remained silent in quiet reverence. They did not worship the Hodonäi’a, as the Iroquois called the Northern Lights, but the Great Good God who created them.

The river lapped gently against the bateau, and somewhere in the distance, a wolf’s cry soared, held its long note, then fell. The land on both shores sloped up before dipping again. Slowly up, then slowly down, the howl and the hills were in harmony with the water’s ebb and flow. This, too, was a kind of music to Catherine. Time bent itself to a similar pattern, for she could no better track how long they’d been rowing than she could get any closer to that elusive light. So separate from the world of war did Catherine feel, it was as if the moment were sealed off by itself.

And then it was punctured.

Stilling the oar, she paused to look around. “Something’s not right,” she whispered.

“What is it?” Samuel asked, his profile sketched in charcoal as he turned to scan the banks.

Wind feathered over Catherine, carrying an unmistakable scent. “Behind you. We’re being followed.”

“What?” Thankful twisted on the plank that held her.

Catherine held up her hand, then pointed to their wake. With the Northern Lights illuminating the night, it was not difficult to see the outline of another vessel on the river, and at least one person paddling it. The lithe figure moved with the strength of a porter and a practiced grace unknown to Pierre Moreau or Gaspard Fontaine. Slowly, but perceptibly, the shape of the pursuer grew larger.

“Who is it?” Samuel’s voice was strung low and tight.

“My sister.” She was almost certain of it. But whatever compelled Bright Star to race after them now, when Catherine knew she had wanted no part of this plan—that sent cold dread into her spine.

“You’re sure?” Samuel pressed. “What makes you think so?”

“Bear grease. Don’t you smell it?” Most of the People rendered the grease and used it in their hair or over their skin to protect from mosquitoes. But only Bright Star would come after her. “Something’s wrong, or she would not have come to find us.”

Tension radiated from the angles of Samuel’s posture. “Press on. You said yourself that she did not want you to take me. Neither did Joseph.”

But Joseph hadn’t stopped them when he’d had the chance. Catherine squeezed the oar, the blade suspended over the water. The weathered wood had begun to split, and the fractures pinched her palms. “She is my sister. Though she mistrusts you, she would not bring me harm.” She glanced from Samuel to Thankful.

“You’re sure it’s her?” the young woman whispered. “What if you’re wrong?”

“I am not. It’s Bright Star. I just don’t know what drives her. Whatever it is, it’s important, and I aim to find out.”

Thankful’s chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. “Samuel says we should keep going. Look, there’s a bend in the river. Once we get beyond it, could we not hide?”

“She’ll find us before we would have time to sink the bateau. Come now, Thankful. It’s Bright Star. We have no reason to fear her.”

The sky glowed with waves the color of algae. Beneath it, Thankful’s complexion took on a similar cast.

“Catherine. Row.” Gone was the tenderness Samuel had shown back in the cavern. In its place, a stern command.

She set her jaw. “We have held our council, and you both have said your piece. Now it is time you listen to your leader, for like it or not, that is what I am.” She directed her words to Samuel. “You asked me to lead you. So let me.”

The air thinned and grew brittle between them, but Catherine would not back down. Neither did she call out to Bright Star. Instead, she waited silently for her sister’s canoe to reach them, while her heart drummed against her ribs.

The sky writhed like a serpent, its bright green twin wrinkling on the river. If there was one thing the display of Northern Lights told Catherine, it was that the Creator God was vast beyond all comprehension, and she was small. Perhaps even too small to capture His notice. Yet she prayed He would notice them now, and guide her.

“What will your decision cost us?” Samuel muttered, jarring Catherine from her thoughts.

The canoe neared. Bright Star paddled so that her vessel was parallel with Catherine’s, the sisters across from each other.

She wasn’t alone. Joseph was behind her in the canoe, adding his powerful strokes to the water with his own paddle. No wonder they’d been able to overtake Catherine.

Gaspard Fontaine hunched between them.

Shock beat through Catherine at the sight of him, even as she noticed he’d been gagged and trussed, immobilizing any threat. “What are you doing here?” The question burst from her before her siblings had a chance to say a word.

“This one was following you.” Joseph thrust the handle of his paddle toward Fontaine.

“And so you brought him straight to us?” Samuel’s voice was flinty.

“Because we were following you, too.” Bright Star looked over her shoulder, then continued to paddle.

Catherine looked back, as well. Accompanied or not, the urgency to reach Quebec remained. “But why?” She sliced her oar into the water and pulled back, ignoring the ache in her shoulders. The burn in her belly was worse. Had she made a mistake in allowing them to reach her? Doubts circled, and she fought to chase them away. “Why have you come all this way?”

The gaze Bright Star directed at Samuel was as pointed as her chin. “That one is British. We are at war. Even if we trusted him, who knows what may happen to all three of you because of the risks you take for this man?”

“‘This man,’” Samuel repeated gruffly. “You know my name, Bright Star, and I know yours and Joseph’s. The only stranger among us is Fontaine. Tell me how bringing a Canadian militiaman right to us demonstrates a desire to keep us safe.”

“Samuel,” Catherine whispered at him. “Don’t judge them quite yet.”

“What would you have us do?” Joseph sat directly across from Samuel, river rippling between their vessels. “If we let him go, he could go back to Pierre Moreau or any of those schooners we passed, and they’d all be on the hunt for you at his bidding. Better to keep him close.”

“You didn’t kill him,” Samuel observed coldly. “You could have. It might have been him who set fire to the barn.”

Fontaine’s wide eyes gleamed as he stared at Samuel.

“Kill him!” At last, Thankful found her voice. “Surely it needn’t come to that.”

Catherine’s braids hung heavy on her shoulders as she rowed. She searched for meaning between and behind the words that were spoken, and within the words that were left unsaid. What she heard was that Bright Star and Joseph had come to protect her, a revelation which stood so tall in her mind that it nearly overshadowed all else. But beneath that notion she heard more. That Samuel wanted Fontaine dead, and that Thankful considered it murder. Fontaine had heard it all.

Without altering their pace, Catherine slid a glance to the hunting knife that hung in its sheath around Bright Star’s neck, swaying against her white stroud tunic as she paddled. Joseph’s scalping knife made a dark outline against the French trade shirt he wore. Surely their canoe contained other weapons, as hers did. They distrusted Samuel as much as she distrusted Fontaine. What would happen when they stopped to rest?

“The French are our ally until the Six Nations say otherwise.” Eerie light glowed on Joseph’s head where it was bald around his scalp lock. The feathers sprouting from his hair shivered in the breeze. “I will not kill Fontaine unless he poses a threat to my family.” He turned to Samuel. “I’ll kill any man who poses that threat, regardless of former allegiances.”

Catherine shuddered at the fierceness in her brother’s tone. She had never seen him fight or kill, though she knew he had done both. He had hunted for her and brought her meat when she was hungry. Now he hunted for her in a different way.

“I do not intend to hurt Catherine or Thankful.” Samuel’s voice held a struggle to keep calm.

“We have no interest in your intentions,” Bright Star said. “Only in your actions. What would keep you from hurting her again once you get what you want, especially now that our nations are at war?”

Catherine pulled harder at the oar, her focus fragmenting like the shards of green light moving across the night. Piece by piece, she mustered her wits. Samuel held his tongue, but she would no longer keep secrets. “Samuel can hurt me no further than he already has,” she told her siblings. “He is married. He’ll return to his wife and children as soon as he can.”

“He has told you this himself?” Joseph asked in Mohawk, and Catherine confirmed it in the same language.

“And still you do this for him.” A rare softness gentled Bright Star’s expression.

“My aim is to help end the war,” Catherine reminded her, and in so doing reminded herself. “I have released Samuel Crane before.” She would do it again.

The lack of response that followed was unsurprising. Bright Star and Joseph did not waste words and likely figured there was nothing more to say on the subject of Samuel’s family. They were right.

A wolf howled again, and a muffled cry came from Fontaine. Catherine welcomed the distraction. Switching back to French, she asked, “And what does Fontaine have to say for himself?”

Pulling his paddle inside the canoe, Joseph reached forward and yanked the cloth from the young man’s mouth.

Fontaine coughed. His head hung toward his chest while he composed himself. “Water,” he rasped, and Joseph tipped a canteen into his mouth.

Shifting her weight, Thankful turned toward the canoe. The press of her lips and tilt of her neck betrayed that she sympathized with Fontaine—if not for his actions, at least his discomfort. He appeared little recovered from the last time she’d seen him.

“You have to believe me,” he panted.

“No, we don’t,” Samuel said, and Joseph grunted his agreement.

“Just listen. I did set that barn on fire.”

Catherine’s attention jerked to Fontaine. Thankful gasped but made no further sound.

“I knew it.” Samuel growled. “You couldn’t strike me with a rusty sickle while I was shackled, so you thought you’d commit a bit of arson while I was trapped inside. Not very sporting—”

Fontaine cut him off. “Moreau ordered me to do it. Trained a gun on me and said if I didn’t obey a direct command, he’d shoot me for insubordination and wouldn’t miss me, since I was a useless drunk anyway. I was half out of my mind for want of drink, as you saw for yourself before he arrested you. He wanted you out of the picture, Crane, but didn’t want to dirty his own hands to do it. He said if I told the Duvals about the arrangement, it would be my word against his, and who would believe someone like me?” His voice was weak and reedy, but he seemed lucid.

“So you did it,” Samuel ground out.

“Consider my options!” Fontaine cried. “I would have been dead on the spot if I hadn’t. At least I knew the smoke would signal your location and you’d have some chance of being rescued. And that’s exactly what happened.”

“Only now you’ve come to trap me and deliver me back to Moreau.”

“No.” Fontaine shook his head furiously. “I’m deserting. I swear it’s the truth.”

Catherine found that hard to believe. “Deserting? In the direction of Quebec, where all the armies are gathered?”

His skin shone with a fever sweat. “We are both headed the opposite way others expect of us. Moreau believes that you headed south to Crown Point on Lake Champlain. So why would he send me north to chase after you?” He paused to catch his breath. “No, I don’t give a fig what you’re up to. I’ve had it with Moreau and with this war that never seems to end. It took my brother’s life, and for all I know, my parents are starving on the outskirts of Quebec, while I spent the last few weeks surrounded by grain in abundance. No more. I’m going home to take care of my own.”

The two vessels glided in tandem over the river. Samuel watched Fontaine in silence, his forearms flexed and tight. Bright Star and Joseph made no commentary, but Catherine knew they were listening to every word.

She considered what Fontaine had just shared, measuring the tale in her mind. “Where is the wheat?” she asked at length.

Fontaine stared at her for a moment before responding. “You know as well as I do. It’s being loaded onto schooners at Montreal.”

“No. The wheat you took for your family. You would have brought some of it with you, n’est-ce pas? To feed your starving parents?”

“You think I stole from Moreau’s storehouses?” A tremor shook his body.

“Didn’t you?” she pressed. A man who deserted during war would have no qualms about stealing grain. Fontaine had not shown himself to be scrupled in general.

She could hear his scowl in his voice. “You have trapped me. Neither answer would satisfy you.”

A clever evasion. Catherine tilted her head toward one shoulder, then the other, stretching out the tension she carried there.

“All I want is to get home. Gag me, truss me, do what you will, as long as I can reach my family. Why would you think I care any less for mine than you do for yours?” he asked Joseph. “We are not so different, you and I.” The canoe rocked, and Fontaine leaned over the side to retch.

“Finished?” Allowing a few more moments to pass, Joseph stuffed the rag back into Fontaine’s mouth.

Thankful winced. “How did you come by him?”

“The day after you left, we noticed your canoe missing from your dock,” Bright Star said. “Gabriel remains at the house, and we knew you had taken the bateau, so we suspected it was someone who had gone after you, whether one of the People or one of the French. We didn’t know which direction your pursuer went, but since we knew yours, that’s where we headed.”

“He made a fire his first night on land,” Joseph supplied. “Made it easy to find him. Easy to capture.”

“And the canoe?” Samuel asked. “Where is it now?”

“Lost.” Bright Star paddled with steady rhythm as she spoke. “He said he capsized near the rapids and couldn’t recover the vessel or supplies. He was soaking wet and trying to dry his clothing by the fire when we found him.”

“So he could be telling the truth,” Thankful concluded. “He could simply be returning to his family.”

“Or he could be lying through his teeth.” Samuel exuded frustration. “I’ll grant that you found him washed up with nothing. But I’d warrant he didn’t have proper supplies for the journey to start with. Except, perhaps, for rum.”

Fontaine shook his head at this, protest sounding in his throat.

“I have doubted Fontaine’s story, too, Samuel.” Joseph put his paddle back in the river. “But if he is lying, why would he confess to setting the fire? Whatever his true motives, I say we let the two men take the canoe, and I will take the women home in the bateau. I’ll loose Fontaine’s bindings so he can row to Quebec, as Samuel’s shoulder is not healed yet.”

A knot tightened in Catherine’s stomach. Samuel’s eyes flashed a warning above his cheekbones. As tempting as it might be to say yes to Joseph’s plan, she couldn’t ignore its most prominent flaw.

“Joseph. Thank you for wanting to keep me safe. But Fontaine has twice attempted to injure Samuel. We can’t be sure he won’t try again. Besides that, if Fontaine is unwilling to fight for his own country, he most certainly will not help Samuel serve his, even if he means him no harm. I don’t trust him to complete the task I’ve promised to accomplish myself.” She could scarcely believe her own words.

Bright Star turned to face her. “Are you truly so full of conviction or merely grasping for more time with a man you cannot have?”

Heat blazed across Catherine’s cheeks, though Samuel could not have understood the Mohawk words. “I’ve more sense than that, and you know it.”

“What about Thankful?” Joseph glanced at her, a protectiveness in his tone. “Would you like to go home? I will see you safely there.”

Thankful pulled her shawl tighter about her shoulders, pausing to consider. “What will you do, Catherine?”

Frustration swelled, not at Thankful, but at the sheer number of times Catherine was required to make the same decision. She calmed herself with the knowledge that in less than two weeks, it would all be over and she would be home once more. “I will do what I said I would, and take Samuel to Quebec. Would you like to go back with Joseph and Bright Star?”

Thankful’s eyes rounded.

Joseph did not give her the chance to respond. “We will not leave you alone with two warring men. That is not something I will do.”

Catherine met the steel in his voice with her own. “I’m going to Quebec, brother. Bright Star, I need you to be home in case the porters return from New York while I’m gone. I placed you in charge of their payment and the delivery of the trade goods they’ll bring.”

Bright Star held up a hand. “It’s your trading post. You’re in charge.”

Teeth on edge, Catherine calculated time and distance. By her reckoning, it was a month or longer to New York and back, less than two weeks for Quebec. “I’d feel better if you returned now, but if you refuse—I should be back before they arrive, anyway.”

“Then so will we,” Joseph said. “We’re going with you.”