Blackbird (19 page)

No one was listening to her.  They were like a pack of starving dogs attacking the gifts.  She tried to pull a bundle of silk from Song’s grip, but Song shoved her backward, and Katherine landed against one of the redcoats.

She shrugged from the redcoat’s grip on her arm and turned to face him.  The soldier was looking at her as if she were something strange and unusual--as if she did not belong there.

As if he knew she was a prisoner.

“Who are you, woman?”  His voice was heavy with a Londoner’s accent.

Adahya was blocking her from the man before she could answer.  His hand went to the tomahawk at his belt.  “Go to the lodge, Katherine.”

“Adahya--”

“Do as I say, woman!”

The soldier made a move to grip Adahya’s shoulder but pulled back, as if thinking better of it after sensing Adahya’s cold rage within.

“Do you keep her as ransom?”

Katherine did not move.  And the soldier did not stop staring at her.  Every inch of her knew she should cry out for him to save her, to take her back to the mission.

She watched as Adahya slowly removed his tomahawk from his belt.

Adahya was going to kill him.

He was going to kill to keep her prisoner.

“Stop!”  Adahya’s mother broke through the crowd.  “This woman was never our captive,” she informed the soldier in Mohawk.  She brushed a hand down Katherine’s cheek and tenderly kissed her forehead.  “Blackbird is much loved by our people.  She has been with the Ganeagaono since she was a small child when her white family died, and she stays now of her own free will.  We are the only family she knows.”

“I don’t--” Katherine started.

Adahya did not give her the chance to finish before he yanked her by the arm and dragged her away.

Katherine fought his grip. “Let go of me!”

“Katherine, you do not understand.”

“No, you don’t understand!”  She stopped outside his lodge.  “Those soldiers you so admire are using you--all of you.  Yes, they make fine promises now, before they use you and get you all killed!”

She went inside the lodge and retrieved Joshua’s documents.  If she could not get to Fort Ontario to clear Joshua’s name, she would do it through these redcoats.

Adahya blocked the door, refusing to let her back outside.

“Let me by.”

“No.”

“I’m giving these documents to them, whether you like it or not.  It’s what I set out to do in the first place.”  She pushed past him, but he grabbed her arm and whirled her around.

“Katherine, no!  I forbid it.”

“I don’t care what--”

“Hear my words, Katherine.  They are not interested in talk.  You are nothing to those men, and your opinion is even more worthless in their minds.  Do you not understand?  Those documents you covet will mark your execution.”

He was gripping her arm so tightly it hurt.  Katherine tried to break free, but he would not let her.  “Colonials are ransomed to the British, Katherine.  The British want Knox’s head because he impedes their plan of having all Iroquois nations side with the British cause.  Those documents link you directly to him.  Any warrior could get ten guns from the British for taking you to them.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

KATHERINE searched Adahya’s black eyes.  The realization suddenly hit her with the force of a tidal wave.

Adahya had come into her life with word that Joshua was wanted at Fort Ontario.  Adahya had agreed to take her instead knowing full well that he would ransom her for trade goods.  She recalled how he once said the British would pay a good price for her scalp.  She never knew he meant it.  That he had all intention of having her killed.

Betrayal took her breath away, robbed her of rational thought.  “You were taking me to Fort Ontario to die.”

Tears threatening to spill, she began to tremble.  Adahya grabbed her shoulders to steady her.

“You knew they would kill me.”

“Katherine--”

“That was before--”

Katherine shook her head.  She fought his grip, suddenly sickened by his touch, by the fact that she had trusted him.  That she loved him.

“Katherine, that was before I knew you.  You were an enemy to me.  After I knew you, at the point, I asked you to live with me, and when you refused I took you by force.  I saved your life because I did not want you to die.”

Katherine shook her head.  She closed her eyes, refusing to look at him.

This was too much.  She had to leave.  She had to leave now.

“Katherine--”

“No!”

She ran.  Ran and ran and ran.  And did not stop until she was hidden in the middle of the cornfield.  She sunk to her knees and cried.  She cried for herself.  For all the loss, disappointment, and betrayal she had suffered.  She cried for her own stupidity, for the senseless naivety that had gotten her into this whole mess in the first place.  The stupidity that had made her fall in love with Adahya.

She loved him.  She knew that she loved him, and she still loved him now after he had lied to her so many times.

But this was worse.  Far worse than any lie.

And it hurt far worse than anything Joshua had ever done to her.

She had so many regrets, and it was too late to take any of them back.

She did not know how long she stayed there in the corn listening to the wind whip the papery husks when Star came to her side.  She collapsed in her friend’s arms.

“Oh, Star!”

“Shh…Chogan.  It will be all right.”

“No!  No, it won’t.”  Katherine clutched her as Star stroked her hair.  “You don’t understand what he did.”

“I heard, Chogan.  Adahya is talking with my husband now.”

Katherine pulled away, her anger igniting once again.  She hated how Adahya always went to his family with their fights, and she hated even more that his family upheld his actions.  Always.

“Adahya has much to learn about women, but you must understand that he is a warrior first and foremost.  He fights for the cause of his people.  It is what he was given life for.”

“He betrayed me.”

“He saved you.  He brought you here to save your life.  Don’t you see?  You were never his captive.  He rescued you because he did not want any harm to come to you.”

Katherine shook her head, refusing to listen.  “Adahya could have taken me back to the mission.”

“Yes, but he also wanted you for his own.  I agree that this was selfish on his part, but what man is not selfish most of the time?”

The sun had set by the time Star had talked her into leaving the cornfield and coming to her hearth to stay the night.  Katherine refused to enter until Star had made certain Adahya was not inside.

Sunshine rushed over as soon as word spread of Adahya’s betrayal.  Star made maple tea, and they each held her as she poured out her heart to them.

When Zachariah and Two Guns came in, Katherine prayed they were alone.

Her prayers went unanswered.

She started to leave, but she realized she had no place to go. She certainly was not going back to Adahya’s lodge.  Ever.

The three brothers sat around her fire, Adahya making certain to be the one sitting beside Katherine.

Sunshine was the first to verbally attack him.  “You should be ashamed of yourself!” she hissed, and Katherine silently cheered her on.  “What kind of man do you call yourself, lying to her?”

“Sun--” Star warned.

Adahya’s gaze shot daggers at Sunshine.  He turned toward Katherine, but she looked away.  “I never lied to you.”

“You most certainly did!” Star replied.

“Omitting the truth is not lying.”

“Perhaps we should all go outside.”  Star stood up.  She pulled Sunshine by the elbow, Zachariah by the other.  “Come, husband.  You too, Two Guns.”

Katherine started to get up as well.

“Katherine, no!”  Adahya gripped her arm but immediately let go.  “Stay.  I need you to hear this man’s words.  Please.”

Katherine looked into his pleading, dark eyes.  She was still angry, and it was against her better judgment, but she stayed.  There was something sad in his eyes.  Something raw and primitive and pleadingly destitute.  It was a look without arrogance or pride; a look she had never seen from him.  A look of desperation from somehow who did not know what to do to take the regrets back and make everything all right again.

She looked down at her hands.  Adahya was rubbing his thumb down the inside of her elbow, trailing tiny circles down her arm.  “Katherine, I first went to the mission to ransom Knox.  When you demanded to go in his place, I saw you as my enemy, nothing more.  I was wrong to have not told you this before.”

“And you were wrong to take me captive.”  She met his stare, her jaw clenched with humiliation and anger.  Tears burned the backs of her eyes, and she struggled to contain them.

“I did it to save your life.”

“You could have taken me back to the mission.”

“It was too late then.  You had begun asking me questions about my life, sharing things about yours.”  He scowled, as if struggling to find the right words and coming up short.  “No woman talked to me like you did.  Ever.”

“I wanted choices, Adahya!”  She swiped vainly at an endless stream of tears.  “You never offered me choices. You still don’t!”

She expected him to argue with her.  She expected him to yell or throw something or storm out.  She did not expect that look.

Deep in the black recesses of his eyes lived fear.  A cold, gripping, all consuming terror that she would leave.  He knew he could not stop her.  Not forever.  Being alone was oftentimes cruel, and wretched, and desperate.  She had felt it herself when Mama died, when Joshua shunned her so many times.  It clutched its victims around the throat and pulled them down into its blackness, into the pit of its hell, and few could escape it.  She could not.  Nor could Adahya.

She saw that in him now.  And she respected it.  Respected him for it was the first true honesty he had offered her.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling his pulse race as quickly as her own, feeling his tears that she knew would never come but were still there just the same.

“Please do not hate me, Chogan.”  He stroked her hair and chanted it over and over.  His voice caught as he spoke.

* * *

“HOW dare you accuse me on such grounds!”  Joshua Knox screamed at the redcoat soldiers.  “I do not nor will I ever answer to Crown rule!”

“The colonies are Crown-owned until the war is won.  Therefore, you will live by Crown law.”

Joshua trudged on, his arms and legs aching from the heavy shackles he wore.  Unable to bear the sight of the colonel riding his horse, he concentrated on the Mohawk savage who walked beside him.  In his mind, he struggled to devise a plan in which he could steel the keys to his chains, but none would come.  There were too many of them.  He did not have a chance for escape.

The Mohawks working for these redcoats had burned his mission.  All because John Butler had accused him of treason.  He had become an agent to the Oneidas, had gotten them to side with the Colonials.  British posts had been attacked by his instruction, they said, and he would hang at Fort Ontario for it.  He knew himself it was just a matter of time before they caught him anyway, for his paper was becoming too popular.  He was becoming too popular.

The documents were still missing, but it did not appear that these men had them or even knew of their existence.  Apparently, Katherine had never made it to the fort.  Even these men knew nothing of her or the Mohawk who had supposedly escorted her there.

The Mohawk must have murdered her.  Joshua wondered how terrible her death had been, and he prayed the savage had taken her scalp quickly, prayed she had not been raped first.

The thought of her death sent a torrent of depression to his heart.  Kate was a good girl.  She had not deserved this.  And the whole thing was his fault.  He should have never brought her out here.  This land was certainly no place for a woman.  He should have realized it and refused to let her come out here with him.

Thomas and Robert had gone to Fort Ontario looking for her and had not returned.  He had begged them not to go, but they had not listened.  It was obvious Thomas fancied Kate, but that was no reason to be foolish.  Joshua had known the girl most of his life.  Had respected and cared for her as much as anyone.  But he was not about to get himself killed when he believed there was no chance she might still be alive.

He fervently prayed Thomas and Robert a quick death.  A death as humane as he hoped his own would be.