Blackbird (21 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

A mission!

Confused, Katherine looked at Adahya.  “Why did you bring me here?”

He took her hand and pulled her through the large swing gate.

Inside, Fort Hunter did not resemble a fort or even a mission at all.  It looked more like a smaller version of Adahya’s village.  Small dome-shaped bark lodges scattered its grounds.  In the center of the village stood a stone parsonage with glass windowpanes.  The chapel was two stories high with a bell and belfry on the roof.  A cross made from birch branches hung over the door.

Two Indians approached them.  They spoke rapidly, too fast for Katherine to understand.

“Who are they?” she asked after they had gone away.

“They are Ganeagaono.”  He took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.  “Come.”

Katherine drew back as Adahya knocked on the door.  It opened and a man in a long black robe appeared in the doorway.  Adahya stepped forward and spoke to him in Mohawk.

When Adahya motioned to Katherine, the parson smiled warmly at her.  “Please come in, dear.”

Katherine slowly entered the little chapel.  It was rustic, but compared to Joshua’s mission this was the Saint Peter’s Cathedral. This chapel had pews.  Granted, they were made from tree branches and pine planks, but at least this mission’s congregation did not have to sit on the floor like Joshua’s did.

The chapel actually had an altar and pulpit.  And a communion table with a silver bowl and chalice.  And an organ.

It was the most majestic instrument she had ever seen.  All she could do was stare at it.  The organ was magnificent, beyond anything Joshua would ever dream. She wondered if Joshua knew this mission existed here--so far away from civilization in the middle of a never-ending sea of forest.

She wished Joshua were here to see it.

Katherine turned, suddenly aware of the men’s stares.

“She’s a treasure, isn’t she?”  The parson’s eyes were filled with admiration.  “The organ and the communion set were gifts from Queen Anne when she ordered the chapel built over sixty years ago.  The organ is a wonder for my congregation.”

His congregation, she assumed, were Indians--just like Joshua’s.  She ran her hands over the massive bellows.  “How was it ever transported so far from civilization?”

“It came from England.  The pipes arrived a month after the organ.  I was told it took an eight-horse team to get them here.”  There was no mistaking the pride in his voice.  Then, as if remembering Adahya’s presence, the parson stepped toward him.  “I’m sorry I’ve kept you.  Shall we begin?”

Katherine looked to Adahya and searched his darting eyes.  “Begin what?”

“May we speak alone first?” Adahya asked the reverend.

“Of course.” Quietly, the parson walked out of the chapel and closed the door behind him.

“Adahya, what’s going on?”

* * *

WITH all the courage he could muster, Adahya met Katherine’s worried eyes.  A thousand needles pierced his stomach, and for a moment, he thought he would be sick.  He had thought he would be fine.  He had even joked with her on the journey here.

But the moment he had entered the gates, he began to fall apart.

Now, as he met her eyes, he fought the urge to bolt.

Katherine could say no.  After all he had put her through she had every right to refuse him.

He had vowed to never reveal his feeling to a woman again.  Star and Sunshine both said this was what Katherine longed for; if he did not say those words he would lose Katherine.

He knew he was not the husband Katherine had envisioned, and his life was not the world to which she was accustomed.  But he wanted to protect her forever.  He wanted to love her all the days of her life, and when he grew too old to make love to her, he wanted to hold her by his hearth and promise her an eternity of loving in the afterlife.

But she could refuse him.

He was trapped.

“Adahya, answer me.”

Her eyes were deep and pleading, and they penetrated to his soul.  Breathing deeply, he closed the distance between them.

He removed Star’s ring from the string which he suspended from his neck and cautiously flipped it on Katherine’s left finger, as Star had instructed was the proper way white swore their marriage rings.  She did not fight or refuse it.

He took another deep breath.  He had to say it.  If he did not, she would leave him. Not right away, perhaps.  But eventually.

“Katherine, this man wishes to honor you before your god.”  He tried to keep his voice steady as he mentally calculated all the reasons why she would reject him.  “I love you, and I wish to be your husband.  For always.”

Katherine stared at Adahya.  She looked down at her left hand and spun he pewter band around her finger.  It was a trade ring, manufactured for the sole purpose of bartering to the Indians for land or good will.  She knew this because Joshua had dozens of them which he used to bribe the Oneidas with.  But it was the most beautiful gift she had ever received. He loved her.

He loved her, and he wanted to marry her.  He had brought her to a chapel to be married before her god in a world he did not belong to.  In a world he was uncomfortable with.  And he had done it for her.

She fought the urge to throw her arms around him, promise to be his wife forever.  But there was one more thing she had to ask him.

Adahya saw her hesitation, and his heart fell.  Disappointment and humiliation fought for dominance within him.  He wanted to leave.  She would tell him why she was rejecting him now, and he wanted to leave before she had the chance.  He was a fool for ever asking her.

He met her worried gaze.  She took her hands and squeezed them.  She was trying to let him down easy.

“I will marry you if you promise to take me back to the mission one last time.  I want my mother’s quilt, her bible, and some other things she left.  They are all I have of her and my family.”  She bit the corner of her lip, as if pondering something difficult.  “And I want to say goodbye to Thomas and Robert.  And Joshua.”

Adahya tried to understand.  Everything in him tried to understand.  Katherine had not refused him.

Katherine had also admitted to loving Knox once.  She had not given herself to Knox, though.  And she had never said she loved Adahya.

“You no longer love Knox?” he heard himself ask.  Fool!

“Of course not.”

But she did not say she loved you either, his mind screamed.

He wanted to believe her, but remembered how naïve he had been with Song and how painful it had been when she had abandoned him.

He recalled when Katherine had saved him after he had been shot.  Not only had she taken him home, she had risked her own life to do so.  He recalled how badly he had wanted to find her when he thought she had escaped.  He had planned on taking her back to the mission just so she would be safe.

Star said if people get married they stay together forever.  Zachariah had married Star the white way, and they were very happy together.  He had never heard them fight, really.

He did not want to take Katherine back to Knox, even to let her say goodbye to him forever.  But she would not marry him otherwise.  This marriage was important to her.  In her mind it would bind her to him forever.  It was the guarantee he needed to keep her from running. But he wanted to trust her.  Even so, he had to hear it from her lips.

“If I take you to do this, will you stay with me always?”  For a dreadful moment he feared she would refuse.

“Always,” she replied.  “I will be your wife.”

He closed his hand around hers, feeling the pewter band on her finger.  “I’ll fetch the parson.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THEY had not walked far from the mission when a scream tore through the air.

At first, Katherine though it was a cougar.  But when the scream came again it was recognizably that of a woman.

Adahya pushed Katherine behind a tree and reached for his musket.  “Stay here.”

Ignoring his command, she followed as he tracked the screams to a patch of thickets.

There, Song lay on her side, curled in a fetal position.  Blood was everywhere.

At first, Katherine thought Song had cut her herself.  Then she saw her legs and knew what was happening.  It was exactly how she had found Mama two years ago.  The mattress on Mama’s bed had been soaked with her own blood.  And her screams…My god, her screams.

Katherine knelt beside Song.  She tried to feel her stomach, to check if the baby had dropped, but Song hit and kicked at her, refusing to be touched.

“Song, let me help you.”  She grabbed Song’s wrists and held them still.  “Song.  Song!  Listen to me!”

Song stopped fighting.  She looked up at Katherine, her black eyes wide and terrified.

Katherine reached down and felt Song’s stomach.  The baby had dropped, but it was too early.  And she should not be hemorrhaging this badly.

Just like Mama had.  Would Song beg her to kill her like Mama had?

Katherine felt herself began to tremble, but she willed herself to stay calm.  She would not let this one die, and she prayed.  She prayed hard--even said the Rosary.  Then she prayed to God, and to Hawenneyu, and to all the saints in heaven, Catholic, Anglican, and Mohawk.

“Song, has your water broken?”

Song just whimpered something in Mohawk.

“Song, can you get up?”

Song shook her head and clutched Katherine’s hands as if they were the only thing tying her to this life.

Katherine braced her arm around Song’s shoulders.  Adahya was standing beside her, and he quickly moved to help her.

“She has to get on her knees,” she instructed her husband.

Adahya eased Song onto her knees in front of a large tree, and Katherine placed Song’s hands on each side of the trunk.

Song was crying huge, heart wrenching sobs.  “I cannot do this!  Please.  Do not make me do this…let me die.  Please.”

“You can do this.”

“No!  Please.”

Katherine saw her mother in Song’s pleading eyes.  Let me die, they begged, just as Mama’s had.  Just let me die.

Katherine was not going to give in this time.  Song would live, and the baby would live.  They had to.  She held Song’s face in her hands, suddenly realizing how young she looked now.  Song was not much more than twenty, maybe even younger.  She was too young to have this happen.

“Song, listen to me.  You’re going to have this baby now, but you’re going to get through it with my help.  Do you understand me?”

Song did not answer.  She just looked at Katherine and trembled uncontrollably.

Katherine grabbed Song’s possible bag and dumped its contents onto the ground, frantically searching for some cloth.  When she found none, she turned to Adahya.  “Give me your cloak.”

He handed it to her, and she wiped the sweat from Song’s brow.  She tore off a strip of the cloak and placed it in Song’s mouth.

“When the contractions come again, I want you to bit down on this as hard as you can.”  When Song did not answer, she forced the cloth into her mouth.  “You’re not going to die.  I won’t let you.  Do you hear me?”

Song’s contractions came.  Katherine sensed them in Song’s terrified expression even before her screams began.  Katherine ordered her to push, and each time Song did, the bleeding worsened.

This was bad.  At this rate Song would bleed to death.  Panic ate at her again.  She had not been able to save Mama.  What in the world made her think she could help Song?

She turned to Adahya who was examining a cup which she had dumped from Song’s bag.  “Adahya, you have to help me.”

Ignoring her, Adahya smelled the inside of the cup.

“Adahya, go get help!”

“This is bloodroot.”  He threw up his hands, and then smelled the cup again.  His jaw tensed.  “Katherine, this is bloodroot!”

“So?  Just go get help!”

“Katherine, Song drank it to end her pregnancy.”

* * *

KATHERINE stood aside as the old medicine woman, White Swan, stopped Song’s bleeding. Adahya had carried Song back to the village, to White Swan’s hearth where Song had given birth to a stillborn baby girl.  Katherine had washed the blood from the tiny infant and wrapped her in a blanket, but Song still refused to look at her.  The child had a soft down of red hair cresting its forehead.

It was such a fine line between life and death.  A life could be cut short so quickly and so easily on this godforsaken frontier.  It was not fair.

And it was not fair that Song would live while this baby, this innocent life which would never have the chance at anything, would die.  Song had killed her own child, had decided its fate to live or die as if she was God, and Katherine did not understand.  White Swan said she should have known Song would do this.  She had been asking for the bloodroot for some time now.

Katherine watched Song as she lay on the bark sleeping platform in White Swan’s hearth.  The woman did not stir, just faced the bark wall as if lost in her own torment.  Song’s mother and sister had buried the child in the forest outside the village, but they refused to speak or see Song.  She was dead to them now.

* * *

WHEN things had settled down with Song that night, Adahya’s entire family, even She-who-commands, came to their lodge bearing wedding gifts.  Their home was too small for all of them, so they went outside and sat around a small fire.  Soon the small wedding celebration had grown into a village-wide feast.

Katherine could not believe all the gifts they received.  Adahya was given tools and weapons mostly.  His brothers had given him a new birch bark canoe.  Star gave Katherine a pouch with intricately designed floral patterns on it, and Sunshine gave her two blankets.  Sunshine’s children, Swift Runner and Little Jay, each gave her a silver trade bracelet.  And Many Stories, or Grandfather, as he commanded she call him now, gave her a bowl of friendship pudding and promised to keep her in a constant supply.  She-who-commands even gave her a basket.  When Katherine thanked her, the woman had simply shrugged it off with a scowl.

That night Katherine and Adahya made love, and as they lay in each other’s arms, Adahya told her he would be leaving to join a Seneca raiding party in just a matter of days.

Katherine rolled onto her back so she could look at him.  She knew this news was coming, but she wanted to scream at him, hit him, beg.  Anything to keep him from leaving.

He seemed to read her apprehension.  He wound a lock of her hair around his fingers, his eyes never leaving hers.  “It is a warrior’s duty to defend his people.  It is who I am.  You know that.”

Katherine pictured him lying on the forest floor alone and injured, miles from home.  Dying.  If something happened to him she would never know.  He would just never come back.  And she would be left to always wonder what had happened to him.  If he had suffered.

She could not help her tears, and did not care if he saw them.

“Do not cry, Chogan.”

“Y-you could be killed.”

“If I am killed, I will still be with you.”  When she tried to pull away, he pulled her beneath him and held her face in his hands.  “When the wind blows you will know that it is Adahya whispering words of love into your ear.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I have to go.”

“But--”

“Shh….”  He brushed away her tears.  “I am a warrior.  I must go.”  He softly kissed her, barely touching her lips.  “I promise you that I will return.  I do not die so easily.  You know this to be true.”

Katherine tried to smile against his lips, and he kissed her again.  Slowly, as if to show her that they had a lifetime of loving ahead of them, he made love to her, kissing away her tears and vowing that he would always be with her.  Katherine clung to that promise.  It no longer mattered that she would live as a Hodenosaunee woman, because Adahya’s world promised more for her than she had ever known in her own.