A Newfound Land (22 page)

“It depends how you see it,” Alex said. “Those women might have been married when they were carried off from their Indian village, so maybe last year was an attempt to free them.”

Elizabeth snorted. “You can’t think that a woman happily married to a Christian man would ever consider returning to a life in longhouses and skins.”

“Maybe they were happily married before,” Alex said, “and being forcibly converted to Christianity is probably not much of a spiritual experience. More like being raped.”

Elizabeth’s mouth shrank into a prune, but she didn’t reply.

“Whatever the case, we have to defend ourselves,” Thomas put in, “and it’s better for all if the militia is capably manned. Men like me and Matthew, with experience of warfare, will be able to temper the more hot-headed amongst us.”

“Matthew?” Alex shook her head. “He can’t go! We…I need him here!” She gripped her husband’s hand and swallowed. Him gone? How was she to manage without him?

“One man from each household,” Thomas said. “You could send Ian instead,” he added, directing himself to Matthew.

“I think not. I will go, but I don’t like it, nor do I intend to be gone over the harvest. My fields are ripening as we speak, and I’ll start taking in my crops within the fortnight.” Matthew gave Alex’s hand a little squeeze.

“Of course not,” Thomas said. “That’s why the meeting is called for next week. We’ll be home in time, and then the militia will ride out late autumn – if necessary.”

“If necessary,” Matthew repeated.

“I don’t want you to go,” Alex said once the Leslies had left.

“I have no choice, lass.”

“But why? We’re not the ones having issues with the Indians! Let them who’ve provoked them sort it. I…” She broke off. Words failed her, and she concentrated on finding her voice again, swallowing a couple of times to rid her throat of its sudden congestion. She hated the idea of being left behind here, all alone with their children. Even worse, how was she to stand it with him gone, not knowing if he’d come back safe and sound? And what if that Burley… No; she shoved the unfinished thought out of her head.

“It will be fine.” He cupped her chin and lifted her face to meet his eyes. “I am no rash, untried youth, Alex. I will take no risks. A few weeks, no more. Surely you can survive without me that long?”

“Barely,” she muttered, making him smile. “But I don’t want to. I want you here, with me.”

“And this is where I want to be: with you.” He kissed her on the brow. “Besides, it’s not yet, is it? And, who knows, by autumn it may all have died down.”

Chapter 26

“I’m taking a walk,” Alex said to Magnus. “Now that the baby tyrant is fast asleep for the first time in days, I’m going to take my overworked tits and escape into some solitude, okay?”

“Okay, and should he wake from hunger pangs, I dare say he’ll survive until you’re back.” Magnus smiled down at his grandson, who lay like a frog on his blanket in the shade.

“Will you stay with him?”

“No,” Magnus said. “Given my advanced senility, I will amble off and leave him to be eaten by a raccoon or something.”

“Raccoons don’t eat humans,” Alex snorted.

“Something as fat and juicy as this? I wouldn’t gamble on it.” He laughed at her. “Go on. Look, I’m here and so is our faithful hound, dear Narcissus.” The dog raised one silken ear at the sound of his name before subsiding back to sleep, his big head on the bottom corner of the baby blanket.

She felt free; no hollering baby, no constant weight in her arms. She braced her aching back against her hands and, after a quick peek to ensure Jenny wasn’t anywhere in sight, lowered herself to the ground to do a set of push-ups. Then she got to her feet and ran into the cover of the trees before any of her other children should discover she had slipped her fetters and was available to them.

It was a normal, humid July day. After half an hour of brisk walk, her chemise clung to her back, and the down on her upper lip was beaded with sweat. God, how she longed for Scotland on days like these! For the crisp dawns of the northern summer, the dry heat of the days, and the long, soft summer evenings. Things she would never again experience, she thought, kicking her way through the high grass of the meadow. Never again would she stand on a Scottish moor and see the flaming pinks of the autumn heather; never would she break off a branch of blooming gorse to set in a stone jar on her kitchen table.

Homesickness draped itself like a wet blanket over her, and she longed violently for Matthew, for his hand round hers. She missed him – had missed him since the moment he rode off two days ago.

“You’re being ridiculous,” she chided herself. “Get a grip, Alex Lind, before you turn into a needy old cow.” It made her laugh, and in a somewhat better mood, she cut in towards the abandoned Indian village. She went there quite often, sitting for some moments in solitude while she thought about Rachel. Just thinking her name made her lost daughter spring alive in her head, untidy braids bouncing round her sturdy little body. And then the horse’s hoof came down and crushed the skull to pulp. Oh God; Alex wiped her hand over her eyes.

Alex didn’t see him until she had sat down on her normal perch, a fallen log just to the east of the clearing. He was sitting in absolute stillness a bit further on, his eyes locked on what Alex supposed had been the main house of the settlement but that now reminded her of an elongated tomb. She shivered at the thought; after all, to some extent it was.

“I’m sorry.” She stood up. “I didn’t mean to intrude…”

Qaachow tilted his head to show he’d heard her but otherwise remained where he was.

“You come to think of your daughter,” he said, gesturing at the ‘RACHEL’ she had carved on a nearby tree. “Those thoughts do not intrude on mine.”

Alex sat back down again. Not that there was any possibility of her thinking about Rachel now, with this slim, half-naked Indian some yards away, but it would be rude to walk away and disturb his meditation again. He was gaunter than last time she’d seen him, more careworn. He shifted on his perch and the breechcloth rustled, releasing a fragrance of crushed pine needles.

“I sit here at times and remember the life that was. Before…” His low voice cut through the silence.

“Before we came,” she filled in, following the dancing beams of afternoon sunlight that fell in from the west to pattern the ground with eerily lifelike shades of that long gone existence.

“Yes, before John Smith brought the white man over.” He looked away through the screen of trees towards the river, barely visible from here. “He came to our village once.”

“He did? What was he like?”

“I’m not that old.” He smiled. “I never met him in person, but my grandfather did. We should never have let you land,” he added in a darker voice. “We should have listened to our wary brethren of the north and pushed you back into the sea.”

Alex quietly agreed. Soon nothing would be left of the Indian way of life.

“We still could, we still might.”

“Too late,” Alex said. “We’ll never let this go. Not now.”

Qaachow gave her a look of grim amusement. “We could steal in like shadows in the night, and none of you would notice until you lay dying in your blood.”

Alex huddled together with physical pain at the thought. “But you won’t, will you? You won’t kill my babies.”

“No, my people will not. We owe you lives.”

“Your people? Are there any other Indians we need to worry about?”

Qaachow hitched his shoulders. “This is our land. They will not touch you. But, elsewhere, white women and children will be slain, and their men will be killed slowly and in agony. The coming years will be bad, Mrs Graham, very bad.”

Alex nodded and bent to pick up a pine cone from where it lay on the shimmering green of the moss.

“I know. That’s why Matthew’s been called down to Providence.”

Qaachow looked away, saying something in his own language that sounded very sad. For some time he sat sunk in thoughts, eyes lost in the dappled shadow of the surrounding woods.

“I’ve never thanked you or your husband for what you did for my people, in particular for my wife.” Qaachow stood up in one fluid movement. He was an attractive man, Alex reflected, his hairless torso outlined with muscles without becoming too excessive. Long, beautiful hands, and a mouth that, when relaxed, was soft and tender – kissable. Their eyes met. For a couple of heartbeats he held her eyes, the shadow of a smile playing round his mouth.

Alex cleared her throat. “Your wife?”

“Thistledown-in-the-wind; it was her sister that died.”

“She’s very pretty,” Alex said, thinking of the young Indian woman with the thick braids – young enough to be his daughter, but apparently his wife. He seemed to see what she was thinking and smiled crookedly.

“I loved my first wife very much, and it took many moons before I wanted to look at another woman.” He stared off into the distance. “Morning Dream – always first in my heart.”

“Morning Dream, what a beautiful name.”

“As was she.” With a courteous nod in her direction, Qaachow blended into the surrounding trees.

*

“She’ll never know,” Thomas said, setting yet another mug of frothing ale before Matthew. He smiled at two of the working lasses and elbowed Matthew hard. “See? They’re giving you the eye. Pretty girls, both of them.”

Matthew had to agree that they were bonny – and frighteningly young. “Nay, I’ll sit here and drink my beer and wait for you.”

Thomas exhaled. “After riding the same mare for so many years, why not try out a hot new filly? Are you worried you won’t be able to perform?”

Matthew ignored the slur and concentrated on his beer. “You go.”

He was sitting there, as lost in his own thoughts as it was possible to be in a tavern populated by men with the expectant look of male baboons every time one of the whores smiled at them, when he became aware of someone looking at him. Matthew kept his eyes on the table, peeking through lowered lashes until he saw him, sitting straight across.

Dominic Jones wasn’t sitting alone: beside him sat that little strumpet of his, a right bonny woman with hair the colour of a fox pelt in autumn. Just like Luke’s hair... As always the thought of his brother made a surge of bile rise through him, even if there were times when the anger was accompanied by a tinge of regret that his brother should be so completely lost to him. Matthew scraped at a blob of wax, refusing to raise his eyes to where Jones sat staring at him.

“Graham.” Dominic Jones didn’t wait for permission. He just sat down at Matthew’s table, ignoring Matthew’s instinctive recoil.

“Jones, what business brings you to my table? You prefer skulking in the dark.”

To Matthew’s surprise Dominic scrubbed his hands over his face and groaned. “I have enemies enough in my life; chief amongst them my sweet wife.”

“Aye,” Matthew nodded in the direction of the lass who was laughing with a comely lad. “She would be a trifle upset, what with yon lass.” And she had the right of it, to be so openly spurned, and she a dutiful and fertile wife and handsome to boot.

“Upset?” Jones spat on the floor. “I fear to return home lest she castrate me.” Matthew smiled faintly. Not a major loss, he reflected, sipping at yet another mug of beer that had miraculously appeared before him.

“I wish to make you a deal,” Jones said. “Retribution, if you will.”

“Retribution?” Matthew echoed. “For what? For your unprovoked ambush last time we met? Or for kicking my dignity out of me all those years ago? For treating me like an animal despite me being a man as good as you are? Or for attempting to have me hanged for a murder you committed?”

“Shh!” Jones glared at him. “For all, I suppose,” he said in a surly voice.

Matthew shook his head and pushed back from the table. “You can’t give me back what you took, no matter that you pile rubies and pearls on the table before me.”

Jones looked at him from under lowered brows, one of which was neatly bisected by a glossy pink scar – a permanent remembrance from their last meeting. The small, light eyes regarded him with a mixture of caution and dislike.

“We’re to serve in the same militia company,” Jones said, “and I don’t want to be constantly looking over my shoulder to ensure you’re not aiming your musket at my back.”

Matthew eyed the man in front of him and decided then and there to have a long talk with Thomas about the need to have someone always covering his back. In the darker recesses of his mind woke the thought that it would be so very easy; for a man as good a shot as he was, it would be no great matter to permanently rid the world of Dominic Jones.

“Can we then at least agree that while serving together we’ll do each other no harm?” Jones asked.

Matthew grinned wolfishly. “If anything befalls me, dear Dominic, you might find it all a wee bit too hot under your feet.”

“There’s nothing you can prove!”

“Nay, not as such; but a providential date on the will that gave you Fairfax’s whole estate and an extensive description of events might make it difficult for you. Gossip sticks like tar, and once it sticks it burns itself into your skin and never, ever washes off.” He was enjoying this. Jones squirmed like a fat worm on a hook before getting to his feet.

“I make an uncomfortable enemy.”

“So do I,” Matthew replied, baring his teeth. He frowned down at the table for some heartbeats before looking at Jones. “But if you give me your word you won’t harm me, I’ll give you my word I won’t harm you – not as long as we serve together.”

“My word,” Jones nodded, “it’s given.” He spat in his hand and held it out to Matthew, who after some consideration spat in his own hand and took it. The revulsion that ran through him at Jones’ touch made him want to void his guts, and he retook his hand to wipe it against his breeches. Besides, he didn’t believe him.

Matthew stared down at his mug, drained it and slammed it down on the table, beckoning to one of the wenches for a refill. Where the hell was Thomas? He nursed yet another mug of beer and another, and suddenly there was a lass sitting beside him, and she was laughing at everything he said. When her hand brushed at his crotch, his cock sprung into beer-sodden life, vociferously demanding to be let out to run a chase or two. Matthew blinked at the girl; she was very bonny, with dark eyes and hair the colour of honey – like Kate.

“Kate,” he slurred and the girl nodded.

“Kate,” she said.

“Sweet, sweet, Kate,” Matthew enunciated, making a huge effort. His cock was being expertly fondled and he heard himself groan. What was he doing? With a huge effort, he slapped her hand away and scooted away, but she came after him and there was her hand again, and it was almost like Alex... Alex! Matthew sobered up so fast he nearly fell off the bench.

“Nay, lass.” His tongue was thick in his mouth. She ignored him, no doubt assuming it was but a matter of minutes before he followed her upstairs, and then it would be quick and neat, with her much richer and he rather poorer. Sweetest Lord, but he wanted to! He sat back against the wall, his legs spread as her hand found its way into his breeches. His head was spinning with too much beer, his pulse thundered in his head, and his balls ached with lust.

“Matthew?” Thomas leaned across the table, beaming. “Do you want me to wait for you?” He jerked his head in the direction of the stairs.

“Nay.” Matthew batted away the long-fingered hand and got to his feet, trying to order his clothes. His cock protested; it needed to, it screeched, and this lassie definitely knew her business. “For the love of God, Thomas, take me away. I don’t want to do this, however much my cock wishes to.”

Next morning Matthew woke to a throbbing head and an acute sense of self-disgust. Had Thomas not appeared when he did, he would’ve gone with the pretty little whore and...

“But you didn’t.” Thomas sounded irritated. “And even if you had, how would it have harmed? Alex would never have known.”

“Aye, she would. She would have had it out of me in less than an hour, and then my married life would have morphed into a bed of thorns.” Matthew threw a look out of the window and rolled out of his side of the bed. “Kirk?”

“Oh, of course,” Thomas agreed and stretched.

It was therefore in a penitent state of mind that Matthew heard Richard Campbell for the first time. Sitting ashamed and hung-over in a pew, he listened as this small man with an unattractively high voice laid out the text around the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah – in Scots. Afterwards, he felt flayed, but somehow much relieved, and he approached the minister for a private discussion that ended with Richard Campbell promising to come home with him. Matthew was elated; a minister in his home – it was going to be like old times, long nights spent in religious debates with Sandy Peden or Minister Crombie.