A Flight of Arrows (3 page)

W
e picked up the trail of the spies near Cherry Valley and followed them back the way they came, into the west.”

Two Hawks sat at the table in the Aubreys' kitchen, giving his account of the past half moon to those gathered to hear it, but inwardly he was agreeing with Anna Catherine. It was good they'd had those moments alone at their meeting. With her father's Irish servants, the Doyles, and his own parents watching him, listening closely to all he said, he was finding it hard to know where to put his gaze. It wanted to feast on Anna Catherine. He summoned the will to make it fast.

“We found them camped on our border,” he said, casting his mind back to the morning he'd crouched on a ridge while a gray dawn teased color from the surrounding forest and rain pattered through yellow leaves with a noise like shaking gourd rattles. At the foot of the ridge, a clearing stretched, hummocky with grasses. Beyond was the camp of the spies they had tracked…

The icy rain had needled his face as he'd hunkered into his blanket and tried to mimic the indifference of his companions. Like Two Hawks they were
Onyota'a:ka
—Oneida—and scouts. They were also warriors, a title Two Hawks, at nineteen summers, couldn't claim in truth. One of them was Skenandoah, elderly war chief of the Wolf Clan, still hale enough to watch their western border for British spies. Those spies came to learn what the Americans were doing in their forts along the Mohawk River or in settlements dotting the wilderness around it. Settlements like Cherry Valley, the place the third scout called home. He was much younger
than Skenandoah but older than Two Hawks. To his Oneida mother's Wolf Clan he was Ahnyero; to his white father he was Thomas Spencer.

During the previous moon had come word that the loyalist Sir John Johnson, who'd fled to Montreal that summer past, had landed in the west at the lake fort of Oswego with hundreds of Tories bent on wreaking vengeance against the rebel neighbors who drove them out. Ahnyero had traveled deep into neighboring Onondaga land to see if this was true. It was not. Then word came from Ahnyero's kin at Cherry Valley. Someone was spying there, lurking in the mountains. This rumor proved true, which was why they huddled on that ridge waiting for the spies—British-allied Mohawks—to break camp and continue their westward journey.

Two Hawks had grown impatient with their passive watching. Why not capture these spies, take them to Colonel Dayton at Fort Stanwix? Make them tell the whereabouts of Sir John Johnson and his Royal New York regiment, which wasn't at Oswego making ready to attack but
was
somewhere?

Make them tell where Two Hawks's brother could be found. The last anyone knew of William Aubrey, he'd fled north to join Johnson's regiment of angry, homeless Tories.

They were two-born-together, he and William, though William had been born looking as white as their mother, Two Hawks brown-skinned like their father. Stolen by a redcoat officer the day of their birth, Two Hawks's twin had remained lost to them for years, until a chance meeting alerted them to his whereabouts…only to find William gone out of reach again, taken across the great water to a place called Wales by the woman who thought herself his mother. A terrible loss to bear a second time. Until Creator gave someone to heal that pain. Anna Catherine…

Crouched in the chill and wet, Two Hawks set his teeth with longing. Anna Catherine had a way of filling up his mind, driving out other concerns. Even his concern for William, who had returned from Wales and learned at last who he was. Not the son of Reginald Aubrey, a Welshman,
but the son of Good Voice of the Turtle Clan and the Bear Clan warrior Stone Thrower.

He-Is-Taken of the
Onyota'a:ka
.

Beside him Ahnyero stirred, the cloud of his breath thickening. Two Hawks's gaze flew sharp across the clearing. Movement was visible through the rain-darkened trees. The Mohawk spies were breaking camp. He leaned toward Ahnyero, blankets brushing. “Do we follow?”

Ahnyero's mouth tightened. “Wait.”

The warriors across the clearing moved out in file, headed west into the forest of the Onondaga.

“Let them go,” came the creaky voice of Skenandoah. “We have seen they watched the fort at Cherry Valley. We know it is of interest to them.”

Two Hawks could not hold back protest. “Grandfather, they will tell what they saw in Cherry Valley.”

“They will tell that whether or not we catch them,” the old warrior replied, meeting Two Hawks's impatient gaze. “They are
Kanien'kehá:ka
. We will not raise weapons against brothers. The Council fire at Onondaga burns. The Great Peace holds.”

The Great Law of Peace had bound the nations of the Haudenosaunee for many lives of grandfathers going back, even through the last war the whites waged with each other, French against English. All the nations—Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora—hoped it would hold through this one between the Americans and their Great Father the King, though not all had the same vision for that hope. While the Oneidas and some Tuscaroras felt strong ties to the Americans, the Mohawks were for the British, who were doing their best to entice the western nations—Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas—to side with them.

“We still stand to the side in this fight,” Ahnyero reminded him. “It isn't the time for taking prisoners. Or for killing.”

Not yet
. The unspoken words hung in the chilling dawn, heavy as the dripping foliage.

“Pray to Creator not ever. But now we will be watching Cherry Valley too. These spies were not careful enough. We are warned.” Skenandoah pushed back the blanket from his head, baring the white scalp-lock that hung feathered from his crown. He was first to rise. “The preacher will want to know these rumors are true.”

Two Hawks stood, spirits sinking. They were going back to Kanowalohale to make their report to their minister, Reverend Samuel Kirkland, who would send it in a letter to General Schuyler in the east and Colonel Dayton at Stanwix, the fort at the Carrying Place between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek. Going without the one thing Two Hawks hoped to gain, word on the whereabouts of Sir John Johnson. And William.

“I ask you both to return and tell Kirkland that these rumors are true ones,” Ahnyero said. “I will press on—to Oswego, if that is where these spies are bound. I will go among them and learn if I can why they pay attention to Cherry Valley.” Dressed in the quilled leggings and breechclout of a warrior, Ahnyero could pass among any gathering of Indians without drawing suspicion. “But whatever their business, we will watch for it, as our elder has said.” He met Two Hawks's frustrated frown and his mouth curved just a little. “Be easy, brother. It is more likely I will find out what we need to know if I go alone. But I will also learn what I can of Johnson's regiment.”

As Skenandoah and Ahnyero exchanged words of parting, Two Hawks felt the sting of the scout's unspoken words: he was too inexperienced a spy himself to go among the British or their allies. He voiced no protest, but when the old chief stepped away, he drew near Ahnyero again. “Before we part, I wish to speak to you about a thing.”

“Your brother?” Ahnyero asked.

“No. Other things.” Things like…how did a man live in two worlds without being torn apart in his soul? How did he find a path to the heart of a white man whose daughter he loved and wanted to make his wife? Ahnyero had done the first—he used the blacksmithing trade learned
from his father to serve both peoples, moving across borders with a seeming ease that made Two Hawks grasp at hope and glimpse a future he might share with Anna Catherine. Perhaps he had some knowledge of the other.

Ahnyero snaked a hand from his blanket and gripped Two Hawks's shoulder. “The scouting does not end today. When we meet again, we will talk. For now, see our grandfather safe home.”

Swallowing disappointment, Two Hawks glanced toward the old warrior already trudging up the ridge at their backs. “I think that one means never to need a young man looking after him.”

The scout grinned, then left to follow the spies westward. Two Hawks watched him slip around the clearing's edge, never breaking cover.

“
O-kee-wa'h
, brother. My prayers go with you.”

Ahnyero was right. They had time yet to talk about what weighed on Two Hawks's heart, because another thing needed to happen before he had a hope of becoming a man of two worlds: Anna Catherine's father was going to have to permit him to try.

“Ahnyero followed them from there,” Two Hawks said, coming to the end of his recounting, every word of which Anna had hung upon, trying not to stare too much at his moving lips since Two Hawks was doing an admirable job of not allowing their gazes to meet. “And for now that is all I know.”

His father, Stone Thrower, sat across the table from Anna, crutches propped nearby. Earlier, watching him come up from the barn where he'd been helping Mr. Doyle with the stock, Anna had realized he was ready to discard the props he'd needed the past few weeks. She'd also noticed the ease with which the two men now worked together. An understanding between Mr. Doyle and Two Hawks's father had formed during Papa's
absence. An amazing development, since it was Mr. Doyle who'd shot him—in a misguided attempt to protect Papa.

Two Hawks met her gaze for the first time since entering the house. “If they could get as far as Cherry Valley, those spies, then to cross the Schoharie River and reach this farm unseen is no hard thing.”

“And that settles it,” Mrs. Doyle announced, Irish accent thick as the porridge in the bowl she plunked on the boards under Anna's nose. She set another in front of Two Hawks and stood back, hands on ample hips. “You'll not go across that creek alone again, Anna—never mind scourin' the countryside for your bits of leaves and grasses.”

“But those spies
were
seen,” Anna protested. “And left without harming anyone.”