Under the Same Sky (30 page)

The crowd murmured unanimous assent.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. “You’re lying.”

The judge ignored me. Nothing I said mattered. Practically everyone in that courtroom believed I had set a trap for Captain Quinn. That I had killed him in order to rob him. If it hadn’t been my life they were discussing, it might have been funny.

When it was my turn to describe what had happened, the crowd shouted me down. The judge, keeping up appearances, gave me plenty of time to argue my case. Why not? It was his courtroom and ultimately his decision. And now I knew the decision had been made much earlier. Probably at the moment Schneider learned I knew about Quinn’s business.

For a moment I toyed with the idea of telling everyone in the entire room I could see their thoughts. I could prove it by telling them things no one could know. I could announce the name of the judge’s mistress, perhaps. Declare myself, condemn them all in the midst of their friends and families.

And if I did that, they would condemn me as a witch as well as a murderer.

When I had finished, the judge stared me straight in the face
and declared me guilty. He asked me if I had anything else to say before he passed sentence. I said nothing. He perched a piece of black cloth on his wig and sentenced me to death, to hang by the neck at a place of execution until I was dead. I was led back to my cell and left alone to ponder those words.

The prison was cold and dark. Like the dreams had foretold. But the loneliness was worse. No one was permitted to visit me. There weren’t any other prisoners. The only person I ever saw was the jailer who brought me one meal a day. And he never said a word to me.

I couldn’t find Andrew. The confinement sucked my dreams from me, stole my ability to see beyond the walls. If only I could have called to him. If only I could have seen him, but there were no images in my mind save memories.

No light, no conversation, no dreams. What do you do when isolation steals your soul?

I curled into the stone wall and let its pitted surface lower my body temperature. I felt hot and cold, sweating and shivering, but it wasn’t a fever. It was worse in a way. It was fear. Within these walls, I could see nothing of my future. All I knew was I was going to hang. I thought suddenly of my grandmother and wondered how she had felt, all those years ago. Was it worse knowing exactly what would happen? She had felt it. She had smelled her own flesh as it sizzled and popped; she had felt her hair incinerate from her scalp. What would I feel? I touched my fingers to my throat and swallowed. The rope would go here, I thought, tracing a line under my jaw. It would go around, under my ears, then yank up high on my head. It would be a rough rope, but an old one, I hoped. The newer ropes had more spring in them, I’d heard once. They didn’t kill a man—or woman—right away. The criminals dangled, kicking and struggling, as death slowly crushed their throats.

I wanted to be sure to braid my hair that morning, I thought,
tucking the loose, tangled strands behind my ears. I didn’t want the rope to tangle in my hair and make the pain any worse. Yes. Two nice, neat braids. And I would stand straight, shoulders back. I would say good-bye to everyone, and maybe, just maybe, when I climbed onto the scaffold, the air would bring me Andrew’s face one more time. If I could die with his eyes on mine, it might not be so bad.

S
leeping without dreams was different for me. It should have been a pleasant experience—a full night’s sleep—but it couldn’t be. Not here. If the guard hadn’t snored when it was night, I never would have known what hour of day it was. I missed the night. The crickets and the dew.

But when I awoke this time, I knew it was daytime because I wasn’t alone. I couldn’t see anyone with my eyes, but my mind felt him there. A little thrill ran up my spine at the realisation that my senses were still working, within the building at least. I couldn’t see the man—and it was a man—because he didn’t want to be seen. He sat down the narrow corridor from me, very still.

He had watched me sleep. He had stood there for an hour, watching me breathe, wondering who I was.

He wanted to know how I had become so beloved among the Cherokee. I saw them in his mind: the Cherokee, my family, who had been outside the jailhouse every day, in some form or another. Adelaide was always there. So was Soquili, my loyal friend. They had fought for me however they could, but had been cut off at every turn. As they had been banned from the jailhouse. But my entire being felt better, just knowing they were there. That they hadn’t forgotten me.

I began to visualise the mysterious man in the jail with me. Dark
in hair and skin, I could see. He was a very big man, and power flowed around him. And yet he was unsure. Confused. I disturbed his peace. His arms crossed over a broad, vested chest, his hair hung straight from under a tricorne. It was the tall Indian, I realised. The one who had always watched me.

Now I understood why he watched. He had run from his people, and I ran to them.

I settled back against the wall and closed my eyes, wanting to learn more.

Joe. His name was Joe. It wasn’t his birth name, nor the name he’d received after his dream quest. It was the name the white people had given him as he worked his way into their society. There were those, like the jail guard, who feared him, as well they might, considering his size and his tightly restrained strength. There were those, like the trader, who used Joe’s cunning mind for their own gains, and eventually realised they enjoyed his company as well. And there were those who still wouldn’t look at him because of the colour of his skin.

Joe hated being in this prison. He felt trapped, though he could get up and leave at any time. He didn’t mind so much being alone—in fact, he preferred it—but the tight enclosure made him very uncomfortable. He wondered if survival in this kind of enclosure might be easier for a woman than for a man. And whether it might be easier for a white man than for an Indian. I didn’t think so, to either question.

Every fibre of my being wanted to reach out, to say something to him. I wanted to hear his voice, to colour this bleak existence with something other than gray. I needed a friend—or even a foe. Someone to keep me company. But Joe didn’t want me to know he was there. If I called out, he would never come back.

So instead, I sang. Quietly, as if to myself, but I knew he heard
me. He had hungered for my voice as well. I visualised him lying on his back, studying the intricate spiderwebs in the rafters overhead, soothed by my voice. It was better than being alone.

He came almost every day for six weeks. A few times I faked sleep so I could read his mind while he watched me. Joe was a tortured soul. I learned he was born a Choctaw, which was a relatively peaceful tribe. The Chickasaw had raided his village when he was a boy and enslaved his tribe. Joe spent ten winters with them, learning the arts of hunting and war, and was celebrated as a warrior of great strength and endurance.

The Chickasaw were an aggressive people. They attacked not only the other tribes but also the growing number of small white settlements that popped up across the land. Joe was reticent at the thought of slaughtering the pale-faced people without provocation. It seemed a waste to kill them without at least finding out how they did certain things, and why.

So Joe began visiting the white settlements on private scouting missions. He liked their practical approach to problems, their stubborn attitudes, their strange customs. He liked how no one spoke about spirits or totems or magic. He laughed more and learned things he never could have considered in the confining space of a longhouse. Something about the white man’s way of life made more sense to Joe. In the end, he chose to live their existence.

It had been difficult, making his way into the outer boundaries of white society, but he had done it. He wouldn’t go back to the nomadic way of living. After ten years, some of the whites actually recognised him as a man, rather than a barbarian.

He knew I was different. He could feel it. He could sense the connection I had with the Cherokee and the spirits, those same spirits he had discarded so easily as he had grown into a man. He
knew I depended on the voices of the land and air to give me strength, and saw I was weak without them.

Joe was like a hawk. He floated silently over his quarry, watching and learning. Once he found what he sought, he plunged from the sky, grasped his prey within razor-edged talons, then disappeared from sight.

Right now he was circling over me, but had no idea why.

This morning, on his way to the jail, he had picked up a raven’s feather lying in the doorway to the jail. Unable to completely dispel the lessons with which he had been raised, he picked up the feather and tucked it into his tricorne. He remembered that the Choctaw believed ravens spoke to the spirits. Despite his reticence at the old lessons, he hoped this feather might help him understand me.

Joe was feeling sad. Usually his emotions were unclear, but today I had no trouble feeling what he felt. He was depressed because I had less than a week to live, and he hadn’t learned what he sought, whatever that was. He wanted more time.

So did I.

Sometimes Joe thought of Quinn. He had known the captain and never trusted him, but maintained an easy relationship. Quinn was a powerful man in the town. Or at least, he had been until I killed him. This morning, Quinn was on Joe’s mind.

He took a deep breath that I heard down the hall. He probably thought I was sleeping, because he didn’t bother to hide the sound. He blew the air out through his lips and showed me something he had never shared before. Something that froze my blood.

Joe knew about the girls. He knew about Quinn’s business. He had never participated, but had stood by while Quinn profited. Joe didn’t know that I knew. He had assumed only that I had done what I had said—killed Quinn in self-defense.

I had one week left to live. I had to do something.

I stood up and gripped the cold black bars of my cell, then called out a name no one could have known.

“
Onafa Hatak
?”

Ten years earlier, when Joe had left his family, he gave himself a new name. Onafa Hatak. Free Man. He had never told anyone that name.

I sensed his shock. As he started to think, I could tell he wasn’t sure whether to freeze or bolt like a rabbit.

After a moment, he stood, brushed the dust from his breeches, and walked to my cell. He stopped in front of the bars and said nothing, only looked at me. I focused my eyes on his and felt him relax. He had knowledge I needed.

I squeezed one fist through the bars and held it in front of him. Then I opened my hand and showed Joe the thin gold chain I clenched within, and the heart-shaped locket that lay in the centre of my palm. The necklace meant nothing to him, but he listened.

“Where are the girls, Joe?”

That startled him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if I had told him his future, his past, his darkest secrets. But he had never expected that question. How could I possibly know about the girls?

“It is not your worry,” he said, not wanting to commit himself to any path.

“But it is,” I whispered. “It is the most important thing in my life.”

“Your life will be over soon,” he reminded me.

“But it doesn’t have to be over for those girls. Where are they?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

I grabbed his hand and clung to it. “I’ll show you why it matters.” I opened myself up to the memories of violence and violation. To
the loss of my family. I focused all the images and pain through my hands, through his hands, and through his bloodstream until they reached his heart and squeezed. I felt him stiffen with shock. When the message was there, embedded in his mind, he saw me with new eyes. Softer eyes.

“Will you help me?” I asked.

“I know nothing that can help,” he said.

Heat still flowed from my fingers, coursing through his mind, like fingers probing his secrets.

“Think, Joe.”

I slipped the necklace between my hand and his. Joe’s heart raced. Just as I did, he felt the locket
burn.
He longed to yank his hand back, but didn’t. He squeezed his eyes shut while I stirred through his mind, dredging up memories, sorting through them, looking for the truth.

There is nothing in that cabin of any use to anyone,
he thought.
Except the girls, of course. The place is four walls, nothing more. No chairs, no table, no window. The only other thing is—

There. Joe’s eyes snapped open. He knew the moment I did.

The box. The captain’s strange wooden box. Like the skull collections the Chickasaw kept. Bits and pieces of every girl the captain’s gangs had stolen. Souvenirs of stolen innocence.

His mind surrendered the cabin easily, with relief. Within its walls I saw the box. Within the box I saw the treasures that mourned their masters.

“Find my doll, Maggie,”
Ruth had said.

“I found her,”
I thought.

I let go of Joe’s hand and he grabbed for the cell bars, bracing his weight when his knees threatened to buckle.

“You are a good man, Onafa Hatak,” I said.

He snorted and shook his head. “I do not believe this is so.”

I touched my fingers to his knuckles, which still clenched the bars of the cell. “You will know what to do,” I said.

He didn’t answer. He was confused and afraid, the words jumbled in his mind. As if I had seen his thoughts and he no longer could. He felt weak, and to his mortification, he felt like crying.

He turned abruptly and strode from the jail. I lost our connection as soon as he breathed in the outside air and shut the prison door behind him.

I knew where the captive girls were. And if I could get to that wooden box Joe had shown me, it would contain evidence of the captain’s guilt.

I was alone again. But this time I held a tiny seed of hope in my heart.