A Flight of Arrows (13 page)

I
t was smashing to bits. Everything she'd tried to build. Anna heard it breaking through the curtain—Papa accusing Two Hawks of dishonoring her, betraying his trust. And in his defense, Two Hawks said nothing. Not one word.

Neither of them heeded her protests as she bolted from the tub and scrambled to dress. She'd been startled to find Two Hawks watching her bathe, but it was clear he'd been as startled to find her so. Only a second had passed before he drew back. A
second
.

“I'd come here to speak of your returning to work,” Papa was saying, voice tight with fury. “But I tell you now I'm done with you. I want you gone from this house. And my daughter's life.”

A thump. The clatter of an overturned bench. Was he
forcing
Two Hawks from the house? With battered face and broken ribs?

“Papa, no! Don't hurt him!” She'd yanked on her shift. Trembling fingers fumbled the lacing of her stays. “Two Hawks? Don't leave!”

Two Hawks spoke at last, but not to her. “I will go,” he said, the words heavy, anguished. “I ask only to take my brother's horse as far as your farm. From there I will go on foot.”

Papa agreed, grudgingly. “I'll not be long behind you. The horse had best be in my stable when I reach it.”

“It will be,” Two Hawks said.

“No!” Anna cried, fighting the wretched stays. She heard footsteps, then Papa's voice beyond the curtain, hard and clipped.

“There is no need for you to speak to him, Anna.”

“Papa, call him back. Don't do this—”

He spoke over her as though he hadn't heard. “I was wrong to let you put yourself at risk for him. Dress yourself and we'll speak.”

Cold flooded Anna's bones, though the warmth of the bath still clung to her skin. “No. We won't. I've nothing more to say to you.”

“Anna! You will not address me so. I'm still your father.”

With her hair down loose, clutching her gown, Anna snatched the curtain aside. Papa blocked her passage from the pantry alcove.

“You are no more my father than you are William's. Let me pass!”

Papa's face drained of color. For an instant she thought he might lay his hand to her. “Anna…”

She saw it was shock that blanched him, not anger. The harshness of her own words pierced her, but she didn't take them back. When she said nothing more, he finally stood aside and she hurried past, holding back her sobs until she reached Two Hawks's room and found she was too late.

He was already gone.

Papa had gone too, and twilight had fallen by the time she was dressed, hair pinned beneath a cap, cloak fastened. Lydia was exiting the stable as Anna reached it and of course wouldn't let her rush off without knowing why she needed the horse.

“Is it a childbed? Whose? Where is your case?”

Too distraught to elaborate on the subterfuge Lydia had unwittingly offered, Anna spilled the truth. Next thing she knew, Lydia was marching her back to the kitchen, sitting her down at the table, facing her with hands on hips, features tight with apprehension.

“Where is Reginald now?”

“I don't know or care.”

“Anna.” Lydia shook her head but must have decided to leave Papa out of it. For now. “You cannot ride to the farm in the dark. Wait for—”

“Tomorrow? Lydia, he'll be long gone—and he didn't even say
good-bye
.” That cut the deepest. Deeper than Papa's rejection. Since the attack, Two Hawks had seemed closed off to her, almost always asleep when she was nearby. At first she thought it due to his wounds. Then she began to suspect he was sleeping during the day to avoid her. If the beating had changed his mind about living in her world, then why hadn't he answered her about living in his? Had he changed his mind about marrying her? Was that why he gave in to Papa without a fight?

“If he didn't say good-bye,” Lydia reasoned, “maybe it's not good-bye. Maybe he was simply trying to keep the peace and doing as Reginald insisted was the only—”

“I mean to go to the farm tomorrow regardless,” Anna cut in. “I want to bring all my things to town. I want to live with you, permanently, if you'll allow it.” Before Lydia could draw breath to answer, she added in an angry rush, “And if you won't, I intend to follow Two Hawks to Kanowalohale and ask Good Voice if I can live with her. Surely they need midwives too.”

Lydia's gaze widened with alarm. “Anna, of course you can live with me. For goodness' sake, I'd never turn you away.” Tears filled her eyes as she spoke, drawing an answering flood from Anna.

“Oh, Lydia. I think I've lost him.”

“Never,” Lydia said. “Reginald loves you. Whatever he's done—if he overreacted—it was out of concern for you. Of that I have no…But you weren't speaking of him, were you?”

“No.”

Lydia pressed a hand to her eyes. “Anna, I'm sorry this has happened. More than I can say. But can you try to see it as Reginald must have done? He came into the kitchen and found Two Hawks watching you bathe.”

Anna stood, cold again. Tearless. “He ought to have trusted me, if not
Two Hawks. He oughtn't to have assumed the worst. I suppose when one's own heart is full of deceit, that's what one sees in everyone.”

She went to her room, both proud and miserable that she'd rendered Lydia speechless.

She had the horse saddled and was halfway to the farm before the rising sun struck her back, too feeble to warm it. Lydia had pleaded to accompany her, but Anna had refused.

Skirting the farm, she kept to the trees until she crossed the creek, then rode through the beeches to the clearing. She'd rarely come there so early in the day that time of year. The shadows were cold and watery. Around her, plants she knew intimately were starting their cautious push through the thawing soil, but she paid them no heed as she dismounted and wrapped the horse's reins round a budded sapling at the hill's base. Her breath came short, white on the air, as she hurried up the path her feet and William's feet had worn. The smell of wet earth hung around her, rich with the promise of spring, while in her heart it was winter. Would be until she saw Two Hawks again. She prayed as she had through the night, in agony for dawn to break.

Let him be here. Let him have waited
…

Above, among the jumble of stones half-choked with rhododendron, all was still.

Near the little waterfall, her shoe sent a pebble skittering down slope, a sound louder than the stream's chatter and the trills of awakening birds. She was among the rocks, one hand gathering up her petticoat, the other grasping stone, when she caught the movement above. Relief exploded inside her, until she saw the figure staring down at her. Almost she screamed but clamped a stifling hand across her mouth even as she recognized him. By the bruised eyes and cheek, the broken mouth. The stitched gash that
carved its ugly line across his scalp. A scalp that now lay bare. He'd shaved or plucked his hair away to behind his ears, only the strip from crown to nape left to fall, feather tied, down his back. Despite the morning's chill, he wore only breechclout and leggings. His chest gleamed like copper in the sun's rising light.

“Two Hawks,” she said, as though naming him would banish this startling vision, return the man she'd known. Her voice was too small, powerless to recall anything that was lost. She was left staring up at this stranger. A warrior, fearsome and formidable. In that moment she knew; he'd made his choice: his people over her. And he'd done this thing to himself to assure he wouldn't be persuaded to change his mind.

But he'd lingered. Long enough for her to find him. It was a tiny thread of hope, but she clutched it tight, forcing her limbs to carry her up to the cave's entrance.

Not a muscle twitched in Two Hawks's face as he watched her climb, as if he were a statue rather than flesh. As she stood before him, she saw at his feet lay his bow and quiver, his knapsack, rifle, and old blue shirt. The stone that had lodged in her chest at his leaving swelled to an unbearable ache.