Twin Willows: A Novel (26 page)

“Aye, Stuart, I never thought to see ye here in this place!” Ian finally managed to say.

“Nor I you, although I hoped to find you. I promised Rebecca I’d bring you home safely.”

Ian looked bewildered. “Rebecca? Ye’ve been at Bryan’s Station, then?”

Stuart nodded. “I came to Kentucky intending to ask for Anna’s hand in marriage. Instead, I found her sister.” His gesture took in Willow and White Eagle, who now stood apart, talking of all that had happened since their last meeting.

Ian raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Ye want to marry Anna? I’d no idea of any of this.”

Stuart smiled wryly. “I presumed you wouldn’t object, but I’m not too sure how Anna feels. Now I wonder if I’ll ever have the chance to ask her.”

Ian clasped Stuart’s hand. “Aye, we maun believe that we’ll find her. Did ye know that Anna turned down several proposals of marriage at the Station?”

“So Rebecca told me. She said you didn’t know that Anna was coming to Kentucky until she got there. You must have been quite surprised.”

“Aye, and at first ’twas quite pleasant. But many’s the time since the siege that I’ve wished I’d taken Anna Willow back to Pennsylvania. I don’t know what I’ll do if any harm has come to her.”

White Eagle and Willow had started toward Ian and Stuart, and overheard Ian’s last words.

“An-na not hurt,” White Eagle said matter-of-factly. “This one at Waccachalla.”

Ian gaped in wonder. “Ye have seen her?” he asked hoarsely.

White Eagle nodded. “This An-na daughter to Chief Black Snake.”

Ian regarded White Eagle blankly.
Anna an Indian chief’s daughter? Surely White Eagle must have seen someone else. Or perhaps he’s making it all up to punish me for taking Willow
.

“My Anna is no chief’s daughter,” Ian declared.

White Eagle reached into his shot pouch and withdrew a delicate gold necklace, which he handed to Ian. “An-na say give Ee-an M’night.”

The sight of the necklace filled Ian with such strong emotion that for a moment he could only stare at it through eyes damp with tears. “I sent this to Anna before she left Philadelphia.”

Stuart nodded. “I saw it—she wore it constantly.” With renewed hope, he looked inquiringly at White Eagle. “You say that Anna is at the same place where we take Willow?”

White Eagle nodded. “Waccachalla.”

“How far is it?” Stuart asked.

“A half day—” White Eagle began, then stopped abruptly at the sight of another
Shemanese
emerging from the forest with his rifle leveled and his finger on the trigger.

“Why didn’t ye call me?” the man growled to Stuart.

“Put that down,” Stuart said quickly. “These men are friends.”

Edward Tucker reluctantly lowered his rifle, and Stuart made the necessary introductions.

Tucker looked at Ian with interest. “McKnight, is it? Yer gal promised ye’d give me gold for tellin’ ye where she was.”

“He already knows,” Stuart said shortly.

At the sight of Tucker, Ian had instinctively thrust Anna’s necklace inside his shirt; now he shrugged and showed empty palms. “I have no gold to give ye,” he managed to say before being seized by a racking cough.

“You’re not well. When did you last eat?” Stuart asked.

Ian shook his head. “I don’t rightly know. The last few days have been a bit hazy.”

“Well, don’t take too much at once, but here’s some fresh johnnycake. Rebecca made it just before we left.”

At the mention of Rebecca’s name, Ian looked anxious. “Is all well with my wife?”

“Very well,” Stuart assured him. “Apart from her concern about you, of course.”

“I reckon she never thought when she made this johnnycake that I’d be eatin’ it.” Ian finished the bread and a bit of venison jerky, and drank a few welcome draughts of water.

“You look better already,” Stuart said.

“Aye, hearin’ that Anna lives is the best medicine I could have.”

Stuart agreed. He still didn’t understand all that had come to pass to bring Willow’s father and White Eagle together, but he took heart that they would soon find Anna.

Suddenly Ian looked around. “Where’s Willow and White Eagle? I want to know more about this Waccachalla.”

Stuart had seen them slip into the woods, and he had a fair notion why. “You can ask tomorrow. I doubt we’ll see them again tonight.”

While the others talked and ate, White Eagle quietly untied his horse and motioned for Willow to follow him. A safe distance from the camp, he stopped in a small clearing, unsaddled Mishewa, and took something from the saddlebag.

In the deepening shadows of the approaching night, he held it out to Willow.

“Our wedding blanket.” She touched it almost reverently. “I never thought to see this again.”

Her heart was full, remembering the moment when Tall Oak had put it around their shoulders. She had been proud then that White Eagle would be her husband, and so full of love she could scarcely speak. Her memories of the time, brief as it was, that she and White Eagle had shared on this same blanket had sustained her through the many long nights when she had lain alone, desperately hoping that they would both live to share that love again.

Only once in all those weeks had Willow cried, but now that their long separation was over and her man once more stood before her, the dam of her pent-up emotions burst, producing a torrent of tears.

White Eagle’s puzzled distress showed in his voice. “Why do you weep? Are we not together now?”

Willow raised her chin. “You have much to learn, my husband. I do not weep because we are together now, but because we were so long apart. I cry because you look so thin and I see that the wound in your leg gives you pain.”

White Eagle took the blanket from her and spread it on the ground, then turned back and kissed Willow’s cheeks, tasting her salty tears. He did not understand all of her words, but his heart knew their meaning. The woman he loved still loved him, and that was all that mattered.

“You are also thin,
neewa
.” His fingers traced the planes of her face, then traveled down her torso, outlining bones that before had been covered with flesh.

She shivered beneath his touch, and when they again embraced, her taut nipples pressed into his chest, feeding the growing fire in his loins. But when her own thigh pressed against the wound in his, he winced and groaned.

Immediately she drew back. “I will not hurt you.”

He pulled her to him once more, his lips stopping any further talk from hers. “Not loving you—that would hurt more.”

A moment later, Willow pulled back from the growing ardor of his embrace. “Lie down. You must not stand so long.”

“I can stand as long as I like,” he said, but the ache in his leg told him that Willow spoke the truth. He joined her on their wedding blanket and lay on his side, facing her.

She lifted his hunting shirt and bent her head to his chest. He closed his eyes and shuddered as she kissed the hollow above his breast bone and each nipple in turn, then probed his navel with her tongue. He groaned and pulled up her shift, touching the secret places that for so long he had felt only in his dreams.

She sat up and pulled the garment off over her head, and he let her remove his shirt the same way. When he took off his breechclout, he heard the sharp intake of breath when her hands brushed against his manhood.

“You have not grown thin there,” she said.

He had not heard her laugh for too long, and it pleased him that she could still make a jest, after all she had been through among the
Shemanese
. The night had grown too dark for him to see her face, but his hands could read the message in her warm, pliant flesh as she came into his arms.

Perhaps he was not as strong as when they had first shared this wedding blanket, White Eagle thought, but he could still give his wife pleasure. Her legs spread wide to welcome him inside her, and her hands played over his body as he urged her toward the next peak of their love.

Finally spent, they rolled on their sides and lay face to face, panting from their pleasant exertion. Aware of the chill night air, he pulled the edges of the wedding blanket over their bodies. With their arms entwined and their bodies pressed seamlessly together from head to foot, they finally slept.

In her bed in the chief’s
wegiwa
, Anna awoke early from a confused dream in which she had seemed to be getting a scolding from Miss Martin for bringing the chief’s daughter into the school. She lay there for a moment, puzzling over what could have influenced her to dream about Philadelphia. As much as she wanted to see Stuart Martin, Anna had no desire to go back to his aunt’s house. She sighed. If nothing else, her dream had served to remind her that her future was still uncertain.

She heard Standing Crane moving around outside and smelled the unpleasant odor of game being fried in bear grease. The day before, Otter had brought the chief two gifts, a huge turkey and a fat rabbit. The way he had looked at Anna made her know that he hadn’t given up on taking her into his lodge. But so far, the chief had shown no sign that he wanted to give her to any warrior, and from that she continued to take heart that he would not.

Yesterday Anna had helped Blossom and Standing Crane pluck and clean the turkey and hang it to ripen. Then Blossom showed Anna how to skin the rabbit, which was left to soak overnight; she presumed that Standing Crane now fried it for their breakfast.

Anna continued to hope that either the trader Edward Tucker or the young warrior White Eagle would reach her father, who would then come to Waccachalla to take her back to Kentucky. She still doubted their ability to help her, however. She didn’t trust the trader Tucker, and she found it somewhat hard to believe the warrior’s story that the Willow she had been mistaken for had herself been kidnapped by Anna’s father.

“An-na? Come eat.”

Anna arose and went outside, pausing at the water bucket to wash her face and hands. The fried rabbit lay elevated on a slab of wood so the village dogs couldn’t get to it. The meat didn’t smell at all appealing, but Anna ate her portion, along with pumpkin slices flavored with a sweet syrup the Shawnee called
melassa
. In her weeks with the Shawnee, she had not grown accustomed to their food or to the way they ate it, dipping their fingers from a common pot. She had lost some weight, but she had eaten enough to keep up her strength.

The task that Standing Crane set for the girls this day was more tedious than arduous. Anna and Blossom were to take all the feathers that had accumulated in the past few months and separate them by size, color, and their eventual use.

The girls had almost finished their work when the village dogs barked, a signal of approaching visitors.

The trader, perhaps, or even White Eagle
. Anna’s heart beat faster in anticipation, and she longed to go see for herself. But she had learned that she must wait to be sought out; a chief’s daughter, even one only by adoption, did not lower herself to seek out visitors.

From where she sat, Anna could see little, and it seemed that a long time passed before Sits-in-Shadow called to her.

“Come to the
msi-kah-mi-qui
,” he said. When Blossom started to follow them, he shook his head. “
Mattah
. An-na come alone.”

With her heart racing, Anna followed the medicine man. She alternately hoped and feared what she would find.

Edward Tucker has brought my father here
, she hoped.

The trader brings bad news
, she feared.

Approaching the council house, Anna saw four horses tethered nearby. The villagers who had gathered outside the
msi-kah-mi-qui
murmured excitedly among themselves. When they saw Anna and Sits-in-Shadow, they fell silent and moved aside to let them pass.

Anna paused at the door of the
msi-kah-mi-qui
and took a deep breath, gathering strength to face whatever awaited her.

Then, holding her head high, she stepped inside.

W
ACCACHALLA

If Black Snake was at all surprised at the sight of the oddly assorted group of men who returned Willow to Waccachalla, he didn’t show it. The chief remained impassive as he greeted each man with his customary ceremony. When at last Willow stood before him, he spoke to her only briefly, and with no more feeling than he showed the others.

“It is good that our Willow has returned. We sorrow for our kinswoman, Bear’s Daughter. Later, I will hear more of this thing.”

Willow nodded. “It will be as you wish, my chief.”

Black Snake turned to Sits-in-Shadow, who had hurried to the lodge the moment someone told him that Willow had returned. The medicine man had insisted that the girl was still alive, and he could scarcely contain his pleasure that his words had come true.

“Bring An-na here,” Black Snake ordered, and the medicine man left.

The chief fastened his gaze on Edward Tucker. “Black Snake has no business with the trader Tuck-er today,” he said.

Tucker’s face flushed angrily, and he looked to Ian and White Eagle as if he expected them to come to his defense.

“The chief bids you to leave,” Ian said.

Tucker glared at Ian. “I’ll go, but hear this, McKnight. Ye owe me gold, an’ I’ll not fergit it. One day I’ll have my due.”

With a final malevolent glare, the trader left the lodge.

Stuart shook his head. “I fear the man will get his due, all right, but not in a way he will like.”

Ian scarcely noticed Tucker’s departure. “Can it really be true that Anna is here?” he asked.

“Black Snake has sent the medicine man for An-na,” Willow said.

“I thank God for this day,” Ian said fervently.

White Eagle glanced at Ian. “Thank also Black Snake. He take her as daughter.”

“Tell the chief that I am Anna’s father. Now that he has Willow back, I would take my daughter home with me.”

White Eagle shook his head. “I cannot say this thing. An-na comes soon.”

“Not soon enough for me,” Stuart muttered. Now that the moment he had imagined for so many months was almost at hand, and he would once more be with Anna, his mouth felt dry and his head seemed suddenly light.

Black Snake gestured toward the door and addressed Willow. “Look that way. My daughter comes.”

Willow watched the lodge entrance as Black Snake had told her, curious to see this strange An-na. She had accepted the fact that she had a sister who resembled her, but she was totally unprepared to be gazing into her own face when she saw An-na in the doorway.

“Ahh.”

Willow didn’t know whether she had uttered the sound, or if it came from somewhere behind her. For a long moment, Willow and Anna stood still and stared at each other, while everyone else gazed at them, astonished at their uncanny resemblance. It was the first time that anyone then present had seen the girls together in the same place at the same time, and even Sits-in-Shadow shivered at the sight.

With her eyes still fixed on Anna’s face, Willow walked toward her sister with a slow, deliberate pace. She stopped at the lodge door, and the girls continued to regard one another in silence, stunned to see how much they did, indeed, resemble one other. Anna stood slightly taller, and Willow’s skin was somewhat darker, but otherwise the girls’ appearance was identical.

“An-na?” Willow put out a tentative hand to Anna’s cheek, as if to make sure that what she saw was real.

In return, Anna gently touched Willow’s hair, the only like her own she had ever seen. Without taking conscious thought, Anna spoke to Willow in Shawnee. “
Neetanetha
,” she said, and added in English, “My sister.”

“My sis-ter An-na,” Willow said.

Almost overcome with emotion over a reunion neither had ever expected, the girls spontaneously embraced one another. When at last they drew apart, Black Snake gestured to the girls to come to the center of the lodge.

Anna had been so occupied with Willow that she had not noticed anyone else, but when her father called her name, she turned to him.

Unashamed of the tears that ran unchecked down his bearded cheeks, Ian McKnight put an arm around each of his daughters and hugged them close.

Anna’s tears mixed with his as she kissed Ian’s cheek. “Oh, Father! I never gave up hope that you’d find me.”

“I reckon God heard us all, lass. But there’s somebody else here’s who’s been doin’ a lot of hopin’.”

Ian stepped back to Stuart and handed him Anna’s necklace. “Tell her she can have it back now.”

“Stuart!” Anna’s tone revealed her astonishment, while her expression silently told Stuart that all he had hoped for had come true. He held out his arms to Anna, and with a cry of joy, she came into them.

“Oh, Anna—I thought I’d lost you,” Stuart murmured. “Thank God you’re all right.”

“I always dreamed that we’d be together again. But I never thought it would be in this place.”

“The same with me.” Stuart spoke softly into her ear. “
Amo te
, Anna Willow.”

“Oh, Stuart! I love you, too,” Anna whispered back.

Behind them, Ian cleared his throat.

Thus reminded that they were not alone, and had no doubt exceeded all the bounds of propriety, both white and Indian, Stuart and Anna broke off their embrace, but stood close together, holding hands. Near them, Willow stood with White Eagle and smiled at Anna as if to say she was glad that her sister also had found a man who loved her.

“I think the chief wants our attention,” Ian said.

Willow and White Eagle stood on Black Snake’s right and Anna and Stuart on his left. Ian took his place between his daughters and took each of their free hands in his. Thus finally joined, the twin Willows, their father, and their men stood before Black Snake.

The chief addressed Willow first. “This warrior White Eagle has taken you as his wife?”

Willow nodded, somewhat embarrassed that she had allowed the chief to see the depth of her feelings for White Eagle. Such a thing was unseemly; even though Bear’s Daughter had made the match herself, she would probably frown at the way Willow’s eyes openly adored White Eagle.

Black Snake then turned his attention to Anna. “You are my kinswoman, even as this Willow. These
Shemanese
would take you with them. Is it your will to go?”

Anna looked to White Eagle, who quickly translated Black Snake’s words. With her head high, Anna nodded. “Yes. I thank my father Black Snake for all he has done for me. I can never forget him or the people of Waccachalla. But I must stay with the father that I have always known.”

Black Snake sat silent for a moment after White Eagle supplied Anna’s words, then he nodded slowly. “Then An-na goes when she will. But she is my kinswoman. She will always be welcome in this lodge.”

Anna’s eyes thanked Black Snake when White Eagle translated his words.

Willow laid an imploring hand on Ian’s arm. “Do not take An-na back to Kan-tuck-e.”

“Ye will have some time together, but then I maun return to Rebecca.”

“And Anna and I must make some plans of our own,” Stuart said.

Ian smiled ruefully. “Aye, to think that I finally found both my daughters, only to lose them again.”

Anna shook her had. “No, that will never happen. The ties that bind us all”—her gesture included Willow and White Eagle—“can never be severed.”

Black Snake looked to Sits-in-Shadow. “Prepare a
psai-wi oyi-eluh
,” he ordered.

“He will give us a feast.” Anna recognized the words and said them before White Eagle had the chance.

Anna nodded to the chief. “
Oui-sah
. ”

“It is good,” echoed Willow, proud she knew those English words.

Despite the short notice, that evening’s
psai-wi oyi-eluh
went well. In this time of harvest, food was abundant, and Otter had just brought in a fine, freshly killed venison.

As it roasted over the fire, Blossom made Anna understand that Otter had intended it as a marriage gift. If Anna would have accepted him, then Black Snake had agreed to give his permission.

“I do not like him,” Blossom concluded in something of an understatement.

Otter sat apart from the others with the corners of his thin mouth turned down and his forehead wrinkled in displeasure. He had lost Willow twice, once when she left with Bear’s Daughter, and now to this warrior White Eagle she called her husband. She looked at that Shawnee as he had long wanted her to look at him. He had then planned to marry An-na, who should rightly be his, but now he knew that was not to be, either. Before the
psai-wi oyi-eluh
, Black Snake told the village that his daughter An-na would soon be leaving Waccachalla with the same yellow-haired
Shemanese
who had returned Willow to Waccachalla.

These things should not be
, Otter told himself. Tomorrow he would leave Waccachalla. He would not return until he had found a wife. Then they would have his own
psai-wi oyi-eluh
.

Anna paid no heed to Otter. Too excited to eat, she feasted her eyes on Stuart instead, with occasional glances at Willow and her father as if to reassure herself they were still there. She admired the healthy, ruddy glow of his skin. Stuart’s recent hard physical labor was evident in his muscular arms, which Anna longed to have embrace her once more.

She smiled at Stuart’s clumsy attempts to eat the Shawnee way. When she put her hand on his to show him how to use a shell to dip a portion of baked squash, she felt her whole body tremble in anticipation of a more intimate touch. The brief time they had spent in his aunt’s carriage house had been etched in her memory for months. She longed to be alone with him, to repeat the kisses and caresses that her heart treasured. And from the way his violet eyes held hers, Anna knew he must share the same desire.

When the feast ended and the dance drums began to beat, Stuart leaned closer. “How long will this go on?”

“Two hours, maybe more.”

“Is there a place we can be alone?”

Anna glanced around and saw that no one watched them. She and Stuart could slip away without being missed, especially if they went singly.

“Mind where I go, then wait a moment before following.”

Stuart nodded, and Anna walked away without haste.

“This puts to mind the trouble we had being alone at my aunt’s house,” he said when he joined her.

“Yes, but the chief’s lodge in Waccachalla is not at all like Miss Martin’s in Philadelphia. Here, if I tie the door flap closed, no one will disturb us.”

Stuart looked around the lodge while Anna brought the door-skins together and secured them with a strip of leather. The only light came from the smoldering fire pit in the center of the lodge. A thin plume of smoke rose toward the open smoke-hole at the top of the dwelling. Clothing, animal skins, storage vessels, and a variety of other implements lay scattered about the large single room. His nose wrinkled at a smell he couldn’t identify.

“Bear grease,” Anna said before he could ask. “They use a lot of it.

“The chief’s wife made a place for me on the other side of that blanket,” she added. “There are no chairs, but we can sit on my bed.”

Stuart looked puzzled when they reached the partitioned-off area. “What bed?”

Anna pointed to the buffalo robes piled against the wall in the far corner. She lifted them, revealing a stack of fresh-cut, fragrant cedar boughs underneath. “Sit down and try it. It’s more comfortable than it looks.”

“This is quite pleasant,” Stuart commented when he had settled himself beside her. They sat, leaning against the lodge wall with their legs stretched out before them. “No wonder Willow wouldn’t sleep on your pallet at the Station.”

“You must have been surprised when you saw her for the first time,” Anna said.

Stuart groaned at the memory. “Not nearly as surprised as she was. I thought she was you, and started kissing her. She thought a wild man was attacking her, and started screaming and hitting me.”

Imagining the scene, Anna smiled. “That must have been quite a sight.”

“I’m sure it was. After that, it took a while for Willow to trust me.”

“It must have seemed strange to be around someone who looks so much like me, but is so different.”

“Strange is not the word I would use. At times, it was torture. Looking at Willow only made me want you more.”

In the semidark, Stuart turned and took Anna’s face between his hands, reading it as a blind man might. His thumbs traced her high cheekbones and straight nose and brushed the indentation above her mouth, then moved on to outline her full lips before he bent his head to kiss them. Anna put her arms around his neck and eagerly returned his kiss. One hand pressed the hollow in the back of his neck and the other tangled in his thick hair, urging him even closer.

“Oh, Anna, you don’t know how many times I’ve dreamed of this moment.”

Without letting her go, he moved to face her, and knelt with his legs astraddle her. Each point where their bodies touched produced a heat that spread through them like a wildfire. She was aware of the beating of their hearts, his strong and steady, hers becoming more rapid with every passing moment.

Without warning, he leaned back on his heels, then sat back beside her, so that their bodies no longer touched.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I was about to forget myself again. I love you, Anna, and I know you love me. But I want to do the right thing by you.”

His words did nothing to lessen the growing ache she sensed that only his love could ease. “And what is that?”

“As my aunt would say, we should wait to be together until we can get back to Kentucky and find someone to marry us.”

Anna sighed. “If it had been left up to Miss Martin, you wouldn’t ever be with me, anytime or anyplace.”

He nodded. “That is true. Besides, we will be married as soon as we get back to Kentucky. What difference will a few days make?”

“None,” she said firmly. “We’ve waited long enough. Let’s start where we left off in the carriage house.”

“Oh, Anna—”

“Shh! We didn’t talk much then, remember?”

He took her into his arms, just as he had that day so many months ago, and kissed her the same way he had then, with a tender, growing passion.