“You are a woman of great love and the power of that love will conquer every single opponent, and again through your daughter, and her daughter.”
Ojistah’s callused thumb rasped in a circle on Juliet’s cheek. Deep inside Juliet, something stirred and shifted, grew warm like an ember fueled by the breath of a zephyr. She sensed a bright mystery in Ojistah’s words, and for all that they were but ambiguous prophecies, they fixed themselves in her heart.
Ojistah glanced over her shoulder to Joshua, trailing behind, and then her dark eyes, clearer at the moment, locked with Juliet’s, veiled pools of black confronting deep blue eyes. “I know—” Lifting her head, she glanced to the rainbow, and said, “This is an unusual time. My visions come one after another. You should know Two Eagles’ mother, Waneek, is my twin. She is expecting you.”
Juliet stared at Ojistah. A twin? But Juliet was on her way to her cousin and through him, on to England. “I’m going to Fort Oswego.”
The medicine woman’s blunt finger slid across the curved line of Juliet’s cheek, edging along until it encountered her chin. The gleam in her eyes held an inner light. She padded down a slender trail, her moccasins rendering no sound on a moss-covered path. “You will give my sister my best wishes.”
“I don’t understand,” Juliet ran to keep up, mystified by the medicine woman’s confidence she’d meet her twin. Two Eagles drew up beside her and grunted as if her words were no great feat.
At the river’s edge, a lightweight canoe fashioned of birch bark and light of weight had been loaded with fur packs and foodstuffs.
“Onontio and his friends are going to cause trouble. I put medicine in their cups to make them sleep. This is our fleetest canoe, swifter than the clunky dugout,” said Ojistah.
“I thank you for the gifts,” said Joshua.
The chief’s sister held the craft while they boarded. Ojistah pushed the other canoes belonging to tribal members out into the river where they floated away with the current. “No one will follow you.”
“You are at risk, Ojistah,” said Juliet.
She shook her head. “The chief has ordered your safe travels.”
Chapter Twelve
His arms ached, his thigh smarted with his movement, and so did every bruised muscle in his body. He required sleep but that was not to happen. His loaded long rifle and two dragoon pistols rested on the bottom of the canoe along with his powder horn, ammunition bag and tomahawk. Thanks to Ojistah there was plenty of shot and tinder. His knife was sheathed in his belt.
With an early start granted by the chief, he had to put as much distance as possible from Onontio’s threat. Twice the War Chief lost and would not forget the great insult. He’d follow their trail and exact retribution. Still weak from his wounds, Joshua had no intention of meeting up with Onontio and his following. Outnumbered for sure, the results would be bleak. Yet, if there was trouble, he and Two Eagles would fight to the death.
What concerned him was Snapes, Butler and the build-up of hostile forces against the settlers. By the waning of last night’s moon, he had four weeks, but therein lay the conundrum—running south to warn the forts and settlers or take the two women to Fort Oswego in the opposite direction. His greatest hope was running across a Patriot committed to forwarding the significant intelligence.
The scent of woman assailed his senses, and he sucked it in as if it would cure the pounding in his head. Juliet was braver than any woman of his acquaintance. The English women he’d known strove for male attention, driven to make a good match at their debut. Like so many colorful flowers, if confronted with an Indian, they would have fainted dead away. Juliet personified strength, reliability and loyalty. She had survived the Hayes’ insufferable treatment, and humiliation at the hands of Onontio and the Mohawks. She went up against him and delivered the chief’s son, despite the danger and his warnings.
She was gentle and kind and not meant for this godforsaken patch of earth that reaped violence and bloodshed. Her journey through life and his dedication to the Patriot cause were diametrically opposed.
Yet in a small way, by saving Juliet, he had made up for not protecting Sarah. To live his life without the lodestone of guilt? His jaw hurt from clamping his teeth. If only that remorse could be purged.
There was nothing left to remember Sarah now except her handkerchief and a crass letter left by her murderer. His life since her death a year before still left him feeling as if she were nothing but a dream. For him, what happened in the past expanded over the present, and understanding the past defined the future. Who was he fooling anyway? He could not allow Juliet into his heart. With his mission, he could not protect her.
Yet Juliet was like the river he dipped his paddle into—clear and pure, yet the depths, mysterious and impenetrable. The culture of her speech and mannerisms could pass for nobility in any well-established family in England. Why would a woman of noble birth be slaving away in the wilderness? Was she bastard born? The pieces didn’t fit.
“So the laughter-loving, sweet-smiling Aphrodite dared to mingle her goddess nature with a mortal man and ventured to America,” he said because he was in the mood to provoke the she-dragon and learn more of her.
She turned to him, nostrils flaring. “You think it was by choice? I was kidnapped and expedited by a corrupt judge with illicit warrants, and sold into indenture. Mary and I were forcibly herded onto a ship, crowded into horrible conditions below deck with unemployed, criminals, rootless dissidents, troublesome youths swept up from the slums, and children sold by their parents for a seemingly better life.”
Given that her emotions were running high with the Indian village and the birth, Joshua let her vent.
“Our shipmates told us there were gangs of kidnappers, working to supply colonial hunger for labor, even so low as to discuss their targets in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Operating their flourishing business, these gangs had accomplices, strong-armed men and fences, dealers in stolen goods, ships’ captains, merchants in England and America with corrupt officials and magistrates. Once caught, there was no going back, stuck like the tar on the keels of the ships that brought us here.”
Juliet continued her explanation. “Exiled and sold for seven years, we learned absolute obedience. Defiance was rewarded with whippings, branding and chaining. We became chattels, objects of personal property with few or no rights.”
Caught between the giant arms of oaks stretching across the water, leaf-dappled sunlight slashed across her face. He knew of these practices and felt sorry Juliet had been trapped in the scheme. General Washington had also been concerned and desired to have indentured servitude abolished. “Slavery is a weed growing in every soil. The man who is the property of another, is his mere chattel, though he continues a man.”
“You know Aristotle?”
He shrugged. “A smattering of the philosophers.”
Juliet turned and narrowed her eyes on him. “How is it you are so knowledgeable growing up in the wilderness?
