Careful Joshua. She is bright and discerning. “Books are my friends, my sweet Juliet. Erudition is the reward of reading.”
How little he knew her. From sitting behind her, he identified every gesture, look, habit—each hair on her head, this woman, his wife he did not claim. Yet he knew nothing of her or her family and past. They had many days of canoeing and overland portages to get to Fort Oswego where her cousin commanded. A slow smile began to build with the lingering satisfaction that time would allow to know more regarding her.
“Are we in danger?” She caught him scanning their surroundings.
They were in danger. He kept a keen eye behind him and appreciated Two Eagles did as well. Not necessary to alarm her.
“Tell me of your life in England.”
Juliet sighed. “After Moira died, I had a hard time coping. To grasp that I and the mice in the walls of my little cottage were the only ones still breathing. I had no one else. I tried to tell myself life doesn’t stop because you lose someone you love. Even if it’s another part of you. Told myself time has a way of obliterating old hurts, and one day I’d wake up and I’d be happy again. Only it never happened.”
Juliet an orphan? She had said her mother died during childbirth and there had been no mention of her father. “Who is Moira?”
Juliet eased against the fur packs Joshua had positioned for her comfort. Despite her turmoil, the river was fair to look upon, so fine and broad, quiet and peaceful, giving no hint of storm or perilous wave. “My nanny who was like a mother to me.” She shifted. “After Moira’s death, Mary disappeared, and no one knew where. She had been my one solid friend from when we were very young. Being alone was darkness for me.”
Mary had abandoned her death-grip to the gunnels and fallen asleep in the bottom of the canoe behind Two Eagles. Every once in a while, the normally stoic Indian would turn his gaze on Mary.
The hills were ablaze with the showy pink and white crown of dogwood. From the heavily wooded banks great bass trees bloomed with blinding snowy blossoms, promising a tantalizing bid for honey bees and the assurance of sweet nectar. As they skimmed along the water’s surface, a calmness settled over her, traveling farther from Tionnontigo and the warmth of the late spring sun on her face.
“How did you and Mary become friends?”
Ducks scattered among the reeds growing near the bank’s edge. Juliet weighed telling him. Since her friend was sleeping, and because she had long kept secrets trapped inside, she said, “Mary and I have been friends from when were very young. One day, I went to Mary’s home. Her father, Vicar Abram slammed the door in my face, shutting me out, and would say nothing. Upset and confused I knocked every day for a month. He refused to answer the door.”
“I would have broken down the door to get answers,” said Joshua.
She smiled, picturing him doing just that. “Vicar Abram wore his own righteousness as an impregnable suit of armor. Devout in his conversations with the Almighty, he met his congregation with evangelical fervor and piousness, stressing God was at his elbow. Yet, his forceful preaching on love and forgiveness were hypocritical when it came to his lone child. He had turned his back on her when she needed him the most. For that act of hypocrisy and cruelty, I can never forgive him.”
She liked how Joshua listened to her. He was a man of contradictions…tenacious, principled and honorable. He was also self-righteous and relentless.
“I worried of Mary’s whereabouts, and her father’s strange behavior. Months eclipsed and a carriage pulled up to my cottage. A man begged me to assist a woman in childbirth. Since this was my trade, I agreed. I traveled a great distance, and I grew alarmed. Despite my relentless insistence to our destination, the men remained determined not to give me any information.”
“At last, I arrived at a manor where I was rushed inside. A frantic, middle-aged gentleman, Baron Bearsted begged me to save the baby, which I thought was strange because he didn’t include the mother’s safety. He whisked me into a room. To my shock, I found a very pregnant Mary in desperate labor. For hours, I used my skills to save her and the baby. The child emerged into the world a stillborn, and I cried not saving Mary’s child.”
Juliet glanced again to Mary. “Then to my complete horror, Baron Bearsted flipped his anxious concern to cruel taunts and his scheming. How he relished Mary’s father throwing her out of the house so he could enjoy nights of sexual pleasure from her young body—and since his wife had supplied him with daughters, he required an heir.”
He bragged how he seduced Mary, to supply him a son with designs to steal her child and present it as his own. How he gloated over Mary’s baby, glad the child she gave birth to was dead. He had no use of a bastard daughter and the dead baby saved him from having the child meet a fatal accident.”
At her words, Joshua stroked deeper and harder. She could almost feel the furious power in Joshua’s shoulders as they moved ever faster through the water. “Then Baron Bearsted ordered his men to move Mary to a wagon. Her hemorrhaging was terrible, and fearing her death, I threatened to go to his wife and reveal his brutality.”
She heard a grunt from the bow. Did Two Eagles grip his paddle tighter? “My threats were hollow. For coin, there would be no witnesses, and my pleadings as to who I was and the truth of Baron Bearsted’s treachery fell on deaf ears. I believe Mary’s father and my uncle were never contacted, and no doubt if they were, they’d never help. With illicit warrants, a dishonest magistrate accelerated out voyage to America and slavery was determined.”
Two Eagles darted a glance at the sleeping Mary. For a second, warmth, tenderness and protectiveness showed on his passive face. He covered Mary with a piece of cloth so her fair skin would not burn from the sun. He knew Juliet watched him but did not acknowledge her. He didn’t turn away either, which was as close to proper etiquette as the Indian ever allowed.
* * *
The sun reached its zenith and descended, casting long, late afternoon shadows. Joshua stuck his paddle in the murky depths to avoid a rock. Like layers of a river bottom, Juliet kept parts of herself secret. Before Joshua entered a British stronghold, he intended to know her political leanings. “What is your opinion of the war?”
She sat quiet, gathering her thoughts, twisting her opinions in her hands. “War is terrible. Is there not an answer to stop it? Put a gun in the hands of men and they will use them. Give them mottos and they’ll turn them into a reality. Sing the battle hymns to glorify them. The beating of the war drum surges the blood of men to a maniacal fervor. Maiming and killing ensue. When it is over, and if they have survived, it is the widows and orphans who are left to pick up the pieces.”
He steered the canoe up onto a sandy bank. Two Eagles covered the canoe with hemlock boughs. Joshua heaved packs on his shoulder and proceeded up a deer path through the forest.
She sighed from behind him. “I’ve seen and heard glimpses of both sides. There is persecution of Loyalists, men stripped, tarred and feathered. Some hanged. The taking of their lands. Women and children taken hostages, some women raped and scandalous depredations committed.”
“Patriots are not all murderers.”
“Neither are they all Sir Galahads, but with the atrocities at the Hayes’ farm, I can imagine what Loyalists have done to unsuspecting and peaceful settlers…and as I fear what Captain Snapes has ordered Onontio to do to unsuspecting farmers and the forts to the south.”
Joshua tensed, worried, too.
