good.
“True,” Ahnyero agreed. “But this woman has no clan.”
“She has people,” Two Hawks said. “She has a place, a calling, and a woman she loves as a mother. She has a father. And
he
has a trade.” Anna Catherine had had this idea. He’d been of two minds about it back in autumn, but now…his father no longer needed help to hunt.
“All those bateaux? I have seen that one who pilots his boats, Yankee Lang, with the white hair.” The scout made a sound of interest—and approval, Two Hawks thought. “Maybe that is the way for you to Aubrey’s heart, learning his—”
A sudden frigid gust had them breaking off their conversation and rising to their feet to see a group of Oneidas pushing into the crowded post, snow dusted, cheeks red with cold. One stepped forward and spoke, and because it wasn’t in English, Ahnyero left the hearth to translate for those who needed it, but Two Hawks understood the news straight from the mouth of the warrior who brought it: “We come through this snow with dark news. There was a council at Onondaga, many sachems gathered there. During that council the spotting sickness came among them like a foul breath. Many are dead of it. Some of the dead are sachems.”
As Ahnyero translated, a chill took hold of Two Hawks that had nothing to do with the wintery air let in.
“We come to tell Colonel Elmore, so he may pass the news downriver. There is mourning at Onondaga and condolence to be made. Because of this, the keepers of the Central Fire have stamped it out. It burns no more. Every man may choose as he will between the Americans and the British. That is what we have come to say.”
Choose you this day whom ye will serve
. The words sliced like a snow-snake groove through Two Hawks’s mind as he led the gray mare along the drifted trail. His winter moccasins and the horse’s hooves crunched the snow. Their breath billowed on stinging air.
Choose you this day
…Words of a war chief bidding his people to serve Creator or something else. No more standing apart.
The Oneidas were free to choose. To fight, if it came to it. Yet all Two Hawks wanted was to reach Kanowalohale, deliver the trade goods to hismother, then fly to Anna Catherine like an arrow loosed. There would be no fighting while snow lay thick. If he was to do this thing with Aubrey—this path clearing—it must begin now, before spring brought the season back around to war.
Such absorbing thoughts distracted him. He did not hear the party of travelers until the mare alerted him with a misstep in the snow. Two Hawks steadied her, then saw the figures clustered on the trail ahead beyond a snow-laden pine. The warrior leading them had an arrow to a bowstring, pointed at Two Hawks’s chest.
With the heart in that chest kicking hard, Two Hawks held up the hand not holding the mare’s lead and gave the warrior—bundled with a furred hood drawn close about his face, like the others in the party—a gesture of greeting, and the words to go with it. The warrior, slender even under thick clothing, eased the bowstring but didn’t lower his arrow.
“You are
Onyota’a:ka
?” he asked in a high ringing voice. The voice of a woman.
Two Hawks advanced several steps with the horse. The woman drew taut the bowstring. He stopped. He could see now that the face framed in breeze-stirred fur was young and smooth, unquestionably female. Everything else—clothing, bearing, that pointing arrow—was that of a warrior.
“I asked a question,” she said.
“And this is my answer: I am
Onyota’a:ka
, called Two Hawks.”
If she was the one with the bow, then there were no men among them. He counted four others, all with white in the hair straggling from hoods. All carried large burdens, even the one with the bow. His heart slowed its beating and went out to them in pity.
“Where are you and these grandmothers going? Are you on your way to Oriska?” It was the village they would come to at the end of that trail, if
“True,” Ahnyero agreed. “But this woman has no clan.”
“She has people,” Two Hawks said. “She has a place, a calling, and a woman she loves as a mother. She has a father. And
he
has a trade.” Anna Catherine had had this idea. He’d been of two minds about it back in autumn, but now…his father no longer needed help to hunt.
“All those bateaux? I have seen that one who pilots his boats, Yankee Lang, with the white hair.” The scout made a sound of interest—and approval, Two Hawks thought. “Maybe that is the way for you to Aubrey’s heart, learning his—”
A sudden frigid gust had them breaking off their conversation and rising to their feet to see a group of Oneidas pushing into the crowded post, snow dusted, cheeks red with cold. One stepped forward and spoke, and because it wasn’t in English, Ahnyero left the hearth to translate for those who needed it, but Two Hawks understood the news straight from the mouth of the warrior who brought it: “We come through this snow with dark news. There was a council at Onondaga, many sachems gathered there. During that council the spotting sickness came among them like a foul breath. Many are dead of it. Some of the dead are sachems.”
As Ahnyero translated, a chill took hold of Two Hawks that had nothing to do with the wintery air let in.
“We come to tell Colonel Elmore, so he may pass the news downriver. There is mourning at Onondaga and condolence to be made. Because of this, the keepers of the Central Fire have stamped it out. It burns no more. Every man may choose as he will between the Americans and the British. That is what we have come to say.”
Choose you this day whom ye will serve
. The words sliced like a snow-snake groove through Two Hawks’s mind as he led the gray mare along the drifted trail. His winter moccasins and the horse’s hooves crunched the snow. Their breath billowed on stinging air.
Choose you this day
…Words of a war chief bidding his people to serve Creator or something else. No more standing apart.
The Oneidas were free to choose. To fight, if it came to it. Yet all Two Hawks wanted was to reach Kanowalohale, deliver the trade goods to hismother, then fly to Anna Catherine like an arrow loosed. There would be no fighting while snow lay thick. If he was to do this thing with Aubrey—this path clearing—it must begin now, before spring brought the season back around to war.
Such absorbing thoughts distracted him. He did not hear the party of travelers until the mare alerted him with a misstep in the snow. Two Hawks steadied her, then saw the figures clustered on the trail ahead beyond a snow-laden pine. The warrior leading them had an arrow to a bowstring, pointed at Two Hawks’s chest.
With the heart in that chest kicking hard, Two Hawks held up the hand not holding the mare’s lead and gave the warrior—bundled with a furred hood drawn close about his face, like the others in the party—a gesture of greeting, and the words to go with it. The warrior, slender even under thick clothing, eased the bowstring but didn’t lower his arrow.
“You are
Onyota’a:ka
?” he asked in a high ringing voice. The voice of a woman.
Two Hawks advanced several steps with the horse. The woman drew taut the bowstring. He stopped. He could see now that the face framed in breeze-stirred fur was young and smooth, unquestionably female. Everything else—clothing, bearing, that pointing arrow—was that of a warrior.
“I asked a question,” she said.
“And this is my answer: I am
Onyota’a:ka
, called Two Hawks.”
If she was the one with the bow, then there were no men among them. He counted four others, all with white in the hair straggling from hoods. All carried large burdens, even the one with the bow. His heart slowed its beating and went out to them in pity.
“Where are you and these grandmothers going? Are you on your way to Oriska?” It was the village they would come to at the end of that trail, if
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