pounding his chest with bound fists, shouting, “
’S mise Lachlan
Maclean ’s ann á Ardnacross á tha mi!
D’ye hear tha’? I’m Lachlan
Maclean of Ardnacross on the Isle of Mull, and I fear only God!”
Maclean’s brave declarations boldly delivered in Maggie’s native
tongue tore at her heart. She could no longer bear witness to his
torture. She pushed through the crowd to where Simon stood at the
forefront and latched onto his arm. “Put an end to this madness!”
Six warriors marched forward, each taking hold of one of the
long staffs burning in the fire. Armed with the fl aming brands,
they circled the stake, and no matter which way Maclean turned,
he could find no respite from the heated tips pressing into his
naked flesh. Women ran to scoop up bucketsful of coals and spill
them around the stake so’s the Scotsman’s limited path was
strewn with hot embers. Maclean stumbled and fell onto the
smoldering coals. The smell of burned hair and scorched, bub-
bling fl esh seared Maggie’s nostrils.
Midwife of the Blue Ridge
367
An old man ran in shouting. He pressed his foot to the prone
man’s neck and lopped off a chunk of scalp, holding the bloody
thing over his head for all to see.
Almost every square inch of Maclean’s flesh was either burned,
blistered, or bleeding, but the Scotsman pushed himself to stand
on wobbly legs and continued to rant. “Th’ Macleans, ye fuckin’
heathens! We were there at Stirling . . . at Sherrifmuir . . . at
Culloden . . .” Inured to pain, he shambled back and forth,
around and around the stake. “An’ as sure as there’s a hole in yer
arse, ye willna hear me beg mercy . . .
never! NEVER!
”
Payakootha took a brand from the fire and scraped the glow-
ing end to the raw bone on Maclean’s head, generating a spray of
sparks that had her cackling with glee.
Maggie tugged on Simon’s arm; with tears streaming down
her face, she pleaded, “Make them stop!”
“Are you mad?” Simon jerked away and waved his arm to the
crowd shrieking with bloodlust. “Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t
be able to stop them now.”
“I’m Lachlan Maclean, grenadier with the Royal Highlanders
Forty-second Regiment of Foote!” the Scotsman cried out as he
shuffled like a drunk through hot ashes. “And I curse yiz all, ye
red-devil whoresons!”
Two big warriors grabbed Maclean by the arms. A third
stepped up with knife upraised. Maggie thought for sure this
would be the merciful end.
So did Maclean. He threw out his chest, closed his eyes, and
raised his face to heaven.
The warrior with the knife jammed his thumb into the Scots-
man’s mouth, and pried it open. When he turned back to face the
audience, he displayed Maclean’s severed tongue skewered on the
tip of his knife. He flicked the bloody thing to sizzle on the coals.
Maclean dropped to his knees, gagging, spitting blood.
Maggie could bear no more. “Kill him, Simon—shoot him.”
“Shoot him?”
368 Christine
Blevins
“I beg ye,” she sobbed, clinging. “Shoot the poor man.”
“No!” Simon pulled away. “We need this vengeance—ven-
geance for all that is lost to us.”
Maggie tore at the rifle slung over his shoulder, shrieking,
“Give me yer gun, then, ye fuckin’ heathen. Give it to me an’ I’ll
do it. I’ll shoot him, ye coward . . .”
It was then Simon slapped her. Slapped her across the face
hard enough to knock her down. He hauled her away—dragged
her kicking and screaming into Justice’s
wegiwa
.
“Keep her in here,” he said, “for she’s apt t’ get herself
killed.”
Maggie stayed the awful night with Justice and Aurelia. The
three of them trying with all their might to close their ears to the
suffering wails and insane shrieking . . .
Aurelia broke Maggie’s reverie, setting a johnnycake and a tin
cup of hot tea beside her. “You should try an’ put somethin’ in
your belly.”
Maggie shook her head no.
“Then you should lie down and rest . . . ain’t none of us got a
wink o’ sleep last night.”
“That’s a good idea,” Justice agreed. “It’s quiet now.” He lay
flat back with his arms folded under his head. A shrill yipping
pierced the silence. Justice bolted upright.
“She-mano- se! She-mano- se!”
More shouts. Hurried footfalls
beat a path around their
wegiwa
.
“Y’all wait here,” Justice ordered, taking up a stout club of
firewood, his eyes very wide and white in his face. “I’m goin’ t’
see what’s goin’ on.”
Maggie and Aurelia followed him out the door. Morning fog
and smoke clung to the bark-covered domes. They stayed near
the doorway wondering at the commotion—dogs barking, Indi-
ans tumbling barefoot and bare-chested from their snug lodges,
scurrying toward the village center. Justice sprinted back, dodg-
ing through the moving tide like a salmon swimming upstream.
Midwife of the Blue Ridge
369
“White man—come out of the trees—” he gasped.
Maggie grabbed his arm. “Soldiers?”
Justice wagged his head back and forth. “No. One of them
they call
She-mano- se
—a long knife man.”
“A slave catcher?” Aurelia half slunk back into the doorway.
“Might be . . . best lay low.” Justice took a deep breath. “He
must be crazy for sure—white man comin’ in here by his lone-
some.”
Maggie went back into the lodge and snatched up her blan-
ket.
“You best stay put, woman,” Justice warned.
Maggie threw the blanket around her shoulders. Aurelia
grabbed her by the wrist. “That man may well be a slave catcher.
Remember, they’s huntin’ you, too.”
“He might be a French trader, and may well be my only chance
to get away from here.” Maggie pulled free and draped the blan-
ket over her head. “I’ll be careful.” She ran to join the Indians
gathering at the council house, where the bones of Lachlan
Maclean lay smoldering on the coals.
The shouting died down—replaced by an uneasy mutter and
shifting of shoulders. Maggie pulled at the blanket edges; ensur-
ing that her face was well shadowed within, she wended her way
to the front of the crowd.
It was as if someone pounded the wind from her lungs. Her
knees buckled. The blanket slipped to her shoulders and she
clutched both hands to her heart, unable to believe her eyes.
Tom Roberts faced the Shawnee unarmed, dressed in naught
but breechclout and the beaded strap of his shot pouch diagonal
across his bare chest.
He looked like a ghost—a phantom risen from the swirling
eddies of mist and smoke. His long, loose hair lifted on the
breeze, crow’s-feet gathered at the corners of his shining blue
eyes, and he smiled serene. In his arms he cradled a pure white
fawn.
24
The White Fawn
Tom knew for certain he was a man in love in that moment.
When he saw Maggie, his heart overflowed with joy, and try as
he might, he could not help but smile.
In the blink of an eye, he watched Maggie’s shock mingle with
relief and happiness. She made as if to run to him and Tom had
to warn her off with a brusque shake of his head. Her shoulders
stiffened and her smile coalesced into a wary pucker, as suddenly
she was aware of their precarious situation.
Indian clothes become her . . .
But she looked much thinner
than when he’d seen her last. Deep shadows rimmed her eyes and
a fading bruise colored the left side of her gaunt face.
Cavendish . . .
Tom breathed deep to quell the lurch in his
chest.
I should have killed the bastard . . .
He gave his head a
shake to dispel his vengeful thoughts.
Not now . . . keep your
wits about you . . .
Tom waited with his back to the council- house door. To his left,
an ominous, blackened stake stood sentinel with him—the charred
bones of some poor devil scattered in the smoking ashes. He eyed
the crowd assembling. Several hundred Shawnee gathered around
Midwife of the Blue Ridge
371
the clearing, a score or more of able-bodied warriors among them.
No one made a move to rebuke him or question his presence.
“You’ve confounded them,” Tom whispered into the fawn’s
twitching, oversize ears. He hugged the baby deer tight and its
sharp, puny bones and bristly hairs bit into his bare chest. The
fawn trembled; pink nose quivering, it studied the scene with
eerie pink eyes.
Tom could not believe his good fortune when he’d found the
oddling curled in the dew-soaked shade of a laurel tree the day
before. He had once seen the hide of a white beaver—and once
thought he saw a white squirrel darting among the trees, but he
had never ever seen a white deer. Pure-white animals, especially
larger species like deer and buffalo, were so extraordinarily rare,
Indians considered them magical beings come direct from the
spirit world.
At last, the elders came forward in slow procession, their
stooped frames swathed in striped wool blankets. A grizzled old
woman bearing a red-feathered staff led five old men to stand in
a row, shoulder to shoulder, before Tom.
Tom squeezed the fawn, threw shoulders back, and addressed
his audience in Ojibwe, the trade language common to all Algon-
quian tribes. “Grandfathers! Grandmothers! Brothers and sis-
ters! I greet you in peace on this fine morning! I am Ghizhibatoo,
son of the Deer Clan of the Anishnaabe.”
“O-ho! Anishnaabe!” The crowd buzzed, very surprised that
an English white man—a Long Knife at that—could claim kin-
ship to the original people, the Ojibwe from the north. Maggie’s
lips parted in amusement. She gave her head a little shake.
Tom took a step forward and offered the white fawn with out-
stretched arms. “I, Ghizhibatoo of the Deer Clan, give this deer
to the Shawano—a token of good wishes from my totem.” He
counted on his Ojibwe name, “Swift- footed,” and his ties to the
Deer Clan to enhance his gift’s significance and value.
372 Christine
Blevins
The old man standing directly opposite stepped up and, with
great reverence, took the baby deer into his withered arms. The
chief communed with the fawn for a moment, staring into its
blinking pink eyes, stroking the soft white velvet between them
with a gnarled fi nger.
A pretty woman—a medicine woman, by the otter skin bag
she carried on her hip—came forward and pulled a length of
cordage from her pouch. She fashioned a lead and slipped it over
the animal’s head. The old man set the fawn on its feet. The
medicine woman took the lead and walked with it, skirting the
edge of the crowd, displaying the gift for all to see.
The sight of the delicate being capering on spindly legs, with
tiny pink hooves dancing on the hard-packed dirt, acted like a
stone tossed into still water, sending a ripple of happy wonder-
ment radiating through the crowd. Such a beautiful thing could
only bring good luck. The villagers jostled for position and a
crop of hands darted out to touch and stroke the fawn’s ethereal
whiteness as the medicine woman passed by.
Shrouded in their blankets like bats wrapped in their wings,
the elders kept aloof from this hubbub. Tom dug into his pouch
for the tobacco Duncan had given him back at the camp.
“Wise ones!” The cured tobacco looked like a black snake
curled in a figure eight, resting on his open palms. “Share this
tobacco when you consider great things and smoke from the
same pipe.”
The old woman snatched the leathery twist and put it to her
nose. She gummed a grin, and the tobacco disappeared inside the
folds of her blanket. The elders drew together, nodding and
whispering. Tom looked over at Maggie and winked. His gifts
had been well received. Everything was going well.
The chief who had accepted the fawn stepped front and center
to speak. Tom found it difficult to gauge his age. The elder’s sil-
ver hair was undressed and flowed in wisps to shoulders hunched
with rheumatism. His brown face, like the shell of a walnut, was
Midwife of the Blue Ridge
373
fissured with deep wrinkles, but his voice carried strong and his
eyes shone bright with intelligence.
“I am called Skootekitehi,” he announced with much pride. By
his name, “Fire Heart,” Tom figured the old man must once have
been a fierce and determined warrior. “We welcome you, Ghizhi-
batoo. You honor our village with fine gifts. We are grateful, but
we wonder—what can the Shawano offer the son of the Deer
Clan?”
This was his moment. Tom drew a deep breath and threw his
arms wide. “Grandfathers and grandmothers! Brothers and sis-
ters!” His voice boomed. “You see before you a man chasing a
dream.”
“A dream, o-ho!” The open space of the clearing shrank as the
throng closed in to hear his words. Heads wagged. Maggie
shifted forward with the jabbering crowd. The reaction pleased