Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 17 Read online

  And witchery was what it was, plain and simple.

  He'd been a fool. They could have performed any manner of Indian devil craft upon him. This was exactly how a man lost his soul.

  That evening Jan sought out a minister and inquired how he might remove the evil. The minister told him that if his hand offended him, he should cut it off. If his eye offended, he should pluck it out. Surely, his tattoo should be sliced off. No miracle would do him any good as long as he displayed an open invitation to Satan on his face.

  It seemed the procedure for casting out devils had changed somewhat since the days of the Apostles. Jan had been hoping for a simple blessing, a painless take-thy-bed-and-walk approach.

  Perhaps the patch wasn't such a bad idea.

  He thanked the minister and left.

  The next day he trekked out to Iron Wood's village. When he found Willow, he demanded she remove the curse.

  "If I had wanted to curse you,” said Willow. “I would have ordered the healing woman to put a yearning on you for your horse, or maybe a bear."

  "Curse or blessing, I want it removed."

  "I cannot remove it."

  Perhaps the minister was right. “Then I'll cut it off."

  "That might have worked the first few days, but that won't stop it now. The orenda is in your bones. It will stay there until you let it run its course."

  "And how long will that be?"

  "Until you are complete."

  "It's unnatural devilry,” he said.

  "It's how you are made,” she said. “Your own stories say it was not good for the first man to be alone. He needed a Wise Mother. And only when she arrived was it good. There's a piece of you missing, and until you find it, you won't be whole. Now come see my daughter again."

  "I'm not going to deceive her,” he said. “Or anyone else."

  "It is not deceit."

  "And will she say that on the day the orenda runs its course? No, she will look at me and despair."

  "Bah,” said Willow. “That happens to every pair who feels the fire of passion. One day the roaring fire burns down. Did the passion deceive them? Was it unnatural? No, it took its course and burned down to something you can cook with, something useful."

  Jan could not see the fault in her argument, but he knew it was wrong. It simply wasn't honest. Besides, such things could not be from God. He'd read about the gift of miracles, tongues, and charity. But not the gift of glamour. And so if it was not of God, it must be of the Devil. And Jan did not want to owe the Adversary even a nit's teaspoon.

  "No good can come of this,” he said.

  Her looked softened. “You do not listen, One Who Keeps Them Awake. When one bathes in the river and braids his lock of hair before meeting his beloved, is that dishonest? Your own women wear painful clothing to appeal to the silly European sense of beauty. Is that dishonest?"

  It wasn't the same, but Jan couldn't see the difference.

  "All we've done is highlight what's good in you. Now come let my daughter see what I do."

  "No,” said Jan. “I cannot."

  She looked hard at him then. “So be it.” Then she dismissed him with a flick of her wrist.

  He could tell she was exasperated. But he could not reconcile witchcraft with girdles and perfumes. And he was sure he didn't want to lure a woman into his bed. Jan was determined: He would have a wife honestly or would not have one at all.

  It seemed he would have to carry the devilry in his bones, but it couldn't be considered a sin if he didn't profit from it. So he wore his patch and traded as he normally did.

  Sometimes when he saw the spinster Patrice he was tempted to walk about without the patch. But he never gave in.

  The days passed and he began to think more about the English woman. She was the only European woman he'd found who looked at him with something other than pity or fear. Perhaps she was beyond the powers of the tattoo. It was possible. Not all the women in the settlements had inquired after him. And the healing woman had said the magic would not force anyone.

  In August he found out who she was. He went to the post to get powder and beans. He was drinking a glass of whiskey when Lancaster said, “Have you heard about Devil Jack's daughter? She's out teaching the savages the Bible."

  "Isn't that a bit dangerous?” someone asked.

  "Well, I guess not for the daughter of Devil Jack,” he said.

  Devil Jack was renowned from New Amsterdam to Ticonderoga for killing more Indians than any man living. He'd taken twenty arrows and lived to tell about it. He was as bloody a man as had ever lived. And he'd had eight sons just as bloody as he.

  "I thought him and his were all killed by the Abenaki,” said Jan.

  "That's what we all thought. But apparently he had a daughter that was taken as a slave. That was nine years ago. She was recovered just last autumn by a Mohawk raiding party and bargained for her freedom."

  "What did she bargain with?” someone asked.

  "You figure it out,” said Lancaster.

  Devil Jack's daughter. Surely this was the same woman he met earlier. It would explain her bite.

  "I would not be so hasty to smirch her name,” said Jan. “It wasn't that sort of bargain at all. I talked with those who took her, and they wanted her English."

  "What for?"

  "Think a moment,” said Jan. “How might it profit a Sachem when he realizes that he doesn't need us anymore, that he can go directly to the traders in New Amsterdam and speak their language?"

  That caught their attention.

  "What's her name?” asked Jan.

  "Shannon,” Lancaster said. “Shannon Burke."

  "Has she gone savage then?” someone asked.

  "No,” said Lancaster. “I was just down in New York. I hear she has an aunt there."

  "It's a waste,” someone suggested. “Who would want an Indian-used woman?"

  "I would not dismiss her so hastily,” said Jan. There was a spirit in her that was very appealing. “She's got a bit of her father's fire."

  Then he told them all about his beavers and getting clobbered on the side of the head. He decided to embellish a few of the details.

  "That's not quite the version I heard earlier this summer,” English Pete said. “I think at least three warriors were added to the count this time."

  Pete and his memory took all the fun out of it.

  "You must have heard wrong,” said Jan. “I'm telling you there were nine."

  * * * *

  In September, before the river froze, Jan helped guard a load of goods down the river to New Amsterdam. He still could not bring himself to call it York. Why the King signed it away, he'd never understand. The Dutch had, after all, won the war.

  The trip down might have been pleasant, but the cook put something evil into a soup that made him vomit for three days. However, by the time they arrived, he had recovered enough to get off his deathbed.

  The city was grand. In the last three years it seemed a thousand more houses had been built. The English were multiplying here like rabbits.

  He had two days before the ship sailed back up. During the first day, Jan ate enough fritters and crullers to make a man sick. He bought a Protestant Bible and a copy of a Dutch translation of a story about a crazy man in Spain who thought he was a knight.

  In the evening of that first day, he thought he saw Devil Jack's daughter hurrying down Wall Street holding a basket. He tried to follow her, but lost her when she called at a house and went inside.

  The next day he found out from a Lutheran minister where Shannon lived and thought of making a call. But then rethought. Why would she want to see him? He could bathe and shave, but that would only show more of his scars and birthmark. They had not met in favorable conditions. Still, he'd never quite met a woman like her.

  That first night he did not sleep well and he couldn't decide if it was the fritters or the woman that kept him awake.

  He did not have much to offer a woman. He lived alone in a small hou
se far from such a splendid city as New Amsterdam. Here it was safe. There she might be molested, again.

  Still she was a brave woman. She knew the tribes.

  Sometime before the sun came up, he decided he'd call on her. The first thing he did was go to the bathhouse. Then he paid a barber to trim his beard and hair up short.

  But when he exited the barber's, he despaired. He had not called on a proper woman before. He did not know the rules. He'd never known the rules. He supposed he should bring some gift but had no idea what that would be.

  In the end he settled on a fine cheese.

  When he stood on the porch of her house, he realized he would have to make conversation. But what would they converse about?

  A woman opened the door. Her eyes widened and she took a step back.

  He had always had that affect on women. They always acted like he was going to eat them. He'd hoped the haircut would have made him more of a gentleman. Obviously, Willow's advice did not help with Europeans. He thought about uncovering the tattoo, but decided against it. He cleared his throat. He could tell she did not trust him. “I'm here to see Miss Burke."

  "And you are?"

  Och, he was so clumsy with these things. “Jan van Doorn."

  "She's not here right now,” she said.

  "I see,” said Jan. He had been a fool to come. “Perhaps I could wait. I have a cheese."

  The woman looked confused by his last statement.

  "For her,” he said.

  "Oh, I can take that. Did she purchase it from Zwaart's?"

  She thought he was a delivery boy. “No, I wanted to bring it to her myself as a gift. I met her among the Mohawk and thought I might speak with her. I'm leaving back up into the interior tomorrow, and well I—"

  "I see,” the woman said. She tried to suppress a smile, but the corners of her mouth gave it away.

  A cheese must have been the wrong kind of gift.

  "I'm Shannon's aunt. She's out gathering firewood, but you can wait on the porch."

  "Of course,” he said. It wouldn't be proper for him to wait with her alone in her house. This was proving more difficult than he imagined.

  He waited on the porch with his cheese sitting next to him and watched two boys run up and down the street trying to fly a kite. He did not see or hear Shannon arrive. Just when he began to wonder if he would have to wait on that porch until dark, the door opened again and the aunt said, “Will you come in, Mister van Doorn?"

  Jan rose. He ducked into the doorway but then he couldn't straighten back up. Whoever had built this house had been exceedingly short.

  "Please sit here,” she said and motioned at a chair that looked like it was made for a child.

  "Are you sure I won't break that?” asked Jan.

  She looked him up and down. “No, not entirely."

  He almost offered to sit on the floor, but thought better of it. The chair wobbled and creaked when he settled onto it. He could feel if he shifted his weight just a little that it would indeed crack.

  Shannon came in then wearing a plain lace covering over her hair and just about stopped his heart. She did not wear fine clothes. She was not shaped like the spinster Patrice. And yet she was beautiful.

  Jan rose and thrust the cheese out in front of him. “I thought you might enjoy this,” he said.

  "I'm sorry,” she said. “I don't believe I ever heard your proper name."

  Jan thought back. She was right. She didn't even know who he was. And here he'd come calling. “Van Doorn,” he said. “Jan. I grew up outside Rotterdam."

  She took the cheese from him and handed it to her aunt. A meaningful look passed between them that Jan could not fathom.

  They talked then about the Mohawk and trading and living with the English.

  He could see a tattoo on her left ear, the marking of a slave. He had not noticed that before. That meant she had not been held for ransom, and he wondered how the Abenaki had treated her.

  He showed her the Bible he'd purchased.

  When she asked him if he'd ever read the Bible, he told her that his mother taught him to read Dutch starting with Genesis. He knew all the stories.

  That made her smile. They talked more about their homelands and he found out she was not English after all, but Irish.

  The aunt came in and joined their conversation. He was telling them both the story of the time when LaRue tried to turn a foundling moose into a packhorse when someone knocked at the door.

  It was a man with black boots and a green overcoat.

  The aunt introduced him as Michael O'Day, a farmer just outside the city and from the same town in Ireland as Shannon.

  He looked at Jan and then walked straight to Shannon, caught up her hand, and kissed it.

  "And who is this great fellow?” he asked.

  "A trapper I met while among the Mohawk,” Shannon said.

  The aunt laid her hand on Michael's arm. “Shannon and Michael are to be married in the spring."

  Jan's heart sank. “Oh, I see. Well, then. You've found yourself quite a woman, Mister O'Day. Quite a woman."

  He suddenly didn't know what else to say. An odd silence hung in the air and he said, “I think I must be on my way. But I give you one warning, Mister O'Day. If you're ever in fight, never let her near a corn stick."

  Shannon smiled.

  "A corn stick?” asked O'Day.

  "She can tell you,” said Jan. “Enjoy the cheese for lunch.” And then he picked up his hat and coat and left. He told himself it was probably better this way. A farmer would provide a stability that he never could.

  On the way back to the ship he felt a bit unsteady and wondered if he really was over the illness that had afflicted him on the trip down. So instead of visiting a tavern, he reported to the captain and slept onboard. In the morning they shoved off before daylight.

  That winter was colder than the last. The snows drifted in some places higher than his head. On Sundays, he took his books to the post and read to the men who were there. Lancaster said he'd heard there was a song of songs in the Bible.

  But Jan acted like he didn't know what he was talking about. He simply did not want to read them the Song of Solomon. In fact, there were ministers who thought it didn't even belong in the Holy Book.

  When he read about Elijah calling fire down on the priests of Baal, English Pete commented it was a shame no prophet was alive today to call fire down on the French.

  LaRue protested, but most of the men at the post were English and they shouted him down.

  * * * *

  In June the Mohawk and Abenaki skirmished with each other. During that time Jan heard that Shannon had reappeared among the villages. With all the battles and various parties skulking in the woods, it was not a safe time for her to return.

  A few weeks later Iron Wood asked for crates of powder, balls, and muskets. Jan brought a mule loaded with the contraband. He also made sure to pack a special musket with crows carved in the stock.

  Crow Child did not disappoint him. He proudly delivered a mixture of wampum and beaver and then whooped when he saw the special musket.

  Of course, the first thing Willow did was turn his face to look at his tattoo. Then she shook her head and walked away.

  It seemed, despite all his efforts, he was making her into an enemy.

  He took his mule out to pasture and saw Shannon at the river washing clothes on a rock. He walked up behind her.

  "Miss Burke,” he said.

  Shannon turned in fright and walloped him upside the head with her soap.

  "Och,” he said and wiped the suds away from his eye.

  "Do you scare all the women?” she asked.

  "Oh, I scare them all, but it seems you're the only one that intends to make me pay for it."

  She turned back to scrubbing her clothes.

  "It's a dangerous time, Miss Burke, or should I say O'Day?"

  "It seems I was bred for such a life."

  "And where's Mister O'Day?"

/>   "Sleeping with his pigs."

  She said that with no love. He felt better about this. He wasn't the only one who struggled at the beginning of a marriage.

  "Is he here then? Trading pigs?"

  "No,” she said. “He's back in New York. He called it off."

  "The engagement?"

  Shannon nodded.

  Why on earth would the man do that? He looked at her. She didn't show any sign of feeling sad. But she wouldn't. She'd lived with the Abenaki.

  He wouldn't say anything. He knew what it was like to have the lads at the post poke at such a loss. It was all in good fun to make him feel better, but it never did.

  Jan's mother always told him that the finest gift he ever gave her was the day he'd done her wash. So instead of saying something, Jan took her basket of washed clothes and asked her where her line hung. He stood hanging up a petticoat, when she joined him with the rest of the wash.

  "So you've come back to the Mohawks for good?"

  "It seems they don't care about my past,” she said.

  She was right. The Mohawk would prize her father. “Devil Jack was a bloody man,” said Jan. “But sometimes a man has to be bloody to survive."

  She looked over the clothesline at him. “He said he didn't want dirty undergarments."

  "What?"

  "O'Day."

  And the Dutch were marked for their fastidiousness. But then that didn't make any sense. “So you were a poor housekeeper? He could have hired a maid."

  "I was with the Abenaki as a young woman,” she said.

  Ah, he was so slow sometimes. Her ear tattoo was that of a concubine. He should have made that connection. But wouldn't O'Day have known that when he engaged her? Perhaps O'Day suspected some things. But then, for some men, knowing what happens in general is not the same as knowing specifically what happened to the women you're to marry.

  If O'Day was that type of a man, he was a fool.

  "Do you have a child then?” asked Jan.

  "I did. But my husband sold him away to humiliate me."

  "The Abenaki are worthless dog turds,” he said.

  "Only some of them,” she said.

  And then he realized her son was probably still among them, sold to another village. Besides, she had once been Abenaki herself.

  "You are right,” he said. “There are devils among all men."