Twin Willows: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

nature.
    Then Stuart gestured toward the forgotten Latin book. “We seem to have strayed from the subject at hand. Shall we continue? I believe I can show you how to continue to study Caesar on your own after I leave.”
    “I wish you could stay here longer,” Anna dared to say.
    The way Stuart looked at her made Anna know that he shared the sentiment. “It is probably just as well that I must leave soon,” he said, and Anna thought she knew what he meant.
    Stuart Martin had his whole future ahead of him. Despite their apparently mutual attraction, she thought, having a half-breed wife would be a disadvantage to him. Immediately Anna chided herself for the presumption that marrying her could ever enter Stuart Martin’s mind.
    “Very well, sir. I will do my best to study on my own,” Anna said.
    Moments later Miss Martin entered the room, looking almost disappointed to see her nephew standing on the opposite side of the table from where Anna sat, listening as the young woman haltingly read aloud in Latin.
    “I should think you’ve both had enough of that for one day,” said the headmistress with some asperity. “Clear off the table and we’ll take some tea.”

2

    W ACCACHALLA , N ORTHWEST T ERRITORY, 1781
    The girl the Shawnee knew as Willow sat at the entrance of the lodge she shared with Bear’s Daughter and gazed at their village without really seeing it.
Something unusual will soon happen
. Willow knew it in the same way that she knew that rain would come, even when the sky was blue. Furthermore, Willow sensed that Bear’s Daughter shared her belief that some important change awaited them both.
    We’ve had much change lately, and not for good
, Willow thought as she recalled the source of their recent hardships. The red-coated
Shemanese
, who not many years past had fought the French and some of the O-hio tribes, now warred with Shemanese settlers. They brought fine gifts, rifles and powder, and iron cooking pots to any Shawnee, Delaware, Mingo, or Wyandot who would raid the
Shemanese
settlements to the west and south. Sometimes the red-coats even led the warriors themselves. Some of the septs had refused to take part, only to have their corn burned in the field by
Shemanese
who blamed all Indians for the work of a few.
    The general unrest and persistent shortage of food forced Chief Black Snake to move his people from one place to another in a vain search for the security they had once taken for granted. They had wandered far to the north, visiting with their brothers along the way, but no one had much to share with them. A few moons back they had returned to Waccachalla. Once more they repaired their
wegiwas
and planted crops they knew they might never harvest.
    Since their return, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, at least on the surface. Willow did not have to be told, however, that all was not well. Vague rumors spread through the village almost daily, and the lines between friend and foe, once so clear, were now less certain. Some said that the
Shemanese
settlers would spill from their farms to the east and make the Shawnee leave their villages. Others said that the redcoats and the other
Shemanese
would soon quit fighting each other. Then all would return to the faraway land from which they had come, and the Shawnee could continue the life that the
Shemanese
had so disrupted.
    In the meantime, Black Snake’s warriors spent a great deal of time away from Waccachalla, raiding with first one group and then another. Sometimes they came back with bounty from
Shemanese
settlements or from the strange flat boats the
Shemanese
rode on down the O-hio-se-pe. Even when they stayed in the village, the men spent more time readying their weapons than using them to hunt food. Often the warriors put on war paint and preened for no reason. With fierce war whoops, they’d shake their tomahawks at imaginary enemies while the old men, women, and children laughed and shouted their approval.
    Willow had watched these