The Woodsman's Rose Read online

  She turned back to the fire. “I love you, Papa.”

  “R’wy’n dy garu di,” he echoed, smoothing her golden hair, “fy merch fach.”

  AS SHE LAY IN BED THAT night, Annie could still hear the pain in Daniel’s rough voice. She’d always known his voice like that—like emery on slate—though she knew at one time it had been different. He’d suffered the accident that changed his voice before the family had moved to White’s Station.

  The little boy had fallen into a willow tree, where a short branch had impaled him by the neck. His older brothers had been with him—Conor, they’d always say, was screaming like a banshee. While Brian held him up, Adam had used his penknife to cut the branch off the tree. They carried him home with the branch still sticking out of his neck, and it was many, many months before he’d talk again.

  The voice he had now was gruff, gravelly. He thought his voice was ugly and the scar left by the accident uglier still. He wore his bandanna tight around his neck to hide the mark, and he spoke softly to hide the gruffness. She’d never seen the scar, but in his voice, Annie could hear a slow Texas drawl, overlaid with the music of his father’s brogue. When he murmured in her ear, when he called her “Aroon”, she found it quite the sweetest sound she’d ever heard.

  Aroon, he’d say, and his deep gruff voice would strike her heart. Aroon. Beloved. Sweetheart. Darling. Every other loving word she’d ever heard faded before it. Aroon. It fit him. It fit this place—this half-tamed wilderness tucked away in a corner of Arizona.

  Aroon. An ancient word. She could almost taste it. It was made up of the song of the wind in the trees, the warning of the owl, the chant of the Navajo, the cry of the wolf for his mate. It swelled like a wave on the ocean but whispered against the shore. Aroon.

  Aroooooon...

  She sighed for that word, and wondered when she’d hear it again.

  Chapter 9

  A few days later, Daniel presented Tommy with a drawing of a functional wood and leather leg. At the Navajo’s summer encampment up in the mountains, they held a short conversation with the elders, then headed for a rather neglected hogan on the far side of the camp. Tommy showed the drawing to the boy and his mother, explaining that the leather cup would fit over his leg and the wide bands would stabilize it at the calf and thigh. Though Daniel understood little of their language, he could read the excitement in her face as Small Cloud at Night spoke eagerly to her son. The boy’s dark eyes were glued to hers, but he gave her no response. Small for a child of twelve, he looked waxen and tired.

  In his pocket, along with a handful of rawhide laces, a pencil and a scrap of paper, Daniel usually carried pemmican or dried fruit. He knelt beside Blue Deer’s bed of blankets and offered him a wrinkled slice of apple.

  After looking to his mother for permission, Blue Deer reached shyly for the fruit and took a firm bite, glancing once at the woodsman before averting his eyes.

  “T’anks,” he murmured.

  Daniel pulled another slice from his pocket and puffed out his lips, then chewed so loudly and with such facial contortions Blue Deer had to laugh. “Speak English?”

  The boy shook his head. “T’anks,” he repeated.

  “Welcome.” Daniel chuckled and offered another piece of apple. Blue Deer peered around his shoulder to see if his mother was watching, then his hand darted out for the extra slice and hid it under his blanket.

  “T’anks.” The word was scarcely a whisper this time. Daniel winked at him.

  Tommy was still talking to the boy’s mother as Daniel rose and made a great show of brushing off the seat of his pants, garnering another small chuckle from Blue Deer.

  “I’ll see you later,” the woodsman said to Tommy, throwing a salute to the sick boy and nodding to his mother. She returned a graceful wave of her hand. Turning once more to the boy on the blankets, he tossed another piece of apple to him and slipped out the door.

  THE FOREST WAS COOL and shady, the sun creating a dappled carpet that changed with the breeze. Birds and squirrels paid no attention as the woodsman glided along on the mat of loam and pine needles. Three deer—a doe and two fawns—pricked their ears up at the slight rustling of his footsteps. But seeing only the movement of hide identical to their own, they dipped their heads to the stream again.

  Daniel moved warily, leaving no trail, listening to the sounds of the forest, knowing someone was close by. When he stopped, he heard the man tracking him stop a split-second later. As he stepped out again, the footsteps that dogged him weren’t quite attuned to the rhythm of his stride. The follower was taller than he. As he left the next clearing, just at the edge of the woods, the woodsman pivoted.

  Like a child caught in a game of Statues, Alec Twelve Trees stopped mid-stride. In place of the flared vaquero’s pants and velvet shirt he habitually wore, today he was dressed in buckskins identical to Daniel’s. His hair hung loose below a leather headband decorated with silver medallions. As the woodsman leaned on his rifle, Alec settled his feet together.

  “Tell me,” Alec growled.

  “I can’t.”

  “Tell me who killed my mother.”

  “He’s gone now. There’s nothing you can do.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Alec, we’ve been through this before. I have no proof.”

  “I don’t care. I want to know. I need to know.”

  Daniel shook his head slowly. Conversation seemed useless. Still, he tried to reason with his friend. “There’s family left―”

  “You bastard. I’ll kill you.”

  “No. You won't.”

  But Alec didn’t hear—he’d turned on his heel and disappeared into the trees.

  Daniel looked up to the canopy but saw only his friend’s face—a face that had always been solemn and yet always calm, now twisted and tortured with pain, dark eyes smoldering with despair. He wanted nothing more than for his friend to find peace.

  A deeply spiritual man, Daniel considered the outward trappings of religion nonsense. He’d found solace in nature, coming to believe that all things have a sacred meaning of their own. His beliefs had been crystallized by discussions with Alec and Tommy, and he’d accepted much of the Navajo way—he believed that a man’s word was as good as his deed, that nature’s bounty wasn’t to be taken lightly, that waste was the greatest sin. That a man without honor is no man at all. He also found hope in the optimism of the prayer of the Navajo, which always ended with, “Now all is well.” He stopped for a moment, closed his eyes and tried to force the belief into his heart, but it brought him no comfort.

  Letting out a long slow breath, he rubbed his face with both hands. He had no choice—he had to protect an innocent. She was almost a stranger, but she needed him more than his friend ever could.

  He continued on his journey and, after another mile, arrived at the edge of the forest and stepped out onto his father’s land. The foothills rolled gently behind him, and even more gently in front of him—down to the river and the village of White’s Station.

  This was his home—the Arizona Territory. From the desert in the south to the mountains surrounding Flag to the Tonto Basin, Daniel knew the Territory intimately. He loved it all, but he loved these foothills best. Here the winter could be harsh but wasn’t too long, and the other seasons glided into one another much as he glided through the forest. His brothers sometimes remarked he loved his Territory even more than his family.

  A smile played on Daniel’s lips. It wasn’t true, of course, but it made for some interesting conversations. A bit more settled in spirit, he continued on his way home.

  Chapter 10

  On a quiet summer day, Adam and Brian went looking for Daniel and found him at home. The brothers had talked of building a separate cabin in the canyon for Brian’s use, but had decided instead to add a large bedroom—one with its own fireplace, to keep Jesse from feeling the cold. The new room would be built off the main cabin opposite the two small bedrooms Jesse’s father had built on when she was a child.
After tearing out every inch of plaster between the logs of the existing cabin, they’d brought their plan for the new room to Daniel for approval, whose skills as carpenter were above reproach.

  Daniel took one glance at it, gave a snort of disgust and handed the paper back to Brian without a word.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Brian demanded.

  Daniel glared at them. “You know, you may be strong...” He flicked his chin toward Brian, then turned to the big man’s twin. “And you may be handsome, but there ain’t a lick o’ sense between you.”

  Adam bristled and repeated his brother’s question. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s a room for Jesse, right? With a fireplace to keep her warm, right?”

  “So?”

  “So you gonna put her in through the window?”

  The twins looked at their plan then at each other, and finally at their brother, who was squatting on the ground and laughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. Brian caught him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to his feet.

  “Are you gonna help us?” Brian’s red hair was wild around his head, his cheeks almost purple. “Or am I jus’ natur’ly gonna pulverize you?”

  Daniel held up a hand for peace. “Tomorrow,” he managed to croak. “I’ll come out tomorrow and help you get started.”

  As good as his word, Daniel worked with them, showing them how to use wedges to support the walls while they cut a door through from the living room. How to use the same supports to lock the new walls to the old. He cut their logs to precise measurements and helped wedge them between the logs of the outer wall. He recommended they use adobe instead of plaster to seal the walls, and raise the floor of the new room another few inches to create better insulation underfoot. He showed them how to lay the stone for the fireplace, then helped seal the roof to the main cabin. And when they’d nearly finished, he hung the shutters and the inside door for them. His brothers finally admitted his superior skill, and he laughed again.

  Chapter 11

  Doc Barber stopped by the Donovan home at least once a week, sure of a good cup of coffee and fairly certain of a meal. Today he was accompanied by Tommy, and after dinner, they drew John Patrick and Daniel aside and told them of some disquiet in the peaceful mountain tribe of Navajo—there were several newcomers, men who’d refused to be relocated to the reservation with their own tribes, and who were fostering rebellion.

  The doctor reported incidents on the outskirts of town—slaughtered cattle, stolen sheep, fences pulled over. A prospector’s shack had been burned while he was in town, a squatter’s wife was terrorized by half a dozen young warriors who splattered her house with the blood of chickens.

  “I don’t feel safe going up there without Tommy in tow,” Barber said. “That Yellow Knife in particular seems like a dangerous fellow. Thought he could threaten Tommy because he lives with us white folk. Tell them how you answered him, Tommy.”

  Tommy snorted. “Didn’ say nothin. Gave ’im what ’e deserved.” The blacksmith raised a hand to one of his broad shoulders and flicked off an invisible mote. “Bastard thinks ’e can take me, I say c’mon an’ try. But he ain’t got the stomach for it—you wait an’ see.”

  Nevertheless, the tribe’s highest-ranking elder had asked Tommy to warn the white settlers to be prepared for more violence. “Runnin’ Wolf used pidgen English, so nobody but me an’ Left-Handed Bear could unnerstan’. I jus’ nodded a bit, lookin’ here an’ there, like we was talkin’ ’bout huntin’ or somethin’.

  “But I’m tellin’ ya, it ain’t no use askin’ Yella Knife t’ let up,” Tommy continued. “He’s good an’ riled an’ ’e’s gainin’ more followers every day. It’s men my age mos’ly—the ones who were kidnapped by the missionary schools, before you came an’ put an end t’ thet.”

  John Patrick waved away Tommy’s thanks. The practice of rounding up the Navajo children and forcing them into missionary schools had angered him immensely. There was no logic he could see for telling them their gods were invalid, force-feeding them Christianity and English, and forbidding them to speak their own language or keep their own customs. Then, for good measure, the children were dumped back on their villages at the age of sixteen, where they were considered outcasts. The girls were laughed at for trying to maintain the white man’s standards of purity, while the boys were scorned for their lack of life skills. The three R’s were worthless in the Navajo world, but a good hunter could save his tribe from starvation.

  John Patrick had seen the same abuses suffered by the native Irish at the hands of the English, and he’d tried to stop it by argument and persuasion. Finally, he’d traded with the tribe for the land between the river and the foothills. The only way to the children now was through Donovan land, and he’d made sure both the army and the schools knew they weren’t to trespass. Conflict with the schools’ bounty hunters had almost become physical at one point, but the family and the village had stood together against them.

  “Only made sense,” John Patrick now said. “If the children will live with their families, they should be raised with their families. Still, we’ve not addressed the issue at hand.”

  “What about the old ways?” Daniel asked. “How did the tribe handle internal problems then?”

  “Depends on the problem. Could be anythin’ from some extra chores—woman’s work, mos’ly—t’ makin’ restitution. Shunnin’ if the problem was bad enough.”

  “Shunning? What’s that?”

  “Well, everybody in the tribe agrees t’ ignore ’em. Not speak to ’em, not do anythin’ with ’em—not hunt or even eat with ’em. It’s us’ally jus’ for a few days. But sometimes, if it was bad enough, it’d be permanent.” Thoughtfully, Tommy added, “Mos’ the time, the ones who got shunned jus’ left on their own. They couldn’ stand havin’ nobody pay ’em any mind.”

  “What do you think?” John Patrick asked. “Would it work?”

  “Wal, it’d be up to Runnin’ Wolf an’ the elders.” Tommy screwed his face up for a minute. “I know Runnin’ Wolf won't take it on hisself t’ run ’em out—he’d hafta have the other elders in on it. But I tell ya they’re sure mighty embarrassed by this whole thing.”

  “What have we to lose?” John Patrick asked. “If they refuse, all we’ve invested is a bit of time.”

  So they went together, the two Donovan men and Tommy, to sit and talk to Running Wolf and the elders. Most of their conversation was couched in an English-Spanish-Navajo patois, with subtle words that offered neither insult nor recommendation. No decisions were made, but they’d expected none. The elders would take action, or not, after a private discussion.

  ON A DREARY AFTERNOON that threatened rain but didn’t deliver, Daniel stopped at the livery stable and found Tommy whistling as he worked at his forge.

  “Hey, Dan’l. How ya doin’?” Without waiting for an answer, Tommy continued, “Me an’ Doc went up t’ the camp yestidday an’ saw Blue Deer. He’s real happy with ’is new leg. Said ‘e can do all the things the other boys can. They make a li’l fun of ’im, but ’e don't really care.”

  “That’s great. Any news about the newcomers?”

  “Nothin’ solid.” Tommy stopped to select a rod of raw iron. “Coupl’a people objectin’ to the shunnin’, but I think Runnin’ Wolf’ll make ’em come around eventually.

  “Oh, an’ Small Cloud said you’re t’ come up an’ have supper with ’em one o’ these days. Feel like goin’?”

  “Sure. Wednesday work for you?”

  “Anythin’ works for me, son, when there’s food t’ be had.”

  Chapter 12

  As summer drifted into fall, Daniel became a habitual guest at the dairy farm, arriving at least twice a week in time for dinner with the Griffith family. Evelyn was more than happy to accommodate him. A pragmatist at heart, she didn’t understand the long engagement he’d undertaken. In this part of the country, courtship was normally a matter of weeks, not months, still less close to a year. She lon
ged to tease him, but had decided to save Annie embarrassment. So she centered the conversation around her need for a longer kitchen table, expecting her brother to volunteer to make one for her. She wasn’t disappointed.

  “I knew you would,” she told him.

  Daniel gave a gruff laugh, then asked, “Did you hear about Frank and Geordie?”

  Evelyn stared at him. “What now?”

  There was a sly look around her brother’s eyes and an undercurrent of laughter in his voice, and she was always ready for the antics of the younger twins.

  “They’ve been courting Patricia Flaherty since the spring.”

  “Both of them? Really?” Evelyn started to giggle.

  “Really. Told her they wouldn’t fight over her, and she could make up her mind between the two of them.”

  Annie gaped at him. “Are you serious?”

  “How do you know?” Owen asked.

  “Seamus told Tommy,” Daniel answered. “They haven’t spoken to Mother and Dad yet.”

  “What’s your mother going to say?” Lowell asked his wife with a huge grin, causing Evelyn to go off into gales of laughter.

  As they all joined her, Evelyn wondered how Seamus’s daughter could have captured the hearts of both her brothers. The quiet, sensible Geordie. The garrulous, excitable Frank. Two men who looked so much alike that, in Brian’s words, “the only way t’ tell ’em apart’s t’ put ’em close t’gether an’ see who twitches first.” Two such different men, each enamored of a silly, flighty girl with a pretty face and a heart of gold.

  “I wonder which one she’ll pick,” Annie said, when their gaiety had subsided.

  “What if she doesn’t pick either one?” Lowell asked.

  “I’m sure she will.”