Fire Along the Sky Read Online Free

the other on the curve of his skull, on dark, curly hair hot with the sun. She touched him as gently as spun sugar; as if the heat of her wanting might cause him to disappear. He was talking to her but the words swarmed around her head like blackfly, an irritation of no real importance. Beneath her hands she felt the strumming of his blood, the startling life force of this boy born within days of her own son.
    “Finally,” he was saying. “Finally you're here.”
    “Little brother.” The English words tasted sour and coppery on her tongue, flecks of dried blood to be spat out. “How good it is to see you.”

Prologue: Elizabeth

    Luke Scott Bonner, Esq.
Forbes & Sons
rue Bonsecours
Montreal

    Dear Luke,
    Your sister Hannah is come home to Lake in the Clouds. She is alone, as your letter warned us she must be. While she is in good health, she has not spoken to us of the things that weigh heaviest on her heart and mind, except to confirm the worst: her son is dead.
    The story of what happened to Strikes-the-Sky is less clear and very troubling. In the spring of last year he left their village on the Wabash on a scouting mission. Traveling with him was Manny Freeman. Neither of them was ever seen again, nor has there been any reliable report of them or their fate. Hannah does not speak of Strikes-the-Sky as alive or dead, or in any way at all. Her silence robs us of our own words.
    Of your grandfather Hawkeye there is a little more news. Your sister saw him last in Indiana territory three years ago. He set off on foot in a southwesterly direction, taking nothing with him but his weapons and as many provisions as he could carry.
    Your father sends his very warmest good wishes and this word: if your trade connections in the west have any news of your grandfather, we would be most thankful for any information they might provide.
    Gabriel asks when you will come to visit. We have explained to him many times that it is neither easy nor safe to cross the border in times of war but this is something our youngest does not care to hear. Daniel would like to see you as well. I know that he hopes you will convince us, his most unreasonable parents, that he and Blue-Jay had best go join the fighting. They speak of little else, to our considerable disquiet.
    Please give our best regards to your grandmother Iona. We think of you every day with love and gratitude for the kind services you have provided us in our worry for your sister. As Hannah continues to improve from her long journey—I dare not write of her
healing
—we hope to send you more and better news of her.
    Your loving stepmother
Elizabeth Middleton Bonner

Chapter 1
    Early September 1812
Paradise, New-York State
    Hot sun and abundant rain: Lily Bonner said a word of thanks for a good summer and the harvest it had given them, and in the same breath she wished her hoe to the devil and herself away.
    But there was no chance of escape. Even Lily's mother, whose usual and acknowledged place was at her writing desk or in a classroom, had come to help; everyone must, this close to harvest.
The women must,
Lily corrected herself: the men were in the cool of the forests.
    She glanced up and caught sight of her mother, all furious concentration as she moved along her row. She swung her hoe with the same easy rhythm as Many-Doves. They were an army of two marching through the tasseled rows, corn brushing shoulders and cheeks as if to thank the women for their care.
    For all their lives the Mohawk women had spent the best part of every summer day in the fields tending the three sisters: corn, beans, squash. But Lily's mother had been raised in a great English manor house with servants, and she had not held a hoe in her hands—white skin, ink-stained fingers—until she was thirty. Elizabeth Middleton had come to New-York as a spinster, a teacher, a crusader; in just six months' time she had become someone very different.
    Lily understood a simple truth: the day came for every woman