A Whisper of Peace (32 page)

“Two tribesmen, Da’ago and Kiona, visited my cabin earlier today with a strange tale.”

Shruh’s condemning tone held Clay captive. His chest tightened in trepidation. “A-about me?”

“About you, the boy child Etu, and the girl child Naibi. They say you took the children into the woods several days ago, but when you returned they were not with you. They have watched each day for the children’s return. But no children have come from the woods.” Shruh’s scowl deepened. “I put the children in your care, trusting you to provide well for them, but now I wonder if my trust was misplaced.” He looked around again, holding his hands wide. “Where are the children?”

Clay’s mouth went dry. He’d enjoyed his reprieve from Shruh’s fierce insistence that he abandon his relationship with Lizzie. Admitting he’d allowed the children to stay with her would no doubt raise another round of disapproval and could very well result in his expulsion from the village just when he’d finally completed the mission and could begin teaching and preaching. He struggled to find a way to tell the truth without inciting Shruh’s ire.
Father, help me.

“Where are the children?” Shruh’s voice thundered, a command Clay could not ignore.

“With Lu’qul Gitth’ighi.”

“What?” After his deep-throated, demanding query, the simple one-word question emerged as soft as a bird feather drifting from overhead.

But Clay wasn’t deceived by the calm tone. Shruh’s eyes sparked with fury, and his quivering muscles communicated his tenuous hold on his temper. He faced Shruh squarely and responded in a strong, unrepentant-yet-respectful voice. “With the illness spreading through the village, I worried for their safety. I placed them with Lizzie—with Lu’qul Gitth’ighi—so the sickness wouldn’t be able to reach them.”

“With a banished woman.”

With your granddaughter, you stubborn old coot.
“Yes.”

Shruh paced away, his gait stiff. He stopped on the opposite side of the room and stood with his back to Clay, yet his voice carried clearly across the expanse of benches. “Again and again you choose to ignore the edicts of our tribe. You seem to be a good man—an honorable man, seeking to care for orphaned children and offering comfort to those whose hearts are broken by loss.” A note of confusion crept into the man’s tone. “Yet you cannot abide by rules.”

He spun to face Clay, his lined face wreathed with a mixture of anger and remorse. “If I allow you to stay, my people will not respect me. They will say Shruh does not honor his own tribe’s council.”

Clay scurried between two rows of benches to stand before Shruh. “I know I acted against tribal dictates by seeing a woman who’d been excommunicated.” A picture of Lizzie formed in his mind, making his heart swell with the desire to go to her again. “But I did it out of concern for Etu and Naibi.”
Lord, pave the way to reconciliation
. “If I address the council members and assure them of my reasons for going against your law, might they choose to let me stay? Then the fault will not fall on you. It will be their decision.”

Shruh stared into Clay’s face, his mouth pinched into a tight line of uncertainty. “You speak to them. But first, you bring the children back to the village. They belong here, not in the home of a woman who is not of our tribe. Bring them here, and then come see me. I will arrange the meeting between you and the council. We will decide what to do with you.”

Lizzie snapped the final ear of corn from the stalk and dropped it into the woven basket at her feet. The children worked together in the next row, picking the corn and filling their own basket. So many ears—an abundant harvest. Lizzie’s heart filled with gratitude for nature’s favor, even while she ached at the realization that with harvest nearly complete, she would say good-bye to Etu, Naibi, and—she pressed her palm to her traitorous heart—Clay.

Etu peeked between the long, crackling leaves of the shoulder-high stalks. “Missus Lizzie, you roast corn for lunch today?”

Lizzie had intended to send the children to the cabin for leftover corn muffins and dried caribou for lunch so she could continue working, but how could she deny Etu’s hopeful request? Especially since her time with the children neared its end. “Of course. It always tastes best when fresh-picked.”

Naibi’s happy squeal rang, earning a few barks of surprise from the penned dogs.

With her basket full, it seemed a good time to take a break and prepare several ears for roasting. She dragged the basket to the waiting travois and slid it onto the willow cross branches. Then she grasped the poles and toted the basket to the side of the house, where a hollow clay mound served as her roasting pit.

Naibi skipped from the vegetable patch to observe Lizzie. With her hands behind her back, her chin tucked low, and her little mouth puckered, she resembled a wise old owl. A wise old owl in a beflowered dress. Lizzie stifled an amused chuckle as she removed several ears from the basket and lined them up side by side inside the pit.

The child pointed. “Do you soak them? Vitse soaked ears in water first.”

“These are fresh ears,” Lizzie explained, “still holding moisture from their time on the stalk. We don’t need to soak them unless they dry out.”

“Ohhh.”

The single-word response ran up a scale and down, reminding Lizzie of the notes Clay played on his music box. She pushed aside thoughts of Clay and returned to her task. The pit held up to a dozen ears, but she chose to roast eight. Surely two or three ears apiece would satisfy the children’s healthy appetites.

Just as she layered in the kindling to start the fire, the dogs began to whine, alerting her to someone’s presence. She jerked to her feet, ready to dash for the rifle that waited at the edge of the vegetable patch, but her heart leapt in joy when she spotted Clay stepping from the trees.

He’d come! She hadn’t realized the depth of her longing for him until the moment she saw him again. She took two stumbling steps in his direction, a laugh of pure delight forming in her throat. But then she met his solemn gaze, and trepidation stilled the sound.

Naibi turned and looked across the yard. She let out a little squeal of delight and started to run to Clay. Lizzie captured her arm and drew her to a halt. “Go back and help your brother.”

Naibi flung her hand toward Clay. “But—”

“Later,” Lizzie said, and the child huffed. With one more pleading look toward Clay, she turned and scuffed back to the garden. Lizzie hurried across the ground to meet Clay. “What is wrong? More deaths?” Her heart panged at his sadness. Although she didn’t understand his deep caring for the people of Gwichyaa Saa, she admired it. It hurt her to see his sorrow.

He hung his head. “No, praise God, no others have died, but . . .” He sighed, meeting her gaze. With stilted, apologetic words, he shared the villagers’ concerns and his need to take the children back to the village with him. As he spoke, Lizzie’s ire stirred.

“They would put the children in harm’s way rather than allow them to be with me?”

“I’m sorry, Lizzie. I tried to convince him to leave them here, but—”

“Him.” Lizzie nearly spat the word. She crossed her arms over her chest. “My grandfather, yes? Is it the village’s concern or merely Vitsiy’s concern?”

“He came to me with the concern, but villagers had gone to him.”

Lizzie searched Clay’s face. Would he lie to protect her feelings?

“They saw me take the children into the woods and return without them.” Clay chuckled softly, rubbing his finger beneath his nose in a gesture that spoke of his embarrassment. “I guess they thought I left them alone somewhere . . . or disposed of them.”

“My grandfather would have found that preferable to leaving them with me.” Lizzie made no attempt to hide her bitterness.

Clay’s expression softened, compassion glowing in his brown-flecked eyes of grayish green. “Your grandfather was more upset with me—for ignoring the village edict of excommunication. I knew when I brought the children here I was going against tribal law. But I hoped . . .”

He didn’t complete the sentence, but Lizzie filled it in for him. “They would change their minds?”

Clay nodded.

Lizzie spun and charged toward the roasting pit, aware of Clay following on her heels. “They will never change their minds about me. I am tainted by my great-great-grandfather’s and my mother’s sins.” She waved her hand in the direction of Denali, drawing on scorn to hold the deep pain of rejection at bay. “Every day of my mother’s life, she prayed for reconciliation between herself, her parents, and Dine’e. But the High One never listened. She is gone now, and her requests lie dead, as well.”

She whirled to face him again, blinking away the hot tears that gathered in her eyes. Without conscious thought, she slipped into Athabascan. “It is pointless to hope, Clay Selby. They will never change. They will make me carry the disgrace of my white blood to my own grave.” Raising her chin, she gulped back the painful sting of the village-imposed disdain. “But I will have the victory.” Resolve stiffened her spine. “I will find the strength to live happily far from here. In my father’s house, I will find a place of acceptance. And those who have rejected me from the days of my birth will no longer be remembered in my heart.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

C
lay propped open the mission building’s door with a round rock and stood on the stoop. The service wasn’t scheduled for another hour, but nervousness combined with anticipation had awakened him early. He’d enjoy the crisp scent of morning and count down the minutes until the villagers began ambling toward the mission.

He slipped his trembling hands in the pockets of his black wool suit jacket and gazed toward the center of the village. How many would come? He’d gone from cabin to cabin yesterday evening, informing each family of his intention to hold the first church service this morning. Although he didn’t expect everyone to attend—many were still in bed with the fever that passed from one person to another and seemed to make circles around the village—he hoped for a good attendance.

Of course, some might stay away for reasons other than sickness. Not everyone in the village approved of the council’s decision to allow Clay to remain in Gwichyaa Saa. The leaders had cast their votes for and against his removal. The narrow margin—four to three—still made his stomach queasy. His past kindnesses had swayed some in his favor, but they’d taken Etu and Naibi from him, placing the children with an elderly cousin of their grandmother. The old man didn’t seem capable of caring for himself, let alone two active children, but Clay didn’t dare argue. One more breach of their trust, and they’d disregard whatever good he’d done and toss him out.

When he’d visited the man’s cabin last night, saving it for last so he could spend a little time visiting with the children, he’d reminded them they could come to the school each morning for lessons. It wasn’t the same as caring for them every day, all day, but at least he would be able to make sure they were fed and that they bathed regularly.

A bird perched in a nearby tree, pouring forth a bright morning song. Clay smiled in reply, the last stanza of “Awake, My Soul, and With the Sun” filling his heart. He sang out loud and strong, “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below . . .” Several other birds joined the first one’s chorus, finishing the verse with Clay, and he laughed, unable to squelch a rush of happiness.

This first service had been so long in coming, so earnestly prayed over, his stomach trembled in eagerness. He’d prepared his first sermon from the second book of Acts, relying heavily on Peter’s words on the day of Pentecost. Many had accepted the truth of salvation on that day, and he hoped for the same awakening in the village of Gwichyaa Saa.

“Let them come, Lord,” he whispered to the clear sky. “Let them come, and open their hearts to believe.”

An hour slipped by while Clay remained in the doorway, watching. He observed cabin doors opening and faces peeking out, as if ascertaining the mission and Clay were still there on the edge of the village. His heart leapt in anticipation with each squeak of a door hinge. But after a few seconds, the doors would snap closed, sealing the residents inside. No one came.