Forts of Refuge – Book 3

Chapter 1 – Fort Niagara—May 2, 1763

Abigail Aldridge crossed her arms and submitted to be carried from the pathetic excuse for a transfer boat—little more than a fat canoe—to the shore of Lake Ontario. With no proper dock jutting into the waters off Fort Niagara, she and the other women were subjected to the undignified manhandling of smelly sailors who waded through thigh-high waves in the shallow waters.

Speaking to her uncle about getting a dock constructed would be first on her list of things to do. After all, it wasn’t fitting for a young woman of her standing to be treated in such a fashion. With nothing short of a heave, as one would a sack of turnips, Abigail was dumped onto the shore. The sailor grinned at her with what few teeth he owned, as if expecting her to be thankful. She turned her back to him and ignored his grunt.

She did her best to straighten her skirts while brushing a cloud of gnats away from her face. By the female grumblings going on around her as the other ladies were similarly dumped on the shore, she wasn’t the only one feeling poorly used.

Fort Niagara spread before them, where an imposing stone building commanded her attention. In Boston, she’d heard it called the French Castle, and she could see why. It was impressive in size, devoid of adornment to the point of being austere, with numerous dormers jutting from the steeply pitched lower roof edge, typical of French architecture.

The double gate in the palisade stood wide open. Beyond the castle, its attending outbuildings, and the parade grounds rose a great dark forest of massive trees. The fort truly did represent the last bastion of civilization before the untamed frontier.

She swung around. The newly built schooner Huron bobbed on white-topped waves in Lake Ontario, the fat canoes already halfway back to its side to fetch the women’s trunks and other supplies for the fort sent from Boston.

“’Tis not what I assumed,” Mrs. Waterman said, a hesitancy in her voice. But then, the woman was timid about everything.

“And no one to greet us,” said Mrs. Morland, the quartermaster’s wife. “But I suppose we should become used to that, should we not, ladies?”

Abigail was a bit intimidated by her. If her husband ordered the fort as well as his wife had shepherded the rest of the officers’ ladies on their journey, they’d discover everything in fine shape behind the pointed log walls.

“’Tis very…” Mrs. Spooner, a lieutenant’s wife and closest in age to Abigail, wrinkled her nose as she fumbled for the right word.

“’Tis p-p-perfect.” Five faces turned toward Abigail, and she mentally kicked herself for trying to say a word beginning with p. She’d been careful along the journey. How could she have been so careless at this moment? Heat flooded her face, but she lifted her chin.

Fort Niagara was perfect—for her. If the rest of the women didn’t agree, that was their affair.

Trunks, crates, and boxes were hauled ashore from two more of the crude canoe-like boats and dumped onto the sand. Uncle Corne should talk to the commander about that, too. A proper British fort, be it on the edge of civilization or not, should keep to certain standards.

Abigail grabbed her small satchel, the one thing she would need most from Boston, and started toward the imposing stone building.

Mrs. Morland barked orders to the officers’ wives and then caught up with Abigail. “I dare say ’tis far from perfect, but ’tis home for the summer, at least.”

“Indeed.” Abigail restricted herself to the one word she could reliably get out intact and ignored the older woman’s questioning glance.

Boston was far behind her. There would be no drawing rooms here. No disapproving matrons with scowling faces. No need for Deloris, her well-meaning sister-in-law, to finish Abigail’s sentences, or worse, to answer for her as if she were an imbecile. No need for Bartlett to make excuses for her, nor for Susanna to pretend she didn’t exist. Her older half-siblings would have been happier had she never been born. They viewed her as little more than a disgrace to the family.

Fort Niagara was as far away from them as Abigail could get. Uncle Corne’s posting to the fort had provided her the perfect escape. Being able to travel with the officers’ wives, the perfect opportunity. Her brother and sister-in-law traveling out of town the same day as the Huron departed, the perfect timing. Everything had come together nicely. And Uncle Cornelius would be happy to have one of his family close by.

She hoped.

***

Koyengquahtah pressed farther into the shadows of the stockade. The unexpected British schooner had been sure to unload supplies—but women? And not just any women by the look of them. The fort had its camp followers, dressed in drab garments with many patches. They washed or cleaned or tended the gardens, as women should.

Those gathered on the beach, however, wore the oddest clothing he had ever seen in colors bright enough to challenge the soldiers’ red coats. And so much of it. It was no wonder the sailors had to carry them ashore. If all that cloth had gotten soaked, they would have drowned.

Maybe it would have been for the best.

Among the Seneca, select women—clan mothers—wielded more power than the white women he’d seen. Perhaps he hadn’t seen their clan mothers before. Perhaps these were such women, come to add their voices and their wisdom to the men in the fort.

How would that impact his people?

“Koyen!” Sergeant Morland pounded toward him, brow furrowed and mouth a grim slash, several soldiers in his wake. “Give us a hand with these newly arrived ladies.”

“I am scout.” How many times would he have to remind them of this? “Not soldier.”

“I care not if you be the queen of Egypt.” Morland stopped in front of him and jabbed a thumb toward the beach. “Those are ladies, and we will escort them to the castle and tote their belongings.”

Koyen didn’t answer as Morland stormed off, but he fell in step behind the soldiers. He would admit only to himself that he was curious what kind of women had landed on the shore. Curious, and a little apprehensive. He could almost feel a change blowing off the lake with the breeze.

But what sort of change?

Sergeant Morland stopped in his tracks. The young soldier following bumped into him without earning a reprimand. They waited the space of several breaths before one word exploded from the sergeant.

“Dinah!”

The woman in the lead, the older of the pair, raised her head in response.

Sergeant Morland whipped off his hat, knocking his wig askew, before hurrying on.

“Sergeant Morland.” The woman’s voice was stiff with disapproval, even at the distance. “We must discuss the manner of transportation I was forced to endure.”

A woman of power.

Morland nodded, then flung his hand in the direction of the other women following from the beach and shouted at the soldiers. “Escort the others.”

Koyen eyed the younger woman beside the one Morland called Dinah. She was fair, as they all were, with hair the dusty brown of a mourning dove and eyes almost the same color. Her hair was piled atop her head and covered with a white cloth cap except for two wisps which escaped to frame her face. Her eyes were widely spaced, divided by a short but straight nose above a rounded chin. A pleasing face, if too exotic for his taste.

He reached for the satchel, but she pulled it away from him with a slight gasp.

“’Tis fine, mistress,” Morland said. “He will carry it for you.”

“I am quite contented w-w-with my own s-s-satchel, thank you.” She spoke to the sergeant, not to Koyen.

“As you wish.” The sergeant inclined his head while the older woman wrapped her hand around his arm. “Koyen, bring the trunks to the castle.”

They moved past, the younger woman with her face straight ahead, never glancing his way. That one was too young to have much influence, but she thought highly of herself even if nervous enough to stammer.

He moved down the beach, passing the other five ladies, their faces also averted. He grabbed the first trunk he came to and hoisted it onto his shoulder, the metal workings along its edge digging into his skin.

“Let it not worry you, Koyen.” George Swan, an ensign who sometimes joined Koyen on scouting duties, shouldered another trunk. “’Tis your state of undress that unnerves them.”

Koyen glanced at his leggings and breechclout.

George laughed, and several of the other men stopped to stare.

Koyen ran his hand across his bare chest, the spring breeze off the lake raising pebbles across the otherwise smooth skin.

“’Tis not their way back east, to see a man unclothed.”

“Other women in fort not unnerved,” Koyen said.

“They would not. Most have seen a man considerably less dressed than that.” The younger man gave an exaggerated wink before resettling his trunk. “These ladies are from Boston.” He moved on toward the castle.

Koyen followed.

The one the sergeant had called Dinah must be a clan mother. That would explain the deference she’d been shown. But the younger woman beside her? Perhaps a daughter or a younger sister. Did not his own sisters stay near to their mother who was herself a clan mother?

But that one, Mourning Dove, she looked nothing like the older woman.

One thing was certain, the women who had just arrived marked a change at the fort. And not to the benefit of his people.

***

As if being lugged ashore by a filthy sailor, his hands on parts of her person never before held by a man, were not enough, to then be confronted by a half-naked savage… Abigail pulled her shawl tighter across her shoulders. She would have swooned for certain if not for the soldiers surrounding her. Fort Niagara was at the edge of civilization, of course, but it was a proper British outpost. There were standards to be kept, after all.

Yet, was it not those very standards from which she was running?

Before she could ponder that thought, the door to the castle opened and Mrs. Morland entered on the arm of the man who must be her husband. Formal introductions would come in time. Three men in officers’ uniforms awaited them, including—

“Uncle Corne!” Abigail scooted past the older couple and raced across the vestibule toward her uncle.

He did not open his arms to her, but perhaps that was due to the other officers standing nearby. The paleness of his face in the dim interior could be awarded to any number of reasons. However, the downturned slash of his mouth slowed her approach to a sedate walk.

Uncle Corne took her arm and steered her away from the others. “Abigail? What are you doing here?”

Tears pressed against the back of her throat. Of course, he’d be surprised to see her, but even in her doubtful moments, she’d never envisioned him to be so thoroughly displeased.

“I have come to s-s-stay w-w-with you, Uncle.”

“Have you lost all good sense, then?” His brows, dark beneath his powdered wig, drew into a single line above his high-bridged nose, an expression so like her mother’s. As it should have been, his being her twin.

“No, indeed.” She glanced around the room, which was filling with the rest of the women and their belongings. “But p-p-perhaps w-w-we could s-s-speak of this elsewhere?”

He let out a snort that fluttered the ruffles on her linen cap. “I have no idea what to do with you. There are no women’s quarters here.”

Her heart leaked a bit of the confidence that had driven her since escaping Bartlett’s house seven days prior. Had she erred? Had her impulsive nature overruled good sense again? Was she not to be welcomed by her most beloved uncle after all? She blinked back rapidly swelling moisture.

“There, there.” Uncle Corne took her hand and patted it. “We shall arrange for something. After all, there is a gaggle of you.”

“The rest are w-w-wives of the officers.”

He closed his eyes with a sigh, then opened them again and placed his palm on her cheek. “You are the very likeness of Elizabeth. Grown now, but I would have known you anywhere.”

Abigail summoned a wobbly smile, although in truth she often struggled to remember her mother, who’d been dead for nine years.

Uncle Corne’s brows drew to a line again. “What was your brother thinking—?”

“Half-brother.”

“Do not interrupt.”

She offered him a meek nod, but truly, she preferred not to think of Bartlett any other way.

“How dare he put you on a boat and send you here without so much as a letter?”

“He did not.”

A pause followed that cut through the chatter of the other women greeting their husbands after a winter of separation.

“Abigail, what have you done?”

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