He saw that the pain from the laceration seemed to energize his assailant. Isaac saw him spin away and reclaim his balance, then move forward onto the deck.
His attacker swung again, but lower now, at Isaac’s neck.
Isaac ducked again, but this time the attacker’s heavy ball club, razor-sharp spikes jutting from three sides, struck him with a bone-crushing thud on his left temple.
The blow carried him over the rail onto the yard below. He hit the wet sod, wrenching his neck and left shoulder, but quickly pulled himself back up, still holding the heavy walking stick.
As he righted himself, preparing for the man’s next blow, two younger warriors he hadn’t seen simultaneously discharged their muskets at him.
One musket ball struck Isaac in the chest, fracturing his clavicle, and the second blew off the thumb of his left hand.
Isaac was thrown back, but kept his feet. Holding his bloodied hand to his punctured head, he stumbled toward the ocean-facing side of the house.
As soon as the bullets hit, despite a numbing confusion and a searing pain that pushed deeply into the back of his head and down into his neck, Isaac knew he would not survive this fight. That one thought defined the rest of his existence.
In his confusion, he had lost his sense of direction, but somehow stumbled to the side of the house where there was no door.
As the big aborigine and the four others rushed at him, Isaac struggled to hold up the heavy walking stick to ward them off and detain them a few moments longer. But he knew he had done his duty. His family might escape from the other side of the house.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Anah was upon the white tyee and this time used his knife in a jabbing movement to the tyee’s neck, cutting directly and deeply into the wound made by the musket shot.
The knife severed first the jugular vein and then the carotid artery.
Anah’s foe collapsed and fell forward, his hand still holding his head, eyes rolling up at his heaven.
Anah took a handful of the white tee’s long, blond hair and pulled his head back, then cut his throat in one swift motion, at the same time motioning to his companions to break into the house.
As they turned to the house, Anah cut again deeply into the tyee’s neck and, in five quick, practiced motions, severed his head from his neck.
The tyee’s heart, still beating rapidly, emptied itself in less than thirty seconds.
Anah had seen this before, although not with such a big tyee. In his triumph, he lifted the tyee’s head up and turned its face toward him.
In the cold moonlight, he saw the tyee’s head open its eyes briefly and close slowly with a look that startled Anah so much that he gasped and dropped it onto the ground, knowing he had been cursed in a way that would haunt him forever.
Chapter Sixteen
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Emmy
Moments after finally crawling under the covers that night, Emmy fell into a deep sleep. She had been sick all day, starting in the morning with dry heaves. She knew it was the pregnancy souring her stomach.
The bleeding had stopped a few days before, and Doctor Edwards suggested she might just keep this one, if only she would rest and hold food and water down. The nausea made it difficult for her to prepare food for dinner because she couldn’t stand even the smallest tastes to sample her work and couldn’t concentrate on the recipes.
After dinner, she had not participated much in the lively conversation and had excused herself to clean up the kitchen.
She hated the political discussions and, in particular, had a difficult time tolerating the pontifications of Tom Iserson, who never would let anyone forget he had studied at a prestigious seminary in the Midwest for two years before moving west to prospect for gold and, although he wasn’t ordained by any church, had converted aborigines to his personal interpretation of Christian redemption.
Emmy had put the children to bed shortly after dinner and, because the participants in the parlor were very loud during their impassioned conversation, she was not surprised when she checked on Jacob and Sarah. Both were awake.
They had been listening to the adults in the parlor debate about whether Governor Stevens’s call for extermination of the aboriginal natives was evil and impractical or just plain stupid and provocative.
“Is it true what Major Campbell said tonight — that Isaac might be nominated to run against Governor Stevens? Uncle Winfield said the same thing yesterday,” Sarah asked Emmy.
“I’m certain a nomination is the least of your father’s concerns,” Emmy responded, smiling and hiding her concern about the implications of such a development. He would have to travel all the more.
“Now go to sleep you two little eavesdroppers,” Emmy said, kissing Sarah and Jacob goodnight.
By the time she had returned to the parlor, Major Campbell had opened up a bottle of English port and poured six small glasses.
Despite her nausea, Emmy accepted the offer and sipped it politely as the conversation turned from politics to news about the gold strike on the Fraser River near Vancouver, and finally to gossip about the large Catholic family that had moved onto the southern part of the island.
Shortly after the clock struck ten, the Campbells begged their leave, and only a few minutes later, Rebah and Tom announced they would retire as well. It was just as well because entertaining the Isersons without the genteel cushion of the Campbells would be a chore, and she was already exhausted.
When Rowdy started barking a few hours later, Emmy was in the deepest part of her sleep, settled in a place that was comfortable and familiar.
But it wasn’t in the Northwest. In her dream, she was visiting her family in Boston, and her father and sister were at the parlor table
