Page 32 of The Business of Blood
Little did he know that we had more in common than he realized. There were not many Mahoney left, either. For much the same reason. They’d beenexterminated, to borrow his word.
What had happened to the Peenaquim, I wondered?
I thought of all the reasons the clannish philosophy was fading in my country. Ancient hostilities caused clans to war between themselves. For untold centuries, there was raiding, raping, and many regrettable conflicts. The skirmishes impeded the clans from uniting against foreign invaders. Rudimentary arms gave way to advanced weapons. Unwise leaders signed reckless treaties. Unscrupulous invaders broke those agreements.
And then came the Christians. With a whole new set of troubles.
Their wars still claimed so many.
I didn’t want to show Night Horse how his words affected me, but I wasn’t convinced I could hide it from him. Especially as I forced my next question through the thickness gathered in my throat. “What happened once your people were…gone? Did you seek sanctuary?”
“No.” He picked a tuft of imaginary lint from his suit jacket. “I sought revenge.”
The blood seized in my veins. This, I could appreciate. “Did you find it?”
If I thought Aramis Night Horse was intimidating when he frowned, I underestimated what his smile could do to me. It contained a glee only found in nightmares. I could see the blood of his enemies staining his brilliant white teeth as he feasted on the still-beating hearts he tore from their chests.
I could hear their screams as he grinned.
“Did you find other Niit—Niitsit—Blackfeet to take you in?” I asked tremulously.
“Blackfoot,” he corrected. “In my tribe, men were makers, shamans, braves, or hunters. I was both a shaman and a hunter before the American army came to claim our land for Montana.”
Even as the morning turned from grey to silver, his eyes became impossibly darker. Raptor-like in their intense analysis of my reaction to his tale.
“My village was slaughtered while I was away with a hunting party. All of us hunters became braves upon returning. We painted our faces with the ashes of our loved ones and slipped into the army camp at night.” His lashes fluttered with inconceivable memories. “We did things to them that evenyourJack the Ripper has not yet done.”
Every hair on my body lifted painfully as I digested his words.
Not yet. There was no telling what my Jack the Ripper might do.
Was hemyJack the Ripper? My personal crusade? Or did Mr. Night Horse mean the word in a broader sense?
Fiona’s Jack the Ripper.
London’s Jack the Ripper.
England’s Jack the Ripper.
The symptom—the personification—of our sensational inhumanity toward women.
A particular kind of woman.
“I survived that night in a very similar way that you survived this one,” he continued. “Wounded. Alone. But alive. You asked if I sought sanctuary with another tribe…” He remained silent from one side of Eaton Square Gardens to the other. I let him gather his words. His thoughts.
“I became a killer,” he revealed in that neutral way of his. “I began to delight in spilling blood. And did not want to visit that on my people.”
My brows drew together. “I see you have no trouble visiting it on mine. Not only do you delight in it, you profit from the spilling of their blood.”
He shrugged and smirked. “These are not trulyyourpeople, are they? You are almost as much an outsider as I am.”
“No, I suppose they are not my people,” I admitted, as much to myself as to him. When I had previously referred tomy people,I’d theoretically meant the fair-skinned people of the civilized west. In my subconscious, I considered myselfa partof them.Apartfrom him. His dark-skinned people. But…I was certainly not English. How strange, that in one category I might be considered one of them. And in another, I was more like him: a clannish pagan ruled by Christian imperialist invaders.
Something to ponder…
“This place,” He gestured out the window toward the buildings of brick blocking our view of the sky. “This machine of steel and stone and light and money, did to your people what it is doing to mine, only much longer ago.”
I nodded. Wondering if I was a traitor for being here in London. For loving this glittering, grimy city just as ardently as I had my native Gaelic land.
