The woman again.
She stood rigid upon the far bank, a dozen rods or so upstream, watching him. When he didn’t move, she took a step toward the water. With one foot stretched before her and then the other, she made her way across a pair of stones and onto a wide, flat rock. She looked up again, guardedly. With one hand cradling her belly, she lowered something to the ground.
Lachlan swept the woods behind her with a sharp look. What trap did she lay?
She straightened, and with the deftness of a deer, returned to the other shore. Her glance caught his once more before she slipped into the forest.
Lachlan stared for a good long time, awaiting the attack he was sure would follow. Whatever she had laid on the rock near the closer bank remained. Did the Indians wait for him to approach it? Yet they must see he was wounded. Why would they wait?
Why would they send a pregnant woman to bait him? Or was it all a dream … just like Moira?
Lachlan raised himself using the musket again as a crutch. His body tightened with wariness as he inched along toward the mysterious object on the rock. Grass lay matted against the ground. The Indians must use this place often. The hairs on his forearms tingled. When he reached the rock’s edge, he stood still for as long as he could bear the weight of his body. The wound had begun to throb with a hard burn, and every part of his skin below the belt tourniquet stretched tight and hot. He dragged himself one step forward and then another. The blackened object was attached to a stick. He craned his neck to study its shape.
Fish.
Had the woman brought him food? He urged his step faster. He scanned the area between fish and trees, still expecting to be ambushed, but the lure of food lying within his grasp was a powerful contender with his safety. After all his fear of being bashed in the head by a tomahawk and stripped of his scalp, if he could die without starving, it might be worth it.
The fish broke apart in his fingers, tender and flaky beneath the charred skin. He coughed as he shoved morsels of it into his mouth and licked it off his fingers. He was unwilling to lose even a crumb. When it was gone, but for a few bare bones, he made his way off the slab of rock. Finally gaining the ground, he sat down to rest. He no longer cared if he was murdered in his sleep.
A powerful thirst drove him back to the water, as the evening sun cast long shadows over the ravine. Dragging himself to the edge, he lay on his stomach and drank long and deeply. He was still weak, still hurting, but good sense told him he must move. He might die in trying, but it would be better to die in the comfort of a warm bedroll.
Lachlan smirked. Had one small fish in his belly given him the notion that such a thing as a comfortable death was possible?
He studied the route ahead. Dare he cross the river again, or should he continue on this path? The woman had made it look easy using the boulders as stepping stones. Yet shouldn’t he move further away from the river? He was loathe to leave it, especially without his shoes. How far north would it take him, and how many twists and turns would there be, slowing him from reaching his destination? He braced the musket beneath his arm. He would stay with it for tonight. He might not get far in the dark, but at least the river would keep him from losing his way until daylight returned.
As another night blackened to pitch, only the moon’s glow on the water guided his steps. With each dragging step he relived the battle, hearing again the cries of his comrades. Questions filled his head without answers, and more than once he begged God for Moira to comfort him. He’d gone about an hour, moving slower than a porcupine, when he heard voices. A guttural language. Indians. Heart hammering, he crouched in the tall grass. A campfire’s acrid smoke reached him, heightening his senses. He glanced to the water. The river had narrowed. He must certainly cross it now.
Lachlan braced the Brown Bess stock against the river bottom. It was sandier here. Good. The flow of water would cover the sound of his movements. He made his way as quickly as he dared, feeling for any stray stones that might trip him. He reached the other bank without incident. There he had no choice but to go deeper into the woods away from the water’s edge. He peered back, and from this side, the flicker of a campfire shone through the trees. Yes, he must go deeper.
He limped blindly into the dark woods. Branches snapped against his face, and briars clawed his bare legs and feet, pulling at his kilt and the makeshift stocking bandage. He tripped once and bit back a cry. He had gone as far as he could, yet not far enough. It would have to do. He crawled behind a deadfall and waited, while mosquitoes feasted on his exposed skin.
In the morning, Lachlan floundered in a half-sleep that weighted his mind and limbs alike. He could not move, could not come fully awake. His body was hot. He thought he fought with his coat, but perhaps he dreamed it.
Sickness.
Moira was there again, shaking her head and turning her face away. Help me, Moira! He pleaded, but she faded anyway. He pried his eyes open, heavy as though a heated iron pressed down on them. A blur of green filled his vision, and then the blur separated into branches and leaves. Something flitted between them as birdsong chirped nearby. The burning of his body and the weight of his wounded leg pinned him down. Lachlan could only turn his head and that with great effort.
The woman stood close, not two arms’ lengths away, watching him. Or was this the fever, tricking him? Lachlan felt for his sword, but no metal lay within his reach. The Brown Bess, too, was nowhere in sight. Had she crept so close and taken them, and he’d not heard? He blinked hard to clear his vision.
She gripped a knife.
“Go ahead then.” His throat was thick around his words, unused to speaking. “Get it o’er with, will ye?” Resigned, he let his eyelids close. He would die the moment her blade touched him, without resisting.
Insects buzzed around his ears. He must look a sight. Black hair a knot, his face and body covered in blood, sweat, and filth. Moira might not recognize him when he came. He could not hold their baby thus.
The stillness lengthened, and finally, he cracked an eyelid open again. He had to swallow before pushing more words out of his throat. “What do ye wait for? I’ve no fear of dyin.”
Then he saw that in her other hand she held his canteen. She took a step, remaining just beyond his reach, and swung it close. It landed in the leaves beside him, and then she stepped back again.
He let out a laugh, though it sounded more like a cough. Did she not intend his death? What kind of enemy was this woman? Her chin lifted as he narrowed his focus, bringing her into his vision again. The thought of cold water made him ache in a new way. He glimpsed the canteen then stretched shaking fingers to it. He could barely lift it. It wobbled in his hand as he labored to bite out the cork. Finally, he managed to get it to his lips and swig. His body lurched into a fit as he coughed and spat. Lachlan let his head drop back again. The canteen balanced precariously on the ground beside him. When next he eyed the woman, she frowned. She took a step, her knife at the ready. He closed his eyes.
The cool trickle of water touched his lips. He blinked his eyes open and swallowed. The woman’s nostrils flared, but she remained beside him giving him small swallows until he’d had his fill.
Chapter 3
AS THE STRANGER’S EYES cleared, Wenonah set the canteen down and scooted back on her knees. He was too weak to harm her at the moment, but she would take no chances. Perhaps she had been unwise. She should have used the knife instead of letting her heart soften at the man’s suffering. He might yet try to hurt her and her unborn child. He was her enemy, after all. Still ... her heart could not hate him any more than it could hate her father, who had given her as wife to the trapper. She had learned to live in two worlds.
This man’s words were strange. She understood in part, but he was different than her husband or the other white men she had met before. Even though he’d spoken so little, she noted how the sounds of his speech rolled off his tongue. His dress was different than the trappers and fur traders. Those warriors he traveled with were
not like the other redcoats she’d seen either. They were of some other people. Her glance flicked to the woolen breechcloth—if such it could be called, for it was like a skirt—then back to the warrior’s face. He had closed his eyes again, and his breathing had calmed. His skin was burned from the sun, and dirt lined the creases at the corners of his eyes. His hair was black and clipped short like the other whites, but those eyes before they closed had been green like the forest. He was not old, perhaps not many seasons beyond her twenty-four summers.
She looked to his dress and wounded leg again. The man would not live long if he was not treated. The sickness in the swollen flesh would creep through his body, if it wasn’t already doing so, and kill him. The water would comfort him for a while, but soon enough the fever would take him.
Wenonah laid one hand atop her rounded belly and, with the other, braced the knife against the ground to push up. As she moved away the babe kicked. This man was not her problem, and she’d no intention of watching him die. She turned her back and walked into the woods.
After only a dozen steps the man groaned. She faltered. Her heartbeat sped when she peered back over her shoulder.
He had risen to a sitting position and was trying to stand. She hurried on a few more steps, her nerves tightening, but he cried out again. She stopped and turned. He stood against a tree, his face a grimace of agony. He huffed for breath, and his eyes sought her out.
“Fuirichibh dàbhiog. Won’t ye wait?”
Now her own chest rose and fell in quick breaths. Did he mean to follow her? He wobbled forward, and she took another step away. Though there was distance between them, and he could barely stand, she battled the unreasonable fear that suddenly he would run at her. She pinched her lips and forced her feet to root.
“I beg ye.” He stumbled toward her. The wounded leg collapsed. He cried out again as he pitched forward, catching himself on the smooth trunk of an ininaatig tree, the kind she might collect the sugar sap from in the spring.
With a quick look around, Wenonah spotted a straight branch about two inches in diameter poking up from a deadfall. She broke it free. She ran a hand along its length, considering what she was about to do. Foolish … foolish! Shaking, she ignored the warning. Showing him what she intended, she used it as a staff, and with cautious steps, approached the man. She stopped the pole’s length away and stretched it to him. He took it from her, muttering something she thought to perhaps be his thanks, in that unfamiliar language.
As Wenonah turned away, her mind knotted with worry. Should she lead him away to the trail the whites called Braddock’s Road, a place where his people would find him? With the many Shawnee, Wyandot, Delaware, and Mingo warriors lingering about, they would certainly find him first and kill him unless she intervened. Did they still hold the British, along with their women and children, in the English fort called Pitt? This man would not survive going there if they did, even though he was closer to the place than he probably realized.
But if she took him to her own lodge, what would happen then? Her cabin, with its one burned-out wall, was no place for this man. He would certainly bring her harm if he lived, and if he died, what was she to do with him? She would be better off to leave him here now, as she should have done from the beginning rather than bring him the food or succor his thirst.
She glanced again. He still followed her, though his face sagged with pain. His steps were so slow that, even in her pregnant condition, she could out-pace him easily. Yet she abated her pace, giving him time. Perhaps ... perhaps she could treat his wound, and it would be enough. Then she could send him on his way. Whatever happened to him then—whether he lived or died—was of no concern to her. Her babe would come soon. That was all she needed to worry about.
She cradled her belly, her instinct to love and protect filling her with hope.
The old trapper’s cabin was not far. It lay only a short distance from the Monongahela River to the west, but Wenonah preferred the safer haven of the small creek where she’d found the stranger. Too many traveled the bigger river, friend and foe alike. Her husband had chosen the spot to build his cabin between the two places where he could hunt and trap as well as have access to the bigger waters that carried his goods to the fort and to the white man’s village called Pittsburgh.
She expected the man to teeter and fall at any moment, but he staggered on, surprising her. When her cabin came into view just off the riverbank, he seemed to find a reserve of strength and quickened his step. Her heart beat caution, caution, but she could not change her mind about helping him now.
The cabin nestled among the trees, a squat, one-room building hewn of pine, oak, and ash, strong except for one wall. Using a store of hides her husband had hidden in a cache buried in the woods, Wenonah had stretched them over the side of the cabin a raiding war party had burned, enclosing a gaping hole. A mud-daubed chimney took up the corner supporting the sagging roof where part of the missing wall met singed logs. The door remained intact as well as the rest of the cabin. It would do to shelter her from the elements until the baby was born. Then Wenonah would return to her people up north. For now, she would let the man rest inside. She would offer to treat his wound. If he showed any sign of aggression, she would go away and leave him there. Wenonah rested her hand on the hilt of the knife in her belt. She could defend herself if necessary.
The doorway faced west. Wenonah paused and squinted at the foreigner before lifting the latch and stepping aside. She gripped her knife handle and withdrew it from her belt, her watch steady upon him lest he get the wrong idea about her invitation.
He nodded. “I ken yer meaning.” He hobbled closer. She stepped back as he ducked through the doorway.
Wenonah remained where she stood and watched. He scanned her dwelling from side to side by the shaft of sunlight falling through the doorway. He spied a narrow space along the north wall and limped toward it. With the aid of his walking stick, he lowered himself to the floor and dropped against the wall, a gasp escaping him. His face was pale, and he lay trembling.
Wenonah left him there. She went into the forest and gathered some yarrow and other wild plants.
When she returned, she filled a pot and set it over a fire. The man slept while she worked. When the water boiled, she poured half into a wooden basin and set it aside. To the rest, she added herbs and bits of jerky. By the time she finished, the man had awakened again. He watched her while she ladled the broth into a carved bowl and brought it to him. He accepted it with a nod and drank it down hungrily. If he had eaten nothing since the fish yesterday, he would make himself sick. Hopefully, he would keep the contents of his stomach inside.
Now for the difficult task. Wenonah unrolled a bearskin on the floor and directed him to scoot onto it.
“Ye want me to lie on that? ’Tis yer own.”
Though she understood his words, she gave no indication. She pointed again and folded her arms over her protruding belly.
“If ye insist. I’ll likely leave a nest of lice behind.”
She frowned, but it was not right to take back the offer now. He would need a comfortable place to lie while she worked. Wenonah gathered the kettle of hot water and a cloth of soft rabbit skin. Standing before him, a new uncertainty washed over her. Now she would have to touch the man.
Their eyes locked. She raised her brow. He would understand what she intended.
He set his empty bowl aside and lay down on the rug, cringing as he settled his wounded leg. “Get on about it then.” He squeezed his eyelids tight and blew out a deep breath.
Wenonah kneeled before him. Only now did she realize her knife lay out of reach. Her heart quickened. His leg lay stiff and dirty, a third the size of the other. He has no strength. She steeled herself and plucked at the thing binding it. At closer inspection, she recognized a man’s stocking, though it was discolored with dried blood and soil, making it almost unidentifiable. She peeled it back, and he huffed another breath as it came free of the ugly wound. She flung the rag
ged, filthy thing aside.
As Wenonah laid the hot rabbit skin rag over the wound, his jaw bulged and he flinched. She pressed the rag down, and he drew up his good leg at the knee. His fists clenched at his sides, but after a few moments, he opened his hands and lowered the leg again, quivering. She rinsed the rag in the steaming water and repeated the procedure many times, sometimes dribbling water over the wound.
The man shuddered, and eventually he opened his mossy-green eyes, staring at her, but he said nothing as she continued her ministrations. When she’d cleaned the wound as best she could, she took the steamed, wilted leaves of the yarrow and packed them against the bullet hole, then wrapped them tightly in clean bindings. Wenonah had no doubt a lead ball was inside, but it would stay there tight against his bone. She would cause more damage trying to remove it.
Wenonah backed away and let out a long breath of her own. He needed to rest now. She took the bowl of dirty water and carried it toward the door. Earlier this morning, she’d caught a rabbit in a snare, and it still waited to be skinned and cleaned. She would cook it for her and the man. He would need the strength of food to promote healing.
Wearily, she swung the door open and stifled a gasp. Coming toward her cabin was Catahecassa, a Shawnee warrior. She turned and set the bowl of water inside the door, then stepped out to meet him as she pulled the door closed behind her. Hopefully, the man inside would make no sound. She lifted her face without smiling at the Shawnee.
“Wenonah.” He smiled. He was a handsome man, but there was a hardness about him that did not warm Wenonah. He bowed his head. When he raised it, he let his look linger.
The Highlanders: A Smitten Historical Romance Collection Page 10