Judith E. French

by Shawnee Moon

  “It’s a natural fortress,” Cameron explained when they reached the top. “We’ll hold them off here.” He was breathing heavily, and Cailin wondered how a man of his advanced years had managed to keep up the pace.

  “We can’t fight them all,” Cailin protested. “The Mohawks must have close to a hundred warriors. We’ve got to keep going. We’ll be trapped here.”

  “We’re not all going on, lass,” her father said. He sat down heavily behind a downed oak and began to fumble with his powder horn.

  Moonfeather spoke in Algonquian. Cameron answered her in the same language, then Kitate said something.

  “What are they saying?” Cailin demanded of Sterling. “I can’t understand.”

  “Quiet,” he ordered. Then he too spoke in the Indian tongue. After a few exchanges, he turned and pulled her into his arms. “Listen to me carefully,” he said, speaking slowly, as though to a small child. “I want you to take off your clothes and put on Moonfeather’s doeskin dress.”

  “Why? That doesn’t make any sense,” she protested.

  Moonfeather materialized out of the blackness, wrapped in Lachpi’s blanket. Her beautiful ceremonial garment was draped over her arm. “We are going to split up,” she said. “I want you to wear my doeskin because that will make the Mohawk believe you are the peace woman.”

  “That’s crazy,” Cailin said. “I’ll nay put ye in danger for my sake. I canna—”

  “You can and you will,” Sterling said harshly. “Moonfeather tells me that you are carrying our child.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t make me a cripple. I’m still—”

  “Kitate, Joseph, and this woman will flee east and then south to the Dutch,” Moonfeather said. “In your clothing, I can pass myself off as Lady Kentington and receive safe passage to Annapolis. In Shawnee dress, this one would only be a target for white long rifles.”

  “Then we should stay together,” Cailin insisted. “I can—”

  “Listen to those who know what they’re talking about,” Cameron snapped. “You and Sterling will go west to the friendly Algonquian-speaking tribes. The Mohawks will expect us to go south. If we do, we’re all dead.”

  “What of you and the others?” she begged. Something didn’t sound right. This was giving her a bad feeling. They weren’t telling her everything. She knew it. “Why aren’t you going with us?”

  “Pukasee, Ake, Lachpi, and I will hold the Mohawk off here, long enough to give both parties a head start,” Cameron said.

  Sterling’s arm tightened around her shoulders. “Be strong,” he murmured.

  “No,” she cried. “That’s suicide. I won’t let you stay—”

  “What you want isn’t important,” Cameron said coldly.

  Frantically, she turned to Moonfeather. “Ye canna let him do this. Tell them! They’ll listen to you! Tell them it’s crazy.”

  Moonfeather held out the dress.

  “How can ye be so heartless?” Cailin begged. “He’s my father. He’s an old man.”

  “And he’s dying,” the peace woman said in a throaty voice. “He took a knife between the ribs back in the village.”

  “Dying?” Tears welled up in Cailin’s eyes. “He can’t be,” she sobbed. “He’s my father.”

  “And mine,” Moonfeather replied softly. Catching Cailin’s hand, she brought it to her own throat.

  “You can’t be my—” Cailin gasped as her fingers touched a necklace so like the Eye of Mist in weight and shape that she released it and grabbed her own to be certain Moonfeather wasn’t playing a cruel trick. “That’s impossible,” she said. “How—”

  “Do you never listen, lass?” Cameron said. “There is little time. We can’t waste what we do have in talking. I cut the Eye of Mist into four equal pieces. If it weren’t as black as the devil’s arsehole in this woods, you’d see for yourself. Moonfeather’s necklace is a match to yours. They fit together perfectly. Each of my daughters has one; Anne, Moonfeather, Fiona, and you. You are the baby, Cailin ... a gift I never expected to receive at the end of my life.”

  “But ... but ...” Cailin struggled to understand the reality of what her father had just said. “Moonfeather, my sister? Why didn’t ye tell me sooner?”

  “’This woman wanted to wait until we were friends ... until you proved your heart,” Moonfeather explained. “Quickly, now. The dress.”

  “I won’t do it,” Cailin replied stubbornly. “If Cameron—if Father’s hurt, we must do something. We canna—”

  “Take those clothes off,” Sterling said, “or I’ll rip them off.”

  “You must,” Moonfeather said.

  “But if the Mohawks think you are me, I’m putting you in danger,” she argued.

  “Put on the damned dress!” Sterling grabbed hold of the hem of her skirt.

  “All right, all right. I’ll change with ye. But I’ll nay leave Cameron. If the rest of you are too cowardly to stay with him, I’ll stay by myself. I can shoot a rifle.”

  Moonfeather didn’t answer. Instead, she helped Cailin out of her English clothing and into the deerskin dress. It was so dark that Cailin didn’t give a second thought to disrobing in front of the men. Only the white fringed gown was visible in the starless night.

  “Don’t forget the shawl,” Cameron reminded them. Moonfeather made a sound of agreement and draped the cloth over Cailin’s hair.

  Cailin dropped to her knees and embraced Cameron. “I’m nay going to leave ye,” she promised. “We can patch up your wound, carry ye, and—”

  Cameron’s arms encircled her. He hugged her hard, then kissed her on the forehead. “Go with God, child. And don’t worry about me. I’d rather meet my maker smelling of gunpowder than being wheeled into heaven in a dogcart.”

  “No ... no,” she protested.

  Moonfeather knelt beside them, and for a long minute, Cameron hugged them both. “Ye must go for the sake of the babe,” her new sister reminded Cailin. “Our father’s life is used up; the little one you carry has yet to draw breath.” She tucked a shell bracelet into Cailin’s hand. “Wear this, so that all who are not Iroquois know that you are kin to a Shawnee peace woman. If anything happens to Sterling, that bracelet will bring you safely home. You can go to any village. As long as you do not offer violence to the tribes, you will be welcomed as a daughter and given aid.”

  Sterling tugged at her arm. “It’s time, Cailin.”

  “I canna,” she sobbed. “Dinna make me.”

  “Remember what I said about your mother,” Cameron reminded her. “She loved you as I have come to love you.”

  As Sterling pulled her to her feet, Cailin felt another hand on her other shoulder.

  “Among the Delaware are no words for goodbye, my sister,” Lachpi said in his quaintly accented English. “Follow sun’s path west and do not forget another who loved you.”

  “Lachpi ...” Words failed her.

  “This man stays to give good fight,” the Delaware said. “Mohawk will sing about this place and the Shawnee who held it.”

  “No! No!” Cailin cried. But Sterling’s hand was welded to hers.

  “We must go now,” Sterling said harshly, “or they will give their lives in vain. Make it worth something, woman. Make their sacrifice count.”

  Blindly, Cailin stumbled after him. “Take care,” she murmured. “Take care.”

  “And you, little sister,” Moonfeather called after them. “Do not forget the power of your amulet. Use it to bring your new son safely to the Chesapeake. This woman will be waiting.”

  Cailin didn’t understand how Sterling could see to walk, let alone run, or have any idea what direction they were traveling. There had been no time for a joyous reunion with her husband, no moment when she could relax in his arms and tell him how much she loved him. Instead, they kept moving, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and the hilltop fortress before the Iroquois found it.

  She didn’t know how far she and Sterling had come, but they were sti
ll close enough to hear the first volley of rifle fire echo through the valleys.

  “The Mohawks!” Her belly knotted, and she swayed on her feet. “Sweet Jesus.”

  Sterling’s only reply was to sweep her up in his arms and begin to run.

  Dawn found Cailin and Sterling wading through the debris of a burned-out section of forest. The blackened trees and heaped ash seemed all too appropriate to Cailin. The landscape around her seemed as bleak as her hope of eluding the Mohawks.

  “It was wrong,” she argued with Sterling for the fifth time. “It was wrong to leave them, and I was wrong to take Moonfeather’s dress. ’Twas done for my safety, not hers. Do ye think me stupid? She proved her power in front of the entire Mohawk village. They might be afraid to shoot her.”

  “That’s true enough,” he admitted. “But what she said about the Dutch was true, too. She’ll need to look English if she wants the help of any white settlers.”

  “Why did she choose Kitate and Joseph to go with her? Why did Lachpi and Ake and Pukasee have to die with my father?”

  “Lachpi couldn’t have run much farther with that bullet in his leg. Joseph and Kitate were the strongest and best able to protect the peace woman. Besides, Kitate is her son.”

  Cailin stopped and looked up at him. “Isn’t Forrest Wescott her son?”

  “She was wed to a Shawnee warrior, years ago, before she met and married Robert Wescott, Lord Kentington. He was the Viscount Brandon when they wed; that’s why she calls him Brandon. He later inherited his father’s title when the old earl died. Kitate is the son of your sister’s Shawnee marriage. Robert Wescott took Moonfeather away to England, and Kitate’s never really forgiven Robert or the English. He’s Shawnee through and through, but he’s devoted to his mother. If anyone can get her home, he will.”

  “Kitate is Cameron’s grandson then.”

  “And your nephew,” he said.

  She shook her head. “You knew all along that she was my sister, didn’t ye?”

  “Once I saw Cameron, I knew. Moonfeather’s story is common knowledge among the Shawnee.”

  “You never told me about her necklace.”

  Sterling shrugged. “It’s not the Indian way to talk about magic. Moonfeather kept it hidden. So do you, for that matter. I’d not have seen it if I hadn’t bedded you.”

  Cailin touched her amulet. “I wish I’d had time to love him,” she said. “I didn’t think there was room in my heart for another father, but—”

  A musket cracked from the hillside behind them. Cailin twisted to see a puff of white smoke.

  “Get down, you little fool,” Sterling warned. He shoved her behind a charred log and fired off a return shot at the small moving figures in the distance. After what seemed an impossible delay, one Indian toppled over and rolled down the slope.

  “Looks like our ploy didn’t work too long,” Cailin said.

  “You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

  She felt as though she was going to be sick. If the Mohawks had followed them, that meant they knew that the two of them weren’t with Cameron. Her father, Lachpi, and the others must be dead or captured.

  “We can’t stay here,” Sterling said. “They could circle around and come at us from two sides.”

  “I hope Cameron’s dead,” she whispered dully. “Better dead than being taken back to the village and burned alive.”

  Sterling looked down into her eyes. “They’d not be taken,” he assured her. “Lachpi would see to that.” Sterling began to work his way right on his hands and knees. “There’s a washout a little ways ahead. I saw it from the ridge. If we can reach that, it will give us cover to get out of this burned area. Stay close, and keep your head down.”

  Once Cailin and Sterling reached the gully, they got to their feet and sprinted a few hundred yards into a low place. They waded a stream and dashed into the forest beyond that.

  An hour later, two Mohawks leaped from the foliage ahead of them. Both braves fired. At the same instant, Sterling threw himself on top of Cailin, knocking her flat. Before she could catch her breath, he had raised to one knee, leveled his pistol, and shot the first warrior through the heart.

  The second warrior screeched an Iroquois war cry as he dashed toward them swinging a war club. Sterling flung the empty pistol into the Mohawk’s face, spoiling his aim and giving himself a few seconds to pull his tomahawk from his belt. The Indian balanced on the balls of his feet and edged to the left.

  Cailin spat sand and dirt from her mouth and raised her head. The forest around them was hot and still. Not a bird chirped; not a squirrel chattered. Cailin could smell the Mohawk and hear his heavy breathing. Cautiously, she dragged her pistol from her hunting bag and cocked it.

  The Mohawk’s sloe eyes were focused on Sterling. As soon as the brave moved far enough to the left so that Sterling was out of her line of fire, she took aim at the black circle painted in the center of the warrior’s chest and squeezed the trigger.

  The flintlock roared, and a neat, round hole appeared in the black circle. The Mohawk’s eyes widened, he took a few steps, and then he fell with blood running from the corner of his mouth.

  Sterling grinned at Cailin. “Good shooting.” He grabbed the dead man’s rifle and slammed it against a tree. After disposing of the first brave’s gun in the same manner, he stripped them of powder and shot, and stuck an additional tomahawk in his belt. Then he removed one of the brave’s moccasins and put them on his bloody bare feet. Motioning for her to follow, he started down the deer trail at a trot.

  The sun was high overhead when they crossed another river and stopped to rest in a natural rock shelter. “Get some sleep,” he told her. “I’ll try and find us something to eat.”

  “Don’t leave me,” she begged him.

  “We have to keep up our strength, Cailin. You especially.” He put two fingers under her chin and tilted her face up. “I want you to know that I’m glad about the baby. I’m sorry that this is hard on you. I promised once that I’d take care of you, and I haven’t done much of a job, but—”

  She smiled at him. “I’m not complaining.”

  “No, you’re not.” He grinned. “Some honeymoon.”

  “You really want this babe?”

  He nodded. His dark eyes gleamed with moisture. “We’ll make it home,” he said. “All three of us.”

  She covered his hand with hers and brought them to her flat stomach. “Our son won’t be born until February or March by my reckoning. Surely, we’ll be home by the time the leaves start to turn color.”

  He leaned his rifle against the rock wall and pulled her into his arms. For a long time, he held her and didn’t speak. And then he said, “Where’s home, woman? The Chesapeake or Scotland?” He pushed back Moonfeather’s shawl and buried his face in her hair. “You can’t expect me to walk out of hell and then let you leave me.”

  “I promised, Sterling. I gave my word to my family, but I can’t leave you. What can I do?”

  “I’m your family now. We can send for them. Hell, I’d go myself before I’d let you risk your life to go into Scotland.”

  She chuckled and wiggled free. “Before you’d let me risk my life?” She looked around her. “This isn’t exactly the deacon’s parlor we’re sitting in.”

  “I mean what I say. I’ll not let you cross the ocean again.”

  She met his gaze stubbornly, then shrugged and made an attempt to lighten his mood. “Look at you,” she said. “You look more Indian than white.”

  Sterling glanced down at the beaded Iroquois strap that held his hunting bag and powder horn, and at his scanty loincloth and moccasins. “No war paint,” he commented wryly.

  “You do seem more Shawnee than English out here,” she said.

  “And I’ll look more white when we return to the settlements.” He grinned again, a slightly crooked, devil-may-care smile that made her go all soft inside. “I’ve no wish to raise our children in a wigwam.” His eyes grew serious. “But I will try an
d give them a respect for my mother’s people and their ways. I’m only part English, Cailin. I forgot that for too long. Whatever I do with my life, I’ll still have two sets of heritages to draw on.”

  “Does that include Indian magic?” she asked.

  “When necessary.”

  She nodded. “I still don’t understand it. I saw Moonfeather walk across those hot coals with my own eyes. I saw, but I canna believe it.”

  He chuckled. “She’s a peace woman. Rules for normal people don’t apply.”

  She sighed, sat down, and put her head back against the rock. “Maybe I am hungry,” she admitted. “I’ll have roast beef, potatoes browned with onion, and—”

  He chuckled. “How does raw trout sound?”

  “Awful.”

  “A little wild onion, and you’ll never know the difference.”

  “Don’t be gone long. I’m only brave when you’re with me,” she said.

  “Try and sleep. I don’t know how long we’ll be safe here, and I can promise you, we’ll walk all night.”

  “You be careful,” she admonished him. “I want our son to have a father in residence.”

  “Me too.”

  Nothing could stop the constriction of her throat as she watched his broad back vanish through the trees. She was determined not to be childish and shame herself by crying again. She tried to ignore the rustle of branches and the other sounds of the deep forest around her.

  Were there bears out there? she wondered. More wolves? She shivered. Sterling really didn’t expect her to sleep, did he? She rubbed her bare arms to brush away the goose bumps and vowed to stay wide awake and alert until he got back. She was too frightened to sleep. At least, she thought she was. But her eyelids grew heavy in the still afternoon heat.

  The grating sound of gravel scraping underfoot woke her. Cailin opened her eyes with a start and saw Ohneya standing over her, a sixteen-inch scalping knife in his hand and murder flickering in his black heathen eyes.

  Chapter 28

  Cailin screamed. Ohneya’s painted skull face glowed white in the shadow of the overhanging rock. Whispering harsh, guttural threats in Mohawk, he came at her. She pressed herself against the granite wall, but there was no place to run and nowhere to hide.