"I really am tired," Alexandra said, looking away. "You said there would be a place for me to stay. Could you find out where?"
With a nod, Hunter went to Creeping Turtle. The men spoke briefly and then came back to her. Jon excused himself from the woman who claimed to be his mother and he walked with the others.
"Let me take you to my sister's wigwam," Creeping Turtle said, leading Alexandra through the maze of wigwams. "She will be pleased to have you as her guest." Creeping Turtle looked at Jon. "Wait until I tell her I have found our brother. Now our mother's heart is complete. You know, our people say a woman who loses her child can never be whole again."
"No offense meant to you or your mother, Creeping Turtle,"—Jon pulled a flask from beneath his buckskin waistcoat and took a long pull—"but I'm not convinced your mother is my mother. Seems pretty far-fetched to me."
Creeping Turtle chuckled. "It is not necessary for you to believe in us. Only for us to believe in you, my brother."
Jon rolled his eyes heavenward and took another drink from the flask. "Christ, I hope we're not staying here long," he muttered under his breath.
Hunter slapped his shoulder. "A day or two, no more and we'll be on our way. I swear it." He looked to Alexandra. "In the meantime we'll see what we can do about finding someone to escort her back to the world."
For some reason Alexandra felt hurt by the cool way he was suddenly referring to her. God, but she was confused. All reason told her to stay away from Hunter. But a part of her wouldn't seem to listen. She found herself wanting to be near him, to hear his voice, to feel his touch. Just get me home safely, she prayed silently. Just get me away from here and him before I do something stupid.
"Here is my sister's wigwam," Creeping Turtle declared, stopping at a hut that looked just like the others. He stuck his head inside. "She is not here, but go in. I will find my sister and send her to tend to you."
Alexandra hesitated at the doorway.
"It's all right," Hunter assured her. "I told you, the Shawnee are great ones for hospitality. His sister really will be glad to have you."
Alexandra ducked to walk in, but then turned back to Hunter. "Where are you going?"
"Just to Creeping Turtle's wigwam to smoke his tobacco. I'll come by and check on you later." He reached out and brushed her cheek with his fingertip. "You'll be all right, Alex. I swear it."
She gave him a half smile and let the doorflap fall.
The wigwam seemed bigger to Alexandra once she was inside. The structure was built from tall saplings bent to form a frame, and the walls were constructed from woven saplings and bark shingles. It was cozy inside, made warm by a fire that glowed in the center of the room. A thin whisper of fragrant smoke rose and escaped through a small hole in the bark roof.
Alexandra turned to look at all the dried vegetables and herbs that hung from the ceiling. A section of the wall was lined with baskets filled with squash, shelled corn, and assorted tubers. Along another part of the wall was a platform bed piled with thick furs and covered, oddly enough, with an embroidered counterpane that looked much like the one covering Alexandra's own bed back in Annapolis.
Alexandra heard the faint tinkling of bells and swung around. "Oh!"
"I'm sorry, I startled you," said the woman dressed in a leather vest and leggings standing in the doorway. "I didn't mean to." When she spoke, her bell earrings tinkled with the movement of her head. "I'm Judith."
Alexandra stared at the woman in the doorway. She was a white woman! A white woman with long red hair braided like the other Indian women's in the village. "I . . . I'm Alexandra. I . . . Creeping Turtle said for me to wait here for his sister."
She smiled. "I am his sister. Sister by marriage. My husband was his brother. He's dead now, but among the Shawnee we will always be family. Please sit." She indicated a small mat made of rabbit skins that had been sewn together. "I know you must be hungry."
Alexandra sat down. "Just a little maybe." She still stared at the woman.
Judith smiled as she knelt in front of the fire and stirred a small metal pot. A delicious, meaty aroma rose in the air. "Yes, I am a white woman," she said as if reading Alexandra's thoughts. "But I'm also Shawnee." She took a wooden spoon and began to dish out a healthy portion of chunky stew. She pushed the plate into Alexandra's hand and handed her a pewter spoon. "Surprised to see another white woman here, are you?"
Alexandra nodded. "We're so far from the bay and any towns. How did you get here? Are you a prisoner?"
Judith laughed and the bells in her ears rang. "Heavens no! My husband has been dead nearly a year. I could have left the day he died, could have left sooner. No, I choose to live here among the Shawnee."
Alexandra took a bite of the stew. It was a delicious concoction of tender meat and vegetables with a touch of an unfamiliar spice. She took another bite. "You came here to marry an Indian?"
"Not quite. I was captured by Mohawks north of Penn's colony. My husband saved me. I was nearly dead. He brought me here and healed me."
"But he wouldn't take you home to your family?"
Judith shrugged, dishing out a bowl of stew for herself. "By the time I had recovered enough to travel I didn't want to go home." She smiled a bittersweet smile. "I had fallen in love with a Shawnee brave."
Alexandra shook her head in amazement. "I cannot imagine loving someone so much that you would stay here with him, live like this for him."
"You mistake my intentions. They were clearly selfish. The truth was that I did love my husband. But the best thing about staying here was that my life among the Shawnee was better than the life I'd had in Philadelphia."
"You were bonded?"
She laughed. "No. Worse, I think. I was a shipping merchant's eldest daughter. I had more gowns than I could wear in a season. I went to every tea, every ball, every horse race, within ten square miles of Philadelphia." She added another heaping spoonful of stew to Alexandra's empty bowl. "But I was unhappy. My life was without purpose." Alexandra popped a chunk of dripping meat into her mouth. "Here I have a reason to exist. I'm teaching the children the white man's language so they can become a part of the world they're being forced to become a part of. Here I have friends and family who love me. Here I'm happy, something I could never say about Philadelphia."
Alexandra took another bite of stew, not knowing what to say. She couldn't imagine an educated Englishwoman choosing this kind of life. It seemed an impossibility, yet here Judith was.
"Tell me how you come to be in our village." Judith set aside her bowl and reached out for a tiny china teapot resting on a rock near the edge of the fire.
"I was captured and rescued too, only they, Hunter and Jon, were supposed to take me back to Annapolis. But Hunter said he had to come here first. Someone killed his wife, a soldier, and he's trying to find him." Finished with her stew, she set her bowl down next to Judith's.
Judith handed her a delicate handle-less teacup filled with steaming tea. "The villagers speak of a white called the Hunter of the Shawnee. They respect him a great deal. I've never had the pleasure of meeting him. He's here?"
"With Creeping Turtle."
"He has quite a reputation among the Shawnee. They say he is a very brave man."
Alexandra gave a little laugh, sipping from her teacup. "Brave? Insane I would say. As wild as weeds in a rose garden. He's impulsive. Without manners or any sense of decorum. It's no doubt they like him. He's more of a savage than any other savages I've come across." Alexandra knew that wasn't quite true. Not when she took into consideration the way Two Crows and his men had butchered her cousin and uncle.
Judith smiled. "I think I'd like to meet this Hunter of the Shawnee."
"Alexandra," Hunter called from outside the wigwam. "May I come in?"
Alexandra looked at the woman sitting cross-legged across the campfire from her. "It's him," she said.
Judith got up and laid aside her teacup. She swept back the animal-skin covering on the door, greeting Hunter w
ith a warm, friendly smile. "Come in, Hunter of the Shawnee. We were just speaking of you. I was telling Alexandra of the respect our people have for you."
Hunter stepped in. "I'm sure you exaggerate." He nodded. "You must be Judith. I just came to check on Alex. She's had a difficult journey."
Alexandra watched as Judith's green-eyed gaze settled on Hunter's handsome face. "She was just telling me how fortunate she was that you came along and saved her from the Iroquois." She smiled a smile Alexandra had seen many a time in drawing rooms across the city of London. And she didn't like the smile. Not one bit.
"Come in and join us for tea." Judith swept her hand. "I have something stronger if you like."
Hunter smiled casually at Judith, seeming to take an immediate liking to her. Alexandra couldn't remember him smiling at her like that. "No. Thank you. I'd like to, but Creeping Turtle and Jon are waiting for me. I guess you heard from Creeping Turtle that She-Who-Whispers-To-The-Wind thinks my companion is her son."
"Amazing how life makes its turns on the game path, isn't it?"
"I suppose it is." He pushed back a lock of red hair that had fallen loose from his queue. "Well, guess I'll be on my way. I just wanted to make sure you were settled, Alexandra."
"Judith has been very kind," was all she could think to say in response.
Hunter backed out of the door. "Just get a good night's sleep." He nodded to Judith. "Thank you for seeing to her. I would take it as a personal favor if you see she's well cared for. She's been through a hell of an ordeal. It would be good for her to speak with another woman."
"I'll see to her every need, I can promise you."
Alexandra listened irritably as they spoke about her as if she weren't there, or as if she were an infant.
Judith was still smiling at him.
"Good night," he said as he backed out of the wigwam.
Judith let the flap fall over the doorway and then swung around to face Alexandra. "He's a fine specimen of a man, indeed. Is he yours?"
Alexandra nearly choked on a mouthful of tea. "My what?"
"Your man."
Alexandra gave a laugh. "Certainly not."
"You're sure? I'm not a woman to take another woman's man, not even a man as fine as Hunter."
Alexandra gulped down the last of her tea. "I said he's not mine." She didn't mean to sound cross. It was just that she was tired. When she spoke again, she softened her voice. "I told you. He was kind to me, and for that I'm grateful. But we're only traveling together."
Judith broke into a grin. "Then that means I'm free to seek his company?"
Alexandra let her eyes drift shut, rubbing her forehead. Suddenly her head was pounding. "Certainly. I wouldn't have that man." She exhaled. "Not for all the sugar cane in the West Indies."
Chapter Eight
Despite Judith's attempts to make Alexandra comfortable, Alexandra slept fitfully that night. Her dreams were filled with swirling visions of Hunter and the black bear, of Uncle Charles and Cousin Susan, of Two Crows and his filthy comrades. And in the misty shadows of her mind, Alexandra saw Geoffry Rordan dancing, dancing with woman after woman, laughing . . . laughing at her. His laughter echoed in her mind, mixing with the sound of Cousin Susan's tortured screams, of Two Crows cackling, of Hunter's voice until her head was filled with madness.
Alexandra bolted upright, clutching Judith's counterpane to her chest. She could feel her heart pounding beneath her breast. Sweat beaded on her forehead, despite the chilly morning air. The music of the ballroom still reverberated in her head.
Pale light seeped through the hole in the wigwam ceiling, illuminating Judith's sleeping face. She slept naked, her attractive, slender body curled comfortably in a ball on the center of a pile of skins, a light coverlet thrown over her body.
Alexandra rolled onto her side, away from Judith, and closed her eyes again. But sleep evaded her. Her mind was too filled with thoughts for sleep.
Hunter said that he would find an Indian guide to take her back to Annapolis, but did she trust an Indian to see her home safely? How did she know her guide wouldn't surrender her to the first unfriendly man, red or white, they came upon in the forest?
Alexandra wondered if once Hunter talked to the medicine man, he wouldn't head back toward Annapolis. Maybe he would take her home. She trusted him, though she didn't know why.
Because he had rules he lived by. They were not her rules; they didn't make sense to her, but they were the rules he guided his life by. If he agreed to see her home safely, he'd keep his word. And once they reached Annapolis, Alexandra could see that Aunt Sally paid him handsomely for his trouble.
Of course if he was as wealthy as Jon hinted, would the money be enough to convince him to see her home himself? Maybe, maybe not.
Then she wondered why she wanted Hunter to take her home. Was it because she had trusted him this far and felt she could trust him all the way back to Annapolis? Or was it because she wanted to prolong her time with him? The thought, of course, was absurd. Or was it?
Alexandra sat up, swinging her legs onto the leather flooring. It was obvious she wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep. She glanced at her hostess, still sleeping, her arm thrown casually across her forehead, her naked body barely covered by the coverlet, stretched out in plain view.
Alexandra pushed aside the counterpane and rose quietly. What she needed was a walk. She had always been an early riser. In her father's home she had often risen even before the house servants so that she might have a few minutes alone in the house or garden before they became overrun with footsteps and voices.
Slipping her feet into her moccasins, Alexandra lifted the flap covering the doorway of the wigwam and stepped into the morning light. The autumn air was refreshingly brisk and smelled faintly of pine and wood smoke. There were a few villagers just beginning to move about, but for the most part the Shawnee village still slumbered peacefully.
Alexandra stepped over a sleeping spotted dog in Judith's doorway and started toward the river she had been to last night. She thought she'd wash her face in the cold water and then just sit for a while. The spot in the river, a tributary of the Ohio, Judith had explained, had seemed tranquil last night, even in the darkness.
As Alexandra passed a wigwam, an older woman in a long buckskin dress called to her.
Though Alexandra didn't understand what the woman said in the Shawnee tongue, Alexandra could tell by the tone of her voice that it was a greeting. She nodded, pleased that everyone seemed to be going out of their way to make her feel welcome. "Good morning to you."
The Shawnee woman went back to stirring a pot and Alexandra smiled to herself as she walked on. How comfortable life must be for these people, she thought. Everyone seems so relaxed and content. Everyone is so friendly, even to me, a stranger and a white woman.
Alexandra passed between the many wigwams, through the village, and followed the path cut through the undergrowth that led down the riverbank. Sparrows fluttered overhead as she stepped into the clearing. Ahead, the moving water gurgled and splashed as it made the bend in the riverbed, flowing south.
Kneeling by the water's edge to splash her face, Alexandra thought about how, in many ways, this Indian garb of Hunter's she was wearing was quite sensible. True, it left one's legs shamelessly bare, but Alexandra could never have managed to kneel so easily in one of her gowns. With her stays laced as tightly as her mother expected, it was all she could do to manage a breath of air!
Taking a drink of water from her cupped hands, she sat back on a flat stone, apparently left for just that reason.
Heavens but this forest was beautiful! She chuckled at the sight of a pair of squirrels fighting over half a walnut.
When she heard rich laughter from behind, she turned around. She knew it was Hunter.
"Startled you again?"
She shook her head. "I think I've gotten used to your sneaking about."
He made his way down to the riverbed, a small basket swinging from his hand. "
You've paid heed to my warnings. You've become more observant. I just wish Jon would as well." He set a piece of mirror on a tree branch and then pulled out a cake of soap and a long razor.
Alexandra watched, strangely fascinated by his morning ablutions. She'd never watched a man shave before. He splashed water on his face, soaped his chin and cheeks, and began to scrape away his red whiskers.
"I think I may have found someone to take you to Annapolis," he said in an offhand manner after several moments of silence.
"You did?"
He glanced at her in the reflection of the piece of mirror propped on the branch. "You don't sound as anxious as you did yesterday. Sitting rooms, boned stays, and tight shoes not quite as inviting as they once were?"
"Oh, it's not that. It's not that I don't want to go home." She toyed with the fringe of her tunic. "It's just that I'm a little . . . concerned about going off in the woods with some savage, even if he is a Shawnee." She glanced back up to see that he was still watching her. "You know, after what I've been through with Two Crows I don't know if I would feel comfortable crossing this wilderness with an Indian."
"So, what?" He arched a dark eyebrow. "You're going to find your own way home? Or have you decided to remain here with the Shawnee as Judith has? She seems to have made herself very content."
Alexandra didn't like the tone of his voice when he spoke the woman's name. He was attracted to her.
"Remain here? Certainly not!" she huffed. "But you brought me all the way out here, don't you think you ought to see that I get home in one piece?"
He laid aside his razor, done shaving, and knelt to splash water on his smooth cheeks. "I thought you couldn't wait to rid yourself of my company."
"I can't." She let out an audible sigh. "It's just that at the moment . . . at the moment you seem the lesser of the evils. I already know what kind of man you are."
He turned around, his hazel-eyed gaze settling on her face. "No, no you don't," he said sharply. "You don't know me at all."
She looked down at her hands folded neatly in her lap. "I know that you're tracking some man down so you can kill him. But I also know that you saved me from Two Crows, twice," she conceded quietly.
His Wild Heart Page 8