****
Caitlyn raised her head from where she had buried it on her knees, as she had that long-ago evening. Candle light still illuminated the room, but she shared unseeingly ahead of her, still living that day over in her mind.
She had stayed in the tree trunk all night. She could still remember the lingering smell of charred wood that surrounded her. As young as she was, she knew her mother was dead, even though she hadn't seen what happened. But she remained obedient to her mother's last command. Anyway, what else could she do?
The men back at the post were dead, too, including her father. She had clearly understood Yellow Wing's words to her mother. And Yellow Wing had promised to return. She could only wait for her.
She'd woke the next morning, somehow having fallen asleep despite the ravaged sobs she couldn't hold back any longer. Hunger pangs stabbed her stomach, but still she lay curled up in the tree trunk. Her mouth was dry with thirst, but her bladder was bursting. Too, she could still recall her shame at herself when her bladder finally gave way, leaving her sitting there in a damp puddle.
Animals wandered by. Each time Caitlyn heard a faint sound, she shrank back into the trunk, but strained her eyes to see if it could be Yellow Wing. But only a deer passed, then a moose cow and calf. Later a bear with two half-grown cubs walked by her hiding place, seemingly unaware of the huddled human figure inside the tree trunk.
As evening fell, Caitlyn gave up hope of Yellow Wing returning that day. She fell into another exhausted sleep. When she woke the next morning, she knew she had to at least find water. But outside her safe haven lay horror. Her mother and Reggie's bodies were close. And back the other way...at the post....
She had to wait for Yellow Wing. But what if the Indians had found her, too? She didn't know how many Indians had come after them from the post. What if there had been more than the three she saw — others, who had gone on after Yellow Wing?
Caitlyn finally tried to leave the tree trunk, but her legs wouldn't support her when she tried to stand. Sobbing at the aches and cramps in her muscles, she got to her knees and crawled toward the entrance of her hiding place. She managed to crawl outside before her filthy, urine soaked body collapsed.
Several long moments passed before she tried to stand again. Bracing her small hands against the tree trunk, she levered herself to her feet and stood swaying when she pushed away from the rough bark.
Though she willed herself not to, her small head swung toward where her mother had gone with Reggie.
"Mama," she whispered in agony.
Her first stumbling steps led her irresolutely toward her mother. She stood staring at the bodies in horror, rubbing at the tears streaming down her dirt-encrusted cheeks. Her mother lay face up, her head nearly invisible beneath a low-hanging bush. Her dress, torn and blood-stained, still covered her body.
At least they didn't rape her, Caitlyn thought to herself now in her room.
Reggie lay on his face, the entire back of his little head caved in. They must have silenced him by swinging him against a tree trunk. No wonder her mother had screamed that horrible, keening sound. She had watched them kill her baby.
Caitlyn shifted on her bank, shamefully remembering her thoughts on that horrible day. She had blamed her small brother. If he'd only been quiet, they could have all been saved. Reggie had forced her mother to choose between her children — choose who would live and who would die.
And Caitlyn should have gone to her mother — tried to help her fight them off — instead of staying safe in her hiding place while they died out there. Her mother had told her over and over how much she depended on Caitlyn to help her with Reggie. She couldn't get along without Caitlyn's help....
No, Caitlyn finally accepted. She couldn't have done anything — not at age five. She had done as her mother wished — had ordered. But she had carried her resentment with her all these years, a resentment that had probably helped force those terrible memories into a corner of her mind and close the door on them.
She knew now why she would ignore the Indian babies. Why she wanted no children herself. And, recalling the horrible scene as she stared at her mother and Reggie's bodies that day, she reinforced that decision. She never wanted to be placed in a position where she had to choose between her children. It would drive her into madness, as it had probably done to her mother an instant before her death.
Caitlyn took a deep breath and forced herself to continue allowing the memories to roll from her subconscious into her consciousness.
She hadn't gone over to touch either her mother or Reggie. Instead, she had stumbled back down the trail toward the trading post. It had taken her all day to find her way back, since she wandered off the trail time after time, and stopped once at a stream crossing to drink, twice to eat her fill of some hickory nuts she found beneath the trees, cracking the shells open between two rocks.
She had little hope that Yellow Wing would return for her now, but she didn't know where else to go. At least at the cabin there might be some food. She wished fervently there would at least be some food.
The red oak leaves shone brightly in the evening sun rays when Caitlyn stumbled into the cabin yard. She shut her eyes against the sight. They reminded her too much of the color of blood. Cautiously she slit her eyes to look around the yard.
The voyageur still lay where he had fallen, his scalp, of course, gone. Three charred tree trunks stood in the ground in the middle of the clearing, with unrecognizable masses crumpled at the foot of them in beds of dead ashes. She knew now that the masses were what was left of her step-father's body, along with the other two men. They must have died in horrible agony.
And she would have to pass the stakes to get into the cabin.
No, she had thought to herself in relief. She could go in the back door.
And she had. In an almost catatonic state, she had walked to the rear of the cabin.
Not a whole lot remained inside, but she managed to find some dried berries scattered in the mess on the floor. What the Indians didn't want to carry with them, they had tried to destroy. To this day Caitlyn didn't know why they hadn't just burned the cabin, but perhaps they'd been afraid the fire would draw attention to their raid. Warriors from other tribes might decide to come after them and steal back the goods they would have had to trade for that winter.
As the days passed, Caitlyn was forced to resort to scooping the mess on the floor — a mixture of flour, sugar and wild rice — into a cup and adding some water. She stirred and drank it whenever she felt hunger pangs.
On one of her forages through the cabin for food, she had found her mother's journal. New sobs had torn her small body when she pulled it from under a pile of clothing the Indians had tossed into a corner. She could remember her mother sitting in the firelight each evening, writing in the journal.
As her body grew weaker, Caitlyn recalled her mind clouding over. She remembered looking at the front cabin door from time to time, but never going out that way. The bodies in the yard had to have been decaying, she knew now, but she gratefully could only vaguely remember smelling them. And she hadn't seen them again.
She left the cabin by the rear when she needed water — slept in her mother and father's bed at night, the journal clasped in her arms, but not recalling any longer who the journal belonged to. She filled her cup less and less often from the pile on the floor.
One day faded into another, and she had no idea even today how long she had been alone at the cabin. Maybe a week — even two or three. But she clearly recalled the day the gentle giant of a man had came into the cabin and found her huddled on her mother's bed, a blanket around her shoulders as she shivered with cold.
"Me poor little darlin'," Mick O'Shaunessy had said. "Never you mind now, darlin'. Old Mick'll take care of ye."
Caitlyn had trustingly held up skeleton thin arms to him and he had picked her up, soiled and stinking though she was.
Those strong, corded arms had held her tenderly against his chest, an
d Caitlyn had stared at him in wide-eyed wonder.
"You've got hair on your face," she'd croaked in a long-unused voice.
"Keeps me warm, sweetheart," Mick had said with a chuckle. "How 'bout I start a fire so ye can get warm, too?"
"Please. I'm pretty cold."
"Ye'll not be cold again, me little darlin'," Mick had promised. "Nor hungry, neither."
And she hadn't been, Caitlyn remembered as she blew the candle out and laid down, snuggling against the pillow. Mick had kept his promises to her. He had treated her as though she were a precious gift from God through the years.
Caitlyn slipped the journal under her pillow as her eyes closed drowsily. She could read it later. Right now, after dealing with all those other horrible memories, she wanted to savor the wonderful memories she had of Mick over the years.
His laughing face when he teased her. The wonderful Christmas gifts. His patience with her questions. His strong arms and soothing murmurs when the nightmares woke her...
****
Chapter 21
The bitter cold after the snow storm appeared to have set in for the balance of the winter. Silas and Jon waited one day, then another after the four days of furious winds and blowing snow abated.
The first day they dug out from the cabin, clearing paths to the lake and outhouse. The lake still held a thin space of clear water near the center, but the ice out there wouldn't bear their weight. They chopped a hole nearer the shore, marking it with a tall sapling so they could find it each morning and clear the thinner ice to draw water.
At least twice a day, they checked the platform in the tree holding the meat they had stored so far for the winter. The smoked venison, moose and buffalo haunches were frozen solid now, and they deliberately brushed their hands over them and the platform, leaving behind a human scent to warn any marauding animal away.
"We need to get a couple more deer and maybe another moose up there," Silas said to Jon the second day as he climbed down the wooden steps nailed to the oak tree. "It's cold enough now that it'll keep without bein' smoked."
"We need to get back out and run those lines, too, Silas. We're missing the easiest part of the beaver season. After those lakes and ponds freeze over solid, it's gonna take a hell of a lot more work to cut through the ice and get our traps out, then reset them."
"Yeah, I know, boyo. Them beavers just go back and forth from their huts to the tree limbs and saplings they got stored under water for winter food when it freezes over. We'll still get a few, tho' mostly we'll get fox and wolf then. But I found me a good place to trap some ermine and mink, too, and they'll bring us almost as much as beaver."
"You leave them in the traps too long," Jon reminded Silas, "a wolverine will find them. Then we might as well forget having a line in that territory. He'll run our lines before we can get there, and destroy everything he finds."
Silas walked over to the path between the cabin and the lake, but instead of turning to go inside, he stopped and stared toward the lake.
"It's a complicated situation, ain't it, Jon?" he asked. "We can't take Cat and the boy out in this cold. Cat, she'd probably enjoy it, but the little one might catch his death. And it needs both of us to run those lines, if we're gonna have a decent season."
"When do you think Spirit Eagle will be back?" Jon asked.
"I doubt it'll be before spring," Silas replied. "He ain't got no woman to watch the boy for him, and it'd be pretty rough on him trying to take care of him by himself."
Unless he figures he can stay here with us, Jon thought, though he didn't voice the words aloud. Caitlyn would probably welcome him with open arms. Then she and that damned Indian could visit all day while Silas and I are gone.
Caitlyn had told him she loved him, but what if her words had just been a reaction to her passion? Plenty of his men friends had wooed women's legs open with 'I love you, too's' in reply to the women's words spoken first. Women seemed to expect love to go hand in hand with lovemaking, and maybe Caitlyn was justifying giving him her virginity by telling herself it was in the name of love.
It was — at least on his part. They hadn't had a minute's privacy, though, to talk about that day. Would her love for him dissipate as soon as Spirit Eagle returned?
She and the Indian sure had a lot more in common. They loved this life out here. Caitlyn had pointed out the differences between herself and Jon more than once.
"Sure would make it easier if he showed up," Silas mused.
"Who?" Jon demanded.
"Who we been talkin' about?" Silas said. "Spirit Eagle, 'course."
"Like hell!" Jon spat. "We don't have room in that cabin for another body!"
Silas glanced at Jon, his beard hiding the slight grin on his lips. Things appeared to be going just like he'd predicted to himself at rendezvous. Hopefully, he could hand his protection of Cat over to Jon when this season was done. His word as a mountain man, along with the vow he had made to Cat, bound him to her for now. But he reckoned that Jon would gladly accept the burden pretty soon.
And maybe when he finally quit these mountains because of old age, he'd have a warm fireplace to sit in front of. Maybe a couple little rug rats to call him Uncle Silas.
"Well," Silas said into the stillness, feeling that he covered up his laughter pretty good. "Well," he repeated, "you know Cat. We better discuss things with her. I aim to get back on them lines in the morning, one way or another."
Inside the cabin, Caitlyn kneaded bread dough at the table, while Little Sun took his morning nap. Every few seconds, she glanced over her shoulder at the blanketed door to her bedroom.
Why on earth couldn't she bring herself to open that journal? Each night since her memory had begun to return, she had left the candle burning until Jon and Silas's snores told her they were asleep. But she'd only gone as far as opening the leather cover the third night.
Mauvreen O'Neal. The inscription was written in a neat hand inside the cover. Nothing else. Not even a date to indicate the period the journal covered.
At least she knew her last name now. Somehow she knew that name was Irish, also. Funny how a fellow Irishman had found her after the massacre — raised her as his own. Mick had been proud of his Irish heritage, now and then telling her tales of the beautiful land for a bedtime story.
Little people, fairies and leprechauns. Caitlyn smiled to herself, thinking how much Silas reminded her of how she had imagined the leprechauns in her mind — though lots larger, of course. Silas came through the door at that moment, and she lifted her head, the smile growing on her face.
But her smile grew into full brilliance when Jon followed Silas into the cabin. Lordy, how she loved that man. One reason the journal had gone unread was that her nights were spent thinking about Jon. Recalling every word they spoke to each other each day — every time they had touched.
Her smiled dimmed just a little. And also recalling every reason on earth they could never have a future together — trying to figure some way to overcome their obvious differences.
Jon turned from hanging up his robe straight into Caitlyn's gaze. God, he loved her. Wisps of raven curls clung to her forehead, above the deep blue eyes that were shining with the love she had told him of in words. The strawberry sweet lips tilted up just a little at the corners, looking so damned kissable, and a spot of flour dotted the end of her nose. Another white spot streaked one flushed cheek.
If only Silas wasn't in the room, he could carry Caitlyn to her bedroom and wash her face with his tongue. Jon muffled a groan when he felt himself harden and tore his eyes from Caitlyn's face to glare at Silas when the old man chuckled and whistled a tune under his breath.
Silas ignored him and walked over to Caitlyn. "Monday," he said as he approached the table. "Gotta be Monday if you're makin' bread, Cat. Figure you can make me an extra loaf to take with me in the mornin'?"
"We're going to start running the lines again tomorrow?" Caitlyn asked.
"Well, now, Cat." Silas pulled out a chair and s
at down. "We gotta talk about that. You know me and Jon has got to get back out there. We don't want to leave you here alone, but it's too derned cold out there for us to drag the boy out."
"I know," Caitlyn agreed, surprising Jon, who took the chair across from Silas. "And I realize Little Sun's care is in my hands. I'm the one who agreed to let Spirit Eagle leave him here."
Jon's heart caught at the yearning he heard in her voice. He knew her so well. She thoroughly enjoyed traipsing through the snow with him and, no matter how tired she was in the evenings, she did her share tanning the hides. It would bore her to tears to be confined to the cabin day in and night out.
And God, how he hated Caitlyn's tears.
"Look," he said when Silas opened his mouth to speak. "How about you and I take turns?"
Caitlyn stared at him, just a tiny bit of hopefulness in her eyes. "I...I can't ask you to stay with Little Sun," she said. "That's my job."
"Caitlyn, you know you're going to have to stay strictly inside every time Silas and I are gone, don't you? We've only got two rifles, and we'll have to leave one with you. Whoever's running lines will have to do it in as a pair, so they'll have the gun with them."
Silas nodded in agreement. "He's right, Cat. Don't neither one of us want to be caught out there without a gun. But we can't leave you unpertected, neither."
Caitlyn stared back and forth between the two men. "So?" she questioned. "I really don't think Tall Man — or anyone else for that matter — will try to come here in this snow. But I'm not about to take a chance that I'm wrong. I'll keep the door locked while you're both gone. I can tan the hides during the day, and you can rest evenings."
"And just how long will it be before you fade away and get sick, without being out in the daylight now and then?" Jon asked. "It's a long time until spring. No, we'll take turns going with Silas. Days it warms up enough, I'll take you and the boy with me."
"You...you'd really do that for me, Jon?" Caitlyn asked with soft wonder in her voice.
Mountain Magic Page 21