by Jody Hedlund
Angelique nodded. She felt as though she’d somehow passed a test. As excruciating as it had been to withhold herself from Pierre, she’d done it. She’d done something her mother had never had the strength or willpower to do. She’d done what was right, even though it had been the hardest thing she’d ever accomplished.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the ugly red marks on Miriam’s hand. “Miriam, what happened to your hand?” But she didn’t need to ask. She already knew that Miriam had burned herself over the fire, just as she’d done too many times since her eyesight had failed.
Miriam tried to pull her hand away, but Angelique wouldn’t let go. “Do you have any salve left?”
“I don’t know.”
Miriam’s confession twisted Angelique’s heart.
As she entered the cabin to look for the salve, one glance confirmed Miriam’s plight. There were flies hovering above a piece of molding squash on the table next to the skeletal remains of a fish, the floor was littered with refuse, and the woodbox sat empty. The scent of charred food permeated the stale air, along with the smell of a chamber pot in need of cleaning.
Her friend needed her. No matter what the future held, for the time being she was where she needed to be.
She was smoothing the ointment over Miriam’s burns when Red Fox exited the barn with Pierre’s boyhood canoe slung over his shoulders. He strode toward her with the same confident walk Pierre always had. “Get me a paddle,” he commanded.
Angelique stared at Pierre’s canoe with unease. “Why do you have Pierre’s canoe?” He would be with his brigade in the long vessels crafted to carry pounds and pounds of trade goods out to the Indian winter camps. Once he arrived he’d trade the beads, guns, ammunition, coats and other items to the Indians in exchange for the fur pelts the natives had trapped. He wouldn’t need the little canoe. It was in need of patching anyway.
Red Fox shook his head to her question and then addressed Miriam, “You get Pierre’s paddle. He needs it.”
Miriam’s unseeing eyes seemed to take in everything. Her expression turned serious. “I don’t know where Pierre’s paddle is. But I have one you can give him.”
When Miriam disappeared into the cabin, Angelique glared at Red Fox. “Tell me what’s going on. Why do you need Pierre’s canoe and paddle?”
Red Fox scrunched his brows with a fierceness that may have once frightened her but no longer did. The darkness in his eyes wavered, and he jutted out his chin. “He runs from the Menominee. They hunt him for the Redcoats.”
The news penetrated Angelique like the first hard frost of the fall. Pierre was a wanted man. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
She could only imagine how angry Colonel McDouall and Lieutenant Steele had been when they’d discovered the empty Black Hole. Such an impossible escape would embarrass them and undermine their authority. She had no doubt they were anxious to get him back and had likely put a price on his head.
“He is fast and smart,” Red Fox said, eyeing the door. “He will come back to you.”
She shook her head. “We aren’t meant to be together.”
“You are good for my brother.”
“But I’m pledged to another—”
“You are pledged to another here.” He tapped his head. “But you are pledged to my brother here.” He pounded a fist against his heart. “One pledge can be broken and repaired. The other cannot.”
Miriam’s reappearance silenced any further protest. Angelique sucked in a sharp breath when she saw the paddle Miriam carried, the bright red and blue one that had been hanging above the kitchen table. Angelique had never imagined she’d see it anywhere but on the wall.
Miriam hesitated in the doorway, her fingers caressing the smooth wood of the handle. Then she thrust it toward Red Fox. “Give this to Pierre.”
Red Fox pried it out of Miriam’s stiff grasp.
“I should have given it to him long ago,” she said.
The brave gave the slender piece of brightly painted wood nothing more than a cursory glance. To him it was simply a means for moving a canoe. But Angelique knew it represented much more than that. Maybe Pierre’s father hadn’t given him the paddle like so many voyageur fathers did to their sons. But she could imagine that if Mr. Durant had been there at that moment, if he’d seen the kind of man Pierre had become, a man of faith and integrity, he would have gladly given Pierre the paddle.
But now Miriam was bestowing the heirloom upon Pierre in her husband’s place. And even though Miriam was doing the right thing, Angelique had the urge to grab it out of Red Fox’s hands and return it to the wall.
She didn’t want Miriam to give Pierre her blessing on his fur trading. She didn’t want Miriam to believe Pierre belonged in the wilderness. She wanted Miriam to pray that Pierre would come home and settle down.
But Angelique could only stand back as Red Fox strode away, the paddle under one arm and the canoe on his shoulder.
A tear slipped down Miriam’s cheek, and Angelique reached for her hand.
Miriam tried to smile. “I should have told Pierre I was proud of him.”
“He’ll know that now.”
If he lived. But she bit back the words and squeezed Miriam’s hand.
Somehow Miriam’s acceptance of Pierre’s wandering ways made his choice of fur trading all the more final. Even if he outsmarted those who were searching for him, he would be forever lost to them now.
Pierre huddled in the shallow, crumbling mound. Sticks poked into his wet shirt and scraped his back. His feet dangled in the icy water at the opening of the abandoned beaver lodge. He’d hunched inside the dome as tightly as he could, and now he prayed the decaying structure wouldn’t topple down around him. At least until his pursuers passed by.
Outside, the splashing of footsteps going against the current alerted him to the approach of one brave who had been steadily trailing him.
Pierre held his breath and hoped the brave wouldn’t notice the pile of sticks hidden along the edge of the riverbank beneath a tangle of dead leaves. Of course Pierre had spotted it. Over the years of trading he’d become an expert in locating beaver lodges. Hopefully the brave wasn’t an expert too.
The brave’s sloshing slowed. Pierre’s stomach rumbled, and he pushed his fist into his belly to silence it. He’d been running for days, hardly sleeping and rarely eating, always trying to stay one step ahead of his enemies. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep going.
From the shortening days he knew that September would soon pass into October. And if he hoped to make it to the Chippewa winter camp, he had to set out for it soon.
He closed his eyes, exhaustion crashing over him like the rapids he’d just swum across. His body was numb, his hands cracked. His boots were in shreds, and his feet were now bruised and bleeding, leaving him no choice but to stay in the river so that he could wash away any trace of his blood.
He’d been praying ceaselessly. He’d decided that even if the Menominee captured him, he was trusting in God’s strength this time. Whether God gave him life or death, he wasn’t relying on his own efforts alone.
Perhaps God had given him another trial to drive him back to his knees and turn him into a man of prayer. Maman had always prayed for him. Maybe it was time to start praying for himself. Over the past days of running, he’d prayed about everything, including his angry parting with Angelique. Every time he remembered the way they’d left each other, he wanted to go back in time and redo it.
He’d only been thinking about himself. And when he thought back over his life, he’d come to the conclusion that he’d spent most of his life focused on doing what he wanted without much consideration for anyone else. He’d made the majority of his decisions to please himself.
He was ashamed to admit that even his decision last summer to give up fur trading and stay on the island had been all about his need for Angelique. He hadn’t thought much of what Maman had needed, or even what Angelique needed. He hadn’t thoug
ht about what would be best for her, that maybe she wanted someone in her life more reliable, like Jean, and that maybe he had tempted her into cheating on Jean.
The honorable thing would have been to wait to pursue her until after she’d called off her engagement with Jean. He hadn’t been fair to her or Jean.
Jean hadn’t deserved to have him come onto the island and woo Angelique into his arms. Why had it taken him so long to see that?
The splashing outside the beaver lodge grew faint, and he allowed himself to breathe again, sucking in gulping breaths saturated with molding leaves and damp moss. He closed his eyes again, unable to fight the exhaustion any longer. The dark coldness of the hovel closed in around him.
Angelique didn’t need someone like him, someone who was constantly facing danger and death. Look at him now, curled up inside a beaver lodge, trying to outwit his pursuers.
He would have laughed at himself if he hadn’t been so cold and tired. Instead, for the first time in days, he allowed himself to fall into a deep sleep. And his last thought before weariness claimed him was that Angelique would be better off with Jean.
He only wished he’d realized that sooner, before he’d broken her heart.
Chapter
25
MAY 1815—EIGHT MONTHS LATER
Angelique wriggled her toes in the warm sand and gazed out over the harbor crowded with schooners, canoes, and rowboats transporting cargo between the ships and the shore.
The gulls flew low and circled above the recently thawed water, their sharp cries welcome after the long winter of isolation from the rest of the world. The voyageur songs mixed with laughter and swirled around her, turning her insides into a frenzy of nervousness and excitement.
She wasn’t looking for Pierre. She’d told herself she wouldn’t. She’d only come to watch the arrival of the Americans and to take news back to Miriam and Yellow Beaver.
Even though Angelique had promised herself that she wouldn’t look for Pierre, that she wouldn’t get her hopes up, she found herself narrowing her eyes upon several canoes moving across the lake from the mainland to the island. She held her breath, waiting for them to draw closer so that she could carefully study each form.
At a rough shove against her arm, Angelique lurched sideways into the crowds bustling along the waterfront.
“Ah, the fish lass” came the clipped voice that belonged to Lieutenant Steele.
Angelique’s stomach curdled at the sight of the loup-garou coming to a halt next to her. Of course the past winter hadn’t been overly harsh, and the lieutenant wasn’t skin and bones like he’d been last spring. Still, he’d been the one to torture and almost kill Pierre in the Black Hole. And because of that he’d always be a loup-garou.
His uniform was frayed, the red faded, and his body thin, as were those of the regulars following behind him carrying crates that the British were loading into the waiting tenders.
“Are you watching for someone, fish lass?” the lieutenant asked, his sharp eyes roaming over the docked boats. “Perhaps a tall, broad-shouldered voyageur with dark unruly hair.”
Was it that obvious she was searching for Pierre?
The sunlight blazed upon the lieutenant’s battered black hat, likely the same hat he’d worn the night of the dance last summer when the hat had been new and buffed and immaculate.
“I’m here for the same reason as everybody else,” she replied, pulling herself up. “Watching the arrival of the Americans.”
When the first ships of the spring had arrived at Michilimackinac two weeks ago, they’d brought joyous tidings that the Treaty of Ghent had been signed in December.
The war was over, had been over for the past five months. But because of their remote location and the ice that prevented communication with the outside world, the residents of Michilimackinac were some of the last to hear the good news.
The treaty provided that the Americans and British give up the territory that had been conquered during the war. After three years of inhabiting the fort and controlling the island, the British would finally have to leave.
The American ships had arrived yesterday. Miriam had sent Angelique repeatedly down to the harbor to find out if Jean was returning with the other islanders who’d been forced to leave at the beginning of the war.
One boat of civilians had already come ashore that morning, among them a young graceful lady whose beauty reminded Angelique of Lavinia. Only this woman had been dressed much simpler, as if she had the intention of adjusting to island life rather than trying to make it adjust to her. Eventually rumors had sifted toward Angelique that the lady was the daughter of the American surgeon who would be stationed at the fort.
Amidst the unloading of American troops and goods, the British were retreating to their awaiting ships and readying to depart. As fort commissary, Lieutenant Steele was likely in charge of making sure all the British supplies were transported onto the ships. The British wouldn’t want to leave anything for their American enemies.
Lieutenant Steele stepped aside and let his two soldiers pass by. They struggled under the weight of the crate, their boots sinking into the sand as they staggered toward a waiting rowboat. After they’d passed out of hearing distance, the lieutenant leaned toward to Angelique, close enough for her to get a whiff of the sourness of rum on his breath.
“You might as well stop looking for Pierre Durant,” the lieutenant said with a gleam in his eyes. “He’s dead.”
The blunt words slammed against Angelique, nearly sending her toppling again.
As if seeing that he was getting the reaction he’d hoped for, the lieutenant’s lips quirked into a half smile. “I got reports last week from the Menominee warriors that I sent after him. They found his body. All that remained was a heap of bones. And his paddle. A red-and-blue-striped paddle.”
Please, God, no. Desperation swelled inside her chest. A strangled cry rose in her throat. If they’d found his paddle and his bones, that meant he hadn’t made it to the Indian winter camp in time.
It was too painful to consider that Pierre was dead, even though she’d known it was a very real possibility. She’d tried to prepare herself for it. At the beginning of the winter, she’d attempted to forget about Pierre and focus her thoughts on Jean. But Red Fox’s words had haunted her until the truth of them had wrapped their cords around her and held her captive.
Her pledge to Jean was in her head and was one she could eventually set aside after she had the chance to honestly speak with Jean. For although she’d tried to resist Pierre’s charm, she’d fallen prey anyway. No matter how hard she’d tried that winter, she hadn’t been able to unravel his presence from deep inside. It was almost as if his essence had woven threads through her heart that she couldn’t pluck out without destroying herself in the process.
Through the long days of winter, while ice fishing with Yellow Beaver, during the hunting trips she’d taken with him, and in the evenings sitting beside the fire, she hadn’t once stopped thinking about Pierre.
While she’d been learning to sew on the pretty calico skirt Miriam had given her to make over, she’d thought about Pierre’s eyes full of laughter. When she’d been whittling with Yellow Beaver, she thought about Pierre’s disarming grin. When she’d curled up with Miriam and the kittens in the corner bed during the endless nights, she’d prayed for Pierre.
She should have been thinking about Jean and praying for him, but she hadn’t given him more than a passing thought.
She’d been consumed with missing Pierre and hadn’t left room for anyone else.
But now he was dead.
Her knees weakened, and her body trembled. Just then all she wanted was to fall down and die too.
The lieutenant continued in a low voice, “No captain, British or American, will let any man live to tell about escaping from the Black Hole. Such news would only encourage future prisoners to attempt the same thing.”
She pressed a hand against the pain radiating from her chest. Tears
stung her eyes. She needed to run, to get far away from the crowds, where she could let herself grieve in private.
The lieutenant’s news made perfect sense. That was why Pierre hadn’t returned to the island two weeks ago with the first round of voyageurs and ships. That was why he hadn’t come any other day in between, and why he would never come back again.
He was gone. Forever.
“Go back home, lass,” the lieutenant said. “You won’t find Pierre Durant here today or any day.”
She didn’t wait to listen to anything else the lieutenant had to say. She didn’t care anymore who was coming ashore. All she could think about was getting away from the crowd, somewhere she could let the sobs and pain have release.
Heedless of where she was going, she raced away from the shore, tears blinding her. She ran until she couldn’t breathe, and then she crumpled to the forest floor, laying her head against the thick moss, burying her face in damp leaves.
She wept until there was nothing left inside. Nothing but a painful emptiness.
Pierre was gone.
After a winter of harboring hope, she had to let go. Finally.
She supposed she’d clung to the possibility that if he’d lived, he would return for her, even though he had absolutely no reason to do so. She’d told herself she would let go of her need to marry Jean and all the security he offered. She’d clung to the safety of a marriage with Jean rather than trusting that God would take care of her completely no matter where she was or who she was with.
It was the same lesson God had been teaching her when Red Fox had bought her from Ebenezer last summer, when she thought he was forcing her into marriage and away from the island.
She’d even resolved to speak honestly to Jean, to tell him that she couldn’t marry him, to give him back his comb. She’d wanted to do the right thing by ending her relationship with Jean first so that she could be free to accept Pierre and the life he offered her—if he ever offered it to her again.
It was why she’d returned to the island in the first place. She realized that now. To end her relationship with Jean.