The Bearwalker's Daughter

by Beth Trissel

  Karin met vivid green eyes in a sun-bronzed face stubbled with dark whiskers. A fiery sensation shot through her, and not just because he was devastatingly handsome.

  “Hello, Mama,” the newcomer said huskily.

  Sarah sucked in her breath. “Dear Lord. Jack?”

  “In the bleeding flesh.”

  An echoing gasp traveled the room. Sarah’s rosy skin blanched white. The bowl slid from her fingers and cracked on the floor. “I can scarcely believe it’s you.”

  Karin feared the overcome woman might faint, but she wasn’t feeling a great deal steadier herself. That strange awareness inside her grew like a summons urging her to an untamed place.

  The man called Jack ran fast fading eyes over Karin. “Paca tamseh,” he said, and sagged more heavily against Grandpa.

  Jaws fell open on every side of them. “Indian words,” someone hissed. “I heard ’em, plain enough.”

  A tangible wave of fear and loathing ran through the stunned multitude. Karin shrank back from the man, but Sarah clutched her arm and pulled her forward with a steely grip. “Can you blame him for knowing their speech after all these years?”

  She jerked Karin down onto her knees and they knelt beside the newcomer. Loosening her grip on Karin, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “My dear boy.”

  Heart racing, Karin hugged the pungent crock to her chest. She looked from Sarah to her grandfather in confusion. “I never knew she had an older son.”

  “Jack was eight when Shawnee took him captive twenty years ago with nary a sign of him since. Any son of Sarah’s is welcome in my house and in this settlement,” Grandpa said with a look that dared any to object.

  None did. At least, not aloud, although Karin expected there’d be plenty of muttering behind their hands.

  Joseph approached his older brother like a sleepwalker. “You told me Jack was dead, Mama.”

  “I thought he was. God be praised he’s returned to me. Few taken as children ever come back.”

  “Yes, but how did he know where to find you?” Uncle Thomas asked Sarah. “You weren’t a McNeal when he was taken.”

  Neeley clucked impatiently. “Never mind that now. We’ve a wounded man here who’s been welcomed home with lead shot.”

  Jack fluttered his eyes and looked beyond his weeping mother to Karin. His gaze drew her almost against her will. She leaned toward him.

  “Someone seeks for you, Shequenor’s dahnaithah,” he whispered.

  The message rippled through her with a prickling shiver. And she knew—his was the inviting summons in the wind.

  Chapter Two

  Hard-won instinct warned Jack to stay awake, though lethargy weighed him down. That blast in the night came on the heels of a hellish journey through the mountains. He had a vague awareness of the astonished folk gathered around him, and caught himself fading in and out of consciousness.

  He fought to remain alert. A bed made up before the hearth would have suited him just fine, but the two McNeal men half-carried him through the parting host and into one of the back rooms.

  The pain in his shoulder roused him to greater awareness as they hoisted him onto a bedstead curtained in checked maroon cloth. Ages ago, he’d slept in a bed, but not one with feather ticking, sheets, and his head cushioned on a bolster with pillows. If it weren’t for the gnawing ache he might’ve thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

  He closed heavy eyelids, opening them again to find the candle in the iron holder on the bedside stand alight. Another glowed from the top of the washstand. The dancing flames cast long shadows on the plastered log walls and the faces hovering above him.

  This definitely wasn’t heaven.

  His mother’s imposing husband, John McNeal, stood over him with grudging acceptance in his keen blue eyes. Mister McNeal’s strapping son, Thomas, appraised him with narrow-eyed skepticism. If Jack were able-bodied, there’d likely be a reckoning with these two formidable males—might still be. Reckonings were all too familiar in his world.

  Joseph swam into Jack’s vision. Little brother regarded him as though not fully persuaded he wasn’t a spirit. Ah, but Joseph was the ghost, the image of their big auburn-haired father.

  A pang knifed through Jack. He didn’t know exactly when his father had died, or his mother remarried. Not that he begrudged her bettering her lot with the McNeals, but his father had been a fine man. Jack faintly recalled his even temper and hearty laugh. He’d been a crack shot, a skill Jack had inherited but failed to use tonight. He hadn’t gotten off a single volley at his attacker, the sneaky bastard.

  Joseph slipped Jack’s buckskin pouch and powder horn from his injured shoulder and laid them on the bedside stand along with his tomahawk. Sliding a strong arm beneath Jack’s neck, he tilted his head and held a mug to his lips. “Sip this.”

  Jack gratefully swallowed sip after sip. The brandy warmed his raw throat and he prayed it would numb everything else.

  “Thanks, little brother.” His voice was hoarse. He struggled to sit, wincing in pain, but he couldn’t just lie there. “I’ve a mount—needs tending.”

  “Are you daft, Jack?” Joseph pushed him down onto the mattress. “I’ll see to your horse in a bit.”

  “Stallion—take care—” he cautioned through gritted teeth.

  Joseph held him still. “I know about stock.”

  Peki meant far more than that. Jack chafed to think of such a valuable animal left to stand out in this foul weather for any length of time, then John McNeal drew a wicked looking knife and gave him something else to worry over. Jack could only hope the older man still retained full use of his sight as he sliced through his bloody sleeve, spoiling his favorite shirt—damn, his lucky shirt. Well he was alive, wasn’t he?

  John’s gruff voice intruded on his mute protest. “Sarah, sit you down before you drop. Neeley’ll wash the wound.”

  Head in her hands, Jack’s mother slumped on the stool at the end of the bed. The poor woman couldn’t cease to weep and seemed on the verge of collapse. His conscience goaded him, a rather unfamiliar, disagreeable prodding. Clearly, she’d held him dear to her heart all these years, while his memories of her were dim. Nor had he made any effort to return sooner.

  Jack slid his eyes over the people hovered about him in search of the angel he’d seen earlier and spoken to briefly, but she was keeping her distance. Some females took time to grow on him before he found them pleasing. Not this fresh beauty. Her face and slender figure grabbed him the instant he’d spotted her. She wasn’t at all as he’d imagined.

  It crossed his clouded mind that he’d frightened her and must make amends if he hoped to have another word, or anything else, with this rare creature. Of her heritage, there could be no doubt. It was stamped in her face and coloring, but the bewilderment in her blue-gray eyes betrayed her ignorance.

  She didn’t know. How was that possible?

  Before he had the opportunity to conjecture, the matriarch called Neeley bustled into the room with a steaming basin of what Jack supposed, from the herbal scent wafting in the mist, was a medicinal wash.

  “Thomas, see Sarah gets to bed and brew her a cup of betony. That’ll calm her,” Neeley directed.

  “Come on, Sarah. You’ll do better with a rest and some tea.” Thomas helped his stepmother to her feet and guided the unsteady woman from the room and through the assembly clustered beyond the door. Murmurs of sympathy accompanied her departure.

  Then Neeley set the white porcelain bowl on the washstand and squinted down at Jack like a hen hunting for spilt grain. She gestured with bent fingers at the girl peering from behind John McNeal’s bulk. “Karin, come closer. You’re my hands, lass.”

  Her eyes, too, Jack suspected. Looking past her, he watched in fascination and relief as Karin edged nearer the bed. He much preferred her to tend his injury, but if he spooked her she’d bolt. A skittish mare if ever he saw one. Teeth clenched against the pain, he tried to appear unthreatening. Maybe he could entice her closer.
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  Mister McNeal cut away the last of Jack’s sleeve and slid his eyes over him without a flicker of expression. He handed the bloody cloth to Joseph. “Toss this in the fire and go see to his horse. We’ll tend your brother.”

  Joseph hesitated, loathe to leave his long-lost sibling, perhaps. No. His eyes shifted protectively to Karin with more than a trace of yearning in their depths.

  So, that’s how the land lies. Jack wondered if she felt the same about Joseph, annoyed that he cared if she did. Why should he give a damn who she favored?

  “Karin will bear up. She’s seen worse,” John assured the reluctant young man.

  “So have I,” Joseph muttered, and turned on his heels.

  This left John McNeal, Neeley, and Karin, but she still hung back. Neeley had banned everyone else from the room. Evidently she was in her glory now. Dipping the towel in the aromatic water, she lit into Jack. “What the—” he jerked and nearly swore.

  The old woman didn’t falter and sponged the blood from his arm and throbbing shoulder. No doubt she tried to be careful, but failed.

  “John, you’ll want to take these wet clothes off him before he catches his death.”

  Jack balled his hands into fists under the zealous healer’s ministration. “Not just yet,” he intervened, unwilling to drive Karin away. The modesty he sensed in her would surely balk at such a manly display of bare flesh.

  Unexpectedly, the timid girl walked to his side and gazed down at him with pity in her eyes. And what eyes, like a troubled sky, he mused between barely contained groans.

  A wince crossed Karin’s expressive features as if she, too, were in pain. “Let me see to him, Aunt.”

  She gave a nod. “I’ll fetch fresh water.” Dropping the crimson rag in the bowl, she sloshed from the room.

  Karin took a clean linen towel from the rod above the washstand. “Never fear. I shall be gentle, sir.”

  Jack hadn’t been called sir ever and it bemused him that this hesitant maiden fretted over his emotional state. Someone, perhaps his mother, had brought her up to be a lady. “I’m sure you will, Miss.”

  She dabbed his shoulder dry, then dipped her small hand into the pungent crock. Pursing rose-tinged lips, she smeared the aromatic paste on his wound. “I’ll give the salve a while to work before I dig the ball out and stitch you up. Ever had woundwort, sir?”

  “Dulls the pain right well.” Jack hid a grimace. Even her soft touch stung like the devil, but he wouldn’t push her away for anything. He was too distracted by the dimple in her chin, the purity of her lightly bronzed complexion, the sweep of her dark lashes, and the way her smooth brow puckered in concentration.

  A tendril of hair as black as a raven’s wing with the beguiling tendency to curl slipped across her blushed cheek. He wanted to reach out and smooth it back, and her mouth fairly begged to be kissed, though he doubted she’d ever felt a man’s heated lips on hers before. Joseph struck him as far too cautious to press her for anything so daring without her full compliance.

  “I’ll see you properly bandaged and dosed,” she continued, seemingly unaware of Jack’s absorption. “Aunt Neeley taught me about tinctures and fever drinks, Mister McCray.”

  “I’m obliged to you. Call me Jack,” he coaxed, willing her to look at him.

  A fetching shade of pink heightened the color in her cheeks and she kept her eyes on his shoulder. “We’ve only just met.”

  “We’re nearly family,” he reminded her, instantly kicking himself for the incestuous implication.

  She lifted clear eyes to his in unwavering innocence, like twin stars rising in the twilight blue. “You don’t seem a bit like my stepbrother.”

  He smiled at her despite the bite in his arm. “Good. You aren’t in the least like a sister.”

  “Humph,” John McNeal grunted. “You’ve an able tongue in your head for one accustomed to Indian talk.”

  Jack shifted his gaze to the grumbling patriarch. How could sweet Karin come from that old he-wolf? “My adopted father wanted me educated. I spent many hours under the tutoring of a captive minister.”

  Mister McNeal gave a cursory nod. “I like to see a fellow get some learning so he can read the scriptures.”

  “I can read anything, even Latin,” Jack muttered, remembering the endless drill.

  “That so? You been with the tribe all this time?”

  “No. I journeyed farther north for a time.” He kept his answer vague, omitting certain pertinent details.

  The dubious Scotsman rubbed his hand over the gray stubble on his chin. “The Indians let you go?”

  “My adopted parents are dead and my older brother couldn’t keep me on my lead. I come and go as I please now.”

  Eyes narrowed, John McNeal stabbed a thick finger at him. “Then why in blazes didn’t you return sooner?”

  Jack bristled in turn. “There was a war on.”

  “Aye. There was. Which side did you fight for?”

  He met his stepfather’s glare in simmering defiance. After a tight lipped standoff, he said, “War’s over, Mister McNeal. Remember?”

  “Damn Tory.”

  “You watch that talk, John McNeal,” Neeley scolded as she reappeared with the steaming basin. “This young man’s been through only God knows what. Don’t you go growling at him.”

  “That’s no excuse. The traitor.”

  Karin’s hand shook against Jack’s shoulder. “Grandpa, please. We don’t know his story yet.”

  Fire shot through John’s McNeal’s blue eyes and they burned into Jack. “’Tis a tale I don’t want you hearing, lass. If he’s to stay with us, he starts fresh. And don’t you go getting over friendly with my granddaughter, Jack McCray.”

  A condition Jack had no intention of honoring.

  Chapter Three

  Howling wind gusted around the eves of the house and through the tiniest chinks in the walls. Did Karin detect warning or invitation in the murmurs threaded through the gale? Both, she thought, shivering under the covers.

  Despite the chill, she offered a prayer of thanksgiving for the commotion. The shrieks muffled the creak on the icy floor as she slipped from the bed she shared with Neeley and tiptoed to the door in her stocking feet. The frigid draft blew up under her shift while Karin paused to listen to the old woman’s undisrupted snores. She should snatch her shawl from the peg by the door, but didn’t tarry. Satisfied that Neeley remained asleep, Karin stole from the chamber, a mantle of black hair hanging loosely around her.

  Guilt pricked her conscience. Stealth was at odds with her nature, but an inner voice summoned her, an irresistible melody. She instinctively knew where the music came from and that she must heed the age-old rhythm.

  She crept into the main room. The dancers had succumbed to grogginess. Shadowy figures slumbered before the reddish-orange logs in the hearth, rolled up in blankets and deerskins on the floor boards. Other dark forms were bedded down in the loft overhead. Some hardy souls had ventured out into the wind-tossed night after the startling end to the celebration. They’d headed home, but many folks remained within the stout walls of the homestead.

  Popping wood settled in the hearth with a shower of orange sparks. Karin paused in mid-step.

  No one stirred, except to snore and grunt in their sleep. Generous draughts of strong drink contributed to their unresponsive stupor. Saint Peter himself would have been hard-pressed to wake them. Like a vagrant spirit, she easily stole through the sprawled assembly and into the chamber where they’d taken Jack McCray.

  A single candle burned on the circular bedside stand. The fringed pouch which laid on its walnut surface had been stained with use and the horn worn translucent so that it revealed the black powder within. The potentially lethal tomahawk gleamed in the flickering light. That same glow illuminated its owner stretched out in Joseph’s place, his long torso and legs spread the length of the mattress.

  She needn’t worry that Jack grew chilled. Two brown striped wool blankets snugly wrapped him. She stop
ped beside his slumbering form, trembling with the cold and shaken by her daring in being where none would want her, except possibly the recipient of her scrutiny. Thankfully, he was unaware of her presence.

  Had Jack even known what words escaped his lips when he’d whispered that strange message to her? Likely it was simply the wanderings of a confused mind borne of injury, but mystery veiled everything about the handsome stranger. Even lying there senseless, he drew her as if on the keenest wind.

  She trailed her eyes over his face, pale beneath his bronzed skin, though not as drained of color as she’d feared. The covers rested partway down his muscular shoulders and chest. White linen swathed his upper right arm where she’d applied the bandage. As far as she knew the only clothing he wore was an elkskin breechclout and a woven belt at his waist. He wouldn’t part with his knife. Grandpa had stripped off all else.

  The restraints of modesty posed no hindrance to Neeley who’d sponged more of their guest than was seemly for Karin to do. An herbal scent clung to Jack’s clean skin and his freshly combed chestnut hair spread over the pillow. Unaccustomed to a man in this state of undress, Karin returned her close study to his face, disturbingly attractive with a familiar quality in his youthful but ruggedly masculine features.

  His even brow and nose bore a strong resemblance to Joseph’s, not so large as to be out of proportion, but distinctive and definitely McCray. Beneath the dark whiskers roughening his firm chin she saw the same small cleft, a family trait. Jack lacked his brother’s reddish tones, though, and was a warm brown from his sun-kissed skin to his hair. More like Uncle Thomas.