"You talked to Fire Dancer after I asked you to stay away from him?"
"Oh." She waved her hand. "That was what he said that night. You know, when he got me inside the fort safely after the fighting started."
Her father moved a crate of tobacco over to make room. "That Indian with the nose ring is bad medicine, if you ask me. The man scares me. I hope the hell DuBois makes it here soon, because I'm ready to go home."
Mackenzie felt a chill. Her father's words had a foreboding tone about them. Okonsa scared her, too. She considered speaking to Fire Dancer about him, but what would she say? He looked at her? He grabbed his groin? And Mackenzie knew that Fire Dancer considered him his own brother. She wouldn't feel right saying anything against his brother when she had no concrete evidence.
She glanced at her father. "Okonsa's bad medicine? I've never heard you talk that way before."
"I've got a bad feeling in my stomach, Mackenzie," He brushed the top of his balding head with his hand. "I just want to keep my scalp, that's all."
That night, when Mackenzie heard a tap, tap, tap on her shutter, she leaped out of bed, barefooted, in her thin, white sleeping gown. It had been so hot this week that she'd carefully pulled out the stitches on the sleeves and removed them.
She stood in the darkness and stared at the closed shutter, a sense of excitement making her heart flutter. She knew who it was, of course. A part of her wanted him to come. She lifted her hand to open the shutter, then drew back in indecision.
Fire Dancer excited her, but he made her feel vulnerable as well. When she was with him, she didn't seem to be completely in control of her thoughts and feelings, or even her own actions. And her father had told her to stay away from him.
She dropped to her knees on the bed, unlocked the shutter, and opened it a crack. "Go away."
"I must see you, Mack-en-zie. Let this man in."
"Go away. My father says I can't talk to you."
"What do you say, Mack-en-zie with hair of magic and a mind that speaks for itself?"
She ignored his enticement. "You won't sit for my portrait; why should I do anything for you?"
"Mack-en-zie, this man asks that you let him in. I will not harm you. You know that this man would never harm you. This man only wants to see you. To talk. It is lonely here so far from home."
She knew she should slam the shutter closed and lock it. Instead, she opened it a little farther so that she could see his face. His admission of loneliness struck a cord in her heart, and endeared him to her more. She was lonely, too. And only this man seemed to fill that loneliness.
"Give this man permission to enter," he pressed in a whisper. "It is what you want. It is what this man wants."
Her face was only inches from his "If I don't give you permission, will you come anyway?"
"This man will not." He stared into her eyes, the lamplight in her room casting light and shadows across his serious face.
Sweet heavens, but he was a handsome man, his face seemingly carved from a master's hand.
"This man wants . . . needs you."
"Need me?"
"Need . . . need to talk."
Mackenzie could feel herself trembling inside. He wanted to talk to her; he wanted to be with her. He wanted her. Other men had wanted her, but no one had ever made her feel like this.
Mackenzie rested her hand on the lock of the shutter and attempted to appear nonchalant. So did she let him in or not? She debated silently.
Mackenzie thought of the idea she'd been toying with all day. If I'm going to go through with it , she mused, I need to see him, to study him. So why not let him in? He could talk and she could make the necessary observations .
She knew she was making weak excuses, but she couldn't help herself. "All right," she whispered as she swung open the shutter. "But you leave when I tell you to leave. I swear by all that's holy, if you don't, I'll call for the guard that waits at the bottom of the stairs."
Fire Dancer climbed through the window.
Mackenzie took several steps back.
He sat on the edge of her bed and stared at her.
"Well," she said after a minute or two of silence. "You said you wanted to talk. Talk of what?"
He drew his thin, sensual lips back in a half-smile. "It does not matter what we speak of, really, does it, Mack-en-zie? It only matters that we speak. That we share the words that tumble in our heads." He crossed his arms over his bare chest. "This man wonders what thoughts are in your head. This man wonders of things about you."
"Things?" She took a seat on the camp stool an arm's length from him. They sat at eye-level. A good way to study his face , she told herself. "What things? I've never known a man to be interested in what a woman thought about anything."
"This man is not any man."
He stared at her with those black eyes of his and she was unable to break the eye-contact. "No, you are not any man, are you?" she whispered.
Again that smile.
Mackenzie felt herself relax. He truly was interested in her, wasn't he? She laced her fingers and looped her hands over one knee. Her father was wrong. He wasn't dangerous. Only lonely. "So what would you like to know? My favorite food? The color of my last new gown?" She cut her eyes at him, an amused tone in her voice. "Why I won't marry Joshua Watkins, perhaps?"
He chuckled. "This man already knows why you will not marry the boy. You are not well suited. No, this man wants to know other things. Important things. Things that will tell this man what kind of woman you truly are."
Now she was intrigued. "Like what? Ask me a question. Any question."
He glanced away in thought. Then he looked back. "Name the men you have loved in your life, Mack-en-zie."
She rose off the stool and began to pace. "The men I have loved. What a strange question." She stroked her chin. "Hmmm. I love my father. I loved my grandfather very much." Her draped easel caught her attention. "He taught me to paint. He was schooled in Paris, you know." She pressed her lips together. "And I guess I love Harry—Major Albertson—because he's been so good to me all these years. And . . ."
Fire Dancer still sat on the edge of her cot, attentive as always. "And?"
She fiddled with a jar of paint that rested on the easel's shelf. "And Jack. He wasn't a man, just a boy. He was the cook's son." She smiled at his memory and felt a familiar ache. "I called him Jackie. He loved to fish. I used to take him fishing. The summer I was fourteen and he was seven he drowned in the river." The last word caught in her throat
"This man is sorry you lost one you loved."
"Thank you." She smiled up at him. "Now my turn. If you can ask questions, so can—" She spotted a black snake slithering across the floor board in front of her and halted in mid-sentence.
Fire Dancer rose off the cot and made a hand sign in the motion of a slithering snake. "Muneto."
Mackenzie stood perfectly still as the snake, as long as she was tall, glided by. "Muneto," she repeated.
Fire Dancer walked behind the snake, encouraging it to cross the floor and escape through a hole between two logs along the floor. "You fear muneto , Mack-en-zie who fights Huron with a bucket?"
She couldn't resist a smile at his teasing. She knew he was trying to ease her apprehension.
The snake disappeared through the wall.
"I . . . I'm not afraid of—" she imitated his hand-sign—"muneto . I just don't like them. Once when I was a child, four or five, I went out to the barn to feed the oxen. I put my hand into a feed crate to grab a handful of grain and the feed was alive with snakes." She couldn't repress a shudder. "I had nightmares for years."
He walked toward her. "This man will make a con-fess-i-ion."
"Oh?" Again she was intrigued. She had never met a man so honest and open about himself.
"When this man was a boy, I feared snakes." He chuckled. "Think of it, Mack-en-zie. Boy who is a prince. Boy who will grow to be great warrior and leader of his people. Shawnee boy who runs to his mother when he sees a s
nake."
She grinned.
"My brother-cousin Okonsa would tease me. Snakes on my sleeping mat. Snakes in my moccasins. Baby snake in my drinking cup."
"How cruel."
"He thought it was funny."
"Are . . ." she found herself lost in his gaze again. "Are you afraid of snakes now?"
He shook his head. "This man does not care for snakes in his cup, but no, I am not afraid. A wise man taught me not to be afraid. A man I wish you could meet." He caught her hand in his, and their fingers entwined.
Mackenzie felt light-headed. She was supposed to be study ing the angles of Fire Dancer's face, the color of his skin, the shape of his ears. Instead, all she could do was stare at his lips and wish they would touch hers.
"Will you let me come again?"
"My father must not know." The warmth of his hand spread a warmth to her entire body. "He would take me away."
"This man will take care. I would not see you sent away."
"I know. I know, but if he even suspects . . ."
"We will not give him reason to suspect." He let go of her hand and walked to the cot where he stretched out on his side. "It is early, Mack-en-zie. And it is your turn to ask another question."
After that night, an odd, new relationship developed between Mackenzie and Fire Dancer.
During the day, she made a point to ignore him when she passed him in the fort yard. When they attended one of Major Albertson's suppers, she avoided him, remaining beside Josh and her father or their host.
Perhaps she avoided Fire Dancer out of a sense of guilt that she was disobeying her father, or perhaps she did it because she didn't trust herself. It was easier for her to ignore Fire Dancer in public than to talk to him without anyone suspecting the truth of her feelings for him, especially since she really didn't know what those feelings were.
Mackenzie told herself that she allowed Fire Dancer to come to her room at night so that she could study him. Night after night she let him in her window. He talked. She listened. Sometimes she talked and he listened. Sometimes they argued. Fire Dancer saw the British and French as nothing but a blight on his people. Mackenzie tried to convince him that they could all live in harmony, that the Shawnee and Lenape and the other tribes could learn from the white man. Fire Dancer only laughed and stretched out on her bed, his hands tucked behind his head, his half naked body gleaming in the lamplight. They talked until the middle of the early morning. Sometimes until the stars began to disappear and the sun began to show its first rays.
Then he left and she began painting.
Chapter Seven
Mackenzie leaned on the hitching rail, too busy watching through the open gate of the fort for a glimpse of Fire Dancer to pay attention to the conversation between her father and Major Albertson. For a full week, he'd secretly been coming every night to her tiny, dimly lit quarters. The more time she spent with him, the more time she wanted to spend with him. She experienced the strangest feelings when he was around. Her stomach was queasy whenever he was near, as if he made her ill, yet when he was gone, she missed him.
As agreed, they didn't converse in public at all. If they passed in the compound, they would cordially nod, avoiding eye-contact. If Fire Dancer was invited to Major Albertson's supper table, Mackenzie avoided him, staying close to her father and Joshua.
Because they only spoke at night in the privacy of her quarters, by day Mackenzie had to be content to watch him from afar. Twice this week, he had somehow managed to get into the fort during the day and leave a gift on her bed without being seen. Once it had been a shiny black stone, and another time, a wood carving of a bird no bigger than her thumbnail. She kept both gifts safe in her traveling trunk along with the silver snuff box Mary had given her.
As Mackenzie searched for Fire Dancer among the men that milled about, she told herself that she searched for him because she was an artist and artists study their subjects. She studied him only because she was interested in portraying him as accurately as she could. She smiled at her own cleverness. And paint him she would.
Not seeing Fire Dancer, Mackenzie turned around and leaned back against the hitching rail. The Major was saying something about Major DuBois in a hushed tone. Was he coming? Was that what he'd said?
"So when you expecting him, Harry?" Her father puffed on his long-stemmed Dutch pipe. The smoke encircled his head and then drifted away in the still, hot afternoon air.
"The runner brought a message saying he'll be here in no more than a week, as long as he doesn't run into trouble."
"He's coming? The French major is finally coming?" Mackenzie interrupted unable to control her excitement. All she could think of was her success. With Harry's portrait done, she would paint DuBois, and then finish Fire Dancer's portrait.
"So says the half-breed runner he sent. Said DuBois was right as rain and anxious to return to the peace talks. I thought maybe the messenger had something to do with this morning's assignment." Mackenzie nodded in the direction of the palisade. Outside the wall most of the soldiers were lined up, spades in hand. She could hear the sound of their shovels as they dug.
"That?" Harry lifted his beefy hand and let it fall. "Just a precaution. I'm having them dig a trench so that the bulwark will be more difficult to climb."
Mackenzie turned to glance at the jagged walls. She knew first hand that the wall could be climbed. That was how Fire Dancer reached her each night. It hadn't occurred to her that they could be attacked by hostiles the same way. The hair on the back of neck prickled as she turned to face Harry again. "You're expecting trouble?" All she could think of was that if there was fighting, her father would take her away from the fort.
"A good leader always expects trouble." Harry plucked at his shaggy beard. "Don't worry that pretty red head of yours, Mackenzie. Truth is, I'm just giving the boys something to do."
Franklin spoke with his pipe clenched between his teeth. "What aren't you telling, Harry? You and I have known each other too long not to be honest with each other."
"Well . . ." Harry stalled. "Things happen out here. Isolated incidents."
"What? What happened?" Mackenzie half-whispered.
Harry made a point to study the cannon one of the soldiers was polishing on the palisade wall. "A patrol from another fort—only down the river a good day's ride from here—were ambushed."
Mackenzie's eyes widened. "By Indians?"
"Had to be." The Major grimaced. "They were all scalped and their livers were cut out."
Mackenzie swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. "But they wouldn't attack Fort Belvadere, would they? Not with the Shawnee delegation here. Not when you're trying to negotiate peace?"
"As I said, it was an isolated incident, Mackenzie. The redskins have got renegades the same as our army does and so do the French." He rested his hand on her shoulder. "No need to be afraid. We're as safe as the king's coffer. I've doubled the patrols and by week's end these boys will have that trench dug all the way around the fort."
Mackenzie watched Harry. "I'm not afraid. Honestly I'm not. I—"
"Major!" Lieutenant Burrow strode down the wooden walk, his polished boots tapping on the planks. "I must speak with you, sir." He halted and saluted.
Major Albertson returned the salute. "What is it now, Burrow? I told you what to do with Private Peters. A few days digging the new shit hole—pardon, Mackenzie—and he'll not sleep on duty again, Lieutenant."
The young man shook his head. "No, sir, it's not Peters. It's another matter."
"Yes, Lieutenant. Make it quick."
"It's about thievery, sir."
Mackenzie's attention was immediately tapped. Before Burrow said another word, she had a sneaking suspicion she knew what this was about.
"Thievery?" Albertson question gruffly.
"Yes, sir. Something has been stolen from me. From my personal affects."
"A thief among our men?" The major lifted his brow. "You know I won't tolerate thieving or taking the good Lor
d's name in vain. What's missing?"
"A snuff box, sir."
Mackenzie just stood there, barely hearing what the men said next. Of course, she knew where the snuff box was. It was in her room. She knew who stole it, too.
"Sterling silver and rather valuable," Burrow went on. "My father gave it to me before we set sail from Bristol. It was my grandfather's, sir, and of great sentimental merit."
Mackenzie felt a sense of rising panic. She had to do something before the soldiers found out what Mary had done.
"You certain you didn't misplace the thing?"
"No, sir, I—"
"Excuse me, gentlemen." She touched her hand to her forehead. "I've been foolish enough to misremember my bonnet again and now I fear my head aches."
The Lieutenant swept off his hat. "Are you in need of an escort to your quarters, mistress?" She must have appeared pale because he put out his hand as if he thought she might faint.
"Mackenzie?" Franklin took a step toward her.
"No. I'll be fine. Really." She lifted her hand to stop them. "I just think I need to lay down. Father. Major. Lieutenant." She gave a quick curtsy, bidding them good-bye, and then headed for the inside door. She had to talk to Fire Dancer. Quickly. He would know what to do about Mary.
A few minutes later, Mackenzie walked along the palisade walkway with her hands tucked behind her back, her bonnet tied neatly beneath her chin. Hopefully, to the soldiers, she appeared to be taking an afternoon stroll. She batted at a mosquito that buzzed around her head, and nodded cordially to a lieutenant seated on one of the cannons posted waist high on the corner guard tower.
"Afternoon, mistress."
She smiled at John Allen, the young man Mary was interested in. "Good afternoon, Lieutenant Allen."
Mackenzie swatted at another mosquito, slapping it dead on her shoulder. She peeled the insect off her homespun sleeve and flicked it off her finger. She passed two privates playing cards on the top of an empty ale keg. They nodded. All the while, Mackenzie searched her surroundings for Fire Dancer. His horse was inside the fort walls. Surely he was here somewhere, too.
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