Fire Dancer

by Colleen French

  Mackenzie laid her head back on his shoulder, closing her eyes. Her body still pulsed with tiny shivers of pleasure. She knew Fire Dancer had to leave her, but she was satisfied that at least once in her life she had experienced real love. That it had been Fire Dancer who gave it to her. She wanted to savor every second of the feeling. She wanted to carry it with her forever.

  "Fire Dancer," she whispered. She didn't know exactly what she wanted to say, but she wanted him to know how she felt about him. What he meant to her in her heart. "I—"

  "Shhhh. Do not speak of what there are no words for. This man must return to his people. You must go home with your father where you will be safe—" He stretched out his leg on the bed and struck something hard. "Ouch. What trap do you lay for me on your sleeping mat, woman?"

  In an instant Mackenzie realized what he had hit. It was the portrait! She had completely forgotten about it. She'd left it on the bed and they'd made love with it at their feet.

  She remember an instant too late.

  He sat up and reached beneath the twisted counterpane.

  Mackenzie rose on her knees, shoving her shift down over her bare hips.

  Fire Dancer gazed at his portrait and his face turned black with rage. "What is this?" he demanded.

  "Shhhhh." She tried to snatch the portrait from him. "You'll wake Joshua and then we'll both be done for!"

  He leapt from the bed, naked. He stared at the small painting. "I told you, you could not paint me."

  "I'm sorry." She started to cry. "I . . . I meant no harm to you. I only—"

  "Silence!" he hissed. "Don't you understand what you've done?"

  She rose off the bed, shocked that Fire Dancer could be so angry with her. For heaven's sake, he'd just made love with her. How could he—

  "Do you understand?" he repeated through clenched teeth.

  The look on his face, the fury in his black eyes, made her realize that she did not understand. "No. No, I don't." She fought back a sob. She truly was sorry.

  "You captured a part of my soul, white woman. You have taken a part of me."

  "No. I haven't. That's ridiculous." She tried to grasp the painting but she couldn't get it from him.

  "You painted my likeness and you took a part of me. You captured my heart falsely."

  "I didn't. That's absurd. But . . . but we . . . we can just destroy it. Burn it."

  "No!" He ground his teeth. "We cannot destroy it without destroying the one called Fire Dancer of the Thunder Sky." Tucking the painting beneath his arm, he jerked his loin skin off the floor and tied it on, quickly adding the knife and sheath. "Clothe yourself! You go with me."

  Mackenzie was terrified. This man who shouted at her and talked of captured souls was not the gentle man she had fallen in love with. She began to back up toward the door. This man . . . this man was a stranger. This man was some kind of beast. A savage. And she was afraid.

  With a scream, Mackenzie threw herself against the door. "Josh! Josh!" she hollered.

  "Are you mad?" Fire Dancer grabbed her roughly by the arm and dragged her toward the bed.

  He was serious. He meant to take her away. To kidnap her.

  "Mackenzie !" Josh Watkins shouted in panic from the other side of the door. He rattled the bar that locked her in.

  "Josh! Josh, help me. He's kidnapping me."

  "Mackenzie?" Josh flung open the door and stumbled inside. He tried to take aim with his musket.

  Fire Dancer took one look at Joshua and let go of Mackenzie, flinging her backwards. She fell back onto the bed just as Josh raised his weapon.

  "No!" Mackenzie screamed. She didn't want Fire Dancer to kidnap her, but she didn't want him dead, either. Without thought of her own well-being, she hurled herself in front of the man she had just made love with. At the same instant Josh's musket exploded with sound and smoke.

  Chapter Twelve

  Fire Dancer flung out his arms to catch Mackenzie as she fell. The portrait hit the plank floor and slid away. "Mahtah," he cried. He dropped on one knee to break her fall.

  She landed in his arms, her eyes closed as if she were sleeping peacefully. A sense of panic ripped through Fire Dancer's chest as he frantically pushed her hair from her face. "Look what you have done!" he shouted in rage. "You have killed her!"

  "No. No." The man with the sandy hair retreated. The musket fell from his hands with a clatter.

  "Mack-en-zie, Mack-en-zie, lenowaiwee." Fire Dancer lifted her and her head fell back. Her magical hair draped over his knees in a curtain of red tresses. The curls at her temple were still damp from their lovemaking in the hot room. He pushed back her hair to see a bloody gouge on her temple. The idiot had shot her in the head, but the musket ball had not penetrated her skull, only grazed it.

  Fire Dancer pressed his mouth to hers in a fevered kiss. She still drew breath . . . She was unconscious, but alive. Tapalamawatah willing, she would wake, given time.

  Outside, Fire Dancer heard the soldiers call to arms. Men shouted. Doors slammed. Joshua's gunfire had alerted them. They would be here any moment.

  Fire Dancer lifted Mackenzie as gently as he could to his shoulder and ran for the door. He ignored Joshua who cowered in the corner of the room. More boy than man, he was not worth Fire Dancer's time.

  As Fire Dancer darted out of the room, he swiped his portrait off the floor. To lose it now, would mean certain death.

  Fire Dancer burst through the doorway. He could hear feet pounding on the stairway.

  "Mackenzie! Mackenzie!" Franklin Daniels called. "I'm coming, honey. Papa's coming."

  Fire Dancer raced back into the room. He climbed up onto the bed with Mackenzie still in his arms. Could he pull her through the window? There was only one way to find out. He bent her knees so that she knelt and let her slump forward. Unconscious, she was as limp as a cloth doll.

  Fire Dancer lowered himself through the window, feet first. He caught her below the armpits as he squeezed through the window.

  He groaned under the strain of her slack weight. If he let go of her now, he would have to climb back through the window to get her. There wasn't time for that.

  "Mackenzie!" Franklin Daniels cried, more urgently than before.

  Fire Dancer couldn't see him, but he had to be at the door by now. Fire Dancer concentrated on getting Mackenzie out the window. He gritted his teeth and heaved with every ounce of strength he could muster.

  "What the fiery hell are you doing?" hollered Daniels, obviously inside the room. "You can't take her! You can't take my daughter."

  With one surge of power, Fire Dancer snatched her out the window. He fell on his backside, cushioning her fall with his body. As he hit the timber walkway, he heard the frame of the portrait tucked in his loincloth snap. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that the canvas remain intact.

  "Bring her back, do you hear me?" Daniels shouted through the window. "Get up, Josh! Get up and go, boy. We have to stop that savage before he carries her off into the forest! We'll have to go around!"

  Fire Dancer heard the two men retreat and knew that they headed down the stairs and out of the building so that they could reach him on the bulwark. The delay gave him precious minutes.

  He bounded to his feet and lifted Mackenzie onto his shoulder again. She was still unconscious.

  He would have to repel down the wall. It would be too far for him to jump with her in his arms.

  As he started for the wall, a flaming arrow flew toward him, passing over his head. The missile struck the wall of Mackenzie's room and set the bark of the logs on fire.

  Attack? Who was attacking?

  Without warning, the air rained with flaming arrows. He heard a burst of war cries. Muskets roared in response, and all at once the air filled with smoke and the stench of black powder and the cries of men. A canon belched in retaliation for the arrows. Men appeared on the bulwark and scattered in opposite directions. No one noticed Fire Dancer in the darkness and the chaos.

  He hugged Macken
zie against his body. Now he not only had to escape the soldiers, but the warring redmen below. He pressed a fevered kiss to her temple. "This man will not let you die," he whispered. "No matter what you have done to me, I will see you live."

  Fire Dancer hurried along the wall, cursing himself for not bringing a rope. He could have gotten one from Tall Moccasin. How would he ever get Mackenzie down off the wall now? Did he dare try to make it down the ladder and out the back gate?

  "Stop there," a familiar voice challenged from behind.

  Fire Dancer felt like a fool. He had become too caught up in his emotions. He had let his guard fall and the father approach.

  Slowly Fire Dancer turned to face Franklin Daniels. Fire Dancer held Mackenzie cradled in his arms, her head flung back, her long hair dragging the ground.

  "Put 'er down." Daniels held his musket pointed directly at him.

  "You would not take the risk of shooting your daughter," Fire Dancer challenged.

  "I will if I have to. I'd rather see her dead than raped by one of your kind."

  The man was barefooted and dressed in a white night shirt stuffed into open breeches. A pistol protruded from the waistband. His bald head reflected the light of the spreading blaze. All around the two men musket fire cracked in the night. The smoke had thickened and choked them both.

  Fire Dancer stared at the father. The man spoke in earnest He thought Fire Dancer was going to harm her.

  "I'll make you a deal." Franklin waved the musket. "Put 'er down and I'll let ye go. I'll let ye go right over that wall in thanks. I don't want you. Only my girl."

  Fire Dancer could see the man's tears on his cheeks.

  Fire Dancer tried to sum up his position. He was backed against a wall, surrounded by musket fire and soldiers. There was an unknown enemy on the other side of the wall. What did he do now?

  He didn't care about himself, but he was concerned that Mackenzie might be further injured.

  On impulse, he made the decision to put her down without knowing what he would do next. Could he really leave her behind and try to save himself? Yet, if he lost her, he lost that part of his soul she had taken when she painted him. Would it weaken him so that he could not make it home? Where was a holy man when he needed him?

  Fire Dancer saw no good choice.

  He stared through the darkness at the father. "I will put her down if you give this man your word. On your honor, on your mother's heart, you will not harm this man if he gives you your daughter."

  Franklin nodded. "On my honor."

  Fire Dancer felt his heart tearing inside his chest. How would he know if she was all right? What would he do without her? All would be lost, but she would live.

  Slowly he lowered Mackenzie's unconscious body to the log walkway, all the while breathing deeply, trying to place the scent of her hair in some special corner of his mind. He brushed the hair from her cheek one last time, then straightened to face Daniels.

  Fire Dancer wasn't sure what happened next. How did he know the father would fire? Instinct. Franklin Daniels moved slightly. Fire Dancer drew his knife. Daniels fired the musket point blank. Fire Dancer reacted as any warrior would, knowing the musket ball would reach him before the knife struck its target. He threw the knife in self-defense and dodged right.

  The musket ball missed.

  The knife did not.

  Franklin Daniels dropped to his knees. The musket fell from his hands. His eyes were wide with surprise. His fingers gripped the hilt of the knife that protruded from the left side of his upper chest. He made a strange noise and then fell forward, dead before he hit the palisade.

  Fire Dancer stood frozen, staring at the body. He had killed Mackenzie's father. Yet what choice had there been? The man had lied. And if the musket ball hadn't hit Fire Dancer, surely the ball from the pistol in Daniel's breeches would have struck home. Self-defense.

  Fire Dancer looked at Mackenzie lying limp. She was not a small woman, but lying unconscious, she seemed small and helpless. He had to take her with him. Fate had laid the path.

  Fire Dancer retrieved his knife from the father's chest. He closed the man's eyes and whispered a prayer. He blew the words toward heaven. Then he turned his back on the man who had betrayed the code of honor, and hoisted Mackenzie onto his shoulder.

  "Hey! There's another one!" Fire Dancer heard a soldier shout amidst the musket fire and Indian war cries. "Kill him! Kill 'im. The red bastard's got Miss Daniels."

  Fire Dancer ran to the edge of the wall and looked down. A musket ball whistled by, too close for comfort. The grass on the far side of the trench loomed far below. The drop was nearly the height of three men. He could have done it easily without Mackenzie, but would his legs hold with her added weight, or would they snap?

  "Get the bastard!"

  Another musket ball whizzed by.

  Fire Dancer glanced up into the skies. "Your will, Father," he mumbled in the tongue of his ancestors, then leapt into the air.

  Major Albertson strode through the center of the compound, attempting to survey the damage and set some order to the chaos of the night. "Out of my way." He gave the sow a kick on her rump and she squealed and darted between the water barrels.

  Dawn had finally come. The Indians had retreated and the fort was still standing. Most of the fires had been put out. He swept his hat off his head and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was already hot and barely seven in the morning.

  "O'Donaho!" he shouted.

  "Sir." The private ran behind his major, trying to catch up.

  "I want you to round up the officers and have them meet me in the dining hall."

  "Sir, there ain't no dining hall left." The boy indicated a pile of smoldering rubble with his pointed chin.

  Harry stared at the charred timbers for a moment. He'd known the main building of the fort had burned to the ground, thanks to the Indian's pitch arrows. He'd forgotten, yet made no apologies. A man's mind worked strangely after a redskin attack. "The kitchen is standing. Tell 'em to meet me there in one hour and be ready to report. I want numbers. Deaths, injuries. And I want to know where we stand on ammunition. The munitions shed blew straight to hell or heaven, I don't know which. All we've got is what the men have on their persons."

  O'Donaho saluted. His hat was gone. His red uniform was torn and filthy, but the boy was in one piece. Harry was thankful for that.

  "That all, sir?" O'Donaho held the salute.

  "Aye. Go on with you. I'm going up on the wall to survey the damage from there."

  "Yes, Major." The young man lowered his salute and took off at a run.

  Only then did Harry realize that the private was wearing only one boot. "And Charlie . . ."

  The private whipped around. "Sir?"

  "Get a boot on that other foot else it'll rot in this mud."

  "I lost my boot, sir. Can't find it."

  "Get it off one of the dead men," Harry answered grimly. "They won't be needing it."

  Harry turned and walked away. He knew he'd shocked the boy, but what could he do for these green soldiers? He couldn't wipe their asses all the time. They had to grow up someday. An attack like this usually did it. The new soldiers either died in attacks or they lived and gained the experience to survive the next one. It was like that in war.

  Harry climbed the nearest ladder onto the walkway. From up here he could survey the damage better. He tucked his hands behind his back as if he was out for a morning stroll in Hyde Park. The wall was missing a chunk up by the front gate. He would have that rebuilt today. There were a couple more places where posts would have to be replaced, but otherwise the walls had held. On the other hand, the inside of the fort had been decimated. Only three buildings still stood: the kitchen, the shed the Indian bastard had escaped from, and the shithouse. He sniggered at the irony of it.

  Harry stopped suddenly on the walkway and stared out into the treetops. Here was where Mackenzie had painted his portrait. Here was the best morning sunlight, she had said.


  Mackenzie . . .

  Harry felt tears well in his eyes and he rubbed at them. "Damned smoke," he muttered.

  How had it happened? How had he let it happen? When he received the report that an Indian had carried her unconscious over the wall he'd been unable to send men after them. The attack was still underway. By the time the fighting stopped, it was too late. The bastard was long gone.

  The soldier who witnessed the kidnapping couldn't identify the kidnapper, but Harry knew who it was. He had seen the way the Shawnee Prince had looked at Mackenzie. His regret now was that he hadn't killed the savage then. But no, he had behaved diplomatically, as his superiors in Boston had insisted. Hell, he was the one who had insisted on hiring a female artist to paint the portraits. He'd done it for selfish reasons. He knew how much she would appreciate the chance. And it was an opportunity to see her.

  Harry kicked a charred stick and then realized it was the handle of a paint brush.

  Mackenzie was gone.

  And Franklin? His dear friend—dead of a knife wound in the heart. Harry had pieced together what the soldiers told him with the obvious evidence. It proved that all Franklin had tried to do was save his daughter. He'd even managed to fire his weapon after the redskin inflicted the mortal wound.

  Harry turned away from the sunny place on the wall. He couldn't think about Mackenzie now. She was probably dead. God, he hoped so. Dead was better for a woman than being held captive by savages. He'd send out a few men to look for her body, but unfortunately, that would be all he could do. Right now, his duty was to the men here in the fort, and to his king. He had to call for reinforcements and repair the fort. Maybe then he could send out patrols.

  Harry tugged on his red beard, his eyes tearing up again. She was gone. He knew it. Every man here knew it. The sooner he accepted the fact, the sooner he could focus on rebuilding this fort. Mackenzie Daniels was dead. Mackenzie . . . the only woman he had ever loved.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mackenzie couldn't open her eyes or move her limbs. She felt as if she was floating in a warm, dark place. There was no pain, only a detached numbness. She wasn't afraid, but she was confused. The sounds and smells around her were unfamiliar. Where was she? Home? No. Fort Belvadere? No. Something pungent burned in the air. There were gentle voices, yet she had no understanding of the language.