Through the Fire (The Native American Warrior Series)

by Beth Trissel

  She gathered the blanket close. “I’m still running.”

  He clasped her arms and turned her toward him with unexpectedly gentle hands. His eyes had lost their hardness and his scowl was gone, supplanted by a whisper of sympathy. “Stay from the English. No warrior will do this to you.”

  “I have no wish to return to the English or to go with the French. I have given myself to your brother.”

  “I know this.” He offered neither blessing nor rebuke, though she thought she sensed some small degree of acceptance.

  Lifting his head, he watched Shoka descend. “What has your woman hidden?”

  Shoka dropped to the ground beside them and opened his palm. Wabete looked from the handful of coins glinting in the day’s last light to Rebecca in disbelief. “You took this from your father?”

  “No. My late husband, Captain Elliot, gave me the coins the last time I saw him alive.”

  Admiration hinted in Wabete’s eyes. “This captain cared much for you.”

  “Yes. I’ve given the gold to Shoka.”

  Surprise touched the older man’s pensive scrutiny. “Your heart is full for my brother.”

  “And his for me.”

  Wabete nodded, then raised a cautioning hand. “Have care, Rebecca Elliot. Your wealth cannot buy back Shoka’s life. We are at war, yet he has eyes only for you.”

  A chill ran down her spine and she stared at him.

  Shoka came between then, enfolding her in his strong arms. “I know the danger, NiSawsawh, but love must be taken where it is found.”

  ****

  Raindrops glistened on the leaves and along the delicate strands of spider webs festooning the trees and sparkling like diamonds in the morning light. The crisp breeze snatched at Rebecca’s blanket as she pulled on her stockings, pockmarked with holes, then her shoes, and did the laces. Moisture beaded her skirts hanging from the branch where Shoka had left them.

  She shied at the thought of wet cloth against her already chilled skin, but she lifted her petticoats from the sycamore branch and shivered into them. This cold damp against her upper body would be worse. Perhaps the men would be slow to resume their journey, giving her shift and gown time to dry.

  The scent of wild game cooking over open flames wafted down from farther up the ridge. Had Shoka meant for her to go on to the main camp or to wait here? His place at her side in the cave had been cold as was last night’s campfire. No crackling warmth had greeted her, or roasting meat to fill her grumbling stomach. Closing the blanket around her shoulders, she held it together in front with one hand, then hiked up the ridge and rounded a bend.

  The rocky fortress from yesterday jutted before her. Groups of men sat beneath its wide overhang before a series of campfires, haunches of venison roasting over the flames. Watchful eyes followed as she walked past. She flushed under their inspection, wondering what they thought of an English woman so feverishly entwined with one of their own.

  Her shoulders dropped in relief when she spotted Meshewa.

  He waved to her. “Come, Becca. Sit, eat.”

  She darted to him and sat by his side. A purplish-black stain ringed one puffy eye and mottled his cheek. The split on his lip still marred his smile but it appeared to be closing.

  He held out a piece of venison to her on the tip of his knife. “Thank you.” Taking the warm smoky meat, she bit into it hungrily.

  She looked around the camp for Shoka—nowhere in sight. Lieutenant McClure lay sprawled a short distance away from them in a grassy crevice between the stones. Poor man. “How did you fare on the trail yesterday, Lieutenant?”

  He nodded his darkly bruised face at Meshewa. “Tolerably, with that one’s help.”

  She squeezed her young friend’s arm beneath his blue sleeve. “You are kind to aid him. Again, thank you.”

  “Megwich, Becca. Speak this in Shawnee.”

  “Megwich. Where is Shoka?”

  He pointed ahead through the trees and down the sloping trail. Thick branches obscured most of the small group of warriors gathered around someone. She could just make out Shoka’s tall figure. “What’s happening?”

  “Wabete and Shoka took a youth captive.”

  “When?”

  Meshewa looked at her as though she had missed the obvious. “While they hunt. Before the sun,” he added. “You sleep hard, Becca.”

  She nodded with an irrepressible small smile and tried unsuccessfully to get a better look at the captive. At least they didn’t seem to be doling out any punishment to him. “What do you know of the youth?”

  “Shoka says he strayed from the fort, hunting.”

  Her heart quickened. “Fort Warden?”

  “Yes.” Meshewa spoke guardedly.

  Hope swelled in her. “He may know of my uncle. Even have word of Kate,” she said, and leapt up.

  Meshewa pulled her back down. “Black Knife speaks with him now.”

  A shadow engulfed her at the name. “Black Knife? God help him.”

  “He does not harm all captives.”

  “If he questions this youth as he did Lieutenant McClure, there will be little left. Where is Capitaine Renault? He wouldn’t be so heavy-handed.”

  “The capitaine and his party are gone on. We will meet them later. Wait here.” Meshewa was firm.

  She sat with the patience of one perched on an anthill, straining for sight of the unfortunate captive. Meshewa pointed to the remains of her breakfast fallen onto one of the stones ringing the fire. She forced down several bites, stopping at the sharp cry from below.

  “Black Knife will kill him!”

  “Is only one cry, Becca. The boy has much fear.”

  “With good reason. I must speak with him while he’s able to answer.”

  “This is not for you to do.”

  Lieutenant McClure coughed and cleared the rattle from his throat. “Do not invite the chief’s wrath, Mrs. Elliot.”

  “Shoka may be able to persuade him to let me speak.”

  Meshewa’s stern eyes twinned Shoka’s at his most severe. “You show no respect. Wait for Shoka.”

  “It may be too late by then.”

  She scrambled to her feet. Meshewa jumped up after her and seized her arms. “I cannot let you go.”

  Not willing to await his permission, she thrust an elbow up under his jaw, stamped on his foot, and spiraled away.

  He sprang at her with the agility of a bobcat and caught her from behind. She thrashed in his hold. “Turn me loose!”

  “Mrs. Elliot, for Christ’s sake. Settle down,” Lieutenant McClure admonished, his voice weak.

  She ignored him and fought again to wrench herself from Meshewa, screeching as her blanket came away in his hands. Torn between trying to snatch it back and covering herself, she chose the latter, crossing both arms over her breasts. “Give it to me.”

  His astonished eyes mirrored the amazement in Lieutenant McClure’s gape. Then Meshewa grinned. “I think you will stay if I keep your cover.”

  She couldn’t even make a grab for it. “Please.”

  “Promise to wait for Shoka.”

  As much as she wanted her blanket it rankled her to strike this bargain. She whirled away, conscious of the delighted warriors on every side.

  “Becca! Your back.”

  “Damn.” Her wind-tossed hair had betrayed her secret.

  “Who did this to you?”

  Shame and impotent fury coursed through her. “My father. Now the whole bloody camp knows.”

  Meshewa lightly touched her shoulder. “All see he treated you very bad. Also see your beauty.”

  Her voice quavered. “Wretched man. I hate him.”

  “Hate is like poison. It will harm also you.”

  “I don’t care. I’d shoot him if I could. No. That’s too easy. Black Knife should get hold of him.”

  “Shhhh…” Meshewa wrapped the blanket back around her.

  “I can’t help it. You would want him dead too.”

  “I do. But wi
shing this does little good.”

  “It’s the closest I’ll ever get.” She stumbled down the path a short distance away from the others and sought refuge behind the boughs of a hemlock. Only then did she allow the last of her composure to crumble and the tears flow.

  Meshewa came up on cat’s feet behind her. “I wanted only to keep you from Black Knife’s anger, not cause you pain.”

  She fought to speak past the strangling sobs in her throat. “Papa bound my wrists then he got the strap. I couldn’t escape. Do you know what it’s like to be caught and there’s nothing you can do?”

  Meshewa closed sympathetic arms around her. She didn’t stop to consider whether or not he should be holding her and nestled into the hollow of his shoulder.

  “Not as you, yet I know,” he said. “My heart is full for you, and you belong to Shoka. I can do nothing.”

  “Do you care for me as much as this?” she choked out.

  “Do you not see? I prefer to fight with you than love another.”

  Remorse stung her. “I only fought you because I badly want to see the boy. I’m sorry.”

  “Meshewa! Wa peh chali mi’tamsah?”

  Rebecca froze at the anger in Shoka’s rebuke.

  Meshewa dropped his arms from her and backed away.

  She turned and met Shoka’s slitted eyes. “Meshewa was only giving me comfort.”

  “Why do you need such comfort?”

  She glanced at Meshewa. He still said nothing. “I wanted to come question your captive. Meshewa refused.”

  “You weep for this?”

  “There is more,” Meshewa confessed. “I saw her back. She remembers her father’s punishment.”

  Shoka’s hardened face bore an unsettling resemblance to his brother’s. “How did you see her back?”

  “Her blanket came away in my hands.”

  “You saw more than her back.”

  “Don’t blame him. It was my fault,” Rebecca insisted.

  “Melona wa callaweelo, Meshewa,” Shoka said coldly.

  She looked at him in confusion. “What did you say?”

  “I told him we will speak.”

  “Only speak,” she entreated.

  Shoka waved aside her objection and took her arm. She cast a backwards glance over her shoulder as he hauled her away and glimpsed a frightened face framed by long brown hair.

  “Wait—I must speak with the boy.”

  “I questioned him. Kate is not at the fort.”

  Disappointment cut through Rebecca. “Then where is she?”

  “I do not know. It is best she’s not there,” Shoka said flatly. “Come with me now. I will tell you what I learned.”

  Rebecca hurried beside his long strides without further protest, but their passage through camp did not go unobserved.

  “Paca tamsah!” one man called.

  She recognized the Shawnee for “beautiful woman.”

  Many of the men nodded. “Paca wiyo’tawai! Paca ullene!” the speaker added while a few of his companions tittered.

  She didn’t need to understand their comments. Enough was clear in their banter to know it concerned her. “You’d think they’d never seen a white woman before.”

  Shoka tensed. “Few warriors see this much of a white woman unless they take her to wife.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Beautiful body, beautiful breasts. Did all look on you?”

  She shrank at the thought. “More than I realized.”

  He whisked her down around the bend in the trail and back to their separate little camp. Her gown and shift still flapped in the tree. “Why do you not wear your clothes?”

  She walked to the blackened remains of their fire and huddled on the flat stone. “They were wet.”

  He followed and stopped in front of her. “You are in the frontier now. You cannot always expect to wear dry cloth.”

  She looked morosely at his moccasins. “I fear I’m not well suited to the frontier.”

  “To what are you suited? A fine home with servants and an English lord who beats you?”

  Sniffing, she shook her head.

  “A homestead with a settler who treats you more gently?”

  Gravity had displaced his reproach. She looked up at him in bewilderment. “Why ask this? You know I love you.”

  His eyes were black pools. “A woman may love, yet choose another.”

  She stood and reached her arms around his neck, pressing her cheek to his chest. “Is this because of Meshewa?”

  He held her to him. “No.”

  “Who, then? Who do you fear I will choose over you?”

  “Your people.”

  She raised her eyes to his troubled gaze. “When? How?”

  “This youth Wabete and I captured is your blood. Logan McCutcheon, son of Henry McCutcheon.”

  “Logan.” The name echoed forth from the past. She dimly recalled letters telling of his birth and childhood. “There is a younger sister as well.”

  “Henry McCutcheon shelters at Fort Warden. His wife died of sickness. One daughter, Tessa, remains.”

  “Yes, Tessa.” Shoka’s words sank in, weighting her with horrific thoughts of the impending assault. “I still have family. Have I learned of their existence only to lose them?”

  “Black Knife agreed to spare Henry McCutcheon and the sister Logan spoke of, if your uncle will surrender.”

  “You mean become captives, he and Tessa?”

  “We will treat your kin well.”

  “But I heard Logan cry out. Someone struck him.”

  “Black Knife only frightened him. Wabete wishes to adopt this boy in place of the son he lost.”

  Oddly, Rebecca found she was beginning to trust Shoka’s scarred brother. “What of Tessa and Uncle Henry? Do you think my uncle will agree to Black Knife’s terms?”

  The set of Shoka’s mouth was forbidding. “Perhaps. If you appeal to him.”

  “Me? How?”

  “Black Knife wishes you to approach the fort while we wait in the trees.”

  “Alone?”

  “To call out to your uncle and Captain Bancroft. Persuade them many lives will be spared if they surrender.”

  “Is this the truth?”

  “More will live than if the captain refuses.”

  She weighed the reluctance in Shoka’s eyes. “Be honest with me. Have you forgotten I can read faces, too?”

  “I did speak the truth. If Captain Bancroft surrenders, many young men and women will be taken captive, the children also, their lives spared.”

  “What about the rest of them?”

  “Older people refuse to learn our ways. They think only to escape. Nor can we take all the young, if there are many.”

  She quailed to think of so many lives wasted. “Could you not allow some people to go free?”

  “They will only live to fight us again.”

  “The fierceness of Shawnee warfare sickens me.”

  “All warfare is bitter. Musket balls tear great holes in men. Swords and tomahawks cut them to pieces. The ground is so slick with blood you cannot stand, the air so thick with gunpowder you cannot see. And always you hear the screams of the wounded and the dying in your ears.”

  She leaned heavily against him. “That’s how John died, isn’t it?”

  Shoka pressed his lips to her cheek. “Perhaps it was quick and he saw your face. This gave him comfort.”

  “I pray so. At least he had the chance to defend himself. What chance have those who are not taken captive?”

  “These helpless ones will not die by my hand, Rebecca. I give you my word to kill only men in battle.”

  “What do you think Captain Bancroft will choose? What would you?”

  “It is better to fight and die with honor than to be the captive of another.”

  Dismay washed over her. “My uncle will feel the same. Still, I suppose I must do as Black Knife wishes.”

  “I fear for you.”

  “Why? The men in the f
ort won’t fire on me, and the warriors waiting in the trees wild hold off, won’t they?”

  “Yes. Yet, once you enter the clearing outside Fort Warden, I cannot come to you without the risk of being shot. Those within may call out and beg you to come inside. If you go to them, I can do nothing to prevent you.”

  She heaved a shuddering breath. “I won’t.”

  Shoka embraced her fiercely. “Hear me well. When the attack begins, there will be much fire, heavy smoke, musket balls flying like hard rain, and great danger to all within the fort. I would keep you safely hidden in the trees.”

  “And I wish with all my heart we could travel another path. Oh, Shoka, I just want to go home.”

  “Where is your home, Rebecca?”

  “With you. I have no other.”

  “If my people cease to fight, the day will come when we have none.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut then opened them again. “Before we go on, there’s something I want to give you.”

  “Beyond your gold?”

  “More precious than that,” she said shakily and reached behind her neck to unclasp her necklace. The locket shone in the sunlight as she opened the golden sphere to reveal the face of a young woman, poised with an air of expectancy.

  He looked wonderingly at the miniature. “It’s you.”

  “John had my likeness painted and placed in this locket. He kept it with him always. After his death, the locket was returned. I fastened it around my neck and vowed never to remove it.”

  “Now you have?”

  “For this.” She shut the locket and lifted both ends of the chain around Shoka’s neck. Smoothing his black hair aside, she fastened the clasp. “I will be faithful to the man who wears my locket, Shoka.”

  “You are giving me your pledge?”

  She steadied her voice. “Before God.”

  He closed warm fingers around her hand. “I also give you mine, Rebecca Elliot.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Shoka waited for Rebecca on the stream bank, watching appreciatively as she waded from the water. Her hair flowed over her shoulders and down her back like a sun-kissed waterfall and she’d tugged her already shortened skirts further up her shapely legs. Fiery need flared up in him and it was nearly impossible to keep going toward an uncertain fate when all he wanted was this woman. The one searing taste he’d had of her delights only inflamed his need for her.