ICE PRINCESS
Behind the Ranges, Book II
By
Judith B. Glad
Something hidden. Go and find it.
Go and look behind the ranges--
Something lost behind the Ranges.
Lost and waiting for you. Go.
Rudyard Kipling: The Explorer
Uncial Press Aloha, Oregon
2006
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Ice Princess
Copyright © 2003, 2006 by Judith B. Glad
Previously published by Awe-Struck E-Books
ISBN 13: 978-1-60174-010-6
ISBN 10; 1-60174-010-7
Cover design by Judith B. Glad
All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author or publisher.
Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com
DEDICATION
Many folks have helped and cheered me along the rocky, sometimes discouraging journey to publication. This book is dedicated to six women who critiqued my early manuscripts with honesty, courage, and love. Laurie, Phyllis, Karen, Barbara, RubyLee and Norma, I'd never have gotten here without you.
Or without Neil....
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In recent years a number of books and websites have shone new light on the lives of Black slaves in eighteenth and nineteenth century America. While I can't claim to have consulted all of them, I read enough to know that no suffering or hardship I could dream of for William to endure could possibly equal reality. I'd like to thank all those academic and genealogical researchers who have opened this window to a dark and shameful part of our past.
Prologue
Cherry Vale, Oregon Country: July, 1846
The knife slid through skin and gristle with a sound like ripping silk. Flower gripped the bone hilt, stared at blood pumping from the gaping cut. The man's body slackened onto the packed dirt floor as the flow subsided. She let the knife drop.
"It is done," she said. "I am avenged."
She looked down at her bloody hand. "Now I must cleanse myself," she said, her voice sounding hollow and distant in her own ears. Rising, she pushed past Hattie's outstretched hand, and rushed into the outer darkness.
Stumbling through the dark forest, she had no care for where she went. Her mind was filled with memories--of faces and places, of voices loved and feared, of joy and of pain.
At dawn, she went to ground in a half-cave left where a forest giant had fallen. She curled herself into a ball and tried to clear her mind while the voices raged in her head.
She hurt. Her face, her breasts. Most of all, her belly.
She held her pain unto herself, using it as a shield against remembering. Failing.
"The greatest gift a young woman can give her husband is purity."
"White men will see you as a filthy half-breed, my daughter, and they will treat you accordingly."
"Marry yourself a white man, leetle gal. They ain't an Injun alive will give you the kind of livin' you'd want."
"You are a child of sin, Pe-nah-he-ump, and you must never forget that your soul is irremediably soiled."
And over and over, "Don't fight me, woman, or you will die!"
She lived again the sharp pressure of the knife at her throat, the cutting of her shirt, the heat of his hands on her as he fondled her breasts, probed her secret places. The tearing agony as he shoved himself deep into her with a swift, painful thrust.
And most of all she hated herself that she had not fought.
Chapter One
Fort Vancouver: November 1846
Konrad Muller sat far back in the smoky room, never letting his gaze waver from the tall, buckskin-clad man who stood at the crude bar. The stranger wasn't drinking, although a copper mug of grog sat at his right hand. He was leaning across the bar, talking quietly and urgently to the bartender. Eventually an agreement must have been reached, for the two shook hands. The gent in buckskin dropped a coin on the bar, a coin that rang with a mellow note, a coin that was quickly caught up and concealed beneath a grimy apron.
Muller watched him leave, let him get well clear of the door before following. Then he crossed the room as if he had nowhere to go, nothing to do. When the tavern door squealed closed behind him, he slipped into the shadows of the Fort Vancouver stockade until he came to the muddy track leading to the docks. No matter where his prey was headed, he was likely to go to the waterfront first. Muller had seen him pay a young Indian to watch his pack.
Muller reached the waterfront first, faded into the shadows of a stand of fir where he had a good view of the sleeping Indian leaning against the pack. The moon wouldn't set until near dawn, so he wasn't likely to miss the gent's return. He could afford to be patient. As he waited, he mentally spent the fortune in gold that was to be his.
Muted speech woke Muller from a light doze. A pale winter dawn hovered over the mountains to the east. Three men, all tall and lithe, all clad in fringed buckskins, were clustered about the Indian boy. Two pack mules carried traps and knobby bundles. A third mule waited patiently.
Muller cursed under his breath. He watched, immobile, as the man with the gold coins hefted his pack across the mule's back and swung up before it. Within minutes Muller's fortune rode out along the trail heading east.
He wasn't more than an hour behind the trappers.
By the time the trio reached The Dalles, Muller was scarcely a mile behind, unworried that they would think him following. The traffic from Fort Vancouver was almost constant these days.
His pockets were all but empty. He'd been thinking on ways to acquire some of the silver brought West by new emigrants, but then he'd been distracted by the tall trapper's unusual golden coins.
If there were two coins, it was likely there were more.
* * * *
Valley of the Boise: March, 1847
William watched Buff's cabin all day, waiting for some movement to show Flower was there. Nothing moved, save fluttering brown birds in the willows, a coyote nosing in the pile of dry bones behind the outhouse. The air was still, so still that he could hear the Boise River talkin' to itself, a full quarter-mile away.
The log cabin wasn't much more than a dugout, its backside right up against the hill behind it. The door opened in, but it was thick wood planks and wouldn't be easy broke. He'd bide his time.
Every hour or so he stretched his legs, knowing that when he moved, it might have to be quickly. Whenever the cold seeped through the mountain sheep skin he wore like a coat, he tightened his arm and shoulder muscles.
Once in a while he saw a faint waver in the air above the chimney that told him there was heat inside, a careful fire of well-dried wood barely smoldering. William had tended fires in that very fireplace and knew just how long it could smolder.
He had time. He could wait.
At dusk he moved closer, slipping among the thick cottonwood trunks until he was within fifty feet of the cabin door. He settled behind a clump of dry goldenrod, knowing his stained and mottled leather clothing would blend with the standing dead stalks. Only his eyes could give him away, their whites gleaming in the fading light.
Like a hunter, he could be patient. He had pursued her for months now. A few hours, even a few days, would do nothing more than try his patience.
He likened his vigil to that of a hunter, seeking wounded game. S
he had gone to ground as surely as a gutshot doe, fated to die slowly and painfully. Except that her wounds were of the spirit, not of the body. Hadn't he seen other folks die when their spirits were tried beyond belief?
It was full dark when the door opened. She could have been a shadow as she slipped through the narrow opening, moved silently along the path toward the hot spring.
For the first time in weeks he allowed himself to relax, allowed his senses to retreat from full alert. He had found her.
She would not escape him again.
* * * *
Flower let herself back inside, wondering if she would ever feel clean again. She had bathed twice each day since returning to her father's cabin, had scrubbed her skin with the fine sandstone of the hillside until she felt flayed alive. She had fasted, as her mother's people would have, hoping--praying--for a vision, for wisdom. And she had appealed to the God of Reverend Spalding, little as she liked His vengeful omnipotence, for forgiveness.
How could He forgive her when she could not forgive herself?
She shuddered when a droplet from her wet hair slipped between her breasts and down her belly. It was like the phantom touch of a man's finger, intimate and invasive.
Except that the men's hands that had invaded her had not been so gentle, so careful.
With a soft cry, she pressed her buckskin dress against her body, blotting the trespassing droplet.
Even though she had no appetite, Flower ate the last of the dried fish for supper. Tomorrow she must reset her snares, down along the riverbank. Perhaps this time she would capture one of the gray geese that had been feeding there these past few days. And it was time to set out her fish trap again. She would need food for her journey. There would be little that she could gather along the trail, so early in the spring.
She needed firewood as well. The woodpile set against the cabin's outside wall was growing alarmingly smaller each day. She had already gleaned all the deadfalls from the nearby cottonwood groves. Upriver there were only dense willow thickets, and if she were to go downriver, she might encounter some of Goat Runner's people. Some of the men.
Flower sighed. Eventually she would have to face men, talk with them, trade with them. She could not reach the safety she sought otherwise. Would she be able to hide her fear and her anger when she met strangers--strange men? She did not know.
All too soon she had tomorrow planned. And the next day. The next week. There were no books in the cabin, and nothing else to occupy her mind. Nothing to hold the memories at bay.
It was too early to retire, for she would only lie in the bunk and stare into the dark, remembering. She opened the cabin door, stepped outside. Sometimes, when the memories became too much for her, she found a sort of a peace by staring into the night sky, tracing the very different star patterns taught to her by her mother, her father, and her teacher.
She listened. There was nothing to hear but the usual night sounds. She reached back inside for the shabby woolen coat she had found in the cabin. Then she saw the shadow, black on black.
Before her scream could shatter the night, a big hand covered her mouth, a hard body pressed her back against the cabin wall. In an instant she was back in the gold basin, fighting for her life. They would not hurt her again, would not rape her again. This time they could kill her, but they would not defile her.
"Stop yo' fightin', gal!" The hoarse voice was punctuated with grunts as the huge man fought to hold her hands away from his face, her teeth from his throat. He caught her threshing legs between his with terrifying ease.
Still she fought. She would force him to pay dearly for his pleasure.
But it was no use. His sheer size gave him advantage, control. Panting, still fighting to pull her hands free, she glared up at the dark face looming over her. His eyes gleamed whitely in the dark and starlight glinted deep bronze on his sweating brow.
"I figured you'd fight me," he said, panting slightly, "if'n you didn't run soon's you seed me. Else wise I'd a' come up to your door jest like a white man." His teeth shone white as his eyes as he pushed her back against the cabin wall.
"Will...?" She swallowed, feeling the rawness of her throat from those minutes of stifled screams. "William?"
"You gonna be still?"
Not believing it was really William, Flower continued to glare.
He gave her a little shake. "Woman, I ask you a question."
No one else had ever called her woman with that peculiar combination of gentleness and desire. Finally she believed. "I will not fight," she said. "Let me go."
He released her, pulling her to sit beside him on the split-log bench. "I been seekin' you a long time," he said. "Went clear up there to the Clearwater, thinkin' you mighta' gone to your ma's folks." He shook his head. "That there preacher, he tol' me he'd not seed you since you took off last spring. So I come here, not knowin' where else to look."
"You came over the Blues? In winter?" It could be done, she knew, but few were brave--or that foolhardy--enough to make the attempt.
"I don't know what the Blues is, but if it's between here and Lapwai, I reckon I did. I climbed me some pretty big mountains, crossed a couple of fair-sized rivers." She saw him shrug. "I knowed...knew I needed to come south to get here, so I did."
"You came south..." Flower could not believe her ears. Even in the summer, her mother's people considered that journey a major endeavor. "You didn't go west first?"
"Naw. I jest come straight." He rose to his feet and she saw again what a tall man he was. Tall and strong.
She remembered how he had first come to the valley of the Boise River, and she believed him. If anyone could cross the mountains between here and the Clearwater River in the middle of winter, it would be this man who had walked three thousand miles without shoes, without a gun, and without any idea of where he was going.
"You got any food? I laid there and wondered how's come you didn't hear my belly rumblin'."
She went inside, knowing he was right behind her. "Only some jerky and some dried berries."
"Woman, I'll eat anythin' right now. It's been a spell since I had more'n what I could pick off the bushes."
"But if you came south from Lapwai, why didn't you stop at Cherry...? Oh, William, is Hattie all right? Did Emmet stay, then?" Perhaps she had abandoned her friends, but she still cared for them.
"He went, all right. Him 'n Silas, they took they...themselves off 'long about first frost. They was goin' to catch 'em a ship and go off to Chiny or somewheres." He sat on the cut log that served as her only chair and accepted the wooden trencher she handed him. "But Mist' Em, he changed his mind." William's smile glinted again in the firelight. "Reckon he couldn't stay away from Hattie like he thought he could."
So there were some happy endings despite the cruelty of the world, Flower told herself. She sat on the floor before the fire. As long as she was between him and the door, she didn't feel trapped.
She watched him wolf down the jerky, his strong teeth tearing and chewing the stringy dried meat easily. He disposed of the dried huckleberries in two mouthfuls.
"How long did you watch me?" she said when he had eaten her cupboard bare. That he had spied on her, that he had so easily concealed himself right outside the cabin, made her wonder who else had watched. Her belly clenched. "I thought...the reason I fought..." She took a deep breath. "I would have killed you if..."
His big callused hand closed over hers. "I stopped at the Injun camp," he said, gesturing with his chin, "and talked to that there Goat Runner. He tol' me you was bein' mighty shy. Said you was apt to hide if'n you saw a body comin'." He shivered. "Mighty cold out there, woman. Mighty cold."
This time she heard the ghost of a chuckle in his voice. Had she ever heard him laugh out loud?
William refused to sleep inside, not wanting to endanger his reluctant welcome. "I ain't been under a roof for so long I wouldn't know what to do with myself," he said. "You sleep good, gal, an' I'll see you in the mornin'."
Th
e relief in her eyes showed him he'd done the right thing. For her.
The right thing for him would have been to take her into his arms and show her how much he wanted her.
Someday.
He retrieved his pack and his spear from among the cottonwoods and made his bed against the cabin door. He wasn't exactly afraid she would try to run from him in the night, just cautious. Now he'd found her, she'd not get away again. Not 'til he had a chance to show her how he loved her.
* * * *
He woke to a scream. Leaping to his feet, William shoved the door open. Flower was crouched in the darkest corner, her breath coming in short, harsh gasps. He knelt beside her, wanting to hold her, to protect her. Knowing he must not.
"Please. Oh, please, let me go. Please. Please. Please..."
Each time she said it, her voice got weaker, until the last word came out on a whispery moan. Then she collapsed into a limp mound on the sandy floor. William reached to touch her, to gather her to him. Her hands beat weakly against his chest. He breathed in the scent of her, woodsmoke and sagebrush and her own fresh, clean odor.
"Hush, gal. Hush now." He stroked her sleek black hair, wondering why she had cut it so short. "It's all right. You're safe. Hush."
Her body shook, like a reed in swift water. He continued to stroke, until the shudders slowed, almost stopped. Yet she didn't relax, but leaned stiff against him.
"No," she whispered, finally, "I am not." She twisted, trying to escape, but he held her tight.
He picked her up, feeling how slight she was. She must have near starved these last months. William silently cursed the fate that had kept him from coming to her before this.
She stiffened even more. "Put me down!"
Instead he carried her over and laid her on the lower bunk. He knelt beside her. "Now supposin' you tells me what you ain't," he said. "An' whilst you're at it, you tell me why you up an' left us, me'n Hattie, when we needed you."
Ice Princess Page 1