Ty went back to Delia and the horse, and as he approached she smiled at him. The way her incredible eyes shimmered like golden coins did a funny thing to his chest, so that for a moment he found it difficult to breathe. If he hadn’t caught himself just in time he would have smiled back at her.
He scowled instead. He tied her grist sack to the cantle of the saddle, then took the pacer’s reins to lead him onto the road.
“Ye’re not ridin’ along up here with me?” Delia asked.
Ty snarled a negative reply as he tried to imagine how long he’d last with her riding double, rubbing those magnificent breasts against his back, breathing hotly against his neck, her hands clinging to his waist, pressing into his stomach, drifting lower and lower until—
Christ! Just the thought of it made the sweat start out on his face, and his groin begin to swell uncomfortably. He’d be having to stop every other mile to take a dip in a cold creek.
It was, in fact, a river that brought their journey to an abrupt halt early that afternoon. The Merrimack was too deep and wide to be forded by an ox cart. There was no ferry in sight, but a bell hung from a pole at the landing. Ty gave it a hard yank. When no one came after five minutes he hallooed across the water, but he knew it was hopeless. The old rascal that ran the Merrimack ferry did so at his own whim and on the basis of whether the fish were biting well that day.
“Looks like we’ll have to camp out on this side of the river,” Ty told the others. The remains of old campfires strewn along the grassy bank attested to the fact that they were not the first to have to spend the night on the west side of the Merrimack.
Delia slid off the horse onto wobbly legs. She rubbed her bottom and sighed loudly. “Lord above us, I think I’ve worn blisters on my arse …”
Her husky voice trailed off and she blushed. Then she looked down, sucking on her lower lip, and Ty thought about how it had felt to kiss that lip, to taste it. He had some salve in one of his haversacks, but he didn’t say anything. The mere thought of rubbing it on that pert little bottom of hers almost made him groan aloud.
Ty jerked his rifle from the saddle holster. “I’ll scout around and see if I can rustle us up some supper. Delia, make yourself useful for a change and gather some wood for the fire—”
“I’ll do it,” Caleb said hastily. “I feel the need to stretch my legs.” He helped Elizabeth down from the cart as Ty disappeared into the woods. “Remember that feeder stream we passed a few yards back, Lizzie? I noticed it formed a pool by that patch of hemlocks. I was thinking maybe you might like a wash-up.”
Elizabeth looked around her, swallowed, nodded. “Yes, I would. A wash-up sounds nice, Caleb.”
Delia saw Elizabeth start back along the road and she ran after her. “Mrs. Hooker, wait! I thought maybe I’d go down t’ that crik along with ye.”
Delia fully expected to be rebuffed, but instead Elizabeth smiled brightly at her. “Oh, yes. Please … But you must call me Elizabeth,” she said as Delia came running up.
They found the grove of hemlocks easily. The shallow pool looked cool and inviting, and Delia immediately sat down on the bank to soak her feet. Last night’s storm had broken up and blown away, and now the sun was out. The air smelled fresh and green from the rain and drops still occasionally splattered onto their heads from the sodden trees.
Kneeling on a mossy slope before the pool, Elizabeth rolled up the sleeves of her frock and splashed water over her face and arms. “I should have brought some soft soap with me,” she said. “It would be nice to have a bath.”
“I took a bath early yesterday mornin’,” Delia said, feeling smug about her new, clean self. “I even washed my hair.”
Elizabeth dried off her face and hands with her petticoat. “Well, of course. But after the dust yesterday, and the flies, I was dying for a bath last night.” She smiled shyly at Delia. “But can you imagine asking that horrid old innkeeper at the Blue Anchor for a tub of hot water?”
A startling thought occurred to Delia. “How often do ye take a bath, Elizabeth?”
“Oh, at least twice a week, sometimes three in the summer.”
“Twice a week!” Delia gaped at her in disbelief. “But that’s not healthy!” Why, as frail-looking as she was, Elizabeth Hooker was lucky she hadn’t sickened of the lung fever and died long before now.
But then Delia remembered how Ty had complained about the way she had smelled the other night. Perhaps bathing once a month or so wasn’t enough. She stifled a sigh. Evidently she was going to have to take a bath twice a week, in spite of the risk to her health, if she was going to make herself into a proper lady.
Elizabeth sat down on the bank, wrapping her arms around her folded-up legs. She glanced around nervously, and Delia couldn’t help doing the same. But all Delia could see was a patch of bloodroot blooming nearby and a brown frog corpulent with Mayflies sunning itself on a rock.
“It’s pretty here, don’t you think?” Delia said. “Yes … nice and peaceful.”
That reminded Delia of the promise she had made to Ty.
“Elizabeth …” Delia paused and searched for the right words. This wasn’t going to be as easy as she had thought. She drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry about what I did last night, tryin’ t’ scare ye. ’Twas mean of me and, well … I’m sorry.”
Elizabeth looked down at her hands resting on her bent knees. “Please, it doesn’t matter.” She forced out a smile. “I know I must seem like such a scared little rabbit, but until now the most adventuresome thing I ever did in my life was to take the ferry over to Charles Town for the fair.”
“Oh, but I did that too, once!” Delia leaned forward eagerly, pleased to have discovered this common ground between herself and Elizabeth, who was a real lady. “My da took me t’ the fair when I was seven. I ate too many persimmon tarts that day and got sick all over his Sunday-go-to-meeting suit.”
Delia chuckled at the memory, and after a moment Elizabeth started to giggle softly. Then a man’s hearty laughter joined them.
Startled, they looked up and across the creek. An Indian stood on the opposite bank, grinning at them.
He wore a battered cocked hat made of beaverskin, with a single white gull’s feather sticking straight up from a hole in the crown. The European jacket he had on was much too small and didn’t quite reach around his bare chest, which glistened bronze in the sun. The bottom half of him was dressed in more traditional Indian clothing—leggings and a kilt of doeskin that flapped around his knees. He carried an old, rust-pitted French musket in the crook of his arm.
Delia glanced sideways at Elizabeth. She was white around the mouth and sweat beaded her forehead. “Don’t act like ye’re scared,” Delia whispered, standing up slowly and carefully.
“Good day, Englishwomen,” the Indian said in a thick, guttural accent.
Delia swallowed and tried to dredge up some spit so that she could talk. “Good day … sir.”
The Indian grinned and nodded. Delia grinned and nodded back at him. She could hear Elizabeth’s shallow breaths coming out of her in a high-pitched keen.
“I think he’s friendly,” Delia said from the corner of her mouth. And she grinned and nodded some more.
The Indian tossed the musket onto the ground and took a step into the pool, and Elizabeth jerked to her feet with a piercing shriek.
“Don’t run!” Delia cried out, but it was too late, for Elizabeth was already running, crashing headlong through the trees and underbrush, her shrill screams piercing the still air.
The Indian stood in the middle of the pond and spat a bunch of guttural Indian words at Delia. He motioned at her with his hand, a wide grin on his face. “You come,” he said and smiled some more. “You hungry? We fish.”
“Fish?”
He nodded vigorously. “Fish.”
Don’t act like ye ’re scared, Delia reminded herself. Oh, Lord above us, what if he’s not as friendly as he looks…
She stepped into the pond.
; The Indian grinned again and nodded. “Come?”
She stopped when she was still a good three feet away. This close to him she could see now that he was quite old. Scores of lines crisscrossed his face, and the hair beneath his floppy hat was streaked with gray. He bent over and pointed at the bottom of the pool. Delia took a step closer and bent over as well. A half dozen good-sized trout drifted among the smooth, mossy rocks.
The Indian rolled up the sleeve of his jacket and extended his arm into the water. Slowly, he slipped his hand under one of the trout and held it motionless. Then suddenly there was a flurry of flapping tail and fins as his fingers closed around the fish’s gills. He stood up holding the wriggling trout in his hand.
He grunted and grinned. “Fish!”
Delia laughed and clapped her hands with delight. “Why, isn’t that something else! Can ye show me how t’ do that?”
* * *
The screams brought Ty running back to the campsite with his rifle primed and ready to fire. He found Elizabeth sobbing hysterically on Caleb’s chest. There was no sign of Delia.
“What’s happened?”
Caleb looked at him helplessly. “I don’t know. I can’t get her to stop crying.”
Ty pried Elizabeth loose from the stranglehold she had on her husband’s neck. He shook her gently at first, then a bit more roughly. “Elizabeth!” he shouted, and her sobs quieted some. “Easy, easy, take a deep breath. … Now tell us what happened.”
“S-savage. He … he…”
“Where’s Delia?”
“I don’t know. I ran. She … I don’t know.”
Ty was barely able to stop himself from shaking the poor woman again. “Where? Where did you leave her?”
“P-pond. At the pond.”
“They went down to that pond we passed a ways back,” Caleb said. “The one by the hemlocks. Elizabeth wanted to wash up—”
“You let them go down there alone? My God, man, what the hell were you thinking of?”
Caleb paled. “I didn’t know it wasn’t safe—” he began, but Ty was already running back up the trail.
When he got close to the pond, Ty slowed and approached it quietly, glad he had put on his moccasins that morning in anticipation of having to walk all day. He heard them first— Delia’s throaty laugh, joined by a man’s deep chuckle. He straightened from a half crouch to lean against one of the broad hemlock trunks, his rifle uncocked and cradled in the crook of his elbow, and watched for a moment.
Delia and an old Indian stood together in the middle of the pond. She was bent at the waist, her petticoat clinging wetly to her slim legs, her arm trailing in the water.
Suddenly she jerked upright, holding a squirming fish tight in her hand above her head. “I got one!” she cried. “I got one!”
Ty felt a warm feeling of pride welling up in his chest. By God, she was incredible, his gutsy little tavern wench.
There was something else as well, mixed in with the pride. But Ty, who had never experienced such a feeling before, wasn’t able to recognize the emotion for what it was. To him it merely seemed an odd sense of possession—she was his gutsy little tavern wench.
He stepped out from behind the hemlock trunk. The Indian saw him first, and the grin slid off the old man’s mouth. Delia, who had been looking at the Indian, turned around. Then she spotted Ty, and a bright smile blazoned across her face.
She held the trout out to him. “Look, Ty. I’m a-catchin’ us some fish for supper!”
Chattering and twitching their fat, striped bodies, the chipmunks gathered in a semicircle around Delia. Ty watched, unconsciously scowling, as she fed them crumbs of johnnycake. Sunlight glinted off the ruby lights in her ebony hair and her tawny eyes glowed brightly. There was a smile of delight on her wide mouth and her breasts swelled gently with silent laughter.
Never had Ty known anyone to take such unbounded joy in the simple act of living as did this one girl. The strange thing was, her exuberance seemed to be infectious, for he had found himself smiling and laughing along with her countless times during the last two days, and missing her when they were not together—
Cursing beneath his breath, Ty uncorked a small horn brandy flask and poured a good portion of the fiery contents down his throat. So the girl was uncommonly pretty, with a sensual body that made a man think automatically of bed. She was also, he reminded himself, nothing but a lusty tavern wench, schooled in the ways and means of enticing men. She’s got you horn-mad for her, Savitch, and there’s no great mystery about that
He scowled at her again. “You might as well give it up, Delia, because it bloody well isn’t going to work.”
She tossed the last of the crumbs to the chipmunks, dusting off her hands, and turned to him with a smile so dazzling it made his breath catch. “Did ye say something, Ty?”
He stared at her for the longest moment, unable to speak, unable to breathe. “Never mind,” he finally growled, taking another deep pull from the brandy flask.
A pair of thick logs had been rolled up across from each other next to the campfire; Ty and Delia sat on one, the Hookers on the other, reading together from their Bible. They had just finished a supper of Delia’s fish and the johnnycake—a flat bread made of cornmeal and baked on a scoured wooden shingle. Since they’d camped so early, there was still an hour or so of daylight left to while away before sleep.
Lost in thought, Ty watched the Hookers at their Bible reading. Then he edged a piece of charred wood away from the fire, kicking dirt over it to cool it. Taking a square of birchbark paper from his haversack, he used the piece of charcoal to draw three concentric circles.
Delia leaned into him as he worked, her knees pressing against his thigh, her breath stirring his hair where it curled around his ear. “What are ye goin t’ do with that?” she asked.
Ty was very much aware of Delia’s leg rubbing against his. It was making his breath go shallow and causing a definite and uncomfortable reaction within the tight confines of his breeches. She leaned closer, flattening her full breast against his shoulder, and Ty clenched his jaw.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” he snarled at her. Her body felt warm, alive, inviting, and if she didn’t move that damn breast off his shoulder he was going to drag her into the woods by the hair and do things to her she’d only dreamed of. “I’m making a target.”
Delia straightened and Ty let out his breath. “A target?” she asked brightly. “Are ye going t’ shoot at it?”
“No, you are.”
Pressing her fingers against her breast, she reared back, her eyes rounding in disbelief. “Me?” She cast a glance over her shoulder as if there had to be somebody standing behind her. “But, Ty, I don’t know how t’ shoot.”
“When I’m through with you, you will.” He raised his head, speaking across the fire. “You too, Reverend.”
Caleb jerked with surprise, then he exchanged a look with his wife. He rubbed his palms over his bent knees before getting slowly to his feet and ambling over.
He cleared his throat. “I admit such a skill would be useful where we’re going, for hunting game and such. But I could never bring myself to shoot at another human being, Ty. Not even a savage.”
Ty stared at Caleb, incredulous. He could understand a man finding it difficult to kill another human being, but the Community of Saints were great ones for preaching that the only solution to the Indians’ heathen threat was to slaughter them in mass. It had been the settlers, after all, not the Indians, who had first devised the gruesome practice of taking scalps as proof of an enemy’s death. The Boston Public Treasury still offered a ten-pound bounty on Abenaki scalps, even though a peace treaty had supposedly been in effect for the last few years.
Of course there was no such thing as real peace. Not with France and England constantly at each other’s throats and bringing their battlegrounds into the New World, with each side forming alliances among the native inhabitants. The Abenaki, for instance, already indignant and frightened
over the seizures of their hunting and fishing grounds, were actively encouraged by the French Jesuit missionaries to take up the hatchet against the English settlers in The Maine. In turn, the Indian warriors’ hit-and-run method of waging war, the torture and taking of captives, the killing of women and children, had nurtured a spirit of revenge among settlers against the Abenaki Nation.
It was a vicious circle of war and death that had been going on for the last fifty years, and the Puritan church of New England had always been right in the thick of it. Ty just didn’t have the Reverend Caleb Hooker figured for a hypocrite.
“I thought killing Indians was part of your religion, Reverend?”
Caleb’s jaw took on a proud jut. “I am my own man, doctor.”
The anger faded from Ty’s eyes, but his mouth remained grim. “You also have a wife, Caleb.” He lowered his voice so that Elizabeth wouldn’t hear. “You ever see what a woman looks like after she’s been scalped? Do you know how it’s done? You wrap her hair around your fist and you take your scalping knife and make a deep incision around her temples. Then you give a good hard jerk and the scalp comes right off in your hand like a bloody glove. It leaves a big gory hole in the top of her head.”
Caleb’s skin had turned pasty and Ty regretted having to be so brutal. But if the Hookers were going to live in the wilderness, then they had better learn fast how to survive in it.
“If the picture I painted disgusts you, Reverend,” he said, keeping his voice cold and hard, “then I suggest you prepare yourself in the best way you can from ever having to see it for real. If you’re ever attacked by Indians, then you’d better damn well be able to kill them before they kill you. Or Elizabeth.”
Delia, Ty noticed, hadn’t even flinched during his vivid description of how to take a scalp. Caleb, on the other hand, trembled slightly, but his mouth set in resolution. “Yes … yes, I realize now that you’re right.”
Elizabeth had bent her head back over the book in her lap, but she looked up sharply at Caleb’s words. “But, Caleb, surely you aren’t—”
“I am, Lizzie,” he said firmly. “It’s a necessary thing to know, for self-protection. The Indians—”
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