“What do you want?” she shouted back.
“Surrender or we burn your house!”
Rebecca’s mouth went dry, and she dug her nails into the musket stock. The brave was tall and muscular, not as tall as Simon, perhaps, but sleek as a mountain cat. He wore his hair long. Blue-black as the devil’s own locks, it fell to his waist in shimmering waves.
He was too far away for her to see the color of his eyes, but she knew they would be black and cold as obsidian. His brows were slashes across a hawklike face; his high prominent cheekbones were marked with yellow and black war paint. He was half-naked in the cold; his chest was bare, adorned with heathen bear claws. A wide band of copper encircled one sinewy bicep, and a single eagle feather dangled from the back of his head to trail insolently against his naked shoulder.
His waist was as narrow as a girl’s, his loins barely covered with a fringed loincloth. Leggings reached from mid-thigh to the tops of his moccasins. He carried no weapons, but she recognized him just the same. He was the first Indian she had seen splashing through the creek—the one she’d fired at from the top of the slope.
“Surrender, wife of Simon Brandt!” he thundered. “Surrender and you will not die this day!”
“Go to hell!” she replied, drawing a bead on the amulet in the center of his bear-claw necklace. Then she pulled the trigger, solidifying her position with a .75-caliber musket ball aimed two inches to the right, directly at his black heart.
Chapter 2
Sh’Kotaa Osh-Kah-Shah, Fire Talon—war chief of the Mecate Shawnee—recoiled in shock as Rebecca’s musket ball tore a furrow along his left upper arm. “Treacherous white witch!” He gasped as pain replaced the initial numbness and bright red blood spilled over his beaten copper armband to drip on the trampled snow.
Releasing the white deerskin robe which served as a parley flag of truce, Fire Talon shook a clenched fist at the cabin. What manner of humans were these English? he raged silently. Honor means nothing to them.
“Get out of the line of fire!” shouted his friend Fox from the safety of the trees. “Will you stand there like an untried boy until she reloads?”
“Use common sense!” argued another, a dark-skinned warrior from beyond the Ohio, a man Talon knew only as The Stranger.
Talon’s nostrils flared as he breathed deeply of the crisp morning air, laced with the scents of pine, burning leaves, and the acrid scent of gunpowder. He drew himself up to his full height and pointed deliberately toward the cabin, waiting until the barrel of the musket appeared once more in the small round loophole. “You have broken the peace, woman!” he called in precise English. “What happens is on your head!” He motioned to Counts His Scalps and switched to his native Algonquian tongue. “Burn them out!”
Seconds later, three flaming arrows flew through the air toward the house. One struck the stone chimney and fell to earth, but the other two stuck upright in the cedar shakes. Counts His Scalps had wrapped the arrow shafts with dried grass; in seconds, an orange tongue of fire licked against the wooden roof and began to smolder. Counts let out a long triumphant whoop and raised his outspread arms over his head.
We’ll hear about that deed around the campfires, Talon thought wryly. Counts His Scalps was a boastful man, one who would not let his successes go unnoticed, but he was brave and trustworthy. Talon was glad Counts had come along. In spite of his prickly disposition, he was an asset to the raiding party.
On the hillside beyond the house, Counts’ companion, Osage Killer, saw the smoke and responded with a perfect imitation of a hunting wolf’s howl. Counts His Scalps grinned from ear to ear.
Talon slapped him on the shoulder and nodded. “Good aim. Shoot a few more, just to be certain.”
“The roof will burn,” Counts grumbled. “I hate to waste fine arrows.”
Talon scooped up a handful of snow and held it against the place where the white woman’s musket ball had grazed his arm. The bleeding had slowed, but the gash stung like the poison of a hundred wasps. “Just the same, shoot another volley,” Talon ordered. “We want to frighten them as badly as possible.”
“Maybe they are too stupid to be afraid.”
Talon frowned as he slung his embroidered war bag over his shoulder and slid his knife back into his fringed leather sheath. “Don’t underestimate Simon Brandt’s woman. Skins Two Elk and Shadow of Rain are dead because of her.” He motioned toward the clearing where the still bodies of his followers lay. “Joins the River is badly injured.”
“I am sorry for their families, but Shadow of Rain was a fool. You should not have brought him with us.”
Talon nodded again. “His luck was bad. You are right, I should not have allowed him to join us. But after men die, it is easy to say they should not have come. Would that I had your vision.”
“I would not have chosen either one of them. Skins Two Elk has mocked me many times at the council fire. A lesser man would take pleasure in his death, but I do not.” Counts His Scalps’s handsome face grew sullen. “I accept people as they are. But still, I would not have brought him.”
“Perhaps I should ask your opinion the next time I assemble a war band,” Talon mused.
“Yes. It would be wise.”
Talon averted his eyes so that the brave could not read the amusement there. “I’ll keep that in mind,” Talon said gravely. The loss of the dead men cut him deep, but now was not the time to reveal his emotions. Counts His Scalps would follow so long as he believed that Talon was a strong leader. Any sign of weakness, and Counts would desert him; and if Counts His Scalps went, Osage Killer would leave as well. The companions had their faults, but they had proved their valor against the Iroquois. He would be a fool to alienate them unnecessarily.
Talon thought briefly of the dead warriors. Neither were married, and that was good. There would be no widows to mourn their passing. Skins Two Elk had grown sons with families of their own, but Shadow of Rain left only an aging mother. She lived near The Forks in Shannopis, the big Lenape town. He would remember to see that there were men to hunt meat for the old woman, and he would send her enough skins and trade goods to make her wealthy. He could not replace her only son, but he could make her last days comfortable.
A war chief carries a heavy burden, he thought. He leads men to victory—if he is good at what he does—but he also marks a path to the grave for others. And this time his responsibility was greater than it had ever been; his own father’s life hung in the balance.
Talon picked up his long rifle from where it leaned against a pin oak, raised it, and checked the priming.
“I tell you it is a waste of good arrows,” Counts complained as he shot two more fiery missiles into the cabin roof.
Talon barely heard him; the familiar features of his father’s lined face formed in his mind’s eye and a blast of cold wind chilled the war chief’s heart. “Only for my no’tha, my father, would I break my own rule,” he murmured under his breath.
“What did you say?”
“This business does not sit well on my stomach,” Talon replied.
Choosing an arrow from his beaded quiver, Counts squatted beside the small fire and began to wrap shredded bark along the shaft. “I have not noticed that the Englishmanake shy away from burning our villages or murdering our women and children.”
“The whites behave like crazed animals. Must we, who know better, lower ourselves to imitate them?”
Counts shrugged. “Sometimes, when it is necessary.”
Talon shrugged. “Stay here, but keep a sharp eye and listen for my signal.” Leaving Counts His Scalps by the fire, he moved back into the woods and circled around the cabin.
It was no small thing for Talon to lead his warriors against Simon Brandt’s woman. For more years than he wanted to remember, he’d followed the war trail. He had killed many men in honorable battle, burned many cabins, and taken more scalps than he wanted to number. But he had never made war against his enemy’s women and children. To do so meant brea
king an oath he’d made on his mother’s grave. “Forgive me, Anati,” he whispered through tightly drawn lips. I do this in hope of saving my father.
When the English soldiers at Fort Nelson had sent the belt of white wampum to many of the Delaware and Shawnee villages, including the Mecate, asking for a peace conference, Talon and his father had argued. Medicine Smoke was a shaman, a holy man, and it was natural that he should seek peace—and just as natural that he should see good in the whites where Talon saw none.
“I fear my son has begun to take pleasure in the scalps he takes,” Medicine Smoke had said sadly. “Taking life is always a bad thing. A spiritual man—a man whole in mind and body—does what he must to protect his people, but he finds no joy in the stench of death.”
“The English cannot be trusted, Father,” Talon had replied. “The soldiers of King George do not love the Delaware or the Shawnee. They love only our land and the soft beaver pelts they steal from us.”
“Their messenger says that they weary of this war as we do. They say they will make a treaty between us, one that will not strip our people of honor.”
“Who says? Simon Brandt?”
“Even the mightiest enemy can become a friend,” his father had murmured hoarsely. Medicine Smoke had survived a Huron’s knife wound to the throat in his youth, and his voice sounded like the rasp of dried corn husks.
“Have you forgotten my mother? My sister? I will make peace with Simon Brandt when his soul walks the star path and not before,” Talon had insisted hotly.
“You will listen to the wisdom of your elders.”
In the end, the council had listened to the words of Medicine Smoke and other old men instead of Talon’s warnings. They had sent a delegation to Fort Nelson to talk with the white colonel and the long rifles, led by Simon Brandt. And the price of that mission was death for many and imprisonment for his beloved father.
Talon had not gone—would not willingly place himself behind enemy walls. From a distance, he’d heard the shots and the screams of men both red and white when talking ceased and killing began.
The toll of the Mecate Shawnee had been terrible. Four members of the high council fire had died: Plunging Raven, Cloud Man, Quiet Bear, and Shadow of the Sun. Raven’s wife, Sees Red, had been shot down like a fleeing doe, and the council woman, Remembers Yesterday, was clubbed in the head so terribly that she would surely die. Raven’s oldest son, Pipe, had carried her away from the fort, but it had cost him an eye and the knowledge that he had left his dying father’s side.
Other tribes had suffered equally. Not one member of the delegation from the Tax-cox Lenape village had survived. In all, the death count of Indians was fifteen, with three men and one woman taken prisoner. Four escaped uninjured. English had died as well, but Talon didn’t know how many.
Not enough.
The whites were as numerous as leaves in a forest, and the great sea was not wide enough to keep them in their own land. They were like spoiled children, taking what they wanted and destroying what they could not use. And if the white men could not be driven back across the salt water, it would mean the extermination of his people.
The bitter thoughts hardened Talon’s heart. Simon Brandt was responsible for Medicine Smoke’s capture. Now the wife of Simon Brandt would pay the price.
Thick, acrid smoke from the burning cabin seeped along the narrow, dirt tunnel and made it hard for Rebecca and Colin to breathe. She went first—crouched low on hands and knees—pushing aside cobwebs and dragging the loaded musket behind her. “Stay close,” she whispered to her brother. Her eyes stung, but she was afraid to wipe them because her hands were so dirty. The walls of the passageway were narrow and crumbly, and the floor was covered with loose soil and gravel.
She was so scared that she was trembling all over. She’d never liked the dark, and being hemmed in by the earth terrified her. She hadn’t realized that it was so far to Simon’s secret hillside entrance.
Rebecca had no idea what they would do when they came to the mouth of the tunnel. Would it be hours or days before they’d dare to venture out? Would they freeze to death without a fire when night came?
It had been impossible to bring much with them in the frantic attempt to escape the fire. A flint and tinder box, the hunting bag with its knife and powder horn, a single wool blanket, and a canteen of water. Colin had slung the canteen around his neck by the leather strap, rolled Simon’s small camp ax in the blanket with some pemmican and cold biscuits, and tied the blanket together with a short length of rope. At the last moment before climbing down the hole he had dashed back across the smoke-filled cabin for his tin box of fish hooks, folding knife, and bows and arrows.
“Don’t stop,” Colin warned.
“I can’t see.”
“Don’t be a baby, Becca. I been through here lots of times, and I never even seen a snake.”
“Uggh, did you have to mention snakes?”
“Look,” he whispered excitedly. “I see light. We’re almost there.”
Rebecca squinted. Yes, there was a pinhole of daylight ahead. She raised up, hit her head on the roof of the tunnel, and caught her breath as dirt rained around her.
“Keep going,” Colin said. “The smoke’s getting worse.”
The last few yards were all uphill. As she crawled closer, the air became fresher. “Stay here,” she whispered. “I’ll see if it’s safe.”
Cautiously, she pushed aside a woven screen of wild grape vine. A fallen tree and a pile of brush shielded the entrance from sight. “I think it’s all right,” she said, wiggling through. Smoke was drifting out of the mouth of the tunnel, and she hoped that the breeze would dissipate it before the savages noticed. She brushed the dirt off the musket and checked the priming.
“What do you see?” he asked. “Let me—”
“Stay there until I tell you to come,” she repeated. She looked back in the direction of the cabin. A black column of smoke spewed into the sky.
“Take the blanket,” Colin said. He scrambled to his feet. “Now what, Becca?” His face split into a grin. “You should see your face. You look like a blackamoor.”
She took a scarf from her pocket and rubbed her aching eyes. “You don’t look so great yourself.” Her heartbeat slowed to normal as she took deep breaths of the fresh air.
We did it, she thought. We got away. And with luck, the Indians will think we died in the fire. She didn’t want to think about the miles of wilderness between them and the nearest white settlement. They were alive, and for now, that was all that mattered.
“We best hide until dark,” Colin whispered. “You never know if—”
“I told you to stay in the tunnel,” she admonished. She had no intention of venturing out until she was sure the hostiles were gone, but neither did she relish the thought of spending hours inside the damp passageway.
Reluctantly, she crawled back into the opening, keeping the musket ready to fire if she saw any sign of movement. Colin pressed close to her and she draped the blanket around them. Her fingers and toes were numb with cold; she wiggled them to start the blood flowing.
“I’m scared, Becca,” her brother murmured.
“Shhh, we’ll be all right. Simon’s probably on his way home now,” she soothed. “Like as not, he’s seen the smoke and will come in here with all guns blazing.” She hugged Colin’s sturdy shoulders, suddenly realizing how much he’d grown in the last year. He wouldn’t be a child for long.
The thought that he would be leaving her in a few years was more chilling than the cold. Colin was all she had. If Simon sent the boy east to be indentured to a blacksmith as he’d threatened, she’d have no one left to love.
No one to love her . . .
I should have had babies by now. Colin is my flesh and blood—all that’s left of my life before I crossed the ocean from Ireland. But, still, it’s only natural that he’ll sprout to a man and want his own family.
If he lives that long . . .
She swallowed
against the tightness of her throat and took comfort in the warmth of Colin’s body against hers. His legs were long and gangly; his hands and wrists thrust out of his shirt sleeves like a scarecrow’s.
His thin fingers tightened around hers. “Simon said I was to kill you myself before I let Injuns get you,” he whispered. “But I don’t think I can do it.” She felt a shudder run through him. “I love you, Becca.” His last words were barely audible, and all the more poignant to her for being so.
She laid her cheek against his head. His thick, dark hair was clean as always; soft as an otter pelt, it smelled of wood smoke and pine. “I love you too,” she murmured close to his ear. “And I couldn’t kill you—no matter what Simon said.”
“He said it was my duty—but I couldn’t . . . I know I couldn’t.”
“It will be all right,” she repeated, “I promise.”
“Cross your heart and hope to die?”
“Yes, Colin, cross my heart and hope to die.” She hugged him fiercely.
And they waited.
Hours passed. It seemed to Rebecca as if the sun crawled across the sky; she couldn’t see it for the clouds, but she could guess at the time. Sometime in the afternoon they allowed themselves a swallow of water from the canteen. Colin slept fitfully, but she couldn’t. She simply waited, staring out and listening, praying that the Indians had given up the hunt and left.
Just before dusk, a cardinal swooped down into the thicket and scratched aimlessly at the fallen leaves. Then two grosbeaks landed on a branch and frightened the cardinal away. Colin stirred beside her and the grosbeaks took flight.
“Becca?”
“What?”
“I’m cold.”
“Me too.”
“No.” His voice was thinner than usual. “I mean I’m really cold.” He burrowed closer. “I’m cold to death, Becca.”
“No, you’re not.”
“We’ve got to start walkin’. If we stay here after dark, without a fire, we’ll freeze.”
Snow was falling again, big lazy flakes that drifted around them as silently as late autumn moths.
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