“If I take away the cloth from your mouth, will you promise not to cry out?” he asked her. She will run farther if she isn’t gagged, he told himself. “Try any of your English tricks, and you will regret them, I promise you.”
Her chin quivered.
“Yes or no?” he demanded, deliberately making his voice as cold as morning frost.
She nodded.
“Disobey me and you die,” he warned, cutting the thong.
The corners of her mouth were rubbed by the cloth; she touched the raw spots gingerly, but uttered no sound.
“Good. Can you run some more?” he asked.
She nodded again.
“Not far. When we reach the river, we will travel by canoe.”
“My . . . my brother?” Her tone was low and husky, as melodious as water trickling over rocks.
“We value bravery. He will live.”
“He won’t be . . .” She swallowed and moistened her lips with her tongue. “Tortured?”
“We are not English. We do not torture children—or burn them alive in Jesu houses of worship. Nor do we crush their infant skulls against trees or cut them from their mother’s bellies.” For a terrible moment, he remembered again the faces of the women and babies he had carried from a burned church long ago. By sheer will, he pushed the awful images away and tried to picture his mother’s face when he had last seen her alive and laughing.
The woman moved back and his eyes snapped open.
The blood had drained from her face until the freckles stood out like a spattering of brown paint on her ashen skin. She knew of the atrocities committed against his people—of the evils done by her own husband’s hand, and she knew that he knew.
“Snow will stop the bleeding,” he said gruffly, breaking the silence. “I do not wish to leave a trail for the Huron scouts.”
She stooped and scraped up a handful of snow. “What are you going to do to me?” she demanded.
“Your husband holds my father prisoner. I will trade your life for that of my father. So long as he is safe, you are safe.”
“Simon? But you must be mistaken,” she said. “He went to witness a peace treaty at Fort Nelson.”
“So did my father. But he was betrayed by Simon Brandt and made a prisoner.” He took her arm to pull her up and spied a flicker of red through the trees where no red should be. Instinctively he shoved her to the ground and knelt beside her. “Huron,” he whispered urgently, bringing up his long rifle, checking the priming, and drawing back the hammer.
His heartbeat quickened; the hair on his neck rose like the hackles of a dog. Huron. He was certain of it. He could almost smell them.
Then a red-coated figure darted out from behind a tree and Talon’s breath caught in his throat. His finger tightened on the trigger as he followed the sprinting target with his rifle sight. Another tree blocked his line of vision. And when his quarry moved into the light again, he fired.
Chapter 4
The explosion nearly deafened Rebecca. She turned her head in time to see the Huron in the red coat sprawl face down in the snow. Immediately, shots rang out from the forest. Puffs of white smoke drifted up and the air buzzed with the ring of hot lead.
A chilling “Ki-yi-yi-yi” burst from the throat of a nearly bald warrior wielding a massive war club. He leaped a fallen log and charged down upon them. Fire Talon—her Shawnee captor—sprang to meet him, dodging the deadly swing and slamming his opponent in the chest with the butt of his rifle. As the Huron fell, Talon finished him off with a second blow to the head. Blood flew and Rebecca closed her eyes in sick horror.
Two more braves sprinted across the clearing. Talon heaved his tomahawk into the first man’s throat and met the second with a drawn knife.
The remaining Huron was shorter than Talon and older. His roached hair was streaked with gray above a black-painted face, and a circlet of mummified human fingers dangled around his neck. His arms were long and thewy, crisscrossed with healed scars, and his earlobes were distended with beaten copper disks. Shrieking a challenge, he rushed at Talon, then feinted left, bristling like a fighting cock. Clutched in his right hand he brandished a French trade hatchet, in his left a butcher knife.
Rebecca slipped the cord off one wrist. She crawled across the ground to the place where Talon’s rifle lay, picked it up, and looked around for lead and powder. He saw her from the corner of his eye, shrugged off his hunting bag, and tossed it to her.
“Load it,” he said.
She had already dumped the contents into the snow and was frantically scrambling for a rifle ball and wadding. What was the proper measure of powder for a rifle? Was it the same as a musket? She couldn’t remember, but there was no time to think. She pulled the wooden plug on the powder horn with her teeth and dumped in what she hoped was right.
Her fingers were stiff with cold as she fitted a patch over the end of the barrel and seated a round rifle ball. The two Indians slashed at each other, leaped and circled. Talon had drawn first blood, but the wound on the Huron’s arm was minor. Rebecca concentrated on pouring a tiny amount of fine powder into the frizzen pan. She was just lifting the rifle to her shoulder when the Huron threw his tomahawk at Talon.
The Shawnee war chief ducked, passed his knife from his right hand to his left, and hurled the weapon. The steel blade flashed through the air and plunged into the Huron’s heart. As the reached warrior fell back clutching his chest, Rebecca swung the rifle barrel and took a bead on Talon.
For an instant, their eyes met. She felt sweat trickle between her breasts. Her mouth was dry. She willed herself to squeeze the trigger.
“Behind you!” he yelled.
She twisted around to glance back over her shoulder, half expecting to see only empty forest. Instead, another Huron in knee-high red leggings raced toward her, taking aim with a flintlock pistol.
“Shoot!” Talon shouted.
The two shots sounded as one. The Huron ran another ten yards before pitching face down. He gave two awful groans and lay still.
Talon snatched the rifle from her hands. “Come,” he said, snatching up the powderhorn and bag.
“But . . . but they’re dead,” she whispered. Now that the immediate danger had passed, she felt faint. “I don’t—”
He tucked the Huron’s tomahawk into his waistband. “No!” he said. “We go, before their comrades come.” He hesitated just long enough to pick up the pistol. “Do you come, or do I leave you?” he demanded.
With a tiny whimper, she set her teeth together and followed him at a hard run.
She thought they would never stop. Uphill and down they sprinted, through ancient trees that shut out the sun overhead, down the marshy lowlands and into a frozen meadow. After the first two miles, she developed a stitch in her side. She ignored it, trying with all her will to keep up with the tireless Shawnee. She knew she couldn’t escape him now, but she could best him by refusing to cry quit.
In time, her breathing steadied and the pain receded to be replaced by a tight, aching chest and a sore spot on one heel. She fixed her eyes on the green, quill-worked turtle design on Talon’s hunting pouch strap. The turtle rested and bounced in the exact center of the war chief’s bare back, and it gave her focus for her ordeal. Her anger lent her strength, and she vowed silently to follow that green turtle to hell and back before she’d stop running.
When Talon did stop at the edge of a bluff, she nearly slammed into him. He turned and caught her with both hands, and her legs turned to porridge. She dropped to her knees, breathing hard, her head light and giddy. He left her for . . . seconds? Minutes? She couldn’t be sure. But when he put an arm around her shoulders again, he cupped a brimming shell of water.
She seized the cup and downed the water in one long gulp. “More,” she gasped. “More.”
“Wait,” he said. “Too much will founder you like a sick horse.” He helped her down the brush-covered bank to the river’s edge and refilled the shell for her. She reached for it and he dashed it
in her face.
“Damn you,” she sputtered. “You fiend of Satan!” She shoved him aside and knelt beside the ice-encrusted flow. The water was so cold it made her teeth ache, but nothing had ever tasted so good in her life.
When he beckoned, she rose and followed him. Each step now was an agony. Her heels burned; her knees were as stiff as those of an old woman. Her head pounded and her eyes refused to work together.
They walked only a few hundred feet before coming to a birchbark canoe drawn up on the bank. Beside it were two of the Shawnee braves she had seen at her capture. The three men exchanged a few words, and Talon motioned for her to climb into the boat.
Realizing suddenly that Colin was nowhere to be seen shocked her out of her stupor. “Where’s my brother?” she demanded. “Where is he?”
Talon frowned and spoke to his friends. One pointed up river and said something she couldn’t understand. “They say he was ahead of us,” Talon answered.
“I don’t believe you,” she cried. “We can’t leave him here. The Huron will—”
“The Huron will have all our scalps stretched on hoops if we don’t go quickly.” He tapped the knife at his waist. “Do as I say, woman.”
She scrambled into the light canoe, kneeling on the frail cedar ribs in the center and clutching both sides to hold her balance. Talon gathered a wolf pelt from the bow of the canoe and tossed it to her. She wrapped it around her, hair side in for warmth.
The war chief took a position in front of her, a second man sat directly behind her, and the third man crouched in the stern. That brave made no attempt to lift a paddle; instead he checked the priming on his musket and scanned the shoreline with narrowed eyes.
Talon slid his rifle sling over his shoulder and grasped a paddle in his sinewy hands. Pushing away from the bank, he drove the canoe out into the current and turned the bow upriver. Sleek back muscles rippled under his copper-brown skin as he dipped deep into the icy water and propelled the vessel along with powerful strokes.
In spite of her intense hatred for him, it was impossible not to admire his animal strength and coordination. The rhythm of his repeated motion was almost hypnotic. The drops of water spraying from the blade of his paddle sparkled like diamonds in the fading afternoon light.
Her eyelids were heavy; she was long past exhaustion. Her agony over Colin’s safety tore at her belly and brought tears to her eyes, but she blinked them away. She’d not let these heathen see her weep. She’d die before she showed them any scrap of fear.
The canoe glided along as though by magic, the only sound the faint swish of water and an occasional cry of a startled bird. In spite of her determination not to, she drifted into sleep.
When she woke, it was dark and she was alone in the boat with Talon. There were no stars; only a faint crescent moon lit the black surface of the river.
“Where are they?” she asked.
He did not answer, and at first she thought he had not heard her. He continued dipping the paddle, first on one side of the canoe, then the other, without missing a beat.
She gathered her courage and spoke again. “Where did they go? And where’s my brother?”
“Shhh,” he cautioned. “A woman’s voice carries far over water.”
“I’ll scream my head off if you don’t tell me where Colin is,” she threatened.
“Scream and I’ll throw you into the river.”
“Bully.” His soft chuckle burned hotter than a curse. “Please,” she tried again. “Where is Colin? He’s only a child. He’ll be frightened by—”
“That one would face a she-bear with an eating knife.”
She tried reason. He had given her the fur wrap when she was cold. Perhaps he wasn’t a complete monster. “You don’t understand,” she began. “I’m all he has. If what you say about your father is true, I’m sorry—but both of us would make a better bargain for a trade than just me. Simon doesn’t—”
“No more talk.”
“Heartless devil,” she flung back.
He turned and raised the paddle. She shrank back, certain that he was going to strike her, but instead, he dipped the blade and steered the canoe to the far shore. He leaped out and pulled the vessel onto a narrow sandy beach. “Get out,” he ordered.
Her limbs were so stiff that she could barely obey, but somehow she managed to get herself and the wolf robe onto the shore without getting wet. Talon took the paddles, his rifle and pack, and pushed the canoe back out into the river. The boat drifted slowly into midstream. He turned away from the water and walked into the forest. Uncertain what else to do, she hurried after him.
After only a short hike through the trees, he waded into a creek. She hesitated, knowing how quickly the water would soak her moccasins.
“Come,” he said.
She sighed and obeyed. The cold was worse than she had imagined. In minutes, she was stumbling along, unable to feel sensation in her feet or ankles. When she staggered and nearly fell, he gave a sound of irritation, picked her up, and threw her across his shoulder. She dangled there, miserable and chilled, feeling for all the world like a side of venison.
At last, that torture came to an end. He climbed out of the stream, scrambled up some rocks, moved in what seemed like endless circles, and bent to squeeze under some hemlock boughs. He dumped her onto hard ground, rolled away a rock, and pointed into a pitch dark hole. “Crawl in there,” he said tersely.
“Not to save my soul from eternal torment.”
“Woman, you try my patience.” He didn’t sound angry, just tired, and she took heart from his tone.
“I hate the dark.”
“It’s a cave. Crawl in, so that I can close up the entrance.”
“What if there are snakes? I’d rather freeze to death out here.”
“You won’t live to freeze to death. I’ll throttle you with my bare hands if you don’t do as I say.”
She crawled into the stygian blackness, her heart in her throat. Spider webs clung to her face, and she shuddered, certain that she would put her hand in a nest of rattlesnakes at any second. She heard him move the rock into place, then he followed close behind.
The passageway was narrow. She could feel the wall along her left, and once, when she raised her head, she struck the rock ceiling above.
Then she touched something warm and hairy and shrieked loud enough to raise the dead.
Talon gave a grunt as she kicked him in the face. Panic-stricken, she doubled back and tried to crawl under him, still screaming at the top of her lungs. He stood up, caught her ankle, and yanked her back. She fell flat on her face and covered her head with her hands while he struck flint and steel to make a light.
When her heart slowed enough for her to open her eyes, he was staring at her in disgust. “You are a curse for some sin I have committed in another life,” he said softly.
She chewed her bottom lip and looked around the small cave. The tunnel had opened into a room half the size of her cabin. The ceiling, low and uneven, was still high enough for Talon to stand upright with ease. The floor was solid rock, covered with a few scattered bones and a layer of dust. There was no sign of the bear she had touched.
“Where is it?” she asked.
“Where is what?”
“The grizzly.”
He pointed to raccoon tracks and scat near her head. “Not even a mountain lion,” he said. “Just a raccoon, seeking shelter from the cold as we are.”
She sat up, feeling foolish. “If you mean to ravish me, do it and get it over with,” she said. “I’m too tired to fight you any more. I just want to sleep.” Had it been only this morning that he had led the attack on Simon’s cabin? Time seemed to have lost all meaning. Even dying would be better than this endless running and walking through the snow. “My feet are frozen,” she said. “I probably won’t live until morning.”
He made a sound of derision and proceeded to gather dry twigs to start a fire. Then he snapped the paddles into sections and fed the seasoned wood in
to the new flames. “Take off your moccasins and put your feet close to the fire,” he instructed.
She watched him with dull eyes. What did it matter? Colin was lost. She was about to be raped and murdered, and she couldn’t feel the cold in her feet anymore anyway. She closed her eyes, then snapped them open as she felt him tugging at her shoes. “Don’t,” she protested weakly. Was he undressing her so that he could have his way with her? She only hoped that he’d show her the mercy of cutting her throat when he was done.
Instead, he stripped off her wool stockings and briskly rubbed her blue, cold feet between his hands. “Stay awake,” he ordered. “Later, when you have eaten and driven out the chill, then you can sleep.” He bent down and blew warm breath on her bare skin. “You have been a warrior this day,” he said. “Don’t ruin it by acting like a Dutchman.”
“Leave me be,” she said, curling into a ball.
He took her other foot and repeated the process. It only made her colder. Her teeth began to chatter.
“Come to the fire,” he said.
“Damn you to an icy hell,” she muttered. She wanted to stay away, but she couldn’t. The flickering orange tongues of living heat drew her with almost primeval power.
He shoved a measure of parched corn into her hand. Automatically, she put it into her mouth. Chewing seemed the hardest thing in the world, but the corn was sweetened with dried berries and maple sugar. She swallowed and then took more when he offered it.
The food strengthened her. He passed a skin of water and she drank. Now her lips felt numb. She’d never been so weary in her life, and she knew she was ill-prepared to defend herself against whatever assault he might make.
All her life she’d thought of what she’d do if a man attempted to defile her. Now it didn’t seem as important as lying down by the fire. Tomorrow, she would kill him, if she could. Tonight, she would only take what came and try to survive.
This Fierce Loving Page 4