The campfire was just a red glow over his left shoulder when Simon stopped and leaned his rifle against the tree. Thinking about that Shawnee nearly drove the urge out of his head . . . nearly, but not quite.
Simon had caught sight of the woman’s bare breasts when they’d stripped her, small, pointed little tits, the kind that always excited him. Rebecca had had breasts like that when he’d first married her. He always liked to watch her bathe when she didn’t know he was looking. She’d changed in time, filled out. To his way of thinking, she wasn’t as fetching now as she had been at fifteen.
She’d been different in a lot of ways back then. He’d knocked some of the fancy ways out of her since then, but she didn’t show him the respect she used to. Her or the boy. If the Injuns had scalped Colin, so much the better. He would never have amounted to much, not to Simon’s way of thinking. Bastard stock never did.
Rebecca had seemed promising when she’d stepped off that boat from the old Ireland country. She’d been scared and easily led by her husband. Young women made the best wives for a man like him. Once Rebecca was dead for certain, he’d show the proper mournin’ for a full year, then he’d find himself another young bride, maybe a Mennonite girl this time.
Jeb Steiner said Lancaster was full of Mennonite families, and most of them had an eligible daughter or two. Mennonite girls were taught to obey their men and they were good cooks. He’d need a strong girl to help him rebuild his cabin and to work in the field. This time, he’d choose careful, and not take one that was too high in the stomach, thinkin’ herself a lady when she weren’t nothin’ but a woods colt.
He tried to picture a Mennonite girl bent over his hearth, but thoughts of the Injun woman kept interfering. He swallowed hard as he remembered the sight of that squirmin’ dusky red thigh Davy had been holdin’ on to. She’d put up quite a fight, but Davy wouldn’t be bested by a wench. He’d taken his turn with the squaw, Simon was sure of that. But if any of them wondered why he didn’t, they daresn’t have the gall to ask.
Fire Talon had nearly killed him more than ten years ago, back on the Susquehanna that Christmas Day they’d fought each other to their knees. He’d sliced the Shawnee’s side open with a butcher knife and put a lead ball through his thigh, but Fire Talon had nearly turned him into a woman with his own knife. Simon left one ballock and a quart of his life’s blood on that river bank, along with something a man couldn’t taste or smell. Fire Talon had robbed him of a man’s pleasures in life. His jock worked good enough when he was alone, but he couldn’t keep it stiff with a woman. That was something Simon would never forgive or forget.
He meant to see the Shawnee pay. He meant to skin him alive, cut off his male parts, and stuff them . . . Simon chuckled. Maybe . . . maybe, he’d think of something better.
Thinking about Fire Talon and Rebecca made his blood boil. The Shawnee had made free with his wife. He knew it wasn’t customary, but the war chief wouldn’t miss a chance to shame his greatest enemy. He’d lain with Rebecca all right, and the worthless slut had probably enjoyed it—enjoyed those naked red legs wrapped around her. Damn if it didn’t make a man want to vomit to think of a Christian white woman with such vermin. But it wasn’t heatin’ he needed just now, it was coolin’.
There’d be time enough to deal with those two. Time enough to consider what to do with Rebecca if she was still alive when he caught up with her. It wouldn’t do to let anyone know. Just like Jane, he’d take care of the problem by hisself. He’d clear his honor and his wife’s, whether she had sense enough to know what was right or not.
He summoned up the image of that Delaware squaw again. How old had she been? Thirteen? Fourteen? It was always hard to tell with Injuns; they weren’t made like normal women. Pretty little thing she’d been. Round little arse. Delicate hands and feet, and a slender neck. If he’d found her alone, maybe he could have . . .
A waste to think of that now. She hadn’t been as strong as she’d looked. One man had had to use her after she was already dead. A damn shame, he thought. Loud as she’d yelled, a man would have thought she’d have stayin’ power.
Simon undid the buttons on the front of his breeches. His need was making itself felt now . . . a strong need, stiff and throbbing.
His breathing became ragged as he thought of the little squaw. “Fetching critter,” he whispered hoarsely, as his hand closed around his thick upright member. Then he stopped talking and concentrated on satisfying his intense desire.
Chapter 11
Rebecca was too astonished to breathe. Her heart thudded wildly as she stared in utter terror at the big cat. The mountain lion’s eyes caught the reflected light from the fire and glowed an unholy green in the tawny face. For what seemed an eternity, the cat didn’t move a muscle, then the long, ropelike tail began to flip nervously from side to side.
First a bear, now this, Rebecca thought, and she steeled herself for the lion to spring on her.
“Meshepeshe!”
A human voice broke through Rebecca’s fright. She couldn’t tell if the speaker was male or female; the tone was raspy, as though it hadn’t been used in a long time.
“Meshepeshe.” A ghostly figure swathed in white furs moved from the trees. “No move.”
Rebecca swallowed the imaginary lump in her throat. Don’t move? She couldn’t have moved—not for anything in the world.
The mountain lion made a rumbling sound deep in her belly. The tip of a red tongue appeared. Rebecca closed her eyes and felt a wet rasping sensation down one side of her face. The thing was licking her as though it was an overgrown tabby cat.
The ghost spoke again, a quick order that Rebecca couldn’t comprehend. When she opened her eyes again, the cat crouched beside the newcomer rubbing its huge head against his leg.
“Please, I need help,” Rebecca said as she rose to her knees. “We were attacked by a bear. My—my companion is badly hurt.”
The mountain lion hissed a warning, and Rebecca shrank back in alarm.
“I won’t hurt you,” Rebecca said. “He’s bleeding. He’ll die if we don’t do something.” She looked into the ghost’s face and realized that he was wearing a fringed white doeskin mask that covered his face from brow to chin. The only human aspect she saw were two dark brown eyes and a glimpse of bare skin at the throat. “Please.” She tried again in desperation. “Do you speak English? Can you understand anything I’m saying?”
A white fur mitten stroked the animal’s head, and the beast dropped to the snow and began to groom a front paw. “Losowahkun hear.”
“Low-so . . .” Rebecca’s tongue stumbled over the alien sounds. “Losowahkun? Is that your name?”
“Talk, no fast. Englishmanake. Losowahkun have white-hair talk. Some.” He glanced down at the mountain lion. The animal was chewing contentedly on his high fur moccasin. “Meshepeshe have . . .” He struggled for the English. “Have curious. No hurt. Is bairn . . . baby.” He made a chuckling sound. “Best you not move. Curious Meshepeshe dangerous.”
“My companion,” Rebecca insisted, bordering on hysteria. “He is close to death.” Was she to stand here fencing with this odd pair while Talon bled to death?
The stranger moved to examine Talon’s wounds, and Rebecca noticed for the first time that the white-garbed Indian carried no weapons. But then, who would need any with such a creature by his side? Then Rebecca heard a sharp intake of breath.
“Ku! Sh’Kotaa Osh-Kah-Shah.”
“You know him?” Rebecca cried.
“Losowahkun know. Is my brother.”
Together, they dragged Talon to the fire. When he was lying on a bed of cedar boughs and covered with the fur robe, Losowahkun left them alone with the big cat for the space of an hour. When he returned, he was leading a shaggy brown pony with thick, stocky legs and an oversized head.
With great effort, the two managed to get Talon over the pony’s back. Losowahkun tied him on, and they gathered the rifles and belongings. Rebecca didn’t know where Talon’s broth
er wanted to take him, but it was beginning to snow again and the temperature was dropping. Any place was bound to be better than this windswept mountain. She held onto the pony’s tail and followed as Losowahkun led them over the mountain and through forest so thick and black she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face.
Eventually, when she was so weary and cold she didn’t think she could take another step, she caught a whiff of hot, baking bread. It seemed a form of delusion, and she tried to ignore it, but within minutes, they stopped short. Rebecca walked smack into the pony’s rump.
She heard wood grating on wood, then Losowahkun pulled open a high door of branches and hide, revealing the interior of a long hut with a fire built at one end. He clicked to the pony, and the animal stepped over the sill and walked inside, followed by the mountain lion. Rebecca didn’t wait for an invitation. She stumbled past them and ran to the fire, pulling off her mittens and holding out her stiff hands to the crackling flame.
Losowahkun shed his outer robe and mittens and led the pony to a wide platform that ran along two sides of the longhouse. The structure was about waist high and used in various spots as bed, table, and storage area. Losowahkun halted the pony beside a heaped pile of furs and motioned for Rebecca to help him get Talon off the animal’s back.
Once Talon was on the platform, Losowahkun clicked to the pony, and the gentle animal walked to the far end of the longhouse, away from the fire, and began to nibble at a heap of dry corn stalks. The cat circled around behind Rebecca and watched her every movement with narrowed eyes.
Losowahkun seemed to have forgotten that she was there. He went to the fire pit and brought back a copper tea kettle of warm water, then got a small clay pot from the storage area. The domed ceiling was braced with saplings stripped of their bark; numerous skin bags, woven baskets, and leather pouches hung from the poles. Losowahkun chose two pouches, sprinkled powder from each into the bowl, poured water from the kettle on top, and stirred with a peeled stick.
“Is he still alive?” Rebecca asked. Talon hadn’t even groaned when they’d lowered him, face down, onto the sleeping platform. “He lost a lot of blood.”
“Sh’Kotaa Osh-Kah-Shah lives. His spirit walks the star path. Losowahkun call back or he die before morning sun.”
Firelight gleamed off a terrible knotted purple scar that ran down Talon’s brother’s exposed arm. His chest and his other arm were covered by a white fox fur vest and sleeve. He had not removed the deerskin mask, but he had taken off the fox hood. His hair was thick and black, chopped off short at shoulder length. In the front, a fringe of dark bangs fell to cover the top of the eerie white mask.
Rebecca peered at him from the corner of her eyes, no longer certain if he was indeed a man or a woman. He was not so tall as Talon, and more lightly built, but his arm was lean and muscular. His voice was husky, his movements decisive like a man’s, with none of a woman’s deference.
His clothing was male, an undecorated white buckskin apron—front and back—worn over the fur leggings and moccasins. He wore no jewelry that she could see. He must be a man, she decided. But there was something . . . something she couldn’t quite put a name to that made her unsure of his sex.
“Who are you?” she asked. “And why do you live here alone in the mountains?” There was no village nearby, she was certain of that. If there were other Indians, she would have smelled their campfires and heard the dogs.
As if on cue, Rebecca heard a whining and scratching at the side of the hut. Losowahkun turned and pulled aside an elkhide, and a wolf slunk into the longhouse. “Wonderful,” Rebecca murmured.
The wolf laid back his lips and snarled. Losowahkun silenced the animal with a word and turned back to Talon. “Eat,” he said. “There.” He motioned to a flat rock on the edge of the fire pit.
Rebecca looked toward the hearth and noticed the small round cakes, realizing that they were what she’d smelled when they’d approached the longhouse. Losowahkun had evidently left the bread cooking, far enough from the fire to keep them from burning. Rebecca reached for one, and found the rock hot to the touch. She as unfamiliar with the texture of the patty, but hungry enough to try anything.
She bit into one gingerly, and was surprised at how good it tasted. “What is it?” she asked. “It’s delicious.” She recognized a maple-sugar flavor and the sweet bite of blueberries, but the flour was something she hadn’t seen before.
“Acorn,” Losowahkun answered. “Acorn and squash, mix with xaskwim—corn.” He came back to the fire and took a flaming branch, using the light to inspect Talon’s back more closely. “Aiyee,” he murmured. He tossed the wood back into the fire pit and began rummaging through a basket of small birchbark containers.
Rebecca finished a second cake and dusted the crumbs off her fingers. Absently, Losowahkun handed her a gourd. She unstoppered the end and took a small sip. The liquid was much like herbal tea. “Thank you,” she said and took a deeper drink.
Talon’s brother found a box that satisfied him and returned to the patient. “Bring gourd,” he said.
“This?” He nodded, and she joined him. When she looked down at Talon’s back, she shuddered. Now that the blood had been cleaned away, she could see the full extent of the damage the bear’s claws had done. Muscle and tissue had been ripped away; pieces of flesh were missing entirely. “He can’t live, can he?” she asked. Her heart sank. She had known that the injuries were critical, but the fact that he’d survived so long had given her hope.
Losowahkun had cleaned the wounds and rubbed a grayish paste into the gashes. Now, he gestured for Rebecca to take one of Talon’s arms. Together, they raised him to a sitting position, and Losowahkun began to drip the herbal tea into Talon’s mouth. Most ran over his lips and down his chin, but his brother was persistent. He continued to give Talon the liquid until every drop was gone. “Good,” he said. “Make sleep.”
“Make sleep?” Rebecca said. “But you gave it to me, too.”
“E-e.” He motioned for her to help lay Talon back on the furs, then took a sharp steel needle and a length of silk thread. “Sew?” he asked Rebecca.
“Sew him?”
“E-e. Sew.” He handed her the needle and pointed to the deepest of the claw marks. “Sew!”
She shook her head. “You do it.” Her stomach was beginning to feel queasy, and her head felt as if it was full of uncarded wool.
“Ku. Sew!”
Rebecca took a deep breath, glanced at the watching mountain lion, and gritted her teeth. “All right,” she agreed. “You show me where, and I’ll stitch. My stitches are probably better than yours anyway.”
Talon’s brother sprinkled black powder onto the open wounds and pointed to the place where he wanted her to make the first suture. Fresh blood sprang from the needle entrance, and Losowahkun wiped it away with a compress of shredded cedar bark. “Sew,” he repeated.
Rebecca drew the silk tight and worked the needle through a second time. I wanted you to suffer, she thought, as sweat beaded on her head. I hated you . . . but I don’t now. I don’t know why I changed, but I did. Best be careful what you pray for, she decided. You may not want what you prayed for when it comes.
Losowahkun brought a clay pot of lit tobacco and moved the container back and forth over Talon’s back as Rebecca worked. The smoke made Rebecca’s eyes water.
She blinked; it was hard to focus on her patient. She seemed almost detached from the task. Stitch—knot—stitch. Then she realized with a start that she had finished.
Talon’s brother dusted the lines of raw flesh with more of the black powder, then indicated that Rebecca should help to move the patient onto his side so that they could administer to the wound on his right arm. This tear was particularly nasty. She watched in disbelief while Losowahkun sucked blood and dirt from the injury and spat it into the fire. Then he rinsed his mouth out with water and treated Talon’s arm in the same way he’d repaired the lacerations on his back.
Rebecca could barely keep h
er eyes open to sew up the deep slash. She swayed on her feet as she finished tying the last knot. Vaguely, she was aware of Losowahkun guiding her to a place on the platform piled with furs. She crawled between them, unable to summon the energy to remove her moccasins. When she next stirred, sunlight was pouring through the smoke hole over the hearth.
She sat up and looked around. Immediately, her senses were assaulted by a myriad of strange smells and sights. Curing hides, tobacco, mint, pine, she recognized; but the majority of the odors were totally alien to her. A somewhat unpleasant smell could only come from the mountain lion staring back at her from the far side of the fire.
“Well, if you didn’t eat me while I slept, I guess I’m safe for the moment,” she murmured. Nothing else moved in the longhouse. She reached out and touched the wall next to her sleeping shelf.
Tightly curling hair covered the immense hide that must belong to a woods bison. Other skins were stretched over the inner bark panels that formed the structure of the hut. The floor was made of hard-packed earth. Fur rugs were spread beside the platform and next to the fire pit. Overhead hung a pair of snowshoes, a beaded quiver full of arrows, fish spears, strings of dried squash and pumpkin, dried fish, and an assortment of deerskin clothing in various stages of construction.
Along the platform were baskets of corn, acorns, and unfamiliar roots. There were sealed containers woven of grass, and of reeds, and stacks of dry firewood. A fishing net was folded on top of a small sled. Beside that stood a copper kettle large enough to boil a goose. One wall held wooden masks, several rifles, and a hunting bag and powder horn. The hut was so well supplied that it was evident to her that this was Losowahkun’s permanent home, not just a hunting camp.
Rebecca took a deep breath and stretched. How was it possible for her to sleep so soundly here in this Indian stronghold, she wondered. Then she remembered the herb tea Losowahkun had given her to drink.
Talon.
Mother of God! She clapped her hand over her mouth. She had lost her mind if she’d forgotten Talon. She began to get off the sleeping platform when the cat growled. Instantly, Rebecca froze. The tawny lion’s tail was twitching back and forth, and she could see a hint of curving ivory fangs.
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