“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” she said soothingly as she lifted the furs slowly. “I just want to—”
The cat snarled.
“All right. All right.” She settled back into her warm nest. Her host was absent, along with the pony and the wolf. It seemed that the mountain lion had been left as guard. She wondered if she could creep down the platform to where Talon lay without disturbing the cat, but as soon as she moved, the animal snarled again. “No one would believe this,” she murmured, half to herself.
Then the larger door opened and Losowahkun entered, leading the pony. The little pack animal was weighed down with the bear skin and huge chunks of meat.
“Talon,” Rebecca called. “Is he still alive? I tried to—”
“My brother sleeps.”
“He isn’t dead?”
“He has not crossed the river.”
“River?”
Losowahkun shook his head and pushed back his fox hood. “You look.” He pointed to where Talon lay.
Rebecca took that for permission to leave her bed. She slipped down onto the floor and crossed to Talon. He was stretched on his side as she had last seen him. He was very pale, but there was no mistaking the steady rise and fall of his breathing. She laid a hand on his forehead. “He has no fever,” she said, glancing back at Losowahkun. “Why isn’t he feverish? Bear claws are poison—everyone knows that.”
He nodded solemnly. “Fever will come. I give blood of bear and liver. Make medicine. Burn kinnikinnick—tobacco.”
“Will it be enough?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Sh’Kotaa Osh-Kah-Shah strong.” From a pouch at his waist, he took a sticky ball of cedar gum and handed it to her. “Make . . .” He sighed in exasperation, then went to the storage area and took a small English copper pot. He put the gum in it and added water from a tall clay container. Adding a pinch of dried leaves, and a bit of this and that, he went to the hearth and propped the pot over the coals. “Watch,” he instructed. “No burn. You watch.”
Rebecca went to crouch by the fire pit. Losowahkun added another log to the flames. Almost at once, the hut was filled with the pungent aroma of cedar. Then, in another clay pot, he began to heat a mixture of wild cherry bark, water, and maple sugar. “We give drink,” Losowahkun explained. “Medicine woman teach me. Good.”
“Will you make me drink it too?” Rebecca dared.
The dark eyes behind the mask flashed amusement. “You sleep good,” he said.
“Yes,” Rebecca nodded. “I did sleep good.”
Later, when the potions were ready, she helped Losowahkun spoon the cherry liquid between Talon’s lips and applied the cedar gum to his wounds.
At midmorning, she and Talon’s brother shared a breakfast of grilled bear meat, corn porridge, and dried fish. Losowahkun managed to eat small bites without removing his mask or looking the least bit awkward. Still, Rebecca wondered if the scars she supposed lay under the buckskin mask could be as frightening as the mask itself. It gave Losowahkun an unearthly look. Her first impression had been that he was a ghost; it still might be true, she thought. He didn’t seem quite of this world, even for an Indian.
By afternoon, when Losowahkun left the hut, followed by the mountain lion, Talon had begun to run a fever. Rebecca sponged off his forehead with cool water and pushed his thick hair back away from his face. It worried her that he hadn’t yet regained consciousness. The notion of being left here with Losowahkun was nearly as scary as being alone.
When did I begin to think of Talon as keeping me safe, she mused. Once, she shrank from his touch; now she was bathing him as gently as she’d bathed Colin.
She sighed. Where in God’s name was her little brother? Was he safe or—no, she wouldn’t let herself think otherwise. Colin was sound as a Dutch dollar. She just had to rescue him.
“This is all your fault,” she said to Talon. “You’re responsible.” But the sting had gone out of her words. He was still her enemy, but she no longer hated him.
“I don’t want you to die,” she whispered. “I don’t.”
Without warning he seized her wrist with his left hand. She gasped as he opened his eyes and stared into hers. “I am glad you no longer want me dead,” he murmured hoarsely. “If you did, I would be easy to kill.”
She tried to pull free. “Let me go,” she insisted.
“Will you wipe my head again, if I do? I’m hot.”
“You’re feverish.” He was looking at her in such a strange way—for an instant, she had the oddest notion that he might kiss her.
“And you care for me?”
“If you die there will be no one to take me back to the white settlements,” she said. Her words were harsh, but her tone revealed the joy that bubbled up inside her and made her giddy.
He smiled and glanced around the longhouse. “Siipu found us?” He caressed her hand with his thumb, making slow, gentle circular motions against her skin.
Sweet sensations rippled up her arm and made her pulse quicken. “Siipu? No,” she protested. “It was your brother, Losowahkun, who saved us. He—”
“No.” He frowned. “Do not use that name. Siipu. Not my brother, Becca.”
“Losowahkun,” she repeated in bewilderment.
“He said he was your brother—he wears a deerskin mask.” She was no longer trying to free her hand. She wanted to leave it in his grasp. She fought an impossible urge to throw her arms around his neck and hug him against her. “There can’t be two such—”
“Another like her,” he finished. “You are right. But I have no brother. Her name is not Losowahkun—the Burned One. She is Siipu, Creek Water, and she is my beloved sister.”
Chapter 12
“Your sister? I couldn’t tell if she was a man or woman because of that mask. I couldn’t imagine a woman living alone here with these wild animals,” Rebecca said to Talon as she offered him a water gourd. “Are you thirsty?” He nodded. “Drink all you can,” she said. “It will help hold down the fever.”
His lips were dry and cracked; he released her hand and reached for the liquid eagerly, but she could see how much the effort cost him. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to cradle his head against her breast and hold the cup to his mouth for him to drink. A section of his hair slid over her wrist.
His hair feels as silky as it looks, she thought, as quiet excitement rippled through her. She swallowed, trying to ease the constriction in her throat. His nearness was like tasting a forbidden sweet—one bite and she wanted more.
Her instincts screamed that she was treading on dangerous ground, but she pushed the warnings away and held him a few seconds longer than necessary.
“More?” she asked him. Talon’s cheek was as beardless as a boy’s, but there was nothing of youth about him. He was a man in his prime. Despite his loss of blood, she could feel the pent up power in his body.
“Thank you.” He stared at her until she felt her face grown warm. Then he smiled, closed his eyes, and lay back.
Rebecca busied herself with the cup and compress, trying to ignore the odd sensation that she’d just run a long way uphill. She was so clumsy that the gourd cup slipped from her fingers and rolled across the floor.
What’s wrong with me? she thought. I’m a respectable married woman. I’m too old for foolish fancies. There can be nothing between me and Talon—nothing.
But as she made the silent declaration, she knew that it was already too late. She’d run too far across thin ice. This Indian warrior had already settled firmly into a place in her heart.
The realization shocked her almost speechless. Desperate to turn her thoughts from the unthinkable, she stammered out, “Siipu, your sister, is she terribly scarred beneath that mask?” When Rebecca was small, she had played with the tinkers’ children for a few weeks every year. One boy, Gilvarry, had fallen into an open campfire as a toddler. Half of his face was burned and his mouth twisted. But Gilvarry had the merriest laugh and knew the most games and stories of the lot
. It had never occurred to her to feel sorry for Gilvarry. Instead, she’d envied him his carefree life of traveling and adventure. “Talon? I asked if your sister hides a deformity.”
For a moment, he didn’t answer, and she thought he’d fallen asleep. “Yes,” he answered softly. “Siipu is scarred.” His eyelids flickered and then he fixed her once more with that riveting dark gaze. “She was with my mother in the fire. My mother broke a window and pushed her out.”
For an instant, the black stare wavered. Behind the wall of obsidian she glimpsed a pain so deep and wide that tears welled up in her own eyes.
When he spoke again, his words were dry and emotionless. “My sister tried to run, but the white men caught her. She was a child, but they used her like a woman. When my father came, she would not speak. She used to sing all the time, but after the fire, it was two years before I heard her voice again.”
Rebecca looked away and a sob rose in her throat. Simon and his followers again, she thought. This time, she did not call Talon a liar. She had heard whispers of atrocities, but she’d not suspected that they’d stooped to raping little girls. She covered her face with her hands. “I’m so sorry.” She wanted him to be quiet—she didn’t want to hear anymore, but he went on.
“My people say she is touched by the spirits. Some are afraid of her and call her witch. I know only that she is happy here with her friends. It may be that the world of men is too hard for her.”
Rebecca tried to imagine the loneliness of rainy nights and cold mornings when fog lay thick over the endless mountains.
His voice softened. “I come when I can, but she is not at ease with me, either. She blames herself because she did not die with our mother in the flames.”
“But it wasn’t her fault,” Rebecca protested.
“No. It was not. Each man and woman has a path to follow.”
“And ours took us into the way of that bear?”
“Yes.”
“Then you don’t believe it was an accident—Siipu finding us on the mountain.”
“I was bringing you to her wigwam. I meant to leave you in my sister’s care while I went to face Simon Brandt.”
“And the bear? I still don’t understand why it attacked us. Most bears run from the scent of man. They—”
“They fear us. That is true. But this bear was different. He had already lost a fight with a porcupine.” Talon motioned for her to give him more water. “Gatusemwi—I am thirsty,” he said.
“Gatusemwee?” she echoed. The Indian words reminded her of the native Celtic she’d often heard as a child in Ireland. It wasn’t the same, but both languages shared a lilting, almost musical sound.
He smiled. “Gatusemwi. I am thirsty. You have a good ear for Delaware.” He drank deeply, then continued explaining about the bear. “Quills were embedded in his muzzle and mouth, and they had become infected. He couldn’t eat and the poison maddened him. He thought we had caused his pain, and he struck out at us.”
“You risked your own life to save me,” she said. “I won’t forget that.”
His face grew expressionless again. “I told you, Becca. You belong to me. I will not let you go until my father is released.”
You belong to me. You belong to me. The words echoed in her mind. “I belong to no one but myself,” she said throatily. But deep inside, she wished . . .
“You are my captive.”
“I could have left you to bleed to death,” she reminded him.
“Ahikta. It is true. But my father is old. If I do not save him, he will die. It shames me to use a woman for a weapon, but sometimes a man must do what he must.”
“I think I understand that now,” she said. As I must return to a husband that I can never love, as I might have loved this man were we not born mortal enemies.
Talon did not speak again, and in a little while he drifted off to sleep. She sat beside him, hands in her lap, gazing at his sleeping face.
How alien he is, she thought, and how beautiful. His skin tone was a warm red-bronze, his cheekbones high and prominent. His lips were thin but sensual, his eyes slightly slanted beneath raven-black brows. His forehead was high and broad, his chin and nose ruggedly defined. It was all she could do to keep from touching his face again. She wanted to stroke the smooth lines of his beardless jaw, to trace those fierce arching brows and commit them all to memory.
I have a husband, she thought. But eight years in his bed have never caused these feelings in my breast. She wondered if Talon would believe her if she told him that she had never known a man’s physical love—that she was so many years a wife, and still a virgin.
She allowed herself to pull the fur robe close around his shoulders. Despite his pallor, spots of fever colored each cheek. He was not yet out of danger. Often, fever and infection came days after an injury. Some wounds caused spasms of the jaw that ended in slow, painful death; others turned gangrenous.
Once, she’d watched Simon saw a man’s leg off to keep the rot from killing him. Despite their efforts, he’d died from loss of blood. Talon would either survive the bear claw poison or it would kill him.
She rose and went to the entranceway of the longhouse, then pushed aside the door skin. The sun was shining, but the air was very cold. She was surprised at how comfortable it was inside the wigwam compared to the raw winter temperature. Throwing a fur wrap around her shoulders, she stepped outside.
Tall trees grew very close to the hut. A few feet from the door was another fire pit, now frozen, half-covered with snow. A few racks for drying meat stood empty; a large pile of firewood leaned against the side of the longhouse. Beyond that was a small log pound for the pony. The small clearing seemed deserted. This house is well hidden, she thought. A few steps from the wigwam and I wouldn’t know it was here.
The wind was cold on her face, but she turned into it, welcoming the bite of the raw blast. She needed something to blow the cobwebs from her mind. Inside the warm hut—near Talon—she couldn’t think clearly.
My marriage to Simon is a failure, she reasoned. No matter what happens to me, I can never live with him as I did before, knowing what awful things he’s done. Yet, how could she not? She was a Catholic—bound to him so long as they both lived. She could not divorce him, and if she ran away, who would shelter her from her rightful husband?
But Talon had sworn to kill Simon.
That was even worse. If Simon was dead, how could she find happiness knowing that she’d wished him ill? Only a depraved and evil woman could think rationally about the murder of a husband who had cared for her for eight long years.
“But he’s never been a husband . . .” she argued softly. She would never put Simon’s babe to her breast or know the joy of seeing a toddler take a first step. She doubted that Simon could father a child . . .
Since they’d first wed, Simon had never undressed in front of her—he always slept in his breeches when he shared her bed. She’d never even seen him bathing. But once, several years ago, she’d come upon him accidentally near the creek. It was a windy day, and she’d been gathering firewood. The wind blowing through the trees had kept Simon from hearing her until she was almost on him.
She’d been shocked by the sight of Simon’s breeches down around his ankles and his man parts exposed. One of Simon’s testicles was missing, the other horribly scarred. But what had horrified her most was not his being maimed; it was the fact that she’d caught him in the act of seeking out his own pleasure.
Simon had been as startled as she was. He’d ranted and raved, cursing and threatening her life if she told anyone. He’d come after her, but she’d outrun him. Long after dark, when she’d finally come back to the cabin, he’d slapped her—not once, but twice—cutting her lip. Colin had tried to come to her aid, and Simon had slammed him up against the wall so hard he’d given the boy a bloody nose. Later, he’d said that he was sorry and told her that his injuries were the result of a knife attack by an Indian.
Neither Simon’s violence nor his apol
ogies had made any difference to her. She had been so glad to finally understand why he had never claimed the rights of a husband, and why he’d mocked her when she tried to invite him to her bed. The victory was hers, and nothing Simon could do to her would ever change things. From that day, she had grown stronger and more sure of herself, and Simon had grown less powerful in her mind.
She had wondered at the time if Simon’s lack of ability made her eligible for an annulment in the Church. It was an idle whimsey, of course. Annulments were for the wealthy and influential. No backwoods wife could ever hope to procure one. Had she asked, she had no doubt that it would be the last thing she ever asked of her husband. Simon would not be shamed publicly
She lay her face against a sapling, not feeling the roughness of the bark on her cold cheek. She clutched the tree so tightly that a fingernail snapped.
What did she feel for Simon? Not love or even compassion. It was a debt of honor that she fulfill the bargain she’d made when they met. The Church was clear on the duties of marriage. Once made, a union was for life. Anything less would risk her immortal soul.
Simon dead would free her. But she felt no hate for him in her heart. She had often wished, childishly, that he would just go away and not come back. She and Colin could have lived happily in the cabin without him. But now?
“I still don’t hate him,” she murmured into the wind. “I am ashamed of him, but I can’t seek to take his life—not by word or deed.”
She sighed, feeling suddenly wise. Fire Talon is a better man than Simon Brandt, she decided. Barbarian or not, I could have been happy with him if I were an Indian maiden. If?
She chuckled. Was she losing her mind to have such fancies? There could be no future for her with Talon. His customs, his people were totally different from hers. He wasn’t even a Christian. And any white woman who took up with an Indian would be ostracized, cut off from decent society forever. Men would spit at her, and women would turn their heads when she walked by. Not to mention the everlasting shame that would fall on the heads of any children she might bring into the world!
This Fierce Loving Page 12