Talon had told her he’d gone to meet Simon. If she was ever to get away, it had to be now. She could not risk staying longer with Talon. He’d said they each had to do what they had to do. He said it, but in her heart she didn’t believe he meant it.
She wanted him—wanted him to make love to her. She wanted to stay here with him in the wilderness, forsaking her husband and her own kind. It was wrong—terribly wrong—but she knew she couldn’t fight her desires forever.
He wanted her as much as she wanted him.
Regardless of what he said, regardless of how much he protested that she was his enemy, she could feel the tension rising between them. And if she took that step—if she went into his arms—she’d never have the strength to break away again.
There was no chance of their finding happiness together. Simon would follow her to the ends of the earth if necessary. Nothing could come of the fierce passion that threatened to leap between her and Talon—nothing but sorrow and bloodshed. They would be outcasts, hated by Indians and by whites. And if their love produced a child . . . Merciful Father, how could she think of bringing a half-breed child into a world of war and destruction?
The only sensible thing was to put time and distance between them. If she was gone, he would forget her as she would forget him.
Somehow, she would convince Simon that their marriage was over, that her capture by the Indians had ruined her as a wife. They would separate, and she would go her own way. She would find work on a farm or in some small village near the sea, far away from Shawnee country. And if her prayers were answered, Colin would be released and she could make a new life for him.
Delaware. That was a fair spot, she’d heard. The lower three colonies of Pennsylvania had been a Dutch settlement—or was it Swedish? Anyway, she’d heard that Catholics were not persecuted there, and that living was easy. Yes, she’d go to Delaware, near the ocean, and wait for Colin.
And forget she’d ever followed a tawny man through the trackless forest . . . Forget she’d dared to dream of long winter nights, wrapped in his strong arms . . . Forget those eyes as black as the pits of hell and the mouth that tempted her to certain damnation . . .
Her decision to run away hadn’t come easily. She was afraid of the woods, fearful of hostile Indians and wild beasts. But she was even more afraid of staying here.
She wasn’t being rash or stupid; she’d thought her plan out carefully since Talon had left. She’d walk until she came to a river, then follow it south. When she was far enough away from here, she’d turn east toward the rising sun. She was taking a musket, ammunition, and all the things she’d brought from her cabin. When the food ran out, she’d shoot a deer. She’d keep walking until she found a trading post. If she had to surrender to a Frenchman, she would.
Another white woman, Mildred Emmett, had done it. She’d escaped from her Indian captors and walked twenty-two days to freedom. Of course, Mildred had walked out of the woods in summer. But she’d been with child. If an Englishwoman could do it, surely an able-bodied Irish woman could.
The trick was to get away from Siipu and her animals. Rebecca knew she’d have to travel fast today. She felt guilty stealing Siipu’s food after the Indian woman had been so kind to her, but she couldn’t go into the forest without supplies. She’d make it up to Talon’s sister by going to the fort and making certain that her father was being treated kindly. Rebecca didn’t believe for one minute that the old man was dead. That was superstitious nonsense. She’d been foolish even to consider it.
No educated person could believe in witchcraft. Banshees, leprechauns, and pookas were all of a lot—tall tales to frighten children. Siipu’s seeing in the fire was the pitiful fantasy of a poor girl whose wits had been damaged by bad treatment and living alone too long. No, Talon’s father was certainly alive and well. What sense would it make for the English military to take a hostage and then kill him when they were trying to make peace with the hostiles?
At first, she didn’t feel the cold. She walked fast, following a game trail that led downhill. The sky was overcast, but it didn’t smell like snow. She slung the musket over one shoulder, her blanket and hunting bag over the other. The snow was nearly gone, and the ground was frozen solid. Her feet were warm in the double moccasins, her hands swathed in thick mittens. As she hurried along, she looked around her as she had seen Talon do and she listened for sounds of danger.
The air smelled so fresh and clean that she actually enjoyed the rare experience of venturing into the forest alone. Once, she stopped short as a doe and two yearlings crossed just ahead of her. They were so beautiful that she was glad she didn’t need to shoot one. The doe stared at her with huge liquid eyes for a long moment, then loped gracefully away. The others followed, and Rebecca continued on, trying not to think how heavy the musket was becoming.
After what she judged to be two hours’ time, she paused beneath a chestnut tree to catch her breath. So far, her escape had been easy. She was carrying more weight than was comfortable, but that couldn’t be helped. She’d need the weapon later.
The cold didn’t bother her. If anything, she was almost too warm in her heavy clothing. She was thirsty, but she didn’t want to drink yet even though she’d brought water in a skin bag; she’d wait until she came to a stream. Instead, she dug out a corn cake laced with dried berries and nibbled on that while a gray squirrel scampered down from a tree and scolded her with sharp, chattering barks.
Someday, I’ll tell Colin about this adventure, she decided. And we’ll laugh about it together. He’d have his own stories to relate, exaggerated, she was sure. Colin always did have a vivid imagination.
Maybe her little brother was already back in the settlement. The Indian who’d taken him away might have found out the boy was too much trouble, or he might have sold him back to the British. Holding Colin prisoner would be like trying to hold onto a summer thunderstorm. No doubt, he was already free, with his feet propped up in front of a crackling fireplace, worrying about her safety.
“Wait until I tell you about the bear,” she murmured aloud. “He had a hump on his back and a head the size of a wagon wheel.” She could almost picture Colin’s wide-eyed look of astonishment.
But thinking about Colin brought a catch to her throat. She got to her feet and shouldered her pack. “I’d best get going if I’m going,” she said. The twisting trail led downhill over an outcropping of loose rock and through an area that had burned years ago in a fire.
By dusk, she had entered virgin forest again. She was cold and hungry, and she knew she’d need to find shelter and build a fire. She’d been looking for someplace to camp since late afternoon, but so far, she hadn’t found water or the right spot to stop. She was tired, and her left foot had a sore spot on the heel. The shoulder that the musket banged against felt as though it was broken.
She paused and glanced around, hoping she’d overlooked some overhanging ledge or fallen tree. Then she heard what sounded like a woman’s terrified scream.
Rebecca’s mouth went dry. Badly frightened, she spun around, trying to decide where the cry had come from. Then the scream came again, and she knew it wasn’t a woman. It was a mountain lion.
She backed against a tree, lowered the musket, and began to check the priming. A branch snapped, and her heart nearly leaped out of her chest.
I can’t run, she thought frantically. I can’t run. But every instinct urged her to flee. Hands trembling, she raised the musket, waiting for the lion to spring at her.
“There be no need,” Siipu said, stepping out from behind a giant beech. “It be Meshepeshe.”
“Siipu!” She lowered the gun.
Talon’s sister stared at her as the mountain lion materialized out of the gathering twilight and rubbed against his mistress’s leg.
“I’m not going back,” Rebecca said defiantly. “I won’t. You can’t make me.”
“This one not want you go back,” the Indian woman answered.
Her husky voice sounded h
ollow; it echoed through the trees, and a shiver ran down Rebecca’s spine. In the longhouse, Talon’s sister had seemed almost friendly, despite the ever present mask. But here . . .
I thought she was a ghost the first time I saw her, Rebecca remembered. Maybe I was right.
“It’s better for Talon if I go back to my own people,” she argued. “Once I return, I’m certain I can convince the English to release your father.”
Siipu shook her head. The dark eyes behind the doeskin mask were expressionless. “Do not speak of him,” she said. “He has crossed river of souls. The Lenape not speak name of dead.”
“Stop saying that! There’s no way you can know if he’s dead or alive.”
“This one know.”
“Then why didn’t you tell Talon if you’re so sure?” Rebecca demanded.
“Talon vow kill you. Father dead, white prisoner dead.”
“I don’t believe you! Talon won’t hurt me. He won’t. He’s no murderer.”
“He Shawnee. War chief. Word is honor. He know father die, he must put you to death. No want. Must.”
“Then I can’t go back. Surely, you can see that.”
“Losowahkun see. See Sh’Kotaa Osh-Kah-Shah watch prisoner with wanting eyes.”
“You’re wrong,” Rebecca protested. “He’s been good to me, that’s all. There’s nothing between us. There couldn’t be. He’s Shawnee, and I’m—”
“A woman.”
“It’s not the same. I am a Catholic. I could never—”
“A woman’s heart sometime lead where head know better not to go. You have want for Sh’Kotaa Osh-Kah-Shah. Best you return your own people.”
Rebecca stared at her in shock. “You agree with me?”
“Losowahkun agree. Come not to bring you back. Come guide you to white settlement.”
Chapter 15
Simon took aim at the running figure and fired. He was rewarded by the sound of branches snapping as a man’s body tumbled down the far side of the ridge. Without wasting a motion, he began to dump powder and shot into the barrel of his silver-inlaid Pennsylvania long rifle.
Despite the cold, sweat gleamed on Simon’s forehead. This mission was not going as he’d intended. They’d already lost two men and the Miami scout, murdered by Indians they hadn’t even seen.
Amos Dodd had been the first to die, cut down as they crossed the rocky creek. Dodd hadn’t wanted to leave the safety of the fort, and he’d whined and grumbled every step of the journey. “Guess you were right,” Simon murmured. “Guess you shoulda stayed safe behind the fort walls.” He couldn’t waste time mourning the likes of Dodd. “Yellow belly.” This country was too hard for weak men; if Dodd hadn’t caught a rifle ball in the gut yesterday, ole man death would have found him soon enough.
Simon had set the Miami Injun scout and Richard Beaumont to guard the night camp for the last watch while the rest slept. When he woke at first light, he’d found them both with throats cut, minus their scalps. The Injun was no great loss; Simon knew this country about as well as he did. But Beaumont was a man to be reckoned with. The militia could scarce afford to lose his kind. Simon had fought side by side with Beaumont for twenty years, and he’d miss his steady aim and ready laughter.
It was too friggin’ bad the ground was frozen hard as a whore’s heart, Simon mused. The dead men would end up in some varmint’s belly, that was certain. “Hellfire and damnation, Richard. It grates on me to leave ye for wolf bait.”
Davy caught his eye and waved. He was crouched about ten yards away beneath the overhanging branches of a pin oak. Simon nodded and moved cautiously to his friend’s side.
“Ye hit one?” Davy asked. Tobacco juice trickled from the corner of his mouth and clotted in his six-day beard. He wiped at it absently with the sleeve of his red hunting coat.
“Hit him square, I reckon,” Simon answered, as he peered into the surrounding forest for any sign of movement. Someone had been taking potshots at them for over an hour, and he didn’t mean to be the next victim.
Davy cleared his throat. Small green eyes peered out from beneath a soft, leather, three-cornered hat that had once been gray but was now stained with a score of colors of dirt and grease and dried blood. “How many of ‘em ye ’spose there be?”
“Not as many as us. They’d of come at us afore this if they had us outgunned.”
“Maybe.” Dave bit off a fresh twist of tobacco. “Maybe not. Injuns is all cowards at heart.”
“Some is,” Simon agreed. “But they’s some got more nerve than brains. Ye take this Shawnee whoreson we’re ahuntin’, Fire Talon. Me and him, we had a few set-to’s afore this. And he ain’t no yellow belly, I’ll give the devil his due.”
“The men don’t care much for this, Simon. They shoot one, we shoot one. This ain’t gettin’ yer woman back or cleaning out the brier patch fer white folk. Wilson and Barrel-head Hooper, they’re fer turnin’ back afore we all end up like Richard.”
“Just like that, huh? We take a few knocks, and then we let ’em chase us home like curs with our tails ’tween our legs. We come to teach ’em a lesson, Davy. That’s a good lesson, but I ain’t sure it’s the one we wanted to deliver.”
“Don’t go all stiff necked on me,” Davy said. “I didn’t say I was ready to call it quits. I said the boys was nervous. They got good right to be. Most got women folk and kids at home. I know yer worried about your wife, but—”
A bullet tore a chunk of bark out of the tree inches above Davy’s head. “Son of a howlin’ bitch!” he swore.
Two militiamen fired off their rifles, and a Shawnee war cry echoed through the trees. Black smoke drifted up through the bare branches. Davy and Simon edged around to the far side of the oak.
“Let’s you and me play a little Injun ourselves,” Simon suggested. “You go that way.” He motioned left. “And I’ll try and come around from the other direction.”
Davy nodded. “All right by me. Just don’t show your ass. Barrel-head’s scared enough to shoot anything that moves.”
“I’ll mind my rear, you mind yer own,” Simon replied with a grin. “I’ve a notion to decorate this hunting bag of mine with some Shawnee hair.”
“I hear ye.”
Head low, Simon slipped off into the brush. Davy waited for a count of twenty-five, then crept to the next tree.
In the gully, several hundred yards away, Osage Killer pressed his fist against the rifle wound in Counts’ shoulder and tried to stanch the blood flow. Counts leaned against a boulder, head down, and eyes shut.
“How bad is he hurt?” Talon asked as he approached the two.
Counts opened his eyes. His face was white with shock and pain. “I’ll live,” he said.
“Not if I can’t slow this,” Osage Killer said.
Talon bent to inspect the injury. “Is the ball still in there?”
Counts shook his head. “No.”
“Hold the pressure on it,” Talon advised. “He always bleeds like this. Remember the time you took that Huron arrow up on the big lake?”
“You’ll never let me forget it,” Counts whispered.
Osage Killer frowned. “He needs more help than I can give him here.”
“Take him to my sister’s,” Talon said.
“The witch?” Osage Killer’s lips thinned.
“Who better?” Talon retorted. “Siipu is good with medicine. “He needs a warm bed and hot food.”
“No,” Counts His Scalps protested. “We’ll not leave you and Fox alone to fight the long knives. I. can make it on my own.”
Talon clasped Counts’ forearm. “Little use you’d be to us dead, old friend. Osage Killer can take you there and return. Meanwhile, we’ll try to lead Simon Brandt’s men in another direction.”
“This man does not like the smell of witches,” Osage Killer said. “Better I take Counts to the village.”
“Too far,” Talon said. “And wounded or not, Counts’ powers are stronger than those of any witch woman. What say y
ou, dreamer of dreams?” He glanced back at the injured brave. “Are you afraid of Siipu?”
Counts made a sound of derision.
“Then it’s settled,” Talon said. “Go quickly, before Simon Brandt comes to see if you’re dead. I’ll relieve Fox. Watch for smoke when the sun is at its highest. We’ll send a signal if we can. If not, we’ll meet at the salt licks two days from now. Agreed?”
Osage Killer nodded. “Walk with care, Sh’Kotaa Osh-Kah-Shah. Simon Brandt is a worthy enemy.”
Talon shrugged. “His luck has held for many years. And even a worthy enemy makes a mistake in time.”
“Unless the spirits are with him and against you,” Osage Killer said.
“If that is so, then nothing this man can do will add one breath to his own life,” Talon answered softly. “For my father’s sake, I hope not.”
“If you die, we will free Medicine Smoke,” Counts said. “The honor of the Mecate Shawnee will not allow him to remain a prisoner of the English.”
“I will hold you to your word,” Talon said. “If we do not meet again on this side of the river of souls, remember what you have promised.”
Osage Killer nodded solemnly. “I swear as well,” he said. “If you do not live, we will become Medicine Smoke’s sons in your place. All that you would do for your father, so we shall do. On Counts’ life, I vow it.”
“Swear on your own life,” Counts said as he struggled to his feet. He gasped with pain as the bullet wound began to bleed again. Fighting to keep his balance, he swayed. He gritted his teeth, but remained upright.
Osage Killer put an arm around Counts’ shoulders to steady him. “You should lie still until I bandage this.”
“Bleeding will clean the flesh. If I cannot stand, how can I walk?” Counts grumbled.
“I left the wife of Simon Brandt with my sister,” Talon said as he prepared to leave them. “Treat her gently. She is not to blame for her husband’s crimes.”
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