Chapter 23
Pennsylvania Colony
March 1752
Nearly three months from the day of Siipu’s murder, Rebecca clung to the seat of a farm wagon on the Philadelphia road. Clad in a gray wool skirt and bodice, linen mobcap, and man’s shapeless felt hat, Rebecca watched the throng of travelers with a weary apathy.
The wide dirt lane was a morass of mud and potholes, crowded by foot traffic, vehicles, and horsemen. Just ahead, the way was blocked by a herd of pigs and an overturned ox cart with a broken wheel. The driver of the oxen swore mightily and shook his fist at a broom seller. The peddler, not in the least intimidated, was shouting back at him in a language Rebecca had never heard before.
Ernst Byler reined in the bays and motioned for Rebecca to stay where she was. Swearing softly in German, he removed his worn cocked hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Climbing down from the wagon, Ernst strode around the head of his team and tested the ground to the right of the road with his boot heel.
A speckled pig broke from the squealing herd and dove between the legs of the horses. Snorting loudly, the bays tossed their big heads and sidled sideways in the harness, but made no move to bolt. Rebecca sat with her hands folded in her lap and waited, not really caring if they went on or sat here all day.
It was warm for March; the sun had broken through the clouds in midmorning and had shone brightly ever since. Two days of rain had soaked the earth, and the air smelled of new grass and freshly turned earth. Already, farmers were plowing the fields, leaves were budding, and the meadows and hillsides were taking on a vivid green hue.
Rebecca didn’t notice the vibrant colors of spring or the trilling notes of bird calls. She was still mentally locked in winter and in her prison of grief.
The first few weeks after the tragedy had been lost in pain and fever. Vaguely, she’d been aware of a smoky cabin, the heavy odor of sickness, and unfamiliar white faces peering into hers.
Her self-appointed saviors had spoken only German. She neither understood nor spoke a word of the language. It would be nearly three long months before Ernst Byler came to the farm and explained that her shooting had been an accident. Meinhard Troyer, her host, had believed that she was an Indian. “Because of the clothes, you see,” Ernst had translated. “An honest mistake.”
The German settlers had believed her mad, too crazed by her terrible experience to realize that she’d been rescued from the savages. It was a belief that had only been strengthened when Rebecca first set foot out of the cabin after weeks flat on her back in bed. She had taken one look at the mountain lion skin stretched on the stable door and flown at Meinhard with hammering fists and round Irish oaths.
And when she’d noticed Talon’s prized rifle hanging over the fireplace, she’d cried for hours and not eaten a mouthful for four days.
Dead. They were all dead; Siipu, Osage Killer, Counts His Scalps, and Talon. They were dead. She wished with all her heart that she had died back there on the crest of the hill as well.
Mornings were the hardest. Each day she would wake, and the overwhelming sorrow would grip her. She almost welcomed the pain in her breast. Meinhard’s lead slug had torn her flesh and scarred her for life, but all she could think of was that the bullet had passed through Siipu first. Her Indian sister had given her life so that Rebecca could live.
It was the greatest gift a soul could offer another. And Rebecca didn’t want it . . .
Strangely enough, she felt no hate for Meinhard Troyer and his family. They were not evil people; they had fired on Osage Killer out of ignorance. In the eyes of settlers, especially those recently come from the old country, Indians were the enemy—to be destroyed as routinely as the forests were cut down. Even if she spoke fluent German, it would have been impossible to convey to them what kind of people Talon and Siipu had been.
The chasm between the two cultures was too great to be crossed. The Troyers were Christians; the Indians—in the immigrants’ minds—godless animals who wanted nothing more than to ravish and burn.
She had nearly gotten her wish. Meinhard’s wife, Anna, had nearly killed her with her dubious medical skills. Rebecca had suffered poultices of goose grease, powwowing, smoke blown in her ear, a concoction of sulphur, molasses, and cow urine, live leaches, and having her hands and feet tied to the bed post for the duration of each night.
Too ill and despondent to have an appetite, she had been forced to eat three large meals a day. Greasy blood sausages, cabbage and potatoes, sauerkraut, boiled turnips, and thick porridge with cream had been spooned into her resisting mouth by a stubborn Anna, and promptly rejected by Rebecca’s stomach.
She supposed she should consider herself lucky. If the Troyers had been able to find a physician to attend to her bullet wound, he would have bled her, draining what small reserve of will to live she possessed.
Rebecca shifted on the hard wagon seat and glanced down at her hands. The nails were bitten to the quick, and her fingers were so thin that they seemed to belong to a stranger.
An image of Talon’s face rose in her mind’s eye, and the familiar pain swept over her again. She dashed away the tears that spilled down her cheeks and stared over the horses’ heads at the ox cart without really focusing on anything.
Would he haunt her waking and sleeping dreams forever, this copper-skinned shadow? She had loved him, truly loved him, with a passion that exceeded anything she’d ever felt before. She loved him more than she loved Colin or her parents. She loved him more than her own life.
Without Talon, nothing mattered.
They had told her they were returning her to her husband. She didn’t care. Nothing Simon Brandt could do to her could touch her. She was already a ghost inside.
Oh, Talon, she sobbed. If I could only feel your arms around me one more time. If I could only hear your laughter . . . or even your boasting, she thought wryly.
So many memories . . . so many regrets.
Ernst was climbing back into the wagon again. Without speaking to her, he picked up the reins, clicked to his team, and guided them off the road and around the stalled cart. The cart driver shouted something rude as they passed, but Rebecca didn’t catch the words and didn’t care.
Ernst Byler was a cousin by marriage to Meinhard Troyer. He’d heard of the trouble at the farm, and he’d come with fresh supplies as soon as the weather eased enough for him to make the trek west.
He’d brought with him news of a smallpox epidemic. Rumors were that Indians had started the spread of the illness. More than thirty settlers had died and no one knew how many soldiers. Fort Nelson had been abandoned and later had burned; no one knew who was responsible, but it was supposed that hostiles had done that as well.
Pennsylvania militias had joined with Maryland to make a united attack on unfriendly Indian villages. Simon Brandt had been ill with smallpox himself, but he’d risen from his sickbed and led an expedition that destroyed three Indian encampments. Simon Brandt was in Philadelphia where, it was reported, he was about to be rewarded for his courage with a huge grant of land and a prize of fifty pounds sterling, collected by grateful citizens.
Rebecca’s coming would be a surprise to Simon. Doubtless, the Troyers and Ernst Byler expected to be repaid for caring for her and for transporting her to the arms of her loving husband. With so much hard coin, Ernst had declared repeatedly, Simon Brandt would be in a generous mood. Rebecca couldn’t keep a bitter smile from her lips. It would serve them all right if Simon refused to take her. What she would do then, she didn’t know . . . or care.
“Watch yer step, Mister Brandt,” Ezra Fry, the turnkey, said as he led the way down narrow, slick steps to the cell where the red Indian was imprisoned. A rat squeaked and scurried away as the yellow lantern light cast a feeble glow across the crumbling brick floor. “Watch yer ’ead, sir, them rafters over top is low as well.”
Stagnant water pooled in low spots. Simon stepped around a puddle and ducked to avoid a hanging spider web. The cellar smell
ed of mouse droppings and rotting hay. He paused and squinted into the darkness. The only window at street level had been bricked in, and the single candle burning in the lantern provided poor light. This place gave him the creeps. “Where’s the prisoner?” he demanded. Damned if he could even see anything resembling a jail.
“ ‘Ere, Mister Brandt.” The guard sloshed through the water and raised the wooden bar on a board-and-batten door set into the brick wall. “In ’ere.” He lifted the lantern so that Simon could see.
A dirt-walled annex, no more than five feet wide, six high, and eight deep, ran back into the side of the hill. The ceiling was of splintered planks, the earthen floor covered with moldy hay. There was no furniture, no blankets, and no candle. The condemned, manacled hand and foot with heavy iron, sat hunched over with his back against the far side.
“No need t’ worry,” Ezra said. “They’s a stake set in the ground. The Injun’s chained to it. ’E can’t reach us.”
The prisoner didn’t move. His face was hidden from the light by a fall of tangled black hair. The smell hit Simon’s nose and he gagged.
“Bad as a midden, ain’t it?” Ezra grimaced. “Be ‘ard fer a man to stay down ’ere and keep ‘is mind whole. This one don’t care. What’s ’e know? A filthy Injun. No better’n pigs, they be. Stink to high jezzes, ever one of them.”
Simon pulled the knife from the sheath at his waist and moved into the cell.
“No need to arm yourself. I tole ye, sir. ‘E’s not goin’ nowhere.”
“I’ve fought Injuns all my life. Scalped more than you got fingers ’n toes. One thing I learnt. Ye don’t take chances.” Simon seized a handful of the Indian’s hair and lifted it so that he could get a clear view of the man’s face.
Talon stared back at him with blazing eyes.
“Mother of Christ!” Simon gasped and jumped back. “That’s him, all right. That’s Medicine Smoke’s son, Fire Talon.”
“Simon Brandt.”
Simon felt as though a timber rattler had just crawled into his bedroll. Hair pricked on his arms, and a queer sensation knotted his bowels.
“Simon Brandt.”
Simon tried to answer, but the lump in his throat would not let the sound come out. That was his enemy’s voice, sure as shootin’. It was . . . but it wasn’t. No demon from hell could put so much malice into a man’s name.
The guard snickered, and Simon threw him a look that made him take a step back. “Leave that light and get the hell out o’ here.”
“That ain’t regulations,” Ezra protested. “I’m responsible for—”
Simon flashed the knife, and Ezra set the lantern on the sill so hard that it toppled over and he had to right it. “Yes, sir,” he replied. “Whatever ye say, Mister Brandt. Yer the Injun fighter, ain’t ye.” He mumbled a few more flatteries and backed away, his boot nails clicking on the bricks.
Simon waited until the footfalls faded, then looked back at Talon. The wolfish black eyes still watched him with grim relentlessness.
Simon felt a cold draft on the back of his neck. He stiffened, tasting the metallic flavor of fear in his mouth. Shame lanced through him and he slammed the hilt of his hunting knife down across Talon’s head. “Take that, ye swivin’ red bastard,” he swore.
Blood sprang from the split in Talon’s scalp, but the Indian didn’t react at all. He just kept staring.
“I watched yer pa swing,” Simon said, torn between wanting to hurt him again and reluctant admiration for his grit. “I wanted to be there to watch ye foller him to the gates of hell. But they tell me yore goin’ back to England to hang. His Majesty’s pleasure, the sheriff said. Whipped through the streets of Philadelphia and delivered to King George’s court for execution. What do ye say to that, ye mangy dog’s vomit?”
Talon didn’t answer. It came to Simon that Medicine Smoke had been the same at the end. Not sayin’ a word, just watchin’. It wasn’t natural. It proved they weren’t human, not like white men.
He wondered if the Shawnee had stared at Rebecca like that before he’d raped her. “Did ye take pleasure with my woman?” he asked. “Was she good? I know it’s not the first white woman you’ve abused. Two wives I’ve had, both taken by the savages, both ruined by ye.”
Talon might have been stone deaf. He didn’t blink, and he didn’t move a muscle. Blood ran down his forehead, but he ignored it as though it didn’t exist.
“Did ye hear me? I said my first woman was stolen by a devil like you. But I found her, and I made her pure as driven snow. I cut her throat. Let God judge her. I always said the Injuns done it, but it was me. I had to. She was ruined, swelling with a red bastard.”
Talon stared through him.
“Is Rebecca dead? Did you cut her throat and leave her body in the woods?” Simon demanded. “I hoped ye hadn’t. I wanted to punish her myself. I wanted to cut her throat like I did the other one. It’s my right, ye see. My duty, as her husband.” This time when the Indian didn’t answer, he struck him across the face with the knife hilt, opening his cheek with the force of the blow.
Talon’s head rocked back, but he tensed, swallowed, and continued to look at him as if he wanted to skin him alive and roast him over a torture fire.
“She better be dead,” Simon taunted. “If she’s not . . . Well, she better be. I don’t take leavings.” He stepped back and forced a laugh. “Ye won’t be lonely fer no squaw on the ship. Them sailors got a taste for red meat, I hear. By the time ye get to London, ye ain’t gonna be so high and mighty.”
That threat struck home. Talon’s visible hand tightened to a fist and his muscles tensed.
“Ye think on that,” Simon said. “Ye think on it good. ‘Cause I’ll be thinkin’ about it.” He bent and picked up the lantern. “Ye won’t be needin’ this light,” he said. “Ye might as well get used to it. It’s gonna be dark in the hold of that ship.” He put a hand on the door and ducked his head. “Lucky thing that soldier recognized ye at the German’s farm, wasn’t it? Otherwise, they might of just strung ye up then and there. This way, his Majesty gets to see why he’s spendin’ so much money tryin’ to make the frontier safe for god-fearin’ Englishmen.”
Simon slammed the door behind him and threw the bolt. His chest felt tight, and he had the shakes. “No different than being in a pit with a mad wolf,” he muttered. “Tomorrow, Fire Talon!” he yelled through the door. “I’m gonna be there in the front row to see them cut the hide offen your back with a cat-o’-nine-tails.”
He wished the judge hadn’t ordered the Shawnee back to England to hang. Better for it to be done here and now. If Talon ever got loose, he’d leave a trail of dead men behind him, that was as certain as God’s sunrise.
“Damn fool,” he mumbled under his breath. The English born judge didn’t know a thing about Injuns. “No more about Injuns than a skunk knows about preachin’.” He climbed the stairs slowly, wishing he’d finished off Fire Talon when he had the chance . . . wishing he had the nerve to go back into the cell and do the job.
Damn if he wouldn’t, court order or no court order, if it wasn’t for that land grant the Pennsylvania bigwigs were about to give him. That’s what happened to a man when he got property; he lost the freedom to do what his instincts told him to do. He reckoned that silver was as much a corruption of a man’s soul as the devil could be.
When he stepped into the room at the top of the stairs, there was another man there with Ezra Fry. The newcomer was a Quaker. Simon could tell by the wide-brimmed hat and the sober gray clothes cut of expensive wool cloth.
“Simon Brandt,” the Quaker asked.
He nodded. “I am.”
“Friend—”
“You’re no friend of mine. We don’t even know each other,” Simon replied. He had no use for Quakers. They talked soft and expected other men to do their fighting for them. Any man that wouldn’t do his own scrappin’ was yellow as a cur dog.
“I am Jonathan Flanders. There’s no need for thee—”
“Spit it out,” Simon said. “Ye want Simon Brandt, ye’ve found him.”
“There is a man on the street inquiring for thee, friend, a German by the name of Ernst Byler. He has brought thy wife, Rebecca.”
“He’s done what?”
“Thy wife, Rebecca. She has been ill, but she’s alive and on the way to recovery. Ernst Byler’s cousin nursed her back to health after they rescued her from the Indians. You’d best come quickly, Simon.” The broad-faced Quaker smiled. “And I do believe a reward is in order.”
“Reward, hell,” Simon said. “Rebecca’s dead.” She had to be, he thought, as heat washed up his neck and burned the raw places where the pox had scarred him. “The Injuns killed her,” he protested. “Whoever this is, she’s not my wife.”
“Thee best had come and see for thyself. The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
“He does, does he?” He took his rifle from the comer where he’d left it and slung his possibles bag over his shoulder. If it was Rebecca, the whorin’ little red-haired bitch, he’d make her sorry she’d ever been born. “If that’s my wife and the Germans had her, then why didn’t they turn her over to the soldiers, or at least tell them they had her?”
“They did tell them, or at least they tried. Ernst Byler says his cousin has no English. The soldiers looked at your wife, but apparently they thought she was one of the family.”
Simon pushed past him and opened the door. Below, on the street stood a farm wagon. On the single board seat sat his Jezebel wife—skinny as last winter’s hen, and looking older than he’d last seen her, but Rebecca sure enough. For an instant he toyed with the idea of denying her, but then she looked up and saw him.
“Simon,” she said.
“Rebecca.”
The Quaker stepped out onto the landing beside him. “Did I not tell thee? The Lord does work in mysterious ways.”
This Fierce Loving Page 25